For years I’ve been wanting to make a show about the terrible cultural divides growing in our country, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it without getting into boring conversations about politics. So I backed into an experiment. I asked my editor at Vermont Public if I could drive around and ask people, ‘what class are you?’, just to see what would happen. And he said, ‘sure.’ So I did. This is the series that came of that experiment. And even though these conversations took place in rural Vermont, I think they are indicative of what people are thinking and feeling all over the country. And maybe we should all be having these conversations? I don’t know. Here is the series, What Class Are You?

This series was produced for Vermont Public, and I am grateful to them for allowing me to share it with the Rumble Strip audience. #ftg-2828 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2828 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2828 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2828 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2828 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2828 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2828 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }

jQuery('#ftg-2828 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2828').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '28',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2828 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2828 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2828 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

Mary Lake is a sheep farmer and sheep shearer and itinerant slaughterer. She is a tall, muscular woman in bib overalls and a baseball hat and dangly earrings she carved out of a ram’s horn. She wears a chain around her waist with a scabbard full of knives. And she loves sheep, which is one reason she participates in their slaughter. This is a story about where food comes from.

** The first version of this story aired on Vermont Public. I am grateful to Vermont Public for allowing me to share this story with Rumble Strip listeners!

Mary Lake’s business is Can-Do Shearing in Tunbridge, Vermont

Thank you magazine.com/2022/08/12/sylvan-esso-diva-interview/">Amelia Meath!!

#ftg-2727 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2727 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2727 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2727 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2727 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2727 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2727 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-2727 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2727').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '27',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2727 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2727 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2727 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

This is a re-run of a show but it’s TOWN MEETING DAY SO I’M RUNNING IT AGAIN! LONG LIVE TOWN MEETING!

In most of New England, town citizens become legislators for one day a year. They get together in school gyms and town halls and vote in person, and in public. This centuries long practice of towns doing the slow and hard work of disagreeing and arguing and compromising on how to govern themselves—this has a profound impact on a place, and what it means to be from a place.

Sometimes it’s contentious. Sometimes it’s boring. But it’s always the most interesting and authentic and civilized social event of the year. Always.

This is a show about where I live, which is maybe not where you live, but we’re all living through a time of awful division. There aren’t a lot of opportunities anymore to disagree civilly, in public, or to make decisions with people who are hugely different from ourselves. And maybe there should be. So I made this show to inspire us all. And you’ll hear a lot about trash removal.

Credits

Music by Brian Clark. In addition to being a fine musician, he is also a fine woodworker.

Featured photos by Terry J. Allen

Endless thanks to Tobin Anderson, Kelly Green and Amelia Meath for their help on this show.

Susan Clark is the co-author of Slow Democracy, a wonderful book on self governance and rediscovering community.

Thanks to Brattleboro Community TV and Mount Mansfield Community TV for their recordings of town meeting and all the brave people who get up and talk in those meetings

Moderators in this show are: Stephen Magill, Moretown. Paul Doton, Barnard. Gus Seelig, Calais. John McLaughry, Kirby. Bobby Starr, Troy. Susan Clark, Middlesex. Kelly Green, Randolph

Click on images below for better view. Most of the good pictures here are by Terry J. Allen of East Montpelier.

#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1414 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1414 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1414 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1414 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1414 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1414 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1414').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '14',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1414 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1414 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1414 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

Sheila LaPoint wrote a post in Front Porch Forum asking if there were anyone in town who could turn her grandmother’s fur coat into a teddy bear. She didn’t want to spend a lot of money. She can’t wear the coat anymore. But she wants something that will help her remember her German grandmother. My friend Clare Dolan lives down the road from Sheila, and when she read Sheila’s post about the teddy bear, it called to her. Clare is the maker of the Museum of Everyday Life, which celebrates the many critical and underappreciated objects we use in our daily lives. Clare loves well used and long loved objects, so it seemed like a good idea to help Sheila turn one loved object into a new object to love.

Also it’s a show about seasonal depression.

Clare’s Museum of Everyday Life

Thank you Amelia Meath for your help.

Tom Mustill is a conservation biologist and he makes beautiful films about where nature and people meet. He’s worked with Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, he’s been shat on by bats in Mexico, and recently he finished a book called How to Speak Whale.  It describes the very real possibility that someday, maybe even in my lifetime, we’ll begin to understand the complex language of whales–and all this would imply.

I interviewed Tom for hours and I didn’t want him to stop until he’d told me every last thing he’s learned about whale behavior and every story he could remember. He was polite about it. I don’t know why I felt this insatiable need to hear every story. Maybe it seems that if we could understand whale culture a little bit, everything would make a little more sense? Anyway I recorded Tom for as long as he’d let me.

pic-1.webp">pic-1-450x338.webp" alt="" width="450" height="338">Sam-Mansfield.jpeg">Sam-Mansfield-450x675.jpeg" alt="" width="314" height="471">

Links

Tom’s website

How to Speak Whale

Roger Payne’s website

Under The Water, song by Hand Habits and Amelia Meath

Whale photo above is a screengrab from one of Tom’s films

It’s been too long since I reported on some of the many crimes we’re facing here in central Vermont. I apologize for this lapse. It’s time for me to be honest about some of these challenges. So here is a show about crime.

This important report was read by Scott Carrier, host of Home of the Brave.

Here are pictures of the tiny horses who have been entangled with The Law more than once here in Vermont.

scaled.jpg">450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338"> scaled.jpg">450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">

Jay Allison makes the kind of radio that made me want to make radio. It isn’t news and it doesn’t really have a beginning middle and end but it’s personal and surprising and you get to fall in love with strangers and that’s what I wanted to do. We got together and talked about getting old and irrelevant, because that’s what I think about a lot. We also talked about what radio stories can do in a time when people are inclined to hate each other, or what we really hope stories can do.

Thanks to Tobin Anderson and Vicki Merrick and Amelia Meath and Scott Carrier for their help on this show.

 



Forrest Foster was loading up the tractor with kindling for deer camp, two days before rifle season. I was over there visiting and helping him with his night chores. I like Forrest. I like being around him, and I always learn something from him. And on this day we rode the tractor down to the deer camp and sat and talked about hunting and caretaking and walking with goats and horses. And loneliness. Pretty much all the stuff people end up talking about at deer camp.

 



Nick Paley is a writer, editor and director for film and TV, and a co-writer on the recent film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which stars an adorable one-inch tall shell who wears shoes and is looking for his long lost shell family. Nick is from Vermont, and he’s working on a new TV series set here, so when he was in town I dragged him to a matinee of Marcel the Shell…the same movie theater where he used to clean the bathrooms. And then afterwards he let me ask him ten million questions about what it’s like to work in the film industry. This show is a bit of both.

More:

• Nick’s website
• News on Nick’s upcoming TV series, Phony, and a picture of him in a cardigan
• Link to Marcel the Shell trailer
• Interview about the making of Marcel, with Nick Paley and Dean Fleischer-Camp
• Broad City Episode Nick directed

Vaughn Hood was a 118-pound barber when he was drafted into the Vietnam War, and in Vaughn’s war, most men didn’t survive their first three-month tour. In honor of Veteran’s Day, here is the story of an extraordinary American life.

This story is co-produced by Larry Massett and Erica Heilman. It first ran in 2015. To read the comments on this story from over the years, click here.

An interview with Erica about the show, by the excellent people at The Third Coast

50 Best Podcasts of 2015, The Atlantic Monthly…#16

Music in this show:

Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten–Arvo Part

Tabula Rasa for 2 violins, strings and prepared piano–Arvo Part

Speigel im Speigel–Arvo Part

Under the Weather Mix–Steve Reich

Clapping Music–Steve Reich

Armand Patoine sat with me in his tea house, deep inside his garden, which leads down to a stream. He has been creating this garden for 49 years. We talked about gardening, and what God has to do with his gardening, which it turns out is everything.

Credits

Thank you Victor for introducing me to Armand

Thank you Willie Tobin for the beautiful bird and squirrel recordings. They are gifts that keep giving.

Thank you Armand for the daylilies. They’re in.

To visit the listing for Armand’s house, click here

#ftg-2626 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2626 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2626 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2626 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2626 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2626 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2626 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-2626 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2626').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '26',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2626 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2626 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2626 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

My son is leaving for his freshman year of college and I am feeling maudlin. I listened to this show I made years ago and it made me feel better. So before August is really, really over, here are the kids of Hospital Hill.

Description: The kids of Randolph, Vermont describe their neighborhood as a place with three purple houses. They tell me there’s a shortcut through the woods down to Dunkin’ Donuts, and they say it’s pretty close to three graveyards. The kids run in twos and threes and sometimes in one big pack for a game of hide and seek tag.

I spent an afternoon talking with them and following them around. This show is a little taste of that day. It’s a postcard from childhood, a place we remember but can’t visit anymore.

Thanks Thanks so much to Kelly Green for introducing me to the kids and letting us camp out upstairs for an entire afternoon. Thanks also to Tally Abecassis, Mike Donofrio, John Schak and Larry Massett.

 

Leland is my neighbor and for the last seven years, we’ve been getting together in the spring to talk about his year, and things like God and space and pork shortages. This year Leland graduated from high school and I figured it was time to hear pieces from all of the years with Leland, all together, and all at once.

Credits

Music for this show is by my friend and regular collaborator, Brian Clark and this show also features music from the remarkable and multi-talented Carla Kihlstedt.

Thank you to Leland, who has been so patient with me all these years.

A couple weeks ago on Hardwick’s Front Porch Forum, someone called Tiana asked if there was anyone who could help her with her hair and makeup for an important date with her boyfriend. Front Porch Forum is an online, daily community forum, which is like a bulletin board at a local general store. You can find secondhand tires there. Or read complaints about the Selectboard. Every Vermont town’s got a Front Porch Forum and you have to be from that town to be on it.

Since Tiana’s new to town, she thought she might have luck finding someone to help her get ready for her date through the Forum. And she did.

Here is her original posting:

Makeup for Special Occasion

Tiana• Hardwick

I’m looking for someone who’d be willing to do my makeup (and possibly hair?) on the 23rd of this month.

Just something simple with my eyes and something to hide some red spots. Is there a way to make an illusion of a skinner face? I think thats a thing, right?

I understand it’s a long shot and I don’t have much money.

I usually don’t like anything thats considered “girly”. However I want to surprise my boyfriend for our first anniversary.

I have a nice dress picked out with matching press on nails.

The issue is I have no clue how to do makeup. YouTube tutorials have never done me any good considering I don’t own any makeup and I have a very round, chubby face.

Thank you for reading!

Credits

Music by Brian Clark

Thanks to Tara Reese for finding the posting

Thanks to Tobin and Mike and Rose

Welcome the Civic Standard!

Thanks to Aubrie St. Louis at the Rehair Shop

Picture of Tiana in front of the old Gazette building, and now the new Civic Standard building: scaled.jpg">450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">



This show is a kind of coda to Finn and the Bell….

At long last, the bell is in its tower at Hazen Union High School. The final installation happened right before the Hardwick Memorial Day Parade. I stopped by and recorded some of the volunteers as they constructed the tower, hoisted the bell, and rang in its new life up on the hill over Hardwick.

scaled.jpg">450x600.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="600">scaled.jpg">450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">



Tara Wray is a photographer…and a dog person. Her pictures of dogs are haunting and beautiful and every bit as distinctive as pictures of individual people. I interviewed her shortly after the death of her beloved dog, Nighthawk. Then my friend Tobin’s dog died, and he told me that he sometimes felt ashamed for feeling so much about the death of a dog–a dog who had been his only companion throughout the pandemic.

