Middle-aged white lady likes it too. In fact, this guy Paul McDonald is well-written, well-recorded and to the point. I hope he's getting air time. He's refreshing.

I enjoyed listening to this immensely - how much does the general public really know about who the founding fathers were - especially on a religious level? Me, I'm pretty much a secular thinker - but the series - With Good Reason - covers a wide range of topics drawing from the University system in the state of Virginia - what an opportunity! It reminded me of a kind of daily programming that I listen to over here on BBC Radio 4 that puts authors and scholars together to discuss topics from the history of ideas - things you may have abandoned when you left school - I never want to abandon school! I'm pencilling in other parts of the series right now.

Part of a series from Canada - "I have two loves -my country and Paris" - a sweet, intimate, and literary subject. Evocative and deeply felt - a woman describing memories of writers in Paris that she never lived. Not a piece about Paris at all, but one about a destination in the head. It's curious - nicely so. At first I thought I wanted to know more about the author to hang on to it - but why really? The ghost of it clings.

This is impressive work - and very careful - it's artistic AND balanced. This piece does not promote abortion. It does not condemn it. But it does provide some very precise information - for example, part one includes a beautifully produced experiential moment of what an abortion might be like - totally unromanticized - just the sound. Unembellished. It's not horrific - just factual and radiophonic at the same time. Also: a young woman calling a clinic and asking questions - like many are probably afraid to do. I imagine there are people that need to know about that. And more. The religious side gets its say, too - but doesn't overwhelm. Stations should be brave and air this. And talk it through. Anyone who would be offended by this program just simply doesn't want to listen to anyone else.

A woman sings and speaks in three languages, with English in the lead, so it can be perfectly followed by US listeners. For me, hearing the languages colliding in this piece that sits on a bed of wall-to-wall, intensely colorful music is very pleasurable. I've seen the album all over France and now I will buy it. If I have any criticism of the piece, it might be that there isn't time to learn much about the singer - the structure of the piece is all happening at once. I attribute that to time constraints. However, this piece would make a very attractive drip-in for any magazine or arts program and I suggest that the proudcer provide some tight lead-in copy that helps anchor who the singer is (more specific than the copy on the piece page - more info that's not in the piece, like the part about the record going platinum) and it would be a great piece to air.

This program features the voices of inmates on death row - out of necessity they're all on the telephone - which gives the piece a kind of call-in energy - these voices sound exactly like all of the other telephone voices heard on the radio every day - they're so ordinary - even their poetry is basically ordinary - but they are people in exceptional circumstances - and that alone makes it rather eye-opening. The text read by the producer, along with spare music, some additional interviews - including a pretty imaginative prison guard - and an unusual voice reading billboard titles - creates a patchwork of alternating coolness and tension that is appealing. A nice, controlled piece of work.

I was quite attracted by the subject - and it is true that the program is packed with information -but too often, just as I was getting interested in an interview, I found myself up against a new segment, accompanied by a piece of music of yet another style - an example: an interviewee is talking about the healthy skin of Buddhist monks and in come rather loud chants under the whole thing, then, "well, we can't all spend our lives in a monestary!" and that subject's gone, with no explanation as to why Buddhist monks may have healthy skin - the first time this happened was in the very beginning: an interesting interview with a serious burn victim and quick - she was gone! replaced by another 50 minutes of a host that didn't seem to know if he should be friendly (he mentioned his cat out of the blue) or radio-announcer neutral (sometime he sounded like he had actually interviewed the people and sometimes he sounded like he was pretending)- and, frankly, not sure if he on commerical or public radio - maybe there isn't supposed to be a difference in style, but that underwriting copy, featuring Clinique, has to be the closest thing to advertising that you're allowed to do on public radio. A bright spot: in the end, the burn victim came back - her final interview segment is the best part of the program - if all of it had worked together that way, playing out each section as fully, it would have been great. There certainly was enough material in the program to pull that off - but maybe not for an hour.

