LibriVox

[Otterly]

Dear volunteers for Librevox,

At Christmas my younger brother bought me an MP3 player, combined with a cassette player to listen to audio books from the library. Miraculously, he brought six disks of downloaded stories for me. Beginning with A, then he printed a list of the B’s, and laughed at what he saw, he said for the C’s I need only mark the ones I do not want.

I share these with five others in a similar situation for varying reasons. We may see each other only one a year, if at all, but we form a core of people confined because of illness who keep in touch. We are people who can call to say goodnight to one another, or to check if the cat has come in safely, or if they are warm enough, those sorts of things. Some recover and leave our group, go back to life. Those like me with chronic diseases remain the core, will hear of another person confined and invite them to share with us.

The plan of keeping us in our own homes is a fine one. We are so grateful for the provisions of other taxpayers that make that possible for us, and our friends, family, and volunteers who come by to help us out. Still, most of our time is spent alone. Sometimes frightened, sometimes worried, sometimes more ill than yesterday, or better,
We are always dependant on the goodwill of others to bring our medications, our groceries, to remove the dust from a picture frame, tidy the spot we stare at most of the day, day after day.

TV left our lives years ago, because our medical costs use up our resources. For a while, people will remember us, and tape a special show on TV, mail us the tape or bring it over. After a year or so, they forget. Machines get harder and harder to record tapes from till now it’s a great deal of trouble to do that. Postal costs to send them cost us very dearly; it results in our not being able to have many things. We could buy or have things, but the high cost of postage is more than we can ask of our friends and family. Audio books are perfect, slip into an envelope, and we know what the postage will be easily.

I have been out twice since September, both times for a medical appointment. Every morning I do step out on the porch and feed the birds, get some fresh air, I have a lift and could get to the ground, but I have fallen, and am afraid to go away from the doorstep.
It isn’t just me, our circle has people who just returned from chemo treatments or other painful things, and this may be a very bad day or week for them.

When those people recover and go back to life, we who never will, shout our joy and congratulations. We do celebrate, but inside we stifle the jealousy, the mean wish it was ourselves going out and about again, recovering, walking, cleaning our own homes.

Some die. We are a fringe on their lives. Sometimes their family doesn’t know we exist, or they call and announce the death to us as if we were the post office being notified. They say.” I know you didn’t really know him.”

No, we didn’t, but it was one of us on the phone in the middle of the night, through pain, or a frightening storm, or just holding the line till a bad time passed, till pain meds took hold, keeping company while they ate food that they know they must have, but it tastes like wood, or alcohol with poison in it. Staying on the line while they down dreadful things like liquid meals.

We were there for things in their lives they couldn’t confess to their families, knowing it would cause pain and a sense of helplessness, or worse, cause them to move us to a nursing home, a tiny city apartment, which we call “people storage”.

So, it’s true I may not have known them well at all. But one of us has saved the sons and daughters from worry, and have saved the ill person from the terrible continuing indignity of being dependant. Who else is likely to be awake every half hour from dusk to dawn?
Who else can lose a little sleep but us, who will not go to work in the morning, do not have children to care for, are not a part of life anymore. Who else but one of us will
hear the confessions of weakness and need that would break the heart of a spouse or child, already doing all that they can for us? Or our worries for the twentieth time, the time it takes to work them out.
We have been that same place much of the time; we have suffered explicitly and in detail, the same helplessness, and may again tomorrow.

Tomorrow the power will go out, or a pain pill roll under the bed, we may cut ourselves or drop a glass and break it, we may suffer pain because we are so proud we risk our safety to do something as simple as bend over to pick up something we dropped.
Our strength may fail us suddenly in a task we have done without thought for many years. It’s frightening, but we can’t go around frightening our loved ones with details.

Things we always did so easily may backfire, we can’t do them today. But. How to clean up the mess before we are discovered and scolded like children?

I am sorry this is so long, but I want you to know of something of some of the people who listen to your performance on Librevox. We can hold a book, or prop it on a pillow. We commit the sin of cutting paperback books into slices of ten or twenty pages so we can hold it to read. Each finished page drifts down to the wastebasket, we are filled with regret. We can never reread that book, or pass it on. Postal costs are so high we cannot share a book with each other. But, to mail a disk. That is inexpensive, and wonderful!

Then we can discuss the shared audio book. What wonderful subjects of conversation that do not centre on our illnesses and treatments, our losses and disappointments. They help us be brave, they recall old old memories. I think you cannot guess the extent of the good you do.

