Abridged is a podcast about bridges. Bridges play so many roles in our lives: as gateways to history, architectural icons, in-between spaces, and carriers of memories. But by design, they aren’t really destinations. We cross them to get from one point to another. Here on Abridged, we’re reconsidering that idea. Within the flow of traffic and trains and people, we’re going to stop and listen. Each episode of Abridged is a standalone story. You’ll hear about a bridge that suddenly started singing, a photographer who’s climbed the bridges of New York City, a woman who married a bridge, ants who build bridges out of their own bodies, and more. Host and producer Rebecca Seidel has been obsessed with bridges for as long as she can remember. And in making this podcast, she discovered that she’s not the only one. So this podcast isn’t just a celebration of bridges, but of the people who love them.
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The Golden Gate Bridge was silent for 83 years. Silent against the wind, silent under the weight of millions of travelers. Until one day in June 2020, when it started to sing.
The loud, eerie hum emitting from the bridge took San Francisco by surprise. Everyone wanted to know: what was this sound? What was causing it? Today on Abridged: a sonic investigation into what happens when our built world gets a voice of its own.
Abridged is produced, sound designed, and mixed by Rebecca Seidel. The executive producers are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski at Goat Rodeo.
Learn more about Emily Shaw on her website (https://www.emilyshawcreates.com/), and listen to her new podcast Candy Ears here (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/candy-ears/id1729922814). One episode features her full recording of the Golden Gate Bridge hum; you can hear that here (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/golden-gate-bridge-hum/id1729922814?i=1000644952362).
Subscribe to Abridged on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abridged/id1690874836#episodeGuid=64871c761dba0300116302a2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/749rwA8sywFYW4vnZG0p8Y?si=7af465cb2da14846), or your podcast platform of choice (https://pod.link/1690874836). And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review to share the love.
Follow Becca on Twitter (http://twitter.com/beccahope24) and get in touch if you have a bridge story of your own: abridged.xyz (http://abridged.xyz)
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5 Sept 2023
Singing Bridges
“The bridges are always singing. The music inside them is always playing.”
Jodi Rose has been deeply listening to bridges around the world for more than 20 years. She records them using contact microphones, which pick up and amplify the vibrations inside solid objects. By attaching a contact microphone directly to a bridge’s cables, she can hear its inner monologues—vibrations that are always there, but ever changing.
Jodi laces her recordings into musical compositions, attuning us to the ways different bridges move and sway. Listening to her music is a meditative experience—one that might make you rethink the way you look at (and listen to) the bridges around you.
And what’s motivated Jodi to travel the world listening to bridges? Well, if it isn’t clear already, she loves them. A lot.
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Listen to more of Jodi’s music here (https://singingbridgesmusic.bandcamp.com/).
The episode artwork is titled “Future Bridge Score.” It’s by Jodi Rose in collaboration with AI VQGAN + CLIP (Nightcafe). It was made as part of “Singing Bridges 360: Sculpting a Bridge in Sound,” Jodi’s piece imagining bridges around the world singing in harmony.
Abridged is produced, sound designed, and mixed by Rebecca Seidel. The executive producers are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski at Goat Rodeo.
Subscribe to Abridged and tell a bridge-loving friend: https://www.abridged.xyz/ (https://www.abridged.xyz/)
Follow Becca and get in touch if you have a bridge story of your own: twitter.com/beccahope24 (http://twitter.com/beccahope24)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
1 Aug 2023
Ant Bridges
A swarm of army ants is a sight to behold. Thousands upon thousands of ants band together to create massive foraging highways, spanning hundreds of meters and preying upon everything in their path. Individually, these ants can’t do much. But together, they barrel through all kinds of obstacles—and, in a feat that’s truly surreal to witness, they build bridges out of their own bodies.
What do scientists know about these living, breathing structures? What motivates these ants to build them? And at the risk of getting way too metaphorical about the whole thing: what can ant bridges teach us about ourselves?
Abridged is produced, sound designed, and mixed by Rebecca Seidel. The executive producers are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski at Goat Rodeo.
Today’s episode features Helen McCreery (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=d41FQCgAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate), who is now a full-time lecturer at Tufts University; and Albert Kao (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=hZhwjsIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate), an assistant professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Both of them have done fascinating research on collective behavior.
Subscribe to Abridged and tell a bridge-loving friend: https://www.abridged.xyz/ (https://www.abridged.xyz/)
Follow Becca and get in touch if you have a bridge story of your own: twitter.com/beccahope24 (http://twitter.com/beccahope24)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
12 Jun 2023
The Bridge Man
Dave Frieder has climbed to the top of every major bridge in New York City. Perched atop their tallest towers, hundreds of feet above the water, he’s taken dizzying photos that capture the architectural beauty of these structures. He’s a former gymnast who’s not afraid of heights, so this was a perfect gig for him. But this was never just a job for Dave, or even just a hobby. No—because Dave is obsessed with bridges. He knows everything about them: how they work, who designed them, who built them. And even though his climbing days are mostly behind him, bridges are still his life’s calling. Even after a national tragedy changed it all.
Abridged is produced, sound designed, and mixed by Rebecca Seidel. The executive producers are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski at Goat Rodeo.
See Dave’s photos and buy his book: https://davefrieder.com/ (https://davefrieder.com/)
Subscribe to Abridged and tell a bridge-loving friend: https://www.abridged.xyz/ (https://www.abridged.xyz/)
Follow Becca and get in touch if you have a bridge story of your own: twitter.com/beccahope24 (http://twitter.com/beccahope24)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
13 Apr 2023
Trailer
Abridged is a podcast about bridges. More specifically, it’s about the many roles that bridges play in our lives: as gateways to history, architectural icons, in-between spaces, and carriers of memories.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
21 ratings
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