Inside a Pandemic

Scott Shigeoka is a storyteller, designer, and artist. He traveled across the United States in his '06 Prius for a year to find out how to bridge the social and political divides in the country, uncovering ideas in the most unexepected of places—Trump rallies, Evangelical Christian pastors, hunters, and farmers. His forthcoming book is focused on crossing the generational divides in America.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Ahmed Kabil—writer, speaker, multimedia storyteller—joins us to have a discussion about both long-term thinking (he's a writer for The Long Now Foundation) while being in the moment. This conversation was recorded on April 4th.

Ahmed's background is in digital media, journalism, and the humanities. Currently, he is an Editor at The Long Now Foundation, a nonprofit fostering long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years; and writes about counterculture, technology and mysticism.

As a multimedia storyteller, Ahmed helped launch three award-winning digital media apps and platforms: Zeega, GoPop (acquired by BuzzFeed), and Timeline. He has pioneered new forms of social and news storytelling that have since become ubiquitous on the web. At Timeline, he founded a video team that achieved 100+ million video views. His multimedia storytelling work has been shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tribeca Film Institute.

Ahmed has spoken about interactive storytelling, technology, and counterculture at Harvard, MIT, UC-Berkeley, the Poynter Institute, ZebraCon, Makers of Barcelona, and more. His written work has appeared in the Museum of Old and New Art's book Eat The Problem, The Integral Review, OneZero, Gen, Level, and Timeline; and his projects have been noted in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and more. He was a Fellow at metaLAB (at) Harvard, and is an alum of Reed College.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

We are joined by Alice Barbe—social entrepreneur, mother, Obama Fellow, Forbes' 30 under 30, the list goes one. She is CEO and co-founder of SINGA, a global community of migrants, refugees and local people who are meeting and building the future together.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Alex and Zak are alone this episode looking back on the pandemic—what they thought it would be, what it's been, and they try to make predictions about what it might be going forward.

They discuss how they've coped—or not not—with their situations. Zak loses electricity for two weeks, and Alex doesn't get on a plane.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Bay Area-based pleasure educator Euphemia, founder of Iwishyouknew.com, joins Alex and Zak to discuss staying close to people we're isolated from, keeping in touch with people we're isolated with, and new ways to experience pleasure and what teledildonics means. 

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Jenni Marsh, features editor for CNN in Hong Kong, joins Zak and Alex to discuss reporting in a pandemic and what it's like to be a new mom during a global crisis. Zak wonders if he's given himself Stockholm's syndrome and Alex contemplates making a break for the United States.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Genevieve and Paul call in from Berkeley, California and Cusco, Peru to talk about being separated by the Coronavirus. They are a couple living in the Bay Area, but Paul is stuck in Cusco, Peru where he was working when flights were cut off leaving him stranded; meanwhile Genevieve low-key had COVID-19 and had to isolate.

Genevieve Smith is Colorado native living in the Bay Area, where she lives with her husband, Paul Spurzem, in a “cosy” apartment in the East Bay. She works for the Haas School of Business at Berkeley on equity and inclusion. Her background is in gender equity and women’s economic empowerment which has historically meant a lot of international travel.

Paul Spurzem is a 30-yr old entrepreneur and CPA, originally from the SF Bay area, working in the fields of basic education and vocational training. He is executive director of Visionaria Network, an education and community development NGO in the Cusco region of Peru. He's also a program director at the forthcoming Empowering Capabilities Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which researches and designs training programs for renewable energy companies and community based organizations in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa focused on personal empowerment and leadership in addition to basic business skills.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Epidemiologist Rachel Weinrib calls in to talk to Alex and Zak about how she's staying healthy and informed. Alex wants to go swimming; and Alex and Zak try to get back in touch with themselves through mindfulness meditation and getting stuff done.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Alex and Zak are joined by Barcelona resident Nick O'Brien. Alex talks about the need to remain positive (by putting your pants on every day). Nick discusses building a local balcony community, and playing guitar with a saxophonist across the street.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.

Alex and Zak discuss what it's like to expect an oncoming pandemic. We get the start date of the Barcelona "lock down" wrong, and try to work out what exactly a "pandemic" means to us.

Music is Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba copyright © 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza.