StacyG

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1 year 26 weeks

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Personal Information

State

MD

Bio

I'm a global nomad with an incurable, and hopefully highly-contagious case of wanderlust that I hope to pass on.

What's your favorite public radio show?

The ones that make me laugh and think: Wait, Wait; This American Life; Car Talk (and I don't even own a car!)

What's your secret talent?

I seem to have a talent for finding the unusual -- or maybe it finds me...

What song is stuck in your head right now, you know, a music wedgie?

Currently, I’m staying in a small hotel next to a musical theater on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany. In the late afternoon, the singers practice their arias for the evening’s performance of the German version of “Wicked.” It makes me imagine the Wicked Witch not in Oz, but swooping down on unsuspecting German villages.

What sound is most characteristic of where you live?

Before sunrise, I hear subtle sounds that count down the minutes before I wake: The solid thump of my cat jumping off my bed and pattering across the wood floor to take up his perch on the window sill. As the chirping sparrows on the other side of the window tease him, the cat tries to mimic the birds with a squeaky, staccato “kkkkkkkkkk.” It’s impossible to sleep through this not because of the volume, but because the strange sound rouses my brain like some weird, neural alarm clock.

What's your favorite sound memory?

No Westerner forgets the first time they hear the azaan, the call to prayer in a Muslim country. I’m especially fond of the call to prayer in Islamabad, Pakistan. Rather than being sung from a minaret, most mosques in Islamabad play a tape recording. My local mosque seemed to take a no-frills approach: Moments before the designated time, the loudspeaker would come on with a crackle, the muezzin would tap the mic, saying the Urdu equivalent of “testing, testing,” thump the mic down next to a tape recorder, then I’d hear a “click” and the strange warble of the tape being rewound, another “click” then the scratchy, sublime strains of “Allah u Akbar.” The music, combined invariably with the baying of the local dogs, bounces and echoes off the surrounding mountains, doubling the sound, but somehow also making it more ephemeral.

Which station do you listen to most?

WAMU on the radio and KCRW, WWOZ (New Orleans community radio), and Radio Jedna (indie radio in Prague) on the internet

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