Sunday Mixed Up Sunday

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

We had a friend from out of town visiting this weekend, which means we might as well have taken the weekend and flushed it whole.  Plus, I have page proofs for Noah’s boy which must get done today and tomorrow.

So I’ve been sitting here, squinting at the screen, trying to decide whether or not I have enough brain to write a coherent post and have realized I don’t.

Which means you’re getting brain sweepings…

First, I found a bunch of Nero Wolfe radio plays from the thirties in Audible, at three for one, and bought them out of curiosity.  If you guys remember I grew up without TV, you should also guess that I grew up with radio plays.  Radios were central in the Portuguese household at the time and, depending on what station you liked, at certain hours you could get everything from historical to great literature, to soap operas.  (One of my clearer memories is of being at the beach around lunch time.  You guys must understand that in Portugal the beach administration rents little tents (more like cabins with cloth sides) and because of the culture, moms lug hot meals to the beach and there’s these foldable tables that come with the tents.  Around lunch time all the kids got called in to come and eat a proper lunch.  (To be clear, we usually spent a month at the beach every summer.  It was considered the minimum necessary for proper health.  My dad didn’t have enough vacation, so he’d join us at lunch and then at the end of the afternoon, before we packed up and took the bus back home.  He and I usually took a long walk before that happened.) Anyway, walking in the little “alleys” between the backs of the tents, you’d hear all the different soaps, because women brought their transistor radios to the beach, and usually spent the hottest part of the day inside the tent, listening to the soaps and crocheting.)

Mom’s favorite channel ran to “boring guy lecturing on mythology or history” but it had some mystery radio plays and radio plays of “important books.”  I never told her this particular serial loosely based on the Crimean war was a soap opera in ALL but name.  She’d have been upset.

So, out of nostalgia, I thought “oh, that would be fun” and bought the Nero Wolfe radio plays.  Six of them.

I don’t think I’ll be listening to them again.  I have NO idea who wrote them.  I suspect Rex Stout did at least a first draft, but there’s a weird effect – perhaps something cultural I’m not quite getting? – in which Wolfe’s curmudgeon and sly attitude in the books becomes “Downright mean” in the radio plays.  He’s forever reminding Archie that he’s subordinate and gloating.  It’s disturbing.

On top of that, each little play ends with Wolfe laughing.  It’s the type of laughter we now associate with psychopaths.  We won’t go into the fact that the voice actor, named as if a good deal, sounds a few screws short of a full frame.

I do wonder how this played/was perceived at the time.  Could it have been well received if people perceived voice/mannerisms the way I do?  Or was it well received because “no alternative and it’s just those weirdos” as we put up with a lot of TV/movies in the nineties?

Also this week, had a discussion with a reviewer about why most Urban Fantasy leaves me cold, and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not the excess sex in most of them (except in romance, sex qua written sex doesn’t bother me, and in romance it ONLY bothers me when it’s the ONLY plot.  You think I’m joking – a romance skimmed recently starts with guy and gal who just met, in bed after a night together.  It’s so wonderful they’re scared and go off and sleep with all sorts of other people, separately and severally, before in the end realizing they were always meant for each other.  It didn’t offend me, it just left me cold.  “Emotional development failed to materialize and I iz disappoint.”) It’s the fact that sex is used to substitute for other tension.  Since written sex is something I can take or leave, I usually get bored because the other tension isn’t there.  And now you know why I held out on Kyrie and Tom so long.  I wanted to make sure the relationship stood on other grounds, so the series had a good foundation.

Because of crazy weekend – see above – I have failed to actually do most of the stuff that DOES need done this weekend like hopefully publish Spinning.  I’m going to try to make up for it as soon as I’ve had enough caffeine.

And then I’ll update the subscriber space.  I’m still debating what to do for subscriber’s t-shirts.  I think either the Muir portrait or a choice of the others now being uploaded onto zazzle.  (Sometime along the line here I also need to find an afternoon to update/fix my web page.  Right now it’s like a plotted novel.  It’s all in my head, but none of it exists in physical space.)

The Muir portrait is below. The background is that the year before Robert drew a portrait of me as Super Writer.  Muir found it and my pictures, and drew a more lively one.  So, there is is.

