Jared Blake is one of the most important human voices in the natural world today. His unceasing commitment to exhort us all to slow down and listen to the voices of the natural world, to work hard to understand what we're being told, is a cause and effort to be celebrated. in this episode, Jared tells us about his months-long recording expedition to the American Southwest, and about the extraordinary, often eerie, voices he heard while in the wild.

Here’s a childhood question for you. And I should qualify that—for the most part I’m talking to people who were kids during the 60s, and who shared the books they read with their own children. Here’s the question: What do Carolyn Keene, Franklin W. Dixon, Kenneth Robeson, Laura Lee Hope, and Victor Appleton have in common? Hopefully, you remember some of those names. The answer is that they’re all well-known authors to anyone who read The Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Doc Savage, the Campfire Girls, The Happy Hollisters, and a few others. The other thing they have in common? None of them exist, and they never did. They’re all pseudonyms. Here's why.

Were you aware that deep in the Amazon Jungle of Brazil there lies an abandoned American town, built in the 1920s by none other than Henry Ford? Check it out.

Remember the movie, “Tombstone”? There’s a scene where Val Kilmer, who plays Doc Holliday, confronts the outlaw, Johnny Ringo. Doc says, “I’m your huckleberry,” which causes Johnny Ringo to go pale as a ghost, because he knows that people don’t generally walk away from a gunfight with Doc Holliday.

But here’s the thing: that’s not what he said. The other evening, Sabine told me what he actually said, and that got me thinking about words—you know how I am with stuff related to language—and the next thing I knew I had assembled a list of words that I had never heard in my life, but that now I can’t wait to find a reason to use. Here you go.

A few months ago, I did an interview on the program with Sarah and Derek Solomon, who are safari guides in southern Africa. If you listened to that episode, you may recall that their work is pretty unique. First, in addition to doing traditional photo and wildlife viewing safaris, they also do sound safaris, usually at night. Their safari guests can’t see the animals, but they can hear them, thanks to special microphones mounted on the front of the safari vehicle and headphones at each seat.

Then, they met a young South African filmmaker who was producing a documentary about a remarkable young South African girl, blind since birth, and her experiences of seeing the world through sound. Brett, the filmmaker, needed a safari guide to help this young girl “see” African wildlife in her own way—with her ears, rather than with her eyes. Sarah and Derek were perfect for the job.

The film, “Call of the Wild,” has been a big hit at film festivals ever since its release. But equally important is the impact that the experience has had on Sarah and Derek. After working with Brett, and the young girl, Annika, A thought struck them: Why not offer sound safaris for people who can’t see?

Well, after a great deal of effort and planning, their idea has become a reality. I reached out, and asked them to give me an update on how things are going.

As most of you know, I released a new novel reently called Russet. It’s my fourth book of fiction; all my prior titles have been about technology, history, photography, writing, sound recording, biography, and a few other genres. The book is doing well; it’s my first science fiction book, and I had a blast writing it.

For the last six weeks or so, pretty much since Russet hit the shelves, I’ve been getting an unusual number of emails and messages from people, asking me how to write a book. Actually, they’re asking more than that. Many feel like they have a book inside themselves begging to be written, and want to know how to get it from mind to paper. Or, they have an idea that they think would make a good book, but don’t know how to bridge the gap between their idea and a finished work. And others want to know how I manage to jump between genres in my writing. It’s true—I write about a lot of different things. Well, I’ve thought about these questions, because they intrigue me, too, and I’ve assembled some thoughts about them.

I had the opportunity today to sit down with someone who is truly an expert in navigating the turbulent waters of global geopolitics. He's an expert in one particularly troublesome region, a place that most of us are quite familiar with. Not only does he describe the kinds of threats that can be encountered there, but he also explains scenarios and techniques for dealing with them. This is a great episode--enjoy.

Jerry Berrier is a birder, a wildlife sound recordist, and an outspoken advocate for the natural world. And, he’s been blind since birth. In this episode he tells his remarkable story, and explains how his blindness, while clearly not an advantage in the modern world, does not slow him down.

I saw a story headline last week that inspired this episode. It told me that Elwood Edwards had died at 74. Don't know who he is? He received $200 to record all the original AOL sounds and inspired at least one really great movie.

That got me thinking about other sounds from the more-or-less recent past, so I dove into my sound archives and found a bunch of them. And what I didn’t have, Wikipedia did, so hats off to them for being such an important archive in so many different ways. By the way, if you use Wikipedia, even once a month, please send them the five bucks they ask for each year. We’re talking about the cost of a cup of coffee here, folks—they deserve it.

So—sounds. I’ve collected a bunch of them here for your nostalgic listening pleasure. I’ll tell you what they are at the end of the program, but for now, just have a listen. These are not in chronological order, by design; they’re just sounds of the technological past.

A couple of months ago I was wandering around a small bookstore here in Vermont, where I ran across a book with the magnetic title, “Abandoned Vermont and New Hampshire,” by one Marie Desrosiers. I picked it up and started reading; the next day, I finished it.

The book was so compelling that I found Marie online and sent her a message. A few days later we had a chat about her work, and she agreed to do an interview about the books she writes and the photographs of she makes of abandoned places—a field she calls the study of abandonment. Please enjoy.