Arts & Culture

Against his better judgment, comedian Adam Conover takes a shower every morning. As part of his lifelong quest to uncover the truth behind everyday assumptions, Conover learned something surprising about his daily habit. "The idea that you must bathe every day," he told host Ophira Eisenberg, "is, to a certain extent, a manufacture on the part of the soap industry." Eager to sell more products, companies promote the notion that showering less than once a day makes people unclean and unhealthy—despite evidence to the contrary.

In a scene of startling beauty in Ai Weiwei's Human Flow, a group of refugees huddles together, with light bouncing off golden insulation blankets handed out by workers to warm them up as they arrive off a boat in Europe. Ai's work is often meant to provoke, but the shot isn't meant to plunder suffering for art's sake. It's a moment of noticing, in a gorgeous-looking documentary that never spares us the ugly, unspeakable miseries of forced migration.

Advisory: The above video/song contains language that some may find offensive.

Way back in February, Lo Moon visited the WFUV studios in New York City and performed an unreleased song called "Thorns." We've been sitting on this stunning five and a half minutes ever since, waiting for the day the band chose to release the single. Eight months later, today is that day.

Updated at 5:38 p.m. ET

President Trump spoke to one of the most faithful blocs of his base on Friday, telling attendees of this year's Values Voter Summit that in America "we don't worship government, we worship God."

Ian Brady killed five children in the 1960s, in an infamous case of depraved murder. Brady died five months ago, but arguments over disposing of his body only now seem to be over, with a U.K. court saying Brady will be cremated with "no music and no ceremony," rejecting a plan to play the "Witches' Sabbath" portion of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

It's not unusual for film composers to make music out of organic sounds found in or related to the movie. Take Nathan Johnson's stunning Looper score which was built on a foundation of sampled clicks and pops that captured the film's steampunk creakiness. Or, more elementally, the typewriter rhythms Mark Mothersbaugh used for his Royal Tenenbaums score, emulating the film's anachronistic storytelling themes.

When most of us are hungry for lunch, we pick up supplies at the grocery store or stop by the nearby cafe with the best lunch specials. Not Nick Spero. He goes outside and forages his own meal.

Philip Pullman introduced readers to his alternate Oxford, full of magic and danger, in the His Dark Materials trilogy, beginning with 1995's The Golden Compass. The story of young Lyra Belacqua, her soul-companion Pantalaimon, and their battle against the oppressive forces of the quasi-religious Magisterium became a massive world-wide hit. Now, he's returning to that world in The Book of Dust, which will explore how Lyra came to live in Oxford.

Talk about building a buzz! Slingshot artist Lo Moon wowed us with its first single "Loveless" in September 2016. They let it percolate for a good eight months before unleashing its follow-up single, "This is It" in May. And today, they give us "Thorns" — the third single off a debut album to be released in early 2018. Suffice it to say, this is a new band that's taking time to get it right.