Arts and Culture

Venture into one New London, Connecticut nonprofit and you will find yourself surrounded by art. Not just any art, either. Art inspired by the rich cultures of Latin America.

This hour, we go inside Expressiones Cultural Center. We meet up with one of the nonprofit's co-founders, and wander through the mind of its current artist in residence: a forestry engineer from Lima, Peru. 

In case you haven't heard, our planet is as flat as a pancake. Sound crazy? Perhaps. But around the globe (disc?) a flat Earth movement is steadily on the rise. More and more people, educated and not, from all walks of life, are posting videos, attending conferences, and publishing books embracing this seemingly radical notion.

We're outraged that wealthy parents illegally paid to get their kids into elite colleges they would otherwise not qualify to enter. Despite evidence to the contrary, we still want to believe that America is a meritocracy. It's not. And believing that it is might be bad for you.

This week, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp suffered major worldwide outages, and Twitter previewed some possible new changes. And people took to (what else?) social media to (what else?) complain.

And: The Ringer asks the age-old question, if a TV show falls in the woods, and no one talks about it, can it be certified fresh? Or something like that.

And finally: Captain Marvel is the 21st feature film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the ninth movie in the MCU's Phase Three. It is, chronologically, a sequel to 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger and a prequel to 2008's Iron Man. I didn't follow much of that, but I get this part: After 11 years and all those previous movies, it's the first one with a female lead.

Jessica Harper has starred in movies like Suspiria, Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, and Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. And now she's publishing a memoir as a podcast.

Winnetka tells the story of growing up in a big family -- six kids, including two sets of twins -- in the 1950s and '60s in the midwest -- in Winnetka, Ill., you see -- and later in Connecticut.

Plus: An update on the podcast industry more generally. The "Netflix of podcasts" is here. A big new study on podcasting has just come out. And... is "podcaster burnout" becoming a thing?

In her new book, author Susan Campbell transports readers through time, telling the story of Hartford's once industry-rich neighborhood, Frog Hollow.

This hour, we sit down with Campbell. We ask about her research for the book and learn about the realities of life in Frog Hollow today.

Do you have a personal connection to the neighborhood? We want to hear from you, too. 

Are you one of the millions inspired by Marie Kondo and her KonMari Method to get rid of your clutter? Kondo's books, such as The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, have sparked an intense and prolonged fervor where other self-help gurus have failed. 

You know all the reasons Trump won, right?

Economic anxiety. Racial anxiety. The forgotten working class. The forgotten rustbelt...

But what if the real cause were something much simpler and much more pervasive: our popular culture.

It's been rough going here for the famous for a little while. This week, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek announced his stage four cancer diagnosis. Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver retired from public life because of his dementia diagnosis. And then there are the deaths: Actor Luke Perry at 52. The Prodigy frontman Keith Flint at 49. Actress Katherine Helmond at 89.

Also this hour: a look at Netflix's new not-exactly-the-X-Men, but-still-adapted-from-a-comic-book series, The Umbrella Academy.

Saving money is not always an easy or fun thing to do on a consistent schedule. Bills can add up. Unforeseen expenses can take you by surprise. Luckily there are experts out there who can give you a hand when it comes to saving money and getting out of debt.

Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, the only place left in what was once America. Laszlo's job is to bring the worst criminals to justice, those who tell lies. In his new novel, Ben Winters creates a world which might sound Eden-esque in our era of misinformation. 

For the past few months, Nose regular Jacques Lamarre has been posting debate-starting, head-to-head style Facebook posts.

Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry. Ketchup vs. mustard vs. mayonnaise. When Harry Met Sally vs. Sleepless in Seattle. That kind of thing.

And so now, we've decided to try to turn the concept into a radio show. This hour, YOU MUST CHOOSE.

Joyce Maynard has been writing for over 45 years about the kind of human experiences we're often taught to keep hidden - stories  about envy, anger, vanity, self-pity, pride.  

We read her stories because they offer a chance to first confront and then forgive ourselves for how those emotions can shape us into people we don't like. 

It was hard to watch the first part of Leaving Neverland, the documentary which aired on HBO aired on March 3. The poignancy of the mixed emotions expressed by two men and their mothers who fell under the spell of Michael Jackson and later, his predation, left me feeling like a fly on the wall of a particularly difficult visit to a therapist. I was forced to consider my own complicity in how we collectively create and reward a celebrity culture that allows us to suspend reality against our own better judgment.

Without even really realizing it, The Nose has been covering the 91st Oscars field since early last year, and we still don't know that much of what to expect.

We do know that, for the first time since 1989, the Oscar ceremony won't have a host. And we also know that, for literally the 91st consecutive time, there won't be a Best Popular Picture award awarded.

But of the actual awards that will actually be awarded, who'll win what? That's much harder to tell even though The Nose, and its cousin that we clumsily call "Not Necessarily the Nose," has covered 14 nominated films encompassing 64 Oscar nominations.

These're them and those conversations neatly embedded in fancy Soundcloud format or hyperlinked for your browsing convenience.