Is Pledge Week Over?

I've been trying an experiment this week: I haven't turned on the (real) radio once. I'm trying to avoid National Public Radio's pleas for donations.

NPR is the only radio I listen to, so this means a total blackout. To keep abreast of the news -- I don't really watch tv -- I subscribe to NPR's 7 AM and 7 PM news feeds. Podcasts of hourly news feeds are available as well. I also subscribe to numerous other NPR podcasts. All in all, I don't feel as though I'm missing anything.

The only hard part is not reaching for the ON button on my radio. However convenient podcasts are, it still takes less effort to just hit that button.

So, are the pledge drives over?

Write to me at: podcastroundup@gmail.com

Podcasts about Podcasts

The other day I noticed iTunes downloading an unusually large number of podcast files to my computer -- so many that I couldn't update my Nano, which was, admittedly, already approaching its 2GB limit. All the podcasts were from the University Channel (UC)Podcast, which distributes public lectures given at universities. Many of them look interesting and I think someday I'll listen to them, though I rarely do. This week I received eight in one download, each more than an hour long.

These were the complete sessions of the Duke University Podcasting Symposium. Although the event was held in September, these podcasts are must listening for anyone interested in the podcasting phenomenon.

Topics include: journalism and the media; histories of transmission for the digital age; law and policy; hands-on tech; podcasting in the classroom; performance and identity; and business and monetization.

As some of these titles suggest, this symposium sometimes veers off into academic speak, where a simple notion such as, say, 8:00 pm, becomes part of the temporal spatial environment.

But enough non-academics -- i.e., people from the real world -- were invited to speak that there is relatively little of this.

The (non-academic) speakers include:

Tim Bourquin of TNC New Media and EnduranceRadio.com
John Frederico, of Audible.com
Michael Geoghegan, of Reel Reviews Radio
Dough Kaye of IT Conversations

Bill "DigitalBill" Douthett and Marc "MisterMarc" Asturias, of The Wizards of Technology
Sam Leven, of Griffin Technology and Inside Mac Radio
Scott Saunders, of iPodScott.com
Frances Shepherd, of Apple

Jason Adams, of Random Signal
Kelly Amienne (aka Anne Bramley) of Eat Feed
Mur Lafferty of Geek Fu Action Grip
Brian C. Russel, of Audio Activism
David J. Warner, of Dave's Lounge

JD Lasica, of Ourmedia.org
Jason Schultz, of Electronic Frontier Foundation
Michael J. Huppe, of the Recording Industry Assoc. of America

John Biewen, of American Radio Works
Tony Kahn, of the public radio program, The World and the WGBH podcast, Morning Stories

Interested in your comments: podcastroundup@gmail.com

Pledge-drive Podcast?

Who would listen to a public radio pledge drive podcast? I did.

I didn't do it intentionally. I was using a smart playlist to listen to some backlogged downloads of KCRW's Martini Shot. In these entertaining four or five-minute podcasts, "veteran TV writer Rob Long shares his behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood life."

For one of his recent "shots" Long did a riff about how bad commercial radio must be if people were listening to his pitch for listeners' contributions to KCRW. I'm actually glad I listened.

Write me.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Smart Playlists for Podcasts

Maybe I'm behind all the rest of you out there -- IS anyone out there? -- but I've just discovered the utility of iTunes smart playlists for listening to podcasts. When you set up a smart playlist new downloads of podcasts you've subscribed to and selected for your playlist are automatically added.

The best use of this technique is for short podcasts that you'd like to listen to one after another, without having to constantly choose them on your computer or iPod. The episodes play one after another, in the order you pre-select. Perfect.

Write me.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Podcasts for Kids

Kids podcast too. But not having any kids of my own and having no interest, say, in the metamorphosis of a mealworm, I don't listen.

Still, I thought I would alert you to a nice story on student podcasts in today's New York Times (registration required). It appears in a special technology supplement.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

CBS, NBC and ABC Sunday News Shows

Do you sometimes shape your Sunday schedule to watch NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos or CBS' Face The Nation?

Just as podcasts can free you from listening to favorite radio shows at pre-set times, now you can watch -- well, at least listen -- to these shows on your own schedule.

