This is The Truth. I'm Jonathan Mitchell. And before we hear today's episode, I have a special announcement.

We have extended the deadline of our fundraiser until June 30th. And that means you have a little over one more week to pre-order your limited edition vinyl pressing of Sylvia's Blood and Moon Graffiti.

Go to certifiedcrucial.com slash truth shop, where you'll also find

t-shirts, stickers, and buttons, and a place to donate. We need to raise money to bring the truth back.

And all of the money we make will go into making new stories. Each story costs about $3,000

just for the writers and actors. And a couple years ago, we had to go on hiatus

because our ad revenue stopped covering that cost.

When I heard the truth was taking a hiatus,

I was really bummed out.

That's Neil Verma.

He's a truth listener, just like you,

and also an associate professor at Northwestern University,

where he teaches classes in sound and audio drama.

He's an expert in the history of audio fiction.

I'm a huge fan of your work, you know, and I find it just also like conceptually interesting, right?

There are lots of interesting audio writers and directors out there, but many of them are working

in longer forms and in different kinds of venues

and for different kinds of communities.

And I really feel like a certain experimental spirit was lost when this show went on hiatus.

If I had to come up with a genre with which the truth has a kinship, I think it's the genre of the thought experiment or the concept album, where it's clear that many of these episodes have a kind of intellectual problem that they're trying to play with.

I took the recording of the call between me and Erica, and I loaded it in my computer,

and I wanted to analyze it.

...