Category: Active

Since her childhood in 1970s San Francisco, critic and poet Maggie Nelson has been mulling the concept of freedom — particularly how we define, practice and experience it. She sat down with NPR's Ari Shapiro to talk about four areas in life — art, sex, addiction and climate change — and how we talk about freedom in regard to our collective wellbeing and individual rights.

On March 27, 1794, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act. The Naval Act authorized funding for six frigates which would become the basis for the new US Navy. One of those six ships, and the third one built, was the USS Constitution. It was launched in 1797 and saw service in multiple conflicts all around the world. That ship which first set sail 225 years ago, is still in service and operational today.

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Back in August, Myriam J.A. Chancy was preparing for the release of her novel What Storm, What Thunder when the news broke: a magnitude 7.2 earthquake had hit Haiti. It was a "chilling and bittersweet" moment, she says; her soon-to-be-published book revolved around the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country, and its aftermath. In this episode, she talks to NPR's Scott Simon about the eerie similarities between the two quakes, how her characters speak to how international relief efforts have historically failed Haiti, and what the world can learn from the country's rebuilding efforts.

People who love to dance are said to have dancing fever. Dancing fever is just a phrase and not something meant to be taken literally. However, could there really be an actual dancing fever? Could there be a disease that caused people, many people, to dance until they fell from exhaustion? Well, maybe. Learn more about the Straussberg Dancing Plague of 1518 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The rise of agriculture has been pointed to as being responsible for the rise of civilization as we know it. However, that raises the question, what was responsible for the rise of agriculture? In particular, at least in the Middle East with the cultivation of grain, the debate has always been which came first: Beer or Bread? Learn more about the great beer vs bread debate, and which was responsible for the rise of civilization, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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This episode was originally released in October, 2014.

The music in this one: “An Ending, A Beginning” by Dustin O’Halloran. “I am Piano” by Peter Broderick. Two songs from the soundtrack to “With a Song in my Heart”: American Medley, and That Old Feeling. The one at the end is “I’ll Never be the Same.” My version’s on a collection called “Can’t get out of this Mood.” There are also a couple of other Jane things that I found on You Tube. The plane crash stuff is scored by a piece of Claudia Serne and Leopold Ross’ soundtrack for “Broken City,” called “Missing Pieces.” Then there’s a sound by The Caretaker called “Stairway to the Stars.”

I read a lot about Jane for this but nothing was as useful as Ilene Stone’s lovely book, “Jane Froman: Missouri’s First Lady of Song.”