Scott Carrier’s radio work has been published in Harper’s Magazine, and compiled as a public radio fundraising CD by This American Life. He writes for Esquire, Rolling Stone, and GQ. His first book is Running After Antelope, for which he was interviewed by NPR Morning Edition and Salon.com. He lives in Salt Lake City.
Hearty congrats to radio producers Scott Carrier and Long Haul Productions (Elizabeth Meister & Dan Collison), recipients of this year’s United States Artists:
Chosen for the caliber and impact of their work, these exceptional artists embody our nation’s vast cultural, ethnic, and geographic diversity. Each was awarded an unrestricted grant of $50,000 in recognition of their outstanding creative contributions.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
076 Small Town: Rural Routes
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-11-03 (Originally: 2009-11-11)
“Small Town” (52:00 mp3):
Spending time in some shrinking American townships:
The postmistress of describes her Mississippi River community’s dwindling population. Music: Larry Massett.
Four former Massachusetts municipalities were flooded to make room for a reservoir. But the villages live on in the former residents’ minds. A ShortDocs winner, from Third Coast Festival.
This town in California never did exist, though it’s full of folk who live there: an unofficial RV Park and home to the homeless thrives in culture and community.
Little Talcott, West Virginia has a big claim to fame: It’s home to a famous story and song.
Slab City photo © DesertDutch.org.
A Scott Carrier (2006) article in Mother Jones, “Rock the Junta; In Burma, a band of heavy metal Christians speaks of liberty between the lines”:
Burma is a forgotten country. You might have a hard time finding it on a map, and it may not even be called Burma on the map you’re looking at. It might be called Myanmar, as that’s the official name for it now. It’s an extremely fucked-up place, the size of Texas, located between Thailand and India, south of China. For the past 44 years, it’s been cut off from the rest of the world by a junta of xenophobic and superstitious generals calling themselves the State Peace and Development Council. Others call them mendacious assholes and hungry ghosts.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
071 Vietnam Vets: Coming Home
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-03-02 (Originally: 2009-09-23)
“Vietnam Vets” (52:00 mp3):
Recordings, remembrances, poetry, and PTSD from some of those who fought America’s longest war:
The sounds of Saigon, 1972: in combat, on the radio, in the streets, were recorded by Claude Johner for the Folkways recording Good Morning, Vietnam (liner notes 4M pdf).
Doug Peacock, former Green Beret medic, deals with the PTSD of vets, including himself (interviewed by Scott Carrier). Peacock wrote the book Walking It Off: A Veteran’s Chronicle of War And Wilderness.
Rich Kepler’s war experiences were bottled up and about to burst, until he released them in his poetry (producer: Larry Massett).
An oral history of African-American Vietnam vets, based on the book Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History by Wallace Terry; produced for radio by Katie Davis.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
069 Pen to Paper: Charles Bowden & Isak Dinesen
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-09-08 (Originally: 2009-08-26)
“Pen to Paper” (52:00 mp3):
Audio essays on authors:
Writer Charles Bowden reports from the US-Mexico border about the drug wars, the poverty, and the environment. His writing is harsh but unflinchingly accurate. Host Scott Carrier portrays Bowden in the words of the people he has written about.
NPR host Susan Stamberg revisits the world of Karen Blixen, aka, Isak Dinesen, when she lived in Kenya and wrote Out of Africa (produced for NPR by Larry Massett; mixed by Barrett Golding.)
Poet and wordshaker Alex Caldiero (The Sonosopher) ponders the writing and sounding of “That One” word, with music by Theta Naught.
Scott Carrier (Communication) and Alex Caldiero (Humanities/Philosophy) are professors at Utah Valley University in Orem. Go Wolverines!
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.
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:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
057 Roof of the World: In the Himalayas
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-07-07 (Originally: 2009-05-06)
“Roof of the World” (52:00 mp3):
Tibet and Nepal:
Walking a circuit alongside pilgrims, yaks and yogis, host treks one of the world’s most venerated — and least visited — holy sites, Mount Kailash. Produced for Stories from the Heart of the Land. Scott Carrier teaches Journalism at Utah Valley University in Orem.
And we climb to a remote Nepalese town of going up a mountain and back in time. Technical director: Flawn Williams, narrator: Joe Frank.
It’s an all Scott Carrier This American Life this weekend. Friendly men, schizophrenic tests, amnesia and love, all wrapped up in an adoring Ira hour.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
056 An Hour of Earth— For Earth Day
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of— 2009-04-15
“An Hour of Earth” (52:00 mp3):
Walk on the wild side with earthly tales of animals, environments, and outdoor adventure:
We canoe Wyoming’s “Green River” (1994) with Scott Carrier.
Tom Lopez of ZBS records some samba “Singing Frogs” in Brazil, or are they toads?
Poet Andrei Codrescu, of The Exquisite Corpse, composes a microcosmic “Environment” based on burgers (from No Tacos for Saddam 1992
“Subtext: Communicating with Horses” is Jay Allison‘s inter-species conversation, part of his 1985 series Animals and Other Stories.
And Sarah Vowell has subterranean supper in the Carlsbad Caverns’ “Underground Lunchroom”, from a 2001 This American Life.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
055 WordshakerS: For Poetry Month
Host: Andrei Codrescu of NPR / Exquisite Corpse
Airs week of: 2012-04-04 (Originally: 2009-04-01)
Wordshakers (52:00 mp3):
Poetry Grits Glory Verve:
POETRY is a discourse
and we its discouragees.
Lord Alfred Tennyson bangs the podium in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (from the book/CD set Poetry Speaks).
Thomas Edison waxes Walt Whitman’s “America” (Poetry Speaks).
Cheerleaders Chant” a found-poem (CD: The United States Of Poetry, part of the USOP project).
If it’s a worldwide depression, everyone is depressed.
Ah, but try to run a gypsy through the ruins of time.
Host Andrei Codrescu decontructs his “Poetry.” Codrescu assembles The Exquisite Corpse (a Journal of Life and Letters), and is an NPR commentator.
Denise Levertov knows “The Secret” (Poetry Speaks).
Carl Sandburg wonders “What is Poetry?” (produced by Barrett Golding).
Scott Carrier presents the categorical conundrum of “Alex Caldiero- Poet?”
Ed Sanders (fmr Fug) poses “A Question of Fame,” off his CD Thirsting for Peace.
My publisher says “At some people’s readings
the crowd goes out and buys their books.
At yours they run out and steal them.”
[Today is the final broadcast of NPR Day to Day. The show, which has aired so much HV stuff and been a pleasure to work with, has been canceled.]
Much of our news today is like much of our food today. Heavily processed. Raised in cages, fed hormones and antibiotics. It makes us sick, maybe causes cancer. At least it doesn’t seem unreasonable that you could get cancer from the news.
But we need news, just like we need food. In order to maintain a civil society we need to stay well informed of the issues at hand, and the news is how we do this. So what we need is news that isn’t processed, we need more organic news.
In my opinion as a news connoisseur and critic, Day to Day was the cleanest, most ‘wild caught’ program produced by NPR. Sometimes after listening to the program I actually felt better. I had more energy and eagerness to go about my life. I wondered what would be on the show tomorrow. More than anything Day to Day gave me hope of hearing something really fresh and true. If anything suffers in processing, it’s the truth.
Faced with alleged budget shortfalls last Fall, some of NPR’s 17 vice presidents decided to cut Day to Day from it’s schedule and fire everyone who worked there. Personally, I would have erased all vice presidents. When was the last time you heard of a vice president in a news room? There are people called editors and producers and engineers in a news room but nobody goes by vice president, let alone 17 people who go by vice president all making around a quarter million a year. Not to mention their secretaries and assistants. Maybe some country club memberships.
This class of NPR employee apparently doesn’t mind producing and consuming processed news. They’ve done tests and conducted studies that show the news they produce is made from the best ingredients, assembled by trained professionals, all approved by the Columbia School of Journalism, and brought to you at a surprisingly inexpensive price. They are marketers and lawyers, and I say they should be gathered together and marched out onto the downtown Washington street on a snowy day and made strip down to their underwear, and then every single one of them should be fired and forced to eat nothing but Big Macs for the rest of their lives.
What a Kroc of shit!
–Scott Carrier
Hearing Voices from NPR®
051 Dog Tales: Barks, Bites, Best Friends
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-04-07 (Originally: 2009-02-18)
“Dog Tales” (52:00 mp3):
A canine compilation — the dogs have their day:
The producer plays frisbee with a sightless German shepherd.
