Scanning the dial

June 12, 2008


When I was younger, I would lie in bed with my Sony Walkman and scan the radio stations.

The tuner was phenomenal. Whether by nighttime resonance or a fluke in manufacturing, I was able to pick up radio stations from thousands of miles away, as if my Walkman had been equipped with a guerilla shortwave function. I would listen to Seattle Supersonics broadcasts. I would pick up Southern Baptist sermons from Tennessee. All from my room near downtown Sioux Falls.

As my fingers rolled the dial, I would find myself transported into someone else’s listening experience, like uncovering a letter someone had meant to mail but thought otherwise.

I found it to be phenomenal at the time. I was traveling, picking up rogue signals from a place I had never realized existed. I was eavesdropping on someone else’s community, tapping into their signal and making it my own.

It didn’t matter what they were talking about. Just that they were talking, just talking into the air, hoping someone would pick up their comments, hoping somehow they would make a difference. And that I was listening, from where I was, a million gallons of air separating us.

Now, when we camp, we tote along a short-wave radio. At night, we often scan the channels, staring into the fire and reaching out to the world. We hear radio from Japan, from China, from France. The world is condensed and brought together in our hands, so that after several beers we feel like world travelers, leaning back and listening, just as I did with my Walkman, to so many voices from so far away.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s what we’re doing in the blogosphere. Some sites have signals that are a little stronger, so they’re picked up by everyone. Others, like this humble little site, are tripped upon by people wandering through my section of the dial.

Sometimes I wonder if people just stop and listen, even for a little bit, because they too are traveling throughout a world full of messages, though this time the messages are a lot clearer. A lot easier to find. Just as muddled, but pointed all the same.

And I do the same thing I did then. I’ll roll my thumb over the dial. I’ll land on someone else’s blog, read their thoughts, move on. Sometimes I make it back. Sometimes I don’t. Either way, I feel like I did back then, in bed, searching the airwaves for a different voice, something I could sneak up next to and experience from a different angle.

As a stranger. And as a traveler.

Tags: Blogging, On..., Vilhauer |

Comments

4 Responses to “Scanning the dial”

  1. eric on June 13th, 2008 1140 am

    i know this has nothing to do with your post but,
    CELTICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    ijust think, we’ll be able to watch that game on espn classic until we’re old and in diapers.
    take that timberlake!

  2. Nils Geylen on June 13th, 2008 508 pm

    I understand this sentiment fully. Not sure whether we’re anywhere in the same generation — I suppose it doesn’t matter — but for me late night and at times illicit radio was little short of a phenomenon as well. Same with poring over maps or looking at the illuminated windows of townhouses as I trudged home in the dark from class, work or the pub.

    Now we do all this online, but not a lot has changed. When I first started using the internet as we know it today (mid-90s), I felt the same. I could look up places I’d read about, see pictures of people I’d heard of in the news. Magic.

    I think it’s still imagination and longing that fuels us. Fame, ego, the need to publish and reach out? Nah, it’s about knowing you’re not the only one out there.

    Splendid post.

  3. Brian Gilham on June 17th, 2008 200 pm

    Fame, ego, the need to publish and reach out? Nah, it’s about knowing you’re not the only one out there.

    Nils hit it on the head, right there. Great post, Corey. As always, you managed to take feelings shared by many of us and translate them into words.

    And you’ve renewed my interest in shortwave radio, to boot.

  4. Corey Vilhauer on June 17th, 2008 1123 pm

    Thanks for the kind words, guys. And yeah - I’m sure Grundig will be happy that I’ve sent some business their way.

Leave a Reply