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‘Home of egg rolls, jazz and blues,’ Chan’s celebrates 120 years in Rhode Island
Music lovers put this Woonsocket music venue and restaurant on their bucket lists.
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October 3, 2025 - Week in Review: Life of a Showgirl, Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl, and Jane Goodall
Today Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III drive our arts and culture week-in-review.First up, Taylor Swift dropped her new album at midnight. “Life of a Showgirl” blends spectacle with storytelling, marking –and marketing–another milestone in her reign over pop culture.From there, Bad Bunny is headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, a career touchdown that also amplifies Latin music on the world’s biggest stage. While fans cheer the, MAGA critics are calling it a cultural mismatch.Plus Jane Fonda is resurrecting the Committee for the First Amendment, a Hollywood group her father once joined during the McCarthy era. With new battles over censorship raging, she says the fight to defend free expression is as urgent as ever.Finally we remember Jane Goodall, the trailblazing primatologist, has died at 91. Her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees transformed our understanding of animal intelligence and deepened our sense of responsibility toward the natural world. -
October 2, 2025 - Walter Mosley, Viola's Room at The Shed, and Oliver Jeffers
Celebrated writer Walter Mosley joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest book in his Easy Rawlins series, “Gray Dawn: An Easy Rawlins Mystery.” Easy has led readers through Los Angeles — from the 1940s to the turbulent 1970s — with stories that combine the pace of classic crime fiction and the depth of literary character. In “Gray Dawn” a search for a missing woman drags Easy back into secrets from his past. Tonight you can catch Walter Mosley at Harvard Book Store at 7:00. To learn more go here.From there we enter the moonlit world of “Viola’s Room.” The immersive experience, which is at The Shed in New York City through November 16th. Created by Punchdrunk, a pioneer in immersive theatrical experiences, we talk to founder and artistic director, Felix Barrett. To learn more about “Viola’s Room” go here.Finally, Oliver Jeffers—author-illustrator and studio artist – joins The Culture Show. His picture books live on nightstands worldwide; his portraits and projects test what we remember and what we miss. Now with a solo exhibition at Praise Shadows Art Gallery he joins us to talk about how he thinks about story, image, and time. “Dipped Paintings: Oliver Jeffers” is on view through November 8th. To learn more go here. -
October 1, 2025 - Watch Party: Coming to America and Mahesh Daas
Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Edgar B. Herwick III host our inaugural Wednesday Watch Party with a comedy classic: Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America. The 1988 hit follows a prince who trades royal privilege for a crash course in Queens. At the time critics were divided, audiences were not. It was a box office smash at the time, now we ask you, nearly 40 years later, does it hold up. From there Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College, joins The Culture Show for his monthly appearance. Today he’s discussing the best way to power AI: geothermal power. Boston Architectural College pioneered this over a decade ago with eight wells under their Green Alley. Mahesh Daas is the author of four books including Towards A Robotic Architecture and I, Nobot, a graphic novella exploring relationships among artificial intelligence, robotics, and cities. -
September 30, 2025 - Art at the Clark and the Norman Rockwell Museum, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and Matisse at War
We continue our Countdown to 2026 series with Andrea Puccio, Director of the Library at The Clark Art Institute. She gave us an overview of their new exhibition “Back Bay to the Berkshires: Celebrating 250 Years of Art in Massachusetts.” Russell Lord, Chief of Curatorial Affairs at the Norman Rockwell Museum, also joined us with a preview of their upcoming exhibition “Visions of a Nation: 250 Years from Revolution to Rockwell.”From there we looked at how Netflix’s “K-Pop Demon Hunters” has become the streamer’s most-watched film ever, showing the global pull of Korean pop culture. Ray Seol, Associate Professor of Professional Music at Berklee College of Music, helps us unpack how the movie builds on K-Pop’s history and what it reveals about Korean culture today.Finally, Henri Matisse. He’s known for paintings of light and joy, but his wartime years tell another story. Historian Christopher C. Gorham joins us to discuss his new book Matisse at War, which explores how the artist endured Nazi occupation, family hardship, and illness — transforming adversity into some of his boldest work. Tonight you can catch Christopher C. Gorham at Harvard Book Store at 7:00. To learn more go here. -
September 29, 2025 - Author Stephen Greenblatt, Our Town at the Lyric Stage Boston, and Enchanted Analytics
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stephen Greenblatt joins The Culture Show, to talk about his latest book, “Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival.” It traces the meteoric rise and violent end of Christopher Marlowe—playwright, poet, spy, and heretic—whose genius endures today. Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.From there Courtney O’Connor, Producing Artistic Director for Lyric Stage Boston, gives us an overview of their production of “Our Town,” which is onstage through October 19th. To learn more go here.Finally dating coach Caitlyn Hana joins us to talk about her approach to helping people meet the right match. Her aim is to help smart, quirky people find love in Boston, the Bay Area, and New York. She runs Enchanted Analytics. To learn more go here.
