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.
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.
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)
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.
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®
018 Flags and Fireworks: For Fourth of July
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-06-27 (Originally: 2008-07-02)
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)
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.
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)
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.)
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.
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.”
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):
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).
Hearing Voices from NPR®
014 Fans and Bands:
Groupies, Gravediggers & Rock n’ Roll Singers
Host: Ian Svenonius of Weird War
Airs week of: 2009-5-13 (Originally: 2008-04-06)
Features a tribute to Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008):
Host Ian Svenonius, of the band Weird War, introduces “The Groupies,” an album of 1969 interviews by producer Alan Lorber (Iris Music Group, Alan Lorber Orchestra).
We visit with the pilgrims at Pere LaChaise cemetery, come to see “Jim Morrison’s Grave” (a sound-portrait by Mark Neumann of Documentary Works and Barrett Golding).
Hearing Voices from NPR®
013 Crossing Borders: From Mexico to US
Host: Marcos Martinez of KUNM-Alberquerque
Airs week of: 2012-01-18 (Originally: 2008-05-28)
In “Sasabe,” a Sonora, Mexico border town, Scott Carrier talks to immigrants on their hazardous, illegal desert crossing, and to the border patrol waiting for them in Sasabe, Arizona.
Luis Alberto Urrea reads from his books Vatos and The Devil’s Highway, about death in the desert.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña imagines “Maquiladoras of the Future,” fantasy border factories.
“And I walked…”, by Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler, is a sound-portrait of Mexicans who risk their lives to find better-paying jobs in the United States.
Immigrants walk around the corner of a restaurant named Pollo Feliz (Happy Chicken) on Sasabe downtown. Charcoal roasted chicken is offered as main dish to people also known as “pollos”, on an area where deaths related to heat exposure are frequent among immigrants.
A boy drives a Ford Expedition on the streets of the border town of Sasabe, Sonora. Polleros in the town make as much as 6500 dollars per day smuggling people into the United States, resulting in a town where the tops of the houses are crowned with satellite TV dishes and kids are seen driving brand new Ford F-150s and SUVs.
Putting bars over the bed of an old pick-up in Las Ladrilleras, on Sasabe outskirts. The fee for the final ride from this place to the gates for crossing costs 20 dollars, and polleros (people smugglers) try to maximize the capacity of their vehicles.
From Las Ladrilleras to East Sasabe.
Three mothers and their children make a stop before crossing the desert. They are part of a group of 27 immigrants departing from East Sasabe on June 5th this year to Arizona.
With their destination at sight, a group of 27 people leave East Sasabe. The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refugee and Arivaca, AZ are on the American side.
A group of ten immigrants who succeeded on crossing the border illegally (one out of frame) use pay phones to call their relatives in the United States at the Greyhound bus station in Tucson before boarding their bus to Phoenix and Los Angeles. To avoid detection the pollero advise them: “Don’t make a big group. Spread.”
Reporter Scott Carrier recovers from the effects of hot weather on his body while doing a story on illegal immigration for NPR show Day to Day. Scott reported from Sasabe, Sonora and Arivaca AZ.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
012 For the Fallen: For Memorial Day
Host: Major Robert Schaefer of US Army Special Forces
Airs week of: 2012-05-23 (Originally: 2008-05-21)
And we attend the daily “Last Post” ceremony by Belgian veterans honoring the WWI British soldiers who died defending a small town in western Belgium (produced by Marjorie Van Halteren).
The massive audio empire that is North Country Public Radio has added the HV series to its roster of fine programming. You can now hear HV hours weekly, Saturdays at 4pm, on NCPR‘s 7 station transmitters and 25 translators blanketing Northern New York.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
The Great and Powerful 
, with music by Paul Wertico and Jim Hines.
The massive audio empire that is