Station Showcase with PRX

“I like to learn things the hard way.”
-Producer Karen Fritsche

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin, and each week on this podcast we travel the fifty states, listening to some of the best and brightest work being produced at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. This week our travels take us to KPCC in Pasadena, California. That’s where you’ll find freelancer Karen Fritsche whenever anyone else has the flu or jury duty. Karen works as a fill-in producer on the current affairs programs AirTalk and Patt Morrison, as well as helping out with the KPCC news department and the station’s weekend program, Off-Ramp. Karen recently signed herself up for a very brave experiment in first-person journalism – she put 500 dollars of her own money on the line in an effort to quit smoking. She made the bet on herself through a website called www.stickk.com…

I imagine that for you as a closet smoker, it was probably a big deal for you just to admit it on the radio! What was that confession like for you? What made you decide to share your story?

Coming out of the closet as a smoker was a big deal, actually. And still is. I eat well, exercise and really care about my health, so a lot of my friends were genuinely shocked by my confession. I decided to share my story because I figure everyone has something they want to change, maybe it’s not as egregious as poisoning their lungs with carbon monoxide, but I hoped people would be able to relate. And I really did want to quit.

When I first came across Stickk.com, I was intrigued. I was curious to know if staking cash would help me change my behavior because I’ve never been particularly motivated by money. I mean, I am a freelance public radio producer, after all; clearly money is not a top priority in my life. So I was skeptical, which I thought made me a good test subject. As it turns out, it did help…eventually.

So you decided to put your money on the line and test your resolve with an official internet contract… did you have any last-minute reservations before you finally clicked ‘I agree’?

Absolutely. Entering my credit card numbers made it very real. I sat there, finger frozen above my mouse, staring at this online message, “In the next step you will be billed $500.” It made me want to smoke.

I can’t believe you failed on the first night! Did you know right away that you were going to have to confess your lapse to your ‘designated referee’ friend?

YOU can’t believe it! Neither can I, believe me. My junkie brain just kicked in, whispering, you’re all alone…no one will know. Just one more. And before I knew it, I’d sparked that puppy up. Afterwards, I was filled with intense remorse. I really vacillated about fessing up. In the end I decided to tell the truth because it was the right thing to do, and it made for a better story.

Do you think you needed to fail once, to actually feel the sting of your money disappearing, before you really understood the gravity of your contract?

Yes. I like to learn things the hard way.
 
You peed on a dipstick for your friend to evaluate your nicotine levels at the end of a week… was that a humbling experience for you? Did it strain your relationship with your friend?
 
It wasn’t humbling because I really was proud. I was excited to see actual evidence that the nicotine had left my body. The test itself, called the NicCheck Solo, was fun. It came with a little strip of paper, or dipstick, a set of plastic forceps for handling it and a test tube. It was very Mr. Wizard. A pink or red color on the strip indicates nicotine use. If the strip remains white, you’re clear. That was a bit of a let down because I didn’t get to watch anything change magically before my eyes. I was sort of hoping a smiley face would pop up or something.

I don’t think the test strained my friendship with Kristin, but me sticking the microphone in her face and asking her to repeat, “Congratulations, you’re not pregnant!” over and over again because I kept laughing, might have.

So, at the end of your story, you’d spent a week and a half as a non-smoker - how’s it been going for you since? Have you lost your other 250 dollars?
 
Thankfully, I managed to save the remaining $250 by remaining smoke-free for the duration of my contract. I’ve gotten my money back now, so I’m on my own again. Suffice it to say, it’s an ongoing struggle. While I managed to have some fun with this topic, smoking is, of course, a serious issue. For some sobering statistics and additional help in quitting, I recommend checking out the American Lung Association’s web site: http://www.lungusa.org. Or, on a lighter note, David Sedaris’s new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, has some hilarious tales about quitting. And if David Sedaris can quit, anyone can.

Tell me a bit about your life as a freelance radio person and the kind of work you do for KPCC…

An entrepreneurial friend of mine recently summed up his career by saying he does “as little as possible for as much as possible.” My freelance radio career is the opposite of that. I’m constantly hustling just to scrape by. (Tape sync anyone?) But, I get to work with incredibly smart, cool people, and although being freelance is financially insecure, I love my freedom.

I work as a regular, fill-in producer for 89.3 KPCC’s daily, current affairs talk shows, AirTalk and Patt Morrison, and as a news producer for Morning Edition. I fill in over at Weekend America, too. So if someone’s sick or on vacation, I get work. (I’m always praying people will get called in for jury duty.) As a reporter I have contributed to KPCC news and to their weekend program Off-Ramp. My pieces have also aired on WBUR’s Here and Now.

You can hear more from Karen Fritsche and KPCC online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where radio producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“I try to keep the music going all the time in Blues File pieces, rather than fade out, talk, and fade up another cut. This adds a lot of work for sure… I find salient points in the music and set them up with writing and production.”
-WXPN’s Jonny Meister

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Thanks for checking out the podcast! Each week, we travel the fifty states, highlighting the excellent original work that’s being produced locally at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country, and this week our travels take us to WXPN in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That’s home to a prolific, 30-year radio veteran broadcaster named Jonny Meister. Jonny hosts an award-winning, weekly long-form music program called “The Blues Show,” and he also puts out a regular series of insightful, sound-rich music reviews called “The Blues File.” This week on the podcast, we’re tuning to one of Jonny’s recent “Blues File” reviews, a look at Otis Taylor’s new album, “Recapturing the Banjo”… Here’s a little Q & A with Jonny about his three decades in radio, and his impressions of Otis Taylor’s new release…

Congrats on hitting that thirty-year mark with your radio career! It must be quite an experience to look back on that much time in the business… I wonder if there’s a particular moment of excitement or pride that sticks out to you when you reflect back on your three decades on the air?

Actually, it hasn’t been mostly about big moments and such, though I really did enjoy getting the KBA (”Keeping the Blues Alive”) award from The Blues Foundation for work in public radio in 2000. It was fun to hang out with so many people involved in blues music from many different angles, and I was glad I’ve had the chance to get blues music out to the public for all these years. “The world’s oldest teenager” Rufus Thomas was there (he was 82) and the whole thing made me feel good about the music and my small role in it.

Can I ask if there’s been a particular low point for you, a moment that maybe you’d like to take back, if you could?

No disasters or scandals… I have made my share of mistakes, said things that came out wrong, gotten tangled up sometimes. One artist told me once that I was probably the only person in the world that didn’t understand a particular song of his, after I asked him a question about it. Once I asked a group whose songs all seemed to be about happiness and beautiful love where the angst was in their music, and they freaked out at the question. Not that I would want to take back the questions, but maybe I’d like to anticipate that kind of response and be better prepared for it.

Well, you’ve certainly been prolific! You’ve got more content posted on the Public Radio Exchange than anyone else around - almost 300 different pieces. Can you even remember everything you’ve made? Do you ever surprise yourself looking through your old stories? Are there some specific favorites in there?

I think I remember something about all the pieces I have done, though some small facts in them may get forgotten. I like the more unusual ones and the ones where people talked with me. The Barbara Dennerlein Blues File (and the Blues & Beyond show that featured her) got lots of responses, several people telling me that they hadn’t heard any interviews with her in English before.

Story Of A Song: Afro Blue was a rare chance to feature one song, and a welcome opportunity to play Coltrane. The other Coltrane pieces (and Blues & Beyond shows) include interview material from the two leading Coltrane authors, Ashley Kahn and Lewis Porter. (I am releasing a pilot in the next few weeks of a proposed regular hour-length Coltrane show, featuring his music and reflecting his legacy, while also looking at other music that has that adventurous spirit, and other musicians who have his unquenchable thirst to explore musical frontiers.)

On now to your recent Blues File piece on Otis Taylor and his new album “Recapturing the Banjo”… From the sound of it, I bet it was a lot of fun mixing this piece. Could I ask you to say a few words about how you go about writing and structuring a short, musical overview like this one?

I try to keep the music going all the time in Blues File pieces, rather than fade out, talk, and fade up another cut. This adds a lot of work for sure. I “cheat” some too … extend intros, loop sections, cut verses, to make it time right. There are usually several key points to make in a piece. For the Otis Taylor feature, the key points are his points, the African origin of the banjo and the way it has been forgotten. My points are how he does it (and with whom) and what he accomplishes doing it. So, as is usually the case reviewing an album, I find salient points in the music and set them up with writing and production. The liner notes for this album are so important to the story that I talk about them, and I play examples of the different things that Taylor does to make his point on the album, also noting the wonderful effect of his daughter’s singing. I like to have an “a-hah” moment at the end, if it’s possible– a conclusion that sums it up and, if luck is with me, puts it into some larger context. On Otis Taylor “Recapturing The Banjo” it’s the idea that he set out to remind us of the banjo’s history but has also laid claim to some of its future with the album.

Is the overlap of blues and bluegrass a common thing, would you say? Do you often hear the blues played on banjos and mandolins?

Bluegrass, like many modern musical styles, has some roots in blues, but I don’t think bluegrass is really as important to what Otis Taylor is doing as what is often called “old timey,” older folk musical styles that pre-date the advent of recording and were learned by kids from their parents and friends. I haven’t heard a lot of blues on the banjo. Taj Mahal comes to mind (mentioned as one of the few black banjo players of the folk revival in Dick Weissman’s liner notes to the album). Gus Cannon, whose “Walk Right In” is covered by Taylor and his group and was a folk-revival hit for the Rooftop Singers, played banjo. Papa Charlie Jackson played a 6-stringed banjo tuned like a guitar in the 20s and 30s. Some of the others whom play banjo blues are on Otis Taylor’s recent album, including Guy Davis, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Corey Harris, and Keb’ Mo’. All of these folks are helping remind us that African-Americans play blues on the banjo. The mandolin was played on blues records by the late Yank Rachell and Johnny Young, the two best-known blues players of the instrument, and some by Sam Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks. Today Gerry Hundt is known for it, and some folks who live overseas and are not really known in the U. S. like Bert Deivert, but the mandolin isn’t a central instrument in today’s blues music.

Otis Taylor’s electric banjo is pretty awesome - had you ever heard of anything like that before?

I have heard electrified banjo before, but not like this one. I had seen him pull the instrument out once before a show years ago and actually asked him what it was; I didn’t even realize it was a banjo! It’s something very special.

What do you think the old-time banjo songsters (both black and white) would think of Otis Taylor’s modern take on the banjo?

Today’s old timers are mostly used to radical changes in music and society, and I think many would appreciate what he does. They would see that it is rooted in their music and would be less wed to orthodoxy just on principle than people in the past were. I think Bill Monroe had difficulty accepting some of the “new grass” that grew from the bluegrass music that he had originated. Players like the late fiddler Vassar Clements, though, who played with Monroe, found a place for himself in modern music and knitted the past and future together with his bow.

You can hear much more from WXPN and Jonny Meister online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where radio producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“I get the feeling that Messiaen would have really gotten along with the drag queens and the frighteningly intelligent non-believers in this movie if they had just stayed away from the topic of religion.”
-KALW’s Nathanael Johnson

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX, a weekly podcast that spotlights the excellent work being done at local radio stations from all across the country. This week, we’re off to San Francisco, California - KALW - where producer Nathanael Johnson brightens the airwaves with thoughtful arts & culture features… This week, we tune in to a recent story that Nathanael put together about a polarizing and intriguing French composer named Olivier Messaien. The late Messiaen was born 100 years ago, and musical groups around the country are using the centenary as an occasion to play his works. In a sense though, it’s surprising that there’s anyone left who wants to play Messiaen. His music is so radical - so unhinged from the rules of classical composition - that he successfully alienated traditionalists. He’s always tended to repel liberal-minded people, too, because of his exclusionary and regressive religious views. But there’s some mysterious quality of Messiaen’s music that’s allowed it to transcend these divisions. This week on the Station Showcase podcast, Nathanael Johnson brings us the story of Olivier Messiaen, and an innovative filmmaker who explores people’s reactions to the composer’s music.

