Footlight Parade is basically a good excuse to listen to some of the best and most classic songs from over a century of American musicals. This program is based around when famous characters meet and while it's not going to grab on to listeners who don't care for musicals in general, and make new fans (I count myself among this group), I think anyone hearing it will be singing along at some point or another ("I Could Write a Book" got me at about 15 minutes in). The production values are great -- the musical numbers sound perfect-- and it's really nice to hear the full songs.

This show or series would sound great on a weekend evening or night. I like that the host basically sticks with his short, pungent intros and outros so we can back to the music as soon as possible. One thing I would have appreciated that this episode doesn't do would be to have some representation of newer, more alternative musicals -- for example some Robert Wilson or Stephen Trask songs.

Scott Carrier's quick audio tour of Angel's Landing in Utah's Zion National Park is like a nice summer vacation in the middle of winter. The writing is fantastic, the voices varied and fun, the music and bird songs adding a really nice atmosphere. Listening to the piece gives me the same exhilaration that I think the people feel after making the climb. Only here I am, listening to the radio -- not so strenuous and none of the cardiovascular benefits.

This piece will play great as winter turns to spring and people in your area start thinking about going outside again. If you're going to do a talk show about hikes or domestic summer vacations, it'd be a nice way to break from your guests and give a little experiential radio to your listeners.

Eve Abrams' exploration into a Brooklyn neighborhood's block party provides a chance to hear some of the interesting slice of life stories that define a neighborhood. There's a good diversity of voices here: young, old, lots of different accents and some nice, heartwarming anecdotes. Sounds like a nice place to spend an afternoon.

This piece has a distinctly summer air about it. It would fit nicely on a show about neighbors or even ethnic diversity and community. The accents give a very distinctly New York feel to it, but the issues and conflicts are applicable to any urban neighborhood, I think.

This 14+ minute personal essay does threaten to go off track from time to time but I was suprised at its ablity to snap back with enough twists and turns and actual suprises to make the self-aware narrator's navel-gazing funny, intelligent and, in the end, worth it. It's a refreshing take on a well-trod topic and could find a nice home on any station with a good-sized college audience or during graduation time. The mix of essay with tape and sound effects / music works well.

Despite the horrible pun setting up this show about Nagib Mafouz ("Nagib Mafouz has died, leaving behind a body -- of work ..."), this is an important piece of radio, especially these days when examples of an Arabic intellectual tradition are far over-shadowed by the terrorist threat and Muslim extremism. What Radio Netherlands has put together here -- a hybrid of interview, scored readings and reported feature -- is a great introduction to Nagib Mafouz, the ideas behind his most famous works and the underpinnings of the rich cultural tradition he belongs to. It would fit great in any slot meant for books or culture in general.

This is an interesting idea -- I'm generally very interested in anything synesthetic -- but this goes on a bit too long. I hesitate to think what a listener who missed the first few seconds (i.e. the intro) would think because the tones end up sounding a lot like the Emergency Broadcast System!

However, this would be a very fun piece at about 1/2 its length. A good way to pull listeners in with a "what the heck is that ... Oh, cool!" type approach.

Don't listen to this piece expecting to be scared or frightened. What's interesting about this piece is that it becomes very clear in listening to it exactly how much more sophisticated we've become as media consumers; how much more we demand these days from our radio, our television and our movies.

Carl Nelson's abject fear, which the announcer assures us is genuine and caused a sensation across Europe, sounds almost quaint by our standards today. It's hard to believe that listeners would fall for this. But what this shows me is that our own expectations today -- what it would take to illicit any kind of emotional reaction -- are so much higher than they were 50 years ago. I don't necessarily read this as greater "sophistication" or anything like that. More like an emotional callousness that takes more and more shock, more and more drama to break through.

Sujata Tuladhar's tale of becoming a DJ in Kathmandu is an interesting story of cultural conflict and experience, but ultimately left me scratching my head a little bit. On the one hand, yes this is an interesting story and would fit on any show that values pieces about cultural exchange or personal transformation, all done in a very specific NPR style.

