Tales from the Potts House: William Hope Hodgson

Captain Dan Danblasten

2009-10-04T22:27:00.007-04:00

This is a bit of an oddball story for Hodgson, and not one of his more famous works. It's a romance. Sort of. It involves a pirate, a buried treasure, and a long-lost love -- and some gutter French (apologies in advance for my atrocious pronunciation) and a few dirty jokes. It's a long story, and not his best, but I really love the character he created in this one.

The text I'm using comes from the long-awaited fifth volume of The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson. This story has also appeared in a slightly different version elsewhere in the series.

I wanted to record a short story now, although I'm planning some longer works, because I'm trying out a new microphone. It's an Electro-Harmonix EH-R1 ribbon mic, which is really a rebranded Oktava ML-52, a Russian-made ribbon mic. I am new to ribbon mics, but I was just not satisfied with the sound I was getting out of my Neumann BCM-705. It was too "spitty," too unforgiving of little bits of sibilance and mouth and lip noise. So, I sold it on eBay, and bought this one.

So far, I'm liking the way this ribbon mic works on my voice and in my recording space, which is untreated, in the same room as my computer. It's a darker microphone, with a lot of bass response, which helps my somewhat nasal voice, and seems less sensitive to proximity and direction than the dynamic mics. The raw recording seems to need a lot less compression and EQ.

This may not be my ultimate vocal mic, but I think I'm on the right track. I am hoping to buy myself an Oktava ML-53, modified by Michael Joly of OktavaMod, maybe for Christmas. I 'd like to save up for an AEA ribbon microphone preamp, and while there isn't a whole lot of acoustic treatment I can do in this cluttered corner of my upstairs office, I could at least get some foam up on the wall behind the mic, and maybe a foam barrier to cut down some sound from my computer's fan.

There is one more new piece of technology I'm using -- after the new mic hits my Apogee Ensemble, and gets 60 dB of gain, it is getting fed into the RX Denoiser plug-in, and then to the brand-new Alloy plug-in from Izotope. I just bought it today. It is set up with the "Upfront and Crisp" vocal preset, with a few tweaks. Consider this mention to be a plug for the Izotope plug-ins in general, and Alloy in particular -- I'm just getting started with it, but I'm pleased so far.

Then on the ouput, I'm adding a little bit of room reverb from the Ozone plug-in, and that's about it.

I'd be happy go hear any feedback. Just please don't criticize my French -- I KNOW, I KNOW! It's even worse than gutter French spoken by a drunken Irish pirate.

MP3 File

The House on the Borderland Underway

2008-10-15T12:36:00.005-04:00

I've begun recording the Hodgson novel The House on the Borderland. That will be the next project, and I'll serialize it by chapter. It will take me a while to complete this one -- sorry, I don't have an ETA, especially since things are going to be unpredictable with the new baby. My goal is to get enough quiet time to finish recording the text of the book before the baby arrives. Quiet time will then likely be very scarce, but I'll do my best.

New Podcast

2008-10-15T12:22:00.003-04:00

I have a second podcast and a blog tracking it here. This is more of a personal project. I have a few ideas for episodes, but the general format is going to be whatever pops into my head, so I'm calling it the Potts House General Purpose Podcast.

I'm expecting that "whatever pops into my head" might include field recordings, original ambient music, movie or book reviews, interviews, and rants about this and/or that. Enjoy in moderation!

The End of Summer

2008-09-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

We just got back from a family vacation in Grand Marais, Michigan, on Lake Superior.

I made a video -- my first -- using Apple iMove, and uploaded it to a brand-spanking-new YouTube account. The video is our family vacation, in the form of a music video for Jonathan Coulton's song "Summer's Over" (Thing a Week #51).

Here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVuCYOYYKM

I also recorded several hours worth of water, wind, and people sounds. I took my Sony digital recorder to various spots along the Lake Superior shore at Grand Marais, and also recorded at Munising Falls and upper and lower Tahquamenon Falls. I've got a lot of water sounds, wind sounds, footfalls, boats, boardwalks, and stairs. Some of this material will eventually make it into podcasts. In particular, the Hodgson novel The House on the Borderland features a waterfall, and I'm planning to make it sound as cool as possible!

There are also lots of other Hodgson stories set on ships, and Lake Superior will just have to serve as a stand-in for the Sargasso Sea.

I don't have a timeline yet for starting (or finishing) The House on the Borderland, but I am hoping to record more stories very soon.

The Voice in the Night

2008-08-10T10:46:00.001-04:00

It has been almost two years since I last released a podcast. It has been a difficult couple of years; last summer at this time I was in Pittsburgh, and then Erie, to visit my dying mother. We are having another baby in October, so it may be difficult to do any recording for a while, depending on what kind of a sleeper he or she is. I am hoping to get at least a few more stories and perhaps one of the novels completed by then.

Anyway, into the night once again I cast a pod. This may be Hodgson's single best-known short story; it has been adapted for film twice, and the idea has been borrowed numerous times. I find the text to be quite interesting. The narrator appeals to God and gives thanks to God on numerous occasions, but he is undergoing a horrible transformation and dying -- not entirely unlike dying of cancer. it speaks to me of the Book of Job, and also hints that Hodgson's relationship to Christianity was probably not a simple, cut-and-dried one.

I made a few very small edits to the text. Since I represent the "voice" as a modulated voice, with audio special effects, and switch back and forth between the narrative voice and the voice of the mysterious visitor at sea, I have cut out two or three instances of phrases like "the voice continued" and "the voice went on." When listening, there is no need to be reminded who is speaking.

