State of the Union Produced by Scott Carrier Real Audio or MP3

Last Night in New York Produced by Wednesday Kennedy Real Audio or MP3

Intro by Jay Allison

What is the quality of our national dialogue in the approach to war? Are we listening to each other? Whose voice is heard? The pundits, the politicians, the people? Does the dialogue even matter anymore? How is our democracy behaving these days? These are some of the questions driving our featured shows.

Scott Carrier was driving, literally, 8000 miles around the U.S., asking questions like those above. He created a vox (vox pop; vox populi, voice of the people) with the answers. He hasn't been able to place this piece on American radio. He's hoping maybe some foreign networks will be interested in listening.

The Australian performance artist Wednesday Kennedy sent us her piece just in time for the anniversary of September 11th. The air was cluttered with memories at that time and her work didn't air nationally in this country, but it has been carried in many other places in the world. The American voices she found still ring and we wanted you to hear her work.

Both Scott and Wednesday exist outside the mainstream. So do many of the voices they capture. What happens to voices like theirs in times like these?

Scott Carrier EMAIL

September 2002

Jay, I'm planning to spend three weeks driving around the country interviewing people about the current state of our union. Personally, I think we've had a number of hard changes that have come down on us rather quickly, and I sense widespread confusion, apprehension, doubt, and concern for our democracy. I think that the media are picking up on this, but the various programs on television and radio seem to not know how to cover it other than by putting more pundits and experts on the air, when actually what is needed is for the common man and woman to be given a voice. So I'm going to try to do this.

At this time, I 'm not sure of my route, but my basic plan is to try to talk to as many people as I can, asking a few questions-- Is America different now than it was a year ago? What has been lost, or gained? What needs to be done, if anything? These are the questions I will ask of everybody, but they are primarily an excuse to get people talking about how they've been feeling over the past year and what kind of vision they have of the future.

I would like to end the trip in either Woods Hole or New York, where I will work on the tape and produce an hour-long program.

Scott
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"State of the Union" was created with help from HearingVoices.

Wednesday Kennedy

Notes From Wednesday Kennedy

In the weeks after Sept 11th... I prowled the streets of Manhattan with a camera and mini disc... recording the roller coaster of emotions and responses in the wake of the catastrophe. Last night in New York is a journey through the voices of native New Yorkers trying to find their balance in a dramatically altered landscape and captures the heart beat and mood swings of the city during the weeks after the most devastating attack on American soil.

"Last Night" lets the city's people speak for themselves.

Credits:
"Last Night In New York" was produced at ABC Radio National and broadcast on The Night Air. Executive Producers on LNNY include Brent Clough and Natalie Kestecher. It was engineered by the masterful Roy Huberman. The piece has also been broadcast on WNYC Radio Lab presented by Jad Abumrad, and was performed as a multi media show at The Trilogy Theatre in New York during Aug/Sept 2002. The show will perform the Merlin Theatre in Budapest in 2003.

About Wednesday Kennedy

Kennedy's poetry and nonfiction have appeared in HQ, Australian Style and the Meanjin Literary Journal. She was also featured in "Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry," launched in New York on Oct. 15, 2002 (see www.rattapallax.com). She also writes and performs regularly for the Australian Broadcasting Corp., which presented a radio version of "Last Night in New York" on the Radio National program "The Night Air" on Sept. 11, 2002. Her other radio pieces include "Telling Stories at the Algonquin Hotel" and "Virginia Wolff Goes to Centrelink." She thinks the difference between Australians and Americans is in the "cawfee." But now that Starbucks has come to Sydney, there's not much difference.

Wednesday Kennedy Links