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Season 2
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Episode 213: Modern Revisionary There’s the past and then there’s history. More often then not, when we try to remember the past and write history, it’s activity of reconstruction, reexamination, and revising. In Modern Revisionary, we hear the stories of people who take a creative stab at history: a business that reconstructs family stories, a poet who molds the history of Los Angeles into an epic, a feminist scholar who retells the past with a female perspective, and an amusement park enthusiast who can only imagine what it was like to ride a Ferris Wheel. |
| Host: Clare Bennett | |
| Producers: Clare Bennett, Dan Hirsch, Liz Bradfield | |
| Featured: Evan Roberts, Austen Rosenfeld, Estelle Freidman | |
| Music: Ill Conditioned, Nimble Weed | |
| URLs: Audio Heirlooms |
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Episode 212: Rites of Passage Sometimes our rites of passage are marked by large ceremonies, like graduations or weddings. Often, however, the transformative moments of our lives come not on a stage, but from when we face the challenges given to us from the world, and from ourselves. In this episode you’ll hear stories about the strange importance of the unicycle in a young man’s lives, Texas debutantes, and a 22-year-old trying to make it as a reporter in the real world. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Micah Cratty, Matt Larson, Will Rogers | |
| Music: Volunteer Pioneer, Kissing Johnny, Noah Burbank | |
| URLs: Welch Widers unicycle performance, Texas Rose Documentary Blog | |
| Video Podcast: Daughterhood by Evan Briggs |
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Episode 211: Narrow Escapes Why are we drawn to stories of escape? How do we know when we’ve escaped or when we’ve been captured? On this week’s show, we hear stories by the winners of our first Stanford Storytelling contest, all of which explore the theme of narrow escapes. You’ll hear a memoir outlining the dangers of professional panty sniffing, a memoir about a maybe catastrophic encounter with abandoned tires, and a short story recalling a scary moment in Stanford’s past. |
| Hosts: Lee Konstantinou | |
| Producers: Lee Konstantinou, Charlie Mintz | |
| Featured: Amanda Glasser, Erika Harrell, Mandy MacCalla |
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Episode 210: Writing on the Wall There all sorts of ways to send a messages: composing emails, writing text messages, pasting up fliers, or literally writing on the wall. In this show, we explore the various ways people send and receive messages: digital and analog, private and public, even legal and illegal. You’ll hear about the surprising origins of online social networks, the world of graffiti art, and bathroom stall vandalism. |
| Host: Dan Hirsch | |
| Producers: Dan Hirsch, Will Rogers, Lyndsey Garlock, Lexi Tsien-Shiang, Mitchell Wilcox | |
| Featured: Fred Turner, Molly Butcher | |
| Music: Johnny Hwin, Lauchlan Casey, Ill-Conditioned |
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Episode 209: Prediction The human brain was built to predict the future. If you can't see what's coming, you can't survive. Tea leaves, entrails, and complicated algorithms are just a few of the ways humans have tried to divine the future for personal gain. Today on our show we have three stories about various attempts to look into the future. A Berkeley undergraduate tries to beat the racetrack, economists attempt to predict recessions, and a company that can listen to a song and predict whether it's going to be a hit. Guess which one is the most successful, and who forgot about a couple very important variables. |
| Host: Charlie Mintz | |
| Producers: Charlie Mintz, Daniel MacDougall, Kasiana McLenaghan | |
| Featured: Paul David, Howard Schwartz, Mike McCready | |
| Music: Students, Andy Seymour, Boomsnake | |
| URLs: Gambler's Book Shop |
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Episode 208: Valentine's Day Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate coming together, but today on our show we're exploring the reasons people drift apart. In four stories, we explore all the reasons we fail to click. We have a story about a Stanford student who tried, and failed, to sell her eggs to an elite donation agency, an investigation into the paradoxical allure of French women, a radio play about the perils of matchmaking, and an audio essay about love that offers an usual take on arranged marriages. |
| Host: Charlie Mintz | |
| Producers: Charlie Mintz, Hannah Krakauer, Rachel Hamburg | |
| Featured: Eva Glasrud | |
| Music: George Pritzker, Jeff Striker, Snuffaluffagus | |
| Video Podcast: Song of a Sperm Donor by Emmaunel Dayan |
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Episode 207: Questions of Travel What happens to us when we travel? How do we get beyond the brochure (and should we)? Stegner Fellows in Poetry, a professor of ecology, an observer of the Malaysian meat market, or pasar pagi, and a researcher who studies "sense of place" work toward answers and share stories of their own discoveries on the road. |
