Copyright © 1999 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
Brought to you by Peanut.org
Note: 2002 - National Public Radio has concluded this series.
Most of these links, then, are no longer active.
The concluding words have become prophetic.
The Internet’s brightest, gaudiest neighborhood is the World Wide Web. The first time you step, cruise, or surf onto it, you realize that this is very much a graphic, visual way of interacting with your computer and the cyberspace behind it. In fact, the Web can be a problem for blind users for whom computers have been so liberating. So, it is a pleasure to report on some very special sounds my brother Mark—computer-nut and jazz musician—has called to my attention at:
http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/onair
Beginning in January of this year (1999), National Public Radio began airing a yearlong series of special documentaries on the Friday editions of their afternoon news program, All Things Considered, called "Lost & Found Sound." Executive Producers, Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva (known as the Kitchen Sisters) with Jay Allison, are working with a wide range of individuals and institutions to let us listen to and celebrate the sounds of the people and technology of our century. So, where do sweaty thighs fit into all this?
Best of all, for our purposes, these programs are archived on the World Wide Web (at the above address) for your enlightenment and listening pleasure. So, if you are not near a radio on Friday afternoon or you want to share with someone a special jewel that you heard on the last commute of the week, here is your chance. To listen to these wonderful presentations, you will need the RealMedia® Player program. Most likely, this program was included with the pre-loaded software that came with your computer, but if not, you can download it for free.
At the introductory page of the "Lost & Found Sound" series (above), you’ll find a chronological listing of the series, which began, appropriately, with a two part feature on "The Rise and Fall and Fall and Rise of Thomas Alva Edison." After all, he was the one who made such collections of sound possible. There are also some programs that concentrate on the technology: "Dead Media" (ever listen to a dictabelt?), sound in the movies, Morse code, and answering machines. There are also features on various individual and institutional collections and archives of sound, ranging from special collections at Michigan State University to the 30,000 recordings a man has made of his New York City neighborhood.
Some of the most interesting programs in the series are those that give a personal insight (in-sound?) to historical events. A member of the audience at Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address recounts (in a 1938 recording) that great occasion, as it seemed to a nine-year-old boy. President Harry Truman is caught in a personal, almost intimate speech. Thomas Watson tells about receiving the world’s first telephone call—without benefit of Caller ID. A woman recounts being at LeBourget Field in 1927, when Charles Lindbergh landed there, and another records her feelings on V-E Day.
Then, there are the features which, like so many of these columns of mine, don’t fit into any easy classifications. You can learn about and listen to "Carnival Talkers," not barkers, who add their distinctive voices to the sensory overload of the carnival. "Harmonica Lesson" is a bittersweet memoir of a grandfather, stimulated by an audio cassette. There are even some amusing recordings of Tennessee Williams and friends at play in a New Orleans arcade.
Three of these programs have become special favorites of mine, so much so that I have listened to each of them three times. "Extinct Tongues" is about some recordings from the 1930’s of languages that have become extinct. There is a sadness in listening to these voices of people, now dead, speaking languages that have also died. There is no one alive who speaks them.
"Meet the Beatles" is about "Lost & Found Sound" and then…. This wistful little tale of an adolescent fantasy fulfilled leaves the listener sadly unfulfilled. Dreams don’t last, and even with our best efforts—oh, my, I don’t want to give away the ending.
And, have you given up on finding those sweaty thighs? In "Cigar Stories," we have an auditory tour of the grand old traditions of grand old cigars, often made by women who sealed them with—you read it here—the sweat of their thighs. The focus of the story is the "lector." In the days before MTV, this reader kept the cigar-makers entertained with readings from great literature, current news, and the kind of revolutionary thought that the cigar-factory owners tried to suppress and that made the cigar factories of Florida’s Ybor City unlikely centers of learning and activism.
In the best spirit of the Internet as well as of National Public Radio, the producers of the series invite listeners to share favorite sounds and the stories that go with them. So, if you have a treasured sound recording stuck away, convinced that no one would but you would ever be interested in hearing it, why not let the good folks of National Public Radio and "Lost & Found Sound" hear about it at:
http://yourturn.npr.org/cgi-bin/WebX?13@^7226@.ee75049
Keep your feet and thighs dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your ears open for the heard melodies that are sweet, the unheard melodies that are sweeter.