One of the reasons I feel sorry for young people today, aside from the fact that they're anxious and aren't allowed to light candles in their dorm rooms, is it they have no idea who Eve Arden is? And I get it when my sister Gretchen and I found our mom's naked Fanny Bryce doll in an old trunk and asked, Who's he? Our mother couldn't believe what she was hearing. How could her own children not know who this massive
star was. Eve Arden was a comic actress, most often the wise cracking sidekick and any number of American movies in the nineteen thirties, forties, and fifties. I knew her mainly from her radio show, though Our Miss Brooks. It ran from nineteen forty eight to nineteen fifty seven and was rebroadcast on WRL, an AM station in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I grew up. My first episode when I was thirteen. It was instantly hooked, not just on Eve Arden, but
on audio. I couldn't just sit in a chair and listen, so I began timing my baths for seven point thirty, which was when the program came on. When they started airing other classic radio shows. After our Miss Brooks, I took up drawing just something to do with my hands as I listened to Fibermaghee and Molly or Suspense from thirteen on. If I had a choice between listening to music or listening to people talk, I'd most often go
with the latter. Even call in shows would do so that's a Tarborough accent, I'd think as someone named Myron or t W phoned in. It wasn't about agreeing with any particular person or point of view. It was about the speaker's ability to hold my attention. How did they do it? Not just professionals like Jack Benny, but some guy from Apex, North Carolina suggesting that we castrate Draft Dodgers.
I listened to church services for the same reason. Not a big God fan, but you have to respect a charismatic preacher, even if he's conflating homosexuality with pedophilia and calling for you to burn in hell for an eternity. I remember when I discovered MPR and when they serialized Star Wars, a movie I had prided myself on not watching. Listening though, who could resist it? A Prairie Home companion Ken Nordine's word jazz, strange short plays written by the
great Joe Frank. I got so much work done while listening to these people, went from drawing to painting to wood carving, anything to keep my hands occupied. This was long before podcasts, before you could hear whatever you wanted and whenever it was most convenient for you. You had to be right there in front of the radio or else you'd miss out. And so I was in front of my radio, essentially tethered to that spot. As for audio books, I started listening back when they were mainly
made for the blind. The narrators weren't great back then, but I learned to get beyond them and concentrate on the story. Then there were scratchy recordings hard to find, but they existed. Of say, Flannery O'Connor reading A Good Man is hard to find. Of Frank O'Hara and Robert Lowell reciting their poetry. I'd hear them and think, really, that's what you sounded like. I'd expected such authority in their voices. Now it seems that most new books are
available on audio, some spectacularly so. Tom Hanks reading Ann Patches The Dutch House Donna Tart reading True Grit, George Saunders reading George Saunders, My artistic love hit a wall. At around the same time, portable cassette players became popular. So now instead of painting or sculpting, I walked while listening to books on tape. Then came iPods and podcasts, then phones, meaning you could access whatever you want, whether in the tub or off by the side of some
two lane road. A play on BBC Radio four, a podcast about mental illness, Raymond Carver reading what we talk about when we talk about love? Call in shows for Reptile Owners and White Nationalists, or any of the programs. The stories and this collection first aired on Narrowing Your Choices is I suppose what makes you you. The way to grow, though, is to occasionally step outside of yourself.
We've gotten so used to being our own curators. I think we've forgotten the pleasure of having something foisted upon us. If you'd asked me if I was interested, did in say Rose Bushes, or more accurate still rose Bushes vis a vis God, I'd probably have said, that's okay, I'm happy listening to these Alan Bennett diaries. That, though, would have meant missing out on Armand's Garden, one of the
many diamonds thoughtfully selected for this collection. The same is true of ear Hustle's Last Memory, though if you'd asked, are you interested in stories about life in prison or the lives people led before being incarcerated, I'd have said yes, of course, with hopes this anthology will broaden your idea of what interests you, or just deepen your appreciation for all these people, many you've likely never heard of, who
are so very deserving of our attention. The collection was curated by the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, and it's her voice he will hear next.