July 2012
2 tags
2 tags
“I think one of the interesting things that has happened in Washington in the...”
– David Wessel on the Federal Budget
2 tags
A dozen years ago, if someone told me that one of the liveliest, most inventive party albums of the year would come from a band originally associated with wedding celebrations and beer festivals, I would have been all, “Yeah, sure, you bet.” If it was further explained that the band’s roots were much closer to polka than rock, funk or hip-hop, I would have responded,...
2 tags
Rule #7: Writer’s block is a tool…use it.
Colson Whitehead’s Rules to The Art of Writing
2 tags
Watchnprmusic:
The Walkmen’s singer, Hamilton Leithauser, may wield an acoustic guitar at the Tiny Desk, but this is no awkward attempt to shoehorn booming rock anthems into arrangements that don’t suit them. It’s clear that these guys were making the Tiny Desk accommodate their sound rather than the other way around.
1 tag
2 tags
For this new collection, Kelly even reaches deep inside for his inner Smokey Robinson on pop-soul songs such as “Fool For You.” In theory, Kelly’s updating of classic soul arrives at the right moment, in line with sounds from singers such as Anthony Hamilton and Raphael Saadiq. But while early reviews of Write Me Back have called this album tepid or even timid, I hear the...
2 tags
“I remember working with Avedon and you get photographers that really don’t get...”
– Supermodel Beverly Johnson on working in the modeling industry in the 1970s
3 tags
1974: Beverly Johnson was the first African-American woman to appear on the cover of Vogue.
3 tags
2 tags
2 tags
“Considering the millions of followers she’s brought to our sites, you may...”
– Terry Gross
1 tag
nprmusic:
Chained to your desk all day? Then...
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
Best Thing All Week: Let's Do This?
It is time: What was the best thing that happened to you this week, friends?
I’ll start: Today is my last day of work. We’re having a water ice party at Fresh Air to celebrate.
I’ll continue: You have all been phenomenal and have made my job so much more fun. I know this medium is ephemeral and strange and silly at times (and it is) but I think over the past three years,...
2 tags
Anonymous asked: I just wanted to say thanks, Melody, for taking my favorite show and making it better - something I thought was unlikely once podcasts of the show became available. Reading your tweet, sometimes just a line from the interview or background articles, I've gotten excited about pieces I wouldn't normally have much interest in. For the rest of the interviews, it was nice to anticipate them a...
1 tag
5 tags
3 tags
“The church doesn’t say that the ordination of women is not possible...”
– Bishop Blair Explains Vatican’s Criticism Of U.S. Nuns
2 tags
“You can’t have profanity if there are no prudes left to be shocked by it.”
– Geoff Nunberg, “Swearing: A Long And #$%#$% History”
1 tag
Humble Apology
This morning I thought our show was about chemistry.
I proceeded to Tumblr a series of chemistry-related jokes and puns.
Our show was actually about the genetic code.
I goofed.
As a result, we joked about chemistry all day long…for no reason whatsoever.
It will never happen again.
-Mel
firsthalloween asked: Today's show is about genetics? That's enough good news to G-A-G-A-C-A-T.
Anonymous asked: Do I know any jokes about sodium? Na.
2 tags
“We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood...”
– Jill Tarter: A Scientist Searching For Alien Life : NPR
2 tags
“The space that we’re looking through is 9-dimensional. If you build a...”
– Jill Tarter: A Scientist Searching For Alien Life : NPR
not2hate asked: Is there such a thing as Terry Gross' reading list (i.e. the books she's read for work - given the interview with her in this past Sunday's NYT magazine, I assume she doesn't read a lot for pleasure) and if so, is it online somewhere? I googled it, and nothing useful came up. (And if it doesn't exist, is there a chance a volunteer could collect that data for you guys?)
3 tags
2 tags
panache13 asked: What do you get when you cross one Barium and Two sodium?.... Banana!
bumbys asked: Want to hear a joke about sodium bromide? NaBrO
1 tag
3 tags
Wikipedia, what is 80,000?
80,000 (eighty thousand) is the natural number that comes after 79,999 and before 80,001.
Thanks, Wikipedia.
It’s also the number of Tumblr (and Twitter) followers we now have. Thank you all. Let’s celebrate with 22.2166666 days of non-stop partying.
2 tags
“I don’t get that a lot. I’m very short, under five feet, and I often think of...”
– Terry Gross, reacting to the suggestion that listeners have “erotic associations” with her voice. (via mattwilstein)
4 tags
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
Early Best Thing All Week?
I’m going to Cambridge, Mass. tomorrow morning for a conference, so I thought we’d do an early version this week of Best Thing All Week. What was the best thing that happened to you this week? (I apologize if it was set to happen tomorrow.)
I’ll start: I saw a thought-provoking documentary about ACT-UP and then had a very nice, reflective dinner with a good friend about grief...
1 tag
1 tag
“I took the opportunity to try to speak to the president about women’s...”
– Sigourney Weaver, on her 1984 trip to the White House.
Anonymous asked: Stay Puft!
Anonymous asked: were you saying that you are the key master? or saying that sigourney is the key master? because she was the gatekeeper
4 tags
2 tags
Anonymous asked: High on my bucket list is being interviewed by Terry. Even higher is accomplishing something worthy of being booked on Fresh Air. Too anxious and slothful for the ladder to be likely at this point in my life, I want to propose that as an experiment Terry interview regular people from time to time about their less-than-extraordinary lives. She's such a skilled interviewer that the results may...
Anonymous asked: I really hope to work for NPR someday. I applied to be an intern as a freshman (just this past spring) and was turned down. I'm deathly afraid of reapplying; what should I do?
acceptdinosaurs asked: Oh, don't forget Dave...or Working Girl...or Galaxy Quest...or The Ice Storm. God, is there anything she's not awesome in?
