Tonight Inquiry welcomes artist and teacher at Clark University TOBY SISSON. Her work includes encaustic pieces as well as paintings and drawings. She has also worked on some fascinating community collaborative installation and education projects.
Sep 13, 2009
“You are the scum of soy paste!” In Japan, that odd phrase is just one of a number of common insults that children say to each other. Swearing and cursing is as old as language and tonight on Inquiry we look at the cultural differences of telling someone off in no uncertain terms.
Sep 10, 2009
JESSE SHEIDLOWER is a lexicographer and an Editor at Large for the Oxford English Dictionary. He has complied a rather unique lexicon focusing on the “f” word: it’s origins, many uses, initialisms and euphemisms.
Sep 10, 2009
Inquiry welcomes back MELISSA STEWART, an author who has written over 100 books for young audiences, many about the natural world.
Sep 9, 2009
Inquiry welcomes internationally recognized watercolorist, oil painter and author LARS JONSSON.
Sep 1, 2009
Lena Horne remains one of the most talented, beautiful, difficult and complex artists of our times. Singer, movie actress, Broadway performer and civil rights activist, Lena Horne seemed to have it all. But only rarely did she ever relax enough to appreciate what she had accomplished.
Aug 28, 2009
Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Stevie Nicks, Nirvana, Warren Zevon. These are just a few of the rockers that journalist, PR person and manager DANNY GOLDBERG has worked with over his many decades in the business end of rock.
Aug 24, 2009
What movie made Jack Nicholson drop everything and go to Hollywood to become an actor? What noted astronomer cited “All That Jazz” as the film that changed his life?
Aug 23, 2009
Inquiry: Daniel James Brown: THE INDIFFERENT STARS ABOVE: THE HARROWING SAGA OF A DONNER PARTY BRIDE
In the 1840s, a hardy caravan of pioneers set off from St. Joseph Missouri to head for the promised land of California.
Aug 23, 2009
A language is a messy, inconsistent and unruly thing. All those tenses and irregular verbs! All those exceptions to the rules!
Aug 21, 2009
Most of us are now on Facebook, but do you have any idea how it was “invented”. It started as a prank at Harvard created by classic geeks wanting find girls and ended up a sordid tale of drugs, lawyers and deep betrayal.
Aug 20, 2009
From the beginning of experimentation, humans have used a wide variety of animal and plant life as equipment in a “living laboratory”.
Aug 18, 2009
How do ants navigate enormous stretches of featureless Saharan desert and still manage to find their way back to their nest? How do Pacific Island cultures find their way across vast stretches of ocean out of sight of land? Why do most of us still get lost in a mall?
Aug 12, 2009
Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois is home to the largest proton accelerator in the United States. Here scientists conduct cutting edge high-energy physics experiments to learn about the ultimate structure of matter and learn more about particles like quarks.
Aug 10, 2009
JEFF JOHNSON has been tattooing professionally for over 18 years and is the co-owner of the Sea Tramp Tattoo Company in Portland, Oregon.
Aug 10, 2009
The Supremes have been called the second-most important American music act after Elvis. Though they had a string of Number 1 hits, they were never nominated for a Grammy.
Aug 10, 2009
Inquiry: Tom Folsom: THE MAD ONES: CRAZY JOE GALLO AND THE REVOLUTION AT THE EDGE OF THE UNDERWORLD.
The infamous Gallo family controlled the lucrative jukebox and pinball machine rackets in New York City in the 1960s, and had a notoriously bloody gang war with the Profaci family. Many of the scenes from the Gallo’s life can be found in The Godfather book and films.
Aug 3, 2009
Tonight Inquiry talks with writer and award-winning author AMY STEWART about the dark and evil side of botany. Stewart’s new book WICKED PLANTS: A BOOK OF BOTANICAL ATROCITIES describes all sorts of plants that are deadly, dangerous, painful, destructive, intoxicating and illegal.
Aug 2, 2009
Freshness. We certainly want all our milk, eggs, fruit, meat and fish to be as fresh as possible, but no person or organization has a consistent definition of what “freshness” actually is.
Jul 28, 2009
In 1900, deep below the stormy seas off the coast of Greece, sponge divers discovered the wreck of an Ancient Greek ship. Among the bronze and marble statues that were recovered was an oddball collection of encrusted bronze.
Pages
Join
Become a WICN Member
Please pledge now and give what you can afford – for the value you find in WICN.
YOU really do make everything you hear possible on this station. Pledge Now!
Call 508-752-0700 right now or contribute online! CLICK HERE to take a look at our thank-you gifts.
Sponsor
Underwriter of the Week
Arts, sciences and humanities build healthier, more livable, vital communities. They are essential to a strong education system. They contribute enormously to our economy.
support for WICN.org comes from . . .
