A Staggering Amount of Brilliant Free Television
The PBS investigative documentary series Frontline presents some of the best television produced in America. At its web site (here), you can watch over 70 episodes of the program, all for free. In one...
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Outsider Art with a Professional Sheen
America has always had people dying for a taste of the limelight and others willing to delude them for a healthy profit. PBS takes a funny and moving look at one such scheme in Off the Charts: The...
View ArticleBOB ROSS MOMENT OF THE DAY
PBS is teaming up with Symphony of Science to remix old PBS classics.Devoted fans of the television network will recognize the distinctive head of hair on the star of their latest song – it’s a tribute...
View ArticleSometimes Judge A Book By Its Cover
Cover designer Peter Mendelsund has released two new books about cover design. Cover collects many of the images Mendelsund has designed over his career and What We See When We Read explores the...
View ArticleStreaming the Book Fair, Olympic-Style
According to a report in the New York Times, PBS will be live-streaming the Miami Book Fair at Dade College later this month. Representatives at PBS cite a strong correlation between public television...
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Wanting To Dance
“So let’s give them a big hand and make them feel real welcome. YAAAAY!” Kermit yelled, waving his green felt arms wildly. The curtain is pulled to reveal a band of bugs, or beetles, who begin to play,...
View ArticleSometimes English Needs to be Broken
Nationally touring poet, performer, and writer Fatimah Asghar is “almost always in-between two places.” Her parents were born in Kashmir and Pakistan. They moved to the US, and died when she was...
View ArticleOur New Librarian-in-Chief’s Favorite Children’s Book
Last week, Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress, making her the first woman and the first African-American in the position. Hayden talked with Jeffrey Brown of PBS Newshour about...
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America Again
The first time I ever had my makeup done professionally was fifteen years ago, on a photo shoot for the cover of my album American Ballads. The record was a compilation of American piano music from the...
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The Evergreen Appeal of Bob Ross
It is another frantic Friday, the final of five inundated workdays. An executive’s fingers fly across the keyboard, responding to one of scores of actionable items demanding time-sensitive attention....
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What to Read When the President Cuts Funding for Everything Good
Yesterday morning, Trump’s administration released their proposed budget. While additional programs may also be on the chopping block, programs specifically named in the proposal include after-school...
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This Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe...
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Faith Adiele
About fifteen years ago, a friend said she wanted to introduce me to author, speaker, and teacher Faith Adiele. Faith, my friend explained, was Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun, living right here...
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Just in time for SxSW, check out Austin’s bookstore culture. A new documentary from PBS’s Frontline will examine the rise of Jeff Bezos. How will China’s 70,000 bookstores cope with customers...
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