A Special DO or DIY Radio Show on WFMU

DO or DIY radio show – Vicki Bennett fills in for Ken on WFMU If you are by the radio or internet on Wednesday 21 December between 9am-noon New York time then tune in to a mega 3-hour DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU with your radio host Vicki Bennett and 20,000 mp3s. Listen on the live link at http://wfmu.org/ at the time, and join us on the Comments Board and follow the live playlist at https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/70069 Irene Moon and friends have contributed to this show with a new segment called "encounters with Nature." Don't miss it!

Optimized on WFMU now archived

If you missed it, Optimized on WFMU is now archived and you can stream those archives. Be sure to listen to our Champagne Jam as part of the Tuesday June 7 program. Curated by People Like Us

From the Radio Archives: Special Recorded Guest Appearances on WFMU

Scott Williams Show
March 9, 2001
Friday afternoons 3PM - 6PM

Live Nude Lepidopterae w/ special guests IRENE MOON and CHRIS JOLLY

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People Like Us and Irene Moon
Sunday, January 12th, 2003
Nickel and Dime Radio with $mall ¢hange

This week on Nickel and Dime radio we're happy to have both People Like Us and Irene Moon invade the airwaves. The UK's People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) has been a long time favorite of FMU's with her audio cut-ups of oldball music, spoken word, and sound effects that's equal parts crack and laughing gas. Based out of Atlanta, Irene Moon's 'learning experiences' combine sound collage and surreal (but quite real) science. Who says you can't trip and learn? Who knows what these audio terrorists will do together?

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Dave Soldier and Irene Moon
September 22, 2010
on Do or DIY with People Like Us

On Do or DIY With People Like Us, local classical composer Dave Soldier provides a live performance of his new collaboration with electronic musician Sean Hagerty (and the late Frederic Chopin): a slow version of the Minute Waltz that lasts half an hour. Also, Irene Moon and a cast from the Auk Theater will perform a musical whodunit about insects, in which each insect is a suspect in a serial murder. Wednesday, 9/22, from 7 to 8 PM.

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Irene Moon LIVE
August 17, 2011 on Do or DIY with People Like Us

Irene Moon Special Guest show. Irene Moon and the Auk Theater love drama, insects, crime, and examinations. All of these elements make great theater and all occurred at Princess Anne High School documented in the record yearbook created to archive the 1963-1964 school year. Irene found the record in a thrift store in early 2011, but had no idea the demon she uncovered! Of course, these elements could only be discovered in the recording by reading between the lines, backmasking, and interviewing people who know a lot about many things. The new historical drama is filled with music from Nine Fingered Thug, Juules Trakker, Yellow Tears, Secret Boyfriend, Kites, Kevin Blechdom, and, naturally, Lawrence Welk. Irene Moon is an entomologist at North Carolina State University who participates in music and theater. She has the duel focus to advance appreciation of art in the halls of science; as a means of connecting the public to entomology and increasing awareness of the art and creativity intrinsic to the scientific process. Find out more information about Irene Moon, Auk Theater and the Begonia Society at www.begoniasociety.org
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Irene Moon on UbuWeb

The Films of Irene Moon and the Begonia Society

[a reposting from WFMU beware of the blog]

Irene Moon has been creating music, film and musical lectures since the mid-90s. Her films are heading combinations of completely factual information with neo-Dada homemade New Wave music, insect sound samples, microphotography, animations and so much more. Included here are her Films of the Auk Theater, a touring theater that performs absurd, classical and heavily stylized theater in rock clubs and music venues. All of the short Auk plays are from 2004-2005. Also: The Super 8 series: Early films from Moon with soundtracks created from field recordings of insects and equipment commonly found in a laboratory environment.

Daniel Blumin's The Thirteenth Letter

Yon Visell and Irene Moon have a new track as the fictional duo Moth Magnet. Created for Daniel Blumin's DJ Premium.
Ya can only get it if you donate money to the WFMU's 2013 Marathon: March 4th - 17th!



9 PM - Midnight
Daniel Blumin's The Thirteenth Letter
Meniscus Man, Machiavelli's Forklift, Maids of the Marsh?

Imaginary bands one and all, but perhaps not for long!

In the year 2013, some intrepid members of Blumin's Honorary Letter Preservation Outernational set out to celebrate the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet. Inspired by "M" (Fritz Lang's or Robin Scott's, but most likely neither), each artist heeded the call to form a one-time project that starts with the visionary letter. As with the last two premiums, all tracks are exclusive to this compilation!

Who's onboard this time? The choice morsels may or may not originate with an all-star cast of Wishbone Ash, Schneider TM, Dollops of Velcro, Andrew Liles, Caspian Curlicues, Matmos, Melancholy Flowerpot, Machinefabriek, Irene Moon, Geranium Warfare, Sudden Infant, and a magnificent multitude of others!

