Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Aural Noir: Online Audio

David Farquhar, of the audio drama theatre troupe Voices In The Wind, describes The Pigeon Drop as a “little experimental piece” that’s “a full cast reading with music and sound effects.” Myself I think that’s just another way of saying it’s an audio drama with narration. But then I’m saying this because I don’t want to be a pigeon. As the narrator tells in the story: “At this time the pigeons were usually worried at the prospect of the money slipping away. And they were also confused by the double-talk, but were hesitant to admit it, less they appear stupid.” Don’t let David’s words fool you, this is an audio drama (with narration).

The Pigeon Drop
By Michael A. Black; Adapted by David Farquhar; Performed by a full cast
MP3 Download – Approx. 11 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Voices In The Wind
Published: September 2010
A little crime story about the oldest con.

Cast:
KEITH BURNETT: The Narrator
NOELLE DUPUIS: Laura
PAT GOUGH: Mildred
JAN HOLT: Andrea
NORM MCLEOD: Police Detective

Directed by: Pat Gough
Recording/Post Production by: David Farquhar

Check out the Wikipedia entry on the pigeon drop scam.

And, here’s basically the same scene from The Flim-Flam Man (1967):

And here’s the Jamaican Switch (a slight variation on the Pigeon Drop) from The Sting (1973):

And from Michael Shermer Learns The Art Of Con Games:

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox In his 1977 essay introduction to The Best Of Raymond Z. Gallun, entitled Raymond Z. Gallun, The Quiet Revolutionary, John J. Pierce wrote:

“[Gallun] never bothered with self-promotion. He never even tried very hard to get people to pronounce his name right (it rhymes with ‘balloon’ being an old dutch name, so don’t say ‘gallon’). He let his science fiction speak for itself.”

After trying to pronounce it myself I’m still not sure if the narrator of The Planet Strappers (by Raymond Z. Gallun), Richard Kilmer, has it right. It sounds like he pronounces Gallun, “gah-lun” and not “gah-luhn.” Or should it be “gal-uhn” or maybe “guhl-oon”? I can see why Gallun never bothered trying to clear this up. In any case, Kilmer’s reading of this 1961 novel is clean, uninflected and voluminous in volume – a solid straight reading. I’ll have to get back to you on whether this novel speaks to me.

The Planet Strappers
By Raymond Z. Gallun; Read by Richard Kilmer
16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21, 2010
The Planet Strappers started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it. They got what they wanted–a start on the road to the stars–but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!