HV Episodes
Hearing Voices from NPR weekly hours 2008 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009
December
2008-12-31 044 Memory Book: Looking Back at Life
Recollections, remembrances, and mnemonics for recalling time: Lester Nafzger recalls his life as a litany of “Lynchpins” (as told to Joe Frank, excerpted from his Hour Performer). Host Ceil Muller takes us on a tour of her own memory palace, made bits of unsued of tape recordings she’s gathered over the years, in “Persistence of Memorex.” “Death in Venice” roams the beach with retired folk in Venice, Florida, finding seashells, shark’s teeth and distant memories (written and produced by Larry Massett, narrated by Joe Frank). Listen…
2008-12-24 043 Go By Train: Riding the Rails
Musician Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening, K Records) hosts train tales: An existential interaction with an automated Amtrak voice. The Kronos Quartet plays Steve Reich’s “Different Trains.” Singer Jules Shear recalls an on-board performance. A Sound Portrait of a Pullman Porter. A track-hopping hobo named Short Stop. Circus performer Little Jack Horton and poet Charles Bukowski stolen engine car. Segregated train-travel from StoryCorps. The world’s largest model railroad. And Calvin’s Great Aunt Grace’s 1891 train trip. Listen…
2008-12-17 042 Yes to God: Mother Mary and Thomas Merton
At the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, NPR’s Noah Adams talks to those who know Thomas Merton, the Catholic writer and Trappist monk. Host Beverly Donofrio, reads from her book, Riding in Cars with Boys; then goes on a cross-country quest, “Looking for Mary” in those who see visions of the Virgin, a Sound Portraits production. Listen…
2008-12-10 041 Christmas Mashup: Holy Days & Silent Nights
A mix of holiday stories, found-sound, and sampled songs: A bell-ringer at the Mall of America. Holiday history as told by second graders. A trip to the toy store. Carols sung by Zulu children in a South African orphanage. And holiday bits from Bing Crosby, George W. Bush, and The Beatles Fan Club Christmas messages. Listen…
2008-12-03 040 Spirit World: Angels on the Line
A preacher/prank-caller conjures “Alice of the Spirits.” Carmen Delzell samples the “Ritual Magic” of a voodoo Santera, soaks in a spirit bath, and prays for sex, adventure, and central heat. Ceil Muller visits “The Psychic Center of the World,” the town of Cassadega, Florida. And host Larry Massett spends “A Night on Mt. Shasta.” Listen…
November
2008-11-26 039 Portrait of a Plague: For AIDS Awareness Day
Sister Agnes Ramashiga’s Radio Diaries of “Just Another Day At the World’s Biggest Hospital,” Soweto — 2000 patients check in daily, half HIV positive. Teenager documents their HIV “Positive Life,” by American RadioWorks. Poet Lisa Buscani is “Counting” on her mom’s health advice. “And Trouble Came: An African AIDS Diary” is Laura Kaminsky’s compositon for viola, cello, piano, and stories of Tamakloe: warrior, tailor, AIDS victim. Life-saving meds brought Krandall Kraus back from the dead, like “Lazarus.” And dying mother’s writes her son “Letters to Butchie,” by Sound Portraits. Listen…
2008-11-19 038 Let’s Eat: For Thanksgiving
An audio Thanksgiving feast. We binge on fattening stories, then purge with a documentary on refusing food. Scott Carrier tours a “Turkey Ranch,” following the gobbler from farmyard to frozen food. Joe Frank describes a typically twisted family “Thanksgiving Dinner” (from his program “Pilgrim”). Dean Olscher goes “Chowhounding in St. Paul,” searching for Hmong food, with cellphone assistance from Chowhound Jim Leff. And Annie Cheney offers a touching document of her eating disorder, “Concerning Breakfast” from Jay Allison’s Life Stories series. Listen…
2008-11-12 037 Prison: Life Behind Bars
John Mills is “Doing Time” and Sergeant Furman Camel is “Serving 9 to 5;” two Prison Dairies from an inmate and a guard at Polk Youth Institution, North Carolina. (John Mills is out now and co-hosts our hour with Prison Dairies producer Joe Richman.) Voices and sounds of youth in “Lockdown!” at Utah’s Washington County Crisis Center, a techno tone poem by composer Phillip Kent Bimstein. Payton Smith calls her mom in prison to discuss “Not All Bad Things,” produced by Chana Joffe-Walt and Transom. And “Tossing Away the Keys” at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola Prison, is stories of lifers from Sound Portraits. Listen…
