Podcasts

This is from Elizabeth E. Lea's 1866 cookbook Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers. This pound cake recipe is the basis for the method of many of the other cakes in the chapter. This is not such an extravagant cake - the fruit cake recipe calls for 30 eggs and a pint of brandy.

Cakes back then were somewhat larger than contemporary cakes and were baked in very large ovens. They also had odd ingredients, though none are evident in this recipe. Saleratus is baking powder. Rose brandy is made by steeping rose petals in white brandy.

I read this chapter for LibriVox today, and thought I'd share not only this excellent foundation recipe, but also the whole of the Cakes section in the form of an mp3. This will be put together with the other chapters to make a full audio cookbook.

Pound Cake.

Wash the salt from a pound of butter, and beat it with a pound of loaf sugar till it is as soft as cream; have a pound of flour sifted, and beat ten eggs, the whites and yelks separately; put alternately into the butter and sugar the flour and eggs, continue to beat till they are all in, and the cake looks light; add some grated lemon peel, a nutmeg, and half a wine-glass of brandy; butter the pan, and bake it an hour; when it is nearly cold, ice it. If you want a very large cake, double the quantity.

You can tell when a cake is done by running in a broom-straw, or the blade of a bright knife; if it comes out without sticking, it is done, but if not, set it back. You can keep a cake a great while in a stone pan that has a lid to fit tight.

Note: if you don't want to weigh the ingredients here are the equivalents in cups.
1 lb butter = 2 cups
1 pound loaf sugar = 2 cups granulated
1 pound flour = 4 cups sifted
1/2 wine glass = 3 ounces

Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts &tc. "Cakes" 22'36" MP3 (20.7 MB)

What happens when seven people get together to read a section of Ulysses in a bar in Tokyo?

Hilarity ensues. We changed tables twice trying to find a quiet place away from the irritating 80s pop background music but failed. We ordered lots of beer, we rattled the microphone, we (ok, I) tripped over words while reading. But it was such fun that we'll likely do it again.

Here's what we recorded, warts, Bangles, and all:

Ulysses "section 4" 43'25" MP3 (40 MB) Read by David, Kasuemin, Susan, Robin, Tod, me, & Jeremy.

Syd, our official photographer, noticed a poster on the wall at our table--Learn English in Ireland--with a collage of images including a picture of Joyce and the cover of Ulysses. Providence.

If you want to learn more about why we were doing this or if you want to play, too, visit LibriVox and specifically the Ulysses thread in the forums.

Noh performer in mask during Okina, a ritualised Okinawan form of Noh. (photo by Tod, the steady-handed)

Tonight we attended a performance of Noh plays in Shinjuku Gyoen. It was my first Noh experience and although it was a beautiful specta, even the comedic play was way over my head.

Here are two recordings from Okina, the first play. Neither is of the performer pictured above.

Okina Noh 2'13" MP3 (2 MB)

Okina Noh (2) 0'56" MP3 (884 KB)

By the intermission, we were chilled to the bone so we left the crowd of 4000 people for the warmth of dinner indoors. A shame, because the only play I knew the plot of was the one after intermission.

After dinner, we stopped to have some Pumpkin Milk. It seemed an appropriate beverage for the day. More importantly, it claims to erase irritableness and I needed it. Not sure if it worked.

Two-fisted painting

Having quickly tired of the bath and hotel, I spent the second morning drawing a little bit of tree trunk after having another walk around the grounds. I made a recording of birds sounds with a stream burbling in the background (and a bit of a breeze, too).

Karuizawa Birdsong 1'59" MP3 (1.8 MB)

(Click to see the photo Tod snapped while I was recording--if you listen carefully, you can hear his camera's shutter.)

After lunch, Tod rented a bicycle and scouted out the rest of the complex while I sat on a moss covered rise to execute a a bunch of 60 second sketches as a drawing exercise.

We were to take up the tour again at 14:20, but the bus was two hours late--stuck in traffic on the way from Tokyo. By the time we left the hotel theday was fading. Our apple picking and grape picking were reduced to short hops off the bus at roadside stands in the pitch dark to be handed some fruit and shuffled back onto the bus. Terribly disappointing, as I'd looked forward to standing in the orchard and smelling the fruit and the earth.

We arrived at home 4 hours late. We'll never do a bus tour on a weekend (particularly a holiday weekend) again.

I volunteered with Librivox to read aloud some of the public domain Project Gutenberg texts. I talked about doing this on my own last year, but except for some scattered short stories, never really followed through.

It's a daunting task to read an entire book aloud, so sharing the work with a cohort of other reader is a much more pleasant experience...at least for the reader. Who knows what the other readers sound like. Some will be good, others not as good. I'm striving for 'not the worst.'

Today I recorded the first three chapters of P. G. Wodehouse's Psmith in the City, a 1910 account of two college boys who go to earn a living at a bank--their arch rival is the bank manager, Mr. Bickersdyke (what a mouthful, it took me a few takes to get it right).

One of the things that I think will be interesting about this project will be reading books I'd never thought to read before. I read some Wodehous, but not this one.

