[ARSCLIST] NY ARSC Meeting - 10/23 - 92nd Street Y

[Dave Nolan <DaveNolanAudio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ARSC New York Chapter

        October 2008 Meeting

         

        Thursday, 10/23/08

        at the 92nd Street Y

        Buttenwieser Library (2nd Floor)
        1395 Lexington Ave. (between 91st & 92nd Streets)
        New York,  NY  10128

        From 7pm to 9pm – doors (and refreshments) at 6:30

         

        Part 1:  Marcos Sueiro Bal

         

        Choosing Your Favorite Children:  A Prioritizing Tool for AV Collections

         

        Faced with limited budgets and cataclysmic predictions, the keepers
of our audiovisual heritage find themselves in a tough situation. It appears
ever more likely that at least some of our precious materials will vanish,
either because of physical deterioration or --perhaps more likely-- hardware
obsolescence. Columbia University's AVDb database tool, developed with
funding from the Mellon Foundation, aims at helping with the ugly task of
prioritizing for reformatting.

         

        Marcos Sueiro Bal is an audio engineer who has worked in archives
for over two decades --including the Center for Black Music Research, the
Alan Lomax Archives, Columbia University, and Emory University. His latest
project is mastering, without compression, the recordings of Polk Miller on
Tompkins Square Records.

         

        Part 2:  Mike Biel

         

        Air Raid' and 'War Of the Worlds' Seventy Years On

         

        It's been 70 years since a small percentage of the U.S. population
actually believed something they heard on radio and took panicked flight
from Martians who had taken over New Jersey and mid-town Manhattan.  We'll
be safe up on 92nd Street as we listen to the possible effects that the CBS
broadcast of Archibald MacLeish's "Air Raid" three days earlier might have
had on the script, and find out what happened years later when the concept
was updated in South America and Buffalo, New York.  We'll also trace what
happened when one broadcast was issued on Columbia Records ("Air Raid") and
almost forgotten, and the other one was studied and remembered but not heard
for almost 20 years. 

         

        Dr. Michael Biel recently retired from decades of teaching
broadcasting to unsuspecting Kentuckians.  A native of New Jersey, he
escaped to Kentucky 30 years ago on the assumption that Kentuckians will
protect him from any invading Martians.  He does occasionally return to take
refuge in his daughter's Brooklyn apartment, and this week is venturing out
not only to ARSC but also to Newark to the Friends of Old Time Radio who
still believe in Martians but feel safe in assuming Martians can't figure
out the traffic patterns in New Jersey.  He is a lifelong collector of
records and other oddities, has been a member of ARSC since 1971, is a past
president of ARSC, chaired the program for five ARSC Conferences, and is a
frequent presenter at the national ARSC Conferences.  His Ph.D. dissertation
is on early broadcast recordings, and copies occasionally show up on Amazon
and Nauck auctions.  He is looking forward to seeing a lot of old and new
friends.

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

        Dave Nolan

        Audio Archivist

        92nd St. Y

        Audio Digitization Room - basement

        1395 Lexington Ave.

        NYC  NY  10128

        (212) 415-5559

        e-mail to: dnolan@xxxxxxx