No, you can't see the talking heads. If you need to watch lips moving, you'll have to continue watching these shows on tv. Otherwise, subscribe to the podcasts.

Here are the links to these podcasts:

Meet the Press

This Week with George Stephanopoulos

CBS' Face The Nation

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Movie Houds Listen Up

Think about it. Where would the most in-depth radio show about movies originate? Hollywood, or there abouts, of course. How about Santa Monica?

The Treatment, produced at the public radio station KCRW, is hosted by Elvis Mitchell. You've probably heard his reviews on NPR. But The Treatment includes no film reviews. Mitchell uses the 30-minute show to talk about a single film with the filmmakers. There isn't anything else like it on the air.

The most recent podcast is about a movie I'd never heard of, On the Outs, though it's won awards at film festivals around the world.

The New York Times review (registration required) describes the film this way: "The movie, directed by Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik, is based on actual case studies of young women who spent time in the Jersey City juvenile detention center. Much of the dialogue was developed through group improvisation by an ensemble playing characters who seem as real as if they had been approached on the street by a cinematographer and told to go on being themselves."

If you listen to the show, you'll want to see the movie.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Brokeback Mountain: From the Source

Have you wondered about the origins of the movie Brokeback Mountain? The movie, as many know by now, is based on a short story by Annie Proulx. The obvious question is, How does Proulx's story differ from the movie?

But the January 19 podcast of KCRW's Bookworm, in which the show's host, Michael Silverblatt, talks with Proulx about her writing and the movie, is anything but obvious.

The 29-minute podcast probes the emotional impact of the story and the movie. But it also ranges as far as the difference between accents in Texas and Montana.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Podcast for Mathematicians

Mathematicians are podcast listeners too. Aren't they? They, and anyone else interested in mathematics, will be interested in a BBC podcast from the network's In Our Time series on prime numbers.

(First a navigational note: Oddly, the In Our Time iTunes Music Store Page does not list this or other past shows, making it necessary to go to the BBC's Web site, where the prime numbers podcast can be downloaded.)

As the show's Web site says, "For nearly two and a half thousand years, since Euclid first described the prime numbers in his book Elements, mathematicians have struggled to write a rule to predict what comes next in the sequence. The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler feared that it is 'a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.'"

The hook for this podcast is the recent discovery of the highest known prime number, with 9.1 million digits. An analysis of this find segues into an infinitely fascinating discussion of these mathematical buidling blocks.

The show's guests are all eminent mathematicians:

Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics and Fellow of Wadham College at the University of Oxford;

Robin Wilson, Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University and Gresham Professor of Geometry;

Jackie Stedall, Junior Research Fellow in the History of Mathematics at Queen's College, Oxford.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Why no Comments?

You may have wondered why there's been no way to comment on this blog. Believe me, I want your comments. As it is, I feel I'm blogging into a void. However, I also believe that there is a place for blogs that are not forums. In other words, I want to know what you're thinking, but I want to retain control over what's posted. Apparently, Google's Blogger software, which powers this blog, isn't creative enough to allow this option. It's nothing fancier than e-mail -- but it seems there's no such set-up here. I've written to tech support to verify and will let you know what they say.

One alternative, I suppose, is just to post my e-mail address with every post. I'm not sure how to do that as a link, rather than forcing you to copy my address into your e-mail. I'm investigating this too. But the downside of this option is that it would eliminate the sender's anonymity.

[Added Jan. 21.: You can now reach me at podcastroundup@gmail.com. I still don't know how to make my address a link that opens a new e-mail addressed to me, so if anyone knows how this software accomplishes that, let me know. Previous posts have also been edited to include this address.]

When Podcasts Aren't Available

Recently I lamented that I couldn't write a podcast review of Terry Gross' program, Fresh Air. No podcast, no review. But for those who are unaware, I thought it would be worth mentioning how you can "roll your own." By purchasing an inexpensive piece of software, such as WireTapPro or Audio Hijack Pro, you can schedule your computer to record Fresh Air -- or any other radio program too highfalutin to be podcast. Car Talk, anyone?

