Jay Allison makes the kind of radio that made me want to make radio. It isn’t news and it doesn’t really have a beginning middle and end but it’s personal and surprising and you get to fall in love with strangers and that’s what I wanted to do. We got together and talked about getting old and irrelevant, because that’s what I think about a lot. We also talked about what radio stories can do in a time when people are inclined to hate each other, or what we really hope stories can do.
Transom Bio:
Jay Allison has been an independent public radio producer, journalist, and teacher since the 1970s. He is the founder of Transom. His work has won most of the major broadcasting awards, including six Peabodys. He produces The Moth Radio Hour and was the curator of This I Believe on NPR. He has also worked in print for the New York Times Magazine and as a solo-crew reporter for ABC News Nightline, and is a longtime proponent of building community through story. Through his non-profit organization, Atlantic Public Media, he is a founder of The Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org, and WCAI, the public radio service for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. More about Jay, more than you’d reasonably need to know, is available at www.jayallison.com
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Thanks to Tobin Anderson and Vicki Merrick and Amelia Meath and Scott Carrier for their help on this show.
Super interesting show about aging, relevancy, radio, being engaged, being quiet, and the islands of the mind and by the sea.
Great thanks for people like you and Jay Allison who make me laugh and cry at the human condition. You give me hope.
Thank you so very very much for this podcast! It’s funny that I should listen to it today because earlier this afternoon I wrote an email to my 35 yr old son and, in the course of writing I felt very old and irrelevant. So out-of-touch! I was asking him questions about “influencers.” Why wasn’t I following any? Who was he following? Was I missing the boat somehow on current culture? Ugh, such “old” questions! So, to later listen to your conversation with Jay Allison was a remarkable coincidence. You made me laugh and I felt a delightful kinship. You are wonderful “influencers.” Why was I so concerned that I was “out of it” and not up-to-date? Thanks for snapping me out of that misguided thinking. Next I’m writing to Jay Allison…I think we’re related (no, really).
I would love to hear the full show of Jay interviewing dog owners. Is there a link you can provide? Great episode!
I’ll ask Jay and get back to you and if you don’t hear from me, email me at rumblestripvermont@gmail.com
What a wonderful episode. Thank you for creating it.
I especially enjoyed the exchange about your shared preference for local stories instead of national ones.
Erica: “I don’t want to sound apocalyptic but the reason we’re talking about town and village is that’s what we can save now.”
Jay: “Maybe it’s all that we could ever save.”
But here’s what puzzles me…
At one end of the spectrum are grand national “master narratives” that are (according to Jay) mostly nonsense. Start with “Americans believe” and anything that follows is meaningless. At the other end of the spectrum are Sonic IDs: “Here are some blueberry muffins I baked.” In between you might find something (beautiful) like Finn & The Bell, a story that shows how a community confronting a tragedy can come together. Problem is, Finn & The Bell can’t really become the master narrative for Walden, Vermont (or can it?).
My question: Do you know of any examples of local master narratives that have sustained a local community over time? A story like the American narrative (that you and Jay suggest is an illusion) but scaled smaller so it animates a local community day to day, year to year, generation to generation?
Put another way: What is the *local* (Vermont?) Story that ties all your individual stories together? Or is such a master narrative as much a pipe dream as the American one?
Thanks for this episode, Erica, and for all your other (brilliant) work.
Fascinating question. I have NO IDEA! I mean I suppose there are habits and qualities and principles and shared history that unite and define a place, but I don’t know what the STORY would be, or the narrative. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do? I’ve never thought of it that way…but maybe part of the effort here is to reveal the spirit of this place through stories…and hopefully those stories all together become more than the sum of their parts?
Thanks for your reply, Erica.
Re: “stories all together become more than the sum of their parts” — yes, that makes sense. It also makes me realize that maybe Jay’s skepticism (and yours?) about the American story writ large isn’t about scale. Maybe it’s about your doubts that any single story can be the master narrative for any community.
I think there are examples of such stories. Most religions provide those types of narratives–stories that invite us to be a participant in their ongoing history and development. Sports can do the same. The Red Sox have long given fans like me a dramatic and often heartbreaking narrative, each season a new chapter. (2004: whatta story! ) I grew up in Lexington (Mass.)–“Birthplace of American Liberty”–where the “shot heard ’round the world” marked the beginning of the American Revolution. Every year on April 19ᵗʰ, the town gathers around the Battle Green to watch a reenactment of what happened on that fateful day in 1775. Then again, Redcoats vs Minutemen is just an early chapter of the bigger American story.
I guess I’m writing all this because you & Jay sent a chill down my spine. “Town and village is all we can save now” sounds like the end of the American experiment. You two may be right. But I still have hope there’s a national story that might help bring together all those towns and villages.
https://towers.substack.com/p/tell-the-american-story
Thanks again for all your wonderful stories.
Thanks so much for this episode – and all of them, Erica. Meaningful. Important. Funny! You connect us all. Have to say, 50-something isn’t old!! Neither is 70. You will always be relevant because you are engaged with the world. Your eyes and ears are open. There’s a hunger and curiosity that is really infectious. Thank you for bringing us all these people.