Audio by Adam

New York’s Saint Thomas Church is one of the only boarding  schools in America where talented young boys can go to learn to perform top notch liturgical chorale music and get a good secular education at the same time. Once puberty and the change of voice hit, their sweet sopranos are gone. In the meanwhile […] The post Saint Thomas Church (Boys) Choir School appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Small’s “Old School” Jazz Club in the Village

Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the tip of Cape Cod was once home to one of the thriving Portugese communities anywhere in the world outside Portugal (and the Azore Islands, where most of those “Portagees” come from). Fishing was their livilhood (once mixed with whaling) was their livelihood.  But with the near decimation of the North Atlantic […] The post Provincetown’s Vanishing Portuguese Community appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts No related posts.

Every year, hundreds, or even thousands of talented young people come to New York to study, audition and do their damnedest to make it big on the stage whose ultimate Holy Grail is Broadway.  In this story, I speak to some of these starry-eyed youth as they prepare for the Big Time in Musical Theater […] The post Young Broadway Hopefuls appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Yo-Yo Ma and “Songs of Joy and Peace” Album, “Mr. Big” radio comedy (adapted from Woody Allen), New (serious) Music for Toys

In our culture, self-denigration and unease with ourselves and others is a common theme.  Our internal dialogs can mesmerize us, making us unhappy, and our lives unproductive and robotic.  Being at peace in the moment, whatever arises, in a compassionate mode is a Buddhist way.  In this piece, I discussed Radical Acceptance with  Dharma teacher […] The post Radical Acceptance: The Buddhism of Tara Brach appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Buddhism in the USA, The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Book)

Perhaps no one has done more to spread  the spirit and craft of poetry more than Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian American whose award winning books for both adults and children explore themes of  loss and exile, the pace of modern life, family ties and  spirituality – often with humor.  I spoke with her while […] The post American Profile: Poet Naomi Shihab Nye appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Profile of the Poet Annie Finch, Poet Robert Bly and the Wild Man (CBC 1990), Kay Ryan, US Poet Laureate (2008-present)

The post Summer Solstice appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts No related posts.

Across cultures, the labyrinth is an ancient symbol of the journey through life, as well as archetypal patters seen in everything from the structure of galaxies, the whorls of seashells and the DNA molecule itself.  Walking the labyrinth was a popular spiritual custom in medieval Europe; examples can be seen in many of Europe’s great […] The post Spiral In/Spiral Out: Walking the Sacred Labyrinth appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery (Book)

For years, a pith helmet, nearly comic determination, and astounding know-how have combined to fashion Steve Brill’s persona, as he leads expeditions through Central Park and New York’s other semi-wild places in search of edible plants and flowers.  Adventurers get a dose of accomplishment and renewed respect for the bounty of nature, right here in […] The post “Wildman” Steve Brill – NYC’s wild edible plant forager extraordinaire appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Gifts of the Rainforest: Indigenous Healing Systems of Belize (NPR), NYC “Cricket Crawl”, Maine Fisherman Plots Endangered Ground Fishing Ecology

What New Yorker does not get misty-eyed at the sound of Zabar’s tastings, especially the nova counter, and all that goes with it? Instead of just idly asking, I went there, and talked to people about it. I got a lot wiser, and more than a mite fatter from the experience. The post Zabar’s Appetizing: America’s Premier Deli appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts No related posts.

Oy! There are so many Yiddish words Americans (and Noo Yawkuz especially) use in everyday talking that it is really gevalt.  This is a VOA Wordmaster segment where I explore what some of those words are and what they mean. Originally tailored for broadcast to places where Yiddish has never never been heard. The post Yiddish in Mainstream American Speech appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Jewish Humor in America

From the mid- 1930s until the early 1960s, jazz was one of the nation’s most popular styles of music. Rock and roll and other genres ultimately eclipsed jazz’s mainstream appeal. But there is a place in New York City where one can still experience the spirit, the inventiveness and the community that was jazz in […] The post Small’s “Old School” Jazz Club in the Village appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Greenwich Village Chess Culture, Mister Spoons: Big Apple Flatware Virtuoso, America’s Search for the Spirit

