We’ve updated our ever-popular Sarah Vowell page with new mp3s and a link to her new book, “Sarah’s Consonant Vowells…“

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
032 Soapbox— Sampling 20th Century Political Speech
Host— Sarah Vowell of This American Life
Airdates— 10/8/2008 - 10/15/2008

Soapbox (53:00 mp3):

We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and Scott Carrier, in “Lafayette Square” across from the White House.

“Memory Waltz” is from composer Oliver Nelson’s LP: The Kennedy Dream; A Musical Tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy., with musicians Phil Woods, Hank Jones, George Duvivier and Grady Tate.

Bonus audio: The Kennedy Dream “A Genuine Peace” (2:35 mp3):

We hear excerpts from All the Presidents’ Inaugurations:
• Calvin Coolidge— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1925
• Franklin D. Roosevelt— First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1933
• Harry S. Truman— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1949
• Dwight D. Eisenhower— First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1953
• John F. Kennedy— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961

And from John McCain and Barack Obama’s September 26 2008 Presidential Debate, Oxford MS.

Writer Dave Eggers helps his brother Bill run for State Representative as a Republican — blood proves thicker than politics, from This American Life.

Slam poet Taylor Mali tells us “How to Write a Political Poem” (CD: Conviction).

Host Sarah Vowell digs “The Garden for Disappointed Politicians,” from The Future Dictionary of America. Music by Jeff Arntsen of Racket Ship.

Thomas in Lafayette Square; © 1983 Scott Carrier

Audio artist Jesse Boggs choreographs a bipartisan “WMD Waltz.”

And more Presidents’ Inaugurations
• Lyndon B. Johnson— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1965
• Richard M. Nixon— Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 1973
• Gerald Ford Remarks— On Taking the Oath of Office, Friday Aug. 9, 1974
• Jimmy Carter— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1977
• Ronald Reagan— Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 1985
• George H. W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1989
• Bill Clinton First— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1993
• George W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 2001

Audio by Jesse Boggs; video by Trent Harris, “Bushisms” (the cryptomusicology of Presidential patter):

Sarah Vowell’s on The Daily Show this Tuesday night: . The day before Michelle Obama and Robert De Niro and after Tim Robbins. She keeps good company.

The Wordy Shipmates, her new book/audiobook, “revisits America’s Puritan roots:”

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®:
017 No Place Like Home— Shifts in Time and Towns
Host— Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 6/25/2008 - 7/2/2008

No Place Like Home (53:00 mp3):

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.