Piece Comment
Commenter Profile
- David Schulman
- Username: dschulman
- Location: Takoma Park, Maryland
- Joined PRX: Dec 15, 2003
Piece Information
- "The Day My Mother's Head Exploded"
- Summary: It is the story of the brain aneurysm that almost killed my mother in 1987 and how she became a completely different person from the mother of my childhood.
7 comments
Review of The Day My Mother's Head Exploded
David Schulman
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 06:24 AM
PDs at newstalk stations, don't be put off by the slightly glib title -- if you audition no other PRX piece this month, listen to this one. You don't have 20 minutes to listen, so do this instead: Listen to the start, then go about 6 minutes in, then about 16. You will know then whether this terrific piece can work for your station.
This is a lovely and compelling story of a daughter and a mother whose relationship is transformed by a stroke. (The mom almost dies, and emerges, superego impaired, a new and delightful person: "I love sex now; I wasn't so crazy about it before.")
This piece, or a condensed version of it, would work well as part of a show that touches on topics including:
*mother-daughter relationships
*the cutural phenomenon of hospitalization
*kids caring for aging parents.
This is serious business, certainly, but the story is told with a light touch and an easy sense of humor. The hospital scene six minutes in is riveting, and realized beautifully as radio. There's some more amazing tape 16 minutes in -- a lovely unforced scene of disagreement between mom and daughter.
The BIG question is: How do you program this warm, amusing, deeply stereotype-busting piece? Of course this piece deserves to be heard in the full glory of its 20 minute version, but I'm afraid that length may limit its usefulness for many stations.
The most obvious local market for this -- if it's not snapped up by TAL -- may be local news-talk shows. This story could be used to focus a discussion -- by callers, by local in-studio guests -- of some of the topics mentioned above. But a local show can lose it's own sense of identity going 20 minutes without standing down and bringing in local voices. So if there is a shorter version, or a version that occurs in three or four segments, I urge the producers to make these alternatives available to stations via PRX. I think this could add significant flexibility, and could get this on the air more often, in more places, and at times of day when more people are listening. Personally, I think this is some great radio, and I want lots of people to hear it.