Playlist: Graham Shelby 's Portfolio
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Memories of Fukushima, Japan
From Graham Shelby | 02:29
Long before most Americans had heard of a place called Fukushima, commentator Graham Shelby spent three years teaching English there. He's been watching the ongoing crisis in Fukushima from a distance that's much greater geographically than it is emotionally.
- Playing
- Memories of Fukushima, Japan
- From
- Graham Shelby
Graham Shelby moved to Fukushima, Japan long before the nuclear crisis. He expected to find the strange and exotic there; he didn't expect to find so much that reminded him of his native Kentucky.
Planet Buddy
From Graham Shelby | 07:00
Buddy was a sixteen-year-old bad boy who was experimenting with being good. I'd been a good boy my whole life and was ready to try being bad. Then I went on a field trip to Planet Buddy.
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- Planet Buddy
- From
- Graham Shelby
Buddy was a sixteen-year-old bad boy who was experimenting with being good. The counselors at our high school had suddenly placed him in the advanced classes and he was struggling. I'd been a good boy in those classes for years, and I was ready to experiment with being bad. During the school day, Buddy lived in my world: three-ring binders, permission slips, hall passes. But one night, we went out, and he took me on a field trip to Planet Buddy. And things were never the same after that.
Diamond Day
From Graham Shelby | 06:54
Tradition or cliche? Free tickets to a father-son baseball game lead writer Graham Shelby to question his attitude towards the national passtime and the value of things we keep doing because, well, that's just what you do.
- Playing
- Diamond Day
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- Graham Shelby
Interview with Fred Newman
From Graham Shelby | 08:48
Sound effects artist Fred Newman is an integral part of A Prairie Home Companion. In this interview, Fred talks about his roots, his partnership with Garrison Keillor and how he used sound effects to get through business school.
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- Interview with Fred Newman
- From
- Graham Shelby
Sound effects artist Fred Newman is an integral part of A Prairie Home Companion. In this interview, Fred talks about his roots, including the sounds that made him want to make sounds for a living. Fred also describes his first show with Garrison Keillor and how he used his own unique mouth sounds to get through Harvard Business School.
Shakespeare Behind Bars
From Graham Shelby | 03:37
So a man commits a crime. A terrible crime. He's caught, tried, sentenced and locked up. Then what? What do the rest of us want from the roughly two million inmates currently housed in U.S. prisons? And what do they want for themselves? One group of inmates in a Kentucky prison has made an unusual choice: They're staging a production of Romeo and Juliet. Their goal? To become "better human beings."
- Playing
- Shakespeare Behind Bars
- From
- Graham Shelby
The Luther Luckett Correctional Complex is a medium-security prison just outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It's home to about 1100 felons and one unusual theatre company. It’s an all-inmate ensemble called Shakespeare Behind Bars. For sixteen years, the group has staged plays like Hamlet and Macbeth, doing performances for other inmates and the public.
Shakespeare Behind Bars is now in rehearsals for its next production: Romeo and Juliet. Graham Shelby recently visited Luther Luckett to find out how – and why – this group of convicted felons plans to present Shakespeare’s tale of young love.
The Asakawa Christmas Party
From Graham Shelby | 12:29
Storyteller Graham Shelby is thinking about the WWII veterans in his family when he serves as guest of honor at an unusual Christmas party - one held at an elementary school in Japan on the 55th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. The party takes a surreal turn when Graham is asked to teach students "a traditional American Christmas dance."
- Playing
- The Asakawa Christmas Party
- From
- Graham Shelby
Storyteller Graham Shelby (The Moth Radio Hour, PRX Remix) spent years as English teacher in Japan. Here, he recalls an invitation to be the guest of honor at an elementary school Christmas party held on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. The occasion is complicated by the memory of the men in his family who served in World War II and by a request from the well-meaning Japanese teachers: Can you teach the children a traditional American Christmas dance?
A story of Christmas, war, friendship - and cheesy American dance crazes. Produced by The Butcher's Apron, a UK-based podcast and radio show and sponsored by Selfridge's department stores as part of their Reasons to Believe podcast series.