And now I’m going in search of caffeinated beverage (not picky.  Tea, coffee or diet coke will do) and then I’m going to shower and go for a walk, so maybe I can work today ;)

SHMuir

102 thoughts on “Sunday Mixed Up Sunday”

  1. So that’s where your new headshot comes from.

    Google insisted on a “recognizable headshot” – I gave them my gravatar picture. Humans can see my face perfectly despite the background and shadow – Google, not so much.

    One of these days I’ll get a pro to do it (adds to 35,000 item To Do list). Meanwhile, at least I look happy (I was on vacation with all three of the kiddies – what’s not to be happy about?).

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    1. I need to have a pic done professionally again. The last set I had done my friend Alan did the best he could but I found out afterwards I was very ill — and it shows.

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      1. I need new head shots too, and a friend of mine up here is a professional. (Did the old headshot you see in my gravatar when I was interviewed in New Scientist.) Maybe we can arrange soemthing.

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                2. I’ve actually gotten the expression from that and one other song with the same phrase (forgotten who and used more than just the end) … Flashback radio program, iirc played both of them or it may have been The Psychedelic snack. Twas back in the late 80’s.

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      2. My offer of free retakes still stands. It might be better if we did them inside where we can control the lighting better.

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    2. I used to work for a prominent mens magazine (over a decade ago) and you know, there’s a LOT of people who don’t know what a “head shot” is.

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  2. Sarah, if you are looking for someone to do a new headshot of you, my wife is a professional photographer. She is going to LibertyCon with me again this year so if you are still looking for those services then I’m sure she would love to discuss arrangements to do so.
    Also, your Super Writer caricature is awesome. Super heroes really should have capes, even if they can get caught in things at inopportune moments. And speaking of radio shows, back in the early to mid 1990’s I worked at an independently owned book store that played a radio station that featured classic radio shows from the 30’s through the 50’s. My favorite was The Shadow. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”

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    1. Larry, I need headshots as well. If Sarah and I both want to do that, perhaps it would be more worth Susie’s (I think that’s right) while? Sarah, let me know, maybe we can coordinate. Although my shots are going to be quirky, they are mostly for the ‘other’ business.

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    2. For some time now I’ve wanted to write scripts for that sort of thing and rope in a bunch of friends to do it. Not professional, just fun something to post on weekends.

      And I’ve seen your wife’s work! Will consider.

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      1. Don’t forget that if you can’t arrange something at LC, you’ll be here in September and can probably work something out ;-)

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      2. One of the Sirius channels has a bunch of radio plays, a friend listens to them while reloading. Kinda fun to listen to!

        That would be an odd but nifty podcast… but then, given a couple years ago I was delightedly dragged over to a small theater to see a play, that was a bunch of actors in steampunk gear doing a radio play of a steampunk, mystery… yeah, still makes me grin.

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      3. Cool. Thanks for considering it, Sarah. I’ll be sure to get the two of you together that weekend. Or as Amanda stated, there is always September when you are here in Texas.

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  3. Odds and ends of post, odds and ends of reply. I find that there were differences in how the mannerisms and voices of actors were perceived over the course of the last century. The actor’s laugh might have been considered a hearty chuckle before a cliche type of laugh began to be recognized as standard maniacal. As far as the Condescending and Arrogant manner in the radio play I am reminded of Georgette Heyer’s Syvester who, to modern sensibilities, comes off the same. This despite the fact that he would have seemed gracious and affable in his own milieu.
    Speaking of Heyer I am attempting to read the aforementioned Sylvester, largely because of your repeated recommendations and those of other ladies I respect. The first 60 odd pages have been horrible and I may give up the attempt, unless someone says in reply to this post that Sylvester was a poor example of her work. To me it drags and all the characters are unlikeable, although the marital prospect may not quite fit that bill. I simply haven’t seen enough of her to know. I will say that so far she doesn’t suit the mores of the era she is in.
    In conclusion I must add that while a soda will work for caffeination when it is hot or one is in a hurry the best delivery comes from the Black Ichor of the Gods.

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    1. Sylvester is a character study and yes, the characters come across as unlikeable at first, but in the end it’s justified. you might find it more fun in ebook?

      I didn’t mean like Sylvester! I mean Wolfe comes across as a psychopathic two year old.

