My favourite radio shows (and podcasts)

In this age of media interactivity, one of my favourite habits, still, is listening to a good radio show. I like them partly for practical reasons - it's easy enough to bung on whilst doing some mindless chore or in the car. But mostly, I still very much enjoy the pure, unadulterated spoken word.

Stripped of the distracting allure of the face, the naked human voice is very engaging. I would argue that more can be said (that is, communicated) in 5 minutes on radio than on most other mass media. It is matchless in its sincerity. There is something conspiratorial about focusing on someone's voice, with its tremors and inflections. Some people call it a confessional medium - case in point are the lonely hearts who ring up on a late night show to pour out their troubles.

Here are three of my favourite radio shows (or podcasts) to entice you to fall in love with radio all over again.

Interviews with Margaret Throsby (ABC FM)

To me, Margaret Throsby has the best job. She spends an hour every weekday talking to some of the world's most interesting people, from ex-Prime Ministers to Masterchef winners and everyone in between. The conversation is interspersed with music chosen by the guest which often becomes a springboard to discussing the guest's personal life.

Such is the sensibility of Margaret Throsby (she's dubbed "The Velvet Throat") that you feel like you are eavesdropping on a conversation between old friends. Plus it is highly educational - she has a wonderful, curious layperson way of drawing out fascinating facts from experts. 90% of my general knowledge - science, music, history, anything - comes from my loyal audience of Margaret in the last 10 years.

Move over, Andrew Denton, Michael Parkinson; in my mind, Margaret is the best of them all!

A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor (American Public Broadcasting Service) 

Garrison Keillor might not be very well known in Australia, but in America, he is beloved enough to have a movie made about his show, starring Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Lindsay Lohan.

I first came across Garrison Keillor's comedy through "A Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra" his parody of Benjamin Britten's "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra". One thing led to another and I stumbled upon the (free) podcast of a segment of his show, "News from Lake Wobegon".

It's a 15 minute fictional news broadcast done in the form of a monologue. It is wonderful, wonderful story telling - funny, evocative, spontaneous, wistful. His northern American accent (and occasional singing) tops off the small town nostalgia. So vivid is his cast of characters from Lake Wobegon that they have spawned novels - of which I have bought one - though not as good as the show.

You might laugh out loud, you may even shed a tear, but you will be smiling inwardly long after the closing credits: "That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average."

Thank God It's Friday (Radio Sydney)

I love Richard Glover's column and I love the show he hosts. TGIF is a variety show of the good old variety with guest comedians, guest musicians and people ringing up to answer quizzes. Sometimes, the reason we start following a show is entirely fortuitous. In my case, I happen to always be driving my son back from his grandparents, and in a terribly good mood after a day off. One of these days I will be in the studio audience cheering and laughing out loud.

* * * 

For my 30th birthday, my husband bought me a professional quality microphone complete with a pop-blocker - a circular mesh screen to accentuate your consonants and make you sound like love god Richard Mercer - to start me on my podcasting career. We did make a hilarious episode explaining Chinese idioms. It even had Kirby's original composition as opening credits. I think we quickly realised that a radio career would not be forthcoming but by golly it still sends me into fits of laughter - for the wrong reasons. Back to the listener's chair, for now!

Every eye shall see him

The guest on Margaret Throsby’s morning interview the other day was a psychologist by the name of Paul Ekman who specialises in the study of “micro-expressions”. The theory goes that the human face, far from being a mask behind which you can hide your true feelings, in fact reveals your deepest emotions, even if those expressions last only for a 1/25th second and are imperceptible to all save the rare few who can or have been trained to detect them.

So it is true again. The face is the person. And faces are the primary way we know each other.

Which brings me to my question: have you ever imagined what God looks like? In the Old Testament, the Israelites were forbidden from making images of God lest they idolize the image rather than the living God. But what of the monoliths in our mind? Should we curb our imagination too for fear it will lead us into sin?

Are we left, like the orphan Judy Abbott who catches a glimpse of the shadow of her parting benefactor – a long legged man – at the beginning of the novel and proceeds to write hundreds of letters to her beloved, “Daddy Long Legs”?

Not so, for we have much more. We know His name – LORD – not invented by man but declared by God himself. We know that, for a time, He took on flesh and became a human, specifically, a Jewish man in the first century. And we know his name, Jesus. We have His words. We know His face is no longer hidden from us in anger. And we know with certain hope that, though we see in part, then we shall see face to face.

So, when I close my eyes, clasp my hands, bow my head, and pray to Him, what do I see? Most of the time, it is a sea of black against my own self-conscious voice. But sometimes, not often enough, I imagine His countenance, benevolent and lovely, and majestic.

Who do you see?

 "And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Job 19:26-27a