I grew up in what I now know was a magical time, although I then thought it was senseless cruelty. We were the only family in the neighborhood that did not own a television, and I was forced by default to get my media fixes by listening. I had an entire set of LPs (long-playing records) produced for radio by an organization named "Let's Pretend." These records, using only voice, Foley, and occasionally music, drew the listener actively into whatever story was being told. If the listener demanded a visual image of the story, he/she had to create it mentally. My father was a big radio fan, and whenever we drove anywhere with him, the family had to (or got to) listen to his favorite radio shows, Amos and Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly. Every episode of Fibber McGee and Molly (as far as I could tell) entailed one of them opening a closet in which, apparently, all of this couple's worldly goods were stored, followed by about five minutes of sound effects of stuff crashing, clanging, banging, plopping, and bouncing out of the closet. My father loved that moment and waited for it, and it never failed to disappoint him. I do not know if there was a name for this kind of humor -- perhaps sound gags -- what we now would call sight gags. These shows took full advantage of their auditory medium, as did the local radio of that day. For instance, a local radio station had a contest named something like 'name that sound' in which they would create some Foley effect such as slicing a watermelon or ripping wax paper and award cash prizes for identifying the sound.
Thus, it was a sort of poignant moment (well, two-plus hours) to sit and listen to these selections from This American Life. It was like being transported back in time to when people listened to (instead of watched) something -- and for a whole hour!! Although I enjoyed the two selections I chose, I realized I was able to sustain attention for an hour partly because each ("20 stories in 60 Minutes" and "A Little Bit of Knowledge") was broken up into smaller bits of stories told by various people with varying voices. However, I also listened to "Two Steps Back," because I had a great deal of inherent interest in it, as it was about a teacher who was thinking about quitting her job in frustration over meddling by bureaucrats. However, the production was too monotonous for me to sustain interest, having only two voices, a recorded news clip, and an occasional random jingle-like music bed.
Maybe it's because I am not from the northeast, but I find Ira Glass' voice curiously annoying. However, I found the segment "20 stories in 60 minutes" intriguing and amusing. It was interesting how some of the clips were designed intentionally to take advantage of the non-visual medium, such as Act Five, the sound of no hands clapping, in which all we hear are the sounds of scallops clapping. My nominations for best use of voices would have to be Act Six, the pee in the pudding clip by the two teenage boys and Act 11, etiquette, which has changed my image of unscrewing a jar lid indelibly forever.
In general, though, I felt that most of these bits did not use the full potential of the medium. Most used only voice when even a tiny punctuation, such as a few notes on a double bass or rattle of drum beats (such as in Act 19) could have made a huge difference. I felt similarly about "A Little Bit of Knowledge," but for some reason, I appreciated more the delivery of the presentations, as in the comedic pacing of, for instance, Modern Jackass. I really related to the theme of holding on to misinformation from the past, and I think I will propose something similar for the podcast I will be working on. The stories and the voices of this segment were great, but virtually bereft of, say, a music bed or any type of supporting sound effects. I remember a double bass line in Baked Chicken and a random Perry Como song after Tissue Box, but little else. On the clip And Daddy Makes three, the silence effectively underscored the gravity of the subject matter, but Sucker MC Squared could have benefited from at least some background sound. Maybe there was more audio support than I realized and it was so seamless I just missed it. Or maybe it's simply because I grew up with a wide array of purposeful sound effects.
Educational Gaming
16 years ago
2 comments:
Your story about listening to the radio with your dad got me thinking about something: the only real addition from radio to television was the addition of moving images to correspond to the voices, foley, and occasional music that convey stories with a sense of time, place, and mood.
If you liked Act 11, which is a piece written and read by David Sedaris, you should check out more of his work. He's one of those writers that can eternally change your perspective toward very ordinary things.
Your final comment about possibly not noticing the sound effects/music beyond the speaking voice was interesting because I think it is easy to tune these out. I think that we have gotten so used to subconsciously processing this information that it is difficult for us to actually hear it sometimes. I do agree with you, though, that the shorter pieces in the 20 acts episode did make it easier to focus on this. I also appreciated your discussion of old time radio shows (rebroadcasts of which one of my colleagues is obsessed with listening to on XM radio) because of the ways in which they had to learn to make use of all available audio modalities.
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