Hat Audio: Barchester Towers

Not caring to be outdone by "Language Hat: the Movie", I wondered which Hatticker personae would be suited to read which roles in the audiobook of a novel or play. (Unfortunately, the film will be delayed because the casting studios had to be shut down by the riot police.)

I first tried casting for several novels at once, so that as many people as possible would get a slot. But I quickly ran out of diplomatic choices for "problematic" characters, since there are too many agreeable Hattickers.

Also, I was annoyed to find there's no way around Noetica for the really heavy roles, some of which I would have liked for myself. For instance Lady Bracknell. But few Americans are seriously up to that mark of verbal delivery, certainly not me. Mr. N., being commonwealthy, has a more precise sense of the required intonation patterns, I don't doubt.

So I restricted myself to Barchester Towers, which I think turned out plausible enough if you remember the characters. Still, I couldn't find anyone for poor old Dr. Proudie.

Mrs. Proudie____________Noetica
Dr. Proudie_____________A. N. Other
Mr. Slope_______________Grumbly

Mr. Harding_____________Crown
His daughter Eleanor______Codfish
Archdeacon Grantly_______Hat
His wife Susan___________marie-lucie
John Bold_______________jamessal

Mr. Popular Sentiment______Nijma
Mr. Pessimist Anticant______John Emerson
The Jupiter_______________David Marjanovic

Noetica is assumed capable of masterful intonation, Grumbly definitely can muster smoldering resentment. Crown is fair to a fault, like Mr. Harding. Hat occasionally politicks to set things straight, while m-l calmly and reasonably subdues the storms of opinion. jamessal is a bit hot-headed, but gets the girl Eleanor in the end. Nijma is against Too Much Information, while John reviles fatuousness. David's views often seem to be set in booming type.

One special effects, hold the plot

My mother passed through Germany once, on her way to join an excursion of American bible-folk to Holy-Land places. I went down to Munich to meet her, and we drove on to Vienna (can't remember why). The sky was overcast after heavy rain, until suddenly a gigantic hole opened in the clouds and 11,000 Hester Prynne units of light streamed downwards - much as in Mab's picture, but on a larger scale.

My mother was, of course, overcome with quiet excitement. She said: "that's what it will be like at the Second Coming of Christ". I too thought it a fantastic sight, but this remark of hers spoiled it for me. I think I said to her something like: "oh you should go to the movies more, that kind of thing is old hat" - trying to spoil it for her too.

Back in Cologne, I considered what a sarky, blasé bastard I had been to say that - no matter that I dislike the woman for her fanatic and surreptitiously manipulative brand of Christianity. Let Christ come in all His glory for all I care. I merely need to proceed as Ralf does with MacDonald's hamburgers - first he removes the pickles.

Neighborhood life

I like living in deceptively empty neighborhoods, where you can enjoy peace and quiet but there is a lot of action nearby if you feel like truckin'. Just as your body is covered with bacteria and viruses that you don't normally need to bother with, the immediate vicinity of zero is teeming with infinitesimally small (non-standard) numbers. Non-well-founded sets lurk at the city limits of well-founded ones. What's so interesting about going to Mars, with all that at hand?

[This is not crazy-talk, just a flowery arrangement of mathematical stuff about which I actually know much less than I would like.]