Memoirous

During Christmas I listened to Dolly Parton's America , a podcast from journalist and podcast celebrity Jad Abumrad, creator of Radiolab and More Perfect. Like all good podcasts there are surprising and insane connections made—where the conversation takes a left turn to something else. I loved the interweaving of themes and threads=all from Dolly Parton. This is America in all its forms. The podcasts begin with Parton in Nashville on the Porter Wagoner Show. She was meant to be the “Dumb Blonde”, second fiddle to the main man, but her ability to carry an audience and build her own fan base was immediately apparent. What Abumrad emphasized is that Dolly’s fans are diverse. She appeals to not only country music fans but to the LGBT crowd. People who vote for Trump, people who would rather die than vote for Trump. In fact, she has more of a following now in her 70s than she did when at age 21 she broke onto the scene on Wagoner’s show. Her songs speak to a whole range of peopl...

I was intrigued yesterday when I heard this story on NPR about a couple who in the 1960s decided they would run around and record new and emerging authors reading their own work. Recordings weren't new, but access to recording equipment was getting more and more affordable and portable. ...The Schwartzes' idea was to record such authors, put them on vinyl LPs, eight minutes per side, sell the records for $1.95 apiece, and pay each writer $150 — pretty good money in the early '60s.... First they started with James Baldwin reading from Giovanni's Room who then connected them with Bill Styron who led them to Philip Roth. Today we can listen in on the young Roth--before he was famous. These voices from the past still speak to us today. That's why I was so enthusiastic about The Flexible Persona --an online journal publishing in both the written and audio format. I think this is something more and more literary journals will begin doing--just as stories are shri...