#ftg-2525 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2525 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2525 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2525 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2525 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2525 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2525 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-2525 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2525').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '25',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2525 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2525 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2525 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 I’ve been thinking of getting a dog for years but even though I have an eighteen-year-old son, I’ve never felt mature enough to have a dog. So when my friend Chris told me he and his partner Beth were getting a puppy, I asked if he’d chronicle the event, and for the next seven months, he sent me recordings of what it was like to have a puppy. It was hilarious and weird and totally harrowing.

Here are the Puppy Diaries.

Thanks

Thanks SO MUCH to Christopher Attaway and Beth Lewis for making these recordings. They are so goddamn beautiful and I will be forever grateful.

Thank you Tobin Anderson for your help in the edit.

Beth is a writer and performer and Chris makes a podcast called Left of the Dial, which is awesome. To hear the other Rumble Strip episode featuring Chris and Beth before their life with Mouse, click here. #ftg-2424 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2424 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2424 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2424 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2424 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2424 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2424 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }

jQuery('#ftg-2424 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2424').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '24',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2424 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2424 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2424 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

Forrest Foster is a farmer in Hardwick, Vermont. It’s an organic dairy farm, seventy cows total and about forty milking at any given time. I spent an afternoon following Forrest around the barn, his sugarshack, we took a long ride in his tractor, out past his deer camp. He took me to the place where he cuts cedar and hemlock boughs for deer in the winter, and dispatches his old animals to feed the bear and the deer and the coyotes and the ravens.

Forrest would rather trade services than exchange money. He’ll give you meat if you can’t afford it, and he’ll expect you’ll do some chores in exchange. What I love about Forrest Foster is that he’s always practical and always generous, and these things are always the same thing.

#ftg-2323 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2323 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2323 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2323 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2323 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2323 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2323 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-2323 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-2323 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2323').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '23',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2323 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2323 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2323 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

Helena de Groot grew up in Belgium and is now a radio producer living in New York City. When I found out she was about to take her citizenship test, I asked if she’d be willing to record herself talking about what it feels like to become an American…and she agreed.

450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">

Helena is the host and producer of the Poetry Foundation podcast Poetry Off the Shelf and senior producer of The Paris Review Podcast, and she teaches at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. Once a year she goes home to Belgium, and then comes back home to New York. Ten years after they first met, she still thinks David is the most beautiful man on the entire planet.

I am home alone on New Years, cleaning and listening to music, and suddenly I remembered Grant Owen, a kid I interviewed at the beginning of the pandemic, and I realized he is exactly the company I needed. So as you’re getting ready for your dinner party or dance party or if you are stuck in a cab or a subway on the interminable trip to The New Years Place, I think you will find that Grant Owen is good company.

It’s been another challenging year of the pandemic, and families across the nation are trying to figure out how to be together for the holidays. For some, this is hard. Really hard.

Welcome to Problems, a series about comfortable, upper middle class people who have a lot to complain about. This year, sisters Andrea and Amanda have managed to get to their childhood home in Massachusetts to spend Christmas with their parents, but sister Pam and her daughter River are unable to get there. This is disappointing, and challenging.

On Christmas Eve, the sisters get together for a zoom call, and to share their yearly tradition of New Years Noticings.

Credits

Sarah Miller is a writer in Nevada City, California. Here is her biomass article in the New Yorker and here is her substack.

Amelia Meath is one half of the band Sylvan Esso, which has been nominated for a Grammy for best electronic/dance album. They will win if I have anything to say about it. Which I don’t. But they will.

Sedsel is my son Henry’s sister and she lives on a small farm in a place that is hard to get to. Thanks to her mother Stacey for coaching her on some spectacular whining.

 

Will Staats worked for both Vermont and New Hampshire for forty years as a wildlife biologist. He’s also a passionate hunter. He knows the back country of the Kingdom right up through Maine and into Labrador. One day in October he took me bird hunting deep in the unorganized town of Ferdinand. We talked about birds. And we talked about the growing divide between traditional hunting culture and people who don’t like certain kinds of hunting here in Vermont. But it was more interesting than that…it was also about how people harden against each other then alienate each other…something we do a lot of these days.

Here is a recent article from Will that ran in VTDigger.

Finn Rooney killed himself on January 3, 2020 in the afternoon after school. No one predicted it. There were no signs. All that can be said for sure is that there was a flash of high emotion that comes with youth, and there was a gun nearby, and bullets.

This isn’t a story about suicide. It’s a story about a boy called Finn who loved to fish and play baseball and write poetry and embroider…and what happens to a small Vermont community as it staggers forward after an unspeakable tragedy.

Make comment at bottom of this page. Because we really want to hear from you. And we want you to be able to hear from each other.

An interview with Rob Rosenthal for How Sound, on the making of Finn and the Bell

Thanks

My profound thanks to Tara Reese for her insights, her candor and her time.

Thank you to my friends: Amelia Meath, Tobin Anderson, Clare Dolan and Mark Davis.

I also want to thank every single person who talked with me for this show. You didn’t really want to but you did anyway. Thank you to Arron and Alleigh and Butch and David and Illia and Mike and Kim and Mirko and Alex and Mac and Allison and Dave and Jack and Dante and Bob and Ben and the Bread and Puppet Band.

 

#ftg-2222 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2222 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2222 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2222 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2222 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2222 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2222 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-2222 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-2222 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2222').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '22',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2222 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2222 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2222 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

I heard recently that Peter Dunning died.  I want to play this again, in tribute. He was an amazing man.

 

Peter Dunning’s farm was a Vermont hill farm. A hundred and thirty-six acres of forest and orchards and wet spots and steep, rocky pasture, picked over by farmers for hundreds of years.

Peter farmed here, mostly alone, for nearly forty years. When he was getting done, we spoke at his kitchen table,  as the farm was growing up around him.

Credits

I learned of Peter Dunning from a documentary, Peter and the Farm. It’s stunning. Watch it if you can….

Music for this show by David Schulman and Quiet Life Motel

Thank you Geof Hewitt for your help with the poetry!

This show also features the last verse of a remarkable poem called Marshall Washer, by Vermont poet Hayden Carruth. Here’s the full text.

In cases where a defendant seems unjustly accused, the defense attorney is our hero. But if they seem guilty…or if it’s an especially violent crime, we look at these lawyers and wonder…how can they do that?

This is a show about the people who stand with the accused.

You’ll hear five perspectives on the art of criminal defense, and you’ll hear some great stories. Which makes sense because telling great stories is part of the job description.

Hear the Full Interviews

Here are the (relatively) unedited interviews with the attorneys. I’ve removed redundancies, overly personal material, and questions of my own that were too wandering and obtuse. Sadly, the interview with Scott Williams was too damaged to include. I salvaged small sections for the show, but most of the interview suffered from ‘faulty microphone.’

Dan Sedon:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_1').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kelly Green:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_2').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kerry DeWolfe Part 1:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_3').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kerry DeWolfe Part 2:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_4').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Richard Rubin Part 1:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_5').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Richard Rubin Part 2:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_6').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

 

The Lawyers

Richard Rubin Esq., Rubin, Kidney, Meyer & Vincent

Kerry B. DeWolfe, Esq., Appellate Division, Office of the Defender General

Dan Sedon, Esq., Sedon and Ericson, P.C., Chelsea, Vermont

Kelly Green, Esq., Staff Attorney, Prisoner’s Rights Office, Office of the Defender General

Scott R. Williams, Esq., Williams Law Group, LLC

Special Thanks

This show was mixed by the wonderful Colin McCaffrey. The featured photo is another great contribution by Josh Larkin. Thanks too to David Schulman for his music!

And thanks to Colin Dickerman, G, RSH, Larry Massett and especially Tamar Cole for all the help and feedback.

In cases where a defendant seems unjustly accused, the defense attorney is our hero. But if they seem guilty…or if it’s an especially violent crime, we look at these lawyers and wonder…how can they do that?

This is a show about the people who stand with the accused.

You’ll hear five perspectives on the art of criminal defense, and you’ll hear some great stories. Which makes sense because telling great stories is part of the job description.

Hear the Full Interviews

Here are the (relatively) unedited interviews with the attorneys. I’ve removed redundancies, overly personal material, and questions of my own that were too wandering and obtuse. Sadly, the interview with Scott Williams was too damaged to include. I salvaged small sections for the show, but most of the interview suffered from ‘faulty microphone.’

Dan Sedon:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_2').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kelly Green:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_3').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kerry DeWolfe Part 1:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_4').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Kerry DeWolfe Part 2:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_5').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Richard Rubin Part 1:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_6').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

Richard Rubin Part 2:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_7').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

 

The Lawyers

Richard Rubin Esq., Rubin, Kidney, Meyer & Vincent

Kerry B. DeWolfe, Esq., Appellate Division, Office of the Defender General

Dan Sedon, Esq., Sedon and Ericson, P.C., Chelsea, Vermont

Kelly Green, Esq., Staff Attorney, Prisoner’s Rights Office, Office of the Defender General

Scott R. Williams, Esq., Williams Law Group, LLC

Special Thanks

This show was mixed by the wonderful Colin McCaffrey. The featured photo is another great contribution by Josh Larkin. Thanks too to David Schulman for his music!

And thanks to Colin Dickerman, G, RSH, Larry Massett and especially Tamar Cole for all the help and feedback.

 

Susan is a private investigator and I interview her a lot for my show. Last week she hit an owl with her car and it died. She didn’t want to leave it on the side of the road so she took it home and put it in the freezer and started calling around the state to see who could use a dead owl and it turned out the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury could. So she drove up. The owl joined its raptor brethren in the museum cooler and then Susan came over to my house to eat sandwiches and talk…mostly about Covid, and about how it has changed us utterly.

Music for this show is by Brian Clark and Mike Donofrio

Susan’s private investigation business is called VTPrivateye

scaled.jpg">450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">

 

 

At the onset of Covid in March, 2020, the Vermont Supreme Court declared a judicial emergency, suspending all non-essential court hearings. Hearings have resumed, but many are still being held remotely, including arraignments, which are ground zero for all criminal cases.  An arraignment is the first time that defendants appear in front of a judge. They’re informed of their charges and they enter a plea. And for defendants working with a public defender, it’s often the first time they meet their attorney, or even see their attorney. But since Covid, nobody’s seeing much of anyone in person. The judge might be at home, the defense attorney’s in his office, the state’s attorney’s in another office, and the defendant on the phone, or lodged in jail, as the case may be. Instead of appearing in court, they meet on a scratchy channel called WebEx. So what does justice lose when human contact is lost?

Credits

Attorneys Dan Sedon and Mike Shane, Sedon and Ericson

George Contois, court officer at Orange County Courthouse

Music by Brian Clark

Thanks

Thanks to Kelly Green and Tobin Anderson

 

Zeno Mountain Farm is a camp for people with and without disabilities, which is a super reductive way to describe it. Most other camps are places where people with disabilities are not. They’re missing. Zeno is a camp where everyone…is.  And a camp that includes everybody is way more fun. Exponentially more fun. At Zeno, everyone is a camper and everyone is a counselor and nobody pays to be there and nobody gets paid. It’s just friends who come back year after year to this mountain in Lincoln, Vermont, which looks out over the Champlain Valley. I spent a day talking with people there and capturing the sound of a day at Camp Zeno.

