"Via a psychedelic music aficionado acquaintance - Is this something you've heard of?"

A reader [ADDED: Hazy Dave] sends me this link and says:

As an old Audible Althouse listener, I can understand the appeal of having a friendly well-modulated voice in your ears (though I usually can't get through entire an podcast and I'm too impatient to listen to books, even while driving). But I guess I listen to music for the occasional goose-bumps or “bubbles in your head” experience. Listening to a young blonde whisper in your ear seems like cheating, if not outright pr0n... I may need to try this out with earbuds later, just to see if I get weirded out, or if it just seems funny, or what. "Unsettling" seems like a reasonable starting point, even (very quietly) through tinny office computer speakers.

Wow! I watched some of those ASMR videos, then went back to some Audible Althouse  — my 2005-2006 podcast project— they're all here [ADDED: or maybe not.] It really does seem like that ASMR stuff. Truly strange from that perspective!

This reminds me a bit of Glenn Gould's "The Idea of North" and my own practice of falling asleep and sleeping playing an audiobook, a book read by a man with a gentle voice (almost always Bill Bryson, David Rakoff, or David Foster Wallace).

At the first link:

If... you’re one of the people the video was made for—one of those people who experience Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response—you’ll probably find all six minutes incredibly satisfying, the video equivalent of a really nice, mellow kind of drug that leaves no aftertaste....

ASMR is a tricky feeling to describe, and I can only talk about it secondhand. From what I understand from conversations with ASMRers, it’s a tingle in your brain, a kind of pleasurable headache that can creep down your spine....

Remember Audible Althouse?

It was a podcast... of the odd last few days on a blog called Althouse. I drifted out of podcasting, mostly because of vlogging — YouTube and Bloggingheads. And then I got tired of paying for the site I used to host the files. So you can't find the podcasts there anymore, and I'd thought they were lost, but you can still listen to them here. Or here. There were 87 episodes, recorded from 2005-2007. I've heard from a few people over the years that they liked the feeling of being on the blog when they were out walking the dog... or whatever. Well, thanks for walking with me back then.

Hey! I didn't know...

... that the old Audible Althouse podcasts were still accessible on line. Just happened to go looking after what Reader_Iam said in the Tick Flick comments. Lord knows what all is in there!

Keep reading from that second link and you'll see that Titus throws down the gauntlet about gay men in Madison, Wisconsin. And then Chip Ahoy gets going on the subject of ticks, politicks, and — why not? — dung beetles, culminating in this:

"To my friends who supported Nader in 2000: have you discerned the subtle differences between Bush and Gore yet?"

From a post by (my son) Jac that's mainly about the band Polydream -- with some nice free downloads.

The drummer, Brit, along with Jac, wrote and performed the original theme for my old podcast, which you can still listen to here. I closed down the old "Audible Althouse" podcast and stopped paying for the website, but I see the RSS feed is still around, and you can still listen. I just discovered that. Strange...

Brit was also part of one of the bands that used to play in that space I photographed in "Mysteries of the Althouse house."

Also in that band was Jacob, whose band Jac blogged about last week (as part of his "musicians I know" series).

Althouse meets Skeptoid, on the new Bloggingheads.

I love the Skeptoid podcast, and it was a big thrill to talk to Brian Dunning.

Topics:

Lost cosmonauts and shortwave-radio spies (04:01)
Why do we believe conspiracy theories? (06:13)
Debunking subliminal sexual imagery in ads (09:02)
Quack remedies’ tenacious hold on the infirm (12:48)
The real-world consequences of our irrational beliefs (10:10)
What does “Free Tibet” really mean? (04:45)

I'll have some clips in a few minutes, including the context of the "smack in the face" clip I blogged here.

ADDED: Here's the part where we talk about why people believe in conspiracies, miracles, and extra-terrestrial and supernatural beings:



(Hey, it looks like I'm wearing an earpiece!)

AND: Here's the context for my "smack in the face" line, in which I also talk about the irrational things educated, intelligent people think. (Remember my asking you for some input?)

"Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table."

"It was a not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship. It consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures in the costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which I have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. The figures were smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as is improper for the reader even to imagine."

I took a little walk today and listened to the short story "A Work of Art" -- which you can read here -- on Miette's bedtime story podcast. I was thoroughly amused by the old Chekhov story and replayed the last minute of it as I was passing by the empty gardens of University Heights.

I discovered Miette's podcast after rhhardin very aptly recommended Theodore Roethke's essay "Last Class" in a comment to the post on that NYT Magazine piece about whether it's good for a serious writer to be a creative writing professor. Rh linked to the first page of the essay (story?), and I thought it was phenomenal:

I'm tired of the I-love-me bitches always trying to keep somebody off balance; Park Avenue cuties who, denied dogs, keep wolfcubs named Errol Flynn, or bats and toads with names like Hoagy; all the cutesy, tricksy trivia and paraphernalia with which the stupid and sterile rich try to convince themselves they aren't really dead.

