%s1 / %s2

Playlist: O'Dark 30 episode 170 (4-14)

Compiled By: KUT

Caption: PRX default Playlist image

KUT's O’Dark 30 is now in semi-prime time with more of the very best from the world of independent radio production. Sunday nights at 10 on Austin's KUT 90.5 we present 3 hours of a wee bit of everything from the world of independent radio production.

Episode 170 (4-14) includes Spring Skiing...What Was left Behind...Food is Culture--Morocco...99% Invisible #70- The Great Red Car Conspiracy...John Coltrane...Kidnap Radio...Life Stories - Jobs: Women at Work...The Kindness of Strangers...#26 - The Secret...Big Chief Darold...Illegal Mail from Jacorey of Blunt Youth Radio...A Mardi Gras Sisyphus Story

Spring Skiing

From Hearing Voices | Part of the Scott Carrier stories series | 03:58

A day of spring skiing in the Wasatch Range.

Sc_scottwrite_small When most people are headed to the beach, our producer heads for the ski slopes near his home in Utah. Carrier explains that the combination of freezing and thawing in the late spring gives the mountain snow pack a special quality that makes for a unique skiing experience.

What Was Left Behind

From Eric Winick | 15:20

Arriving at her family's storage space in Syracuse, NY, a Brooklyn-based writer and mom is surprised to find the contents far more plentiful and significant than expected. And now, with her four year-old daughter in tow, she has to figure out how to deal with it.

Storage_space_small Story by Lisa Lerner, from the files of Yarn AudioWorks.

Lisa Lerner is the author of the novel Just Like Beauty. You can read her latest short story, Childhood, at www.swinkmag.com. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her daughter, a rabbit, and a bunch of stuff she probably doesn't need. 

Food is Culture--Morocco

From Jake Warga | 03:15

A culinary tour of Morocco, where food and culture are Inseparable.
Piece ends 3min, trailing out music.

Warga_morocco_09_small A culinary tour of Morocco, where food and culture are Inseparable. Piece ends 3min, trailing out music.

99% Invisible #70- The Great Red Car Conspiracy

From Roman Mars | Part of the 99% Invisible (Director's Cut) series | 12:30

If you think you know this story, you probably have it backwards.

99invisible-logo-square-for_prx_medium_small

When Eric Molinsky lived in Los Angeles, he kept hearing this story about a bygone transportation system called the Red Car. The Red Car, he was told, had been this amazing network of streetcars that connected the city—until a car company bought it, dismantled it, and forced a dependency on freeways.

If this sounds familiar, it might be because it was the evil scheme revealed at the end of the Robert Zemeckis’s 1988 movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

 

But like most legends, the one that Eric heard about the Red Car is not entirely accurate. It’s true that Los Angeles did have an extensive mass transit system called the Red Car, which at one time ran on 1,100 miles of track—about 25 percent more more track mileage than New York City has today, a century later.  

 

But the Red Car wasn’t the victim of a conspiracy. The Red Car was the conspiracy. 

Our reporter Eric Molinsky spoke with historian Bill Friedricks, who says that to understand the Red Car, you first need to know about Henry Huntington, one of the major power brokers of Los Angeles. If you’ve ever heard of Huntington Beach, Huntington Park, or the Huntington Library, this is that Huntington.

 

Henry Huntington was the nephew of railroad magnate Collis Huntington, who mentored Henry and taught him the family business. When Collis Huntington died in 1900, Henry expected that he would inherit his uncle’s company, Southern Pacific. But Southern Pacific’s board didn’t want another Huntington in charge. They forced him out, but gave him a $15 million payout (about $400 million today).  

Henry Huntington took his money and headed for Los Angeles. He purchased the biggest transportation system in the city, The Los Angeles Railway (LARy), and then incorporated it into a new company called Pacific Electric. Huntington also started building hundreds of subdivisions on the periphery of Los Angeles, and used Pacific Electric trains—bright red trolleys—to connect the subdivisions to downtown Los Angeles.  

Over time, though, Huntington had built so many subdivisions that his Red Car couldn’t do a good enough job connecting the city’s disparate areas. The Red Car was never designed to be a comprehensive system like the New York City Subway; rather, it existed primarily to get people in and out of Huntington’s subdivisions. Angelenos who could afford cars found it was easier to get around by driving. The Red Car fell into disrepair, and was mocked as a “slum on wheels.”

Eventually, Southern Pacific (the company Huntington thought he would inherit from his uncle Hollis) bought Pacific Electric, and in 1926 they offered Los Angles a massive plan to use public dollars to build subways and elevated trains around downtown L.A. But California voters didn’t trust Southern Pacific, which had meddled in California politics for so long that people called it “The Octopus.” The people voted against the plan.

 

Red Car routes were decommissioned, and bus routes and freeways would eventually replace the Red Car entirely. The last Red Car ran in 1961.

 

But if you look carefully, you can still spot evidence of the old Pacific Electric Railroad company, especially around Santa Monica.

To find out more about the Red Car, check out Bill Friedrick’s book, Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California (which you can read, in entirety, for free!).  

Or, you can just go play L.A. Noire.

 

No longer an Angeleno, Eric Molinsky is now based in Brooklyn, where he makes radio and draws people on the subway.

John Coltrane

From KUT | Part of the KUTX Liner Notes series | 02:34

Jazz legend John Coltrane offered a spiritual dimension to the jazz conversation and continues to inspire innovation amongst musicians today. In this short segment rabbi Neil Blumofe highlights some of Coltrane's most transformational works and adds a spiritual perspective to the importance of his music in our lives today.

Playing
John Coltrane
From
KUT

John-coltrane-bprx_small Jazz legend John Coltrane offered a spiritual dimension to the jazz conversation and continues to inspire innovation amongst musicians today. In this short segment rabbi Neil Blumofe highlights some of Coltrane's most transformational works and adds a spiritual perspective to the importance of his music in our lives today.

Check out KUT's Views and Brews conversation on John Coltrane and Jazz and The Spiritual Journey recorded live at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas.
http://kut.org/2011/06/views-and-brews-conversations-at-the-cactus-cafe-4/

Kidnap Radio

From Atlantic Public Media | 20:23

"I was 19 when my father was kidnapped in Colombia. It was 1999. My mother came to my college campus to deliver the news and I flew to Bogota to be with my family for a few weeks. (My mother is American, my father’s Colombian and they divorced when I was 5.) After that, except for brief trips for a wedding and a funeral, I didn’t go back to the country where I was born until I traveled there to report this piece in the spring of 2009." -Annie Correal (read more here: http://transom.org/?p=6037)

Phpthumb_generated_thumbnailjpg_small

"I asked my father to meet me in Bogota for a long weekend in April so that I could interview him. I had heard bits and pieces about the kidnapping in the intervening years – when I would visit our family– but in the course of our interviews I realized I had known very little about what he’d endured: All I knew was our family’s side of the ordeal.

My father’s kidnapping began on November 22, 1999 and ended August 13, 2000. He was kidnapped by the FARC and kept in 38 different places, spending the first months of his kidnapping alone, with only his guards and a radio, for company." Annie Correal
(read more here: http://transom.org/?p=6037) 

Life Stories - Jobs: Women at Work

From Jay Allison | Part of the The Life Stories Collection series | 59:07

Three portraits of women working - A pastor, a seasonal worker, and a judge

Lifestories These are public radio stories made over many years, by producer Jay Allison -- working together with Christina Egloff, and friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers and whoever would take the loan of one of his tape recorders. They are are stories about life as we find it, and record it. HOST: Alex Chadwick In this hour: A Pastor's Journal (27:23) For two months, the pastor of Park Union Church in Chicago kept an audio journal chronicling her daily life and thoughts about the career and the calling of the ministry. Produced with Rev. Susan Johnson and WBEZ Chicago. After Labor Day (2:44) A short meditation on the end of the summer's work and the long winter ahead from writer Carol Wasserman. Produced with Viki Merrick. Retiring the Robe (27:05) On the occasion of her retirement, this Chicago judge borrowed a cassette recorder, and with her family, reflected on her 18 years on the bench. Produced with Judge Susan Snow, Brent Runyon and WBEZ Chicago.

The Kindness of Strangers

From Kirsty McQuire | 06:15

One woman's philanthropic mission comes full circle.

Kindness_4th-sept-2011_small During the leap year of 2012, Bernadette Russell embarked on a mission to complete 366 Days of Kindness. Her efforts were prompted by the riots that spread through her adopted home town of London and across English towns and cities, between 6th and 10th August 2011.

Bernadette has left sweets in phone boxes, books on trains, £5 notes on buses. She has given away balloons, cakes, flowers and lottery tickets, written letters to a soldier returned from Afghanistan and offered her socks to the homeless. She practiced ‘targeted’ rather than ‘random’ acts of kindness but she says she ‘expected nothing in return.’

Bernadette is now turning her 366 philanthropic experiences into a stage play, in collaboration with Jacksons Lane Theatre in London and with support from Birmingham Rep and Forkbeard Fantasy.


#26 - The Secret

From HowSound | 18:58

Canadian producer Carma Jolly on first-person essays.

Playing
#26 - The Secret
From
HowSound

Howsoundfinallarge_small

Initially, "The Secret" by Carma Jolly seems like it might be a story about Carma's brother and his near-death experience caused by Spina bifida .

But then, about four minutes in, the story takes a sharp turn and suddenly "The Secret" is about Carma and her depression and suicidal tendencies -- two topics rarely discussed publicly. I actually turned up the volume on my radio as that plot twist played itself out, a surprising bit of narrative magic. In that moment, I was hooked by the story and Carma as a producer.

"The Secret" originally aired in 2004 on Outfront , an incredibly inventive, daily radio program produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Carma worked for Outfront for many years. She's now a producer for CBC's Tapestry and a sound artist .

Got your ears on? You'll need 'em for this HowSound.

Big Chief Darold

From Stories from Deep in the Heart, a project of Texas Folklife | 05:25

Curious about the presence of New Orleans culture in Austin after Hurricane Katrina, a group of Akins High School youth producers meet a New Orleans chef whose artistic vision and deep cultural connections teach them about the meanings of identity and tradition.

Chief_2_2_small Curious about the presence of New Orleans culture in Austin after Hurricane Katrina, a group of Akins High School youth producers meet a New Orleans chef whose artistic vision and deep cultural connections teach them about the meanings of identity and tradition.

Illegal Mail from Jacorey of Blunt Youth Radio

From YouthCast | 14:30

Jacorey is an aspiring radio producer who's working on a degree in radio broadcasting at Southern Maine Community College. He is also incarcerated at the Long Creek Youth Development Center.

And although you have to walk through five locked doors to see Jacorey and his friends at Long Creek, if you want to hear them, just press play.

Kristinbradley_small

"They write letters back and forth from female residents to male residents or vise-versa" Jacorey told me.  Then, they put the letters under trashcans or in hiding places for the other to find.  At Long Creek, they call this note passing "Illegal Mail."

In his piece, Jacorey interviews his friend, the "King of Illegal Mail," as well as Ms. Peevey, a staff member who confiscates these clandestine love notes.  Jacorey is trying to understand why "illegal mail" is against the rules, and why some of his friends do it anyway.