2008-11-05 036 Paintbrush: Lives of the Artists
Susan Stamberg enlists elementary school kids to evaluate the paintings of “Picasso.” Poet Gertrude Stein paints “A Completed Portrait of Picasso.” Singer Jonathan Richman believes “No One Was Like Vermeer” but “Pablo Picasso” was never called an @#%hole. And a history of injuries and inspiration unfolds in “Frida Kahlo: Viva La Vida,” an audio biography produced by Katie Davis. Listen…
October
2008-10-29 035 1968: Summer of Hate
It’s another presidential election year; the American people are deeply divided and deeply entrenched in another unpopular war. The topic is not 2008, but 1968. If 1967 was the Summer of Love, maybe 1968 was the Summer of Hate. We hear the songs, speeches, and news reports of the times. We go live to the demonstrations, and drink “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” Listen…
2008-10-22 034 To War: Getting In and Getting Out
We get out of one conflict and into another. “Goodbye to Saigon” chronicles the day of the last US flights out of the Vietnam War, narrated by Noah Adams and produced by Art Silverman. And Scott Carrier travels the country in early 2003 asking people “Are You Ready?” for war. Listen…
2008-10-15 033 Political People: On the Campaign Trail
In 1992 producer Barrett Golding found remnants of Jefferson’s theories and Toqueville’s writings still very much in play, as he followed Montana’s two incumbents US Representatives, one Democrat, one Republican. Due to re-apportionment, they were vying for the state’s one remaining Congressional seat, on a yearlong statewide game of political musical chairs. And we hear college students in Chicago discuss Democracy. Listen…
2008-10-08 032 Soapbox: Sampling 20th Century Political Speech
We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and Scott Carrier, in “Lafayette Square” across from the White House. Writer Dave Eggers helps his brother Bill run for State Representative as a Republican — blood proves thicker than politics. Slam poet Taylor Mali tells us “How to Write a Political Poem.” Host Sarah Vowell digs “The Garden for Disappointed Politicians.” Audio artist Jesse Boggs choreographs a bipartisan “WMD Waltz.” And we hear excerpts from All the Presidents’ Inaugurations. Listen…
2008-10-01 031 The Stamberg Files: Essays, Audio-tours, and Interviews
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. Listen…
September
2008-09-24 030 Nine to Five: The Working Week
The work we do, from Wall Street traders to taxi cab drivers. People who work with brassieres, with dead bodies, and off-the-books in an underground economy. A tone-poem by Ken Nordine, a podcast from Love and Radio, and sound-portraits from Radio Diaries, Toni Schwartz, Ben Rubin, David Greenberger, and hosts Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler. Listen…
2008-09-17 029 Old School: Back-to-School Special
Richard Paul follows “School VP,” Asst. Principal Irasema Salcido, through her hectic multi-lingual morning at DC’s Bell Multicultural High School. Host Katie Davis finds she “Got Carried.” Slam poet and history teacher Taylor Mali schools us on “What Teachers Make.” Producer Hillary Frank gets the shy “Quiet Kids” to speak up. Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich’s commencement speech advises “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” with music from filmmaker Baz Luhrman. Host Katie Davis takes her DC summer camp into the wild woods on a “Hike to Rock Creek,” two blocks from where the kids live. And poems from Meryn Cadell and Jelani. Listen…
2008-09-10 028 Vox Pop: For 9/11
The stars of this show are Americans, expressing their opinions, participating in our democratic discussion. We travel 8000 miles of America gathering “Vox Pop”, roam the streets of New York City in the hours during and weeks after 9/11, hitting “Golf Balls” and spending our “Last Night in New York.” And “Amber” provides an illegal alien p.o.v. via a radio call-in line. Works from Transom.org by producers Scott Carrier, Christopher Lydon, Matt Lieber, and Australian Wednesday Kennedy. Listen…
2008-09-03 027 Poland: A Ghost Story
Poland battles against the Germans and then the Russians at the start of the Second World War. A German foot soldier and Polish townspeople recall, differently, the first days of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and Poland’s later battle to fight years of environmental poisoning during the Soviet era. All in a series of stories written by NPR’s Alex Chadwick and produced by host Art Silverman. Listen…
