Belonging

Sometimes you’re in your own country, your own home, and you know in your bones you don’t belong. That feeling pushes you to change something. This week we bring you four stories of people who don’t quite belong in the world where they live, and who take matters in their own hands to construct their own belonging. A very young girl finds a sense of belonging while running away from an angry mob. A student creates a bridge between the Jewish and Irish sides of her family. Seven gender-defying divas share what it means to belong to yourself. And a young man discovers how to prove you belong, when the numbers are against you.

 

Host: Leslie Nguyen-Okwu

Producers: Will Rogers and Natacha Ruck

Featuring: Justine Beed, Carla Lewis, Eileen Williams, Josh Hoyt, Winona Azure, Raya Light, Macy Rodman, Peaches Christ, Alexis Blair Penney, Heklina, Sissy Spastik, Mathu Andersen, and Cher Noble.

Release Date: 3 June 2014

Music used during transitions: Welcome Wizard, Monk Turner, Johnny Ripper, Zachary Cale, Mighty Moon, & Ethan Schmid, Blue Ducks

image via flickr

 

 

Story 1: Owning It

Carla Lewis grew up in the baptist south, feeling very much like an outsider. As a child, Carla knew she didn’t believe in God, but she still believed in something bigger than herself and the world she grew up in. This is the story of the day she shared her beliefs with her classmates, and how violently they reacted. Carla reflects on this event in her life with wisdom and grace and she shows how to achieve a sense of belonging from within.

 

Producer: Justine Beed

Featuring: Carla Lewis

Music and sounds: Kids Laughing, Books Hitting Floor, Pages Flipping, Church Bells, Transition Piano, Backflip Woosh, Synth Music, Retimbrage, Noah’s Stark  by krackatoa (build-up Soundtrack), Water Splash 1, Water Splash 2, Organ, Kids YellingAmbient drone, Chimes, Breeze, Sounds of Me by Malt. Tabulated Sounds, (Rough) sketch for Autumn by Freiband (running soundtrack), Bought an old twelve string anno 2009 by BeatMeister (main soundtrack), Fire burning, Wild horses running, Kids yelling, Mob yelling, Throwing books

Image courtesy of Carla Lewis

 

Story 2: In on the Joke

In this story, we’ll travel from broom closets to carousels and witness a public arrest and the destruction of an expensive Lexus. Associate Producer Eileen Williams explores how these shenanigans come to pass–and how they helped her to belong.

 

Producer/Featuring: Eileen Williams

Links: Ligandal

Music: Podington Bear, Jaze Baqti, Sláinte, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Kevin MacLeod, Zoe Leela, Markus Strübbe

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: Beyond the Rainbow

What is the trajectory from misfit to show-stopper, fringe to the spotlight, boy to beautiful woman or creature? Is drag the sparkling manifestation of an less-pretty past, the alchemy of the alienated? Brittany Newell has sought to record the oral history of 7 dazzling American queens and gender-artists working today. This is a tale of the other, the queer, the blunt, and the brave. Their stories investigate how to belong against the grain and beyond the rainbow.

 

Narrator: Raya Light

Producer: Brittany Newell

Featuring: Macy Rodman, Peaches Christ, Alexis Blair Penney, Heklina, Sissy Spastik, Mathu Andersen, & Cher Noble.

Special thanks: to all the beautiful people and amazing artists who made this possible! The Braden Grant for the Study of Oral Narrative, the Stanford Storytelling Project, Ziva Schatz, and Eric Eich

Image via Ziva Schatz (of drag queen Alaska Thunderf*ck)

 

 

Story 4: Blood Quantum

How do you prove you belong when the numbers are against you? Producer for State of the Human Joshua Hoyt Investigates what makes him a true Native American, beyond blood culture, family and language. He discovers that belonging sometimes means to long, and to be.