How did you find out about composer Olivier Messiaen and the musical ‘experiment’ of filmmaker of Paul Festa?

I discovered Messiaen by singing him in college. The piece was “O Sacrum Convivium,” which isn’t exactly the type of music college choirs normally do. But my director wasn’t normal - I should say isn’t - she’s hugely ambitious and exacting. As best I remember I had sing “Sacrum - Sacrum” on an incredibly low note for about a million bars - then drop down a half step and do it again. It was really difficult and I think all the concentration on pitch kept me from focusing on how much I hated the music. Then I came in late to rehearsal and walked in on the piece and I was astonished by the music - it was as if a heard it for the first time. And it was - well - more than bearable. A lot more. It didn’t hook me like some do - but I liked it.

Finding Festa is embarrassing because I like to think of myself as a shoe leather reporter not some spoon-fed shill. Heidi Zuhl from Grace Cathedral - one of the few excellent PR people I’ve ever met - pitched me the idea of doing a piece on Messiaen around the same time as their Messiaen fest. And she knew Festa would be a great interview.

What was your own first reaction to the music when you heard Messiaen’s “Apparition of the Eternal Church”?

Well - I’d seen Festa’s documentary - and he picks out all the best quotes from all these remarkable people he interviewed. So I was expecting something truly terrifying - really hard to listen to. And it wasn’t. I definitely got the sense of a sort of landscape on a divine scale - an image of a kind of endless stone stairway - some sort of ascension - all in an unimaginable dimension. I don’t know if I would have heard explicit torture if I hadn’t seen the doc. Probably just a sense of intense penitence and God fearing.

It’s interesting to hear about everyone’s images of torture and crucifixion, fire and brimstone, as they listen to Messaien’s music… is there any literature or information about what sorts of feelings the composer actually originally hoped to evoke with the piece?

I don’t know. Messaien did write a lot about his program (ie the things he meant to evoke with his various pieces). And I know he was actually criticized for having these intense, God-heavy titles like Apparition. But the fact that all these people heard some invocation of the divine in this (even though they didn’t know what it was) makes me think that criticism was wrong. My best guess it that Ollie (as I like to call my buddy Olivier Messiaen) meant to talk about God - as he imagined Him. And that imagining probably included the bloody history of Christianity - starting with Jesus and running down through the horrific deaths of all the saints. I doubt that he was thinking - “okay here, this is the sound of stretching on the rack” - but he was thinking about eternity and God and for Catholics the idea of God is very much wrapped up with the idea of suffering. (Graduate students of theology prepare your hate mail to criticize my generalizations).

So Paul Festa’s film experiment shows that gay men and Jewish intellectuals love the music the best… what do you think composer Olivier Messiaen would think about these results?

Festa’s being a bit glib there - the point is that these aren’t hard-core Christians. Again I’m not sure - I’d like to ask Festa that (and Messiaen). I’ll speculate wildly here though, and give an answer. I know that Messiaen felt a little frustrated about people having the faculties to appreciate his music. And people in the church weren’t that happy that with his very untraditional music profaning their very traditional cathedrals: At one point - while applying for a paid composing job in the church - he wrote a letter to some higher ups saying, “look I know I’ve been a little out of line - but it was just youthful exuberance. I’m going to tone it down”
He must have been disappointed that the people he was writing the music for didn’t love it. What artist can feel otherwise?
On the other hand I get the feeling that Messiaen would have really gotten along with the drag queens and the frighteningly intelligent non-believers in this movie if they had just stayed away from the topic of religion.

When you and I most recently corresponded, last October, you mentioned that you were working for KALW News part-time as an independent contractor and producing a segment called “Artery”… How’ve things been going for you at KALW since then? What sorts of projects are you working on these days? Any fun stories in the works at the moment?

We are starting a daily news show at KALW in August. All my arts coverage is going to go into that and Artery will cease to be. It had a good two-year run. Before it dies though, I want to do a piece about this group playing classical music in bars around San Francisco. People come, drink, smoke, talk, make out, heckle the performers, cheer them on - they really have a following. And musicians come out of the woodwork to play - singers from the San Francisco Opera - maybe a violist who was great in college but then became a CPA, a violinist from the Berlin philharmonic once, when that was in town. A lot of fun.
Besides that, I’m currently swamped with work as editor for a group of young women doing the NPR Next Generation Radio project at Mills College. The magazine writing continues apace.

You can hear more from Nathanael Johnson and KALW online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where radio producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“These early commercial recordings brought black performers into the mainstream by being played in public places and later in private homes where they would not have otherwise been welcome. This did start to slowly break down social barriers by paving the way for shared social experiences that crossed color lines.”
-KUOW’s “Lost Sounds” producer Amanda Wilde

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast, we shine a light on the outstanding work that’s being produced locally at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. And this week we’ve got a special extended edition of the podcast lined up for you: We’re dropping in at KUOW in Seattle, Washington, to hear (uninterrupted and in its entirety) a fascinating three-part interview series about the nascent days of a technology that’s changed all of our lives immeasurably: the advent of recorded sound. In this series, “Lost Sounds,” KUOW producer and host Amanda Wilde talks with music historians Tim Brooks and David Giovannoni about how a simple rotating mechanical device would radically alter not only our understanding of sound, but our notions about race and society… Here’s a link to Brooks’ and Giovannoni’s CD compilation, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Indistry, and here are some of Amanda’s thoughts about what she learned during her interviews…

Your piece starts with an amazing recording that was made on a wax cylinder in 1893… What kind of feeling do you get personally when you hear recordings that are that old, and that special, and that rudimentary, and on the pioneering edge of such a revolutionary new era for sound and music?

