MacGruber

On the topic of NPR funding messages, every time I hear "Gruber Family Foundation" I sing the MacGruber song from Saturday Night Live. Ok, I don't always sing it out loud, but I always hear it in my head.

perplexing pajamas

Have you noticed the funding announcements on public radio for PajamaGram? There are so many things that perplex me about this. Funders are normally really big companies. How big can this company be? They sell mail-order pajamas. Isn't getting your name read every hour on public radio really expensive? And who would go to a company named PajamaGram to buy pajamas? Wouldn't you buy them from a place that you know makes pajamas you like? Is it that great to get their fancy gift bag? Why not just go to Target, buy some PJs, and slap 'em in an envelope with the gift receipt?

brothers in audio

Funniest moment of the debate last night: After the festivities, on PBS, they were showing the commentators talking in the studio about how the debate went. Then they put up this shot of these two scruffy-looking guys. The guys were standing outside. They looked like brothers, maybe middle-aged farmers who'd been pulled aside on their way out of the auditorium to give their opinions on the candidates.

Yeah...it was Don Gonyea and Scott Horsley. Talk about a face made for radio.

the inimitable jeeves

I have a number of books I consider suitable bedtime reading: books I know so well that there's no particular suspense and I can close them at any time, but that I like enough to keep reading over and over. Right now I'm on a P.G. Wodehouse kick, and bits like this are the reason why:

"I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on!' continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred Thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice.

Man. That Wodehouse really knew how to put a sentence together. Also in rotation right now: a well-worn copy of The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts that probably belongs to my brother. Ok, ok, you can have an excerpt from that one, too:

NARRATOR It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance - on the planet Earth Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

Other books I can read over and over at bedtime: the Harry Potter books, although less so when they start getting depressing; the James Herriot books; James and the Giant Peach. You?

moby-alternatives

Two possible activities for people who are afraid of reading Moby-Dick:

1. Read In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. This incident was part of what inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. In 1819, a whaling ship set out from Nantucket. Late the next year, the weak, rotting old ship was looking for whales in the middle of the Pacific when a sperm whale rammed it. The crew rigged their little whaling boats with masts and sails and set out for the Chilean coast. It was not a pretty voyage. The book gets you to thinking: well, if you're in a rowboat on the open ocean, and you're starving, and a guy dies, what are you going to do - throw him overboard or eat the meat? It's a great read - it was a bestseller a few years back.

2. Listen to this episode of Studio 360. (The links to listen to the whole show or download it as a podcast are at the top left of the page.) It's way shorter than either book - just under an hour. Studio 360 is a great public radio show about the arts. In this episode, the host talks to a bunch of smart people who love Moby-Dick, including Tony Kushner and Ray Bradbury. Here's your random fact of the day: Before Ray Bradbury was famous, he wrote the screenplay of the 1956 movie, which starred the spectacularly miscast Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. I love me some Gregory Peck, but he's supposed to play romantic leads and noble lawyers, not revenge-obsessed amputees.

sloppiness

I just heard a one- or two-minute story on the radio with three (three!) unexplained acronyms: WASA, WSSC, and NRDC. Holy cow, people. I know it's just the local public radio station, but surely there must be *one* editor over there.

everybody here is from somewhere

As I was driving home from church choir practice tonight, I was listening to the radio. First they played a Maroon Five song, which was lame (despite any feelings I may have about Adam Levine), then they played "Another One Bites the Dust," which was pretty awesome - I hadn't heard it in years - and then! THEN! they played the new R.E.M. song! My first time hearing it. I like! The radio dude said the album is out April 1st, but you can buy it online next week. I kind of want the actual CD for this one, though.

johnny dollar

Every Sunday night, one of the public radio stations runs a many-hours-long show of classic radio shows from the good ol' days. My favorites are Dragnet and "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar." Because check out how the announcer introduces it:

"The transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar."

Then the show is structured around Johnny Dollar's expense account for whatever would-be insurance-defrauder he's chasing. It's the best. For that extra touch of verité, the people he runs into occasionally say, oh yeah, I've heard you on the radio. The show on tonight is from 1955, when Johnny Dollar was on CBS radio five nights a week.

lessons and carols

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge. You can fly to England and stand in line for eight hours to get into the chapel, or you can just turn on the radio - thanks to the BBC, it's live around the world on Christmas Eve, locally on my nemesis radio station, WETA.

