![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Not irony, quite
Mar. 31st, 2010 10:30 pmI'm the nostalgic type. I remember a lot of my favorite things from when I was a child, and I try to share them with Sebastian.
Books, for example; I have a copy of almost every old book that I loved as a young boy. I've managed to get copies of some of those old TV shows and specials, too (although I still haven't managed to get Hodge Podge Lodge, unfortunately).
Records were a bigger problem. My turntable died not too many years after I bought my first CD player - which was one of the first CD players on the market - and I hadn't picked up a new one. Many of my particular favorites were never reissued on CD, and some couldn't be obtained even in LP form. They seemed to be completely forgotten.
Most of those favorite old records had been lost over the years, but my parents still had a few of them. There were three that I remembered particularly fondly: dramatizations of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. All that was left was the Mozart LP, and that was almost certainly in terrible condition. Sebastian is still young enough to enjoy those records, but time was running out...and I've never seen them on eBay or anywhere else.
Fast-forward to last month. Teri bought me a USB turntable for my birthday. I ordered a record-cleaner, which arrived on Friday; I tried to use it to clean The Story of Mozart. The record had been stored directly in the jacket for thirty years, and was very, very dusty. When I finished, the record looked clean. But as it played, large balls of dust were plowed up out of the grooves. The recording sounded terrible, with lots of loud hissing, strange distortions, and loud clicks from scratches. I worked the results over with the Audacity software that had come with the turntable, and was impressed at how much the results were improved. But they were still pretty poor.
Nonetheless I made a CD for Sebastian. I also decided to make the mp3 available online, because as far as I knew I was the only person who remembered that series and I thought it deserved to reach a new generation. I started to annotate the mp3 before posting it. But neither the jacket nor the label on the LP included the year that it was recorded! So I Googled "Tale-Spinners for Children", and found...a site that has mp3s of all 49 records in the series, plus dozens of recordings from similar series! The site's copy of The Story of Mozart sounds MUCH better than mine.
I suppose if you're old and cynical, you may not be able to enjoy these recordings. I'm sorry, if that's the case. But if you know any young children, you'd be doing them a favor to let them listen to some of these.
Tale-Spinners for Children
Books, for example; I have a copy of almost every old book that I loved as a young boy. I've managed to get copies of some of those old TV shows and specials, too (although I still haven't managed to get Hodge Podge Lodge, unfortunately).
Records were a bigger problem. My turntable died not too many years after I bought my first CD player - which was one of the first CD players on the market - and I hadn't picked up a new one. Many of my particular favorites were never reissued on CD, and some couldn't be obtained even in LP form. They seemed to be completely forgotten.
Most of those favorite old records had been lost over the years, but my parents still had a few of them. There were three that I remembered particularly fondly: dramatizations of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. All that was left was the Mozart LP, and that was almost certainly in terrible condition. Sebastian is still young enough to enjoy those records, but time was running out...and I've never seen them on eBay or anywhere else.
Fast-forward to last month. Teri bought me a USB turntable for my birthday. I ordered a record-cleaner, which arrived on Friday; I tried to use it to clean The Story of Mozart. The record had been stored directly in the jacket for thirty years, and was very, very dusty. When I finished, the record looked clean. But as it played, large balls of dust were plowed up out of the grooves. The recording sounded terrible, with lots of loud hissing, strange distortions, and loud clicks from scratches. I worked the results over with the Audacity software that had come with the turntable, and was impressed at how much the results were improved. But they were still pretty poor.
Nonetheless I made a CD for Sebastian. I also decided to make the mp3 available online, because as far as I knew I was the only person who remembered that series and I thought it deserved to reach a new generation. I started to annotate the mp3 before posting it. But neither the jacket nor the label on the LP included the year that it was recorded! So I Googled "Tale-Spinners for Children", and found...a site that has mp3s of all 49 records in the series, plus dozens of recordings from similar series! The site's copy of The Story of Mozart sounds MUCH better than mine.
I suppose if you're old and cynical, you may not be able to enjoy these recordings. I'm sorry, if that's the case. But if you know any young children, you'd be doing them a favor to let them listen to some of these.
