This is the fourth episode of What Now Sounds Like, a periodic series comprised entirely of your recordings from all over the world, in which we try to capture these strange times in audio. In this show you hear from Bryce in New York City, Stephanie in middle Appalachia, Tobin making eggs in Santa Rosa, California, George in New York City, Allison in Vermont, the Utah symphony warming up, gongs in Tacoma, Washington, a school meeting about AI in the classroom, Early in Arkansas, Jenn in London,...
Jun 02, 2025•14 min•Ep. 300
This was the inaugural year of Hardwick State, a weekend long university in Hardwick, Vermont, organized by the Civic Standard, and designed to take place during the awfulest time of the year. People from around Hardwick become professors and students. Classes are free, and everyone’s welcome to teach at Hardwick State. Maybe you teach something you do in your regular job. Maybe it’s just something you’re good at. Maybe it’s something you’re not very good at but you love it and you’re better tha...
May 09, 2025•13 min•Ep. 299
Death in Venice is a story Larry Massett produced in the early 80s. Joe Frank narrates, and Larry wrote and performed all the music.
May 05, 2025•29 min•Ep. 298
We're raising money to rebuild Forrest Foster's barn. This is a very short story (plea) about it. And here is the GoFundMe!!
May 04, 2025•6 min•Ep. 297
Larry Massett was driving up through northern California toward Oregon and ended up spending a little more time at Mt. Shasta than he'd had in mind. Thankfully he had his flashlight in his trunk.
May 01, 2025•25 min•Ep. 296
This is the second show for LARRY MASSETT TRIBUTE WEEK. Larry Massett owned two Porsches, and he talked about them all the time. His friend, Joe Frank, in addition to being one of the greatest radio producers of all time, was a BMW guy. They decided to argue about this, and then have a drag race that would decide things.
Apr 30, 2025•14 min•Ep. 295
Larry Massset died last week. He was my mentor and my favorite radio producer. His stories was insane and brilliant and heretical and sublime. I wouldn’t have become a radio producer without his guidance and his stories to inspire me. I’m going to run a series of his shows as a tribute to him. This first show is The Eyes of Sibiu, about a trip to Romania with Romanian-American poet and novelist Andrei Codrescu.
Apr 29, 2025•18 min•Ep. 294
The Haskell Free Library and Opera House was intentionally built to straddle two nations and two communities. Three quarters of the building is in Stanstead, Quebec and one quarter is in Derby Line Vermont, and it's been the local library for both communities for over a century. The main entrance to the library is in the U.S., and for as long as anyone can remember, Canadians have been allowed to walk the 70 feet of sidewalk around the building to that front entrance. But in late January of this...
Apr 25, 2025•13 min•Ep. 293
This is a show about the challenges of getting health insurance and understanding health insurance and paying for health insurance and using health insurance…even for those of us without major medical challenges. It stars my friends Justin Lander and Kaye. The show is sponsored by East Hill Tree Farm , a tree nursery in Plainfield, Vermont. The nursery opens on April 18th with bare-root trees and shrubs for sale. They're awesome. Go there....
Apr 15, 2025•18 min•Ep. 292
Recordings: In this show you hear from Carolyn and her neighbors on Coits Gore Road in Vermont, Amanda in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, dogs in Atlanta, Jeff Sharlet interviewing Pastor Pete in Holiday City, Ohio, Heather’s kids in Washington DC, Jarod in West Philly, Susan and Stella in Pittsburgh, a xylophone on the Thea Foss Waterway in Tacoma. You heard my mom Barbara on my couch, Devon in Gladstone Missouri, the train in Melbourne Australia, Aaron in Shediac New Brunswick, night in...
Mar 02, 2025•21 min•Ep. 291
T.O. got out of prison in Rutland a couple weeks ago, after a six and a half year bid. I met T.O. through my private investigator friend Susan Randall in May, 2017. He’d been a client of hers in a federal public defender case. T.O.’s been in and out of jail his whole adult life, and it’s become a kind of tradition for us to get together and talk when he gets out of jail. We don’t talk about his crimes. Mostly we talk about what it’s like to start over…over and over. Now T.O. is in his mid fortie...
Feb 14, 2025•14 min•Ep. 290
Here is episode 2 of What Now Sounds Like, a show I make that is entirely comprised of your recordings. Desperate times call for desperate show methods. I'm hoping that shows made up of all of us will help us all feel less alone. In this show you hear from: Blake in New York City, James in Sussex England, the Niagara Frontier Radio reading service (thank you Papageorgiou in Brussels...), River in Portland, Oregon, Alice in Fletcher, Virginia, Naomi Hodde in Middlebury, Vermont, Howard in Woodsto...
Jan 29, 2025•15 min•Ep. 289
What Now Sounds Like is made by all of us. You send me recordings that sound like this time we're living in, and I make shows with them. It could be an argument, your thoughts in the middle of the night, your songs and hummings....a recording of being on hold with your insurance company...whatever. And tell your friends to send their recordings too. Just email me at [email protected]. In this show, Leonie from South Africa, Alicia from Los Angeles, Michael from North Carolina, Deanna ...
Jan 23, 2025•17 min•Ep. 288
The world is chaotic. Systems are failing, towns are burning. If you need to make an appointment with your doctor you may have to wait til July. So it's time to make a show about it all. I implore you to record moments of your day and send me the audio and I will try to make a show that sounds like RIGHT NOW. Email the recordings to me at [email protected].
