Hearing Voices from NPR®
029 Old School: Back-to-School Special
Host: Katie Davis of Neighborhood Stories
Airs week of: 2012-06-06 (Originally: 2008-09-17)
Producer Hillary Frank gets the shy “Quiet Kids” to speak up.
Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich‘s commencement speech advises “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” with music from filmmaker Baz Luhrman (CD: Something For Everybody), performed by actor Lee Perry, sung by Quindon Tarver).
Host Katie Davis takes her DC summer camp into the wild woods on a “Hike to Rock Creek,” two blocks from where the kids live.
Music: Jurassic 5 “Lesson 6: The Lecture” Jurassic 5 EP, Archie Moore’s “Times Table’ With Soul and a Beat” from WFMU Blog- 365 Days Project, Lanterna “Fields” Sands, Sam Cooke “Wonderful World” Greatest Hits.
Music: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones- “Stomping Grounds” Live Art, Keith Jarrett- “Americana” Dark Intervals, and Ry Cooder- “Dark End of the Street” Boomer’s Story.
Poland battles against the Germans and then the Russians at the start of the Second World War.
A German foot soldier and Polish townspeople recall, differently, the first days of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and Poland’s later battle to fight years of environmental poisoning during the Soviet era.
HV has a dozen web and radio related questions for you in our new Survey. Your answers that will help us craft our site, stories, and series. If you have a few minutes, please give ’em a go.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
026 Prime Candidates: Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-12-28 (Originally: 2008-08-27)
From the 1980 primary: politicians who fancy themselves president tromp thru the mill town of Claremont, New Hampshire. Produced for NPR by Larry Massett and Art Silverman, with Betty Rogers.
“Democracy and Things Like That” (2000 / 22:50) Sarah Vowell
From the 2000 primary: The media spin myths out of misquotes; produced by Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass for the “Primary” episode of This American Life.
“California Recall Project” (2004 / 2:37) Larry Massett
From the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall: Douglas Fleishut and the Language Removal Service concoct the world’s first wordless political debate in their “California Recall Project.”
“Super Tuesday Mixdown” (2008 / 9:10) Peter Bochan
From the 2008 primary: Losers in the March “Super Tuesday” vote re-appear, w/ music by Robert Wyatt and Bruce Springsteen, from Peter Bochan‘s series Presidential Shortcuts.
Photo: Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller administering the oath of office to Benjamin Harrison on the east portico of the U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1889; from the Library of Congress “I Do Solemnly Swear…”: Presidential Inaugurations.
Two of three music/interview pieces on Minneapolis homeless have aired, via HV, on NPR. The work is by composers Andrew Turpening and Danny Burke. Their project “Land of 10,000 Homeless” (previous HV post) is part of Voices in the Streets, “a website of artistic activism, providing a space for the disadvantaged to share their stories,” which they did recently on NPR’s Day to Day:
“Land of 10,000 Homeless: Bill Speaks” (2:45 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
025 Heat: Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-07-11 (Originally: 2008-08-20)
“Mexico’s Red Days” by Charles Bowden in GQ on the escalating Juárez, Mexico murders:
The killings have the cold feeling of butchery in a slaughterhouse, and they are everywhere: done in broad daylight, on streets, in markets, at homes, and even in Wal-Mart parking lots. Women, children, guilty, innocent—no one is safe.
Health caretakers, friends, family, workers and volunteers:
“Dialysis” by Joe Frank: A phone call, kidney failure and a friend indeed; followed by a flight of final fancy, from the hour “Goodbye.”
“Three Woman” by host by Dmae Roberts: Three women, a Chicana, African American and Romanian immigrant, describe their different approaches to surviving breast cancer. Produced as part of the “The Breast Cancer Monologues,” with Miae Kim, Anca Micheti, and music by Maria Esteves.
“Messages” by Dmae Roberts (of MediaRites): Every 100 days, the producer saves the phone messages of her mom who passed away two years ago as a living memorial. Music by Aaron Meyer and Tim Ellis.
