My reading of Footnote To A Bread Recipe, the first story from Youthful Desires, is available for your listening pleasure. You can download the mp3 here. You may also stream it here. File is 15 minutes long.
Regarding the mp3, it's free free free!! You'll notice the Creative Commons copyright sign. It's basically my written permission for you to have at it, so long as you're kind enough to attribute (and contact me, I might add) should you publish or mess with any of the content.
I'm hoping to get the other stories up in the next few weeks. And, as always, I'm open to recommendations and suggestions.
7 comments:
Ah, so that's what you sound like.
You have a surprisingly good voice for audio. Comes across nice and clear.
I put this on in the background while I was puttering around the house. I lost the story halfway through. I'm not sure if that was my fault or the podcast. Maybe I should give it another try, this time devoting my full attention to it. But I think perhaps if you read it a bit slower some of the words might sink in more. Some parts are slow, some parts are a bit faster. It's not that it's too fast to catch, it just develops a lulling quality if the words all run together and I find my mind wandering.
I know professional sounding audio books are hard to pull off and it's easy to criticize (God knows what I'd sound like doing a podcast reading) but if you could slow it down a little and inflect some of the words so they jump out more at the listener, that would be my 2 cents for the next podcast.
PS-just out of curiousity, how much of this is autobiographic?
Actually upon relistening maybe your reading is better than I initially gave it credit for. Most of it is well paced and inflected appropriately. Especially at the beginning and the end. And if I give it my full attention its not so much of a problem.
Great Voice.
Solid presentation.
Fabulous story.
Very enjoyable to listen to your rendering, Mr. Reimer.
I thought the pacing was right. IMHO, you seemed to warm up/loosen up after the first 2-3 minutes and you started clicking on both the tonal variations of the story and the .
On my first of multiple readings of your book and especially of this story (which, again IMHO, is a great concentration of items that could be expanded to at least a novella sized book), I tried to imagine your voice in the main character. Hints of the prairie, son of a preacher, undercoat of Plattditsch supporting the general dialogue, and a tongue sharply implanted in cheek. So, I was a bit surprised by your voice. Young enough sounding that the story seemed to be told in current time, not as from the past. A pleasant surprise.
The story itself translated extremely well to being read aloud, not necessarily an action to be assumed. Sometimes the written word is meant to remain written, not spoken. This was not the case at all with Footnote to a Bread Recipe (How understated is that title to the contents of the story!?!!?). The ice driving and the bathtub scenes stood out particularly well and you seemed to really get into the spirit of things when you were reading these sections.
Gorgeous job, Mr. Reimer.
Plus, I'm a real sucker for Canadian pronunciation and unadvertised self-awareness, two traits that you have in spades.
Can't wait for the next installment!
DuUHHHH,
As regards the ...both the tonal variations of the story and the ... uncompleted section, I'd forgotten to put in your personal investment in the characters..
Sorry.
JS -- I appreciate the critical analysis re: delivery. Whenever I played back my recording, I kept thinking of how Jim Dale performs the Harry Potter books. As you know, he really clips along. I realized that, for this piece at least, I had to go slower than I felt comfortable with. Then there's the whole business of tonality ... it's an interesting experience trying to shut down the part of my brain that's mulling over my choice of words, in aid of stimulating the part of my brain responsible for performance.
As for autobiography, the overall narrative is quite alien from my own (my gypsy lover eventually married me). The genesis of the story actually came from a lecture I attended on Browning's "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came" -- one of my more unexpected fits of inspiration. It's a long and dreary poem, and the aged prof seemed to be fighting off sleep as well. There was a conceptual energy to be had, though. I wondered what a Mennonite Bob Dylan (circa Highway 61) would make of it, and started scribbling.
DV - thank you very much. (I'll see if I can't throw in a few "a-boots" in the next few readings.)
Re: Globe article, thank you.
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