Public Radio Redux

Every city and most small towns have at least one - a place where you can pick up a hot dog, slather on some mustard, and have a little chat with the owner. Most of these street vendors have carts with wheels, so they can pack it up and can find a new corner when business gets slow. But not Mark's Hot Dogs. Mark has locked his wheels at the same corner of Portland, Maine's bustling Old Port for the past 25 years.

Chances are, you've walked by a cart like Mark's a million times, but Salt alumns Kelly Creedon and Annie Larmo give us reason to stop. Listen in as they spend the day with Mark, using photographs and sound to capture the community he's created -- a group of folks who meet at the same corner, day after day, because they crave some casual banter and a cold soda. In this world of cell phones and Facebook friends, it's reassuring to see that something as simple as hot dogs can bring people together.

* To view this thoughtful, well produced multimedia piece, visit: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/multimedia/
Be sure to click on 25 Years of Mark's Hot Dogs towards the middle of the page.

Flesh eating fish. Scary, right? Not if you want smooth, supple feet. Yes, feet. The Turkish trend of having flesh eating fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet - carnivorous pedicures? - is becoming popular in the United States.

No, the fish don't look as vicious as the one pictured above. They're really just an inch long and actually kind of pretty. But as you'll hear in Daniele Anastasion's report, they sound pretty mean. That slurping, sucking sound sent me running for my pumice stone. The best moment is when the salon owner joyfully says, "Thanks for helping me feed my fish!" Ewwww.

On sweltering summer days when it was way too hot to play in the backyard, my mom would drive us to Crossgates Mall. It was only two towns away, but it felt like a million miles. Everything gleamed with possibility. The food court was vast and the movie theater was bone-chillingly cold.

The mall has lost much of its appeal over the years, but I still yearn for its over zealous air conditioning on days like this. If you'd rather flee the country than spend a minute in a mall, check out City X. Produced by the incredibly talented Jonathan Mitchell, this exploration of his Midwestern mall will have you day dreaming of coke and curly fries in no time.

Yep, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down's new album We Brave Bee Stings And All is my favorite of the summer. It's perfect picnic-packing, lemonade-drinking music. Rhythmically complex, yet simple and melodic enough to catch the ear of everyone at you summer BBQ. If you haven't heard how lead singer Thao Nguyen taught herself how to play guitar while working in her mother's laundromat (reported by stellar Salt alumn Jesse Dukes ), it's definitely worth a listen.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down sound a little tired on this live broadcast (it's the second night of their cross-country tour, so they could probably use a nap), but Thao has some interesting things to say about women in rock and the size of the wieners in Columbus, Ohio (I'll give you a hint - they're quite large).

What's your favorite summer album of '08?

Ever wonder what kind of thought goes into getting kids, grandmas, and everyone in between to get out on the dance floor and shake shake shake? Shake their booty? This funny episode of What Would Rob Do? looks at the art of Bar Mitzvah dj-ing, which is entertaining in and of itself. But what's even more engaging is the banter between David Kestenbaum, science correspondent for NPR, and Rob. It reminds me a bit of those Saturday Night Live skits from long ago where the cast members would be refraining from laughing out loud at themselves for fear of crossing the point of no return. And bonus: in this episode, you get snippets of everything from "Celebration" to "Hava Nagila." Get ready to get those toes a-tappin.

When I lived in DC years and years ago, every weekday evening around 5:30 I'd notice a line of people gathering by the side of the road near the McPherson Square metro stop. These people seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was no sign to indicate what the line was for and no one really interacted with each other. This fascinated me. And one day I learned from a co-worker who did the slug thing that this was called "slugging" - basically ride sharing with complete strangers.

This piece dives into the concept of slugging and if you've never heard of it before, it's worth listening to. From a production standpoint, it's not the most enthralling piece I've heard - I kept wanting the producer to slug with the best of 'em. What is that experience really like? I wanted to hear the silence of the line, the communication about location drop-off, the car ride. If one of the unstated rules of slugging is that you don't swap names or personal information, what the heck do you talk about during the commute? How do you greet each other?

When I was 10, my 3rd grade class had a "buddy class" in Russia. We sent them pictures and letters on cool air mail stationary and they sent us stories about their puppies and siblings in strange, slanted English.

It turns out that Third Coast has their own Russian "buddy" festival, Vmeste Radio (”Radio Together”) Festival. Third Coast's Managing Director Julie Shapiro blogged about her recent visit to the land of vodka and fur hats on the Chicago Public Radio Blog (a great blog, if you haven't already checked it out).

Indie radio producers in Russia are documenting their lives, cities, and neighbors on a PRX-like podcast site called Podstansiya. It's all in Russian, so you better dig out your Russian-to-English dictionary. And if you prefer your foreign exchange to be in-person, some top notch Russian producers will be making their way to Chicago for an upcoming Third Coast Festival soon. All of this makes me wish I remembered more than just "hello" in this rough, melodic language.

If you scanned the headlines of the New York Times yesterday, you probably learned that NPR is canceling the Bryant Park Project. Now, I have never been a huge huge fan of the show (does anyone remember their failed Sigur Ros interview?), but I also recognize that it takes time for a program and hosts to find their groove. When the last episode airs later this month, they will have only been around for ten months - less than a year. I would've liked to have seen how The Bryant Park Project developed - if only their budget wasn't a whopping $2 million, perhaps we would have found out.

Over the past couple of weeks, Salt alums have been discussing a multimedia piece that was published in the Howard County Times, Hungry, by Salt photography alum Maisie Crow. I won't give any of the story away, but know that it's, at once, sad, inspiring, and captivating. And it's the first time she produced a multimedia piece. Wow, huh?

For more about the specifics of the discussion and the effect of silence in Maisie's piece, check out Salt alum Sam Greenspan's blog.

Thanks, Amy O'Leary, for sharing "Hungry" with us!

I heart Transom. I really, really do. I love how helpful they are, how encouraging and informational. Transom.org, for those of us who are just starting out, is like a nice cup of hot tea on a bone-chilling day. Comforting. Reassuring.

Most of all, Transom is accessible.

Nothing shows that better than the most recent Transom Showcase, How Are You Who You Are? by Eric Winick and Jay Allison. Eric got started working on this piece through encouragement and advice by Transom and Jay - three years ago. After coming up with a draft version, Jay invited Eric to come to Woods Hole and spend a few days reworking and editing the piece together. The result is a powerful story of identity, family, and loss. The beginning question, "What if someone you loved changed so completely that you barely recognized them? Would you still love them?" grabs your attention and stays with you throughout. I was listening to this as I was doing other things and mid-way through, during a tear-ful conversation with Lynn, the wife, I stopped and stared at my computer. I felt like she was talking directly to me, the feeling was so intimate. This is what radio is all about. Thanks, Transom, for making stories like these possible.