In this episode, we offer a few of our favorite shorts as sonic gifts. We've got the humble farmer, an early work by Arlie Adlington, and one of the most formative works of contemporary audio: CAT NAMES.

This week we bring you a rare longform piece by Radio Diaries featuring Bridgette McGee, our narrator as she uncovers the truth about her grandfather's death, through uncomfortable interviews, original reporting, and some of the most arresting archival tape. We are with Bridgette for every step of her process, and in doing so, we share a history that could have otherwise been erased.

Photo courtesy of Bridgette McGee.

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Original Series Credits:

Our story was narrated by Bridgette McGee-Robinson and produced Joe Richman and Samara Freemark of Radio Diaries, with help from Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, Deborah George and Ben Shapiro.

This week we're sharing a banger documentary from Kelly McEvers which may leave you standing, staring at a wall by the end. The podcast version of a driveway moment.

Ten years before McEvers' show Embedded hit the air, you can hear the idea for it beginning to form. Diary of a Bad Year is a bold and compelling look at why journalists risk it all for the story.

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Jay Allison financed, produced, edited and mixed this series for Transom.org. More about the piece can be found at Transom: https://transom.org/2013/diary-of-a-bad-year-a-war-correspondents-dilemma/

Original Thank You and Music Credits for Diary of a Bad Year are here:

I dedicate this piece to the lost members of the tribe and to their families. I stand forever in salute to Chris Hondros, Tim Hetherington, Gilles Jacquier, Anthony Shadid, Marie Colvin, and Remy Ochlik.

A huge thanks to those who participated in this project by agreeing to talk to me: Mark Brayne, Anthony Feinstein, Paul Wood, Anna Blundy, Jon Lee Anderson, Sebastian Junger, and Christiane Amanpour. Thanks again to the wonderful folks at Transom, who opened their houses and their hearts and reinforced my belief in the principle that if you listen, really listen, great things happen.

Thank you to my true partners in crime — Lava Selo, Rima Marrouch, and Rasha Elass — who have been by my side on every Syria story. Thank you to my dear friend and editor, Doug Roberts, who let me try weird things on the radio despite the fact that I was breaking all the rules. I am forever in his debt. Thanks to the inimitable Loren Jenkins, for believing in me after all those years of trying.

Thank you to Jonathan Blakley, who first put me in touch with Mark Brayne and who helped me understand it’s okay to talk to a counselor; to Barbara Surk and Hassan Jamali, who were with me as we were tear-gassed in Bahrain; to Noor Kelze, who first took me to the front line in Aleppo; to Manoli Wetherell, Jim Lesher, and Suzanne Lennon, who engineered and recorded interviews; to Jennifer Dargan, who helped arrange my interview with Christiane Amanpour; and to Tim Fitzsimons, Susannah George, and John Mangin, who provided early and very helpful feedback.

And perhaps the biggest thanks of all goes to my family — Steve, Claudia, and Dave McEvers — whose support is unwavering despite the pain it causes them, and to Nathan Deuel, my collaborator, my best friend, and my one great love.

Music

Thank you to Matthias Bossi, Carla Kihlstedt, and Jon Evans for the original music they composed for this piece. You can find more of their music at:

Lawless Music

Rabbit Rabbit Radio

Carla Kihlstedt

Matthias Bossi

Jon Evans

Today we're presenting a documentary about an icon, Tony Schwartz, and made by icons, The Kitchen Sisters.

For thirty years (1945-1976), Schwartz created and produced a radio program for WNYC featuring the people and sounds of New York City. He amassed an archive of recordings (now housed in the Library of Congress) that are expertly mixed together in this documentary so listeners can hear the world as Tony Schwartz did.

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Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later’ was produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva with help from Tim Berbee, Nina Ellis and Jim Anderson mixed by Jim McKee at Earwax Productions in San Francisco.

Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later was created as part of a Peabody Award-winning series heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, exploring American life through recorded sound.

Created in 1999 by The Kitchen Sisters with Jay Allison, this Peabody, Clarion and Webby award-winning series brought together some of the most respected producers and storytellers in public radio with artists and NPR to create this imaginative series. Liberace & the Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band; French Manicure: Tales from Vietnamese Nail Shops in America; Cigar Stories, WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts; Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later — more than 80 stories make up this series. Lost & Found Sound was supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This week we're sharing the story "A Level Playing Field" from John Biewen's series Contested, the first season of his iconic show Scene on Radio.

Contested considers the American relationship to sports, and this episode looks at the way money permeates sport and how it distorts reality to create unrealistic expectations for young athletes and communities of color.

Today we present a documentary by The Heart that is astonishing.

"When I was younger, someone took a knife to my clitoris and cut out a small, but significant part of me."

Based on writer Mariya Karimjee's 2015 essay "Damage," we hear a deeply intimate portrait of Mariya's a journey from her childhood in Pakistan, to her adolescence in Texas, through college, all the way to where she is now, back in Pakistan as she navigates family, love, her body and her personal relationships, all despite the physical and emotional trauma that she has suffered.

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Original Series Credits:

Mariya Karimjee is a writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. Read her original essay here.

Editorial support from Brendan Baker, Allen Watts, Kelsey Padgett, Samara Breger and Nadia Bajwa. Additional support from Kari June.

Another version of this story can be heard on This American Life.

Image art by Jen Ng

Today we're sharing the 1998 documentary The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, as well as the 2006 documentary The Imaginary Village by Sandy Tolan and Melissa Robbins.

The Lemon Tree explores the relationship between a Palestinian man named Bashir and Dalia, a Bulgarian-born Israeli who moved into his childhood home in the West Bank. The piece was turned into an award-winning book of the same name.

The Imaginary Village explores the longing for land and home by Palestinian refugees.

They were released together in a 2008 special to mark the 60th anniversary of the Arab-Israeli war and the creation of the state of Israel.

Today we present an all time favorite of the team at Selects. This iconic work by Dave Isay and Stacy Abramson is a vivid portrait of New York City’s Bowery, before it got swallowed by a museum and high end retail and luxury real estate. In the late 90’s The Sunshine Hotel remained one of the last flophouses left on the Bowery, New York’s skid row. As you meet the cast of characters at the Sunshine hotel you will be transported to another time in New York City history.

This small collection of oral histories from one Bowery hotel became catalyst for StoryCorps, a collection of over 630,000 oral histories now stored in the Library of Congress.

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Original Series Credits:

This documentary comes from Sound Portraits Productions, a mission-driven independent production company that was created by Dave Isay in 1994. Sound Portraits was the predecessor to StoryCorps and was dedicated to telling stories that brought neglected American voices to a national audience.

Produced By: David Isay, Nathan Smith, Stacy Abramson, and Suzanne Clores