Aired on NPR Day to Day, a very busy day with Amy Jo, a single mother of two toddlers. Everyday she strives to fulfill a promise for a better life, made to her daughter two years ago. By producer Erin Mishkin, “Surrounded by Lights” (6:50 mp3):
Preventive Maintenance Monthly (now digitized at VCU libraries) was an Army pub started in 1951 and drawn by comic artist Will Eisner, with comically beautiful service babes asking accusing questions like “Who didn’t check out these parts before taking them off the equipment?” And offering vital SOPs like:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-08 (Originally: 2008-06-25)
“No Place Like Home” (52:00 mp3):
The places we live and the people who live there; a desert, a city, two small towns, and another country:
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.
R.I.P. George Carlin, May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008 (Wikipedia | WFMU Blog). From 1972’s Class Clown, “Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television” (7:03):
The above aired on WBAI-NYC, resulting in the 1978 Supreme Court F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation ruling prohibiting broadcast of “indecent” material during hours “when children are undoubtedly in the audience.”
Our new HV Station (Google) Map…
Forgot to post this when it aired, 1/1/08 on NPR ATC— A travel writer’s upside-down Australian dilemma of drop bears and hoop snakes, swag and snores, knee-clicks and star clusters, by Jake Warga “Hike Australia” (7:50 mp3):
Jake’s Australia Photo Gallery
World Clock from Poodwaddle.com.
Friend of and designer for HV, Scott Edmunds is posting a Photo A Day:
Scott designed HV’s original ear animation. He co-owns the digital sign biz, smatter.tv; blogs at hypercanvas, and his beautiful woodfire ceramics are sold by Takashimaya New York and others.
Trailer for new fish film w/ (my kid) Jess Atkins and some great music— “A new fly fishing documentary, ‘Raising the Ghost,” chronicles 7 epic days of fly fishing in a remote region of British Columbia’s Skeena River system. The Fly Boys team attempts to catch Steelhead eating dead-drift dry flies.”
The Salt Lake Tribune profiles Jeff Metcalf “Writing for the stage” about his prostate cancer diagnosis:
He didn’t talk about it. Not to his grown daughter, who was heading off for an Italian adventure. Not to his best tennis buddies. Not to his wife of 20-some years, Alana, a decision he now describes as “the greatest moment of stupidity in my married life.”
His play is “A Slight Discomfort.” Jeff calls it “sort of a comedy about cancer.” The theatre performance opens in early October. Our radio version is online now.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
016 Bugs and Birds: Sounds of Summer
Host: Jeff Rice of Western Soundscape Archive
Airs week of: 2009-06-24 (Originally: 2008-06-18)
“Bugs and Birds” (52:00 mp3):
Jeff Rice of the Western Soundscape Archive hosts an hour of creeping, crawling, flying critter sounds for the start of Summer:
Sound artist Nina Katchadourian makes car alarms from bird calls.
Ken Nordine argues “For the Birds” on his 2001 CD A Transparent Mask
Virginia Belmont’s Famous Singing and Talking Birds tweet the “William Tell Overture (Canary Sextet).”
Recordist Lang Elliot‘s CD Prairie Spring captures a “soundscape of prairie meadows and potholes in spring and early summer.”
An extinct woodpecker revives an Arkansas town; it’s “The Lord God Bird” by Long Haul Productions, with an original song composed for ther story by Sufjan Stevens.
Brian Eno’s music mimics some “Flies,” from the 2006 compilation Plague Songs.
Folk are buggin’, gettin bittin, swatting and swearing at “Mosquitos,” by M’Iou Zahner Ollswang (from the 1985 collection
Tellus #11: The Sound of Radio.)
Scott Carrier takes a morning walk with poet Jim Harrison.
Lang Elliot soaks up the sounds of “Sora Dawn” — “a pothole marsh at dawn with bittern, wrens, rails, and more (Prairie Spring).
