Soundings

It's easy to look around and see signs of social fragmentation, so today's show takes a different approach and examines a few instances of people coming together: community. We explore an off-campus house that aimed to be an intentional community devoted to sustainability and find out where they failed and succeeded. We meet a community of Burning Man devotees who came together for a floating party on the Sacramento River Delta. Also we hear music made by a community of people who'd never met each other. Plus, the solution to the dirty dish dilemma.

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Rachel Hamburg, Matt Harnack

Host: Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Daniel Steinbock, Philip Narodick, Zuzanna Drozdz

Music: Noah Burbank

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/201-community.html

Genetics promised us the book of life laid open. But even after the sequencing of the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. How do people make choices based on the imperfect knowledge that genetic science provides? Today we look at a few examples of that. We hear a story about sperm donation and the perils of choosing your child's father out of a book. We hear a story about using genetics to make a decision about surgery. We walk into an MRI to investigate the genetic basis of personality. And a short story about cannibalistic vultures. Prepare for a show that will leave you doubled up in a helix of joy.

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Matt Larson, Laura Chao, Angela Castellanos, Leah Bakst

Host: Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Max McClure

Music: Cults, Boomsnake, Mothlight

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/199-genetics.html

We throw all kinds of things away without really thinking about it. These five stories take a look at where our trash goes, the creative things that people do with it, and even question what it means to throw something away. First, a story about small-scale composting and the worms who do it. Next, a story about what to do with all your old scraps of fabric lying around. Third, how what's left in a city dump can provide inspiration for an art movement. Fourth, behind the scenes at an estate sale. And last, a short story about bringing a box of forgotten photographs back to life.

Producers: Hannah Krakauer, Lydia Santos, Killeen Hanson, Laura Chao, Rebecca Pfiffner, Matt Larson, Kasiana Mclenaghan

Host: Hannah Krakauer

Music: Noah Burbank, Japandi, Nimbleweed, Kissing Johnny

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/189-trash.html

What happens when we put people on pedestals? And what happens when we take them off? Host Killeen Hanson interviews her father about his estranged father. Andrew Altschul exposes the ordinariness of rock-stars in an excerpt from his novel Lady Lazarus. Lee Konstantinou interviews Arnold Rampersad about his biography of Ralph Ellison; his question is not What kept Ellison from publishing anything after Invisible Man? but rather, How did this author climb onto that pedestal in the first place?

Producers: Killeen Hanson, Noah Burbank, Lee Konstantinou

Host: Killeen Hanson

Featuring: Brent Hanson, Andrew Altschul, Arnold Rampersad

Music: Noah Burbank

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/195-episode-305-off-the-pedestal.html

Sometimes a simple question is all it takes to get someone telling a story. We begin this show by asking people to tell the story of their first kiss. Every story is the same. Every story is different. After that, changes of hearts and a deeper understanding of one's capacity to love. Then we have two glimpses into potential future realities, android love and a Valentinian Apocalypse. Have a great V Day.

Producers: Aaron Thayer, Eme Akpabio, Claire Woodard, Charlie Mintz, Will Rogers, and Jonah Willihnganz

Host: Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Max McClure, Heidi Thorsen, and members of the Stanford community who told us their story in White Plaza.

Music: Daniel Steinbock, Max McClure, Fleet Street, and a spontaneous mishmash of singers who were out serenading people on the Saturday night before this story aired, in February 2009.

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/349-valentines-3.html

Childhood is a funny thing, especially since that window we call adolescence keeps getting longer and longer. When do we stop being children, and when do we become adults? We bring you an hour of radio built from a creative writing Stanford class--stories of growing up, not growing up and the moments that stick with us the most.