This commentator can’t connect with his family’s canine, off his collection of Stories off the Shallow End.
A musician mixes a multi-bark audio art composition.
In 1984 people told producer about their dogs and their dog’s dreams, produced with Christina Eggloff for their series Animals and Other Stories, with funds from the New York State Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
050 Love’s Labors: For Valentine’s Day
Host: Amy Dickinson of Chicago Tribune “Ask Amy”
Airs week of: 2012-02-08 (Originally: 2009-02-11)
Love’s Labors (52:00 mp3):
Affairs of the heart, and the intricacies of intimacy:
Lovelorn letters to an advice columnist, our Host, “Ask Amy.”
A “Valentine” from Kevin Kling (from his Stories from the Shallow End CD).
The Girls Glee Club of New Palestine High School, Indiana singing the theme from “Midnight Cowboy” (off the out-of-print Poly High – School Bands Play The Classics).
Women’s tales of true but tainted love, what Nancy Updike calls “Cringe Love”, from This American Life.
One of the “6 terrific teen-age tunes sung by Barbie and Ken (and you can sing along, too!),” a 45-rpm record from Mattel Toymakers (mp3 at UBU.com’s 365 Days Project– May 31).
Transom is featuring our “Prostate Diaries” hour. Come join the discusssion: Transom pages- Talk | Show .
Their latest newsletter…
TRANSOM.org
a showcase & workshop for new public radio
http://www.transom.org
February 5, 2008
* NEW SHOW – A Slight Discomfort: The Prostate Diaries *
If this piece were about blood or bones or lungs, it would have aired on NPR. But because it is about the prostate, and includes a talking penis, it presented problems for broadcast. There’s no equal time for body parts.
Barrett Golding of HearingVoices asked us if we at Transom would be interested. Yes. Cancer is cancer and it makes sense to talk about it openly and personally, wherever in the body it occurs. The piece also presents complex challenges of interest to radio producers. It is based on a stage presentation written by the patient himself, Jeff Metcalf, and performed by Paul Kiernan. It was recorded and produced for radio by the estimable Scott Carrier and Larry Massett. They are present on Transom to talk about this work, its style and content.
https://transom.org/?p=1038 More…
We’ve posted a new photo-essay by Scott Carrier and Julián Cardona, “Ciudad Juárez: Murders, Messages…” 
Hearing Voices from NPR®
048 Juárez, Mexico: City on the Border
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-04-28 (Originally: 2009-01-28)
“Juarez, Mexico” (52:00 mp3):
We go to a war zone, just to our south:
Four years of reports on life in the Mexican border-town of Ciudad Juárez, with poverty and corruption, with daily drug-cartel murders and military violence. Told by photographer/Juarez resident Julián Cardona, author Charles Bowden, and host Scott Carrier.
(Part 3 of 3) When people in Juarez, Mexico say ‘drug cartel,’ they mean not only street gangs, but also the government, the military, big business, small business, the upper, middle, and lower classes, the justice system, and the media. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Juarez: Crime More Powerful Than Government” (7:46 mp3):
This Hearing Voices series was produced by Julian Cardona, Scott Carrier and Lisa Miller; Edited by Deborah George; Translation and Research by Molly Molloy, research librarian at New Mexico State University- Las Cruces; Additional assistance from Erin Almeranti, Elaine Clark.
(Part 2 of 3) The Army invades the streets of Juarez, Mexico. Citizens die and disappear. And the military may be as guilty as the drug cartels. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Juarez: Street Gangs, Government Gangs” (7:46 mp3):
This Hearing Voices series was produced by Julian Cardona, Scott Carrier and Lisa Miller; Edited by Deborah George; Translation and Research by Molly Molloy, research librarian at New Mexico State University- Las Cruces; Additional assistance from Erin Almeranti, Elaine Clark.
(Part 1 of 3) Murders in Juarez, Mexico now number thousands per year. Photojournalists docuemnt each one. Is it true that “God has a purpose for this city?”. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Juarez: Shooting Crime Scenes” (7:47 mp3):
This Hearing Voices series was produced by Julian Cardona, Scott Carrier and Lisa Miller; Edited by Deborah George; Translation and Research by Molly Molloy, research librarian at New Mexico State University- Las Cruces; Additional assistance from Erin Almeranti, Elaine Clark.