But on the other hand, she was hosting an American country and western show in Kathmandu. To me, a story about why country music resonates in Nepal is a fascinating question that's never answered in this piece. it left me scratching my head thinking, what about that?

Well, regardless, Kathmandu is a nice piece.

Wily Coyotes in the City alerts us all to the growing problem of coyotes in American cities. Though this piece focuses on the Midwest, I live in Los Angeles and know that we have coyotes out here too. I've seen them. In fact, my girlfriend saw one take a kitty one day. It was horrible.

Anyway, this piece alerts us to the growing problem of coyotes in the city and what law enforcement and researchers are doing about it. It's an important topic and this piece would fit into any program about wildlife, the environment or community problems.

This Radio Netherland's 1/2-hour special on the lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte does about as much as you can with a basic hosted interview. The author who's interviewed, writer of a recent da Ponte biography, is very knowledgeable and clearly excited about his subject. He speaks in emotional tones, clearly amused, perplexed -- an excellent storyteller. The piece uses voiceovers and music in a very engaging way.

However, the piece still suffers from what ails most extended two-ways -- if you're not inherently interested in opera, Mozart or da Ponte, the piece does little to explain to you why you should be or why da Ponte is important. As for me, not being an opera fan, I never really got caught up in the piece.

This piece would fit great wherever an audience is hungry for well-produced conversation about classical music or opera.

I love radio and I love dogs. So hearing this episode of The Plan is like a dream come true. The stories are engaging, humorous, sentimental and sweet. It made me think about dogs and people and why we have such specials bonds with animals ... especially when it seems like those bonds between people are fewer and farther between.

The sound design is excellent and the pace of the show moves right along -- always engaging. For extra excitement, listen to this special with your dog and watch what happens when the barks and yelps reach fever pitch. It's interactive radio at its finest.

Not to get all cliche, but this episode of the plan does have a very summery feel to it. It would sound great on a weekend afternoon. This is a really great show that will pull your listeners to it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this Radio Netherlands special on night paralysis and night frights. It starts off fairly typical and dry, but as soon as it goes to tape and people start talking about their dream experiences, I was hooked. The sound design -- mostly scary music and sound effects -- threatened to get cheesy, but instead worked throughout.

The bulk of the 29 minute show is an interview with a dream / brain scientist who's explaining what we know about dreams, nightmares and night paralysis (not very much, lots of speculation) and he's interesting enough. But the best part are people describing their horrible dreams and what they've been through. Creepy!

Also, towards the end, the doc talks about the cultural implications of these specific types of nightmares and that's fascinating. Surprisingly, however, there's very little discussion of the spiritual aspects of these types of night terrors.

This show would be great to program around Halloween. Or, if I were a program director, I'd put it on randomly at like 3:30 am -- just to let all those lying awake in terror know that they're not alone out there.

If there was a radio hall of fame, both Jay Allison and Joe Richman would be founding inductees and it's a real pleasure to hear the two of them talk about their craft. Very rewarding. The features in this show are all excellent and extremely compelling.

However, though The Transom Radio Hour is intended to be a look into the craft of making radio, I wonder if some of the conversation is a little too "inside baseball" and whether listeners will be engaged or turned off. Could go either way. That said, as soon as the radio diaries start playing, I think anyone would be hard pressed to turn the station.

This episode of Outright Radio consists of two pieces about gender difference. In the first, a person born as a woman explains how he has always personally identified as a man, and how he then became a man, socially. In the second, a woman who identifies sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman talks about how gender fluctuates in her life and how she uses that fluctuation to make social and political points.

I find this topic very interesting, however, I was left a little disappointed by this show, which is basically two interviews with some narration. Gender is a such a hot topic and passions around it run so high, yet these people all speak very dispassionately about their own lives. I would have loved to hear some moments from these peoples every day experiences and the experiences of those around them. They talk a lot about controversial things, but I never heard the controversy itself.

On the other hand, perhaps for some this would be a plus. Rational conversation about controversial topics is few and far between these days.

All in all, I'm rating this a three because the subject is by its very nature an exciting and interesting one. However, I'm not sure this show would reach out, grab me and hold my interest.