Ask PodLily

In which the PodLily children read letters asking for advice (or if we get none, letters they make up from fictional people or historical figures asking for advice) and PodLily is required to answer, with no hemming or hawing.

This brilliant idea is coming up next on PodLily.  Along with several musical interludes.

PodLily Program Notes (Vol. 1, Episode 1: You are Like the Red, Red Rose)

~Small child sings theme song. The words are here.~

Introduction: Hello and welcome to PodLily, Volume 1, Episode 1: You are Like the Red, Red Rose

Weather Report:

It’s spring here in northern California. The rain’s coming down hard on the lemons that have just ripened on the bush outside our door. The magnolia tree is bursting with soft purple flowers, the neighbor’s tree down the street has put out its annual display of early February cherry blossoms and the air at night smells like jasmine.

Spring around here means Valentine’s Day, and Valentine’s Day means chocolate and poetry. The former must be procured by you from your favorite shop. But you can get the latter right here.

~Child sings a bit from the theme song to indicate that a transition is being made~

Poetry Report:
For as long as there have been poetry and lovers, there have been poems in which the loved one is compared to some extravagant precious thing. Lips like rubies, hair like spun gold, eyes like chocolate. That sort of thing. The most famous of all these poems is this one, because it goes beyond metaphor, to make a claim for the power of poetry to make the loved one immortal:

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here, of course, the object of the speaker’s devotion is way, way better than a summer’s day. And then there’s all that stuff about how the poet makes the lover live forever by immortalizing the loved one.

What happens, though, if the poet’s a little uncertain about whether the loved one measures up to a really good day in July? After all — and let’s be honest here — the summer’s day metaphor doesn’t work for everybody. Anyway, what happens if the poet just happens to be the one who’s way better than a summer’s day? Billy Collins has something to say about that:

Litany, Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.

A Happy Valentine’s Day to each of you, my virtual valentines. This is PodLily signing off with hugs and kisses, until the next time she can figure out how to get her microphone to work.

~Child sings some more of the theme song, to indicate that things have come to an end~

A Little Icon

Elephant.

Balancing.

Un Elephant

What better theme for a podcast with several segments than a counting song?

Un éléphant

Un éléphant qui se balançait
Sur une toile d’araignée
Trouva ce jeu si intéressant
Qu’il alla chercher un deuxième éléphant

Deux éléphants qui se balançaient
Sur une toile d’araignée, ohé, ohé,
Trouvèrent ce jeu si intéressant
Qu’ils allèrent chercher un troisième éléphant

Trois…

autre fin:
Un éléphant qui se balançait
Sur une toile toile toile d’araignée
C’était un jeu tellement tellement amusant
Que tout à coup: Ba Da BouM!

autre version:
Un éléphant qui se balan-ance
Sur une assiette de faïence
Et comme cela l’amusait-ait-ait
Avec un autre il recommen-ence

Google Me An Answer: PreLaunch II

I’m always amazed by what happens when I type into google, “how do I xxxx?” The answer to “how do I podcast” came up with lots of nifty responses. There was this from yahoo, and this techno-geek article and something with the nifty name “how to podcast.” And best of all, a fellow 9rules member has a site by the fabulous name Podcast Free America. I’m starting there. Seems like four sites are about right. If the same piece of information shows up at least three times (like the advice that you download a particular piece of free podcasting software) in reputable sites, it’s worth paying attention to.

Turns out there’s also a fine site on wordpress with lots of podcasting information. It’s here.

Okay, then, I’m ready to start reading.

PodLily: PreLaunch I

The new year’s a time for learning new things. That means in 2007, I’m going to add podcasting to BlogLily. Why? I love radio shows. I love hearing people talk. I love conversations and voices and I rather like being read to, as long as the person has a nice voice and is reading something interesting.

When I was a child, I used to lie on my parents’ bed, my head hanging over the side in the direction of the radio.  I’d listen to broadcasts of old radio shows on the armed forces radio station we’d get in our house in Bavaria. And on Saturdays, I’d pray that the signal from the Saturday radio show, the one that involved a cliff hanger about a boy who was a space hero, would come in loud & clear. When it didn’t, I was bereft.

Just as with writing, you have to write what you want to read, with podcasting, you must record what you want to hear. And what I want to hear is something that makes me feel the way I did hanging over the edge of my parents’ bed:  lost in the sound of someone’s voice.  That’s my guiding principle, although I’ll be happy if I can just figure out how to record my own voice. 

But first, I figure I’ll have to call my podcasting self by a name of some sort.  My blog is called BlogLily, so PodLily seemed to work.  I did briefly consider calling myself LilyPod, but the general consensus around here was that this name was so teethgrindingly cute it might drive normal people away.  Anyway, someone else already has it and is doing their part in repelling the normal. 

And so it was that I registered podlily.com.  And then I registered “podlily”with wordpress and created a place for podcasting prelaunch matters.  (Like, how on earth DO you podcast?)  When things get off the ground, podlily will be a location for program notes and other things of podcasting interest. 

Next up is some research.  I have asked google how to podcast and found many straightforward looking resources.  I have also discovered that everyone in the world podcasts.  How nice to be part of a crowd. 

One thing that will give me the most pleasure, I’m pretty sure, is figuring out what sort of format I like. I love radio shows — so maybe a weekly broadcast.  But I don’t want to bore people for thirty minutes.  So maybe a short burst of something every week would be better. 

My sons want to help.  They love the idea of broadcasting.  I do have to consider the ethics and childrearing issues around allowing your children to participate in this sort of thing,

And that dear reader, soon to be dear listener, is quite enough for one day.