Middletown Youth Radio in Christian Science Monitor

Wow, and more great WesU stuff...

There's a fantastic story today in the Christian Science Monitor about the Middletown Youth Radio Project, through which preteen local residents of T-Square host their own radio shows at WesU:

Every Friday night, two 10- to 12-year-old DJs put on their headsets in the WESU radio studios at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and host their own half-hour radio show.

Kid DJs Clayton Smith and Ayanna Perez, both seventh-graders, write stories, poems, and songs for their weekly show. The program, "The Middletown Youth Radio Project" (MYRP), partners 12 elementary and middle-school students with eight Wesleyan University (WU) student mentors.

Every week, mentors help the young DJs edit their songs and stories at DJ workshops. Mu Abeledo, a WESU DJ and a senior at WU, and Jessica Jones, a former WU student, started the program in 2007.

Before the young DJs host their shows, each makes up an on-air name. For example, Clayton is DJ C-Dog and Ayanna is DJ Strawberry Shortcake.

These youthful DJs also have a chance to conduct interviews with people in the community. Recently, fifth-grader Chris Madera and his mentor, senior Eli Scherer, visited Marco's Italian Deli to interview its owner. This was the first time Chris had interviewed someone. He used a handheld recorder to record the interview. Afterward, Chris edited the interview and played it on the air.

Read more.

College Radio Still Rocks

According to the New York Times, college radio is still pretty freakin' awesome. Not necessarily because anybody is listening, but because it acts as a petri dish for the musical people who, one day, will shape the music industry. Where could this possibly be more true than here at Wesleyan?

For those of you who are not yet aware, Wesleyan's own WESU 88.1 FM is one of the best college radio stations in the country. President Roth recently wrote a plug for WESU on his blog, and we at Wesleying have also given WESU a fair amount of coverage in recent weeks:

• WESU Variety Show
  
• WESU asks listeners to "give the gift of WESU"
  
• Here comes the sun

So if you haven't tried it yet, go rediscover the magic of radio. You never know what you're going to hear - and somehow that makes it so much better.

p.s. For those of you who are confused about the "all the way left on your dial" thing, they stream their programming online. You can listen to radio without the hassle of 20th century technology.
p.p.s. No, I don't work at WESU. I'm just a devoted fan.

WESU Variety Show

WESU (88.1 FM) Variety Show

Poetry, music, dance. performances by Wesleyan students and the WESU Middletown community.

Date: Friday, December 5th
Time: 7:30-9 pm
Place: The Buttonwood Tree Art Center, 605 Main Street (Across from O'Rourke's)

WESU asks listeners to "give the gift of WESU"

John Whalen, Public Relations Director of WESU, writes:

Non-commercial listener supported college and community radio station, 88.1 FM WESU, calls on listeners to give the gift of WESU this holiday season during their Fourth Annual Winter Pledge Drive. This year’s drive will take place Dec. 1 through Dec. 14.

This year WESU aims to raise $35,000 in listener and community support towards sustaining their annual operating budget of roughly $100,000. With The Wesleyan University administration and the Wesleyan Student Assembly covering the remaining balance of the budget, WESU is a real model for meaningful partnerships between Wesleyan University and the Greater CT River Valley community.

To show your support for WESU, donate online at www.WESUFM.org or call 860 685-7700 during the drive and make a pledge. Premiums will be offered for donations of $20 and above.

Click the image above for the full text of the press release.

Here comes the sun

Mary Lauran Hall '10 writes:

This semester, I've been hosting a Beatles radio show on our own WESU, 88.1 FM Middletown. For some craaazy reason, though, a lot of people are resistant to the idea of being up at 3 AM on Sunday night to listen to the show. To ensure that the Middletown and Wesleyan communities still get their healthy dose of the Fab Four, I've turned my show into a podcast. There are already five episodes up on the site, and a new one will appear every week!

Go check it out at beatlemania.mypodcast.com.

WESU's new fall season

WESU (a radio station run by Wesleyan folk and Middletown folk) has just started its fall 2008 season.

According to the station's press release,

"WESU currently produces 80 original programs while continuing to syndicate the best in national news and public affairs programming from National Public Radio and the Pacifica Network." What's changed this season, besides some new shows? Program Director Max Lavine explains that "'a big advantage of the new season is that we've tried to create more of a balance between the needs of our DJs and the needs of our listeners. We've tried to create more consistency in our format. Across the board, we have grouped shows by genre so that a listener listening to one show will want to stay tuned for the next one.'"

Check out the fall schedule, and then listen to the radio either online or by tuning in to 88.1fm in the Middletown/Wesleyan area.

Grateful Dead on WESU Tonight

"The airwaves will be anything but dead as the music of one of rock's most prolific touring acts, The GRATEFUL DEAD, are brought to you by 'Uncle John'. Featuring live recordings, studio tracks, interviews and much more...