The first thing that strikes me about this piece is the skill of the presenter/producer. She writes really well, and poetically - she reads it with attractive clarity and ease, and the production is impeccably professional. The sound is recorded perfectly, and the many gems of actuality and sound that she has chosen shine like the colored bottles described in the piece. However, despite all that, I don't seem to be able to convince myself that the subject at hand warrants over seven minutes. It doesn't seem to go below the surface. It's a piece of Americana - a really appealling guy collects bottles in New England. Why? A link with the past? For me, it's all light and surfaces - I long for a theme bubbling under the surface to render talented and skillful work really great.

I agree, Joan Allen is a terrific actress - but the piece does nothing to show/explain/enlighten anything particular about her except that she's in alot of films - the clip from the director cuts off just as it's getting interesting - I don't understand the name of this series - "Movies for Grown-up's" - I like the title - it suggeets that it's either literally about movies or in fact MIGHT BE little movies for radio for people with maturity - meaning, vivid, creative, daring, etc. which is a nice idea. This one is rather a competently produced and pretty traditional "trac and ac" piece - alittle rushed-sounding - thus the very short clips - perhaps trying to fit into its length.

Piece is very nicely done - the dreamy, soundrich clips for the film provide an effective background.

I've seen Land of Plenty. It's an interesting film, even beautiful, touching - from the director of Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas, to name two that so many people in the US have loved - it is dead accessible - but unlike Farenheit 911, fascinatingly ambiguous and generous to more than one point of view - the news that Wenders can't get a distributor to take it on is a bit of a shock to me. It's because they can't pigeonhole it - or because of fear? That's not the America I lived in until I was 40. I'm wondering whether stations will treat this piece the way the distributors are treating the film (and their audiences). Wake up, people!

This is an example of a piece where it was the subject that got my attention - the statistic is amazing - there is one snippet with a young girl talking about her mother having to know what everything means, even about car insurance when she doesn't have a car - plus the story of a young boy who just stopped talking in school and here's why - those two moments stick out. The piece overall is professional, if a bit too classically "trac and ac" - (which tends to make my ears turn off) - so maybe next time make more of the narrator's own impressions. Why not? I love the music of his voice/accent - nice to hear this voice, one that's not exactly like every other voice - this could go into the news time to break things up.

Veritable tip of the iceberg, Ben! It's great to see that a person that is of an age that probably means he grew up with this kind of "news" all around him can still react so strongly to it. His ending comment about "listen to KBOO for nothing but the truth" is - I hope - meant to be a little ironic - AND it's a shame that those clips are so badly recorded - but that does not take away from the fact that - they suck, they really, really, totally - suck. Every single night.

This one held up better for me than the other one in the same series - in general, the idea of short, emotional dialogs around technology is a good one - the idea of short self-contained radio drama (3 min. approx.) is a good one - to my ears, so much radio drama - especially short ones - CONTINUE sound to me like "the only joke is - it's radio drama!" The tongue being firmly lodged in around 1945. THIS one is shooting for better than that. Give it a chance.

First of all, in all of Jonathan Mitchell's pieces, the music is expertly done and chosen so they're going to sound excellent on the air of any station that uses music to strive for professional elegance. Plus the sound matches it.

Plus I particularly like this piece because it really makes the listener think about how media (here, film) affects everybody's perception of time - it's an astonishing, present day truth that's has been so gradual that perhaps we don't think about it enough - or at all.

This piece is from Studio 360 - I think about how - because of prx - it could be a nifty little piece of luck for stations be able to cherrypick these top-notch, cultural pieces (that are so respectful of the listener's intelligence) after the fact of the program - and even when the station does not subscribe to Studio 360.

Is it?

Oh, this is such a pleasure - maybe it's because I work with young people, I don't know - I stumbled over this program because I needed to know who Usher is (don't ask) - and this came up in the search - I love the way they talk, so unselfconscious - and the production's professional - depends on the audience you may have, programmer, but if you'd like some 18-30's to stick around...they MIGHT...(I did...I'm 53 by the way.... I read that the series was cancelled. Shame. Put on what's there.