Man Against Horse

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

This is a story about your butt. It’s a story about how you got your butt, why you have your butt, and how your butt might be one of the most important and essential things for you being you, for being human. In this episode from 2019, Reporter Heather Radke and Producer Matt Kielty talk to two researchers who followed the butt from our ancient beginnings through millions of years of evolution, all the way to today, out to a valley in Arizona, where our butts are put to the ultimate test. Special thanks to Michelle Legro. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Heather Radke and Matt KieltyProduced by - Matt Kieltywith help from - Simon Adler and Rachael CusickOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Dorie Chevlen EPISODE CITATIONS: Books: Butts by Heather Radke Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Radio Lab. I am Lulu. And today we have a tale about some tale. We got a backstory
0:16.8	to the back story. That's right, we are here to talk about butts. We're pulling back
0:25.0	a story from the archives that is very strange. It's about endurance and horses and what
0:29.6	it means to be human. And it comes to us from our contributing editor Heather Radke. And we're
0:34.6	airing it today because her book butts, the one she was working on way back when this piece first
0:39.8	aired, is now out in paperback. It's so much fun. It's kind of a Trojan horse. Seems all silly on
0:46.3	the front and then you open it. It's deep. It's funny. The buns of steel guy is in there. It's just
0:51.6	been picked as like a best summer read. It's great. Anyway, it's out butts a back story by Heather
0:56.8	Radke. Go check it out. And to just give you kind of a sense of the kind of reporting, Heather does
1:01.9	around this. We're going to air this piece called Man vs. Horse Heather in conversation with our
1:08.2	producer Matt Kilti. Here we go. Enjoy. Wait, wait, you're listening to Radio Lab. Radio from
1:22.7	W and Y. Hey, I'm Chad Abumrod. This is Radio Lab. And today we've got a story from our producer
1:36.3	Matt Kilti. Okay. And reporter Heather Radke. All right. I have no idea where we should start.
1:44.4	I always want to like it to like with the dawn of human civilization. Maybe.
1:53.6	Okay. So the story comes to us from Heather who is a fantastic writer who brought us a story that
1:59.9	if I were to boil it down is about a horse, a lone man running to the desert, and what it fundamentally
2:08.0	means to be a human being and weirdly buts. I didn't see this coming, but it's about buts. Just buts.
2:19.9	Your butt. It's about your butt. You got to say it a few times buts. Okay. So let's back up. I am
2:26.2	writing a book about the cultural history of the female butt. Oh, interesting. I know. I thought I'd
2:31.8	save that one for on tape. It started as an essay that I was just working on because I have a big
2:38.4	butt. And I grew up in, you know, the suburbs of mid michigan that was it was pretty white. And
2:44.8	in high school in the 90s, it was very much like not good to have a big butt. Like I got made fun of
	...

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