Beating the cold... WITH STICKS!

I'm about done with my case of the Ick. Likewise, it's about done with me, so that works out well. And now that my voice has come back -- such as it is -- it's time to return to a little more LibriVox goodness. In this particular instance, that means reading Chapter 6 of A General Historie of the Pyrates, Vol. 1. YARR MATEY! It be a book datin' from 1724 an' be widely credited ter Daniel Defoe, though nowadays that be contested.

I was so set to read the chapters about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, but alas, somebody beat me to 'em. So I'm having to be content with Charles Vane (indirectly connected to them through "Calico Jack" Rackham, once a member of his crew).

Still trying to figure out the best way to get the best possible sound out of a game headset, a shareware recording program, and a single voice & diction class taken 20+ years ago. Like most amateurs, I have problems with plosives and sibilance, and I keep trying to minimize them by positioning the headset mic in various places. But putting the mic up above my nose where I can't accidentally breathe on it means the finished recording is really quiet, and the sound has to be boosted artificially, leaving it with some weird artifacts. (Yeah, I know, whine whine whine.) If you have any suggestions, they would be most appreciated.

Short stories

OK, peoples, once again I'm jonesing for your feedback. I am perusing numerous public-domain short stories for the purpose of recording them for LibriVox. I've already recorded one (a painfully lo-fi version of Saki's "Sredni Vashtar") and have a few others in mind (Hawthorne's "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," Willa Cather's "Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament," and O. Henry's "Springtime a la Carte"), but I'd like your thoughts about any particularly memorable short stories.

Two caveats before we begin:

1. Since all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, most texts are fair game for recording only if their original publication date was prior to 1923. (Nothing more recent than that is allowable, or I'd be on Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" so fast it'd make your head spin.)
2. Although I love numerous British short stories, I have a distinctly American accent and thus should probably focus on stories by American authors.

It doesn't matter if the story has already been recorded for LibriVox; they're OK with multiple recordings of the same text. So how about it? Any recommendations of crackin' good stories for me?

Sooz Makes Stuff. Film at 11.

When I was a little girl, my brothers and I used to drape ourselves in Mom's huge, deep-pink-and-maroon ripple afghan and wander around the house, making fearsome ghostly noises. The afghan was soft and cushy, big enough to cover a double bed (or me and my two brothers at once). Mom had made it slowly, a bit at a time, while she was in college, in the midst of a minor love affair with all things pink. When she brought it home, her mother liked the pattern so well that she, in turn, made several ripple afghans in various colors. I remember there was always a ripple afghan draped over the foot of the bed in the guest rooms at Grandma's house.

Right now I'm working on a rainbow ripple afghan. (The photo isn't quite color-accurate -- the dark stripe is actually a deep navy blue, not almost black as it appears.) It began as a sort of stash-buster project in an effort to diminish the slightly ludicrous amounts of yarn in my house. I've tried to space the rainbow repeats far enough apart that it isn't obvious I'm using slightly different colors in each repeat. (Of course, any crocheter can tell you what happens when you work on one of these use-it-up projects -- you run out of a yarn color you need well before the project is done, so then you need to buy "just one more skein" to finish it properly, and then another, and another... it never ends.)

Ripple afghans are relatively easy to make, which is good, because that's about my speed. Some day, perhaps, I'll tackle the mysterious vagaries of crochet lace, cables and stranded knitting, but for now I'm sticking to simpler projects. The only problem with making afghans is that, unless you're the Fastest Crochet Hook in the West, they take time. Quite a lot of time. To give you an idea, I started a lap-sized ripple afghan a day or two after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and by the time I had it finished, the bulk of the relief work for that disaster was over and done with. If I were wiser, I'd plan ahead like my sister-in-law; she always seems to be working on a baby afghan while watching a DVD, and she therefore always has one in readiness for a baby shower. (That girl's a pretty smart cookie.)

And now, in honor of Halloween, a slightly ghoulish little short story in the public domain (and a personal favorite): Sredni Vashtar, by H.H. Munro (aka Saki). Enjoy!