That's a teacher telling his students what he thinks of them!

Looking for the rest of the pages, I hit upon Miette's podcast of it. Sampling it and finding Miette's voice quite charming, I decided to take it out for a walk... over to Barrique's Wine Cave, where I didn't drink wine but had a latte and did the NY crossword in the back of the NYT Magazine.

Goodbye to podcasting.

I've gone a year without putting a podcast up over here, where I've been paying $10 a month. Every month when I see the email telling me they've billed my credit card, I've felt a little pang. Why don't I podcast? And if I don't podcast, why don't I cancel my account? For one thing, if I cancel, my 87 old podcasts will disappear. That was something of a deterrent. But I've just canceled, and the disappearance is coming, so download them while you can. I'll still have my old digital files, but they will become unavailable in a month or two — along with all the many spam comments — buy wow gold cheap wow gold buy cheap wow gold — that I haven't been bothering to delete.

I started podcasting in September 2005, and for a while, I felt that it was the coolest thing. I'd eagerly podcast twice a week, but those days are over. What happened?

1. Podcasts are not searchable. Unless you make a transcript, they seem to fall into oblivion. You can't see them.

2. YouTube! It undercut my interest in podcasting. It's free, it makes you part of a lively website, and I can embed the clips in blog posts — so it has more to do with the blog (which is the main thing for me).

3. Bloggingheads. Involvement in this project extracts a lot of my talky material. It's the same idea of taking subjects I've blogged about and expanding and digressing. And, like YouTube, it gives me the feeling of being in a lively place — and by contrast, my podcast page looked lonely and desolate.

4. I really did love the idea of developing an audio style that was eccentric and funny, but after 87 episodes, it just feels too obscure to energize me.

If you liked the podcasts, thanks for listening. You've already noticed the year's silence. This is just the announcement that I've pulled the plug.

ADDED:

1. I still like to listen to podcasts. I subscribe to rushlimbaugh.com so I can listen to the radio show in the evenings and without commercials. I go for a walk or clean the house at the same time. Useful. I'm also very fond of Skeptoid. Don't judge it by the new episode, though. That's unique... but hilarious.

2. This post made me realize how important it is to keep my blog on the free and extremely well-established Blogger. You might think it's no big deal to pay for your server, as I paid Libsyn to host my podcast. But are you thinking long term? If you stop blogging regularly, will you have to keep paying to keep your archive on line? If so, how long will you do that? Have you provided for payments to continue after you die? Or don't you care? I do!

Moxvox!

I'm moxvoxing tonight. Join us!

ADDED: Simulblogging being on the show. Currently, I'm on hold, but now I'm going on.

AND: I phased out during that long Ron Paul call.

AND: I got cut off. Trying to go back on!

NEXT DAY: Sorry for the dull simulblogging!

IN THE COMMENTS: Our regular commenter Beth objects to the line in the banner at Moxie's blog. ("An antidote to the mental illness known as 'liberalism.'") I defend Moxie on the ground that the line is meant to be humorous, and there's a lot of discussion about whether it's humorous, and Moxie comes by say that it is meant to be humorous and to coax Beth to a friendlier stance. (Is "stance" an unusable word this week?) Then Steve H. Graham drops in and says something impolite which is meant to piss off a feminist. Let's listen in to this after-midnight banter:

Steve H. Graham said...

Beth, honey, I think I know what you need. Some good hard lovin' from a meat-eating Republican he-man such as me. That is usually the problem when ladies act hysterical and/or hormonal.


Send a photo and I will decide if I can help you out.

12:08 AM

Beth said...

Meat-eating Steve,

I like my steak medium rare. But I bat for another team, so the rest of your generous offer must go unclaimed.

12:17 AM

Steve H. Graham said...

Beth, do not be so sure you are that type of girl. We thought my sister was that way, but it turned out she was merely outdoorsy.

My offer stands. And I do not mean anything crude by that.

12:41 AM

Beth said...

Steve, you may not know everything your sister gets up to outdoors.

1:21 AM

Palladian said...

Especially when sis goes camping in the Brokeback Valley, where the women go...

1:26 AM

Palladian said...

Oh, and Steve, I accept your offer of some of your raw, Republican meat. But I'm not as female as Beth, so... but who knows? You might just discover that you're more "that way" than "this way".

1:29 AM

Palladian said...

The preceding comments were meant to be humorous, by the way.

1:29 AM

"Podcasting is dead."

Says Steve H. Oh, great, so then, I can drop that nagging feeling that I owe the world the next podcast?

As a veteran of the podcasting era, I cannot believe how much more effective Youtube is. Podcasting, including Internet radio, is a complete joke. I was wrong to think it was going to take off.

