Memory Motel

For this Extended Stay, "The Bike Incident," we continue the discussion of law and memory from episode #05 - "Court of Memory" - with another story of eyewitness misidentification that steered Caroline Sarnoff’s criminal justice career toward reforming the system.

In our daily lives, we often accept that our memories are poor. We move on if our memories don’t exactly match up with another person’s, agreeing to disagree. But that’s not an option in court. And yet memory is as fragile and poor there as it is when we’re struggling to remember where exactly we had that second date. In "Court of Memory," our host speaks with Nathan Brown, an exoneree, Karen Newirth, a Senior Staff Attorney from the Innocence Project, and Julia Shaw, author of the Memory Illusion, as he explores the high stakes of remembering in the criminal justice system.

When we choose who to remember with our obituaries, what cultural landscape do we create? In "Letters to the Dead," we explore the New York Times Obituary Desk, Iceland’s obsession with death, and a renegade obituarist who finds the extraordinary in the ordinary. Featuring: Vanessa Gould, director of Obit; Nanna Arnadottir, columnist for Reykjavik Grapevine; Karl Blöndal, Vice Editor of Morgunblaðið; Kay Powell, retired obit writer and editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and more.

Our exploration of memory and psychedelics that began in "Glass-Bottom Boat" continues in this bonus episode. What role might psychedelics play in your journey to find meaning out of the life you’ve lived and have left?

In "Glass-Bottom Boat," Jim McDermott returns to the memory of his first psychedelic experience in which he found himself back in an era he thought he’d missed: the sixties.

Since objects hold our memories, both joyful and heartbreaking, how do we decide what to throw out and what to keep? To explore memory's relationship to objects, we consider The Museum of Broken Relationships, The Significant Object Project and the phenomenon of tidying up expert Marie Kondo.

Premiere episode: Autobiographical memories are one of the best ways to bond with another, but what if one person desperately wants to remember, and the other person desperately wants to forget? That's Rachel Stephenson's story.

Memory Motel is a sonic love letter to memory and what's revealed about ourselves, our wants and desires, when we go back to find meaning in what's been lived. Show launch: 3/15/16.