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      1. What is the purpose beyond nostalgia? Im confused. And slightly lost feel ive stepped through the computer into a kind of narnia.

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        1. The purpose of the radio plays? Or the purpose of the Heyer? The radio plays can be enjoyable in and of themselves, like reading they allow you to enjoy the story and do your own pictures in your head. The Heyer fulfills 2 purposes for me. One it allows me to see what The Ladies are always going on about. Two It may help me sharpen my skills as a writer with romance in the story if I pick up some pointers from a Mistress of the Art

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          1. Radio plays (and audio books) are handy for times when reading is otherwise ill-advised, like mowing the lawn or driving.

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            1. Mhmm indeed that would make sense. My dad has occasionally put on the sirius radio plays channel. Only two I can recall while here in the break room at work are have gun will travel and a superman one?

              Unrelated note: do you all subscribe to rhe threads/posts/comments? I am having a slightly difficult time keeping all the responses in line on my phone, and the email is a lot. Maybe a Gmail filter?

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    2. Sanford, my place of worship is having a silent auction of different gift baskets to raise funds for our expanded day-school/ child care. The coffee basket (coffees, trimmings, chocolate-covered-espresso beans) is up to the second page of bids, while the others have, at best three or four bids. This might be related to the fact that the biggest of our coffee urns broke this AM.

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    3. I also have read some Heyer on the recommendation of Hoyt, Freer, Weisskopf (sp?), and, IIRC, Bujold. Had some issues, but when I stuck with them, I was eventually satisfied.

      I think I’ve read something like three or four, and none of them with this Sylvester person.

      The language is excellent, and makes me want to take notes. I did get the impression that maybe she doesn’t write military as well as Kratman.

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        1. In the book with the guy named Simon, IIRC, Beauvallet, aka Cold-Heart, I think the guy’s upbringing and military background goes on for some time before we see hide or hair of the girl. (Some of this prompted to think again about how much fiction weaker in military affairs Kratman has ruined for me.) I kept on reading, and was eventually satisfied.

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    4. On Heyer: I greatly enjoy Lee & Miller’s Liad series, which I bought when Baen had a sale a few years back. I read them before I’d ever read Heyer. Then I read Heyer some time later on the recommendation of Elizabeth Scalia (back when she was still blogging under the pseudonym The Anchoress and hadn’t yet revealed who she was), and started recognizing where a lot of the language that Lee & Miller used had come from. Their Liaden characters were using Regency slang!

      … So I was reading Regency romances before I even knew it. Yes, they were in a science fiction setting, with some really interesting non-human characters (Jeeves, the turtles, the Tree…), but there were strong dashes of Regency romance throughout their plots as well.

      I don’t know if I have a point, I just found this interesting. Oh, and my first Heyer novel was The Convenient Marriage, which I’d recommend to anyone wanting to check Heyer out.

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      1. My favorites are Sylvester, Frederica, A Civil Contract and — very different — Infamous Army.

        I don’t like the historicals, like Beauvalet, and I CAN’T STAND her mysteries. Eh.

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  5. OT: Since this was buried at the end of a post some time back: The next Cat Among Dragons book is out.

    Rada Ni Drako thinks she has settled down into what passes for a quiet life. She really should know better. Thrills! Spills! Zabet gets a manicure (or whatever you call paintings on a true-dragon’s talons. I’d call them lovely, if I were you). Available on Amazon DRM free: http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Juniors-Among-Dragons-ebook/dp/B00CA95AP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1366566639&sr=1-1&keywords=Justice+and+Juniors

    EPub version from Kobo is pending.

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    1. Thank you for reminding me about your newest. Since our gracious hostess doesn’t have an Amazon affiliate link, I slipped over to Rachel Lucas and went through her portal so I could help out two folks with one purchase. ;)

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  6. “And now you know why I held out on Kyrie and Tom so long. ”

    Thank you! I appreciate this more than you know.

    And you didn’t bring it up, but I’ll just keep on talking … about how sex scenes are written. Personally, I just do not want to know details of other people’s relationships … even when I know the broad outline, I don’t want to know more. A tasteful fade to black on a kissing scene is quite enough, thank you. Like Han Solo said “I can imagine a lot.”

