One of the things I miss the most on a daily basis living in [anonymous rural area, USA] is not actually what you’d think I’d miss about living in a city—like “restaurants.” I miss walking around, naturally. But what I miss all the time are New York’s radio stations. You can listen to them online, of course, but it’s not the same. Streaming radio just feels like using any other kind of streaming.1
Maybe in particular I miss waking up every morning to the inexplicably grumpy guy,2 Jeff Spurgeon, who runs WQXR’s morning programming. I can still remember the first morning of pandemic lockdowns, when everybody had relocated to working from home, and hearing sirens through Jeff Spurgeon’s not-quite-soundproof-yet home set up. I almost cried. It really felt like we were all in this together.
I link my fondness to radio to my fondness for things like Saturday Night L…