Rumble Strip

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**Rumble Strip**

Good conversation that takes its time, hosted by Erica Heilman.

Latest Episodes:

The Homesteading Game Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

Music by Justin Lander

Originally produced for Vermont Public

The Civic Standard in the 100 Year Flood Jul 27, 2023

Show notes

Special Note:

Hill Farmstead, the best beer in the world, just named a beer after the Civic Standard. Which is fricking VERY COOL. Here's a link to it.

The Civic Standard Jul 06, 2023

Show notes

Rose Friedman and Tara Reese were in the early stages of starting the Civic Standard, an organization that gives the people of Hardwick excuses to get together. Rose and Tara were explaining this idea to Brenda at a baseball game and Brenda said that what she really wanted was for them to make a mystery dinner theater show. Nobody really thought that this would happen.

But Rose couldn't stop thinking about it. Most mystery dinner theater shows are a little like the game CLUE, which isn’t very interesting. But then Rose had an idea. What if the murder mystery was set in Hardwick? Actually, what if it was set at a really boring development review board meeting in Hardwick, which is the sort of meeting everyone around here feels totally at home in, including people who have never been to a play?

This is a show about the making of Developed to Death, a play that was written by people around Hardwick, about the community of Hardwick, and for the people of Hardwick. It is part theater, part social science project, and in it someone gets murdered.

And special bonus…right after the show is a followup interview with Civic Standard co-founders Rose Friedman and Tara Reese.

Credits

This story was supported in part by the Vermont Humanities Council. This story is also a Transom Radio Special, which has support from the National Endowment for the Arts. You can read about the making of the show at: https://transom.org/2022/the-civic-standard/

This show was mixed by Jay Allison

Music for this show is by Justin Lander and Charlie Lander

Special thanks to these people for their advice and patience: Amelia Meath, Tobin Anderson, Chelsea Edgar, Jay Allison, Howard Norman, Gordon Grunder, my family, and of course Rose and Tara.

Let's Talk about Guns May 31, 2023

Show notes

Thanks to Brave Little State and Vermont Public for letting me run this episode on Rumble Strip. You can find Brave Little State wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can read more about them by visiting Vermont Public, at vermontpublic.org. Thanks to Myra Flynn, who worked with me on this show, and the rest of the Brave Little State team: Angela Evancie, Mae Nuguskey and Josh Crane.

Nightwalking 1, from Constellation Prize May 08, 2023

Show notes

Credits: Music by Ishmael Ensemble, John Caroll Kirby, Riley Mulherkar and Elori Saxl

Edited by Daniel Guillemette & Daniel Gumbiner

Sound mix / sound design by John Delore

What Class are You? Mar 30, 2023

Show notes

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, 'uh...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. You tell me. And 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.

Mary Lake Sheep Slaughterer Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

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 Shearingin Tunbridge, Vermont

It's Town Meeting Again Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

It's town meeting day here in Vermont.

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.

Winter's Bear Feb 21, 2023

Show notes

Sheila LaPoint wrote a post in Front Porch Forum asking if there was 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.

Speaking Whale Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

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.

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