Studio 360 With Kurt Andersen

James Gleick tries to imagine what Einstein would have thought about time travel.  “For a while, I was hoping I could find a letter from Einstein,” he says. “My dream was that he'd read the 'Time Machine' and said 'Ah ha!' But of course, there's nothing like that. There's no evidence that I could find that Einstein was a sci-fi buff.” And John Wray’s novel, The Lost Time Accidents is about an eastern European family in the early 1900s that believes that they have discovered the secret to time travel. And they see Einstein as their arch-enemy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When he was growing up in Germany in the 1880s and 90s, nobody had pegged Einstein as a genius. He dropped out of high school and had to apply twice to a university in Switzerland that accepted students without high school diplomas. He did well at college, but didn’t apply himself and struggled to complete assignments and pass tests.He ended up working at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland and knew, if he wanted to be a physicist, he had to do research and get published. He was looking at these patent applications and wondering: is it really true, as Isaac Newton had said, that time is the same for everyone, everywhere? So, he came up with a thought experiment which became the idea known as “special relativity.” And it rocked the foundations of physics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you build a monument to a war that was more tragic than triumphant? Maya Lin was practically a kid when she got the commission to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. “The veterans were asking me, ‘What do you think people are going to do when they first come here?’” she remembers. “And I wanted to say, ‘They’re going to cry.’"  Her minimalistic granite wall was derided by one vet as a “black gash of shame.” But inscribed with the name of every fallen soldier, it became a sacred place for veterans and their families, and it influenced later designs like the National September 11 Memorial. We’ll visit a replica of the wall that travels to veterans’ parades around the country, and hear from former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel how this singular work of architecture has influenced how we think about war.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2012, Bart Layton made his directorial debut with The Imposter — an ambitious true crime story that mixes documentary and narrative filmmaking. His latest movie further blurs the lines between fiction and reality: American Animals depicts a 2004 book heist by interspersing interviews with real people and the fictionalized version of the events. “I found myself thinking maybe there’s a new way to tell a true story,” Bart Layton tells Kurt Andersen. “Where you kind of get to have your cake and eat it.” Layton breaks down how he made one of the inventive, meta moments of the film, and discusses the possible motivations behind the senseless crime. “We’re all inhabiting a culture where we’re told that we have to be special,” he says. “It came from a place of wanting to leave a mark on the world.” American Animals opens in theaters on June 1, 2018. This podcast was produced by Studio 360's Sam Kim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The latest installment in Studio 360’s American Icons series: The Muppets — how the world fell for Jim Henson’s troupe of puppets. Plus, teleprompters were supposed to make cue cards obsolete, but not on “Saturday Night Live,” where “Cue Card Wally” Feresten is indispensable. And singer Angélique Kidjo talks about her new album “Remain in Light,” a track-by-track cover of the 1980 Talking Heads album. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a long time, mainstream scientists were deeply skeptical about the theory of multiple universes — but comic-book writers immediately saw the creative possibilities. University of Minnesota physics professor (and author of the book "The Physics of Superheroes") James Kakalios pays a visit to Source Comics & Games in St. Paul.Plus, the series finale of the show “St. Elsewhere,” where we learn that the entire show had been a fantasy of a boy with autism named Tommy Westphall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The Crawick Multiverse” is a sprawling piece of landscape art tucked into Dumfries and Galloway in the Scottish countryside, on the site of what used to be a coal mine. The artist Charles Jenks took the BBC’s Anna Magnusson on a tour of the site.The landscape is a series of connected paths and landforms, studded with large boulders that make the site feel like a modern Stonehenge. The rocks appear ageless, but the mounds formed in the soil appear contemporary — even futuristic —  with clean, geometric lines and a green carpet of grass. “Everything about this site shouts ‘cosmic,’” says Jenks. “What I’ve tried to do here is unpack that idea bit by bit. Landscape is the art form where we’re using nature to represent nature.” Two large mounds at the site represent the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy, with other landforms that represent a Supercluster and comet path. A corkscrew walkway of mudstone represents the whole ensemble of universes — the multiverse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg

Mark Oliver Everett (AKA "E") is best known as the singer, songwriter, and driving force behind the indie rock band Eels. A lesser-known biographical detail about Mark: his father, Hugh Everett III, proposed the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. Everett's work raised the possibility that multiple realities could exist simultaneously, with multiple versions of us in them. It was an out-there idea when Everett first proposed it in 1957, but over the years it has gained adherents, among physicists and Hollywood screenwriters alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A show about how — and why — pets become our muses. Elias Weiss Friedman, the photographer behind the blog The Dogist, shows Kurt how to photograph a pooch and get that cocked-head, raised-ears look. Dog trainer Teresa Miller explains how she trained the canine stars of the Hungarian film “White God” to perform. Jazz legend Charles Mingus’s lesser known masterwork: a book about how he toilet trained his cat. Why Laurie Anderson decided to start performing concerts for dogs. Writer John Haskell’s tribute to the Soviet space dog Laika. And Sean Cole examines whether animals can ever really be creative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the MeToo era, so many creative people are being outed as bullies, sexual predators, and worse. And for journalists who cover arts and entertainment, it’s been a bit of a tightrope: How can you write about House of Cards or The Cosby Show ever again without the work feeling hopelessly tainted? And are they still great shows, even if their stars or creators aren't?            How do you investigate claims of harassment if no one will talk, and a star's publicist won't let you near their client? What excellent works of art or storytelling were never made because bad men got in the way? A few weeks ago Kurt Andersen participated in a panel to talk about some of these questions with other journalists and critics. The panel was called “When Bad People Create Good Art: Writing About Culture in the #MeToo Era.” It was held at the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The panel was moderated by Janice C. Simpson, director of the Arts and Culture Reporting Program at CUNY, and also inclu

