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Often documentary is reduced to a mixing of narration and tape.  Rarely do producers use the sounds within that tape to create rhythm, movement, and as sound design.  This early piece by Arlie Adlington sounds like it could be an AIR album showcasing the mechanics of horology alongside the words we hear.  As the questions go deeper and more heady (aesthetics versus accuracy), the dialogue between the sounds and words of horology follows.  Adlington’s adeptness in using all the tape, not just the spoken parts, has permeated his documentary work.  Indeed, you can hear how it informs the sound design of more straightforward projects like A Positive Life, and where it shines in the installations and unique showcases of his work on Short Cuts and at the Barbican Centre.  More of Adlington’s work can be found here. 

The word “transportive” is thrown around quite a bit in audio and this piece is a prime example of why.  Want to experience sheep herding with women in Mongolia?  Turn up the volume.  Shebana Coehlo’s piece expertly weaves tape, memoir, and occasionally dabbles in sound art to deliver the listener to a remote place with rich stories and landscapes.  With narration that feels like an internal monologue, she reflects on how a documentarian’s life can influence their work, and we’re given a deeper consideration of the Mongolian lives she’s covering.The work was made for Outer Voices, Stephanie Guyer-Stevens multi-media organization focusing on women leaders in remote areas of the globe.  Stories from Outer Voices aired on 200+ radio stations in the US, and the team featured legendary radiomakers including friend-of-Selects, John Biewen (see our show Contested). 

This piece is relatively simple but it fits the saying that audio is a good way to explore the space in between the ears.  Larry Massett has been working in public radio since “its beginnings” and served as a senior producer and host of Hearing Voices, a truly pioneering show that shaped the careers and sound of many, many audiomakers.  While we’ll surely feature many pieces of Massett’s work on Selects, Travels With Mom has a quiet force to it.  Exploring the unique relationship between a child and their elderly parent, we hear Massett both resigned that some adventures will never come, and finding beauty in others that are closer to home.  Old people are always incredible on the radio and here we’re treated to a mother on a literal journey down memory lane..  Check out Larry Massett on himself in this Transom article.  

The best part of the podcasting boom has been the freedom to swear, end of list.  And no one is an auteur of the swearing form like a teenager in their diary.  Enter Mortified, a live event series and podcast that started in 2002 and continues to run today.  This show - made from local live events that are recorded and distributed - is part of the broader storytelling show universe.  One that existed before everyone was a storyteller.  These sort of shows are part of a clear lineage in oral histories, but also operated as one foundation of the podcast boom.  Shows like Mortified, Story Collider, The Moth, and TED Talks have all worked to teach people to listen to, rather than watch, stories.  And some stories really leap into your ear.Specifically, Mortified’s creator Dave Nadelberg remembered that Masha Tivyan’s stories always elicited a big reaction from listeners.  And you can immediately hear why.  Tivian’s story is deeply accessible to those of us on the other side of our teenage years.  Her nonstop, often nonsensical swearing, punctuates the story in a way that we now use the marimba.  The joy of the crowd is audible and an asset in these sort of shows, giving listeners an opportunity to escape the solitude of headphones.  This one isn’t for small kids, or at least it's only for the cool ones.   

It set the model for the hit family sitcom. Lucy was a bad girl trapped in the life of a ’50s housewife; her slapstick quest for fame and fortune ended in abject failure weekly. Both the antics and the humiliation entered the DNA of TV comedy, from “Desperate Housewives” to “30 Rock,”  writers can’t live without Lucy. Rapper Mellow Man Ace celebrates the breaking of an ethnic taboo; a drag performer celebrates Lucy as a freak. With novelist Oscar Hijuelos, producer Chuck Lorre, “The Mindy Project’s”Mindy Kaling, and a marriage counselor who has some advice for the bickering couple.