While many Americans are familiar with black slavery in the South, and its role in igniting one of the 19th century’s most brutal wars, less attention has been paid to the black experience in Northern cities like New York where many ex-slaves and “freedmen” lived.  A new book, Black Gotham by Carla Peterson, sheds some […] The post “Black Gotham” 19th Century African American New York appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts The Island at the Center of the World: Dutch New York, “The Century in Sound: An American’s Perspective”, Black Mountain Kentucky and Mountaintop Strip Mining

It may have been even more true in the beatnik era, but chess continues to be the national sport of Greenwich Village.  This is a feature about one of the last remaining late night chess parlors in the city, and its habitues. The post Greenwich Village Chess Culture appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Small’s “Old School” Jazz Club in the Village, Celebrity Versus Heroism in American Culture, The “Green Tortoise” Bus: Making the Miracle

Americans are searches, pioneers, restless, and often lonely for spiritual refreshment and a path.  This 20 minute mini-doc explores some various faces of these urges. The post The American Search for Spirituality appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Ram Das on Spirituality and the Dying Process (RAW INTVW), Spirituality and the Dying Process (documentary), Columbus: Man and Myths

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung created the psychological theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. He advocated the scientific exploration of dreams, mythology, religion and art to understand the mind. Yet, unknown to millions of the people who have followed Jung’s work over the decades, Jung developed most of those ideas during a period of intense […] The post Carl Jung’s “Red Book” appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts No related posts.

The English are one of the most endearingly eccentric group of people in earth.  This story, which I collected in Country Somerset, looks at changeringing, a world that combines math, music, churchgoing, village fellowship and the elusive “other dimension.” Lots of fun! NPR The post The Loopy English Art of Changeringing appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts The Loopy Art of English “Changeringing” (NPR 1989?), Profile: Pamelia Kursten and the Art of the Theremin, The Changing Lifestyles of the Bedouin Arabs

The American South was a segregated society 50 years ago. In 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in restaurants and bus terminals serving interstate travel, but African-Americans who tried to sit in the “whites only” section risked injury or even death at the hands of white mobs. In May of 1961, groups of […] The post The Freedom Riders appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts “Black Gotham” 19th Century African American New York, Gays in the Military: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, The “Green Tortoise” Bus: Making the Miracle

We all love the bizarre, or are at least sufficiently intrigued by the sigh and sound of people eating light bulbs  and hammering spikes up their nose to pay good lucre to see it done.  Meet Todd Robbins, the man who teaches other people some of the tricks of this ancient trade at his Sideshow […] The post Coney Island Sideshow School appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts The Island at the Center of the World: Dutch New York, Middletown NJ: A Town Aims to Heal (9/11/02), Profile: Dave Isay, Audio Documentarian and “Storycorps” Founder

Even given its colonial past and present day kitsch, Hawaii remains both an earthly paradise and a place of natural numinous power.  This is evident in its variety of spiritual musical idioms. Here is a taste of some of them,culled from a Smithsonian Festival a few years back.  Aloha! The post The Spiritual Music of Hawaii appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts Traditional Spiritual Music of Hawaii (Radio Smithsonian), New (serious) Music for Toys, Masonry as a Spiritual Path for Men

From his “Sick, Sick, Sick” book to the Village Voice, the Phantom Tollbooth, biting political satire  and beyond, Jules Feiffer is known for his beautiful simple lines that bring often neurotic characters to life in both funny and heartbreakingly human ways. Here we get a taste of this American treasure in his own words, and […] The post Profile: Jules Feiffer appeared first on Audio by Adam. Related Posts American Profile: Tony Kushner, Profile: Art Spiegelman “Maus” Creator & Comics and Graphics Novel Artist, American Profile: Poet Naomi Shihab Nye