[Magdalen] Aldrich Family.

[Scott Knitter]

I still love radio and think it's a bit of magic, even though I know
how it works, and even though it's become a hugely splintered
collection of outlets catering to narrow slices of listeners, fueled
by marketing data, etc. And there are more of the robo-stations with
machines playing recorded DJ banter.

Back in East Cupcake I volunteered as a newspaper reader for the WKAR
Radio Talking Book, a subchannel service for the "reading impaired" -
not only the partly to totally blind but also folks physically unable
to handle a newspaper, magazine, or book. Anyway, I did this partly in
a volunteer spirit and partly to take part in the magic of radio, even
if we normally had only 50 listeners max at any given time. There
something about sitting in a dimly lighted studio in front of a
microphone and knowing you're speaking to a crowd out there somewhere.
Love the scene in The King's Speech where the king is in the tiny
booth giving his well-rehearsed war speech heard by millions up and
down the country.

I grew up a few decades later than the glory days of radio dramas and
resonant news bulletins, but we did have WJR in Detroit and WGN in
Chicago, which up until recently retained some of the authoritative
aura of a station everyone listens to when important things are
happening. WJR has gone right-wing talk, but WGN still has the
distinction of creating all of its own content: no network shows; it
all comes from the Tribune Tower downtown. Mostly phone-in chat,
though.

I also love WFMT, Chicago's classical-music station, where you'll
never hear a clangy commercial jingle or shouting car dealer: there
are adverts, but they're all read live by the same honey-voiced studio
talent who introduce the musical selections. An oasis in a desert of
noise pollution.

-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA