HV040- Spirit World
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
040 Spirit World— Angels on the Line
Host— Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 12/03/2008 - 12/10/2008

Audio of program will be posted here 12/10/2008.

Paranormal sound-portraits (photo: © Rachael Anne Ryals):

A preacher/prank-caller conjures “Alice of the Spirits” (6:07 & 8:07).

Carmen Delzell samples the “Ritual Magic” (4:09) of a voodoo Santera, soaks in a spirit bath; she prays for sex, adventure, and central heat.

Ceil Muller visits the town of “Cassadega” (2:16) Florida, known as “The Psychic Center of the World.”

And host Larry Massett spends “A Night on Mt. Shasta” (25:04).

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
038 Let’s Eat— For Thanksgiving
Host— Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 11/19/2008 - 11/26/2008

Let’s Eat (53:00 mp3):

A Thanksgiving audio feast. We binge on fattening stories, then purge with a documentary on refusing food:

Joe Frank describes a typically twisted family “Thanksgiving Dinner” (from his program “Pilgrim“).

detail of painting “First Thanksgiving” by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (1863-1930)
courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection

Scott Carrier tours a “Turkey Ranch,” following the gobbler from farmyard to frozen food.

photo by Harry M. Rhoads (1880-1975)
courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

Dean Olscher of The Next Big Thing goes “Chowhounding in St. Paul,” searching for Hmong food, with cellphone assistance from the Chowhound, Jim Leff.

Sarah J. Hale, Editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, led a campaign through
the 1850s-1860s to establish Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday

And Annie Cheney offers a touching document of her eating disorder, “Concerning Breakfast” from Jay Allison’s Life Stories series.

Library of Congress- Thanksgiving in American Memory
US Census Bureau- Thanksgiving Day, 2007

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
036 Paintbrush— Lives of the Artists
Host— Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 11/05/2008 - 11/12/2008

Paintbrush (53:00 mp3):

Susan Stamberg enlists elementary school kids to evaluate the paintings of “Picasso” (14:07), co-produced by host Larry Massett.

Poet Gertrude Stein paints “A Completed Portrait of Picasso” (3:26).

Singer Jonathan Richman believes “No One Was Like Vermeer” (2:30) but “Pablo Picasso” (2:45) was never called an @#%hole.

And a history of injuries and inspiration unfolds in “Frida Kahlo: Viva La Vida” (25:07), an audio biography produced by Katie Davis.

(Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
detail, Pablo Picasso
Museum of Modern Art, New York).

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
031 The Stamberg Files— Essays, Audio-tours, and Interviews
Host— Susan Stamberg of NPR
Airdates— 10/1/2008 - 10/8/2008

The Stamberg Files (53:00 mp3):

Susan pulls some pieces she’s most proud of from the NPR audio archives:

She knits her way though history, takes us on a personal tour of DC, and tries to interest her colleagues in resurrecting her infamous relish recipe.

She talks with economist Milton Friedman, actor Judi Dench, writer Nora Ephron, and pianist Leon Fleisher.

In pursuit of patriotism, Ms. Stamberg de-France-ifies popular culture, then ends in a Parisian park, chatting with a world-class conversationalist. Photo © 2006 NPR by Antony Nagelmann.

At NPR’s blog is a wonderful short film & essay by Art Silverman about Sundays, stories, friendship, coffee, cooking, and “Smokin’ Larry” Massett.

“Larry changed my concept of what could be done on radio.”

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
026 Prime Candidates— Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 8/27/2008 - 9/3/2008

Politicians who fancy themselves president tromp thru the New Hampshire mill town of “Claremont,” produced by Larry Massett, Art Silverman and Betty Rogers.

The media spin myths out of misquotes in “Democracy and Things Like That” by Sarah Vowell and This American Life.

The Language Removal Service concocts the world’s first wordless political debate in their “California Recall Project.”

And all this years primary losers re-appear in “Super Tuesday Mixdown” (w/ music by Robert Wyatt and Bruce Springsteen), from Peter Bochan’s series Presidential Shortcuts.

Prime Candidates (53:00 mp3):

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
020 The Old Country— The Homeland
Host— Neenah Ellis of If I Live to Be 100
Airdates— 7/16/2008 - 7/23/2008

The Old Country (53:00 mp3):

Three hearts searching for home:

Going back to Vietnam makes Nguyen Qui Duc realize “Home is Always Somewhere Else,” from Crossing East.

Host Neenah Ellis goes looking for her family in Croatia, where “The Old Country is Gone.”

And Andrei Codrescu returns to his Romanian home town and stares into the “Eyes of Sibiu.”

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
019 Life on the Mississippi— A Tour of the River Towns
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 7/9/2008 - 7/16/2008

Life on the Mississippi (53:00 mp3):

Hannibal, Missouri, birthplace of Mark Twain; a day on a tugboat; St. Louis showboats; and changing the course of mighty rivers. A downstream trip through the history and mystery of the Big Muddy, with Larry Massett and Scott Carrier.