Dyana airs on WBEZ in Chicago

On October 3rd and 4th, Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ, the fine folks who host This American Life and Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! aired “Dyana, Goddess of the Moose Hunt.” RE:Sound picked up my piece and aired it as a part of their “Hunting” show. Apparently, a lot of people thought hunting was fit for the airwaves this year.

A Brooklyn School Yard Game

Kimberly and Kayly play patty-cake.

Remember your playground days, when you lived for recess? This morning I had the pleasure of watching two great girls play an updated version of patty-cake. You’ll love their new rhymes! “Inny-menny-siciliani…”

Kayly calls those Octopus eyes...look at that pretty smile!

*Their grandmother approved of this post!

Did I scoop the NY Times?

You may remember that earlier this spring I produced a radio story for WNYC about illegal beekeeping in New York City. While reading the NY Times on Tuesday, I found this. How exiting that one of the main people I interviewed for my radio piece was also sought out by the Times. Such an honor.

“The Archives”: my very first attempt at radio

We all do it. When we met that special someone – when we start falling head over heels for them – we make attempts to be rational in the face of wild, unwieldy love. We ask our friends what they think of our new catch. Do you think we’re a good match? we ask. We really make sense together…don’t you think?

Secretly don’t care much what they think. We just want to hear them say how lovely our new love is.

When I was falling for my now-fiance, Greg, I started recording conversations with people who were presently or had been in a relationship with someone much older than them. See, Greg is 20 years older than me. As you can imagine, a few individuals in my life had their reservations. Couldn’t I just find someone my own age? I went on a quest to find other couples who had a significant age gap like us. In truth, I was collecting ammunition. Radio ammunition. As I spoke with more and more people, I decided to produce this piece.

Here is my first-ever radio story. I like to think my editing skills have improved since then. Over the years, I’ve interviewed eight more people on the subject. I’m still very interested in this love-age thing and am in the process of producing a longer radio documentary about couples with large age gaps. If you know anyone I should speak with, please email me (see contact page).

Until then, listen to this:

Feeling overwhelmed? Wondering if you’ll make it?

Charles Kuralt is my hero.

When I was a kid, most of my friends loved cereal and Saturday morning cartoons. Not me. I was addicted to the CBS news series, “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” I’d lie belly-down on the carpet, chin propped up, eyes fixed on a corny, bald man. He was passionate about people’s stories – regular people’s stories! Charles hit the road in an old motor home. He took the back roads. He showed us the beauty of the American landscape and of each other. (Yes, I’m just as corny as him.) But, people watched! Charles won three Peabody awards and ten Emmys.

“You know, most reporters can’t go back to the towns they wrote stories about,” he told a biographer in 1994. “I never wrote that kind of story.”

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or frustrated lately (the economy’s got your neck, or someone else does), watch this.

Illegal Beekeeping in NYC

Amy and Barry's 12,000 honeybees.

It’s springtime. The birds are chirping, and the bees are starting to buzz all around the five boroughs. But that doesn’t mean you’ll find local, New York City-made honey on a shelf in your grocery store. Hiving honeybees within city limits is against Health Code because bees are classified as a venomous animal. Still, dozens of urban apiarists carry on their clandestine hobby, enduring months of preparations for the arrival of their spring bees. Jamie Yuenger began following the trail of one hive of city bees on an unseasonably warm weekend back in early February.

Quincy Dean’s Radio Diary

Quincy is 13, and she’s never been to school before. I gave her my recorder, and she kept an audio diary about her experience  deciding whether or not to go school for the first time. She’s great. Just listen.

Dyana, Goddess of the Moose Hunt

A New Kind of Us

It feels more and more like we are going to be able to do this. We,  citizens of this country and of this world, are going to be able to find a middle place with one another, a place where we can talk and break bread, maybe even share dessert. Obama’s brave leadership is letting all of us shed some unneeded pounds of resentment and pride. I feel things changing. I feel the hope pushing its way in. Sometimes it’s bursting out of me. I see it shining out of people as I walk down the street. I see it in the subway. I see it in how people walk. We are on the edge of greatness.