Fuck You, Penguin is “a blog where I tell cute animals what’s what. Lotsa crazy critter pix like the aye-aye to the right (title of post: “Slow-burn cuteness: the silent killer”), and the zonkey below.
The book is out this month: F U, Penguin: Telling Cute Animals What’s What.
via WFMU.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
067 Jean Shepherd 1: A Voice in the Night
Host: Harry Shearer of Le Show
Airs week of: 2010-07-14 (Originally: 2009-08-12)
“Jean Shepherd 1” (52:00 mp3):
Hour one in this two-part tribute to radio raconteur Jean Shepherd:
Jean Shepherd used words like a jazz musician uses notes, winding around a theme, playing with variations, sending fresh self-reflective storylines out into the night. Marshall McLuhan called Shepherd “the first radio novelist.” From 1956-1977 Shep spun his late night stories over WOR radio, New York City. PBS gave him a TV series, “Jean Shepherd’s America.” In 1983 he co-wrote and narrated the film version of his “A Christmas Story.”
Shep inspired a new generation of spoken narrative artists who tap into the American psyche. Among them was Harry Shearer (Le Show), who hosts this two part tribute to Jean Shepherd. Shearer interviews Shep’s co-workers, friends and fans, including Robert Krulwich, Joe Frank, Paul Krassner, and Jules Fieffer.
Thanks to Mr. Shearer, KCRW– Santa Monica (and Sarah Spitz), NPR, and Art Silverman for production support, and for allowing us to re-air this two-hour tribute. This is part one; part two is next week.
One time I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning. My radio was still on, and a man was talking about how you would try to explain the function of an amusement park to visitors from Venus. It was Jean Shepherd. He was on WOR from midnight to 5:30 every night, mixing childhood reminiscence with contemporary critiques, peppered with such characters as the man who could taste an ice cube and tell you the brand name of the refrigerator it came from and the year of manufacture. Shepherd would orchestrate his colorful tales with music ranging from “The Stars and Stripes Forever” to Bessie Smith singing “Empty Bed Blues.”
–Paul Krassner (from “How the Realist popped America’s cherry“)
The Realist: series of Jean Shepherd essays, Radio Free America, issue #42, #44, #48, #50.
Jean Shepherd – The Great American Fourth of July – PART 1
Ad agency Wieden+Kennedy has, what I consider, a rarity: a well-implemented Flash site. Their front-page timeline works very well, and tho it could have been done in AJAX, is probably better in Flash.
via Ben- Comma Q.
An MS dev guy wrote BlindSearch, a simple web-s’ware page to compare the Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines:
Type in a search query above, hit search then vote for the column which you believe best matches your query. The columns are randomised with every query. The goal of this site is simple, we want to see what happens when you remove the branding from search engines. How differently will you perceive the results?
Your search results appear in three unlabeled columns. You then vote for the one with the best results and the search engine for each column is revealed.
They had to turn off the totals for now (“Some douche is gaming the system, I’ve removed the ability to see the results until I sort this out.”), but at last tally it was: Google: 44%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo: 23%.
via WaPo.
HV goes on NPR Road Trips, the new 3 CD collection from the NPR Shop. We have two stories on National Park Adventures: Scott’s “Angel’s Landing- Zion” and my “Yellowstone Geyser Guy.
Skye’s “Papua New Guinea: Highlands Celebration” is on NPR Road Trips: Postcards From Around the Globe.
We also have a piece, “The Pledge,” on the older NPR CD, The Declaration in Sound.
The Mapping Main Street crew has come marching thru Montana. They stopped by HV HQ recently: We solved all the world’s problems over a bottle of Buffalo Trace, then headed for the Elkhorn Mtns, Helena National Forest.
Here’s Kara airborne, midway thru her 42-foot flight into Crow Creek Falls. Jesse’s below (w/ rescue dog?); and Ian’s above, next up on the runway, yelling “I can see Main St from here”:
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photo: Jon Nehring
Collin Cunningham of Make Magazine sonically induces some strange behaviors in puddles of water and a non-newtonian fluid. The rippling waves in his DIY cymatic (study of visible sound and vibration) experiments are kewl. But do stay tuned for the wild cornstarch rave, and the recipe for creating your own “pet cymatic blob.”
Collin’s Lab Notes: DIY Cymatics
via sound Rich.
The Bamboo Bike Project:
“…aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa…
The bicycle is the primary mode of mobility for millions of people throughout many poorer parts of the world. In addition to individual transport, they see a vast number of applications including moving goods to market, the sick to hospital, and even the distributing medicines.