Producer: Hannah Krakauer

Host: Hannah Krakauer

Featuring: Michelle Goldring, Lexie Spiranac, Sarah Grossman, Jeff Bauman, Chrystal Lee

Music: Nataly Dawn

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/191-mollys-class.html

We're all talking about our relationship to food lately, thanks to everyone from Michael Pollan to Oprah (even Michael Pollan on Oprah). Fast food, slow food, smart food, food miles, food pyramids, food security. Yes, we're joining the fray, but turning the tables a bit to look at how food and food movements are a medium for forms of change—personal, social and otherwise—especially in the big city, where we so often rely on others for our food. We take the show to San Francisco, visiting the foggy gardens of the Sunset and the sunny fruit stands of the Mission, and even the rooftops in the Tenderloin. We talk to a new breed of urban farmer and we meet an earth scientist, a chef, a Salvadorian emigrant, a city rat, a country mouse, and a whole class of third graders. In our last segment we return to Stanford to find out how students are changing their own relationship to the their environment through our new favorite medium, food.

Producers: Natacha Ruck, Charlie Mintz

Host: Natacha Ruck

Featuring: Page Chamberlain, Susannah Poland, Caitlin Brown, Maya Donelson, Rebecca Alonzi, Tree, Suzi Palladino

Music: Bibio, Alessandro Ricciarelli, Gerd Baumann, Ken Grobe

More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/48-ep215.html

This is a tale of the other. Things are changing and the LGBTQ communities that were formerly exiled are now, slowly, being noticed and accepted by the mainstream--whether or not these communities give a hoot about "normal" acceptance. Just because we live in a more open-minded era for gays, gender-benders, and women alike (and there are many who would find this idea contentious) does not mean that the turbulent story of how drag got to the spotlight should be glossed over, nor the deeply transgressive nature of gender-bending forgotten.

Lest the contemporary “it-gets-better” ethos rewrite a subversive history forged outside the norm and by those who have always felt different, Brittany Newell have sought to record the oral history of 7 dazzling American queens and gender-artists working today. 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? In documenting their experiences, inspirations, and struggles as The Other, she hopes to pay tribute to the art of transformation, as perfected to an almost mystical degree by these 7 artists, gender-rebels, and visionaries. This is a tale of the other, the queer, the blunt, and the brave. Their stories go against the grain and beyond the rainbow.

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 Scatz (of drag queen Alaska Thunderf*ck)

This work was supported by the Braden Grant for the Study of Oral Narrative. More information about the Braden Grant here: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/grants.html

Understanding someone who experiences the world differently than you can be hard. In fact, it can be downright scary.

In this piece, Austin Meyer, a senior from Stanford University, visits the Earle Baum Center for People With Vision Loss to tell his story of what it's like to navigate the intimidating space between two opposite ways of experiencing the world... one with vision and one without.

Producer: Austin Meyer

Featuring: Denise Vancil, Scott Murray, and Sharon Brown

Special thanks: Dan Needham and The Earle Baum Center

Image via flickr

For more information about the Braden Grant for Oral Narrative: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/grants.html

Rachel Kelley interviewed over two dozen activists, artists, and their friends as part of her effort to capture an oral history of Greenlands, an intentional community in Nashville, Tennessee. Their reflections ranged from the ethics of air conditioning to Occupy antics to the moral quandaries of gentrification. Here is a snapshot of Rachel's experience and some of the Greenlanders' stories.

Producer: Rachel Kelley

Featuring: Karl Meyer, DJ Hudson, Kate Savage, Tristan Call, Jena Robinson, Matt Christy, Keith Caldwell, Trevor Bradshaw, Megan Gilbreth, Rachel Kelley, and the Greenlands community

Special thanks: community members and friends of Nashville Greenlands, Charlie Mintz

Music links: "Bluegrass Banjo," "Insomnie", "Slide Cowboy," "Cerises," "Quasi Motion," "Hip-Hop 4," "La Toupie,” "Rae & Christian Remix dub 'Testify'," "We Shall Overcome,” Broke for Free

Image courtesy of Matt Christy

For more information about the Braden Grant for Oral Narrative: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/grants.html