Arts and Ideas

September 05, 2007 —

“Stories from the Heart of the Land,” is a 5-part radio series hosted by Jay Allison and produced by WNYC alum Emily Botein. “Stories” features award-winning producers and reporters, including Elizabeth Arnold, Scott Carrier, Sean Cole, The Kitchen Sisters and Jonathan Goldstein. The series documents the variety of ways in which human beings encounter, rejoice in and, occasionally, flee for their lives from, nature.

The Stories

Portraits in Landscapes
In this hour, the Kitchen Sisters explore a canyon, Jonathan Goldstein goes camping, and Elizabeth Arnold enters bear territory — places devoid of people. But when they point their microphones at the landscape, they find stories that seem a lot like…portraits.

The Nature of the Imagination
Why can we all clearly imagine distant locales — even those of us who never leave the backyard? Listen as we try to answer by watching nature documentaries with David Attenborough, traveling to the North Pole and visiting a Himalayan mountain whose summit is home to the gods (and, naturally, off-limits to humans).

Journeys Home and Away
Isn't "finding yourself" what kids do with backpacks in Europe? Not always. In this hour, go with a few brave radio producers into nature on a mission of discovery — searching for old-growth trees, a trail built long ago, the Australian outback and what you can see with your first pair of glasses.

Nature is Homeground
On some corner of the vast Earth, each one of us has a place — real or remembered — to call home. Hear Teresa Goff follow a trail of grease, Jeff Rice brave three-digit temperatures in the Sonoran Desert and Sandy Tolan tread lightly at the monastic home of author Barry Lopez.

Dreams of Paradise
Listen to stories of people living out dreams of paradise... sometimes waking up to a nightmare. Sam Hurst and Dean Olsher discover the pain of loving land that gives you nothing but trouble. Natalie Edwards faces a personal chamber of horrors at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. And a few sleepless Hawaiians plot the extinction of a noisy nocturnal nuisance...the coqui frog.

Visit the series website for more info