Tag: radio/Archives

HV028- Vox Pop

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
028 Vox Pop— For 9/11
Host— Jay Allison of Transom
Airdates— 9/10/2008 – 9/17/2008

Statue of soldierThe 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.

HV027- Poland

Boy sits among bombed buildings, photo by Julien BryanHearing 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.

HV026- Prime Candidates

1900's InaugurationHearing 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:

“Claremont” (1980 / 21:30) Larry Massett & Art Silverman

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.

Art of Larry

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.”Larry in China

Land of 10K Homeless- NPR

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):

Homeles man in rain

HV025- Heat

Sun in the desertHearing 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.

HV024- Caregiver

Stories1st.org- Breast Cancer Monologues, CD CoverHearing 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).

HV023- This Is Insanity

Howard Dully receiving his 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:

“This is Insane” (1:42 excerpt) William S Burroughs

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.

“Frontier Psychiatrist” (1:24 excerpt) The Avalanches

Music from the Australian mashup/cut-up artists 2000 CD Since I Left You.

“The Test” (14:53) Scott Carrier

Our host travels the Utah backroads testing folk for schizophrenia.

“Keep Busy” (3:45) Joe Frank

The narrator is pathologically challenged by time, and the stories societies tell themselves, excerpted from the 2006 radio hour “Time’s Arrow.”

“My Lobotomy” (21:11) Sound Portraits

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.

HV022- Mushroom Cloud

Cartoon of man with atomic explosion in his eyesHearing 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.

Mushroom Cloud (53:00 mp3):

Novak Victim

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):

NPR API Query Generator

In response to Catherine’s comment:

One easy way to use the NPR API Query Generator is to:

Build the Query for NPR Stories
1. Check Fields> Output Format > HTML Widget (this will allow you to see the results).

2. Under the tab: Control, try some Search Terms, Dates, Number of Results, and any other tabs, Topics, Series, Fields, etc, to get the content you want to display.

3. Click the button: Create API Call button (the query url will appear in the Generated API Call box.

4. Now click the button: Run API Call. The results will show in the Output box, as they would on a webpage (if you have HTML Widget) checked.

5. Alter the Control> Search Terms, Dates, etc., and repeat the Create API Call and Run API Call, until you get the results you want displaying in the Output.

Get the API Call (Query URL) for NPR Stories
6. Now check Fields> Output Format > Javascript Widget.

7. Click the button: Create API button.

8. Copy the query URL from that appears in the API Call box.

Insert the NPR Stories Into Your Web Page/Post
9, Paste your query URL, and your API Key, into this Javascript code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="PasteYourQueryURLHere"></script>

10. Paste the above js code, with your query URL into your web-page or blog-post.

NPR API How-to

There were some requests on the AIR Daily maillist for a quick&dirty how-to on using NPR’s new API. Your most common use will probably be embedding a single story into your web page or blog post.

Find the story at NPR.org, then grab the url, e.g. this recent HV piece:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91881310

Copy the above storyID at the end of the url, and paste it into the JavaScript code below where it sez “PasteStoryIDHere”; also paste in your NPR API Key at “PasteYourAPIKeyHere” (instructions below on how to get one):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.npr.org/query?id=PasteStoryIDHere,&fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio&output=JS&apiKey=PasteYourAPIKeyHere"></script>

Now paste all the above into your page/post, and it’ll display like this:

To display more than one story, list each ID, separated by a comma; e.g., the ID’s of these recent Jack Chance encounters: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89723386 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88961745 used in this code: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.npr.org/query?id=89723386,88961745&fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio&output=JS&apiKey=PasteYourAPIKeyHere"></script> look like this:

  

Notice I’ve specified the fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio. Those fields determine what’ll show on the page: you can remove some, or add others. The list of what’s possible is under the FIELDS tab of NPR’s Query Generator.

While there, check out the many other possibilities for interacting with NPR database of stories, audio, text, and photos. You can specify search terms, NPR shows, topics, and a host of other criteria for creating custom lists. And you can see how the lists will display. If there’s demand I’ll add another how-to sometime on using the Query Generator. (UPDATE: QG how-to added.)

To get an NPR API Key, start here: http://www.npr.org/api/index

Click the upper-left Register link to start your account. Or, if you subscribe to an NPR newsletter, you already have an account: click instead the upper-left Login link and enter your NPR subscription email and password.

Once in, click the Manage link in the upper-left. Copy it. (You can get it again anytime by returning to your account settings, and using the Open API top tab.)

Update: also see post for NPR API Query Generator.

HV021- Tony Schwartz

Tony Schwartz recording childrenHearing Voices from NPR®
021 Tony Schwartz: Documenting Life in Sound
Host: Barrett Golding & Kitchen Sisters of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-10-07 (Originally: 2008-07-23)

“Tony Schwartz” (52:00 mp3):

Tony Schwartz, media pioneer, audio documentarian, and the most famous radio person you probably never heard of, died June 2008. We hear:

The Kitchen Sisters‘ Lost & Found Sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz, 30,000 Recordings Later.”

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).

HV on WNYC

Station logoThe 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.

HV Stations: list | map

NPR.org Widgets

NPR is already offering a collection of widgets made by themselves and others (using their new API), including this flash-y Reverbiage spinning-globe story-list: