Listening to the NPR audio adaptation of Star Wars emphasizes just how important John Williams and Ben Burtt are to making that universe work.

There’s a SomaFM internet radio station that plays NASA recordings of Apollo missions over calm electronic music. I don’t listen to it often, but I love it when I do.

I’ve been a big fan of audio-only media for a big chunk of my life. I grew up listening to NPR radio shows like Car Talk and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Saturdays while my dad drove us around to do errands. TV wasn’t allowed in my family on Sundays, but the NPR Sunday Puzzle was—depending on what time church was that year, we’d listen to it on our way to Sunday meetings.

Recently got a six-month free trial of Apple Music, so I figured I’d try out music streaming for the first time in years. As great as the music selection is, though, my bias toward owning music and listening to internet radio is being strengthened.

Very relieved to learn that the singer on French radio that I can’t tell apart from Johnny Hallyday started his career as a Hallyday impressionist.

Listening to the 1940s anti-KKK Superman radio serial while cleaning up lunch dishes.

I hear Italian PM Giuseppe Conte’s name fairly often on Francophone radio, but I nearly always hear it first as José Piquanté and then fix it in post.

The NPR radio adaptation of Star Wars is just as great—and just as terrible—as you would think. Totally worth a listen.

This afternoon, a career in academia looks like working from the kitchen table, playing a French 80s radio station, and fuming at Reviewer B’s complaints about my using the journal’s template like I was asked to.

Was there a moral panic about radio? My kid is enjoying podcasts, and while parent-me feels like that’s somehow better than TV, tech researcher me is wondering about history.

Old favorite thing: Finding BBC Radio 4 shows on Audible; new favorite thing: Finding BBC Radio 4 shows on the Internet Archive.

I once had a neighbor who argued that because it had higher fidelity, 3-D was the future of cinema. To prove his point, he asked “who would prefer an audio adaptation to a video one?” and was surprised when I, a big radio fan, raised my hand. To be honest, I don’t know that I’d prefer radio to TV/cinema in every instance, but I believe firmly that it’s more about how you use a medium than it is about what medium you use.

In June, I purchased an “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue” compilation on Audible that is over 18 hours long. Tonight, I finally passed the halfway point.

Last week, I confessed to my colleagues some of my quirky passions, like radio dramas and Franco-Belgian comics. This week, driven by a compulsive need to outquirk myself, I am listening to a radio drama adaptation of a Franco-Belgian comic.