Arts & Life

Books
Arts

'Nine Years' In A Baltimore Funeral Home

6:11pm June 01, 2013

by NPR Staff

A summer job in a Baltimore funeral home turned into a nine-year career and lifelong passion for Sheri Booker. Her coming-of-age memoir recalls tears and trade secrets of the mortuary business.

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Oxford Paper Company Mill, Androscoggin County, Maine, in 1973 (left) by Charles Steinhacker and 2012 by Victoria Hampshire.

Arts

Documenting America's Environments: Then And Now

2:26pm June 01, 2013

by NPR Staff

In 1971, the the EPA sent photographers around America to document the environmental state of the country. Forty years later, the agency is doing it again. Photographer Michael Philip Manheim talks about returning to some of the locations he photographed.

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Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy are reporters for The Boston Globe.

Books
Arts

Whitey Bulger Bio Profiles Boston's Most Notorious Gangster

1:29pm May 31, 2013

Reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, who covered Bulger for years for The Boston Globe, have a book out about the career criminal. Bulger was wanted for 19 murders when he was captured by the FBI in 2011. Jury selection for his trial begins June 6.

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In The East, Ellen Page (left) and Alexander Skarsgard play members of an anarchist eco-terrorist collective.

Arts

Rediscover Your Inner Anarchist In The Anti-Corporate 'East'

1:29pm May 31, 2013

by David Edelstein

The East is a romantic activist outlaw fantasy in which Brit Marling plays an agent who poses as a radical activist to catch an eco-terrorist group. It's one of those melodramas in which someone on the morally wrong side has a spasm of conscience and maybe crosses over. Maybe.

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These days, Caine gets smaller roles than he used to, but that doesn't bother him. Back when he did repertory theater, "I did a play a week," he says. "One week I'd be the lord, the next week I'd be the butler." He's pictured above in 1965.

Arts

Michael Caine: 'I Spent My Life Doing Something That I Love'

9:28am May 31, 2013

by NPR Staff

At 80, Caine has no plans to slow down his decades-spanning acting career. He plays an investor in the new thriller Now You See Me and has plans for at least three more films. These days, he says, he's more a movie actor than a movie star, but he finds the smaller roles to be just as fascinating.

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Illustration: A little boy in a boat reads a book as the boat is picked up by an octopus.

Books
Arts

Field Trip! 10 Books That Will Send Kids Exploring

8:34am May 31, 2013

by Mara Alpert

Children's librarian Mara Alpert recommends 10 titles that will send youngsters off on brand-new adventures. In these books, kids will learn what baby animals do on their first day of life, what baseball games are like in Japan, and what happens when you read a poem from bottom to top.

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Many drive-ins and mom and pop theaters will soon have to make the switch from film to digital after putting it off because of the high cost of new projectors.

Arts

Drive-Ins Soon Face Hollywood's Digital Switch

5:48pm May 30, 2013

by Brenna Angel

This is the year that drive-in movie theater owners have dreaded: They must convert their projectors from film to digital. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to make the switch, and that may be too much for many of the remaining 400 or so drive-ins left in the United States.

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Before Midnight is the third film in Richard Linklater's series that explores the romance and life of a couple, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). The two previous films were Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

Arts

'Before Midnight,' Love Darkens And Deepens

1:55pm May 30, 2013

In Richard Linklater's third film about Jesse and Celine, the two have officially coupled up, but it's no fairy tale. The love is still there, but the daily grind is getting in the way of communication. Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy join Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about the new film.

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How OxyContin's Pain Relief Built 'A World Of Hurt'

12:40pm May 30, 2013

New York Times reporter Barry Meier's new e-book explores opiate painkillers and the consequences that come with long-term use. He focuses in particular on OxyContin, how it came to be prescribed for chronic pain, what the consequences have been, and how it became a street drug.

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Lynda Barry is an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Arts

Cartoonist Lynda Barry Helps College Students Tap Innate Creativity

11:50am May 30, 2013

by NPR Staff

Like most of her work, cartoonist Lynda Barry's course at the University of Wisconsin is unorthodox: No artistic skill is required. In class, and in her own work, the cartoonist aims to strip away the stiffness of adulthood and plug people into their innate creativity.

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