WHERE IS YOUR PODCAST?

Recently, we received a message via email from a reader/fan/person out in the either, asking us a question that we’ve been asked ever so often..

Hey! Where can I find a podcast version of your blog..?

-Evan

Thank you Evan for writing to us. Although we are not a “blog” per se, we appreciate you calling us one. But let’s get to your answer.

We have been asked when we will be presenting an audio version of Accessibly Live Off-Line a.k.a. http://www.AccessiblyLiveOffLine.com? This version, better known as a podcast, would be generally a radio-type talk program where there would be a moderator, or host, and would talk about a specific subject, or to present a program that would be similar to an old-time radio program, complete with music scores and music beds (a musical interlude that would be played under any dialogue spoken to set the mood toward a specific scene in the program), as well as sound effects inserted in appropriate places within the program. Old time radio programs that aired on this medium before the advent of television, generally from the 1920’s well into the 1960’s, were created as entertainment and featured personalities that were from the entertainment world at the time, as well as a few people that began their careers in radio.

Examples of these types of programs can be heard on a series called Those Were The Days with host Steve Darnell on WDCB-FM in the Chicago area, and online on http://www.WDCB.org every Saturday afternoon from 1:00-5:00 PM (CST).

Podcasts, generally a radio show not found on the “radio”, are more akin to the National Public Radio series This American Life with host Ira Glass that speak on a specific subject using the same music and sound effects cues. TAL is more of an audio documentary rather than a program with a host that rambles on speaking upon a topic or topics

Sometimes the host of a typical show may have a co-host that talks among each other on the topic(s) in general. Once in a while, they may have a guest that is an “expert” on a topic or theory. Sometimes it would be the host and the guest(s) speaking for whatever length of time it would take to get their points across. It would be as little as five to ten minutes, Sometimes they could speak for an hour. Maybe even longer.

Podcasts, getting its name from the Apple iPod, a device that can play back and even record audio sounds and played back through an earphone device attached, gave birth to these type of programs that can be heard by anyone at any time.

Most podcasts are pre recorded, although a few “live” versions exist out there where people can even call in to make comments about the topics spoken about. This is how a traditional radio talk show was conducted. But for the most part, podcasts are transcribed. If one wanted to comment about what was being said, one had to do so via a text generation. (E-mail, phone texts, “tweets”, etc.)

But that is the general order of podcasts. This leads up to our involvement to creating a podcast. The question is, when will Accessibly Live Off Line product its first podcast?

That answer is, when we feel the notion to present a podcast. We can program a podcast, but it would be hosted by this writer reading off a column that would be limited to print, or text in this case.

That type of program would be limited in scope, and it would be just another “rip and read” show. Of course, I, as the host, would elaborate on the topics involved but that would consist of another podcast, one of many (and we really mean “many”) podcasts floating out there in cyberspace.

That is one of the double sword reasons on why people produce podcasts. The good notion about it is, anyone can do this. The bad notion is, anyone can do it.

If one uses their favorite search engine asking “How to produce a podcast”, one will receive dozens upon dozens of answers on how to perform this task. Some will give one details on how to set up a “studio” to produce a podcast that is easy to listen to sound quality wise. Others will give directions of what to speak about and how to speak, such as avoiding such speech patterns as not speaking clearly and to avoid a load of unnecessary pauses or too many “uhhhs”, “hmmms”, and “aaashs” that people say when they are talking, not knowing that they are fumbling through their words and phrases.

Producing a podcast is a whole lot easier than creating content for a personal channel via YouTube and there are no visuals to deal with. And podcasts can bring the same impact to getting one’s name out there, even if the said person isn’t looking for fame. All they wish to do is to contribute their notions to the world in general, even if that “world” consists of a few people in a small physical space.

However, when (or if) we ever produce a podcast, you can bet that we will report it within these very pages, just like we have been doing for the past twenty seven years (and counting!) So until then, I’ll just think about inventing a catch phrase to state to make my radio personality known in the same vain that the late “Real” Don Steele used to say after each of his on-air DJ shifts when he was active in radio in Los Angeles back in the 1960’s through the 90’s reminding his listeners that Tina Degato is alive!

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Adapting books and related written material as the basis for a feature film has been around since movie making began. But one inquiry remains. How faithful is the “movie version” to the book in question? In other words, is the movie just like the book’s story and vice versa?

Author Kristen Lopez who has been writing articles and essays on movies as well as for popular culture has brought this notion into focus in But Have You Read The Book? 52 Literary Gens That Inspired Our Favorite Films (Running Press), an edition that takes an example of the title number of books that range from the classics from Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, and Little Woman, 20th century best sellers as In Cold Blood, The Godfather, and Jaws, lesser known titles as The Devil In A Blue Dress, Fight Club, and The Hunger Games, as well as a selection of books that many movie fans may not have know of an existence of a “book version” firsthand. (Clueless, using its basis from Jane Austin’s Emma, If Beale Street Could Talk, Crazy Rich Asians, etc.).

For each entry, Kristen reviels the inside scoop to what its original authors wrote and how the screenwriters in Hollywood (or writing on behalf of “Hollywood”) did their things to adapt the title for the big (and little) screen, making slight alterations to the plot, characters, and situations on hand, to creating a nearly new work that leaves its original source almost “in-title-only” from its orgins of source.

Kristen also goes deep into each original book title and gives the origin on how the story was first composed for the page, such as the back story reason for Mario Puzo writing The Godfather (he needed the money to pay off gambling debts), and how such terms as “Mafia” “Costa Nostra”, and even “”Mob”/”The Mob” are never mentioned by name in the film itself! The reason for that because Paramount Pictures didn’t want to hold any conflict with the Italian American Civil Rights League that was headed up by Joseph Colombo of the Colombo crime family. (It’s also assumed that leaving out those offensive names would avoid the notion of the possibility of somebody getting “whacked”!!)

When it comes to titles that were made into features a number of times, such as The Great Gatsby or Little Woman, only the most recent film version is deceased in this book. (For The Great Gatsby, the 2013 release is noted here, and the 2019 version for Little Women is only mentioned.) Perhaps the reason for these mentions compared to its earlier film versions is that these later adaptations brought these book titles up to contemporary times, considering that both Little Woman, and The Great Gatsby are in the public domain. (Gatsby fell as a PD title in 2023, around the same time that A. A. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh fell out of copyright, although this latter series is more associated through a re-imaging by way of The Walt Disney Company.)

And in moviedom fashion, Kristen warns the readers of her book with a spoiler alert, meaning that many plot points and issues with both the book version and its film counterpart will be relieved. If you want to know what happens in the book and/or film on your own, then skip the chapters related to the title(s) of choosing. You have been warned!

For those that desire to know how much the book was changed under Hollywood’s standards, or to see if a “re-imagined” version of a book could ever pan out, then But Have You Read The Book is your companion to discover one element toward the other. Or to sum this all up as this reviewer once saw in artist and writer David Berg’s The Lighter Side of Movies that once appeared in an issue of the long-running satirical magazine Mad, as a couple was exiting a movie theater, one turns toward the other in disappointment and says. “How do you like that? It was exactly like the book!”

But Have You Read The Book? 52 Literary Gens That Inspired Our Favorite Films is available at all leading booksellers, both in person and online.

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ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE

is a presentation of Linear Cycle Productions

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