Arts & Life

With too little distilled bourbon to meet demand, Maker's Mark is lowering the product's alcohol content from 90 to 84 proof.

Arts

Less Potent Maker's Mark Not Going Down Smoothly In Kentucky

7:58pm February 11, 2013

by Gabe Bullard

The distillery says it must lower its bourbon's alcohol content to meet demand. The company says consumers won't notice the change, but in bourbon country, Maker's Mark fans aren't too happy about the plan.

Queue Listen Now

Doris Day's somber 1958 version of "Hooray for Hollywood," which was included on an album of the same name, better reflects the song's creatively complicated lyrics.

Hollywood's 'Hooray': Hardly A Happy Hymn

11:41am February 11, 2013

by Susan Stamberg

It's Oscar season, meaning that classic toe-tapper "Hooray for Hollywood" will soon be booming out of TV speakers everywhere. But the cheery cinema hymn has a more complicated compositional past, as NPR's special correspondent Susan Stamberg explains.

Queue Listen Now

Singer Frank Ocean accepts Best Urban Contemporary Album award for Channel Orange.

Play-By-Play: Read Along With The Grammy Awards

1:11am February 11, 2013

by Stephen Thompson

For the fifth straight year, whether marveling at Taylor Swift's capacity for surprise or trying to figure out what to type during the combined 37 minutes of Bruno Mars performances, Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson live-blogged the ceremony in an effort to serve your reading-along needs.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

Manufactured On YouTube, Teen Pop Star Searches For His True Voice

6:51pm February 09, 2013

by NPR Staff

The road tour is a well-known backdrop in American novels and one Teddy Wayne explores in his new novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine. Along the way, Jonny, a teen heartthrob, explores the pressures of celebrity at a young age.

Queue Listen Now

Brutus (Salvatore Striano) fixes a wild stare at the witnesses and conspirators after Julius Caesar's murder, in a scene from Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die.

Arts

'Caesar' Comes Alive In An Italian Prison

1:09pm February 08, 2013

by David Edelstein

In Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's new film, Caesar Must Die, a group of prisoners put on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It's barely an hour and a quarter, and it's physically small-scale, but it's so compressed it wears you out — in a good way.

Queue Listen Now

Tyler Perry stars in the action thriller Alex Cross, which is now out on DVD.

Arts

Tyler Perry Transforms: From Madea To Family Man

1:09pm February 08, 2013

Best known for being the man behind Madea, Perry recently starred in the action thriller Alex Cross which is now out on DVD. We listen back to an October interview, in which he told Fresh Air's Terry Gross that his Madea character is a cross between his mom, his aunt and Eddie Murphy.

Queue Listen Now

The Garment District's factories and wholesale and retail shops, including Spandex World on West 38th Street, employ about 7,100 people.

New York's Grimy Garment District Hatches Designers' Dreams

8:07pm February 07, 2013

by Padmananda Rama

As Fashion Week opens in New York on Thursday, all eyes will be on the Lincoln Center catwalk. But the real business of fashion will be happening a short distance away in the city's Garment District, the resource-rich laboratory that has launched the careers of countless designers.

Queue Listen Now

Nicholas Hoult, Rob Corddry and Teresa Palmer lurch through a scene in Levine's zombie romantic comedy.

Arts

'Warm Bodies' Director: Teen Romance, Undying

7:50pm February 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

Director Jonathan Levine joins NPR's Audie Cornish to explore the ins and outs of young (zombie) love — the subject of his new romantic comedy, which topped the box office in its first week.

Queue Listen Now

Bradley Cooper has been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the film Silver Linings Playbook.

Arts

Bradley Cooper Finds 'Silver Linings' Everywhere

1:14pm February 07, 2013

The actor, nominated for an Academy Award for his role in David O. Russell's film, talks about watching movies with his father as a kid in Philadelphia, his childhood fascination with soldiers and being up against Daniel Day Lewis for an Oscar.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

A Mystery That Explores 'The Rage' Of New Ireland

2:40pm February 06, 2013

by John Powers

Reporter-turned-novelist Gene Kerrigan sets his story in Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis. The Rage is a boundlessly readable portrait of a country in which ordinary citizens have been hit the hardest and all the old certainties have vanished.

Queue Listen Now