Phone Messages

Phone Messages

By Paul Mason FotschSociety & Culture
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Phone Messages episodes

  • 191 Comic Books (Ben 14)
    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.
    9 min
  • 190 Just Rambling (Julia 6)
    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.
    10 min
  • 187 Grand Avenue Rapper (Chris 28)
    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.
    10 min
  • 184 Ra Ra Ra (unknown)
    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.
    10 min
  • 183 No Area Code (Ben 13)
    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.
    10 min
  • 182 It's Eight (James 26)
    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.
    9 min

About Phone Messages

From the publisher's feed

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me to explore the intersection of personal history and the larger social and cultural context through the lens of an outdated technology.