The woman who fell from the sky: the aircrash sole-survivor’s story.
Juliane Koepcke was travelling on an internal flight over the Peruvian jungle when it was struck by lightning and disintegrated. She fell from over 10,000 feet into the rainforest and was the only survivor.
Ms Koepcke found herself falling in open air, she came to still in her seat (which was attached to the intact row) after plunging more than two miles through the air, through the jungle canopy and to the jungle floor.
The topic: mobile phones and what people do with them.
Possibly the first time a radio show has been recorded, edited and sent for transmission using a smartphone.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-iphone-show.html
Tagged with rte radio documentary the curious ear mobile phones iphone
Mickey Finn’s life was short and had many of the elements of tragedy for Mickey drank himself to death.
In ‘No Cure for Mickey Finn’ Finn’s life is remembered by his family and his wife, Lena Ulmann.
In a sense Mickey Finn has not been forgotten, his image decorates many of the pubs in Galway to this day.
He was a fine musician. His music was improvised and flamboyant. He was photogenic and became a legendary character in the Galway of that era. He was sharp-tongued and quick-witted. He busked on the streets, became part of an emergent music scene centred around the Cellar Bar; one that spawned Mary Coughlan, Sean Tyrell and De Danann.
The short life and death of Mickey Finn are emblematic to that time, a time when Galway began to expand; when people drank with no notion of the price that would one day be paid. ’
No Cure for Mickey Finn’, tells his story, the relentless search for alcohol, through the memories of his family and his wife. But this is also a documentary about a time and place and about the symbiotic relationship between traditional music and alcohol and the consequent waste of this single life.
Kevin Dolan is a DCU student of Marie-Louise O’Donnell.
For one of his projects, he decided to tell the story of Bob Dylan’s 1965 song, "Like A Rolling Stone" and its impact on him as a teenager. Music/Poetry Used:
"Like A Rolling Stone", Bob Dylan (album version and Live At The Hollywood Bowl)
"I Shall Be Free", Bob Dylan
"Howl", Allen Ginsberg
"Rollin’ Stone", Muddy Waters
"Lost Highway", Bob Dylan, Joan Baez
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-mitchin-with-dylan.html
Tagged with rte documentary music:artist=bob dylan
Municipal laws greatly impact how people interact in urban settings; but the physical layout and design of cities also affects that interaction. A new documentary examines the design of cities across the world. Urbanized begins its run Friday at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. WBEZ’s Jonathan Miller gave Eight Forty-Eight his review.
http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/2011-11-03/documentary-explores-future-urban-space-design-93726#
Jon Ronson talks to Denis Fillion, who was behind one of the first major internet hoaxes.
Denis used to post threads and make small talk on a technical forum called Anandtech. Irritated by the misogyny he found on the site, he invented a female character to join in the chat. Soon he found himself flirting with his own character and weaving a tale so believable that the character took on an air of reality, even for him. As the relationship deepened, Denis was forced to take drastic action to get out of his own hoax.
With additional contributions from comedian Josie Long and Charlie Brooker.
Tagged with bbc documentary internet hoax book:author=jon ronson
Journalist Jon Ronson investigates the extraordinary story of Mary Turner Thompson, who experienced the worst internet date ever which lasted seven years and was to cause the total devastation of her life.
Edinburgh-based Mary met and married a man who told her he was a CIA agent. Jon visits her in Scotland and hears the incredible twisting and turning love story of Will and Mary. Will carried a gun and had to dash off to Israel at a moment’s notice; Mary was left holding the baby, never knowing when he would come back, and was unable to contact him. She even feared a terrorist attack on her home. But the most bizarre twist was still to come.
Tagged with bbc documentary book:author=jon ronson
Writer and documentary maker Jon Ronson returns for another series of fascinating stories shedding light on the human condition.