These recordings connect me to that time, that history. It’s incredibly exciting to hear the emergence of uniquely American styles of music – blues, gospel, jazz and rock and roll. These sounds hit you on a visceral level and illustrate the roots of those genres in a way that words alone never could.

It was wild to learn that music recordings were initially shrugged off as novelty side-show arcade attractions… Was that a surprise to you?

When you think about it, this is the case with almost every new technology at first. For example, there is a song from the 1890’s that is still widely recognizable, called “Hello Ma Baby” (see the famous cartoon “One Froggy Evening”). It’s inspired by this novelty called the telephone. That was followed by a novelty we called radio, and later by that novelty television. These emerging technologies were each considered a novelty until we became dependent on that technology to the point that today we can’t imagine our lives without it.

I was fascinated to learn that in the early days you couldn’t make duplicates of any recordings - a performer had to sing a song over and over again to make copies… What can you tell us about the change that must have swept over the industry once records could be reproduced mechanically?

I asked author, historian and early music collector Tim Brooks to field this one. Here’s what he had to say:

See how it takes off in 1902? (Note: the majority of these are cylinders; cylinders continued to outsell discs until around 1910)

This whole story is such an interesting case-study in how moral principles change with financial interests - the whites who were willing to record black performers to make a buck, and the blacks who were willing to mock their own race, literally ‘laughing their way to the bank’. Do you think this early recording era set back the clock on race relations, or did it help pave the way for the walls to come down in later years?

It’s hard to imagine the clock being capable of being much further back than it was at that time. Our country was only thirty years from slavery, and there was extremely little opportunity for African Americans in the dominant white culture. These early commercial recordings brought black performers into the mainstream by being played in public places and later in private homes where they would not have otherwise been welcome. This did start to slowly break down social barriers by paving the way for shared social experiences that crossed color lines.

In the case of those early performers whose musical living was dependent on being demeaning to their race, once those performers had established themselves, they could gradually move toward other material. One example is Bert Williams, who started out as one of “Two Real Coons” before he became a star, and then was able to move toward other material – which played on universal sentiments (such as those expressed in the song “Nobody”) that still ring true today.

Tell us a bit about how you came across the author and early music collector Tim Brooks and what inspired you to put this “Lost Sounds” series together…

My Program Director at KUOW, Jeff Hansen, suggested this project. David Giovannoni, known for his public radio research, is also one of the collectors of the music heard on Lost Sounds. Jeff and David were chatting about public radio research when the topic of Lost Sounds came up. At the time, the album was up for a grammy. Jeff asked David if he would get a copy to us, and once he heard it, he knew it would make a compelling interview. I am KUOW’s resident music person, and also have produced a number of historical interviews related to popular music in the first half of the 20th century. That made me the logical person to ask, and I was keenly interested. Luckily, I was able to interview Giovannoni and Brooks together. So KUOW’s Lost Sounds interview is the only one featuring both collectors interacting with each other – that’s in parts 2 & 3 of the Lost Sounds interview.

When you and I last corresponded, you told me a bit about your job hosting “The Swing Years and Beyond” at KUOW… How’s the show been going for you? What else are you up to these days?

What is amazing about The Swing Years is that it keeps gaining audience with the coveted 18-45 age group. It remains one of longest running and most popular music programs in Seattle. The program, and the reactions of listeners to this music has inspired me to delve deeper and deeper into the question of why the music of the swing years is so resonant. That led to a series called Swing Ladies Swing, which are contemporary interviews with female recording stars of the 30s-50s (also available on PRX!), and several other author and artists interviews related to that topic.

Looking to the future, I would love to do some projects that highlight the connections between the music of the swing era and contemporary popular music – from the White Stripes to Tom Waits to Jurassic Five, the music of the 20s-50’s is referenced lyrically and musically into the work of some of the most cutting-edge music artists today.

You can hear more from KUOW and Amanda Wilde online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“I’ve always felt that animals were one of the ways the divine can reach out to humans.”
-KVNF commentator and interviewer Angus Stocking

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week, this podcast gives some well-deserved attention to the creative and original work that’s being produced at hundreds of different public radio stations across the country. This week we head out West, to Paonia, Colorado. That’s where commentator and interviewer Angus Stocking works as part of the team at “Mountain Grown Public Radio” station KVNF. Angus recently had the opportunity to record an interview with a local writer he greatly admires (a writer who also happens to be a personal friend of his): Craig Childs. As you’ll hear in this week’s podcast, they talked together about understanding animal intelligence, and finding spiritual substance in communing with the animals of the wild…

Tell us a bit about your radio background and the work you do at KVNF…

I moved to Paonia in 2004, and liked the radio station so much that I went down to become a member, even though there wasn’t a pledge drive happening at the time. I was introduced to Station Manager Sally Kane, and started rapping with her about all the changes in my life: in addition to moving from Wisconsin to Colorado, I had also recently quit a fundamentalist Christian cult, had just divorced and was embarked on a new relationship, and after 17 years as a land surveyor I had decided to see if I could make a living as a writer. Sally made the comment that she’d been looking for a ‘local Andrei Codrescu’ and invited me to submit a few essays for consideration. With the help of KVNF staff, that grew into “Belief Systems & Other BS”, a weekly commentary that I’ve been writing and producing for more than three years now, and which has taken off locally (a couple dozen shows are on PRX now, and I have a hundred or so more to upload - there’s also a book, at www.OtherBS.com). In recent months, I’ve started doing interviews and other projects, and the interview with Craig is actually the first one I ever taped - so you can imagine how happy I am that it’s been picked up for an NPR podcast.

How did you come to know Craig Childs?

