PRI: To the Best of Our Knowledge Podcast

Cities can be cacophonous and loud, a chaos of sonic discord. If, that is, you don't really focus your listening. People who’ve trained their ears to hear urban soundscapes in new ways hear something different.

That’s what David Rothenberg is doing. He’s a composer and an environmental philosopher who’s made a career of listening to and performing music in the wild, with birds, animals and insects. Lately he’s been giving himself a crash course in the art — and science — of urban listening.

His experience made us wonder: what else can you hear from a city when you really listen closely? People's patterns and everyday experiences emerge in detail, along with their struggles against prejudice and abuse. Some people hear pain, others hear art emerging from the chaos of sound.

In this hour, we make the case for exploring your city sonically.

Guests:

David Rothenberg , David Haskell , Aaron Henkin , Wendel Patrick , Jennifer Stoever , Pierre Schaeffer , Vivienne Corringham

We’re living in a time of despair and desperation. It would be easy to give up. But what if, instead, we looked for hope? We’re not talking about sugarcoating the situation. And hope — real hope — is not going to be simple to find. To the Best of Our Knowledge producers talked to some of the greatest artists, scientists, authors and thinkers of our time to ask them where they find hope, and how we can get some, too.

Airdates

April 20, 2019

April 27, 2019

May 04, 2019

Learn more at ttbook.org/hope .

Milwaukee is a city on water, right on the shore of Lake Michigan, split by the historic Milwaukee River. How did all that water shape the city's history, politics, culture, and people? We went on a roadtrip (and boat trip) looking for answers. Then we did a live show at Milwaukee's historic Turner Hall, talking with journalists, brewmasters, historians, comedians, spiritual leaders and one awesome DJ to get at some big underlying questions.

If you're a model freshwater city, how do you sort out the politics of water scarcity?

Milwaukee became the "Brew City" because of its easy access to freshwater. How do you celebrate that history while still creating new and different brews for beer lovers to enjoy?

And since we all depend on water, how do we honor its spiritual significance?

Guests:

John Gurda , Dan Egan , Jenny Kehl , Chastity Washington , Ben Barbera , Russ Klisch , David Dupee , Tarik Moody , Siobhan Marks , Venice Williams , Kim Blaeser , Melanie Ariens

Look around the political landscape and you see something we haven’t seen for decades — politicians proudly identifying as socialists.

In New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came out of nowhere to steamroll an incumbent and seize the national stage. Bernie Sanders is leading the early crop of Democratic presidential hopefuls. And for the first time in a long time, membership in the Democratic Socialists of America is surging.

What used to be political poison is now catnip for a new generation of voters. So, are we living in a socialist moment?

Guests:

Cheryl Blue , Andrew Haug , Erik Olin Wright , Bhaskar Sunkara , Sean Wilentz , Brother Ali

Shuttered businesses line the familiar streets of producer Charles Monroe-Kane’s hometown in the Rust Belt in northeastern Ohio. The steel mill where his father worked is shut down, locked behind chains. Opioid abuse is rampant, poverty is high, jobs are scarce. But people remain. What keeps them going? What do they hope for? Charles went back to talk with friends, family and community members in a journey to the Center of the World, Ohio.

We leave the lives of Ohioans to travel back in time into the lives of Koreans in Japan with Min Jin Lee. Then we head to Brooklyn (well, "Another Brooklyn") with Jacqueline Woodson.

Guests:

Charles Monroe-Kane

Min Jin Lee

Jacqueline Woodson

Debates over immigration are raging all over the world, but sometimes it’s hard to sort out the political posturing from the actual problems. Should we be doing things differently? In a highly connected world, does the idea of a national border even make sense anymore?

Guests:

Mariela Shaker , Wolfgang Munchau , Molly Crabapple , Parag Khanna , Jose Angel N , Sunjeev Sahota

Sometimes, we take our body for granted. But even the everyday things it can do – keep our heart beating, fight off illness – are pretty extraordinary. Do you know what your body can do?

We explore a kidney transplant, a chronic illness and a common fever, and find the mystery and the familiar in the anatomy of ourselves.

Guests:

Josh Mezrich , Missy Makinia , Porochista Khakpour , Gavin Francis

It creeps into everything from exercise to pore size, from diet to personal finance, from relationships to parenting style: guilt that we're not good enough, fit enough, smart enough. And as we peruse Instagram, all we see is the perfection of others reflecting our own failures back at us. Why do we spend so much time feeling guilty? Should we?

Guests:

Devorah Baum , Lucas Mann , Thomas Curran , Stephen Greenblatt , Susan Bandes

What makes food "authentic"? Do we need to feel close to where it's made? Know the complete history of where it comes from? Be able to diagram the chemistry of how it dances along our taste buds? How can we quantify the romance between eaters and the food they love?

In this hour, we talk about what it means to truly love what you eat and drink — and we ask why it matters.

Guests:

Simran Sethi , Samin Nosrat , Michael Twitty , Josh Noel

Remember virtual reality? Back in the 1990’s, it was going to be the technology of the future. Today, it’s here. But we're still figuring out what to do with it. Storytellers and even journalists have begun experimenting — and at forefront is Will Smith. He recently created a virtual reality talk show called “The Foo Show,” in which he interviews game developers inside the environments from their favorite games. Will thinks that eventually virtual spaces will go way beyond games into theater, science, and beyond.

