"The State of Things" on WUNC

01/01/2021

Quilla explained how s*x, pleasure, and biological cycles wove into her original music for . The Greensboro electro-vocalist's newest album is "The Handbook of Vivid Moments."

Anna Luisa Daigneault, known as Quilla , is the audio muse that makes the Embodied podcast sparkle. WUNC collaborated with Quilla to craft the theme for

01/01/2021

The State of Things ended today. But will continue! You can still catch Anita Rao every Friday 12-1 on North Carolina Public Radio - WUNC talking about s*x, relationships, and health.

Back in November, WUNC chose to discontinue “The State of Things,” North Carolina’s only live public radio program heard in the mountains, on the coast and

31/12/2020

Host Frank Stasio looks back at one of his favorite interviews from his time at The State of Things with this 2003 interview of Little Brother. At that time they had just broken through with a video on MTV and the release of their first record "The Listening.”

In 2003, Frank Stasio spent time in North Carolina guest hosting The State of Things, and one of the conversations from his early days on the show is one

29/12/2020

A look at the state of unions and workers' rights in North Carolina, past and present.

Union membership in the United States is at a record low. About 10% of workers nationwide are currently union members, and only 2.7% of workers in North

28/12/2020

If you could write a letter to your future self, what would you say about 2020?

A group of UNC-Chapel Hill students wrote letters to themselves in March for a class. Today, two of those students and their instructors reflected on their words through conversation with host Anita Rao.

https://www.wunc.org/post/has-world-ended-yet-students-reflect-letters-future

28/12/2020

Our thanks go out to the NC libraries who kept us supplied with audiobooks, ebooks, and the good ol' paper and ink this year.

Hear host Anita Rao talk with two librarians about staying connected to their communities in 2020:

This March, our world turned digital. Zoom meetings, virtual school and video chats dominated work, school and home life. To ease this transition to

24/12/2020

This conversation stood out to Frank because "Cecilia is reaching back into her own ethnic heritage even as she points the way forward for new immigrants with stories much like her own family's."

Cecilia Polanco’s parents did not dream of their daughter owning a food truck when they emigrated from El Salvador to the United States in the early 1980s.

22/12/2020

"[Surfing] puts you in an environment where regardless of your belief system, you are engaged with a higher power. And it's unpredictable and it demands your attention."

For Maia Dery, sitting still has never been much of an option. Her teacher had her sit out in the halls to not disturb other students, and as soon as she

21/12/2020

We talk to members of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective about this anthology of their work.

Twenty-five years ago, renowned poet Lenard D. Moore invited a group of his peers into his basement for a session of writing critique. That monthly

21/12/2020

A personal journey into his family's past is the inspiration behind Asheville musician Ben Phantom's new song and music video "Saigon."

Hear his reflections on his trip to Vietnam with his father, who fled the country at the end of the Vietnam War: https://wunc.org/post/ben-phantoms-music-video-saigon-documents-his-fathers-return-vietnam

21/12/2020

Activist Skip Gibbs called for Durham to defund the police this summer.

Now, he has a different idea: build a community that doesn't need the police.

Listen to our interview with WUNC reporter Will Michaels about his visit to Brightwood, a Black economic development zone in rural Durham county: https://www.wunc.org/post/black-economic-development-zone-grows-rural-durham-county-0

And check out the beginnings of Brightwood in the video below, created by Natalie Dudas-Thomas.

18/12/2020

"Jane believes you have to follow her rules, and that if you don't, you may get cancer, become a drug addict - something bad is gonna happen to you. And if you're not following her rules, there's a reason and those reasons are demons."

When former schoolteacher Jane Whaley and her husband, Sam, founded Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, NC in 1979, no one could have imagined all that