Art Beat

Southern Exposure

The Big Surprise Tour -- a musical ode to string band fiddling, working man's music and American folk troubadours -- began earlier this month in New Hampshire and is headed down to Nashville.

Weekly Poem: ‘Too Here’

Albert Goldbarth is the author of more than twenty books of poetry and has won numerous awards, including two National Book Critics Circle Awards. He is a professor of humanities at Wichita State University, where he has taught since 1987.

Conversation: Remembering John Hughes

With the early death of writer and director John Hughes at 59 yesterday, America lost one of the most vivid voices to come out of (and help define) the 1980s.

Conversation: Alex Prud’homme, Co-Author of Julia Child’s ‘My Life in France’

By Arts Desk

For decades on PBS, Julia Child brought her infectious enthusiasm for French cooking into the kitchens of her rapt viewers, passing on the culinary lessons she had learned during the years she lived in France.

Writer-Director John Hughes Dies at 59

By Arts Desk

American film director and writer John Hughes died Thursday of heart attack, his spokeswoman said. He was 59. According to a statement from his spokeswoman, Hughes died suddenly while taking a morning walk in New York City.

‘When She Named Fire’ Examines Contemporary Women’s Poetry

When the editors at Autumn House Press in Pittsburgh started looking around at various anthologies of contemporary poetry, they noticed most of the general collections still featured more male bards than female.

The Art of Blogging About Art

Most mainstream news organizations now blog in some form, including, obviously, the NewsHour here on Art Beat. We talked to some other arts and culture bloggers about the ways the medium has affected their messages.

Conversation: Writer Scott Rosenberg

Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg details blogging's short history in his latest book, "Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming and Why It Matters."…

Weekly Poem: ‘Living Room’

By Andrea Hollander Budy In the cave of memory my father crawls now, his small carbide light fixed to his forehead, his kneepads so worn from the journey they’re barely useful, but he adjusts them…

Conversation: Hitchens, Cuno Debate the Fate of the Parthenon Marbles

It's one of the great landmarks of history: the Parthenon in Athens, constructed in the 5th century BC. It stands as the symbol of the cultural and political heights reached by the classical world.