If you are subscribed to the podcast, via iTunes or some other tool, you should be able to receive it now. The listing has not yet appeared in the podcast's page in the iTunes store. I have sent a ping to the server and I'm told it should be there within 24 hours.

I am personally very pleased with the improvements I was able to make in audio quality. I'd welcome any feedback.

MP3 file

Sleep is for those who are not Podcasters

2008-08-08T14:14:00.003-04:00

It was getting light by the time I finished my first round of work on "The Voice in the Night." Most of that was setup and experimentation work, though, trying to find a vocal effect that I like for "the voice." The vocal take is 50% edited, the project is configured the way I like it, and the rest will go faster. Then I'm on to experimenting with the environmental sounds, mix-down, and mastering settings.

The rough plan is to do a few short stories, just to get the hang of everything again, and then pick a sound setup that I like and use it to tackle a novel. The stories are generally short enough to record in one session, before my voice starts to give out. The problem with a novel is that it will require numerous installments and numerous nights of recording, and I want them all to sound the same. No one likes to go back and re-do completed work, so it's important to try to get it right up front!

The Updated Studio

2008-08-08T13:12:00.003-04:00

The following is really only for recording geeks; read on if you'd like to know what I'm using to put together my latest podcasts. This is really a bit premature since I'm writing this before releasing any of the new audio, but it will be a good incentive for me to hurry up and get something done.

My current apartment studio setup now starts with a Neumann BCM 705. Choice of microphone is highly individual -- a mic that makes one person's voice sound good may emphasize the flaws in someone else's voice. I'm pretty satisified with the way this mic makes my voice sound. My voice is a little nasal and thin -- I've got an extremely deviated septum, which tends to make me tend towards mouth breathing, and if I avoid mouth breathing, my nose is a little "whistley." (Is that too much information?) Not all the time, but you can hear it, and some microphones emphasize breath noise worse than others. This one seems to be fairly resistant to breath noise, and also to pops, to the point where I didn't feel the need to set up a separate pop filter.

This is Neumann's only dynamic microphone and one of only a couple broadcast-style microphones designed to hang from a boom. As such it might seem like a slightly controversial choice -- why not use a BCM 104, a condenser mic? The 705 was also quite a bit less expensive, which is certainly a consideration. Price was not the only consideration -- I did not want to buy a mic made in China. The 705 is made in Germany.

Also, given that the background noise level in my office/studio is not all it could be, I thought that a dynamic microphone might exhibit a little bit less sensitivity to background noise. So far that seems to be true. It might be interesting to do an A/B comparison with the BCM 104, and to try out some other microphones favored by podcasters, but for now I'd buy the mic again. The hanging broadcast-style design makes it much easier to use for reading.

OK, enough about the microphone. The stand is an unexciting cheap boom stand, not really a spring-loaded broadcast-style stand, but good enough for now. From there the mic goes into an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble is probably the item that has the most overall effect on the quality of the recorded vocal track. There are much cheaper audio interfaces and mic preamps, and of course much more expensive ones as well. I chose the Ensemble because I've become very sensitive to noisy mic preamps. It has a lot of headroom and a very neutral-sounding noise floor. I also have been gravitating towards doing all the vocal processing -- compression, etc. -- in software, so rather than set up a typical hardware channel strip I decided to spring for as clean and straightforward an input path as I could manage. The benefit there is that you can change your mind: you can just change some software settings if you decide you want more compression, or less, or sibilance removal, or not. As long as the original signal is clean with a reasonable gain level and some headroom available you have a lot of choices. Recording the effected signal tends to limit what you can choose to do with it afterwards.

I've had an occasional technical glitch with the Ensemble, but for the most part it seems quite easy to use. I'm currently monitoring the signal in headphones on the way back out of the computer, which means I'm hearing it out of phase with my voice, but you kind of get used to that; the latency is certainly far better than it was with my USB recording solutions. I'm only really listening for words that sound unclear, pops, excess breath noise, or anything else that would make me record a second take; I'll listen to it in much more detail later.

Anyway, the Apogee is connected to a Mac Pro. The computer is tricked out with 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM. This is not strictly necessary for Logic; I could get by with a fraction of that. The memory is really there for doing photo work using Aperture and Photoshop, especially for slides and detailed restoration. But it doesn't hurt -- Apple Logic is very responsive on this machine and I can stack up plug-ins and tracks.

Next time, more about the plug-ins and the challenge of creating vocal effects for horror and science fiction -- they must sound strange, not too terribly cheesy, and also be completely intelligible and not fatiguing to listen to!

Back from the Dead

2008-08-08T12:25:00.002-04:00

The next Hodgson podcast will be a one-part short story, "The Voice in the Night." This will be the first podcast recorded with my new home studio setup. I am still getting the hang of the new gear and software, but so far I'm extremely pleased with the results -- I'm no longer having to work around audio glitches, and the editing and mixing process is now much faster.

Look for it within the next week or so. I will announce it here, and it will be available through my podcast in the usual ways, including the iTunes store, for free, under an updated Creative Commons license.

Cross-Blog Information and Introductions

2008-07-22T10:29:00.003-04:00

In order to try to avoid boring people with material they aren't interested in, I have divided my writing up into five separate blogs. The downside to this is that I have a tendency to wander from one area of interest to another over the course of a typical year, so it may look like I've dropped off the face of the earth. In case anyone is interested in following what is going on in one of my other blogs, I thought it might be useful to post this road map once in a while.

Geek Like Me Too is my general-purpose personal blog. The most recent postings are about a Jonathan Coulton concert in Pontiac that I attended and recorded. I have provided recordings of the show as a set of MP3 files, of interest to geeks who like music.

Geek Like Me is its predecessor, done in Blosxom, now still up only for archival purposes.

