A Crowded Fire - The Radio Show: 

Every Sunday night from 12:30 AM until 2:00 AM on 88.1 FM WESU

You can now listen to our show live over the Internet.  Go to www.wesufm.org and download the streaming audio.

Get Past Segments From Radio Show Here

3/1/05 - There will be no show the 6th or the 13th as ACF will be on Spring Break - (Spring Break '05 East St. Louis PARRTAY!!)  Expect some fantastic shows when we come back

Thank you to Adam and Todd Stone for being our special guests on Feb. 27th.  The MP3 of the show is on the audio page.  This was a fun and fantastic show; you should absolutely download it.

Bios and Selected Work

Russ     Josh        Jordan        Aaron

 WESU call-in number:  860-685-7700.  Call in and say hello. 

February 20th, 2005

The second season of A Crowded Fire get kicked off tonight.  We have some fantastic shows planned, featuring new bits, special guests, interviews, and a lot of other great stuff.  If you are interested in submitting any material to ACF or would like to appear as a guest (especially if you have something to promote), send an e-mail to Radio@ACrowdedFire.com .  Any special guests will be posted here the week before the show.  לופט

Thanks for listening!  

Original Radio Show Page Message:  Welcome to the page for the radio show “A Crowded Fire.”  Our show will be debuting this coming school year (‘04-‘05) on 88.1 FM, WESU.  ACF is composed of Russ Berg, Josh Nathan-Kazis, Jordan Schulkin, and Aaron Sussman, all of whom currently attend Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.  ACF is an eclectic talk show with a focus on humor, politics, and commentary. Once the show begins, this page will offer information about the show such as when it is airing, scheduled segments, special events, call-in numbers, and guests.  Right now, WESU unfortunately does not have a streaming radio feed, so you cannot listen to the show live over the Internet; HOWEVER, we are going to have MP3 files of the show and of specific bits that you can download and listen to.  To be put on the A Crowded Fire Mailing List, click here. He wants to find effective Sage CRM support on this web site.

If you have any creative projects or anything you would like to promote, e-mail us and we can try to arrange an interview on the show. 

Thanks for the support. 

Check out A Crowded Fire at the Republican National Convention by clicking here

Get Segments From Radio Show Here

An Explanation of the Name

by Josh

The name of our show is derived from a quote that reads, in its entirety: “Free speech is the right to shout ‘Theatre!’ in a crowded fire.” The quote is attributed variously to Abbie Hoffman and the Yippie! movement in general.

The other day, Aaron asked me to write a paragraph or two explaining the quote, and why we chose to use it as the name of our show.

Upon sitting down to write, I realized that I wasn’t so sure what the hell the quote meant. So, turning to Google and the crappy academic version of LexisNexus, I launched a semi-serious, not-so-in-depth investigation into the common usage of the phrase. A portion of the raw data compiled, in the form of quotes containing references to said phrase, is included below. essay

In general, the quoters of the phrase fall into three categories: those who think that to shout ‘Theater!’ in a crowded fire means to do something utterly futile, those who use it as a reference to the surreal, and those who have no idea what it means but quote it anyway. Examples of usages that fall into these three categories follow:

“…Adding another TLD to the Internet will not do much to help those goals, and in some ways will actually hinder them by creating a mobile Internet that is separate from the mainstream. Like a man shouting "theater" in a crowded fire, this initiative may create a lot of noise, but it does little to address the real challenges facing mobile applications, in particular mobile enterprise applications.”
Carl Zetie

“It's in this context that the Missyplicity Project must be reinterpreted. It starts to take on the appearance of surrealism, of shouting theater in a crowded fire.”
R.U. Serious

“Listen: never change screams in mid-horse, never shout theater in a crowded fire. Across the event horizon of the black hole light is eaten as gravity energizes until a teaspoon of matter weighs a trillion tons consuming all light. Yes, light bends.”
Sebastian Lockwood, “Density of Coincidence.”

“[Some musician who I’ve never heard of] is the kind of person who yells "Theater" in a crowded fire, which should give you some idea of his sense of humor.”
Nick Lancaster

“Premier Bernard Landry cried, "Referendum" in a crowded fire station yesterday.”
Kevin Dougherty, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec).

I found most of these usages either uninspiring, or mildly intriguing but having nothing to do what I think our radio show is about. Despairing, and running low on time, I was about to give up when I came across a passage at www.menstuff.org, on a page that seemed to be dedicated to poetry about men, or poetry by men, or poetry for men, or something like that. It read: “Abbie Hoffman described a goal of guerilla theatre as ‘yelling theatre in a crowded fire.’ As the fire continues to grow more crowded every day, more and more of us are finding our true voices.”

This was the quote that I had been looking for. As far as I’m concerned, this radio show is called “A Crowded Fire” because shit’s burning up. We’re all in the fire, and we want to shout about it. While we may be shouting ‘Radio!’ instead of ‘Theater!,’ we hope that the effect will be similar.

Thanks for listening. Fuck the FCC. Get home safe.

-JNK

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO OF JOSH'S 'EXPLANATION'

Also, check out Josh's excellent article in the national Jewish student magazine, New Voices