This morning I had an exchange with a friend about my favourite Stan Rogers song, “The Lock Keeper”. Alan McLean commented that it addresses the “monk’s dilemma.” We may relate to life experience as a traveler or one who is rooted. This could apply to human relationships.
In this month’s pencast, I discuss its application to the natural history of places we inhabit.
This morning was lovely and breezy. I apologize for the wind noises, but the background sound effects are appropriate to the discussion. So bear with them. I am looking at getting a mic for the Smartpen, hopefully to reduce noise. Meanwhile, thank you for listening and letting me explore storytelling, outside my comfort zone.
If you enlarge the pencast to full screen, you will have the option of viewing it with or without preview.
Going deeper
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I appreciated this pencast a lot. (What a cool technology!) And I appreciated the subject too. The line in the song about being “tethered to the foam” is an especially high point for a man whose lyrics were fine poetry in general anyway. I don’t think I knew of the monk’s dilemma, but I get it through your explanation and the song.
The wind noise obscured a couple of your words, but I loved hearing the sounds of nature as you spoke (especially the goldfinch). I wonder if there’s a way to rig a foam windscreen around the mic of the pencast gizmo, as you’d find on a singer’s microphone on stage. That might muffle the wind yet preserve everything else. (I’m just guessing.)
That’s a good idea about the mic, Charlie. The Smartpen headset is actually a pair of earbuds with a mic, the advantage being that it moves the mic away from the page to eliminate the scratching pen sound (which was barely noticeable in this pencast because the wind was so loud). So it wouldn’t help much with atmospheric noise, but either way I’ll see whether I can rig up something with foam.
I’m glad you enjoyed revisiting Stan Rogers.