Geek Versus Guitar is about guitar playing. Recently I've recorded a few Jonathan Coulton songs myself. It will also be about learning to produce songs with my home studio.

Praise, Curse, and Recurse is about programming topics, mostly Haskell, Python, and Scheme. My free time has been devoted to other things but I will no doubt be back around to programming before too long.

The Marcella Armstrong Memorial Collection is about my family history, and the big task of scanning, restoring, preserving, and archiving family photos and documents. Of interest to any family members, but also of possible interest to people doing their own similar projects.

Tales from the Potts House: William Hope Hodgson contains information about the "Hodgecast" podcast available on iTunes, in which I record classic William Hope Hodgson novels and stories. I have more podcasts planned in both this series and possibly others in the near future.

Anyway, there it is... please join me on any of these blogs that might catch your interest. I always have far too many projects going at once!

Deaths in the Family

2007-10-16T11:57:00.000-04:00

Work on all the podcasts have been delayed. There were two deaths in the family in August: my mother, and Grace's father. Between time spent traveling, time spent dealing with estate issues, and just plain mourning, there was just no time or energy left to work on anything else.

I hope to be able to put some more effort into the podcast projects this coming winter. Thanks to everyone who has listened to my work!

A Dream of X

2007-07-10T08:55:00.000-04:00

I received a copy of the 1977 American hardcover edition of The Dream of X. Wow, is this ever a gorgeous book! It took me a while to get it -- it went missing in the mail for seven weeks. After seven weeks, it was finally returned to the seller as "undeliverable" for no good reason; the address was correct, and we get lots of books delivered! But the seller shipped it out again, this time to my work address, sent priority mail with delivery confirmation, and I've finally got it in my hot little hands.

I had previously taken a stab at recording a couple of chapters from Hodgson's The Night Land, but was daunted at the prospect of recording the entire novel -- at 200,000 words, it does not lend itself well to an unabridged reading. I have long thought that an abridged, "best of" The Night Land would go over very well -- either that, or a true radio play adaptation, which I'm not quite prepared to produce at present.

Anyway, The Dream of X is, in fact, 20,000 word abridged edition of The Night Land, boiled down to that length by Hodgson himself. So this is going to be my next podcast project. It is short enough that I ought to be able to complete the reading of the text itself in only a handful of late-night reading sessions -- not the dozen it took me to complete The Boats of the "Glen Carrig." Then I can focus on post-production.

I don't know exactly what all I am going to do with it, or how many episodes it will turn into, but this time I'll be using my own original music. I've been playing guitar a lot lately, and taking lessons again, for the first time in about 24 years. I've got enough years of playing, and enough technique, that I ought to be doing something with it. I also happen to have on hand an original Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer, purchased via eBay. I've got a pile of odd effects including a vocorder and a ring modulator. I have a Digitech RP-350 with USB out. It would be nice to have a better microphone, a better audio interface, and better software, but I have to admit that I actually have everything I need to do some very interesting audio production. I should stop wishing that I had something just a little better and get on with it!

The hard part will be actually achieving a quiet recording. It's July and our apartment building is hot and humid, even at night. The AC unit is in my office, and would be unearably loud on a recording. But turning it off will make it unbearably warm in the office. Even if I turn mine off, the adjacent units have theirs running, and my microphone picks them up very clearly. I could come in to my office to record, but the AC there also comes on irregularly, it is loud, and I can't shut it off. I might have to arrange some late night recording sessions in the basement with a laptop.

Updates as the project progresses! We'll set the estimated completion date -- I will release this project in time for my 40th birthday, on September 26, 2007.

Collected Fiction Volume 5 Delayed; Anniversary of the Glen Carrig

2007-02-06T12:36:00.000-05:00

Amazon is reporting that Volume 5 of the Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson is delayed yet again. Amazon now predicts delivery in early April. The Night Shade Books web site still says "to be published in 2006." (For very large values of 2006, I suppose). It can't come soon enough for me. I am eagerly looking forward to reading The Dream of X!

2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Boats of the Glen Carrig. Or, if you follow the book's internal chronology, the 250th anniversary. After recording the whole novel for the podcast, I can almost recite the subtitle from memory:

"Being an account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John Winterstraw, Gent., to his Son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript."

Expanding the Wikipedia Entries

2006-09-15T15:20:00.000-04:00

I received a copy of Out of the Storm, but the paperback edition I purchased does not have the Moskovitz introduction! So I've ordered another copy, this time of the original hardcover edition. When I receive it, perhaps I can expand the biographical information on Hodgson contained in the Wikipedia entry.

Meanwhile, I have been gradually adding more material about Hodgson's works, in particular his miscellaneous short stories (those not featuring a recurring character). I wrote entries for "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani" and also for "The Derelict." I was working my way through the Carnacki stories from 427 Cheye Walk, but Isaac said they were giving him nightmares, so we set aside that series. Instead I'm working on the miscellaneous stories in volume 2 of the Collected Fiction. I have read these once, but some did not stick in my mind very much (in fact, not all of them are terribly good). So far, these are "The Goddess of Death," "Terror of the Water Tank," and "Bullion."

As I go, I'm compiling a list of motifs that seem to commonly pop up in Hodgson's stories. Here are a few of the motifs I've catalogued: a secret passage; strangulation; knockout gas; events that appear to be supernatural but really aren't; an ancient idol; a faint sound of mysterious origin; a tendency for things to happen in threes. There are some less savory motifs such as Anglocentrism and outright racism as well. I'm naming these motifs and eventually will probably compile some kind of concordance of them. What is the point? Well, it provides a bit of insight into Hodgson's process. In his novel The Night Land he went whole-hog into his own vision and style, but when he started writing short stories for magazine publication he seemed, at least initially, to write in very formulaic ways, although his later stories became much more fluid and daring.

