There is an inherent weakness to the podcasts of The National Archives in that that they just quote from the sources they keep, whether directly to the recording or in a recorded lecture. This usually lacks the drama, the plot, the narrative arch and the punch line, a scripted history podcast has, or a lecture podcast from a university. However, in the Armistice Podcast (feed), the material speaks for itself.
The best of this is in the 19 minute podcast in which an unofficial account of the armistice negotiations is read. Nobody should need imposed drama and punch lines to be drawn in by this text and come close, as close as a fly on the wall of the Marshall Foch's train cart in Compiegne, to these fateful days in November 1918. Granted, it takes sufficient knowledge and understanding of the era in general and the Great War and its consequences in particular to really appreciate the intensity of the report.
I felt the arrogance of the French, the passiveness of the English, the scrambling for better terms and contact with the new government of the Germans and the absence, yet tangible influence of President Wilson of the US. I felt the nineteenth century ethics still at play, with attention to the ranks and attire of the officers present and the fact that negotiations were mainly conducted in French. Yet there is also the very modern warning which will stick with the world for the decades to come in the plea of the Germans: make sure our people won't starve, lest you will see them fall prey to Bolshevism. A drama pinched between Bismarck and Gorbachev.
The weekly and weekend schedule posts I make, seem to serve a good purpose. I notice readers and prospectors react to it. For me, it also gives some direction. In the past I have been scrambling for ideas what to post. Now I have a schedule to go on. Sometimes rather stringent such as the past week when I had two posts a day planned, pretty exactly, or other weeks when I have a range to choose from. (Anne is a man, last week, seven posts in four days planned and executed)
In the coming weekend and the week afterward there will be a lot of attention for new podcasts. I have been picking up a wide variety of podcasts I had never listened to before and so you can expect for the coming seven days alternately a review on entirely new podcasts. Some are a bit outside my normal range, but then they came in through the Report a Podcast feature and those, my rule is, I will always give attention, no matter what.
I think I'll start with new history podcasts:
1- La Resistance about France in World War II.
2- History on the Run audioblog style history podcast
3- Armistice Podcast an exhilarating find (thanks to Jim Mowatt of Historyzine); podcast about the Great War from the National Archives in Great Britain
What I will add in the weekend to these three, I do not know yet, but they will come from the following list:
1- The Word Nerds speaking on the occasion of the late George Carlin being awarded a prize for his work
2- Speaking of Faith back on my blog after a long pause.
3- UCLA Israel studies back from being podfaded with a bunch of thrilling talks about Israel and the Middle-East.
4- Shrink Rap Radio
More new podcasts I have listened to are:
1- Free Domain Radio Is this an anarchy podcast?
2- In My Living Room music from Canada
3- Junggesellenblog is he podcasting or not?
4- Meetings Podcast with Chris Brogan
5- UCLA Political Science a 2007 course that was recommended to me by Dara from DIY Scholar
6- Sunday Sundown the easy listening music program by Maurice Zondag (interview of Anne is a Man! with Maurice Zondag)
7- Meiky's Podcast Show German audio-drama, very funny
8- Grammar Girl I have listened to grammar girl in the past and decided not to review, however, with such a famous podcast...
Eventually we will probably see our weekly report of Veertien Achttien around Sunday. Whatever is not attended to this weekend, will come next week. For now, listen again to my Anne is a Man promo, with thanks to Jim Mowatt - once more.
Subscribe in a reader
Paste the link http://feeds.feedburner.com/Anne_Is_A_Man
into the RSS reader of your preference. (What is RSS? - Help on getting subscription)
I love to get new podcast recommendations. You can let your preferences know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk
PS - I will be posting a video that explains about RSS as well. Busy schedule, busy busy!
BBC's In Our Time discussed today The Baroque. Much of the program was spent on defining the Baroque. If at all it was supposed to render some additional meaning, somewhat tentatively it was maintained Baroque was an expression of the counter-reformation. And with the counter-reformation Baroque came to its end.
Hence, most of the program engages in discussing the examples and the characteristics of Baroque. Somehow this indulged mainly in discussion of architecture and the visual arts. At this point, Baroque seems to start in Italy, but is taken over by the French of Louis XIV and continues in Habsburg Vienna and Prague when it eventually peters out in Bavaria and Scandinavia. If at all music is discussed, opera is mentioned and then mostly because of the scale of it. Because that is what Baroque is, wherever you find it: ornamental, huge, indulgent and impressive. My first association with Barogue is with music. Handel for example (listen to inserted player - IE only).
In the end, Baroque kept striking me as a pre-romanticism, both in its exaltation as well as in the fact that Baroque was much less self-conscious. Oddly, during the Romantic age, Baroque comes to be defined - so I learned on the show. Another fact that stuck me, was that the anti-thesis of Baroque, if it was the austere Protestantism, or Jansenism or the rationalism of Descartes, was always around. As if Baroque and Romanticism are one side, an exuberant, exalted, inspirational side of the Western identity throughout the ages and it is always juxtaposed by the sober, rationalist, restrained side.
Radio Har HaTzofim's alleged history program מה שהיה היה has done its second broadcast after the summer recess and once more my conclusion is this podcast is more of a culture podcast than a history one. Maybe the fact that two history students host the show, has had it pegged for the history department. Maybe it originally set out to be a history podcast. The title surely, if poetically, alludes to that: What was, has been, Ma SheHayah Hayah, bearing on a song by Arik Einstein.
The show still is a great podcast to listen to. The audio comedy is much to my liking, with its tendency to mock the Israeli stream of consciousness with mild satire and hilarious parody.
I find it fascinating to analyze what make good podcasts work and more and more I come to the conclusion it is an art. As the brothers Shepherd from the Word Nerds already pointed out, this might well be part of the art form of story telling. For history podcasts, my main focus, this certainly is the case. Expanding upon that, the true expression of the art should be found in the fictional podcast, the oral narrative per se. The best example I know in that respect is Namaste Stories.
A wonderful example is given in the latest issue Episode #31 "A girl has to do what she has to do". This is a 13 minute tale which stands independently in the string of tales provided by host, narrator and writer Dave P. It can be enjoyed repeatedly. One is bound to find, as I did, new angles in the story, with each new session. However, the story also works in the first instant.
It would be too much of a spoiler to give anything away from the tale, but let me say this much. The perspective of the story is the teacher who finds a girl in his class that he is attracted to. What triggers the attraction? Something purely sensual? Or perhaps some echo of the past? Could the attraction be mutual and if so, how good is that? And so, with what possible intention could it be that the girl is approaching him now? Listen and find out.
The composition of the narrative, is what makes for the strongest history podcast. Dan Carlin does this very well in English, Tom Tacken is the genius in Dutch and the greatly talented composer of a captivating story in Hebrew is Ran Levi in Making history with Ran Levi. A superb example is given in the latest show, which is about French mathematician Sophie Germain.
In her days, women were not supposed to study mathematics, they weren't even supposed to be able to grasp math. However, as Levi presents the story, Mademoiselle Germain was captivated when she was still a kid by the story of Archimedes. The classic mathematician was so immersed in his math problem during a war, that he scowled at a an enemy soldier for disturbing him and consequently was killed. 'A problem so captivating, one risks death, that must be worth studying', Ran Levi has Sophie think. And so she embarks on investing her time in math, against all odds.
She impersonates a Monsieur Le Blanc in order to be admitted to the Academy. She ventures on solving Fermat's last Theorem (Levi plays a sound clip with Andrew Wiles that stems, it seems to me, from the BBC series about Fermat's last theorem. A pity there are no acknowledgments) and this brings her in contact with the great minds of math in her day. Among others she corresponds with the Prussian Gauss and to be on the safe side, she persists in using the pseudonym Monsieur Le Blanc.
When France and Prussia get into war and the French occupy Prussia, the story of Archimedes pops up again in our podcast. The first function was to deliver Sophie to math, the second is to make her worry about the fate of Gauss during the war. One may doubt the veracity of the construction, but for the narrative this construction is of great value. It helps all the facts fit into an effective composition and keeps the listener engaged and makes the story stick.
The best of this is in the 19 minute podcast in which an unofficial account of the armistice negotiations is read. Nobody should need imposed drama and punch lines to be drawn in by this text and come close, as close as a fly on the wall of the Marshall Foch's train cart in Compiegne, to these fateful days in November 1918. Granted, it takes sufficient knowledge and understanding of the era in general and the Great War and its consequences in particular to really appreciate the intensity of the report.
