Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

The singer-songwriter Shilpa Ray blends her Indian classical music training with her love of punk rock, with infectious results. Also, we hear from Jonathan Galassi, the long-time publisher, editor, translator, and poet, who now — at age 65 — has written his first novel. And have two psychology researchers really discovered a new play by William Shakespeare?

In the beginning, there was Twitter. David Javerbaum — a seasoned comedy writer for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report who has won Peabodys, Emmys, and a Grammy — started the account @TheTweetofGod in 2010. Like God Himself, he quickly gained millions of followers.  — God (@TheTweetOfGod) June 30, 2013 THE NEW 10 COMMANDMENTS 1 Laugh. 2 Read. 3 Say please. 4 Floss. 5 Doubt. 6 Exercise. 7 Learn. 8 Don't hate. 9 Cut the bullshit. 10 Chill. — God (@TheTweetOfGod) April 20, 2014 Javerbaum originally opened the account to promote a book, a new testament for the modern age — he just hadn’t written it yet. Javerbaum planned to extrapolate the jokes from Twitter into a fully-realized text. He finally finished in 2012, but The Last Testament: A Memoir by God didn’t do nearly as well as the Twitter account. “That’s a shame, because God’s previous books have sold in the billions,” Javerbaum says. “I explained to him that there’s a new publishing paradigm and that digital has really undercut a lot of book sales.” But @TheTweetofGod has a surprising third act. Javerbaum recently turned his one-liners into a Broadway play. An Act of God, starring Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory as God (or, more precisely, as the normal chump whom God temporarily possesses to address the audience), opened in New York City in late May. It combines some of Javerbaum’s best tweets with his faux-memoir for a long and funny sermon from the stage. For most writers, Twitter is a distraction from paid work, but for Javerbaum it happened to turn into a paying gig. "I found a way to do what many, many people failed to do which is to monetize my Twitter account," he says. "I can't say there was any plan to it, and I'm sure God would say the same thing. WQXR's Terrance McKnight played God in our story.

In his latest movie, “Love & Mercy,” John Cusack plays the Beach Boys auteur Brian Wilson, a man Cusack calls “a complete paradox.” We hear from comedy writer David Javerbaum, who tweeted his way to fame in the name of God and has now turned his one-liners into a Broadway play. And we launch our latest Extra Credit listener challenge for high school students with comedian, actor, and author B.J. Novak.  

The actor Carey Mulligan always shied away from playing Victorian heroines because she didn’t want to get typecast — now with “Far from the Madding Crowd,” she’s found a character feminist enough to overcome that fear. And speaking of feminism, artist and science journalist Maia Weinstock noticed the lack of good female role models in LEGO sets, so she decided to make her own. And the Tonys are almost here! We round up Kurt's conversations with Broadway’s brightest creative minds.

Since mid-December, I have been taking photos of public radio personalities, producers and strangers on the street wearing a hat that that makes an obviously false claim: “I AM LAKSHMI SINGH." At a live event last week, NPR newscaster and personal hero Lakshmi Singh finally wore the hat, admitting the meme was exactly her kind of crazy. By the end of the event, audience members departed with their own Lakshmi Singh hats, doubling the meme's half-life. The so-called "#lakshmeme," a tribute to the newscaster who inspired me to pursue a career in public radio, has amassed hundreds of portraits, posted and shared on Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. It even landed on the front page of Current, public media's trade publication.  The meme drew to its satisfying, crazy conclusion - a public radio spelling bee and piñatas were involved - live in The Greene Space on May 26 when Lakshmi talked about her career in public radio and discussed the importance of diverse voices, names, and faces in media. We were joined by current This American Life and former Snap Judgment producer Stephanie Foo and "The Whiteness Of Public Radio Voice” author and Clemson University communications professor Chenjerai Kumanyika.   THE LAKSHMI SINGHERS PERFORM "TUESDAY"  THE LAKSHMI SINGHERS PERFORM "OLD RADIOS"  THE FIRST ANNUAL PUBLIC RADIO SPELLING BEE:    WATCH THE ENTIRE EVENT:  

From "Semi-Living Dolls" to glowing florescent illustrations, artists are using the tools of synthetic biology to grow their own materials and create works of art that are, essentially, alive. It’s one thing to wag our fingers at big scientific institutions for "playing God," but isn't it uncool to tell artists they shouldn't do something, even if it creeps us out? Special thanks this week to Lindsay Patterson.