Tale-Spinners for Children
Not irony, quite
Mar. 31st, 2010 10:30 pmI'm the nostalgic type. I remember a lot of my favorite things from when I was a child, and I try to share them with Sebastian.
Books, for example; I have a copy of almost every old book that I loved as a young boy. I've managed to get copies of some of those old TV shows and specials, too (although I still haven't managed to get Hodge Podge Lodge, unfortunately).
Records were a bigger problem. My turntable died not too many years after I bought my first CD player - which was one of the first CD players on the market - and I hadn't picked up a new one. Many of my particular favorites were never reissued on CD, and some couldn't be obtained even in LP form. They seemed to be completely forgotten.
Most of those favorite old records had been lost over the years, but my parents still had a few of them. There were three that I remembered particularly fondly: dramatizations of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. All that was left was the Mozart LP, and that was almost certainly in terrible condition. Sebastian is still young enough to enjoy those records, but time was running out...and I've never seen them on eBay or anywhere else.
Fast-forward to last month. Teri bought me a USB turntable for my birthday. I ordered a record-cleaner, which arrived on Friday; I tried to use it to clean The Story of Mozart. The record had been stored directly in the jacket for thirty years, and was very, very dusty. When I finished, the record looked clean. But as it played, large balls of dust were plowed up out of the grooves. The recording sounded terrible, with lots of loud hissing, strange distortions, and loud clicks from scratches. I worked the results over with the Audacity software that had come with the turntable, and was impressed at how much the results were improved. But they were still pretty poor.
Nonetheless I made a CD for Sebastian. I also decided to make the mp3 available online, because as far as I knew I was the only person who remembered that series and I thought it deserved to reach a new generation. I started to annotate the mp3 before posting it. But neither the jacket nor the label on the LP included the year that it was recorded! So I Googled "Tale-Spinners for Children", and found...a site that has mp3s of all 49 records in the series, plus dozens of recordings from similar series! The site's copy of The Story of Mozart sounds MUCH better than mine.
I suppose if you're old and cynical, you may not be able to enjoy these recordings. I'm sorry, if that's the case. But if you know any young children, you'd be doing them a favor to let them listen to some of these.
Tale-Spinners for Children
Books, for example; I have a copy of almost every old book that I loved as a young boy. I've managed to get copies of some of those old TV shows and specials, too (although I still haven't managed to get Hodge Podge Lodge, unfortunately).
Records were a bigger problem. My turntable died not too many years after I bought my first CD player - which was one of the first CD players on the market - and I hadn't picked up a new one. Many of my particular favorites were never reissued on CD, and some couldn't be obtained even in LP form. They seemed to be completely forgotten.
Most of those favorite old records had been lost over the years, but my parents still had a few of them. There were three that I remembered particularly fondly: dramatizations of the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. All that was left was the Mozart LP, and that was almost certainly in terrible condition. Sebastian is still young enough to enjoy those records, but time was running out...and I've never seen them on eBay or anywhere else.
Fast-forward to last month. Teri bought me a USB turntable for my birthday. I ordered a record-cleaner, which arrived on Friday; I tried to use it to clean The Story of Mozart. The record had been stored directly in the jacket for thirty years, and was very, very dusty. When I finished, the record looked clean. But as it played, large balls of dust were plowed up out of the grooves. The recording sounded terrible, with lots of loud hissing, strange distortions, and loud clicks from scratches. I worked the results over with the Audacity software that had come with the turntable, and was impressed at how much the results were improved. But they were still pretty poor.
Nonetheless I made a CD for Sebastian. I also decided to make the mp3 available online, because as far as I knew I was the only person who remembered that series and I thought it deserved to reach a new generation. I started to annotate the mp3 before posting it. But neither the jacket nor the label on the LP included the year that it was recorded! So I Googled "Tale-Spinners for Children", and found...a site that has mp3s of all 49 records in the series, plus dozens of recordings from similar series! The site's copy of The Story of Mozart sounds MUCH better than mine.
I suppose if you're old and cynical, you may not be able to enjoy these recordings. I'm sorry, if that's the case. But if you know any young children, you'd be doing them a favor to let them listen to some of these.
