In general, I don’t like to use these few pre-sound-bytes of Web page space to be topical for reasons that I hope are obvious (I’m not here to depress you), but I can’t help but make note of the talking chimps who’ve gabbed their way back to the news. Now, there are plenty of questions here for an autodidactic but still dilettantish (honestly pedestrian) linguist who moonlights as podcastresse–
Allow me now to guide you most gently out of the first week of July: those of you in America, lie on your side and listen quietly, finding pause only to burp out the last taste of your hotdogmatic overindulgences. Just focus on the voice — the beer is two days old and will make its way to the outer side of your pores eventually, I promise — and let me repeat — you are NOT going to always feel this way.
WhoAm asks whether Flannery O’Connor can be expected soon. Now, I’d thought of saving O’Connor for a while, for obvious (or perhaps not-so-much-so) reasons: the desire to wait until my face gets older and wrinkles become a more permanent part of its own social fabric, or maybe I’ve wanted to save her for the debut of the sequel to Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast.
A Warning: it’s that time of year where, given the current coordinates of yrs (truly!), you may be exposed to endless nattering about heat exhaust and revelation of podcasts recorded in ice-cubey bathtubs and a relentless boycott of any outergarment. And I hope you will consider this a proper warning because I will, as desperation sets in, become especially doting to those of you in Nordic states, at the poles, or even in climate controlled golf carts (solar-powered of course), I might beg, or quickly become your best friend.
When we compare tonight’s with last year’s Bloomsday podcast, just t’ pose a friendly comparison, we see an almost incredible improvement in sound quality, due either to a highly paid audio engineer or a reluctant purchase of a piece of equipment.
Have waited nearly a year to read Hardy on his birthday, because I strongly suspect that Hardy’s just the sort of guy who should be birthdayishly feted, and in neither in an ironic nor a pointy-paper-hat way. I missed his birthday, as it happens, but not by long… and actually, missing it seems appropriately Hardyish … Read more
Yes, I’ve missed you too and thanks for the well wishes, and yes, you’re right: it would have been RAD to podcast from a women’s prison passing the mic around my circle of hardened women criminals and reading while taking turns with the tattoo needle. Maybe next time.
Perhaps you might use Miette’s short sabbatical to catch up on some of the classics that you might have missed the first time around.
True to form here’s a nice short one to balance out the more time-demanding Gogol from last time. And let me add that just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s not gruesome, contentious, vitriolic, or even a little caustic, because when lagged by the potentate of a jet, that’s all you want waiting for you at home:
Ahh, so you’ve noticed that I still hadn’t read any Gogol, despite a-hundred-some readings including enough of a Russian contingency to keep a stronghold on the world weight-lifting championships for the next few centuries, and despite a story by an Italian all about Gogol, in its own peculiar way.