Episode summary: Josie Long presents short documentaries and adventures in sound about dreaming and the imagination. Dive into an astronaut’s dreamscape, take an audio drawing lesson with Ebony Flowers and listen to Ursula Le Guin explore world-building. Production Team: Andrea Rangecroft and Alia C...

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Episode summary: Colleges today talk a big game about valuing diversity — so why are so many of them failing to retain first-generation students? We meet a homeless straight-A track star and her ad-hoc college application coach to look at why it’s so hard to get into college while rural, poor, and u...

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Episode summary: The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts. A note on shownotes. In a perfect world, you go into each episode of the Memory Palace knowing nothing about what’s coming. It’s pretentious, sure, but that’s the intention....

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Episode summary: KIEV, UKRAINE, 2019: Patrick flies to Ukraine and witnesses how fully the political message of “Wind of Change” still resonates with fans at a Scorpions show in Kiev. Plus: what does the CIA say when you come right out and ask about the agency’s connection to the band?

Episode summary: How well do the news media serve us as citizens, and what role does the notion of “objective,” or “neutral,” journalism play in the failings of American democracy? Story reported by Lewis Raven Wallace, with host/producer John Biewen and collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews...

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Episode summary: In May 1991, a bank robber walked into a bank in Irving, Texas, and without speaking handed the teller a note that read, “This is a bank robbery. Give me your money. No marked bills or dye packs.” Witnesses reported that the robber was wearing a cowboy hat and a brown leather jacket...

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Episode summary: David and Helen talk to the historian Dan Snow about the parallels for the current crisis. Is it like past pandemics or is it more like a war? What has it exposed about the weak spots in our societies? And what have we learned about the role of political leadership? Plus we explore...

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Episode summary: While graffiti is seen by some as blight, and by others as art, the act of hiding in the shadows and stealthily scrawling your name on a wall is ultimately about being seen, rather than doing damage. This was definitely the case for a boy who went…

Episode summary: LANGLEY, VIRGINIA, 2011: The Scorpions’ song “Wind of Change” became the soundtrack to the end of the Cold War. But decades later, New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe heard a rumor from a trusted source: the Scorpions didn’t write the song. The CIA did.

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