When I think of working in a sound studio, I'm frequently drawn to the comedic stylings of Matt Berry and his character, Steven Toast, as a voice actor...
I hope my lo-cal library system (in the D.P.R. of Massachusetts) will purchase a copy, although I'm not hopeful since they don't even have a copy of the book.
Speaking of libraries, published authors might appreciate this, by Joe Queenan from his book 'One for the Books':
It is widely known that libraries exist in large part to divert and service cheapskates. Libraries provide cost-free reading material so that tightwads and misers can tell local writers that they borrowed their books and then expect them to be grateful. These villainous skinflints, who cannot bring themselves to spend fifteen bucks on a book written by somebody they have known for thirty years—a person who may have helped them land a job, a person who may have cheered wildly for the only base hit their spaz kid ever got in ten years of playing T-ball, a person who may have once given their ailing, epileptic grandmother a ride up the hill from the train station during a raging hailstorm—also labor under the misconception that writers value their input. We do not. Writers only care about money. Yes, we care about truth, justice and the American way, but mostly we care about money. Penny-pinching sons of bitches and parsimonious scabs who borrow our books from the library do not put money in our pockets. They are like people who come to the church social and sample those delicious little sausage rolls that your wife stayed up all night preparing and then complain that they were too greasy . This may not be a perfect analogy but it will do.
Kinda cool. To continue your Paul McCartney thread, how likely is it that you've touched a doorknob that Rod Stewart touched? Then Rod Stewart likely touched a doorknob that Queen Elizabeth II touched. Which means QEII likely touched a doorknob that Sir John Russell touched. And Sir John Russell likely shook hands with Napolean Bonaparte. So there you go...Steve Sailer, 4 degrees of Kevin Bacon from Napolean. Oh, and BTW, isn't it Sir Rod Stewart? :-)
Until about 2010 there existed a BBC voice or NPR voice which was basically an accent and vocal style that everyone assumed was necessary for mass communication. In fact I have one of these myself which has been no harm professionally.
Anyway, podcasting has been a huge disrupter. At first I’ve been put off by the vocal style of certain podcasters. But if the content is good it soon wears off and I can actually listen to any voice now.
I listened to a true crime book narrated by a voice actor recently. The author would have done a much better job given familiarity with place names, character names and subject matter.
Humans are most convincing when they know what they are talking about which you certainly do Steve.
What makes a podcast is the sound. It is impossible to get past bad sound to gain information. Every podcaster and guest needs to remember to get close the microphone and then do not move.
I was hoping based on the thumbnail that this post would be describing a chance encounter with Sir Rod, who then announced himself a huge iSteve and HBD fan, resulting in a wild night on Sunset Strip and an agreement made in the hazy late hours that he would narrate your book.
You feel the lisp for more than it is heard and what there is can likely be minimized by digital filtering a fairly narrow band. I tried saying 'alliteration additiction' fast...NP. I always have trouble with 'Saturday Night Live'.
> a lot to ask of a professional audio book narrator
Many years ago I listed to the Isaacson bio of Steve Jobs which was narrated by a third party. There were a couple of mispronunciations that took me out of the moment, most notably Jon Corzine, who pronounces his name as it is spelled, but most people pronounce it Cor-ZEEN if they didn't know better. For those who don't recall who he was, he was a former US Senator and then Governor of New Jersey and Jobs' wife was a New Jersey native worked for him at Goldman Sachs at one point
This summer Sir Rod is performing a concert with Billy Joel at Yankee Stadium. At least they can spell each other at their old ages; as Paul McCartney and Paul Simon proved on Sunday at a certain point singing isn't as easy as it used to be. When looking up where the concert was I noticed that Rod is also performing on Saturday in Atlantic City which is stunning to me, but these guys just won't give up the ghost...
God bless them, but at some point that becomes pure vanity. Like the 50s rocker I forget who that someone filmed just barely moving his lips. Listening to an 80-yr old sing about his older lover wrecking his bed and that he should collect his books and get on back to school is kind of ridiculous.
A number of years ago I went to a summer concert being held at a fair where Cousin Brucie (a local DJ) emceed a bunch of 60s singers such as Ronnie Spector and Lesley Gore. The problem was that neither one could actually sing anymore; while they were verbalizing the lyrics in a literal sense the back-up singers were doing the heavy lifting. Yet, the crowd lapped it up
I saw an interview with Gene Simmons and got the sense he really was over it but people still show up and throw money at them so why not. He seemed genuinely puzzled that the show was still going on.
There’s a musician on YT who has proven that just about everyone is now miming their concerts. The Eagles, Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Bon Jovi; all of them.
Dammit Steve, Morgan Freeman wasn't available? How about Sir Richard Attenborough? The subject matter deserves no less!
I'm a sloppy orator. I don't have Robert Downey Jr.'s crispness or Freeman's dulcet tone. I've always admired voice acting and narration. It really is an art and I assume the actors add a lot of cost to the production. Come to think of it, Downey would have been a good fit for your wryly perceptive work product.
