I love the specificity you use in describing the package, and the way those details contribute to the package’s overall sense of its purpose–quite lyrical really. Interestingly, before I read your evaluation, I interpreted this podcast much more darkly, hearing in the description of galaxies and rocket launchers, the makings of an IED. I must admit the orthopedic shoes threw me off, but still, in this day an age, a terrorist might dress like an elderly person or, who knows, might even be an elderly person (Gray Panthers unite!). Having read your eval, I now see that you’re describing the making of the package //around// the soccer ball rather than within–no bomb here. The dual possibilities are compelling though.

In terms of constraints, I might be able to hear “To begin with they never got along” as figuratively interpreted in the voice-over about packages–she does sound a bit stern, but then that doesn’t quite match with what you intended for the identity conflict being located within the package. Also, if I take your rhythmic noise to be the feet walking, then you’ve got some of your sounds out of order. Luckily, the sounds of the subway have a rhythmic sound to them, so you met that constraint in spite of yourself!

You’ve articulated well the overall effectiveness of your podcast: the technology of communication failing in its very purpose, the price (perhaps) that we pay when we substitute technology as a tool for the thing itself. I found it interesting the way you conceived of this in terms of gender as well.

You’re certainly right about the music helping you show rather than tell. In fact, if you were to return to this podcast, you might rethink the ending, find some way to edit the music so that it’s not a fadeout (or have your buddies make the song to order). Because I had come to trust the music as an emotional cue, I was startled that the actual narrative was suddenly over.

I love the way you began the podcast–the play in the language (double meaning of “bound,” cheerfulness of “the disease of the athlete”) and the crisis of the story against the sweet, innocence of the music (I’m reminded of an infant’s mobile for some reason). And throughout, you did a great job of editing the //Balloonists// song. It wasn’t a random track added for additional sound; it really does contribute to the story. Your incorporation of the other required sounds was very well done, too–the right sound levels, the right pauses and fadeouts.

Very expressively read–somewhere between a teacher reading to his third graders and spoken word performance.

Don’t hear this as a critique, but your podcast makes me think of a trailer for either the trilogy itself or the movie (makes me wonder if Tolkien needed so many words–but now I’m treading on the territory of a fan…). To ensure that I mean this as anything but a critique, one of the things I like about your podcast is the use of language. You really have condensed the plot, which might strip the story of its conflict and interest, but your attention to sound and repetition stylistically make the summary itself interesting.

The only thing that really stood out to me was the first constraint, using “To begin with…” It feels tacked on at the beginning there. You might have considered a way to interpret it metaphorically or with sound so that you could make it cohere better with the rest of the piece.

Really strong evaluation–I appreciate the reference back to the Oulipo reading at the beginning (”the origin of language might be traced back to a man who had a stomachache and wanted to express that fact… //Of course he didn’t succeed in expressing this; never could succeed; nobody will ever succeed”) as well as your final insight that technology (at least in this case) may add layers of texture and meaning to language but it can’t necessarily overcome the limitations of language altogether.

In some ways your podcast is deceptive (in a good way). The sing-song of your voice and the simple actions of the story make it sound like a children’s story, but then there’s that gun–rude awakening right there at the end. I didn’t catch the reference to our political leaders until I read your evaluation–that certainly adds a layer of humor to the whole thing.

In terms of your sounds, you might consider letting the movie times play a bit on their own to establish what’s going on, then maybe bring the volume down a bit more behind your story. The heartbeat is well placed and does indicate that something’s beginning to shift in the drama of the story. The gun shot certainly works as an exclamation. Silly Dick.

Sorry about your frustration with Audacity. It’s interesting to note in the context of having read Moran that my main reason for using Audacity is that it’s free and therefore available to everyone.

Even though you are unsatisfied with the final product, there are things to be proud of here–the turn, as you note in your eval, of the conversation about others to the revelation that it’s about oneself; the fact that you’ve created a traditional story (beginning, middle, end or climax to crisis to resolution) in 2 1/2 minutes; the unsettled, unfinished quality of the conversation represented by the interruption of the cab’s horn.

Funny how, even though you didn’t not record yourself, your “voice” is all over this. It was interesting to learn that it was autobiographically rooted though that is not all that I mean by your “voice.” I mean, too, your concerns and even your syntax. Very close to who you are in class. A creative nonfiction, then.

I love that you took up the idea of re-mediating one of the pieces submitted to the contest. I’d wondered where you’d found “Boris.”

I really appreciate the humor of this piece. I don’t know if you know German at all–mine is limited–but if I remember correctly “Kuchen” is cake. The fact that all Boris wants to communicate is his love and desire for cake while the female character wants to discuss their relationship, cracks me up.

I also noted the increasingly complexity in sound as the argument heats up. I thought this culminated well in the break down of Boris’s voice at the end. The kitchen timer there is also funny; it replaces the clock ticking at the beginning and of course could be a reference to the cake which has now finished baking. At least, that’s what I like to imagine.

It’s always interesting to play with the divided self since it’s rare that any of us finally feel unified. Interesting too that the place you feel most yourself is foreign, away from home, different.

I think it’s fine that you chose to create your story first and then go in search of sounds, but I think it shows in some sense, too. The sounds, while clearly related to the story, feel “tacked on,” working primarily as illustration, not contributing overall to the mood of the podcast. That said, my favorite sound was the Hallelujah exclamation. Nice humor there.

I began making mental notes on your podcast before I read your eval, and so I can tell you that, in fact, you were very successful at what you set out to do. My very first note was how great a job you do making use of the intimacy of the podcast. The tone of the narrator invites the listener to consider herself a close, personal friend or someone who knows the family well. Smart choice, then, to take out the voice of the “friend” you had in mind.

At the same time, you’ve done an excellent job with counterpoint here. The background running life of our brother and sister-in-law feels available to just me, the listener. It’s like I’m in on a secret not available to the narrator, but one that justifies all of the narrator’s observation. So it makes me trust her even more–a reliable narrator then.

Fine work!

Reading your eval, I’m not sure my comments will speak to your intentions or not. But I suppose we don’t live in a day and age where authorial intention matters. Or maybe it never did. And why should it? So…

If I was to describe the style, I’d say, Anime (only better–you know, I haven’t been converted yet) meets Anders Nilsen. Large, cosmic, mythic forces (big, big, big) that I want to hold in the palm of my hand and mend. I’m thinking of Scooter here. What I see in Nilsen’s illustrations, I hear in Scooter’s situation and in his voice. A cool blending of the large with the intimate.

I also really appreciated the mash up of nature and technology: the rural setting, the moons of Scooter, even Battle Robot (bearing the masculinity of the military-industrial complex) carries within him the force of nature.

My very favorite line: clicked and whirred into punctuation.

And: are you saying agency is a constraint or agency is constrained or agency is only a constraint when it’s been constrained? I might be missing your point altogether (thus the question), but can agency really be opposed to constraints? Aren’t we locked into a Foucauldian nightmare if, in fact, agency isn’t that which operates within and by doing so resists constraints?

It’s going to be hard to be a human, let alone an artist, if limitations aren’t fields for some kind of freedom, contingent though it may be.