HV052- Circus Blood

Hearing Voices from NPR®
052 Circus Blood: Under the Big Top
Host: John Dankosky of Connecticut Public Radio
Airs week of: 2012-02-01 (Originally: 2009-02-25)

Audio will be posted here by 2012-02-08.

Circus Blood (52:00 mp3):

A world-class troupe of audio daredevils and media magicians:

Host John Dankosky takes us to the circus in “Hershey Park Arena, Hershey Pennsylvania. I was 10 years old, and very, very worried.”

SF Chronicle journalist Jon Carroll interviews his daughter Shana as she hang upside down on her “Trapeze”, ready to fly away; from the Life Stories series by Jay Allison. (Shana started swinging with the Pickle Family Circus, about which her dad co-authored a book. She now flies for Les Sept Doigts de la Main.)

Joe Frank loves the lady “Lion Tamer,” an excerpt from his hour “The Dictator- Part 2” (show details).

Adam Rosen mixes a medley of the many versions of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Tokens, The Nylons, Miriam Makeba, Robert John, and Manu Dibango).

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HV131- Voices from Tahrir

Hearing Voices from NPR®
131 Voices from Tahrir: Portrait of a Revolution
Host: Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch
Airs week of: 2012-01-25

“Voices from Tahrir” (52:00 mp3):

Bread, Freedom, and Human Dignity:

January 25, 2011. One year ago, a revolution began in Cairo’s Tahir Square. For the next eighteen days, millions of Egyptians across the country would demonstrate in the streets, demanding the end of their 30-year dictatorship. They were inspired by Tunisians, whose protests, that same month, had forced out the authoritarian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Now it was time for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to go.

A few weeks after the protests, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch interviewed some of the organizers of the January uprising: union leaders, civil rights workers, young social media activists, family members of of murdered protestors, and mothers who brought their kids to Tahrir to clean after the protests.. These Human Rights Watch interviews provide a rare, eyewitness account of a revolution, told by the Egyptian people, the activists, human rights defenders, and bloggers who persevered during those eighteen days.

The hour features recordings made in the square by reporters and citizen jounalists from around the world, including Daniel Finnan of Radio France Internationale, Al Jazeera, Egypt Daily News, Ramy Roof, and Matthew Cassel of Just Image.org.

Music: “Erhal (Leave)” and “Laugh, Revolution” by Ramy Essam; “Ezzay? (Why?)” by Mohamed Mounir and “Gomaa Hayran (Uncertain Friday)” by Joseph & James Tawadros
from the collection Our Dreams Are Our Weapons – Soundtracks of the Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Mix: Robin Wise of Sound Imagery.

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HV013- Crossing Borders

Hearing Voices from NPR®
013 Crossing Borders: From Mexico to US
Host: Marcos Martinez of KUNM-Alberquerque
Airs week of: 2012-01-18 (Originally: 2008-05-28)

“Crossing Borders” (52:00 mp3):

A Tale of Two Countries:

In “Sasabe,” a Sonora, Mexico border town, Scott Carrier talks to immigrants on their hazardous, illegal desert crossing, and to the border patrol waiting for them in Sasabe, Arizona.

Luis Alberto Urrea reads from his books Vatos and The Devil’s Highway, about death in the desert.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña imagines “Maquiladoras of the Future,” fantasy border factories.

“And I walked…”, by Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler, is a sound-portrait of Mexicans who risk their lives to find better-paying jobs in the United States.

And sounds from the Quiet American’s one-minute vacation.

HV130- Shortcuts 2011

Hearing Voices from NPR®
130 Shortcuts 2011: A Year in An Hour
Host: Peter Bochan of WPKN-FM
Airs week of: 2012-01-11

“Shortcuts 2011″ (52:00 mp3):

A retrospective of the past twelve months featuring Queen Elizabeth, Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, the death of Osama Bin-Laden, the extreme weather conditions that caused nuclear accidents in Japan, flooding in the North East and fires across Texas, politicians like Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul and Herman Cain making us proud, Michael Moore, Guido Sarducci, Charlie Sheen, Ali G, Newt Gingrich with music from PJ Harvey, Ry Cooder, Fleet Foxes, Bright Eyes, The Coasters, Bruce Springsteen, Gil Scott-Heron, Ashford & Simpson, John Barry, Tosca, Maceo Plex, Mickie & Sylvia, The Drifters, Amy Winehouse, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell and many others.

Tributes to Steve Jobs, Jerry Leiber, Nick Ashford, Andy Rooney, Joe Frasier, Gil Scott Heron, Hubert Sumlin, Wild Man Fischer, Amy Winehouse, Clarence Clemons, Harry Morgan, Sylvia Robinson, Carl Gardner, Wildman Fischer, Phoebe Snow, Jack Lalane, and others

Produced by Peter Bochan, General Manager of WPKN-Bridgeport CT, announcer WBAI-NYC NY, and mixmaster at All Mixed Up Productions. His Shortcuts and other mixes are at PRX.

