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On Demand

The Next Big Thing

Friday, August 08, 2003
  • Ortner's yearbook
    Sherry Ortner's yearbook

    Digging

    Digging around in strange places for insight, talent, and humor. Anthropologist Sherry Ortner searches for the Class of ’58, Weequahic High, Newark, NJ. Karen Michel goes back to Alaska to find out why she lost her husband to gold fever. We dig for talent at Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. And we poke around in American history, and in the unconscious, to better understand our President.

News from the Not So Distant Future

All the news you haven’t heard before, but might hear someday, in the not so distant future. Produced by Curtis Fox.

Star of Tomorrow

Michael Jr.
Michael Locke, Jr., 9 years old
Meet the next Michael Jackson. We go backstage and on stage with Michael Locke, Jr., the youngest of many aspiring performers at the Apollo Theater’s weekly Amateur Night in Harlem. Produced by Pejk and Sabine Malinovski.

The Music of Your Life: Dispatches from the Front

Your music is a battlefield. Host Dean Olsher on the war between generations, as fought to the beat of the bossa nova, the Rolling Stones, disco, and Public Enemy. For Dean’s musical selections, click here.

Presidential Dreams

The workings of President Bush’s mind remain a mystery to most of us… but not to Next Big Thing contributor Alice Furlaud. Here, she gets inside the head of our country’s leader, with the help of improv comedian Charlie Schroeder. Produced by Curtis Fox.

Roosevelt Rides Again

When looking for a historical precedent for our current president, some have pointed to Teddy Roosevelt. As Roosevelt scholar Edmund Morris tells Dean Olsher, the theory has some merits, but also some pitfalls. Produced by Michael Kavanagh.

Digging for Gold

Karen Michel’s marriage was destroyed by gold fever. Twenty years later, she attempts to find out how prospecting stole her husband’s heart. Michel is an independent radio producer based in New York.

Anthro 101: Welcome to Weequahic High

Anthropologist Sherry Ortner is best known for her work on the Sherpas in Nepal. In her forthcoming book, New Jersey Dreaming: Capital, Culture and the Class of ’58, she brings her ethnographic methods home – to her own high school graduating class.