Photojournalist Colin Mulvany, of the has this nice flash a/v slideshow on an Artificial Eye Maker. From the Spokesman Review:
Ocularist Kim Erickson is an artist. But his pieces don’t hang in museums. In fact, his masterpieces go unnoticed by all but their owners. Erickson, like his father before him, handcrafts plastic prosthetic eyes from his office in downtown Spokane. “My best work is invisible,” he says.
Found by Lu Olkowski.
Matt Payne’s grandpa 1) likes to catch smelt and 2) has a helluva voice: Nelson Hersey: Master Fisherman.
(Matt’s a sampled musical vers is “Getchyer Long Johns On.”)
The Public Radio Talent Quest, an open competition to find the next big public radio host-w/the-most, has narrowed the field from 1452 entries to 10 finalists. They shoulda picked The Guy from Boston: he’s what pubradio really needs. And w/ the FCC’s fuqn rules now in flux, he’s ready for prime-time. But since he didn’t enter, lemme pick from the 10 semi-winners. I listened to ’em all, and my vote goes to Glynn Washington.
Maybe his science ain’t quite kosher, but you gotta admire the conviction of The Guy From Boston, “Global Warming”:
Just as we radio folk now often carry cameras, print and photo journalists are now lugging basic audio-recording gear out to cover stories. Apple’s Pro – Techniques site has an Audio in Rich Media section devoted to them. Their articles cover audio basics well, including “Telling Stories with Sound,” “Audio Gear for Rich Media,” and “Field Recording Techniques.”
This Thurs June 6 morn on NPR ME: “Space Food” by The Kitchen Sisters. Go beyond Tang in this new story from Hidden Kitchen.
The Future of Music Coalition is encouraging nonprofits to start a radio station, “Full Power FM Radio License Fact Sheet:”
This fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will give away hundreds of full power non-commercial educational (NCE) licenses for any qualified nonprofits. The FCC has just announced that applications will be accepted for these valuable licenses by the FCC between October 12 and October 19, 2007. For ten years, no new licenses have been given out. If you have ever dreamed of starting your own radio station, this is likely to be your last chance before all remaining FM spectrum is given away.
(Mike Janssen, formerly of Current, is now working on this FMC Full Power project.)
NPR has a new CD collection called The Declaration in Sound. Most of the tracks are NPR intervus and commentaries; ya know, Edwards, Krulwich, Stamberg and such on presidential drinking problems and Declaration of Independence quotes, like “Cruelty & Perfidy,” “of justice and of consanguinity,” and “merciless Indian Savages.”
But check track six. That one’s a masterpiece.
This week’s HV cast is for Memorial Day, part two (of 2) of our special “For the Fallen“: Host Major Robert Schaefer, U.S. Army Special Forces, a Green Beret and poet, presents troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, reading their emails, poems, and journals, as part of the NEA project: “Operation Homecoming,” and selections from the NEA CD Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience with well-known authors reading their poems, prose, and essays about their time in the military. Major Schaefer, the Host of this special, contributed the poem “Clusters” to the book.
“For the Fallen 2” mp3 29:00):
From Broadcasting & Cable “FCC’s Profanity Ruling Against Fox Thrown Out“:
The court said the FCC’s “fleeting expletives” policy did not pass muster for “failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy.”…
The FCC found two Fox Billboard Awards show broadcasts to be profane, and thus indecent, because they allowed variants of the word “fuck” and “shit” to be broadcast outside of the FCC’s 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor for “indecent” broadcast speech.
Fox argued that neither of the broadcasts would have been found indecent under the previous almost 30 years of FCC indecency policy (1975-2004) and that “without adequate explanation or even acknowledgment, the FCC has abandoned the restrained understanding of indecency that served the public for three decades.”
Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, read by Peter Coyote, sound/mix by Jim McKee of EarWax, produced by Markos Kounalakis:
Found at WFMU’s BOTB.
Our npo, Tundra Club, just got another grant from the National Endowment for the Arts via their Arts on Radio and Television program. The $15K supports our series of HV Specials. The NEA, along with CPB, have been a huge HV supporters. More than that, really, without NEA, HV wouldn’t exist; many HV producers likely would never have been able to develop without NEA grants.
