Phone Post: charleston across the cyberverse (nearly a transcription)

[gurdonark]

[Bad username or site: gurdonark' phonepostid='1 @ livejournal.com]

Comments

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

Well hello, Robert! It's so great to hear your voice! Knowing how you speak brings a new life to the written words in your journal. Your cadence reminds me of Keillor, or Fulghum, two storytellers that I admire very much. What a fun experiment this Phone Post is!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for suggesting I give this a try. I was going to wait until they had Texas dial-in lines, but I decided to give it a go, choosing a dial-in line in Maine to satisfy a personal whim. Thank also for the kind words, although, like most people, I do not think of my speaking voice as anything to "post home" about. It's funny that something that seemed so long to speak took only a bit over 90 seconds.

[amatrixangel.livejournal.com]

Keillor

I always thought that about gurdonark with his posts and now, the voice :)

He'll be in The Grand Ol' Opry soon. Might even have to move to Minnesota :P

(That's a compliment by the way gurdonark :-)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I went to the Opry once back when folks slicked their hair with gel and things were not so sophisticated.
What fun! But I'll bet that if I had gone back in the 50s, that would have been a time indeed.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

When you were done, it took me a second to realize that the NPR announcer wasn't going to close out the piece.

What a wonderful storytelling voice! I look forward to more.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll try another one sometime :).

[thecatinside.livejournal.com]

Wow this is really nice. I like your accent. :)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like it. I used to have a richer accent, but I'm afraid living in Texas and California robbed me of a bit of it.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

fortunes were counted in dimes...

just lovely. i think i grew up at the center of the universe too. looking back, it does seem that way. what a happy thought.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that the sense that one's own life IS a center of something that matters is yet one more thing my childhood can teach me.
As I remember, we made 2 cents a bottle.

[licoricestick.livejournal.com]

You should read books on tape!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love books on tape :).

[cosmolinguist]

I thought of Garrison Keillor, too, and I guess I'm not the only one.

I love Garrison Keillor.

And you need to do more of these! I won't use mine, and would lend them to you if I could. :-)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'd much rather you use yours than lend any to me. The whole point is the diversity of experience, not any one voice.

Thanks for the kind words.

[cosmolinguist]

I still don't think it'll happen. Not only do I not like the telephone, but I'm also firmly convinced that (a) I don't like to listen to recordings of myself and (b) I'm communicating on the Internet for a reason: I can write a lot better than I can talk! So I think I'll leave it that way. I'll just be a hypocrite and enjoy those that my friends do, while not participating myself. I'm okay with that. :-)

[minuet1264.livejournal.com]

You have a great voice. I enjoyed listening to you.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. :)

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I can't get those posts to play on my computer. :-(

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I just downloaded winamp at work so that I could try to hear it on mine. This .ogg format is fairly unfamiliar to me.

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Isn't winamp something that just works on Windows?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

For Apple, you use iTunes or Quicktime. I think they're both free, too.

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I have quicktime but it wouldn't recognize it.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

This is the week I had to do WinAmp for this, and RealAudio for something else, and I think some third thing for something. all these "universals" are not universally compatible.

[msajiva.livejournal.com]

I thought your voice was great. Exactly how I imagined you might sound.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

That's fun! Thanks.

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

Hearing you reminded me how much I miss talking with you.

What a marvelous gift of narrative you have! It truly is astounding. I look forward to the novel whose threads now knit together inside you like a chrysalis drawing nourishment from your tactile memories.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I will be in town on 12/8, so I hope we get together then. I am eager to hear the next part of your personal screenplay. H. told me about the new house--sounds great! I did not get to town on 10/30, due to postponement, ,and my sched. flight on 11/13 was too late for a good visit. But maybe we can get together on 12/8.

thanks for the kind words on the voice/writing. Someday I ought to polish off editing that nanowrimo finished novel, get you to polish off that sketch, and get that on into print. It's a bit repetitive, but it was fun to write, so I feel I ought to eBay up some hobby cash and let fly!

[salaryman.livejournal.com]

wow, I love your voice. there's hope and whimsy galore; and a kind of sophistication that stands outside the usual self-congratulatory sophistication of newscasters and cultural authorities, a voice that is its own sound finding its own path.

I want to go back and re-read two or three favorite old posts and re-imagine them as I now know you sound.

thanks

peace

salaryman

edit

[salaryman.livejournal.com]

2nd graf add "how" after "know" and before penultimate word "you."

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Why, thanks! I had meant to say thanks earlier, but belated does not mean I am any less grateful for the praise.