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

 


Storytelling

We can’t live without stories, so today on State of the Human, we’re investigating what stories do to us and for us. When are we in control of our story? When does our story control us?  We explore these questions with four stories. First, a woman is asked to come up with a story that will create life. Then, Buffalo Bill creates another kind of story: the American cowboy. Next, a cancer patient finds a new story. After this, children go beyond telling stories, and become them. Finally, two children look into strangers’ houses and see stories.

Hosts/Producers: Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Nina Foushee, Richard White, Jess Peterson, Terri Wingham, Beth Wise, Jackson Roach, Tom Kealey

Release Date: 20 November 2013

 

Image via flickr

 

 

Intro Story: A Tale of Two Stories

State of the Human Producer Nina Foushee was asked to tell a story to change someone’s life. What she did offers a lesson on the uses of storytelling.

Producers: Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Nina Foushee

Music: Los AmparitoPodington BearThiaz ItchJared BaloghPlurabelleRy-Man

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 1: Consider Eating Dust: A Cowboy Tale

You know the story of the cowboy, right? — the All-American Badass, the guy who does what he wants. Or do you? Stanford student Jess Peterson investigated. And the cowboy he found is very different.

Producer: Jess Peterson

Featuring: Richard White

Music: Alex Cebe, Mason Bayne, Blue Suede Through

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 2: A Fresh Chapter

Sometimes we fall into stories we don’t like. When that happens, sometimes the only thing that can pull us out is another story.

 

Producers: Christy Hartman

 

Featuring: Terri Wingham

Music: Igor KluchnikovArgasikThe FishermanDan Warren

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: Fight, Flight, and Storytelling

State of the Human Producer Jackson Roach visited Stanford’s Bing Nursery School to discover what we can learn from the stories children tell.

 

Producers: Jackson Roach, Natacha Ruck, Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Beth Wise, Jackson Roach, children from Bing Nursery School

Music: Thiaz Itch, Kevin Macleod, BOPD, Revolution Void

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 4: Nobody

Tom Kealey tells us a story about what happens to two teenagers when they choose to see the stories all around them.

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Author: Tom Kealey

Image via flickr

 

 


Recovery

Recovery can be pretty straightforward – you take medicine, you sleep, you wait. But sometimes getting back on your feet requires a radical act. The stories in this show are about those acts: people who have to do something surprising in order to recover.

This week on State of the Human, people are changing radically in order to recover. They are learning about interior decoration for home recovery, how to get by in the emergency room, how to let go of a loved one, and how to trade broken legs for a set of hooves.

Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Xandra Clark

Host: Sophia Paliza

Featuring: Zubair Ahmed, Ryoko Hamaguchi, Lucas Loredo, Carlos Loredo, Nina Foushee, and Greg Wrenn

Release Date: 2 October 2013

Image via flickr

 

Intro Story: The Happiness Project

Zubair Ahmed was sad, and he wanted to be happy. He heard that to be happy, you should love where you sleep. So he took that idea to the extreme.

Featuring: Zubair Ahmed

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Image courtesy of Rachel Hamburg

 

 

Story 1: I Thought I Would Be an Angel of Compassion

Ryoko Hamaguchi is a premedical student at Stanford who spent much of last year volunteering in the emergency room. She thought she would find it easy to feel compassionate for her patients, but then she discovered something that plagues many medical professionals and first response teams: being a witness to suffering is hard. This is called “compassion fatigue”, and this story is about how Ryoko learned to deal with it.

Featuring: Ryoko Hamaguchi

Producer: Xandra Clark

Music: Steffen Basho-Junghans, Podington Bear, Nic Bommarito, Matt Baldwin, Gillicuddy, Augustus Bro and Gallery Six, The OO-Ray, Candlegravity, Alright lover

Image courtesy of Rachel Hamburg 

 

Story 2: River Road

Stanford student Lucas Loredo talks to his father for the first time about the long process of recovery after Lucas’s mother passed away.

Featuring: Lucas Loredo, Carlos Loredo

 

 

 

Story 3: The Surfaces of Things

How do you help someone recover when they can’t remember who you are, or what you’re doing to help them? Nina Foushee brings us this story, from the Mental Health Ward of the Menlo Park Veteran’s Hospital.

Written by: Nina Foushee

Producer: Sophia Paliza

Music: Waylon Thornton, Stella Wahlstrom, Dexter Britain, Johnny Ripper

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 4: Centaur

This poem, by Stanford Jones lecturer Greg Wrenn, features a character who takes the idea of “radical recovery” to the extreme. He’s tried all sorts of ways to become a new man, and he’s got one last idea left: stop being a man; stop being a human; become something else entirely.

