Altivo's Fabulous Furry Tales podcast #5

[altivo]

<==Download podcast here.

Fourteen and a half minutes this week, about 7.1 MB download. This week's topic: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. (Just in time for the film premiere on Friday.)

<==For those brave enough to want to subscribe.

Note that the RSS/XML link has been revised since the original announcement. I wasn't happy with the one generated by Ourmedia, since it combined everything I post into a single subscription. Those of you who want Fabulous Furry Tales without adulteration will probably want to unsub and resubscribe here.

Written transcript also available upon request. (You can also download it directly in PDF format.) Hope you enjoy it. :)

P.S. After some earlier confusion, here's a bit of info for the uninitiated. You do not need an iPod in order to listen to a podcast. The 'cast is just an mp3 file and it can be played back on any device that reads mp3 files, including, most likely, the same PC you are reading this on. The XML link is used to subscribe with an RSS reader that automatically downloads each new podcast when it is released. You don't need such software in order to listen, though.

Comments

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

I am going to see the movie. I was not too familiar with the story. However, a cousin was, and I remember her recounting some of the storyline, without me picking up on the title. Ah, the '70s, need I say more? Thanks again.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Am I correct in assuming that you downloaded it directly from the link in my LJ posting? Or are you using an RSS reader?

I wondered because I'm trying to figure out the statistics I get on downloads.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

I used the link from your LJ posting.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That helps.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Another lovely Podcast.

This time I have read the book. In fact many of them. A long, long time ago.

One of the best things that probably ever happened to me, was having a grandmother that was hell bent on having me reading as soon as possible. By the time I started Kindergarten, I could read anything that was handed to me. As a result, my appetite for literature became quite voracious.

I spent a lot of time in Narnia, and regret not a moment.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Except for the violent bits, I agree that Narnia is just lovely. Of course we won't get into the question of interspecies sexuality will we? ;P

Something he never did anything with that I really wish he had pursued: In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan creates a flying horse named Fledge and tells him to "be the father of all flying horses." Wonder what happened to old Fledge. Maybe I ought to find out and write about it?

My favorite of all the books stands alone: The Horse and his Boy, of course. :)

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, A Horse and his Boy.

Have to say that was one of my favorites too. I mean...forced donkey transformation... c'mon!

I even know where my copy of that book is. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but the donkey in The Last Battle goes to heaven in the end, even though he did some pretty dumb things, impersonating Aslan and all. I think Lewis liked donkeys.

Piles And Stacks Of Comments

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Yes, I tended to love C.S. even more when finding out about him
being allowed to swim in the printed word as a child, something
my kids do simply because I do.

Boxen is one of the more hopeful things I've ever learned about,
the Lewis boys had a great sense of wonder.

I like that quote you use about Lewis saying that "now that I am
fifty I read such things [children's tales] openly".

The Wardrobe story is resonant with anyone that, as a child, every
found themselves in an old building, with that feeling of, "something
large and ancient has happened here" and trying "that door".

As for the Last Battle, even as a child and reading it I felt a bit,
cheated? Its excellent work but...well it /did/ seem a bit wrong to
wrap things up as he did in "fire and ice". Though I always like
to think (even today) that the Wood Between The Worlds has many
"worlds" still to be discovered, perhaps in other ways then rings,
though that betrays my interest in the works of Penrose and Wheeler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery/clark/wheeler.html

I also like how you point out that in Narnia a thing can be both
good and terrible at the same time. Though such things are not
uncommon around us today, electricity, democracy, or Burger King
have none of the individual personality of an Aslan.

The most blatant thing about Narnia is the idea of the Terrible
Lion himself. It would be like if I wrote a series of children
books with a Terrible Eagle as its savior character. The Lion
as England in the same way as the Bear for Russia or the Eagle
for America.

As for the Magicians Nephew, I found that book myself, smelling of
that wonderful old musk, in a stack way in the back of a musty
smelling old library as a child, a suitable place to discover such
a story of magic I think. I read it first and it still awakens in
me that sense of "there is unknown and wonderful magic here".

Your experiment sounds interesting...I say; Go For It! ^_^

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I don't understand what you mean by "The Old Fledge"?

I was a regular player on Narnia mush for about 6 years before it was shut down due to heavy politics, and we went on and on about some of the canon of the books. There are contradictions in the books, unfortunetly, and I remember one of the contradictions having to do with the Flying horses, but I don't remember the details.

