Transcript: Bonus: Ciao for Now, Sam Evans-Brown
Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
MUSIC IN: Bivly
Justine Paradis: This is Outside/In, a show about the natural world and how we use it. I’m Justine Paradis.
Taylor Quimby: I am Taylor Quimby.
Justine Paradis: And if you haven’t heard, Outside/In is in a moment of transition.
Taylor Quimby: Mmhm.
Justine Paradis: Our founding host Sam Evans-Brown has flown the coop, moved onto a new gig. We announced it a few weeks ago - I had a conversation with Sam that we put into the feed.
Sam Evans-Brown: As you know, the feelings right now are a little bittersweet.
Justine Paradis: Yeah. and this brings us to our big announcement.
Sam Evans-Brown: Which is that I was recently offered another job and I accepted it, so the five episodes of Windfall are going to be my last five episodes as host of Outside/In.
Taylor Quimby: The show will go on -- but before it does, we’re taking a few minutes in this bonus episode to appreciate our erstwhile host… and I think to appreciate change, the very notion of change.
Justine Paradis: Can I start… with a story?
Taylor Quimby: Yes, you can. In fact it’s all part of the plan.
Justine Paradis: In fact, it’s the plan.
Taylor Quimby: Sorry!
Justine Paradis: Taylor, play along!
Taylor Quimby: Yes please do, tell me a story.
Justine Paradis: Okay… so I think there is this very particular feeling that comes with transition, or new beginnings. Like, I remember when I first got to New Hampshire to work on Outside/In, there were those first few weeks were I was like… did someone let me in this building by mistake? What am I supposed to be doing here? How do I even start to contribute?
Taylor Quimby: Yeah it’s not so much imposter syndrome, I feel like that comes later, it’s more just like this surreal sense of where am I and is this my life?
Justine Paradis: Yeah surreal is a really good descriptor for it. And the feeling does usually go away -- typically it takes doing it, making it your life, taking risks and having those risks either work out, or not work out, and having that be survivable and okay.
But one of those little risks that I did at the start was to ask the host of Outside/In, Sam Evans-Brown, if we could sit down together and if he could just show me what he was doing. He was totally down. But I asked him if I could basically just tag along on one of his stories, just to start, to see how to do it.
Taylor Quimby: Ha. And I mean listeners might not know what a generous thing this is to do and it says a lot about Sam because, you know, reporting can sometimes work best when you’re a lone wolf, in a way? To sort of get out there with your recorder, you can establish a relationship with someone, and move things along. And having someone tag along, and explaining to them what you’re doing, changing the dynamic, you know, if they’re sort of a green producer… that can be a lot of work!
Justine Paradis: Yeah totally. I don’t think I realized it then, about how generous that was. But he never made me feel at all like it was a burden and I think it was such a good learning experience for me, in part because of how open he was. That’s a nice way to be.
Taylor Quimby: So, what was the story that you tagged along for?
Justine Paradis: He was working on a story about the maple syrup industry.
Sam Evans-Brown: Allow me to present for debate from my very New England centric perch up here in New Hampshire, the following statement: Maple syrup is the quintessential North American agricultural product.
Justine Paradis: When it eventually came out it was called “The Forest for the Treesap” -- do you remember it?
Taylor Quimby: I do! Yeah this was sort of the maple syrup industry not being the cute, quaint cottage industry you might imagine, but largely being pretty industrial at this point, right?
Justine Paradis: Yeah, I mean, the sugar shack in the woods does exist, but it’s not most maple syrup... So, Sam showed me his reporting notes, he walked me through what he was thinking, and he did invite me along on a trip to northern Vermont. And I had just moved to New Hampshire, and we were driving up north through Franconia Notch -- and it was my very first time passing through that place.
Taylor Quimby: Which is like a rite of passage… it’s one of my favorite places to drive up with people who aren’t from the area because it’s this gorgeous iconic road, it cuts through the mountains, the White Mountains, there’s this big cliff on one side, towering cliffs on the other.
Justine Paradis: Yeah, I mean, in the fall, it’s lined with these maple trees, that all turn golden and red. If you want to be bowled over by the White Mountains, it’s the spot to go.
MUSIC: Vulcan Street
But to me it really feels kind of like a portal, because, you know, it’s a mountain pass, you’re passing through a threshold. And south of the notches and north of the notches are very different places, right? And you lose signal there, the highway narrows to a single lane - you slow down - so it really feels like this hovering world, like a portal. And that day it was just especially stunning. Like I remember on that drive it was late winter and somehow really foggy and really icy, so the fog is glazing each branch really minutely in ice, so the entire forest looks like it’s made of crystal.
Taylor Quimby: Mmm. One of those magical, magical winter moments.
MUSIC: Vulcan Street
Justine Paradis: And so we were driving, and I’m using the world portal and threshold, and I mean that in many different sense. This is the moment when I was being let in on not only this process of the reporting. Sam was inviting me into his process to do this thing that I’d been working towards for a really long time, to report on the environment, on longform documentary, which is so special.
