In bicycle trials, evolved from motorcycle trials, “the rider negotiates man-made and natural obstacles without their feet touching the ground” (Wikipedia). This video of Scottish Trials Rider Danny MacAskill (for Inspired Bicycles was filmed around Edinburgh:
(Music: “The Funeral” Band of Horses).
via Jess Atkins.
Looks like my hometown is finally letting loose it’s requirement that government job applicant’s turn over all their FaceSpaceTwit passwords, buddy lists, and secret Santa names (“Commission eliminates Facebook policy“). However, city fathers still hold onto their claim in an older policy which reserves them the right to “deflower” the first-born of any municipal employee.
NPR may be a huge mega media monolith but ya gotta luv ’em for dreaming up this ever so small, homey, humble and intoxicating way to convey new music: the Tiny Desk Concerts. Sit some musicmakers down in front of Bob Boilin’s desk at the NPR music offices and let ’em sing a few — no surround sound mega-amps, no pyrotechnic lightshows; just some folk with their strings and voices playing around at work.
Try this latest 3-song Tink Desk set from The Avett Brothers. Or head right for the Welsh wonder, Tom Jones Performs Live.
And all the vids end up downloadable via the All Songs Considered Concerts Podcast.
Another video on the info-age from Prof Wesch and the students of Digital Ethnography (@ KS State U). How do they do it? Their shots are always so simple and sparse, their writing terse, but sequentially, in a series of small insights, they build into something beautiful and moving. “A Vision of Students Today:”
via Robert Paterson.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
062 Talking Dads: For Father’s Day
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-06-15 (Originally: 2009-06-17)
“Talking Dads” (52:00 mp3):
Sons daughters, and dads (photo: Pat Vowell with his twins, Amy and Sarah):
Storyteller Kevin Kling shares pancakes with his “Dad,” from his CD Home And Away
Sarah Vowell is a gunsmith’s daughter, in “Shooting Dad,” produced for This American Life (from Lies Sissies & Fiascoes
Joe Frank lets us eavesdrop on a father-son phone call between “Larry and Zachary” Block, from Joe’s hour Karma 3.
Host Larry Massett and several other sons try to get to know their “Lost and Found Fathers,” produced for Soundprint, with help from Barrett Golding, Brian Brophy, Bob Burrus, and Henry Dennis.
We’re on a bike trip right now and for most of June, so things might get a little lonely in these parts for the next few weeks. Never fear tho, we’ll be back by month’s end w/ all kindsa sonic trivia and innovation to post.
FYI, we were pedaling thru the Cascade Mtns in WA, but after getting south of Ranier, we got blocked by a bridge washout and snows still covering the road at 4K and up. So we’re now diverting to the OR coast, which we’ll ride for the reminder of the trip. Then we’ll cut inland to see friends in Ashland OR.
Note: in WA when the Forest Service sez Closed in Winter they sometimes mean Closed till Summer.
Life good on the road, talk at ya soon,
bg of hv
UPDATE: Made it to N. Cali coast. Turning around now and headin’ home (w/ a pretty good case of poison oak). Great ride, cooperative weather, excellent beer (thanks to Jack R Box for his NW selections). Obsessive posting will resume on this blog soon.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
061 Educating Esme: A Teacher’s Diary
Host: Alex Chadwick of Interviews 50 Cents
Airs week of: 2009-6-10
“Educating Esme” (52:00 mp3):
During her first year teaching fifth grade in a Chicago public school, Esmé Codell kept a journal. This radio hour is based on her book Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year
Esmé Raji Codell: Planet Esme | Blog | Amazon
Photo by Katie Davis:
Jesse Jean with Teri and Toni.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
060 Getting Out: The Education of Jesse Jean
Host: Katie Davis of Neighborhood Stories
Airs week of: 2010-05-05 (Originally: 2009-06-03)
Getting Out: The Education of Jesse Jean (52:00 mp3):
Go to school, keep your grades up, go to college. That’s what we tell kids — over and over. What if just leaving your apartment, and walking up the block is risky? What if it feels safer to stay home, play video games, keep a low profile. When you do go out, head somewhere safe, like the teen center, the basketball court. That was the world of African American teenager, Jesse Jean.
Jesse lived a half a block from host Katie Davis in their Washington DC neighborhood. He was lucky enough to get a scholarship to a private boarding school and brave enough to take it. Katie kept in touch with Jesse, as he moved into this new world. We hear three stories covering seven years, starting in summer, 2001.
Jesse’s Stories on NPR: 2002 Turning the Corner (photos) | 2004 Beyond Myself (photos) | 2008 An Urban Teen Beats The Odds.
In the HV hour All Happy Families we featured our interview with Steve Fugate. Now his story is being told in film, “Love Life: The Tale of Steve Fugate:”
Over the last ten years Steve Fugate has walked over 21,000 miles of the United States, and he has done it all with a sign over his head that reads “Love Life.”
This is the story of why Steve has walked for so long, and the impact he has on the people he meets.
The Love Life Film site has a short video of this work in progress. More info on Steve is at his site, Trail Therapy.
The finalists have been announced in the Radio-Mercury Awards for radio spots. A couple of my faves:
Client: The Canyons Resort
Agency: Crowell Advertising
Spot Title: “Do It” (1:00 mp3):
Client: State Fair Of Virginia
Agency: Siddall
Spot Title: “Yesterday” (1:00 mp3):
The Big Picture, the Boston Globe photo blog, has some striking images from “Mexico’s Drug War.”
Yaneth Deyinara Garcia (center) and Sigifrido Najera (2nd from left), members of the drug organization “Cardenas Guillen”, are presented to the press at the headquarters of the Defense Secretary in Mexico City on March 20, 2009. (LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images)
“At first this sounds like a practical joke,” is how The Boston Globe prefaces their Hack Your Brian procedures, including “How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio.”
“DO YOU EVER want to change the way you see the world? Wouldn’t it be fun to hallucinate on your lunch break? Although we typically associate such phenomena with powerful drugs like LSD or mescaline, it’s easy to fling open the doors of perception without them: All it takes is a basic understanding of how the mind works.”
via SALT-y Rob.
On WFMU’s Beware of the Blog is an ATC Theme Overload. More than a dozen mp3s of the All Things Considered “dinks,” along w/ a link to listener suggested lyrics.
There’s the seminal sappy synth:
“ATC Theme- 1971 original” (1:52 mp3):
The breathy brass of the:
“ATC Theme- Washington Saxophone Quartet” (0:29 mp3):
To which we’ll add our own:
“ATC Theme- Dinky the Dingo” by Larry Massett (2:12 mp3):
Damn fine drawings  by Nina Paley (“America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist”) in her animated movie “Sita Sings the Blues:”
Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as “the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.”
Full Movie in HD (720p): Sita Sings the Blues, Part 1 / 10 | Archive.org | Director’s blog | Sita site
via Mtn Music.
Jennie Hodgers or Albert Cashier? The story of a Civil War veteran is the new Transom Show: Jennie’s Secret. This her-history of a women in a man’s world, produced by Linda Paul with Jay Allison, spans half the 19th Century.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
059 War Memorial: Return to Vietnam
Host: Alex Chadwick of Interviews 50 Cents
Airs week of: 2011-05-25 (Originally: 2009-05-20)
“War Memorial” (52:00 mp3):
For Memorial Day, two stories recorded in Vietnam, one after the war, and one during:
In 1966, a young Lance Corporal carried a reel-to reel tape recorder with him into Vietnam. He made tapes of his friends, of life in fighting holes, of combat; and he continued to record until, two months later, when he was killed in action. Friend and fellow marine, Tim Duffie, remembers him in “The Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. Baronowski,” produced by Jay Allison and Christina Egloff for Lost & Found Sound. NPR: story | response | credits/links; American RadioWorks: transcript; Lance Cpl Baronowski: Memorial.
Host Alex Chadwick first went to Southeast Asia was as a soldier in the Sixties. Two decades later, he made a “Return to Vietnam” as a journalist, on the anniversary of the Tet offensive, to find what had and hadn’t changed since the war (producer: Art Silverman, engineer: Flawn Williams).
“Everything’s amazing right now and nobody’s happy.” Louis CK waxes tech on Late Night with Conan O Brien:
Above is hi-fi Hulu; here’s lo-fi YouTube.
A friend and talented architect died: Pat Larum, of the firm Comma Q and the website Loggia. Pat was an early web innovator with his daily Momentary Vignettes:
Jake makes a audio slideshow of his trek thru Rwanda to see the Mountain Gorillas (from his HV/NPR story), “Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda” photos and audio by Jake Warga:
More Jake pix: flickr | JakeWarga.com
For an upcoming HV hour on Lincoln and Civil War (for July 4th), here’s a couple poets mixed with music from Lincoln Shuffle (by Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National and Clogs, for the great bicentennial site 21st Century Abe, used with their re-mixing blessings).
UPDATED AGAIN VERS “Lincoln Langston Carl” (4:27 mp3):
Voices: 1- Langston Hughes performing his poem “Lincoln Monument, Washington” (1955 album: The Dream Keeper and Other Poems of Langston Hughes). 2- Poet Carl Sandburg addressing the U.S. Congress on Lincoln’s 150th birthday (2/12/1959; excerpt). 3- “A Visit with Carl Sandburg” interview on NBC-TV Wisdom Series: Conversations with Elder Wise Men (2/8/1953; excerpt). Music: Bryce Dessner “Long Summer” (2008: Lincoln Shuffle for 21stcenturyabe.org). Production: Barrett Golding HearingVoices.com.