“Bad Teeth at King Drew Dental Clinic” by Ayala Ben-Yehuda: a morning at the Dental Divide at a dental clinic of last resort in South LA’s King Drew Medical Center.
I have acute hearing. I hear voices in passing. Here are a few. Feel free to add your own.
Ritual Coffee Roasters, San Francisco, 6/12/08
“I’d rather own a cat, because when a cat gets sick it just dies…”
Club Cocomo, San Francisco, 7/08 (Boy tries to get girl)
“You’re the hottest smart girl I know…(music)
…I can’t tell you what I do in Iraq.
Since 2004, I’ve gone to twelve funerals…I go to counseling every week…I want to talk about it with you but I can’t.” (Boy does not get girl)
Castro, San Francisco (the Gay neighborhood)
“I LOVE balls of furry!”
“What?”
“Balls of Fury! it’s hilarious! Christopher Walken, OhMyGod…”
“Oh, the movie, yeah, anything with Christopher Walken IS Hilarious!” (I’ve seen it, it’s not)
Downtown Seattle: Group of gutter-brats (homeless or grungy or drugs or all and tattoos and piercing) gathered on a street corner waiting for signal to change, but not crossing when it does.
“It wouldn’t spread if you’d quit scratching it…next thing you know it will be in your ass.” I hurry and cross.
University Ave, Seattle: Grungy kid is sitting against a bike-rack which he is handcuffed to, surrounded by “friends.” Sitting on sidewalks here is illegal.
“Come on guys, this isn’t funny…well, it is…but it isn’t…Come on…”
Added 8/14/08:
Luxor, Egypt, Internet café. April, 2007 (An Egyptian guy, young, is on the internet cafe’s terminal next to mine. Web-cam chating with what looks like an Eastern European woman, young, speaking in seduction-English. I start transcribing the one side I can hear )
“…I want to climb into computer with you.
…nobody can take you away from me…you, with somebody else?…you can dance my grave first, no way. (her lips stutter in the sensual 3 frames per sec) They can’t stop me, if they kill me, I don’t care. I love you more than anything in this life (pixel pixel) what? I wish I had you with me 5yrs ago…why?…I will wait for you. I was 19 too. so it might be different. you are the one I give my life. you have the map inside your brain, inside your heart. can you see my heart from here…sensitive, what I ask for. what will i do if somebody else takes you away from me? if you decide this, I have no other choice. I love you, I need you, there’s nobody who take your place…I believe in you the rest of my life. I don’t care. Can you see me? this is why I did happy days. can you hear me? you no go crazy, shit. no don’t worry, I’m not sick 14hrs a day. I’m just sorry for her, but I can’t take this on ‘cus…what? because I have to go to gym everyday. I need visa in passport, new visa, this means the future for us. believe m she is 15rs old, I’m very happy, she’s a friend, not a woman friend. Nubian. Vacation, famous in a museum…
uh, I don’t think so, no way, even if I went to village tomorrow. we call it wezakarrah. Because she drinks zakari all the time…ok. I just want to kiss you…really, how old is he?..because I am speaking to you…nothing. A man go crazy in a relationship like this…baby…please don’t tell anybody about this sick child…no, I tell my wife soon…but now we have really big room and the teacher leaves soon…several things can happen, she can become my best friend, and I don’t understand, she may leave this, it is not my fault. she’s angry now, pissed off is proper…she is…I promise you if she leave, she won’t be back again, ever…what is going to happen? …I’ll be in jail and die.
I want you. So what do you think…do you agree to be with a crazy man, like me…would like to help you, next year you’re 18 and you’re leaving. I hate the house, I hate the no sleep, I hate it. At night I talk to you and am very happy, you are my life, it’s great. I will never give you up, no matter what you do…can you hear me?…
…can you hear me?” (connection ends)
Yukon 7/08 Whitehorse
“…he was out in the yard eh, just shootin’ at that thing with a BB gun, it was hilarious!”
Hearing Voices from NPR®
023 This is Insanity: Disturbed Mental States
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-03-03 (Originally: 2008-08-06)
With the music of Disposable Heroes of Hiphopcracy (rapper Michael Franti and percussionist Ron Tse), from the 1993 CD Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales.
“Electroshock” (3:42) Anon.
A first-person account from an anonymous reporter of his experience undergoing ElectroConvulsive Therapy.
Howard Dully traces the reasons and repercusssions of his transorbital or “ice pick” lobotomy, a radical new procedure in the treatment of mental illness in this country, pioneered and performed by psychiatrist Walter J. Freeman.
Produced by Dave Isay and Piya Kochhar, with help from Larry Blood, Eliza Bettinger, Brett Myers, Jessica Tickten, Anna Goldman, Maisie Tivnan, Colin Murphy and Jonah Engle Narratored by Howard Dully; edited by Gary Covino. Jack El-Hai was project advisor. Special thanks to: Barbara Dully, Andrew Goldberg, Christine Johnson, Lyle Slovick & David Anderson at the GWU Gelman Library archives. Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
022 Mushroom Cloud: Tales of the Atomic Age
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-08-01 (Originally: 2008-07-30)
Documents of our changing perceptions of weapons of mass destruction:
Bomber pilots and bombing victims, and and Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay in “Enola Alone” by Antenna Theater, mixed by Earwax.
Political speeches and popular songs chart our changing attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction in the “Atomic Age.” Residents recall the Nevada and Utah nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s in their “Downwinder Diaries,” produced by Claes Andreasson.
Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning,” an excerpt from “One of These days (or Nights)” produced for radio by Erik Bauersfeld (Bay Area Radio Drama), with sound design by Jim McKee (Earwax), and original music by Wieslaw Pogorzelski.
Americans across the country answer Scott Carrier‘s question: “What Are You Afraid Of?”
The story of the Big Bang, with a beat, “Page One” by Lemon Jelly.
And selections from “Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security” compiled by CONELRAD.com (including Slim Galliard’s “Atomic Cocktail” (1945), versions of “Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb” by Lowell Blanchard & The Valley Trio (1949) and by The Pilgrim Travelers, and 1950-60s Civil Defense public service announcements.
And the Tony Schwartz-inspired verite documentary of the town he lived in and loved, “New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places” (thanks to Transom.org).
The Great and Powerful WNYC begins weekly broadcasts today of our Hearing Voices from NPR series, Sun 7am on 820 AM in NYC. Lots of other stations have added us lately; we now air on 80+ AM/FM channels. Just a few of our other recent adds: Iowa Public Radio (on 3 of their networks), KCPW-Salt Lake City (home of Scott Carrier), New Jersey Public Radio, KSKA-Anchorage (still enjoying thier midnight sun), Northern Public Radio (Northern Illinois University network), , KDVS at UC-Davis (great music station), and KANW-Albuquerque.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
020 The Old Country: Back to the Homeland
Host: Neenah Ellis of If I Live to Be 100
Airs week of: 2009-07-29 (Originally: 2008-07-16)
Hearing Voices from NPR®
019 Life on the Mississippi: River Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-06-02 (Originally: 2008-07-09)
“Life on the Mississippi” (1984 / 52:00) Larry Massett
Hannibal, Missouri, birthplace of Mark Twain; a day on a tugboat; St. Louis showboats; and changing the course of mighty rivers. We spend the whole hour on this 1984 downstream trip through the history and mystery of the Big Muddy, with Larry Massett and Scott Carrier.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
The stars of this show are Americans, expressing their opinions, participating in our democratic discussion.
HV has a dozen web and radio related questions for you in our new 
Another ZBS 
NPR Day to Day continues to air episodes in the new ZBS dramedy 
The Great and Powerful 