One of the ironies of living in this small town in rural Colorado is that the area is simply rife with talented, big name writers. Craig and I had been circling around each other for a while, and finally met at an annual literary event called ‘Harvest of Voices’, where we were both readers. By then, I’d read a few of his books and he’d been hearing me on the radio for a while, so we already knew we had a lot to talk about. And as it turned out, we quickly became the kind of friends who sit around drinking, alternately inspiring each other and cracking each other up, and we both keep pens and pads at hand to write down ideas as they come. We read each other’s work as well, and take each other’s advice. I should say that part of the friendship for me is that I am in awe of Craig’s writing, and that hanging out with him and actually participating in his process is not only a rush in itself, but is exactly the kind of scene I was hoping to manifest in my life when I made the decision to move out here and become a writer. The universe is very generous.

What do you think Craig’s writing (and your friendship with him) has done to help you discover about your own appreciation of the natural world?

Hmm. Because of my weird religious background (20 years as a Jehovah’s Witness) issues of spirituality and authentic religion are very close to the surface for me. Reading Craig’s books, and knowing the person who writes them, has shown me that nature - or Nature - is an authentic source of revelation. I knew this intellectually, of course, but to see it as a living reality, embodied in a real person, was like the difference between reading about meditation, and actually meditating. So landscape, remoteness, and animal encounters have become part of my spiritual life, though not to nearly the extent that they are for Craig.

It was interesting to hear you guys talking about animal intelligence and how we measure it… the idea that ’smart’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘like a human’. I wonder, what are your thoughts on how we humans might augment our own ‘intelligence’ by learning from the animals around us?

That question actually came from my own reading and writing about dolphin intelligence, and about the work Dr. John C. Lilly did with dolphins in the 60s. Like Lilly, I’m convinced that there is plenty of evidence that dolphins possess considerably more linguistic capacity than humans, and that their radically different environments and biology may make that intelligence always impenetrable to us. Which is sad, because having another species to talk to would be really beneficial. I don’t have any great ideas about augmenting human intelligence, but a plausible first step would be to simply acknowledge that large-brained animals like dolphins, whales, ravens and apes might have a whole lot going on, mentally, but our communication is made difficult by the lack of common ground. Another good thing to do would be to continue Lilly’s work - there’s been no real attempt to do so since the 60s: I am speaking specifically of the long-term cohabitation of humans and dolphins that he facilitated. I think I can speak for Craig in saying that the basic point is that it’s not the job of animals to learn human language; it’s our job to find a way to appreciate their intelligence and the ways they manifest it in their lives.

It’s an interesting game of silently ’stalking’ that Craig plays with his hiking companions… have you ever had the opportunity to play that game with him?

No, thankfully. Or at least, not yet. Craig has a coterie of fellow extreme travelers, and I’m probably past the point in my life when I can develop the skills and toughness to, say, cross the world’s largest featureless expanse of sand on foot. But we’ve hiked, and picked our way down the Black Canyon, and I expect a lot of surprises as that part of our relationship expands.

I wonder if you’ve experienced a particularly poignant moment of understanding or communion with an animal during the course of your own wanderings… Is there a personal experience of that sort that you like to remember?

Yes, actually. When I was about 15, on a camping trip with about 20 other kids, I saw a juvenile hawk about 30 yards away, just sitting on the shore of a lake and without any internal discussion, I was immediately and irrationally convinced that I would be able to approach and pick up this hawk. And that’s what happened. I walked over, stooped and extended my hand, and the hawk readily stepped onto my knuckles and perched there. I was able to enjoy her presence for several hours and show her to others, and then she flew off calmly. I have no explanation for the event, but from that time I’ve always felt that animals were one of the ways the divine can reach out to humans.

You can hear more from Angus Stocking and KVNF online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers, commentators, and interviewers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at: www.prx.org.

“My parents were the ones who got me hooked on radio, so my aim has always been to create a program that kids, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents would all enjoy listening to.”
-Naomi Lewin, host of WGUC’s “Classics for Kids

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here… thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week, this podcast shines a light on the excellent work being produced at public radio stations all across the country. This week we tune in to WGUC in Cincinnati, Ohio. WGUC is a classical music station, and one of its most innovative and ambitious local programs is called “Classics for Kids.” “Classics for Kids” is a weekly show that introduces young listeners to the works, and the lives, of great composers. The person who makes all that heady material interesting and accessible to kids is an opera-singer-turned-radio-host by the name of Naomi Lewin…

You’re obviously a well-versed classical music scholar - do you also have some experience as a music teacher? Tell us a bit about your own background and how you ended up doing the kind of work you’re doing these days…

I’m not a scholar — and I don’t even play one on the radio! Once upon a time, I majored in music at Yale, and did student teaching in the New Haven Public Schools, where they used the Kodály Method of music education. That was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, because I knew one thing that the kids in my fourth grade class didn’t: they had been sight-singing with Kodály solfège (do, re, mi, etc.) and hand signals (think Close Encounters of the Third Kind) since Kindergarten, while I had been learning them for one semester. I lived in constant fear that the daughter of one of my professors (a fourth-grader who was really, really good at music) would see right through me. All that is to say that at one time, I thought of becoming a music teacher, but wound up following another love, and becoming an opera singer. After getting a master’s degree in voice, and pursuing a singing career for a decade, I still wasn’t still making a full time living at it, so I decided to go into radio. The only things I knew about radio at that point were (a) I’d liked it ever since I was very little, and heard the Singing Lady tell me stories on weekend mornings, and (b) my tiny New York apartment had more radios than it had rooms. My first radio job took me from Manhattan to Bowling Green, Kentucky; then, I moved on to be the midday host at WGUC in Cincinnati. About a month after I got there, they said, “We’d also like you to do a show called Classics for Kids” — and the rest is history.

What do you think the secret is to making classical music appealing and accessible for kids who might feel otherwise alienated from the whole tradition?

Good tunes and good stories. A great melody is a great melody, whether it’s by Beethoven, the Beatles, or Bon Jovi. The same goes for stories — all kids can identify with Aaron Copland getting teased for liking something that wasn’t “cool,” or Edvard Grieg’s inventive way of getting out of class. For each composer, I read multiple biographies to find the best stories, and go through tons of music to find the pieces that have the most “kid-friendly” melodies.