The process has gone approximately like this: first, read one of the stories aloud as a bedtime story to my family. We discuss it, and talk about vocabulary, structure, and motifs, and what is good or bad about the story. I may take some quick notes. The next day, if I get time, or maybe the day after that, I write the summary, then perhaps revise it later. It's a slow process, but I'm in no great hurry.

It has occurred to me that I could just record the bedtime story readings and then add Creative Commons music. This might work if it were just Grace and Isaac listening, but unfortunately Veronica tends to talk over a lot of the story, and if I had a microphone set up she would want to play with it. But I will figure out another way to bring some of these stories alive as podcasts in the near future.

Hodgson on Wikipedia, Hodgson on My Shelf

2006-09-08T16:16:00.000-04:00

I have been expanding the Hodgson-related entries on Wikipedia. I've written the entries for Captain Gault, Captain Jat, and D.C.O. Cargunka, and added story summaries for most of the Carnacki stories.

I've recently purchased a couple of books of Hodgson fan fiction:

427 Cheyne Walk: Carnacki: The Untold Stories contains a dozen more stories about Carnacki. I've read the first two stories to my family as bedtime stories, and added information about the book and summaries of the first two stories to the Carnacki page on Wikipedia as well. So far, I'm moderately impressed; the first two stories are variations on themes explored by Hodgson, but they are very well-done, fleshing out the "Moving Fur" (or "Noving Fur") and "Black Veil" cases that Hodgson alludes to. The stories have not really blown me away yet, but there are ten more to go. If the collection is organized as it should be, things ought to get much more interesting very soon.

William Hope Hodgson's Night Lands: Eternal Love is a collection of stories set in the Night Land universe. I have not started reading this collection properly yet, but just picked at it. I am especially looking forward to John C. Wright's story "Awake in the Night." I am a fan of Wright's work after reading The Golden Age trilogy; I am actually re-reading it this month.

Now is a good time to be a Hodgson fan. If you tried to track down all of Hodgson's fiction a few years ago, before the publication of The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson from Night Shade Books, you probably had a very hard time: much of it had not been reprinted for decades, some was uncollected since its original magazine publication, and you would have had to purchase a lot of rare and expensive editions to find everything.

The situation with Hodgson's poetry is not so good, though. There is a new book, The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson, edited by Jane Frank, which brings together three books of poetry as Hodgson originally arranged them, but although it includes 43 previously unpublished poems, it is not complete; it contains some, but not all, of the poems that were printed in the two collections published by Hodgson's widow, long out of print and now scarce. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to buy a copy of The Calling of the Sea, which collects those two collections, from 1977. That book is also out of print and expensive, although almost an order of magnitude less so than the original collections. It isn't quite clear to me whether the combination of those two books will actually net me all of Hodgson's poems, although I think I can figure that out very soon when I sift through some more bibliographies.

Hodgson's poetry does not have a great reputation. I agree with the general consensus that much of it is not very good, and especially, not very original. It's hard to write a good poem, and easy to write something which reads just like a bad version of something you just read by another writer. However, last night I read aloud three poems, all from "Spume," the third collection Hodgson organized, and all printed in The Lost Poetry. I was favorably impressed, and I'd like to promote more interest in Hodgson's poetry.

I'm bummed by the idea that works written a hundred years ago may still be under copyright, which means I may not be able to freely use them in my podcast. I have "contact Jane Frank" on my list of things to do, to see if I might be able to secure her permission to record some of the poems from The Lost Poetry.

I also bought a copy of The Wandering Soul: Glimpses of Life, which is a collection of papers from the Sam Moskowitz collection edited by Jane Frank. It is great stuff: photographs, a ship's log, non-fiction articles, Hodgson's promotional materials for his body-building business, etc. I am hoping to use it to flesh out the Wikipedia biography a bit. Biographical material by Hodgson is a bit hard to come by. I have ordered a copy of the collection Out of the Storm, edited by Moskowitz, because it contains a 100-page biographical essay about Hodgson. Apparently there are two more, written for the collections The Haunted "Pampero" and Terrors of the Sea. I may have to buy those, too.

It sounds like there is a need for two more books to accompany The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson. One is a collection of all his poems, and one is a collection of all the biographical materials that can be found, written by Moskovitz and others, perhaps along with some criticism. Is there a market for such a thing? The permissions would probably be much harder to manage than the actual editing!

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" is Complete

2006-08-19T19:27:00.002-04:00

All 17 chapters have been uploaded. Not counting the project introduction, the chapter files run for about seven hours. Wow! I can't quite believe it is finished.

If you are interested in the novel itself, I have written a longish essay on The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" for Wikipedia; see the Wikipedia article here. Wikipedia now also has the glossary I was working on earlier; there is a link to it on the main page for the novel. There are some more words I need to add to that glossary when I get around to it.

I am generally quite satisfied with the result, although there are things I would have done differently.

While I've used hardware compressors before, this was my first time using a software compressor. I got a little bit better as I went on, but there is still no doubt room for improvement in my compression settings.

I am aware of the occasional "glitches" (crackles, like static) in the voice recording. The inexpensive USB headset microphone I used for the project was not my first choice; I purchased it out of desperation after I was unable get rid of "glitch" problems affecting my more expensive, higher-quality USB microphone. I had already switched computers, versions of MacOS X, recording software, hard drives, cables, and everything else I could think of. For a while it seemed like the headset did not exhibit the "glitching" problem, but then it began to show up, and got worse as I continued to record.

