Arts & Culture

Veteran comedians know all about the funny side of anger.

The late George Carlin wrote an entire bit called "Free-Floating Hostility." Jerry Seinfeld once declared in the Los Angeles Times that "All comedy starts with anger."

This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem.

It was February 1967, and 18-year-old Marine private first class Bill Ehrhart was days away from leaving for Vietnam. He had just enjoyed his last weekend off-base, and his friends had offered to drive him back to Camp Pendleton, Calif., before sunrise.

Here's what's up with docs: They're doing great at the box office.

At last month's Sundance Film Festival, Knock Down the House broke the festival's documentary sales record: reportedly $10 million to Netflix. The film follows the 2018 campaigns of four female congressional candidates, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Saxophonist and composer Greg Ward's latest album, Stomping Off From Greenwood, is a tribute to Chicago, the city where he came of age as a musician. It's also one of the year's first great jazz albums.

The first time I played Ward's new album, I was riveted by its sense of momentum and possibility, and the way its easy movement among styles made music feel like an open city.

Updated at 6:03 p.m. ET

Once a celebrated investigative reporter, the publisher of a small Alabama newspaper achieved notoriety this week by saying the Ku Klux Klan should "clean out D.C."

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says it's not normal for the bureau to open investigations into the president.

"We don't have a lot of experience with investigating presidents of the United States," McCabe says. "There is not a standard S.O.P. on the shelf that you pull down to say, 'Here's how it's done.'"

A film about Queen Anne of Great Britain, The Favourite, by the unorthodox Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, will probably cadge a few Oscars. Even if it doesn't, this comic and oddly moving film has already achieved something extraordinary. It has ignited widespread interest in the life of a corpulent, gouty, myopic, staunchly Anglican queen who allegedly had passionate relationships with two ladies of her bedchamber and who was pregnant 17 times but died childless before her 50th birthday about 300 years ago.

We're being treated to a special kind performance from a tight-knit group of friends.