A 1942 Edward Hopper painting, an Australian dragonfly, an illegal metal-detecting crime, and the Wi-Fi router in your living room all share one word: Nighthawk. This episode traces the biography of a concept, starting with the crepuscular, camouflaged, silent-flying bird itself and following how humans hijacked its identity to express their own relationship with the dark.

We move through the mood of Hopper's diner and the jazz and blues musicians who claimed the name, from the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra of the 1920s and bluesman Robert Nighthawk to Coleman Hawkins and a 2002 rap duo, then into films from 1921 silents to Ron Peck's 1978 gay-themed drama. The conversation covers the 1917 Supermarine Nighthawk fighter, the radar-scattering Lockheed F-117, Honda motorcycles and Netgear routers, Marvel and DC vigilantes, sports t ...