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My obsession with glass crept back in a three-part show about the magical world of neon signs.

I spoke with Luis de Miranda, a philosopher and author of Being and Neonness, a cultural history of neon published by MIT Press.

I spoke with Tom Zickuhr, a commercial neon signmaker in Madison. His neon signs light up businesses all across the city. We spoke at his east-side studio.

And I spoke with Meryl Pataky, an Oakland-based sculptor and artist, and curator of She Bends– a national exhibition of work by women neon benders.

Listen to the show on wortfm.org.

A bill passed in 2017 allowed Wisconsin farmers the opportunity to grow hemp for the first time in nearly fifty years.

Whilden Hughes, of Hughes Farms in Rock County, was just one two farmers in Rock County, and one of only 184 operations in the state, who were registered and licensed to grow hemp for the first time.

He joined me on the phone after his harvest in September 2018.

Read/listen on wortfm.org

Squeaky doors, the hum of traffic, overlapping conversations — they’re all a part of the soundscape of the Madison bus system. Also a part of that soundscape is the voice of Ward Paxton, who has been the literal voice of the transit system for more than a dozen years.

In this interview from 2018, I spoke with Ward Paxton about how he came to be heard on every bus in the city.