Ira Glass

How the NPR voices look (in my head) by Gaelan

 

When I was in high school I had to spend about 30 minutes every morning driving into town to get to school. This time I spent religiously listening to Morning Edition's first segment. This was the 90's so the host was the great Bob Edwards and I can remember for some reason or another getting into my head that Bob was an old Japanese man. Yeah I know, 'Edwards' not the most Japanese name but I wasn't really thinking about it, I just had this picture of him in my head. Fast forward a few years and I see an interview on TV with Bob Edwards (he was retiring) and... What the hell? Bob Edwards looks like Adam West?!

Well I'm sure we all do this with the voices on the radio, we (for some reason or other) get a mental picture of that person and it sticks. The shock is when we actually end up seeing the face behind the voice and our mental image is shattered forever! Like an iconic actor playing a role in a movie or an actor playing an iconic role in a movie from a famous book. For better or worst, sometimes you just can't disassociate the two after the fact (thank you Ian McKellen).

Anyway, this is who I see in my head when I listen to NPR these days, not always intresting but always wrong. Well except for Terry Gross, she just looks like she sounds.

Final thought, Renee Montagne does Morning Edition now, those guys have to get up at like 3am!

Click here for Part 2