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The Story Collider

Not The One: Stories about ill-fated partners

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Performing Arts, Arts, Science

4.4818 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Some people are meant to be together—but in this week’s episode, our storytellers discover they’re definitely not a match made in heaven. Part 1: When Mark Pitzer gets splashed with methyl cyanide, he turns to his new girlfriend in hopes of comfort. Part 2: Hoping to impress his scientist date, Adam Selbst plans the perfect outing: the Central Park Squirrel Census. Mark Pitzer, Ph.D. is a Neuroscientist at the University of Portland. For the last 25 years he has worked to better understand and treat diseases of the brain, including Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Currently, his lab studies how developmental influences in the womb can alter the number of dopaminergic neurons involved in reward, movement and social behavior. Mark is also an award-winning teacher who uses the findings from the fields of learning and neuroscience to invoke enduring enthusiasm, curiosity, and deep learning in his college students. Adam Selbst is an award-winning designer, writer and storyteller. He’s performed on The Moth, PBS, Risk!, The Artichoke and a whole bunch of other shows around NYC. He also ran the popular Big Irv’s Storytelling Roadshow from his bodega art collective in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for over 10 years, before retiring the space during the pandemic. He currently resides in a big house with, like, a thousand friends and a single problematic cat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

A science story, huh?

0:04.0

Is NYU scientist the...

0:06.0

It felt...

0:07.0

I felt...

0:08.0

I was so...

0:09.0

And I just thought, well...

0:10.0

It was that golden moment.

0:13.0

Because science was on my side.

0:15.0

...theid... Hey everyone, welcome to the story clatter, where true personal stories about science help us to discover how weird and wonderful it is to exist in this world and be a human.

0:35.3

I'm your host, Misha Gayevsky, and in today's episode, neither of

0:39.6

our storytellers found the one. In fact, our first storyteller, Mark Pitzer, might have found the

0:45.8

worst person ever. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but if you're potentially facing

0:52.4

death in the next 24 hours, shouldn't your

0:54.6

partner care more about you than your job? Right? Mark is a neuroscientist at the University

1:00.8

of Portland who has spent the last 25 years working to better understand and treat diseases

1:05.6

of the brain like Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. His story was recorded at

1:10.4

Alberta Rose Theater and Portland, Oregon,

1:12.8

as part of a show we did in partnership with the Association of Science Communicators, Science on Tap,

1:17.6

and Make You Think. I can't wait for y'all to hear this story. Here's Mark.

1:26.0

When I was 23, I moved from Kansas to Chicago, and I was enamored in an awe of the big city,

1:41.2

of the crowds and the architecture and just the movement of it.

1:46.7

And I was also enamored by a woman named Clarissa.

...

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