In Africa, very few people can own cars or even motorcycles and people without bicycles have to rely on inadequate and relatively expensive buses…
In this project, we will examine the feasibility of employing native bamboo for the bicycle frames, instead of the expensive and technically demanding carbon fiber material, or even the less expensive but also technically demanding aluminum or chromium-molybdenum steel that is commonly used to build bicycle frames… One key to a sustainable business is that the bamboo grows locally.”
via WUFM Blog.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
066 Desert Air: Audio from the Arid Regions
Host: Ben Adair of American Public Media
Airs week of: 2011-09-28 (Originally: 2009-08-05)
“Desert Air” (52:00 mp3):
Hot & dry stories and soundscapes (see Dave’s Deserts for photos from the American West):
Coyotes, owls, frogs and songbirds are part of Desert Solitudes, recorded by Bernie Krause and Ruth Happel in the Sonoran and Chihuauan deserts, part of New Mexico’s panhandle.
Host Ben Adair heads down to the ghost towns, Opera Houses, century-old abandoned mines, and billion-year old boulders along Death Valley’s “Mojave Road.”
Kraut-rockers Faust dial in “Long Distance Calls in the Desert,” from their album Rien.
The Quiet American (Aaron Ximm) sound-captures the forbidding warning signs rattling in a harsh wind and “Desert Sun” outside the nuclear Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas.
Back in the early 1990s, SLC producer Scott Carrier found the Basin & Range, near Nevada”s “Battle Mountain,” beautiful, lonely, dreary, and full of sagebrush, solace and stories. And more Desert Solitudes.
Photos by David Matherly’s of deserts in the American West:
These were taken July 14 2009 in southern Alberta, Canada. Still trying to track down the photographer; for now, here’s the info we have:
The pictures were taken around the Medicine Hat area after a windstorm last week. The bales apparently weigh up to approximately 1600lbs and some were reported to have rolled up to 5 miles.
After the Calzetta family returned from their 4K coast-to-coast bicycle trip, they compiled these Rules for returning to civilized society (from their Shut Up and Pedal blog):
1. No spitting.
2. Daily bathing is highly recommended.
3. Wear underwear. Preferably clean.
4. No eating food off the ground.
5. No made-up songs that contain profanity.
6. No bacon double cheeseburgers with ice cream sundaes.
7. No sleeping in your sleeping bag on top of the bed.
8. Use “inside voices” when inside.
9. No belching the words on road signs.
10. No shouting “A tour bus is coming” when your mother is peeing by the side of the road.
11. No peeing by the side of the road.
12. And please, no yelling “Fire in the hole” just before loudly farting.
NPR: “Crossing The Country On Tandem Bikes” (4:39 mp3):
The Calzaretta family on the Atlantic, at the end of the 4K cross-country miles
At the new series Snap Judgement, Glynn Washington (a PRTQ winner) posted the story of Kevin and Brian Fisher-Paulson. They become foster parents to medically fragile triplets, nurse them thought extended, expensive hospital stays to health, then are told the mentally unstable birth mother wants them back.
Glynn Washington “The Triplets” (6:18):
Sez my niece: “This made me laugh so hard I cried.”
Sez my wife: “A very white wedding… but it made me cry, too.”
JK Wedding Entrance Dance:
The Dollar ReDe$ign Project proffers, “We need to rebuild our country, revive our economy, redesign the Dollar bill. Email us your ideas. Win a prize. In God We Trust, In Change We Believe.”
Some of my fave submissions came from some U on MN students:
Artist: Kelsey Dunigan
Artist: McKenna Seefeldt
via Hip.Young.Thing.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
065 Cowboy: Cheyenne Frontier Days
Host: Josh Darsa of NPR
Airs week of: 2010-07-28 (Originally: 2009-07-22)
“Cowboy” (52:00 mp3):
Host Josh Darsa of NPR spends nine days with rodeo riders in a rural Wyoming town:
This 1980 classic radio doc from the NPR archives visits Cheyenne Frontier Days, “The Daddy of ’em All.”
Along the way, Darsa digs into the the history of the “cowboy,” mixing in the experiences of Baylis John Fletcher on an 1879 cattle drive, herding 2000 longhorns from Texas to Wyoming (read by Paul Blakemore from the book Up the trail in ’79.
And underscoring it all is the wild-west symphonies of Aaron Copland.
Josh Darsa wrote and narrated. The technical director and recording engineer was John Widoff, assisted by Miles Smith, Dave Glasser and shop technician Bob Butcher.
“While we were at the rodeo, Josh Darsa wanted to record multiple vantage points of a single scene. For instance, I’d have a Nagra tape recorder on the roof of the grandstand and Miles Smith would have a Nagra in the chutes where the riders would bust out for their ride. Then we would have a free-running Nagra III on the rodeo announcer. We ran them in sync kinda like you would do in video with multiple cameras. This gave us three vantage points. During the show you hear the perspective change through cross fading which is a result of these different but simultaneous perspectives.
There must have been 70 hours or more of tape we shot out there in Cheyenne and every single thing got dubbed. What you heard in the halls of the old NPR were rodeo sounds coming from RC1. Constant horses, bulls, things crashing, just all kinds of things. I think it drove people nuts hearing this stuff up and down the halls.
