Culturetopia: Must-Listen Arts & Entertainment (Global Edition)

It is once again Wednesday, and that means it is once again time for Culturetopia, NPR's podcast highlighting some of our favorite stories in books, movies, music, and the rest of the culturetopian landscape we hope you're all enjoying.

How can you join us and devour a hand-picked selection of some of NPR's finest arts and culture stories? Certainly, you can subscribe to the podcast. But if you just can't bear having any more buttons to push, we'll narrow it down to just one: the "play" button right here.

This week's round-the-world roundup kicks off with a truly incredible Susan Stamberg piece about Broadway orchestrators. (It's the sort of piece that NPR staffers were forwarding to each other all last week with subject lines ordering, "You've got to hear this.")

On the books beat, we have a moving interview with Luis Alberto Urea. A product of Tijuana and San Diego who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, Urrea has a new novel out called Into The Beautiful North. The story considers what happens in those little Mexican villages where everyone's moved to the U.S. Urrea brings a devastatingly observant eye to his post-NAFTA epics, as he does to his interview with Tell Me More. (Happily, you can find the first chapter of Into The Beautiful North at that link as well.)

Bob Dylan! A Japanese movie! Linda's Pixar letter in her very own voice! And, believe it or not, even more, after the jump...

 

From India, Philip Reeves reports on his seven-hour pilgrimage to meet a goofily passionate Bob Dylan fan who's held legendary birthday celebrations in honor of the singer for decades. (Another one that really must be heard to be believed.)

You want movies, you say? We have a review of the Japanese film that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film — finally, it's been released in the U.S.

(And while we didn't cover it in the podcast, be sure to check out Bob Mondello's preview of summer movies, while you're at it.)

Closing with the biggest box-office smash of the weekend, we follow a sweet interview with Up director Pete Doctor with Linda's semi-dramatic reading of her open letter to Pixar. In the letter, she wishes aloud for a non-princess heroine. (The letter touched off a lively discussion in the comments as well, so check in there for lots of reader thoughts and recommendations.)

Interestingly, those Pixar guys venerate Hayao Miyazaki, whose films, as many commentators have pointed out, spill over with compelling young child-heroines. It's a mystery to me why Pixar hasn't followed his example in when it comes to devising female leads. In any case, I hope Pixar staffers are all forwarding Linda's letter to each other this week with subject lines like, "More girls with Band-Aids on their knees, stat!"