A Vermont family changes as their mother’s dementia progresses. What happens to love when there is no memory? An evolution of relationships reveal themselves in these conversation between Gregory Sharrow, his mother Marjorie, and Greg’s husband Bob Hooker.
HV and Transom just finished collaborating on getting an edited version of Eric Winick’s “How Are You Who You Are?” on NPR ATC. Our next co-project was just posted: “Transom Show: After The Forgetting” by Erica Heilman (who has a resume item you don’t see often: “an independent radio producer and private investigator”).
Th story documents a Vermont family’s changes as their mother’s dementia progresses. What happens to love when there is no memory? An evolution of relationships reveal themselves in these conversations between Gregory Sharrow, his mother Marjorie, and Greg’s husband Bob Hooker. (Produced for The Vermont Folklife Center with music by Karinne Keithley.)
The Nadeaus had a secret: the husband liked to wear women’s clothes. Then Doug Nadeau got sick, and after surgery became less inhibited and more public in his crossdressing. His wife learned to understand his habits.
Aired on NPR All Things Considered; by producer Eric Winick and TransomOpen Studio Project, “Crossdressing Family Man” (12:51 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
039 Portrait of a Plague: For AIDS Awareness Day
Host: Joe Richman of Radio Diaries
Airs week of: 2011-11-30 (Originally: 2008-11-26)
W.H.O. World AIDS Day
The 1st of December A Day Without Art
Sister Agnes Ramashiga makes her rounds at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto; 2000 patients check in daily, half are HIV positive. It’s “Just Another Day At the Biggest Hospital In the World,” a Radio Diaries by Joe Richman & Sue Johnson (Picture-Projects).
HIV-Positive teenagers, Tanya, Mark, and Tenisha, record audio diaries about living “The Positive Life”; produced by by Stephen Smith & Stephanie Curtis for American RadioWorks (photos and journals at ARW).)
Poet Lisa Buscani is “Counting” on her mom’s health advice, from the book Jangle and the CD Word Up
And Trouble Came: An African AIDS Diary (CD at Arkiv Music) by Laura Kaminsky is a compositon for viola, cello, piano, and for a narrator, reciting poems, biblical verse, and stories of Tamakloe, a warrior, tailor, and AIDS victim.
AIDS once meant death. Now improved treatments keep HIV-positive people alive for decides. So what’s that like, being brought back from the dead; as when Jesus revived his dead friend “Lazarus;” by Krandall Kraus from his book Book: It’s Never About What It’s About.
“Letters to Butchie” are a dying mother’s writings to a son she’ll never see, produced by Dave Isay Sound Portraits (music: Nick Drake).
A Thanksgiving audio feast. We binge on fattening stories, then purge with a documentary on refusing food:
Joe Frank describes a typically twisted family “Thanksgiving Dinner” (from his program “Pilgrim“).
detail of painting “First Thanksgiving” by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (1863-1930)
courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection
Scott Carrier tours a “Turkey Ranch,” following the gobbler from farmyard to frozen food.
photo by Harry M. Rhoads (1880-1975)
courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library
Dean Olscher of The Next Big Thing goes “Chowhounding in St. Paul,” searching for Hmong food, with cellphone assistance from the Chowhound, Jim Leff.
Sarah J. Hale, Editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, led a campaign through
the 1850s-1860s to establish Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday
And Annie Cheney offers a touching document of her eating disorder, “Concerning Breakfast” from Jay Allison’s Life Stories series.
I’ve got 110 patients, my “childs,” that are my childs, not my patients, my childs, and this is a mental institution, especially for the person of the streets. For the people who they lay down on the streets like trash, nobody wants them except Jesus Christ and your server, his servant.
Aired on NPR Day to Day, a wide-eyed glimpse into the world of Michael White, insomniac; how it feels and sounds to spend night after sleepless night. By producer Matthew Swenson for SALT, “Night of the Insomniac” (4:45 mp3):
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.
Every once in a while an interview approaches audio art. This interviewee is Don Liljenquist, the elderly homeless man Bob Novak hit (& run) with his black Corvette. Liljenquist was at George Washington University Medical Center. He’s questioned by WMAL-AM DC reporter Troy Russell; “Novak Victim” (2:09 mp3):
You don’t want to think about prostate problems. What man over 50 would? Jeff Metcalf certainly didn’t; until the diagnoses in 2004: prostate cancer. That’s when Metcalf, an English professor at the University of Utah, began keeping a journal. His diaries open as a play this summer.
Here’s the HV radio version, written by Jeff Metcalf, performed by Paul Kiernan, recorded by Scott Carrier, produced by Larry Massett, music by Parazitii, “A Slight Discomfort: My Prostate Diaries” (53:00 mp3):
Host Doug Fabrizio of KUER-SLC Radio West debuted excerpts today from our upcoming HV hour “A Slight Discomfort – My Prostate Diaries.”
SALT LAKE CITY, UT (2008-05-20) Jeff Metcalf is a writer, so when he discovered he had prostate cancer, that’s how he worked his way through the experience. He set about organizing a clear story out of the more abstract jumble of desperation, humiliation and revelation. Today on RadioWest, we’re playing excerpts from the latest incarnation of Jeff’s story – it’s a piece of radio theater. Jeff will join us to talk about the piece.
Here’s another entry in our What NPR Was category: In the late 70s & early 80s Keith Talbot produced several series for NPR; among them was The Radio Experience. One episode, “Death in Venice” by Larry Massett, was mainly interviews with Venice FL retirees.
The half-hour is like a swim in the ocean, soothing, stimulating, but watch for the rocks and rip tides — it pulls you in. The piece told us then what non-fiction creative radio could be. Almost thirty years later, it still does.
Larry Massett wrote the narration, produced, and played his original music; Joe Frank narrated. From June 1981, “Death in Venice” (29:01 mp3):
Larry sez:
“I had no idea what was doing. And so I didn’t have any questions for anybody. I just stood on the beach in Venice with a microphone. If anybody asked I just said I was recording.
All I knew was is it was a retirement area, and there were a lot of fossils on the beach. Certain people saw the mic and came up and started talking. It was only after I got home and started to paw thru the tape that I realized what they had chose to talk about was the love of their life.”
The piece will be in an upcoming HV hour on Memory. Another Massett/Talbot experience, “Ocean Hour,” is up at Third Coast (with an KeithT interview on the NPR days of yore).
Concord Monitor photojournalist Preston Gannaway won a Pulitzer for her shots in a series of articles which “chronicle the death of Carolynne St. Pierre, a Concord NH woman who wanted to leave her children with a record of her final months.” The online version is this beautiful photo-audio slideshow called “Remember Me.”
Two old friends Cedric Chambers and John Gallagher have been caring for each other into old age. After John’s wife passed away and his children moved across the country, John turned to Cedric when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Together they face the end of his life. Produced by Jen Nathan for the SALT. Broadcast today on NPR Day to Day, “A Square Meal, Regardless” (7:20 mp3):
It’s already had 1.7M views and was the YouTube 2007 Best Short Film, but I hadn’t seen it so maybe you haven’t either. If you know someone who has… well, you’ll see, “My Name is Lisa:”
HV and Transom just finished collaborating on getting an edited version of Eric Winick’s “
The Nadeaus had a secret: the husband liked to wear women’s clothes. Then Doug Nadeau got sick, and after surgery became less inhibited and more public in his crossdressing. His wife learned to understand his habits.
Sister Agnes Ramashiga makes her rounds at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto; 2000 patients check in daily, half are HIV positive. It’s “Just Another Day At the Biggest Hospital In the World,” a 
Web Resources:
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Aired on NPR 
You don’t want to think about prostate problems. What man over 50 would? Jeff Metcalf certainly didn’t; until the diagnoses in 2004: prostate cancer. That’s when Metcalf, an English professor at the University of Utah, began keeping a journal. His diaries open as a play this summer.
Host Doug Fabrizio of KUER-SLC 
Concord Monitor photojournalist Preston Gannaway won a 
Two old friends Cedric Chambers and John Gallagher have been caring for each other into old age. After John’s wife passed away and his children moved across the country, John turned to Cedric when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Together they face the end of his life. Produced by Jen Nathan for the