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Here's a voice you'll be hearing more of, and not just because she's tooting the best set of alto pipes to come across the ether recently.

Here's a voice you'll be hearing more of,

and not just because she's tooting the best set of alto pipes to come across the ether recently. Sarah Elzas offers the mic to some folks you haven't heard from, and so achieves Job 1 of a public radio news feature. What really shines here is that "On the Tip of Aggravated" is absent contrivance -- that bogeyman of pubrad assignments, especially those dealing with "kids". Instead, this story is filled with people you'd be interested to talk to, if you weren't scared off by their old clothes or young age. Perfect for radio.

The title comes from 13-year-old Isis's psychological self-assessment, how it feels to be out of a house but still in school, dealing with the cruelties of adolescence. Elzas probes the back halls of students who sound as regular as other teens, except their crashpads are long on crashing and short on padding. "On the Tip" provides the primary source – real students talking straight – and commentary from Agnes Stevens, who advocates for homeless students in LA. Elzas successfully reveals these children as pieces of you and me, like so many people we haven't learned yet.

The end comes too quick, but this is a broadly-airable length. There's plenty for listeners to learn in this five minutes of a classroom without walls.

Geo Beach
February 15, 2005

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