How do you build a monument to a war that was more tragic than triumphant? Maya Lin was practically a kid when she got the commission to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. “The veterans were asking me, ‘What do you think people are going to do when they first come here?’” she remembers. “And I wanted to say, ‘They’re going to cry.’" Her minimalistic granite wall was derided by one vet as a “black gash of shame.” But inscribed with the name of every fallen soldier, it became a sacred place for veterans and their families, and it influenced later designs like the National September 11 Memorial. We’ll visit a replica of the wall that travels to veterans’ parades around the country, and hear from Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel how this singular work of architecture has influenced how we think about war.  

When Malcolm X was assassinated at 39, his life story nearly died with him. Today “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” — a favorite of President Obama and Justice Clarence Thomas alike — stands as a milestone in America’s struggle with race. The autobiography is also a Horatio Alger tale, following a man’s journey from poverty to crime to militancy to wisdom. Muslims look to Malcolm as a figure of tolerance; a tea party activist claims him for the political right; Public Enemy’s Chuck D tells us, “This book is like food. It ain’t McDonald's — it’s sit down at the table and say grace.” 

Herman Melville's white whale survived his battle with Captain Ahab only to surface in the works of contemporary filmmakers, painters, playwrights and musicians. Kurt Andersen explores the influence of this American Icon with the help of Ray Bradbury, Tony Kushner, Laurie Anderson and Frank Stella. Actor Edward Herrmann is our voice of Ishmael and Mark Price narrates David Ives's short play Moby-Dude.

This one is weird.  There’s no other way to say it - it will make you feel uncomfortable things that are very relevant to our current world.  S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. is a fictional dialogue with a computer being trained to tell jokes by a human writer.  Well before an endless parade of thinkpieces on AI, Ross Sutherland’s piece questions the societal role of a creative person and the value we place on creative work.  In S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D., sound design is sparse but deliberate - the whole scene takes place in the sound of an empty room, as if you’re hearing a comedian workshop a bit before the club opens.  At first the jokes just seem unfunny, but they quickly devolve.  Eventually the sound of the room expands as it’s suddenly filled with the anxieties of a human training its replacement and the listeners wondering when it's coming for them.  The work is deceivingly simple but in that simplicity, it’s able to evoke the unimaginable.  Working with just two voices (well, one real voice) and some room tone, S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. goes deep into the cavernous intersection of passion and fear. This piece is also classic Ross Sutherland. A pioneer of audio fiction, Sutherland is known for his darkly funny scripts presented in unique formats (seriously, check out his audio puzzle series The Golden House).  S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. is more subtle than the cinematic wall of sound design we hear in contemporary audio fiction.  The writing and performance is what shines, creating a theatrical experience in between the ears.  And this piece of theatrical audio fiction has quickly become nonfiction.  And not just nonfiction like life, but nonfiction like documentary.   Evan Ratliff’s recent series Shell Game explores similar themes, using the host’s body of creative work to feed a voice clone and unleash it on the world and question existence.  Together they provide an interesting comparison between comedy written by writers and comedy written by computers.  That dialogue between real and fake remains continuously fresh, and Sutherland’s piece continues to be a monument to the creativity of writers.  Sutherland’s show Imaginary Advice has been publishing since 2014 and won Gold at the British Podcast Awards in 2018.

In honor of the WNYC centennial anniversary, we’re excited to publish this 1959/60 documentary that reflects a turning point for the largest public radio station in the country.  Footloose in Greenwich Village features an unnamed reporter exploring the “why” of Greenwich Village.  It’s a judgmental piece from the jump, but by the time you get to Beat poets you sort of understand why.  It’s a perfect picture of New York City: a cultural revolt bubbling in a few square blocks intertwined with the curiosity and ire of the rest of the city. We chose Footloose in Greenwich Village for Selects because it’s one of the first longform audio documentaries to be presented to a mass public.  Radio was built on recurring show formats - studio conversations, live radio plays, and news reporting.  WNYC was city-owned and focused its efforts on “instruction, enlightenment, and entertainment.” But with Footloose, WNYC employed a unique format to explore one of many countercultures in the city.  While the piece is laced with judgmental scripting and side-eyed interviewing, it offers a place for Beats and other residents to speak about their experience in their own words.  It features a unique gem from Ed Fancher, the original publisher of the Village Voice, and a surprising amount of ministers discussing their relationship to the community.  This is a documentary capturing a revolution simmering, yet to come to a boil.  It ends in Washington Square Park, essentially directing the listener to watch this space.  The work that we hear from WNYC over the next decade, and indeed the next 100 years, reflects the prescience of Footloose in Greenwich Village, both as a piece of reportage and a pioneering format for audio documentary.There are some incredible examples of writing and archival images that have been gathered around the WNYC Centennial.  Check out the NYC Archives post guided by the incomparable WNYC Archivist Andy Lanset here, with accompanying photos here.