August
2008-08-27 026 Prime Candidates: Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
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,” from Peter Bochan’s series Presidential Shortcuts. Listen…
2008-08-20 025 Heat: Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer
Symptoms of heat fatigue: A sound-poem for “Dead of Summer” in the city by Marjorie van Halteren & Lou Giansante. Tuscon residents reflect the desert “Heat,” with author Charles Bowden, poet Ofelia Zepeda, and music by Steve Roach; produced by Jeff Rice. The perfection of family, a crippled man on a blind man’s back, and a collective scream of “I’m not dead,” sweat it out in Joe Franks’s “Summer Notes.” Cats pulling pianos are “The Little Heroes” in John Rieger’s Dance on Warning series. And host Scott Carrier takes a long hot cross-country drive down “Highway 50,” the loneliest road in America. Listen…
2008-08-13 024 Caregiver: Taking Care, Taking Heart
“Bad Teeth at King Drew Dental Clinic” by Ayala Ben-Yehuda: the Dental Divide, South L.A.’s clinic of last resort. “The Breast Cancer Monologues- Three Woman” by Dmae Roberts: surviving breast cancer, perspectives of a Chicana, African-American and Romanian immigrant. “A Square Meal, Regardless” by Jennifer Nathan: Two old friends caring for each other into old age. “Dialysis” by Joe Frank: kidney failure and a friend indeed. “Hospice Chronicles” (excerpt) by Long Haul Productions: Volunteer Bettie’s first patient. “The Person I Admire Most” by Jake Warga: A day with Jenafir in Ethiopia, trying to save the world. Listen…
2008-08-06 023 This is Insanity: Disturbed Mental States
“This is Insane,” says William S Burroughs to the music of Disposable Heroes of Hiphopcracy. An anonymous reporter describes his “Electroshock.” The Avalanches mashup a “Frontier Psychiatrist.” Host Scott Carrier takes “The Test” for schizophrenia. Joe Frank is pathologically challenged by time. And Sound Portraits helps Howard Dully recount “My Lobotomy,” documenting the experimental procedure of “ice pick” surgery. Listen…
July
2008-07-30 022 Mushroom Cloud: Tales of the Atomic Age
In “Enola Alone” Antenna Theater interviews bomber pilots, bombing victims, and Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay. Political speeches and popular songs chart our changing attitudes towards the “Atomic Age.” Residents recall the 1950s Nevada and Utah nuclear bomb tests in Claes Andreasson series “Downwinder Diaries.” Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning.” Americans across the country answer Scott Carrier’s question: “What Are You Afraid Of?” The band Lemon Jelly presents “Page One,” presents the Big Bang with a beat. And we select some “Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security” compiled by CONELRAD.com. Listen…
2008-07-23 021 Tony Schwartz: Documenting Life in Sound
Tony Schwartz, media pioneer, audio documentarian, and the most famous radio person you probably never heard of, died June 2008. We hear The Kitchen Sisters’ Lost and Found Sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz, 30,000 Recordings Later,” and the Tony Schwartz-inspired verite documentary of the town he lived in and loved, “New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places.” Listen…
2009-07-29 020 The Old Country: Back to the Homeland
Three hearts searching for home: Going back to Vietnam makes Nguyen Qui Duc realize “Home is Always Somewhere Else;” 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.” Listen…
2008-07-09 019 Life on the Mississippi: A Tour of the River Towns
A Tour of the River Towns: 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. Listen…
2008-07-02 018 Stars and Bars: For Fourth of July
Celebrating America with Flags and Festivals, featuring: Recitations and reflections on “The Pledge” of Allegiance and “War vs. Peace.” The annual “Rainbow Family” migration into the Montana forest on July Fourth — their day of prayer for peace. A town that covets their title of the “Armpit of America” — welcome to Battle Mountain, Nevada. Mississippi moonshine, barbecued goat and old-time Fife & Drum at “Otha Turner’s Afrosippi Picnic.” Stories by Joe Frank, Barrett Golding, host Larry Massett, and Ben Adair. Listen…
June
2008-06-24 017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