Credits and Links

Thank you Laurel Sager for introducing me to Zeno!!!

Link to Zeno Mountain Farm

Zeno’s latest film, Best Summer Ever

#ftg-2020 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-2020 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2020 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-2020 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-2020 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-2020 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-2020 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-2020 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-2020').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '20',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-2020 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-2020 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-2020 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

Chris and Beth sing a lot. You’ve heard them before, if you listened to the show Sing your Job. They were the ones singing Game of Thrones, which I could not stop listening to. When I wrote to Chris to say that I couldn’t stop listening to them sing Game of Thrones, he told me that he and Beth sing a lot. They make up songs about whatever they’re doing at the moment, and lucky for us, they record themselves periodically.

Nobody really knows a marriage except for the two people in it. It’s a very private institution. I’ve never been married but I’d like to think that this is what marriage sounds like. Some of the time…

Credits:

Chris Attaway and Beth Lewis are moving to Birmingham in August and they want to get a dog. Beth is a writer and performer and Chris makes a podcast called Left of the Dial

The music video for Squash in My Shop – https://www.instagram.com/p/CMAipXznoCg/

Beth Tapes:  https://anchor.fm/bethlewis

Beth’s Tiny Letter – https://tinyletter.com/BethLewis/archive

 

 

 

Alexis Harte is out biking on a chilly afternoon last November when a new song pops into his head and mesmerizes him. It doesn’t seem strange at first — he’s a musician, after all. But when he discovers what was happening to a cherished relative at the moment the song sprang into his brain, he begins to wonder if he’s the target of a practical joke from the hereafter.  Herschel’s Song is one part tribute to a dear friend, and to a life well-lived, and one part meditation on the songwriting/creative process.

Producer Bio:

Producer Alexis Harte is a singer-songwriter and composer and is the co-founder and creative director of Pollen Music Group. His latest musical short film, Thirsty, premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. This is his first audio story.

Credits:

Story, narration, song, and sound design: Alexis Harte

The Bonobo Band:

Alexis Harte: Guitars/Vox/Harmonica

Jon Evans: Upright Bass

Matthias Bossi: Drums

Additional music:

“Wedding Waltz” | “Bandon” by Gunnar Madsen (respectively, from the albums “Spinning World: 13 Ways of Looking at a Waltz” and “Two Hands”

“This Old House” by Jayme Pohl

“Sunrise” | “Different Farm” | “The Story”  by  Pollen Music Group

“Nocturne” Opus 27 no. 2 in Db Major (Lento sostenuto) by Frédéric Chopin. Performed by Frank Levy

(…with my humble thanks to Sir Paul McCartney, who can always be counted on for a good “perfect example”)

 

 

 

Irfan Sehic grew up in Bosnia and spent most of his childhood living in a civil war. One day the kids across the street were his best friends, the next day they were enemies. His father would fight in the war a few days a week and then be back for dinner. It was complicated. He told me I couldn’t understand war because I had not experienced it, which is true.  But I kept asking him to explain it to me anyway.

Here’s a link to the Robby and Irfan show, wherein I admit that I do not know who Joe Rogan is.

Credits Irfan owns an insurance agency and you’d be super lucky to have him as your insurance agent because he is radically honest and loves to save you money but he doesn’t need more clients. But you can read about his agency insurance-agency.com/about">here.

Episode Sponsor!

Maple-Logo-v.2-450x450.png" alt="" width="264" height="264">

This episode is sponsored by Dobbs Maple, making small batches of locally sourced granulated maple sugar, which happens to be the best maple sugar in the world. I know this because I eat a lot of maple products even in the middle of the night.

 

 

Jane Lindholm recently left her position as host of Vermont Edition, VPR’s midday public affairs show. In her fourteen years on the show, Jane interviewed governors, senators, authors, wildlife biologists…she interviewed me once, which was awful because I couldn’t think fast enough. I have no idea how she does it, which is why I wanted to talk with her. What is it like to be live every day with a different person? And what is it like to be a regular fixture in the lives of Vermonters every day? And then…not?

Mostly this is a show for those of you who’ve been listening to Jane for fourteen years. To hear about what’s actually going on in that studio, and in her mind during Vermont Edition. We sat in her garage, in foldout chairs, between her husband’s bee keeping equipment and her kids old bikes.

Where is Jane now?? 

She’s focusing on her podcast, But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids, which she produces with Melody Bodette, and plans to produce special projects with VPR. And that will be awesome.

Music for this show is by my excellent friends Brian Clark and Mike Donofio.

Thanks to Tobin Anderson for his help, as always.

#ftg-1717 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1717 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1717 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1717 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1717 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1717 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1717 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1717 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1717 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1717').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '17',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1717 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1717 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1717 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

It’s been too long since I’ve reported on police activity here in Vermont and it’s been a challenging time for law enforcement. Calls to police are countless, and complex. I asked Scott Carrier to read from recent police logs, as reported in the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, and the Lamoille County News and Citizen.

Scott Carrier is the producer of my favorite podcast, Home of the Brave.

I re-released this story in 2022. To listen, click here. To read all the comments on this show over the years, scroll to bottom of this page.

 

 

I met Leland when he was in school with my son Henry at Calais Elementary. I interviewed him when he was over playing at our house when he was in fourth grade, and I’ve been interviewing him every spring ever since. We’ve talked about deep space, death, girls…sometimes we don’t talk much at all. Leland’s a junior in high school now. He spends most of his time at a technical school working on carpentry. He has his license and his own truck, which doesn’t have much of a muffler.

We sat and talked out by his barn, which overlooks a field and a vernal pool full of spring peepers which is there because of a stuck culvert.2-scaled.jpg">2-450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">

 

Here is a little musical about the beautiful minutia of your lives. And I just keep adding to it because our lives just keep going on and on and on. So just keep sending songs and now and then I’ll add them to the Longest Song.

 

 

I got Covid last week. I will be fine. But I would like to use this opportunity to make a show I’ve been wanting to make for a while. It’s called Sing Your Job. I invite you to sing your job description, or sing about the things you do in your job, and if you don’t have a job, just sing about what you do in your day.

It’s an experiment. I don’t know if it will work. But given that I’m going to be home for awhile, I figured now would be a good time to try. You can send audio to me at: rumblestripvermont@gmail.com

I hope you are well. Be careful out there. The virus seems to be getting smarter….

On Recording Your Job:

You can just use your phone or any recording device you have around.

You don’t have to really sing. Just tuneless humming-like-singing is fine.

It doesn’t all have to hang together. You can send fragments and I can edit it together.

In other words? Don’t get hung up on its being ‘good’. ‘Good’ isn’t the point here at all. I just want to hear you sing about your job in any stream of thought way it presents.

Send to me at erica@rumblestripvermont.com

 

The first time I meet Han MeiMei, we were standing on my deck in Vermont. She looked at the fields around my house and she said, ‘That’s a lot of fields. Have you ever thought of writing messages to airplanes?’ I had not thought of this.

Han is a brain scientist. She studies the nature of memory, and she’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She grew up in a state-run factory compound in Guilin, in southeast China’s Guangxi province. Everyone who worked there lived there, and shopped there, and the children were educated in schools there. Han was born in 1984, soon after China had decided to open itself to more economic engagement with the international economy. But she was also a second child when second children were not allowed in China.

We talked about growing up in China, and what she learned about China after she left. And why she’s chosen to spend her life asking questions that may never be answered in her lifetime.

Notes

Thank you as always to Tobin Anderson.

Music credits I cannot pronounce:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('#wp_mep_1').mediaelementplayer({ m:1 ,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen'] ,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30 }); });

An excellent Little Tiger Team video that you must watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7hbYLaD-FY

Han is not her real name. A lot of what she says in this conversation would be considered censorable in China, and she wanted to protect her privacy.

Playlist from show:

1. “Fly, butterfly!” by The Little Tigers Team 2. “Our life is full of sunshine” by Yu Shuzhen 3. “Songs and smiles” by The Milkyway Youth Art Troupe 4. “Flowing water ” by Guan Pinghu 5. “The waters and clouds of Xiaoxiang” by Wu Jinglue 6. “For ten years, the river runs east; for ten years, the river runs west” by Wutiaoren

 

Rose Friedman and some friends decided to start making free meals on Wednesday nights for anyone who wants them. They set up outside the East Hardwick Grange Hall. A lot of people around here are making food for neighbors during Covid. But Rose isn’t making food because of Covid. Or not exactly. She wants to see what will happen. Who will come and get the food and what will it be like when they come to get the food and if a lot of really different kinds of people come to get the food, what will they all talk about in front of the grange hall? It’s like a combination of science project and putting on a show, which is one reason why I like Rose, and why I wanted to watch her make soup.

rotated.jpeg">rotated.jpeg" alt="" width="320" height="320">

VPR show about Rose and Justin and Modern Times Theater

Modern Times Theater

Music for this show by Brian Clark

Thanks to Tobin Anderson and Amelia Meath

 

We’re a year into Covid and in Vermont we’re almost into the last stretch of winter and I’ve been thinking a lot about married people, or people partnered with other people living in houses and apartments day after night for days and months and now a year. I wonder what goes on in those houses and what they talk about and how they get on day after day, night after night. I found a young couple willing to talk with me about how they’re doing. They live in an old farmhouse in central Vermont that they’re renovating…

(((Note: This is not ‘real’. Some people get really mad if they don’t know in advance. So here I am to say it’s not real. Not ENTIRELY real. I mean there’s a lot here that is real. But not all of it.)))

Credits

• Thank you Jesse and Serena for excellent cocktails and your insights about condiments
• Thank you Brian Clark for your music. And your beautiful woodwork.
• Thank you Tobin Anderson for your constant help
• A link to Jesse’s work.

Here are some pictures of Jesse and Serena and their awesome house in Plainfield:

#ftg-1515 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1515 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1515 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1515 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1515 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1515 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1515 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1515 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1515 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1515').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '15',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1515 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1515 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1515 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

In most of New England, town citizens become legislators for one day a year. They get together in school gyms and town halls and vote in person, and in public. This centuries long practice of towns doing the slow and hard work of disagreeing and arguing and compromising on how to govern themselves—this has a profound impact on a place, and what it means to be from a place.

Sometimes it’s contentious. Sometimes it’s boring. But it’s always the most interesting and authentic and civilized social event of the year. Always.

This is a show about where I live, which is maybe not where you live, but we’re all living through a time of awful division. There aren’t a lot of opportunities anymore to disagree civilly, in public, or to make decisions with people who are hugely different from ourselves. And maybe there should be. So I made this show to inspire us all. And you’ll hear a lot about trash removal.

Credits

Music by Brian Clark. In addition to being a fine musician, he is also a fine woodworker.

Featured photos by Terry J. Allen

Endless thanks to Tobin Anderson, Kelly Green and Amelia Meath for their help on this show.

Susan Clark is the co-author of Slow Democracy, a wonderful book on self governance and rediscovering community.

