Listener Ed K. recently sent in this article from the October 11, 1970 Newark Star Ledger. The article announces some of the programming changes enacted at WFMU under the station management of Alan Fritch. As part of the campaign to run the station with "a more professional effort" following the staff walkout and closure of the station in late 1969, WFMU operated on a limited schedule, pre-recorded educational programming as part of a three-college consortium, and ran 5 minute news broadcasts every hour as part of a deal with the commercial Mutual Broadcasting Network. One of the programs from this "new era" of WFMU was "World of Words" which on October 29th of that year ran a program on "the history of the pun" with special guest expert Louis Ginsberg of Paterson, NJ, who was also known as "America's Pun Laureate". As far as I know, no audio record exists of this broadcast, but you can hear recordings by Louis Ginsberg's son, Allen, on many WFMU shows:
Hear "Complaint of the Skeleton to Time" by Allen Ginsberg. (Streaming Realaudio, from Charlie's 1/2/06 show)
Hear "America" by Allen Ginsberg. (Streaming Realaudio, from David's 7/27/05 show)
Or, try out WFMU's Playlist Search Tool to look for all shows (since approximately January 2002) which have played tracks by Allen Ginsberg (or Jack Kerouac, or William Burroughs, or if Beat Poets aren't your thing and you want to hear something (sort of) in honor of America's Pun Laureate, here are some shows which have played Big Pun).
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