What kind of feedback are you getting from kids who’ve heard the series?

We’ve gotten scads of letters and e-mails from parents who share the program and website with their children — and we’ve gotten scads of letters and e-mails from kids. Classics for Kids is broadcast on public radio stations from Vermont to Utah, and we continue to hear from people who’ve discovered the show on the Internet, and would like it to air on a radio station near them. Here are some examples of the mail we’ve gotten:

We’ve also gotten some terrific, unsolicited artwork and stories from kids who were inspired by the music they heard. Examples are on the Classics for Kids website, on “Our Bulletin Board,” under the “Special Features” tab. We hear from many listeners and educators in other countries. In fact, Classics for Kids just went on the air in the Philippines!

Is the series being used in classrooms anywhere as part of a music curriculum?

Yes! Over 3,100 teachers from around the country have registered through our website, www.classicsforkids.com, and Classics for Kids is also a great favorite with homeschooling families. The website provides lesson plan materials free of charge, to help teachers and parents integrate the radio program and classical music into their classroom activities. Here are some of the comments we’ve gotten from folks who use Classics for Kids for educational purposes:

– I just wanted to say I really enjoy your website. I teach music in India and this is a fabulous resource while living in a remote area with no live concerts or classical radio stations.

You say the Classics for Kids series is designed for “kids of all ages”… and I want to compliment you on also managing to make the series informative and interesting for musically ignorant adults (like me)! But clearly you’re being careful to adjust your writing technique, and editing things, to be comprehensible to younger listeners… Is there a certain reading level that you’re aiming for? How do you go about striking the right chords as a writer and narrator in this series?

I have never talked down to kids — not when I taught, not when I was a camp counselor, not when I meet one on the street. So I wasn’t about to start now. I just try to engage kids on a level that interests them. Classics for Kids is targeted to grades K-5, but obviously, a lot of people who hear the radio show are older than that. My parents were the ones who got me hooked on radio, so my aim has always been to create a program that kids, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents would all enjoy listening to.

In order to do that, I try to make the composers as human as possible, and relate events in their lives to things people today can understand. I define all musical terms as succinctly as possible, and weave the definitions into the narration as naturally as possible. Jokes, of course, are always good, and it’s also important to keep both the story line and the music moving — especially since the program is only six minutes long. Very early on, I used my nieces, who are not particularly classical-music oriented, as a “beta” test group. When one of them made a face and said, “It sounds like you’re trying to teach us something,” that show went right back to the drawing board!

What was the inspiration for this series? How did it come to be, and how long has it been going on?

WGUC started Classics for Kids in 1998 as an educational outreach project to help fulfill the station’s mission to bring classical music to the next generation of listeners. At the time, more and more schools were dropping classical music from the curriculum, and/or relying on regular classroom teachers to work it in, with little or no guidance on how to do that. Over the past decade, Classics for Kids has grown from a radio show, to a radio show with supplemental printed educational materials, to a radio show with a multimedia website, including games, a dictionary, and lesson plans designed for children in grades K-5.

Are there any composers that have been particularly fun and easy to present to kids during the series? Are there any that have been a tougher challenge to present in an interesting way to younger listeners?

Tough challenge: I think immediately of Mussorgsky, and writing a biography show for kids about a man who basically spent his life drinking himself into an early grave at the age of 42. The toughest composers are the ones who have the least written about them — like Dmitri Kabalevsky — or who wrote the least “kid-friendly” music (with hummable tunes) — like Claude Debussy.

All in all, Classics for Kids has been a wonderful synthesis of my interests in music, teaching, humor (did I mention that I spent a very brief time doing stand-up comedy?), and radio. I look forward to doing it for many more years!

You can hear more episodes of WGUC’s “Classics for Kids” series online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“We were guided by a desire to make it personal, specific, intimate, concrete. We were not going to use superlatives, have experts tell us how great the orchestra is…”
-WNYC’s Executive Producer for Music, Limor Tomer

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Welcome to the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin. This week, we learn a little bit about Berlin, by way of WNYC in New York City. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recently visited the Big Apple, and a team of talented producers at WNYC took the occasion to put together a five-part series about the phenomenal musical ensemble – its history, its players, and its very charismatic conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. This week, we take a listen to the first installment in “Berlin without Walls,” and Executive Producer Limor Tomer has these thoughts on what went into the making of the series…

What was the inspiration for this series and how did it come about?

The Berlin Philharmonic was coming to New York City. That’s not such a big deal, of course, except that this time, rather than parachuting into 57th street (Carnegie Hall) and being air-lifted out directly after the concert, they were actually going to be here, live with us, in NYC, for 17 days, and engage with our city in an unprecedented way. The Berlin Philharmonic gave many concerts all over the city, many for free, in the boroughs; the internal ensembles performed; and, for their big Carnegie concerts, they not only brought three of Mahler’s greatest works, they paired each of those works with a NY premier of a new piece.
Pretty astounding. We felt that this was an opportunity to give our listeners a deeper look into this extraordinary orchestra, which, frankly started out as a little provincial orchestra, like many others in Germany at the turn of the last century, survived some of the most astonishingly horrific chapters in history, and pulled itself together to become one of the unique, great orchestras of our time.

How did you go about structuring the topics and dividing up the installments in this 5-part series?

The topics kind of emerged organically from the material that Kara and Ann collected. We went in with some ideas: we knew we wanted a focus on Sir Simon; we knew we wanted to investigate the history, but ultimately some things we thought we were going to do, we didn’t end up doing, and others emerged as winners. We were guided by a desire to make it personal, specific, intimate, concrete. We were not going to use superlatives, have experts tell us how great the orchestra is…

Sir Simon Rattle seems like a real character! What was it like spending time with the conductor, interviewing him and recording his rehearsals?

Sir Simon is one of the few people in the world who is not only lives up to the hype, but supersedes it. Seriously, for such a genius to be so personable, approachable, humble. It’s really humbling to be with him.