Thanks to Brattleboro Community TV and Mount Mansfield Community TV for their recordings of town meeting and all the brave people who get up and talk in those meetings

Moderators in this show are: Stephen Magill, Moretown. Paul Doton, Barnard. Gus Seelig, Calais. John McLaughry, Kirby. Bobby Starr, Troy. Susan Clark, Middlesex. Kelly Green, Randolph

Click on images below for better view. Most of the good pictures here are by Terry J. Allen of East Montpelier.

#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1414 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1414 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1414 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1414 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1414 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1414 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1414 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1414').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '14',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1414 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1414 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1414 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

 

This is a FUN show to celebrate FRICKIN’ INAUGURATION DAY which we’ve been waiting for for 1000 years!!!!!!  It’s from the Shaking Out the Numb, a series I made with Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso. The show is called Party Is Everything. It’s about being young and getting ready to go to parties and then going to parties. And all of the things you think about when you’re getting ready to go to a party and then when you’re at a party.

The song you hear is Ferris Wheel, from Sylvan Esso’s new album, Free Love.

In this show you’ll hear Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, Amelia Meath and Molly Erin Searle, who together have a band called Mountain Man, which is an amazing band.

There’s some swearing. A lot of young people swear. They’re good at Instagram and they swear a lot.

 

It’s been a challenging year. Families are trying to figure out how to be together for the holidays when they can’t be together physically. Welcome to Problems, a Christmas special. Problems is a series about comfortable, upper middle class people who have a lot to complain about. This year, Pam and her two sisters, Andrea and Amanda, are planning a Christmas caroling zoom call to their parents. In a series of zoom calls they plan and practice.

But it’s just really hard.

Credits

Amanda is played by writer Sarah Miller, of Nevada City, California and a reasonably regular contributor to this show. You can find a link to her essay, Why Cooking Sucks…below.

Andrea is played by Amelia Meath of Durham, NC, singer/songwriter in Sylvan Esso and Mountain Man. I’ve done a bunch of shows for and with Sylvan Esso, some of which are below.

Pam is me.

 

Daniel Kirk is a children’s book author and illustrator and he lives with his wife in New Jersey, about twelve miles outside of Manhattan. They were both infected with COVID last March, before it had spread in the United States. They still don’t know where they got it. By now we know a lot more about COVID. We know the symptoms. We can recite the symptoms. But what does it actually feel like to struggle to breathe? And for those who become deathly ill–who slip into some state between waking and dreaming–where do they go?

As Daniel’s wife recovered, Daniel’s temperature climbed to 104, and eventually he ended up in the hospital. Here is his story.

portrait-2.jpg">portrait-2-450x245.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="245">

Credits

Information about Daniel Kirk

Music for this show is by Mike Donofrio and Brian Clark, two excellent people.

As always, my thanks to anderson.com/blog/about/">Tobin Anderson who helps me with all things.

 

 

 

 

Bill Schubart is a writer and a cultural and political commentator. He’s chaired a lot of important boards here in Vermont. He’s really smart and he talks a lot and a lot of people listen to him. What he talks less about is that he’s struggled with being fat his entire life. He’s not averse to talking about it. In fact he wrote a brilliant collection of stories called Fat People in 2010. But it’s not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation.

In this show, we talk about it.

For more about Bill Schubart

A link to Bill’s book, Fat People

 

Credits:

Music for this show by Brian Clark, who is awesome.

Thank you Tobin Anderson, as always

Headshot by Bill’s brother, Michael Couture

I first interviewed them when they played in Vermont in 2017 and we became friends. In fact Amelia is the only person with whom I have two-hour phone conversations that start like this:

‘Hey. What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing. What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing.’

This podcast was an experiment. The interviews were all recorded over the phone during Covid….on back porches at night, by rivers, in fields, and sometimes in closets. Nick and Amelia weren’t interested in a standard set of questions about how they make their songs or what their songs are about. Instead…they told stories that cause songs.

The series is called Shaking Out the Numb.

I love them. I hope you will too.

 

Photo Credits: Above picture by Nick and Amelia. Banner picture by Shervin Lainez.

More Information about Sylvan Esso

Sylvan Esso has unveiled a new podcast today called Shaking Out The Numb. The experimental six-episode series is a revealing exploration of the creative heartbeat of this duo, and the impulses and experiences that led them to make their new album Free Love.  Sylvan Esso has partnered with NPR Music to share the episode entitled “Make It Easy,” and all six episodes of Shaking Out The Numb are available now via all major podcast distributors and YouTube.

The podcast was created from hours of unadorned conversations that Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso had with their friend, Rumble Strip producer Erica Heilman, shortly after completing Free Love.  Both focused and freewheeling, each episode has a different scope, mixing together found sounds, reflections and discussions that celebrate the sheer thrill of the very essence of creativity.  From a visit to a decommissioned particle collider to the electric feeling of getting ready for a party, Shaking Out The Numb opens a window into the soul of Sylvan Esso.  The podcast was produced by Erica Heilman and Sylvan Esso.

This past weekend, Sylvan Esso performed three songs from Free Love on CBS Saturday, from a roof in their home city of Durham, NC.  Watch them perform “Ring,” “Ferris Wheel,” and “Rooftop Dancing.”  Since May they’ve also performed for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, where Amelia sang “Ferris Wheel” from the bed of a moving flatbed truck.

Last week, Sylvan Esso also shared a remix of their summer bop “Ferris Wheel,” transformed into a “woozy headtrip” (Stereogum) by celebrated producer/multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin (Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Travis Scott) and featuring Robert Glasper (Kanye West, Erykah Badu, JAY-Z).

The duo has also been hosting a virtual concert series throughout the fall called FROM THE SATELLITE – which will conclude December 1 at 9PM ET with a performance titled WITH LOVE.

 

François Clemmons was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1945 on the plantation where his great great grandmother Laura May’s family had been slaves, then he moved with his mother and siblings and aunts and cousins to Youngstown, Ohio during the Great Migration. Youngstown is where he started singing, and he never stopped singing. He sings in the middle of sentences, he sings on the way to the bathroom, he sings like the world depends on it, which maybe it does.

But you know him already. Or those of you who are of a certain age. For twenty-five years François played Officer Clemmons on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. And recently he wrote a book about it, called Officer Clemmons.

Now he lives in Middlebury, Vermont. I drove over there to talk with him about his life in the South and about Mr. Rogers, one of the great loves of his life.

Credits and More

François Clemmons’ Website

Clemmons’ memoir, Officer Clemmons

Additional music by Brian Clark

Article in Seven Days about François Clemmons by Dan Bolles. Thank you Dan for writing it.

 

Mark Utter was born with a form of autism that makes it impossible for him to say what he’s thinking. For the first thirty years of his life, Mark did not have access to the world of words, except as a listener. An observer. When he was thirty, he was introduced to supported typing, and for the first time in his life, with the help of a facilitator and a typing pad, Mark started his life as a writer of words. This is an interview about what it’s like inside the life and mind of Mark Utter.

Kudos and Credits

50 Best Podcasts of 2015, The Atlantic Monthly…#38

Mark Utter lives in Colchester, Vermont. He receives services that assist his day to day ventures with negotiating a world that functions differently than he does. The more you read about him the more you will realize that we are more alike than different.

Emily Anderson is trained to support people who type to communicate. She was the producer of “I am in here.” She has a background in social/political theater and uses it to assist creative projects that bring odd people more positively into the limelight.

Mark’s Web site: www.utterenergy.org

To view the “I am in here” trailer or purchase the DVD: http://www.utterenergy.org/iaminhere/

Mark’s Blog: http://www.utterenergy.org/blog/

For more information on the form of communication Mark uses: http://www.utterenergy.org/supported-typing/

Music for this show by Podington Bear, and the Free Music Archive

Kudos

Best in Show from The Timbre!

 

I’ve been doing a couple freelance jobs for extra money. One requires a great deal of video conferencing. I have learned that I do not excel at video conferencing and at the moment I knew this with certainty, my recorder was close by, so I recorded some thoughts on the subject. Then an audio producer in London heard it and did a remix version of it. So here is a short dip into my state of mind during this election season, this world burning, this age of video conferencing. There is some justifiably strong language.

 

Credits

Arlie Adlington, Audio producer for podcasts and radio

Maya Goldberg-Safir, an excellent person who also happens to be the artistic director of The Third Coast Festival

 

Karl Hammer is the founder and president of the Vermont Compost Company in East Montpelier, right up the hill from Montpelier, the state capital. I first heard about Karl from my friend Rosana, who used to be married to him. She told me about how they had puppies one winter, and Karl decided to compost their poop on the floor in the house, which he sweetened with donkey manure and hardwood bark and hay.

Karl started as a vegetable and dairy farmer on a hill farm in Vershire Vermont. He had a business card that said, ‘Have fun. Make money. Save the world.’ How do you make more land better land to make more food for more people? I think it was that question that finally made him leave farming and get into compost production, long before composting was a virtue.

Recently, Karl’s been running a donkey cart into town to pick up food scraps at restaurants and the local coop. Karl has always had donkeys. He loves donkeys, especially the American Mammoth jackstock, which is endangered. And Karl figures the only way to protect them is to give them a useful job to do…to make them indispensable.

I tried to interview Karl a few years ago and failed. He has a mind that connects politics and history and feces and he talks about them all at once and he’s impossible to corral into any one subject at a time. I figured this time I could keep him on the subject of donkeys. But I couldn’t. But it didn’t matter. Karl knows a lot of things I wish I knew.

Pictures and video by Sid Hammer, except the less good pictures, which are mine.

 

#ftg-1313 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1313 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1313 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1313 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1313 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1313 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1313 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1313 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1313 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1313').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '13',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1313 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1313 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1313 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

A GUEST SHOW from one of my favorite radio producers….Bianca Giaever.

During a period of personal loneliness, radio-maker Bianca Giaever set out into New York City, hoping to connect with another lonely stranger. She began visiting Catholic churches, and eventually, she met Sophia — a school crossing guard. In this piece, Bianca documents Sophia’s life for many months… weaving between the ordinary life of a school crossing guard, and larger themes of loneliness, God, and the quest to live a meaningful life.

This piece is the first episode in a new podcast by Bianca and The Believer Magazine called Constellation Prize, which you can find in the iTunes store or wherever you get your podcasts. In this series, Bianca talks to subjects about their daily existential problems, both big and small.

If you like Rumble Strip, you will like Bianca’s show. It never fails to surprise me.

Music in this episode is by Zubin Hensler and Stellwagon Symphonette. It was written and produced by Bianca Giaever, and edited by bennett.com/">Hayden Bennett. Special thanks to Andrew Leland and Laura Irving.

Artwork by Sludge Thunder

 

Winnie Wilkinson is originally from Jamaica but she spent half her life in New York City before moving up to St. Albans, Vermont, where black people make up 2.52 percent of the population. Winnie has family all over the country, and she has a lot of family members who’ve been harassed by the police, which is what I went to talk with her about. But it’s not what we talked about. Instead, we talked about God and about slavery–two things that have a profound impact on how Winnie thinks about everything else, including police brutality.

Thank you David Glidden for introducing me to Winnie. And thank you Winnie for going to look for my glasses. And thank you Tobin for bearing with me.

To learn more about Winnie’s seasonings, spices, hot pepper sauce and African products, visit her here.