This was the height of my career at NPR. It was a combination of everything… the music recording, the production sound recording, interviews… every single thing that I had ever done for this company all came together in this show. This was probably how Walt Disney felt when he made Mary Poppins. It was a dream come true for me to build something like this. ‘Cowboy’ is the kind of show you would listen to in a darkened movie theatre. The writing is spectacular.”
–John Widoff, “‘Cowboy,’ a Study in Radio Tale-Telling”
Read the entire interview.
More Josh Darsa at NPR.org: “An Italian Mosaic” (1978) | “Josh Darsa Obituary” by Alex Chadwick (2000)
Joe Frank has been writing regularly on Facebook. So for those FB-ers among us, check out his oft-updated page.
“From the opening moments, “Cowboy” seizes the heart and soul of the listener for an extraordinary hour. Josh Darsa’s strong story vision and great writing, combined with John Widoff’s brilliantly clear and intimately warm recordings and mix, produced a radio experience that remains unequaled to this day. Listen to “Cowboy” and think about what went into it: planning, attention to detail, patience, and the faith and confidence that the highest standards are both achievable and worth all the work they require. A masterpiece that has endured for decades already, and surely will for many more.”
–Alex Chadwick, June 1998“This was the height of my career at NPR. It was a combination of everything… the music recording, the production sound recording, interviews… every single thing that I had ever done for this company all came together in this show. This was probably how Walt Disney felt when he made Mary Poppins. It was a dream come true for me to build something like this. ‘Cowboy’ is the kind of show you would listen to in a darkened movie theatre. The writing is spectacular.”
–John Widoff, May 1998
NPR.org: ‘Cowboy,’ a Study in Radio Tale-Telling
Hearing Voices episode: “Cowboy”
[The following liner notes are from the 1998 CD of “Cowboy,” Volume 1 in the NPR Engineering Master Series:]
In 1980, journalist-producer Josh Darsa, technical director and recording engineer John Widoff, assisted by Miles Smith, Dave Glasser and shop technician Bob Butcher, collaborated on Cowboy, a project that has become a classic of radio journalism. Cowboy was originally broadcast on October 4, 1980 on a series called The Mind’s Eye. In an interview with Mike Starling, Vice President of NPR Engineering, John Widoff describes their unique effort.
Mega Decks, Mega Mics, Mega Mix
JW: While we were at the rodeo, Josh Darsa wanted to record multiple vantage points of a single scene. For instance, I’d have a Nagra tape recorder on the roof of the grandstand and Miles Smith, a freelancer out of New York (currently Boston), would have a Nagra in the chutes where the riders would bust out for their ride. Then we would have a freeorunning Nagra III on the rodeo announcer. We ran them in sync kinda like you would do in video with multiple cameras. This gave us three different vantage points. During the show you hear the perspective change through cross fading which is a result of these different but simultaneous perspectives. More…
The DJ deep w/in me can’t help screwin’ w/Grooveshark. I kicked out an hour of song and spoken-weird to stream outta our HV1 Grooveshark playlist:
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009). Here’s a couple Cronkite clips…
The “Prologue” from the 1970 albom I Can Hear It Now: The Sixties written and edited by Fred Friendly and Walter Cronkite, (2:13):
From the compilation A Lincoln Portrait: The Music of Abraham Lincoln by the Bands and Choruses of the US Military, “A Lincoln Portrait Part 2” by US Coast Guard Band & Walter Cronkite (6:35):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
064 Outer Space: Moon and Beyond
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-15 (Originally: -0-0)
“Outer Space” (52:00 mp3):
For the anniversary of the first Man on the Moon, July 20th 1969:
“Exploration” (3:25) is put to music by The Karminsky Experience from The Power Of Suggestion (2003).
In the early 1960’s, the United States was losing the Space Race. The first satellite in was the USSR’s Sputnik, 1957. The first human in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, April 1961. The next month President JFK made a Special Address to the US Congress (2:10), that started the program which landed us on the moon eight years later.
“President John Kennedy’s Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, May 25, 1961”
“Zero G, and I Feel Fine” (6:01) transmissions are from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, with music by Jeff Artnsen of Racket Ship.
A women dreams of a visitor from the “Third Planet” (2:14) by Bisophere.
The “Last Man on the Moon” (2:41) are Apollo 17 astronauts Ronald Evans, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. They left the lunar surface December 1972. No one’s been back since. The music was by Jeff Arntsen.
A President has a distorted phone conversation with an underwater spaceman in “LBJ & the Helium Filled Astronaut” (7:21). Commander Scott Carpenter spent thirty days in the ocean at a depth of 200 feet as part of the Navy’s SeaLab project. This 1964 tape of helium speech comes to us from Larry Massett and Lost and Found Sound. More…