The Cure & me on public radio

After reading that article about Braille in last week’s New York Times, a senior producer at Chicago Public radio asked if I’d be interested in writing an essay about Braille. I sent one their way, and while I was at it, I sent along another essay as well.

The second one was about that fifth grader I wrote about here, and the producer liked that one better. So did I. I recorded it last week, and it aired yesterday. If you listen to it online you’ll notice it sounds like I’m just talking, rather than reading. That’s because I am. Just talking, I mean.

I can read Braille. I’m just very slow at it. So when it comes time to record my radio essays, Joe DeCeault, one of my favorite producers at WBEZ, puts me in front of a microphone, asks what the first paragraph in my essay is about, then what the second paragraph is about, and I retell the story paragraph by paragraph in my own words.

Joe refers to my printed essay while we record, which was especially helpful for this particular piece. Juxtaposing the notion that blindness is a major drag with the fact that I am a happy, capable person who leads a pretty interesting life is not easy for me to do out loud. In the recording studio I felt like I was using Joe as a therapist, driveling on and on and on about my feelings. With my written piece in hand, though, Joe guided me through, kept the piece moving (rather than maudlin), and interrupted me when he found something I’d forgotten to mention.

Pictures of You, a haunting tune from The Cure’s Disintegration CD, weaves in and out of the finished piece. A perfect choice, if you ask me.

Hear my Mustang Ride for Yourself

The great comments you left after reading my post about driving a Mustang convertible got me thinking. Maybe Chicago Public radio would be interested in airing a piece about my 80 mph experience.

Most commentators read their public radio essays.

But that doesn’t work for me. I can read Braille, but I’m very slow. So Joe DeCeault, one of my favorite producers, puts me in front of a microphone, asks me what my essay was about, and I retell the story. Joe refers to my printed essay while we record, which was especially helpful for this car-driving piece. Anyone who has been around me in the past month knows how I can go on and on and on about that Mustang I drove –using my written piece as a guide, Joe cut me off when I gushed over race car driver Tommy Kendall too much. He interrupted if he found something I’d forgotten to mention.

“Tell me about your sister’s 1967 Mustang,” he’d say. Or, “What did they tell you during the safety drill before your ride?”

The resulting radio piece is, in my humble opinion, a joy to listen to. The folks I worked with during my drive in Phoenix sent some sound clips from the event– Joe wove them into the piece. He used some priceless rock ‘n’ roll tunes in the background, too.

Joe’s sound-bit magic brought me right back behind the wheel again. In the driver’s seat. The piece aired this morning on Chicago Public Radio’s 848 show. If you missed it, you can take a listen online. Just be sure to buckle your seat belt first.

That's Tommy Kendall behind the wheel before we headed out and switched places. It was over 100 degrees in Arizona, but he was cool as a cucumber. Thanks to Tommy, at 80 mph, so was I. (Photo by Mike Maez, M2 Autophoto)

Today it’s Hannah’s Turn

If you read my blog post last week, you know I teach a memoir-writing class for senior citizens in Chicago. A few weeks ago I asked the writers in my class to put something down on paper about the Great Depression. Only two of them — Wanda and Hannah — were old enough to remember living through it. The stories the two of them read aloud in class were so moving that Chicago Public Radio agreed to interview these two for a series on WBEZ-FM.

Wanda’s interview aired last week, and Hannah’s aired today. Here’s a description of Hannah’s interview From the Chicago Public Radio website:

In part two of our look back at the Great Depression through the stories of those who were there, we hear from Hannah Bradman – a Jewish woman who came of age in Germany at this time.

It’s a privilege to know these women. Listen to Hannah’s story online and you’ll see – that is, hear – what I mean.

Transforming Blogs into Public Radio Essays

This month two of my essays aired on WBEZ-FM. If you missed hearing them on the radio, both are available online – one is about the new governor in New York, and the other is about cab drivers refusing to pick me up with my Seeing Eye dog.

Both of these essays were inspired by blog posts I wrote, and for that I must thank friends from my Chicago writers group. I was very skeptical about starting this blog last year – I thought blogs were self-indulgent wastes of time. Au contraire, said my fellow writers. A blog can encourage a writer to keep at her craft, they told me. “Kinda like a journal, but since it’s out there in public, there’s a chance people might read it,” they explained. “So you work at it a bit harder.” Who knows, my writer friends said, maybe some blog posts could become story ideas.

I may never have written a word about the NY governor or those cab drivers if I wasn’t keeping a blog. So my writer’s group pals were right: keeping a blog isn’t necessarily a waste of time. I’m convinced I’m right about my other claim, though: It’s pretty dang self-indulgent!