Written by: Greg Wrenn

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

 

 

Story 5: Concession

Zubair Ahmed discusses the difficult transition when he and his family moved from the capital of Bangladesh to a small town in Texas. His recovery from that transition was kind of an accident. It involved a gift that he didn’t quite know he had, until he was getting requests from publishing houses.

Written by: Zubair Ahmed

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Music: Podington Bear and John Voigt

 


Seeing in the Dark

This week on State of the Human, we’re hearing stories about people whose vision changed, first throwing them in the dark, then revealing something new. When the lights go out, at first we can’t see anything, but eventually our eyes adjust. We slowly begin to see again, but the world looks a little bit different than it did before. This week, we’ve got four stories about people who learn to see in a new way after finding themselves in different kinds of darkness. A young kid has a superpower to see things no one else can see, but then he loses that ability. A mythologist embarks on a retreat in darkness on a mountain in Wales. An art student learns to see the human body in a new way. And an Oxford University student finds himself, unexpectedly, in darkness.

Producers: Xandra Clark and Sophia Paliza

Host: Xandra Clark

Featuring: Martin Lowenthal, Martin Shaw, Lauren YoungSmith, Ala Ebtekar, Tom Skelton, Dougie Walker

Release Date: 19 June 2013

Original music: John Hollywood

Additional music used during host narration: Johnny Ripper, Robin Grey, Gillicuddy

Additional production assistance: Rachel Hamburg, Darlene Franklin, Lemiece Zarka, Natacha Ruck, Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz, Victoria Hurst, Josh Hoyt, Nina Foushee, and Jonah Willihnganz.

Warning: This episode contains strong language, and may not be suitable for all audiences

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 1: The Third Eye

A skeptic has forgotten to see the world he saw as a child, but his mystic mother encourages him to remember.

Featuring: Guru Matt

Editors: Lemiece Zarka and Sophia Paliza

Warning: This story contains strong language, and may not be suitable for all audiences

Image courtesy of Xandra Clark

 

 

Story 2: Vivid Darkness

Two different Martins choose to temporarily forgo light and embrace the darkness. Each follows his own path into the dark and finds something there.

Featuring: Martin Lowenthal, Martin Shaw

Producer: Sophia Paliza

Original music: John Hollywood

Additional music: Johnny Ripper, Balmorhea, Lee Rosevere, Zachary Cale & Mighty Moon & Ethan Schmid

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 3: Seeing Inside Out

A few years ago, surrealist artist Lauren YoungSmith hit a plateau in her drawing skills. To overcome it, she had to learn to see human bodies differently – from the inside out.

Featuring: Lauren YoungSmith, Ala Ebtekar

Producers: Darlene Franklin and Rachel Hamburg

Original music: John Hollywood

Additional music: Broken Gadget

Image courtesy of Lauren YoungSmith

 

 

Story 4: Blind-Sighted

When an Oxford University student starts losing his sight, he walks onto the stage.

Featuring: Tom Skelton, Dougie Walker

Producer: Xandra Clark

Original music: John Hollywood

Additional music: Ergo Phizmiz & Margita Zalite, Nic Bommarito, Chuck Johnson

Image courtesy of Urška Mali

 


Obsession

This week on State of the Human, we’re looking at obsessions, the helpful and the debilitating. We’ve got four stories of people battling unwanted thoughts. A philosopher who is disgusted at the sight of food, battles his fears with the help of an obsession. A new father is obsessed with the thought that he’s not feeling enough. An essayist finds that unwanted thoughts manifest in surprising ways. And Stanford athletes remind us that obsession helps you win at sports.

Host/Producer: Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Professor Elias Aboujaoude, Maria Hummel, Jon Kleiman, Nick DiBella, Kristian Ipsen, and Helena Scutt

Release Date: 12 June 2013

Image via flickr

 

 

Intro Story: That Fear Led Her to Sell Two Houses

We all have obsessive thoughts, but if you have them for more than an hour a day, and you engage in compulsions to relieve them, you might have OCD. The Director of Stanford’s Obsessive Disorder Clinic helps us understand what the disorder is, and what it tells us about our minds.

Featuring: Professor Elias Aboujaoude; his truth-based account of treating OCD patients is called Compulsive Acts: A Psychiatrist’s Tales of Ritual and Obsession.

Producer: Charlie Mintz

Music: Anitek, Kevin MacLeod

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 1: Why Nick Ate a Blueberry

Lots of kids don’t like broccoli. Nick couldn’t stand the sight of it. For almost two decades he ate nothing but cheeseburgers, pizza, pancakes, pasta and cinnamon toast crunch. Then he started worrying his diet was going to kill him.