 

scaled.jpeg">450x600.jpeg" alt="" width="450" height="600">

Clare is the curator of the Museum Of Everyday Life, which lives in a barn on Route 16, about eight miles from Glover, Vermont, population 2000. Over the years, the Museum of Everyday Life has given us the toothbrush, the mirror, bells and whistles–celebrations of objects we use everyday in our unglamorous everyday lives. This year’s exhibit features the knot. It’s not quite finished, because as Clare was preparing the exhibit, she was also working her other job as a nurse at a small rural hospital, in the middle of a pandemic.

She showed me the exhibit, which is not quite done but which is already strange and brilliant, and we talked about knots, and  about her work as a nurse, in a pandemic and beyond…

THANK YOU to Bianca Giaever for her insights on this show. She just launched a podcast and it’s really frickin good…

More

Visit the Museum of Every Life

Images from the new exhibit:

#ftg-1212 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1212 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1212 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1212 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1212 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1212 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1212 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1212 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1212 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1212').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '12',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1212 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1212 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1212 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

I met my friend Leland when he was in first grade and he came over to play with my son Henry. For six years now, we’ve been having a yearly conversation about how he’s doing and what he’s thinking about. He just finished his sophomore year at the Central Vermont Career Center in Barre, which is a technical education school. He was never big on regular school, even though he knows more about geography than I’ll ever know. Leland lives in an old farmhouse on a dirt road looking down over Pekin Brook in Calais. I drove over and I sat in my car and he sat in his truck and neither of us had a lot to say, in that way that a lot of us don’t have a lot to say right now, with so much that’s so uncertain…

 

Last month a friend of mine sent me a picture of miles and miles of cars lined up waiting for food that was being distributed by the National Guard here in Vermont. Nineteen hundred cars. I’d never seen anything like it, and it took me a minute to even believe it. And when I told a friend about it…a perfectly smart and thoughtful friend…he said,  “Well, they probably don’t really need it. I mean, those are pretty nice cars…”

It turns out there are lot of ways to be food insecure, and they’re all invisible, and they’re growing all the time. I went and talked with some people working on the front lines of hunger about this big federal food distribution program that’s all over the news, and we talked about the chronic problem of stigmatizing people who don’t have to enough to eat.

((Check out a gallery of pictures from this event below…))

In this show

Robert Ostermeyer, Director of Franklin/Grand Isle Community Action at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity

Nicole Whalen, Vermont Foodbank

Faye Longo, Vermont Foodbank

Music

Brian Clark, Calais, Vermont

Links to Information about Food

How to find your local Foodbank

Vermont Foodbank

How to find your local food pantry

The following pictures were taken by Terry J. Allen of East Montpelier, Vermont, at the Newport food distribution event in June, 2020. She’s great, and you can see more of her work here.

#ftg-1111 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-1111 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1111 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-1111 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-1111 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-1111 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-1111 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-1111 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-1111 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-1111').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '11',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-1111 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-1111 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-1111 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

I met Grant Owen in Newport, Vermont right before the pandemic hit. He was an exhibitor at the annual collector’s fair put on by the Old Stone Museum in Brownington. People bring their collections to share with the public…yardsticks, pez dispensers, old glass…and Grant was there with a table covered in stuffed animals.

Right after the fair, the stay at home order started, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Grant Owen, sheltering in place with a roomful of stuffed animals, which for him are a big extended family. They’re real.

Kids know how to turn objects into living things. It’s like magic. And for some reason it seemed like the perfect antidote to all the Covid 19 news. So I went over to his house on a warm day in late February, and I stood in the snow outside his bedroom window, and we talked for a few minutes about his stuffed animals.

scaled.jpg">450x338.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338">

 

Here’s our last show, which also happens to be show number seven.

• In this show you heard
• Cheering healthcare workers in Barcelona and Toronto
• Greg’s son practicing trumpet on a rainy night in Plainfield, VT
• Brooke in Denver Colorado
• Rob on the accordian in Adamant, VT
• Bianca in Brooklyn, NY
• Gideon and his mother Kathryn in High Falls, NY
• Liv singing in Los Angeles, CA
• Toria in Boulder, CO
• Edward and his daughter in Forth Worth, TX
• Shane singing about dinosaurs in Minnesota
• The 5pm one song concert in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn
• Ali cheering the healthcare workers on her porch in Putney, VT
• And this is Mary and her dad Ted in Lincoln, VT

The incomparable associate producer for this series is Samantha Broun. Thank you to Larry Massett and Scott Carrier and Tobin Anderson. Our Show is made in collaboration with Transom, the birthplace of excellent radio.

I think this is our last show everybody. I’m not getting the same volume of recordings as I was a month ago. I think maybe we’re into a new stage of this pandemic experience, and maybe it’s more internal, where people don’t want to talk as much. If that changes again, and people suddenly have lots they want to say, and the recordings start building up again, then I can always make more. But for now I think we should congratulate ourselves for making an amazing thing together.

Thank you ALL for the remarkable privilege of listening to your recordings from all over the world. It has carried me through this time and I am so grateful.

 

 

 

This is Our Show, number six. Your recordings about the pandemic.

In this show you heard from:

• Alicia and Liv in Los Angeles, CA
• Ada in Marfa, Texas
• Anna in Bennington, Vermont
• The sound of rain in a woodstove from Bruce in Montreal
• Bill in New York City
• Morten in Southampton, United Kingdom
• Eli in Philadelphia, PA
• Katz in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Shana in Auchterarder, Scotland
• Samantha, somewhere in South Africa
• Jen in East London
• Bev and her mother Marj and her father Bill, in Toronto.

Samantha Broun is the associate producer for this series, and she’s producing an amazing series right now about an ER nurse in Queens. You can find the latest episode here.

The picture above is Morten’s beautiful daughter in their garden in Southampton, UK.

Transom is my partner in this series, for which I feel extremely lucky.

Keep sending your stories, from wherever you are. Sing a song. Record a phone call, or an argument, or your thoughts in the middle of the night. Say the location and the date at the beginning. And tell your friends to send their tape too. I’m hoping we make something that sounds like what’s happening. Send me your recordings at rumblestripourshow@gmail.com, and if you cant figure out how to do it, just email and we’ll figure it out together.

 

Here’s Our Show, number five…your recordings about the pandemic.

In this show you hear from:

• Niels in Copenhagen, Denmark
• Thomas singing in El Cerrito, CA
• Rachel in Olympia, Washington
• Rob and his kids from Olympia, Washington
• Louisa in Brittany, France
• Another meditation from Cali in Florida
• Tomas in Berlin, Germany
• Molly’s bells in Las Cruces, NM
• Esther in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Ada and Mathew in Marfa, TX
• Carlos, in Bethesda, MD

The Associate Producer for this series is the excellent, gifted Samantha Broun. The partner for this series is Transom.

Above is a picture of Tomas’ plant.

Keep sending your stories, from wherever you are. I listen to every one of them. And I love them. Sing a song. Record a phone call, or an argument, or your thoughts in the middle of the night. Say the location and the date at the beginning. And tell your friends to send their tape too. I’m hoping we make something that sounds like what’s happening. Send me your recordings at rumblestripourshow@gmail.com, and if you cant figure out how to do it, just email me and we’ll figure it out together.

This pandemic is changing. In a lot of places, it’s becoming more dire. There are more people who are sick. More people have loved ones who are sick. Healthcare workers are overworked and scared and tired. And a lot of us are really worried about paying our bills.  And in order to do as much justice to as many people as possible, we need to hear from these people on the front lines. If you know someone who is struggling, and may find it USEFUL to talk about it in a recording, tell them about the project. We want to hear from them.

We’re making this show together, and it’s for all of us. Thank you for doing this with me.

 

 

Here is Our Show 4, your recordings during the pandemic. Thank you for sending me remarkable recordings from all over the world, and the intense privilege of making shows with them.

In this show you hear from:

• Bill in New York City
• Clive in Toronto
• Tim in Durango, Colorado
• Bianca in New York City
• Andrew’s son reading Pi in Northhampton, Mass.
• Kelly in New Braunfels, Texas
• Ralph in North Wolcott, Vermont
• Amelia in Durham North Carolina

Music by hand habits and Amelia Meath.

Your Recordings!

Keep sending your stories, from wherever you are. I listen to every one of them. And I’m pulling from ALL of them to make these new shows. Sing a song. Record a phone call, or an argument, or your thoughts in the middle o fthe night. Say the location and the date at the beginning. And tell your friends to send their tape too. I’m hoping we make something that sounds like what’s happening. Send me your recordings at rumblestripourshow@gmail.com, and if you cant figure out how to do it….

I’m happy to say that Transom is now a collaborator on Our Show. Transom is sort of where new radio gets born, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have become a radio producer if they didn’t exist back when I started. Thank you so much to Jay Allison and to Scott Carrier for support, and to Samantha Broun for support and editing.

 

This is Our Show number three…made from your recordings during the pandemic.

Keep that tape coming. Let’s keep making damn shows.

• In this show you hear from:
• Elliott in Brooklyn and his mother Roberta who’s outside of Chicago
• Carlos in Bethesda
• Ryan in West Virginia
• Katy in New York City
• Darren in the middle of the south coast of England
• Silvia in Barcelona
• Jessica in Minneapolis
• Alicia and Liv in Los Angeles
• Scott in Streatham, London
• Greta in Los Angeles
• Karen on an island near Stockholm
• Sarah and Hannah in Essex, Vermont

THANK YOU to Samantha Broun at Transom for all her help on this project.

Picture above from Silvia in Barcelona.

Recordings

Send me your stories, from wherever you are. Sing a song. It doesn’t have to sound good. Record a phone call, or an argument, or whatever you like. Say the location and the date at the beginning. And tell your friends to send their tape too. Send it to me at rumblestripourshow@gmail.com, and if you cant figure out how to do it, email me at that address and we’ll figure it out.

Jay Allison at Transom has posted ideas about how to record, and why. They are great, and more articulate than what I’ve written. Have a look and send to friends if they’re interested in recording.  And better at communication than me.

 

 

 

This is the second installment of Our Show, which is about all of us during this pandemic, and is made from all the recordings you’re sending to me from wherever you are in the world, in whatever isolated circumstance. I’m in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in a third floor walk-up, with my son Henry. I have plenty of time to edit. So keep sending your stories.

Here’s Show Two.

• In this story you hear from:
• Bianca and Matt in New York City
• My sister Missy in Damariscotta, Maine
• Craig and his wife and son in Madison, Wisconsin
• Desiree in Los Angeles
• Gary in Singapore
• Malcolm and Shana in Auchterarder, Scotland
• John in Seattle, Washington, who is not a teacher but is teaching the meaning of circumference
• Nick in Los Angeles, singing  an Arthur Russell song

 

 

It’s amazing. An entire planet of people living mostly in isolation…or those of us lucky enough to be well. It’s the darkest thing to happen in my lifetime, but also strangely the most unifying. We’re all experiencing the very same thing at the same time, but not together. Which is why I wanted to make this show.

I asked you to send me recordings from where you are so we could make a show about all of us.  And you did. And they are remarkable, and there are too many to make just one show. So I’m going to just keep making this show, called Our Show, for as long as you want to to send me your recordings from wherever you are in isolation. And we can keep each other company. So here goes.

More!

Keep sending recordings! Your handwashing, your arguments, your thoughts in the middle of the night…your songs and  hummings….whatever. And tell your friends to send their recordings too. Just email me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com, or send files via wetransfer.com.

Credits:

In this show you hear from Tristan from Tasmania, Helena DeGroot in New York City, Cali from Florida and her friend Keri from Durham North Carolina, Clark from Atlanta, Georgia, Tom and Liam from Columbus, Ohio, and Deb and Gary in Montpelier, Vermont. Also birds and Aoife the cat from Woodbury, Vermont. Picture by Helena DeGroot

Sponsor (TAKEOUT FROM HONEY ROAD!!!)

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. They are now serving takeout. Please order up from them, ok? Click on the picture and check out the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

Let’s make a show together.

For the next couple weeks I invite you to send me phone recordings from wherever you are. From where you are sheltering in place, or quarantining, or just waiting for school to open. You can talk about anything, but here are some questions you could choose from if you like….

• What does the room look like where you’re spending most of your time? In detail?
• What did you eat for breakfast this morning? Have your thoughts about food changed at all?
• What’s your experience in your local grocery store right now? A week ago? Or any store you want to talk about?
• How are you getting along with your family, or the people you’re with? Anything new you’ve learned about them since living in closer quarters more of the time?
• What are you afraid of?
• Given what a massive change this has been, what is happening in your life that you NEVER could’ve imagined two weeks ago?
• Sing a song. Or hum a song. It doesn’t have to be pretty.
• Record ambience of a dinner conversation or a dinner alone. Narrate a cooking project.
• Record sounds! Any sounds. Of your house…of your walks, of the place where you are.

It’s weird recording to yourself. Every single time I have ever recorded by myself, usually in my closet, it is weird and hard. Weird and hard is fine.

I really hope you’ll join me in this. I want to make a show about all of us.

You can send me any and all recordings at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com

Susan Randall is a private investigator here in Vermont and she’s been my friend for twenty five years. If you listen to the show, you already know that I interview her periodically for Rumble Strip. We talk in her car, in her backyard…mostly we talk about her work as a private investigator, but lately we’ve been talking about all the complicated things that seem to start happening when you turn fifty. In our last conversation, she was just finishing treatments for breast cancer. And on New Year’s Day this year, she had a terrible medical incident that was a reaction to her cancer medication. So I went over to her house and we lay on the brown couch in her living room. We talked about her work, and some of the benefits of getting older.

Credits

For more information about Susan and her work, visit her site here.

Music for this show is by the excellent Brian Clark

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

 

 

People often assume the Joslyn House is a nursing home, probably because a lot of old people live there. But it’s not a nursing home. It’s not assisted living. There’s no anonymous art on the wall. It’s not licensed by the state. It’s a house. It’s a a place where up to twenty older people live independently together…in a huge, elegant house furnished with their own things. There’s socializing when you want it, silence when you don’t, there’s sociable silence… there are three beautiful meals served a day. Residents are given a room, and rent is 1500 dollars a month.

I can’t believe every town doesn’t have a Joslyn House…a place in your own town where you can help each other as you get older. Where you don’t have to worry about cooking, where if you’re lonely at night there‘s someone to talk to, or sit with. In other words, a civilized place. A place where love is evident…

Credits

Thanks to all the residents who talked with me, and the beautiful Arlene and Becky Wright, managers of the house.

My friend Kelly Green produced this show with me. She’s great at this PLUS she’s a great defense attorney! If you’re in trouble, call Kelly!

Click here for more information on the Joslyn House

The song for this show is A Wave in the Air by The Imperfectionists, from their latest album, Universal Consent.

More of their music

And my frickin ALL TIME FAVORITE IMPERFECTIONIST SONG: Astroplane.

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

 

An outtake with bear biologist Ben Kilham, about living with dyslexia, and how it informs the way he thinks about bears.

 

Ben Kilham and his sister Phoebe are the only licensed bear rehabilitators in the state of New Hampshire. For over twenty-five years, the Kilham Bear Center has taken in orphaned or injured black bear cubs and successfully released them back into the wild. And Ben has conducted arguably the longest scientific study of black bear behavior in history.

Until Ben Kilham, black bears were studied mostly using tracking collars. But Ben has spent decades following bears in the woods, sometimes for nine hours at a time. As his orphan cubs acclimate to their natural environment, he watches them. He naps when they nap, he moves when they move, and he studies their complex social behaviors. One of his very first cubs, Squirty, is twenty-four years old this year. She lives in woods near his home, and he’s watched her become a mother, and now a grandmother. Bear biologists have generally assumed that black bears were solitary animals. Ben Kilham has proven them very wrong.

Links

Kilham Bear Center: the place for all information on the rehabilitation program, Ben’s research, videos and books for sale….

Cubs Video: I could not figure out how to attach more video. For more, go to Ben’s website above…

The photos below are lent to Rumble Strip by Ben. Please don’t copy. Thank you!….:

#ftg-99 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-99 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-99 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-99 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-99 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-99 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-99 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-99 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-99 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-99 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }#ftg-99 .tile:hover img {-moz-transform: ;-webkit-transform: ;-o-transform: ;-ms-transform: ;transform: ;}jQuery('#ftg-99 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-99').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '9',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-99 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-99 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-99 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

 

 

For many years I have privately loved the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I started to love it when it came out in 1983, when I was fourteen.

This month I’m turning fifty. And for some reason, every time I think about turning fifty, I think about singing this song that I’ve loved for over over thirty years, and making other people listen to me sing it. I guess in a way it’s a kind of phoenix moment I’m hoping for. That I’ll burn up in some exquisite shame and then I’ll be born again into the second chapter of a century.

So I asked my friends Mike and Brian and Tobin to record the song with me in the  East Calais community center at the back of the post office.

I knew they didn’t like the song and they didn’t really want to do it, so I felt really bad asking them to do it, which in a way seemed like part o the phoenix moment I was looking for.

I feel ambivalent about turning fifty. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. So I recorded conversations with some friends about getting older. I talked with my son Henry, who’s 16. Bianca Giaever is 29. Scott Carrier is 60-something. And Clare Dolan is around my age.

Here’s a show about turning fifty and recording Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Credits

Thank you to Scott Bassage for helping me secure the best recording studio in central Vermont at the back of the East Calais post office

Thank you to the band: Brian Clark, Mike Donofrio and Tobin Anderson (pictures below)

Thank you to my friends who talked with me for this show: Scott Carrier, Clare Dolan, Bianca Giaever and Henry Heilman

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

#ftg-66 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-66 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-66 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-66 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-66 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-66 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-66 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-66 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-66 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-66 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-66 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-66').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '6',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.3],[1024, 0.3],[768, 0.2],[640, 0.3],[320, 0.2]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-66 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-66 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-66 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

This is a show about guys who love to talk about their trucks. I made it a few years ago and I think it needs a comeback. And my opinion about Dodge Rams has not changed.

Enjoy.

 

Patrick Soniera has been hunting and tracking bobcats in Vermont for fifty years, and he has a diary entry about every single hunt–the weather, the birds or the bears, the behavior of the cat tracks he followed–his diaries fill one whole wall of his office. And for the majority of those days out in the woods, Patrick never even saw a bobcat. You almost never see them, which is why Patrick is so fascinated by these cats.

Last year Patrick went out tracking cats with his hounds a hundred and fifty times and he shot one bobcat. He says it isn’t about the killing. And that’s what all good hunters say. And when you ask, ‘Well then why not just take a camera?’, the answer is always the same.

‘Because I’m a hunter.’

After years of interviewing good hunters, I’m beginning to understand the tautological logic of this. Part of Patrick’s love for bobcats is the fact of the hunt. And part of why he’s able to share years’ worth of knowledge with Vermont Fish and Wildlife is because now and then he kills one.

Thank you to Louis Porter of Vermont Fish and Wildlife for recommending Patrick to me. I love the state where I live…

450x254.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="254">

450x254.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="254">

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

450x253.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="253">

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, my all time favorite restaurant in Vermont. Make a reservation. Go. Eat. Report back. And click on the image below for more information.

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

This is the fifth episode of Problems, a radio drama about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems. In this episode, Joel’s just come back from a long vacation in British Colombia, where he had a lovely time mountain biking with friends. But…there were some problems.

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, my all time favorite restaurant in Vermont. Make a reservation. Go. Eat. Report back. And click on the image below for more information.

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

Garret Keizer and I stood together in a field, in the late summer, in the Northeast Kingdom, and he read poems from his new book, The World Pushes Back.

I first heard of Garret a few years ago when I read his book, Getting Schooled, about his years as a high school teacher up here in the Kingdom. He described this place more honestly and more humanely…than anything I’d ever read about the place before. And his stories about his own experience teaching are almost brutally honest. I’ve never read an account of teaching quite like it.

Garret’s one of the only writers where I find myself copying whole passages down from his work, as if I’ll need them later. They’re not always easy or nice things I copy down. Garret Keizer is one of the most critical and also most contemplative people I’ve ever met. I write these passages down because they remind me of something fundamental about being human that I don’t want to forget.

He’s just come out with his first book of poetry, so we drove around and talked in his car until we found the perfect field to read poetry in. It was some of the best, and most surprising conversation I’ve had in a long time.

Links and Credits

For more of Garret’s work, visit his site here.

One of my favorite articles he’s written for Harper’s is called Requiem for the Private Word….

Garret will be the headlining reader at the opening ceremony of the Burlington Book Festival on September 27th at 7:00. For more information, go here.

Music for this show is by Vermont musician Brian Clark

And thanks also to my wonderful sponsor, Honey Road. The best restaurant in Burlington. Click below to read about the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

It’s the summer musical in Randolph, Vermont…one day before showtime. It’s been an annual event at arts.org/youth/">Chandler Music Hall for over twenty years, and this year they’re putting on Footloose. And honestly? It feels like the whole town is involved. Like it takes every last person in Randolph to pull this thing off…again. To put on a full musical with up to 120 kids, in three weeks? It’s a miracle.

I spent an afternoon talking with some of the kids backstage, about their lives in musical theater. And even though we were sitting on the floor in a Xerox room, they were willing to sing songs from the show…from their hearts. This is theater magic. Welcome.

Thank you SO MUCH to Kelly Green, associate producer on this show. Also Ramsey Papp for her help and guidance. And thanks also to my wonderful sponsor, Honey Road. The best restaurant in Burlington. Click below to read about the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

Leland lives over the hill from me in East Calais. We’ve been friends since he was in first grade, and every year around this time we get together and he tells me what he’s thinking about, worried about, what his plans are. He got his driver’s permit two weeks ago so he drove me over to Number 10 Pond and we sat and talked about the ups and downs of his first year of high school, about girls, about avocado toast…

Credits

Music for this show is by Vermont musician Brian Clark, who is the lead singer and songwriter for the band Anachronist. Which is awesome.

Rumble Strip is sponsored by the best restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. It’s called Honey Road. Click on the image below to read about their menu of Eastern Mediterranean small plates…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

If you drive around rural Vermont, you see logging skidders parked in people’s dooryards. You see them working in smaller woodlots and residential woodlots, felling trees with a chainsaw at twenty below zero, dragging cables through waist deep snow. It’s dangerous work, and they’re a resilient lot. And they prefer logging by hand.

