Very Metal’s post on the Shaggs today got me looking for the 2000 New Yorker story about them (which I’m guessing came out around the time Daniel put out the tribute album [even though AMG says 2002]). I wonder how many copies of that sold. It’s great.
Anyway, so the AssistiveMedia.org Reading Room Archive has an audio version of it, which is well worth a listen. Interestingly, I’ve been working on part of a grant proposal lately related to auditory navigation, and have been spending lots of time on assitive technology resource webpages lately, but this is the first one to feature the Shaggs.
So, listen to the Shaggs story. It’s a half-hour long and might make your morning. Also, there’s a lot of other potentially great audio stories on the page for those of you who have already gone through the Soundportraits, Transom, This American Life, and Blunt Radio archives.
Incidentally, Very Metal thinks he stole the line "If it doesn’t, then something inside you is dead" from my old post about the Six Flags Guy, which is dead wrong, as you can see here. But thanks for reminding me how mean I am.
Wait, I thought you said that if you didn’t want to go to Six Flags after seeing that (fake, I assume) old guy dancing around that something was dead inside you — isn’t that what you said? Or am I totally off base here? And why do I remember that?
What I really meant was if someone didn’t fall for him, I didn’t want to know them. Your suggestion that our interpretation of the running-man-old-man says a little something about who we are as people– on the inside– is a whole different statement; it’s what I wish I had said. Damn semi-permanent Internet! http://web.archive.org/web/20050414155538/http://www.activitystory.com/blog/comments/default.asp?pid=368