Summary: Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman and Joshuah Bearman on Presidents' Day, along with a fifteen-piece marching band and a new song about all forty-three presidents. (PRX editorial warning for stations: Refers to Bush as current president. Preview before licensing.)
Public radio should be happy to have a talent like John Hodgman in our midst. This is a fascinating program that would work particularly well in the evening -- the sort of place you probably started This American Life. Young, hip, literate listeners will be drawn to this like moths to a flame.
There is something strangely comforting in the just slightly off-perfect mix of the show as it opens -- a good reminder that this stuff is LIVE. It's kind of singer/songwriter type radio without the painful pretension of the singer/songwriter's craft. The atmosphere of the program has the intimacy of a coffeehouse -- not the awe and silence of a concert hall crowd.
For example, Sarah Vowell offers a possessed reading from her latest -- the kind of thing that just doesn't hit the air often enough. Nice addition of bits from Sondheim's Assassins makes this visit to destinations on Assassination Vacation a must-hear and -- perhaps a first -- Ms. Vowell performs in a musical number for the edification and hallucination of all. In sum, a blast.
But other performers are not to be denied -- Joshua Berman offers spirited presentations that one can only seem to find among the Little Gray Book Lectures.
And then there's John Hodgman, who, while not arriving at the level of cinema, has nonetheless arrived at television (albeit cable). As always, the line between fact and fact seems a bit blurrier, a bit hazier, a bit more disquieting once Hodgman has brought his expertise to bear on matters presidential.
PDs, your presidents day programming will be noncomplete without this Little Gray Book lecture,
Comments for How to Observe Presidents' Day, Observed
This piece belongs to the series "The Little Gray Book Lectures"
Produced by John Hodgman, Jay Allison
Other pieces by The Little Gray Book Lectures
Rating Summary
2 comments
Jesse Thorn
Posted on January 31, 2006 at 04:42 PM | Permalink
Review of How to Observe Presidents' Day, Observed
Public radio should be happy to have a talent like John Hodgman in our midst. This is a fascinating program that would work particularly well in the evening -- the sort of place you probably started This American Life. Young, hip, literate listeners will be drawn to this like moths to a flame.
Jackson Braider
Posted on February 02, 2006 at 05:44 PM | Permalink
Review of How to Observe Presidents' Day, Observed
There is something strangely comforting in the just slightly off-perfect mix of the show as it opens -- a good reminder that this stuff is LIVE. It's kind of singer/songwriter type radio without the painful pretension of the singer/songwriter's craft. The atmosphere of the program has the intimacy of a coffeehouse -- not the awe and silence of a concert hall crowd.
For example, Sarah Vowell offers a possessed reading from her latest -- the kind of thing that just doesn't hit the air often enough. Nice addition of bits from Sondheim's Assassins makes this visit to destinations on Assassination Vacation a must-hear and -- perhaps a first -- Ms. Vowell performs in a musical number for the edification and hallucination of all. In sum, a blast.
But other performers are not to be denied -- Joshua Berman offers spirited presentations that one can only seem to find among the Little Gray Book Lectures.
And then there's John Hodgman, who, while not arriving at the level of cinema, has nonetheless arrived at television (albeit cable). As always, the line between fact and fact seems a bit blurrier, a bit hazier, a bit more disquieting once Hodgman has brought his expertise to bear on matters presidential.
PDs, your presidents day programming will be noncomplete without this Little Gray Book lecture,