Weekend America Voices
Marc Sanchez
Recent Stories
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Instant Novel
When Nancy Janoson tells people what she does for a living, the answer is usually "jazz musician." But this weekend, it's "writer." She's a participant in the Three Day Novel Writing contest. For contestants like Nancy, this weekend is all about self-exile. The choices for things to do are limited to drinking pots of coffee, sleeping only long enough to keep your eyes from blurring, and writing until your hands cramp.
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Grunt It Out
Tennis fans have migrated east this weekend to watch the U.S. Open. If you listen closely, you can hear the chair umpire at Arthur Ashe stadium try to calm down the New York fans. Maybe a Bronx cheer would work a little better than the standard "Quiet, please." Of course, there are other sounds that come to mind whenever gladiators of the court gather.
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Best Thing Since Empty Nest
Ever since the advent of the VCR, Saturday night network TV has been a black hole. Low ratings, low interest. But last Saturday, NBC saw their highest ratings in over 20 years thanks to Michael Phelps' eighth gold medal. So what was NBC's last Saturday night, prime time show to have higher ratings than Phelps? "Empty Nest." You know, "Empty Nest"... starring Richard Mulligan, Kristy McNichol and Dinah Manoff. You don't remember that?
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Slices and Dices
The Minnesota State Fair is a big deal. People talk about it all year. Summer is fair season across the country. Rides, animal exhibits, gigantic vegetables, butter sculptures and any kind of food on a stick you can imagine. Billy Newcomb knows the fairgrounds intimately. It's his office, really, and his home. His family has been selling kitchen gadgets at the fair for 75 years. If it slices, dices, cleans or mops, Billy's family has probably sold it.
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Homemade Ghost Rock
The Ann Arbor, Mich., band Nomo is on the road a lot. This weekend in Minneapolis, next weekend in Madison, Wisc., supporting their new album Ghost Rock. For Nomo, touring is no easy feat. There are up to eight musicians and an avalanche of equipment, including a bunch of instruments you've never seen before.
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The Crack of the Bat
It's been a surprising year in baseball. Perennial doormats the Tampa Bay Rays are in first place. A completely obscure player named Carlos Quentin leads the American League in home runs. Also surprising: way more broken bats are flying into the crowd and whapping people in the face.
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Sounds of Mass Transit
As gas prices rise, more and more Americans are leaving their cars in the garage and running to catch mass transit. We explore the unique sounds of buses, subways and trains in five U.S. cities.
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Remembering the Projects
Most of the old Chicago public housing projects have been demolished, but some former residents are now embracing the friends and memories they made over the years, and the sometimes very trying years, they lived there. A few residents are helping to launch the Public Housing Museum, which is meant to be a national repository of public housing memories and learning.
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The Modern Brady Bunch
"Individualism is great but at the same time, it consumes a tremendous amount of resources. We all understand the value of having our own car, but when gas is costing $4.50-$4.60 per gallon and likely to go up, people have an incentive to rethink some of these ideas."
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Voicing Art Opinions in the Round
At museums around the country this weekend, lots of folks will plug in and walk the halls listening to someone tell them about art. Sound artist Halsey Burgund wanted to update the standard museum audio tour, so he dreamed up a project called "Round." Now you can hear people talking about the art, and you can leave your own opinions.
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Express Rant? Free Express Car Wash!
It's not news that rising fuel prices are causing many a cash-stretched customer to vent their frustration at the hapless employees working at the gas station. What is novel is how one gas station owner found a way to help both his clients and employees cope with the rising prices and mounting stress.
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A Missouri Town Braces for Floods
The National Weather Service lowered crest predictions for the Mississippi River -- good news for communities like Clarksville, Mo. (pop. 500). For a glimpse of the flood scene, we check in with Bud Garrison, who owns a pottery shop in Clarksville that's right next to the river.
