NPR and Indie producer Neenah Ellis is the new General Manager at WYSO-FM Yellow Springs, Ohio, owned by Antioch University. Congrats to Neenah, and to WYSO for a fine choice. Dayton Daily News: “WYSO picks NPR veteran as new GM.”
Hear Neenah’s HV Hour.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
040 Spirit World: Angels on the Line
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-09-15 (Originally: 2008-12-03)
“Spirit World” (52:00 mp3):
Paranormal sonic-expeditions:
A preacher/prank-caller/audio-artist conjures up a con.
Carmen samples some voodoo Santera, soaks in a spirit bath; she prays for sex, adventure, and central heat.
Ceil visits the small Florida town known as “The Psychic Center of the World.”
Our host hangs out in the new age atmosphere of the California city that sits below the spiritual Mecca of Mount Shasta (4,317 m. / 14,162 ft.).
Photo of the Cassedega intersection signs © Rachael Anne Ryals.
Here’s a piece I heard at Duke’s Ctr for Doc Studies Documentary Happening—
“‘Leaving the Mountains’ is one young man’s experience about having to deal with economic depression in rural Kentucky, and the reality of migration.” Produced for the Appalachian Media Institute and Youth Radio, and aired on NPR ATC, “Leaving the Mountains by Machlyn Blair (mp3 1:56):
On NPR ATC tonight: A half-hour of “Mexico’s 1968 Massacre” from Radio Dairies. “In the summer of 1968, students in Mexico began to challenge the country’s authoritarian government.”
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 Transom Open Studio Project, “Crossdressing Family Man” (12:51 mp3):
More from Juárez: NPR blog-post and story:
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)
“Portrait of a Plague” (52:00 mp3):
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).
Web Resources:
CDC (USA), Critcal Path, AVERT (UK), UN AIDS, Know HIV/AIDS, AIDS Diary, Visual AIDS.
Animations from Creative Time- Day Without Art: Web Action, top to bottom:
Ben Benjamin- Superbad & Chisato Uyeki- Chisa, Guthrie Dolin, Yoshi Sodeoka- Soundtoys, Friederike Paetzold- Iconogene, Lance Arthur of Glassdog.
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The stories of Burmese refugees, the Karen people, recorded in the camps on the Thailand-Burma border, and in their new American homes. Thru it all their music preserves their culture.
Aired on NPR Day to Day; with help from KGLT, by producer Jack Chance, “Burma Blues for Karen” (5:30 mp3):
More Chance music and pix at Guerilla Ethnomusicology.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
038 Let’s Eat— For Thanksgiving
Host— Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 11/19/2008 – 11/26/2008
Let’s Eat (53:00 mp3):
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.
Library of Congress- Thanksgiving in American Memory
US Census Bureau- Thanksgiving Day, 2007
Another ZBS 2 Minute Film Noir aired on NPR Day to Day: An investor in a pro-Mafia musical does not like the dance number entitled, “Cement Sneakers.”
“Barking Guns & Dancing Dolls” (2:18 mp3):
The latest StoryCorps: John Brown (L) tells his brother Paul (R) about his on-air appearance as a gay guy educating evangelical radio.
“John (w/ Paul) Brown” (2:35 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
036 Paintbrush: Lives of the Artists
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-12-02 (Originally: 2008-11-05)
“Paintbrush” (52:00 mp3):
Sound-portraits of painters:
Singer Jonathan Richman puts forth the proposition that Pablo Picasso was never called an @#%hole; recorded in 1972, released on the 1976 album The Modern Lovers.
Susan enlists elementary school kids to evaluate the paintings of Pablo Picasso. Their art crit proves accurate and insightful. Co-produced by host Larry Massett.
The poet paints a depiction in prose of her pal Pablo.
A history of injuries and inspiration unfolds in this an audio biography of the legendary Mexican artist.
From Jonathan’s 2008 solo CD Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild.
Don’t answer the phone, and definitely don’t put your hand inside. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by ZBS with music by Tim Clark, from their 90 Second Cellphone Chillin’ Theatre, “The Box” (2:57 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
035 1968— Summer of Hate
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 10/29/2008 – 11/05/2008
1968 (53:00 mp3):
It’s another presidential election year; the American people are deeply divided and deeply entrenched in another unpopular war. The topic is not 2008, but 1968. If 1967 was the Summer of Love, maybe 1968 was the Summer of Hate.
We hear Dale Minor report from the battleground during the “Tet Offensive;” part of from Pacifica Radio Archive 1968 Revolution Rewind.
We go live to the “Chicago 1968” DNC demonstrations, mixed by Barrett Golding. (Voices: Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, journalist, police, and demonstrators at Chicago 1968 Democratic National Convention. Music: “Ballad of the Green Beret” by Sgt. Barry Sadler, “For What It’s Worth” original by Buffalo Springfield and cover by The Staple Singers.)
We drink “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” stirred by producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler. (1968 Tom Wolfe book | 2009 Gus Van Sant film Weekend America “This Weekend in 1968” | Voices: Carolyn Garcia, Mountian Girl” & “Hardly Visible” George Walker | Merry Pranksters)
We hear the songs, speeches, and news reports of the times in “A Shortcut Back to 1968,” sliced by Peter Bochan. More…
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):
Kert Dees is now 98. In October 1929 he was a Houston college student with a keen interest in finances. Producer Ben Trefny of KALW news (SF, CA) presented Dees’ recollections in a series of Crosscurrents features called “Witness To History.”
In the first Kert Dees remembers “The Start of the Great Depression” (3:01 mp3):
Subsequent reports are “Living Through the Great Depression” and the The Road to Recovery.” The stories also aired in NPR WESUN:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
034 To War: Getting In and Getting Out
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-11-18 (Originally: 2008-10-22)
“To War” (52:00 mp3):
We get out of one conflict and into another:
Our show host travels the country in early October 2001, asking everyone the same question: “Are You Ready for War?”
An NPR chronicle leading up to the last day of US flights out of the Vietnam War, 30 April 1975: the fall of Saigon, with original recordings by one of the helicopter pilots.
UH1 helicopters at sunrise in Vietnam, photo by Lowell Eneix, 121st Assault Helicopter Company, US Army (from Vietnam Helicopter online gallery).
Excellent Radio Diaries series running on NPR ATC this week on past presidential “Contenders:”
Hearing Voices from NPR®
033 Political People: On the Campaign Trail
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-10-13 (Originally: 2008-10-15)
“Political People” (52:00 mp3):
In 1992 producer Barrett Golding found remnants of Jefferson’s theories and Toqueville’s writings still very much in play, as he followed Montana’s two incumbents US Representatives, one Democrat, one Republican. Due to re-apportionment, they were vying for the state’s one remaining Congressional seat, on a yearlong statewide game of political musical chairs. (Image above-right: Presidential Electoral Vote map, 1968-2008, animated, see full-size here.)
And Jonathan Menjivar documents Harold Washington College and University of Chicago students discussing “Dreams of Democracy” (audible | PRX) part of the WBEZ series Chicago Matters: Our Next Generation.
Original songs by Greg Keeler and instrumental music by Jeff Arntsen of Racket Ship.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
032 Soapbox— Sampling 20th Century Political Speech
Host— Sarah Vowell of This American Life
Airdates— 10/8/2008 – 10/15/2008
Soapbox (53:00 mp3):
We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and Scott Carrier, in “Lafayette Square” across from the White House.
“Memory Waltz” is from composer Oliver Nelson’s LP: The Kennedy Dream; A Musical Tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy., with musicians Phil Woods, Hank Jones, George Duvivier and Grady Tate.
Bonus audio: The Kennedy Dream “A Genuine Peace” (2:35 mp3):
We hear excerpts from All the Presidents’ Inaugurations:
• Calvin Coolidge— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1925
• Franklin D. Roosevelt— First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1933
• Harry S. Truman— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1949
• Dwight D. Eisenhower— First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1953
• John F. Kennedy— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961
And from John McCain and Barack Obama’s September 26 2008 Presidential Debate, Oxford MS.
Writer Dave Eggers helps his brother Bill run for State Representative as a Republican — blood proves thicker than politics, from This American Life.
Slam poet Taylor Mali tells us “How to Write a Political Poem” (CD: Conviction).
Host Sarah Vowell digs “The Garden for Disappointed Politicians,” from The Future Dictionary of America. Music by Jeff Arntsen of Racket Ship.
Thomas in Lafayette Square; © 1983 Scott Carrier
Audio artist Jesse Boggs choreographs a bipartisan “WMD Waltz.”
And more Presidents’ Inaugurations
• Lyndon B. Johnson— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1965
• Richard M. Nixon— Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 1973
• Gerald Ford Remarks— On Taking the Oath of Office, Friday Aug. 9, 1974
• Jimmy Carter— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1977
• Ronald Reagan— Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 1985
• George H. W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1989
• Bill Clinton First— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1993
• George W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 2001
Audio by Jesse Boggs; video by Trent Harris, “Bushisms” (the cryptomusicology of Presidential patter):