Over to You vt 2005 O the Air Special 6 Programnr: 41495ra12
ON THE AIR SPECIAL 6
Manus: Trese McPhie och Claes Nordenskiöld Producent: Claes Nordenskiöld Sändningsdatum: 9 februari 2005 Längd: 14’35
Music: “The Gathering Sky” Pat Metheny
Alan Pryke: Hello and welcome to another edition of On the Air Special. Today’s programme centers around American author Joyce Carol Oates, mainly around her books for teenagers, and especially the novel “Big Mouth & Ugly Girl” – you’ll even get to hear a few short excerpts from the book. Our regularly featured urban legend is a story we’ve called “Heavenly Revenge”, we can only guess that it has to do with someone getting back at someone else for something they’ve done – you’ll hear that later on in the show… But – we start with our quiz question. You’ll get the correct answer at the end of the programme.
Music: “The Gathering Sky” Pat Metheny
Claes Nordenskiöld: Astronomers have found what could be our Solar System's 10th planet. It’s the largest object found circling the Sun since the discovery of Pluto in 1930. But there are a few experts who still question if it qualifies as a true planet. What is the name of this new planet? Your alternatives are: Saturn, Hubble, Sedna or Solaris
Alan Pryke: So, choose between: Saturn, Hubble, Sedna or Solaris.
We move on now to our special feature. American author Joyce Carol Oates has written some of the most exciting literature of the last decades. You may have heard of the epic American novel ”We Were the Mulvaneys”, or the national bestseller ”Blonde” which is about the life of American icon Marilyn Monroe. But Joyce Carol Oates has written close to 30 novels, several collections of short stories, poetry, plays, essays and literary criticism, and even a series of suspense novels, published under a different name, the pseudonym Rosamond Smith.
Joyce Carol Oates has now turned some of her attention to young adult fiction – books for teenagers. In these books she explores topics such as abuse, coming-of-age, friendship, loyalty and betrayal, and family. In ”Freaky Green Eyes”, 15-year-old Franky discovers her inner strength and starts standing up for herself after a boy tries to sexually assault her at a party. Her parents are separating, and her father begins to psychologically abuse the whole family. An intense and touching book which we strongly recommend.
The short story collection ”Small Avalanches and Other Stories” consists of twelve stories all about females, from young adolescents to young women ready to go to college.
“Big Mouth & Ugly Girl” has two main characters: Matt, alias Big Mouth, and Ursula, Ugly Girl, although she isn’t ugly at all. Matt is falsely accused of a bomb threat in a suburban New York City high school. He has made a sarcastic remark in the school cafeteria, and the story unfolds. Ursula
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steps forward and defends Matt, and the book takes a closer look at the effects of the accusation and the rumours that start up in the high school as well as in the community.
We’ve chosen a few sections from the early parts of the book, as well as a few of the many e-mails that Matt and Ursula later exchange in the beginning of their relationship.
Music: “When I End and You Begin” Radiohead
Matt (Claes Nordenskiöld): It was an ordinary January afternoon, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy.
They came for him during fifth period, in room 220 of Rocky River High School, Westchester County.
Matt hadn’t been paying attention to his teacher Mr. Weinberg at the front of the room talking with two men. Until he heard his name spoken – “Matthew Donaghy?”
The taller of the two men said, “You’re Matthew Donaghy?”
Matt was so surprised, he heard himself stammer, “Y-Yes. I’m – Matt.” Matt heard his hoarse, frightened voice. “What–is it?”
The detective with the glasses regarded Matt now with a look of forced patience. “Son, you know why we’re here.”
Music: “When I End and You Begin” Radiohead
Ursula (Kaitlin Nordenskiöld): All through school, if I had to wait to be chosen for any team, I would have waited at the sidelines like the other left-behind losers. Fat girls, girls wearing thick glasses, girls lacking “motor coordination,” asthmatic girls who puffed and panted if they had to trot a few yards.
“Ursula? Did you hear–?”
It was Bonnie LeMoyne calling to me.
I was leaving school and surprised to see so many people standing by the rear entrance, talking together in lowered excited voices. What was this? At first I thought there’d been an accident out in the parking lot.
“Did I hear what? What’s going on?” I asked. Bonnie said, “Nobody knows, for sure. A bomb–” “A bomb?” “Well, maybe.”
Some senior boys appeared, one of them Trevor Cassity, the football player, a popular, aggressive guy whose father happened to work for my dad. There was an awkward feeling between Trevor and me because of this fact, a kind of mutual embarrassment.
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So Trevor Cassity and Ursula Riggs instinctively avoided each other when they happened, not very frequently, to meet. Now Trevor and his buddies were animated, indignant: Had we heard it was Matt Donaghy, a junior who’d been threatening to blow up the school and “massacre” as many people as he could, had we heard he’d been arrested?
Matt Donaghy! This had to be wrong.
I protested, “I don’t believe you. Matt wouldn’t do such a crazy thing.”
“Well, he did. He tried.”
Now, I didn’t know Matt Donaghy very well, but I’d been in school with him since fifth grade. This year he was in just one class with me, Mr. Weinberg’s.
One of Trevor’s buddies was saying that he’d been told by a “reliable source” that two senior girls had heard Matt Donaghy talking in the cafeteria at lunchtime, saying he was going to blow up the school, and they reported him. “Like, Donaghy had this plan to kill as many people as he could, including teachers, because he was pissed over some grade he got on a test – or something he wrote, that got turned down by the newspaper.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “That is not true.”