Tale-Spinners for Children
Something Rare: 5,271,009
May. 19th, 2009 01:46 pmSometimes I find surprising things on the web. Such as this.
It's a copy of Alfred Bester's 5,271,009, which happens to be my favorite story of his. What makes it interesting (or intereeesting, as my fingers originally told me) is that 1) it includes a few preliminary paragraphs apparently by Bester himself about how he happened to write the story, and 2) it's a dead link - the only way to reach it is to view Google's HTML version of what was originally a PDF document. The cache is a little screwed up, however, if you want to read the last page, you have to do a print preview or print it.
The missing tagline is, as I recall, "There was a blinding flash, and Jeffrey Halyson was ready for his 2,635,505th decision."
It's a copy of Alfred Bester's 5,271,009, which happens to be my favorite story of his. What makes it interesting (or intereeesting, as my fingers originally told me) is that 1) it includes a few preliminary paragraphs apparently by Bester himself about how he happened to write the story, and 2) it's a dead link - the only way to reach it is to view Google's HTML version of what was originally a PDF document. The cache is a little screwed up, however, if you want to read the last page, you have to do a print preview or print it.
The missing tagline is, as I recall, "There was a blinding flash, and Jeffrey Halyson was ready for his 2,635,505th decision."
Something Rare: 5,271,009
May. 19th, 2009 01:46 pmSometimes I find surprising things on the web. Such as this.
It's a copy of Alfred Bester's 5,271,009, which happens to be my favorite story of his. What makes it interesting (or intereeesting, as my fingers originally told me) is that 1) it includes a few preliminary paragraphs apparently by Bester himself about how he happened to write the story, and 2) it's a dead link - the only way to reach it is to view Google's HTML version of what was originally a PDF document. The cache is a little screwed up, however, if you want to read the last page, you have to do a print preview or print it.
The missing tagline is, as I recall, "There was a blinding flash, and Jeffrey Halyson was ready for his 2,635,505th decision."
It's a copy of Alfred Bester's 5,271,009, which happens to be my favorite story of his. What makes it interesting (or intereeesting, as my fingers originally told me) is that 1) it includes a few preliminary paragraphs apparently by Bester himself about how he happened to write the story, and 2) it's a dead link - the only way to reach it is to view Google's HTML version of what was originally a PDF document. The cache is a little screwed up, however, if you want to read the last page, you have to do a print preview or print it.
The missing tagline is, as I recall, "There was a blinding flash, and Jeffrey Halyson was ready for his 2,635,505th decision."
The Boy Death Squad Scouts of America
May. 14th, 2009 09:17 amI just wrote this as a comment further down, but it's worth posting by itself.
This morning there was a story in the New York Times; the Explorers (who are part of the BSA) have been training thousands of children aged 13 & 1/2 and up as paramilitary death squads!
Technically they're to be border patrol or "law enforcement" teams, but they train with guns and...well, take a look at the article. The photo is a bunch of kids dressed as a goddamned death squad!
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More (link fixed)
This morning there was a story in the New York Times; the Explorers (who are part of the BSA) have been training thousands of children aged 13 & 1/2 and up as paramilitary death squads!
Technically they're to be border patrol or "law enforcement" teams, but they train with guns and...well, take a look at the article. The photo is a bunch of kids dressed as a goddamned death squad!
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More (link fixed)
The Boy Death Squad Scouts of America
May. 14th, 2009 09:17 amI just wrote this as a comment further down, but it's worth posting by itself.
This morning there was a story in the New York Times; the Explorers (who are part of the BSA) have been training thousands of children aged 13 & 1/2 and up as paramilitary death squads!
Technically they're to be border patrol or "law enforcement" teams, but they train with guns and...well, take a look at the article. The photo is a bunch of kids dressed as a goddamned death squad!
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More (link fixed)
This morning there was a story in the New York Times; the Explorers (who are part of the BSA) have been training thousands of children aged 13 & 1/2 and up as paramilitary death squads!
Technically they're to be border patrol or "law enforcement" teams, but they train with guns and...well, take a look at the article. The photo is a bunch of kids dressed as a goddamned death squad!
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More (link fixed)
