Listen at KMUW.org The lesser water boatman is an insect usually found feeding on ponds and lakes across Europe. Only a few millimeters long, they look a bit like a sunflower seed with big black eyes and paddling arms. They’re not known …
[Listen to the audio at KMUW] A year before cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth, American Joe Kittenger took a lift below a two-hundred foot helium balloon. The ride took an hour and a half in a tiny open-air basket took him …
Lots of talented people at LIV Fest, and I got to talk with some of them. Above is a shot from an interview with BRONCHO. Once they’re edited, the interviews with Emperor X, Chris Mann, Emersons Fall, BRONCHO, and others will appear …
The scream might be the glue that holds together horror films, but its reach goes well beyond the genre. And since the early sound libraries, certain screams have risen to the top, being used over and over again. Perhaps the most famous …
Laughter has a long history in drama: as far back as Shakespeare, plants in the audience initiated reactions with their own belly laughs and jeers. But laughter has a strange role in television. Unlike most sound effects, it doesn’t correlate to something …
Click here to hear part 1 of 4: Stock Sounds Long before the luxury of recordings, stage performers created their own sounds to accompany productions. Copper sheets were struck to produce a crack of lightning. Blocks of wood, hand drums, whistles and …
The Strange Evolution of the Pop-Tart Listen to the full segment over at [KMUW] Kellogg’s rushed Pop-Tarts onto the market in 1964, shortly after their competitor announcement a similar toaster snack release called Country Squares. Since then, the evolution of the Pop-Tart …
Click here to listen to the segment over at [KMUW] Given the infinite access we’re afforded to color, it’s hard to imagine the importance its been given throughout history and the passion that has gone into its hunt. In the pursuit of …
Listen to the segment over [KMUW] Bull Baiting The violent pastime known as bull baiting entertained the wealthy and poor alike throughout the Middle Ages, and well into the 19th century. The spectacle took place in public rings, where a single bull …
Since the first simple video arcade games were developed in the late sixties, the video arcade has fought a war of innovation and marketing with home gaming. What’s called The Golden Age of arcades was sparked by the 1978 release …
From record players and tape decks to digital images, noise is a constant in our lives. I got reeled in by the concept of “colorful noise” from the analogy between light and sound. The pairing of spectrums is a fairly loose one, …
Perhaps this year’s most overlooked couple, the pair of crawler-transporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have been delivering shuttles to their launch pad since the Apollo missions. With the end of the Constellation Program, no new jobs are set …
First of all, watch this: Next, listen to this: [Into It: Rabbit-Jumping on KMUW] Into It: Rabbit-Jumping January brought the return of a fledgling UK tradition: the Rabbit Grand National competition. While most people are familiar with equestrian show jumping, …
This past summer I interviewed Randy Regier about his itinerant toy store, Nu-Penny. The store— a locked display of toys, which are of his own design and reminiscent of a bygone era— most recently appeared in Wichita, Kansas. We discuss nostalgia, Walter Benjamin, …
Listen to the audio version over at [KMUW] Tremolo: Into It What is perhaps the most basic musical effect, tremolo—the undulation of volume—has a remarkable history that has yet to be fully documented. The formal use of tremolo dates back to the …
Listen to the segment, which features music from bands Mum and Tortoise, over at [KMUW] Into It: Time Zones The South Pacific nation of Samoa skipped December 30th, 2011, all together. Once resting just twenty miles east of the International …
Click [Here] to listen to the segment. Christmas in America is warm and fuzzy, stuffed with Santa, reindeer, and helpful elves. We get little exposure to the more sinister old-world European characters, a host of demonic bogeymen that have been adopted …
My favorite part of T-Pain is the reflection of his groupies in his sunglasses. That and his acknowledgment that Auto-Tune is the software his career is built upon. In both cases, the magic of post-production is pulled back. T-Pain is …
I’m excited that my story “An Annotated List” will be published with New Delta Review, the literary publication of the MFA program at Louisiana State University. Thanks to Julia Carey and the NDR crew for accepting the story. I grabbed a …
Like most people, I have this thing for antiquated technology, for DOS prompts and floppy disks, the crackle of a modem. My favorite trick for years was scratching or blowing onto a receiver to kick my brother off the internet. 28.8, …
