I treated myself to one of those noise-cancelling headphone. The thing produces anti-noise to filter out highway, refrigerator and air conditioning from my daily life. So that I can listen to podcasts better. Podcasts like those from The Dead Society. In which I am reminded again how important background noise from highways, air conditioners and rustling trees is.
Radio journalist Carine van Santen is roaming around the country for her six-part project The Dead Society the Utrecht cemetery Soestbergen. Six times she portrays a dead Utrechtian, from very famous to anonymous. The first episode, now available on the site, is dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld. Main feat: according to some, the world-famous architect does not belong where he lies at all.
Journalistic fiction
In the podcast, she reports on the journalistic investigation into the bizarre developments surrounding Rietveld's grave. She interviews people who can recount it themselves, the last witnesses, but also talks to the dead man himself, and some others who formally spoke it unable to recount.
Van Santen thus introduces fictional elements into a genre that should really be built entirely on verifiable reality. A few years ago, such a thing would have been called a journalistic mortal sin. In these times, it is actually quite common. In fact, it is rather the opposite: non-fiction tops the shortlist of literary prizes, and you have to look very hard to find an invented play among the real-life ego documents of actors, writers and musicians in the theatre programme.
This American Life
Now, there is a lot to do about podcasts. In the United States have been 'hot' you for years. This is largely caused by the long car journeys needed there to get to work, school or supermarket. Like here, the majority of adults mostly listen in the car. Because the average car journey here is busier, has more confusing traffic situations and is shorter than overseas, the podcast does not catch on as much here. Consequently, not as many people pay as much attention to it as van Santen, or her colleague Chris Baijema: the time and effort it takes to really make something beautiful out of it does not outweigh the expected reach and thus the expected revenue from ads.
Of course, there are many podcasts being made, but most of them I cannot listen to in full. They are often no more than a lightly edited recording of an interview. Music is often impossible to use because of the cost, and really good editing takes at least as much time as a video work.
Star Trek
What is even more important: sound. Logical, you might say: in a podcast, the sound has to be good. Only: which sound? Often, a podcast is limited to the voices. They have to be intelligible. Quite a problem, because even in Penoza, intelligibility sometimes falls short. And then everyone forgets the most important thing: the background noise.
Background noise makes the difference between total immersion and soporific chatter. Books have been written about it. Sound is so essential to experiencing an environment that a 'silent' soundscape is actually mostly deadly. In fact, my favourite TV series Star Trek is so famous for background noise That that is detachable. You can make a run of it.
Spa
Carine van Santen, thanks to the cooperation of a few toppers from the Utrecht art scene, could provide her podcast with fascinating background sound. Ambient music, rustling leaves, an occasional unavoidable police siren, it's all there. Like walking around Soestbergen yourself. Well worth it, then, for three quarters of an hour of immersion with your noise-cancelling headphones.
All I longed for was not yet a little more drama, pouring rain, the sinister sound of a spade in the ground. Or would that be too much again? Matter of daring. With good sound, anything goes.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
