Rumble Strip

Latest Episodes:

Police Log: Don’t Park Too Close Edition May 07, 2021

Show notes

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.

An American Life May 05, 2021

Show notes

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.

Now Vaughn Hood runs a hair salon in St. Johnsbury with his wife, Bev. For a couple days, I sat and talked with him in the back of his salon. We talked about war, about hard work, about survival, and hairdressing.

Here is the story of an extraordinary American life.

This story we featured here was co-produced by Erica Heilman and Larry Massett.

Some Kudos:

Click here for an interview with Erica about the show, by the excellent people at The Third Coast

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

Sing Your Job Apr 08, 2021

Show notes

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.

Han’s Brain Mar 23, 2021

Show notes

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:

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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

**Free Soup. Come.** Mar 04, 2021
Show notes

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.

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

**Marriage in the Time of Covid** Feb 19, 2021
Show notes

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:
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**Marriage in the Time of Covid** Feb 19, 2021
Show notes

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:
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**Town Meeting** Feb 05, 2021
Show notes

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.
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**Town Meeting** Feb 05, 2021
Show notes

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.
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Party is Everything Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

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.

Problems: The Awful Sisters Christmas Special Dec 23, 2020

Show notes

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.

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