While I listened to the service this morning, I followed along with the pdf of the lessons and carols program online, so I could identify the cool modern carols and sing along with the congregation on O Come All Ye Faithful and whatnot. A lot of radio stations rebroadcast it tomorrow night - be sure to listen from the beginning to hear the boy soprano sing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. The soloist isn't warned ahead of time; the music director points at him and he sings and millions of people hear him. This year's boy did a really nice job. Sometimes they sound terrified.

Once in Royal David's City has always been one of my favorite Christmas hymns. I was surprised to learn this year (from a book about the lessons and carols service that Molly B gave me) that the hymn is Victorian - I assumed it was older, but no, it was a poem written by a nice 19th-century lady who wanted to teach children about the life of Christ. The book describes it as "Victorian sentimentality." Well, goldurn it, if this is Victorian sentimentality, the world needs more Victorian sentimentality.

Earlier this year, WETA went back to classical music after a failed two-year experiment with talk, but they did it in the most obnoxious way possible, so I hadn't given them any money - but I gave in and contributed today (while telling them in the comments field that I'm still mad at them and the contribution was for this one show only and not the rest of their lame classical-lite programming).

tinariwen again

Tinariwen was on Weekend Edition Saturday today - listen online!

decision

Ok, I gave my public radio station money and told them it was for Traditions. But I gave shout-outs to the other shows, too (...ok, except for Morning Edition, which is never going off their air). Now I eagerly anticipate the arrival of my Car Talk water bottle.

public radio

It's pledge time on my local public radio station. I'm finally going to get around to giving them money this time. (I know, I know, I know. I let my parents give the money the last few years, although I have supported stations in other places I've lived.)

But here's my dilemma: which show to support? I'm most thankful that they picked up Prairie Home Companion and Traditions when the other public radio station unceremoniously dropped both shows in a format change last winter.

The awesomest show they carry, although I only listen to it when I happen to be driving home on a Sunday evening, is The Big Broadcast, in which the guy plays episodes of old radio shows like Dragnet and Gunsmoke.

I probably spend more time listening to Morning Edition than any other show, but (a) Steve Inskeep annoys the living crap out of me and (b) plenty of people support Morning Edition already. In fact, I'm thinking about setting my alarm earlier so I can wake up to the Writer's Almanac instead of Steve Inskeep. (I don't know him personally - he may be a lovely person - but golly his host persona is irritating.)

So what do I do? Thank them for preserving popular shows? Recognize the awesomeness of old-time radio? Or vote where my ears spend the most time?

I even thought about pledging during Calling All Pets this morning, because it's on so early I bet nobody ever pledges for it. And I like the dog-training tips, although I do not now and probably never will own a dog.

WETA...?

Oh my gosh oh my gosh! The local public radio station, the one that made me very very angry by switching to all talk a year ago, might go back to classical!!! That would be most excellent news.

local radio

A year ago, local public radio station WETA quit playing classical music. I was really mad. Actually, I still am, and I may have gloated juuuuust a bit when the Post reported a while back that WETA's ratings were down since the change. But anyway, a lot of people said, oh well, at least we still have 103.5. (WGMS, a commercial station that played the kind of classical music you're supposed to have on in the background at work.) Well, I hope they aren't too attached to it.

UPDATE: It's worse than I thought! WGMS is *not* in fact being killed; instead, it's being shifted over to 104.1 - which currently plays decent rock-y music. Sigh. Of course, Z104 also plays a lot of baseball games, so I won't miss it too much.

UPDATE ON THURSDAY: A longer article. Apparently the Post radio plans to compete with public radio - that'll be interesting. I wonder how the people who work at the Post feel about being asked come up with stuff for the radio in addition to the newspaper and the web.

public radio

I'm still angry at my local public radio station for dropping classical music and going all-talk. (Which happened five months ago.) They do still play music Saturday afternoon, and right now I'm so pleased - there's a show on about Rokia Traore! She's a Malian singer, and apparently she's recorded with the Kronos Quartet. (I guess that's how you get on public radio - record with the Kronos Quartet.) But you're going to have to do more than this to win me back, WETA.