| Host: Elizabeth Bradfield | |
| Producers: Elizabeth Bradfield, Daniel Hirsch | |
| Featured: Joshua Rivkin, John Evans, Laura McKee, Peter Vitousek, Nicole Ardoin, Samantha Wai | |
| Music: Johnny Whin, Natalie Dawn & Eli Herwitz, The Reiterators, and Midawe | |
| URLs: Peter M. Vitousek, Nicole Ardoin |
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Episode 206: Serious Fun We all do the things we do for fun a little bit seriously. Basketball, or belly dancing, or playing in a band take practice and hard work to be really fun. But some people take fun more seriously than the rest of us. Some of them are just more competitive. Some of them want to expand the arenas of fine art. And some of them want to re-enchant the world. On this episode, you'll hear about all of them. You'll hear a story about a historical re-enactment society that has helped professors make new discoveries about medieval warfare. You'll hear about how video games are becoming the next professional sport. You'll hear the tragic tale of a fan club so obsessed with a character from a book that they got rid of the author. And finally, you'll listen to Ken Kesey, writer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, read the children's story that he took seriously enough to say, "This was my best piece of work ever." |
| Hosts: Rachel Hamburg | |
| Producers: Rachel Hamburg, Tony Ricciardi, Patrick Thill | |
| Featured: Joshua Landy, Michael Saler, Ken Kesey, Arthur Maddox | |
| Music: Kevin Macleod, The Yeltsin Collective, Arthur Maddox, William McGlaughlin, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center |
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Episode 205: The novel November is National Novel Writing Month, a prize-less, month-long contest in which thousands around the world attempt to write their novel in one month. Thirty days, fifty thousand words minimum and no prize at the end but their own satisfaction. On this week's show we investigate the allure of National Novel Writing Month and learn a little about the novel while we're at it. A class of Stanford students tries to finish their novels without flunking out, a San Francisco Write-a-Thon filled with wannabe novelists, and the elusive 150 thousand word woman. Plus interviews with a professor, a PhD, and a book critic on the history of the novel. |
| Hosts: Charlie Mintz | |
| Producers: Lee Konstantinou, Charlie Mintz | |
| Featured: Chris Baty | |
| Music: Students | |
| URLs: Chris Baty, Students |
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Episode 204: Nemesis Do you have a special someone in your life who does all the same things you do, but better? Are you nursing a grudge and need some vindication? Have you ever had a nemesis? On this week's show, we tell stories of epic college feuds, petty rivalries, sweet love affairs gone bitter, and the battling little voices in your head. It's stories of conflict within and without, animosity and axes to grind, enemies and nemeses. |
| Hosts: Charlie Mintz and Dan Hirsch | |
| Producers: Charlie Mintz and Dan Hirsch | |
| Featured: Jasmine Aarons, Laura Stokes, Martin Evans, Roland Greene | |
| Music: Lauchlan Casey | |
| Extra: In addition to the pieces in the show, we recorded a poem and interview with Stanford poet John Evans in which he gives his thoughts on the idea of nemesis. Listen to it here |
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Episode 203: Take It for Granite When you live in a place, it’s hard not to take it for granted. But the golden California landscape contains more stories than you might ever imagine, and this week we have two stories and one poem set in the high Sierra Nevada. First, two travelers spend five days retracing the historic trail of the Buffalo Soldiers from the Presidio of San Francisco to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Second, a portrait of backcountry life in Yosemite today, and the adventures of the summer mountain folk. Third, a poem by Stegner fellow Peter Kline about a wild California tree. And in this podcast, a supplemental interview between Kline and Storytelling Poetry Editor, Elizabeth Bradfield. |
| Host: Bonnie Swift | |
| Producers: Justine Lai, Killeen Hanson, Liz Bradfield, Bonnie Swift | |
| Featured: Shelton Johnson, Ward Eldridge, Peter Kline | |
| Music: Noah Burbank, Mt. Eerie, The Microphones |
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Episode 202: Impostor It's natural to want to be someone you're not. So then why demonize the impostor? On this week's show, three tales of people who tried to pass themselves off as someone they weren't. First, a story about a degenerating mobster turned private investigator, with some very unorthodox ways of getting the job done. Then, a story about a scientist who invented his data and got busted. Finally, a memoir about one woman’s longing to have curly hair. |
| Host: Charlie Mintz | |
| Producers: Charlie Mintz and Matt Larson | |