Trevor Cassidy stared at me. “How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
Music: “There, There” Radiohead
CN: NO I DID NOT. I DID NOT. I DID NOT. I did not say those things, and I did not plan those things. Won’t anyone believe me?
Matt Donaghy had not been arrested by Rocky River police.
Matt Donaghy had not been handcuffed and led forcibly from the rear of Rocky River High to a waiting police vehicle and taken to police headquarters to be charged with any crime.
No one had been a witness to such a spectacle. But it would be talked of as if it had happened. It would be talked of, and shared, and discussed like a scene from a movie that not everyone had seen, but a few had seen, or claimed to have seen, and by being talked of with such zest, such dread and enthusiasm, it would shortly come to seem that, at Rocky River High, nearly everyone had seen it, and had opinions about it.
“He was cuffed?” Matt was cuffed?” “Not his ankles, though. So he could walk.” “If he’d made a break for it, they would’ve shot him? Wow.” “No way Matt was gonna make a break. They had him, and he knew it.” “Did they search his locker? Did they confiscate stuff?” “Did he confess?” “Did you ever see any gun of Matt’s, like in his locker?”
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“I didn’t know Matt had guns.” “Stuff to make bombs? Or, like plans? Drawings?” “They’d be downloaded from the Internet. All that kind of shit you can download if you know where to look.”
Music: “Good Riddance” Green Day
KN: Thurs, 10:23PM dear matt— please call me, it’s urgent.
your classmate URSULA RIGGS
Music: “Good Riddance” Green Day
CN: URSULA RIGGS! THIS HAD TO BE A JOKE. One of Matt’s friends, pretending to be URSULA RIGGS.
Sat, 11:03 PM Dear Ursula, This is going to sound really REALLY corny but I’m still thinking a lot about the other day. Your friend Matt
KN: Sat, 11:48 PM dear matt— so why’d you snub u r yesterday/ lunch?
CN: Sat, 11:54 PM Dear Ursula, I wanted to sit with you & your 2 friends but -- I thought you were just being “nice.” Hey: I did not SNUB YOU.
KN: Sun, 12:08 AM dear matt— u r is never “nice”
CN: Sun, 12:11 AM Dear Ursula, You are better than “nice”; you are “good.” 1 individual in 1 million. I didn’t know you wanted me to sit with you at lunch. I guess I thought, why would you? Your friend Matt
Sun, 12:18 AM Dear Ursula, Also I meant, I just have lunch by myself now, mostly. The “misfits” table by the trash cans. It’s easier that way.
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When I come into the cafeteria everybody is, like-- WHAT’S DONAGHY GOT IN THAT BACKPACK?
There’s talk of the school installing metal detectors.
If you give me a sign I will join you. But if not/ if your friends don’t want me, that’s OK. Your friend Matt
KN: Sun, 12:29 AM dear matt— u r’s friends don’t tell me what to do/ not to do
Sun, 1:10 AM dear matt— ok for sat. ridge rd. gate. 2 pm?
7 AM is wakeup for u r/so this is GOOD NIGHT MATT.
CN: Sun, 1:13 AM Dear Ursula, I’ll meet you Sat. at 2 PM, Ridge Rd. gate.
I will be bringing a (4-footed) friend of mine & hope you aren’t allergic to silky-haired golden retrievers.
I guess you won’t read this till morning so GOOD NIGHT URSULA. Your friend Matt
Alan Pryke: So that’s how the relationship between the two main characters Matt and Ursula develops. “Big Mouth & Ugly Girl”, a great book by Joyce Carol Oates, who, when asked what advice she’d like to give young writers, says that they should look at their own natural interests, listen hard, watch people’s behaviour, read a lot and write every day.
And now our urban legend. This time entitled “Heavenly Revenge” and we can safely say that someone was really mad…
Music: “On the Blvd” Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg
Claes Nordenskiöld: He chuckles to himself when he sees the ad in the Recycler, a free Los Angeles paper filled with advertisements. “Brand-new Porsche – $50, cash only. Call now! (818) 555-8491.”
He goes on looking among the used car ads. He’s gotten up in the early morning hours to be the first to call in case there’re some real deals to be had. He really needs a good, inexpensive car. He goes on searching, but after a while he returns to the crazy ad. At seven o’clock he decides to call. Just for fun. He has to find out what it’s all about. Maybe it's $50,000?
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But the woman who answers confirms the price – $50. Fifty dollars for a car that’s worth about $60,000. “Is it stolen?” But she just answers that she’s got all the papers in front of her ready to be turned over
Still convinced that it’s a joke or a nutty woman who doesn’t know what she’s doing, he sets off to the address with fifty dollars in his pocket. Obviously it’s a prank, he tells himself, but he doesn’t dare to take the chance that it isn’t. It could be his lucky day…
He buys the car without even setting foot inside it, gets all the necessary papers and almost forgets to ask Why?
“Well, you see,” the woman says with an evil smile. “My husband ran off to Fiji last week with his secretary. He left a letter saying the house was mine, but could I be so kind as to sell the car and send the money?”
Music: Music: “On the Blvd” Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg
Alan Pryke: Hard luck, but she certainly did get her revenge. Anyway, now to the answer to our quiz question: You’ll remember that we asked for the name of the newly found planet – the 10th and newest since Pluto in our Solar System. And the correct answer is Sedna.
That’s it for now. I’m Alan Pryke, and thanks for being with us.
Music: “The Gathering Sky” Pat Metheny
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