I don't know when it will be put up on Librivox, or when the following chapters are scheduled to come out, but here it is for your enjoyment (in two different formats):

Psmith in the City, chapters 1-3 29'45" MP3 (27.2 MB)

Psmith in the City, chapters 1-3 29'45" OGG Vorbis (25.8 MB)

The evening sky at 6 pm

I woke to the sound of crickets this morning--a promise of cool weather to come. I recorded their quiet chirping outside my office this evening complete with kids playing and a train rushing past at the end:

Early Autumn Evening 0'56" MP3 (864 KB)

Ah, another Parker reading randomly selected from The Portable Dorothy Parker. At this rate, I'll have read the whole thing aloud in about two years. Still haven't gotten to the poetry, though. This one is a short story from 1936.

From the Diary of a New York Lady by Dorothy Parker 8'45" MP3 (8 MB)

I can't get enough of Dorothy Parker, though you are probably tired of my daily readings. That's just rotten for you but I assure you it is just a phase. I'll soon be onto new topics.

Here's another book review from the New Yorker column, "Constant Reader," circa April 1928.

These Much Too Charming People by Dorothy Parker 7'44" MP3 (7.1 MB)

One of my favorite sections of The Portable Dorothy Parker is the collection of her book reviews. From 1927 through 1933 she wrote a column for The New Yorker called "Constant Reader." I've never enjoyed book reviews as well as hers; they are snarky comments on society with books as a catalyst.

Though my reading hardly does Dorothy Parker justice, I love these reviews so much that I cannot prevent myself from reading them aloud to you (No doubt Mrs. Parker would have something to say about that). This one is from the November 17, 1928, issue of The New Yorker and it reviews two books.

Wallflower's Lament by Dorothy Parker 7'35" MP3 (7 MB)

I had the good fortune at St Mark's Bookshop in New York, to find a book I've been missing since I packed it away eight years ago in Pittsburgh. The Portable Dorothy parker is something I opened again and again when it was on my bookshelf.

So today, when it arrived fresh from America, I opened it at random, began reading aloud and recorded this short, five page story. I can't say it's my favorite, but then again, I can't say which one is. They're all worthwhile.

Sentiment by Dorothy Parker 11'55" MP3 (10.9 MB)

The silent and vast Reading Room on the third floor of the NY Public Library

My seat in the Reading Room, with a volume of the OED

My first visit to the NY Public Library was all I could have hoped for. The Guttenberg Bible was on display along with a brass globe from the 15th century. After carefully examining both, I sat down with a volume of the OED in the odd-numbered book delivery wing of the Reading Room.

I could have stayed all day but we popped into Bryant Park to catch a lunchtime concert by the city opera. Here's a clip from the concert. I'm sure you can identify the music over the traffic noise and general hubub.

Bryant Park, NYC Opera 1'43" MP3 (1.6 MB)

Last night Kagurazaka's main street filled with traditional dancers

Dancers waved their hands gracefully while stepping on tiptoe and chanting in high-pitched voices

Musicians played gongs, drums, and wooden flutes as live accompaniment

The music was very loud and vibrated through our bones. I recorded some of it to share with you:

Awa Odori music 1'00" MP3 (950 KB)

I think I have a tin ear, which makes me most unqualified to do what I've been doing all morning--putting together the first show for Hanashi Station.

MJ, who is a trained audio engineer, gave me a "good job honey" when she listened to the draft, so maybe it's not as awful as I think.

There sure is a lot of me talking in it. MJ again: "I imagine you in a purple rinse and cardigan when I hear it! Your voice is comforting." Great...

The show will air on Friday, so be sure to tune in. You can subscribe to the RSS feed through your favorite "podcasting" software, like iPodder or iTunes. That way you'll know exactly when the shows are released.

As a bonus for today, here's what happened when my phone rang while I was recording narration this morning. Wrng number...why did this Japanese-speaking caller require me to speak in Japanese to tell her she didn't intend to reach me? Did she think I was her friend but putting her on?

Wrong Number 480K MP3

No longer thwarted by broken sound equipment, I recorded one of the shortest of the Grimm brothers' fairytales. this morning. It's a funny little story about a peasant turned savant via a book with a cock on the frontispiece.

I used Audacity to record and convert it to MP3 (after Tod located the correct LAME library for me). The new mixer and mic work perfectly; any faults in the recording are strictly my own inattention to breathing, phrasing, and acting.

Doctor Knowall. 4'21" (3.9 MB MP3)

Every year around this time, neighborhood volunteers are out on the streets at night, clacking wooden sticks together and calling out to people about fire safety. It's taken us six years to figure out what they are chanting.

The other night, as we were walking home late from work, the patrol was out. It was a group of three younger men and they were doing their job with gusto.

"Are they yelling Ii yo, ii yo ji? Maybe Iroiro ii?" I wondered after listening to them.

"Um....yoyogi?" Tod suggested doubtfully. He listened again. "I think maybe it ends in shin"

"Or jin? I can't tell. Let's ask them," I suggested as we converged on their path. Of course that meant Tod was going to ask; his Japanese is much better than mine.

The patrol volunteers were happy to tell us, carefully and loudly, that they are saying hi no youjin which means "fire caution."

Have a listen for yourself. I made this recording of a different, somewhat less enthusiastic patrol this evening: Hi no youjin (0:18 mp3 429K)

UltraBob beat me to the punch of acting on the desire to read aloud with his chapter-by-chapter posting of a Mark Twain's $30,000 Bequest short story, but here's a recording I did this morning of an O. Henry short story.

By Courier. 7'30" (10.3 MB MP3)