Weird Things Come in Big Packages

Computers are pretty cool--I could go on and on about them--but Radio Bob gets all the really cool toys. There has been a box about the size of a VW Beetle sitting out in the hall for months. A few days ago I came in to find station engineer Bob Sauter wailing on it with a hammer, unveiling a metal Gorgon's head of tubing, with various Lost in Space and Imperial Probe 'Droid attachments--pieces of the new broadcast facility for Mt. Pisgah in Saranac Lake. Looks like you could reach the Mothership easy with this puppy.

The Science Project in the Kitchen

Some projects just take over--the radio station kitchen, for instance. The world's largest piece of foam-core, a bazillion little labels and photos, and a can of spray adhesive toxic enough to blow its own hole through the ozone layer. Today we are doing outreach, making a sort of science fair display of our station's illustrious history. As the resident "eyeballs" in a workplace full of "ears," all the graphic arts projects fall to me. People bring coffee and chocolate, then get out of the way. Between sugar, caffeine and solvents, I'm dancing faster than Radio Bob on cola beverages. Suddenly, the whole design comes to me crystal clear--as if in a vision...

We may be wrong, but we're not unconfident

A few years back, people's expectations about the usefulness and profitability of the internet were ludicrously over-inflated. Now, after the collapse of the dot-communists, people seem to be in the dark throes of a hangover, grimly discussing the death of new media and the money-pit of the web. The latest edition of Current, the semi-official house organ for public broadcasters, ran a front-page article, "For pubradio, Web generally just a helpmate." Its general thrust is that no one has the time and resources to create and manage web-only programming, and that the most productive role for public radio websites is in broadcast program support, member services, and station-related e-commerce. Pretty low aim, we think. The best countercurrent came from KQED's Richard Winefield, who said, "It's as if when TV came out, it was simply used as a radio program guide." We're with you, Richard. You can read below about NCPR's latest foray into web-only programming, the UpNorth Forum. To let us know what you think the best use of our online resources would be, click on your e-mail reply button.

We Love You, Too, Chris

It was a real treat to spend time with Christopher Lydon this week. He is one of the great (and unfortunately underutilized) resources of the public broadcasting world. To have him on our air--sitting in on The Blue Note, rocking with Radio Bob, engaging the North Country in conversation about itself and its future--was a rare opportunity. Lydon is an increasingly uncommon commodity, a public intellectual--unapologetically bright, omnivorously engaged. At a time when private virtue and family values hold the spotlight, he points out the enduring importance of civic virtues and community values. Against the celebrity of notoriety, he pits the celebrity of reputation. While other talk hosts go loud, fast and hip, he goes intimate, interested and incisive. We need him, and a dozen more like him.

Overgroan

Such a poor gardener as myself could be classified as a human herbicide. I am amazed to discover, each May Day, just how much has survived my misrule. The bed of iris that I irrigate with road salt and prune with a power mower has come back every year since 1983, when a good gardener last owned this plot. The new metal roof is perfectly positioned to deliver killing avalanches of ice to the potentilla and barberry each winter, yet they thrive like some vegetable form of cockroach. I gave up on the round sandstone bed by the driveway, trimming it every few weeks with a Homelite weed-whacker. Where did all the snowdrops and daffodils come from? I thought I shoveled them out along with the near-immortal mint. If I can't exterminate something as delicate as a rosebush, how will I ever deal with virulent thickets of sumac and bamboo?