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Chances are you've seen Australian actress Toni Collette in more roles that you realize. Collette has starred in Muriel's Wedding, The Sixth Sense and Little Miss Sunshine and currently plays several roles on Showtime's United States of Tara.

Best-selling author Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol, draws on the lore and mystique of the Freemasons. Once the object of fear and suspicion, the group is now a social organization with spiritual leanings.

Critic-at-large John Powers discusses two new works — one a documentary, another a novel, that blur the lines between public and private lives.

The beginning of fall usually marks an exciting time for art lovers, as organizations announce their new seasons of music, dance and theater. But this year, many of those patrons have canceled their subscriptions — forcing arts organizations to trim their offerings.

The New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year can trace its origins back to the 17th century. The word: "unfriend." Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer at Oxford University Press, says the Oxford English Dictionary provides a citation for "unfriend" from 1659.

Pearl Fryar's yard in Bishopville, S.C., has made him something of an art-world star. He's trimmed 400 plants and trees into fantastical shapes — diamonds, mushrooms, hearts and even a square. At 69, Fryar mulls his legacy and is looking to pass on his clippers.

R. Crumb, the bespectacled, gray-bearded artist who is regarded around the world as granddaddy of underground comics, has taken on what might be his biggest subject ever: the first book of the Bible.

With a bombardment of sexually-charged messages in pop culture, some parents find it difficult — and even awkward — having a discussion youngsters about sex, even with the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In this week's parenting roundtable, regular contributing moms Dani Tucker and Jolene Ivey — both of whom have teenaged children — discuss the challenges of such conversations and share their approach.

When it comes to writing comedy, every syllable counts. Host Scott Simon talks to Mike Sacks, author of And Here's the Kicker: Conversations With 21 Top Humor Writers On Their Craft, and writer and director Harold Ramis about the art of being funny.

In the three decades of The Diane Rehm Show, the radio host has interviewed Nobel laureates and novelists, Supreme Court justices and presidents, movie stars and Cabinet officials. But it wasn't something she really set out to do.