The Next Big Thing

We Require an Assertion of Value

Show #551

Friday, November 11, 2005

A mischievous and dark short story written by the late Donald Barthelme. Conversations with philatelists. A telephone sing-along by some folks who don’t get out much anymore. Classically-influenced pop/punk music from singer/songwriter Regina Spektor. And another round of "Stump Zero Boy" with our favorite vocal acrobat.

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Heard on the Phone

A conference call among ten homebound senior citizens. Most have never actually met, but once a week they spend an hour singing on the telephone with (and for) each other, assisted by Pat Grondahl of the Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center in New York.

» Isaacs Neighborhood Center website

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Secrets

If you tell someone your secret, it’s not a secret anymore. But what if you just write it down on a scrap of paper, and put it in a stranger’s rucksack? Then what does it become? A sound montage created by Next Big Thing Secret Collector Pejk Malinovski.

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Regina Spektor in a Piano Shop

Regina Spektor, a 24-year-old singer and songwriter born in Moscow and raised in the Bronx, is a classically trained pianist. But she writes songs more in the mode of punk and pop music. She doesn’t have a piano in her new apartment, so she invited Dean to the Baldwin Piano showroom in midtown Manhattan to hear some of her new compositions. Produced by Matt Lieber.

» Go to Regina Spektor's Web site

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More Telephone Sing-Along

Participants of the weekly Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center Sing-Along continue to croon into their handsets…

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Stump Zero Boy

Zero Boy is back to field cartoonish scenarios from listeners, which he then renders in sound - creating cinema for the radio with only his voice. Produced by Julie Subrin.

» Find out where Zero Boy's appearing live

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"The School"

puppy A story by the late experimental fiction writer Donald Barthelme. A series of classroom mishaps, involving (among other things) salamanders, plants, and death, lead students and teacher alike to question the meaning of life. Teacher played by Jacob Weber, student played by Amy Pearl. Produced by Pejk Malinovski.

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Tackling the Big Questions

clouds Who is God? That’s what this group of children tried to figure out, as documented, back in 1970, by Tony Schwartz.

» More Tony Schwartz recordings are available from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

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Sexy Stamps

stamp One of America’s most distinguished stamp-collecting organizations is the Collectors Club, formed in 1896 to “promote interest in and knowledge of philately, among its members and the public generally.” The club’s by-laws require an annual meeting. Next Big Thing producer Matt Lieber attended this year’s.

» View the 1948 issue three-cent stamp depicting Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone