Leital Molad

In 1986, legendary sculptor and painter Frank Stella defied Melville’s instruction not to paint the White Whale, and then spent the next twelve years chasing an artistic obsession that Stella says nearly destroyed him. Produced by Leital Molad and Edward Lifson.

Musical cult figure Robyn Hitchock stopped by our studio to talk about his collaboration with American folk artists Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on the new album Spooked. Hitchcock explains how a Bob Dylan record he heard at the age of 13 set him on a new course in life. ...

Last year theater audiences gazed at Fiona Shaw, who had the title role in a Broadway production of Medea by Euripedes. She portrayed a woman who murders her children as revenge against Jason, her unfaithful husband. Shaw, the New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, and the play's director Deborah ...

Sherman Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State, and he's written novels, movies, poetry and essays exploring modern Native American life. He called his first collection of stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. We asked Alexie to read a poem he'd ...

One of the best known bugs in literature is Gregor Samsa. He's the protagonist of Franz Kafka's novella Metamorphosis. Gregor wakes up one morning to discover he's turned into a giant roach. Actor Danton Stone reads Kafka's opening passages. Produced by Leital Molad.

In children's literature, spiders have a history as heroes. Eric Carle's Very Busy Spider and David Kirk's Miss Spider's Tea Party are both modern classics of arachnophilia. The spider who won our hearts first, 52 years ago, is Charlotte, the heroine of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. The novelist Susan Minot ...

Kurt Andersen walks the streets of Lower Manhattan with Marilyn Taylor. She is the chairman of the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill — and heads its urban design and planning practice. Her firm is rebuilding 7 World Trade Center, one of the buildings destroyed alongside the towers. On ...

Novelist Toni Morrison has won the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer, and sold millions of copies of her books such as Beloved, Paradise, and Song of Solomon. Recently, she began writing books for children and has just completed six traditional fables she adapted with her son Slade. Morrison ...

Kurt Thometz, who builds personal libraries for the well-to-do, has found his own perfect collection. Produced by Peter Clowney and Leital Molad.

Karal Ann Marling, an American Studies professor, looks at the phenomenon of memorial souvenirs. Produced by Leital Molad.

If you watch Neil LaBute's movies, you start to think that he suspects everyone of horrible, underhanded tricks. His first film, In the Company of Men, was about two men who pretended to be in love with the same deaf woman, a coworker, just so they could both dump her ...

Kurt Andersen walks the streets of Lower Manhattan with Marilyn Taylor. She is the chairman of the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill — and heads its urban design and planning practice. Her firm is rebuilding 7 World Trade Center, one of the buildings destroyed alongside the towers. On ...

Graphic Designer Steven Heller soaks up the aesthetics of the paper towel. Produced by Leital Molad.

Kurt Thometz, who builds personal libraries for the well-to-do, has found his own perfect collection. Produced by Peter Clowney and Leital Molad.

Every night an audience of several hundred aims its gaze at Fiona Shaw, who has the title role in the Broadway production of Medea by Euripedes. She portrays a woman who murders her children as revenge against Jason, her unfaithful husband. Shaw, the New York Times theater critic

Novelist David Huddle imagines the intense connection between the 17th century French painter, Georges de La Tour, and a young girl he recruits to model for him. Produced by Peter Clowney and Leital Molad.

Graphic designer Steven Heller looks at the strange history of the fat man of the season — Santa Claus.

Graphic designer Steven Heller gazes into store windows and confesses his passion for mannequins.

(Originally aired: May 2, 2002)

The Long Now Foundation is designing a clock to tell time over 10,000 years. It will tick once every minute, chime once a year, and play music once a millennium.

(Originally aired: May 16, 2002)

Two New York architects, Elizabeth Diller and Ric Scofidio, wanted to challenge the notion of architecture as hard, unambiguous, stable, and sheltering. They wanted to design something that isn't quite there. The result is the Blur Building on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland.