May 11th Podcast Summary

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Narnia fans, go to
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May is Science Fiction Month at M Radio SIG.

The month of June will bring back the "normal" varity of modern, not so modern and old time radio shows.

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Tom Ferguson, founder of M Radio SIG said it best: Words Are Spoken Here. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in some cases a sound and a few words can convey a thousand unspoken feelings. And that is the whole idea behind the listening of stories, plays and poetry instead of just reading them. The art of story-telling is being practiced at local libraries, on public radio, at story-telling guilds and clubs. Radio dramas are recreated locally and in ever expanding national venues. Imagine, for example, the difference between reading the line "Who knows what danger lurks in the hearts of men?" as opposed to hearing it spoken in a dramatic tone accompanied by a dark, evil laugh. The sound version is surely more potent, which is why audio drama and its close cousin, "spoken word," got started in the first place. No wonder it is called the theater of the mind. Ever since such popular shows as "The Shadow" drew people to radios in the 1930s and '40s, audio drama -- or plays and vignettes performed vocally with no visual aspects -- have held a place in American culture. And spoken word -- or poetry that is "performed" by speaking it dramatically -- has claimed cultural turf since Socrates or even earlier when ancient hunters sat around the fire and recounted the day’s hunt. Spoken word and audio drama continue to play a part in today's culture, but not in the same way as in their heydays. During the past few decades, the overwhelming popularity of film and television has displaced these dramatic forms. How often does your family sit and read or tell stories to each other? While you may read stories to young children, has the practice continued to adulthood? Amazingly, however, an unlikely medium -- the Web -- has reinvigorated these classic art forms and is making them increasingly more popular. Thanks to the Web, people who already love the spoken-word form can easily find hundreds of free sites dedicated to the topic and can play on-demand, download or even stream files for listening. Fans can also hear audio drama streamed, or played live, from some radio stations' Web sites. And people who may have never encountered these art forms can discover them more easily as they browse large sites where audio drama, audio books, or spoken word is sold in increasing quantities. While it takes more effort to happen across a spoken-word performance in person, it isn't at all difficult to click on a link leading to a spoken-word category on a Web site. A critical part of the phenomenon is peoples' ability to easily stream, or listen to spoken word on their computers, MP3 players, or ipods. Another reason for the popularity spurt is that the Web allows geographically far-flung segments of a small art community to connect and create a larger niche.

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