Producer: Joshua Hoyt

Featuring: Winona Azure

Music: Bensound (Better Days, Funky Suspense), Podington Bear,Vavrek, The Architect, and Jahzza


Beyond Human

Humans aren’t the fastest or strongest animal, but we do make the best tools. From plows to pacemakers, we’ve always used technology to transcend our human limits. This week, we ask how far that project can go. We’ll tell you how the first farmers in history transcended the limits of meat and muscle, only to create a very different kind of boundary. And we’ll present the story of two scientists excited to leave their human skin behind. Also, the story of a man who cannot walk, but who can fly; why PCs can be our friends; and finally, robot phenomenology.

 

Host: Mischa Shoni

Producers: Charlie Mintz and Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Ian Morris, Byron Reeves, BJ Fogg, Edward Maibach, Shyam Sundar, Laurie Mason, Henry Evans, Jackson Roach

Release Date: 20 May 2014

Music used during transitions: Fabrizio Paterlini (Veloma); Gillicuddy (Porthlaze Glove); Podington Bear (Delphi); Latché Swing (Hungaria)

image via flickr

 

 

Intro story: Feeding Back Into Us

After the last ice age, we humans moved from hunting and gathering to farming. With the plow, farming became a whole lot easier — but there was a dark side too.

 

 

Producer: Charlie Mintz, Bojan Srbinovski

Featuring: Ian Morris 

Music:  Broke For Free (Night Owl, The Gold Lining, Only Knows); Wilted Woman (Turing); Podington Bear (Dole It Out); Black Hoods (Talking Cure)

image via web

 

 

Story 1: Robots Are My Freedom

As an adult, Henry Evans suffered a medical trauma that left him paralyzed and unable to speak. Then the second half of his life began. 

 

Producers: Eileen Williams, Miles S.

Featuring: Henry Evans

Links: Robots For Humanity

Music: Broke For Free (My Always MoodOne And, Budding), Audionautix (Atlantis)

Image via web

 

 

Story 2: With 18 Arms and Compound Eyes

A scientist visits a relative in the hospital and finds the best available cures lacking. He and a partner go to work at the next frontier of medicine. They wind up bumping into the question of what makes us human.

 

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Xander Honkala, Andre Watson

Links: Ligandal

Music: Podington BearChristian BjoerklundRolemusic

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 3: Sympathy for the Dell

This story is a tribute to the late Stanford professor Clifford Nass. Friends and colleagues described him as one of the most human humans you could ever meet. He discovered ways that computers can be human too, and one consequence of that research is coming to a hospital near you.

 

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Josh Hoyt

Featuring: Clifford Nass, Byron Reeves, BJ Fogg, Laurie Mason, Edward Maibach, Shyam Sundar, Chris Corio

Link: Engineered Care

Music: Podington Bear (Lake Victoria, Formless)Broke For Free (Note Drop, Like Swimming, Luminous, Blown Out, One And); memotone (This Is The Room, Fractal, Sleeping With the Insects); 2ndMOUSE (Arc Reactor); Audionautix (Namaste);

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 4: The Simulation Deck

A radio play about the strawberry-sized gap between humans and machines.

 

Producer: Jackson Roach

Featuring: Andrew Brassel, Matthew Libby

Links: Robot voice created by Cepstral Voices


An Evening with Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Friday, April 25, 2014
7:30pm
Cemex Auditorium, Zambrano Hall, Stanford University
Facebook Event

“One of the major lyric voices of our time”—The New York Times

Winner of the National Book Award, Sherman Alexie has been by described by The New York Times as “one of the major lyric voices of our time.” Starting with his acclaimed debut novel, Reservation Blues, nearly twenty years ago, Alexie has created a small personal canon of irreverent, unblinking, and deeply humane stories, poems, and films about the “in-between” experience of Native Americans today.

Alexie’s novels, poetry, and story collections, including The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, Flight, War Dances, Face, Ten Little Indians, and Dangerous Astronomy, have won many awards, including Publisher’s Weekly Book of the Year Award, Booklist’s Editor’s Choice Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. His most recent collection of stories, Blasphemy, was named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times, and NPR. Alexie has also written and produced films, including Smoke Signals, based on his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film festival.