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            1. Cool beans. Started it here while waiting for dad to finish a con call. Rather nice setting and I’ve added the rest to my reading list. Thanks. Also possibly old news but are the names from A Few Good Men supposed to be from history, Martha& Abigal? So where would the butler’s name figure or am I reading too much into that?

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                1. Mkay- at the risk of myself being thick: is there a primer or should I just come back later with the dunce cap on? I tend to miss things. Not known for my sense subtly am I.

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                  1. No reflection on you — this is stuff you should have been taught in school, except they were probably too busy with Molly Pitcher and Crispus Attucks to pay any attention to Sam’l & John Adams, much less the remainder of the Founders. Plus they wanted you to think that the most important thing about Jefferson was Sally Hemings, not the Declaration.

                    Easiest starting point? Acquire a copy of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical 1776. It will not only provide an entertaining introduction to the issues of The American Revolution, it will grant access to numerous in-jokes deployed here (such as when we say to Sarah: Sit down, John.”) Be aware that many of these personages presented are constructs created for the dramatic requirements of the theatre and do not accurately portray the persons presented. Use Wiki to get fuller perspectives on such as John Dickinson, Judge Wilson and Roger Sherman, for example.

                    After that, well, Joseph Ellis and David McCullough have written highly accessible (at least, highly accessible for Odds) books on the period, explaining the issues and putting them in context. McCullough’s biography of John Adams was the basis for a well-received HBO series which should be easily available. If you are inclined I recommend these books in audio book format: they make productive use of commuting time and, unlike novels, do not penalize you for losing track while swerving to avoid a truck.

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          4. Download the mobi format from the Baen free library. Copy that file over to the Kindle and it works just fine.
            fyi, I’ve owned a Kindle for over two years now and never hooked it up to wifi after the initial registration. Much prefer downloading to my computer and porting a few at a time over to the Kindle by wire.

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            1. You can also get the book m from baen.com mailed to your kindle. I think that the free library is offline at Baen.

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              1. Because of the deal between Baen and Amazon, many of the ebooks in the Baen Free Library had to be removed. However, the Free Library is being rebuilt.

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  7. Acting styles change a lot over time, but what you describe sounds unlike any Nero Wolfe I’ve ever met. More commonly the actors sweeten Wolfe and lose his acerbic quality.

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    1. The only Nero Wolfe I have been exposed to are radio plays, which I think Sarah described to a tee. Which is why I have never been interested in exploring any Rex Stout.

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  8. One fun thing for radio plays is their ability to allow talented actors to play roles they’d never get to attempt in person, such as William Conrad’s long run as Gunsmoke‘s Marshall Dillon. Look at the voice credits for many of the DC Batman and Superman cartoons and you can see what I mean:
    Batman:
    Diedrich Bader
    Kevin Conroy
    William Baldwin

    Superman:
    Tim Daly
    Adam Baldwin
    Mark Harmon

    Green Lantern:
    Nathan Fillion
    David Boreanaz

    And then there are Mark Hamill and Michael “Worf” Dorn , whose voice credits include numerous parts, all without make-up or costume requirements.

    Moreover, many actors do significant amounts of work providing voices for computer games.

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    1. Oh don’t forget Michael Ironside (“baldy”) as Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell … mmmmm whatta voice

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  9. The only radio series I remember was “The Shadow,” which also featured a maniacal laugh as part of the closing.

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    1. I listen to the old time radio channel on Sirius. The host gives interesting facts about the people and the shows. One of them about “The Shadow” was that Orson Wells wasn’t able to pull off the signature laugh, so they continued to use tape of the original actor doing it.

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  10. I apologize for posting this here, but I’ve tried several times to subscribe to this blog (i.e. donate $45 at “Patron” level) but get told each time that I have to pay $5/month instead. This is kind of frustrating, as I understand you get no more money, and a $5/mo is very much what I do not want. Is it possible to fix this? I know that only some of us are having problems, but it is frustrating that this remains utterly unresolved.

    Of course, if you have gained enough from subscriptions that you don’t want any more, or it’s simply not worth the time to fix, that’s fair enough.

    On the subject of OTR (Old Time Radio), yes, The Shadow was memorable. Dragnet was another interesting OTR series, about an America of a very different time. Pretty much any series with Jack Webb was interesting, including a couple of noir ones set in the 20’s and 30’s.

