Arts & Life

Mourning begins in a kind of thick non-seeing,
only later clarified, gradually lightening,
until we recognize what our lives must carry.

So begins "The Planet Closest To Us," Alice Derry's frank and moving poem about grieving the loss of someone who it was not always easy to love -- her mother. Derry reads her poem, and talks about the unexpected gift in her mother's passing.

More than 28 million people tuned in to watch the Grammy Awards — how much do the Grammy's actually have to do with music? Bush family photos are posted online after a hacker breaks into several private email accounts. What kind of a window is it into the former president’s life, and is it a window we should be caught looking through? Also, director Steven Soderbergh says he's retiring from filmmaking. What legacy does he leave behind and how does film fit into the storytelling medium today? Northwest Film Forum’s Lyall Bush, singer and songwriter Rachel Flotard and Three Imaginary Girls co-founder and editor Liz Riley join us to discuss the week's art and culture news.

According to the most recent census, there are more than 1.7 million single fathers in the US and more than 175,000 stay-at-home dads, and their numbers are on the rise. David Hyde spoke to single and stay-at-home dads to ask them what it's like: the highs, the lows, parenting styles, the trials and tribulations of combing a little girl's hair, and even the dating perks.

The Washington congressional delegation and outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar attended a ceremony to designate the Wing Luke Museum as a historic site Sunday.

How do organized religion and politics intersect in the United States? Ray Suarez, a senior correspondent for PBS's NewsHour, explores this topic in his new book, "The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America." Ray Suarez spoke at Town Hall on January 11, 2013. The talk was presented by Seattle University as part of its Faith and Values in the Public Square lecture series.

Alden Mason was a Pacific Northwest native and a lifelong resident, but his artistic influence reaches far beyond this corner of the country. Mason was born in Everett, Wash., in 1919, and he grew up enamored with the outdoor world around him. 

He planned to study entomology when he enrolled in the University of Washington.  By chance, he told an interviewer, he wandered over to the art building, where a nude model was posing for painting students.  Mason was only half-joking when he says that encounter changed his career path.

According to the Migration Policy Institute as of 2011, 13.3 percent of Washington’s population was born in another country. Today on The Conversation, Ross Reynolds hears stories about traveling to the US in search of a new home.

Eddie Huang stormed through childhood. He fought bigoted kids, defied stereotypes of the "model minority" and partied hard. But he clung to the delights of  his father’s restaurant and the flavors of his mother’s kitchen. Following a stint as a lawyer and a stand-up comic, he returned to his raucous roots, dipped in the flavors of Taiwan, America and the world. Eddie Huang joins us for a conversation about the first-generation immigrant experience he writes about in his new memoir, “Fresh Off the Boat.”