Another recent HV story on NPR Day to Day— Chicago barber Rex Mitchell insists that his window display is not an anti-war statement. For the past year, the barber has kept a running tally of soldiers killed in Iraq in the window of his Gold Crown Barber Salon. By producer Christopher Booker, for HV and Chicago Tribune multimedia.
“Window to War” (2:20 mp3):
Photos © Christopher Booker:
Recently on NPR Day to Day— Like his father before him, Michael Scott breeds “primo” pigeons, trained athletes, in his native Brooklyn. One of his coops is in Canarsie, on top of his grandmother’s house. By producer Owen Agnew, for HV and SALT.
“Breeding Brooklyn Pigeons” (3:14 mp3):
Photos © Allison Lucas:
We’re all looking forward to this week’s economic news.
No, not what Congress does; I’m talking about the upcoming This American Life episode: “Another Frightening Show About the Economy.”
It’s by TAL’s Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson of TAL “Giant Pool of Money” fame.
Listening to the two’s work on the new NPR Planet Money podcast and blog reminded me how damn good they are. AdamD‘s the econ extraordinaire guy for NPR. And AlexB of TAL and NPR, well, I gotta ask…
Is Alex Blumberg the best reporter on the planet?
His little asides make a story, like from this report on SEC Chair Chris Cox and the stock-trading practice of Naked Short-Selling:
“It gets confusing, as it often does, when you get to the naked part.”
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite having names a child might give a puppy, are… well, were…”
Planet Money “Naked Short Selling, Meet Moral Hazard” (27:27 mp3):
And there’s this AlexB blockbuster: “What’s In A Number?” The TAL topic was a report on Iraq civilian casualties. Alex transformed it into an insightful portrait of both the science and humanity in statistics.
A recent NY Times article, “Daring to Say Loans Made No Sense,” is devoted to TAL’s “Giant Pool:”
“One of the remarkable things about the report is the absence of evildoers…”
“Market appetites for anything that resembled a mortgage pushed loan standards down: ‘No income, no asset. You don’t have to state anything. Just have a credit score and a pulse.’ (Mr. Blumberg pointed out that the pulse thing was optional: 23 dead people in Ohio were also approved.)”
Alex/Adam also just offered this cheerily titled story:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
031 The Stamberg Files: Essays, Audio-tours, and Interviews
Host: Susan Stamberg of NPR
Airs week of: 2009-12-30 (Originally: 2008-10-01)
“The Stamberg Files” (52:00 mp3):
Susan pulls some pieces she’s most proud of from the NPR audio archives:
She knits her way though history, takes us on a personal tour of DC, and tries to interest her colleagues in resurrecting her infamous relish recipe.
She talks with economist Milton Friedman, actor Judi Dench, writer Nora Ephron, and pianist Leon Fleisher.
In pursuit of patriotism, Ms. Stamberg de-France-ifies popular culture, then ends in a Parisian park, chatting with a world-class conversationalist. Above photo © 2006 NPR by Antony Nagelmann.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
030 Nine to Five: The Working Week
Host: Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler of Mapping Main Street
Airs week of: 2009-09-02 (Originally: 2008-09-24)
“Nine to Five” (52:00 mp3):
For Labor Day, the work we do, from Wall Street traders to taxi cab drivers. People who work with brassieres, dead bodies, lost golf balls, and off-the-books in an underground economy. Part one…
The Ramones obviously believe “It’s Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)” (1980 Pleasant Dreams).
Meryn Cadell fills out a “Job Application” (1992 Angel Food for Thought).
In the 1950s Tony Schwartz conversed with The New York Taxi Driver about “A Temporary Job.” (This 1959 LP is on The Library of Congress National Recording Registry).
Steve Fisk recites some “Government Figures” (1980 Over and Thru the Night).
Grief and guts fill the work day of Aftermath,® Inc: Specialists in Crime Scene and Tragedy Cleanup, Trauma Cleanup, Accidental Death Cleanup. Interview with Tim Reifsteck by Laura Kwerel, produced by Nick van der Kolk; an excerpt from “Aftermath,” a Love and Radio podcast. (L & R’s slogan: “What Ira Glass might make if he showed up to work drunk.”) More…
You can now trace a subject in NPR stories over time with the new NPR / SIMILE Timeline (connects NPR’s API with MIT’s Simile Timeline). Scripts courtesy of John Tynan, poet w/ a piano and a python code-book — a dangerous combo.
You create the timeline with a search term; then you can scroll thru the months, or click the story-titles for summaries and links. For instance, there seems to be a recent spike in NPR stories on “lipstick” — maybe Revlon announced a new color:
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)
Old School (53:00 mp3):
Richard Paul follows “School VP,” Asst. Principal Irasema Salcido, through her hectic multi-lingual morning at DC’s Bell Multicultural High School.
Host Katie Davis finds she “Got Carried.”
Slam poet and history teacher Taylor Mali schools us on “What Teachers Make” (CD: Conviction | video.)
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.
And more poems: Meryn Cadell “The Sweater” Angel Food for Thought (video), Jelani “By The Numbers” Angel Food for Thought., and Taylor Mali “Seventh Grade Viking Warrior” Conviction.
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.
Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
Scraper Bikes, the videos, the photos, the song, the space, and the radio report, by Jacob Fenston with the “Scraper Bike King” (Tyrone Stevenson Jr.) — broadcast on California Report, then NPR:
SCRAPER BIKE – Trunk Boiz (Final Version):
This afternoon on Day to Day, by producer Christopher Booker, for HV and Chicago Tribune multimedia.:
John Engel met Lisa on FarmersOnly.com.
Photo © Christopher Booker
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
028 Vox Pop— For 9/11
Host— Jay Allison of Transom
Airdates— 9/10/2008 – 9/17/2008
The stars of this show are Americans, expressing their opinions, participating in our democratic discussion.
We roam the streets of New York City in the hours during and weeks after 9/11, hitting “Golf Balls” and spending our “Last Night in New York.”
We travel 8000 miles of America gathering “Vox Pop.”
And “Amber” provides an illegal alien p.o.v. via a radio call-in line.
Works from Transom.org by producers Scott Carrier, Christopher Lydon, Matt Lieber, and Australian Wednesday Kennedy.
Vox Pop (53:00 mp3):
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.
Ginna Allison (Jay’s sis) long ago moved on from public radio production to web design. But she recently revisited her box of old tapes, and has been posting pieces on her Wormlips blog.
There’s some real gems in the series Skip Through the Shadows: Scenes from Childhood. And you gotta hear her sound-portrait/bio, Story of Rose Maddox.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
027 Poland: A Ghost Story
Host: Art Silverman of NPR
Airs week of: 2009-09-16 (Originally: 2008-09-03)
“Poland” (52:00 mp3):
For the 70th anniversary of the invasion:
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.
All in a series of stories written by NPR’s Alex Chadwick and produced by host Art Silverman.
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)
“Prime Candidates” (52:00 mp3):
The plight of pols on the campaign trail:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Another ZBS 2 Minute Noir ran this afternoon on NPR Day to Day:
At NPR’s blog is a wonderful short film & essay by Art Silverman about Sundays, stories, friendship, coffee, cooking, and “Smokin’ Larry” Massett.
“Larry changed my concept of what could be done on radio.”
NPR Day to Day continues to air episodes in the new ZBS dramedy 2 Minute Film Noir. The latest:
Here’s some past Noirs:
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):
“Land of 10,000 Homeless: My Name Is” (2:52 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)
“Heat” (52:00 mp3):
Five symptoms of heat fatigue:
A sound-poem for “Dead of Summer” in the city by Marjorie Van Halteren and Lou Giansante, read by Russell Horton.
Tuscon residents reflect the desert “Heat,” with author Charles Bowden, poet Ofelia Zepeda, and music by Steve Roach; produced by Jeff Rice.
The perfection of family, a crippled man on a blind man’s back, and a collective scream of “I’m not dead,” sweat it out in Joe Frank‘s “Summer Notes.”
Cats pulling pianos are “The Little Heroes” in John Rieger‘s Dance on Warning series.
And host Scott Carrier takes a long hot cross-country drive down “Highway 50,” the loneliest road in America.
Music by The Lovin’ Spoonful and Flying Lizards.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
024 Caregiver: Taking Care, Taking Heart
Host: Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org
Airs week of: 2009-09-30 (Originally: 2008-08-13)
“Caregiver” (52:00 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.
“A Square Meal, Regardless” by Jennifer Nathan: After John’s wife passed away and his children moved across the country, John turned to Cedric when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Produced for the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
“Hospice Chronicles” (excerpt) by Long Haul Productions: Hospice volunteer Bettie viusits her first patient.
“The Person I Admire Most” by Jake Warga: A day with Jenafir in Ethiopia, trying to save the world (video version).
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)
“This is Insanity” (52:00 mp3):
A survey of disturbed mental states:
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.
A first-person account from an anonymous reporter of his experience undergoing ElectroConvulsive Therapy.
Music from the Australian mashup/cut-up artists 2000 CD Since I Left You.
Our host travels the Utah backroads testing folk for schizophrenia.
The narrator is pathologically challenged by time, and the stories societies tell themselves, excerpted from the 2006 radio hour “Time’s Arrow.”
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.
