HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Scott Carrier · Carmen Delzell · Natelie Edwards · Sarah Vowell
Hearing Voices from NPR®
017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-08 (Originally: 2008-06-25)
“No Place Like Home” (52:00 mp3):
The places we live and the people who live there; a desert, a city, two small towns, and another country:
Scott Carrier has a cultural history of the Great Salt Lake’s “West Desert,” a land of polygymists, bombing ranges, and toxic waste incinerators. There’s chlorine gas in the air, anthrax stored underground, and people who call the place home.
Sarah Vowell‘s childhood move from rural Oklahoma to small-town Montana was, for her, a change from the middle ages to a modern metropolis.
And two Stories from the Heart of the Land: NYC native Natalie Edwards hates grass, bugs, dirt, and trees, but attempts a walk thru Brooklyn’s Prospect Park; and Carmen Delzell tells why she moved to and has stayed in Mexico.
I lived all over Brooklyn, NY for 25 years and there wasn’t much bugs, trees or grass in most of Brooklyn. There was a lot of concrete. When I listened to Natalie Edwards (from Jamaica) complained about being overwhelmed by nature (in Brooklyn), I concluded that her perceptions of her surrounding was not accurate at all. Are we to believe that Jamaica had less dirt, trees, bugs and grass than Brooklyn?
I’ve lived in Brooklyn for 11 years, but today I’m in Chamonix, France listening to Sarah Vowell of Bozeman. I’m here for the summer with my French boyfriend who is determined for us to move to Bozeman in October. I’ve never been to Montana or any state nearby, but for some reason I feel open and excited by the prospect. I felt such luck choosing wnyc am 820 on the internet this afternoon and finding this program.
I’m also from Texas, and I, too, wanted nothing more than to leave that heat and those closed minds. I was in New York by 18, but I find the mountains really set my soul free.
Thank you.
I remember the first time I listened to this on podcast. The first minute alone is beautiful and powerful.
great show…really heartfelt…
keep up the good work!
whats the song that opens this episode?
The show starts with this music: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole from the 1993 album: Facing Future.
Anyone know the artist playing the guitar leading into the Mexico segment?
Much obliged.
Just listened to this episode on SiriusXM channel 123. Wow…as a native Oklahoman from Poteau, OK who moved to Oklahoma City, Sarah Vowell’s piece really spoke to me. I could completely relate to her story.
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