An entry about two Ps; Paris and Podfic

[castalie]

I feel all mellow tonight *stretches lazily* After work Cookie and I met a couple of friends for drinks in St Michel before we walked around and made some nice discoveries: we introduced Frédéric to Shakespeare & Co and actually discovered - and fell in love with - their Reading Room. I have no idea how that's possible but until tonight I'd never gone upstairs, it boggles the mind! It's gorgeous and old and there are mismatched furniture and nooks and ratty sofas and leather armchairs. There's a tiny area with an old typewriter - you know one of those old ones - for whoever wants to use it and type a little note. Said note can then be pinned to a wall dedicated to notes and posters and whatnot. It creates such a wonderful atmosphere! You can go up there to have a quiet chat with friends (or strangers, mind!) or read a book or just rest - a guy was actually napping in one of the little rooms lol. If you ever visit Paris and the St Michel neighbourhood, you really have to make a little detour to Shakespeare & Co, it's a must-see for book-lovers, imho. We also discovered Tea Caddy, a salon de thé where they serve - among other things, obviously - homemade scones & clotted cream!! If that sounds mundane to you, then you're lucky lol I can't wait to go there and taste them! We also wanted to show Fred the St Julien le Pauvre church - I guess we were in a Highlander mood ;-) - but there was a Chopin concert so we couldn't get in. Next time!

Then our friends left and Cookie and I had diner in a very tiny but lovely little Mexican restaurant. All in all, a great evening was had :-) Technically I haven't finished my work week since I'll be proctoring an exam tomorrow and I'll have to go to work in the morning but I'm relaxing tonight.

I'm relaxing by watching Raw on the telly and doing something I've never done before, ie download a podfic in a fandom I've never read a single fic in, from a show I've only watched a couple episodes. But the reader, 2naonh3_cl2, is one whose work I love (especially her AI podfics) and I'm more than willing to listen to never-read-before fic from a new-really-watched show just to listen to her read to me. That's how much I enjoy her work! [In case you're wondering, I did leave her a feedback before writing this entry ;-)]

Comments

[greedy_dancer]

I hope we get to taste those scones soon!

Re:podfic and summaries... Okay, I just went back and checked, and it seems the great majority of the time I did write something, either copy-pasting the author's summary for the fic, or the first line of the fic, so that potential listeners can get an idea of which fic it is. However, for Nightswimming for example I didn't put a summary in my post. Several reasons: 1) the author didn't provide one and I wouldn't want to/ be able to write one myself, and the first sentence was not really informative, 2) I assumed everyone who wanted to DL knew what fic it was and 3) I did provide the link to the original text, so if there are people out there who want to DL but don't know the fic, they can check it out.

So these are my reasons for not doing it, even though most of the time I do it, and I will definitely try and do it all the time in the future! It just doesn't really occur to me that there could be people who download my stuff even when they don't know the fandom/fic, just because they like me, but who knows... It could happen! :D

[castalie.livejournal.com]

You and me both! Je pense que le 27 semblait convenir à tout le monde...

If there are people out there able to recognise the fic the podfic comes from thanks for the first line, then I'm impressed! I know I wouldn't; basically it would be like having no summary, I think. For me, copy/pasting the author's summary is really the way to go because most of the time, the summary is really the only thing that would help me recognise the fic.

It's also something I regret in the Audio Archive, for instance; there are no summaries at all. It might be that it makes things too complicated or too difficult for the archivist, though, which I understand. But I do regret it when I go through the archive by fandoms and see all those podfics that - for the most part - don't mean anything to me.

Like you said, I can just click on the link to the text - which is what I do with the podfics that don't have a summary included in the template - to see what the fic is about, but that additional click is a bit of a hassle when you have dozen of links and it'd be swell if I could identify things at one glance. Again, I don't know how the archive works so the reason might be technical as well as practical. It also might be just a personal choice too, after all.

Anyway, I wish all podficcers just added the author's summary in the template, is all. This is my one entitlement issue with podfic, I think.

[greedy_dancer]

Haha, I totally get it! My only problem with your "entitlement issue" is: sometimes the AUTHORS don't provide summaries!! What are we supposed to do then? lol

[castalie.livejournal.com]

Well I want to say, that's not really tye point, dude. If the author doesn't prove a summary then there is no summary to "recognise", anyway. I'm not talking about what isn't there in the first place but those summaries that "disappear" in archives or masterlists. I wouldn't make you make a up a summary, promise ;-)

[turps33.livejournal.com]

The Reading Room sounds amazing, the typewriter especially. I love when things like that are provided.

Glad you're feeling better <3

[castalie.livejournal.com]

It is amazing! And even more amazing is that I had no idea about its existence before last Friday!

I'm glad too, thanks :-)