Trying a Different Audio Host

I decided to test a different audio host with streaming. Below is a poem/music collaboration I did with my sweetheart, James Barr, a couple years ago. Let's see how this widget works out! If it holds up OK (the last one didn't), I'll start adding tracks.

(Opinions welcome on both the widget and the audio piece.)

Go To FileFactory.com

What We Think About When We Think About Carver

Are Raymond Carver's stories really by Raymond Carver? Have we accepted the death of the author in this postmodern era? Or, is it a disappointment to note the differences between the urtext version of Carver's stories and the lean, enigmatic, Gordon Lish-edited ones? On Slate's audio book club podcast, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Katie Roiphe have a very stimulating discussion of the mythology of Carver, fiction as collaboration, and which version they like better. Which matters more, the story or its authorship? Feel free to discuss in comments, I'd like your views...

Audio Joys

You may already know I'm a podcast junkie. Here are a few of my recent faves:

Tobias Wolff reads the Denis Johnson classic short story "Emergency" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Time to buy milk for the preemie rabbits and save some lives. Some of my favorite dialogue ever written, the kind that makes me laugh aloud on the subway. (And news to me--I learned that Johnson himself played the patient with the knife in his eye in the movie version of Jesus' Son!)

Zadie Smith talks about language, social class, and inclusion/exclusion in her NYPL lecture "Speaking in Tongues." From Pygmalion to Obama (both president and memoirist). What exactly is "keeping it real," and does education make that impossible? And if so, is that a tragedy, as it has been painted in the past, the so-called "tragedy of the mulatto?" Or, are people like Obama (and Zadie Smith too) teaching us a new way to think about "real?"

Luis Alberto Urrea lectures at Bread Loaf 2008: "The Road Out of Tijuana is Paved with Ink." Talk about keeping it real. Dude has wild stories to tell about his aunt, La Flaca, and her terrifying fireside tales, along with other early experiences that formed who he is as a writer. Instructive and entertaining. Sorry I could not figure out how to deep link to this episode. Click on the "lectures" tab in iTunes. Also recommended from Bread Loaf: Robert Boswell's lecture on omniscient narration, a pared-down version of his essay from The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, my new favorite craft book ever.

Alan Davis Drake's podcast of Anton Chekhov's unabridged short stories is fun and well-produced. It's a good way to get up to speed on the classics. There are two things I love about Chekhov (so far)... One: he makes characters' motives transparent--often selfish ones--without completely sacrificing their likeability. Is this the essence of comedy? Or at least the kind of comedy I love, which laughs at the self and the other at the same time? And two: he doesn't appear to be following strict rules of beginning-middle-end. You know how I feel about that crap. Character motive pulls you right on through. That, and the feeling you're sitting around a campfire or card table hearing the story. The structural surprises are welcome and satisfying.

Streaming Audio!

I know this is elementary to some people but I feel like I crossed a line, figuring out how to add streaming audio! I'm still amazed that the internet can do this! I dug through my archives and put some selections under the new "Streaming Audio" link on my sidebar. (Decided not to put it up front since it may be a slow-loader on some systems. And warning, not safe for work.)

What will be next? I'm learning HTML forms in my spare time, so who knows? Reader surveys, maybe?

Some Audio Recordings

Here are some of my spoken word projects. Please note that they ALL contain expletives and/or explicit situations. If you have a delicate constitution, are at the office, or have small children in the room, you may not want to click.

I will be adding to this link page as I gather materials.

TOKEN

2005. Produced by James "Trophy" Barr, Barr on guitar, poem by me.
(3:40 minutes)

A LONE LITANY

1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records.
(2:57 minutes)

TRACKS

1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records. Soundscape by Hoyt and Trachtenberg.
(3:16 minutes)

LIVE SET, EUREKA JOE CAFE, NYC

1996. Me on rants. Gary Miles on processed bass clarinet and bass guitar.
(18:13 minutes)

SOMETHING BORROWED

1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble: Seth Cooper, bass; John Freund, organ; Jay Gogan, guitar; Eric Kalb, drums. Produced by Mike Boris, Seth Cooper, and John Freund.
(3:14 minutes)

G EARS

1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)

IN THE VALLEY OF TOMATOES

1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)