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Leland is Almost Done Seventh Grade May 11, 2017

Show notes

It’s spring in Vermont, and it’s been a full year since we heard from my friend Leland. When we left him last year, he was just about to graduate from Calais elementary school and move up to the big union middle school.

Leland is my neighbor. And this will be my third year talking with him on tape…about what he’s doing, and what he’s thinking about. He talks about revolutionary war reenactments and friend groups and grief… he takes me around and shows me all the places I forgot about in the thirty years since I was thirteen.

This year we decided to meet down in the valley between our two houses. We crouched in a stand of dead reeds by Pekin Brook, which runs through our town…and Leland gave me some highlights from his year.

The music for this show is by Vermont musicians Brian Clark, Mike Donofrio and Peter Cressy, and was recorded in my living room. I feel so lucky to have such talented and awesome friends.

To hear the other Leland shows, look below for links…!

We Are Sending You Light Apr 28, 2017

Show notes

The Eventide Singers are a volunteer hospice choir based in Greenfield, Massachusetts. They aim to comfort people who are ill, homebound, or actively dying. There are a number of these groups of bedside singers in Vermont and all over the world. They sing to be of service to people who are straddling the edges of life and death, or who are lonely and need a little light. They sing to comfort the caregivers and give them a little break from all they must attend to. They are intimate strangers providing a unique service–temporarily healing the weary through song.

We Are Sending You Light is produced by Sara Brooke Curtis.

Thanks and Links

For more of Sara’s work, click HERE.

Sarah wishes to thank Barbara Buschner, Alexa Berton, Judith Williams, Joe Toritto, Loren Kramer, Walt Cudnohufsky, Sandra Platt, and Kelsey O’Brien. Thanks also to the Farren Care Center and Poet Seat Nursing Home.

Sara is a fellow member of The Heard, a collective of awesome independent podcast producers around the country.

Robert Ford Last Ambassador Apr 13, 2017

Show notes

Robert Ford served as the last U.S. Ambassador to Syria. He arrived in the country right before the protests began there in 2011 and he was witness to the beginnings of the civil war. In 2012 he was pulled out over security concerns, but he continued to work on the crisis in Syria back in DC until 2014, when he left the Foreign Service. Robert Ford now lives with his wife Alison in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, which is about as far from the Middle East as you can get. We met in his living room on a rainy day last week, right after the chemical attack in Syria and right before Trump’s military response. We talked about his personal experience in Syria and the role of diplomacy in the Middle East.

Kudos

Delicious Ingredients: The Best Podcasts for April 15-21, 2017

Hunger is Boring Apr 03, 2017

Show notes

This is a show about how the charitable food system works and how it’s not working.

The topic of hunger is not very exciting. Stories about problems that have always been problems are generally not very exciting. And since there’s enough food to feed everyone in this country ten times over, hunger is obviously a systems problem. So I think I’ve figured it would get solved any day now. By systems people.

But it’s not getting solved. In fact the lines at food shelves are getting longer while the volunteers running the food pantries are getting older. All over the country, food shelves and food banks are struggling to keep up with growing numbers of people who need them. In 2014, according to the USDA, 14% of all US households were food insecure. And if the federal government makes more cuts to food programs, that number will certainly grow.

So I made a show about it. And and as it turned out, the people I talked with for this story were not boring. They’re tired, but they’re not boring. You’ll hear from Ernie LaRock and Marj Taylor of the Swanton Food Shelf. You’ll hear from Lisa Pitcher, who manages Our Place, the community meal site down in Bellows Falls. And you’ll hear from Judy Stermer, formerly of the Vermont Foodbank, the largest supplier to food shelves and meal sites around the state.

