Behind the Mic with Crystal Sarakas

Gobbledigook

I've been listening to the new Sigur Ros album non-stop lately. Here's a shortened version of one of my favorite songs (so far):

testing, testing...

Have you ever been so busy that sometimes all you can do is just sit and stare because your brain won't accept anymore input?

I certainly have.

The latest piece in the Thinking Green series aired this past week. It should be up on the website soon (vacation took some needed people away so it's pending until they return). I'll post a link as soon as it's up. There are more Thinking Green pieces in the works - I'm hoping to visit a farm in August to see how some farms are actually converting manure into energy, then there are more pieces coming up on the local food movement, farmers markets, the Ithaca CarShare, green funerals and more and more. I'm loving the series and it's been really cool to see my co-workers start to make those little eco-friendly choices in their own lives. I've been stopped in the halls many times to answer questions about recycling and reusable grocery bags. At the July 4th gathering of my husband's family, some friends were quizzing me about straw bale houses and wanting to know where they can find out more information.

Speaking of recycling, producer Jennifer Matoney is taking an excursion from her work on the Expressions series on TV and is doing a few pieces on recycling for the radio series in July. We'll be working on the editing together next week and I think it's going to be a very insightful piece looking at the question of 'so, what happens to my recycling after they truck picks it up?' I'll be sure to update and let you know when it's going to air.

You may have noticed my voice on-the-air at a bizarre hour this past week. I've been filling in on Morning Edition (Gregory Keeler decided he deserved a vacation). It's been an interesting experience, mostly in turning my body-clock completely on its head. I'll be filling in for ME (that's the insider lingo for the show) Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Tuesday, I'm filling in as the guest host for Off the Page since Bill Jaker is off (what is up with that vacation thing anyway??). I'm looking forward to the program - I'll be interviewing Tim Gallagher from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology about his new book, Falcon Fever. You may know Tim's name from his previous Off the Page experience - Tim is one of the guys who reported  seeing the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2005 and subsequently wrote a book about the team's search for the ivory-billed woodpecker in The Grail Bird. His new book is about falconry, a sport he's been involved since he was a kid. It's a wonderful book and should be an excellent program.

When Legos rules the world

I loved Legos as a kid. Not the kits like you can buy now, where almost everything is pre-assembled for  your ADD pleasure, but the giant box of Legos that you assembled one-by-one into whatever structure your mind imagined. I was also a big fan of Lincoln Logs, and had a grand time building cabins and garages for the cars and planes I made out of Legos.

Fellow fans of those toys will really appreciate this photoset over on Flickr. The user known as  Balakov has recreated several famous photographs, using the Lego minis as the "people." You'll find his version of Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, Tiananmen Square, the D-Day Landings, and my favorite, the Moon Landing.

I love it when people let their creative side rule.

Fizzy peanuts...

My co-workers have heard my story of how you order a soft drink back in my home state of Texas:

Waitress: What do you want to drink?   

Me: A coke.

Waitress: What kind?

Me: A Dr. Pepper/Sprite/Coca-Cola...

In fact, when I moved to New York eleven years ago, I had absolutely no idea what the whole soda vs. pop thing was all about. 

One of the other things we did growing up was to put peanuts in our Dr. Pepper. (We also put cornbread in a glass, poured milk over it and ate it with a long spoon.) So I was all kinds of delighted when I saw the subject of Dr. Pepper and peanuts on one of the blogs I read. The author of Homesick Texan lives in New York City but, like me, has fond memories and wistful dreams of that certain cuisine you just can't find in New York. If you want a peek into what those strange Texans like to eat, then read her blog.

Of course, I don't think it's all that weird. Not like those boiled peanuts Scott Hollis brought to work one day (he's from a different part of the South)...

Now I'm craving a cold Dr. Pepper with some salty peanuts. I think you should try it too and tell me what you think. Even better,  I'll bring some Dr. Pepper and peanuts to our next radio staff meeting and have my colleagues try it. I'll report back with their reactions.

In concert: world fusion with Jami Sieber and Steve Gorn

Tonight's Soundscape features a few tracks from Jami Sieber and Steve Gorn. They'll be performing in Ithaca this coming Saturday, June 14th at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, 306 N. Aurora, Ithaca.

I only heard Jami Sieber's music for the first time this week, when I found out about the concert and the promoter was kind enough to send along a couple of CDs to play on the show. I'm really enjoying the music - I'm a fan of cello music in all forms and it's the one instrument I really wish I could take up, even at my advanced age. 

I've also been equally fascinated with elephants my entire life, something that Jami Seiber shares. In the liner notes to her CD, Hidden Sky, she writes about her experience playing music with the Thai Elephant Orchestra:

There, at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, I met Phong, the young elephant who played a xylophone (renat) and kissed me on my nose with his trunk, and Prathida, the drummer who followed the movement of my bow with her trunk as I played. With them and at least eight other orchestra members, I experienced a mystical collaboration I had never known before. This communion has forever changed the way I see and feel the natural world.

