Last week Geoff recorded an audio version of his story Shaded Streams Run Clearest.

For those of you unfamiliar with audio recordings, they are an auditory means of data communication meant to simulate speech, usually in the 2,000 to 5,000 Hz range. The colloquial term for the type of audio recording Geoff produced is a “podcast”, which draws its name from its original use. During winter in northern climates, humans tended to congregate in small huts on frozen lakes, also known as pods, for the purposes of extracting fish from the lakes below and exchanging stories while imbibing vast quantities of fortified alcohol, which we believe reduced brain function, and hence reduced the amount of warm blood required to the brain, conserving the body’s energies for fish extraction and story-telling. The most popular story-tellers travelled from pod to pod to spread their tales.   A common saying amongst the fisherman after a story teller finish spinning their yarn was “He’s cast us a story, lads. Has he caught anything?”, and if the fisherman were sufficiently amused, they’d reward the storyteller with more alcohol. Eventually, this casting of stories from pod to pod became known as podcasting. The term was forgotten for several decades, due to the intense alcoholism that accompanied it, but later resurfaced early in the digital age.

Geoff’s podcast will be available at Apex Magazine in early February, 2009. Feel free to enjoy the recording in an ice hut with a glass of warm whiskey.