Karen + NPR 4-Ever!

What a pleasure (and a relief!) to learn that I am not the only one who has crushes on all those faceless voices brought to us each day by NPR. I won't go as far as this person and suggest that I have sexual fantasies about Ira Glass (well, not every week, anyhow), but I most definitely have my favorites. Many years ago I went to a fundraiser for WBUR, our local NPR station. The event consisted of Terry Gross and Scott Simon sitting on a stage and interviewing each other! It was a wet dream for all of us NPR junkies in the audience.

I don't know what even half of the on-air personalities look like, but if you played me 100 different NPR voices saying "This is someone for NPR," I betcha I could identify all of them. And I'm not talking about the easy ones, like Carl Kassel, Corey Flintoff, Sylvia Poggioli, Robert Siegel, Susan Stamberg, etc. Puh-lease. I'm saying I could identify Joe Palca, Renee Montagne, Bob Mondello, Mara Liasson, Daniel Zwerdling, and so on. Here's a list of all of them, by the way—but be forewarned: Most of the links lead to photos, so don't click unless you really want to know what these people look like.

Comments

[Wendy]

That's a great article, and I *completely* get what she's saying. I too have a thing for Ira (I bet he wonders where we all were in high school), although I didn't feel quasi-betrayed when I learned he was married. And I also have a *big* thing for Terry (who I never thought was probably a lesbian, but who I *do* think has the best job in America). And a lesser thing for Bob Edwards and Roy Blount Jr. and Peter Sagal and . . . the list is long.

[Mark]

Don't get too jealous, but I work right next door to WHYY (as in "From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is..." well, you know the rest). I see Terry Gross every once in a while on my walk from the train to work (she looks about four feet tall) but she's not one of the 'HYY people who come over to our cafeteria for lunch (I've rode the elevator with some of them, but they're all from local shows).

[di]

I do NOT even want to know what Ira Glass looks like because I listen to This American Life on the treadmill with my iPod and feel like Ira is in my ear, touching my inner being. OK, maybe I want to look...no...I can't. But I do have a major voice crush on him!

[di]

Just read the article...that is GREAT!!! Do I need to bookmark that site and check it every day or do you promise to post links to anything on there that might interest me? I really would prefer the latter!

[Loren]

My personal NPR fantasies are decidedly less risque. I would love to have Daniel Schorr as a grandparent.