Slow Motion Break Up

If you weren’t already aware, The Audio Kitchen has returned to the on-air schedule of WFMU for the summer. The Audio Kitchen is a weekly hour-long program in which The Professor plays found amateur audio. This season, The Professor has been crafting theme episodes from his immense collection of found sound. Last week it was an all-children program, next week it’s going to be a collection of music demo tapes, and this week we were treated to an entire episode of romantic audio letters and lover’s conversations documented on tape. By far, the most interesting part of the episode for me was this series of conversation snippets captured on the answering machine of a man named Frank, which seems to document the slow dissolution of his relationship with a woman named Beth. It’s mostly interesting because of Frank’s creepy behavior – he often speaks with an obnoxious affected tone of voice (“daaarling”), acts extremely bored and distant, rants about Swanson pot pies, and clearly has no regard for the feelings of this poor, clingy girl who obviously is still in love with him for some bizarre reason. I defy you to listen to this without wanting to slap Frank.