A few contributors' identities will be revealed during the fundraising marathon in March, but those receiving the premium will be provided with all the creators' true identities. M-tastic!

Daniel Blumin's The Thirteenth Letter

Yon Visell and Irene Moon have a new track as the fictional duo Moth Magnet. Created for Daniel Blumin's DJ Premium.
Ya can only get it if you donate money to the WFMU's 2013 Marathon: March 4th - 17th!



9 PM - Midnight
Daniel Blumin's The Thirteenth Letter
Meniscus Man, Machiavelli's Forklift, Maids of the Marsh?

Imaginary bands one and all, but perhaps not for long!

In the year 2013, some intrepid members of Blumin's Honorary Letter Preservation Outernational set out to celebrate the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet. Inspired by "M" (Fritz Lang's or Robin Scott's, but most likely neither), each artist heeded the call to form a one-time project that starts with the visionary letter. As with the last two premiums, all tracks are exclusive to this compilation!

Who's onboard this time? The choice morsels may or may not originate with an all-star cast of Wishbone Ash, Schneider TM, Dollops of Velcro, Andrew Liles, Caspian Curlicues, Matmos, Melancholy Flowerpot, Machinefabriek, Irene Moon, Geranium Warfare, Sudden Infant, and a magnificent multitude of others!

A few contributors' identities will be revealed during the fundraising marathon in March, but those receiving the premium will be provided with all the creators' true identities. M-tastic!

RADIO BOREDCAST NOW ARCHIVED AT WFMU!

 

20 June 2012 Let's Talk Science with Irene Moon had 5 hourish long episodes concerning our perceptions of 'slowness' in natural processes. Included in these Radio Boredcast presentations were interviews with Chris Watson (March 1), Dr. Andrea Lucky (March 5), Dr. Jiri Hulcr (March 13), David Armitage (March 24), and Dr. John Selegue.

--A reposting from People Like Us. Great to have them all online now!!---

We are very pleased to inform you that Radio Boredcast has now been archived in its entirety at WFMU.

Given that Radio Boredcast is a 744-hour online radio project, we consider today, The Longest Day, a most appropriate time to make this announcement.  Curated by Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) with AV Festival, Radio Boredcast responds to our ambiguous relationship with time - do we have too much or not enough? - celebrating the detail, complexity and depth of experience lost through our obsession with speed. BASIC.fm first hosted the project through the duration of AV Festival (1-31 March 2012) and now this unique and colossal archive is accessible for "Listen on Demand" at freeform radio station WFMU.

http://wfmu.org/playlists/zz

An impressive list of participants were invited to create new radio shows, audio works and mixes in response to the AV Festival theme "As Slow As Possible" and thematic playlists and contextual programming surround these creations.

The full list of participants are: Carl Stone, Pseu Braun & Alex Orlov, Touch, Rob Weisberg, Nicolas Collins, Andrew Lahman, Chris & Cosey, Jonathan Dean and Transmuteo, Cheese Snob Wendy, Kevin Nutt, Tony Coulter, Daniel Menche, Scott Williams, John Wynne, Chris Watson, Jem Finer and Longplayer, Tim Maloney, Ergo Phizmiz, Matmos, Dave Soldier, Charlie and Busy Doing Nothing, Andrew Sharpley, Nancy O Graham, Gwilly Edmondez, Anna Ramos & Roc Jiménez De Cisneros, Doug Horne, Irene Moon, David Suisman, Radio Web MACBA, Mark Gergis and Porest, Jez Riley French, Don Joyce, Carlo Patrao and Zepelim, Dorian Jones, Jason Willett, Zach Layton, Primate Arena with Alex Drool and Eran Sachs, David Toop, Dylan Nyoukis, Jared Blum and GiganteSound, Ed Pinsent, Adrian Philips aka Mr Rotorvator, Axel Stockburger, Craig Dworkin, Felix Kubin, People Like Us, Language Removal Services, Daniela Cascella, John Levack Drever, Joel Eaton, Clay Pigeon, Gudrun Gut, Charles Powne, Carl Abrahamsson, Andreas Bick and Silent Listening, Phantom Circuit, Patti Schmidt aka Wheelie Houdini, Leif Elggren, Ken Freedman, Erik Bünger, Douglas Benford, Christof Migone, BJNilsen, Andy Baio, Adam Thomas aka Preslav Literary School, Caroline Bergvall, Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, Tapeworm, Brent Clough and The Night Air, Ilan Volkov, Nat Roe, Steven Ball, X41, The Long Now Foundation, Sharon Gal, Michael Ruby, Jonathan Leidecker, DJ/rupture, Gordon Monahan, Michael Cumella aka MAC, Lloyd Dunn and nula, DDDJJJ666, and Kenneth Goldsmith.. Thematic playlists run throughout from "Acconci" to "ZzzŠ" programmed by Vicki Bennett.

This has been a great project to curate and create, and although the theme is Slowness, we urge you to get over there now and have a listen!

Listen to Radio Boredcast http://wfmu.org/playlists/zz
Co-commissioned by AV Festival http://avfestival.co.uk and BASIC.fm http://basic.fm
Vicki Bennett http://peoplelikeus.org/boredcast.html
Blog entry http://www.avfestival.co.uk/blog/2012/02/19/radio-boredcast-presents
WFMU http://wfmu.org/about.shtml

From the Radio Archives: Insect Corner on DO or DIY

Irene Moon and friends with Insect Corner on WFMU in 2009 featured on DO or DIY hosted by People Like Us. Below are the links to the archives right to the insect corner selections (not in any particular order)!


1. Pat and Ellen. A rebroadcast of Questions from Pat and Ellen about Spider Mites.

2. Leafhoppers and Frass

3. Insect Diversity

4. Heinz tells tales of New Jersey Insects

5. Heinz tells tales of WWII insects

6. Introduction to Insects from Curator Bill with a Social Insect Focus

7. Aunty Pat and Aunty Ellen fill in for Ken: Insect Corner Branches out on the Phylogenetic Tree with Tapeworms.

The podcasts use the WFMU popup flash audio player...

How (or which) large is it?

Yawn. How did I get to the point where one of my foci is actually one of my greatest weaknesses? I have a really loose relationship with the English language and somehow Ive found myself trying to explore its structure. Particularly Adjectives, Adverbs, Indefinite Pronouns, & Prepositions. What exactly is the difference in meaning between these terms where the word large is the root:

large
enlarged
unenlarged
rather large
largest
larger

All of these terms are used in fairly recent descriptions of new species of wasps. A new published description is required for a new species to be valid. Right now that description, as required by the Zoological Code, must be text. Historically these texts do not adhere to any real rules of language (obviously! Unenlarged is not even a 'real' word according to Websters). A person could be as loose or florid as they desire with their descriptions, creating a lot of variation in word usage in descriptions of species.

Great by Platyscelio striga image by Norman F. Johnson & Charuwat Taekul with enlarged antennal segment

So if a person was describing the antenna in the image above he/she could say:

Antennal segment is rather large.

Antennal segment is enlarged.

Antennal segment is larger than the proceeding segments.

Antennal segment is the largest.

Antennal segment is large.

Proceeding antennal segments unenlarged. (Only one author used this word - lets just push this under the rug and forget it ever happened?).

We may only need the word root. Large. Comparisons seem to be the answer and we can remove all terms except the root terms. If we said: Second antennal segment large compared_to proceeding segments we would know that segment is the largest segment. Lets try an even more detailed example. Second antennal segment large compared_to third antennal segment. Third antennal segment large compared_to proceeding antennal segments. We then would know that the third segment is actually of medium size.

Words like 'rather' are nice but lack any real meaning and could be ignored. Or does 'rather large' actually mean 'its kinda, sorta large compared to all the other wasps but I wouldnt necessarily call it large". That doesnt sound like a word to use in describing a decisively new species.

Who cares? Well only a few people right now but we are moving away from human descriptions of new species. It is a bit sad that we will loose some of the 'authors touch' for the sake of automation. I have the same feeling about it as I did when the NOAA weather radio man in my hometown turned into a robot voice. I was never excited again about a severe thunderstorm warning.

Upcoming Special Programs on WFMU

Dave Soldier + Irene Moon
Wednesday, September 22nd, 7pm - 8pm
on Do or DIY with People Like Us
An old musician's joke is on the order of "it takes him half an hour to play the Minute Waltz". Today, WFMU's favorite local classical music composer Dave Soldier visits for a live performance of his newest collaboration, with the late Frederic Chopin and living electronic musician Sean Hagerty. Soldier performs the Minute Waltz on the grand piano at Le Poisson Rouge very very slowly, lasting a half hour, while Hagerty stretches each piano note out over time. Chopin may make a surprise appearance.

Irene Moon and a cast of characters from the Auk Theater perform a musical mystery theater about insects. Each character has an insect of choice that is suspect in a recently discovered serial murder. Information about insects is introduced as they try to unravel the "who done it." Not all of the content is logical, but it is absolutely factual. Irene is an entomologist and musician at North Carolina State University whose present research involves the dissection of wasp heads and the representation of the muscles found within the head. She was quoted recently to say, "social bees and wasps are commonly found and easily organized. It's the non-social beasts that fascinate and truly demonstrate how many creative methods there really are to dispose of an unfriendly caterpillar."