it's about time
I was gleeful (ok, maybe "gleeful" is a stretch...) when I woke up this morning and remembered that today is the day my local NPR station boots Performance Today in favor of two new talk shows. Yay! I hate Performance Today which, until today, used to run from 9am until 11am. That's two solid hours of classical music, no talk!
You know, I don't completely hate classical music, but I'm selective. First, the time and place have to be right. (Every day from 9am to 11am doesn't begin to match up to my minimal classical music needs.) And, of course, the selection is important. Nice piano nocturnes are ok. And thundering Beethoven strings are good too. But woodwinds make me a little cranky and, throw in some brass and some goddamn xylophones and I'm ready to slit my wrists. I guess it's a matter of taste (or -- I'm willing to admit -- the lack thereof).
So now they've farmed Performance Today out to the all-the-time classical station a few hitches down the dial and I say 'good riddance.' In it's place are two, hour-long talk shows that seem promising. One is called Here and Now and it sounds like your standard NPR talk show, I caught the last bit of a woman interviewing a man who is protesting "view tax" added to property tax when your house has a great view. He called it "the wow factor" and thought that wasn't good enough.
I didn't hear enough to form an opinion, but I felt gleeful again when, at the end of the broadcast, she welcomed Oregon to the fold and announced that we were the newest set of stations to start playing her show. Yay! We're here! We're listening! We're so relieved that we don't have to turn off the radio every day between 9 and 11, to be left only with the sound of our own pathetic thoughts!
The second show is called "World, Have Your Say" which is a BBC program that seems like it will be a global version of Talk of the Nation. So far, I've only listened to a few minutes of it, but... I'm not so sure about it. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the announcer is loud and he sounds a little bit argumentative. In fact, he keeps interrupting his guest. That's annoying. How I long for the dulcet tones of Neal Conan who wouldn't *dream* of interrupting a guest, unless he really, really *had* to. Hmm. Well, as the theme song of my favorite childhood show says, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have: the facts of life. The facts of life."
Yeah. So. There you go.
You know, I don't completely hate classical music, but I'm selective. First, the time and place have to be right. (Every day from 9am to 11am doesn't begin to match up to my minimal classical music needs.) And, of course, the selection is important. Nice piano nocturnes are ok. And thundering Beethoven strings are good too. But woodwinds make me a little cranky and, throw in some brass and some goddamn xylophones and I'm ready to slit my wrists. I guess it's a matter of taste (or -- I'm willing to admit -- the lack thereof).
So now they've farmed Performance Today out to the all-the-time classical station a few hitches down the dial and I say 'good riddance.' In it's place are two, hour-long talk shows that seem promising. One is called Here and Now and it sounds like your standard NPR talk show, I caught the last bit of a woman interviewing a man who is protesting "view tax" added to property tax when your house has a great view. He called it "the wow factor" and thought that wasn't good enough.
I didn't hear enough to form an opinion, but I felt gleeful again when, at the end of the broadcast, she welcomed Oregon to the fold and announced that we were the newest set of stations to start playing her show. Yay! We're here! We're listening! We're so relieved that we don't have to turn off the radio every day between 9 and 11, to be left only with the sound of our own pathetic thoughts!
The second show is called "World, Have Your Say" which is a BBC program that seems like it will be a global version of Talk of the Nation. So far, I've only listened to a few minutes of it, but... I'm not so sure about it. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the announcer is loud and he sounds a little bit argumentative. In fact, he keeps interrupting his guest. That's annoying. How I long for the dulcet tones of Neal Conan who wouldn't *dream* of interrupting a guest, unless he really, really *had* to. Hmm. Well, as the theme song of my favorite childhood show says, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have: the facts of life. The facts of life."
Yeah. So. There you go.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 10:04 AM
2 Comments:
how interesting! I just wrote you an email raving about the BBC show, i loved it! the pace, the clarity, the bossy presenter, and the international voices represented. such a relief after the same old same old liberal or right wing american voices... he was strict, that presenter, strict like my school teachers were strict. but i can see how to american ears it might have been too much. but to mine, dulcet tones!
that's funny. well, i'll be sure to give him more of a chance tomorrow. i really only listened for a few minutes. it was the interrupting that got me. i didn't get a chance to hear all the international voices, although i did wonder about the pool of people who would be available to call in: all with access to international dialing, all listening to the radio at the right time, all english speaking. i guess there are plenty of people who qualify, though. which is pretty cool.
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