Category: Culture

Adventures In Audiobooks #1

The next few days I’m going to be doing a few posts (in addition to other posts) about one of my interests that I haven’t really blogged about before: audiobooks.

For those who may not be aware, an audiobook is simply a book (either unabridged or abridged) that someone has recorded outloud, either to tape, CD, .mp3, or what have you.

I got into audiobooks a few years ago when I discovered that, after so many hours of squinting at print on a screen or on a page, I really enjoyed simply relaxing and letting someone else read to me for a change.

I especially like to listen to audiobooks when I’m travelling. It’s nice to plug in a CD and let the miles roll by.

You can get all kinds of audiobooks, from quite a long while ago (the Bible, the Illiad, the Odessy), to 19th century (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Fin, the works of Edgar Allen Poe), to twentieth century (I, Claudius, Claudius the God), to the latest bestsellers (Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton’s latest).

At first, I would purchase audiobooks, as one can do from Amazon.Com or in a bookstore, but this tends to have a problem associated with it: Such audiobooks are often expensive–more expensive than hardbacks.

Another solution is to get them from a service like Blackstone Audiobooks, where you can rent them rather than buy them.

More recently, I have been enjoying downloading digital audiobooks from Audible.Com, where you can download them (in a proprietary format) quite inexpensively.

The next few days, I’ll tell you more about ways you can get, use, and even make (!) your own audiobooks.

(ANTI-SPOILER REQUEST: For those who are already into audiobooks, I’d ask you not to spoil some of the neat hi-tech things I’m about to introduce. Kindly wait till I mention a method and then mention your neat-o variation on it. E.g., for this post you might talk about your experience with conventional audiobooks and with services like the ones named above. Much obliged!)

HOLLYWOOD: Michael Moore Failed To Make Best Picture

MichaelmooreOf course, we all knew he failed to make it, but the news is that Hollywood knows it, too.

MICHAEL MOORE FAILS TO GET BEST PICTURE OSCAR NOMINATION FOR FAHRENHEIT 9/11.

Unfortunately, Hollywood also failed to nominate the picture that genuinely deserved to be named last year’s best: The Passion of the Christ.

My guess is that the failure to nominate it was partly a case of cluelessness (Hollywood is too anti-Christian to "get" the picture) and partly sour grapes ("If we have to admit F9/11 isn’t best picture material, neither will we give you the satisfaction of acknowleding that TPOTC is, either.")

SOME INTERESTING COMMENTARY ON MOORE’S FILM’S LOUSINESS (FROM A LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE) OVER AT TKS.

Quick question: What does Michael Moore’s "L" hand gesture stand for?

(a) Liberal
(b) Loser
(c) Both

I submit that the answer is the same for both the election and the Oscars.

Sci-Fi Roundup

While we’re talking about TV shows today, let’s note the new episdoes of sci-fi shows that will be debuting tonight:

Star Trek Enterprise:

"Observer Effect"
After Hoshi and Trip contract a deadly virus, two aliens possess the bodies of other crew members to observe humanity’s reaction to tragedy. NOTE: This is supposed to involve an alien race we met in The Original Series.

Incidentally, (SPOILERS):

[Enterprise writer/producer Manny] Coto also offered tidbits on the remaining episodes of the season: "In
the second half of the season, you can expect this: Stories that take
place on Andoria, a Klingon moon, Romulan outposts, Romulan Marauders,
Orion Privateers, Earth’s Moon, Mars, a 1701-class Federation starship
and more. And you’ll see a live Tholian… and a Gorn."


Coto emphasizes that whether the show returns for a fifth season remains to be seen.


"As to whether or not we’ll be back for Season 5, that’s always been up in the air. We’ll see what the future brings." [SOURCE.]

Stargate SG-1:

"Gemini", Episode #811.
When an enemy takes on the guise of one of the team, Carter’s emotions leave the planet susceptible to attack.
NOTE: Stargate SG-1 is not head-to-head with Enterprise, so you’ll have to TiVo, VCR, choose, or catch a re-run. I’d recommend Enterprise as your first-watch, then SG-1 later.

