So You Think You Know Radio?

I want to apologize in advance for what's about to happen to you. I was set back for an hour yesterday, and it's almost impossible to pull me away from my work. My friend Raymond De Felitta, director of numerous films, including 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris, is constantly on the lookout for fun. Today, he sent along a link to one of the coolest things I've seen this year. Its called Radio Garden—a nighttime map of the world with every major internet radio station on the planet aglow. You simply click on the little green light and you can listen live to that station. Mind-blowing, right? And in cities with many stations, a list comes up and you can choose.

Now you can listen live to bossa nova in Rio, afro-beat in Nigeria, pop in Liverpool, reggae in Kingston, French pop in Paris, Italian disco in Naples and on and on—just by clicking on another sparkling jade light on the globe. Tip: To continue listening to a station you like, you must keep the green circle on that green dot.

Radio Garden is a non-profit Dutch radio and digital research project developed between 2013 and 2016 by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, the Transnational Radio Knowledge Platform and five other European universities. Sometimes I wonder whether someone out there is listening to my wishes and making them come true. The wildest track I heard during the hour spent roaming was Dolly Parton singing 9 to 5 on a station in Amman, Jordan. We are the world.

I'll start you off in Rio de Janeiro via the following link. Then you can make your way around the globe by reducing the size of the map with your mouse or the minus sign in the lower right-hand corner. Then you're on your own to explore. You just need a working sense of geography. The new radio dial is here and it's truly worldwide. Go here and savor!