| (0:00) |
ShortCuts Theme Music |
[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins] |
| (00:01) |
Katherine McLeod |
Welcome to ShortCuts. On ShortCuts. We listen closely and carefully to a short ‘cut’ [scissor sound] or ‘cuts’ [scissor sound] from the archives. ShortCuts began in season one of the SpokenWeb podcast. It started out as what we called a minisode, a short episode to engage with interesting clips from the audio archives that caught my attention as a producer and curator.
But this soon evolved. Episodes became a way to really dwell in the sound, to listen again – and again – to audio clips from the archives, as a place to practice a feminist listening in the archives and think about what we are listening to, how we are listening to it, and what it feels like to listen. ShortCuts has evolved onto the page. I’ve written about the first seasons of ShortCuts as feminist placemaking through podcasting in a forthcoming chapter, co-written with Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland. Last year’s trailer ended up transforming into a short forum contribution to English Studies in Canada, published earlier this year. That piece is called “Archival Listening.”
Talking about what it feels like to listen to audio from the archives evolved into wanting to talk with other people about what it feels like to hear these sounds.
[ShortCuts theme music fades] Thus ShortCuts evolved into what was last season, ShortCuts Live! Conversations with SpokenWeb researchers about a short ‘cut’ of audio from the archives. This season, we continue ShortCuts Live and aim to be even more live and on-site than ShortCuts has ever been before. But first, I want to do what we always do to start a new season of ShortCuts, and that is to dive into its own archives of last season.
[ShortCuts theme music swells]
Because me telling you the story of ShortCuts evolving is one way of explaining what it does. But what if we ask, what does ShortCuts do in sound? In the following mix, you’ll hear the voices of Sarah Sipes, Faith Pare, Chelsea Mia, Nick Beauchesne, Ariel Kroon, and Annie Murray, along with Ella Jando-Saul from the special episode Ella made with Mathieu Aubin, Misha Solman, Sophia Magglioca, and Rowan Nancarrow. And of course, check the show notes after for the full story of all the archival sounds. [Theme music ends] |
| (02:33) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 |
…[fades in] do the same thing that I have done for the other ones that I did this week, which was – is – actually going to podcast voice to do the opening [Katherine laughs]. It feels like somehow you need headphones to go into podcast voice [Katherine laughs]. |
| (02:47) |
Ariel Kroon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 |
Yeah, put it on. It’s – part of the – part of the suit! |
| (02:49) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 |
Exactly. [Katherine laughs] |
| (02:51) |
Annie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
So what do you wanna talk about? |
| (2:53) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Well, [Katherine and Annie laugh] first, I’ll say, welcome to ShortCuts. |
| (03:00) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3 |
[ShortCuts theme music plays] Welcome to ShortCuts. Welcome to ShortCuts, this month on ShortCuts, we’re here live on Zoom with the Atwater Poetry Project curator Faith Pare. Faith joins me for this conversation…[Theme music ends] |
| (03:16) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
…We’re recording this ShortCuts Live in 4th Space at Concordia University during the SpokenWeb Sound Institute. I’m here with Sarah Cipes. Thanks so much for joining me, Sarah. |
| (03:26) |
Sarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
Thanks so much for having me. |
| (03:30) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3 |
This really is a ShortCuts Live by the fact that my three-month-old daughter is also here with me, and for long time ShortCuts listeners you’ll remember that back in season two, the voice of a poet’s young daughter has already been heard on ShortCuts. |
| (03:41) |
Annie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Katherine has just handed me a tape called “Over 60 Minutes with Luba.” Luba is on the front. It was issued by Capital Records and EMI Canada 1987. |
| (03:56) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
You’ve been immersed in the EMI Collection at University of Calgary. What are you, what are you noticing? How does this speak to you as an, as an archival object? |
| (04:05) |
Annie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Well, what’s interesting about this tape… |
| (04:07) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 |
Could you tell me and listeners what we’re listening to? |
| (04:12) |
Chelsea Miya, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 |
So we’re, that was a clip from the Voiceprint episode, “Room and a Voice of One’s Own.” |
| (04:17) |
Faith Paré, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3 |
The APP archives are interesting, I think for me as a former SpokenWeb RA, in that they’re all digital. The series started to be regularly recorded in 2010. This was also really firmly embraced by the library too, and thinking about the Atwater Library and Computer Center’s mandate… |
| (04:38) |
Ella Jando-Saul, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
[Sound effect of heart beat plays and fades] In 1985, Allan Lorde with help from a team of close friends, organized ultimatum, a literary festival that took […] |
| (04:46) |
Sophia Magglioca, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Yeah, the weird heartbeat noise is really interesting to me because I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not, and it’s doing really interesting things with the poet’s voice. |
| (04:59) |
Ariel Kroon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
That was a clip from Joanne Coombs, and she came on as a guest. Uh, she was working as an editor for academic papers. I think maybe an academic journal at the time. And so she was really talking about her practice of feminist editing at the time, and we were so fascinated by what she had to say, because it struck us as very resonant and relevant to discussions that are all around us. |
| (05:25) |
Sarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
And so bringing that into audio was a really interesting idea for me because redaction, restriction, and censorship and all of these things that have a lot of negative feelings around them for researchers can actually be turned into positive things, I think, particularly within audio, that actually allow users to listen to tapes that they might otherwise be totally barred from, and so my desire was to create sound edits that allow the listener to hear the vast majority of, of the tape… |
| (06:05) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
Mm-hmm. |
| (06:06) |
Sarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
– while also protecting the privacy of those on the tape. Or even in this case, someone who’s mentioned who’s not there. |
| (06:15) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. |
| (06:16) |
Sarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 |
But really a feminist edit could also be about amplifying voices that are not usually central to the microphone – |
| (06:30) |
Misha Solomon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.6 |
[Sound effect of heartbeat plays and ends] What I find really interesting about the mystery of the sound is that it’s a reminder of the missing information on these tapes. That these tapes are representative of performances that involved some visual aspect, and that aspect is missing entirely. And so when the sound changes, or disappears, one could imagine someone in an outrageous outfit playing a percussion instrument in the corner and producing that sound… |
| (07:00) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
… and one particular song, that that song perhaps could, you know, appear at some point, or audibly in this – |
| (07:10) |
Annie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Or a clip. |
| (07:11) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
A clip. Exactly. It would just a, just little- |
| (07:13) |
Annie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Maybe the most dramatic part. |
| (07:15) |
[Music builds to the chorus of “Everytime I See Your Picture I Cry”] |
Singer sings:
Every time I see your picture I cry
And I learn to get over you
One more time because… |
| (7:33) |
Katherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 |
Exactly. [Katherine laughs]. So, um, I think that’s, you know, a perfect note to, to end on. And I, I want to thank Annie Murray for joining me here on ShortCuts Live in 4th SPACE at Concordia University. Thank you so much, Annie. |
| (07:46) |
Katherine McLeod |
[ShortCuts music begins to play] You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. ShortCuts is released monthly as part of the SpokenWeb podcast. Feed. The SpokenWeb Podcast team is made up of supervising producer Maia Harris, sound designer, James Healy, transcriber Zoe Mix and co-host Hannah McGregor and me, Katherine McLeod. Find out more about the sounds that you heard on this month’s episode by checking the show notes or heading to spokenweb.ca and click on podcast. This episode of ShortCuts was produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. [Theme music ends] |