    CBS Radio Mystery Theater (70’s and early 80’s) also seems astonishingly different from today. The fact that many of those episodes include contemporaneous commercials and news broadcasts makes them fascinating from a sociological standpoint. You can find these (legally and for free; there was a quirk in copyright law that left radio broadcasts generally out of copyright, though IANAL) at www dot archive dot org.

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    1. I know. It’s frustrating to me too. I’ve remade the button three or four times, and the bug persists. It’s possible I have too many levels. The work around I’ve come up with is that if you do a donation and put in a note saying you’ll donate again next year, I’ll treat it as a subscription. And I’ll try to rattle the cup every month (much as I hate it.)
      But though Dan’s job is “okay for the foreseeable future” we don’t yet know if that a year or a month. As in they’re not telling us. We do know that’s more than one week! (So, win!)

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        1. Well, under the subscriber page, you’re getting rough drafts and a little more detailed explanation of “what ate my week” tm (something ALWAYS eats my week.)

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  11. Radio shows were necessarily overacted — with no other means to communicate what the character was doing (besides an expository lump which would give a cancer surgeon the heebie-jeebies)….

    Recommended radio: _The Goon Show_.

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    1. Does anybody else here recall a charming series on AMC a number of years back, well before Mad Men, set in a Depression-era radio station? It ran some 50+ episodes under the title Remember WENN and was based upon the daily production of such daily dramas.

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  12. Afaic that image has a devilish tinge a la Rod Serling.

    I’d sell my soul to get this presentation right, I mutter, and Poof! Sarah Hoyt appears to finish it for me…for a price.

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          1. Ah, but what is the pitch for, and to whom? Not that I would have answered (yet), but you didn’t inquire. In your position I’d ask for a little cash up front plus equity. ;-)

            Good night.

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        1. Pfui – in this day and age? Souls are a glut on the market, with most people giving them away. The poor quality of the workmanship on most of them is appalling and has destroyed demand.

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            1. I have the McFarlane Spiderman #1, silver edition, still in the original sealed bag. Still isn’t worth the postage to send it to a buyer.

              Like I said, the market in souls is flooded. In DC alone there are so many going for next to nothing they won’t even pay for the appraisal.

              If you are looking to make something on your soul, don’t sell — incorporate, sell off 25% of the voting stock and hint you’ll consider selling more when the market for souls firms up. Make sure you pay regular dividends.

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            1. Screwtape Letters were one of the if not THE first epistles type book I enjoyed. Forgive me not able to get the proper word for that type of work. The joys of doing this on my mobile devices.

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            2. Ah,! I doubted not the idea had come from somewhere.

              I make few claims of originality, only that I make an effort to steal from the best.

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  13. OT:Do any of you fine people here know of a way to make a hyperlink in a word document that points to a later page, for a sub topic that will survive conversion into pdf? I’m trying to help my dad make some coursework for work and the odd is so document is unchangeable. I’ve up to know only written college papers. Thanks.

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      1. Looked for email link- cannot find? However I have taken the liberty of emailing via your blog (from link) I assume that is what you meant, if not my apologies and you may direct me to the proper channel.

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  16. “You think I’m joking – a romance skimmed recently starts with guy and gal who just met, in bed after a night together. It’s so wonderful they’re scared and go off and sleep with all sorts of other people, separately and severally, before in the end realizing they were always meant for each other.”

    I read an urban fantasy book that had that(didn’t start with that though) as part of the plot and I use to see people going on and on how great it was. It left me scratching my head. I can’t wrap my mind around how that not only makes for a great plot/sub plot, but how people were saying “that is so romantic”. I’m a guy so I get I might not get “romance”, but I cannot figure what stretch of imagination is required to make that fit. That is a square peg in a ‘Z’ hole to me. I can’t even shave the corners off to make that fit in my mind.

    I kind of gave up on the author at that point. I’m sure she is doing fine with her fans(of which she seems to have a lot) and I’ll admit the book(or was it two) before was really well written, but my mind just wasn’t built for understanding that one. I’ve heard the saying before “romance is dead”. I’m not sure about that. It could just be that strange gooey lump in your fridge that you know was food at some point, but just doesn’t resemble anything edible any more. I’d poke it with a stick, but I’m not sure what it would do to me if I did.

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