Patron Saints

As much as I hate to double-post with ThePublishingSpot, I'm tired. The blogging academic Harry Heuser dropped me a line today. His sprawling website digs through forgotten archives of old time radio dramas, turning up unexpected gems that shimmer in the 21st century light--like a voodoo melodrama interupted by news reports of the Pearl Harbor attack.

I've been trying to figure out how to get radio narration to fit into my own writing style for weeks, and it's always nice to find a fellow traveler. Heuser appreciates Cornell Woolrich and the other pulp fiction writers, the patron saints of worn-out bloggers.

Here, Heuser describes the beauty of old time radio narration, a pulpy writing style mixed with dramatic delivery:

"This . . . is London," of course, was Murrow's famous introduction to his blitz broadcasts. His reports made a distant fight for survival seem real and urgent--unlike that picturesque firework display that stood in for the air raids in the recent Judy Dench-starrer Mrs. Henderson Presents. After all, radio can produce terrors far more immediate than video or photography, provided you have mind, heart, and guts enough to translate dreadful sounds into horrible images."