Ah, the beginning of a year. Time for reflection, resolution, and a clean top five records of the year list. I had a hard time with 2008. It seemed to be the year of dance rock (Girltalk, MGMT - who are NPR sponsors! - etc.), which does nothing for me. I need more awesome, less crap.
A week into 2009, NPR has posted what (after a quick first listen) is already a contender for this year’s top five: Andrew Bird’s newest record, “Noble Beast“. I love it when NPR is able to post entire records before their actual release date. It’s also nice to see musicians embracing sharing over the internet.
Also, I learned from Andy Carvin’s twitter that a live chat with Mr. Bird was hosted on Monday. Which I missed, ’cause I was at work. It would be awesome if there was a calendar of upcoming live chats with musicians so that people could plan to attend and get their questions ready. This seems like a really awesome way for NPR to improve its web audience with social networking if people participate. Does anyone know if any more artists plan to do early releases of their records this way? Did any of you join in the live chat? How was it?
You know, I was a supporter of Barack Obama well before he ever ran for president. Not because of his positions (which, happily, I do mostly agree with), but because–unlike almost every other politician in history–he actually has a sense of humor about himself not relegated to the stage of “Saturday Night Live.”
I only knew this because NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” has been poking fun at the now-President-Elect for almost five years.
And in grand NPR tradition, “Wait Wait” decided that hanging out with friends and loved ones at the end of the year was more important than producing a new episode.
Rather than rebroadcast a complete episode, they’ve decided to compile their favorite moments involving Obama. In all of them, they poke fun. In all but one, he’s there to poke back. And he does it with some incredible grace and humility.
Of note is the fact that one of the two clips that DOESN’T give Obama the chance to poke back (always with great humor) features some incredibly non-prescient commentary on a funny name from our friend and yours–Bob Garfield.
Let’s just say that that next time I want to place a bet on something, I’m betting on the side that Bob’s not on.
Welcome to 2009, brave Time Explorers. You have arrived in a challenging and desolate time for finding your most coveted resource: new episodes of NPR’s “On the Media.”
Friday’s episode would have required Brooke and Bob to be present during New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in order to produce a truly new and interesting episode, so they re-broadcast one of the best episodes from last year, wherein the intrepid Brooke Gladstone journeys into the mysterious and potentially deadly world that is Chinese media.
And, in keeping with grand Radio Sweethearts tradition, when “On the Media” repeats, we delve into our vast archives and come up gasping, holding aloft our truest and most valuable prize: our original post from that self-same episode.
So, presented once again for your reading pleasure:
OTM Recap, 6/20: Brooke Gladstone, our little China girl
(Continued)
Filed in Journalistic Smackdowns, National Public Radio, On the Media, Real News, Recaps, Uncategorized
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Tagged Brooke Gladstone, China, propaganda, real Chinese journalism heroes, Rerun, Shenzhen, talk shows
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Here’s to fresh starts, false starts, and utter failures. More importantly, here’s to giving back to those who give to us.
Happy New Year’s. Let’s fix what’s broken, and make the most of it. 2009 will be what we make of it.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
In the last week of the year, many media outlets slack off a bit, opting for lots of year end lists and retrospectives. Fortunately NPR had several interesting new stories today, only one of which involves a list:
- As part of the running “Best Books of 2008” series, there’s a list of five books about marriage that came out in the last year. I’ve only read one, Curtis Sittenfeld’s awesome “American Wife”. It’s based on Laura Bush, and even though it’s fiction, it made me kind of love her a little bit. There’s even a printable list of NPR’s complete holiday book recommendations. Unfortunately, Matthew is going to get kind of mad at me if I don’t finish the 15 books I got for Christmas before I bring any more home.
- Today’s Obvious Award goes to a story with the headline “Michelle Obama is a style icon.” Um, no crap. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s a total Jackie Onassis for our time. Another one for the obvious files: “Tolerance can lower gay kids’ suicide risk.”
- John Ridley looks back on things that, in retrospect, were so not even a big deal. I think there are more things that probably could have made the list, Bristol Palin included.
- Lastly, stupid Story Corps made me tear up again with this story about a man who treats his mugger right. We should all be so kind in the new year.
Monday, December 29, 2008
I was looking for a story from “This American Life” which understood and delineated exactly how I feel about local TV news - it’s all panicky and yell-y about every last little thing (DID YOU KNOW ONE DROP COULD KILL YOU??).
I was looking, but I didn’t bother finding it because I found a link on the TAL website to Sarah Vowell’s stint on KCRW’s program,”The Guest DJ Project.”
I love hearing Vowell talk about music; that and her talking about Gettysburg are the two geekiest things I think I’ve ever heard - and therefore why I harbor a major crush.
As part of the guest DJ project, Vowell picked five songs she loved and talked about what impact they’ve had on her. She starts with Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” - which Kerry’s just discovered and fallen in love with, too. It’s an easy song to fall in love with; you get the feeling that it’s the needed and cathartic response to “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”
More importantly, she picks out my favorite Randy Newman song (not appearing on his “Sail Away” record): “The World isn’t Fair,” which is all about Karl Marx and how his dream dissolved and how that’s really probably okay to most of the world because we’re all vapid skanks in love with Southern California MILFs.
Only it’s funnier than I made it sound.
I really do like Randy Newman a lot. It probably has to do with his pre-Disney past as a talented satirist. (Don’t believe me? Listen to “Political Science.”) But, that said, the satire is such that I sympathize with Vowell when she says, “It seems like whenever the country’s at a low point, I’m always in the mood for Randy Newman.”
Monday, December 22, 2008
I have been obsessed for years with the musical phenomenon known as song-poems.
Song-poems were a semi-scam that ran for a while from the late 50’s to the late 70’s. People would write lyrics to songs and pay services to put them to music and record the song. The budding lyricists were then sent the 45 RPM single of the resulting songs. Read a few of the above articles for an explanation of why it was a scam.
“This American Life” has a story posted about one of the men who wrote the music for these songs. It’s act three in its episode. The story is called “Reverb.”
The reason I bring this up is that we’ve been looking for a way to raise money to keep this blog going - and any money we raise after our expenses are taken care of will be money we donate back to public radio.
We’re strongly considering writing song-poems as a gift in exchange for donations. We haven’t set the price yet, partly because we’re still trying gauge the demand.
(Continued)
Monday, December 22, 2008
Happy holidays, everybody. Let’s see what OTM got us for Christmas:
First up, a story about the Iraqi journalist who chucked his shoes at President Bush last week. The incident has spawned a ton of news coverage, a flash game, and some of Bob’s famous dad jokes. It wouldn’t be Christmas without some dad jokes. While listening to this story, I pictured Bob wearing a holiday sweater decorated with jolly puff-paint penguins.
(Continued)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
It would figure that I would find and fall in love with a show that’s being canceled.
Despite hours spent on the NPR Web site since we started this blog, I just now found “Daydreaming”, the blog for “Day to Day”.
I’m not sure what happened, but in 15 minutes, I had become an instant “Day to Day” fan, despite having never heard the show. It could have been the story about Verbum Dei, a high school that requires its students to have a job. More likely, it was the “Real Economy” questionnaire, which I promptly filled out and emailed back to the show. Now, I’m hoping that they call me. I’ve got experience with being interviewed on awesome shows that are facing cancelation.
They also want to make your magic Christmas radio wishes come true.
My magic radio wish? PRI or APM will pick up “Day to Day”, because I need more Sleeveface.
NPR lets listeners roll their own
I wish I could come up with a better way to introduce this, but here’s the best way ever - from the Twitter feed of NPR’s Andy Carvin:
Seriously, just about anything works. I’ve created a podcast, which I call “Night of the Living Deford,” in order to play any story featuring Frank Deford or Zombies.
I had wanted to call the podcast “Frank Deford: Zombie Slayer,” but because the Mix Your Own Podcast page doesn’t yet let you do boolean searches, I couldn’t gather stories that feature Frank Deford AND zombies.
Drag.
I’ve got a cookie here for the person who comes up with the weirdest podcast of NPR stories and leaves an RSS link in the comments.