The Pupcast: Recent Episodes
thedaracast
A weekly podcast for a pup, providing soothing, sometimes partially-dramatised readings of classic works of fiction by iconic female authors. Join me, as the many sounds, moods, characters and probably unintentionally silly voices come to life in exactly the way the iconic women who penned presumably would have wished. And by a man, no less! What better medium than podcasts to appreciate books, and what better person than a white man to read feminist literature?
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 to struggling to find a suitable recording time - the uptick in traffic makes the room noisier during the day, and Pidge insists on beetling around during the night. I apologise, MY QUEEN
The backing track is Two Rights Make One Wrong by Mogwai, which I chose because I think it is, like the story, somehow both uplifting and depressing, somehow both spacious and claustrophobic. Perhaps, coupled with the story, it is a challenging pairing that may not relax as well as it could, but it is certainly a bold combination that I think will be best appreciated by the true connoisseur.
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 to struggling to find a suitable recording time - the uptick in traffic makes the room noisier during the day, and Pidge insists on beetling around during the night. I apologise, MY QUEEN
There is no background music to this one, lest the pup be desirous of 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 personae, voice their characters, and give life to their well-observed inner thoughts? Yes. It is interesting.
The background music on this reading are four different tracks, all by a band called Labradford, called C, P, G, and S, respectively.
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 personae, voice their characters, and give life to their well-observed inner thoughts? Yes. It is interesting.
There is no background music to this one, lest the pup be desirous of no music.
I love you!
"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 colourful language that I think probably... isn't for me? And may also detract from this as a restful enterprise. But perhaps you will fall asleep before they kick in.
This version lacks the Aphex Twin backing track found in its counterpart, in case that is what a pup prefers.
"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 colourful language that I think probably... isn't for me? And may also detract from this as a restful enterprise. But perhaps you will fall asleep before they kick in.
This version is scored by a little tweaking of Aphex Twin's very lovely "Avril 14th", essentially by slowing it down to the extreme and then fiddling with the bass and treble levels. Makes a very sweet, wistful piece sound kind of syrupy and restful.
You 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.
You 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.
This 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 cubicle, including several do-overs, flubbed reads, and warts-and-all, made-up-on-the-fly character voices. Hear this classic story populated by characters from... Miscellaneous America, I guess?