Credits

The music for this show is by Vermont musicians Brian Clark and Mike Donofrio

The picture for this show is from the Heavenly Food Pantry in Essex Junction, Vermont

**The Wildlife** Mar 22, 2017
Show notes

**In the concrete jungle, it all starts out innocently enough: especially if you live in a high-rise.**

**It was a blustery Tuesday morning, when two pigeons, named Cody and Megan, were house hunting on the balcony of my apartment.**

**As you’d expect, they put in an offer.**

**Beyond the holiday turkey or roast chicken here and there, I wasn’t fond of birds. When Cody and Megan appeared, I shooed them away, closed the balcony door and left for work.**

**When I came home, I was in for a surprise. Cody was dancing on the railing and Megan was huddled in a shabby nest.**

**Megan had laid some eggs. I wanted the birds to leave. I had no idea how difficult this would be. It was war.**

**So off to war I went.**

**Credits**

The Wildlife was written and produced by Peter McHugh and Clive Desmond for **Pod Planet**, a podcast that is so damn good. Here is a logo, which is also a fancy link:

**Additional Credits:** Lisa Dalbello as City Animal Control Lady, Carter Hayden as Carlo the Civil Servant and Ali Rojas.

**Producer Biographies**

Pod Planet is written and produced by chronic multi-media experimenters, Peter McHugh and Clive Desmond. It’s the first podcast created by the international team, both of whom have worked across a wide variety of media formats.

Clive Desmond, who has lived in Toronto and New York, also serves as the narrator for Pod Planet. He has produced audio books for Harper Collins Digital, including Bruce McCall’s “Thin Ice”, and the best-selling “Pinkerton Files” by author Bruce Luchuk.

He’s also written and produced numerous syndicated radio documentaries on popular music and is a presently an on-air contributor to Canada’s top-rated talk/news radio show on CFRB in Toronto.

Peter McHugh, having lived and worked in Chicago, Toronto, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and, now, Minneapolis, has been acclaimed in a wide variety of media formats, as well. Along the way, he’s produced an RIAA-certified, multi-platinum boxed set for Eric Clapton, that also yielded a Grammy-finalist song. Sadly, the song did not win.

Other projects he’s worked on are display in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Le Musée de la Publicité at the Louvre in Paris (France, not Texas.)

He also created the social media-driven, public activism effort, “Book Burning Party”. As a result, the closing of an award-winning library was saved from the clutches of anti-tax activists. The work drew international media acclaim, and was nationally recognized by the American Library Association.

Your Neighbor Feb 24, 2017

Show notes

For the last four and a half years, Victor’s been working on dairy farms in the Northeast. Like 11 million other people in this country, he’s undocumented. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve always assumed I knew this story already…like it was some kind of composite story of the ‘Mexican migrant farm worker experience’. The worst part is, I didn’t even know I was assuming this. I guess I didn’t really have to think about it. The story didn’t have a lot to do with me.

But last week President Trump started making good on his promises to ramp up deportations of undocumented people in this country–people who pay 12 billion dollars in US taxes every year–but don’t have US documents.

Victor’s a friend of a friend of mine, and I won’t say where he works but these friends of friends are my neighbors, and yours. My friend, we’ll call her ‘T’, agreed to do some translating, along with her brand new baby. We visited Victor at his apartment on the dairy farm where he works. This is his story.

Credits

The music for this show was made by the amazing Amelia Meath, and her band Sylvan Esso. Thank you so much Amelia for humming in your bathroom, your car and on the street. Her other group is a trio of women called Mountain Man. Music that will make your hair stand up.

I want to thank all the excellent farm workers I met in making this show. And thanks so much to A and A, and T for her wonderful presence and a memorable drive.

Dunkin’ Donuts Jan 31, 2017

Show notes

It’s really dark here in Vermont this time of year. And every year, by the third week in January, I feel like I’m seeing everything through the wrong end of a telescope. A dirty telescope. I stop wanting to answer the phone. I have a hard time picking out a cereal at the store. Most mornings it just seems easier to wear what I wore to bed.

After Trump’s first week in office, I feel worse than most years. And actually the whole world seems on edge. It seems like no one can decide how to help or what to do. Or how much to look or look away.

Dunkin’ Donuts and the library are the last two public places in most towns around here where everyone’s welcome and no one wonders how long you’ll be there. For about a dollar you can stay at Dunkin’ Donuts as long as you want. I went there to talk with people. Not about Trump necessarily. But about how their lives are going, and whether they fit into the famous middle class we keep hearing so much about. Also I went there because in January in Vermont, it’s good to sit in a bright place with a cup of coffee and talk with strangers.

Credits and Thanks
My thanks to John Dillon and Scott Carrier. The music in the end of this show is by Vermont musician Peter Cressy.