HV099- Polk Street Stories

Hearing Voices from NPR®
099 Polk Street Stories: San Francisco USA
Host: Joey Plaster of Transom
Airs week of: 2012-01-04 (Originally: 2010-09-22)

“Polk Street Stories” (52:00 mp3):

An oral history of San Francisco’s premiere queer neighborhood, told by those who’ve called it home:

Public Historian Joey Plaster spent a year gathering 70+ interviews from people experiencing Polk Street’s transition from a working class queer neighborhood to an upscale entertainment district. Polk Street’s scene predates the modern gay rights movement. It was a world unto itself, ten blocks of low rent hotels, bars and liquor stores, all sandwiched in between the gritty Tenderloin, City Hall, and the ritzy Nob Hill: a home invented by people who had no other home.

For decades, the street had been a national destination for queer youth and transgender women, many of them fleeing abusive or unwelcoming homes. But by the mid-1990s, the last of the working class bars that formed the backbone of the Polk community were being replaced by a new bloc of mid-income businesses and residents.

Long-term Polk residents were incredibly emotional about these changes. Many considered the neighborhood to be their first real home. Now they saw their family’s gathering places evaporating. The conflict was sometimes dramatic: owners of one gay bar claimed that the new business association forced them off the street. A gay activist group made national news when they plastered the street with “wanted” posters featuring a photo of the new association’s president.

These intense reactions suggested a rich history, but I found that it had not been recorded. I feared it would be lost with the scene. I had prior experience as an oral historian. This was my first effort to find overlap with radio, which I’ve long felt is the best medium for broadcasting intimate, personal stories from “marginal” populations.
—Joey Plaster

This hour is a Transom radio special (PRX), produced with Jay Allison and Viki Merrick. It’s part of GLBT History Polk Street: Lives in Transition exhibition.

Photo © Thomas Hawk.

HV026- Prime Candidates

Hearing Voices from NPR®
026 Prime Candidates: Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-12-28 (Originally: 2008-08-27)

“Prime Candidates” (52:00 mp3):

The plight of pols on the campaign trail:

From the 1980 primary: politicians who fancy themselves president tromp thru the mill town of Claremont, New Hampshire. Produced for NPR by Larry Massett and Art Silverman, with Betty Rogers.

From the 2000 primary: The media spin myths out of misquotes; produced by Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass for the “Primary” episode of This American Life.

From the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall: Douglas Fleishut and the Language Removal Service concoct the world’s first wordless political debate in their “California Recall Project.”

From the 2008 primary: Losers in the March “Super Tuesday” vote re-appear, w/ music by Robert Wyatt and Bruce Springsteen, from Peter Bochan‘s series Presidential Shortcuts.

Photo: Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller administering the oath of office to Benjamin Harrison on the east portico of the U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1889; from the Library of Congress “I Do Solemnly Swear…”: Presidential Inaugurations.

HV129- HanukkahChristmashup

Hearing Voices from NPR®
129 HanukkahChristmashup: Season’s Greets and Beats
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-12-21

“HanukkahChristmashup” (52:00 mp3):

Mixes and mashes and seasonal samples, and song stories:

NPR talks to troops in a U.S. military hospital at Bagram Air Base, outside of Kabul. Quil Lawrence interviewed Sergeant Wallace Trahan, Sergeant Aaron Kelly, Sergeant Zachary Scoskie, and Colonel Diane Huey. Mix: Jim Wildman. Music: W.G. Snuffy Walden “The First Noel” Windham Hill Holiday Guitar Collection.

From the Apollo 8 capsule, December 24, 1968.

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HV128- Prisoners of War

Hearing Voices from NPR®
128 Prisoners of War: Battle of the Bulge
Host: Erica Heilman of Vermont Folklife Center
Airs week of: 2011-12-13

“Prisoners of War” (52:00 mp3):

Four American soldiers share their WWII experiences, before, during, and after their time in a German POW camp:

Produced for the Vermont Folklife Center: In December 1944 the Allies were closing in on Germany. Hitler had a desperate plan to save the Third Reich, a massive assault he believed would so demoralize that the Allies, they would seek a separate peace, leaving only the Russian army on the eastern front. On December 16 the Germans unleashed an offensive that would become the most brutal battle of the European war: the Battle of the Bulge. Nineteen thousand Americans were killed, about the same number were taken prisoner. We hear from four Americans soldiers about their time in — before, during and after — a German POW camp: Cliff Austin, Harrison Burney, Bill Busier, and Robert Norton.

VFC Radio published a transcript and a CD of “Prisoners of War.” Harrison Burney wrote “From The Bowels of Hell, a soldier’s memoir of World War II, 1944-1945 (143k PDF). Music: “Reitba” and “Concerto No. 3 for Double-Bass and Piano,” composed and performed by cellist Francois Rabbath; “String Quartet in C Major”, the second movement in the “Emperor” by Franz Joseph Haydn, performed by the Concord String Quartet; and “St James Infirmary” from pianist Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi.

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