“The Century in Sound: An American’s Perspective”
This is a 38-minute narration-free documentary of the 20th century using (other than my one minute spoken introduction) only archival sound, speeches and other audio artifacts of that talkative 100 years. The montage is of my own making and perspective as the American I happen to be, and hopefully, will take the listener of whatever […]
The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Book)
This is a extended, edited excerpt from my interview with (now Dr.) Max Aguilera-Hellweg, who saw and photographed the strange and difficult beauty of the body as it undergoes radical surgery. While this is a long form audio story, I hoped to give a sense of the ways the spirit, the “hotness” of fleshy life […]
Kay Ryan, US Poet Laureate (2008-2009)
In 2008 and 2009, Kay Ryan served as America’s 16th poet laureate, tapped by the Librarian of Congress to be ambassador for American poetry. She has published nine books of poems. and is cherished for her compact, vivid and accessible verse. She is also widely celebrated in the Lesbian community. This profile is based on […]
The Dalai Lama Interview on Conflict and Mind
In 1995, it was my good fortune to be flown down to Atlanta to interview the Dalai Lama. It was in the middle of a very ambitious and (to me) fascinating multi-million dollar project I was producing at the time on conflict resolution, and the psychology of war, violence, reconciliation and peace. This long form […]
The Kitchen Sisters: Audio Maestre
The Kitchen Sisters are famous in the radio world, and to National Public Radio listeners, for the wonderful way they combine the sounds and sentiments of real people according to themes and make their lives come alive for all of us. In this profile, I talk to them in a cozy San Francisco locale and […]
Jenks vs. Broken Arrow (OK) High School Football
In small town Oklahoma, high school football runs a close second to the Bible in popularity and team spirit. Here is a story I did (as a sidebar to the State Fair I was covering) about one game between two rival small town football teams. For a New Yorker like me, this is almost as […]
Gays in the Military: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
This is a story I did the weekend of October 10-11 2009 connected with a gay rights march on the Capitol, especially as regards gays in the military. Here’s the intro I used for the piece: Demonstrations are expected this weekend in Washington as groups of active and former service members and their supporters urge […]
Death n’ Stuff at the “New York Times” Obit Desk
After articles about the President and “dog bites man,” the obituaries are among the most popular articles the New York Times features. Part news story, part profile, obits attempt to sum up a person’s life and significance, and no more. Indeed, how many “column inches” a person is expected in the paper to get when […]
The “Green Tortoise” Bus: Making the Miracle
A direct descendent of the Ken Kesey’s and the Merry Pranksters’ bus “Further,” and the Grey Rabbit buses that criss-crossed America during the late 1960s and 70s, “The Green Tortoise” is now a full fledged tour company that totes mostly young people to America’s greatest well-known and offbeat locales. They live on the bus, which […]
Black “Born Again” Christian Hair Salons
The Bible says that a woman’s hair is a glory to her, and they take that quite literally at several African American beauty salons that are springing up in the Washington DC and other urban areas. Come with me on my visit to a salon where being “born again,” amazing hair-dos and “prayerful” and joyous […]
Masonry as a Spiritual Path for Men
The Masons have long been the subject of curiosity, derision, persecution and admiration for their tight brotherhood, which claims millions of members worldwide, and which has been a mainstay for most American presidents and untold numbers of movers and shakers. The purported “secrecy” of their rites and symbols, which are sometimes riffs on the belief […]
The Status of Women in Israel (NPR 1990)
Between Zionism, Socialism, Feminism, Judaism, the Holocaust, and all the American, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultural influences that compete for primacy as models for women in Israel, their status and self-image is deeply multi-layered and complex. This half hour documentary, which I completed for National Public Radio back in the early 1990s, offers […]
“Grandma” Cora’s Sweet Potato Pies
Down a couple of old Maryland country roads that barely show up on state maps you’ll find Grandma Cora, an elderly African American lady who is known throughout those parts for her delicious sweet potato pies, which she lovingly backs on her old stove and sells to make ends meet nicely. I spent an afternoon […]
Ken Steele and the Experience of Schizophrenia
Many of us are familiar with people who walk down the street conversing with people and other entities that we cannot say, but which exist in a hyper-real and undeniable way to them. What is it like inside their minds, what do those voices sound like and what do they say? And what happens when […]
Migrant Farmworkers: How They Live and
What They Do
If California were a nation of its own, it would have the twelth largest economy in the world; agriculture would be a huge percentage of it. Much of the labor that produces is done by migrant farm workers who come to the US, sometimes illegally, and follow the crops, before returning home to Mexico and […]
Astrobiology: The Search for Extra-terrestrial Life
The search for life forms (or life-like) forms has intensified in recent years as our technical prowess has increased and our understanding of the forms and chemistry of what life could be has expanded and grown more refined. This piece examines the branch of science that deals with this, and looks at various ways we […]
The Ink Dark Moon: Buddhist Love/Sex Poetry from Courtly Japan (written by women)
This is a story about some of the most beautiful short poetry I have ever come across. Edited by the poet Jane Hirshfield (see “Given Sugar, Given Salt” elsewhere in this blog), it is a collection of short erotic haiku-like poems written by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, who were part of the Japanese […]
Nanotechnology and Molecular Machinery
Nanotechnology, which deals with matter in billionths of a meter, allows for the manipulation of matter on an atomic scale. As such, it may represent humanity’s most profound and far-reaching scientific frontier. This documentary looks at how it works, and what is possible, and what to prepare for, willy-nilly. The story won VOA’s Annual Award […]
The Island at the Center of the World: Dutch New York
2009 marks the 400th anniversary of English sea captain Henry Hudson’s arrival in what’s now New York harbor. British colonists would play a major role in the development of Manhattan Island. But historian Russell Shorto says it was largely the 17th century Dutch and their pioneering settlement of New Amsterdam that influenced what Manhattan, New […]
Two Showgirls of Yesteryear
It may be hard or many of us to imagine the glitter and the sometimes risque fun associated with the old nightclubs, burlesques and vaudeville houses of the 1920s and 1930s, especially in New York, where such entertainment reached a certain height of glamor. But what was that life like for those on the other […]