NY Times article, Favorite Intermissions:
For seven years, Christopher DeLaurenti went to orchestral concerts wired, wearing a leather vest with microphones nestled in the shoulders and cables running down the back. Come intermission, when the audience wandered out, Mr. DeLaurenti perked up. The DeLaurenti concert going vest had microphones sewn into it.
He made his way toward the stage. With his MiniDisc recorder running, he secretly captured the random sounds that followed: woodwind noodles, honks of oboe reeds, the murmur of voices, the scraping of chairs.
“SF Variations†Favorite Intermissions:
NPR’S Political Junkie, Ken Rudin, alerted readers to this Richardson ad-for-Prez, the funniest so far:
Mashups, I know, are sooooo 2006, but still they persist. Sounds For The Space-Set is a new collection from mashartists RIAA (22 free mp3s). Sun Ra meets Space Odditey mates with the Four Tops– and that’s just in the first song. Try “Salvador Dali Teaches Rex Harrison How To Say ‘Butterfly'” (Dick Hyman “The Moog and Me,” Salvador Dali interview, Chicks on Speed “Wordy Rappinghood”):
“The Wonder Is All Around Us” (Vangelis “Alpha,” Dr. Michael Shermer and James Randi interview: “Skepticality” podcast interview, Ken Nordine “Satellite”):
Found at WFMU’s Blog.
HV audio was all over pubradio last weekend. Jake Warga searched Ethiopia for “The Perfect Photo” on All Things Considered. On This American Life Scott Carrier, in Salt Lake City, watched “The Lake Effect” form as SLC mayor Rocky Anderson debated FOX New’s Sean Hannity.
I finished a bike “Trek through Yellowstone, Part 2” for Weekend America. “Part 1” was the weekend america before, as was Scott C’s “Steelhead Fishing” trip. And a final grand total of 384 stations broadcast our “For the Fallen” special.
The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum has an exhibition and website showcasing design done for people who don’t have money, power outlets or even running water. As a designer, I have often worked on projects aimed at the 10% that do have all those things and more (although, ironically, some of those projects were items such as travel brochures for expeditions to places like Mongolia where you can get away from all those trappings of wealth whenever you get sick of them). While one often pays at least some attention on usability and impairment issues, the reality is that most of the focus is on creating something cool, unique and that gets away – as much as possible – with using the latest and greatest.
I have found, however, that accomodating design (i.e. the equivalent of curb-cuts in sidewalks) makes it easier for all audiences to use a product or a site. Many of the items you’ll see on this site look like they’d be useful even in a first-world environment. It makes you think about how many design resources are wasted because they’re aimed at a narrow, mostly wealthy audience. “But hey, the beautiful finish on that Apple flat-panel display really makes it run better.”
This week’s HV cast is for Memorial Day, part one (of 2) of our special “For the Fallen“: Host Major Robert Schaefer, U.S. Army Special Forces, a Green Beret and poet, reveals his love-hate relationship with the bugle call “Taps.” We join a “Military Honor Guard” in Long Island, recorded by Charles Lane. We hear interviews with World War Two and Vietnam vets from the public radio’s StoryCorps and This I Believe series. Composer Phil Kline sets to music the slogans Vietnam soldiers etched into their lighters, in Zippo Songs. And we attend the daily ceremony by Belgian veterans honoring the WWI British soldiers who died defending a small town in western Belgium (produced by Marjorie Van Halteren and Helen Engelhardt).
“For the Fallen 1” mp3 23:00):
A story on last night’s NPR ATC, “Studying a Koala Mystery in Eastern Australia” was the first of a new series from Jim Metzner (Pulse of the Planet). The series Science Diaries puts recorders, and blogs, in the hands of scientists “to let these dedicated folks tell their own stories.”
For the next week the story is an NPR Story of the Day podcast, “I can see his bum…”:
From CindySheehan’s diary at the Daily Kos:
I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”
–CindySheehan Daily Kos: Diaries