A new podcast has started that is about the French in World War II , mainly about their resistance, but not just that by the name La Résistance. (feed) Host Kensington addresses the wide American audience and makes sure from the start they leave the romanticized depicting of France in the Second World War they may have gotten from the movies. For those, such as myself, who grew up in Europe and have a depiction of the World War from its civilian survivors, no such deconstruction is needed. Good for us, Kensington doesn't take too much time and dives into the history pretty soon.
Not only that of resistance heroes and the odd soldiers under De Gaulle. She also makes sure we understand the background of the collapse of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime. In addition, she points out there has been resistance of anonymous heroes and how the whole range of French activities under German occupation ran from straightforward collaboration fluidly into commonplace neutral into passive and active resistance, without much in the way of means to draw a line.
After a mere three podcasts into the series, still a lot remains to be seen, but this surely kicked off as a promising new podcast in the wide range of history podcasts we have met.
Previously I explained about RSS in text (RSS readers and can start following this blog with Google Reader. I just found the video below, more generally and visually explaining about RSS and its use.
Under the label Instructions, I try to compile a set of help posts, giving some guidance to listening to podcasts and more. Here is what we have had so far. listen on line (beginners 1) download audio files (beginners 2) get iTunes (beginners 3) put feeds in iTunes (beginners 4)
For advanced users I posted my own strategy to manage podcast feeds by the dozens with the combined use of iTunes and Google Reader.
For advanced users is also the tip how to use preferences per podcast in iTunes.
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.
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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.
Not only that of resistance heroes and the odd soldiers under De Gaulle. She also makes sure we understand the background of the collapse of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime. In addition, she points out there has been resistance of anonymous heroes and how the whole range of French activities under German occupation ran from straightforward collaboration fluidly into commonplace neutral into passive and active resistance, without much in the way of means to draw a line.
