B-Side’s Tamara Keith and Rob Sachs continue their search for the Mason-Dixon Line, discovering that this historic boundary isn’t all that well marked.  As they search, the B-Side Crew explores personal boundaries.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Liner Notes:

Baby Space: Sarah Neal
Sarah says having a kid is like the ultimate invasion of personal boundaries. And it really doesn’t stop with the pregnancy like we all might imagine. Sarah and her husband Brent are the proud parents of Max, and they wouldn’t change it for anything. But Sarah says it has been more challenging than she expected.

Doggie Boundaries: Cathy Duchamp
Cathy explores what happens when you don’t set boundaries with your pets.  Hint: the dogs rule the house.

Miss Manners: Catherine Spangler
For this next story, we’re going to meet someone who is a master at maintaining boundaries, the invisible boundaries we all follow to get along in society.  Mrs. DeGroot knows the indispensable rules for life, and she wants to make sure that you know them, too. Catherine takes us to her impeccable home.

Facebook Over Sharing: Abigail Beshkin
Abigail has had a love hate (perhaps love it too much) relationship with facebook.

B-Side’s Rob Sachs and Tamara Keith venture out in the rain to try and find the historic Mason-Dixon Line.  Along the way we hear about a pair of European villages that share the most bizarre border you’ve ever heard of, guards who work a watery border and a man who knows no borders.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Liner Notes:

Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog: Cyrus Farivar
Most national borders around the world are pretty straightforward places. There’s a flag on one side, a line, maybe a border post, and a flag on the other side. There’s a very clear demarcation as to where the border is and most of the time, crossing that border is an event. Usually, you have to show a passport or some other document and some underpaid bureaucrat has to record in a logbook or in your passport that you were there. But what if the border went right through your town? Or worse, right through your house? Cyrus Farivar went to such a place…

A Watery Border: Sarah Elzas
Samos is one of the hundreds of small Greek islands that make up a portion of the Eastern border of the European Union. Until a few years ago, its sleepy capital of 12,000 people only saw foreigners coming off cruise ships and tourist ferries. But today the coast guard and police pick up 80-plus people arriving illegally each day. Sarah Elzas takes us to this border where the stakes are incredibly high. Another version of this story first aired on RFI.

Citizen of the World: Scott Gurian
Whether you like them or you hate them, boundaries are a fact of life for most people, and it looks like they’re here to stay.  But we found one person who’s chosen to live in a world without boundaries.  And he says it’s a choice any of us can make.  Reporter Scott Gurian tells his story.

On this edition of B-Side, Tamara Keith and Charla Bear get lost on purpose.  They are dropped off in a mysterious suburban location and have to find their way back to downtown Washington, DC.  Think of it as a low budget version of one of those survival shows on the Discovery Channel.  The show is all about losing things from a diary to a stream.  Enjoy!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Liner Notes:

A hollow in Hueysville, KY that's been filled with mining waste. Photo by: Kristin Espeland.

Lost Streams: Kristin Espeland
Some things seem easy to lose.  But a stream?  Reporter Kristin Espeland has this story from Appalachia, where residents have seen hundreds of miles of streams disappear under piles of coal mining waste.

Hearing Loss: Judah Leblang
Judah had a life-long connection to the deaf.  Then he lost most of the hearing in his left ear.

Music reviewer Dave Segal. Photo by Andrew Walsh.

Lost Collection: Andrew Walsh
Some things get lost and you barely miss them. But when music reviewer Dave Segal lost a huge chunk of his record collection, he lost part of himself.  Dave wrote about his ordeal here if you’d like to read more.

Dear Diary, Where Are You?: Anna Sachs
A lot of girls when they reach a certain age start keeping a journal, a diary. Anna Sachs had a diary when she was younger and she spoke to Tamara about how she discovered she had lost it.

In zoology, crepuscular refers to animals becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds. On this edition of B-Side we look at what humans do between the hours of 4 and 6 AM. B-Side’s Tamara Keith and Rene Gutel visit a 24-hour big box super center to see who works and shops before dawn.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(more…)

How do you cope with a rough day? Perhaps some comfort food? On this edition of B-Side we’re talking about food and coping.

First: B-Side’s Tamara Keith cooks up a pot of her mom’s vegetarian lentil soup and explores food and our relationship to food.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Then: We visit a bar. It’s the kind of place where you can get a strong drink a disappear. And it seems the appropriate location to do a show about coping.  B-Side explores the things we do to deal with the unexpected, the unpleasant, the sometimes miserable parts of life.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(more…)

Two shows we love, combined into one: The Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary People meets Clues.  First, B-Side’s Tamara Keith suits up for a game of roller hockey and brings us stories of ordinary people with extraordinary lives. Then we retire to the den for a round of Clue as we explore mysteries and clues.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(more…)