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Articles posted by ActionSpeaksRadio Producer

Home» Articles posted by ActionSpeaksRadio Producer

We’re Taking a Break!

Posted on September 11, 2014 by ActionSpeaksRadio Producer in Action Speaks Blog

action speaks, marc levitt, panel discussion, radio show, providence

After 18 years, Rhode Island’s national live forum radio show, AS220 and Marc Levitt’s Action Speaks is taking a break. Our host, Marc Levitt, is now helping to take care of his newly born twin boys(!) while also working on a documentary film about the 13th Century preserved Narragansett village. Because of this, we felt it was a good time to take a temporary break this fall from production to work on diversifying the show’s development efforts and to plan for future series.

action speaks, bert crenca, panel discussion, radio show, providence, as220

We will resume production in the fall of 2015 and we will keep our website www.ActionSpeaksRadio.org, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages active so please check them out for more info. Be sure to check out our show’s archive on our website and streaming on PRX to listen to all the shows online.

action speaks, marc levitt, panel discussion, radio show, providence, as220

We are very sorry to disappoint our supporters who, last year, and for many years, have packed the performance space at AS220 and have added so much to our show’s vitality. We also thank, as well as apologize to all of our stations and their listeners around the country, over two hundred station in the last ten years. Finally, we’d like to thank all of our show’s sponsors for their commitment and generosity including the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Providence Phoenix, RIPBS, Creative PR, Joseph White Attorney/Robinson and Cole and many others who have helped us over the years.

action speaks, marc levitt, panel discussion, radio show, providence, jacqueline frole, jackie frole

You can always get in touch with host, Marc Levitt at marcjoellevitt@gmail.com or info@actionspeaksradio.org to suggest new topics, wish us well, and/or sit on a newly organized fundraising board to ensure long term sustainability.

See you in 2015!

Marc Levitt Host & Co-Executive Producer
Umberto Crenca Co-Executive Producer, AS220 Artistic Director
Jacqueline Frole Managing Producer

action speaks, archive, bert crenca, break, facebook, jacqueline frole, marc levitt, prx, radio, twitter

A Break for Mommy & Daddy…Summer Camp: A History

Posted on July 18, 2014 by ActionSpeaksRadio Producer in Action Speaks Blog

1935-Hive-Evening-Circle

My friend Jon was here this weekend for a party. We’ve known each other since we were 13 and both campers at a YMCA summer camp outside of Port Jervis, NY. My twins were on my wife and my laps and Jon was playing guitar as he often did by the fire when we were Counselors-in-Training, living in an isolated group of tents away from the main camp cabins. The weather had been perfect, the garden had performed admirably and life was good.

boy-swimmers-1960s1

And then it came to me…I have completely patterned my life after my summer camp experience…nature, a diverse group of close friends, live music, kids, doing lots of different things that were important enough to work on in a relaxed, non-Scout way. Nine years of Y camps, four years for one-month and five years for the (now unheard) duration of eight weeks. Each year was different, partly because each year I was different and partly because the campers and staff were different.

archery

My camp ‘career’ stretched from the late fifties to the mid to late 60’s and passed through a love affair with sports through a love affair with 1960’s folk music through a few love affairs themselves. I went in that time from the Yankees and our ‘faux’ Native American dances, through Civil Rights and anti-war activism. I lived day to day with kids and staff that were representative of New York City’s economic and cultural diversity. I bested the sons of Roy Campanella, Sugar Ray Robinson and Hector Lopez for the first base All Star position. I was a camp bugler for three years and played taps over the lake to hear its romantic echo and I listened after lunch to a 14 year old boy with two first names play a rickety old piano as others played ping-pong and flirted with girls. I believe Billy Joel was his name.

Sure, I’ve perhaps whitewashed the camp experience a bit. I was not always popular, not always successful, not always entertained, but I was always more ‘myself’ than I ever was at home. That was probably the most important thing I took from my summer camp experience, even more than the half finished lanyards and broken slip-cast pottery.

Studentsatbus

Originating in the late 1800’s but really coming to fruition in the early 20th century, summer camps were merely a way to introduce nature into the increasingly industrialized adolescent life. They also provided a space away from the structure and regiment of school, a worry that still holds true today. Though currently kids can choose from a wide array of different sport camps, art camps, travel camps, religious camps, computer camps, even weight-loss camps…all seemingly very structured! So here’s to the history summer camps, may they continue to provide a safe space for children to grow, make mistakes, and even meet a famous musician…

- Marc Levitt, Host & Co-Executive Producer; Edited by Jacqueline Frole, Managing Producer

 

Your Fridge and YOU!

Posted on July 15, 2014 by ActionSpeaksRadio Producer in Action Speaks Blog

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We dutifully and happily do our farmer’s market shopping trip at least once, if not twice a week. We eat what we can eat in a day or so and put the rest in the refrigerator. What we didn’t eat co-habitates with everyday perishables like milk, eggs, butter, and refrigerator elders like half-used condiments and ‘rescue’ bread and crackers (‘rescued’ that is before furry molds threatens their usable life) and gifted and uneaten small cakes or jars of locally made half eaten jams. Whatever we put inside our big electric rectangle is 1943-01-19-Iceboxautomatically sent into battle, in a Hobbesian ‘war of all against all’ fighting with others for space, nudging aside big containers of sentimentally held yogurt, cheese, tofu and kefirs that no longer even pass the ‘it’s probably OK’ sniff test.

I would love to hear this war once the refrigerator doors are closed. Old occupants aligning with each other against the ‘newcomers’. Salsa threatening to spill their heat on leftover brownies. “We’ll see how you like a little red sauce, buster!”
In the ‘old days’ this Tokyo subway rush hour jam wouldn’t have happened. Ice boxes (I still call our refrigerator an ice box!) were smaller, much smaller and were cooled by big blocks of ice, ‘farmed’ from nearby ponds or later created in ice houses. With the invention of the home refrigerator in 1913, all of this changed…shopping choices, store sizes, the famous or infamous leftover meals…oh and TV dinners.il_340x270.540429083_m86c

As we enter into the heat of summer, here’s a good article about about the refrigerator’s invention that might, if nothing else, inspire you to get rid of that slimy, now unrecognizable leaf in the vegetable cabinet and to clean that unidentifiable brown slime from the bottom ‘fridge’ ‘floor’.

- Marc Levitt, Host & Co-Executive Producer

fridge, icebox, invention, jezebel, marc levitt, refrigerator, Teja Pristavec
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About Action Speaks

Action Speaks is a series of contemporary topic-driven panel discussions centered around “Underappreciated Dates that Changed America.” For 17 years, we have provided a live venue for fellow citizens to engage in thoughtful discussions about history, culture and current events. The panels are hosted by Marc Levitt, recorded, edited and broadcast online and on radio stations around the US.

Markos Moulitsas’ Underappreciated Date

Recorded in Providence, Rhode Island, during Netroots conference in June 2012 by Marc Levitt

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