New narration up at Starship Sofa

Aural Delights #85 features Jeremiah Tolbert’s “The Culture Archivist”, narrated by yours truly.  It’s a strange and thought-provoking far future piece that probes uncomfortably deep into themes of identity. Link here.

Sweeney update

After a psychologically grueling week of auditions, I’ve landed the role of Judge Turpin… well, sort of.  I was probably the leading candidate for the role when a rather amazing talent from New York arrived to audition.  Jimy (Foreman, our director) liked my acting and the newcomer’s singing too much to pass on either, and so decided to split the role between the two of us. The other guy is likely to see the majority of our five scheduled performances, but that’s all right– as the weakest vocalist among the principals, I feel fortunate to have landed a major role at all.

The first day of rehearsals was at once humbling and exciting.  The intricate harmonies of the opening number proved a challenge to most everybody, especially myself and the rest of the untrained singers.  On the plus side, as a relative rookie to the Broadway production, I learned that the show is much funnier than I ever suspected… and that I might have one more song than I realized.

Until tonight I’d never heard any reference to Turpin’s “Johanna” (a.k.a. “Mea Culpa”).  Should the musical director decide to keep the number– and this is by no means a certainty– I will have a chance to perform one of the most skin-crawlingly creepy numbers in the history of musical theater.  Seriously: as it’s written, a partially-disrobed Turpin actually climaxes with the song.  Also, a whip is involved.

On the Stage & Behind the Mic

Yesterday was Day One and today Day Two of auditions for “Sweeney Todd” at the Bellevue Society for the Arts. Though the competition is fierce and impressive, I think I at least have a look  at the lead– if not, perhaps a secondary character, and certainly a chorus role. Regardless of my personal outcome, let it be said right now: there will be some stunning talent on display in this show. Tickets go on sale July 10th.

A recent re-syndication, followed by an appearance on the fledgling Sofanauts podcast, have served as my introduction to Jeremiah Tolbert, who has invited me to read a story for Escape Pod. I’ll be taking a run at a clever tale by Samantha Henderson, and it should hit the EP feed some time this summer.

Speaking of podcasts and Mr. Tolbert, keep an ear on Starship Sofa for my reading of his far-future story “The Culture Archivist“. If I understand correctly, the story should air next week.

Sofanauts appearance

Tony Smith  (from Starship Sofa) has a new roundtable podcast called The Sofanauts. The third episode is live, and I’m on the panel, alongside Campbell-nominated author Gord Sellar and Escape Pod managing editor Jeremiah Tolbert. (No, I’m really not worthy, thanks for asking.) Discussion topics for the episode include the Nebula and Locus awards, games as literature, the predicted Singularity, and the Heinlein/Spider Robinson novel Variable Star.

It’s a lively discussion; Tolbert in particular has a knack for answering counterintuitively and then backing his position convincingly.

New narration up today

Starshipsofa.com has posted all seven 2009 Nebula nominees(!) in podcast form, for your listening pleasure:
http://www.starshipsofa.com/20090402/the-complete-nebula-best-short-storynominees-2008/

My contribution was Ruth Nestvold’s “Mars: A Traveller’s Guide”:
http://www.starshipsofa.com/20090402/aural-delights-no-73-nebula-nominee-ruth-nestvold/

I haven’t listened to the rest yet, but I’ve read some of the stories, and am familiar with the exceptional talents of the other narrators; expect good things here.

–Ray

Upcoming SF narrations

Keep an ear on starshipsofa.com in the months to come for some narration from your truly. Tony already has work from Michael Bishop (a strange story) and Jetse de Vries (considerably stranger) in the can for future presentation, and I’m starting work on a story by Ted Chiang(!) as soon as this chest cold eases off.

Naming rights that aren’t plain wrong

The Cleveland Indians played their 2008 home games at Progressive Field– not Jacobs Field any more, as Progressive Insurance dropped something like $58 million dollars to rename the place for the next 16 years.

Though I imagine I’ll get over it, the name change really pissed me off at first– it’s a really dramatic shift, phonetically speaking! “Progressive” sounds nothing like “Jacobs”; I’ve had to reroute bits of my brain to make “Progressive Field” automatically conjure up thoughts of baseball at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. Now, if the new sponsor sounded familiar, I might find the adjustment less daunting– say, “BacOs Field”, or “Seiko Field”, or better yet, “(Glen) Jacobs Field” (if World Wrestling Entertainment re-themed it after Kane).

This line of thought got me to thinking of other “harmless naming rights”– new names for famous locations that wouldn’t be too great an adjustment for the locals, yet would give corporations a reason to throw around big, tingle-inducing chunks of money:

* The MGM Grand Canyon
* The Swiss Miss-issippi River
* Cleveland “What Can Brown(s) Do For You?” Stadium
* The Statue of Liberty Mutual Insurance
* The Great Walgreens of China
* The NAPA Auto Parts Valley
* MySpace Needle

–R

Looking for socialism? Try the rearview mirror.

