the beauty of radio

I’m officially in love with radio. Yes, music…fine…that kind is ok, but truly the commercials and repetition just infuriate me. Although even then there is something that connects you to the real world. Driving while listening to a cd cannot connect you to society the way a radio station can. There is some comfort in knowing that if an asteroid were headed for the earth, the radio DJ would probably hear about it and let you know. If you were listening to a cd, you’d be out of luck. Well, we’d probably all be out of luck so think of it more as a “free ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s” example and not an asteroid.

But truly the kind of radio I’m currently obsessed with is talk radio. Particularly NPR and particularly two shows: This American Life and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. Maybe also This I Believe. I anxiously await their release in podcast format and download them onto my iPod. (On Sunday and Monday, respectively). Honestly I can’t manage to get that excited about a single tv show. There’s just something about radio.

Radio is personal. It’s a voice speaking in your ear—it’s almost as if the person is speaking directly to you. The absence of visuals allows your mind to be more active, and create the image it wants to see. Radio forces you to actively take an idea and personalize it in a way tv never can. The outcry that happened after Ira Glass announced This American Life explains this (also the subject of last week’s This American Life). Making a radio show visible takes away so much of the imagination and imposes a harsh reality on what you had created. Like when I saw a picture of Garrison Keillor—total disaster. Think about any great book—the movie can truly never be the same. If it’s a great movie, it’s probably great for reasons apart from what made the book great.

I just love those two programs so much. Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is a quiz show…and about politics and current random facts about the news. All of which I love. I love the way it combines a quiz show environment with the Daily Show while then bringing in guests like Justice Stephen Breyer, Madeleine Albright and Tina Fey. This American Life is just beautiful to me. In the words of the OC: This American Life? Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?

Talk radio is well known to be a dying art form. As Ira Glass said, that battle has been fought and tv won. But there’s something nostalgic about it, and a place remains for the few truly wonderful programs left.