06/12/2014
“I was in bed with a touch of flu. A portable radio was among the furnishings of my apartment….I kept twiddling its dials in search of something fit to listen to. Twiddling and twiddling—twiddling from toothpaste lyrics to the leitmotivs of beer and ci******es, twiddling from hit tunes and the caterwauling of contraltos in simulated or**sm to blood-of-the-lamb revivalists, sportscasters and the Altruistic Finance Company offering, in dulcet tones, to lend me whatever sum I might ask for… But help was at hand: a Good Samaritan appeared carrying a tiny FM radio.
Suddenly, blessedly, I found myself in the middle of the first movement of Mozart’s C minor piano concerto. My sickbed was in Berkeley, and Berkeley has a non-commercial broadcasting station, precariously supported by the subscriptions of that eccentric minority that like to listen only to what is worth hearing [Pacifica?].
For the duration of my influenza, I was able to while away the hours by tuning in to good music of every kind, to lively discussions about art and politics and philosophy, to lectures and impromptu talks on every conceivable subject from Oriental religion and strontium 90, space exploration, race riots, and why Johnny can’t read. Rich mixed feeding.”
― Aldous Huxley, Berkeley, 1962
Does public radio still offer this cornucopia?