And I was hanging out with Sam, who is so versed in this place. And he’s a notorious winter lover, he’s a cross country skier.
Taylor Quimby: A notorious winter lover, that’d be a good Twitter handle. [laughing] Yeah. Do you remember his advice, we did the end of year show, he was talking about tips, like how to survive winter?
Sam Evans-Brown: This is not going to please the public safety officials of the world, but getting a little hypothermic is not the end of the world!
Justine Paradis: Yeah and he was like, get outside, don’t worry about hypothermia! He did qualify it a bit. But that was really funny. But in this moment in Franconia Notch, he told me this thing which just felt to me like the kind of information about a place that comes from knowing it really well. So, while we were driving that when he’s often looking for snow for skiing, and when there’s snow nowhere else in New Hampshire, often, there is snow at Franconia Notch.
MUSIC: Vulcan Street
Taylor Quimby: Mmm. Which… you know, it’s a secret. I mean, it’s not… Once you’ve lived here long enough to know that snow is tucked in the White Mountains is not a huge secret. But in some way, when you’re new to a place, that is… that is super cool.
Justine Paradis: Yeah, it was very… it did feel like a secret. Of special… I felt like I was learning the place better. I feel like that whole experience just says so much to me about, sort of, who Sam is, the specialness of reporting on northern New England, but also the experience of passing through change. Of not being able to pass through an experience unchanged.
Taylor Quimby: Is that what you… do you feel like we’re driving through Franconia Notch right now?
THEME BEAT
Like what’s on the other side of these mountains? It’s a glittering crystalline weirdness.
Justine Paradis: So we are proverbially passing through the White Mountains and Franconia Notch. It is a threshold moment for Outside/In. We said this in our announcement a couple episodes ago -- but just reiterate, a lot is changing, but then again, a lot of the stuff people love about the show isn’t really changing at all.
Taylor Quimby: We have an update about our Ask Sam recurring feature -- we’re still going to be answering listener questions, but instead of Ask Sam it’s going to be called the Outside/In[box] - so don’t stop calling the hotline with your lovingly weird wonderings about the natural world.
Justine Paradis: For now I am going to be hosting. But like we have always said, this is a team effort, and there’s lots of good stuff on the way into the podcast feed.
BEAT
So actually, I think this is a good way to say goodbye to Sam, at least say goodbye to Podcast Sam, is in a very classic podcast move… which is a montage.
MUSIC IN
Taylor Quimby: A montage, you say?
Sam Evans-Brown: Wait are you guys putting me on here?
Justine Paradis: Are you surprised?
Taylor Quimby: My favorite podcast gimmick there is!
Sam Evans-Brown: Wait you weren’t joking?
No!
This is Outside/in. I’m Sam Evans-Brown.
I’m Sam Evans-Brown.
This is Outside/in. I’m Sam Evans-Brown.
I’m Sam Evans-Brown.
Taylor Quimby: I personally will contribute a supercut of Sam’s wonderful laughs.
[Sam laughing]
Justine Paradis: Alright. Cue the montage.
Sam Evans-Brown: Wow.
Scientist: Bzzz.
THEME BEAT
[Sam laughing]
Sam Evans-Brown: Get your deep time hat on. Your deep time goggles. Imagine this depression 15,000 years ago…
Sam Evans-Brown: So I’m like… huh.
Rebecca Lavoie: Plot twist.
Sam Evans-Brown: That didn’t go the way I expected.
Rebecca Lavoie: Wait are you doing actual journalism here? Where you can like gather information?
Sam Evans-Brown: Well, no, I’m still trying to confirm the story I started out with.
Sam Evans-Brown: Like, we should just wait a little while until the mosquitos go to bed. And I’m like, mosquitos don’t go to bed! They’re little blood-sucking robots, tireless and indefatigable! They don’t sleep, humans sleep!
Sam Evans-Brown: Do you hear any birds?
No.
Sam Evans-Brown: [singing] This is ill-advised. This is a bad idea. We’re gonna get hit by a car.
[Loud car passes]
Sam Evans-Brown: Yeah there was really good snow that day.
Sam Evans-Brown: Oh this is better, this is the good stuff!
Jimmy Gutierrez: Look at Sam Evans-Brown. Shred the gnar pow bro. Shred it bro!
Sam Evans-Brown: Ready for this?!
[Sam laughing]
// CREDITS
Justine Paradis: The Outside/In team is me, Justine Paradis, Taylor Quimby, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt.
Erika Janik is our executive producer.
Starting next week, we’re be back to our regular every two weeks schedule. So, catch you in the feed!
Don’t forget, we have a newsletter! We put in episode extras, reading lists, and for more ways to get involved with the show. Sign up on our website -- outsideinradio.org.
Music in this bonus episode came from Blue Dot Sessions.
Our theme is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Outside/In is a member-supported production of New Hampshire Public Radio.