| Featured: Tommy Wallach and Maria Hummel | |
| Music: Pascalle, George Pritzker, Andy Seymour |
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Episode 201: Smallitics The 2008 presidential election was the biggest and most momentous in years, but it really boiled down to small-scale players: community organizers, mayors from Wasilla, and a select handful of swing state voters. On this show, we look at the small side of big politics, or "Smallitics." We have stories about Mississippi county fairs, the real deal on Sarah Palin, high school elections, campaign calls to grandparents, and what happens when one same-sex couple finds their fate tied to the opinions of an entire state. |
| Host: Dan Hirsch | |
| Producers: Clare Bennett, Charlie Mintz, Micah Cratty, Lee Konstantinou, and Dan Hirsch | |
| Featured: Bridget Whearty, Ronnie Musgrove | |
| Music: Nimble Weed |
Season 1
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Episode 118: Epiphony This week, we have three stories about the life-changing, transformative power of sound. First, in "Silence Speaks Volumes," Angela Castellanos looks at brain activity during moments of silence in music. Then, in "Healing Sounds," Trent Walker investigates the healing powers of traditional Cambodian chants. Finally, in "People Find the Drum Who Need to Find the Drum," a class of Stanford students led by John-Carlos Perea find a new community while learning the art of the powwow drum. |
| Host: Hannah Krakauer | |
| Producers: Angela Castellanos, Trent Walker, Bonnie Swift, Hannah Krakauer | |
| Featured: Vinod Menon, Daniel Levitin, Jonathan Berger, Chris Chafe, Gabe Turow, Pat Moffitt Cook, Sherwood Chen, John Carlos-Perea, Michaela Raikes, Ben Burdick, LukeTaylor, Jidenna Mobbison | |
| Music: Chloe Krakauer |
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Episode 117: Coming to You Live What is it about live performance that makes it so appealing, terrifying, and wonderful? What drives people to stand up in front of an audience, to perform without a safety net and put themselves on the line? In today’s data-driven world, where everything can be recorded, stored, and recalled at any time, what role does live performance play? This episode begins with the harrowing experience of our host subjecting himself to the most extreme form of live performance of all: stand-up comedy. We continue with a story from playwright Amy Freed and Stanford professor of drama Kay Kostopoulos. And finally, we follow a production of the Stanford Spoken Word Collective, and get a behind-the-scenes peek at what goes on behind the curtain. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Daniel MacDougall, Micah Cratty | |
| Featured: Amy Freed, Kay Kostopilous | |
| Music: Noah Burbank, Dave Chisholm, Greg Sell, Chris Babson, Zach Katagiri, and Kissing Johnny |
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Episode 116: Note to Self The theme of this week's show is self-preservation -- that is, the preserving of whatever it is that makes you you, be it letters, journal entries, or a digital measurement of your heart rate and blood sugar for every hour of the day. We bring you stories of cybernetic "lifeloggers," a crafty, image-tweaking Founding Father, and the most astoundingly comprehensive diary ever to find its way into Stanford's Special Collections. We also have poems from one of Stanford's poets in residence, Kirsten Andersen. |
| Host: Charlie Mintz | |
| Producer: Charlie Mintz | |
| Featured: Kirsten Anderson, Liz Bradfield Hsiao-Yun Chu, and Judith Richardson | |
| Music: Boomsnake, Howard Hello, George Pritzker | |
| URLs: Boomsnake, Howard Hello, George Pritzker |
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Episode 115: Telling Other People's Stories What's at stake when we try to tell another person's story? We explore this question in two parts. First, "Doing Justice for Shake Girl" profiles one class as it worked to tell a real woman's tragic life story in graphic novel form, discovering huge challenges collaborating as a group and getting the story right. Second, in "A Portrait of War" Emily Prince takes on the overwhelming and somber task of drawing a portrait of every American soldier who has died. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Dan Hirsch, Hannah Krakauer | |
| Featured: Emily Prince, Tom Kealey, Adam Johnson, Eric Pape, The Stanford Graphic Novel Project | |
| Music: Dengue Fever, Cambodian Cassette Tapes vol.1, Brother | |
| URLs: Emily Prince, Shakegirl |
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Episode 114: Science and the Supernatural Where does science end and the supernatural begin? This week’s show is about the relationship between science and the investigation of psychic phenomena. We start in Special Collections of the Stanford Libraries, with a brief history of para-psychology and spiritualism at Stanford, and continue with the story of three contemporary researchers who study psychic phenomena. Today’s one-hour journey reveals some of the social aspects that come into play in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. |
