Soundblog Post 6

Soundblog Post 5

My So-Called Lungs:

Girlfriend:

Soundblog Post 4

A Change of Plans:

Tim King, a soon to be president, became a teacher in hopes for it to further push his career plan of becoming president. He became friends with a student named Keith and they developed a close relationship. Keith's mother died later, and one thing led to another. Eventually, Tim became Keith's father. Now Tim runs a charter schooling organization to help "all the Keith's of the world" live a good life and be loved. Keith works in that organization and still considers Tim as family. This story as well as the one below it is from The Moth, however requires iTunes to listen to. It should be noted, however, that the story below this one can be viewed without iTunes. Five questions I might have asked to make this story work would be:

• Could you briefly explain your childhood and career plans?
• What stopped you from becoming president?
• Could you tell me about your relationship with Keith when you and Keith first met?
• Could you tell me about how you and Keith became family?
• Where is Keith now? How is he doing?

The six major points I could find from this story that help make the story as good as it is are: the part where Keith says "Why can't you be my dad?", because it was a very shocking question that is hard to answer; Tim's thoughts afterwords such as how this would ruin his plans of becoming the first black president of the US, because it gave some very good insight to Tim and who he was prior to adopting Keith; the point when Tim said "yes", because he only said that word, and it seemed that because it was one word, it described a very sharp turning point in his life (the entire story changes here); the part where he describes how Keith had to live like an adult and now was able to live like a kid again, and how Tim was living like a kid with a bank account, and now has to live like an adult; how Keith is now grown up, went to college, and became a teacher for the organization that Tim leads, which specializes in changing the lives of people like Keith; and finally the text message at the end of the story which read: "Our family is at the basketball game. Where are you? You should be here.". At the end of the story, Tim gets teary eyed because he reads the text again and the beginning of the text reads "Our family".

Beyond My Viewmaster Dream:

CPR Blog 1

The book I want to read is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My brother spoke well of the book, and I would consider this book to be a classic. I have not read it yet, and so I decided to give it a shot. The book is apparently about a court case and I have never been disappointed by court case stories and have actually found them to be quite interesting. It also deals with racism and from what my brother has told me,brings up deep-thinking questions about humanity. I always like books like that. I often find those books to be the most memorable.

A lot of my family loves reading classics, and I have grown up around classics all my life. I am the only one in my family who hasn't read this book, and I figured that it was about time. Naturally, since my family loves reading classics, this book was readily available and I didn't have to go out and spend my own money on the book. This definitely helped in persuading me to pic this book as my first choice. I look forward to reading it.

Soundblog Post 3

Split a Gut:

Julian McCullough, a comedian, tells a story about his ruptured appendix. Although the injury is serious, being a comedian, he manages to make you laugh throughout the entire story. However, there are still parts that put that knot in your stomach that comes with hearing others' pain. This blog posts' stories are from This American Life. If this was an interview and I had to ask some questions to get the answers that would make this story, I would ask:

• Where did you start feeling pain? When did you start feeling it?
• Did you have healthcare? What did you do?
• Did you feel any addicting sensations from the morphine shot?
• Since you didn't have healthcare, how much did you have to pay for a bill?
• Did your friends help you out?

This story was very funny. I think this helped to make it successful as it put me at great ease on a subject that would normally be something to become queasy over. He still added details that would from time to time make me sick, but he also put jokes on it that made me laugh so loud the rest of the house heard me. Those details were: That his family's cure for problems was to "wait a few weeks", that he described the doctor as "the man who decides who gets to live" which I found to be hilarious in spite of the issue in the story, the complication with his past drug addiction problem in relations to the morphine shot, his description of how doctors should send the hospital bill in comparison to how they do now, his friends' solution to the money problem, and his solution that he came up with: $20 at a time.

Don't Make Me Separate You:

Steve and Dorris Darst divorced when one of their daughters, Jeanne, was 16. For a very long time, even though they were divorced, they didn't live together, but always near each other and joined each other for various occasions. They practically dated each other. This story is Jeanne's description of their relationship. If I could ask some questions to make this story what it is now, they would probably be:

• Can you describe your dad for me?
• How would you describe your parents' relationship?
• Did your mom ever go far away from your dad or vice-versa?
• Can you tell me some stories about your parents being together after they divorced?
• What do you think caused your fathers' asthma attack?

This story is kind of funny as well, but in a more dry sort of way. The details that make this story work are: the Christmas story in where she provides character to her mother and father as individuals so that we can see how they might have broken up based on their personalities and quirks; the Birthday story, where we see one of their fights in more detail; the part where she describes her mother's trip to Florida, which shows that the parents are incapable of leaving each other; The scene describing various fights they had in detail including the one time when they decided to live together for a short while, including the mention of how long they had done this fiasco; and finally, the part where her father says that their divorce "just didn't work out", which is a slight joke on the saying because it is usually used to describe a failed relationship rather than describe a failed divorce.

SoundBlog Post 2

Wake Up and Dream:

Steve Volkis a reporter who has been having a recurring dream for 20 years. This dream would happen when he has been under a lot of stress or anxiety and would show up 6 or so times a year for the 20 years that he has had them. He consults the studies of Stephen LaBerge, a scientist who scientifically explained the evidence behind lucid dreaming - the ability to be consciously aware of your dream and manipulate what happens in them. This story is about his studies and the results in his recurring dream. Questions I might ask regarding this story to reproduce answers similar to what is told in the podcast are:

•  How often did you have this dream? For how long?
• What might have caused you to have this dream?
• What is lucid dreaming?
• What happened when the guy walked in the door?
• How did you feel after waking up from your lucid dream?

I think the thing that made this podcast so interesting was the dream itself. The history on lucid dreaming was useful to keep track of the story, but the dream itself was where all the crazy interesting things happened. The details that I think made this story work were: When he said that he had it 6 times a year for 20 years, which showed just how big of a problem this nightmare was and gave the viewer a reason to care; when he mentioned that he was angry enough to feel sick and punch the air, it became an even bigger issue to me as I have never felt that angry and began to wonder what could cause such a thing; when in the dream, he decided to open the door, it created a whole new story from the one we were used to, which kept me personally interested to find out what happens next with this new twist; when the stranger pulled the gun on him and when the bullets didn't affect him; and finally when after the dream, he still felt like superman and had a newborn confidence to go with the lack of nightmares.

As a side note  I was thinking about what I said in my last blog post. I mentioned that I would be switching from StoryCorps to another source. I noticed that including StoryCorps, there are seven sources on Rachel's DP. These two are from RadioLab. I think I will try to visit each of the remaining 5 sites over the next 5 blog posts.

A 4-Track Mind:

Bob Milne, a ragtime pianist (and as proclaimed by the library of congress, a national treasure), is able to "play in his head", 4 symphonies at the same time. He was prompted at arbitrarily different times to imagine 4 different symphonies. When prompted to, he would have to sing out loud the next string of notes from any arbitrarily chosen symphony. They tested his accuracy by playing a cd of all the symphonies into different headphones for the scientists to follow in sync with the timings to which he should be imagining the symphonies. This means that his tempo and notes would have to be perfectly accurate. They were. I had a hard time coming up with questions for this one, but I think they would be:

• What happened at the facility? What did you do in the tests?
• Did any of the symphonies clash?
• How does Bob handle this musical feat?
• What emotions do you affiliate with different keys?
• Do you imagine yourself in the symphony? What do you picture when you hear these symphonies side by side?

I think the major thing that made this podcast interesting to me, is that Bob is a much more extreme version of myself. I too associate emotion with different keys, but not nearly to the extreme that he does. I too visualize my passion (which is more math rather than music), but not nearly as detailed or extravagant as what he visualizes. I also hated playing piano when I was younger, except my mom didn't make me play it so I don't currently. I definitely couldn't keep track of four symphonies simultaneously (however I am confident that with enough time working at it, I could be able to keep track of two). The details that made this podcast work in my opinion were: the description of the experiment itself as well as the fact that he was completely accurate; his associations of emotions with each key, such as the C key; his description of how he can see even the wrinkles on the tuxedos of each musician in the orchestra in his head; and of course the ending where the people who run the podcast say their gratitude at the same time. I had to go back through it a second time to catch all of it.

SoundBlog post 1

I just hugged the man who murdered my son:

Mary Johnson's son was murdered in a gang fight by Oshea Israel when Oshea was 16. He was sent to prison until he was released at the age of 34. Mary met Oshea as he was released from prison. Now Mary and Oshea have a very good relationship. This story is about their relationship and their meeting at Stillwater Prison. This story is from storycorps, and so no questions were asked. If I had interviewed both Mary and Oshea, I would ask the following questions to get the information that would make the sound clip that is on the site:

Mary:

• How did you feel when you saw Oshea when he got out of prison?
• What happened to put you and Oshea in such a good relationship?
• Do you see Oshea as a member of your family?

Oshea:

• What happened when Mary met you at Stillwater Prison?
• Mary says she has forgiven you. How does this make you feel?
• Do you guys have conversations? Can you give me an example of one?

One thing that made this story so captivating is this bizarre concept that instead of having an eternal hatred for the man who murdered her son, Mary has a very good relationship with Oshea. It seems like every detail that helps to keep the story interesting is the details that explain how such a relationship was formed and details of the relationship itself. 

These details would be: the explanation of the story at stillwater, the hug that followed, that she treats Oshea as she would treat her son, the conversations that she and Oshea have, that she looks forward to seeing Oshea graduate and get married, just as any mother would with her own son; and finally, the most important detail (and my favorite part of the story), when Oshea says "I love you lady." and she replies with "I love you too son."

As a sidenote, I found it to be very difficult to find interesting stories that met the length requirements in StoryCorps, so I think next time I will look on another site.

There's a form we fill out and it's called 'On My Death.':

Father Mychal Judge was the first official victim of the World Trade Center incident on September 11th. On Mychal's "On My Death" form, he requested that Michael Duffy, a close friend of Mychal's, do the homily at his funeral. This story is Michael's description of various events following the incident (such as the funeral) as well as audio tape recordings of Michael speaking as the homilist. like the previous story, this one was from StoryCorps and so no questions were asked. If I were to ask 5 questions to get what was said in the interview (not the recordings), they would be:

• What is the 'On My Death' form?
• How did you feel when you learned that Mychal Judge wanted you to be the homolist? How did you react?
• What events lead to you becoming the homily?
• In the audio recordings of the funeral, you said that you felt "that the homolist at Mother Teresa's funeral had it easier" than you did. What made you feel that way?
• Many people were at Mychal Judge's funeral. Why was he so popular?

There were many things in this story that kept me interested. Most of them had to do with the tape recordings. It was in those recordings where you saw true emotion. The story starts off with an explanation of the 'On my Death' form, but right after, jumps to some comic relief as if to brace the viewer for the sadness that will follow. He says when he sees Mychal again, he is going to kill him, which is light humored joke that helps to prepare the viewer for sadness and the recording that follows talks about how the homolist form Mother Teresa had it easier than he did. One important detail that follows later is that he said he couldnt put on his glasses to read what he prepared, which means his speech came from the heart and was not pre-composed.

The next detail that I think is important is the story of Mychal Judge not wanting a thing in the world. That he was the happiest man alive. This gave off the impression to the viewers who didn't know him, that he lead a very happy life. Another important detail was when Michael talked about how Mychal Judge was liked by everyone for how kind he was. This tells the viewer that his death was one that many people took very seriously. Finally, the most important detail in my opinion is when Michael says that "We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love." That was the moment in which I cried for Mychal Judge and all the people that knew him.