Tell me your thoughts

Emily posted on Friday, July 8th, 2011 | Uncategorized

Of all the ways there are to communicate ideas with sound, radio commentary isn’t usually my favorite. But sometimes a piece will make me stop, captivated. This short one made me smirk. Then laugh. Then listen again. It’s by Afi Scruggs, a journalist who is new to radio. Her commentary is called “Ode to the Pencil.”

Some of my other favorite commentaries aren’t so much commentaries, as personal accounts. These two are not yet on PRX, but are worth mentioning nevertheless. They come from my friend Alysia Abbott.

A Mother’s Lament

Raised by her gay father, a poet, in San Francisco, Abbott writes about the conflict between the “magical chaos” of her childhood and her desire to give her own children a different, more structured life. But order, like chaos, she finds, has a price.

That You’ll Understand

…Alysia Abbott looks squarely at the day-to-day love and work of mothering a child with autism and developmental disabilities.