It sounds like Simon Rattle has not only the musical gravitas but also the charm to be able to bring more modern music at an old institution without totally alienating some of the more curmudgeonly musicians… are those newer and more experimental works generally appreciated by critics and audiences?

What Sir Simon knows, and a few other conductors like “sir” Robert Spano of the Atlanta Symphony, is orchestras tend to underestimate their audiences. They assume audiences are not ready, or not willing to go down unfamiliar musical paths, but if you serve up unfamiliar music at its very best, with love and appreciation and enough rehearsal, believe me, the audience will follow you (you’ll have more problems with the players than the audience, or at least that’s what Sir Simon says…)

The ‘Berlin without Walls’ series at large was clearly quite an undertaking! How long did it take to collect your recordings and interviews and put this all together?

Months and months and months…

What’s next on the horizon for your production team… another globe-trotting classical music series, perhaps?

Actually a few things… One of them is, what the heck is going on in Queens, NY? Transportation will be a lot cheaper…

You can hear all of the episodes in WNYC’s five-part series “Berlin without Walls” online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“These neighbors are really nice people. They’re reasonable people. They care about the environment, which includes their neighborhood. They both love trees and they both love solar power. So how did they end up impossibly at odds?”
-KQED QUEST contributor David Gorn

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host and curator for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. There are literally hundreds of public radio stations across the country, bustling places where producers work around the clock to put together quality reports and features for their local listening audiences, and each week on this podcast, we shine a light on the best and brightest of those regional stories. This week our travels take us to KQED in Northern California for a story about a pitted feud between two neighbors. One neighbor has an array of solar panels on his roof. The other neighbor has some tall, shade-producing redwood trees in his yard. Can you guess where this is going? Producer David Gorn recently reported on the dispute, and its legal implications, for the KQED science series QUEST…

I hear a hint of a giggle in your voice as you’re reporting this story! There’s an obvious comic absurdity to this whole ‘disputing environmentalists’ scenario, but it also sounds like this case may have some serious future implications. What can you tell us about this legal decision and what it means for the future of tree-shaded yards? Are people going to have to chop down their trees whenever any neighbor decides to put up solar panels?

The seriousness of this case is that you’re going to see a lot more cases like it. Not because local district attorneys want to go tree-hunting, not because solar panels conflict with trees (though they do), but because there are a million neighbor feuds in California, and at its root this is a neighbor feud.

But here’s the thing: These neighbors are really nice people. They’re reasonable people. They care about the environment, which includes their neighborhood. They both love trees and they both love solar power. So how did they end up impossibly at odds?

Does it seem like there’s any way these two neighbors can come to a mutual agreement? What kind of communication have they had with each other? Can the one guy help his neighbor pay to move the panels out of the shade and into the sun?

That’s easy. They’re neighbors.

And given the absurd and extreme behavior exhibited by neighbors, I would not be surprised to hear that someone installed $10,000 worth of solar panels just to get his neighbor to trim or cut down trees along a fence line.

Do you think these guys appreciate the irony of their dispute? Will they ever be able to have a beer together and laugh this thing off?

In this particular case, there will be no mutual agreement, unless you want to count the agreement between them that, yes, they actively dislike each other. So far, they’ve communicated by notes over the fence and lawyers’ shots across the bow.

If anything, the rancor will increase. Two of the trees had to be cut down — which, to one neighbor, means a sigh of relief that finally we’ve seen the end of this thing; but to the other neighbor, it means that he was successful and he’s going after two more of the trees next year.

Is there anyone looking into trying to amend the 1979 California Solar Shade Control Act? Does the ‘solar power is more important than shade trees’ idea still hold, scientifically, thirty years later?

The Santa Clara County District Attorney was not wild about the idea of prosecuting these cases, saying they should really be civil matters. And I heard that State Senator Joe Simitian was looking into updating and clarifying the law. If we do see more of these cases, I’m sure pressure will build — from DAs, if no one else — to alter the law in the State Legislature.

Has this case gotten a lot of publicity in your area? How did you find out about what was going on?

The story was first carried in the local Sunnyvale Sun newspaper, then Paul Rogers of the Mercury News covered it.

Tell us a bit about your radio background and the sort of work you do for KQED and Quest…

I am the former Deputy News Director at KQED Public Radio News, and I now work for National Public Radio, filing stories for Morning Edition and All Things Considered, in addition to KQED programs like Quest and The California Report.

Are there any other interesting stories on the horizon for you at the moment?

I usually cover environmental issues, such as the recent breakthrough in the Klamath River battle. But my most recent story was on the ruling that said home-schoolers in California need a teaching credential. Should home-schooling be subject to similar standards and requirements as schools? Or should parents be left alone?

Last thing. This is more than you wanted to know, I’d guess. But it’s interesting. At Lake Tahoe, a 58-year-old woman was recently indicted for wrecking a fence and trespassing on federal land to chop down a couple of century-old trees on federal property — so she could improve her lakeside view. And in Palo Alto, where you need to submit an application to remove older trees, even on private property, some homeowners have come up with a creative way around the law: They’re getting a doctor’s note to say they have to cut down their redwoods.

You can hear more stories from KQED and the QUEST series online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“I think the best way to honor someone that’s died is to think about them the way they were before they died. I think that watching tapes of them or looking through pictures or even going to the grave is a good way to honor them.”
-WNYC Radio Rookie Krystle Murray

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Welcome to the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin. Each week on this podcast, we give a little extra attention to the outstanding work that’s being produced at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. Some of that work comes to us from veteran radio professionals with years of experience, and some of the stories come from young producers, talented kids who are just beginning to learn about the radio medium. This week, we check in at WNYC’s Radio Rookies program, an initiative that gives teenagers the tools and training to produce radio stories about themselves and the world around them. One of the new outreach programs at Radio Rookies is an accelerated, six-week course called “Short Wave,” where mentors have been working with students at New York’s High School for Global Citizenship on the basics of reporting, interviewing, and script writing. On of the stars of “Short Wave” is young producer named Krystle Murray. Krystle has been struggling emotionally in the aftermath of a sudden death in her family, and as you’ll hear this week, she took it upon herself to visit a funeral home and talk to some of the adults in her life, hoping to find a way to cope with her feelings…

First off, let me give you my compliments on a beautiful and honest story. It must have been tough to work through your emotions as you were putting all of these thoughts together. I wonder, how do you think making this story has helped you along with your own grieving process?