There is no way a camera could capture the emotions that this documentary contains.  One year after September 11th, Marianne McCune takes you deep inside the heartbreaking experiences of individuals and families navigating the aftermath of living through that day.  We hear audio that WNYC reporters and Radio Rookies collected on the day of the attack, a chaotic and emotional soundscape filled with New Yorkers trying to piece together what just happened.  The documentary explores conflict, racism, and support all over the city and surrounding areas.  McCune goes further to investigate the psychological consequences of survival and trauma, offering insights into new understandings of PTSD.What we hear in this documentary is well beyond the words that are said.  We hear the pregnant pauses and wavering breath of individuals, families, and lovers trying to put words on the unspeakable.  We hear intimacy in its purest form, something that otherwise is kept behind closed doors.  Living 9/11 creates a primary source of the impact of that day on New York City and the complicated experience of a diverse population. McCune’s measured and empathetic writing poses the aftermath as an open ended question, one New Yorkers are actively negotiating and will be for a generation.  WNYC lives up to its reputation in this piece, creating a story that truly reflects the listenership it aims to serve.

August summer days can feel endless, and perfect for an hourlong program about poetry once described as “generally indecent and inexorably profane.”  In Walt Whitman: Song of Myself, host Carl Hancock Rux dives deep into Whitman’s iconic work Leaves of Grass and the poet as a person.  Listeners hear about Whitman’s unlikely journey from house painter to household name, and the catalyst his work has become for creative, social, and political vanguards. This 2018 special is thoroughly WNYC, presented in a classic acts and tracks format, including a full public radio bingo card (ie. opera, reenactments) but with a freshness that is unique to WNYC.  We quickly learn that Whitman was a walker.  Traversing New York City, cruising men along Broadway, and taking in the true beauty of the chaotic city and its passing strangers.  Among other things, the piece goes deep on Whitman’s horniness and sexuality, which Whitman himself embraced.  It also includes an incredible deep read explaining Whitman as “gay man at the opera” and acknowledging his full reinvention as a turn of the century hipster.  It explores “race, sex, and radical sympathy” not just Whitman’s poetry.  This special is the cool cousin of The Big Read, and it’s way more fun.And that’s why Walt Whitman: Song of Myself lands in Selects. It’s a work that defies the expectation of public radio documentaries. It reflects the diverse experience of listenership WNYC, the largest public radio station in the country.  And it sits in direct conversation with projects like The Big Read and similar literary documentary programs.  Alongside these more sanitized series, Walt Whitman: Song of Myself offers a controversial and erudite exploration of great American people: horny opera-loving gays cruising the streets and finding beauty in the mundane.  This programming is made possible by listeners like you, thank goddess.  

Are sports good for us?  One provocative question to kick off this legendary show.  For the first two episodes of this series, Biewen reports from greater St. Louis (including Ferguson) in the time between the murder of Michael Brown and the protests over the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the police officer responsible for his death.  The St. Louis Cardinals were in the playoffs and there was a chance for sports to reunite the city in a difficult time.  But faces of color are rare in the Cardinals’ stadium and questions of race and racism are top of mind for fans across the city.  So what can baseball do at a time like this?

