The 11th

It's been 11 months of The 11th, so we're taking a little break. But! We've got some previews of shows our colleagues here at Pineapple Street Studios are making — shows that are perfect for a long road trip, a walk in the woods, or an afternoon cooking out.

Shows featured include:

Persona

Love Thy Neighbor

Project Unabom

Borderline Salty

This month, The 11th presents: His Saturn Return. Creator, writer, and performer Sai Sion lets us peek into his expansive imagination with this cosmic audio drama that will transport you across the galaxy.

We travel through time and space to meet Duran Durag on the brink of his Saturn Return. He’s cocky and charming, smooth and clumsy. If it weren’t for his fancy durag and his family name, Duran wouldn’t be given the time of day. And it’s high time for him to learn some important life lessons. The all-knowing DJ Saturn is not playing when he sends this young space alien on a series of challenges that reveal what it is to live in a universe that doesn’t orbit around ego. Will the missions he’s sent on ground him, or will his swagger get in the way of growing up?

This month, a collaboration with McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and Radiotopia. Several writers, producers, and artists were asked to take on the concept of an audio tour, but instead of guiding us through a city or a museum, they guide us through our own homes. These tours are interactive, and intimate. They are a trip not just through the physical space of your home, but the memories and feelings associated with that space.

These pieces are part of McSweeney's Audio Issue. The Audio Issue comes packaged as a physical box where all audio pieces have an accompanying physical component. You can purchase the entire issue here: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeneys64

When she was a kid, Lina Misitzis heard a line in a movie that really stuck. She’d repeat it to friends and family, drop it in texts and conversations mindlessly. But then, twenty years later, she realized: The line doesn’t make any sense.

This month, not a bedtime story exactly, but a story about bedtime. About saying goodnight.

Charles Spearin is a long-time member of the band Broken Social Scene. In 2007, he was on paternity leave, spending time with his kids on the playground, talking with his neighbors. That’s when he started noticing the musical quality of the voices around him.

He asked his neighbors to come over to his house so he could interview them. And then he turned their voices into songs.

You can listen to The Happiness Project album here: https://charlesspearin.bandcamp.com/album/the-happiness-project 

This month on The 11th, a story about love. Writers Resham Mantri and Carvell Wallace let us in on the most intimate details of their long distance relationship as they figure out how they want to love and be loved. Through a collage of essays, audio diaries, and interviews the two share their approach to practicing love: deliberately. No promises of forever, no promises of monogamy, but an openness to discover new ways to love, new ways to connect. Inspired by bell hook's teachings and reflections about love, the episode meditates on the question: how do you practice love?

Look, times are tough, and we could all use a little encouragement. Here's a bunch of pep talks.

This month on the 11th, three people spend several hours (sometimes days) just sitting in one place. Watching. Listening. A cemetery in Virginia… a cafe in New York… a plaza in Mexico… It’s inspired by the book An Attempt At Exhausting A Place in Paris, by French author Georges Perec, who wrote that “nothing is happening all the time.” But what’s happening when nothing is happening? Something is happening, right? Exhausting A Place is an appreciation of stillness, wandering minds, and the power of observation.

Special thanks to Chioke I’Anson, Emily Spivack, and Eric V. Ibarra.

Original music by S Carey, Blue Dot Sessions and Green-House “Soft Meadow” Leaving Records

For 30 years The Landmark Forum has offered promises of profound personal breakthroughs. Millions of people have paid this organization hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars in hopes of getting a rapid transformation. Some say that what takes years of therapy to do… this program can do in a weekend. Their method sounds appealingly simple - they put you in a room with somewhere around 150 strangers for three days — and then push your psychological boundaries until you break down and share your most intimate secrets, fears, and desires. Host and filmmaker, Kelly Loudenberg, asks why millions of people have flocked to spend their weekend in a beige hotel ballroom and divulge their deepest secrets and insecurities with hundreds of strangers.

Cracks start to show as journalists put pressure on EST and Werner Erhard. The story of his separation from the group in the wake of profound controversy is incredibly telling. It’s a rare look into how a group with a divisive public image was able to rebrand itself in the face of disaster.