"This I Be . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
For the past two mornings as I've walked the dogs, I've started to tear up as I've listened to NPR. Yesterday it was as a grown daughter interviewed her father for the StoryCorps project. The father raised four daughters while battling severe depression. He describes the condition as being like walking down the street at night when a huge dog charges you, growling and barking; that "moment of utter panic and fear," he says, is with you 24 hours a day. The daughter recalls, as a child, hearing her father crying in his bedroom at 5 a.m., "just terrified to take on another day." The story is a loving and poignant tribute to family and to prevailing over pain.
This morning I got varklempt while listening to a show I'm only rarely up early enough to hear -- Soundprint. But a certain dog I know insisted on a walk earlier than usual and nothing else would appease her. Today's show, called "Making Faces," was about an improv workshop for kids with "facial differences" -- cleft palates and lips -- that helps them gain confidence and see that there are others like them after being hurt by bullying, stares, and name-calling their whole lives. Most of the show is fairly upbeat, but there's one moment when a little girl gets choked up while talking about the importance of getting to know the person inside the face, and her words did the same to me. The story wouldn't have had nearly the same effect if told by anyone else about her. It's the best kind of radio -- real people speaking unself-consciously for themselves.
Speaking of which, is it just me or does anyone else think NPR's weekly "This I Believe" segment is the radio equivalent of a fourth-grade film strip on the wonders of agriculture? The first-person essays are so consistently stilted, musty, and boring -- I don't think my mind has failed to wander once while listening to them -- and such a missed opportunity that I've finally given up on even wanting to like them. One of their worst faults is their ponderous virtuousness. I blame the way they're selected and produced more than I do any individual story. Naturally, I saw in a publisher's catalog that an anthology of the essays will be coming out later this year.
This morning I got varklempt while listening to a show I'm only rarely up early enough to hear -- Soundprint. But a certain dog I know insisted on a walk earlier than usual and nothing else would appease her. Today's show, called "Making Faces," was about an improv workshop for kids with "facial differences" -- cleft palates and lips -- that helps them gain confidence and see that there are others like them after being hurt by bullying, stares, and name-calling their whole lives. Most of the show is fairly upbeat, but there's one moment when a little girl gets choked up while talking about the importance of getting to know the person inside the face, and her words did the same to me. The story wouldn't have had nearly the same effect if told by anyone else about her. It's the best kind of radio -- real people speaking unself-consciously for themselves.
Speaking of which, is it just me or does anyone else think NPR's weekly "This I Believe" segment is the radio equivalent of a fourth-grade film strip on the wonders of agriculture? The first-person essays are so consistently stilted, musty, and boring -- I don't think my mind has failed to wander once while listening to them -- and such a missed opportunity that I've finally given up on even wanting to like them. One of their worst faults is their ponderous virtuousness. I blame the way they're selected and produced more than I do any individual story. Naturally, I saw in a publisher's catalog that an anthology of the essays will be coming out later this year.
posted by Billy at 8:45 AM
4 Comments:
It's the kind of story only radio can do ... it would have been mucked up on TV ... we would have spent too much time looking at her face and not hearing her words.
Tell "P" to take a chill pill and let Daddy sleep ... she get you anything for fathers day ??
DMP
long time listener - 1st time caller
The This I Believe book is out
A few have been really good
many are a bit stiff
or somehow trying too hard
I think the Life as Haiku series
in the Washington Post
- makes a meaningful hit more often
I, too, find myself frequently getting all misty from the StoryCorps project interviews AND my mind wanders during the "This I Believe" segments as well. I think your fourth-grade film strip analogy is dead on. Please turn at the beep. *beep*
i read this last entry a day or 2 ago and don't have the patience to reread it :) did you already call this i belie.. a bit pompous and occassionally sanctimonious? well if you didn't, that's what you meant. i think you did state (and i concur) that it was very mannered, forced or something along those lines. it reminds me of a professor in undergrad who is very well respected in his field and always spoke like he was imparting great wisdom to his pupils. gag-o-rama.
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