This is a hobby project, and I was rapidly becoming fed up. I've been a software engineering professional for for almost 20 years, and yet couldn't make a relatively simple voice recording without technical problems. I nearly dropped the project until such time as I could purchase all-new hardware, but that might not have been feasible for a year or more.

Instead I made a conscious effort to let go of my usual technical perfectionism and use the setup I had, defective though it was. This meant using a very time-consuming editing process, re-recording the worst of the "glitched" words and phrases and paragraphs, some of which wound up with "glitches" of their own. Some of them I left alone, realizing that trying to re-record portions of the text and edit them in often produced a very discontinous-sounding recording. When that happened the cure was worse than the disease.

I am working on a more reliable recording setup for the next project; the USB microphone went in for repair and the manufacturer sent back a brand new one, one that (so far) does not seem to exhibit the data loss problem. I have made some test recordings and if it works reliably I will use it for my next project. A reliable setup would allow me to focus much more attention on my reading, which could only improve things.

I would welcome any comments on this production. I am also considering what piece of Hodgson's work to adapt next, and how best to do it. I'm considering lots of possibilities ranging from radio drama to live ambient music and vocal performance. Get in touch if you are interested! "Boats" will be 100 years old next year (or 250 years, if you take as fact that the "Glen Carrig" sank in 1757!) and it seems like I should do something to celebrate the novel's centennial.

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 17: How We Came to Our Own Country

2006-08-19T18:50:00.001-04:00

The good ship Seabird is repaired, and all aboard her long to see England once agan. A vicious fight with the weed men claims one final victim before the ship is finally free of the Land of Lonesomeness. The friendships forged in that strange land will not be quickly forgotten.

The music is by Samsa, from the album The Laurentian Divide, the tracks "Make Me Know" and "Glow, Sparkle, Dust," and by PHOLDE, from the album In Favor of More Permanent Pleasures, the track "The Apex Towards the Observer." These works are available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 16: Freed

2006-08-19T18:47:00.001-04:00

Aboard the ship, the men use long reeds from the island to help push the weed aside, and as the line is tightened the ship inches ever closer to the island. Our narrator and Mistress Madison find that they are in love, and at last the ship pulls itself free of the weed and into open water!

The music is by Adaptcore, from the album Sunset After Wind, the track "Dark Path from Rays in Water," and by Formication, from the album Pieces for a Condemned Piano, the tracks "On the Dying Pathway" and "The Final Stage of Trauma." These works are available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 15: Aboard the Hulk

2006-08-19T18:46:00.001-04:00

The narrator rides aross the rope to the vessel in the weed. There he meets the dead Captain's wife and young niece, Mary Madison. But the rope line is already beginning to show signs of fraying, and so it is too risky for the narrator to return to the island. Can the hulk pull itself free from the weed before the rope breaks?

The music is by Samsa, from the album Sounds Good on Paper, the tracks "Plate Walk Away," "Unused Vessels," "Dead Telephones," "Quantum Foam," and "Ubligum Day." These works are available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 14: In Communication

2006-08-19T18:44:00.001-04:00

Another sailor is presumed lost after the tragic weed-man attack, and Job's grave has been plundered. The giant crossbow has failed to fire a line across to the trapped ship, but as luck would have it, one of the sailors is an expert in kite-making! Soon a heavy line connects the ship in the weed and the island. The ship begins to draw the line taught. But will it be strong enough?

The music is by Caul, from the album Apophasis, the title track. This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 13: The Weed Men

2006-08-19T18:42:00.002-04:00

The survivors' worst fears are realized when in the moonless darkness their camp is attacked by vile and terrifying creatures. It seems that only fire can deter these evil beasts, but the men are rapidly running out of fuel!

The music is by Slutmachine, from the album Inching Glaciers, the title track, and by PHOLDE, from the album In Favor of More Permanent Pleasures, the track "To Curse While Calling a Deity to Witness." These works are available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 12: The Making of the Great Bow

2006-08-19T18:39:00.001-04:00

The survivors work to construct a giant crossbow in order to fire a line across from the island to the ship. But the island is unquiet in the night! Uncanny things are moving about in the valley, and in the waters between the island and the mysterious continent of weed.

The music is by Formication, from the album Pieces for a Condemned Piano, the track "Exit." This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 11: The Signals from the Ship

2006-08-06T21:23:00.001-04:00

The bo'sun continues work on the ship while keeping one eye on the ship in the weed. When the people on board the ship discover that there are people on the island, there is much rejoicing. But neither group can reach the other, and the men scratch their heads until the narrator proposes to bridge the gap with a cord shot from a giant bow.

The music is by Exit, from the album Sleep, the tracks "Sleep Part One" and "Sleep Part Two." This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 10: The Light in the Weed

2006-08-06T20:11:00.001-04:00

The men bury the young seaman, Job. As they climb to the highest point of the island, they are relieved to discover a source of fresh water. The bo'sun orders the men to move the camp to more defensible high ground, while he continues his work on the boat. The men work diligently, and aside from a fight with a giant crab, the afternoon passes uneventfully. The narrator feels gloomy as he goes to sleep, but wakes to find that there is a light visible aboard the derelict vessel, trapped in the weed only half a mile from the island!

The music is by Samsa, from the album A Forest Without Trees, the tracks "Belief Revision," "Journey Beyond," "Centering Prayer," and "Evening Meditation." This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 9: What Happened in the Dusk

2006-08-06T19:40:00.001-04:00

While the survivors work on the boat, Job is taken from the tent. Following the the slime trails of strange creatures, the men find Job's still-warm body in the valley, drained of blood. In their rage they set fire to the giant toadstools in the valley, which burn all through the night.

