Adoption Day

We've been calling today "Adoption Day" because on this day in 2012, we adopted our beloved Pauline.  She was very smol when we adopted her, barely two months old, but the picture above was taken in our Fort Worth backyard on this day in 2016, when she was just four years old.  She was a bit scrawnier in those days!

We adopted her the day after our beloved George died.  He was our first dog to die - & my wife's dog before she & I met - so the hours after his death were painful & oppressive.  I drank half a bottle of whiskey & didn't get drunk.  I suggested to my wife - who cried more that day than any time I had ever seen - that we might get another dog, a puppy, by & by.  She surprised me by finding Pauline the very next day.

Pauline saved us from all that grief.  We still missed George terribly, but she was young, she needed attention, she loved to play, & we just had to focus on her.  She probably doesn't know that she did all that.  I spent some time today snuggling with her on the sofa.  I love her terribly, more than I thought I could nine years later.

Echoes Of Movies

(image from the IMDb)

On this week's show, our resident Cinephile Chuck showed up to talk about movies featuring echoes - & also caves, which sometimes feature echoes.  Certainly you can listen to the show at both the KBOO website & at the Self Help Radio website, but perhaps these links will help you find movies about echoes & caves should you need them in your life.

Chuck talks about some of the films he's watching on his Twitter account.

Here is Chuck's Youtube playlist with trailers & full films to watch.

Chuck reviews the films he has seen here.

You can find a list of films about echoes or caves where you can stream in places other than Youtune on this IMDb list.

Chuck uses the IMDb for keyword searches: here's the one for echo & here's the one for cave.

Almost certainly there is something for you to watch & enjoy.  Please do so!

Self Help Radio 120721: Echoes

(Original image here.)*

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before.  Ha ha!  Start out with a joke!  A joke about echoes!  You get it?  An echo is a sound you've heard before!  It's a copy of a sound!  & when someone wants to pretend to tell an original joke, they'll say, "Stop me if you think you've heard this one before"!

It's important to get the cleverness out of the way before one gets down to the business of talking about a radio show.  A radio show about echoes.  Which was what this week's Self Help Radio was about.  Lots of songs about echoes plus discussions about echos - in music, in biology, in psychology.  & there were a few echo puns.  How could there not be?

You can listen to the show now or anytime really - it might be fun to play it loud against a wall & hear its echo! - at both the KBOO website & at the Self Help Radio website.  If you chose the latter, remember you'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen.  All the stuff that happened on the show - music & interviews - is listed below.

There was something else I was going to say about echoes but I can't remember...  Oh well, it'll come back to me.  I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!

Self Help Radio Echoes Show

"Little Sir Echo" Bebe Daniels & Ben Lyon (With The Three Ginx) _Songs The Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us: A Pre-History Of The Bonzos_

"Good Morning, Mr. Echo" Margaret Whiting _There Goes That Song Again! The Songbook & The Legacy_

"I Talk To My Echo" The Beltones _Spotlite On Hull Records, Volume 1_

introduction & definitions - featuring the Definition-O-Tron 3000

"Echo" The Mekons _The Mekons Rock 'N' Roll_

"Echo" Mecca Normal _Jarred Up_

"Echo" Kristin Hersh _Echo_

"Echo" Jessica Boudreaux _No Fury_

"Echo (feat. Dum Dum Girls)" Merchandise _Red Sun_

interview with biologist & echolocation specialist Dr. Chad Heron

"Echoes Of My Mind" The New Birth _Comin' From All Ends_

"Echoes" Lord & The Flies _Mindrocker_

"Echoes Round The Sun" Paul Weller _22 Dreams_

"Echoes Of Songs (For Trish Keenan)" Simian Ghost _The Veil_

"The Echoes Fade" Poeme Electronique _The Echoes Fade_

interview with psychologist & echolalia specialist Dr. Bernard Cave

"Echolalia" Dead Can Dance _The Serpent's Egg_

"Echolalia" The Crookes _Soapbox_

"Echo Sonata for Two Unfriendly Groups Of Instruments" PDQ Bach _Report From Hoople: P.D.Q. Bach On The Air_

