Teddy Diaries

Last week's episode of Thinking Aloud exposed the novel idea of using the classroom tool of Teddy Diaries as a sociological resource. Teddy Diaries are where young children take a class teddy bear home and write a diary entry with their families, then return the teddy bear to class, and the next child brings the teddy bear home, and so on. Sociologist Randi Waerdahl is pouring over Teddy Diaries to take a peek into how families want present themselves to the rest of the class or to the outside, and she's comparing them from different communities around the world.

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PHOTO: OCCAM

The Sound of Young America: The Best Comedy of 2009 Special

 Great collection of 2009 comedy clips compiled by Jesse Thorn on The Sound of Young America. Below is my favorite, by John Mulaney.

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PHOTO: Brainware3000

Studio 360 Story on Avatars, Generally

"So if I'm running around or flying around or sexing around in a virtual world, my brain still ultimately reads that as real. Media is real. It ultimately says that you're living this experience that you're viewing."

A story this week by Eric Molinsky from WNYC's Studio 360 discusses the nature of avatars and the mind/body questions they play around with.  How do we represent ourselves online and how do we control that image? It's a pretty short report, but it enouraged me to re-examine the contradiction between our desire and interest in worlds online and the very constrained physical mode of interaction, screens and keyboards, that we have to use to participate in that world.
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PHOTO: JARED TARBELL

Code Switching

I grew up hearing the voice of Bob Edwards almost every day on the radio. When he left NPR, I didn't get satellite radio, so he was just gone, and I hadn't heard him since. A couple weeks ago I discovered his shows, The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend, finally, through podcasts. Hearing his voice again, and his voice is unchanged, gives me solemn, nostalgic, near-religious feelings that the world really does have some kind of continuity and that Bob Edwards will live forever.

Below are a couple segments from a recent episode where he interviews writer Sarah Lyall about British culture. It's a good interview in its own right - she's got plenty to say - but it's also good example of Bob Edwards' interviewing style.

Bob Edwards' shows are on Sirius XM satellite radio, in itunes and on the websites.

(Update 8/2012, Links no longer available, sorry)

PHOTO: Jonathan Gill