Audio by Adam

Explorer. Hero. Genocidal Conqueror. Genius.  Inventor. Adventurer. Fool. Prophet.  All these names have been used to describe the “discoverer” of America.  But what do we really know about the man who sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred and ninety two?  This long form doc, explores the many faces of Columbus as he has come down to us, and the enigma he represents within our own national history and character. (produced in conjunction with the 500th anniversary of 1492).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:14 — 18.5MB)

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We all love the bizarre, or are at least sufficiently intrigued by the sigh and sound of people eating light bulbs  and hammering spikes up their nose to pay good lucre to see it done.  Meet Todd Robbins, the man who teaches other people some of the tricks of this ancient trade at his Sideshow School in Coney Island.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:00 — 10.1MB)

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Americans were shocked by the boldness of the graft and other crimes allegedly committed by indicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and by the 20-plus politicians and others indicted for corruption in New Jersey recently. But corruption is nothing new in American politics, although the scope and definitions of corruption have changed over time.  This piece, which features Harvard University (and New Yorker Magazine writer) Jill Lepore and others, takes the long view.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:53 — 4.7MB)

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Einstein may have had one of history’s most enviable cerebaums, but its post-mortem wherabouts were a mystery until an intrepid reporter found out about the weirdo pathologist who stole them at the physicist’s autopsy. He offered to drive the doctor and the the brain from New Jersey to the California to return it. This is a report on their very, very weird road trip.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:24 — 4.9MB)

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For nearly 60 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder has combined an environmental awareness shaped by America’s Far West with a Zen Buddhist perspective that celebrates and reveres the natural world.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:56 — 4.5MB)

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At its peak, the town of Gary was completely alive with the sound of coal mining, lunchtime whistles, and the ethnic music that its immigrant laborers made during their rare off hours.  US Steel had built the town, and the workers were proud to be there, albeit under very difficult, even backbreaking and dangerous conditions. All that changed in the late 1980s, when the company closed the mines because Central American coal was cheaper to mine and ship. When I visited the town, there was 95 percent unemployment and wolves were roaming the streets because the town could no longer afford the streetlight electricity.

This is the first piece I did for “All Things Considered” and I was very proud when it was broadcast.

See also my story about Gary’s early 20th century ethnic life, and my many other stories about Appalachian mountain culture.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:08 — 7.4MB)

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It may have been even more true in the beatnik era, but chess continues to be the national sport of Greenwich Village.  This is a feature about one of the last remaining late night chess parlors in the city, and its habitues.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:40 — 7.0MB)

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I was living in Washington at the time of the September 11th 2001 attacks, but was able to get the first train into Manhattan when the island opened on the morning of September 12th. I worked 17 hours a day in the week following, chronicling the human impact of the World Trade Center attacks on the city I love and have always loved. This story was one of several I filed in those first days.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:11 — 3.8MB)

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For many Americans, Veterans Day means merely a long weekend of relaxation or a parade of patriotic display and brouhaha.   But for many of the veterans who fought and killed in war, the psychological wounds engendered by the carnage continues long after the guns have gone silent. I asked a group of everyday vets, many homeless, most with PTSD, to remember their war experiences, and to talk honestly about the toll war continues to take on them and those around them.

Elsewhere on this blog, see also my Memorial Day story in which veterans remember the fallen comrades in arms in all their human particularity.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:05 — 5.6MB)

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Adam went down to the coal-rich mountains of the southern Appalachian mountains, where “hillbillies” are presumed to live.  Through on-site interviews and a survey look at American pop culture, he examines the hillbilly stereotype, its roots and impact.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:01 — 7.3MB)

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