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. Listen…
2009-06-18 016 Bugs and Birds: Sounds of Summer
Jeff Rice of the Western Soundscape Archive hosts an hour of sounds for the start of Summer: an extinct woodpecker revives an Arkansas town, car alarms made from bird calls, breeding moths for their music, a morning walk with poet Jim Harrison, dancing with gnats, the seismic underground sounds of spiders, and the perspective of a pest controller. Stories by Long Haul Productions, M’Iou Zahner Ollswang, host Jeff Rice, and Scott Carrier; and recordings by Nina Katchadourian, Lang Elliot, and Dr. Rex Cocroft. Listen…
2008-06-11 015 Father Figures: For Father’s Day
Paternal praise, pride, disappointment and love, hosted by Jay Allison (This I Believe): Scott Carrier gives his son Milo a “Ski Lesson.” From Animals and Other Stories, we hear “Reflections of Fathers,” aka, Bugs & Dads. Comic strip artist Lynda Barry wishes her divorced dad a “Happy Father’s Day.” A doctor tells his daughter about her granddad in “Story Corps- Dr. William Weaver.” Jay Allison describes his daughter’s questions about his love life as “Grilling Me Softly”. Dan Robb’s family remembers the day “Dad’s Moving Out,” from Life Stories. “Doc Merrick” and daughter Viki go through some girl problems. David Greenberger tells David Cobb’s story “Because of Dad.” Deirdre Sullivan’s father advises “Always Go to the Funeral,” a This I Believe essay. And from producer by Viki Merrick, Dave Masch wants to be “A Better Father.” Listen…
2009-06-04 014 Fans and Bands: Groupies, Gravediggers & Rock Singers
Host Ian Svenonius, of the band Weird War, introduces “The Groupies,” a 1969 album of interviews by producer Alan Lorber. We visit with the pilgrims at Pere LaChaise cemetery, who’ve come to see “Jim Morrison’s Grave” (a sound-portrait by Mark Neumann and Barrett Golding). John Denver’s anti-Christian conspiracy is exposed in the series “Song and Memory” from producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler. And Bo Diddley blows up his mom’s radio in David Schulman’s series “Musicians in Their Own Words.” Listen…
May
2008-05-28 013 Crossing Borders: From Mexico to US
Marcos Martinez, (formerly) of KUNM Alberquerque, hosts A Tale of Two Countries, from Mexico to US: 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 “The Devil”s Highway,” his book about death in the desert. Guillermo Gomez-Pena 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. Listen…
2008-05-21 012 For the Fallen: For Memorial Day
Green Beret and poet, Major Robert Schaefer, US Army, hosts the voices of veterans remembering their comrades: We talk with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, reading their emails, poems, and journals, as part of the NEA project: “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.” We hear interviews from StoryCorps, an essay from This I Believe, and the sounds of a Military Honor Guard, recorded by Charles Lane. And we attend the daily “Last Post” ceremony by Belgian veterans honoring the WWI British soldiers who died defending a small town in western Belgium (produced by Marjorie Van Halteren). Listen…
2008-05-14 011 Road Trip: Travelers’ Tales
Host Larry Massett spends a “Long Day on the Road” with ex-KGB in the Republic of Georgia. Scott Carrier starts in Salt Lake and ends on the Atlantic in this cross-country “Hitchhike.” Lemon Jelly adds beats to the life of a “Ramblin’ Man.” The band Richmond Fontaine sends musical postcards from the flight of “Walter On the Lam.” And Mark Allen tells a tale of a tryst with a “Kinko’s Crackhead.” Listen…
2008-05-07 010 All Mom Radio: For Mother’s Day
For Mother’s Day, maternal tales from producers around the country: “Travels with Mom” follows Larry Massett and his mother to the Tybee Island, Georgia of today and of the 1920′s, as recalled by Mrs. Massett. Writer Beverly Donofrio joins her mom for “Thursday Night Bingo,” produced by Dave Isay of Sound Portraits. In Nancy Updike’s “Mubarak and Margy,” a gay man returns home to care for his mom, and to the “cure” his family plans for his homosexuality. And comedian Amy Borkowsky shares her hilarious phone “Messages from Mom.” Listen…
April
2008-04-30 009 Shoah: For Holocaust Remembrance Day