I’m sure these books have many other fans. I can imagine drivers listening on their way to work, or travelers, driving or staying in bare hotel and motel rooms, all sorts of
People other than those like my circle and me. I imagine a parent and child sharing a book he loved from his childhood, read to him long ago, now they can sit together, chapter by chapter, and they will talk too. Freckles.. That was a grand one for my younger brother and I when he was six or eight, when I read it to him, now again we can share it.

I want only to write my thanks and gratitude. There is so much of it. I must though also complain.
I am really sorry because I appreciate what you do so much, and see how much good it does very plainly. Still, maybe you will see it not as a complaint but as information. Please use it that way; I do not want to make any one of you who have done so much good feel badly.

You are after all, my circle’s joy, our heroes, and our companions. You have scooped up pure delight for us and given us a great and unexpected gift in the audio books.

What I say is being typed into Word by a friend as I speak. Then I will come to the computer and paste in the message for you.

I am afraid you get very little thanks because so many of us cannot sit at the computer for long anymore. And, here you thought we were just all old and computer illiterate! No, not all, computers have been in offices since 1962, in homes since 1980.

Some of us worked all our lives on them; very sadly, some of us are less than forty years old. We all have a huge job to do either to recover, or to accept our situations, enjoy all we can, and maintain our freedom as long as we can. Once recovered, they never look back. Life is too full of good stuff they are months behind in, off they go! So, perhaps you don’t hear thanks from that group at all. Your work helped them though, through very rough times. A bad minute can seem to last forever, so, you helped at a time that seemed forever.

Here is my complaint. Many of you read too quickly.

You worry that your voices are not good, not trained professional voices, or you have an accent. I admire you because even then you go ahead and do the job.

To me, the one of you who does sound like my cat, (I tell him he purrs like moving rocks in a tin bucket) also sounds so dear, so like a cousin or relative sitting beside me to read now or in my childhood.

They were not professionals, my one Aunt squeaked when she read, and another friend forgot himself and reverted to his preaching voice, thundering in my tiny bedroom. I loved them all.

My young brother read to me when he still stammered over words, and my daughter read to me through the stacks and stacks of ironing that had to be done before synthetic fabrics were common. My father used to read the newspaper over breakfast, out loud to us, with all his outrage and indignation his voice rose and rose with every article.

My great Aunt, who still believed the only suitable printed material was her version of the Bible, read that to me, her choice of verses were a list of my sins that day, a child commits very many sins in one day, from coveting that second piece of cake to stealing perfume from her mother’s dressing table, playing and spilling the can of paint, but she faithfully presented me with a clear picture of my road to hell every night she visited. I still preferred that going to sleep without being read to.

None of these dear voices were professional. If you sound like a real person who takes the time to read to me, I don’t mind, and neither does any of my circle. We imagine you,
We want you to be uniquely you.

I suppose you would laugh if we told you what we imagine you to look like. One reader, we all agree, pins a fresh rose to her beautiful shawl when she sits down to read. One we think sits outside on his porch at night, in blue jeans and a sweatshirt. Another we think reads while her baby naps, and she only has a few minutes till he wakes up again and her life will be uproar. One we are certain has a big office, and stays after work to record, won’t tell his co-workers what he does for the world. It would be like confessing he is a knitter.
There is another we think dreams of a career in theatre, and someday will be famous. Right now she doesn’t work all the time, and life is tough, but she reads to us.
We were all readers; we all have imaginations still at work some days.

But, I must get back to the complaint. We have agreed on a description. We badly need comfort sometimes when we listen. The books will distract us from discomfort and fear. We tuck ourselves under covers, urge our companion animal to stay close to us, and pray for distraction. If you read quickly we are soon lost.

Some of you have amazing breath control, we do not. We find ourselves breathless in the effort to follow and keep up with your words, and soon fatigued.
We have to turn our book off to rest.

The worst problem of all is of these grand old writers, who created a different imagine with every five words, who sloshed words and images in a paragraph so beautifully, who take us from image to image, simile to simile, concept to concept within a line.

We describe it now like this ..after three months or so of listening. It is very sad.

We think we are like people at a rail crossing, stopped at night and seeing briefly into each lighted passenger car as it zips by. It is gone before we saw into it, and the next one dashes into our vision, gone, then another, another, just glimpses into what would be a scene rich in detail of those lives.

Those lines contain images but are gone before we can create and enjoy them, linger on them, connect them to our own experiences and lives, our own memories.

Each of us has had to stop listening to a story we would have loved to hear, because we are exhausted from imagines slipping by so fast, and disappointed by being offered a glimpse, but not time to enjoy it, then quickly another glimpse, and another, and another, until we must turn it off and search the disk for another, different story read by a slower reader.

We hope to find a slower reader come into our home, reading especially for us, slowly enough for us to enjoy the voice, the wonderful recitation, and the story. Slow enough that we may feel the pain slip away, comfort come in, and the story take us far away from reality.

Modern writers are not like this so much. There are plain writers who rely on action to carry the story in a large part. We are fine with those.

As we listen, we must build the entire set as if it were a film or theatre presentation in our heads. We barely get the first curtain hung, a sense of the weather, a picture of the character described, and it is gone, you have moved on.

The writer’s description of the foolish hat worn by the heroine is lost to us, and so is all the information about her failings and attitude that hat was intended to indicate. We do not know her half well enough in the next paragraph, we do not suspect her, we would have known had we time to imagine the implications of such a vain fashionable hat worn say, to a family visit. Now her selfish act catches us unaware, eventually we lose plot and character, and must turn the story off. We begin again and again. (Thank you remote!) but, become lost again and again, are disappointed and give up.

Because there are more of us, we don’t think it is only us, though we imagine that many listeners do the same thing, and believe it is because they are too ill to follow along, too ill to benefit from your project.

The group of us have talked and shared our experiences. Like so much in life, we are glad to learn it is not just one of us who has this experience and sadness, which is what we each believed at first.

Please think of us as you come into our rooms to deliver so much beauty and comfort.
We do not know whom your intended audience is, but the chronically ill, or the temporarily ill must make up some proportion of it. You are so generous with your time; perhaps you might even make a second version of a few stories at a slower pace.

Think of us with our mental hammers and paintbrushes, needing the time to build a set over each ten words for some writers, a little less for others. We also need time to let go of discomfort and picture you sitting in a chair reading to us. Often we come to you when we are especially distressed and it takes time to be eased and relaxed by the story, carried away from our situations and into the book and your voice.

It’s not just those who recorded in the “A”s, we have two disks that roam about in other authors and readers, and have the same problem there.

I don’t like to complain without offering a solution. We do not know how to tell you what speed we would like to listen to, or how to get there, except to go somewhere and read to a real person for a bit, and ask them. I think you would just naturally adjust your speed because you could observe your audience as you read. Tape your reading, take it home and listen to it for a bit. If it seems slower than paint drying, that may be just right.

You are so appreciated, I wish you could know how much,
Thank You,
Otterly

[Steampunk]

Welcome to LibroVox, Otterly.

If you ever want to volunteer to read here, I humbly suggest you consider the famous 20th century classic Ulysses by James Joyce. I suspect you'd be a natural...


Jim

[RuthieG]

Hello Otterly.

Thank you for taking so much time and effort to describe what life is like to you and your circle, and how much our audio recordings mean to you.

It is a salutory lesson to us all, and I, for one, will think of you as I am recording in future.

There are, indeed, some readers who rattle along at a very brisk pace, and of course, a lot of listeners who like it just like that. But there are also readers who take their time and savour each nuance, each phrase, each image, and I hope that we will be able to help you find readers like that.

I immediately think of David Barnes, and I too (Ruth Golding) read at what some people would consider a veritable snail's pace.

I hope that others will come along and make more suggestions of readers with a slow reading style. Then you will be able to search the catalogue by reader and find things that you may enjoy. This is done by going to the Search the Catalog page, and clicking More Search Options. You are then given the option of searching the catalogue by reader.

If we can be of any more assistance, please post again.

Ruth
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My Librivox catalogue page | RuthieG's CataBlog of LV recordings.

[TriciaG]

Unfortunately, it's very difficult - if not impossible - to consciously slow down one's reading. Trust me; I've tried. After a couple minutes, I'm back to my normal reading pace. Believe it or not, that IS our normal pace on those recordings!

About the only thing I can suggest is to get someone with a computer to download a program like Audacity (it's free), and use it to slow down the recordings, then re-export to MP3 for you. (Or if you've got tech savvy people in your circle of friends, they can probably do it themselves.)

