The Culture

MUSEUMS

Riding Into the Future

Automobile design usually progresses in first gear through small yearly changes in power trains, taillights and silhouettes. But sometimes designers step on the gas. “Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas” is a new show at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art about the great leaps forward called concept cars–experimental models produced singly or in small batches to explore possibilities for cars of the future. Whether turned out by big automakers or dedicated solo craftsmen, they were rolling labs for new ideas about styling and engineering. The High tells their story through drawings, models and 17 actual vehicles the Jetsons would die for.

The exhibition, at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, runs from May 21 to Sept. 7

MUSIC

Deep Roots

Hip-hop outfit (and Jimmy Fallon house band) the Roots release their new project, … And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, on May 19. A satirical concept album about violence, class and “the Dionysian impulse in contemporary hip-hop,” it also samples Nina Simone.

TELEVISION

Rudolph Returns

The Saturday Night Live alumna indulges her love of old-school variety hours with The Maya Rudolph Show, a one-off comedy special airing May 19 and featuring appearances by Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen, Kristen Bell and musical guest Janelle Monáe.

BOOKS

Prizefighter

Best-selling author Edward St. Aubyn, who was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2006, takes on the literary community in Lost for Words. The novel spends a year with the self-serving judges and desperate writers taking part in the fictional Elysian Prize.

TECH’S LEAN REBELS HAVE BECOME LUCRE-FATTENED, EGO-STROKED OVERLORDS.

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THE WEEK

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