7 Responses to “Oh Yeah. Emerson.”

1. loki Says:
   July 5th, 2005 at 7:59 am

   Great show! Emerson as bluesman!

2. msrichards Says:
   July 7th, 2005 at 2:09 pm

   Why is the show not archived so that we can haer it???

3. Potter Says:
   July 11th, 2005 at 10:26 pm

   It is archived! And I just heard it. What a lift! This is a wonderful show! Great guests, great sound! Thank you!!!

4. johne Says:
   July 13th, 2005 at 6:23 pm

   Myself an Emerson fan to a fault, I’m glad to make him the subject of my first post. Reading him is a lesson in how much he anticipated and created this American culture we live in now. He proves himself perpetually relevant. Here’s a specific example. At the beginning of his essay Compensation, he portrays a man at the pulpit preaching rote orthodoxy about the Last Judgment to his congregation. Emerson thinks it’s all patent nonsense, as any aware and reasoning person ought to, yet he notes, “No offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, they separated without remark on the sermon.� But he goes onto say, “Men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without afterthought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence.�

   This has immense practical import. Emerson is saying that if the preacher, rather than speaking from the privileged position of the pulpit on high, is placed on equal footing, on the level plane of one on one, face to face contact, that is, submitted to the test of direct personal experience, the listener, instead of accepting what’s said without question, would naturally confront and challenge him, treating the preacher as an interlocutor and not a superior.

   I can’t help but see the application to the banshees and browbeaters that currently populate our televisions. We, a nation of TV viewers, are content to sit back and allow these pseudo-experts and pundits to yell and scream at us, bully and intimidate us, for apparently no other reason that they happen to reside behind the glowing screen. If we were to actively imagine them sitting face to face beside us, thereby removing any implied differential of power, we would see them as they really are, people with no special claims beyond our own. And I think we’d be much more likely to tell these rude, loud, horrible guests to get the hell out, and expel them from our living rooms. For we are, after all, by tuning in, inviting these people into our homes. And, leaving it to Emerson again, “Let us sit at home with the cause. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.�

   Whether from the pulpit or the pundits, we must continually take back the right and dignity of our primary experience. This is Emerson’s emphatic message. Emerson called this country “this our talking America.� He saw that there would be those who would seek to intimidate and manipulate through earsplitting and bombastic rhetoric. He felt it imperative therefore that each person lay claim to his or her own voice, and speak from direct experience. A site like this encourages exactly that. Just wanted to say thanks for the work, and keep it up.

   John Elias

5. Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle Too » 13 miles Says:
   July 30th, 2005 at 10:44 pm

   [...] I’ve found on really stressing understanding instead of shouting. Plus, the shows on Emerson and Miles are clear examples of what radio can be. Y’all are all rocking [...]

6. Sandy Asmussen Says:
   September 18th, 2006 at 9:19 am

   Regarding the broadcast of Oh yeah, Emerson on Sept. 4, 2006, can anyone help complete and/or correct this quotation for me? “I walk outside each morning into the same world as …..Homer and ………..” Not sure if I even have the beginning correct, but it a wonderful way to approach each day. Thank you!

7. rebecca Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

   Christopher,

   I love your work, and want to thank you for sending along the note about, “Whose Words These are. ” What a great series! I have passed it on to several poets/faculty.

   I currently have students listening to your interview, Oh Ya, Emerson. It’s a classic, as is all the work you’ve done with the Transcendentalists. I wasn’t able to find it by searching the archive, so I’m glad I saved the URL in a document in my files. I hope you are doing well. I am still warming up to the new technologies–but love curling up with a text, electronic or paper, during the turning of the frost. Keep those fires burning.

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