Radio Pieces
I wrote and produced these stories as a freelance contributor to NPR News Weekend Edition, PRI/WNYC's Studio 360, and PRI's Marketplace.
spam poetry
Airdate: March 16, 2006
We’re all too familiar with junk mail that offers to enlarge body parts or reduce mortgages. Most of us delete these messages right away, but Mallory Kasdan finds unexpected art in her pile of unsolicited emails.
Run-time (7:10)
ethan lipton
Airdate: January 24, 2004
If Andy Kaufman wrote jazz standards and Norah Jones sang them, they might sound like the tunes of love, loss and hostility that come from post-modern crooner Ethan Lipton. With utter sincerity in his lemon-drop voice, Ethan sings about going to work, about breaking up with all his friends, about Peeping Toms and deli salads.
He asks age-old questions such as “Why do lovers take taxis? ” and of Whitney Houston, “What did you do to that sweet, sweet Bobby Brown?”
Link to Ethan’s website at www.ethanlipton.com
Run-time: (6:52)
church of craft
Airdate: April 5, 2003 on PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Also aired on December 22, 2002 on The Night Air, ABC Radio National Australia.
The Church of Craft involves a group of spiritually minded creative people who have formed their own church devoted to acts of crafting and making. There are currently chapters of the church in NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where people gather together to share crafting techniques and creative inspiration.
Run-time: (5:31)
high stakes/high kicks
Airdate: October 18, 2005
The Radio City Rockettes are getting ready for their popular Christmas season, but a labor dispute threatens to hamstring the dance troupe during it’s busiest time of the year.
Mallory Kasdan reports from New York.
Run-time: (:57)
landfill artist
Airdate: October 4, 2003
In 1969, artist and struggling young mother, Mierle Laderman Ukeles decided that the repetitive tasks of taking care of children and a household were art.
Her “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” asked presciently, “when the revolution is over, who’s going to pick up the garbage? Ukeles has spent her career trying to answer that question, beginning in the late 70’s when she set out to shake the hand of every single New York City Sanitation worker — all 8,500 of them.
Run-down: (7:45)
get your wig on
Airdate: February 9, 2002
long version (20:38)
Produced for: Radio Eye, ABC Radio National, Australia
Airdate: January 6, 2002
Get Your Wig On is my first audio documentary, which I wrote and produced in 2001 to enter in the Third Coast International Audio Festival (www.thirdcoastfestival.org).
It deals with an artist’s idea about how one constant, in this case, a huge brown curly wig, can be interpreted and visually expressed by an assortment of strangers.
The piece was aired in its longer form on Radio Eye on Australia’s ABC Radio National. I then edited it down to to a shorter version for air on PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360 (www.studio360.org), where it aired February 9, 2002 and again on August 3, 2002 as a show closer to, “Opium, Rave, Styron.”
encyclopedia of an ordinary life
Airdate: March 26, 2005
How do you chronicle a typical life in the 21st century? Do you blog? Rap? A One man show — it? Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal decided to alphabatize and categorize her life in a series of everyday observations.
Her memoir is called Encyclopedia of and Ordinary Life, and it even has a theme song!
Check out the book’s website.
Run-time: (8:03)
ken butler
Airdate: May 31, 2003
Ken Butler is an artist/musician/diabolical genius who builds gorgeous sculptural musical instruments from found objects and performs music with them. This is his story.
Check out Ken’s website + you can see what some of his instruments looks like.
Run-time: (4:12)