Jan 18, 2025•16 min•Ep. 287
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Thankun Thongjunthoug’s parents each moved alone to the United States from Thailand in their early twenties to make a new life for themselves. They met in Los Angeles, and started a restaurant there, and a family. But Thankun’s father wanted a safer place for his family, so in 2008 they moved to Vermont, where they had to work their way back to owning a business. Their restaurant in Montpelier, Pho...
Jan 10, 2025•9 min•Ep. 286
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Today, Episode 4. Katrin Tchana lives in Lyme, New Hampshire, right next to Dartmouth College. Katrin is a social worker, and currently works as a therapist. She grew up in the house where she currently lives, and in this show we talk about her childhood in Lyme, and how that area has changed in her lifetime.
Jan 09, 2025•7 min•Ep. 285
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Today, Episode 3...Ingrid Jonas. I met Ingrid Jonas through my friend Marilyn. Ingrid is a retired Vermont state police trooper. She started on patrol, but worked as a detective for most of her career. I’m actually working on a longer story about her now that will come out soon, but at the end of our conversation, I asked her to talk about class in law enforcement, which she did....
Jan 08, 2025•7 min•Ep. 284
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives, even though we don’t like to talk about it. I make this series for Vermont Public and I’ll be running the new shows on RS all this week. Mark LaRouche is the the Director of Shelters and Facilities at Good Samaritan Haven in Barre, which serves unhoused people in central Vermont. Mark has also had a lot of experience working with people with addiction issues, and he’s good at it. He understands it....
Jan 07, 2025•8 min•Ep. 283
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives, even though we don’t like to talk about it. I make this series for Vermont Public and I’ll be running the new shows on RS all this week. First up, Damian Renzello. Damian lives one town over from me and he’s the owner of and inventor of Porta Rinks, which is a portable ice rink kit. Damian is who you call if you want your own personal hockey rink, and everything that goes with it. He also happens t...
Jan 06, 2025•8 min•Ep. 282
Forrest Foster found a new old truck, thanks to you listeners. We drove around and talked about the truck and about Forrest's new job and I complained about feeling old. Happy Holidays and thank you for your generosity. Happy Holidays to all!
Dec 17, 2024•10 min•Ep. 281
Things have been pretty grim around here. I lost my cat Zu Zu and she was only two and a half and she left behind her brother Kenny and Kenny and I aren’t doing so great. So. I’m going to play a story I made for Vermont Public about Erika Bruner, a veterinarian who specializes in end of live care for pets. She does at-home euthanasia…in barns, in basements, in fields. I didn’t think I’d need her services so soon. But I did. She’s remarkable and she made a very difficult day a little less difficu...
Dec 11, 2024•9 min•Ep. 280
We raised ALL the money for Forrest's new old truck and we are so GRATEFUL!!!
Nov 16, 2024•1 min•Ep. 279
After the last show, a lot of people asked me how they might help Forrest Foster. So I called his friend Steve Gorelick and we set up a Go Fund Me....
Nov 13, 2024•6 min•Ep. 278
Forrest Foster is a dairy farmer in Hardwick, Vermont. Two months ago he sold his cows. He didn't want to do it. But his barn doesn't meet code so he lost his license. He can't keep the wood furnace burning in the house while he's doing chores. And like so many families, he's dealing with the profound complications of drug addiction in his home.
Nov 04, 2024•16 min•Ep. 277
This summer, a one-in-a-thousand-year flood hit the village of Plainfield, Vermont. A local apartment building, which everyone called the Heartbreak Hotel, collapsed and washed away down the Great Brook. Twelve people were living there at the time, and they all survived. Most of their cats did not. We talk a lot about the importance of affordable housing and community and village revitalization. For over a century, the Heartbreak provided all three. This is a story about what was lost that night...
Oct 14, 2024•27 min•Ep. 276
This is a story about active drug addiction. Last year I made a story about my private investigator friend Susan Randall, after her office was robbed in the middle of the day in downtown Burlington by a woman with a heroin addiction. She walked into Susan’s office while people were working there and loaded a bag with electronics, and left. I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman. Where was she coming from that day and where was she going? The world of active addiction is a kind of world underne...
Sep 10, 2024•30 min•Ep. 275
Mark Utter was born with a form of autism that makes it impossible for him to say what he's thinking. For the first thirty years of his life, Mark did not have access to the world of words, except as a listener. An observer. When he was thirty, he was introduced to supported typing, and for the first time in his life, with the help of a facilitator and a typing pad, Mark started his life as a writer of words. This is an interview about what it's like inside the life and mind of Mark Utter....
Aug 20, 2024•23 min•Ep. 274
On the one-year anniversary of a 100-year flood, Vermont experienced another devastating flood. This is the story of one Plainfield, Vermont resident, who lost everything. Thank you Vermont Public for letting me run this show on Rumble Strip.
Jul 22, 2024•7 min•Ep. 273
There are about 15 million people in this world having thoughts and ideas that they can't put into words. People who have had had strokes or traumatic brain injuries often live with aphasia, or difficulty talking or using language. Their thoughts are intact, but the language gets stuck. But music mostly originates in the undamaged hemisphere of the brain. People with aphasia can often sing. This is a story about a choir comprised of people with aphasia, and what it's like to struggle for words. ...
Jun 19, 2024•20 min•Ep. 272
This is a follow-up show to Finn and the Bell . If you haven't heard that story, you might want to start there. At Bread and Puppet in Glover, Vermont, there is a magical pine forest full of small homemade buildings and shrines to memorialize dead puppeteers and friends. It’s a place where my friend Tara Reese’s sons Finn and Lyle spent a lot of time when they were little, running around in the woods in the summer. Now there is a memorial here for Finn in the pine forest, built by some of the ki...
May 22, 2024•20 min•Ep. 271