Rabbi Samuel Cohon of Temple Emanuel, Tucson and Too Jewish Radio, presents stories of survivors, for Holocaust Remembrance Day: In “Descended from the Holocaust” Dr. Alan Berkenwald records his trip with his parents to the Holocaust Museum — it was first time they talked openly about their experience in the concentration camps; this audio diary is of Jay Allison’s Life Stories. “Yom Hashoah 1994″ is Shoah services in Billings MT and Cleveland OH, survivor interviews, and the story of the Billings communities united “Not in Our Town” response that stopped a series of anti-Jewish crimes. The Rhino Records documentary project “Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust” is drawn from interviews with 180 survivors. Also survivors sing Hebrew, for the first time in years, in a live May 1945 BBC report by Patrick Gordon Walker from the just liberated “Belsen Concentration Camp.” Listen…
2008-04-23 008 About Aging: I Thought You’d Never Ask
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 L.A.” Listen…
2008-04-16 007 The Earth Sings: For Earth Day
Host Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org, for Earth Day, presents Sounds for and from Mother Earth: The Quiet American takes an audio trek through Nepal”s “Annapurna” Circuit. Host Dmae Roberts records Maori music and culture. We hear Pulse of the Planet’s “Extraordinary Sounds From the Natural World.” And from Gregg McVicar and the “Earthsongs” series: Sioux Soprano Bonnie Jo Hunt layers opera over insects (on Robbie Robertson’s Music for the Native Americans) Listen…
2008-04-09 006 Radio Dial: Signals from the Sky
Radio stories about radio, then stories about radio stories: Jake Warga paints sound-portraits of “Urbana FM” in Uruguay and “Radio Gondor” in Ethiopia. The ShortWaveMusic blog records “Duelling Transmitters.” Larry Masett interviews the “Language Removal Services.” Recordist Steve McGreevey captures the solar sounds of space weather, the northern lights, and “Natural Radio.” The Android Sisters lament the loss of great “Ray-Dee-Ohh.” And Scott Carrier reports to work for “The Friendly Man.” Listen…
2008-04-02 005 Backroads: For Station Pledge Drives
Audio excursions from the early eighties: Four traveling stories from public radio’s past, hosted by the independent producers who made them, Scott Carrier attends a native service of “Navajo Pentacostalists.” The Kitchen Sisters ride with the “Road Ranger,” an American auto-mechanic hero. John Rieger samples small-town life “Fifty Miles Out of Gerlach.” And Larry Massett takes a nitrous-oxide fueled “Trip To the Dentist.” Listen…
March
2008-03-26 004 Comedy with a Beat: Comic Bits with Music Beats
Host David Ossman of Firesign Theatre presents mixes comic bits with music beats, from Wally Cox yodeling to Peter Sellers singing while shaving, from Jack Kerouac crooning “Ain’t We Got Fun” to Charles Mingus jazzing up Jean Shepherd’s “The Clown” to comedian Greg Giraldo layered over Lazyboy. “Lenny Bruce Gets Busted” in Jonathan Mitchell’s documentary. And we hear rare and classic bits from host David Ossman’s Firesign Theatre. Listen…
2008-03-19 003 Her Stories: For Women’s History Month
Host Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org, for Women’s History Month, presents Stories By, For, and Of Women: The Kitchen Sisters go to “Tupperware®” parties. A supermarket checker checks out her life, in ZBS’s radio soap Saratoga Springs. Jenifir returns “Home From Africa” with all 13 Symptoms of Chronic Peace Corps Withdrawal. Host Dmae Roberts has a collage of and about “Sisters.” In a new syntax of whispers and words Susan Stone tells the story of “Ruby” and her husbands. And Sonia Sanchez, Tracie Morris, Jill Battson and Meryn Cadell perform short poems. Listen…
2008-03-12 002 Visiting Hours: In Hospital
Host Ceil Muller of KQED presents “The Kiss and the Dying,” her etiquette list for the dying and soon-to-be survivors. “Fire and Ice Cream” is from Brent Runyan’s book “The Burn Journals.” Brian Brophy documents the death of “Our Father.” Carmen Delzell helps heal her “Grandmother”s Hip.” And patients pass time with TV in Nancy Updike’s “Channeling Health.” Listen…
2008-03-05 001 Street Map: The People Next Door
Scott Carrier walks around his Salt Lake City “The Neighborhood.” Host Katie Davis of Neighborhood Stories contemplates decades of changes at the “Corner Store” on her DC street. Larry Massett’s friend bids “Goodbye, Batumi” to his Republic of Georgia hometown. And Romeo and Juliet plays out in “Oakland Scenes: Snapshots of a Community” by Youth Radio and poet Ise Lyfe. Listen…