Featuring: Nick DiBella

Producer: Charlie Mintz

Music: Grapes, Rocavaco, Tigoolio , Anitek, Christos Koulaxizis, KeroDean , EGA

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 2: Planet X

Catastrophe is a classic obsession. But obsess over explosions, and you risk missing the silences.

Featuring: Maria Hummel

Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Charlie Mintz

Music: Skill Borrower, Mika

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: Less Than a Feeling

Ever worry that other people are feeling more than you? Jon did. Then life delivered a moment where it was practically mandatory to feel a lot. And he tried to.

Featuring: Jon Kleiman

Music: Mark Mothersbaugh

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 4: Think your way to the top

Pretty much anyone who has ever done anything amazing in the world was at least a little bit obsessed, so in this final story we focus on the kind of obsession required in order to succeed in sports.

Featuring: Helena Scutt and Kristian Ipsen

Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Zainab Taymuree

Image via wikimedia

 

 


Wildness

When is wildness on our side, and when does it have to be eliminated? We’re not be talking about wilderness but wildness. We examine wildness as both a place of terror and a place to find meaning. And, as you’ll hear later, we don’t have to go into nature to find it. We’ll hear a story about what happens when you venture into nature for the first time. We’ll hear from a graduate student who holds some nontraditional ideas about his clothing and is a modern day outlaw because of it. We’ll introduce you to someone who studied Muay Tai in a gritty gym in Oakland. He has to be wild, right? We meet a wilderness rites of passage guide who tells us what happens when we don’t have elders, and finally, we’ll meet Tea. She may or may not raise wolves.

Hosts/Producers: Christy Hartman and Joshua Hoyt

Featured: Andrew Forsthoefel, Dr. Richard White, Andrew Todhunter, Osvaldo Murro, Mason Alford, “Jordan,” Annalise Lockhart, Liam Purvis, Darlene Franklin, Martin Shaw, Melina Lopez, Teresa Yammamoto, Joshua Hoyt

Release Date: 5 June 2013

Music: Ian Brown, Monk Turner and Fascinoma, Gasnoprod

Image via flickr

 

 

Teaser Story: What is Wildness?

In this two-and-a-half minute voxpop, we hear how thirty turkey vultures inspire one moment of pure feeling, a wildness that isn’t meant to last.

Featuring: Andrew Forsthoefel

Producer: Marnie Crawford Samuelson

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Intro Story: No Place to Hide

Christopher Dorner was a policeman who turned his gun on society itself as he fled into the woods for refuge. This story asks, just how wild was he?

Featuring: Dr. Richard White

Producer: Joshua Hoyt, Sophia Paliza, Christy Hartman

Music: Anji

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 1: With Shovel and Saw

But sometimes we do find wildness IN wilderness. Where that wildness comes from can be surprising. Stanford Freshman Mason Alford bring a microphone along to find out what happens when we go into the woods for the first time.

Producer: Christy Hartman

Featuring: Andrew Todhunter, Osvaldo Murro, and Mason Alford

Image courtesy of Caleb Kruse

 

 

Story 2: Invisible Lines

Pretty much everyone lives in “the village” nowadays. But who gets to decide what’s normal? We’ll introduce you to a Stanford Graduate student who is VERY frustrated by what “the village” considers normal behavior and abnormal, or wild behavior. It has to do with something very simple.

Featuring: “Jordan,” Annalise Lockhart

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Music: Podington Bear, Max McClure, First Time Out, DJ Ra So, and Jahzzar

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: The Cage

Fighting is one of the most quintessential wild behaviors, somewhere up there with survival of the fittest and conquering that which is trying to eat or destroy you. And yet, in some ways it’s no different from Basketball or tennis. It’s just another sport.

Featuring: Liam Purvis, Darlene Franklin

Producers: Darlene Franklin, Charlie Mintz, Christy Hartman

Music: Anitek, Kevin Macleod, Zapac, Broken Gadget ,cdk

Image courtesy of Rachel Hamburg

 

 

Story 4: Wild vs. Savage

Dr. Martin Shaw, mythologist and guest lecturer at Stanford, has invested considerable effort in listening to the land. What stories does the land have, and how can we listen? Martin Shaw shares his stories about his work with at-risk youth and why we should pay attention to the lack of elders.