Most software programs of this kind allow you to import your recordings into iTunes and play them on your iPod.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Podcasts We Wish We Could Review

Why do some of the best shows on public radio resist podcast distribution? Do you know about Fresh Air? If you don't, you should start listening today. The host, Terry Gross, is, arguably, the best interviewer on the air. Her guests cover the landscape, from the worlds of politics, music, the visual arts -- you name it.

The show is produced in Philadelphia at WHYY and distributed to public radio stations around the country. Where I live it's on at 3:00 pm and 3:00 am. Most people I know are either at work or asleep at those hours.

So why no Fresh Air podcast? Because it's a hot property and they don't want to give it away. Instead they sell the shows on Audible.com -- and on iTunes -- for about four bucks a show.

And what about Charlie Rose? I haven't seen his shows for sale -- but no podcasts.

Radio needs to be free. At least public radio does.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Some of the Best Podcasts Here

Some of the best podcasts come out of the public radio affiliate in Santa Monica, Calif., KCRW. I'll provide an overview of what the station has to offer, along with some recommendations, in upcoming posts.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

NPR Podcasts

The other day I was at the NPR Web site to grab some graphics I might be able to use here when I noticed something interesting. NPR seemed to list many more podcasts than iTunes shows for the network. Can this be possible? I'll check it out soon and report back here soon, so stay tuned.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Andy Summers, a Podcast Review

In the most recent installment from the New York Guitar Festival, a 40-minute podcast released Jan. 13, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Andy Summers, of The Police, reads from his book, Light Strings.

In this podcast two quite touching stories sandwich a rather dry discourse on the history of the instrument. You can safely fast forward through the middle section. You’ll know it when you come to it.

In a rare, though not unprecedented, arrangement these podcasts are not available individually. You must subscribe to the entire series.

podcastroundup@gmail.com

Sunday Morning Listening: NPR & Podcasts

I’m a public radio fan. I want to state that up front, because I definitely have a bias toward professionally produced, non-commercial, journalistic radio -- I mean podcasts. I intentionally didn’t say I’m an NPR fan. One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate recently is how much programming -- my type of programming -- is not produced by NPR.

But I digress. I used to switch on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday as soon as I work up, maybe even before I was fully awake. It’s a hard habit to break. As I go through my morning routine, moving from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen and so on, it’s sometimes easier to flip on the radio than a podcast. I’ll write later about how I have tried to overcome this limitation.

So I turned on the radio, still tuned to Morning Edition, and listened contentedly to a story about the current-day implications of Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when he was defense minister.

But I was less interested in the next story. Not that it wasn’t worthy or well done. It just wasn’t what I was up for at that moment.

I realized, as I have so many times recently, that I don’t have to listen to what the NPR programmers think I should listen to next. When you read the newspaper to go from story to story, reading those you’re interested in. But there’s a certain tyranny in listening to a program like Morning Edition. You don’t have the choice to skip to the next story.

That is unless you wait till the program is available on NPR’s Web site later in the day. But that’s just too much trouble.

But if your computer is nearby you can easily start playing one of the podcasts that’s been downloaded to your iTunes program.

I’ll write later about how to make that process almost as easy as turning on the radio. (Hint: podcasts at my house do come through the radio.)

podcastroundup@gmail.com

New York Guitar Festival Podcast

The New York Guitar Festival opened today. This is the place to be if you're crazy about guitars. But if can't attend, and even if you don't go hog wild at the sound of six strings, this podcast is the ticket.

The New York Times wrote that the festival "includes more than two dozen concerts, seminars and other events at sites around the city. Most will spotlight guitar titans past and present."

The concert opened today with a tribute to Bruce Srpingsteen's dark 1975 album, "Nebraska." Festival performers wil include Michelle Shocked, Meshell Ndegeocello, Mark Eitzel, Mark Ribot, Vernon Reid, Gary Lucas and others.

You should be aware, before you start writing me an angry e-mail, that these podcasts -- so far there are seven -- are not just recordings of performances. At least not the one I've had time to listen to, episode two (12/23) (the numbers change as new ones come out but the link here highlights the right selection), which was released in advance of the festival's opening. This six-minute podcast is built around a wonderful story about the famous Spanish guitarist Pepe Romero, with his lovely plaing in the background.

I'll provide more information as the festival continues, but if the first of the festival's podcasts is any guide, these will be well worth downloading.

podcastroundup@gmail.com