On this occasion, Alexie will discuss his faith in stories and the power they bring into our lives. Join us for special evening with one of America’s most gifted storytellers.

This program is co-sponsored by The Stanford Storytelling Project and Stanford Continuing Studies.


Joking

When we joke with our friends, our coworkers and our family, it’s not just about hearing them laugh. More often than not we’re looking for something beyond laughter. We’re after acceptance, bonding, release, shaming… and sometimes even more. This week on State of the Human we’re investigating how people use joking to create new realities for themselves and the people around them.

 

We have six stories, exploring the way jokes, pranks, and even puns can change our lives. We’ll hear stories from stand up comedian Tig Notaro and humor theorist Marvin Diogenes, and we’ll travel from Stanford’s cafeterias to the presidential suite on Air Force One. We’ll hear stories about how jokes can help us and synchronize our minds, stare cancer in the face and make us question our humanity along with everything we take for granted. And also, we’ll laugh a lot.

Producers: Natacha Ruck and Nina Foushee

Featuring: Rosie La Puma, Jackson Roach, Nina Foushee, Miles S., Justine Beed, Charlie Mintz, Ken Grobe, Lora Kelley, Marvin Diogenes, David Demarest, Sam Roach, Jay Roach, the La Puma family, Claire Slattery, Nathaniel Nelson, Reggie Watts, and Tig Notaro.

Release Date: 8 April 2014

 

Music used during transitions: BLEO, Candlegravity, LASERS, Will Bangs

image via flickr

 

 

Intro story: The Joking Revolution

Marvin Diogenes explores how some comedians use jokes to change the world. 

 

Featuring: Marvin Diogenes

Music: Podington bear (Pretty Build, Fantasy and Movin On Up)

Image via Neebo

 

 

Story 1: Joking Material 

Justine Beed interviews comedian Tig Notaro about how turning hardships into joking material changed her life.

 

music: Origamibiro

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 2: The Android Among Us

A bizarre running joke makes Sam Roach worry that he might not be a human. Jackson Roach, his older brother, investigates.

 

Producer: Jackson Roach

Featuring: Sam Roach and Jay Roach

Music: Deef, Slowmotions, Chris Zabriskie

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: A Strange Kind of Love

Nina Foushee knows why she fell in love with comedian Reggie Watts: He saved her from her world. But falling for an absurdist is like finger painting on a jellyfish: confusing, messy, and a little painful.

 

Producer: Nina Foushee

Featuring: Reggie Watts

Music: Slowmotions, Chris Zabriskie, Nicolas Chientaroli Trio, Michal Hambourg

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 4: All Puns Intended

Join Rosie La Puma as she scours historical humor to try and find a “good” pun. Along the way, she discovers that these joking underdogs may have a hidden ability.

 

Producer: Rosie La Puma

Featuring: Julia, Cece, Debbie, Chris, Phil and Cyndy La Puma

and Sheila, Karen, Addison, Tynan, Gerardo, Bianca, Jackson and Connor

Music: Kevin McLeod (Batty McFaddin, Monkeys Spinning Monkeys, Pamgaea)

Simon Mathewson (Convergence Point)

Image via Rosie La Puma

 

 

Story 5: For all the Wrong Reasons 

Miles S., a producer for State of the Human sits with the former White House Communications Director for the 40th President of the United States. Together they discuss how presidents use jokes (and speech writers) to make you like them.

 

Producer: Miles S.

Featuring: David Demarest, Vice President of Public Affairs for Stanford University and Professor of Political Communications in the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Former White House Communications Director for the 40th President of the United States, George H.W. Bush.

 

Music: Modern Antiques, Thiaz Itch (Ghost n’ Goblins, Hailfire Peaks, Super Mario 2), Kevin MacLeod

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

Story 6: The Best Medicine 

We all know that sometimes practical jokes hurt. In our next story, we learn how they can also heal. Or can they?

 

Producer: Charlie Mintz and Ken Grobe

Featuring: Stanford Alumni Claire Slattery and Nathaniel Nelson

Music: Silence is Sexy, Person, Lulo

 


Tell Us How You Got There

Tell Us How You Got There

In 2010, This American Life hit their 400-episode milestone. To commemorate, TAL staff decided to take on a challenge: produce stories pitched by their parents. Ira Glass shared an awkward story about losing his suit on a train, Nancy Updike came up with a jingle about the Erie Canal, but the far-and-away winner of this challenge was Lisa Pollak, who accepted a pitch from her mother to create a piece about “funny funerals.”

In addition to being completely hilarious, Funny Funerals offers aspiring podcast producers, like me, a rare insight into how to tackle a difficult story. Lisa Pollak reveals that even if you lack the ingredients of a good story (protagonist, dramatic arc, etc.), all is not lost!

I used to think Lisa’s piece was about funny funerals. It wasn’t until I listened to it about half a dozen times that I realized it was not a piece about funny funerals, but a piece about Lisa Pollak’s search for funny funeral stories.

Even though Lisa’s piece is filled with funny funeral stories, you’ll notice that the central protagonist isn’t a funeral-goer, a funeral director, or even a corpse; the protagonist is none other than Lisa herself. She is the protagonist and this is her quest: to find the ultimate funny funeral story.

Take a look at this rough story arc as you listen to Lisa’s piece:

Inciting Incident: What prompts Lisa to undertake the funny funerals story challenge? A conversation with her mom, where her mom recalls a funeral so funny she “bust a gut” laughing. Lisa wants to find a funeral story of the same caliber.

Rising Action: Lisa pores over old newspapers and books, calls experts and asks people around her for leads. Along the way, Lisa shares her findings with the audience, and although many of them are funny and interesting, she doesn’t quite yet uncover at the “bust a gut” level story she’s looking for.

Climax: Lisa is “just about to give up looking,” when she receives an unlikely tip from a TAL intern, Brian Reed. Brian suggests Lisa make one more phone call to two friends of his who supposedly have the exact story Lisa is trying to find.

(If you listen closely, you’ll notice that Lisa plants doubt and suspense along the way; for instance, a funeral director tells her she will never find a funny story. Suspense raises the stakes!)

Falling Action / Resolution: Lisa interviews Brian’s friends, who share a really hilarious story (rife with unintended innuendo) about a Ukrainian funeral. Lisa calls her mother to share what she’s found.

Reflection: Was it a “bust a gut” type story? Lisa’s mom laughs, but it is unclear if this story was as funny as what Lisa’s mom witnessed at the funny funeral she attended. Oh well. Lisa ties up the loose ends by cleverly suggesting, “she didn’t bust a gut, but maybe for my mom that only happens at funerals.”

So, maybe you’ve got a lot of content, but aren’t quite sure how to present it? Consider crafting your story arc with details from your search. Make yourself the protagonist. Because honestly, who doesn’t love a story about a smart protagonist trying to tackle a tough topic? Your journey might be just as interesting as what you find.

Podcast: Funny Funerals,” This American Life, 2010 (11 minutes)

Article written by: Victoria Muirhead on 3/5/2014

 


An Evening with Tig Notaro

Tig Notaro

Tig Notaro Album

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
7:00pm
Cubberley Auditorium, Stanford University
Limited public seating: Doors will open for SUID holders at 6:30PM, doors for Public at 6:45

“… an amazing example of what comedy can be. A way to visit your worst fears and laugh at them.” –Louis C.K.