Dr. Rex Cocroft, of the University of Missouri, attaches a phonograph needle to a blade of grass, plugged it into a tape recorder, to go “acoustic prospecting” for little-known suburban lawn sounds like “Leafhoppers,” rarely hard by humans.
Host Jeff Rice breeds bugs to make “Moth Music.”
Ken Nordine declares this “A Good Year for Spiders” (A Transparent Mask
Entomologist Ian Robertson,, of Boise State University, does the “Gnat Dance” with host Jeff Rice and an outdoor chorale performance for insects.
And special thanks to Dr. Hayward Spangler of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson for braving bugs between his teeth while “Listening to Ants.”
This hour produced with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Tony Schwartz died Sunday (NY Times obit | Wikipedia | Tony’s site). In 1945 Tony Schwartz began documenting life in sound. He recorded New York City cab drivers, French folk songs, kids’ street games — tens of thousands of field recordings made all over the world. His work, now collected at the Library of Congress, is an aural history the way we sound.
In 1999 the Kitchen Sisters did this exquisite sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later” (20:38 mp3):
The above is from the KS’s CD Best of NPR’s Lost and Found Sound Vol. 1.
Tony also worked in the ad industry, and co-created this classic 1964 LBJ (vs Goldwater) “Daisy ad”:
Father and son spend a week together traveling and hiking America’s Grand Canyon. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Walking Grand Canyon” (4:07 mp3):
BBC Report: “Thinking up beautiful music.”
Musicians may soon be able to play instruments using just the power of the mind. Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London have developed technology to translate thoughts into musical notes.
Friend of HV, Gregg MvVicar, hosts the 1000th edition of his daily radio UnderCurrents: American Music With A Passport. This Saturday he spins the show’s top 75 tunes since UnderCurrents started flowing in 2005, selections of “Rock, Blues, Folk, Native, Country, Funk, Electronica, Reggae, World, Conscious Hip Hop, Dub and more.”
This from WBAI-NYC and RadioArt…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A James Joyce Celebration
Radio Bloomsday
June 16 on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org, 7 PM – 2 AM
Starring Alec Baldwin, Anne Meara, Kate Valk, Bob Dishy, Alvin Epstein and Caraid O’Brien as Molly Bloom
NEW YORK, NY (June 11, 2008) – Radio Bloomsday is an intimate radio program featuring readings of James Joyce’s Ulysses plus selections from Joyce’s entire canon, performed by leading actors. Bloomsday is celebrated every year on June 16, the day Ulysses takes place.
“Radio Bloomsday will make the works of Joyce accessible to a 21st century audience — the newly initiated and devoted stalwarts alike,†explains host/producer Larry Josephson. “This year’s show begins with a survey of all of Joyce’s works, followed by a spotlight on the holy trinity of characters in Ulysses: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly.†Alec Baldwin plays The Citizen, Alvin Epstein (the original Lucky in “Waiting for Godotâ€) reads a tribute to Samuel Beckett, Joyce’s former secretary. Anne Meara will perform the role of Gertie MacDowell. Kate Valk reads Joyce’s poetry, and Amy Stiller will do a tribute to Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. Caraid O’Brien rounds out the evening with a marathon performance of Molly Bloom’s famous monologue, unabridged and unexpurgated. Plus, contemporary reviews of Ulysses, letters from Joyce and the opinions of his peers will be read throughout the evening… Radio Bloomsday will be broadcast live on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org, Monday, June 16, from 7 PM until the wee hours of the morning. (press release)
If you’re a fan of static, noise, confusion, and disorienting disembodied voices — and who isn’t? — then check ShortWaveMusic’s latest Duelling XMTRs!, “The Dance of Heaven’s Ghosts.” Blogger Myke Weiskopf captures the broadcasts of multiple transmitters on the same SW radio frequency. Sez Myke: “I hear whale songs, slamming doors, airport paging voices, jet turbines, cicadas, Emergency Broadcast System tones, a Wagnerian female choir, perhaps even the Perseid meteors themselves. It’s The Ghost Orchid crossed with The River multiplied by Kurzwellen, all generated by the simplest synthesis of skywave and transistor.”