Stargate Atlantis:

"The Eye", Episode #111.
When the city is evacuated due to an approaching storm, the Genii launch and invasion.

Battlestar Galactica (new series):

"Bastille Day", Episode #103.
Apollo is held hostage on a prisoner ship by a group of convicts led by a freedom fighter convicted of terrorism. NOTE: The new Battlestar Galactica series has some very good aspects to it, but it’s got too much sexy stuff in it for me to recommend it. It’s also opposite Monk, so I recommend you watch Monk.

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.

MONK!!!

Monk_1 Yes!!!

The new season (or half-season) of Monk starts tonight!!!

What will happen? Will Monk be able to survive the tragic loss of his long-time caretaker and assistant, the beloved Sharona?

How will they explain her absence?

Who will replace her?

Will the new person be any good?

Will the audience accept her?

Will America’s favorite and hysterically-funny obsessive-compulsive detective jump the shark, as one reader ponders down yonder? (Though you really can’t tell that from just one show; shark jumps can be accurately discerned only in the rear view mirror.)

Monk is worried about these and many more questions. Just look at him! Can’t you see how worried he is?

Help Monk get over his new half-season jitters by tuning in and giving the new character a chance.

He can’t go off the air. He’s got crimes to solve!

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS

Bless This Mess

Okay, I don’t normally watch network TV (or any TV), but this season I have found myself catching (occasionally) a couple of reality TV shows that are in proximity to Lost and 24.

These shows are called WifeSwap and (if I remember correctly) Trading Spouses. They are on ABC and FOX, respectively.

Both involve (from the 3-4 episodes I have seen) the mother of one family switching places with the mother of another family. When this happens then–formally or informally–the mother at first conforms to the rules of her new family and then begins to impose the rules that she is used to.

The producers of the shows seem to be trying to pick the most extreme (and clearly dysfunctional) families that they can find.

From my limited viewing experience of these shows, it seems that they involve pitting commonly stereotypical families against each others. Specifically: One mom comes from a messy, cluttered, rambunctious, and (usually) more-explicitly-Christian family than the other, who comes from from a clean, spartan, sedate, and (usually) less-explicitly-Christian family.

Part of the point of the shows is to see how the introduction of both moms affects both families. Inevitably, the "messy" mom comes across as more human than the "cleaner" mom–and the "messy" mom seems to have longer-lasting and more positive effects on the "clean" family than visa-versa.

That’s fiine with me.

Though I appreciate cleanliness (and especially hygiene), ultimately people are more important than things, and while venturing too far in either direction is unhealthy, it’s better to be messy, cluttered, rambunctious, and Christian than clean, spartan, sedate, and non-Christian.

Here’s to bigger famlies!

(Which regularly accompany the "messy" families rather than the "clean" moms.)

Michael Crichton Will Be Hacked!

Crichton has already written about the nebulous, non-scientific values ascribe the the variables in the Drake Equation.

Despite not having a whit more evidence, a group of scientists who aren’t going to be listened-to seriously, have decided tha the chance of a nearby extraterrestrial civilization is much higher than most think.

GET THE UNSUBSTANTIATED STORY.

Conspiracy-oriented minds might wonder if this the beginning of the "disclosure" that precedes The Facade.

The UFO community will certainly wonder about that.

Enterprise Update

Okay, it’s mid-January now, so the new shows are starting up again after the Christmas re-run season.

Last night Star Trek Enterprise fired up its warp engines again and delivered an interesting episode.

Unlike the three-episode mini-arcs that it’s been working this season–arcs that allow it to tell bigger, more ambitious stories–this one was a standalone episode, but it will have a significant place in the Star Trek mythos.

The reason is that, even though it wasn’t a multi-episode story like others this season, it did do something that seems to be part of the mission of Enterprise’s season four: Fill in missing pieces of the Star Trek mythos.

