Shows
The PupcastSummer (with music)This is Summer, a 1940 short story by Italian, Communist, author, parliamentarian, and woman Natalia Ginzburg, translated form the Italian by Alex Valente.
This is something of a downer, concerning as it does the then-taboo subjects of depression, suicide, and a rejection of motherhood. BUT she's white this time, and I think the Duolingo owl has more than enabled me to capture and understand the nuances in the Italian perspective. Watch out for me really putting my shoulder to the wheel in pronouncing "Osteria".
I am almost a whole day behind schedule on this one due...2020-05-0610 minThe PupcastSummer (no music)This is Summer, a 1940 short story by Italian, Communist, author, parliamentarian, and woman Natalia Ginzburg, translated form the Italian by Alex Valente.
This is something of a downer, concerning as it does the then-taboo subjects of depression, suicide, and a rejection of motherhood. BUT she's white this time, and I think the Duolingo owl has more than enabled me to capture and understand the nuances in the Italian perspective. Watch out for me really putting my shoulder to the wheel in pronouncing "Osteria".
I am almost a whoel day behind schedule on this one due...2020-05-0600 minThe PupcastWhat It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky (music)What It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky is part of a 2017 collection of Short Stories, by the same name, by Lesley Nneka Arimah. It’s a sort of quasi-sci-fi magical realism where a whole world gets built deftly and almost indirectly, but very vividly. One that rewards paying attention to the nuance, I suppose.
Is it interesting that I should have chosen a Jamaican writer and a Nigerian writer right off the bat, leaving myself with choices to make about how, if at all, it is possible or acceptable for me to adopt these pe...2020-04-2831 minThe PupcastWhat It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky (no music)What It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky is part of a 2017 collection of Short Stories, by the same name, by Lesley Nneka Arimah. It’s a sort of quasi-sci-fi magical realism where a whole world gets built deftly and almost indirectly, but very vividly. One that rewards paying attention to the nuance, I suppose.
Is it interesting that I should have chosen a Jamaican writer and a Nigerian writer right off the bat, leaving myself with choices to make about how, if at all, it is possible or acceptable for me to adopt these pe...2020-04-2831 minThe PupcastGirl by Jamaica Kincaid (no music)"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid appeared first in the New Yorker in June 1978.
It is a very arresting and structurally unusual piece, which makes it singularly inapposite for reading alound, and it is foundationally connected to a mother-daughter relationship in the specific context of an Antiguan family, making it singularly inapposite to be read by some white guy. Nonetheless, I liked it as a short story and so here it is. I have refrained from doing voices and/or accents for reasons that I assume will be uncontroversial.
There are also a couple of stabs of...2020-04-2805 minThe PupcastGirl by Jamaica Kincaid (music)"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid appeared first in the New Yorker in June 1978.
It is a very arresting and structurally unusual piece, which makes it singularly inapposite for reading alound, and it is foundationally connected to a mother-daughter relationship in the specific context of an Antiguan family, making it singularly inapposite to be read by some white guy. Nonetheless, I liked it as a short story and so here it is. I have refrained from doing voices and/or accents for reasons that I assume will be uncontroversial.
There are also a couple of stabs of...2020-04-2805 minThe PupcastBonus ep (music): 50 of them YOU-nited States, and their capitalsYou know the drill. I read the 50 states, alphabetically this time, as well as naming their capitals. You fall helplessly to sleep. Calculated as a sleep aid, but usable perhaps also as a pnemonic? Dealer's choice - it is your podcast after all.
This is the musical version - backing track for the States reading is Due Tramonti by Ludovico Einaudi, performed by Lavinia Meijer, and touched up a little for maximum somnolance.2020-04-2805 minThe PupcastBonus ep: 50 of them YOU-nited States, and their capitalsYou know the drill. I read the 50 states, alphabetically this time, as well as naming their capitals. You fall helplessly to sleep. Calculated as a sleep aid, but usable perhaps also as a pnemonic? Dealer's choice - it is your podcast after all.
This is the instrumental version - version with music in your feed separately, to maximise personal choice.2020-04-2805 minThe PupcastDemo: The Lottery by Shirley JacksonThis one was done as "proof-of-concept" (I don't really know what that phrase means) and so is very much unedited, unfinished, and essentially unlistenable. This was the first short story that sprang to mind when I decided that short stories were to be the reading-fodder, but the dialogue-heavy nature meant it was difficult to execute. You really have to go hard on the voices, and that's kind of hard to do when your whole mission statement is easy-listening.
A behind-the-scenes look at the initial, exploratory recording of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Recorded in a blanket-stuffed shower...2020-04-2324 min