Soundings

Radical Puppets: Revisiting the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests by Emily Zhang

What does it mean to protest and are there ways to do so that bring creativity to the forefront along with the issues? Listen to how those who were on the front lines of the WTO protests in Seattle used puppetry to get their ideas and demands across to those in power.

Missed Connections by Neeharika Bandlapalli

A story about people experiencing homelessness and their path to reconnection with their loved ones. Listen to learn why no matter where you are and what your journey in life has been, you will always be someone’s somebody.

She Was There by Paloma Moreno

Every year, a small group of Stanford Students are awarded grants to complete audio stories under the teaching, training, and mentorship of the Stanford Storytelling Project. These are the stories that came out of that process from 2020 to 2021.

Experiencing Sankofa

What are you supposed to do after a noose is found on your campus? Stanford’s answer to that question was, in part, to invite The Experience Sankofa Project, a living museum on black history to campus. This story details what the Project can teach us about racism, activism, and (maybe most importantly), community.
Producer: Adesuwa Agbonile
Featuring: Venus Morris, Dereca Blackmon, Mizan Alkebulan-Abakah, Sizwe Andrews-Abakah, Frank Omowale Satterwhite, Jeanette Smith-Laws, Persis Drell
Music: “Multiple Crystal Bowl Rhythm - Freesound.org - Geerose
“All the Answers” - Lee Rosevere
“It’s a Mystery” - Lee Rosevere
“You’re Enough Version C” - Lee Rosevere

Swimming In Dreams

Producer: Ethan Lo
What’s the point of all of this? It’s a question we've all asked ourselves. For child-refugees who’ve come to America (and their descendants), attempting to answer this question is inevitably tied with wondering why fate, God, or whatever higher power they believe in has given them opportunities that those who came before them did not have.If you’ve ever asked yourself what it is that you need to be doing in life, this story is for you. You don’t have to come from a refugee background to relate. It’s simply the story of a young man who’s beginning to seriously question his lot in life, intertwining it with his family background, and coming to terms with the nature of it all. By exploring the three lives of a now-reintegrated middle-aged man who was sentenced to prison at 15, a college student who once couldn’t dream, and a high school student balancing what she owes to her mother and to herself; Ethan hopes to answer one question: what am I here for, if anything?
Featured voices: Ethan Lo, Choy, Paw, Neesha
Music:
Opening Credits, Johnny Ripper
Rain, Aaron Ximm
Night Caves, Lee Rosevere
Ominous Beat, Setuniman freesound.org/people/Setuniman/
Harmonious Ending, Setuniman freesound.org/people/Setuniman/

Klezmer For My Grandmother

Producer: Daniel Helena Alexander
In the summer of 2019, I fly to Israel with a single goal in mind. I want to play a song. But not just any song. I want to play a Klezmer song. This podcast follows my journey meeting Jewish musicians and dealing with family tragedy to compose a personal song. “Music doesn’t lie.” You'll agree when you hear how beautiful, haunting, and inspiring Klezmer music can be.
Music:
“Miter Der Lerrer” by Di Gasn Trio
“Schwartz Doina and Al’s Dances” by Daniel Hoffman
“San Diego” by Blink-182
“Bagopolier Freylekhs” by Klezmer Israel
“Hora de Concert” by Emil Aybinder
“In Your Arms” by Forestt
“Music for Bows and Feet” by Daniel Hoffman
“Festival Excerpts” by HaBalkania
“Hora Mittsibeles” by Alicia Svigels
“Excerpts” by HaBalkania
“Niggun” by Gal Klein

Seekers

Producer: Sophie McNulty
In her late thirties, Lanie, Sophie’s mom, became a born again Christian. Christianity gave her life meaning and happiness. When Lanie found God, “All the heaviness was just lifted.” Sophie, an atheist, struggles to find purpose in her own life. In this story, Sophie sets out to determine if what saved her mother could save her, too.
Music:
The Healing (Sergey Cheremisinov)
Precisamos de um plano (rui)
Valantis (Blue Dot Sessions)
Waves (Pictures of the Floating World)
Multiverse (Ketsa)
Postcards mastered

Coming of Age (Online): Imagining Queer Futures

Producer: Julie Fukunaga
What does it mean to (be queer) and come of age on the internet?
In the past ten years, the queer games movement has exploded. Around the world, more and more people feel like they can make free and simple and strange games - ones that speak to queer stories and experiences. But it wasn’t always this easy.
Some queer gamers used the earliest, clunkiest internet to find each other in crisis, to find friends, community, and a lifeline support in a time when no one was paying attention. Follow the journeys of queer gamers as they reflect on their earliest experiences online - experiences of freedom and discomfort, of community and isolation. They’ve since become architects of the internet, contributing to online communities as media scholars and game developers, but for these queer gamers, it all started way back.
Featured voice (subjects names if they want to share): Pedro Gallardo (he/him), Teddy Pozo (they/them), Kat Brewster (they/she)
Au Clair de Lune (Sunhiilow)
Sad Day Slow Game Music (HeatleyBros)
PlaymateX, In My Head (Podington Bear)
Flight of Lulu (Possimiste)
Notice the Absence of You is Here (Monplaisir)
You Can Calmly Put This Thing Together (Junior85)
Opening Credits (JohnnyRipper)
Route 3 (Mikel (Game Chops))
Various themes from Animal Crossing

Weird, F***** Up, Amazing

Producer: Hannah Scott
I grew up in the sprawl of Los Angeles. I grew up on garage shows, Whiskey-A-Go-Go on Sunset Boulevard, classmates rapping on SoundCloud, my mom driving me an hour and a half to a venue in Orange County. My experiences with DIY music communities have been among the most important aspects of my life; yet, the deeper I get into this world, the more I hear people tell me that I missed out on “the glory days.” In this story, I travel to Asheville, North Carolina to prove that DIY is, in fact, not dead, but that young people today are making the subculture more accessible and creative.
Featuring:
Mark Hosler
Emma Hutchens
Davaion “Spaceman Jones” Bristol
Music:
Scott Shoemaker, the Well Drinkers (live at the Grey Eagle)
alright lover: “II”, “divorced father son all stars”, “furukawa”
Ulises Lima: “Mark 1”
Richard Jonas: “hhhaaarrrdddcccooorrreee”
Pudge: “Sweetheart”
Negativland: “Destroying Anything”
Spaceman Jones and the Motherships: “My City Has Lights”
“Around the Cliffs”
Slugly: “Poison” (live at the Mothlight)
Dude Babe (live at Fleetwoods)
Special Thanks:
David McConville
Alice Sebrell
Andrea Burns Debevoise
Teresa Clark
Fred Turner

To The Beat Of The Drum

Producer: Mylan Gray
When you feel at home thousands of miles away from your birthplace, what choice do you have but to return? I take a return trip to the Festival of the Rosary—an African syncretic festival in the southeast of Brazil. In returning, I learned African diasporic peoples might be connected by more than just African ancestry. Marked by cultural loss from the middle passage, this festival births a culture of its own. Its songs and rituals speak to the suffering of slavery and embrace a remembrance of forgotten homelands. As a black person from the United States, being in the presence of this grieving made room for something else to take root.
Featuring:
Ana Luzia Da Silva
Padre Jailson
Rainha Cleusa
Dayonna Tucker
Ramona Greene
Cameron Woods
Music: Original music from the Festival of the Rosary
Blear Moon
Brevyn
Kai Engel
Zion Dirty Sound
Ikebe Shakedown