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Transmissions from Beyond has just posted Mercurio D. Rivera’s story, “The Scent of Their Arrival,” read by Mercurio and myself as the voice of the human. You can listen to the podcast here.
I had set three alarms. Two on my clock radio which I’ve had since college, and one on my iPhone. Of course, I was up at before all of them. It was 2:45 am, and I was on my way to Jim Freund’s radio show, “Hour of the Wolf.” Still Friday night/early Saturday morning, the noise from the evening (I happen to live close to several bars) had just faded only an hour or two before. I showered and swallowed a cup of coffee when normally I’d be delta-deep in REM sleep.
As soon as I stepped downstairs the car service I had reserved pulled up, and next thing I knew I was off, speeding out of Greenpoint towards the BQE. I told the cabbie to listen to WBAI, 99.5 FM and he immediately tuned in to a reggae/talk politic show. “Do you like science fiction and fantasy?” I asked. “No, not really,” he said. But he seemed more than happy to tune into the station and listen, I suppose because most of the folks he picked up at this quiet hour were either drunk or business folk worried about catching their flight. How many had asked him what he liked? Or perhaps he just wanted a good tip.
The caffeine kicked in as we sped along the BQE. I felt high, superb. It had been a long time since I was up this early, long before my circadian rhythm would have me, and as we sped over the Brooklyn Bridge, I glanced over at Manhattan, half-asleep, city lights dimmed for the night. It felt magical, surreal, wonderful.
When I pulled up to the WBAI station, out pops Jim Freund from his car service. With bagels.
We went upstairs and noshed and chatted and soon the rest of Altered Fluid showed up. This time it was Rajan Khanna’s time to read on the air. We shuffled into the studio, introduced ourselves to the listeners, and then Raj began “School Bus,” a story of a bus driver whose mother is dying from cancer and enrolls in an experimental drug program to get money to support her treatments. But the drug, it seems, has unintended side-effects. It was interesting, I recall as I write this, that in the car on the way to the studio, the talk-show host was talking about how prescription drugs often have side-effects which cause the same symptoms they are trying to cure. Sometimes the universe just synchronizes that way.
Rajan has an excellent radio voice and did a superb job with his story. (He’s recorded podcasts for Jeffrey Ford, among others.) Then it was time for our critiques. Eugene Myers, who was traveling, could not attend. But thanks to the magic of Google Voice, Jim was able to play Eugene’s critique live on the air while we read a mostly accurate speech-to-text conversion of his voice. Had we not prompted him, the casual listener might have thought he was present.
Overall, the morning went extremely well. We even got to take several calls. (Though, sadly, no trolls.) Before we knew it, it was 7am, the show had ended, and the sun had risen over New York, and the East River, dark before, was now flooded with light. All too fast, I thought. All too fast. Not to worry, though, I told myself. We’d be back before long to do it again. It’s become a regular thing.
For those interested, you can listen to a recording of the show here. And you can see some of my photos from the show here.
Altered Fluid will be appearing this Saturday on Jim Freund’s radio show “Hour of the Wolf.” We will be critiquing a story by Rajan Khanna live on the air. The program airs from 5-7am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NY Metro area, or can be heard live and after the show anywhere in the world at http://stream.wbai.org. Here’s a link to the Facebook Event. You can read about our previous on-air hijinks here.
On July 7, 2007 at ReaderCon 18, we had the pleasure of hearing Leah Bobet, John Bowker, and Barbara Krasnoff read from their stories which were in Sybil’s Garage No. 4. Jim Freund, who hosts the radio program “Hour of the Wolf,” graciously provided the recording for us. Check out his show on 99.5 FM WBAI in New York (webstream is available).
– Sybil’s Garage reading at ReaderCon 18 (35:22, 32 MB).
Yesterday morning, Altered Fluid had the pleasure of being on Jim Freund’s radio program, Hour of the Wolf. We assembled at the WBAI studios at the much-too early hour of 4:30 am on Saturday morning. There, Jim provided us with bagels & cream cheese. We came with coffee, but hastily tried to French-brew some more with moderate success before we went on the air .
After a quick introduction we got right into things. There was no time for idle chat as we had a full house of ten guests. Mercurio D. Rivera read his first draft of “The Fifth Daniel” to radio listeners. Afterward, we critiqued his story. One thing I noticed, and Jim pointed this out, was that several of us picked up on subtleties when Mercurio read the story aloud that were not readily apparent when we read it on our own. “Could this be the author’s voice giving life to the words?” Jim speculated. I think so.
At the end of the critique session, we took a few calls. Most people were curious and interested, though we did get one complaint that there weren’t enough trolls in the story. I think I agree.
If you’d like to listen to the show, I’ve made the mp3 available below. Also, here are some pictures from the show. I know Kris Dikeman has more, but she’s on vacation now, sunning & writing on the Outer Banks.
– Altered Fluid – Hour of the Wolf – May 5, 2007 (2 Hrs)
This morning, myself and several members of Altered Fluid, my Manhattan based writers group, had the pleasure of being on Jim Freund’s “Hour of the Wolf.” We talked about writers groups and the critiquing process, and then got down to the nitty-gritty of actually critiquing a real-live story, read on the air, by the talented Kris Dikeman. It began like this:
It was an interesting experience waking up at 2am and meandering towards the subway when most of the residents of Hoboken were waddling home drunk to bed. My first vista: a man urinating on a tree, schlong dangling and all. At least it was raining. I passed stumbling fools and bumbling drools and bought a nice, large coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts (thank God for 24/7). Devin and I met at the PATH and, once in Manhattan, hailed a cab towards Wall Street. A few minutes later we found Kris hiding from the rain under the WBAI building’s eaves. This was about 3:45 am. We were super early. We thought we were so early that the doorman had yet to arrive (he had been hiding somewhere out of sight), and it turned out there was an eensy-teensy, little white doorbell on the side of the entrance we could have used to page him.
We were eventually let in and we ascended pristine elevators to the 10th floor. There we entered the WBAI studios where Jim and the other Altered Fluid members soon joined us. Jim gave us a brief but detailed history of WBAI (aka Pacifica Radio), which, I was very interested to learn, has been a major innovator in broadcast history. WBAI was the first publicly funded (via fund drive) station, and they were also the first to be sued for obscenity on the air, which led to the well-known FCC rules. I wish I had perfect recall and could give you the rich history of the station, but the early hour and the strange effects caffeine has on a body that believes it should be in REM sleep have further deleterious effects on memory. But if you ever run into Jim Freund he’ll be glad to tell you the station’s history.
There was also this blinking red button on an answering machine which said (much to Kris’s enjoyment), “No! Do not press this button!” She wanted to press it.
Soon after we shuffled into the studio and — lo! — we were on the air almost instantly. There was a brief moment of anxiety (for me) that quickly passed. Once we began talking, it became just another night (or, I should say, morning) at the Altered Fluid writers group. We talked about how our group was founded, how each of us had joined, and a little about the critiquing process. Kris Dikeman then read from her recently written “Grandma’s Cat and the Battle of Trafalgar,” which I should say was rather wonderful. Afterwards, we critiqued her story in the “Clarion” method. (You can listen to the show for an explanation of that.) I was the last to crit her story and “dittoed” a lot of the former comments, but I found to my surprise I still had a lot of unique things to say and didn’t need to read from my crib notes hardly at all. That’s the great thing about our group: we all have different sensibilities and different points of view, so our crits cover a spectrum of thought and so often serve to improve an already great story. Kris at one point gave a shout-out to “Franklin,” her cabbie who took her to the station and promised to listen to the show. Yo, Frankie!
This morning went so fast that now, after having napped for an hour or two this afternoon, it all feels like a dream. But I am reminded of what Jim said, “For those of you listening to this show in the future, think kindly of your past.”
The past is available for your listening pleasure. You can listen to the mp3 stream of the show here. Or if you have trouble with that link, try this one.
Some additional photos I took can be found here.
- Altered Fluid - Hour of the Wolf (2 hrs, 20 MB)
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In Sybil’s Garage #2 we published Lauren McLaughin’s “New York City vs. The World.” She has now just released from her website an audio podcast of the story. Check it out here. If you want, you can read along with the text here.
The Jim Hans, Hoboken Extraordinaire Podcast
Interview by Matthew Kressel
to the sound of “Time on my Hands,” a pop song from the early 1930s…
As Published in Sybil’s Garage No. 3.
The story goes something like this: One sunny early autumn day I was strolling down Third Street in Hoboken, heading towards Washington Street when I happened upon a small gate sale. I browsed the various items for a few minutes when a home-grown magazine from the late 70s called Time Machine caught my eye.Full of beautiful engravings and drawings from the early 20th century, as well as letters from Buckminster Fuller and other notables, articles of opinion, comedy, and history, the magazines begged to be purchased. And each of these treasures was only $1. I grabbed the lot of them and went to buy, when an innocent looking man named Jim said, “Oh, you like those? I got more in the back.”
He returned with a stack of several more, remarking, “Those were real fun to make.” I then connected the dots — rather slowly — that this Mr. Jim Hans was the creator of this wonderful magazine. I later found out, Jim holds more secrets. He was the founder of the Hoboken Historical Museum, and his book of history, 100 Hoboken Firsts was recently released by them.
An entire room of his home is filled with the most fascinating items from the beginning of last century. He currently lives in Hoboken with his wife, Beverly. This interview took place a few weeks after our encounter. (We weren’t expecting to release this as a podcast, so please excuse our “ums” and “wells” and verbal hopscotch. A (heavily edited) transcription of this interview is included in Sybil’s Garage No. 3
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