This story is about them.

Credits

This show is part of The Resilient Forest series produced by Northern Woodlands and first aired on NEXT, a weekly radio show and podcast about New England. The Resilient Forest Series is supported by the Davis Conservation Foundation and the Larson Fund. Most of the loggers you heard are part of the landscape of the vast working forest of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the subject of a special report in the Summer 2019 issue of Northern Woodlands magazine. You can find that reporting HERE.

Rumble Strip is sponsored by the best restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. It’s called Honey Road, and I ate there a couple weeks ago and honestly it was the best meal I’ve had in years. Plus the place is wicked fun. Ask for the drink that comes in two glasses….you won’t regret it.

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

Original music for this series is produced by Vermont musician and Rumble Strip collaborator and friend Brian Clark. In fact, here is a picture of his band, Anachronist, looking very serious:

pic.jpg">pic-450x274.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="274">

 

 

Gamelan Sulukala is a group of fifteen people in central Vermont who come together at the dead end of a dirt road in the basement of the Goddard College library, to play Indonesian music on an ornate, court gamelan made on the island of Java.  There is no harmony. Instead, each sound is part of an intricate layering of patterns. No one instrument, or musician stands alone.

Except the people in gamelan are people who very much stand alone. Writers and strawberry farmers and scientists and Renaissance music lovers…I guess what I’d say they have in common is they all seem to need to be alone a lot…which describes most central Vermonters I know. Also…they come here with a common purpose….to get lost in something that’s more than the sum of their parts…

Thanks so much to Steven Light and Kathy Light, who lead and inspire this group. Thank you Tobin for all your help on this show. And thanks also to all the gamelan players who talked with me.

Here’s a great article in Seven Days about Gamelan Sulukala.

This show is sponsored by the best restaurant in Burlington, Honey Road, at the corner of Church Street and Main Street. It is amazing. Go eat there and tell them I sent you! And click below to learn more….

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

 

When I was in high school I remember being amazed by how much grownups seemed to forget about being young. But as it turns out….you do forget. A lot of it. And a lot of it’s important, and funny, and sometimes scary.

I do remember that I hated high school graduation. Not because I didn’t want to graduate, but because I knew I was supposed to be excited but I didn’t know how to be excited about a future that didn’t exist yet and that I couldn’t imagine.

So a couple weeks before graduation, I went to St. Johnsbury Academy and I talked with nine high school seniors…about what they’re afraid of, what they’re excited about….and also, prom. We talked about prom.

 

Credits

Thank you to the students: Jack Luna, Fiona Sweeney, Hope Reeve, Riley Taylor, Grace Nadeau, Ce Ce Jones, Shawn Guckin, Lucas Masure and David George.

Music is by Vermont musician Brian Clark.

Thanks to Phoebe Cobb and Melissa Burroughs for their help and patience setting all these interviews up!

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

 

The criminal justice system is not designed to answer to the needs of crime victims. It’s designed to figure out if there’s enough evidence to bring a case. If there is, a defense attorney builds a case for the defendant and a prosecutor builds a case for the state of Vermont. The alleged victim in the case becomes a witness in their own story. They may have felt the impact of a crime, but they play no direct role in how the crime is adjudicated. For most people brand new to the system, this comes as a shock.

In every Vermont prosecutor’s office, in the Vermont State Police, in the Department of Corrections, there are people who see to the needs of these victims, from the time a crime is reported until long after the attorneys have gone home. It’s not their job to build cases or determine guilt or innocence. Their job is to support the victims in their cases. And that can mean a million different things. But always it’s complex and deeply personal.

This is a story about the victim advocates.

This show features:

Kate Brayton, victim advocate for Vermont’s Major Crime Unit

Amy Farr, victim advocate for Vermont’s Attorney General’s Office

Val Gauthier, victim specialist at the FBI covering Vermont and the Plattsburgh area

Aimee Stearns, victim witness coordinator at Vermont’s U.S. Attorney’s office

Danielle Levesque, victim service specialist at Vermont’s Department of Corrections

Kelly Woodward, victim advocate at the Franklin County State’s Attorney’s Office and victim advocate at the Northwest Unit for Special Investigations

Big Thanks to Toni Monsey for introducing me to these women, and to Jessica Dorr, Corrections Services Director.

Music for this show by Vermont musician Brian Clark and Kai Engel

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, the best restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. Click below for menu and accolades….

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

Welcome to the fourth episode of Problems, a radio drama about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems…because no problem is too small to complain about.

In this episode, Joel pays a visit to Pam at her house and brings her a small gift. Joel’s daughter, Whitney, has started at public school. Pam’s daughter River had a harder time at public school, and now she’s back at the local private school.

Welcome.

 

Captain JP Sinclair has been at the center of over five-hundred death investigations and a hundred-and-one homicides in the state of Vermont. He served as the state’s chief criminal investigator and he led the Vermont State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations. He was also instrumental in forming a major crime unit in the state of Vermont to handle the state’s most egregious cases.

And we used to play little league together.

JP and I went to Charlotte Central School together from Kindergarten through eighth grade. And when you go to a school as small as ours, you remember each other. And what I remember about JP is just that he was just a decent kid. He helped Mrs. Atkins clean up the cafeteria after lunch.

JP retired from the Vermont State Police in September, 2018.

We talked about his life in the VSP. We don’t get into the explicit details of homicides, but I do want to warn people that we talk about the Melissa Jenkins case. Jenkins was a mother and teacher here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and she was raped and murdered by a married couple in 2012. So if you don’t want to be reminded of this story, you might want to skip that section.

JP Sinclair now runs a mill and works as a logger in the Northeast Kingdom. You can find him at Sinclair Millworks and Timber Harvesting

Credits and Sponsors

Thank you to writer and editor Mark Davis for his excellent feedback on this show.

Thanks also to Brian Clark who wrote the music for this show.

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, the best restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. Click below for menu and accolades….

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

 

I interviewed T.O. back in the summer of 2017. He’d just gotten out of prison, where he’s spent the majority of his adult life, and he was trying to figure out what to do next. After we met, he found employment and he enrolled at the Community College of Vermont. Things were going well. But what does it feel like to start a brand new life? It’s hard. And it’s complicated.

Credits

Music by Brian Clark

450x254.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="254">

T.O.’s Poetry

Patience

Peep dis… What’s patience?? What’s life w embracing trials and TRIBULATIONS without… Patience??? Like…ppls ignorance… judgements…n gossiping… Without patience.. there is no Betterment!!! I can’t reach my goals(10 folds).. Until I reflect or resurrect..”my new from my old!!” Looking back only seems To subtract..&.. I find myself on da WRONG tracks.. Blinded by what.. I COULDN’T KEEP INTACT!!! I initiate All I make… Bcause it’s a fact… “ONLY WEAKLINGS BREAK!!!” God disciplines… So with each reprimand… Im grow into thicker skin.. Which brings into existence… A GREATER MAN!!! My physical is living proof… How PATIENCE..is da key which could ONLY.. Strengthen me.. 2 b a wiser me!!! So PATIENCE… How I love thee… I’m not single.. But damn bitch.. “Would u marry me??”

Peace… Triple OMEGA

What’s Love?

What’s love? Y is it so much pain?? Y does it shone lite on my soul.. Regardless 2 my darkest rains??? Y can’t I c past it?? Y won’t it allow me 2 4 get? Y do I admire it as if..it’s my twin bastard?? How can it tug on my mind?? Y do it give me visions..when I think I’m blind?(what am I??) Y do I continue to bust thru shittyations? Y does it give me strength..n all I’m facing? Beauty b the name!!! Victorious n all life’s Lane’s.. But 1 thing…will always remain.. Dis motherfucka… won’t Eva get tired of GAIN.. It will make a sane person turn..INsane. It’ll also mend a ..dats been crushed & broken..ova n OVA again… It’s ONLY 1 rule 2 dis game.. Which is Neva/EVA rush… Or u will find yaself in da repetitive position…!!!!!!!

P.e.a.c.e.!!! I’m TripleOmega

It’s EZ

It’s EZ..2 have friends.. When ur tricking..or spending dividends!! It’s EZ…2 smile@ life.. When it’s breezy, smooth or nyce!! It’s EZ…2 have sights.. When Ur tunneled visioned.. Thru what U swore defined.. Da right life!!! It’s jus EZ…to say..I Love U!!!.. When U don’t reflect on da issues.. Or da shit dat made u!! So…if U ask me.. PERSONALLY… I don’t agree…w Any1 Or Anything dat respects…EZ!!! TRIALS N TRIBULATIONS… bring mental n spirit-u-all.. PERSEVERANCE.. Bcause da True key to being PROSPEROUS..is when Ur @ Peace…w PATIENCE!!! What dey eat… WON’T… make u SHIT!!! SO…what dey drink.. CAN’T make u piss!!(get it?) It’s a lesson…(less w/n) Jus ask yaself a question… WHO DROPPING U JEWELZ 4 DA PROPER DIRECTION? All hugs n smiles.. don’t come w blessings… So..b on point w who u have in close sections!!! Ya enemies..are truly ya friend… Bcause they teach u 2 manifest…morals..like..HOW?? WHERE?? WHEN?? So..I ask u my FRIENDS…(lol).. Is having it EASY… Defining a win???? If so..u Betta think 3x again..

Peace n blessings…T.O.

 

 

 

I spent the night before deer season at Jim Welch’s deer camp in Chelsea, Vermont. His camp is an old school bus, outfitted with a woodstove and a couple pallets in the back for sleeping. To get to it you have to drive through Mr. Bradshaw’s barnyard and then about a half mile across a field. The bus has been there for as long as Jim can remember and Mr. Bradshaw lets him use it.

So a bunch of Jim’s friends were coming out to the bus to do what they always do the night before deer season, which is mostly drink beer, tell deer stories, eat burned hamburgers, bitch about hunting permissions and land use and give each other a hard time. And no surprise, there was plenty of profanity. And since there’s no movie theater, no bowling alley or much cell service in this valley, fun is something you have to make up together as you go along….

#ftg-55 .tile .icon { color:#ffffff; }#ftg-55 .ftg-items .loading-bar i { background:#666; }#ftg-55 .ftg-items .loading-bar { background:#fff; }#ftg-55 .tile .icon { font-size:12px; }#ftg-55 .tile .icon { margin: -6px 0 0 -6px; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { font-size:12px; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { font-size:14px; }#ftg-55 .tile { background-color: transparent; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.text { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-outside .text-wrapper span.title { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-55 .tile .ftg-social a { color: #ffffff; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block { transition-timing-function:linear; }#ftg-55 .tile .caption-block { transition-duration:0.25s; }#ftg-55 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: #000000; }#ftg-55 .tile .tile-inner:before { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); }jQuery('#ftg-55 img.item').removeAttr('src');jQuery(document).ready(function () {setTimeout(function () {jQuery('#ftg-55').finalTilesGallery({minTileWidth: 250,margin: 10,loadMethod: 'sequential',nonce: 'd04a94a94a',galleryId: '5',setupFilters: true,layout: 'final',debug: false,gridSize: 25,disableGridSizeBelow:800,allowEnlargement: true,imageSizeFactor: [ [4000, 0.9],[1024, 0.8],[768, 0.7],[640, 0.6],[320, 0.5]],selectedFilter: 'n-a'});jQuery(function () {(function () {var rel = '';jQuery('#ftg-55 .ftg-lightbox').click(function (e) {rel = jQuery(this).attr('rel');jQuery('#ftg-55 .ftg-current').removeClass('ftg-current');jQuery('#ftg-55 [rel="'+rel+'"]').addClass('ftg-current');});})();});}, 0);});

 

A lot of you who listen to the show regularly already know Susan Randall. She’s a private investigator and an old friend and I interview her now and then for the show. A couple months ago Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s important to say right off that I think Susan’s going to be fine. The cancer hasn’t spread. She doesn’t need chemotherapy, and she’s almost done with her radiation therapy. But the diagnosis has made her think differently about her life. We got together at the hospital and talked about parenting, about aging, and mortality.