This episode explores one issue that has seen a significant amount of movement since 2015 when the story was published.  We hear stories of LGBTQ women athletes, including assertive and almost proud discrimination against gay players at one of the most beloved women’s basketball programs in the country.  If you are not a sports person, or are a gay man, or both, it may feel comical to hear that someone tried to ban lesbians from playing basketball.  But sport remains a beacon of gender enforcement and many, many stakeholders have exorbitant power to discriminate accordingly.  On the one hand, less than a decade since this story was reported, we’ve seen a global celebration of LGBTQ women athletes.  On the other, the experience of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans athletes of all genders remains precarious.  This episode explores the nuance of gender and sexuality on the court and off.  If you are looking for some additional listening on this front, we strongly recommend Rose Eveleth’s new project Tested which is available anywhere you listen to podcasts.

In the third episode of the series, we hear from high schools on opposite sides of the country with two different approaches to the question of Native American team mascots.  Biewen acknowledges off the bat that rooting for a team is kind of ridiculous, but that team loyalties can cross geographic, racial, and cultural boundaries.  In one school, a unilateral administrative decision to change the mascot fails after a heated school board meeting.  In another, the student body pushes for change and despite another heated school board meeting, the name sticks.  This episode is about an issue that remains intractable across the United States, and how students in one school became the catalyst for an effort to change minds across the country. 

Biewen picks up where he left off in St. Louis, but he’s left the baseball field for a high school basketball court.  He explores questions of race and racism among members of a racially-mixed girl’s basketball team (a rarity in highly-segregated St. Louis).  It is now a few weeks after protests erupted over the non-indictment of Darren Wilson and the team has different views on the news, the reaction, and the reality of the experience for people in St. Louis.  But while this is at the center of the conversation in St. Louis, it remains undiscussed among the teammates.  Should it be?  Would it create conflict?  And how can it help or hurt bonds between teammates?

This was the episode that first attracted us to the Contested series.  It’s the first time John Biewen blew up something we thought we understood.  We’d rightfully written off sports talk radio as basic and lawless, a vestige of car rides with parents in the days before walkmen and and phones.  But when you stare into the void you begin to see the logic of it all.  In the Contested finale, Biewen takes listeners into the phone banks of sports talk radio and decodes the nuance of masculinity performed over the airwaves.  There’s a question producers ask in considering any story: why tell this in audio?  This episode remains a shining example of sonic journalism, taking a dive into something seemingly trivial to reveal much bigger stakes, and a story that can only be told in sound.  

In previous episodes, Contested explored race, sexuality, and culture through the lens of sports.  In this one, we hear how money plays into it all.  Biewen frames it as the intersection of sports and the American dream, but the cost of the American dream is really at the center.  Indeed, the myth of sports as a meritocracy is abundantly clear in the experience of young athletes in the city of Durham, NC.  We hear Black moms on the sidelines breaking down the cost of peewee football despite limited opportunity for professional success (and related scholarships).  Meanwhile, we hear a white family investing a significant amount in the lacrosse career of their high school son to foster his chances to  attend an elite college (despite having injured himself before starting school).  Biewen goes on to unpack inequality in how athletic scholarships are granted and begs the question: if it’s more likely that kids will become doctors than athletes, why do we continue pedaling the dream of professional sports?  This episode originally aired on the podcast State of the Re:union which is fantastic and available anywhere you listen to podcasts. 

This hourlong documentary is fiery and provocative, and frankly, it’s surprising that it was heard on national airwaves.  Lisa Dettmer asks a simple question: should same-sex marriage be the focus of the gay community?  Dettmer asks this question in 2010, and fourteen years later it remains highly relevant.  Indeed, at the time this piece  was made, the majority of LGBT folks identified economic discrimination as the most pressing issue facing the community.  Now, after a decade of gay marriage, we see a wealth and access gap in the Queer community, increased and formalized discrimination against transgender people, an an greater risk of homelessness or housing instability for LGBT youth.  The strategy to pursue marriage above all else has benefitted many LGBTQ folks, but has it divided the community instead of uniting it? This documentary offers a nuanced and pointed analysis of something you rarely see put forward for public consumption: internal debate among participants to a civil rights movement.  We can sometimes hear local radio debate topics of strategy (see the show You Don’t Have to Be Gay to Listen for some examples) but it’s rare to hear this kind of  ‘dirty laundry’ aired out so thoroughly over an hour.  Audio documentaries rarely immerse us so deeply in the complicated and emotional debates over something that is actively unfolding.  This documentary does exactly that, and in doing so offers a window into underrepresented issues in the LGBTQ civil rights movement and a mirror for those who rarely see themselves or their viewpoints given space on the radio.Beyond Gay Marriage was hosted and produced by Lisa Dettmer and co-produced bt Elena Botkin-Levy. Financial support was provided by Astraea Foundation and Making Contact at the National Radio Project. Lisa Dettmer is a radio producer with the feminist radio show "Women’s Magazine" at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California, which can be heard at kpfa.org/program/womens-magazine.  You can contact Lisa Dettmer at [email protected].  If you want to read an article based on this radio documentary go to: www.academia.edu/11699431/Beyond_Gay_Marriage_Assimilation_within_the_Queer_community?sm=b

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

Some might say I started this whole thing just to feature one minute and forty seconds of cat names sung in alphabetical order.  Others may grant me a more ambitious motivation.  Both would be right.  I heard this piece for the first time on Short Cuts in 2019 and then traced it further to Jesse Cox’s selections on Radiotonic in 2015.  Performance artist Joseph Keckler wrote and recorded this piece very early in his career in response to a creative writing assignment. To his surprise, it has since been broadcast in both the UK and Australia (“I never bothered memorizing it, but others have”).  Embarrassingly, only upon licensing this piece did I learn that Keckler has a massive catalog of equally delightful work.  But this one has been in my head for years. I play it for people on the street.  I offer these cat names as suggestions for baby names.  It resonates more than some of the most ambitious works of documentary audio I’ve ever heard.  Why? Keckler calls it the “shock of the obvious.”  To add a few more words, I’d say this piece slaps because it is ridiculous and fun. It’s surprising and adorable. It has zero stakes, but the structure and the pitch at the end gives it a bit of a storyline.  We talk about storytelling in such sweeping tones.  But so much of our communication with each other is recounting small things we observe, the funny conversations we overhear, and moments of delight we tune into while out in the world.  Cat Names is that to me.  Something to stumble upon, to share with others, and to cherish as one impeccable example of human performance. Joseph Keckler discusses Cat Names (and his work and process more generally) in this PEN DIY talk called How to Sing Yourself.

Spoiler alert: “Yes, yes they are. That was easy.”  This piece is such a buffet for the senses.  It evokes cartoonish images of animals painting and playing music, delivers that music to your ears (including a whole minute of it at the end that could be a Brian Eno track or something you’d hear at H0l0), and seasons it with Cole’s signature wit and  insight.  You can hear the question- are animals creative? - but the answer occupies the space between the ears.  It’s a stellar example of the curious journalism that has driven Cole’s work.  

Such a deceptively simple piece, Who’s Your Daddy? lets one interview unfold slowly.  As a listener, you don’t realize you are hanging on every word until you find yourself sitting in tepid bathwater shivering a little but not really ready to move because you want to hear what happens next.   This interview has a delightful twist at the end  and somehow uses a baby crying in a way that only enhances the ending.   There’s an idea that in audio journalism, the narrator is hosting a dinner party and is responsible for introducing the listener to all the guests, shepherding them around, and making sure they feel comfortable.  Well, this piece is the end of the night.  The narrator is exhausted and we’re just among friends.  There’s a little haze in the room, and we’re settling in for a great story. 