Donna Tartt self-narrated one of my all-time favorite novels, A Secret History. She doesn't have a fulsome voice and it's twangy Southern, not drawly Southern. The story is also told from the perspective of a young man from California. It was a little off-putting at first but like you say the author is the one who knows when the words were written with a subtle affect. So a quarter way in I was comfortable with Tartt's mealy, twangy voice narrating her great work. She's an interesting character. Upper class tomboy who wears men's clothes and much prefers the company of men. Thank God her parents let Donna express her own idiosyncratic humanity and didn't get her breasts chopped off.
It was almost 40 years ago that RDJr was fired from Saturday Night Live and starred as the friend of Rodney Dangerfield's son in Back to School. If you had told me then that he would be one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood now, I would have been stunned, to say the least
It is amazing that someone who does not read books is promoting a book and that someone who does not listen to podcasts or online lectures is promoting an audio book.
Noticing irony is different than commending on a television, movies, or music thread when one was listened or watched nothing new in years.
Steve would be a much better writer if he did more research rather than word counts in the NY Times. Steve would be a better writer is he listened to podcast and heard a person express their thoughts in their own voice rather than reading a headline about the topic written by a third person.
Steve, Are you comfortable with your fans noticing your lisp? Take comfort in the fact that you, lisp and all, will still sound smarter than Ibrahim Kendi X…
If there's ever a meet up in my area, I'm going to show up drunk and yell out "Thuffering thuccotash!" Every time Steve hits a hard "S." Look forward to meeting you Steve.
There is a guy on Youtube who has been uploading texts of some of Steve Sailer writings, read in an "AI Steve Sailer" voice. Some expressed positive feelings about this. Not me.
There is a real Uncanny Valley feeling to those AI-Sailer readings. In other words, disturbing. Off, in little ways here and there, enough to definitely induce the usual queasy feeling people have been reporting when encountering "AI" creations.
I could imagine in the future the author will do the narration, but AI will be used to correct his small slips in enunciation rather than backing up and redoing the sentence or phrase.
When I think of working in a sound studio, I'm frequently drawn to the comedic stylings of Matt Berry and his character, Steven Toast, as a voice actor...
https://youtu.be/grp-hFT2_u0?si=iuNehn2h6rEGcMQW
Ah, my wish is becoming reality!
I hope my lo-cal library system (in the D.P.R. of Massachusetts) will purchase a copy, although I'm not hopeful since they don't even have a copy of the book.
The Philly library does not even include Steve Sailer as an actual author in their search engine so I’m not hopeful that there will be a purchase.
Tragic! And I'm being totally sincere.
Speaking of libraries, published authors might appreciate this, by Joe Queenan from his book 'One for the Books':
It is widely known that libraries exist in large part to divert and service cheapskates. Libraries provide cost-free reading material so that tightwads and misers can tell local writers that they borrowed their books and then expect them to be grateful. These villainous skinflints, who cannot bring themselves to spend fifteen bucks on a book written by somebody they have known for thirty years—a person who may have helped them land a job, a person who may have cheered wildly for the only base hit their spaz kid ever got in ten years of playing T-ball, a person who may have once given their ailing, epileptic grandmother a ride up the hill from the train station during a raging hailstorm—also labor under the misconception that writers value their input. We do not. Writers only care about money. Yes, we care about truth, justice and the American way, but mostly we care about money. Penny-pinching sons of bitches and parsimonious scabs who borrow our books from the library do not put money in our pockets. They are like people who come to the church social and sample those delicious little sausage rolls that your wife stayed up all night preparing and then complain that they were too greasy . This may not be a perfect analogy but it will do.
How can you express the silent "w" that I always see?
I heard that wake up Maggie is about Mrs Trudeau, the dictator's mom who took dick from a dictator...
Confirmed?
Kinda cool. To continue your Paul McCartney thread, how likely is it that you've touched a doorknob that Rod Stewart touched? Then Rod Stewart likely touched a doorknob that Queen Elizabeth II touched. Which means QEII likely touched a doorknob that Sir John Russell touched. And Sir John Russell likely shook hands with Napolean Bonaparte. So there you go...Steve Sailer, 4 degrees of Kevin Bacon from Napolean. Oh, and BTW, isn't it Sir Rod Stewart? :-)
And they never clean the doorknobs so you could get influenza from Napoleon.
Until about 2010 there existed a BBC voice or NPR voice which was basically an accent and vocal style that everyone assumed was necessary for mass communication. In fact I have one of these myself which has been no harm professionally.
Anyway, podcasting has been a huge disrupter. At first I’ve been put off by the vocal style of certain podcasters. But if the content is good it soon wears off and I can actually listen to any voice now.
I listened to a true crime book narrated by a voice actor recently. The author would have done a much better job given familiarity with place names, character names and subject matter.
Humans are most convincing when they know what they are talking about which you certainly do Steve.
What makes a podcast is the sound. It is impossible to get past bad sound to gain information. Every podcaster and guest needs to remember to get close the microphone and then do not move.
