KFAI's MinneCulture Presents

"Life Stories" are public radio stories made over many years, by producer Jay Allison -- working together with Christina Egloff, and friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers and whoever would take the loan of one of his tape recorders. They are are stories about life as we find it, and record it. In this two-part series, we air Jay's collection of stories about women at work. On our Labor Day program we hear "A Pastor's Journal." For two months, the pastor of Park Union Church in Chicago kept an audio journal chronicling her daily life and thoughts about the career and the calling of the ministry. Produced with Rev. Susan Johnson and WBEZ Chicago.

Psychopathia Sexualis, Patricia Smith and Cassandra Wilson star in a mash-up that Barrett Golding calls "The Jazz Plan." It's poetry and all that jazz.

Lucy and The Bike Girl By Hillary Frank Lucy can never meet her best friend in person because it might cut her life expectancy in half. Lucy, a 28-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, meets the "Bike Girl," who has the same disease, in an Internet chatroom. They are both, against the advice of friends and doctors, trying to get pregnant, and they find that they have a lot in common. They quickly become friends, but can never meet in person, because the Bike Girl carries a bacteria in her lungs that is toxic to anyone with cystic fibrosis. This piece was an experiment in combining fact and fiction. The interview tape is all from a real interview; the narration is fictional. Hide full description Lucy, a 28-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, meets the "Bike Girl," who has the same disease, in an Internet chatroom. They are both, against the advice of friends and doctors, trying to get pregnant, and they find that they ...

We'll start the show with "Sonic Mysteries," Wagner's classic love story "Tristan und Isolde" revealed. What's that famous "Tristan Chord" all about, anyway? Composer Danny Felsenfeld takes a look under the hood to reveal the power, the beauty and the "game" of the infamous Tristan Chord. Music writer John Rockwell helps illustrate how those few simple notes have changed the course of Western music and become part of the musical collective unconscious. This segment also features a Tristan Chord "Mashup," tracing the trajectory of the Chord from Wagner's opera all the way to the Alt-rock band, Radiohead. And since we have music on the mind, we'll pair that story with a piece called "Radio Rorschach Test" by producer Aaron Henkin. In this puzzling piece, Henkin gets average folks to respond to sonic inkblots. Play along with us on Monday, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m. Central Time on KFAI, 90.3 FM Minneapolis. The show...

A sound-rich profile of Ataiba, chief of one of the last bands of nomads in the Americas, as he leaves the Bolivian jungle to live with evangelical missionaries. The story is told by Ataiba and the missionaries from starkly different points of view. Part of the Vanishing Homelands series, chronicling the dramatic changes to land and culture across the Americas. By Sandy Tolan and Nancy Postero. We'll pair this documentary with a short feature from The Memory Palace , a new public radio effort by Los Angeles-based producer Nate DiMeo. It's super cool. Listen in.