Emily Botein

Who says you can't build a roller coaster in your backyard? Who says you have to go to Harvard to go to Harvard? Who says you have to keep your house exactly as the architect wanted it to be? This week, encounters with people who live by the rules, and ...

It's an hour of our favorite subway stories. We've got writer Jonathan Ames investigating that urban legend about hooking up on the "first car." We've got interviews with former students of renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram who participated in his little known "Subway Experiment" in the 1970s. We've got subway ...

We look at what happens when disparate elements collide — when, say, old New York City subway cars are sunk to the bottom of the ocean, or when a fifty-year-old Vermont drive-in movie theater doubles as a motel. Or when writer Meg Wolitzer re-invents the movie trailer as a vehicle ...

Some ways to beat the heat — with verse recommended by Poet Laureate Billy Collins, romantic fiction from sound artist Miranda July, and the steel pan rhythms of Trinidad émigré Rudy King. Also, a conversation in the hot kitchen of "Cakeman" Raven Patrick DeSean Dennis III. And André Aciman on ...

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 ...

Cooking without a kitchen. Texas band "Brave Combo" demonstrates how they concoct their unique Tex-Mex-Polka-Punk brand of rock and roll. Television producer John Markus on the art of barbeque. Also, writer and performer Deb Margolin on the layered language of our daily lives.

Classical pianist Anne-Marie McDermott has spent the past year living and breathing the music of Prokofiev, while for five years writer Joshua Shenk has immersed himself in evidence of Lincoln's melancholy. Composer Robert Kapilow is struggling to absorb Native American ways of thinking about music into a commissioned piece on ...

We examine the state of things. The state of civility in New York City. A heroin user's (and her brother's) state of mind. And the state of grace that continues to prevail in Central Park, as it celebrates its 150th birthday. Also, Jonathan Katz shares some little-known melodies from his ...

Passionate and creative interpretations of lives that might otherwise disappear into obscurity. Cellist Erik Friedlander makes new music based on the writings of a little known French poet. Writer John Haskell imagines the last days of Topsy the Elephant. And people from every discipline imaginable draw inspiration from genius inventor ...

Leaving the mob. Getting out of the neighborhood. Playing Bingo in drag. This week we've got stories of transformation and transgression. Also, Jonathan Katz is back with another episode of, well, "You're on the Air with Jonathan Katz." And we say goodbye to Selma Koch, the saleswoman who could size ...

This week Dean Olsher reveals his blatantly pro-dog politics. The show is not anti-cat, however. He just thinks that when it comes to pets, the dog should get the lion's share of airtime.

WNYC archives id: 33728

We revisit Afghanistan through the eyes and ears of a human rights worker. Also, a short radio play from the Naked Angels Theatre Company, talking benches and an inexplicable mob.

WNYC archives id: 33729

We explore the work of latter day alchemists, who turn speech into music and stolen goods into cold hard cash. Also, tales of the transformative power of train hopping, and of affirming your love at dizzying heights.

WNYC archives id: 33730

We remember not only those who died in war, but also a Boston poet, a disappearing musical tradition, and old Penn Station. Also, portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman on using photos to preserve life. And writer Lawrence Weschler on the long-term consequences of the Vietnam Memorial.

WNYC archives id: 33079

This week, we take a look at almost but not quite forgotten city dwellers - from the subjects of a three-decade photography project to the human pawns in a life-size game of "urban chess." Also, Jonathan Ames in the role of the disturbed "diarist" from Eric Bogosian's recently revived play, ...

Soviet-style pageantry, Super Mario Bros., folk music duos, the Indian raga — in recent days, each of these supposed anachronisms has reasserted itself, sometimes with great vigor. We bring you a GameBoy Music Match, and recollections from a former Leningrad tour guide and a still kicking Leningrad rock star. Plus ...

You've heard that voice before, or maybe you've heard that song, but you never knew the man behind it. Meet him today — be it Ugly George, famous for a cable access program back in the 80s, or Jim Dickinson, the man behind many household rock'n'roll names. Also, a short ...

Many acts of imagination. A pro-choice anthropologist tries to get into the heads of her right-to-life subjects. A novelist offers a close-up view of Glenn Gould's strange behavior. And performer Tracie Morris reinterprets familiar songs with her own "Afrofuturistic" twist. Also, sound art from the floor of the Mercantile Exchange, ...

We hear stories of people following leads... out of war — in Bosnia and Iraq, into the Appalachian Mountains, or towards a reconstruction of what ancient Greek music might have sounded like. Also, the latest episode of "You're on the Air with Jonathan Katz," and a consideration of the politics ...

Thoughts about war from afar from one thoughtful TV viewer and an ex-patriate Iraqi family who witnessed the first Gulf War.

Also, ministering to the forgotten — on board cargo vessels and among the dwindling number of Italians still living in New York's Little Italy neighborhood.