General

As I was doing the programming for this week, it struck me that magazines in December tend to be pretty much all alike.  I’m not talking about political magazines or the periodicals with a certain slant, like The Sun or The Nation or Reason, I mean the magazines that you can pick up in the doctor’s office, like Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal and Redbook, dedicated to giving good […]

This weekend, I want you to try something.  When you sit down to eat a meal (it can be any meal-- breakfast, lunch or dinner) don't look down at your plate and decide what to eat first.  Close your eyes, take your spoon or fork, and pick up the first bite without really seeing what might be on your utensil.  Yes, I know, if you served yourself the plate you'll […]

    If you've ever watched Family Feud (and we certainly did when reader Ronnie Virgets was on the program with his daughters, responding to topics like "Name the best place to go on a first date!" with answers like "The place where they make all the milkshakes!" and to his credit, I don't think he was referring to the ones that bring the boys to the yard) then you know […]

By now our listeners are very familiar with our mission: "Turning the written word into the spoken word so that the blind, print handicapped,  and those who cannot read for whatever reason can be every bit as informed as their sighted peers."  The spoken word is what comes through the speakers when you tune in to 88.3 FM any time of the day or night, thanks to the time and […]

   I'm not the type of person who likes to take trips alone.  I love how conversation makes the drive so much shorter, how easy it is to bond over mutually appreciated music, and how the sights and landmarks along the way seem more interesting and vivid if you've got a friend to point them out to you (because you really should be concentrating on your driving, after all.)  There […]

   If you've driven down Magazine Street this week, you've probably noticed that the front porch of our building has been dismantled and is in the process of reconstruction, due to water damage.  You may also have noticed that the pristine new sign now hangs in the front, so fresh and brand spanking new it practically radiates our name and message in lights.  The logo on the sign is different […]

    Last week the normally mild mannered and infinitely good tempered Lamont McLaughlin came out of recording studio #2, threw his reading material in the "read" basket, and proclaimed in a loud, frustrated voice, "That was torture!"Alarmed, I hurried into the room to check on him.  A dedicated and delightful reader, he's not a complainer--in fact, he is so wonderfully easygoing and pleasant it's hard to imagine him being bothered […]

In the next few weeks, I'm going to try to program some of George Saunders' short stories for the Midday Short Story program, because he's an eerie, disturbingly beautiful writer, and his book THE TENTH OF DECEMBER was one of the best books I've read all year.  Since I'm new to his work (although a zealous convert) I was glad to read something other than his fiction in the New […]

Last month I went out for Chinese food and my fortune said "The sign you have been waiting for will soon appear."  I've gotten some pretty puzzling fortunes before (such as, "You will soon meet the woman of your dreams" while celebrating my 35th wedding anniversary, or the cryptic "There is a nice cake waiting for you at home" when I don't eat sugar--maybe they were referring to a cake […]