Leital Molad

When she was just 16, The New York Times called Alexandra Ansanelli "a true prodigy…that rare find, a dancer of nuance and originality." Studio 360 caught up with Ansanelli as she prepared for a performance in Beijing. 

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

New York artist Maira Kalman had virtually never been west of the Hudson. This summer she needed to clear her head, so she headed down south to see new sights and smell new smells.

Design critic Steven Heller looks at the irresistible cold of summer ads.

Kurt Thometz, who builds personal libraries for the well-to-do, has found his own perfect collection. 

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.

For the three generations the Schwendeman family has been mounting (not stuffing) all types of animals. Writer Melissa Milgrom visits their Milltown, New Jersey taxidermy workshop.

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

Author and scholar Alan Mintz reveals the power films have had in shaping how we understand and interpret the Holocaust.

Novelist David Huddle imagines the intense connection between the 17^th-century French painter, Georges de La Tour, and a young girl he recruits to model for him.

This weekend at Lincoln Center the Magnetic Fields perform their 69 Love Songs for the last time. Magnetic Field's front man Stephin Merritt says he doesn't write songs about love — he writes about love songs.

This is a Broadway musical steeped in irony, that lets you in on its jokes, doesn't bother with a dopey fairytale ending, and has a real moral vision. Kurt Andersen talks with the creators of Urinetown.

Graphic designer Steven Heller looks at one piece of seasonal design where tradition wins out over innovation — Christmas cards.

Studio 360's Leital Molad learns how a secret stitched language transported coded messages to slaves trying to escape through the Underground Railroad.

(Originally aired: July 21, 2001)

Steven Heller wonders why automobile license plates have become so overwrought.

Studio 360's Leital Molad learns how a secret stitched language transported coded messages to slaves trying to escape through the Underground Railroad.

We take a trip to the grocery store with an artist and children's book author who doesn't paint or write odes to food; instead, he uses fruits and vegetables as the raw material for his whimsical sculptures.

Model train enthusiast Jay Duke describes his passion for the miniature railroad.  Produced by Leital Molad.