NPR: 'Bread in the Water,' where ducks walk on fishes
Since radio is dead, I’ve been listening to even more public radio than I already did anyway. Just now on NPR’s All Things Considered, I heard a little thing that was unlike anything I have ever heard before.
It was this piece they are calling “The Loaves And The Fishes (And The Ducks)” and apparently they won’t have the audio up for you to hear until 7 p.m. ET or so, but be sure to listen to it when you can, because it’s kind of amazing.
Robert Siegel identified it as part of “Long Haul Productions’ song/story series.” Long Haul’s husband-and-wife duo Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister produced it, building the story around a song called “Bread in the Water,” composed for the segment by Tim Fite.
The subject matter is an obscure tourist attraction in Linesville, Pennsylvania — “Where the Ducks Walk on the Fish” (also watch this video or the NPR video).
I just love this sort of stuff, the kind of thing they feature at RoadsideAmerica.com.
So now, to this peculiar American pastime, add some environmental concern and local political controversy. Mix this odd but treasured local highlight with some conflict, some passionate turmoil.
Have I sold you yet? Just listen to it.
The coolest thing is the way Collison and Meister assemble the story from quick little snippets of sound here and there — tourists feeding the ducks, locals reading news accounts of the dispute, officials commenting on official decisions, and citizens flying off the handle at public meetings. This audio collage is woven in and out of the song, and ends up creating a really rich and layered picture.
On the radio, I mean. A dead medium.
I thoroughly agree with you, and am thrilled you decided to blog about this. This is by far one of the most incredible radio pieces I have ever heard. In truth, the topic itself would not have interested me in the slightest had it not been for the unique production and Tim Fite's genius song. I am 30 years old and yearn to hear engaging pieces on NPR. I subscribe to about a dozen NPR podcasts and was hoping that this "Song/Story Series" (as mentioned at the end of the episode) was an actual series that I could subscribe to. After much searching over the NPR site and the Long Haul site, I came across no other such series. In fact - the "Bread in the Water" piece is not even listed on the Long Haul website! I hope NPR continues creating original, creative, out-of-the-box pieces like this one.