The Culture Show Podcast

Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola joins us to mark Black History Month. We’ll discuss her poem inspired by the book Beloved and a mother’s agonizing decision. From there, theater artist P Carl. He built a career, a marriage and a life as queer woman. But all the while he had a yearning to become more fully realized. For him that meant transitioning to another gender. He wrote about the transfo...

I’m Jared Bowen, this is The Culture Show. In Gish Jen’s latest book, “Thank You Mr. Nixon,” Jen writes about US-China Relations. Today she joins us from Shanghai, using her recent cultural experiences as a window into East-West relations, from the Broadway hit, “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,” to a blockbuster of a show featuring Leonardo da Vinci. From there we talk to two renown...

It’s hard to imagine Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art without the visionary Jill Medvedow, but that’s what we have to do–she’s stepping down at the end of the year. We’ll talk about her legacy and what’s next. After that, co-host Callie Crossley pores over the history of cocktails and how modern day mixology and classic concoctions are rooted in centuries of African American history.

It’s our arts and culture week in-review and we’ll start with some Friday afternoon quarterbacking: looking at the cultural touchdowns that were made during last week’s Super Bowl, from Queen Bee creating country controversy with her two new songs, to Ben Affleck and the DunKings releasing a single and selling out their Dunkin’ inspired tracksuits along the way. How do you like them donuts? From t...

From the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley, to the technicolor tapestries of Napoleon Jones-Henderson, to Terry Lynne Carrington’s contemporary beats, Boston’s Black art and culture is everyone’s art and culture. It’s also central to Boston’s Black History which is the city’s history. With Embrace Boston’s Imari Paris Jeffries leading the way, we’ll observe Black History Month, with a focus on the import...

Composer Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World” is bold and buoyant and as eloquent as the words it honors–from selected texts by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. This Friday at Symphony Hall, the attorney, author, and civil rights activist Anita Hill will be making her orchestral debut, narrating Dr. King’s words in Boston Conservatory Orchestra's Black History Month concert, which includes...

Artist Wu Tsang goes deep on Moby Dick, literally and figuratively with an immersive film installation that takes us into the depths of the ocean. But her interpretation of Moby Dick is from the whale’s perspective. Entitled “Of Whales,” on view at the ICA starting February 15th, it’s part of Wu Tsang’s Moby Dick trilogy, which premiered at the Venice Biennale two years ago. We’ll talk to the arti...

The US Military and the Smithsonian have revived a version of “the monuments-men.-”-- the group of soldiers and military personnel who recovered cultural artifacts and artworks looted by the Nazi regime during World War II. In the 21st century, modern warfare has wreaked havoc on cultural institutions and heritage sites from Bagdahd, to Kiev, to Gaza and beyond. We’ll talk to Cori Wegener, whose w...

Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years. Taking it from the 20th to the 21st century. He was a force–a maverick whose awesome talent for interpreting music stopped legends like Bernstein cold–making Ozawa one in his own right. WCRB’s Brian McCreath joins us to remember the maestro, the man, his musicality and his legacy in Boston and the world over. From there, it’s Greek...

For Nadia Liu Spellman and her mother Sally Ling, food is family. Sally Ling is behind one of the first fine dining Chinese restaurants in America. Her famed spot, named Sally Ling’s was a fixture in Boston, where celebrities like Julia Child and Yo-Yo Ma would feast. As an investment banker, Ling’s daughter Nadia Liu Spellman came to realize she couldn’t leave the family business, or that it woul...

In the latest adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, the star crossed lovers get that much closer to the stars– leaping, bounding, backflipping and flying high by way of the 7 Fingers circus troupe. In this spin on Shakespeare, the doomed romantics don’t need cupid's wings to soar above a common bound, because they’ve got a trapeze. I’ll talk to Aerial Emery, one of the hip-swiveling performers, about th...

Clothes don’t make the man, they make the movie. Now that we are deep into Oscars season, who better to talk two than Academy Award-winning costume designer –and Springfield native – Ruth E. Carter. She won her first Academy Award for her work in “Black Panther,” where she created the Afrofuturist aesthetic of Wakanda. Four years later, she became a superhero in her own right, earning her second O...

