The Next Big Thing

(Fred Froehlich)

From Here to There
Show#441

Friday, June 11, 2004

Getting from here to there – be it running a marathon, transforming public attitudes in a once unruly Latin American city, or finding common ground between a frequently banned artist and the North Dakota community that stands to inherit his strange personal collection. Also this week, music on the street and of the street – it’s the latest installment from the Walkman Buster, and a composition by "sonic alchemists" Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger.

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Marathon

NYC Marathon Heard on the street: the blast of the bullhorn, music, cheers, and the pounding of footsteps. It’s the sounds of a New York City marathon, collected by sound artist Ben Rubin (and a few helping hands) for an exhibition this past winter at the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

» National Track and Field Hall of Fame website

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Maverick Mayor

In a country mired in undeclared civil war, Bogotá’s former mayor, Antanas Mockus, stood out for his remarkably playful – and effective – approach to city government. Cornell University professor of Colombian history Mary Roldán talks with Dean about how Mockus made Bogotá a better place to live. Produced by Julie Subrin.

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And Now, This Public Service Announcement

Host Dean Olsher laments the passing of the old-fashioned Public Service Announcement. Produced by Michael Kavanagh.

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A Most Unusual Collaboration

In parts of the world, New York artist Barton Benes’s work is routinely rejected for being outrageously grotesque. Not so in Grand Forks, North Dakota. In 1997, Benes helped the art museum there create a reliquary of objects recovered from a devastating flood. Since then, he and curator Laurel Reuter have developed a working relationship that’s proven surprisingly beneficial to both of them. Produced by Amy Farley with Jonathan Mitchell.

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When We Die

What happens to you when you die? Here’s how some of us answer that question. Produced by Jill Krauss.

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Walkman Busting

walkman bustling A guy walks up to you on the street and asks you what's playing on your Walkman. You tell him. But wait - now he says he wants to listen, too. Before you know it, he's plugged his recorder into your player and he’s taping your music. That's right, Gideon D'Arcangelo is at it again with his "Walkman Busting." And now we plug in to HIS player, to find out what he heard. Produced with Jill Krauss

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dll rrrrr beeeee bö fümms bö

Canadian poet Christian Bok may be the only poet who has performed all of Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters’s “Ursonate” (also known as the “Sonate in Urlauten”) by heart. This is particularly challenging because “Ursonate” is a “sound poem” made up only of nonsense sounds.

» To read the poem, click here
» To listen, click here

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City Symphony

cube Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger create music from the most unlikely sources – in this case, the noise of New York City. They put microphones inside a giant tuning tube on top of a car and sampled sounds in various parts of the city. The tube filters out everything but a low B-flat and its overtones. Produced by Curtis Fox.

» Find out more about the sound experiments of Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger on their website