Recently in NPR Category

I am completely in love with some new NPR shows and I've never heard them on a radio.

If you've not heard the Bryant Park Project or Radio Lab podcasts, you are missing out on the new sound of public radio.

What distinguishes these programs from the new tenor of Morning Edition and All Things Considered is that their hosts come off, to my ears, as sincere. Give them a listen and let me know what you think or if you have a good podcast to recommend.

As an extra bonus: Here is a new page I've created to list my favorite podcasts.

I started really listening to podcasts in '06. These are the ones that I listen to all the time as '07 starts out.

1. On the Media
2. Marketplace
3. Marketplace Money
4. This American Life
5. Good Food
6. Left, Right, and Center
7. Wait Wait.. Don't Tell Me!
8. Inside Europe
9. Science Magazine Podcast

This list reflects my bias toward the produced sound of pubic radio. I find the real value of listening to these shows as podcasts is that I need not worry about when, or whether, they are scheduled to be broadcast in my area.

I'm eager to discover more to listen to so please share your favorite podcasts with me.

UPDATE

I would be remiss to not mention that NPR has begun offering a podcast of Fresh Air. This is a must listen for anyone who cannot easily catch it on the radio.

One of my favorite blogs, The Greasy Skillet, was highlighted on Morning Edition earlier this week. The report was about the new phenomenon of audio blogging. What is this hip new thang?

Step1: Pick Up Phone
Step 2: Dial Secret Number
Step 3: Record Talking / Ambient Noise
Step 4: Users Listen on Blog

samfelder.com has not yet deployed this technology but it seems the perfect match to my total obsession with NPR style reporting. The premier provider of AudioBlogging is the aptly named audblog who also runs AudioBlogger in cooperation with Blogger. Again, way cool!

I know I am a big nerd but I just saw Daniel Zwerdling, senior Correspondent at NPR and NOW with Bill Moyers. Way cool!

This site has lately been a series of articles that I find interesting with brief tidbits of analysis and ranting. This post will be different. This post is about my not so secret passion for NPR.

Actually this is about a PRI program but it airs on NPR affiliate stations and it coming to a city near you (if you live near Boston, Washington DC, Portland OR, Denver, or Chicago). We are talking about serious NPR celebrity action with Ira Glass, Sarah Vowell, Jonathan Goldstein and Davy Rothbart. The prize though, the grand super gold prize of champion NPR celebrity performance has lets it grace shine on Boston in the personage of David Sedaris. In Boston only? How cruel.

It's as if I have never been issued a challenge before. I now must take up this quest and journey north along the coast to the city on the cape. Go north young man go north. Or I could be sane and see them here in DC. That might be a better idea.

We are talking about This American Life on Tour. My friends, get your tickets now and go see the greatest show on the radio in person.

So I went over to Cafe Luna to grab a late lunch and read some more of my book. You know the one that the waitress recommended that I may or may not have previously mentioned... yeah that one. I knew I had told you already (no I didn't).

So I was eating lunch and starting sentences with so. First it takes them half an hour or so to bring a menu and then even longer to take my order. More out of an inability to focus on reading the menu than sheer spite, I decide on the Presidents' Day omelette consisting of things that I am sure our current President wouldn't like what with his familial distaste for green vegetables. I think that the delays were a direct result of my eating alone. Couples on both sides of me cranked through the menu and ordering phase with proper efficiency. I just sat and read my book.

After over an hour I realized that a new couple had come and sat on my right. Two women in their lower thirties I would guess using my honed skill of age approximation. The one across from where I was sitting had a wonderful full face and spoke with distinct facial gesturing; a rare skill indeed. After half an hour or so of reading / eavesdropping I noticed that they were talking about NPR! As usual I made the stupid self-deprecating drug addiction metaphor for my love of NPR and found that my attempt to compliment them on their subject of discussion was an interruption of their work related conversation. Let me repeat for emphasis: Talking about NPR for some people means talking about work not obsession.

I didn't know what to do with this newfound realization and went back to reading my book until one of them got up to use the restroom. In large part influenced by the three cups of coffee I had consumed whilst waiting for my food I started chatting with the remaining party, the one with the interesting about NPR and such. She asked what I did and how long I had been here and where I lived and all the usual questions followed by where are you from and such. I don't think I have really come to terms with the rarity of my life experience and choices. This is not to say that they are in any way interesting (especially the bland reserved way I present them) to another human being but we talked for a bit and when the other woman returned I was rewarded with the knowledge that they are both producers for Morning Edition. How cool is that. They get up at 3 or so every day and go to work at NPR.

I asked about volunteering and gave them my card (a good first card giveaway if I may say so myself). To be polite I went back to reading until they offered me some of their dessert which I gladly accepted. Deciding that I was full I headed home to write about how cool it is to meet NPR people while eating lunch.

I love NPR! This week in Studio 360, Kurt Anderson explores the interaction between art and toys.

The first story was about the long famous Brick Testament depicting Bible (if you click the link notice the Google category for the search) stories in Lego. Beyond the absurdity of the concept of depicting the Bible in Legos, the creators of the Brick Testament have captured the really disgusting aspects of Bible stories. No punches are pulled here, nothing is papered over. We get Cain and Abel (Gn 4:1-16), Er and Onan (Gn 38:1-10), God's test of Abraham (Gn 22:1-14), God attacking Moses (Ex 4:18-26), and a whole bunch of stuff from the 'New' Testament.

Unlike the author of the 'real' Bible, the Rev. Brendan Powell Smith has even provided readers with something of a rating system.

I love public radio. The way that some people watch TV I listen to the radio. When Julie and I travel in her car we know the frequency for NPR stations along the way and love encountering a new show that we have never heard before. Other than our local affiliate WCBU, where I work as an intern, and our neighboring WGLT in Bloomington-Normal, our favorite station is WBEZ Chicago. We have actually taken a trip up to Chicago to see a live recording of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, a show that is not available locally. I have Carl Castle's autograph; I am an NPR junkie.

This morning the radio turned on automatically at 7am and I slowly awoke to the annual Morning Edition Thanksgiving Fantasy Feast with Julia Child, Maida Heatter, Paul Prudhomme and Wolfgang Puck. Susan Stamberg crashed the party to promote Mama Stamberg's Famous Cranberry Relish. After the story about attacks on Israelis in Kenya I fell back asleep.

When I finally got out of bed, I wandered to my desk and turned on the webcast of WAMU, Washington, DC. Not being in the mood for music I switched to WBEZ and was delighted to hear pieces from the Third Coast Audio Festival. I tuned in just in time to hear the winning piece by Ira Glass, host of This American Life. What a story! I strongly recommend listening.

Now I am listening to Odyssey and should get going with my day. I want to finish reading The Ethics of Eros by Tina Chanter so I can have one less thing to worry about for my Philosophy paper this semester. Early in the afternoon I will stop by my parents house to see if they need help with anything and then I wait for dinner.

Thanksgiving, like any meal at my parents house, is wonderful. My mom's stuffing, a fifteen pound free range turkey, my dad's cranberry relish, pumpkin desserts, mmm so delicious. To think that Hanukah starts in a few days and my mom will be making a brisket; leftovers next week will provide a feast every day.