| Host: Bonnie Swift | |
| Producer: Bonnie Swift | |
| Featured: Margaret Kimball, Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne, Helen Longino and Dean Radin | |
| Music: Noah Burbank, Ambika, Jimi Hendrix, Thelonius Monk, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers |
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Episode 113: Mind Control We usually think of mind control as part of the realm of fantasy – with witches and alien species as its perpetrators. But actually, mind control is all around us, in almost every area of our lives, and the consequences of ignoring its power range from failed pick-up-lines to genocide. In this episode, you'll hear stories about different kinds of mind control. You hear stories of Stanford students who tried to out the calculated techniques of a famous pickup artist at a campus party, and poet Elizabeth Bradfield discuss how being a tour guide in Alaska involves mind control, and some of her and Emily Dickinson’s exquisite poetry. You'll also hear about mind control taken to its most extreme, from controlling the minds of whole cultures through fairy tales, to controlling only your own mind through lucid dreaming. |
| Host: Rachel Hamburg | |
| Producers: Elizabeth Bradfield, Noah Burbank, Ellora Karmarkar, Amber Davis, Lea Yelverton, Emily Dickinson | |
| Featured: Elizabeth Bradfield, Joshua Landy, Lanier Anderson, Fred Burbank, James Fearon, James Sheehan, William Dement |
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Episode 112: Times of Our Lives Sometimes time moves like molasses. Today’s show is about the different ways we experience the time of our lives. In our first story, Aaron Zarraga and Hanna Michelsen explore the evolution of nostalgia and how it has become a way for us to cope with our rapidly changing lives. Then, Rachel Dowling, Daniel MacDougall, and Tom Wiltzius interview families about how one particular kind of time—the time of grieving—has been changed radically by advances in medicine. Finally, we hear the story of how two people decided to make the time of their own personal lives synchronize with major historical events. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Aaron Zarraga, Hanna Michelsen, Rachel Dowling, Daniel MacDougall, Tom Wiltzius, Nadja Blagojevic, Kirstin Ganz, Sam Tanzer, Micah Cratty | |
| Featured: Amy Freedman, Chris Noxon, the Dowling family, the Vantrain family | |
| Music: Chris Ayer, Brad Wolfe and Dave Chisolm |
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Episode 111: Campaigning Campaigns are about getting people to vote for your candidate, and today’s show is about the missteps that can happen along the way. First, Elissa Morales and Wesley Lim tell the story of the musical jingles that help put people in—and keep others out— of office. Second, Monica Uddin, Jeremy Newman and Omair Saddat answer the question you’ve always wondered: why is there so much negativity in most campaigns? And last, Melissa Leavitt tells the story of what happens when you go door to door to campaign and the people that answer either don’t vote, or won’t vote, for your candidate. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Elissa Morales, Wesley Lim, Monica Uddin, Jeremy Newman, and Omair Saddat | |
| Featured: Gabe Winant, Kalani Leifer, Jonah Berger | |
| Music: Brad Wolfe, Taylor Murchison, Rego Sen, and Kissing Johnny |
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Episode 110: Remaking The World We Live In Remakes are all around us. From the turntable to the coffee table, scratching, sampling, and Ikea "hacking" are just a few of the ways we remake the world we live in. This week's show is made up of stories of remaking sound-- through instruments, living organisms, and other means. First, experimental instrument designer Bart Hopkin brings joy to our ears with some of his wackier creations. Then, Noah Burbank speaks with some innovative inhabitants of Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, who have turned old junk into something truly exquisite. And, if you stay tuned, you might even get to hear tomatoes sing... |
| Host: Daniel MacDougall | |
| Producers: Charlie Mintz, Noah Burbank, Daniel MacDougall | |
| Featured: Bart Hopkin, Sasha Leitman, Jen Carlisle, Chris Chafe | |
| Music: Johnny Hwin, Bart Hopkin |
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Episode 109: Saint Valentine’s Day Special For Valentine's Day, we bring you a special edition of the Stanford Storytelling Project. The unlikely story of Saint Valentine opens the show, but as it turns out, most good love stories seem just as improbable. We set up a booth in Stanford's White Plaza and recorded passersby talking about just who - or what - they love. You'll hear their strange stories, followed by a story about the risky and rewarding world of online dating. But that's not all – four splendid love poems are also dispersed throughout the episode. |
| Host: Rachel Hamburg | |
| Producers: Bonnie Swift, Elizabeth Bradfield, Tom Freeland, Christina Ho, Danielle Spoor, and Lily Kornbluth | |