The music is by Mystified, from the albums Ophir and These Fragments. The tracks used are: from the album Ophir, the tracks "Constant" and "NV"; from the album These Fragments, the track "Vacuum Grains." This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 8: The Noises in the Valley

2006-08-06T19:39:00.001-04:00

The survivors try to care for injured seaman Job, who remains unconscious. The bo'sun starts repair work on the boat, and the other men establish camp. But while he sleeps, the the narrator is attacked by a slimy, tentacled beast, and as the men run out of fuel for the watch-fires, they wonder what strange things slither in the dark.

The music is by Mystified, the title track from the album These Fragments. This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 7: The Island in the Weed

2006-08-06T19:38:00.001-04:00

At last the survivors discover an island in the weed, and all go ashore to explore, except Job, who is left to look after the boat. But this island refuge may not be the place of safety that they long for -- Job is injured as a giant devil-fish attacks the boat, damaging it.

The music is by Mystified from the albums Ophir and These Framents (tracks: from Ophir: "Wind Hands Edit"; from These Fragments: "The Wind Was Heavy Seetyca Anemra Remix"). This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

Interlude: the Words of the "Glen Carrig"

2006-07-26T14:19:00.000-04:00

NOTE: I have adapted the following notes into a much longer essay on Wikipedia; see the Wikipedia article here.

The novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" starts in the middle. We know almost nothing about what happened to the "good ship" Glen Carrig. The subtitle mentions that it sank after striking a rock. We know nothing about the fate of the captain or how many people were lost. The lifeboats have no names. The title and subtitle seem to indicate that the boats are the subjects of the novel, although this conceit is not continued in the text.

There is a narrator. We are not told his name in the text, althouth the subtitle indicates the story is told by "John Winterstraw, Gent." The "Gent." is a hint about the narrator -- he is a man of status. There is a subtle class consciousness that plays itself out in the text, showing up especially in the end of the story, which I won't give away just yet.

His son, James Winterstraw, presumably doesn't get to use the title "Gent.," at least not yet, although in what may be the only deliberate humor in the book, he does give himself a little praise for writing down his father's story "very properly and legibly!"

Interestingly, the narrator is not really the hero of the story -- that honor goes to the bo'sun, who frequently behaves heroically, showing extremes of endurance, ingenuity, and bravery. The narrator greatly admires the bo'sun, although from a social distance. He portrays himself as more quick-witted than most of the crew, and he mentions with pride that his help is specifically requested by the bo'sun. The narrator does get some slight comeuppance, though, when his plan to use a giant bow to shoot a rope from the island to the weed-trapped brig fails [see end note 1], and another crew member comes up with the idea to use a kite instead.

The text is written, as I have mentioned before, in an archaic style. Reading the novel now, you can imagine that we are looking through a spyglass backwards through two lenses: first, it has been about 100 years since Hodgson wrote this novel. And second, Hodgson himself was writing about fictional events that he imagined had happened at least 150 years earlier.

Here are annotations for a few of the archaic terms used in The Boats of the Glen Carrig. I'm not going to go into details about the rigging of sailing ships -- that is only likely to reveal my profound ignorance on the subject, and the exact nature of different sails is not critical to understanding the story. But I think a few terms are worth discussing, and might help the reader see through that spyglass a little more clearly.

Batten: in the context of boat repair, a thin strip of wood.

Biscuit: "ship's biscuit" or "hardtack" is a dense, unleavened bread designed for long storage. They would be very dry, and probably not very easy to chew without soaking in some kind of liquid. Accounts of the flavor vary -- if you were starving to death, ship's biscuit probably tasted pretty good!

Bo'sun: slang form of "boatswain." A sailor in charge of the deck crew and lifeboats. We aren't told, but it seems likely that the captain of the Glen Carrig "went down with the ship" and thus the bo'sun is in charge of the suriving crew and passengers in the boats.

Breaker: in context, a small water cask. Finding fresh water is one of the crew's main concerns.

Brig: a two-masted sailing ship.

Bulkhead: a wall within a ship. Hodgson describes the bulkheads of the ship in the creek as having a "rubbed" appearance after the assault by the strange unnamed creature.

Colza oil: a vegetable oil pressed from a seed of the rutabaga. It is used in oil lamps and for lubricating machinery.

Cut-and-Thrust: the term refers in general to fighting with knives. I'm not entirely clear on just what kind of knife Hodgson was referring to, but it may have been a rapier, a slender sword with a sharp point. I think Hodgson gave the narrator a rapier, a fancy sword which would have required training, as one of the signs that he was of a higher social class than the sailors.

Cutlass: a short, thick sword with a sharp edge. A cutlass required little training to use effectively and, being short and heavy, could be used for fighting in confined spaces such as on board a ship.

Devil-fish: this word has been used to describe several different sea creatures, but in context it seems that Hodgson was referring to a monstrously large octopus. In several places Hodgson describes its movements as "flickering," which makes sound like it is moving with unnatural speed.

Dip: a candle. Hodgson refers to "tallow dips" made from fat.

Fathom: a unit of length, about 1.8 meters or about six feet. The term is now usually used only for water depth, but Hodgson uses it for distance as well.

Flake: In this context, an archaic term for coiling rope.

Fo'cas'le: the forecastle. The forward (Hodgson uses the slang spelling "forrard") part of the ship with the crew's quarters; on ancient vessels these resembled castles.

Frap: A "frappe" (with or without an accent on the e) is a frozen drink or milkshake. The word "frap" seems to be an archaic nautical term roughly synonymous, in this context, with "wrap." Hodgson uses this term to describe the way the strings of the stacked bows are bound together so that the bows can be fired as one.

