ENEMY CAMP 2010

ENEMY CAMP 2010 is an episode of This American Life that focuses on people working behind enemy lines, or against former allies. It is very interesting. Sometimes TAL can be hit or miss, and this time, I thought Act I was definitely a hit. In their own words:

"PROLOGUE.
Behind enemy lines, sometimes people get confused about whose side they're on... and how to fight the enemy. (2 minutes)

ACT I. CONFESSION.
Patrick Wall was a special kind of monk. He was a fixer. The Catholic church sent him to problem parishes where priests had been removed because of scandal. His job was to come in, keep events from going public and smooth things over until a permanent replacement priest was found. But after four different churches in four years, after covering up for pedophiles and adulterers and liars and embezzlers he decided to make a change. Carl Marziali tells his story. (21 minutes)"

If you listen all the way through, I thought the line about how to have a very long conversation with an 8-year-old was delightful.


(From my iPod's auto-downloading podcasts)

The Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive is an audio database of different accents maintained by Steven H. Weinberger of George Mason University.

In, presumably Steven's words, this is his project in a nutshell:

"Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different English speakers."

According to my friend Justine,

"One of my actor friends showed me this website and I am now in love! It's this really awesome site that displays accents from all over the world! And every person says the exact same thing. It also tells you how long they have been speaking English, their age, male/female, and what they say is translated into IPA so you can see the sounds they use. It's just a really awesome linguistic and accent page!"

Enjoy listening and immitating, I sure did. Thanks to this website, I am just now beginning to understand what I sounded like in 3rd grade.  It's too bad I still can't immitate my parents' accents, thereby foiling all hopes for stand-up comedy. *Sigh.* 

(From my actor friend Justine, pircutre by zippercut)

Auto-Tune the News #6

Auto-Tune the News is a YouTube series that takes television news media clips and melodifies them with auto-tune. (Yes. Yes I did just verbify that noun. Agains.)

This particular episode (#6) deals with a jobs bill, Sarah Palin's resignation non-speech, and Michael Jackson's death. 

From my friend Stef:

"This reminds me of those songs you posted a while ago that used auto tune. I think these guys are pretty talented! It's interesting to see how regular speech has such musical rhythm! Check it out."

Love it. Enjoy!

Bonus: The Auto-tune entry to which Stef refers. Happens to be one of my all-time favorite links!

(From Stefanie)