Featuring: Martin Shaw, Melina Lopez

Producers: Melina Lopez, Rachel Hamburg

Music: Sláinte

Image via wikimedia

 

Story 5: Wolftown

A show on wildness wouldn’t be complete with at least one story about wild animals. In this story, Joshua Hoyt connects with someone from his past. Someone who he thought might be able to shed some real light on wildness. She’s the kind of a mentor, or an elder, like Dr. Martin Shaw talked about in our last story. Her name is Teresa Yammamoto, or Tea. And she’s going to school, I mean, mentor, Joshua Hoyt in the ways of the natural world.

Featuring: Teresa Yammamoto, Joshua Hoyt

Producers: Joshua Hoyt, Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz

Music: Holly Cole Trio

Image via flickr

 


Breaking into Song

Sometimes, the only way to voice our feelings is to break into song. We’re not just talking about singing, we’re talking about that surprising moment – when melody, lyrics, and pure emotion swell inside us. When we have no choice but to open our mouths and let our voices soar. In that moment, our own voice escapes us and ventures into the world with what seems like a mind of its own. We hear ourselves like we never have. Others hear us too, and the results can be life-changing – for the better and for the worse. In our first story, we find out what really happens when you open your heart and break into song for the girl who may (or may not be) the one. In our second story, we explore what it takes to lend your voice to others, and break into song for them, whatever the consequences may be. In our third story, we go to France, to find out what happens when two lifelong enemies break into song together.

Host: Victoria Hurst

Producers: Natacha Ruck and Victoria Hurst

Featuring: Lecturer Wendy Goldberg, Danny Smith, Chris Worth, Andi Harrington, Jared Muirhead and Natacha Ruck

Release Date: 22 May 2013

Image via flickr

 

 

Intro Story: Zipping into Song

Find out what happens when Stanford Lecturer Wendy Goldberg straps herself to a pulley and goes flying over the jungle of Honduras.

Featuring: Wendy Goldberg

Producer: Victoria Hurst

Music: Sweet Thang by Shuggie Otis , The Concubine by Beirut

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 1: The Fire

Sometimes, breaking into song has the power to reveal suppressed feelings or thoughts. What happens after you open your mouth and tell people how you really feel? Danny Smith interviews independent musician, Chris Worth, to find out what happened when he improvised a song for a girl he calls “Mrs. Rosie.”

Featuring: Chris Worth, The Red Couch Project

Producers: Danny Smith and Victoria Hurst

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 2: The Part of Me in You

Everybody can break into song, but very few can create a deep and powerful song on the spot. Stanford Alumnus Andi Harrington can, and she can also break into song for you. If you just give her a few words and a mood, she will improvise something to match your feelings. But once, Andi received a very strange request; when she decided to honor it, she discovered how far breaking into song could take you– and the people around you.

Featuring: Andi Harrington and Jared Muirhead

Producers: Natacha Ruck, Bonnie Swift, and Charlie Mintz

Music: Andi Harrington, Sam Grinsell

Image courtesy of Rachel Hamburg

 

 

Story 3: La Vie En Rose

Sometimes, songs are used as weapons, but when you dare to break into song with your enemies, you get to see the world in a new way.

Producer/Featuring: Natacha Ruck

Original Music Composition: Eoin Callery
“La Vie en Rose” Montage created using tracks from Audrey HepburnMadeleine Leaper, Dean Martin, and Cindy Lauper
Additional music: Annie Cordy

Image via wikimedia

 


Listening

Listening is way more than just paying attention, and this week’s show explores how. To find out just what listening can do to us, we eavesdrop with a cochlear implant, learn what crying babies teach us about music, find out how silence can be full, how God enters our thoughts, and ask what a single moment of being listened to can achieve. We’re finding out what happens when we listen to sounds we never expected to, when we take our listening where it’s never been.

Host/Producer: Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Professor Tanya Luhrmann, Professor Jonathan Berger, Musikilu Mojeed , Rachel Kolb, Eoin Callery, D’or Seifer, Daniel Steinbock

Release Date: 20 February 2013

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Intro Story: The Bus is an F

A lot of people in relationships will say their partner hears the world differently. This is a story where that’s literally true.

Featuring: Eoin Callery and D’or Seifer

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Natacha Ruck, Christy Hartman

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Story 1: A Sense of Unhappy Confusion

What is so piercing about a baby’s cry? Why can’t we ignore it? We were curious what makes us listen, and we ended up learning why we like music.

Featuring: Jonathan Berger

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Krystal Le, Natacha Ruck

Music: Broken Gadget, Gurdonark, Stefsax, Basematic, jlbrock44

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 2: Eavesdropping on the World of Sounds

Rachel Kolb could never just overhear. She was born deaf, but it wasn’t one-on-one communication that was hardest — it was with groups. Then one day, she managed to listen to something she never expected to hear.

Featuring: Rachel Kolb

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Victoria Hurst, Rachel Hamburg

Music: Kevin Macleod – Light Thought Var. 1
– Jarvic 8
– Slow Heat
– Gypsy Shoegazer
– Wet Riffs
– Avec Soin
Jessica_Pavone – Dedicated to Elizabeth Cotten, with Matt Bauder
Emphemtry – Old Dreams
Oskar Schuster – Sneuwland

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 3: Daniel and the Quakers

Sometimes the space between words, and what happens during that space, is much more powerful than anything anyone could say.

Featuring: Daniel Steinbock

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Zainab Taymuree

Music: Cara Roxanne
KeroDean
– Intimate
Dan Warren – Instrumental Restoration
Ergo Phizmiz – Margita Zalite – Rolands Vegners
Kevin Macleod – Frost Waltz
Jared C. Balogh – A Tough Decision
Pitx – See you Later

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 4: Listening to God

Most of what we listen for, other people can hear it. But sometimes what we listen for doesn’t even have a sound.

Featuring: Professor Tanya Luhrmann

Producers: Jonah Willihnganz, Nina Foushee, Rachel Hamburg

Music: Steffen Basho-Junghans and Rob Voigt

Image via flickr

 

 

Story 5: Sometimes, They Don’t Listen

Nigerian investigative journalist and Stanford Knight Fellow Musikilu Mojeed has a very specific definition of what it means for people to listen: government taking action. His long quest to bring down one of Nigeria’s most corrupt politicians shows hard it can be for that version of listening to happen — and also, the power of being listened to.

Featuring: Musikilu Mojeed

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Joshua Hoyt

Music: Blue Suede Through
Christos Koulaxizis – The Place
Brendan Bonsack – Clockwork Waltz
Grapes – I dunno
Anitek – Dormouse
Anitek – Calling
ArnoDee – Compulsion
Kevin Macleod – “Cool Vibes”, Wisps of Whorls
Stefsax – Awel

Image via wikimedia

 

 

Bonus: The Rest is Silence

On our show we told the story of Rachel Kolb’s first experience eavesdropping, with the help of her cochlear implant. But the decision to get that implant is a story of its own.

Featuring: Rachel Kolb

Producer: Ariana Peck

Image via wikimedia

 


Questing

Whether or not there’s a cape, a sword, or a noble steed involved, we all go on quests. We leave the comforts and routines of ordinary life in search of a light that hovers just beyond the horizon. In the old days, it was a better trade route, a new world, the holy grail. It’s much the same today. But what is it about the quest that makes it so different from merely reaching for a goal? And what makes it worth leaving everything else behind? In this episode, a girl named Rachel searches the world in a quest for her holy grail. Accompanying her is an academic all-star named Bobby, who is questing for certain kind of community. In our last piece, a film editor named Giusepi goes on a quest around America for a better way to serve people.

Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Sophia Paliza

Host: Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Bobby Holley, Daniela Bize, Guisepi the Tea Guy

Release Date: 30 January 2013

Images courtesy of Rachel Hamburg

 

Story 1: In Search of a Nomad Base

Rachel Hamburg tells the story of her search for a transformative feeling she had once while traveling. While searching, she joins Bobby Holley, a computer-geek turned nomad, on his quest to build a “nomad base” – a free home for travelers, hitchhikers, and wanderers – in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Producer: Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Bobby Holly, Daniela Bize

Music: Cam Deas, Black Twig and Steve Gunn, Fred van Eps, Victor Herbert Orchestra, James Blackshaw, Loren MazzaCane Connors, The Oo-Ray, Broke for Free, and Phil Reavis

Original Music: Manolis Seuega

This piece also features the music of Jake Wachtel (Walk/Tell) who traveled around the world for a year and then recorded an album called WanderLove, which features 80 instruments that he collected on his journeys.

 

 

Story 2: Giusepi the Tea Guy

Guisepi is a film editor with an unusual quest: to build a bus that will allow him to travel America, bringing free tea to strangers.

Producer: Sophia Paliza

Music: Yair Yona, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Steven R. Smith

 

 

Bonus Story: Heinrich Kaput

While hitchhiking in Germany, Bobby Holley befriends a stranger who makes an unusual request.

Producer: Rachel Hamburg and Bobby Holley

Writer: Bobby Holley

Music: Axel Linstädt for Improved Sound Limited, James Blackshaw, and Phil Reavis