Studio 360

Los Angeles-based musician Nick Waterhouse weaves together classic rhythm and blues, jazz, and soul, lending his songs a ‘50s and ‘60s inspired sound. Waterhouse stopped by Studio 360 to tell Kurt Andersen about his

Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor talks with Kurt Andersen about her upcoming Broadway residency and, seated at a Steinway, performs some songs. The story behind the Empire Zinc strike 70 years ago and the film it inspired, “Salt of the Earth.” And how one scene from “Finding Nemo” inspired Kiki Kienstra to up and move to Mexico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

To commemorate Deadwood and its long-awaited conclusion, Kurt Andersen revisits his 2006 conversation with the show’s creator, David Milch. They discuss the show’s reprobate cast of characters and their florid, profane dialogue. “I did a lot of research,” Milch says. “Everyone without exception said that in the mining camps, the language was of an unrelieved coarseness and obscenity.“ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

In 1987 Elaine May’s comedy “Ishtar” was savaged by critics and flopped spectacularly, but it turns out that the movie is actually pretty funny — and the reason it failed is pretty complicated. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, the stars of “Booksmart,” tell Kurt Andersen about how they became friends after they were cast as friends — and they bring a playlist of some of their favorite on-screen friendships. The final episode of the original “Star Trek” series aired 50 years ago this week, and Ronald D. Moore reveals how watching reruns of the show made him a science-fiction fan and ultimately led to becoming staff writer for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and, in a movie for the franchise, to killing off his hero, James T. Kirk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and much of Apple’s product line. It showed the promise and perils of technology and explored life’s biggest mystery: Are we alone in the universe? In Part Two of our look at the movie in our American Icons series, we visit the same IBM research lab that helped inspire HAL. We meet CIMON, a real-life AI robot on the International Space Station and Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who blasted the “Blue Danube” in the space shuttle. Plus we speak to New York Times critic Wesley Morris, filmmakers Christopher Nolan and Tom Hanks, artist James Turrell and U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit