Reposting A Southern Sound

SplashCast was a cool site. They allowed folks like me to create a channel and post audio and/or video. The only thing I used it for was A Southern Sound, a documentary I produced in August 2007 for Alabama Public Radio (APR). It was the last thing I did there before moving west for seminary.

It took awhile for APR to find time to air my story, and I started to wonder if they ever would. Eventually they did, but before that I found SplashCast. I posted the audio story there and made it available on my blog.

Recently I noticed SplashCast was not showing up on my blog anymore. I went to check on it again last night and found this.

No more SplashCast. And no more documentary.

So, adios SplashCast. You were good while you lasted.

As for my documentary, here it is in three parts straight from APR.org. I called it, A Southern Sound, but APR titled it Southern Language.

PART 1 introduced a few linguistic concepts about accent and dialect (ever heard of "might could?") and introduced listeners to the people I interviewed.

PART 2 featured an interview with a linguist who wrote a dissertation that included a look at Southern dialect in books and peculiar changes made to the dialogue when Hollywood translated those books for the big screen.

PART 3 wrapped up the series by addressing the negative attitudes many people have about the Southern accent. Some Southerners themselves are not happy with the way they sound and even consider changing their accent to succeed in business or media.

Birthday blogging

Facebook is a cool tool for remembering birthdays. Today, a whole bunch of my friends wished me a happy birthday by writing on my wall. At least one even attempted to "sing" on my wall.

I spent most of my birthday working after going to class this morning. I'm not mad or sad about that, though. I guess it would be nice not to work on your birthday. Occasionally I've gotten my "holiday" off. Could have taken today off if I had budgeted my work hours better the last two weeks.

Before coming to seminary, I worked in radio. Depending on your specific job in the radio station, days off could be hard to come by. If you're a disc jockey or show host, at least in the "old" days, you pretty much had to be there unless someone worked for you.

These days it is easier since so many radio stations are automated. You can go into the studio and record your breaks for the next day. Then on your birthday, you can sleep late, relax, and even listen to yourself "hard at work" on the radio. It's one of the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too perks of the digital age.

Mmm. Speaking of cake, my all-time favorite is lemon cake with lemon icing. I've enjoyed it for as long as I can remember. Fortunately, my wife makes it for me every year. Unfortunately, my wife is not a fan of lemon cake with lemon icing. Unfortunately for her, that is. That just leaves more for me. :)

Mystery of the Mystery Books (epilogue)

We finally found a Three Investigators book! There was a copy in the collectibles section at Half-Price Books. It cost about three dollars and brought back many memories from my youth.

Various websites mention the artwork that was found on some of the early editions. The image on the front wraps all the way around the spine and to the back of the book. Apparently my book is not a first-printing, but I guess that doesn't matter so much unless you are really into collecting.

Of course, now comes the true test. I really enjoyed reading these books when I was a kid, but how interesting are they now that I'm not? If it's good, I'll be on the lookout for more.

[If this is the first Mystery of the Mystery Books post you're reading, click here to start at the beginning.]

Mystery of the Mystery Books (part 3 of 3)

For years I’ve tried to remember the name of those mystery books I used to read as a kid. Now thanks to Anything You Ever Wanted To Know, I get to ask KERA’s listeners if any of them have ever heard of the series.

A woman at the radio station answered the phone and asked for my first name and whether I was asking or answering a question. I told her my name, and then she asked me what my question was going to be. Then she put me on hold.

I wonder if they screen callers; maybe they have to. Whether or not it was for screening purposes, I’m glad she asked because it gave me a chance to practice what I was going to say before going on live.

Have you ever called a call-in radio show? This one was on a delay, so there would be no way for me to listen to the radio and ask my question. After she put me on hold, I was able to listen to the show through my phone.

Now I waited--patiently and anxiously. Since I didn’t know how many people were in line before me, I had no idea when the host was going to say, “We have Jason on the line.”

Several callers were introduced while I waited. Then, suddenly, there was a click and brief audio dropout on the phone. What was that? Oh, maybe I’m next. Yes I am!

Now instead of describing this next part, I thought it might be fun to listen to it. I hope this is okay to excerpt. If it’s not and I have to take it down, I’ll come back and rewrite the on-air conversation.

Click the video below to hear both my question and someone who called a few minutes after with a possible solution to the mystery.

Attention Facebook friends: The application that imports blogs into Facebook Notes does not import the video correctly. To see it, you should read the rest of this at my blog.

The Three Investigators. Huh? That rang no bells for me. At least I did get an answer before the show went off the air.

The Three Investigators. Hmm. Well, at least I had a name I could search.

So a little later I typed the name into Google and a Wikipedia article showed up. Now I know a lot of people think Wikipedia should be avoided at all costs, but there are smart ways to use it. More on that subject in a future post.

As I read the Wikipedia entry for The Three Investigators, nothing really started jogging my memory until I read the name of one of the characters: Jupiter Jones. Yeah, that sounds familiar.

Alfred Hitchcock was one of the characters?! Wait, that sort of sounds familiar, too. It has been more than two decades since I read these stories.

What really confirmed it for me was the description of their headquarters. It was a trailer in an old salvage yard that was practically hidden from view by all the other junk, and there were several secret entrances to it.

That’s it! Mystery solved!

After all these years, I finally know the name of the mystery series I used to read as a kid.

Turns out the books were very popular, especially in Europe. And apparently they revamped the series in 1989, but I’m more interested in the older ones I would have read at my school library.

By the way, here is one (of several) of the useful ways to use Wikipedia: Follow the links. Three of the links in The Three Investigators article were to the T3I Reader’s site, another site by Seth, a self-described Three Investigators enthusiast, and TunnelTwo.

I sent a Facebook message to my wife and shared this story with her, as well as some of the links. As I mentioned in Part 1, she is a librarian. Well, she did some searching and found a few copies in the Fort Worth Libraries. Now we just need to take a trip to the library and check them out.

[Click here for the Epilogue to the Mystery of the Mystery Books.]

Mystery of the Mystery Books (part 2 of 3)

Last Friday I was running a few errands and listening to the Dallas public radio station. On the air was Anything You Ever Wanted To Know, KERA's call-in show that features some of the most stochastic questions you’ve ever heard. Anybody can call and ask anything, and other people call and offer suggestions and answers.

That’s when the idea came to me. With more than six million people in the Metroplex alone, maybe somebody else knows about these mystery books I read when I was a kid.

So I decided to call.

However, I was driving and had trouble remembering the station’s phone number. Finally, after finishing my errands, I grabbed lunch, got stopped, caught their number, and gave them a call.

Busy signal.

By this time there were only about 20 minutes left in the show. I tried again. Busy. Could they possibly have people already lined up for the rest of the show?

So I sat there, ate my lunch, and listened to the other callers asking and answering random questions.

A few minutes later I called again.

No busy signal.

This time it started ringing...

[Click here for part 3 of the Mystery of the Mystery Books.]