Radio
Carla uses sound, narrative, and interview to try to make sense of the world around her. See also Carla’s producer page at PRX.org.
Guitar Making: The Human Element
Luthier Scott MacDonald of Huntington, New York, may be an internationally renowned guitar builder, but he doesn’t just deal in guitars. In fact, he considers his work to be mostly a human art. Scott doesn’t produce models, doesn’t believe in reproducing the same instrument. Instead, he builds custom instruments, uniquely designed to fit the needs of each person – physically, musically, and personality-wise.
Scott is skilled at picking up cues about people. In fact, sometimes he can tell what a person he’s just met does just by the sound of their voice or their posture. And when he creates a guitar for someone, he is guided by feeling and impression more than the specifics of his craft. Listen to him share his philosophy on guitar making and hear his people skills at work in this ten minute documentary including wood, workshop, and musical sounds from his finished and unfinished guitars.
Cannibal Theme Park
Related to Carla’s anthropological memoir, The Sophisticated Savage, released in June 2009 from Inner Hearth Books, this documentary/personal narrative follows Carla to the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador where she meets a surfer named Fredy Andi who tells her he has been a cannibal. Several years later, Seidl returns to the islands to see if Fredy’s amazing life story (being born into an uncontacted and infamously savage tribe in the Amazon jungle, then becoming a surfer) and their connection are for real. For more information on The Sophisticated Savage, click here.
Practicing Awareness
A six-minute documentary on the shakuhachi flute produced while a student at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and aired on Weekend America in September 2006. Care of the Salt Archives.
Synopsis: Phil Nyokai James teaches shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, in Portland, Maine. For Phil and his students, the lessons of the shakuhachi extend beyond the music to teach them about listening and presence in their daily lives.
Four Eggs
Azerbaijani tea setting
Aired on American Public Media’s “The Splendid Table” on November 1st, 2008, this piece documents Carla going guesting in an Azerbaijani home and receiving an unexpected gift. Click here to read a blog posting from the University of Chicago Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies about this piece.
