Phone Messages
This podcast will play and discuss old phone answering machine messages. In the late 1980s, while living in Chicago, I selected certain messages to be duplicated using a double cassette recorder. Playing them back leads me to explore the intersection of personal history and the larger social and cultural context through the lens of an outdated technology. New episodes will be posted Sundays.
Episodes
September 13, 2023 • 60 mins
This episode contains all the messages and interviews with Sikay Tang.
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November 27, 2022 • 8 mins
In 1977, the Fonz jumped over a shark on the TV show Happy Days. Although the show went on to have six more successful seasons, it became a symbol of decline and something that everything from baseball teams to podcasts should avoid.
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November 20, 2022 • 9 mins
In the initial years of Television, Game shows were a popular part of networks' prime time schedule until a 1959 investigation revealed they were often scripted. During the 1970s and 80s, daytime TV broadcast shows like Password and 25,000 dollar Pyramid. In 1999, Who Wants to be a Millionaire brought the genre back to network Prime Time.
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November 13, 2022 • 9 mins
In the summer of 1990, a series of murders spread fear across Gainesville Florida. Nearly eighty years earlier, the collapse of a small bank led to tragedy on the lower east side of Manhattan.
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November 6, 2022 • 9 mins
In the mid 1990s, a Destroy All Music Festival held at the Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in Wicker Park featured bands like Carnival de Carnitas, Scissor Girls, Blowhole and DragKing.
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October 30, 2022 • 9 mins
Batteries Not Included in Lincoln Park, had a brief life in the 1980s showcasing scrappy young bands ready to surprise. The 1980s club Gaspars in Lakeview, became Schubas and continues to host live music several days a week.
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October 23, 2022 • 9 mins
In the 1920s, JR Stewart was one of many companies that manufactured banjo ukuleles during the first uke boom. Ukes became popular again in recent decades thanks in part thanks to Israel Kamakawiwoʻole.
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October 16, 2022 • 8 mins
The life of a pastor's wife in mid twentieth century midwest involved missionary work and potlucks but also social clubs to discuss books and hear lectures about graphonalysis.
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October 11, 2022 • 9 mins
Billy Joel's Piano Man was inspired by playing at a bar in Los Angeles. Two classic piano bars from that era, Nye's Polonaise Room in Minneapolis and The Red Fox Room in San Diego continue to thrive after more than fifty years in business.
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October 2, 2022 • 9 mins
In the 1990s, Chicago indy label bands like Dragking would sell their discs on consignment at Ajax Records, Dr. Wax, Wax Trax, Tower, and Reckless Records. The last of these is the only one still in business.
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September 26, 2022 • 8 mins
The first comic books were just collections of the cartoons from the Sunday funny pages. The 1930s saw the origins of superheroes and then crime, horror and romance that contained explicit sex and violence until the Comics Code forced a move to mostly kiddie comics in the 1950s.
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September 18, 2022 • 9 mins
The Chicago International Film Festival claims to be the longest running film festival in North America. Three years before it began, The University of Chicago's Documentary Film Group put on its own festival.
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September 11, 2022 • 9 mins
Trixie Records was a Chicago based label that released eight records in
the early nineties, including by DragKing and Sabalon Glitz.
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September 4, 2022 • 9 mins
The 1980s was the last decade when most college students still relied on typewriters, but recently there has been a revived interest in vintage machines.
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August 28, 2022 • 9 mins
In 1966 a summer tradition of outdoor concerts began at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Over the years it featured bands such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, the Ramones and Devo for very cheap.
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August 21, 2022 • 9 mins
The late eighties saw a burst of ads for 1-900 numbers that promised to relieve your feelings of loneliness. But the phone sex business can be traced at least back to the 1970s.
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August 14, 2022 • 9 mins
In 1971, Hyde Park had seven second hand bookstores, including Chicago's oldest bookstore. Today, Powell's on 57th is the only one still in business.
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August 7, 2022 • 9 mins
Zen Buddhism became popular in post WWII San Francisco, especially among beat poets like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Tram Combs. The influence of Zen extended into cookbooks, when Edward Espe Brown began baking at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.
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July 31, 2022 • 9 mins
Speed Kills was a Chicago based zine that published seven issues from 1991 to 1995. Its contents inspired the name for the Chicago based band Dragking.
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July 24, 2022 • 8 mins
The Regenstein Library opened in 1970 and soon became the center of social life on the University of Chicago campus. One reason for its popularity were the comfortable study areas, including window alcoves with Pfister Lounge Chairs.
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