Arts & Life

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Africa
12:03 pm
Thu November 29, 2012

Message Behind African Heaters For Norway Spoof

An online video, urging Africans to save Norwegians from frostbite, has gone viral. The tongue-in-cheek spoof features South Africans singing about sending radiators to Norway. The filmmakers hope to take on stereotypes of Africa that are reinforced by charities and the media. Host Michel Martin speaks to Erik Evans, one of the video's creators.

Arts & Life
11:56 am
Thu November 29, 2012

'Fundred' Dollar Project Blends Art And Advocacy

Credit Contemporary Art Museum, photo by Rick Gardner
'Fundred' dollar bills hanging in the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston

Since 2008, Mel Chin has traveled the country and collected over 400,000 of what he calls “fundred” dollar bills. They are hand-drawn interpretations of hundred dollar bills, using a template he created. He collects from individuals, schools, and community organizations.

“Our mission is to have everybody who wants to contribute can contribute a drawing,” Chin explained on WFAE’s Charlotte Talkss. “A drawing of currency they see it in the form of like a hundred dollars, it’s a “fundred”. They’re like, we’re having fun and to fund something.”

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Monkey See
10:58 am
Thu November 29, 2012

The Car-Sized Bow And Other Gift-Giving Lies Pop Culture Told Me

Credit iStockphoto.com
Best Books Of 2012
7:00 am
Thu November 29, 2012

A Wintry Mix: Alan Cheuse Selects The Season's Best

Credit Nishant Choksi

Originally published on Fri December 7, 2012 11:50 pm

It's that time of year again — the leaves have fallen, the dark comes early, the air brings with it a certain chill — and I've been piling up books on my reading table, books I've culled from the offerings of the past few months, which because of their essential lyric beauty and power stand as special gifts for you and yours.

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Movies
5:00 am
Thu November 29, 2012

Leslie Caron: Dancing From WWII Paris To Hollywood

Originally published on Thu November 29, 2012 9:40 am

In the 1950s, the moviegoing world fell in love with a young French ballerina and actress named Leslie Caron. She brightened the silver screen in musical films like 1958's Gigi, where she played a young courtesan-in-training who befriends a rich, handsome suitor in 1900s Paris.

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Movie Interviews
3:07 pm
Wed November 28, 2012

Marion Cotillard, Diving Deep In 'Rust And Bone'

Originally published on Wed November 28, 2012 5:47 pm

The latest film for Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone, is a French art film about two broken individuals who find love at the edge of the sea. It's poetic, lyrical — and not necessarily playing at a theater near you.

That was not the case earlier this summer, when Cotillard appeared as one of the central characters in the blockbuster Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.

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The Record
1:03 pm
Wed November 28, 2012

Who Picks The Music You Hear At The Mall?

Credit Kyle Johnson for NPR
Spencer Manio in front of his office (his door is the one with the Ghostface poster) at PlayNetwork.

Originally published on Thu November 29, 2012 5:26 am

In an episode from the fifth season of Mad Men the show's main character, advertising executive Don Draper, is asked by his client, the cologne company Chevalier Blanc, to supply a Beatles song for a television commercial. The year is 1966, and the 40-year-old Draper doesn't have his finger on the rapidly rising pulse of popular music. So he calls in a team of younger, hipper copy writers, including his wife Megan.

"When did music become so important?" he asks her.

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