SUNDAYS at 730pm (eastern) only on
WESU 88.1FM Middletown, CT
and streaming LIVE at
http://www.deadair881.net
http://www.wesufm.org

WESU is summerified

That's right, WESU is going all summer long. Some of the hosts are Wes students, some are Middletown community members, and all are awesome.

The summer schedule started this past Monday. Check it out here.

As always, you can listen to WESU either streamed online at http://www.wesufm.org/ or on any radio tuned to 88.1 FM around Wes.

I'm excited for tonight's:

Jim's Greasepit and Cocktail Lounge with (Death in) Jim - [Tire-meltin', upright-bass-slappin', beer-swillin', greasy haired, low-brow rock 'n roll at its finest. At least one Elvis song per show guaranteed. Tip Darlene or she'll spit in your coffee next time.]

Yeah Elvis.

WESU interview show available via podcast

Noah Hutton '09 writes:

Down at WESU we have a new show, "The Faculty Lounge," where we interview a different Wesleyan professor every week. We've been doing this since February, and all the shows are available for download at My Podcast.

WESU Variety Show on Friday

Jessica Jones '08 writes:

This Leap Friday, WESU invites you to its Variety Show at The Buttonwood Tree on Main Street. From stand-up comedy and poetry to electronic music and Randy Newman covers, come watch in awe as your favorite WESU voices perform live and in the flesh. Tap dancing, country music, punk rockers, and friends expected.

Here's the tentative lineup:

• Jeremy Finch, producer for The Faculty Lounge: songs sung from behind the piano; set includes at least one Randy Newman cover.
• DJ Bess and DJ Neznama, hosts of I'm in Love With the Radio On: performing what has been described as "a sort of dance." It's existential.
• David Abravanel, host of The Crater: original, incredible computer music.
• Joshua Sharp, host of The Brittle Diameter: words will be spoken, and they will be done so in an interesting way.
• Too Tough to Die (WESU Supergroup): playing fun, fast, and sloppy Ramones covers that everyone can appreciate.
• Sylvia Ryerson: original songs with all the heartiness, sweetness, and warmth of a birthday cake made and decorated from scratch.
• Precision Dance Troupe: what's a good variety show without 3 expertly trained tap dancers?
• Jess Jones, co-host of Musica Pa' Gozar: original songs in 2 languages belted delicately with a Springsteen-esque passion.
• The Vowelettes, featuring the hosts of Inside Tradition and The Feeling of the Idea of Silk Scarves in the Air: a tribute to strong, admirable women who sing country music. Extremely likable.
• DJ Po, host of Laugh Riot: original stand-up comedy from a student of the masters.

Plus, the Middletown Youth Radio Project will be emceeing the event. Also, expect special guests!

Date: Friday, Feb. 29
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: The Buttonwood Tree (605 Main Street)
Cost: $3 suggested donation to WESU

Delmar talks about onions, Bon Appétit in space

Earlier we let you know that Bon Appétit's very own Delmar Crim was on Sunday's installment of Storm Surge of Reverb, the WESU show hosted by Hunter King '08. In case you missed it, you can listen to it online, courtesy of archive.org.

Hunter: The song "Spunky Onions". Would you say that onions are, at all, spunky? Have you ever encountered a spunky onion?
Delmar: Funky onions, but not, uh, spunky, per se.
Hunter: OK, yeah. I can imagine some funky onions.

My favorite part is when Hunter asks Crim if Bon Appétit has plans to expand into outer space:

Hunter: And you know, we're moving into the future... Do you think Bon Appétit has a potential market in space? Or, do... how do you see the future of space food?
Delmar: Well, we like to think of ourselves as a green company, and I'm not really seeing a lot of a green connection. But, uh, you never know, it might be applications for handheld microwaves at that point, there wouldn't be a lot of people out there to irradiate. And uh, it's you know, refrigeration wouldn't be a problem, obviously, you know. I guess all your worry about methane gas and garbage and post-consumer waste, everything would kinda turn into pretty little meteorites. So, I guess you'd have to rethink the way you thought about that.
Hunter: Yeah.
Delmar: Yeah.

Crim on Boogie Boards

If you remember that last year Hunter King '08 invited our beloved president Doug Bennet to do voice breaks for his surf rock show on WESU, he's now taking it one step further. He says

"Wesleyan dining maven Delmar Crim will join me live on air this Sunday from 2:30-3:30 to talk about the obvious connection between surf music and the culinary arts."

This is one show you don't want to miss.

WESU Magazine is accepting submissions

WESU Magazine is in the midst of its "WESU Magazine Submission Drive Bonanza Blow Out Clearance." They are looking for "writers, artists, and collaborators who yearn to put together the freshest issue of WESU magazine yet." They'll accept "anything even vaguely related to Middletown, the radio, or music for publication—art, jokes, poems, recipes, interviews, journalism, music scores, birthday cards, etc."

