After a very long time, I've uploaded some new audio.
"A Visit From St. Nicholas" by Clement Clark Moore, usually referred to as "The Night Before Christmas". I read it from my copy of Side by Side, Poems to Read Together, which I've had since I was a little girl and which has wonderful illustrations to go with the text. It's a very fun poem, and responsible for a lot of our current notions of who Santa Claus is, including the names of his reindeer.
I also recorded the Nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. I was going to do Chapter 1 as well, but I think it was too long, but the first chapter has some great stuff in it. Most churches read a combination story from both Luke and Matthew at Christmas. I used the King James Version because it's the prettiest.
Files available here
In technical news, I now have a Logitech headset for use in recording, which is nice.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Frog Prince
The first real story is up. It's "The Frog Prince."
When I was a little girl, I used to have a nightmare based on this story, in which I was in a dungeon under my house and there was a giant frog in a cage that I was being forced to kiss.
I now have a frog hand puppet who was my "date" to a party where I was the princess in this story.
It's an old story. In many versions, instead of kissing the frog, the princess throws him against the wall of her bedchamber, and he turns into a prince upon landing. I believe this is the original version. I used the kissing version of the story because it's the one I grew up with, and the one I know best. The age of the princess is kind of uncertain. She's young enough to still want to play outside with her golden ball, but old enough to be able to conjure up an image of a handsome prince. There are some people who say that this story is about the trauma of coming-of-age, of that transition from innocence (the frog) to sexual awareness (the prince). It makes sense then for the princess to be somewhere around 13 or so, but I didn't worry about that too much.
With all my stories, (and my tours) I start with a general idea of the main beats of the story, and the rest really is just improvisation. This, I think, is part of what makes oral storytelling such a great art form. Telling (or listening to) a story that's hundreds of years old connects us to our past, and it's familiar, but yet we can each put our own spin on that story. That's what keeps it fresh and new, and lets us explore different ideas and implications in each story, while still maintaining the ideas and themes that have made the story resonate with generations of people.
Which brings me to a copyright notice- my written words here are copyrighted. I own no copyright over any story that I tell unless otherwise noted, because they're all part of some oral tradition somewhere. So if I tell a story you've never heard before, and you want to tell it, you're welcome to do so. What you're not welcome to do is reproduce my telling in whole or in part and claim it as your own (if you want to burn it to a CD and send it to a friend, that's a horse of a different color).
When I was a little girl, I used to have a nightmare based on this story, in which I was in a dungeon under my house and there was a giant frog in a cage that I was being forced to kiss.
I now have a frog hand puppet who was my "date" to a party where I was the princess in this story.
It's an old story. In many versions, instead of kissing the frog, the princess throws him against the wall of her bedchamber, and he turns into a prince upon landing. I believe this is the original version. I used the kissing version of the story because it's the one I grew up with, and the one I know best. The age of the princess is kind of uncertain. She's young enough to still want to play outside with her golden ball, but old enough to be able to conjure up an image of a handsome prince. There are some people who say that this story is about the trauma of coming-of-age, of that transition from innocence (the frog) to sexual awareness (the prince). It makes sense then for the princess to be somewhere around 13 or so, but I didn't worry about that too much.
With all my stories, (and my tours) I start with a general idea of the main beats of the story, and the rest really is just improvisation. This, I think, is part of what makes oral storytelling such a great art form. Telling (or listening to) a story that's hundreds of years old connects us to our past, and it's familiar, but yet we can each put our own spin on that story. That's what keeps it fresh and new, and lets us explore different ideas and implications in each story, while still maintaining the ideas and themes that have made the story resonate with generations of people.
Which brings me to a copyright notice- my written words here are copyrighted. I own no copyright over any story that I tell unless otherwise noted, because they're all part of some oral tradition somewhere. So if I tell a story you've never heard before, and you want to tell it, you're welcome to do so. What you're not welcome to do is reproduce my telling in whole or in part and claim it as your own (if you want to burn it to a CD and send it to a friend, that's a horse of a different color).
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Testing 123
My first testing podcast.
Here's the deal. You can subscribe to this blog via the link at the bottom. But if you want to subscribe to my podcast, you need to go here.
What this blog will do is announce the posting of a new story, and maybe talk a little bit about the story and why I chose it and that sort of thing.
Here's the deal. You can subscribe to this blog via the link at the bottom. But if you want to subscribe to my podcast, you need to go here.
What this blog will do is announce the posting of a new story, and maybe talk a little bit about the story and why I chose it and that sort of thing.
Welcome and Introduction
Welcome!
The idea here is for me to create a monthly (or more frequent) podcast wherein I tell a story. If I feel lazy, I may do a reading of something from the public domain.
Basic technical specs- for now, I use Audacity to record with. My microphone is the basic clip mic you'd find at any Radio Shack. I use Gcast to upload and host it.
If, for some reason, you'd like to read more about my daily life, go ahead and check out my LiveJournal.
The idea here is for me to create a monthly (or more frequent) podcast wherein I tell a story. If I feel lazy, I may do a reading of something from the public domain.
Basic technical specs- for now, I use Audacity to record with. My microphone is the basic clip mic you'd find at any Radio Shack. I use Gcast to upload and host it.
If, for some reason, you'd like to read more about my daily life, go ahead and check out my LiveJournal.
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