| Featured: | |
| Music: Side by Side (Maxine Tang, Michelle Goldring, Deri Kusuma, Madalyn Radlauer, Alison Herson, José Arameta, and Michael Hsueh), Talisman, Matt Anderson |
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Episode 108: Getting Schooled Stories of the education system struggling, and sometimes failing, to adjust. First, in “From the schools to the street,” Molly Roberts looks at how some high schools are responding to the increasing presence of gangs, and how their policies are often backfiring. Second, in “A Closed GATE,” Britton Cailloutte and Richard Norte assess the progress of schools in fulfilling their educational mission while facing increasing numbers of minority students. And third, English lecturer Adam Johnson tells Lee Konstantinou a true story involving a bloody murder, police detectives, and a fiction writing class. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Producers: Bonnie Swift, Elizabeth Bradfield, Tom Freeland, Christina Ho, Danielle Spoor, and Lily Kornbluth | |
| Featured: Micah Cratty, Molly Roberts, Britton Caillouette, Richard Norte, Adam Johnson, Lee Konstantinou | |
| Music: Supergreen JellyBean, Zach Katagiri, Taylor Murchison, Kissing Johnny |
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Episode 107: Belief Meets Non-belief Stories about the faithful in conflict with society, their families, and themselves. First, two Stanford students, one gay and one a conservative Christian, map out the battlefield between gay marriage and Christianity. Second, Drew Jacoby-Senghor tells a story about how the divine divide in America entered into his relationships with his parents and his girlfriend And third, Will Rogers faces the same divine divide in himself and is able to bridge part of it by posting videos online and going to Quaker services. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Featured: Vinni Intersimone, Matt Buchanan, Drew Jacoby-Senghor | |
| Music: Amboy Kelso, Dave Chisolm, Hunt Alcott, Jennifer Lindsay, Kissing Johnny |
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Episode 106: Living in the Panopticon Inspired by a 200 year old design for a more efficient prison called the panopticon, this show explores just a few of the ways we experience surveillance in society today, and how we respond to it. A story by Andrew Altschul about phones and loss, an interview with the founder of a site that uses cell phones to fight street harassment, and a speech about the joys of Facebook. |
| Host: Charlie Mintz | |
| Featured: Andrew Altschul, Ben Olmsted | |
| Music: Zach Katagiri, Johnny Hwin, DJ Matic and Mikey Lee, Maxwell Citron, Johnny Hwin | |
| URL's: Andrew Altschul's Web Site |
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Episode 105: Speak Freely Sometimes the normal words just don’t work. A story on Esperanto, the international language and a short story by Suzanne Rivecca on a woman who finds the standardized language of mental health counseling does not suffice. Lee Konstantinou interviews Suzanne Rivecca. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Featured: Micah Cratty, Ben Savage, David Heyman, Nate Solon, Suzanne Rivecca | |
| Music: Kissing Johnny, DJ Danny Glover, Julian Wass |
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Episode 104: You Are What You Eat This special episode features three documentary stories about the ways in which, as the old saying goes, “you are what you eat.” The modern industry of food, the ritual of eating, and the politics of agricultural production. |
| Host: Bonnie Swift | |
| Featured: Bonnie Swift, Mozzi Etamadi, Katherine Wells, Sherrie Chung, Micah Cratty | |
| Music: David Chilsolm, John Serna, Taylormayd | |
| Video Podcast: Pie from Scratch by Matt Harnack |
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Episode 103: Approaching Africa How do different groups approach Africa? Stories about media coverage of Africa, a student who taught poetry at a Zambian refugee camp, and how Ghana influenced Martin Luther King Jr. |
| Host: Micah Cratty | |
| Featured: Chrissie Coxon, Stefanie Garcia, Bonnie Swift | |
| Music: Grant Newsome, Kissing Johnny |
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Episode 102: Animal Kingdom II More stories about the ways that animals shape our lives. A tour of Stanford's Animal Research Facility, and a short story about one father's strange relationship with the family dog. |
| Host: Bonnie Swift | |
| Featured: Steven Tagle, James Madsen, Eric Puchner, Lee Konstantinou. | |
| Music: Ember | |
| URL's: Eric Puchner |
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Episode 101: Animal Kingdom I Stories about the strange and unusual roles that animals play in our lives. A trip to Stanford's Lake Lagunita, a plan to "Re-wild" North America, Cats, Dogs and Couples, Elephants, and Fireflies. |
| Host: Bonnie Swift | |
| Featured: Rebecca Jacobs and Kalini Leifer, Kate Youngman and Tom James, Tracy Shepard, Hilton Obenzinger, Troy Jollimore. | |
| Music: Hunt Alcott, Ambika, Cem Durouz | |
| URL's: Hilton Obenzinger, Troy Jollimore. |