Guests:

Will Smith , Simon Parkin

Where do you go to find models of powerful women? Hatshepsut, Circe, Antigone — the ancient world was full of them, real and mythic. For thousands of years, women ruled the world. Today we barely know their names. Why? This week we rediscover the women of ancient myths and legends.

Guests:

Kara Cooney , Madeline Miller , Natalie Haynes , Emily Wilson , Serenity Young , Romare Bearden

All over the country, a chorus of hope is coming from an unexpected group — teenagers. They are marching, protesting and demanding a better future as we – the adults – watch them with a kind of heartbreaking pride. These teenagers are not waiting for adults to figure things out for them.

They have superpowers — innocence, idealism, and Instagram — and they aren't waiting for permission to use them to reshape the conversation around everything from gun control to education to climate change.

What can we learn from teenagers today? What do they have that the rest of us don't?

Guests:

Angie Jiang , Kevin Coval , Luis Carranza , Kee Stein , Frances Jensen , Angie Thomas , Tyler Ruzich

If life is a play, what happens during the last act? What’s it like to live knowing you have a limited amount of time left? This week, we’re talking about how to face, and in some cases, embrace your third act, whenever it arrives. Whether you’re looking at retirement, a late-life job change, an illness or just a lot of birthday candles on the cake — how do you live differently when you reach what’s likely to be your final act?

Guests:

Sabrina Frey , Daniel Pink , Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey , Martin Amis

New Years celebrations are all parties and hats, songs and champagne. No one ever seems to talk about the fact that something big just ended. An entire year of life, come and gone. Shouldn’t we pause to mourn, or mark its passing with a little reverence?

We don’t handle endings well, in general. So this hour, let’s learn about how to make a good ending — whether leaving a lover, quitting a job, or getting ready for the end of life itself.

Guests:

Steve Almond , Ilana Gershon , Sean Hemingway , Simon Critchley , David Giffels

Your finger’s hovering over the "delete" button on your Facebook app. Your friends are abandoning Twitter. Every day brings fresh revelations of data breaches, privacy abuses, Russian spies, trolls. Is it time to hit “delete” on all of it?

But then again, we joined these platforms for a reason. In a more perfect world, what could these platforms be doing for us?

Guests:

Jaron Lanier , Ethan Zuckerman , Whitney Phillips , DeRay Mckesson , Yuval Noah Harari

Using a complex network of chemical signals, trees talk to each other and form alliances with fellow trees, even other species. In fact, whole forests exist as a kind of superorganism. And some trees are incredibly old. Did you know a single bristlecone pine can live up to 6,000 years? And the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years? We explore the science and history of trees and talk with Richard Powers about his epic novel "The Overstory."

Guests:

Mark Hirsch , Richard Powers , Suzanne Simard , Amos Clifford , Daegan Miller

Even the most welcome gift can spark guilt, resentment, obligation or vulnerability. We can be inspired by the generosity of others, or unsettled by uncertainty of how to say thank you, or whether an especially generous gift comes with strings attached.

This hour, unwrapping the tangled emotions behind giving — and getting.

Guests:

Megan Costello , Haddyr Copley-Woods , David Graeber , Anand Giridharadas , Elizabeth Dunn

We’ve been taught to ignore, stifle, or just get over anger for many years — but what if we embraced it? It seems like most of us are feeling angry these days. But what if we took that emotion and instead of letting it eat us up, used it as fuel to do something, to actually help us feel better? Could anger be a useful emotion?

Guests:

Rebecca Traister , Cristen Conger , Caroline Ervin , Richard Davidson , Alice Walker

What's the essence of religion? God? Scripture? Moral codes? Or is it really about something more mysterious and unexplainable?

In this hour, we explore the roots of religion — religion before it's even called "religion." Because if you strip away all the doctrine, the dogma, the rules for how to live — what’s left are primal spiritual experiences. But what do they tell us about ourselves and our world?

Guests:

Elizabeth Krohn , Jeff Kripal , Elaine Pagels , Jericho Brown

Modern anti-depressants have saved a lot of minds. And lives. But our 30-year experiment with modern anti-depressants is taking a toll. What have they done to our bodies? And how do we navigate that trade-off between body and mind? Is it clear that they even work?

There are a lot of us who struggle with mood disorders or mental illness of one sort or another. If you do, we here at TTBOOK want you to know that you’re not alone. If you're looking for more in-depth knowledge on what you might be going through, the National Alliance on Mental Illness is an incredible resource.

And if you just need something to elevate your spirit, check out the playlist that Charles made at the bottom of this page. It's packed with the music he listens to when he’s down and needs a lift. Not a fake happy song kind of lift – something honest but also hopeful.

**WARNING: The conversation with Lauren Slater in this show features frank discussion of depression and self-harm. The audio doesn't contain a trigger warning, but for listeners who may be sensitive to discussion of suicide, please consider listening to other interviews on the show separately, or skipping this episode.

Guests:

Lauren Slater , Charles Raison , Anna Fels , Jaime Lowe