Tag: william shunn

New Reality Break Episode is Live

After a long drought, a new episode of Reality Break Podcast has been posted, this one with science fiction author and memoirist William Shunn. He was game enough to do this interview long before the series was going again and this conversation has sat in the can for a very long time. As he returns to podcasting his memoir The Accidental Terrorist, this interview gets a new shot at relevance.

I’ve been a fan of William Shunn’s writing for approaching two decades now, and really enjoyed the original podcast version of his memoir. Check out the interview and let me know what you think.

More Macropayments

Here’s another example of the macropayment stuff I’ve been talking about for the last few days. John Klima is editor of Electric Velocipede, which I have never read but I know of because he has published William Shunn and I heard about it on his podcast. Now (via SF Scope) I found out about this offer of lifetime “benefactor” subscriptions. $20 normally gets you a four issue subscription to Electric Velocipede, but $150 gets you a lifetime subscription.

To sweeten the pot above the normal lifetime subscription offer – which is generally a wager being placed on longevity – he’s including copies of everything he has previous published (and still in stock, of course, because he can’t give you what he doesn’t have.) This actually reduces the threshold a lot, because without it you are betting on whether there will be 30 more issues of the magazine. If yes, you come out ahead. If no, you are behind. Now, you need there to be approximately 15 more issues but even so you get a care package of stuff right out of the gate. As I understand it, even better is that you are not subscribing to Electric Velocipede per se but John Klima, so any magazines or anthologies he edits, you will get a copy. That seems like a good deal to me.

This is another example of the principle of giving those who will support your projects and pay money an opportunity to pay more all at once for more stuff. Another macropayment in the wild. Thanks, John Klima, for helping make my point for me.

EGC Clambake for September 1, 2007 – “Third Anniversary Non-Celebration”

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for September 1, 2007.

I play some more submitted music from Rob Szabo; I talk briefly about the third anniversary of this podcast and why the celebration is low key; I propose “Slusher’s Law of Podcasting” which posits that the value of a discussion (to me, at least) goes down with the number of participants; I talk about data gardening in AmigoFish; I mention the Girl Meets Girl podcast and the Shunncast as shows with date references about publish dates that go right past me; I discuss the controversy with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and their scribd.com takedown notices and point out that where once I jonesed to join that organization nowadays even if I qualified I wouldn’t bother joining; I play a related song by Beatnik Turtle and

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To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5.

Links mentioned in this episode:



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Around the Podosphere

Here’s some stuff I have recently heard and liked in the podcast world.

I cite Gerry Spence frequently, and mention his book How to Argue & Win Every Time in the podcast a lot. Recently I heard him talk about his new book Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power: The Rise and Risks of the New Conservative Hate Culture on the Authors on Tour podcast. It was a very good talk, and he said a lot of the things I wish I was hearing from progressive politicians about how the concentration of broadcasting media power in a few hands undermines democracy. He mentioned how he can’t get on TV for this book and is worried his message won’t get out, but sir I heard you without any intervention of major media. If I start feeling my oats, I might even see if I can get him for an interview. I do recommend this episode.

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Irrational Public Radio is downright hilarious. I’m a little surprised it has been going on for so long without me ever hearing about it. It rings so true with me because it completely reinforces the things that have been bugging me about NPR lately. I’ve been meaning to write a post about it but I haven’t gotten around to it. If you listen to these shows, a lot of what I meant to say is captured in this pitch perfect parody.

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My friend Chris mentioned in comments to a post here that the April episode of WREK’s Eyedrum Sunday Special was especially good. I listened to it today and agree with him. There is a chunk in there of live Peter Brötzmann that sounded fantastic to me. It put me in mind of Bitches Brew/Agharta era Miles Davis, with that African influenced screaming jazz with a funky underlayer. It did indeed rock.

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William Shunn is about to wrap up his serialized podcast of his memoir The Accidental Terrorist. I’ve been waiting for the book for 10 years, since he mentioned it on GEnie long ago. I highly recommend that people go back, grab all 40 or so episodes of the show and listen to the whole thing. It took me (and him!) a year to get through it, but you can do it in a week now. I guarantee it will be worth your time or triple your money back.