It has helped me open up about it. Instead of keeping all that sadness inside, I feel like I was able to let it out.

What do you think you understand now about death that you might not have known a year ago?

I used to focus on the question, “Why did this have to happen?” but now I feel like people die for a reason. I can’t think about death all the time like I used to because it keeps me from focusing on what I need to do in my life, right now.

What do you think is the best way to honor the memory of a loved one who has passed away?

I think the best way to honor someone that’s died is to think about them the way they were before they died. I think that watching tapes of them or looking through pictures or even going to the grave is a good way to honor them.

What do you hope other young folks might take away with them after hearing your story?

I want them to understand that even though someone has died, it doesn’t mean you can’t love them anymore and doesn’t mean you can’t feel close to them. Instead of always wondering what they would have done if they were still alive, you can feel their presence with you all the time. Also, I want other people to know that it’s not just them that have to go through it — everyone does — so they can look for support in their friends.

Was this your first radio project? How did you get involved with Radio Rookies?

Yes, this was my first radio project. I found out about Radio Rookies through my school when they were recruiting for a workshop called “Shortwave.” Now I’m thinking about maybe pursuing radio… I never would have before.

Are there other radio stories that you’re thinking about making in the future?

I’m about to start a new workshop with Radio Rookies, I’m not sure what my story will be. Lots of things bother me — like all the broken glass on the streets — you never know what kind of shoes people are wearing and they could get glass in their feet. But things like kids’ rights being violated and child soldiers in Africa are stories I’m interested in doing too.

You can hear more stories from WNYC’s Radio Rookies online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers of all ages, and from around the world, share their work. Log on, discover new voices, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“It seemed to me to be about strong young women, rooted in tradition, who figure out ways to live in a contemporary world.”
-WNPR’s Diane Orson

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin, your host and curator for this weekly podcast where we shine a light on the excellent local reporting being done at hundreds of public radio stations across the country. This week we tune in to the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, WNPR, where producer Diane Orson recently spent some time with a high school girls basketball team that’s been making quite a name for itself. The “BCA Skirts” hail from a private Orthodox Jewish school in Orange, Connecticut, and they’ve been racking up wins on the court, in spite of their highly ‘unorthodox’ uniforms… Here are a few words from Diane about what she learned when she was putting together the story…

How did you find out about this story, and what got you interested in pursuing it?

I saw an article about the Skirts in the New Haven Register more than a year ago. I called the school to find out more… but the basketball season was nearly over. I stayed in contact with the principal during the year. When this season’s scheduled was finalized, she called me and we set up a time to cover a game. I was interested in the story for a number of reasons. It seemed to me to be about strong young women, rooted in tradition, who figure out ways to live in a contemporary world. Coincidentally I’d done a story just before this for NPR about a Muslim student from Yale. Among her many accomplishments, she plays football wearing her hijaab. The issue of traditional religious dress in sports has arisen recently in the news. It’s also come up in the past at Olympic Games when Muslim women wanted to compete. There were several lawsuits in the U.S. on the issue in the 1980s. The BCA Skirts story was quite unusual, because skirts on the basketball court seemed so unlikely!

It sounds like the girls you interviewed were all proud to be able to wear their traditional clothes as part of their basketball uniforms… did you hear any complaints from them about feeling restricted by their clothes, like they maybe could have performed better in the standard shorts-and-tank-top?

I asked each girl that question. Most often they told me that they’ve never worn anything other than skirts for their entire lives, so they had nothing to compare it to. They said they were used to wearing skirts and learned to accommodate to Orthodox Jewish tradition.

The girls seem to be aware that they’re somewhat of an unusual spectacle to opposing teams… do you think they feel awkward about their own appearance when they’re at another school and out of their own element?

I think the answer probably varies from girl to girl, and over time. Some girls seemed to enjoy the psychological advantage they had, because when they met new teams, many underestimated their abilities. The BCA Skirts are a small and very bright, cohesive group of girls. Now that the team has been around for a number of years, they’ve learned - there’s safety in numbers. Some girls questioned why I was profiling their team - why were skirts on the court a story at all? I think they were (appropriately) concerned that the story might be disrespectful or make fun of them, or present them as some kind of weird spectacle… but most seemed proud of the team, of their Orthodox Jewish faith and of themselves as individuals.

You mention that some of these girls have the prospect of college basketball in their sights… do you think they’ll be able to continue wearing their traditional garb at that level?

It may depend upon which schools they attend. The Denver Post recently ran an article about a Muslim woman who is a senior at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She wears a hijaab head scarf and long pants on the basketball court. My guess is that we are going to hear more about this issue as more young women step out and join mainstream sports.

Tell us a bit about background and the sort of work you do at WNPR…

My background is in music. In addition to radio, I continue to work professionally as a musician. I began at WBUR in Boston in the 1980s. I came to WNPR in the late 1980s as a producer for The Faith Middleton Show. I began reporting in the late 1990s. My stories air locally and nationally. I am also an advisor for WNPR’s “Where We Live”.

Have you got any other interesting stories that you’re working on at the moment?

There are so many interesting stories in CT that I can’t keep up! Right now I am following the terrorism trial of a former Navy sailor accused of leaking classified information to terror suspects in London. I have also been following the dispute between Yale University and the government of Peru over archaeological artifacts from Machu Picchu. And for many years, I’ve followed CT’s landmark school desegregation case called Sheff vs. O’ Neill. I also plan to profile DelMonico Hatter - a hat business that’s been open in downtown New Haven for 100 years.

You can hear more from the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, WNPR, online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.