Join us for an evening of superb comedy with the deeply funny Tig Notaro, a favorite and regular on Conan and on public radio’s This American Life. Her Grammy-nominated sophomore album, LIVE, sold over 100,000 copies in just 6 weeks, which is unheard of for comedy albums today. She has appeared in a number of television shows, most notably as “Officer Tig” in The Sarah Silverman Program and in the recent hit movie, In A World. These days, Tig co-hosts the podcast Professor Blastoff, and performs regularly at the Hollywood Improv, the UCB Theater, and Largo at The Coronet Theater in her monthly show, Tig Notaro and Friends. . . and of course, headlining festivals, clubs, colleges, theaters, and living rooms across the universe.

Funded in part by the generous support of the Stanford Arts Institute.

This program is co-sponsored by The Stanford Storytelling Project and Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture (ITALIC)


The Virtuoso of Multitasking

Head Full of Symphonies

What do you get when you combine a ragtime piano performer, classical symphonies, and a neuroscientist? A feat that pushes the boundaries of the human mind. Radiolab’s “A Head Full of Symphonies” left me breathless with its lush sounds and tight reporting. I have forever been enthralled by feats of fortitude and wit and this story does not disappoint.

With its signature rich sound effects and suspenseful narrative, Radiolab is at its finest. In this blogpost, I want to point out a technique in which Radiolab anticipates the audience’s questions. When the facts are laid out before us, the results are so unbelievable, they cause spontaneous expletives from Jad. Those expletives give the audience a feeling of “Yeah! I feel that way too!”

We are introduced first to Bob Milne who quickly turns from an unassuming man from Michigan to one of best ragtime players in the world.

*SPOILER ALERT*

He is deemed a national treasure by the Library of Congress not for what his fingers can do, but for what his mind contains. He has an intimate and emotional relationship to music, and slowly, listeners are able to glimpse how his brain processes music.

At one point in the piece when the researcher attempts to explain Bob’s unique talents, Jad asks, “Did he just say he can hear TWO symphonies in his head at one time?” an exclamation that echoes the audience’s potential incredulity to which Jessica Benko, the reporter, affirms to drive the point home. Jad also acts as an ambassador on the audience’s behalf to clarify any possible points of confusion. For example, instead of just accepting Bob’s talents, Jad asks, “Can he hear the entire symphony or just the melodies?” and “all in his head?” infusing the exchange with just the right amount of skepticism and gut reactions (“Huh!” and “I can’t believe this!”) that ultimately make the story not only compelling but relatable.

These short bursts of questions and requests for clarification force the neuroscientist and the reporter to slow down and repeat the most important details of the experiment. By anticipating what the audience would ask, listeners are increasingly invested while simultaneously becoming more familiar with the experiment’s finer points. The spurts of dialogue that interweave the reporter’s explanation also add a human touch to an otherwise dry and analytical scene.

The next time you’re producing a story and need to break down a technical or complex concept, try anticipating your audience’s questions, and interweaving dialogue that will slow the action down. These strategies will help clarify the technical details for your listeners, and will increase their investment in your story’s outcome.

Podcast: A Head Full of Symphonies

Produced by: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, Jessica Benko, and Mark Phillips at WYNC’s Radiolab 2013

Duration: 18 minutes

Article written by: Tina Tran on 2/24/2014


Deep Shapes for New Times: An Evening with Martin shaw and Tony Hoagland

Martin Shaw
Tony Hoagland
Martin Shaw Book
Tony Hoagland Book

Thursday, February 13, 2014
7:30pm
Cubberley Auditorium, Stanford University
Free, open to the public

“Myth,” says acclaimed storyteller Martin Shaw, “is not about a long time ago.” Created communally, over time, in full contact with the natural world, myth is instead a particular way of understanding ourselves and our world that offers new routes through the binds of the modern world.  “Poetry,” says acclaimed poet Tony Hoagland, “offers a clarifying force through its similar use of polymorphic and enduring images.”  Together, myth and poetry understand us in an uncommon way.  

In this very special evening, Shaw and Hoagland will weave myth and poetry to reveal how the deep shapes of their stories give us surprising ways for meeting the challenges of contemporary culture.  Alongside select stories and poems, they will talk about the mysterious wisdom retained in these forms and how they can help us overcome the constraints that our culture imposes on our imaginations.  Shaw and Hoagland will also read and discuss some of the translations of old Celtic poetry they have been collaborating on over the last two years.