Credits:

Thank you to the great people at Radiation Oncology at The University of Vermont–Kate and Lena, Heather and Dr. Nelson. Also thanks to the University of Vermont Breast Care Center and to Michael Carrese and Annie Mackin. To read more about Susan’s private investigation business, go to vtprivateye.com. And for more shows with Susan on Rumble Strip, just go to the episodes listed below.

Susan’s private investigation business is called VTPrivateye

Music: Ticket to Ride, by the Carpenters.

 

I spent a day riding around with game warden, Jeff Whipple, on the second weekend of deer season…just when some hunters are getting frustrated they haven’t got their deer yet.

Exciting things happened.

Game wardens are like nature’s cops. They’re trained in law enforcement, but they’re also conservationists. Their job is to look after the wilderness areas and forests that make up 75 percent of Vermont. They’re spread thin across the state, so in order to respond quickly to calls, they have to work in the districts where they live. That means that their neighbors are also their constituents.

What’s most interesting to ME about game wardens is they come into contact with just about every kind of Vermonter, and they have to be able to talk with anyone. I love people like that.

 

Jeff lives in Chelsea, Vermont. His district includes areas of Orange and Windsor counties. His district is crazy beautiful.

 

 

 

What most people outside Vermont know about Christine Hallquist is that she was the country’s first transgender gubernatorial candidate. But it’s not what she ran on–and it’s not even what was most interesting about her campaign.

The day before election day, Christine and her team had just finished a fourteen-county Road to Victory Tour,  which involved going to places like Lunenburg, Vermont, population 1302. And this wasn’t her first visit to Lunenburg. Christine’s campaign focused on rural Vermont, on people in small towns in far flung places, and many of the towns she visited over the course of the campaign had never even seen a gubernatorial candidate before.

In my book, that’s what made her candidacy special. Not to mention the fact that the odds were against her–no ones beaten a gubernatorial incumbent in VT in 56 years.

I asked her if I could follow her around in the days leading up to the election. She said yes. And I did. I watched her planting Christine signs along Route 2. While she was at it, she righted a few sandwich board signs for Sunday night bingo that had blown over. She made countless calls and took credit card numbers from donors on the phone.

I guess it’s possible that other gubernatorial candidates do all this. But I doubt it.

Here’s Christine Hallquist in her final push for governor. Welcome.

Thank Yous

Thank you Teddy Waszazak, David Glidden, and Cameron Russell.

Thank you Mark Davis for producing this show with me.

Thank you John Van Hoesen for giving me the idea for this story.

Phone by Cameron Russell.

 

 

Welcome to another episode of Problems–a series about Pam and Joel, two old friends who support each other through their problems. Because no problem is too small to complain about.

This is a special episode, featuring special celebrity guest, Steve McFadden. McFadden is an acclaimed performance artist from Chicago, and old friend of Pam’s. His work is extreme, and always dangerous. Pam was conducting the interview on behalf of her daughter River, who was uncomfortable conducting the interview herself, which was a problem.

 

Sarah Holland had no history of mental illness. She was a full-time R.N., she had three kids and a small farm. She was busy. Then suddenly she started to experience symptoms of depression. She didn’t have a name for it. No one in her world had ever talked about mental health. But pretty soon Sarah was having a hard time working, and parenting.

This is a story of one woman’s struggle with major depression, and her recovery.

900x200.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="133">This show is the first in a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

Sarah Holland’s awesome landscape company: River’s Bend Design

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

How should people live long-term in our state if they have a serious mental illness? The hope is that they’ll find ways to integrate into their communities with support, but that’s proven tough to accomplish. In this show we look at the challenges in our community mental health care system.

Featuring:

• Ken Libertoff, former director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health
• Anne Donahue, state representative from Northfield and Berlin, editor of Counterpoint
• Greg Mairs, operational director of adult services at Counseling Service of Addison County
• Mary Moulton, executive director of Washington County Mental Health Services
• Michael Hartman, adult mental health director at Lamoille County Mental Health
• Connie Stabler, mother and Howard Center board member
• Louis Josephson, president and CEO of Brattleboro Retreat

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Picture: Anne Donahue knockin it out of the park

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

Both Alexis and Steve were diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is the story about how meaningful, paid work plays a role in their recovery.

Featuring:

• Paul Miller, co-coordinator of the Green Mountain Workforce, Washington County Mental Health
• Louis Josephson, president and CEO of Brattleboro Retreat
• Alexis Kyriak, artist
• Steve, culinary worker

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

Photo of Alexis by Diana Gonsalves

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

Leslie Nelson has heard voices for as long as she can remember. She sees things other people don’t see. This is a conversation about what it’s like to be normal, from Leslie’s point of view, and the incredible power of finding people like herself to talk with about their normal lives with mental illness.

Featuring:

• Leslie Nelson, START Team Leader, Howard Center

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

Connie’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was nineteen, just as he was becoming independent. He didn’t believe there was anything wrong with him. He did not want to seek treatment. And since he was legally an adult, his parents stood by and watched his life fall apart.

Ron’s story was much the same.

One in 100 adults is diagnosed with schizophrenia, and for most, the onset is around this time, in late adolescence, and parents often play a critical role in their care. As caregivers, crisis responders, money lenders…and often they end up having to figure out for themselves which services are available to them, in the complex network of programs that make up the community mental health system.

This is a story about what it’s like, day to day, year to year, to be the parent of an adult child with schizophrenia.

I’d love to hear your comments. Just go to the show page and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find a comment box there.

Featuring:

• Connie Stabler, a mother and Howard Center board member
• Ron, a father (note: we are only using Ron’s first name)

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

There are Vermonters who experience psychiatric crises for years — and repeated visits to emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals. Where do they go when they leave the hospital? And why do they keep coming back? This is a story about the role housing plays in mental health.

Featuring:

• Ken Libertoff, former director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health
• Louis Josephson, president and CEO of Brattleboro Retreat
• Brian Lincourt, night charge nurse at Brattleboro Retreat
• Connie Stabler, mother and Howard Center board member
• Karl Jeffries, unit chief for adult inpatient unit at Brattleboro Retreat

 

900x200.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="133">

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

A story about Vermont’s only permanent, supervised housing for people with serious mental illness.

Featuring:

• Anne Donohue, state representative from Northfield and Berlin, editor of Counterpoint
• Graham Parker, MyPad director
• Connie Stabler, mother and Howard Center board member

This show is part of a seven-part series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us, which features personal stories from inside the state’s mental healthcare system.

Comments: Please make a comment or share a story if you’ve got one. Comments and conversation are part of the point!

Credits:

Series Advisor: Dillon Burns, mental health services director at Vermont Care Partners

Series Associate Producers: Clare Dolan, Mark Davis

Series Executive Director: Sarah Ashworth

VPR Advisors: Franny Bastian and John Dillon

Mixing: Chris Albertine

Digital Producer: Meg Malone

Series Logo: Aaron Shrewsbury

Music for this series is by two excellent Montreal-based bands:

Godspeed You! Black Emporer and Esmerine. Special thanks to the awesome Bruce Cawdron

For more information about the series, visit VPR. You’ll find the series schedule and resources.

150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150">

Very big thanks to the following people for their knowledge, time and advice: M.T. Anderson, Melissa Bailey, Gretchen Brown, Seleem Choudhury, Anne Clement, Jimmy Dennison, Isabelle Desjardins, Laurie Emerson, Deb Fleischman, Laura Flint, Al Gobeille, Alix Goldschmidt, Gary Gordon, Keith Grier, Heather Houle, Jenniflower, Karen Kurrle, Lt. Maurice Lamothe, Sabrina Leal, Fran Levine, Martie Majoros, Jack McCullough, Mark McGee, Megan McKeever, Betsy Morse, Bess O’Brien, Roxanne Pearson, Julie Potter and her beautiful daughter, Malaika Puffer, Michael Rousse, Marla Simpson, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, Sandy Steingard, Tony Stevens, Cindy Tabor, Gloria Vandenberg, Konstantin von Krusenstiern.

 

We didn’t have cheerleading at my school. Or pep rallies. I think we would’ve made fun of cheering and cheerleaders at my school. Because we were scared and cruel and had no idea what we were missing.

My son just started high school and I snuck into the gym for his first pep rally. I almost wept. Seeing all those kids—the freshmen and the seniors and the football players and the shy kids—kids at a stage in life that can be so self conscious and horrible—seeing them all clapping and cheering together and ‘moving to the left and shaking to the right’….it was ridiculous and beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

And right at the middle of all of it were the cheerleaders. So I went and talked with them. They talked about why they love cheerleading and what they’re afraid of and what they’re proud of and what they want to be with they grow up. And school spirit…

Thanks to all the girls on the St. Johnsbury Academy Cheerleading team for talking with me, and coaches Deb Priest and Chrissy Carr. For more pictures and info on the team, click here.

Thanks also to Mark Davis for his great advice. As always.

Our Generous Sponsor:

This show is sponsored by Honey Road, one of Burlington’s most popular restaurants down on Church and Main. It serves Eastern Mediterranean small plates. And it’s the kind of restaurant where you want everything on the menu. You share, you eat, they take away the finished plates and bring new ones. In other words, it’s episodic and fun. It’s also woman owned, woman run, and Allison and Cara have made a sane and happy work environment. You can even buy the kitchen staff a bucket of beer…

450x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300">

Steve Grody has dedicated his life to his passions. He’s an accomplished swing dance teacher. He’s a self defense instructor. And in the last twenty-eight years, he’s taken tens of thousands of photographs of graffiti in his hometown of Los Angeles. This is a conversation about the decades he’s spent wandering alleyways, climbing under bridges and through tunnels,  documenting this ephemeral art.

This program is produced by Bianca Giaever. She’s a writer, filmmaker, artist and radio producer, and recently I heard a story she made with Jay Allison that was sublime. It’s called Two Years with Franz, about the Pulitzer-winning poet Franz Wright. It’s beautiful and I highly recommend it. Her college film, the Scared is scared was named Web Video of the Year by USA Today but more importantly, it’s awesome.

More about Steve

You can see Steve Grody’s photos in his book,  Graffiti L.A., Street Styles and Art, and he has curated and contributed to graffiti art shows at MOCA LA and the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Steve Grody’s blog

Ted Talk with Steve

Music

A Day At The Racetrack, by the musician Julian Lynch

Additional music by Zubin Hensler and Jacob Blumberg

1-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> 150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> 150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> 150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> 150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> 150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt=""> graffiti-wall-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="">