If you haven't heard it yet, I recommend A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court read by John Greenman. Very well done, and on the slower side.
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How about some theology? Read Institutes of the Christian Religion
History? Try Antiquities of the Jews

[Kikisaulite]

Thanks for sharing your story, Otterly, and thanks for all those kind words to us. Your story gives new meaning to that what we do here, at least to me. And I for sure will have your circle in my mind when recording in future.

Kristine.
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Keep your mind here and now, where it belongs.

[icyjumbo]

I am up in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep, so I came to look over the forum. Being awake like this is a rather other-worldly experience, and your long, thoughtful, thought-provoking description of your life moved me deeply. I am with Kristine and Ruth when I say that I will certainly think of your story when I read in future.

What makes the difference between we who read into a microphone, and those readers who read to you, or indeed yourself when you read to your brother or child, is that we don't have the immediate feedback from our audience that you had. The performance aspect of reading aloud must surely be affected by a live audience. I, for one, will certainly try hard to imagine an audience next time I read.

When I think back to my own readings, especially the ones where I have taken pains to read more slowly, no, to take more time over the words, then what I chiefly remember about that reading was that I was feeling the emotion of the poem, which is what motivated my choice of pace.

However, I suspect that it might be quite difficult to imagine a person listening to my reading and reacting to it, and myself reacting to her reaction. I read once, in a book called "Art and Fear", that an artist can either create or critique, but not both successfully at the same time. Judging the effect of one's own reading is a form of critique, and according to that dictum should not be done during the reading, but afterwards.

I am going to take your appeal, not complaint, as a challenge to me to give the words I read the time and space to be appreciated properly. Please do carry on listening to us, and try to seek out those readers whose performances give you the most pleasure. There are literally thousands of us here. Others you might like to consider are Andy Minter (ExEmGe) and Kehinde, both of whom are quite prolific.

I'm sure I don't speak only for myself when I say that I try to do the best job I can when I read for Librivox. There are a number of threads on this forum where we have discussed both technique and expressiveness, and where we have pointed out professional readers whom we admire. I shall keep your request to us in mind as I try to improve in the future. Thank you.
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Chris Ursus perpauli cerebri sum (translated here)

[earthcalling]

Otterly,

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to write and give us a slice of your life... We often say how much we appreciate it when a listener tells us the impact of our recordings on them, but I doubt it's ever been brought home quite so clearly before. Thank you and bless you.

David

[Otterly]

Well Done! You have a fine wit. Cyrano wouldn't complain of you! Too many would have said "War and Peace".. mundane, a blunt instrument.
I stand reproved, and laughing,
Thank You.

[Otterly]

If I had known how many kind responses and good suggestions we would get I would have complained sooner !

I'm having trouble posting, hope this works just once, not twice, but I will come back, this forum is grand.
We are working on the software, but first on the suggested readers. These are so helpful.

Finding out you are a community makes us even happier with our books and "our" readers.
Some wrote that we became more real to you. I'm pleased at that. You have become even more real to us. So Many thanks for every word !!!

[earthcalling]

Here's another thought, Otterly - have you discovered the LibriVox Community Podcast? You might enjoy hearing us as ourselves, and perhaps get more ideas for what and who to listen to. They come out fairly regularly - about every one or two weeks, depending on what's going on. Very light-hearted and engaging. The wonderful and big-hearted Cori has been the regular host and driver for some time... (Are you able to listen to audio straight from your computer, or do you need someone to download it and put it on CD first?)

In fact, I wonder how you would feel about having someone read your post for the podcast? It would probably reach more people that way, encouraging and thanking them.... If that sounds like a good idea to you, I'd be honoured to give it a try - for your approval, of course! Let me know what you think....

David

[Hokuspokus]

It is a wonderful idea to record this for the podcast, if Otterly is OK with it.
I was very moved by this post.
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Hokuspokus
Erzählungen von Edgar Allan Poe

[icyjumbo]

David, you read my mind. I was just about to offer to Cori to read it for the podcast. I planned to do it in the style that Otterley requested, but if someone else has already planned, started, or finished, then I don't need to.
_________________
Chris Ursus perpauli cerebri sum (translated here)

[Cori]

[Otterly]

I can get the podcast, and will look for it, then I can share it.

You surely have our permission to read the letter. You will have a time limit to work with I think, so you also have our permission to make it briefer any way you see fit.
In a way then we will be sharing with your work and community, we couldn't ask for anything better that that; well, that and the responses from you here.
Many thanks, and our best wishes in your work.

[earthcalling]

Wonderful, Otterly - thank you!

I have some time this morning and will give it a go...

David