3W Design Group - Media

On Valentine’s Day 2004, my valentine Gregg Luhring gave me a green iPod mini. I was excited, but also sure I would never become as enamored with it as Gregg had become with his second generation iPod. I was wrong. Last week when I sent it away to have the damaged click-wheel fixed and it took longer than it was supposed to (a full week instead of two days). I mourned the time we were apart, my iPod and I. Listening to T.V. or a scratchy FM station at the YMCA really sucked. So did my three long car rides when the subject matter on National Public Radio didn’t interest me and I yearned for the sounds of The Rachel Maddow Show, Andy McCaskey’s soothing voice on Slash Dot Review as well as Marjorie and Michael Carrino’s musings on one of their Digital Media Cast Network programs. This smooth, green, metal object had created a dependency that I never saw coming.

As a kid, I regularly watched the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (yes, I am that old!). His confident delivery brought the eleven-year-old me the happy news of the Apollo moon landing in 1969. He also brought the ten-year-old me a multitude of bad news in 1968 including the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Good news or bad, I was an information junkie early on and Walter as well as television was my media delivery system of choice.

Fast forward to 2007. Consolidation has brought about a sameness to television and FM radio news broadcasts. I continue to be a loyal NPR and WPR listener, but audio podcasts allow me to hear a variety of genres and voices that weren’t available anywhere else.* This programming is a feast for my ears, one that has morphed into a glorious addiction. And since I listen to my podcasts on the run, the absence of my iPod this past week has been particularly dispiriting. It’s hard for me to believe it, but three years with a new gadget has changed my life.

The good news is that today I received my repaired iPod. The green metal body is still dented, but the click-wheel has been replaced and is ready to once again entertain and inform me. And FYI to those of you who have never heard Walter Cronkite’s voice - thanks to the magic of technology, you can! Go to Podcast Pickle or search iTunes.

As for me, I’m about to pack up my gym bag and head to the Fish Creek YMCA. There I will indulge in a little Rachel Maddow and my workout will be done before I know it.

*I’m a podcaster too. My programs can be heard at Pop Goes the Culture and Door Pod Show.

An unrelated recommendation…

On December 25, 2007 an animated version of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir Persepolis opens in New York City and Los Angeles. Satrapi’s story is an autobiographical tale of her life as a child during the Iranian revolution as well as the war between Iran and Iraq. While you wait for the film to come to either your town or NetFlix, pick up the graphic novel. It is the rarest of all perspectives from a feisty female child in a country where women are being taught to stay covered and hidden. Satrapi followed Persepolis with Persepolis II, Embroideries and Chicken with Plums. It’s an enlightening look at the real people who populate a country our leaders have pegged part of the Axis of Evil.