(FWIW, I played a Unicorn, a Centaur, a Naiad, and an Apocalyptic Calormene Priest of Tash)

As for the interspecies bit, hey. its not Xanth. Need I say more about that... lets not. I don't remember any interspeciousness in Narnia - the Beavers fell in love with Beavers and Rats loved rats and so forth.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's some connection to (Balaam?) the talking donkey in the Bible.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I just remembered the whole "Donkeys are blessed by God" because one carried the pregnant Virgin Mary, and Donkeys were henceforth gifted with a cross upon their backs.

Donkeys henceforth viewed as a sign of humility and were ridden by priests, etc.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Thanks for promoting David Arkenstone. :) I hope he's doing ok, he's gone through a recent divorce to Diane Arkenstone, who also has several albums out.

In any case, I keep hearing Narnia being destroyed, which it was, but it was a "false Narnia", and the real Narnia is the Narnia that the Pevensies ascend into (except for Susan, for she has lost faith).

Yes, there were more worlds than Narnia, I remember one of the witches being from some world that's not Narnia and not Earth.

My recollection of the books is faulty, so the above should be verified (probably by me when I go look for my copies - and I have several, including the original ones that I read in 5th grade and have been drawn on with little childish pictures).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Balaam's ass, actually. Balaam was the owner who beat him. :) Quite possibly.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not "the" old Fledge, just old Fledge as in the familiar idiom. Old friend.

But as far as I can remember, that's the only place where a flying horse appears. If you can think of another, please let me know. :)

By the way, I'm glad to have your feedback on any of these. You're one of the better-read people I know, and I welcome anything you have to add.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, not exactly the false Narnia. It was the Narnia of our dimension, the one that the pool in the wood between the worlds leads to. The "Real" Narnia, like the "Real" England at the end of The Last Battle is a special sense of the word "real" and draws on the ideas in The Great Divorce. And those in turn come, I believe, from George Macdonald. So in that sense, the Narnia that was destroyed and the world we live in are both shadows of a greater reality we have yet to understand (if we are worthy) or something like that.

Yes, more worlds than ours and Narnia. There were many pools in the wood, some of them dried up (representing, I assume, worlds that existed no longer) and one was the place the White Witch came from. Jadis, last queen of Charn, was it? (Short for "charnel house" I bet.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to respond to the interspecies thing. You're right, of course, there is no hint of interspecies sexuality in Narnia, and of course we wouldn't expect any. My flippant comment has more to do with my own notions of what is likely to happen in at least some instances in such a world than it does with Lewis' ideas of the animals as "unfallen" races, much as he also presented the Malacandrians.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Yep, Charn. *g*

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Just listened to it (downloaded from the link on your LJ). Great stuff! And very restrained of you not to bring in Lewis's little S&M tendency.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hey, we don't do a tabloid podcast here. ;) Thanks.

[dogteam.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. :)
And thank you for emailing the previous transcript. Forgive me for failing to reply...I've been quite busy with sick dogs.
I'll download the PDF on this one.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sick dogs? Oh no. I hope it isn't anything real serious. I know how utterly distracting and distressing it can be to have a sick animal. I hope they're improving.

Seems to be a problem with your XML file

[space-wolf.livejournal.com]

This may sound funny, but Tivo cannot subscribe to your poscast.

Seriously, the latest upgrade to tthe TiVo DVR operating system lets it subscribe to podcsts and Live365 radio now - and for some reason it cannot connect to yours.

iTunes itself can subscribe to your podcast just fine, so I don't know what's wrong.

Re: Seems to be a problem with your XML file

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Certainly it's possible there's a problem, since my knowledge of XML is minimal. However, the fact that the file works in iPodder, jPodder, Thunderbird, and on everypodcast.com seems to suggest that it does meet some level of standard. My guess is that TiVo has made some assumptions about the level of the XML that may not be valid, given that there are already multiple versions of the standard.

On the other hand, if by "cannot connect" you mean that TiVo cannot even find the XML file, that surely suggests some problem with the TiVo, its DNS definitions, or its connection. The file is definitely accessible.

The correct URL is http://home.earthlink.net/~overo/rss/afft.xml

Since I have nothing to do with TiVo other than hating them for stealing my name, I don't know how else to help.

Ourmedia.org, where I upload the files, provides an alternative RSS file. I don't recommend it, because it lumps together everything I upload and not all of it is podcast. But if you want to try it, the URL is

http://www.ourmedia.org/mediarss/user/45968

Re: Seems to be a problem with your XML file

[1a.livejournal.com]

maybe TiVo doesn't like you ;-)

Re: Seems to be a problem with your XML file

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The feeling is in fact mutual. *grin*

It occurs to me that TiVo may be expecting the web server that delivers the xml file to assign it a correct mime type, and my ISP may not be doing that. The other applications may not care as long as the file has a .xml name or is syntactically acceptable.