This is the story of an unlikely friend who once asked for an unusual favor. Later she moved away and we fell out of touch. This is her story, and my quest to reconnect.

This was my updated and belated entry into KCRW's radio race. The theme was "won't you be my neighbor."

Won't you be my-- wait, what?!

If your post-covid hobby is extroversion, you've had to do a ton of introductions. Have you noticed anything unusual about them? In this piece I explore the repercussions from a BBQ where someone finally asked the question we've all been wondering.

Credits: 

This piece was reported and produced by Lusen Mendel. 

Special thanks to Dr. Lal Zimman, Keri F., Jean-François, Louisa, True, Chana Wilson and Eric Jansen.

Theme music by Austin Archer.

Why do we say he/him/his instead of just he?

30 second soundscaped story from an interview with Derek Keller

30 second story about improv

3 minutes vérité edit from a 20 min interview with Derek Keller about his improv experiences in high school. No soundscaping or music; just playing around with how the story is ordered. I chose to focus largely on the speaker's journey to belong, from the moment they wanted to be part of the "cool kid improv group," to the outcome at graduation.

3 minutes vérité: Derek's quest for cool

A small curiosity turns into a big theory.

Thank you to Nancy Botkin for sharing her theory and research with me, including these historic photographs:

1948 Panhandle Aerial 
https://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp31.1948.113.jpg

1969 Panhandle Aerial
https://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp31.1969.133.jpg

Cars in the Panhandle
https://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp70.1208.jpg
https://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp26.2015.jpg
https://opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp28.3501.jpg
https://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp15.559.jpg

https://opensfhistory.org/moreNeighborhoodPhotos.php?n=Panhandle

Music credits:

"English Country Garden" by Aaron Kenny

"The Easy Winners" by E's Jammy Jams

"Members Only" by TrackTribe

"King Porter Stomp" by Joel Cummins

"Potato Deal" by Craig MacArthur

"Rolling Heads" by Unicorn Heads

This used to be a road! The SF Panhandle and the Summer of Love

An investigation into how and why "singular they" went from fringe to forefront in less than a decade.

This piece was reported and produced by Lusen Mendel.

Special thanks to Dr. Lal Zimman, Eric Jansen, Anna Walters and Berkeley AMI.

ARCHIVAL CREDITS:

Former President George H. W. Bush, 1991 State of the Union

Former President Donald Trump, 2021 Farewell Address

NBC Announcer at 2022 Winter Olympics Free Skate for Cain-Gribble/LeDuc

MUSIC CREDITS: 

Theme music is “Congratulations!” by Austin Archer 

“Happy Mistake” by RKVC 

“Cinematic violin from another galaxy Lost civilisations on lost worlds” by Joshua Hudes 

“Cinematic Chillhop Main” by Zakhar Valaha

“Knight’s Tale” by Alex Cottrell 

“Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by Bardstreets Bard / Stantough

“Lone Wolf” by Guilherme Bernardes 

“Broken” by Defekt Maschine

The Remarkable Rise of Singular They

I wrote this script for Katrina Schwartz (KQED Bay Curious) based on a 15 minute interview that she’d done with Stephanie Scott. 

After I received the raw tape, I visited the shop to meet Steph and take photos _of the photos_ of people Katrina and Steph had talked about, as well as photos I found interesting. 

Then I wrote the script, and recorded and edited a full audio draft with myself doing Katrina’s voice over and the host’s lede and outro in order to give an idea of voicing and length.

You can find my script and photos, as well as the raw interview mp3 and transcript, in this Google folder: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1_kz2yPLftKV8tKHsyerehWMw5R55qujO

Won't you be my-- wait, what?!

Lusen / they

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