This piece showcases Cole’s willingness to examine his own role in documentary-making, immediately putting the listener in his reporting shoes for a front seat journey in making a story.  It was going to be this, but it ended up being that.  A unifying experience among anyone making anything.  His long cuts of interview tape include his own questions (and all of their charming doubts) which reflect our own as listeners.  But then, together your doubts fall away as he reveals the bigger picture.  We are left laughing and satisfied, each the reluctant “hammer” of our own career.Also FWIW - the staff of Life of the Law was brimming with iconic talent.  Julia Barton went on to be the founding editor of Revisionist History.  Kaitlin Prest produced this piece while making the groundbreaking podcast The Heart.  Ashleyanne Krigbaum (“Wam Bam Ashleyanne…making earbuds sing and booties shake since 2008”) has worked on every banger Campside show and a million others.  Shannon Heffernan made and hosted Motive for WBEZ before going to The Marshall Project, and Nancy Mullane hosted Life of the Law (where this piece aired) for nearly 150 episodes on stations across the U.S.  This show is still available as a podcast that you should definitely check out. 

This hour-long documentary has everything you need for good radio: old people with heavy accents, something you cannot see, and a question that no one ever thinks about.  Where does Boston get its drinking water?  As it turns out, the answer is that  the town of Dana, Massachusetts was flooded in order to create the Quabbin Reservoir.  Hauntin’ the Quabbin’ gives former residents and their families an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between community and place, and all that was lost.  There isn’t a fight about urban development or an environmental scandal driving the piece.  Instead, it’s a quiet story about what used to be and how we should honor those things,  a window into a dying tradition that relishes in the way that experience becomes lore. This hour-long documentary has everything you need for good radio: old people with heavy accents, something you cannot see, and a question that no one ever thinks about.  Where does Boston get its drinking water?  As it turns out, the answer is that  the town of Dana, Massachusetts was flooded in order to create the Quabbin Reservoir.  Hauntin’ the Quabbin’ gives former residents and their families an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between community and place, and all that was lost.  There isn’t a fight about urban development or an environmental scandal driving the piece.  Instead, it’s a quiet story about what used to be and how we should honor those things,  a window into a dying tradition that relishes in the way that experience becomes lore. 

Tolan explores the story of Palestinian Bashir Khairi’s relationship with Dalia Eshkenazi Landau, a Bulgarian-born Israeli who moved into his childhood home.  Bashir’s father had planted a lemon tree in the backyard of that home. Its continued growth was a symbol of Palestinian dispossession and occupation to Bashir, and a symbol of hope for a devastated Jewish people to Dalia. The story starts when Bashir knocks on Dalia’s door and a friendship blossoms.  Listeners are swept up in their intertwined lives and the fates of their communities.  We hear Dalia and Bashir begin to understand each other, and later struggle with how complicated their friendship has become.  When Bashir is jailed for his alleged role in a supermarket bombing, the friends do not speak for years.  They finally reconcile and begin working together to convert the house into a daycare for Arab children in Israel, and a center for dialogue between Arabs and Jews.A dialogue is exactly what the production achieves.  With minimal narration, listeners go back and forth between Bashir and Dalia speaking about the slow process of accepting one another without always finding common ground.  The documentary is a masterclass in nuance, offering voices that are introspective and loving, but also doubtful and angry.  More importantly, The Lemon Tree is a reminder of all that is at stake, and all that is still possible in a region that is ever more divided.  Listening in this moment feels imperative. The stories of Dalia and Bashir form a personal microcosm of the last sixty years of Israeli-Palestinian history. Awards: Overseas Press Club Award for RadioThe Lemon Tree was produced by Sandy TolanThe Imaginary Village was produced by Sandy Tolan and Melissa Robbins.  

"Mei Mei" chronicles Dmae Lo Roberts and her mother, Chu-Yin, as they travel to Taiwan together.  Dmae seeks an opportunity to grow closer with her mother, but the trip ends with them not speaking.  First produced in 1989, Roberts’ documentary is highly personal and was groundbreaking for its time--weaving interviews and dramatizations to tell the story of a conflicted daughter and her mother who suffered abuse, starvation and the horrors of World War Two. Mei Mei is Chinese for "little sister", a term of endearment for any younger girl,  but one denied Chu-Yin, who was sold twice as a child to families that abused her physically and emotionally.  Using interviews and dramatizations, Roberts investigates her mother’s experience. “This isn’t about me,” Roberts says at the top. “I don’t hate her,” she says at the end. This dissonance plays throughout the work, with Roberts’ narration delivered brashly and matched only by her mother’s impatient responses to probing questions she’s answered before.  But after revealing her mother’s several suicide attempts, Roberts’ tone breaks and she embraces their fiery relationship.  The sound of Mei Mei has been carried forward by contemporary audio documentary, inspiring an approach to sound design that underpins projects like The Heart and Radiolab. The blend of nonfiction interview and dramatizations - once passé - has returned and been central to recent projects like Magnificent Jerk. But even more broadly, Roberts' work remains a foundational piece of memoir,sing sound to transport the listener into another’s life and the most personal and intimate relationship between parent and child. Awards: 1989 Peabody Award

In Memorial, the simplest piece of this trio, Roberts uses a textured blend of narration and voicemail messages to document her mother’s decline and death.  Coming off Mei Mei and Lady Buddha, listeners are well-acquainted with their tense dynamic, with Chu-Yin’s abusive childhood and her later inability to assimilate into American culture.  We are already immersed in Roberts’ wry perspective, her atheism with purpose, and her desire to truly know her mother.  Fourteen years since listeners were introduced to Chu-Yin, we’re present at her death.  We accompany Roberts as she evolves into the role of caretaker.  We hear her mother’s tone soften and their relationship take a different form.  Memorial is a beautiful exploration of the loss of a voice in your life.  

Nine years after Mei Mei, D. Roberts documents her search for a better understanding of her mother’s worship of Kuan Yin, an Asian Buddhist goddess of compassion and mercy.  We heard of Kuan Yin in Mei Mei, as a divine intervention that saves her mother during a suicide attempt.  In The Journey of Lady Buddha, we go deeper.  We learn about 33 iterations of Kuan Yin that are embraced by Asian women of a certain generation. Roberts dramatizes the most popular parable of Kuan Yin, in which a princess gouges out her eyes to save her controlling father.  The princess transforms into Kuan Yin after releasing all hatred, and ascends to enlightenment with her body restored in multitudes.  Roberts hears these stories and considers her own strained relationship to religion, and how that has affected her connection to her mother and grandmother.   We learn about gegu, the Chinese practice of a child using its own flesh to nourish a dying parent.  Roberts jokes “good thing Ma’s life doesn’t depend on gegu!”  This playful banter between interview, narration, and dramatization is Roberts’ signature style, and it gives this piece a theatrical flare that captures the fantastic essence of both her deity and her mother.Awards: Heart of America 

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

A bunch of Pearl’s friends donated a memorial tree in honor of her dog Cola, and we get to attend a bittersweet planting.  

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

We join Pearl in a closed bar at 10AM, to join  feisty NYC seniors taking a twirl around the dancefloor. 

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.

The first time I heard one of Amy Pearl’s Good Things, it was sandwiched in a morning of news featuring politics, pandemics, and climate change.  I’m pretty sure it was the Dog for a Day episode, and I nearly adopted a dog that afternoon.  Most striking is the sheer delight of these pieces.  Each has a sense of adventure as we’re invited to relish in the small joys of a big city.  They are rich in ambiance and offer a window into a unique period during the pandemic, a time when many people spoke about the death of New York City.  Though short, each of these works is mighty, and each reflects the expertise that Pearl brings to the craft. For nearly 30 years Amy Pearl’s work appeared all over WNYC’s airwaves and podcasts.  Her credits include the beloved 10 Things That Scare Me and basically every major show at WNYC: The Brian Lehrer Show, Radiolab, On The Media, Soundcheck, and Studio 360.  And you can hear the editorial precision of her news training in Good Things.  Just the good, ma’am.  Indeed, as overly-written shows have proliferated at the hands of cash-strapped studios, Pearl’s work gives us something we desperately need: TAPE.  She takes listeners out into the world.  She quietly and powerfully delivers the sound of New York.   For the record, I’m aware of how many of these are about dogs.  But is any Thing more Good than a good dog?  Also, a little listening tip: sprinkle these throughout your day or week, listening all at once may cause a toothache.