Let's Hear it for Interns!

Closing today is the fabulous Dale Chihuly exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens.
Selected photos and video from the exhibition are available on this website.

In his glasswork, Chihuly uses organic, yet otherworldly shapes. While I loved the Chihuly pieces, I found them to be most enjoyable the best when they didn’t compete against the far-out flora.

And while many, especially the big floating glass figs did sort of outshine the amazing lotus plants, they did make me look twice at the big serving tray lilypads. Are those for real? Wow. Cool.






I couldn’t help but wonder, how did he make all of these amazingly intricate molded glass sculptures? There’s only one way: interns. Lot’s of ‘em. He’s clearly a man after my own heart. And some people think that’s immoral. Personally, I’d take a medieval trade apprenticeship over higher education any day of the week. But that's just me.

Oh, yes we did

RadioLab took the Silver Award home from the Third Coast Awards for this .

We were particularly happy to have Eric Gordon at the Awards with us. It meant a lot to me that Eric has felt this story to be an extension of his love for Ella Chase. I'm just so relieved that we didn't disappoint him. If only Marina had been there! She was much missed!

Genius. Evil, evil genius.

Ok, I use MS Word and Excel. Daily. And while I have my beefs with the business practices of their profoundly powerful corporate creator, I don’t think that Microsoft is all bad. But it is with no small amount of shame and trepidation that I recommend this. It’s a ad. Sure. But it is also a really smart move for Microsoft because, well, it’s just undeniably creative. And Apple is usually the house fav for quirky creative types, right? Go watch Episode One -- A Rare Condition -- and see if you don’t agree. Smart money well spent by Microsoft. But don’t worry. Nothing’s changed. I’ll still pirate their software and I refuse to feel guilty about that.

p.s. I totally want to be a Racoonicorn for Halloween. But I think I'm going with 'Mad Cow' this year. More on that later.

New Sheriffs in Town

What Ira Glass said at the PRPD conference in September about my showRadio Lab.

Damn.

Sinking Approval Ratings on Presidential Job Performance -- One Implausible Explanation Debunked by Stewart

Jon Stewart seems to be the only man in American actually LISTENING to what the president is saying. He's DEFINITELY the only one trying to hold him accountable for what he says. Brilliant, hilarious, and ultimately, depressing.

Brooklyn, errrr, Beukelen.

This weekend Open House New York let us take a peek inside some of the private places in New York under the guise of arcitectural review.

We were astonished.
That's Pat and Chris, my aunt and uncle, astonished.

We got to go inside the Williamsburg Savings Bank at One Hansen Place.

An amazing place. A cathedral with a gold-inlaid mosaic to mythogize the founding of Brooklyn. Ok, as the dutch say, Beuklen.

Now, I love the convenience of online banking, but I realized as I poured over the incredible stone and iron detailing, my banking fees give nothing back to me. It used to be that your fees paid for these incredible structures, and the jobs of your neighbors. Today, I'm lucky if Citibank tosses me a flash animation every once in a while.

Things sure have changed here in Beukelen.

Mmmmountain goats

Good lord.

If you see a listing for Jeffrey Lewis, Christine Fellows , or The Mountain Goats , pull out your wallet and hand the venue as much money as necessary to gain entry to a show.