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The self-deprecating humorist is back with a new collection of autobiographical essays. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim offers tales about his eccentric family and experiences abroad.

NPR's Scott Simon takes a moment to note a new animal rights law just past in Austria that prohibits, among other things, cropping your dog's ears.

Laugh yourself into the weekend with featured comedian David Arnold.

This weekend's opening of Shrek 2 broke box office records for an animated film. The film smashed records and jolted Hollywood out of a box-office slump. The showing also increases the chances that Dreamworks, the privately held studio, could make a public stock offering later this year. NPR's Kim Masters reports.

Kinky Friedman used to perform offbeat country songs with his band, the Texas Jewboys. He later turned to writing mysteries. Now he wants to be governor of Texas. His slogan for the 2006 campaign: "How Hard Can It Be?" NPR's Ketzel Levine has a profile of the Texas funnyman.

The principal cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic is celebrating the return of his missing 320-year-old cello. The $3.5 million Stradivarius was stolen from his front porch three weeks ago. Footage from a surveillance camera shows a man on a bicycle riding off with it. A nurse who found the instrument in a garbage dumpster could collect a $50,000 reward. NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports.

An unidentified buyer paid $104.1 million Wednesday for a Pablo Picasso painting sold at Sotheby's in New York -- a record price for a work of art sold at auction. "Boy with a Pipe" was painted in 1905 and dates from Picasso's Rose Period. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and reporter David D'Arcy.

Noi is a new film from Iceland about a disaffected Albino high school student. The film blends comedy and tragedy in its approach to its subject. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a review.

Alan Cheuse reviews Little Black Book of Stories, by English writer A.S. Byatt. Three of the five stories included in the collection touch on the weird, the ghostly, and the miraculous.

As part of an occasional series titled, "Musicians in their Own Words," organist Paul Jacobs discusses his upcoming marathon performance. On Saturday, Jacobs will perform all nine hours of Olivier Messiaen's complete organ works. Features in the series are produced by David Schulman and NPR's Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr.

As a child, writer Sandra Cisneros turned to fairy tales to escape from her run down surroundings. Their highly stylized language inspired her own distinct literary voice, which blends Spanish-language rhythms and cadences into English to tell stories of a cross-cultural world. For Intersections, a series on artists' influences, Cisneros tells NPR's Felix Contreras how she finds inspiration in the collision of languages.

Thursday night marks the end of the NBC hit show Friends. After 10 seasons of widespread popularity, the comedy will now be seen only on syndicated reruns. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with James Poniewozik of Time magazine.

With President Biden set to appoint the first Black woman Supreme Court justice, Black women in the legal profession reflect on the limits and promises of representation.

NPR's Susan Stamberg visits writer Andrew Sean Greer in San Francisco to talk about his new novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli.

French arts performers plan to strike as the Cannes Film Festival gets under way Wednesday in France. Actors, dancers, electricians and cameramen say government reforms have cut some of their unemployment benefits. Festival organizers scrambling to make sure the event is not shut down. NPR's Renee Montagne reports.

Ann Patchett has written a memoir of her friendship with the late writer Lucy Grealy, who died from facial bone cancer in 2002. Grealy wrote about surviving the pain of her treatments -- surgeries and chemotherapy -- in Autobiography of a Face. Patchett writes about Grealy's courage and her love of life in Truth and Beauty: A Friendship. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Patchett.

Some audiophiles with compact discs older than 10 years are noticing pin holes, oxidation, or flaking in the aluminum layer of their CDs. "CD rot" is not a common problem, but it does challenge claims that CDs are indestructible. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports.

Shadowmancer, an allegorical novel for teens about the battle between good and evil, has become a British bestseller, been translated into 20 languages and optioned for the movies. In the United States, the book's publisher is declaring it 'hotter than Potter,' but some critics say first-time author G.P. Taylor's writing is no match for J.K. Rowling. Jeff Lunden reports.

William Pryor's latest book, Virginia Woolf and the Raverats, takes readers inside the friendship between writer Virginia Woolf and the artists Jacques and Gwen Raverat. Their years of correspondence, many published for the first time, focused on art and mortality. Hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer and Pryor.

NPR's Michele Norris talks with Don Hewitt, creator and longtime executive producer of the CBS News program 60 Minutes. Hewitt is leaving the show after 35 years. He reflects on the show and his half-century in television news.

Alan Cheuse reviews Symptomatic, by Danzy Senna, a novel about a young California woman of mixed race who falls into a psychic tug of war with a colleague in New York City. It is published by Riverhead Books.

Anti-smoking activists want to put an "R" rating on films that show actors smoking. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada is among those who want the Motion Picture Association of America to change its ratings system and recognize what he calls "gratuitous smoking." NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

The rock band Phish, noted for its devoted followers and free-ranging concerts, announces that it will break up after their summer tour. Band members posted a notice on the group's web site Tuesday notifying fans of the decision. The group is scheduled to go on tour supporting its new album, out in June. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and critic Peter Shapiro.

The stuffed animal version of mascot Bing Dwen Dwen has become so sought after that people are camping overnight to buy it in Beijing.

A spate of films that take critical, satirical looks at corporate and political power are set to hit theaters this spring, many aiming to reach the wider audiences at multiplexes. New films in the genre include Supersize Me, The Yes Men and The Corporation. The Disney Corporation is blocking its Miramax division from distributing director Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a film critical of the Bush administration. David D'Arcy reports.