Notebook - Do Not Enter While Light Is On

Notebook
Yesterday our oldest son and resident webmaster was nice enough to show me how to use the high-tech recording device he and his brother bought a couple of years ago for their music. Our first lesson was fairly productive: I learned how to turn it on. You see, there�s a button in the back, and then � well, you also need to plug a USB cable into the back of his computer, that is, if you plan on sending files elsewhere � which, incidentally, can be saved in two formats, whether or not you choose to add reverb, not that there aren�t several dozen other effects available � and then you press �utility� and turn a little knob to choose from the menu � after, of course, you have pressed certain buttons that bounce you from one menu to the next on the little screen � and then you choose �song� and wait while the machine initializes the space, after which you choose your track . . . Oh, well. I�ll have it figured out eventually. My goal, meanwhile, is simple enough: I need to read and record several of my poems in order to participate in the weekly audio portion of an online poetry project. Readings are something I�ve planned and wanted to do for a long time anyway. Not that my voice is anything wonderful � as I quickly learned yesterday. But I�m sure that can be solved be reading everything in an Irish accent, modeled, of course, on James Joyce�s inspiring rendition of Finnegans Wake. Or I might shout through a section of two-inch aluminum irrigation pipe in the hope of sounding like Walt Whitman � if that really was Walt Whitman I heard once on a website somewhere. They weren�t a hundred percent sure. But it might have been Walt, old and feeble and calling out from the brink of eternity. Fortunately, there are no deadlines involved. So while I�m learning the technology, I can also be trying out different voices and deliveries on people and making note of their reactions. In other words, I�ll approach this in the same way I approach all new challenges � by turning it into a circus. Then, once that has failed in all its varieites and dimensions, I can do what other poets do: I can simply clear my throat, press �record,� and read the poems.	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. �� Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. �� Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author�s Note Background A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let�s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts
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