Artwois Podcast #000

Speakers are:
John Nixon (thesupercargo)
Harry Arp (harrarp)
Silia Hatzi (sjhatzi)

John:
Welcome, listeners, to Salon Artwois. A new place for Artwiculati to articulate about our
favourite word game.

This is the creation of Harry Arp, Silia Hatzi and myself, John Nixon, better known on
Artwiculate.com as @harrarp, @sjhatzi and @thesupercargo respectively.

The 'Salon' we hope will get you thinking about enlightened gatherings and literary
conclaves in fine rooms with well-upholstered sofas. The 'Artwois' is the subject of our
conversations: the patois of Artwiculate.

Since we floated the idea for this podcast, we've heard many cries of encouragment, and
several people have said they might be interested to become Readers, but so far only the
three of us have submitted demo recordings.

So we thought it was time to try out a first pilot, using our demonstrations, in order for
you to hear something of what we have in mind. We hope this will encourage those of
you who are interested, but have so far hesitated, to send us a demo. We also hope
those of you who are hearing about this project now for the first time will also be inspired
to join in.

The first speaker is @Harrarp. Over to you Harry!

Harry:
Thank you, John, Supercargo, and Hello, Artwiculate friends! Good day! Bonjour!
Konnichiwa! Bom Dia! Guten Tag! Or whatever time zone your word of the day is in.

Whatever you do, don’t get the impression that this is a genuine podcast. It is merely a
tryout of what an Artwiculate - and think we should use the word with all reverence, -
what an Artwiculate podcast would be like. If there was one.

So, this is all a game of pretend. I pretend my microphone is a bit more sophisticated
than this perforated piece of laptop aluminium that I’m bending over to talk in to. And if
you all pretend you can listen past my mumbling voice and my where-on-earth-did-you-
pick-up-that accent and actually understand bits and pieces of it, we’re all set.

Later on, when the real smooth talkers take over the Artwiculate podcasts the pretence
will be over and we’ll all be in for a real treat. That is if the Artwiculati ears can handle as
much treasure as their twitter screens.

To the eyes of the Artwiculate beholders every day offers a plethora of language gems,
and every day one of those rises to the top and gets right away weighted down, not just
with a brazen crown but with oodles of congrats and whole-hearted slap-on-the-back
tweets.

I picked out some winners that caught my eye because of their brevity.
On January 30th, all congrats were for our intrepid Brazilian Artwiculati, Osmar Jardim.
He tackled the malicious word Avarice and managed to keep the golden corona out of the
greedy hands of all other Artwiculati with the winning tweet:

Avarice – In gold we trust

Short and sweet, Osmar!

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I really admire the way huge concept feet are squeezed
into tiny twitter shoes. But sometimes, less is more. Take this one from two days earlier,
by Kado56, Katherine Downey, or Katie as she likes to be called. On Festoon, the festive
word about hanging garlands.

Festoon: one way to be cheerful about your hang-ups

I guess this one too shows we don’t really have to use up all those 140 characters – or
120 or so if we don’t want to run the chance of our tweet being too long to be
retweeted…

John:
Thanks, Harry, and now, here's Silia.

Silia:
Hello to everyone listening. It is a pleasure to meet you in this cyber salon. In this
reading, I will be sharing with you a few of my favourite tweets.

The first tweet is from Jane, in Brittany, France. The word of the day was:
FRIBBLE to waste or fritter; to behave in a frivolous way. @Lagadu123 tweeted:
Fribble with my affections and I'll dabble in your destiny

The next tweet is from Savannah, in Philadelphia, USA. The word of the day was:
GALLIVANT To roam about for pleasure without any definite plan @StarOfSavannah
tweeted:
Wanderlust provokes me to gallivant/ Wanting to know the unknown/ Excitement entices
me/ Stranger in a strange land

Scottie from Philadelphia, USA. The word of the day was:

STIGMA a mark of infamy or disgrace; a scar or birthmark @jumpmonk tweeted:
Carry one stigma, you're an outcast. Two? You're a curiosity. Three? It's book deal,
media circus, and reality show, Baby!

Pallavi Swarop from Vellore, India. The word of the day was:
FESTOON a garland or chain @PallaviSwarop tweeted:
Life is all those tinee tiny moments strung together in a festoon

Paul from Howell, New Jersey, USA. The word of the day was:
INAFFABLE beyond expression in words; taboo @pn8r tweeted:
Impossible dream? Unrightable wrong? Ineffable word? Unreachable star? Never tell me
there’s something that I can’t do!

John. The word of the day was:

ACQUIESCE to rest without opposition and discontent @ZimmerJohn tweeted:
The pull is strong, the lure is great, to play this damn Artwiculate. I fight the urge, but
must confess, I always tweet and acquiesce.