I was hoping based on the thumbnail that this post would be describing a chance encounter with Sir Rod, who then announced himself a huge iSteve and HBD fan, resulting in a wild night on Sunset Strip and an agreement made in the hazy late hours that he would narrate your book.
Well, suffering succotash, Steve. I never knew you had an alliteration ailment.
You feel the lisp for more than it is heard and what there is can likely be minimized by digital filtering a fairly narrow band. I tried saying 'alliteration additiction' fast...NP. I always have trouble with 'Saturday Night Live'.
> a lot to ask of a professional audio book narrator
Many years ago I listed to the Isaacson bio of Steve Jobs which was narrated by a third party. There were a couple of mispronunciations that took me out of the moment, most notably Jon Corzine, who pronounces his name as it is spelled, but most people pronounce it Cor-ZEEN if they didn't know better. For those who don't recall who he was, he was a former US Senator and then Governor of New Jersey and Jobs' wife was a New Jersey native worked for him at Goldman Sachs at one point
Corzine magazine cuisine saline. I wouldn't naturally pronounce it with the long I.
He was a public figure so it was incumbent on someone to make sure it was pronounced correctly
This summer Sir Rod is performing a concert with Billy Joel at Yankee Stadium. At least they can spell each other at their old ages; as Paul McCartney and Paul Simon proved on Sunday at a certain point singing isn't as easy as it used to be. When looking up where the concert was I noticed that Rod is also performing on Saturday in Atlantic City which is stunning to me, but these guys just won't give up the ghost...
God bless them, but at some point that becomes pure vanity. Like the 50s rocker I forget who that someone filmed just barely moving his lips. Listening to an 80-yr old sing about his older lover wrecking his bed and that he should collect his books and get on back to school is kind of ridiculous.
A number of years ago I went to a summer concert being held at a fair where Cousin Brucie (a local DJ) emceed a bunch of 60s singers such as Ronnie Spector and Lesley Gore. The problem was that neither one could actually sing anymore; while they were verbalizing the lyrics in a literal sense the back-up singers were doing the heavy lifting. Yet, the crowd lapped it up
I saw an interview with Gene Simmons and got the sense he really was over it but people still show up and throw money at them so why not. He seemed genuinely puzzled that the show was still going on.
There’s a musician on YT who has proven that just about everyone is now miming their concerts. The Eagles, Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Bon Jovi; all of them.
Dammit Steve, Morgan Freeman wasn't available? How about Sir Richard Attenborough? The subject matter deserves no less!
I'm a sloppy orator. I don't have Robert Downey Jr.'s crispness or Freeman's dulcet tone. I've always admired voice acting and narration. It really is an art and I assume the actors add a lot of cost to the production. Come to think of it, Downey would have been a good fit for your wryly perceptive work product.
Donna Tartt self-narrated one of my all-time favorite novels, A Secret History. She doesn't have a fulsome voice and it's twangy Southern, not drawly Southern. The story is also told from the perspective of a young man from California. It was a little off-putting at first but like you say the author is the one who knows when the words were written with a subtle affect. So a quarter way in I was comfortable with Tartt's mealy, twangy voice narrating her great work. She's an interesting character. Upper class tomboy who wears men's clothes and much prefers the company of men. Thank God her parents let Donna express her own idiosyncratic humanity and didn't get her breasts chopped off.
Is Robert Downey Jr known for his oratory?
Fast, clear diction.
It was almost 40 years ago that RDJr was fired from Saturday Night Live and starred as the friend of Rodney Dangerfield's son in Back to School. If you had told me then that he would be one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood now, I would have been stunned, to say the least
It is amazing that someone who does not read books is promoting a book and that someone who does not listen to podcasts or online lectures is promoting an audio book.
lol. You're too cool for school, meng. You need to find a place that appreciates your intellect and charm. Have you tried Reddit?
Noticing irony is different than commending on a television, movies, or music thread when one was listened or watched nothing new in years.
Steve would be a much better writer if he did more research rather than word counts in the NY Times. Steve would be a better writer is he listened to podcast and heard a person express their thoughts in their own voice rather than reading a headline about the topic written by a third person.
lol. Ok, too-cool-for-school Reddit boy.
P.S. I'm sorry you're too slow to do research, little boy. :P
Steve, Are you comfortable with your fans noticing your lisp? Take comfort in the fact that you, lisp and all, will still sound smarter than Ibrahim Kendi X…
If there's ever a meet up in my area, I'm going to show up drunk and yell out "Thuffering thuccotash!" Every time Steve hits a hard "S." Look forward to meeting you Steve.
There is a guy on Youtube who has been uploading texts of some of Steve Sailer writings, read in an "AI Steve Sailer" voice. Some expressed positive feelings about this. Not me.
There is a real Uncanny Valley feeling to those AI-Sailer readings. In other words, disturbing. Off, in little ways here and there, enough to definitely induce the usual queasy feeling people have been reporting when encountering "AI" creations.
I could imagine in the future the author will do the narration, but AI will be used to correct his small slips in enunciation rather than backing up and redoing the sentence or phrase.