Arts & Life

NFL's A Nonprofit? Author Says It's Time For Football Reform

6:18pm September 24, 2013

by NPR Staff

Despite pro football's sky-high profits, taxpayers subsidize the industry with $1 billion each year. In The King of Sports, Gregg Easterbrook argues for some serious reforms, including incentives for college graduation rates and a new approach to youth football leagues.

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Capt. Ray Holt (Andre Braugher, right) leads detectives Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) and Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) on a police stakeout in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Arts

TV Trips Into Fall, But These Days Who Knows Where To Look?

3:52pm September 24, 2013

by David Bianculli

TV critic David Bianculli points to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, starring Andy Samberg, and The Blacklist, starring James Spader, as shows to watch this season. Other debuts, like The Michael J. Fox Show and The Crazy Ones, show plenty of potential.

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Books
Arts

'Reaped' Is A Reminder That No One Is Promised Tomorrow

3:23pm September 24, 2013

In Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward recalls the deaths of five young men in her life, which she believes were all connected to being poor and black in the rural South. "It made me feel that I wasn't promised some long life. ... That's not a given for me."

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At Diner en Blanc ("Dinner in White"), people arrive dressed all in white. They bring their own food and, fittingly, white wine.

This Elegant, Whimsical Pop-Up Dinner Party Had 4,000 Guests

11:15am September 24, 2013

by Margot Adler

In a secret location, revealed minutes before the event, thousands came all dressed in white. They brought white tables and chairs, elegant china, wine and food, and they set up in a park in New York City. These elegant pop-up "white garb" dinners, called Diner en Blanc, are happening all over the world.

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A marriage made in New York, though both partners came with plenty of baggage.

Arts

No Schmear Job: A Brief History Of Bagels And Lox

5:35pm September 23, 2013

by NPR Staff

The origin of the bagel "is somewhat mysterious," says a writer who recently explored the topic. What is unquestionable is that bagel met and married lox in New York. But as in so many modern unions, both partners came to the marriage with plenty of baggage.

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Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies.

Books
Arts

Political Violence, Uneasy Silence Echo In Lahiri's 'Lowland'

2:02pm September 23, 2013

by Lynn Neary

India's politics and history play a central role in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland. In the Booker Prize-nominated novel, an Indian radical is killed, and his wife and brother start over in America. Lahiri tells NPR's Lynn Neary that the story was inspired by true events, but very unlike her own life.

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From left, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross co-created the sketch comedy series Mr. Show. They have since played long-running roles on Breaking Bad and Arrested Development, respectively.

Books
Arts

'Hollywood Said No,' But 'Mr. Show' Fans Said Yes!

6:19pm September 22, 2013

by NPR Staff

Bob Odenkirk and David Cross created and starred in the short-lived sketch comedy program Mr. Show. Fifteen years after their show went off the air, they have a new book of old scripts that were rejected by Hollywood.

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Jack Gantos recently won the Newbery Medal, the highest award in children's literature, for his novel Dead End in Norvelt.

Books
Arts

A Road Trip Sparks An Unlikely Friendship In 'Norvelt To Nowhere'

11:34am September 21, 2013

by NPR Staff

Young Jack hits the road with his cranky, elderly teacher Miss Volker (and a couple of cranky, elderly cars) in From Norvelt to Nowhere, the new young adult novel from Jack Gantos. The sequel to 2011's Newbery-winning Dead End in Norvelt is set in 1962, in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis.

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Stuart Blumberg has written several films, but Thanks for Sharing is his first directorial effort.

Arts

Stuart Blumberg Really Wants To Talk About Sex

5:28pm September 20, 2013

by NPR Staff

The director, who also co-wrote the 2010 indie hit The Kids Are All Right, joins NPR's Audie Cornish to chat about his film Thanks for Sharing, a romantic comedy that follows three men (and one woman) through stories of sex addiction and recovery.

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James Gandolfini plays a divorced TV archivist who falls in love with a divorced masseuse, played by Julia-Louis Dreyfus, in Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said.

Arts

Gandolfini Is So Vivid In 'Enough Said,' You Forget He's Gone

1:42pm September 20, 2013

by David Edelstein

The late actor stars opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the new comedy about a divorced TV archivist who falls in love with a divorced masseuse. David Edelstein praises Louis-Dreyfus' farcical timing, as well Gandolfini's ability to change his rhythm and demeanor.

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