In February and March of 1974, the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, had a series of religious and visionary experiences. He spent the remaining eight years of his life writing thousands of pages of notes to try to come to terms with the meaning of these strange events. In this...Read more
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Episode Archives
Ahh, nature! It’s always such fun to watch on television. Let someone else stalk grizzlies and wrestle Amazonian snakes – real nature is hard work. But it doesn’t have to be. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we invite you to step out of your front door into the natural world. You...Read more
Americans change their dining room tables about as often as they change their spouses, about one and a half times in their lives. IKEA isn’t concerned about your marriage, but it does want to change the way you look at your furniture, and yourself. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more
Celebrate Halloween with this spooky hour full of ghost stories from our wonderful listeners, and real-life tales of the paranormal. Haunted houses, near-death experiences, and spectral raccoons... so many ways to be un-dead.Read more
Sinatra swings it, Miles Davis jazzes it up, and Billy Holiday croons it from the heart. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the biography of a great American love song. In our second annual Valentine’s Day Show the Rogers and Hart hit “My Funny Valentine.” And our listeners share true...Read more
Bombay is the largest city in the world. And one of the most confounding. Bar dancers, gangs, and Bollywood all call Bombay home, for better or worse. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a Bombay-native takes us inside this Maximum City. Also, the writer of the hit movie "Monsoon...Read more
You're driving along a dark road when you're distracted by what appears to be a flight of arrows. You crash into a ravine and suffer horrible burns over most of your body. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk to Andrew Davidson about his debut novel "The Gargoyle." It's been...Read more
Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Brittney Spears – divas? Nah. Maria Callas – now she was a diva! In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, two great ladies with leather lungs – Maria Callas and Judy Garland – their triumphs and tragedies from Onassis to Oz. And other...Read more
When and how did the universe begin? Why is there something rather than nothing? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll tackle the big questions about the universe. From Stephen Hawking's latest ideas about parallel universes and theories of everything to the quantum physics of...Read more
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Simon Winchester tells the remarkable story of Krakatoa. The volcanic eruption spewed chunks of land 25 miles into the air. The blast was heard three thousand miles away. And it kicked up monstrous tidal waves that killed nearly forty thousand...Read more
America's gone craft crazy. Everyone's knitting, or keeping scrapbooks; throwing pots or wood-working. And naturally, there are new chains of stores that carry all the supplies these crafters need, or think they do. To the Best of Our Knowledge considers what we mean by the word "craft." Does it...Read more
An early spring thaw is good news if you live in a snow belt state. But it's not just the snow mound at the bottom of the driveway that's melting right now – the polar ice caps are melting too. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, stories from the lands of snow and ice. What do we...Read more
Was Henry David Thoreau a failure? Hardly. Today, he's considered one of America's great writers. But his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, called him the worst kind of failure: a dreamer. At Thoreau's funeral, Emerson said Thoreau was born for greatness, but he lacked ambition. He was nor more than...Read more
Every new year brings a fresh start, another chance to remake yourself. We all aspire to be better people, but following through on our goals can often be difficult.Read more
They can talk to angels, they're intuitive, and their aura is an unusual vivid blue. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll find out about indigo children. The new age movement says they're here to save the world, but modern medicine says they're normal kids with attention deficit...Read more
When the world turns green again, it makes us all a little giddy! In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll pull on our gum boots and get out into the garden with novelist Jamaica Kincaid, who’s grown a map of the Carribean at her Vermont home. Sharon Lovejoy, author of Roots, Shoots...Read more
Bottle caps, coins, dolls, rocks. My Aunt Mary’s ceramic chickens. Most of us collect something. It seems to be in our genes. And for most of us it’s a fun hobby. For others, it can get a little time consuming. But for a few, collecting is an total obsession.
Amanda Petrusich is a music...Read more
Who really rules the internet? Cats, of course. We can't take the cuteness anymore so here it is -- our first and only show about cats. Cat videos, superstar cats, cat music, cat history, endangered cats... and a little, tiny bit about dogs.Read more
Jane Scott keeps strange company. While other women her age spend their time in knitting circles, Scott’s still hanging out with rockers like Lou Reed and Alice Cooper (and showing off her backstage pass.) It’s her job. Or at least it was until she retired as rock critic for the Cleveland...Read more
Welcome to the digital age. There’s information everywhere but do we know any more than we did twenty years ago? And for all that info... where's knowledge?Read more
It would be hard to imagine a more fundamental American value than democracy. For centuries, disenfranchised people have fought for the right to vote. But would we be better off if fewer peoplevoted - if only the people who actually know about public policy were allowed to vote...Read more
Supersized slabs of juicy ribs cooked over a wood fire until the meat slides right off the bone. Food doesn't get more American than barbecue. It's part of our roots. And it's tangled up in our racial history. In this hour, we celebrate barbecue and explore its secret history.Read more
Outlet malls are America's number-one travel destination. They get more visitors every year than Times Square, Disney World and the Grand Canyon combined. We definitely have a lust for low prices. But this discount culture comes with a high cost. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'...Read more
The downhill skiers in Sochi know cold weather, but for real cold -- try diving into freezing water above the Arctic Circle! In this hour, some sports too cold even for the Winter Olympics.Read more