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter writes about existential struggles. A rising star, he became widely known for “The Whale,” the critically acclaimed play that he adapted to the Academy Award-winning movie starring Brendan Frasier. In his latest work, “A Case for the Existence of God,” Hunter revisits the existential questions that shadow us: what is the point of sorrow? Where do we find the common grou...

It’s our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, it’s pumpkin soup for the protester’s soul. The Mona Lisa is the latest masterpiece to be slimed in the name of environmental activism. Is this an effective tactic or just weak sauce? Then, it’s a pyramid scheme: an extreme makeover of Egyptian ruins is outraging archaeologists. From there, with Sundance wrapping up, we look at its sway in the fi...

Tina Turner, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie….to have seen these legends perform –and hundreds of others– is one thing. To make a career out of covering them, interviewing them and in some cases sharing ribald moments with them… is another. And that has been the life of writer Jim Sullivan. He’s observed and experienced so much of the Rock and Punk scenes that he needed to write a second anthology. H...

The British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen forced us to look at the atrocities of slavery in his film, “12 Years a Slave.” An offshoot of that undertaking is “Lynching Tree,” a photograph of a large oak tree, which McQueen took while on location in America’s south. At first glance, it presents as a tranquil landscape. Until you recognize the tree has survived centuries and was used for lynchin...

Among the English courses being offered at Harvard this semester there’s “Sex, Gender and Shakespeare;” an exploration of British romantic poetry titled “Keats Isn't Dead” and a course that goes deep on Swift. No, not the satirist Jonathan Swift, but the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. In a class titled “Taylor Swift and Her World.” Professor Stephanie Burt is bringing an analytical approach to th...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg secured a legacy as a crusader for women’s rights. Later in life she secured another legacy…as a vaunted cultural icon. She is forever associated with hip-hop as the “Notorious RBG,” her first gender discrimination case inspired the biopic, "On the Basis of Sex," and now she is the subject of the one-woman show, “All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsb...

It’s our arts and culture week in review. First up, the Oscar nominations –the surprises, usual suspects, and snubs that are sparking controversy in Barbieland. Plus, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring nude performance artists intending to pose questions about comfort levels, instead resulted in assault allegations. From there, Jon Stewart is jumping into the 2024 race, resuming h...

During her State of the City address, Mayor Michelle Wu made the personal policy. She talked about how formative it was, as a Chicago kid in a family of few resources, to be able to attend museums for free. Exposure to a vast universe of art and ideas that could transport her to other places–both real and imagined - changed her life. Now she is working to do the same for children here. She joins m...

We’re wrapping up our series of interviews with the ICA’s 2023 Foster Prize Winners with artist Venetia Dale. As a metalsmith and sculptor, Dale’s work looks at objects— their utility, people’s relationship to the things in their lives—what they need, what they delight in, and what they’ve relegated to the junk drawer. Dale is also interested in the incomplete and the imperfect — themes that she’s...

The battle between the bomb and the blonde bombshell is over. Barbenhiemer has officially uncoupled with Oppenheimer dominating Barbie, earning 13 Oscar nominations. Arts and entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik joins me to sort through this, the snubs, surprises and snoozers. And, will the Grammys ever create a category for best song recorded by a state auditor? If so, Diana Dizoglio’s newly mas...

Shostakovich’s opera, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” It made its premiere in 1934 and became an overnight sensation. Then it all but vanished after Stalin banned it from what was then the Soviet Union and he sent Shostakovich into a state of fear that he would be arrested. Now the Boston Symphony Orchestra brings the piece to Symphony Hall this week, before playing Carnegie Hall. In between rehearsals...

First up, What do the alternative rock band R.E.M have in common with hip-hop giant and superproducer Timbaland? They’re both among this year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees. We’ll take a listen to the lyrics that have landed them this honor. Then it’s onto the lost and found department, from a priceless Picasso going up in flames to a stolen Picasso being recovered after a months long covert...

When it comes to reality TV is there really such a thing as too many cooks in the kitchen? We’ll ask Chef Jason Santos, who enters another season of Hell’s Kitchen as Gordon Ramsey’s sous chef. But that’s not all he’s up to, as chef and owner of a string of celebrated famed restaurants including Buttermilk & Bourbon, he joins us to talk about how he’ll continue to boost Boston’s flavor profile...