I found this video which shows some of the footage from Jami's visit with the Thai Elephant Orchestra:

Steve Gorn, the other featured musician at the concert, performs on the bansuri flute. Here's a clip of a live performance a few years back.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to make the trip up to Ithaca (those darn gas prices!) but if you have the chance to go to the concert, I think you'll really enjoy. If you see me there, say hello. If not, leave a comment and tell me what you thought of the concert.

Kitaro - Matsuri o

This is what I've been listening to tonight. It's the perfect music to listen to with the windws open and the sound of the peepers and the scent of honeysuckle drifting through on the breeze.

...

I'm a somewhat fanatical news listener when it comes to NPR news. I listen so much at work and at home, anytime I get into the car and even when we're on vacation, I'm finding the local NPR station so I can tune in. Even so, and probably more so because of the sheer number of hours that I listen, I find that it really takes a lot these days for a story to stop me in my tracks and make me pause everything I'm doing and just listen.

That's happened to me twice in the last week. Last Monday, I was absolutely transfixed by the This American Life episode about the housing crisis. While I've certainly followed the story in the news the past few months, this particular program was one of the most educational (and appalling as I learned some of what was behind the mortgage crisis) episodes I've heard on This American Life. I highly recommend it.

The other story came today during All Things Considered. Hours later, it's still very much with me and I'm not entirely sure I know how I feel about it. It's the segment with Melissa Block, who follows a couple in Dujiangyan frantically trying to get an excavator to a collapsed apartment building, looking for their parents and their son. She interviews and follows the couple as the search takes place, and then, she's still recording as word comes back that those searching have found bodies.

The sound from that story is haunting. When I heard it this afternoon, I was in the middle of prepping for my own work during ATC and I just stopped and sat at my desk and listened. And cried.

There has been a lot of talk in various online places about how all the NPR reporters got to China so quickly to send all this coverage back. The truth is that those reporters have been in China for a few weeks, doing stories and blogging in preparation for the Olympics. It was supposed to be an entirely different story. They just happened to be there when this massive earthquake hit. 15,000 dead so far - which is something I just can't picture. There's no real world experience in my life that gives me any way to imagine it. But what I can picture is that one couple, waiting for hours only to find out that their family is gone. I'm not sure that mental image will every go away.

Excuses, excuses...

Monday's Music will return next week after an unexpected hiatus. I wish the hiatus had happened because I was off on vacation (preferably either buried in London bookshops or watching whales off the coast of Alaska) but the real story is much less interesting - I've just been that busy.

In the meantime, I want to point you to NPR's Song of the Day site. I've added their listing to my RSS feed and have been introduced to a lot of really cool new-to-me tunes. That's where I discovered Vienna Teng and where I finally got over my distrust of the hype and checked out Band Of Horses (note to fellow skeptics: the hype may be spot on for a change).

In the meantime, I'd love to know who you're listening to these days. I'm always looking for new tunes to add to my daily playlist.

Going green...

A couple of months ago, Ken Campbell (our fearless leader in radio) and I sat down to talk about my latest idea for a series. We had been kicking around the idea of doing something relating to climate change and the environment that would be of special interest to listeners in our region. Those discussions have turned into Thinking Green, which launched on Earth Day (April 22) with a call-in show that I hosted.

More pieces are in the works and there's a number of green-related news articles going up over on Everyday Thinking, the science and nature blog. But I also wanted to work on this series on a more personal level and decided that I would blog about the changes I'm making in my personal life that I hope will have a positive impact on the environment.

My good friend, Laura Intscher, is what I call my personal 'green guru.' She was one of the guests on the Thinking Green call-in program and is very inspirational in that she really walks her talk when it comes to living green. We sat down together to make a list of the things I could do that would have a big impact but that would also meet my own needs and abilities:

Stop using plastic grocery bags.
Change over all my lightbulbs to CFLs.
Stop buying bottled water.
Buy local foods.
Recycle a lot more.

It seems like such a small list but it has the potential to have a fairly large impact. I'll be blogging on this topic a few times each month and I'll share what I've learned along the way as I work to meet each of my green goals.

Stay tuned to WSKG Radio for our series as we look at various things you can do that will have a positive impact on our enviroment, and be sure to read the Thinking Green series on Everyday Thinking, the science and nature blog. If you'd like to join in as a guest blogger, send me an email.

The best idea since sliced bread...

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm an avid reader. I'm also faced with the problem of not having enough space for all the books I buy, and the annoying realization that I might spend too much money on books. I frequent the library quite often, but there are a lot of books and authors that I enjoy that aren't found at the local libraries.

So imagine my giddiness when I discovered Paperspine.* It's Netflix, but for books. The subscription prices are very reasonable - even the most expensive tier is less than what I spend per month on books. I spent some time last night comparing my 'I want to read this but the libraries don't have it and I'm not sure about buying it' list to what's available on Paperspine. Out of 20 books I compared, only 4 weren't available. It looks like Paperspine is only doing paperbacks or trade paperbacks right now, but they say they're looking at a hardcover plan too.

I think I may have found an answer to the space/money issues. I'm all excited. I'll let you know how it goes.

*Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of this company. I have no idea how well it works so if it's something you find you're interested in, please do your own research and such. But if you do join, let's see if there's a friends option where we can compare reading lists.