I stuck a silly 38-second Marvin video up on Youtube, and today it has had 596 views, with my "SteveHGraham.com" logo displaying the whole time. I created my last Blogtalkradio podcast ten days ago, and so far it has attracted 132 measly listeners. By the time the Marv thing has been up ten days, at least 5,000 people will have seen it....

Podcasting is dead. Even interactive podcasting with callers. Case closed. End of discussion. For that matter, compared to video, blogging is dead.

True? Steve thinks podcasts draw their audiences from the podcaster's blog, but YouTube brings in new viewers, people who don't know you at all and can bring new traffic to the blog. Steve's really obsessed with traffic, there. And his videos display a pet, which is a special YouTube dynamic. It may all depend on what you're doing. I do YouTube videos just as a way of getting video for the blog, so they aren't independent of blogging, and I don't try to pull in new readers via YouTube. But maybe I should? Yet what could I do to work the YouTube dynamic that would compare to a damned talking parrot? And what's with people and animals? The fascination is bizarre.

Audible Althouse #87.

The Hillary Clinton campaign would like us not to talk about the way she looks, and Rudy Giuliani would like us not to babble about his psyche. I say no to all that. Here in America, the way we show respect is by showing disrespect. Or so I say, in this new podcast.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But the way to show respect -- and disrespect! -- is to subscribe on iTunes:

Answering your questions in vlog and podcast form.

So you saw the post last night where I invited you to ask some questions which I'd answer in vlog form. I thought I'd just dash that off to get the blogging started this morning, but now it's almost 11, and I'm putting up a 10 minute bit of what I recorded in vlog form. I'm making the whole audio into a podcast, which I'll link to in a few minutes. And I'll edit another part into a vlog. So watch for updates. and watch part 1.

Part 1: "A Little Spiritual and Physical Nourishment." I talk about: 1. The quote "Don't think so hard. Life is not that simple." 2. My religious background -- which includes a story of drinking Cointreau with a priest. 3. Why I teach a law school course on Religion and the Constitution. 4. How eating cake instead of cookies keeps you from lying. 5. Edible flowers.



Part 2: "Human Beings, Cats, and Judges." Includes material about human beings, cats, and judges.



Part 3: "Audible Althouse #86." This is the podcast, the audio version, unedited. Streamable here. On the theory that I'll keep this podcasting thing up, you can subscribe on iTunes:

ADDED: Here's the link to that "Imaginary Philosophy" story I talk about in the podcast.

Audible Althouse #85.

A new podcast... about an old tree, a fat and pompous politician, a girl who survived rabies, a record album from 40 years ago, a possibly evil artist, and succulent flowers and puffy clouds.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But all the rational people subscribe on iTunes:

Feeling theme-ish.

It feels like a theme day today. Life... death... Gore... Hillary... Something there. I feel the pull of a theme that wants to be discovered. I feel.... like podcasting!

Audible Althouse #84.

It's a podcast. Evil birds, where not to meet men, using nonfiction books to teach kids to read, Mad Magazine, finding the mummified body of the previous owner in the house you just bought... and screwing around with the theme song.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But all the rebels subscribe on iTunes:

Audible Althouse #83.

It's a podcast. I'm waiting for the Democratic candidates to start their debate. Also: migraines and a dream about a bird that hovers and dies.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But all the headachey dreamers subscribe on iTunes:

Audible Althouse #82.

It's a podcast. About Austin, Texas. Omakase. Driving 1235 miles in one day. Don Imus. Torturing a man by telling him he looks like Mr. Bean. Etc.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But all the passionate people subscribe on iTunes:

Great podcast about old commercials...

... full of cool, podcasty digressions. From Retrocrush. I'm LOL, literally, really. (And it's inspiring me to podcast again. You can lose track of what podcasting is supposed to be. This is a perfect example.)

Audible Althouse #81.

It's a podcast... about standing my ground in the blogosphere.

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But people who get it subscribe on iTunes:

Audible Althouse! It's back! It's #80.

Oh, my friends, I rediscovered the true meaning of podcasting tonight. If you're not with me on this one, you're not with me. Go away! Go away and never come back!

You don't need an iPod. You can stream it right through your computer here.

But if you're really with me, you'll subscribe on iTunes:

And stay tuned, because I've got a video clip of this recording session, which I'm going to add here.

ADDED: The video clip is coming. But I found the poem that I talk about in the podcast, the one that Jean Shepherd used to read. It's "Evolution" by Landon Smith. It begins:

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death

AND: What it looked like:

Audible Althouse #79.

It's a podcast about the odd last day on a blog called Althouse. What am I really trying to do here? What was that post today that meant so much to me... and why?

You can stream it right through your computer here.

But everyone with inner purity is rushing to subscribe on iTunes: