Arts

'Pippin' Performs The Final Ballad Of 'The Hobbit'

12:18pm December 14, 2014

Billy Boyd was the hobbit Pippin in The Lord of the Rings films, and he's a musician, too. He talks to NPR's Rachel Martin about writing the last song for the new movie, The Battle of the Five Armies.

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Arts

Mead Moves Out Of The Middle Ages

12:18pm December 14, 2014

by Bonny Wolf

Mead was a favorite drink of ancient Egyptians and Vikings, and it's been making a comeback — updated for the 21st century.

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Joaquin Phoenix stars as Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private investigator with a pot-smoking habit, in Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson's film adaptation of the novel by Thomas Pynchon.

Arts

Adapting 'Inherent Vice' Made Director Feel Like A Student Again

6:40pm December 13, 2014

by NPR Staff

Paul Thomas Anderson is the first to make a novel by reclusive author Thomas Pynchon into a film. He says he studied the book, about a stoner detective, intensely and treated it as his Bible.

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Columbia University's DeathLab comes up with new ideas for honoring and storing the dead — like Constellation Park, the design of which is shown here.

Arts

Avant-Garde Afterlife: Space Shortage Inspires New Burial Ideas

3:10pm December 13, 2014

by Farah Halime

Urban areas present a problem: how can the dead be interred both respectfully and efficiently? Proposed solutions include vending machine-like vaults, inverted skyscraper cemeteries and glowing pods.

Patrick Stewart attends a photo call at the Atlantic Theater Company on Aug. 25, 2010 in New York City.

Arts

Not My Job: Actor Patrick Stewart Gets Quizzed On G.I. Joe

11:59am December 13, 2014

We've invited Stewart to play a game called "G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe, fighting man from head to toe!" Three questions about G.I. Joe, the Hasbro company action figure first introduced 50 years ago.

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Cynthia Thomas puts labels on bottles of moonshine near Union Springs, Ala., Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. Last year, High Ridge Spirits â Alabama's first legal distillery since Prohibition â joined the growing trend of more than 600 craft distilleries

Arts
Economy

Getting Your 'Shine On Is Becoming Increasingly Legal

9:31pm December 12, 2014

by Andrew Yeager

Mention moonshine and you might think of an illegal backwoods still carefully hidden to evade authorities. But recently, legal distilleries have been popping up in a white lightning renaissance.

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Arts

Even If Torture Doesn't Work In The Real World, TV Has Us Convinced It Does

3:07pm December 12, 2014

by Eric Deggans

Arts

The Afro-Semitic Experience, FaithAction International, Diana Greene, and The Healing Blues

2:27pm December 12, 2014

by David Ford

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Interactive touch screens at the newly redesigned Cooper Hewitt museum let visitors sort through the catalog and create their own designs.

Arts

Please Touch! Cooper Hewitt Creates A Museum For The Internet Age

2:00pm December 12, 2014

by Laura Sydell

The design museum is housed in a historic building, but it has been remade into one of the country's most technologically advanced museums. Officials hope it attracts younger visitors — and donors.

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Arts

Filmed Over 12 Years, 'Boyhood' Follows A Kid's Coming Of Age

1:32pm December 12, 2014

Writer-director Richard Linklater says picking the film's star was vital because he had to guess what he'd be like at 18. "I just went with a kid who seemed kind of the most interesting."

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