Thank you for listening, everyone. I will see you at Artwiculate, tout d’tweet.
John:
Thank you, Silia. Finally, this is my recording.

Hello fellow Salon Artwois members, and hello to everyone out there whose listening! My
name is John Nixon, though you may know me better as TheSupercargo, and I’ve been
playing Artwiculate almost since it became possible in September 2009. I really enjoy the
game and like my friends here in the Salon, I get a lot of pleasure from reading many of
the Artwicutweets that I see.

One of the things that particularly impresses me is when someone manages to make up
a story that runs over several tweets. Not many people do this, but I hope to see more.
In this podcast, I’d like to share what I think was the first run-on story, and the only one
to date – I think – that stretched over several days of tweeting.

The story follows the adventures of Mr Hefelklump the toy elephant. The author was
Dawn Watson of Belfast, better known to us as Yopopodawn.

The story started on 14th October when the Word of the Day was IMBUE meaning “the act
of permeating an object with a physical quality”. Yopopodawn wrote:

Gazing at the fire, Georgie remembered mum's words. He must imbue his
care of Mr Hefelklump with love. So he kissed him, then threw him in.

Well, that seemed like the end – but no, Hef survived, to came back changed, darker. On
16th October when the WOTD was ACQUIESCE (to accept or consent after resistance)
Yopopodawn wrote:

The meeting with the other toys was to no avail. "We won't acquiesce Mr
Hef," they cried. "You're on your own." His eyes darkened. So be it.

The next day, the WOTD was FELICITOUS meaning well fitting, working out well.
Yopopodawn wrote:

When "Jump In My Car" came on the radio, it all clicked into felicitous place.
"I'm The Hef," whispered the elephant. "Women love me."

On the 18th October the WOTD was EBULLIENT (boiling, agitated, enthusiastic) and
Yopopodawn wrote:

Ebullient, he strode to the boy's room, and waited. "Mom," Georgie shouted
that night. "Mr Hefelklump's back. And he's in a leather jacket."

The following day the WOTD was REDOLENT, meaning fragrant, sweet scented, but also
suggestive, reminiscent of. I think Dawn was getting tired of Hef by now, so she wrote:

Patience redolent, Hef waited on the shelf. Georgie was 16 when he finally
pushed him off the cliff. Then he got Barbie pregnant. The End.

The End? No! Those of us following the story wrote to Yopopodawn to remonstrate. Later
on the same day followed a sequence of tweets. They don’t include the Word of the Day,
but they carry the story forward so I want to read them. They are a series of letters
exchanged between the author and her protagonist. Yopopodawn wrote:

Dear Dawn, I was very unhappy to learn of my series being cut prematurely
short today. Can we open the lines of discussion? Yours, The Hef.
 Dear Hef, Im sorry you feel this way. Unfortunately, there isn't a big market
for sociopathic stuffed elephants. Living TV? Regards, Dawn.

Dear Dawn, I beg to differ. My stories were a hit with three people. Out of
hundreds on artwiculate? I've got the XFactor. You know it. Hef.

Dear Hef, I'll do a deal. If you can write a haiku about marshmallows, I'll
continue your tale. I know it's hard to type with stumpy feet.

The challenge was made. Another Artwiculati took it upon himself to help the Hef. John
Zimmer aka Zimmerjohn wrote:

@yopopodawn Dear Dawn, herewith haiku as requested: Fluffy white

sponges - They keep sticking to my teeth - Chemical goodness. Yours, Hef.

But Dawn was not fooled, and Hef faded away – though in my research for this I
discovered he made a very brief reappearance on the 27th November when the Word of
the Day was TINTINNABULATION (a tinkling sound, as of a bell or bells). Yopopodawn
wrote:

He subconsciously rubbed his Made In Vietnam label. The staccato

tintinnabulation of the stuffed cymbal-monkey made Heff shiver.

Will the Hef return? Who can tell? But now we’re all looking out for him.

No pressure, Dawn!

Well, as you can hear we had a lot of fun making these demos, even though, technically,
they are hardly of a professional standard. After hearing our efforts, we hope you'll feel
like joining in. You've heard what we manged with very basic equipment, see if you can't
make us demo that's just as good. (Or better!)

We recommend you do this:

1. Choose a few favourite Artwicutweets - say between 6 and 12. (You may NOT choose
one of your own!)
2. Write yourself a script.
3. Record the script using the equipment you have available. The recording should be no
longer than 5 minutes!
4. Save the recording as an MP3 or WMA file and send it as an attachment to
artwicupick@thesupercargo.com
5. In the body of the e-mail, send us a copy of your script as well.
6. Tweet us to let us know your recording is coming.

If you need any help or advice, do tweet one of us.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Au revoir from Salon Artwois.