Category: DailyShorts

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Curious City - The Pilsen Episode

Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood was first settled by Irish and German immigrants who were soon supplanted by a large influx of Czech immigrants. They gave the neighborhood its name but it’s known today for its Mexican and Mexican American population who first began moving in during the 50s and 60s. Pilsen continued to be a port of entry for decades and since then, many have fought to maintain the neighborhood’s identity, culture, and its community. In this episode we answer several questions about Pilsen’s history -- about the role murals have played in creating that sense of community, how the people rose up and came together to fight for a new high school, and how residents of Pilsen took a Chicago housing peculiarity and made it their own.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved the World

I’ve done episodes before about people who have saved a large number of human lives. Mostly, these people have done so through inventions or innovations in fields like agriculture or medicine. What about people who prevented an impending disaster? Like when Superman stops an asteroid from hitting the Earth. Well, there was such a case, and thanks to the actions of a single man, millions of lives might have been saved.

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NPR's Book of the Day - Humor, horror and social commentary blend in Percival Everett’s detective novel

Percival Everett's page-turning new detective novel The Trees is at once gruesome and screamingly funny. A racial allegory rooted in southern history, the book features two big-city special detectives with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation who are sent to investigate a small-town crime. The murders are hideous in detail, the language is rough, there are racial epithets of all kinds, and somehow the politically incendiary humor is real. Everett talks with NPR's Scott Simon about how — and why — he blended these styles.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - Nostradamus

In 1555, a French physician and astrologer named Michel de Nostredame published a book of poems titled Les Prophéties. Ever since people have been trying to interpret world events through his writings. Was Nostradamus a prophet? Was he a fraud? Or are people just reading way too much into a bunch of vague, random statements? Learn more about Nostradamus and how his writings have been interpreted, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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NPR's Book of the Day - What Maggie Nelson Means When She Talks About Freedom

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.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - The USS Constitution

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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NPR's Book of the Day - Myriam J.A. Chancy’s historical novel about a Haitian earthquake hits on human truths

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.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - The Dancing Plague of 1518

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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Everything Everywhere Daily - Which Came First: Beer or Bread?

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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the memory palace - Episode 63: Other Bodies

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.”