I really enjoyed watching Artemis II lift off yesterday and immediately realized that I would also enjoy tuning into the live broadcast over the course of the mission. The YouTube feed is pretty good, but what I’d really love (and haven’t been able to find) is to find an audio-only feed that I could plug into my internet radio client and just listen to. I’m mostly interested in tuning in to the mission while working, and while the audio will make for good white noise, I don’t really need (or even want) the visuals in there.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to listen to more internet radio, getting back into the great NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and generally thinking about how underrated radio is as a medium. This morning, a chance comment from a familiy member had me checking the website for Public Service Broadcasting, a strange and wonderful “found audio” band that I count among my favorites. Thanks to checking that website, I learned that PSB has a new album out based on their appearance last month at the BBC Proms celebrating BBC Radio’s 100th anniversary.

One unexpected thing that I owe to my Mormon upbringing is my love for the weird band They Might Be Giants. That’s not to say that there’s something distinctly Mormon about TMBG in the way that there is something distinctly Mormon about the existential fear of not doing things correct way that I also picked up during these years. Rather, it’s just the fact that I learned about TMBG—more specifically, their famous cover of Istanbul (Not Constantinople)—from Craig Wilson, a youth leader in my local congregation. This is my main memory of Wilson, who moved away from Northern Kentucky shortly after the conversation in his car where he mentioned the song to me. The only time I’ve seen him since was at my wedding in Utah, about a decade later. I hadn’t even realized that my parents had invited him and was pleasantly surprised that he was there.