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A couple of short pieces about the mess of war. War & Peace is by Luis Cernuda, translated from Spanish by David Unger. The End and the Beginning is by Wisława Szymborska, translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak. In between is a million miles from saturday night by tehwa. And the capper is a remix of the Song of the French Partisan by Emmannuel d’Astier de la Vigérie and Anna Marly. Mostly I remix the Leonard Cohen version, but I also mix in un peu de Noir Desire, Joan Baez and Anna Marly.

Fred Sims and Dotty Wasserman compete in The Contest, from Grace Paley’s first collection of short stories, The Little Disturbances of Man, published in 1959 by Doubleday. Bass solo by tehwa. Sorry about the buzz. Too much coffee.

A remix of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the core of which was recorded on Disneyland Records with Rica Moore narrating and Shelly Manne sticking the drums. The first half gets a walking bass by Stett Audio, and in the post-slumber edition has samples from Prokofiev’s Peter & the Wolf. In between and after is Goldiloppers, Professor Stanley Unwin’s sproken word interpetation of the fairy tale. Who knew how fun?

I have updated my sidebar podcast links. Some of the links had changed, some podcasts were added, some have regrettably faded.

I would love nothing more than to re-link to some that have disappeared. Theory of Everything, smallWORLD, The Seanachai and RU Sirius are at the top of that list; I truly miss them all and hope they return someday.

As for those I’ve added, I’ll be the first to admit that they are almost all podcasts of radio programs. I haven’t kept up with too many new indy podcasts and I feel bad that I haven’t. The fact of the matter is, it takes a lot of time to search new ones out, and I’ve kissed a lot of frogs doing so. If you suspect there are any independent podcasts I should listen and link to, let me know. I’ll listen to anything once. If it’s halfway intelligent and has good sound, I might even listen to it all the way through.

A cursory glance at the first page of each Gormenghast novel, by Mervyn Peake. Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone were published by Eyre & Spottiswoode from 1946 to 1959. Must-reads all for Goths and Steampunks.

The music is by Irmin Schmidt. The Overture and Sepulchrave’s Aria come from the fantasy opera, Gormenghast. And in between is Gormenghast Drift from Impossible Holidays.

Man consumed by salamander. Axolotl, a story by Julio Cortázar found in The End of the Game, published in 1967 by Pantheon and 1978 by Harpercollins.

Computer problems have made the recording process untenable for now. Audacity, along with every other application, keeps crashing, leading to the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth. As soon as I replace my hard drive, I’ll return. Please don’t write me off.

Carl Sandburg was every bit as much a storyteller as a poet. This piece proves it. It’s called Many Hats and it was included in Good Morning America, published in 1928 by Harcourt Brace. His subject matter, as usual, was larger than life: the Grand Canyon. The stories it tells are many and ours.

The music is a combination of Peter Prautzsch’s And Then the Light Came In and Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians.

Vickie hangs me out to dry for being so late. Excuses follow.

1. My blog has gone from fun pastime to scary obsession, what with all the collecting, remixing, painting, scanning, tweaking, posting and writing about all the critters there.

2. My business eats all my weekday daylight hours.

3. KABF music-directorhood and Audio 101 and World Tour steal more hours off the clock.

4. My Computer From Hell plays bucking bronco on a weekly, if not daily basis.

5. The search for written material for the podcast and open source music to back it up take still more time.

6. And I haven’t even mentioned Flickr and deviantART, which don’t demand a lot of time to post to, but, boy, I can spend hours perusing all the great artwork people put there.

But five weeks? There’s no excuse for that.

Some Pure-D Drivel from Steve Martin. A story like this makes it evident Steve Martin could have been a latter day Robert Benchley if he’d just not have been led astray by that pesky Hollywood. Come to think of it, Benchley was somewhat led astray by Hollywood himself, but still managed to write book after wonderful book. So far as I know, Steve Martin only wrote two; the one this story comes from, Pure Drivel, and the masterful Shopgirl. But he did make The Jerk and L.A. Story and plays a durn good banjer as well.

Carter Willet returns with Number Ten from News From the Edge, Arguments Over the Twilight Module and the Disposition of Vitreous Trimfins. The Trimfin voices are segments of Idle Chatter, Notjustmoreidlechatter, and Idle Chatter Junior, by Paul Lansky. He has lots of samples and info on his Princeton site. And check out his toys and the radio shows over at the Princeton Sound Kitchen.

A tribal grunt is followed by a Counting-Out Rhyme by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Then another Edna, The Singing Woman From the Wood’s Edge. Both are backed by Glass Drum by Stett Audio: OpSound here and MySpace here. Then, an Offering by Staraya Derevnya: OpSound here, Jamendo here and MySpace here.

Back next week with News From the Edge #10.

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. This is the third and final ode to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., borrowing from the text of Slaughterhouse Five and the abridged reading by the author as recorded by Caedmon Records in 1973.