Infinite hero’s journey [408]

Greetings from the Lake District...

I’m sat at ///remaking.invisible.javelin which just so happens to be a storytelling festival. The wine is open and the sun is setting.

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#TheAction

A week of pushing pixels and snipping waveforms. But all the while I had this to look forward to. You only need one big/interesting/random/liberating or unique thing to happen to make a week, a week well lived.

I was meant to nail it on the weekend with a hot air balloon flight. But having had 12 cancellations over the last 2 years I’m starting to think hot air balloons can’t actually fly. It’s all a myth. Ballon drones are flown to coerce us into booking tickets in the hope that one day we can have a go. But we can’t, and in the end we just let them have the money. Or perhaps I’m wrong and it’s 13th time lucky.

And right now. I’m at the Stealing Thunder Festival.

If you can make it come on over during the weekend. I only know about this because Dave Thackeray asked me if it was on my radar. It is now. Dave kindly took the top photo for me.

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#ThePictures

I made an audio slideshow with my Dad…

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Been watching the Old Man with Jeff Bridges. So far so good.

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#TheWords

Personal identity and numerical identity – what we are and how we might continue to exist. You’ll need a clear head to get through this. (i.e. no wine)

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#TheSound

Of course, now it’s June, it’s AudioMo. For the whole month. This is the image that accompanied my first post.

And if you did not click on the picture, here is the audio.

So, I had a go at synthesising my voice with the website Elevenlabs. It was the first service I found and although not bad. You might agree it’s not a convincing me. But then again it fooled a few people into thinking that I was pretending to have synthesised my voice. I can safely say that it’s not me.

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There’s lots of reasons that I like the game Tears of the Kingdom but underneath all the awesome gameplay is the epic sound design.

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Should you want to hear 2.5 hours of me heavy breathing, this is a must listen podcast…

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I only have one band in my collection that fits into the genre Zamrock. That’s when western rock meets Zambian rhythm. It’s a mixtape I found in Nairobi in the 90’s. Back in 2019 I heard this documentary that for me filled in a chunk of the history of the band. It’s certainly worth your time. A wonderful document. That band is called W.I.T.C.H. meaning ‘We Intend To Cause Havoc’. They released the first ever commercial record in Zambia in 1971 and after 39 years without a new album and with only one surviving member, this week they released Zango. I managed to snag a copy from Stranger Than Paradise Records. it’s winging it’s way to me right now. I’ll let you know how it sounds.

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Looking for some new music? Or remember hearing something in the dispatch and can’t remember what it was? I spent hours updating the playlist of songs that appeared in this dispatch. I may have missed some but there are currently 114 tracks.

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#TheConsumed

During my extensive liquid based research this week I discovered a non alcoholic Leff Blond. I really liked it. I never used to understand why people would want to drink non alcoholic beer. But I can see now that there are rare times when it just makes sense. One hot day this week, after a load of heavy work, I accidentally grabbed a fake can of Punk, (Punk AF) and right there in that moment, it was perfect. I was on my third can wondering what kind of super power I had just acquired when I realised that £5 for 4 cans was not an offer. It was the price of a soft drink.

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This was dinner.

An open burrito and a silicon ‘glass’ of wine. Things taste better outdoors.

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#TheThings

I bought two sizes of this plastic box as I plan to do some audiocaching here at the festival. With two fields full of passionate storytellers I have no doubt there is some treasure out there.

The small ones (Amazon link here) are good for just the cassette but handy for lots of tech based things. The larger ones will take a cassette and the case.

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#TheThanks

Thank you to those that support this email with a subscription. (It’s $5 a month and $60/year). In the last week quite a few subscriptions expired. I hope you consider taking out a new one. If you would like a little flexibility in the fee please let me know and we can sort it out. I’ve got a lot of cool stuff in the pipes. Content mounting up that I am keen to share with you.

Or if you prefer you might like to buy me a coffee or send a tip via PayPal or Monzo. If you share the email you subscribed with I can add some supporter time manually. Either way… Thank you for reading.

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#TheWeb

• I doubt you need this low cost analog computer.

• Don’t forget to check (and contribute to) the #AudioMo tag.

• Anyone near me on the Documentally community map?

• The second Twitter exec to leave the company.

• Why is China digging a 10km hole?

• Some of my other places include Flickr, Strava, Untappd, Diaspora, Vivino, LinkedIn, YouTube, Mastodon, a ham radio newsletter called 73 from G5DOC or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire, Twitter or Bluesky.

• If you like you can buy me a coffee here or send a tip via PayPal.

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#TheEnd

Weird. I thought this would be a short one. It’s got cold really quick. I’ll be swapping sandals for boots and heading back out in a min. Have a great weekend.

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“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd

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Share.

See you out there.

Over…

No space for a funny picture down here. Just a reminder that the 25th of June is Orwell’s Birthday. See you in the graveyard for the 1984 Symposium? This will be the 17th year I think.

Oh yes, like, share and comment etc. It’s good to know you’re out there.

Almost too cold to type now. I’ve only packed a summer weight sleeping bag.