Everybody seems worried that our next administration will enact a socialist agenda. Maybe they’re right, but did anybody notice that the current administration effectively nationalized the banks a few weeks ago– and will probably do the same to the auto industry before the year’s out?

Socialism’s not a shadow lurking around the corner; it’s real and it’s here, now. And it’s well-defended.

[YOUNG ADULT BOOK REVIEW] The Year of Secret Assignments

NOTE: the following was written by my 13 year-old daughter Kira, who has agreed to provide a teen’s perspective on media that might interest other teens. With the exception of minor editorial corrections, the views and phrasing are hers alone.

The Year Of Secret Assignments
Jaclyn Moriarty, 2004

The Year of Secret Assignments depicts the tale of three girls and their pen pals.

The book starts out when Lydia, Emily, and Cassie, students at Ashbury High, are all assigned pen pals from Brookfield High. “Lyd” (Lydia), is assigned a boy named “Seb” (Sebastian). Seb is fascinated with Lyd, because she is so incredibly exciting and random, which is how Lyd feels about him. Emily is assigned to a boy named Charlie, who is having girl problems. While Emily helps Charlie with his problems, the two fall in love. Lyd and Seb are also falling in love. So what’s wrong with that?

The third girl in the trio, Cassie, is the one with all the problems. Her pen pal is a jerk named Matthew Dunlop. Matthew, instead of replying to Cassie like Seb and Charlie, simply threatens to harm Cassie if she doesn’t leave him alone. Cassie persistently continues, however, to send him letters. Matthew eventually relents and reveals his personality to Cassie.

Cassie thinks she has found a kindred spirit in Matthew, but Lyd and Emily tell her that they have discussed Matthew with Seb and Charlie, and that neither boy knows a Matthew Dunlop– there is no boy by that name in the school records. They all decide that Cassie is either crazy or lying to them. Cassie is determined to prove herself sane and truthful, but there are other matters to deal with: the schools are vandalizing one another, and Cassie, Emily, and Lydia are the three main suspects.

I think that The Year of Secret Assignments is an excellent novel. Jaclyn Moriarty did a delightful job of telling an entire story using only letters, diary entries, bulletin notices, and most oddly, a self-help book about writing. The book shows how truly random and bizarre teenagers are, and keeps the reader interested from beginning to end. Overall, I think this is a wonderful read. I devoured this 340 page book in only two days!

What’s In a Name? Pure Evil.

When I’m Supreme Ruler of All I Survey, the first thing I’ll do is confiscate a great deal of wealth for my own personal pleasure. (I’d like to pretend I’m a better person than this, but hey, I’m Supreme Ruler and that means perks, baby.) Some time shortly thereafter, I’ll get down to the business of making everybody’s lives much better with my second order of business: I shall forbid congress to name their bills.

No names, not ever. Date-time stamp them (“House Bill 200802131306″), or assign them ascending prime numbers (“Senate Bill 6637″), or maybe even just use whatever numbering system you already have in place, but don’t tack on any helpful descriptions, thank you very much. I don’t care if that makes individual pieces of legislation difficult to distinguish; every last one of you congressional types have laptops and assistants and freaking pens and paper, so take some notes and sort it out.

The problem with giving bills nicknames is that politicians, clever and resourceful creatures that they are, have a talent for naming their bills in a manner that makes other politicians look like assholes for voting them down:

…You don’t want military recruiters to have greater access to our children and their personal information? That’s all well and good, but you’ll have to vote against the No Child Left Behind Act… and that makes you a bad person who wants to leave children behind. Look, voters: see those children wandering around the parking lot, panicked and crying? It’s ’cause this guy voted to leave them behind!

…Want to prevent potentially abusive wiretapping of American citizens? All right, but that makes you an opponent of the Patriot Act, not to mention the Protect America Act. That’s right: I said you’re anti-patriotic person who wants to leave Americans unprotected, you damn dirty commie!

…You think restrictions on firearms infringe on important constitutional rights? Well, that’s your opinion, but I hope you’re prepared to vote down the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Of course, a “no” vote on this means you A) absolutely adore handgun violence, and B) think that Jim Brady deserves to be confined to a wheelchair. You just hate cripples, don’t you?

If bills were designated only by ugly chunks of nondescriptive text, legislators and their constituents wouldn’t get hung up on the emotional baggage of words like “Children” and “Protect” and “Freedom” and “Puppies” (you do remember the “Vote For This Or You Hate Little Puppies Act” of 1986, don’t you?). Congress could finally debate and vote for bills solely on the content of the proposed law.

(For the record, the last law with a name would be the “Okay, I Officially Declare An End To Naming Bills, But Not Until After This Bill Is Signed Into Law” law of 2008).