Art that grows on you

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The stuff you love as kids — that still deserve love when you’re grown up. Kurt Andersen talks with author Bruce Handy about how the best children’s literature can still enthrall adults — and then Bruce’s and Kurt’s kids join them to weigh in. Jim Henson always thought of his creations, the Muppets, as adult entertainment, but thanks to “Sesame Street,” they ended up being beloved by kids. And finally Kurt talks with design critic Alexandra Lange about the history of playgrounds — and how lawyers and bureaucrats have ruined fun.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	from PRX
0:03.4	This is Studio 360. I'm Kurt Anand.
0:10.8	And I'm sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
0:13.1	This first level of garden.
0:14.4	This is Thomas Jefferson's vegetable garden.
0:16.3	I like to have the roasted chicken paste.
0:17.9	Very well done.
0:19.1	Editing is all about timing.
0:20.8	I try to get a little bit away from the actual subject.
0:23.4	You must get sick of your own voice, right?
0:25.7	Studio 360.
0:27.8	It's good. Anderson.
0:34.8	Today we are talking about literature and design and television made with kids in mind that
0:41.0	continues to enthrall and entertain us as adults. For instance, this season, if you're buying
0:48.3	books for children, there's no reason they shouldn't also be enjoyable for parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents to read.
0:56.8	That is the idea behind a terrific book by the journalist and critic Bruce Handy.
1:01.6	I've known Bruce since we were practically kids ourselves.
1:04.9	In the 80s, I hired him as an editor and writer at Spy Magazine.
1:09.0	His book, his first, is called Wild Things, the joy of
1:13.6	reading children's literature as an adult. It really came out of having kids and reading to the kids.
1:18.5	And, you know, like a lot of families, we had this nice nighttime ritual, but I found that I was
1:22.2	actually really getting interested in the books and kind of a critical slash intellectual
	...

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