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Radio Sun Mar 07 2010
An Evening at the Filmless Fest
The Third Coast International Audio Festival's (TCIAF) Filmless Fest on March 6 was an all-day event at The Museum of Contemporary Art. I attended the final program of the day, Words on Sound: Celebrating Reality Radio, hosted by Gwen Macsai of "Re:Sound" on Chicago Public Radio. Macsai interviewed "public radio rockstars" Joe Richman, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva of "The Kitchen Sisters," Ira Glass of "This American Life," as well as editors of the new book Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound.
The buzzword of the night was "Launch:" Both "TAL" and TCIAF's new websites went live this week, Reality Radio hit shelves this month, and The Kitchen Sisters revealed their new project, "The Hidden World of Girls" that included a touching photographic slide show. All the presentations were moving and all the interviews were informative but the crowd didn't light up until the venerated idol of public radio storytelling, Ira Glass graced the stage. He recounted his climb to the top, even playing some embarrassing clips from his early days at National Public Radio. As on his celebrated radio show, Glass told captivating and poignant stories that had the crowd laughing and applauding.
The night concluded with all the guests squeezing into the onstage seating and interviewed by Macsai as a group. When asked if they enjoyed all the marketing and self-promotion that goes along with their radio careers, Glass propelled into an excited, emotional response that included an emphatic F-bomb, which, of course, sent the crowd into uproarious applause. This evening was the perfect nightcap to the day's celebration of audio documentary-making, storytelling and found sound.