Futtock: A curved piece of wood that forms the rib of a boat. It seems to have nothing at all to do with a futtock-shroud. It is not a naughty word.

Futtock-shroud: An iron bar used to stabilize a "top," or platform on the top of a lower mast. A "futtock-shroud" is not really a "futtock" nor is it a "shroud." Discuss. Also, a "shroud" is not a shroud, but a collection of rope lines. Confused yet?

Grain: in a list of miscellaneous items removed from the boat, Hodgson mentions "a three-pronged grain without the shaft." I was not immediately able to find a definition for "grain" that makes sense in this context, but I suspect he is referring to some kind of iron grappling hook. If you've got a better idea, please send me a note.

Gunwale: pronunced (and sometimes written) "gunnel," the top edge of the side of a boat.

Jorum: a drinking vessel, or the quantity that it contained. Hodgson uses the term to refer to a quantity of rum given to Job for medicinal purposes -- presumably a large dose.

Keel: the main structural member, running the length of the boat from bow to stern. It is very fortunate that the boat's keel is not damaged by the devil-fish attack, but only some of the boards adjacent to it.
Larboard: the port (left) side of a boat, to someone facing the front (bow).

Lazarette: This is a small compartment below the deck of a ship, used for storage. Hodgson uses this term in many of his sea stories.

Loom: part of the shaft of an oar. Job is injured while struck by the "loom" of an oar, when a devil-fish attacks the boat.

Mantilla: a light lace scarf worn over the head and shoulders. Hodgson uses this word in his dedicatory poem, "Madre Mia," as a metaphor for the effect of age on his mother's appearance.

Oakum: This is loose hemp fiber, hand-picked out of old rope (an extremely labor-intensive process). The loose fiber could then be mixed with pine tar and used as caulking, was stuffed into cracks in wooden boats with specialized tools. The work of "picking oakum" from rope was done in work-houses, prisons, and asylums.

Ordinary Seaman: a sailor with between one and two years of experience at sea. An ordinary seaman would have been expected to do a wide variety of labor-intensive jobs on board a ship.

Sea-anchor: a sea anchor does not anchor a boat to the bottom of the sea, but instead is designed to drag in the current, and helps to stabilize the boat during bad weather and keep the bow pointed into the waves, which minimizes the risk that the boat will be overturned.

Scuttle: a hatchway in the deck, side, or bottom of a ship, with a cover. Hodgson refers to the "leaf" of the scuttle (the covering).

Sennit: A form of braided cord; Hodgson describes "three-yarn sennit" made from old hemp rope found on the island.

Starboard: the right side of a boat, to someone facing the front (bow).

Step (verb): Hodgson describes the crew "stepping" the mast after the storm. This means to literally re-attach the mast, which they had removed and used along with the oars as a sea-anchor.

Stern: the rear of a boat.

Thole: an oarlock. A holder that holds an oar in place for rowing.

Thwart: a seat extending across the inside bottom of a boat. Hodgson several times describes the men as standing on a thwart: they are standing up on the seats to see clearly over the gunwales.

Tithe: in chapter 14 the narrator says that they did not "discover more than the merest tithe of the mysteries which that great continent of weed holds in its silence." Traditionally this term meant the donation of a tenth of one's income to the church; in context it means "a small fraction."

Whaleback: the term refers to a type of boat designed to shed water, but in context Hodgson seems to be referring to some kind of rib-like structure that could be raised up and covered with canvas to protect the lifeboats from rain and water.

END NOTES:

[1] The whole notion of firing a rope to a ship and rescuing people aboard by using a chair sliding along the rope may seem unrealistic, but I assure you it is quite possible. The Michigan coast guard at Sleeping Bear Point Lifesaving Station was equipped with a "Breeches Buoy," or a sliding chair, to rescue people from boats within three or four hundred yards from shore, although a "Lyle Gun" instead of a bow was used to fire a projectile carrying the first line, which was carefully pre-coiled in a basket to avoid fouling.

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 6: The Weed-Choked Sea

2006-07-24T23:43:00.001-04:00

Having escaped the great storm, the crew navigates an ocean filled with huge floating masses of seaweed, where rotting ships are trapped forever in the "cemetery of the oceans."

The music for chapter 6 is by Aidan Baker from the album 24.2.24.4, available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 5: The Great Storm

2006-07-23T20:09:00.002-04:00

The crew of the boats, having left behind the Land of Lonesomeness, encounters a storm of tremendous power.

Music for chapter 5 is by Cordell Klier, from the album Emmisary, available at darkwinter.com.

Boat sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

Storm and wind sound effects are taken from the freesound project. The individual files are attributed as follows:

1. By SpeedY (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=6479): full_thuderstorm.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17055)

2. By jakeharries (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=373): waves_cave-29-10-05_02.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=9316)

3. By medialint (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=32690): nord_analog_howling_wind_storm.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=11863)

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 4: The Two Faces

2006-07-23T11:36:00.001-04:00

The men of the Glen Carrig, lost in the Land of Lonesomeness, finally discover fresh water. But their joy is chilled as they discover the source of the weird crying sound that haunts this cursed place.

The music is by Adaptcore, from the album Sunset After Wind, the track entitled "You Still Remember." This work is available at darkwinter.com.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 3: The Thing That Made Search

2006-07-18T15:16:00.001-04:00

Aboard the derelict vessel, the survivors hunt for potable water and discover disturbing notes left by a former passenger, containing references to a mysterious, threatening creature.

Music for chapter 4 is by Cordell Klier, from the album Emissary. This work is available at darkwinter.com. I used tracks 1-3.