The previous story had dealt with a civil war on Vulcan that led to the evolution of the Vulcans we know and love from The Original Series. In this week’s episode, we see the broader social revolution starting to spread.
That’s not the hole in the mythos that this episode fills, though. It’s something else.

Star Trek has always had a number of pieces of magical technology, the two chief ones being warp drive and the transporter. Over time, we met, learned about, and got to know the creator of warp drive, Zephram Cochrane. We’ve never had the pleasure with the creator of the transporter, though.

Until now.

This week’s Enterprise episode features a guest appearance by Dr. Emory Erickson, the heretofore-unnamed father of the transporter.

Like Zephram Cochrane, he is a flawed genius. He arrives on the ship with plans for a transporter so powerful that it could make starships obsolete (something that we know from previous Star Trek series was a technology that at least one alien civilization had). But he’s also carrying with him a secret.

That secret has to do with his son, and it’s no coincidence that this episode is titled Daedalus.

In the end, the episode turns in a poignant story of a father and his loss.

It’s not a planet-shaking story, but it’s touching nonetheless.

And it’s another piece of the puzzle.

If you missed it, it’ll be on this Sunday night on UPN.

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.

Is B5 Kiddable?

A young gentleman writes:

Jimmy,
   

Hi!  I was thinking of trying out the TV series Babylon 5, and I was just wondering if there’s any objectionable content that I might want to be aware of.  I’m 16 right now, and I have a sister who’s eleven who would probably end up watching whatever was being viewed in the house.  Is the show appropriate for children, or should I wait a few years?  Thanks!

Though most episodes of B5 are quite kid friendly, there are some scenes in some episodes that are not kiddable, particularly for someone as young as eleven. If your parents were interested in watching the series and skipping over these bits, it would be possible to watch them, but this would require a good bit of effort on their part and they likely wouldn’t have the time to devote to such a sustained effort. Therefore, I would just wait a few years.

Hope this helps and that you enjoy the series when you do see it!

NOTE: B5 fans, do not spoil what the unkiddable parts are in the comments box.

 

Lovecraft Makes A Slip

Okay, I’m listening to a story that H.P. Lovecraft ghostwrote (an appropriate thing for a horror writer) that is called The Mound.

One of the things I like about Lovecraft is the way he uses language. He had a real way with words and a phenomenal number of words in his active vocabulary.

But in this story, he makes a slip.

At one point, the narrator writes:

That evening the Comptons summed up for me all the legends current among the villagers.

Where might this "village" be? The Swiss alps? The island of Borneo? The sleepy hillsides of New England? They certainly have villages in all of those places, but they don’t where Lovecraft’s story is set:

Western Oklahoma.

Nobody in that part of the country talks about towns, however small, as "villages," nor describes their occupants as "villagers." In the dialect common in those parts, the proper, polite term is "town," and the proper way to speak of the inhabitants is "townsfolk." (Less polite terms are also available if you don’t set much stock by the town and its inhabitants.)

I suppose an exception would be made for "Indian villages" in the area, but then the inhabitants wouldn’t be called "villagers" but simply "Indians" (at least in 1928, when the story is set). But that’s not the kind of "village" he’s talking about.

In fairness to Lovecraft, his narrator is from the East and so is apt to describe things as an easterner would, but if he was really having a conversation with a local family about what legends were common among the townsfolk then they would likely have used the word "townsfolk" (or "townspeople" or something of this nature) and it should have ended up in the narrator’s narrative.

In any event, the detail rang false for me.

It’s very hard to imitate the idiom of another region and not get spotted by natives of the area (myself, in this case). I would never be able to fake Lovecraft’s New England setting and idiom.

So, if I ever write horror stories set in the present day, I guess they’ll have to be set in the South or Southwest.

UPDATE: I finished The Mound, and toward the end of the story it is revealed that the narrator is a Virginian. So: Unless they have "villages" in Virginia (and so far as I know, they don’t), what we have here is a flat-out mistake on Lovecraft’s part, letting his native New England idiom intrude onto a story about the South. He ain’t from around these parts, I reckon.