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Month: October 2010

Distillations #107 – Medical Gross Out

We always have a lot of fun with our Distillations Halloween shows and this year was no exception. This time we went for skin-crawling, gag-inducing grossness with segments on how a human body decays, how maggots are used to treat infectious wounds, and an interview with Robert Hicks and his blood-sucking leeches. (Note: Robert lets his leeches feed on HIS ARM.)

Jack-O-Lantern image courtesy of Flickr user Rennett Stowe.

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Distillations #105 – The Periodic Table

For this show we took a literary approach to this most scientific of topics. Segments include an interview with Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, (a great read), an excerpt from Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, (another great read!), and a Distillations writing contest challenging listeners to write their own Elemental Memoir.

Image: Periodic Table of Cupcakes at CHF’s museum’s first anniversary. Photo by Rosanne Cook.

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Pulse of the Planet – Crustacean

In this segment for Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet, experimental musician Bart Hopkin talks about one of his colleagues, Tom Nunn, creator of the Crustacean. The sound of this thing is incredible – like an underwater orchestra. Hopkin also talks about how some of the best music evolves from instruments you can’t control.

Musical Instruments – Steel Vibration: How can you keep a piece of steel vibrating for a long time? Are the balloons ready?

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Pulse of the Planet – Savart’s Wheel

This is the first of the most recent series of programs I produced for Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet. Jim handed me a transcript and a DVD filled with audio/video clips from his interviews with experimental musician and instrument builder Bart Hopkin and told me to go to town. I found about ten stories in there, and so far he’s aired eight of them. This is the first:

Musical Instruments: Sound WheelWhat does it take to design a completely new kind of musical instrument?

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