The radio show I have chosen to listen to was Falling broadcasted by radiolab http://www.radiolab.org/2010/sep/20/. The hosts explored the various means of how people fall throughout their lives, both in the literal and figurative sense.

The show started out with a man recounting of how when he was 8 years old he had an accident and fell 12 ft from a construction building. In this feature of falling there was heavy emphasis on how time seems to slow down as we fall, or even stop. This led to the comparison of falling into a semi mystical world such as Alice in Wonderland, which the radio DJs expanded on by playing segments from Alice in Wonderland. Soon the man explained that this accident of his made him want to explore this slow motion sensation. So he tested this by doing some death-defying sports similar to bungee jumping. The radio hosts also made the mental picture in this scene very vivid, by detailing the rising to the top of the tower and then almost explosive drop below as the wind is rushing by.

The next feature tackled the concept of falling in love to be akin to the actual sensation of falling. While this comparison was interesting and creative I felt it detracted from the motif of the show and just felt they were rambling about failed love lives. Even though I thought they lost sight of their theme here, one element i feel they portrayed well is when talking about a sad story the pure audio of listening to it became magnified 10 fold. I think this may be because when you watch something sad like on TV or in a movie there are so many other elements present that you could use to distract yourself for just a second to take yourself away from this sadness.

In the next segment of the show they discuss the story of the first person who went down Niagara Falls in a barrel, who was actual a 63 year old woman believe it or not. This segment was pretty heavy emotionally just through hearing her story of how she ended up to this point in general. However there was also an element of excitement when they portrayed her departure down the falls, hearing the powerful crushing of the water below along with the heart pounding logic that the only thing separating you from that is a wooden barrel was terrifying. The whole scene played out to me like that one part from the original Willy Wonka movie when they go through that creepy tunnel on the chocolate river.

My initial impression of the show would be a lot of stories of people having accidents from towering heights and while that was the case for a few segments I was pleasantly surprised that there was more than just that.