Submissions are due May 6th, 2007, at 8 PM, emailed to editor(at)wesufm.org.

Update on Tonight's WESU Show

Jeffrey Wong '08 tells us that Grizzley Bear did have to cancel due to a death in the family but we have replaced them with Japanther.

The show will still be going on at Eclectic from 7pm to Midnight, but will now be FREEEEEE. If you bought a ticket already, however, you can get a refund at Eclectic. WESU members will be at the door to sell T-shirts and such, so just give them your ticket and they'll refund your money.

The Curse of Monkey Island Radio Drama!

A grog-swillin', side-splittin' radio drama based on the immortal LucasArts adventure game, on this its 10th anniversary!

Join 'Mighty Pirate' Guybrush Threepwood on an epic quest to save his beloved Elaine from a terrible voodoo curse! Ghosts, cannibals, zombie pirates...and El Pollo Diablo - this week on the Waterpipe Theatre.

The Curse of Monkey Island...Part One!

Date: Saturday, April 14th
Time: 2 pm - 3 pm
Place: 88.1 FM or Streaming from wesufm.org/listen.html

Introducing Student Podcast

John Cusick '07 writes in:

I recently started a a podcast on the topic of writing anything from short stories to manifestos. It also features regular clips from the Waterpipe Theater, a radio drama show I do on WESU with Rory Bradley '07, Andrea Silenzi '07, Evan Simko-Bednarski '07, and whole host of other cool people. The podcast is called Sans Serif.

You can listen to Sans Serif here.

Struttin

Andrea Silenzi '07 invites you all to....

Tonight's Struttin'!

Struttin' is WESU's monthly dance party, hosted by DJ Lord Lewis the
Velvet Knight. Come to Vinnie's Jump and Jive for some awesome funk
beats and great dancing. Only $3 to get in and the money goes to WESU
Middletown. Don't want to walk that far? Call the ride: 860.685.3788

Date: Tonight at 9pm
Place: Vinnie's Jump & Jive (424 main street)
Time: She did not say? I assume it's 9-12. They all are.

WESU Variety Show

Everyone should go to WESU's Variety Show this weekend! Come hang out with WESU and bring your friends!

Music & Poetry! Performers include Balkan Situations, Evan Simko- Bednarski, Ben Seretan, John Cusick & Sarah Elmaleh, Maya Odim, Sam Ottinger & Cory Baldwin, Dave Abravanel, Fareed Sajan, and more.

Date: Saturday, March 3
Time: 7-9pm
Place: The Buttonwood Tree Theatre (605 Main Street across from O'Rourke's)
Cost: Suggested $3 donation

How to Destroy a NYT Column by Blogging

When I had first heard about this ordeal, I didn't know whether it would be appropriate to post it on Wesleying. In fact, you might call this my first ethical blogging dilemma. To put it another way, I didn't know whether blogging about another student's blog would help or harm that student's current situation seeing as how readily Wesleying is attached to (though not recognized by) Wesleyan. I feared that whatever I said about the issue at hand would get picked up pretty fast before I had all the facts straight. I admit, I still don't get the facts right because this whole thing is pretty ridiculous and what it seems to be more than anything is the desperate death rattle of NYT's Metropolitan Diary editor Michael Pollak.

In essence, what happened was as follows: Andrea Silenzi '07 runs a blog called Seven Second Delay, which is basically blogged commentary for a WFMU radio show by the same name. On said show, the two DJs, Ken and Andy, joked about the predictable formula of Metro Diary submissions which document reader's anecdotes on life in New York City (think Overheard in New York, but lamer and tamer). A reader of Andrea's blog submitted a silly little made-up anecdote they felt would surely appeal to Pollak. And it did.
When the fact checker called, Andrea apparently "lied" and said the story was true. Pollak then emailed Andrea (read it, it's funny).

Anyway, long story short, the story gets picked up by Huffington Post, Gawker and now our very own Argus. You can read about all the painful details.

The best part of thism though, is that many of the bloggers who picked up this story basically took Pollak's word that Andrea was a liar--without fact-checking. Basically, though they all dismiss Pollak's column as trash, they still accepted the "truthiness" of his word against hers and rather than, you know, say email Andrea (since she's so "arrogantly" all over the internet, how hard could it be for a blogger to find her?), they just published his swill as is. Poor showing, bloggers.

Phew. That was fun. No, wait, no. No it wasn't.

Meg Sinick's Interview with Douggie B.

Meg Sinick '07 has a cute little interview with Doug Bennet in Spring issue of WESU Magazine

MS: Your MP3 player gets fused to your head in a lightning storm and plays the same song on loop for the rest of your life. What would you hope the song would be?
DB: The Wesleyan Fight Song. Nothing else would do.

Be sure to pick up a copy of the magazine today to check out the semester's WESU scheduling.