The art of motherhood. Gloria Calderón Kellett talks about making “One Day at a Time” and the classic TV moms who influenced how she writes about motherhood. Novelists Louise Erdrich and Megan Hunter, along with Parley Ann Boswell, talk about the artistic choice of featuring pregnant women in dystopian fiction. Isabella Rossellini talks to Kurt Andersen about her short film series, “Mammas,” that looks at different animals’ approaches to motherhood. And listener Beth Greenspan finds inspiration in a poem by Mary Karr about when sons go from being boys to men. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Creating superheroes. Kurt Andersen talks with “Superman” writer Gene Luen Yang on “Boxers & Saints” and “American Born Chinese.” Plus, the complicated — and sometimes divisive — issue of cosplay characters dressing up as a character of a different race. And producers Brendan Baker and Chloe Prasinos talk about all the work and (and a 3-D recording gizmo) that went into making their new podcast, Marvel’s “Wolverine: The Long Night.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After touring the world for the last five years, the "David Bowie is" exhibit is making its final stand at the Brooklyn Museum. The show features over 400 pieces: diary entries, handwritten lyrics, artwork, and lots of unforgettable costumes. But Bowie's music is on display as well. One of the show's highlights is a mashup of David Bowie songs, created by his longtime producer and collaborator, Tony Visconti. It’s a 15 minute musical tour of Bowie’s career that showcases the incredible diversity of his music. Initially, Visconti had been asked to make a short audio piece featuring three David Bowie songs.  "Something just came over me, and I realized that I couldn’t decide on three songs,” Visconti explained. “So the three songs evolved into 49 songs." We stopped by Visconti's studio to learn how the mashup was made. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Tommy Bazarian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen speaks with Laurie Metcalf, the actor who is striking gold everywhere: she was nominated for an Oscar for her role as the mother in “Lady Bird,” stars in the Broadway play “Three Tall Women,” and, with most of the rest of the original cast, has returned to the reboot of “Roseanne” on ABC. Wes Montgomery is a legend of jazz guitar, and much of that notoriety first came from a 1960 album, “The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery.” Somewhere between theater and installation art, “Flight” tells a story of child migrants entirely through miniature models. Kurt talks with Jamie Harrison, co-creator of the piece. And Yesika Salgado breaks down her poem “What I Know,” a love letter to her home of Los Angeles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three stories from the American Icons series. How “Amazing Grace,” a song written by a slave trader, came to be a civil rights anthem. Plus, a novel that featured “Amazing Grace” and helped popularize it, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book helped promote the abolitionist cause, yet the term “Uncle Tom” became a pejorative for people who betray their race. And far from glorifying small-town life, Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” shocked readers when it came out in 1915 and tackled subjects like suicide and sex.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that it’s conquered the cineplex and Netflix, Marvel is going after your earbuds — with its first scripted podcast,Wolverine: The Long Night. It tells the story of Special Agents Pierce and Marshall, who arrive in a small Alaskan fishing town to investigate a series of mysterious murders and a suspicious loner living in the woods. Producers Brendan Baker and Chloe Prasinos reveal the high-tech and low-tech ways they made this sound-rich audio drama. For now, Wolverine: The Long Night is only available on Stitcher Premium, so you’ll need to join to listen. Because even superhuman claws can’t tear through a paywall. Listen free for one month with code “MARVEL” This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Zoe Saunders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An oral history of The Noid. It was a lighthearted Domino’s campaign, with claymation by the same designers who made the California Raisins — but it drove one man over the edge. Plus, Kurt Andersen talks with TV and magazine writer Nell Scovell about her memoir, “Just the Funny Parts.” And Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie talks to Kurt about how, after his wife Geneviève Castrée died, he couldn’t write songs about anything else, and he performs a couple in our studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’re featuring some of our favorite American practitioners. Tracy K. Smith shares some of her surprising sources of poetic inspiration: David Bowie and the Hubble Space Telescope. And she chooses the winners to our listener poetry competition. Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” gets the American Icons treatment. And Kurt Andersen talks to award-winning poet and “Sexiest Man Alive” Terrance Hayes about his 2015 book, “How to Be Drawn.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might not have heard of Nell Scovell, but you’ve definitely seen her work: she’s written for The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown and co-wrote the 2013 blockbuster book Lean In with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Her new memoir, Just the Funny Parts, reveals what it was like to break into the male-dominated TV industry. Nell talks to Kurt Andersen about crafting a classic episode of The Simpsons, writing jokes for Barack Obama and reminisces about her first gig: writing for the magazine Kurt co-founded, Spy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with performer and artist Laurie Anderson about her long career and her new book, “All the Things I Lost in the Flood,” and new album, “Landfall.” Jess Thom used to be kind of in denial about having Tourette syndrome, but then she decided to turn her tics into inspiration for artists. And an oral history of the the Belly Room, which the Comedy Store opened in the 1970s so female comics like Sandra Bernhard could have a room of their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices