Laura Occasionally Blogs

Because I'm now something of an expert on the subject, here's a brief guide to some of the distinctive personalities of NPR, in approximate order of how much I like them.

Sarah Vowell: Recurring contributor to This American Life, historical essayist, and voice of the girl in "The Incredibles." Nerdy, pale, bespectacled, with a high, clear, nasal voice. Discusses her own life (small-town geekery; being allergic to things; music nerdery ranging from indie rock to recorder) or presents an interesting story from American history. Both types of stories are great.

Robert Krulwich: Science correspondent on various news shows and co-host of Radio Lab. Explains complex science ideas without dumbing them down using metaphor, informal language, and various fun and experimental radio techniques--music, radio playlets, he's game for anything. Conveys amazing enthusiasm and delight without flinching from hard truths. His Radio Lab partner Jad Abumrad is also good at this, and when they discuss their opinions and emotional reactions to the issues, I usually side more with Jad; but I admire the way Robert is able to approach science with such wonder and humanism and heart. (He's been doing this a long time. I heard a piece he did in 1983 on "Playback." His voice has gotten better with age.)

Terry Gross: Host of "Fresh Air," the daily (!) hour-long interview show. She is without question the best interviewer I've ever heard: she researches her subjects exhaustively beforehand, so she is always conversant with the interviewee's field of interest/accomplishment, and she knows just how to get them talking excitedly about the projects they love. She seems to know instinctively when to press to get deep and surprising answers, and when to change the subject. Because it's a daily show, she frequently records live and lets little slips of the tongue, etc. go, which I find just charming. My favorite parts of every show are whenever she thanks the interviewee--they always thank her back, sounding amazingly sincere--and whenever she says "FRESH Air!"

Jay Allison: Mostly he seems to be a behind-the-scenes producer. His name is on a lot of compelling and compassionate pieces for This American Life, Hearings Voices, and Radio Diaries. He seems to generally assist other people in producing their own story a lot. There are a smaller number of pieces in which he actually speaks, and those tend to be quite funny. So he's sort of a double threat, in a good way.

Scott Carrier: Recurring contributor to This American Life and sometime host of Hearing Voices. Slow, sad, wistful voice. Seems to always be doing pieces about some fate-tempting thing he did for no reason. The job he took interviewing schizophrenics was one thing--as he explained, he needed the job at the time, and he got out when he started seriously questioning his own sanity--but I don't understand the stories about hanging around the proving grounds in Utah, driving across the country in a broken truck because he saw a sign that said "Ocean City Maryland, 3,200 miles", and begging to be hypnotized into losing his memory. He seems both melancholy and mystical, yearning, yearning to be someone else or something else or to know that there's more to life than just this. It's sort of interesting that he can convey that in a piece about looking for snakes as a kid but I feel weird if I listen to too much.

There are many others. I have not, for example, mentioned Ira Glass. This is largely because it is impossible to evaluate Ira Glass. He is not good or bad; he Is, the way the sun or the Rocky Mountains are. It is also because I need to leave room for another entry.

I don't know if I noticed this the first time I watched My So-Called Life, but Jordan Catalano has the most adorable little nose and eyelashes the length of babies and he's an absolutely first-class leaner and he sings very romantic songs to his car and he wears about eleven different rings and shirts with too-long sleeves and he can't read, which is sexy. If he were a D&D 3rd ed. class he would be a barbarian. I am going to write a letter with all my feelings about him and leave it lying around in a museum. Also maybe he would have levels in bard. You don't automatically learn to read if you take levels in bard, do you? If you take the levels in bard first and then the levels in barbarian, do you forget how to read?

Sometimes he seems smart but just uneducated--that's what Fred Hollywell Pretending to Be American said, anyway--but then they have conversations like this (bear in mind this is the most speech we've heard him volunteer, like, ever):

JORDAN: You know those guys? Up in the mountains? 
ANGELA: What guys?
JORDAN : Who make snow. Like as their job?
ANGELA (confused): Oh... yeah.
JORDAN: That's what I want to do.
ANGELA: ...You mean like part-time, or...?

A++++, My So-Called Life. A++++.