Fragments From Floyd

It was sound that first caught my attention this morning: how rich an acoustic world we live in here on the creeks. A whipoorwill's call echoed off the edge of forest before first light. The wrens that have built their nest in the hanging petunia planter were whirring their wings flitting who-knows-where before they could see to feed. And always, the creeks bubbling, chuckling, carrying on their eternal conversations with whoever will listen.

Then, some time later, I happened to look out the window by my desk and could see the fog hanging low over the pasture. I found the tripod and my barn boots, and when Ann got up at 5:30, I was wandering over in the field, experimenting with the flat, blue light in a dead calm. How would Ann's "ditch daisies" (her family common name for these wild Crysanthemums) photograph at 1 second in the shadowless reflected light from the not-quite-dawn sky?

Back at the house, I remembered my project I had been working on when the fog distracted me: learning about NPR's "audio postcards". Here's what is required:

To start with, they project a strong sense of place. Just as a picture postcard from a far-away vacation spot brings that sunny beach, or brightly adorned Buddhist temple, or multi-lingual corner market right into your suburban mailbox, an audio postcard should put listeners in a place right away -- and keep them there. You can argue that a sense of place is an ingredient of almost all good radio stories, and that's certainly true, but it's one of the dominant features of a postcard. The reporter is right here, wherever "here" is -- walking along a path with monks in Tibet, listening to the rhythms of a construction site in Chicago or surrounded by a hundred fishermen in Connecticut as they compete in a casting contest.

An audio postcard is heavy on the audio. An effective postcard often envelops the listener in sound. And that means the sound should somehow be remarkable -- the rasping of 17-year cicadas so loud it drowns out conversation; the music of church bells in the medieval German city resonating with history and spirituality and celebration; the midnight creaking and snapping of birches in the Maine woods in January eerie and otherworldly. This is sound that is not just ambience. It's the audio equivalent of that four-color photo. It should really make listeners feel they were there.

Sight or sound? They are both drawing me this morning--a good day to be alive, and well and full of coffee!