June 2003 – Listening Room with Alex Kotlowitz

Guest bio:
Alex Kotlowitz is a celebrated author and radio producer who has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Chicago Public Radio's This American Life and Chicago Matters series. In the early 1980s he was a regular contributor to All Things Considered and Morning Edition .

Kotlowitz, who has been a distinguished visitor at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal from 1984 to 1993, writing on urban affairs and social policy. Kotlowitz is the author of the best-selling book There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America , which received numerous awards and was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the century.

Excerpts from the following documentaries were heard at this Listening Room; click on available links to hear selections.

The Pledge
by Barrett Golding, Weekend Edition, 1995

A variety of Americans interpret the Pledge of Allegiance—the parts they can remember—and how they feel to be part of our country's "tossed salad."(5:22)

Milton Reed: Panther and Palm Trees
by Alex Kotlowitz and Amy Dorn, Chicago Matters, 2002)

While enlivening the walls of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, a mural painter finds himself not only decorating interiors, but painting portraits of the residents' intimate relationships and drawing the details of their imaginations. (7:53)

WHER: 1,000 Beautiful Watts
by The Kitchen Sisters for Lost and Found Sound, All Things Considered, 1999

Legendary record producer Sam Phillips had always wanted a radio station. When the FCC finally gave him a frequency, 1430 on the AM dial, Sam came up with a one-of-a-kind idea—an all girl format, with women announcers, sales staff, management, record librarians and copy writers. They went on-air in October, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee, and stayed there for the next 17 years. (6:50 [excerpt])

Witness to an Execution
by David Isay and Stacy Abramson of Sound Portraits, All Things Considered, 2000

Here are the stories of the men and women involved with the execution of death row inmates at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Narrated by Warden Jim Willett, who oversees all Texas executions, Witness to an Execution documents, in minute-by-minute detail, the process of carrying out an execution by lethal injection. (7:53 [excerpt])

The McClorys: A Different Kind of Calling
by Alex Kotlowitz and Amy Dorn, Chicago Matters, 2003

Love has a way of inserting itself in all the wrong places. Sometimes it can even shake your faith, which is exactly what happens when a Catholic priest takes a liking to a Dominican sister. Tonight's presentation is the public premiere of this program. (8:00)

February 2003 – Listening Room with Jad Abumrad

gust bio:

There were 4 UFO sightings in April of 1973. Curiously enough, none occurred on the 18th, the day Jad Abumrad began life. Piano lessons, bad television, playing with chubby lab rats, donating blood in the living room - all these experiences eventually laid the foundation for a career in public radio. After studying music and creative writing at Oberlin College, and subsequently not doing so well at either in the outside world, Abumrad turned to radio reporting and producing audio documentaries for a variety of NPR programs. He was part of the crew that initially launched PRI's The Next Big Thing on WNYC. He is currently host and producer of WNYC's Radio Lab.

Excerpts from the following documentaries were heard at this Listening Room.

Sound Memories
by Jim Metzner, All Things Considered, 1994

All of us have sounds buried deep inside in our dreams, in our memories - sounds which take us back. Over a two-year period, Jim Metzner traveled around the world asking people to describe fragments of their internal audio library. Then he brought those sound memories to life. (7:08)

The Great White Way
by Jad Abumrad, Studio 360, 2003

Performance Artist William Pope.L once spent three days staring at a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. In this audio postcard, he envisions and becomes the Man of Steel crawling on the streets of lower Manhattan. (4:30)

NYC Screamscape
by Jad Abumrad and Gregory Whitehead, Radio Lab, 2002

Gregory Whitehead has analyzed the collective screams of 22 different cities around the world, and claims that each city's "screamscape" has a different story to tell. Here, with the help of Radio Lab, Whitehead analyzes New York City. (4:30)

Shades of Gray
by Ahri Birnbaum and Jonathan Mitchell, 2003

Shades of Gray shares a range of stories from people young and old who have been directly affected by abortion. Not your average polemical debate between extremes... (4:28)

Look Out, Martians!
by Jad Abumrad, Radio Lab, 2002

Take an audio tour back in time to October 30, 1938, into the heads of the 12 million people who heard the original broadcast of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. On that night, the United States experienced mass hysteria. This audio tour explores why. (7:00)