Martin Shaw, PhD, is author of A Branch from the Lightning Tree and the forthcoming Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet Black Branch of Language.  He is a master storyteller and currently Visiting Lecturer in the Oral Communication Program at Stanford. 

Tony Hoagland is the author of four collections of poems, and winner of many prizes, including the Mark Twain Award for Humor in American Poetry. He teaches at the University of Houston and elsewhere.


Crisis

Crises can take many shapes, from earthquakes, to chest pain… to a strange absence of strawberry blonde creatures in the forests of the Dominican Republic. In this show, four very different crises appear at four very different scales, affecting a person, a species, a city, and a human body. In each story, there is no emergency procedure, no obvious way out, and one person must make a choice: what are they going to save, and what are they going to sacrifice?

Host: Rosie la Puma

Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Will Rogers

Featuring: Meg Smaker, César Abril, Nicolás Corona, Simon Winchester, Julian Lozos

Release Date: 20 November 2013

Image via Wikimedia

Music used during transitions: Chuzausen, Gustav Landin

 

Intro story: Pixelated Apocalypse

Jackson Roach shows us an old arcade game called Missile Command, where in order to last as long as possible in a nuclear onslaught, sacrifices must be made.

Featuring: Jackson Roach

Music: deef, Christian Bjoerklund

Inspiration: This movie from Extra Credits on youtube

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 1: Put Some Gloves On, Let’s See What You’ve Got

Meg Smaker found herself in a crisis when she returned to the United States after six years in the Middle East. And when things got really bad, she decided to put on a pair of gloves and practice her overhand right.

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Meg Smaker

Music: Bosch Purvis, Podingon Bear, Broke for Free

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 2: Strawberry Blonde Forever

Some 76 million years ago, an asteroid wiped out three-quarters of the Earth’s plants and animals. The solenodon, a quirky, venomous mammal, lived through the impact.  But now, human activity on its small island is placing it in danger of extinction. To help it survive, an unlikely hero will have to put down his gun and pick up his guitar.

Producer: Laura Cussen

Featuring: César Abril, Nicolás Corona

Music: Chuzausen, Sunsearcher, Marco Raaphorst, Urbano A. Zafra, Lo Ka Ping, Nicolás Corona

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: Fighting Fire with Fire

San Francisco almost burned to the ground in 1906 after the big earthquake. Out of the chaos emerged General Frederick Funston, who decided to literally fight fire with fire. But did his risky plan save the city? This piece was originally produced by Generation Anthropocene producers Leslie Chang, Miles Traer, and Mike Osborne as part of the 24 hour Radio Race from KCRW’s independent producer project.

Producer: Leslie Chang

Featuring: Simon Winchester, Julian Lozos

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 4: The Cold Tub

Your body is pre-programmed to react to all sorts of extreme environments. Sometimes this means making sacrifices to protect what’s most important. Corey, a teaching assistant for a human physiology course, takes us through his experiences, showing how a crisis of the body has taught him to deal with a crisis of the mind.

Producer: Kate Nelson, Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Corey

Music: Alright Lover, Deef, Gillicuddy, Augustus Bro & Gallery Six

Image courtesy of Kate Nelson

 

 

Bonus Story: Catch 311

On March 11th, 2011 Justine Beed was sitting in an English classroom outside of Tokyo, when the 9.0 Earthquake hit near Fukushima. This sound poem tries to capture part of that experience, the ensuing media storm, and the resilience of the Japanese people in the wake of being shaken to their core.

Music: Dexter Britain

Effects: Cello Loop, Time Transition, Earthquake Tremor, Siren, TV On Switch, Newsreel 1, Japanese Reaction to Earthquake, Breaking sound, Time Transition, Newsreel 2, TV Off and Blip Out, Hammer 1, Slow Beat

Image via flickr