Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

The prize-winning novelist William Boyd has set his latest novel, Love Is Blind, at the turn of the 20th century. He tells Amol Rajan how his young Scottish protagonist travels across Europe in a tale of obsession, passion and music.

Lust and violence combine in Strauss's opera Salome in which a young princess performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Director Adena Jacobs has put a bold new spin on the story for English National Opera in her psychologically challenging interpretation.

Nietzsche may have written the famous phrase 'God is dead' but he also wrote movingly about love, guilt and hate. Biographer Sue Prideaux argues that Nietzsche is one of the most misunderstood philosophers. She explodes prevailing myths that he was a Nazi-sympathising, humourless misogynist.

And popular culture is under the spotlight in the film critic Peter Biskind's latest book, The Sky is Falling. He argues that zombies, androids and superheroes heralded the age of political extremism.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

On The Gist, National Review has one good take on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation story … and a lot of bad ones.

In the interview, we’re used to thinking of societies along the “liberal/conservative” spectrum, but cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand has her own axis to consider: tight versus loose. They aren’t quite the same: Abu Dhabi, for instance, may be conservative, but its role as the crossroads of the Middle East lends it looser norms. In Scandinavia, we’ve got the opposite. Gelfand’s book is Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World.

In the Spiel, you wrote in, and Mike read up: It’s time for the Lobstar of the Antentwig.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Christine Blasey Ford deserves a hearing on her own terms, and that’s all we can say for now.

Bert Kreischer is a comic who started out as just the biggest college partier in America according to Rolling Stone magazine in 1997. Since then he’s been grappling with fame, how much of his own life to use for comedy, and the way his father shamed him into doing stand-up comedy. Kreischer’s new special on Netflix is Secret Time.

In the Spiel, Jeopardy finally notices podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the latest in inane Trump statements.

Climate change is bigger than any one of us, including the president of the United States. Given his backward policies and denials of scientific fact, he deserves his share of criticism in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. Climate scientist Andrea Schumacher explains which aspects of hurricane season can be expected to get worse as the planet warms. Schumacher is a research associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University.

In the Spiel, ­­more on John Hockenberry.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, taking issue with the sloppy headlines about the support (or lack thereof) for Brett Kavanaugh.

In the interview, Stacey Abrams’ run for governor in Georgia has been criticized because of her huge outstanding debt. That got Ozy.com reporter Nick Fouriezos wondering how much political candidates typically owe as they run for office. He dug into the finances of 396 political candidates to see how much they owed, and to whom.

In the Spiel, a presidential penis prognostic. You’re welcome.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Hurricane Florence.

Ethan Hawke has stunned us with his earnest, moving performances on-screen, but he’s also a talent behind the camera. His new directorial feature Blaze explores the life and love of the largely forgotten musician Blaze Foley. He joins us to talk filmmaking, the difficulty of music, comic book movies, and why we should appreciate criticism from our elders. Blaze premieres nationwide on Sept. 21. 

In the Spiel, the allegations of Kavanaugh’s sexual assault.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is 40 years since Sir David Attenborough told the story of Life on Earth, from its very first spark 4 billion years ago to the abundance of plants and animals today. He tells Andrew Marr how more pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place over the last four decades.

The German ornithologist Michael Quetting spent a year hand rearing seven goslings: caring for them as they hatched, helping them learn to swim, and teaching them to fly alongside his aircraft. The project is part of an ambitious scientific research programme to understand birds in flight and use them to gather weather data for us.

Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, looks beyond the earth to ask about potential life among the stars. He sees the future of humanity as bound to the future of science, and believes that space explorers in the next century will be electronic and not organic.

A hundred years after Holst wrote The Planets, leading composers are again trying to capture the essence of our solar system in music. But this time they are working in collaboration with scientists. The geologist Dr Philippa Mason has helped bring deeper insight to Venus: a planet once thought to be a lush tropical swamp world, but in reality a crushing, violent inferno.

(Producer: Katy Hickman).

On The Gist, Vladimir Putin, RT, and the Salisbury poisoning.  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might have scary values to conservatives. But to the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, she’s a moderate. Maria Svart calls the DSA a “big tent organization,” meaning it makes room for everything from AOC’s Scandinavian-style social policies to the more radical workforce ownership of businesses. 

In the Spiel, the end of primary season.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices