My life is noise. Between this blog, music projects, living near an airport’s landing flight path, and driving interstates with the windows down (and if I’m not doing that, then the a/c fans are blasting in my face). I live in the middle of a car-focused city, three or four streets over from the interstate. My life is noise; noise is my life. Even right now, while I write this, I’m listening to an Evan Dando cover of Big Star’s ”Ballad of El Goodo.” It’s a great cover of a great song, but unless I make a point to listen to it, it’s just noise. Similarly, unless I sit down to listen to it specifically, the distinctly public radio style of reportage, editing, storytelling, and sound design - and the love of said style is this blog’s bread and butter - is reduced to mere noise. Right now I’m hearing it as though it’s noise. I realized this on the way to work the other morning, when, speeding down one of the main thoroughfares through town, I turned up Morning Edition to hear it, but I wasn’t listening. I was, instead, singing ”Total Eclipse of the Heart,” because that damn Hurrah Torpedo version won’t get out of my head. I’m not hearing like the active listener that you guys know I can be. So I’m going to try something here. I recently updated my iPhone, and they’ve included a quite nice Voice Memos app. (Nevermind that I already have a four-track recorder for my phone, for these purposes, Voice Memos is better suited.) So what I’m going to do is begin to document, in very short sound bites, the noises that keep me from paying full attention. Any time i realize there’s too much noise, I’ll bust out the app and document it. I’m hoping this will achieve at least two things: Make me a better listener by forcing me to recognize when I’m getting distracted. Make me pay attention to silence. It’s not always noise that distracts me. It might be a thought or a splash of light. So here’s my first attempt. Talking to myself while listening to Paul Westerberg
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I saw this image on Tumblr about a week ago, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I just thought someone had made an awesome monster out of barrells and that was it. Apparently, it was a college kid who had a previous record of theft. The barrell company isn’t going to press charges – [...]
We’re about two weeks into being homeowners, and we’re still without internet at home. Sort of. Right now, I’ve got myself tucked away in a corner, sniffing out whatever dregs of internet seep out unprotected from the neighbors’ houses. We’ve been trying to unpack, but the thing is, most of our boxes are packed tigher [...]
I hate to say it, because we tried, but there’s no way to make a recap happen this week. We’re moving. We’ve known for a while, but we weren’t sure about the actual date until we were asked to show up to sign the title for our house. Planet Money people – our indicator for [...]
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Two weeks ago, the awesome and talented Laura Conaway was kind enough to let me interview her for the day job. Like a good journalist, I had to check the spelling of her name before I posted the interview (I have a tendancy to spell it Conoway, even though that’s very clearly wrong). So, I [...]
1. It’s my favorite time of the year. The flowers are blooming, the AC isn’t on yet, and in Moscow, thousands of Europeans (and a few Middle Easterners) are texting in their votes for the Eurovision song contest. And this year, they’re streaming the whole thing online. NPR had a short story it over the [...]
This morning, Iranian-American freelance journalist Roxanna Saberi was released from prison in Iran. She had been accused of espionage, and there was a lot of international outrage over her arrest. She’s been banned from reporting in Iran for five years. Roxanna, congrats on your freedom. I look forward to hearing more of your work on [...]
If so, Bob asks that you please let him out. On The Media Recap – May 8th from Radio Sweethearts on Vimeo. Listen to this week’s episode.
The totes adorable Dan Pashman surfaced today with a video for Planet Money. He was strolling around Manhattan when he came across a line – a very long line, with some really weird breaks in it. At first, he thought it was the line for the unemployment office job fair, but he was wrong – [...]
All Things Considered has been consulting famous chefs about meals that you can make to feed a family of four for less than $10. It reminds me of a potluck we had a few months ago where everyone had to make their dish with what they had already in the kitchen plus $10 for additional [...]
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