StoryCorps: MJ Seide

Another stellar StoryCorps today:

MJ Seide talks to her granddaughter Genna Alperin about falling in love with her partner, Genna’s biological grandmother.

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HV058- Motherly Love

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
058 Motherly Love— Moms, Young and Old
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of— 2009-05-06

“Motherly Love” (52:00 mp3):

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For Mother’s Day:

Muriel & Walter Murch compose “A Mother’s Symphony” from womb sounds.

In 1996 Radio Diaries producer Joe Richman gave ”Melissa Rodriguez from New Haven: Teen Mom” a microphone and tape recorder. Melissa was 18 and pregnant. Joe asked her to make an audio journal of her life, for the series Teenage Diaries.

Amy Jo, single mother of two toddlers, is “Surrounded by Lights,” by producer Erin Mishkin of Public Radio Redux and SALT Institute for Documentary Studies.

Myra Dean tells StoryCorps of the day her son was killed by a reckless driver.

Ben Adair takes his mom in search of her mom and “Family Baggage.” Ben heads American Public Media’s Sustainability and Global Climate Change Reporting Initiative.

Katie Davis admits “I Live with My Mother,” part of her DC Neighborhood Stories.

Toronto musician Charles Spearin with his neighbor “Mrs. Morris,” from The Happiness Project.

Seattle producer Jake Warga’s ”Far Side” calendars make metaphor and memories of his mother’s life and death.

And HV wishes all moms, especially ours, a happy Mother’s Day.

HV008- About Aging

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
008 About Aging—
I Thought You’d Never Ask
Host— David Greenberger of Duplex Planet
Airdates— 2009-04-22 (Originally: 2008-04-23)

“About Aging” (53:00 mp3):

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Host David Greenberger of Duplex Planet presents glorious moments and observations from people in the last years of their lives:

Dave Alvin discusses the song he wrote about his dying father, “Man in the Bed,” from the Western Folklife Center’s What’s in a Song? series.

Comedians Bob & Ray are “The Whirleys”.

From StoryCorps comes a remembrance from Richard Craig of his days as a dance host on cruise ships.

In Sound Portraits “The Ground We Live On” journalist Adrian Nicole LeBlanc faces mortality in recordings she made during her father’s last months alive.

And host David Greenberger shares some stories told him over the years by the elderly, including “Growing Old in East LA“.

Power of Sound

[Rob Rosenthal, host of the SALTcast, and Radio instructor at the SALT Institute for Doc Studies, begins each semester with a talk about…]

The Power of Sound

In the womb, our first connection to the outside world is through sound. Heartbeats. Voices.

When we’re born, our first impulse is to make sound.

Some creation myths say, in so many words, in the beginning there was sound.

Our voice starts deep within us and moves out into the world and into another person. Touch at a distance someone once said. And yes, sound enters us — all the time. We can’t help but hear. We don’t have earlids, as producer Jay Allison likes to say.

Our voice is a mixture of the air and our thoughts. They mingle together.

And this is a new thought to me. I’m still working on it. But, humans make sound. Think about it. We don’t make light. We don’t make taste. We don’t make touch, per se. Okay, I suppose you could aruge we make smells but that’s not something we fully control. But sound…we can create sound. We talk. We sing. We’re able to make noise with our bodies and because of our bodies — that’s how we’re constructed. That’s unique among the senses.

Have I gone off the deep end yet? No? Well try this.

Radio taps into something ancient. Something primal. Long before the printed word. Long before pictures and film. Waaay before Facebook, we communicated in sound. It’s all we had. We’ve been passing along information and telling stories sonically for about a bazillion years. At this point, it’s just how we’re wired. Radio plugs right into that.

With radio, the listener is a co-author. Radio engages the mind like a good book and we paint our own pictures. Television, which I know is an easy target, but for comparison, television tells you everything you need to know with its combination of pictures and sound. Radio lets you think.

Radios are inexpensive and ubiquitous — most homes have a good half dozen. You can be illiterate and ‘get’ radio.

There’s something magical about the radio. How the hell does sound get into that little box? If you talk to old school radio engineers, they’ll tell you the “M” in “F. M.” Stands for magic. I’ll let you guess what the “F” stands for. In fact, when radio was first discovered, it was thought that we tapped into a mysterious atmospheric element, the ether. I actually like to believe that’s true. More…

HV043- Go By Train

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
043 Go By Train— Riding the Rails
Host— Calvin Johnson of K Records
Airdates— 12/24/2008 – 12/31/2008

Go By Train (52:00 mp3):

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Musician Calvin Johnson (of the band Beat Happening, and owner of K Records) hosts train tales: More…

HV041- Christmas Mashup

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
041 Christmas Mashup— Holy Days & Silent Nights
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 12/10/2008 – 12/17/2008

Christmas Mashup (52:00 mp3):

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A mix of lotsa holiday stories, found-sound, and sprinkling of sampled songs:

A home-recording of a “Christmas Gathering 1947″ (4:08 excerpt), on an unlabeled 7″ Wilcox Gay Recordio Disc, was found by Bob Purse. The complete recording is posted at the 365 Days Project, “Christmas Gathering 1947″ (6:32 mp3):

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John Beltran remixes Bing Crosby “The First Noel” (5:02), on the compilation Holiday Chill – The Christmas Remixes.

“Dad and Sam” (4:43) is Jay Allison’s story of father and brotherhood, from his series Life Stories. More…

StoryCorps- Gay on God Radio

The latest StoryCorps: John Brown (L) tells his brother Paul (R) about his on-air appearance as a gay guy educating evangelical radio.

“John (w/ Paul) Brown” (2:35 mp3):

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National Day of Listening

StoryCorps declares November 28 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening, and offer a Do-It-Yourself Guide to help you:

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.