Listening Old School...

Radio.  I'm old enough to have heard radio shows on my grandmother's radio.  I came in at the tail end of it, though.  TV was coming into its Golden Age.

Fast forward a couple of centuries and I am again listening to radio.  On the internet. BBC radio in particular. It turns out that Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection is being broadcast on BBC 4, read by Toby Jones (only a couple of episodes left, though). He's doing a good read and the voice is just right for the mood of the book.  It's hard for me to keep up, since I don't know the scheduling.  Almost missed episode 2.

There is also a production of Dr. Who. A whole production, not just a reading. Complete with sound effects. ::big sigh::

That kind of radio requires me to be tucked up in bed or on the sofa under something comfy. Preferable with the lights off and nothing else to do. It's my radio listening set up, the one I established when I was still in high school. This was back when FM radio still had some flexibility.  The DJs were unique.

I would listen to Rocko or Jonathan Schwartz, or Alison Steele, the Nightbird. That was the way I first heard The Velveteen Rabbit. Lying on the long sofa that was my bed on my grandmother's porch. It's how I spent the last two years of high school, listening to the very large radio that stood at one end of the sofa keeping me company through the night. I don't remember the music as much as I remember listening to the voices. 

Looking up Schwartz on Wikipedia, I found that he left WNEW-FM the same year I left New York. No coincidence. I'd stopped listening to that station by then. My life had shifted away from a porch life with a very large radio keeping me company.

  I'm not the sentimental type.  I don't live in this time but look at it my foundation.  When I listen to radio on the internet, it is because what I am listening to is a reflection and a continuation of what I have lived, happily, with before.  Alison, Scott and Rosko are still with me as I pull up the covers to listen to the next episode of Unwin's adventures as a hapless detective.

I will leave you with this, however.

Seeing More Red

One of the pleasures of discovering an author is discovering their favorites and influences. This has definitely been the case with Manual of Detection author, Jedediah Berry (I love his name!). Evidence from his novel reveals the expected Kafka (read in school) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, especially the movie). Reading interviews and his blog reveal other pleasantly surprising influences. Fairy tales, magical realism, and Italo Calvino can be added to the list. He got to tour Edward Gorey's house and used that as inspiration for one of his short stories -- appearing in the anthology Cape Cod Noir (next on my reading list).


One name that showed up as influential was Angela Carter. I'd never heard the name before and was curious. Can you say "Red Riding Hood meets the Werewolf"? Angela Carter is a late-century British author known for her gothic- surreal-protofeminine-magical realist fiction. Okay, so I made that up. I needed a basket to put all of her in. I've ordered a collection of her short stories and will report back when I've read a few. Meanwhile, there is a movie made from one of her short stories : The Company of Wolves. Anyone seen it?