Jon Ronson talks to comedian Josie Long who found herself in a situation where she had to make a choice on whether to spy on someone’s life… did morality step in? Writer Danny Wallace recalls the days when a spy was sent to his home to spy on his father, a leading expert on East German literature.
Johnny Howorth, rookie documentary maker, was also in a situation where he was asked by US Marshals to spy on the couple Ed and Elaine Brown who were convicted of tax crimes. As he naively got more deeply involved, he feared another Wako and had to make a difficult decision… John Symonds, a so-called ‘romeo spy’ also tells his sometimes shocking story.
Producers: Laura Parfitt and Simon Jacobs An Unique production for BBC Radio 4.
Tagged with book:author=jon ronson bbc radio 4 documentary spying
More Irish Than The Irish Themselves - Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil iad féin An international perspective on the Irish language, featuring three people of different nationalities and their experience of learning Irish. For many of us, our school days knocked any passion we had for the Irish language. We learnt the songs, we studied the poetry and prose, but we left school after 13 years without being able to hold a conversation in Irish. We when say we have the "cúpla focal’, we literally only have a couple of words. Yet our national language has reached people of different nationalities around the world, who have been inspired to learn and to speak Irish. In ‘More Irish than the Irish Themselves’, Batshèva Battu from France, Cathinka Hambro from Norway and Cóilín O Floinn from New York tell of their interest in the language, how they went about learning it as adults, talk about the different peculiarities of the language, how they use it in their everyday lives, and their view on Irish people’s relationship with the language.
French born Batshèva Battu (28) has no family connections with Ireland. In a quest to learn a language different from the norm, she decided to take up Irish. In 2005, she travelled to Ireland for the first time to take part in an Oideas Gael course in Glean Cholm Cille, Co. Donegal. Having been involved in classical and jazz singing in France, Batshèva discovered Sean-Nós singing during her time in Donegal. She moved to Ireland in 2008 to study for an M.A. in Irish Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick. In 2009 she went on to study on a Music Diploma taught through Irish in An Spidéal, County Galway. Batshèva now teaches singing in Galway city, and lives in An Spidéal where she gets to use her Irish on a daily basis with the locals. Cathinka Hambro (32) from Norway also has no family connections with Ireland. She first heard the Irish language as teenager on a school trip to Ireland, which took in visits to Kerry, Galway and the Aran Islands. Subsequent trips to Ireland inspired her take up Celtic Studies at the University of Oslo. A working knowledge of the Irish language was a prerequisite for the course, so Cathinka returned to Ireland in 2008 to learn Irish in Connemara and on Inis Meáin. She is now working on her PhD in Celtic Studies in Oslo, where she is researching a 15th century text in Irish called ‘Altram Tige Dá Medar’, which is preserved in The Book of Fermoy. She endeavors to spend a week or two in Ireland every year, in order to practice her Irish.
Colin Flynn or Cóilín Ó Floinn (33) grew up on Long Island, New York. As his grandparents were from Cork, he was always surrounded by Irish culture. He first heard the Irish language as a young child on an old Clancy Brothers recording of ‘Fágfaidh Mé an Baile Seo’ that his mother used to play, and he always wanted to understand what the words in the song meant. He later got the opportunity to learn the language at New York University where he studied History and Irish Studies. Cóilín moved to Dublin in 2000 and spent his weekends in the Gaeltacht in order to practice his Irish. He qualified as a secondary school teacher in 2005, but decided to work in adult education instead. This led him to a job as an Irish language teacher and course designer with Gaelchultúr in Dublin, where he taught for five years. Cóilín is currently a PhD student in Trinity College, but still teaches Irish part-time.
Produced by Sarah Blake.
Sound Supervision by Damien Chenelles.
First broadcast Saturday 12th March 2011, 2pm as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/radio-documentary-irish-language-seachtain-na-gaeilge.html
The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable. But we think we may have found the original recipe. And to see if the formula actually might be Coke, we made a batch.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/427/original-recipe