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
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
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.
Another recent HV story on NPR Day to Day— Chicago barber Rex Mitchell insists that his window display is not an anti-war statement. For the past year, the barber has kept a running tally of soldiers killed in Iraq in the window of his Gold Crown Barber Salon. By producer Christopher Booker, for HV and Chicago Tribune multimedia.
Recently on NPR Day to Day— Like his father before him, Michael Scott breeds “primo” pigeons, trained athletes, in his native Brooklyn. One of his coops is in Canarsie, on top of his grandmother’s house. By producer Owen Agnew, for HV and SALT.
It’s by TAL’s Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson of TAL “Giant Pool of Money” fame.
Listening to the two’s work on the new NPR Planet Moneypodcast and blog reminded me how damn good they are. AdamD‘s the econ extraordinaire guy for NPR. And AlexB of TAL and NPR, well, I gotta ask…
Is Alex Blumberg the best reporter on the planet?
His little asides make a story, like from this report on SEC Chair Chris Cox and the stock-trading practice of Naked Short-Selling:
“It gets confusing, as it often does, when you get to the naked part.”
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite having names a child might give a puppy, are… well, were…”
Planet Money “Naked Short Selling, Meet Moral Hazard” (27:27 mp3):
And there’s this AlexB blockbuster: “What’s In A Number?” The TAL topic was a report on Iraq civilian casualties. Alex transformed it into an insightful portrait of both the science and humanity in statistics.
“One of the remarkable things about the report is the absence of evildoers…”
“Market appetites for anything that resembled a mortgage pushed loan standards down: ‘No income, no asset. You don’t have to state anything. Just have a credit score and a pulse.’ (Mr. Blumberg pointed out that the pulse thing was optional: 23 dead people in Ohio were also approved.)”
Alex/Adam also just offered this cheerily titled story:
Last week’s Bernake/Paulson/Cox C-Span Congressional Extravaganza left me impressed w/:
• SEC’s Cox’s extremely educational testimony on what his agency can/can’t regulate (according to current law).
• FedRez’s Bernake’s insight on foreign banks are intertwining w/ those in USA.
• Congressional questioning, whether from D or R, seeking some/any clarification on procedures for the “proposed purchase of troubled assets”.
• Was particularly proud of my own Junior Sen. Jon Testor’s (D-MT) understanding of the implications and history of this year’s gov bailouts, and his pointing out how in past, the Fed/TreasDept has said all $X-Billion of the loan appropriation might not be used (as they’re saying now), but in fact every penny was.
Sec. of $s Paulson, otoh, met every request for clarity w/ a variation of: “We want the money and we want it now.” Heard no evidence this guy has any clue what he’s doing, what he’s going to do, or even what he did.
I gave him the benefit of doubt, tho — maybe he was hiding details in hopes of expediency. So I looked elsewhere for some sign this guy’s even mildly competent.
Found none. But along the way did run into lotsa illuminating info. What follows is an audio and url annotated travelogue of my trip thru the web. More…
Among the many meshuganah mashup artists is the occasional mench (still Rosh Hashanah, doncha know). Like Musicina Blender, who mixes Ryan Adams acoustic vers of Oasis “Wonderwall” with Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell. “Put two beautifuls together and sometimes it creates a third beautiful.”
“Canto de Wonderwall (Musicina Blender Mashup)” (5:48 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
031 The Stamberg Files: Essays, Audio-tours, and Interviews
Host: Susan Stamberg of NPR
Airs week of: 2009-12-30 (Originally: 2008-10-01)
Sundown last night started the year 5769, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Rest, repent, blow the shofar, and get ready for Yom Kippur.
Who are these Undecideds, who absorb the media spotlight like a black whole, who can’t leave their house w/o participating in 3 surveys, 4 focus groups, and a sit-down w/ CNN? The Undecideds look like us, they talk like us. They live amongst us. But they are different, my friends, to the core.
Their choice it simple: it’s either Fresh Face or POW-guy. We all picked long ago. Yet the Undecideds waffle and flip-flop. They are guilty of, in a word, Indecisiveness.
And Indecisive is not something America can afford. Not in these perilous times, what with the overseas War on Anxiety and domestically The Greatest Economic Collapse Since The Last One.
These Undecideds threaten all we hold dear and purchasable by credit.
Why don’t we make them choose? Now. Maybe if they made their minds up, we could hold the elections early. This would save the US billions in attack ads alone, which we could reinvest in bribing Wall Street to quit killing our economy.
Indecision, not now, not ever, not here in the good ol’ USA.
(For more on battling indecisiveness, see previous post.)
Up Mount Blackmore the other day, 10,128 ft (Hyalite Range, Gallatin Forest). That’s me, Pogo, and Gus, with Capt. James Ortman workin’ the Nikon. Walked in snow the whole way. At the top guys were skiing. Fall equinox everywhere else, but here high in MT it’s the first taste of winter:
LA Weekly article on Joe Frank’s one-man play “Just an Ordinary Man” (opens Oct 1 & 8 Largo’s LA), along with a bio of Joe’s career: “Off the Radio.” Sez Joe:
“I particularly loved listening to baseball because the announcer wouldn’t just say, ‘He hit the ball to third base.’ He’d talk about the history of baseball, the weather, the lives of the different players – it was like being with somebody I liked. So I started thinking about being on the radio myself.â€
“I’d take actors into a studio, tell them what a scene required and have them improvise, then I’d edit the best of what we’d produced into a show that also incorporated music and monologues of me speaking. It was unreal, yet real, and people didn’t know what to make of it.â€
I caught his last stage performance, “The Blue Room.” Was everything you’d expect from a Frank-en-story: LOL funny, absurd, disturbing. What more could you want from a night out?
“Just an Ordinary Man” is a new theatre piece with dancer Argentina’s Carolina Cerisola, vocalist Julie Christensen, and musicians David Ralicke, Kenny Lyon, Mike Boito, Lorca Hart, Danny Frankel, Mark Harris and Mike Bolger.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
030 Nine to Five: The Working Week
Host: Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler of Mapping Main Street
Airs week of: 2009-09-02 (Originally: 2008-09-24)
For Labor Day, the work we do, from Wall Street traders to taxi cab drivers. People who work with brassieres, dead bodies, lost golf balls, and off-the-books in an underground economy. Part one…
The Ramones obviously believe “It’s Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)” (1980 Pleasant Dreams).
In the 1950s Tony Schwartz conversed with The New York Taxi Driver about “A Temporary Job.” (This 1959 LP is on The Library of Congress National Recording Registry).
Grief and guts fill the work day of Aftermath,® Inc: Specialists in Crime Scene and Tragedy Cleanup, Trauma Cleanup, Accidental Death Cleanup. Interview with Tim Reifsteck by Laura Kwerel, produced by Nick van der Kolk; an excerpt from “Aftermath,” a Love and Radio podcast. (L & R’s slogan: “What Ira Glass might make if he showed up to work drunk.”) More…
The Fly Boys have a new excerpt from their fish-porn film, landing steelhead in BC:
Raising The Ghost (5 Min Cut)
By way of bio: my kid, Jess, be a Fly Boy. And I narrated, tho I’ve no clue what a drake dry fly does. But if you like great river footage and lunker back-country trout, this one’ll catch you hook (light wire up-turned loop eye), line (floating double taper), and sinker (tungsten alloy).
Another Protest Song “invites artists, songwriters, and musicians to create, upload, listen, and debate new songs of protest as part of a growing audio archive of politically engaged music.” The site asked the musical question: “What does a 21st Century protest song sound like?”
Well, it mostly sounds pitiful, pampered, and pompous, if the protest songs posted there are any indication. But among the garbage are some gems, like…
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and Scott Carrier, in “Lafayette Square” across from the White House.
We’re all looking forward to this week’s economic news.
Sundown last night started the year 5769, 
Who are these Undecideds, who absorb the media spotlight like a black whole, who can’t leave their house w/o participating in 3 surveys, 4 focus groups, and a sit-down w/ CNN? The Undecideds look like us, they talk like us. They live amongst us. But they are different, my friends, to the core.
LA Weekly article on Joe Frank’s one-man play “Just an Ordinary Man” (opens Oct 1 & 8 
