VABook 2007: The Trials of Lenny Bruce

I recorded several events at the Virginia Festival of the Book, including this event on Lenny Bruce. This was held at the City Council chambers. There was no tech on duty, so I plugged into their board and ran sound. Most people who set up sound in public events don't pay attention to how the audio sounds in headphones. They only care about how it sounds in the front of the house. So, I would say the sound quality on this is better than most podcasts of panel discussions.

Anyway, this entry is really a test of the Odeo player. Odeo isn't really alive. The management is waiting to sell it to a buyer, but no one really sees much value in it. And this is a shame, because there's a lot of stuff on here, and Odeo is a good way to browse through things. It's also an easy way to get an embeddable player.

But no one uses it! I think this is because there really isn't that much demand for audio-only presentations. Audio got skipped over by video, which currently is what most people want to do when they've decided to spend their leisure time at a computer.

Most press these days seems to be down on podcasting. I'm kind of down on it myself, too, because there is only a small market in the US for intelligent radio.

At least, that's how it is at the moment. A major obstacle for podcasters is creating the habit. Shorter pieces tend to do better. The Live Arts spots do well,because people are notified of them via the organization's e-mail list.

I've temporarily suspended the news headlines podcast I was doing, mostly because it took up way too much time. I've been overworked of late, and I needed to make some space for some other things.

I've also been recording fewer pieces. I just don't have the time anymore. There's definitely a lull in interest at the moment, though we just posted our 1,000th podcast. I am committed to continuing building the site, but I also am going to need to recruit new volunteers and podcast partners.

The world has changed a lot since Lenny Bruce died. This sentence does not necessarily have anything to do with the rest of this comment, but I felt it was important to bring it back to the title.