NPR.org has released their API (application programming interface) allowing access to NPR’s huge stockpiles of stories and sounds from 1995 till now. Anyone can embed NPR story-lists on their own web-pages and blogs, along w/ all NPR’s audio player possibilities: Real, Windows Media, or NPR’s own pop-up player right from your own page — you can “Play Now” a single story or build a playlist. Try it, here’s a recent HV NPR story:
June 27, 2008 | NPR· Amy Jo is a single mother of two toddlers. Each day is a struggle to provide the life she promised her daughter two years ago, but she’s glad their father is out of the picture.
Notice you also get streaming mp3s (.m3u), something not yet even on NPR’s own story pages. And who knows what widget-ry bit-twisters might craft from NPR’s new embrace of open-source-ness (see next post).
Techies: the API outputs as either an HTML or JavaScript widget, or in several XML formats, including RSS, ATOM, and NPR’s own custom NPRML. For details on constructing API calls and getting an API key, start at the Inside NPR.org blog. And you’re gonna love their Query Generator.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
020 The Old Country: Back to the Homeland
Host: Neenah Ellis of If I Live to Be 100
Airs week of: 2009-07-29 (Originally: 2008-07-16)
Hearing Voices from NPR®
019 Life on the Mississippi: River Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-06-02 (Originally: 2008-07-09)
“Life on the Mississippi” (1984 / 52:00) Larry Massett
Hannibal, Missouri, birthplace of Mark Twain; a day on a tugboat; St. Louis showboats; and changing the course of mighty rivers. We spend the whole hour on this 1984 downstream trip through the history and mystery of the Big Muddy, with Larry Massett and Scott Carrier.
Gregory Deloatch and Daniel Canada dreamed of being writers, but normal life—marriage, jobs, paying the rent—always got in the way. To pursue their dream, the two friends embarked on an unusual experiment. Lu Olkowski tells the story of how it turned out.
A history of the modern shopping mall through perspectives of people living in a real, yet unnamed, city. Using a sound rich audio mosaic of observations and ruminations, all scored to Muzak, the universal mall experience comes to life, for better or for worse.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
018 Flags and Fireworks: For Fourth of July
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-06-27 (Originally: 2008-07-02)
SF Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas interviews James Brown about composition, performance, and timing:
From intro about JB’s music—
MTT: “We were all amazed by the level of energy, the attacks, the precision, the syncopation, the wonderful empty spaces.”
From interview—
MTT: “Being a conductor means you’re trying to get a lot of people to agree where Now is.”
JB: “NOW is right!”
MTT: “And boy do you do that.”
Aired on NPR Day to Day, a very busy day with Amy Jo, a single mother of two toddlers. Everyday she strives to fulfill a promise for a better life, made to her daughter two years ago. By producer Erin Mishkin, “Surrounded by Lights” (6:50 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-08 (Originally: 2008-06-25)
The places we live and the people who live there; a desert, a city, two small towns, and another country:
Scott Carrier has a cultural history of the Great Salt Lake’s “West Desert,” a land of polygymists, bombing ranges, and toxic waste incinerators. There’s chlorine gas in the air, anthrax stored underground, and people who call the place home.
Sarah Vowell‘s childhood move from rural Oklahoma to small-town Montana was, for her, a change from the middle ages to a modern metropolis.
And two Stories from the Heart of the Land: NYC native Natalie Edwards hates grass, bugs, dirt, and trees, but attempts a walk thru Brooklyn’s Prospect Park; and Carmen Delzell tells why she moved to and has stayed in Mexico.
R.I.P. George Carlin, May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008 (Wikipedia | WFMU Blog). From 1972’s Class Clown, “Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television” (7:03):
The above aired on WBAI-NYC, resulting in the 1978 Supreme Court F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation ruling prohibiting broadcast of “indecent” material during hours “when children are undoubtedly in the audience.”
Forgot to post this when it aired, 1/1/08 on NPR ATC— A travel writer’s upside-down Australian dilemma of drop bears and hoop snakes, swag and snores, knee-clicks and star clusters, by Jake Warga “Hike Australia” (7:50 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
016 Bugs and Birds: Sounds of Summer
Host: Jeff Rice of Western Soundscape Archive
Airs week of: 2009-06-24 (Originally: 2008-06-18)
Recordist Lang Elliot‘s CD Prairie Spring captures a “soundscape of prairie meadows and potholes in spring and early summer.”
An extinct woodpecker revives an Arkansas town; it’s “The Lord God Bird” by Long Haul Productions, with an original song composed for ther story by Sufjan Stevens.
Brian Eno’s music mimics some “Flies,” from the 2006 compilation Plague Songs.
Folk are buggin’, gettin bittin, swatting and swearing at “Mosquitos,” by M’Iou Zahner Ollswang (from the 1985 collection Tellus #11: The Sound of Radio.)
Lang Elliot soaks up the sounds of “Sora Dawn” — “a pothole marsh at dawn with bittern, wrens, rails, and more (Prairie Spring).
Dr. Rex Cocroft, of the University of Missouri, attaches a phonograph needle to a blade of grass, plugged it into a tape recorder, to go “acoustic prospecting” for little-known suburban lawn sounds like “Leafhoppers,” rarely hard by humans.
Ken Nordine declares this “A Good Year for Spiders” (A Transparent Mask).
Entomologist Ian Robertson,, of Boise State University, does the “Gnat Dance” with host Jeff Rice and an outdoor chorale performance for insects.
And special thanks to Dr. Hayward Spangler of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson for braving bugs between his teeth while “Listening to Ants.”
Father and son spend a week together traveling and hiking America’s Grand Canyon. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Walking Grand Canyon” (4:07 mp3):
Friend of HV, Gregg MvVicar, hosts the 1000th edition of his daily radio UnderCurrents: American Music With A Passport. This Saturday he spins the show’s top 75 tunes since UnderCurrents started flowing in 2005, selections of “Rock, Blues, Folk, Native, Country, Funk, Electronica, Reggae, World, Conscious Hip Hop, Dub and more.”
A James Joyce Celebration Radio Bloomsday
June 16 on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org, 7 PM – 2 AM Starring Alec Baldwin, Anne Meara, Kate Valk, Bob Dishy, Alvin Epstein and Caraid O’Brien as Molly Bloom
NEW YORK, NY (June 11, 2008) – Radio Bloomsday is an intimate radio program featuring readings of James Joyce’s Ulysses plus selections from Joyce’s entire canon, performed by leading actors. Bloomsday is celebrated every year on June 16, the day Ulysses takes place.
“Radio Bloomsday will make the works of Joyce accessible to a 21st century audience — the newly initiated and devoted stalwarts alike,†explains host/producer Larry Josephson. “This year’s show begins with a survey of all of Joyce’s works, followed by a spotlight on the holy trinity of characters in Ulysses: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly.†Alec Baldwin plays The Citizen, Alvin Epstein (the original Lucky in “Waiting for Godotâ€) reads a tribute to Samuel Beckett, Joyce’s former secretary. Anne Meara will perform the role of Gertie MacDowell. Kate Valk reads Joyce’s poetry, and Amy Stiller will do a tribute to Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. Caraid O’Brien rounds out the evening with a marathon performance of Molly Bloom’s famous monologue, unabridged and unexpurgated. Plus, contemporary reviews of Ulysses, letters from Joyce and the opinions of his peers will be read throughout the evening… Radio Bloomsday will be broadcast live on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org, Monday, June 16, from 7 PM until the wee hours of the morning. (press release)
If you’re a fan of static, noise, confusion, and disorienting disembodied voices — and who isn’t? — then check ShortWaveMusic’s latest Duelling XMTRs!, “The Dance of Heaven’s Ghosts.” Blogger Myke Weiskopf captures the broadcasts of multiple transmitters on the same SW radio frequency. Sez Myke: “I hear whale songs, slamming doors, airport paging voices, jet turbines, cicadas, Emergency Broadcast System tones, a Wagnerian female choir, perhaps even the Perseid meteors themselves. It’s The Ghost Orchid crossed with The River multiplied by Kurzwellen, all generated by the simplest synthesis of skywave and transistor.”
Hearing Voices from NPR®
015 Father Figures: For Father’s Day
Host: Jay Allison of Transom.org
Airs week of: 2012-06-13 (Originally: 2008-06-11)
Father Figures (54:00 mp3):
From Animals and Other Stories we hear “Reflections of Fathers,” aka, Bugs & Dads (producers: Jay Allison & Christina Egloff, music: Ben Verdery & Rie Schmidt).
Comic strip artist Lynda Barry wishes her divorced dad a “Happy Father’s Day.”
A doctor tells his daughter about her granddad in “StoryCorps– Dr. William Weaver.”
“Grilling Me Softly” is how host Jay Allison describes his daughter’s questions about his love life.
Dan Robb’s family remembers the day “Dad’s Moving Out” (from Jay Allison’s Life Stories).
“Doc Merrick” and daughter Viki go through some girl problems.
David Greenberger tells David Cobb’s story “Because of Dad” (music performed by Bangalore, composed by Phil Kaplan).
Deirdre Sullivan’s father advises “Always Go to the Funeral” (from This I Believe).
Contrast that with this recent ad (found on Music For Maniacs) opposing a 2008 Colorado Senate Bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (SB 200, now law); “Focus on the Family ad” (0:38 mp3):
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SF Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas interviews James Brown about composition, performance, and timing:
Aired on NPR 
Forgot to post this when it aired, 1/1/08 on NPR 
, with music by Paul Wertico and Jim Hines.
Father and son spend a week together traveling and hiking America’s Grand Canyon. Aired on NPR 
Friend of HV, 
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