Posted by Cori on November 25th, 2009 — Posted in Quotes from Books, Utterly Random
I was reading “The Intellectual Life” by P.G. Hamerton the other day, as you do. It’s a book of hypothetical letters to some imaginary friends around the theme of being a proper Victorian intellectual (it was published in 1873.) And in one essay, I was much amused to find an unexpectedly-modern usage of the term “level up”. On a brief rummage around the internet, I find a number of people arguing whether the term first came from D&D gaming or video games a couple of decades ago. I’m sure Hamerton’s can’t be the earliest usage, but perhaps fairly early, since it was printed in scare-quotes, to make people think through the meaning of the phrase. Hamerton is talking to his fantasy recipient about how hard it is to be a modern languages student, learning a language that other people speak natively. By contrast …
The classical student has only to contend against other students who are and have been situated very much as he is situated himself. They have learned Latin and Greek from grammars and dictionaries as he is learning them, and the only natural advantages which any of his predecessors may have possessed are superiorities of memory which may be compensated by his greater perseverance, or superiorities of sympathy to which he may “level up” by that acquired and artificial interest which comes from protracted application.
(Part III, Letter VIII of The Intellectual Life by Philip Gilbert Hamerton. archive.org free book link)
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Posted by Cori on November 22nd, 2009 — Posted in * My Recordings, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction
Well, if it’s out of copyright, LibriVox is going to record it sooner or later … but I’m not at all convinced anyone’ll listen to the whole of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, now that it’s finished. It’s a 58 hour behemoth, and it’s hard to imagine anyone sitting down to quite so many hours of recipes. The fun is likely to come from dipping into random sections, especially the very dated chapters on the “Rearing and Management of Children” (recommending leeches for measles and laudanum for whooping cough and noting eating unripe plums causes cholera) and “Domestic Servants”.
I did contribute a chapter, on General Cookery, but mostly it was a giant glossary of French cooking terms, so I’ll spare you the horror of my Franglais here, and if you’re truly curious you can click through.
http://librivox.org/the-book-of-household-management-by-isabella-beeton/
On the plus side, this IS a very big deal as books go, as it was a “household-bible” for many, many years (in the UK at least) and sold like the hot cakes it taught you to bake. LibriVox doesn’t hesitate to tackle large books (c.f. Decline & Fall!) and the proof is in the pudding … this took just over two years! One surprising thing, that I’ve just noticed, is that only 33 people read for the project. It feels like it ought to have been so many more, but those recipe chapters were lengthy …
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Posted by Cori on November 20th, 2009 — Posted in * My Recordings, Drama and Poetry
I do like D. H. Lawrence’s poetry. It’s mostly well-written, thoughtful stuff, without (too often) being stuffy, pompous or boring. So, last month I recorded a couple for the LibriVox Short Poetry Collection.
Malade is a sickbed poem, straightforward and elegant.
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(1:43min)
One Woman to All Women is harder for me to get my head around. There’s some sexist bits and some feminist bits, and mostly I like it and sometimes I’m oddly annoyed by it. So, I recorded it, and people can decide for themselves.
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(2:34)
Visit the LibriVox catalogue page for the links to sources (both taken from Gutenberg texts) and more free poetry. And so far this month, I’ve only recorded one poem for the next collection, but there’s time, there’s time …
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Posted by Cori on November 13th, 2009 — Posted in * My Recordings, Drama and Poetry
Yes, I have indeed been at the poetry this month … another two pieces of mine have just hit the catalogue.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Explanation was last week’s LibriVox Weekly Poetry, and saw quite a good turnout – I’m one of 16 people who recorded it. A simple little poem, it was something quick to warm up the vocal cords and test my new recording arrangement. (That still needs some work.)
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(1:08)
A very different piece can be found in the Coffee Break Collection #2 – Multi-Faith. These “Coffee Breaks” are themed collections of short recordings (up to 15 mins. Actually, the entirety of this particular collection would fit into a decent-length lunch break, but anyway.) A number of religions were represented, but it took me some hunting to find something suitable, since I don’t know any religious literature all that well. And, although the book I read from was titled Pagan Prayers – that’s pagan with a little ‘p’, being the old-fashioned definition of “any belief not Christian, Jewish or Muslim”. I’ve no idea of the provenence of the Navajo Liturgy, nor am I quite confident it fits into the collection in terms of being uplifting or thought-provoking in quite the way some might find Psalm XXIII for instance. But I think it’s a lovely piece, and I hope listeners like it.
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(4:40)
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Posted by Cori on November 1st, 2009 — Posted in * My Recordings, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Solos
I came across this lovely book about a month ago. Shortly after, a partner-in-crime whizzed it through Distributed Proofreaders in most accomplished style, and it was stored at Project Gutenberg. Preserving all its charming illustrations, and quite a bit of the book’s layout, I might add!
And then I took a holiday and recorded it, and now, here’s the free audiobook version of Royal Children of English History by E. Nesbit.
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(First section, 12MB, 12:37min)
It’s a retelling of the stories of a number of kings and queens of English history, in full Nesbit style. Aimed at older children (there’s a scene of quite grim threat/peril in “Prince Arthur” and there’s a number of battles / wars described,) she’s attempting to make the “people behind the headlines” real. Not to mention that these were the headlines of the day, which, as she sort of says at the start, is a helpful way to think about History when the names and dates threaten to overwhelm. Fun stuff!
http://librivox.org/royal-children-of-english-history-by-e-nesbit/
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