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

The mysterious notes found aboard the derelict vessel were read by Grace Potts.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 2: The Ship in the Creek

2006-07-18T15:14:00.001-04:00

The survivors follow the stream and come upon a derelict vessel, well-stocked with food. But why was this ship apparently abandoned in great haste, and what is the source of those mysterious sounds in the night?

The music I chose for this chapter is also from The Laurentian Divide. The tracks are called "Oru Skies" and "Leaving Trees."

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Chapter 1: The Land of Lonesomeness

2006-07-18T15:12:00.001-04:00

The survivors of the Glen Carrig paddle their lifeboats up a creek in search of fresh water, only to find a desolate land haunted by eerie sounds.

Music for chapter 1 is by Samsa, from the album The Laurentian Divide. This work is available from darkwinter.com under the same Creative Commons license as the podcast. The Samsa tracks I chose for this episode are "Glow, Sparkle, Dust," "Edge of Forever," "Leaving Trees," "From the Mountain, and "Channelate."

Sound effects are taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnesota, available at wanderingear.com.

MP3 file

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig": Introduction to the Project

2006-07-18T15:09:00.001-04:00

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" is novel of 17 chapters. It is relatively short, about 130 pages in length. It isn't Hodgson's most famous work, or his best work, but it was influential, and that influence is felt even today in the work of writers such as China Mieville. The work came out of Hodgson's experiences at sea -- he left home to become a sailor at the age of 13. This may be reflected in Hodgson's decision to begin the work with a touching poem called "Madre Mia" -- "My Mother."

Te novel uses a framing technique in which the author claims to be presenting an old manuscript that he discovered; Hodgson also uses this technique in The House on the Borderland. This allows him to use an archaic style.

The novel is in the form of an adventure and survival story, but we see Hodgson introducing a number of slightly creepy and disturbing elements. This novel can be considered a warm up or finger exercise for the author's later explorations into more overtly supernatural horror such as the Carnacki stories and his nautical ghost stories, and also his supernatural science fiction work such as The Night Land.

Parts of this work have a slow feel, like a trip paddling up a stream in a lifeboat, so rather than edit the text, I have tried to adapt my reading to the material, giving it a kind of ambient feel, and pausing here and there to let the material breathe a bit.

This book was published in 1907, and is now out of copyright. If you would like to read it, you can find the text online from multiple sources, including Project Gutenberg. If you want to read a print edition, I highly recommend picking up volume 1 of the Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson. This is part of a very nicely designed five-volume hardcover set published by Night Shade Books, and if you enjoy Hodgson I recommend the whole set. The last volume is due out this year.

I am making this work available under a Creative Commons license. The license I've chosen is Attribution/Non-Commercial/ShareAlike version 2.5 You are allowed to use and distribute this work, and also any derivative works, but you must give me credit. You can use this work and any derivative works only for non-commercial use. If you distribute a derivative work, that work must be licensed using the same Creative Commons license.

For ambience I have chosen to use Creative Commons music and background sound. I don't know for certain yet exactly what music I'll be using for each chapter, so music credits will be included with each chapter, but for the first chapter, I've chosen dark ambient work by Samsa, from the album The Laurentian Divide. This album is available for download at darkwinter.com. I've also chosen to use some water and boat sounds taken from the album Thaw -- Field Recordings from Minnsesota, available at wanderingear.com.

Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this project.

MP3 file

Starting Over

2006-07-18T15:08:00.001-04:00

I have removed all the previously available files from this podcast and I'm starting over again with a clean slate. Since then I've gotten some more suitable software tools and learned a few tricks for compressing and mastering audio. The old files don't sound very good by comparison. I may wind up re-mastering some of the older material, but meanwhile I'm starting a new project for the Hodgson novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig." Check back later, and thank you for listening!

MP3 file

The Hodgecast Blog is Open for Business

2006-07-18T02:11:00.001-04:00

I'm creating a separate blog specific to the Hodgecast. What is the Hodgecast, you ask? My podcast, hosted as part of the Potts House, consisting of readings of work by William Hope Hodgson. (It is possible, or even likely, that I will wind up producing other Potts House podcasts).

Hodgson was a writer of nautical adventure, horror, supernatural, and science fiction stories around 1910. His work is now out of copyright. He was a very prolific writer and was published in some of the highest-paying magazines of the day. Hodgson died tragically in World War 1, at a relatively young age, and is now largely unknown except among fans of early science fiction -- his single best-known work is a novella called The House on the Borderland. One of my goals in recording his work is to help revive interest in his work.

Earlier this year I read and made available a number of Hodgson's stories, including a couple of his Carnacki the Ghost Finder supernatural detective stories. However, I was not really satisified with the sound quality I was getting, so I have started over, and I'm serializing Hodgson's first novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig. (There is some debate about whether this novel was written first, but it was his first novel published).

The sound quality is still not as good as I would like it to be -- I am currently using an inexpensive Logitech USB headset -- but it is about as good as I can get it with the time and money I currently have available to put into the project. I do also have a BLUE Snowball USB microphone, but it is in for repair. When it gets back, if I can get it to yield good results, I may try using it instead. A painfully dull account of my troubles with the Snowball microphone can be found in the archives on my other weblog Geek Like Me Too.

The Boats of the Glen Carrig is a traditional survival and adventure story that is tinged with a little bit of supernatural horror. It is written in a somewhat archaic style, and the prose tends to move very slowly. There is no dialogue. To accentuate the eerie beauty of the prose I have mixed the reading with dark ambient music. The result will not be to everyone's tastes. The episodes are long, and the text is long-winded. But if you are patient, and like melancholy, creepy stories that build very gradually in dramatic tension, you should enjoy this project!