More from Jay Allison
Butterfiles of Michoacan (A Postcard from Mexico)
(00:03:17)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell tells about Michoacan and the Day of the Dead and the monarch butterflies. Like all Carmen's pieces, it's very personal, but reaches out with a delicate ...
Hotel Isabel (A Postcard from Mexico)
(00:04:33)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell writes about her travels in Mexico and one of her favorite enchanted cheap hotels, the Hotel Isabel "on the edge of time." This piece was produced in 1999, ...
Garden of Eden (A Postcard from Mexico)
(00:05:57)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell with another lovely meditation on the mysteries of travel and her semi-magical, melancholy life in Mexico. Like all these pieces it was recorded in the late ...
San Miguel (A Postcard From Mexico)
(00:04:17)
From: Jay Allison
In this essay, Carmen Delzell tells how she initially left Texas and moved down to Mexico with no ability to speak Spanish and $600 cash from used stuff she sold. She writes ...
Lost Boyfriend (A Postcard from Mexico)
(00:03:31)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell tells about how her boyfriend left her Saltillo, the town where she's living in Mexico. She looks for him, but can't find him, even with magic spells. His ...
Smuggling For Christmas (A Postcard From Mexico)
(00:04:08)
From: Jay Allison
In this 1999 essay, Carmen Delzell talks about smuggling toys and gifts across the US border into Mexico to give to the people in the village where she lives. The piece is ...
Time in Exile (A Postcard From Mexico)
(00:03:34)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell talks about what her life is like living in Mexico, how she's happier than ever, but in ways she never imagined. This essay was recorded in 1998, but it's an ...
Off The Bus
(00:05:23)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell gets of a bus in Texas at 4am. She's coming back from Mexico with $5.00 in her pocket. She puts her bags in a shopping cart and records this monologue by the ...
Crazy John
(00:06:03)
From: Jay Allison
Carmen Delzell was homeless for a couple of years in the early 1990's. This piece was produced in 1996, after she got on her feet and was living in Austin, Texas. It's a ...
EZ Malone
(00:07:24)
From: Jay Allison
On her way home from her grandmother's funeral in 1996, Carmen happens to meet a remarkable African-American guitarist in a thrift shop in North Carolina. His name is EZ ...
Related Pieces
Piece Description
In 1966, a young marine took a reel-to reel tape recorder with him into the Vietnam War. For two months, until he was killed in action, Michael Baronowski made tapes of his friends, of life in fighting holes, of combat. 34 years later, his comrade Tim Duffie brought Baronowski's three-inch reels to Lost & Found Sound. The Vietnam Tapes of Lance Corporal Michael A. Baronowski aired on NPR's All Things Considered on the 25th anniversary of America's withdrawal from the Vietnam. The documentary shed light on the experience of that war, and, in some measure, of all wars. It used the power of radio to reveal the heart through the voice and to see in the dark. It combined the rare talent of the late Baronowski as a "correspondent" from the front, the compassion of his dedicated platoon mate Duffie. This program struck a universal chord with listeners--with those who fought the war, those who protested it, and those who weren't even born at the time. It generated perhaps the greatest outpouring of response in the history of NPR's All Things Considered to date. The documentary won the first Gold Award in the Third Coast Audio Festival competition.
3 Comments
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Review of The Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. BaronowskiThis piece hit me so hard I had to listen to it twice in a row, just sitting there at my desk. For someone of my generation (I'm 22), whose knowledge of the Vietnam War was little more than a series of cliches about protests and government mistakes, this documentary brought the war to life. Airing this piece at any time would make a vast impression on listeners, but especially now, as our country struggles with another controversial war in Iraq, we need radio like this to help us experience what war is really like, |
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Review of The Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. Baronowski
What can I say? There is a reason why so many people love this piece, it's amazing. It's not the sound quality which isn't that great (but come on, 35 year-old magnetic tapes gathered in the wet jungles of Vietnam... it's amazing for that). But, there is no sound so personal as this piece. I am the foxhole with him. He's whispering in my ear.
Amazing. I've never accidentally used a hang grenade as a microphone. |
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hilde de roover
Posted on November 07, 2005 at 06:14 AM | Permalink
Review of The Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. Baronowski
‘These Baronowski-tapes are a real find ’…any radio producer would agree… ‘Having these tapes as raw material to work with: what a treasure! You just can’t go wrong with them’.
But that’s exactly the pitfall: ‘cause you could go very easily very wrong with them, turning them into a sentimental melodrama. Thank god, this didn’t happen with these tapes!!! And there lies the real treasure of this radio piece: in the sincere processing of the tapes and in Duffie’s unpretentious, down-to-earth recounting of ‘how it was’ and ‘what happened’. No manipulation of sentiments and emotions, no frills. It’s presented raw, sober, very realistically, very ‘simple’: here we were, two ordinary guys in an unordinary setting: fighting holes in a war zone.
Duffie and Baronowski are in tune with each other: Baronowski’s taped voice describing impressions, surroundings, thoughts, longings and Duffie looking back, reflecting, remembering their shared experiences in the Vietnam war. Two voices in symbioses, sometimes profound, sometimes wondering, sometimes even funny, but always real. Two voices connected, confronting the listener with a touching story.