Live from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a show devoted to the theme of fear —  the kind that that can motivate us, and the kind that can stop us in our tracks. Andrew Bird and the Hands of Glory join us for a song about escape; comedian Hari Kondabolu riffs on fears of change; and Jennifer Egan talks about what it was like to tweet a short story — after her account had been hacked. (Originally aired July 20, 2014)

If your creative concept is original, quirky, and crazy enough, it will kill on Kickstarter. There was the Robocop statue, the potato salad, and now the Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum.  Best friends and comedy writers Matt Harkins and Viviana Olen were six and seven years old when Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with a baton on behalf of her arch-rival, Tonya Harding, in 1994. The following federal investigation (which would reveal Harding's then-husband helped plan the attack) was one of the biggest sports stories of the century. Harkins and Olen weren't fully aware of the scope of the story until watching the ESPN documentary, The Price of Gold, which humanizes both athletes. Then they were hooked, and surprised how little their peers remembered of the controversial events. "I made out with a 25-year-old and he had no idea what I was talking about," Olen says. "That really impressed on us the fact that there's a whole generation that doesn't remember."  The two decided to open a museum in their shared apartment -- they already had a perfect useless hallway, all they needed was money. They turned to Kickstarter, asking for "$75 to print photos at Duane Reade." They raised over two thousand dollars. More impressive still, they collected dozens of artifacts and works of tribute art from Kerrigan and Harding fans.  The museum has a sense of irony, but its true nature shifted to a more sincere place once the art and artifacts started pouring into the curators' Brooklyn apartment. Harkins and Olen invested their Kickstarter funds into lights, paint, and various fixtures to properly present their rich collection, from dioramas and figurines to cross stitches and autographed memorabilia from the two figure skaters. The museum became a tribute to the triumphant and tragic stories of two world-class athletes. "These are people who are alive and have been haunted by this for so long," Olen says. "The only thing we're making fun of is ourselves."

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” became a landmark of American poetry — by going deep into the darkness behind the ideal bucolic American life. We hear a live set from singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott, who performs as TORRES. She can’t talk with her family about being adopted, but she can sing about it. And the author Dylan Landis gets inside the head of a teenage girl in 1970s New York in her novel "Rainey Royal."

Charlie Brooker was inspired by “The Twilight Zone” to create his sci-fi series “Black Mirror,” in which digital technology keeps biting us back in the spookiest ways. And we hear about folklorist Alan Lomax, who brought the blues to a wider audience, but enforced his own kind of musical segregation. And a conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith about her obsession with David Bowie.

He was the most famous American in the world — a showman and spin artist who parlayed a buffalo-hunting gig into an entertainment empire. William F. Cody’s stage show presented a new creation myth for America, bringing cowboys, Indians, settlers, and sharpshooters to audiences who had only read about the West in dime novels. He offered Indians a life off the reservation — reenacting their own defeats. "Deadwood" producer David Milch explains why the myth of the West still resonates; a Sioux actor at a Paris theme park loves playing Sitting Bull; and a financial executive impersonates Buffalo Bill, with his wife as Annie Oakley. (Originally aired November 5, 2010)

Sean Ramesawram speaks with Humza Deas, who isn’t impressed by his nearly 100,000 Instagram followers, though he should be. He earned every one surfing subways, climbing bridges, and scaling New York City’s skyscrapers for the perfect photo.

Peter Carey’s latest novel, "Amnesia," is about government surveillance, cyber terrorism, and the legacy of America’s bullying intelligence agencies. He was inspired to write it after turning down an offer to ghostwrite Julian Assange’s autobiography. We hear how lifting the embargo will affect Cuba’s artists; and Havana gets its first Broadway transfer since the Revolution — the critique of capitalism known as "Rent."

Insiders have known for years that studios pay female stars less than men, but the Sony hack put numbers on the problem. One expert thinks that leaked data may begin to balance the scales. Glenn Close comes back to the stage in an Edward Albee play. And the Hubble Space Telescope, which made the world fall in love with images of space all over again, turns 25.  

WARNING: THIS EPISODE IS EXTREMELY PROFANE. The roast is a sacred tradition for stand-ups, but a group of comedians is taking it to ever more insulting places at the Comedy Store in LA. Sean Rameswaram speaks with host Brian Moses and comedian Jeffrey Ross.