The Organist

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The Organist is a weekly experimental arts-and-culture program produced and distributed by KCRW . The editors of the award-winning monthly magazine the Believer , published in San Francisco by McSweeney's , produce weekly episodes of the podcast, which includes reported stories, interviews, comic radio drama, reviews, and more. The scope of the podcast reflects that of the print edition: its contributors take a thoughtful approach to pop culture, along with an irreverent attitude toward the highbrow. From philosophy to daytime TV, from poetry to martial arts, the show scrutinizes and interrogates the world with an affectionate and rigorous intelligence. Pieces from the podcast grow out of stories in the magazine, and vice versa. Weaving together the voices of its contributors, which include the brightest talents in literature and the arts, the Organist is an elegant, impressionistic, funny, and sharp cultural magazine that itself becomes an object of inquiry, discussion, and wonder.

Series


Pieces

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Antigone is one of the most widely performed plays in the world. Poet Anne Carson’s experimental translation of Sophocles’ tragedy incorporates 2,5...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 52:16
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Meshell Ndegeocello’s debut album kicked off the era of neo-soul, inspiring Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and D’Angelo. Twenty-three years later, Ndege...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 33:08
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From in utero to the studio, Clive Desmond gives us a history of the golden age of radio ads, featuring Frank Zappa, Ken Nordine, Linda Ronstadt, a...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 49:48
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In Stockholm, an organist plays hymns in a cathedral; at night, he sleeps in a makeshift recording studio in the cathedral’s basement where he comp...

Bought by KBBI Alaska


  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 31:27
  • Purchases: 1
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Fresh off her first solo show at the MoMA, Martine Syms talks with the Organist about how growing up in Altadena, a red-lined suburb of Los Angeles...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 26:49
  • Purchases: 1
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At last! An unobstructed view of the internet’s lacunae: Brian McMullen reads his Still Not Dotcoms, an epic catalog of one thousand unclaimed URLs...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 39:31
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In the vein of Werner Herzog, Larry David, and Spalding Gray, the radical documentaries of Caveh Zahedi find comedy in pushing social norms. His od...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 38:34
Caption: Aleksandra Mir, "Keep Abortion Legal,"  June-July 2017 View of installation at I-70 West mile 101,  near Boonville, Credit: Matt Rahner
If you drive along I-70 through Missouri, you’ll see site-specific contemporary art displayed on the billboards. What happens when that artwork say...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 25:31
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This week we’ll hear from two artists whose work investigates the growing prevalence of surveillance in societies around the world. Both Lawrence A...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 40:06
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Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and the Alien movies all trace their tone of cosmic dread back to the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, whose stories were p...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2018
  • Length: 29:01