mad in pursuit: the midlife web diary (6:40)

At the age of 50 I was a colorless corporate malcontent. I decided to engage the world by keeping an anonymous online diary. No one noticed. The initial dangerous thought turned into a challenge to become more entertaining. Did I reinvent myself or did I only reassemble all the lost pieces of myself? The result: I wound up being discovered, not by the world, but by ... my mother. ( 5.13.06)

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Respectable (2:30)

This sound project was an official entry into the ShortDocs 99 Ways to Tell a Story event of Chicago's Third Coast Festival, 2006. It is in mockumentary style: children in a behavior program speak up about respect, against the metaphorical soundscape of the Institution.

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KITTY KEEPS ON SINGING (6:30)

I always knew that my grandmother suffered many early losses in her life and that she lost her son in World War II. Lots of sadness. But I also knew her as a great entertainer, a great gatherer of friends and family, always ready for a party.

When I started listening to my mother's collection of home-recorded 78s, the contrast seemed even more startling to me. My uncle had died in 1942, devastating the family who worshipped this talented boy. And yet those recordings, made mostly in 1943 and 1944, are filled with silliness and boisterous off-key singing. Not a hint of melancholy. I became preoccupied with figuring out how to tell her story. How did my grandmother -- how does anyone -- rise above loss and declare victory over sorrow? The best clue I got was from her singing "Danny Boy" and the story behind that song. My conclusion: Kitty was a great dame. Great dames figure out how to use song, laughter, and conviviality to carry on, no matter what life hands them.

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The Valentine 1955 (2:12)

1955 saw the birth of the Civil Rights Movement and the beginning of school desegregation. They were unsafe and worrisome times, especially in big cities like St. Louis, where white neighborhoods experienced an influx of poor rural black folks.

This short-short story recounts a single moment in time. Valentine's Day, 1955. My mother had given me valentines only for the white children in my class and, at the age of seven, I faced the terrible dilemma of what to do when a girl with a brown face reached out to get a card from me. Obey my mother or be kind to another child? In movies and books, children are often portrayed as wiser than adults. But in real life children are little mirrors of their parents, who in turn are often only playing out the larger issues of their society. It was a cruel moment.

An animated version was screened at the 2003 United Nations Association Film Festival at Stanford University and Monterrey CA.

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Dangling Woman (5:17)

A traveler's tale: I was an eco-tourist in Costa Rica. I bought a ticket to slide on a cable between treetops in the rainforest. Everyone else did it fine, but I got stuck in the middle. This might have been a one-chuckle anecdote if I hadn't been a social reformer who had just run away from a jungle of politics at home.

If I've had a single insight in my travels, it is that the places we visit are neutral and largely indifferent to us. The mood and the meaning is inside the visitor. My trip was not just about getting stuck in the canopy but about the nightmares that come to someone who just can't relax and leave well enough alone.

This piece was originally streamed by Transom in the 2003 "Three about Me." As of 2/5/04, no national broadcast.

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Short List: Quotations (1:13)

This radio piece was developed for submission to the "Short List" collaboration between Transom and NPR's Day to Day. (2.23.04)

The idea is to present a list of some sort, making the listener wonder what the connection is between the items. At the very end, the connection is revealed.

I developed my list after paging through an old notebook of quotations. It was rejected by NPR as "too personal" -- I guess that's why I like it. It was also a good exercise in trying out voices.

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