"Echo Or Encore" Eleanor Friedberger _Personal Record_

"Echoing Days" Monnone Alone _Together At Last_

interview with musician & producer Rodney "Kid Echo" Spitz

"Echo Park" The Brooklyn Bridge _The Second Brooklyn Bridge_

"Echo Beach" Martha & The Muffins _Metro Music_

"Echo Bay" Ohbijou _Metal Meets_

"Constellations Echo Lanes" The Clientele _Music For The Age Of Miracles_

"The Echoing Green" Erland & The Carnival _Erland & The Carnival_

the show's resident cinephile Chuck stops by to talk about films featuring echoes

"Echo In My Heart" The Stereos _Pittsburgh's Greatest Hits Volume XII_

"I Hear An Echo" The Challengers _The Spinners – Their Early Years_

"We Three (My Echo, My Shadow, & Me)" Ella Fitzgerald _Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles Vol. 1_

"The Echo" The Epsilons _The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971_

"Echo" Bruce Haack _The Electronic Album For Children_

"Echo In Your Mind" Susan Christie _Paint A Lady_

End Of The Year Membership Drive pitching & pledge drive horror stories

"Echoplay" Sad Lovers & Giants _Epic Garden Music_

"Echoes To You" Dead Moon _Dead Moon Night_

"Echo Poem" The Firesign Theatre _Dear Friends_

"Echo's Answer" Broadcast _The Noise Made By People_

"Echo Of Love" CSS _La Liberación_

"Echoing My Name" Hinds _I Don't Run_

conclusion & goodbye

"Diagonally Talking Echo" Dustin Wong _Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads_

"Little Miss Echo" Raymond Scott _Soothing Sounds For Baby, Vol. 3_

*"crop circle - echoes" by oddsock is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Whither Echoes?

(I found this image somewhere on Tumblr a while ago. Sorry I can't remember where!)

This week's show features songs about echoes although I can't promise it features songs that prominently use echo.  I thought about that - I thought it might be fun - until I discovered that there were so many frickin' songs about echoes.  But it makes sense, right?  Music echoes, voices echo, sounds echo.  We hear & remember echoes.  Echoes are good metaphorical fodder for the usual subject matter of songs.

This is a case where I woefully underestimated the amount of songs that a subject might have.  At some point the idea occurred to me, & I think I thought it might be a bit of a challenge finding songs about echoes versus finding songs with echoes.  A couple hundred songs later, I have to admit I was wrong.  Luckily I believe I found some pretty good tunes!

The show is tonight.  Lots of songs & lots of guests!  Midnight to 3am on 90.7fm KBOO in Portland & online at kboo.fm.  & give me props for not trying to use dumb phony echo effects in my writing here.  It took all my strength to resist doing so.

Preface To Echoes: Yodeling

(Go here to learn to yodel.)

It occurred to me too late in the planning of this week's Self Help Radio, which will have the theme "echoes," that I might have spent a little time featuring the vocal style called "yodeling," which the dictionary defines as "practicing a form of singing or calling marked by rapid alternation between the normal voice & falsetto."

Now, I know nothing about the origin of yodeling & this is something of a guess, but it seems to me that it's somewhat imitative of an echo, & of course you associate it with wide-open spaces, like the Alps or the plains (where cowboys might be singing), places where echoes are natural.  Again, I have done little research - well, absolutely none - so this is all a guess.  But it does mean there'll be no yodeling on the show tomorrow night.  Sorry.  There were lots of echo songs to get through!

It does give me the opportunity to tell my favorite knock knock joke though:

Knock knock!

Who's there?

Little old lady!

Little old lady who?
Say! I didn't know you could yodel!