Caught on shortwave (09/23/2007 unidentified stations 6155 kHz) “Duelling XMTRs! #7: Kurzwellen Turbine Forest” (7:34 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
015 Father Figures: For Father’s Day
Host: Jay Allison of Transom.org
Airs week of: 2012-06-13 (Originally: 2008-06-11)
Father Figures (54:00 mp3):
Paternal praise, pride, disappointment and love:
Scott Carrier gives his son Milo a “Ski Lesson.”
From Animals and Other Stories we hear “Reflections of Fathers,” aka, Bugs & Dads (producers: Jay Allison & Christina Egloff, music: Ben Verdery & Rie Schmidt).
Comic strip artist Lynda Barry wishes her divorced dad a “Happy Father’s Day.”
A doctor tells his daughter about her granddad in “StoryCorps– Dr. William Weaver.”
“Grilling Me Softly” is how host Jay Allison describes his daughter’s questions about his love life.
Dan Robb’s family remembers the day “Dad’s Moving Out” (from Jay Allison’s Life Stories).
“Doc Merrick” and daughter Viki go through some girl problems.
David Greenberger tells David Cobb’s story “Because of Dad” (music performed by Bangalore, composed by Phil Kaplan).
Deirdre Sullivan’s father advises “Always Go to the Funeral” (from This I Believe).
And Dave Masch wants to be “A Better Father” (produced by Viki Merrick).. Photo © Scott Carrrier.
Oh, the many faces of the Public Service Announcement. There’s this 2004 Radio Mercury Awards winner for Stonewall – Columbus; “Method: The Gay Son” (1:00 mp3):
Contrast that with this recent ad (found on Music For Maniacs) opposing a 2008 Colorado Senate Bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (SB 200, now law); “Focus on the Family ad” (0:38 mp3):
The NY Times map of “Where the Candidates Found Support” provides one of the more interesting views of the Democratic primary race. Note how Clinton won a swath of the country (from north Texas to upstate New York that you could term Trans-Appalachia. Obama, meanwhile, took the everything on the other side of them thar hills, which happened to be both more heavily populated and more African-American. But I think it’s interesting too how he picked up all of the predominantly white Northwest too.
“Demography trumps everything” sez David Runciman in the latest London Review of Books, “The Cattle-Prod Election:”
“But viewed in retrospect, it is clear that it has been quite predictable. All the twists and turns have been a function of the somewhat random sequencing of different state primaries, which taken individually have invariably conformed to type, with Obama winning where he was always likely to win (caucus states, among college-educated and black voters, in the cities), and Clinton winning where she was likely to win (big states with secret ballots, among less well-educated whites and Hispanics, in rural areas). Even the initial drama of that week in early January – when Obama’s victory in Iowa had seemed to give him a chance of finishing Clinton off, only to be confounded by her victory in New Hampshire, which defied the expectation of the pundits and had them all speculating about what had swung it (was it her welling up in a diner? was it hastily rekindled memories of Bill? was it hints of hubris from Obama?) – turns out to have been an illusion. Iowa was Obama country (younger, smaller, caucus meetings) and New Hampshire wasn’t (older, bigger, voting machines). The salient fact about this campaign is that demography trumps everything: people have been voting in fixed patterns set by age, race, gender, income and educational level, and the winner in the different contests has been determined by the way these different groups are divided up within and between state boundaries. Anyone who knows how to read the census data (and that includes some of the smart, tech-savvy types around Obama) has had a good idea of how this was going to play from the outset. All the rest is noise.”
This Slate graph (via WSJ) of National Poll Averages shows how Clinton’s support never really varied but Obama’s continually rose. (Also see RealClearPolitics McCain vs Obama trendlines.)
