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The 25-hour Moby Dick Marathon sails on in New Bedford
Every winter, thousands of fans descend on the New Bedford Whaling Museum to hear the novel out loud.
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May 15, 2026 - Week in Review: Eurovision, the World Cup halftime show, and Don Colossus
On this edition of The Culture Show, GBH’s Global Correspondent and News Host Jeremy Siegel, Lisa Simmons, and Joyce Kulhawik go over the latest arts and culture headlines on our week-in-review. Lisa Simmons is Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association. You can find her reviews on Joyce’s Choices. The World Cup is getting its first-ever halftime show, set for July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Shakira is returning to the World Cup stage, with Madonna and BTS also part of the spectacle.Cannes is underway with less Hollywood wattage this year, but plenty of awards-season intrigue. The festival is putting more focus on international auteurs and a new Oscar rule that could give Cannes winners a stronger path to the Academy Awards.Eurovision is once again where music, politics and spectacle collide. Israel has advanced to the final, but its participation has become a flashpoint, with several countries sitting out over the war in Gaza and the civilian death toll.A 22-foot gold statue of President Trump now stands at Trump National Doral in Florida. Called “Don Colossus,” it shows him with his fist raised — echoing the Butler assassination attempt photo — and has drawn attention for its mix of politics, spectacle and backlash.Dunkin is returning to Canada, setting up another round in its rivalry with Tim Hortons. The expansion puts an American coffee-and-doughnut chain back into competition with one of Canada’s most recognizable homegrown brands. -
May 14, 2026 - Club Passim's Matt Smith, Bill Lichtenstein on WBCN, and 150 years of the Harvard Lampoon
Matt Smith has spent 30 years at Club Passim, the tiny Harvard Square room with an enormous folk history. We talk with him about starting as a volunteer, booking artists, and helping shape one of the country’s great listening rooms. To learn more about Passim, go here.WBCN wasn’t just Boston’s rock station. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, it became a platform for anti-war politics, civil rights, LGBTQ and women’s rights, and listener-driven radio. We talk with Bill Lichtenstein about his documentary The Airwaves Belonged to the People: WBCN and The American Revolution, now returning to theaters around New England. To learn more about upcoming screenings, go here.The Harvard Lampoon began in 1876 as a student humor magazine and, 150 years later, remains one of American comedy’s most influential institutions. We talk with Geoff Edgers about his recent oral history of the Lampoon, its mythology, its famous alumni, and its long reach into National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, late night and Hollywood comedy. To read Edgers’ piece, go here. -
May 13, 2026 - Sam Smallidge, and NEC's Andrea Kalyn and Juliano Aniceto on "Concert for the City"
Sam Smallidge has one of the more unusual jobs in Boston: he oversees Converse’s archive in Charlestown. We talk with him about building the company’s collection from a spreadsheet and a folder into more than 10,000 items — and how shoes, ads, prototypes, catalogs and company history help tell the story of one of the most recognizable brands in the world. New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School marks its 75th anniversary with Concert for the City, a free, family-friendly concert this Saturday at 4:00 at the Hatch Shell. The program features NEC Prep’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Juliano Aniceto, Director of NEC Prep Orchestras, and also joins celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States. Registration is encouraged through NEC’s website, where attendees can also find arrival and parking details. To learn more or register, go here. -
May 12, 2026 - Tracy K.Smith, "The Battle for Boston," and Dorie McCullough Lawson
Tracy K. Smith, former U.S. Poet Laureate discusses her book “Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times” — an invitation to listen, reflect, and let poetry guide us through uncertainty. Don Gillis and Ray Flynn join The Culture Show to discuss Gillis’ new book “The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers.” On June 5th at 6:00 Don Gillis will be at a book event at the Roslindale Public Library. To learn more go here.Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough spent decades helping Americans see their past in human terms. A new collection, “History Matters”, gathers his essays and speeches on why history endures — edited by his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson and longtime collaborator Mike Hill. She joins us ahead of her American Ancestors Headquarters event today at 5 p.m. To learn more go here. -
May 11, 2026 -
James Sullivan, a journalist, author and longtime contributor to the Boston Globe, joins The Culture Show to talk about his book Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs.From there Aisha Muharrar joins The Culture Show to talk about her debut novel “Loved One.” She’s an Emmy Award–winning writer and producer who has worked on “Hacks,” “Parks” and “Recreation,” and “The Good Place.”Finally, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Russo joins The Culture Show, to talk about his new book "Life and Art.” It’s a COVID-era meditation on his childhood, adulthood and what it means to be an artist.
