Hiring twenty-one actors to voice audiobook characters for a five-act production about this moment in history as a foil to robot narration strategies by tech-first booksellers. Auditioning is happening, so don't hesitate to connect.

• The role of Alistair is tentatively hired. [2:49 pm CST]
• The role of Archie was offered to a second actor. [4:18 pm]
• The character "Marcus" is cast. [17:33]
• "Melissa" is cast. [17:35]
• Martin is cast. [17:58]
• Madelyn is hired. [18:32]
• Maxwell is cast. [19:52]

21 April 2025

"Melissa" declines {after reviewing Act One and the contract}

• Morgan is hired. [11:14 a.m.]
• Mary. [11:17 a.m.]
• "Michelle" is offered. [11:17 a.m.]
• "Matt." [11:25 a.m.]
• "Mason" offered [11:26 a.m.]
• Two "Melissas" auditioning. [11:32]
• Mary signed.
• Offer made to "Charlotte." [11:41]
• Offer to "Anya." [11:47]
• "Matt" passes. [12:05]
• Archie replaced. [12:27]
• "Matt" and "Chris" fielded to improv scene. [12:27]
• Advance materials shared with two voice actors and an audio file approved. [13:09]
• Offer to "Ava." [15:15]
• Modern Language Association and American Studies Association in the 'hot seat.' [15:55]
• Recommended reading: Sally Barrilla's The Doctor is for sale at $4.99 or in paperback on Amazon.
• Typo corrected.
• Maxwell. [21:46]

22 April 2025

"Charlotte". [1:30]

• Offer to "Praveen." [14:33]
• Contract from "Praveen." [14:47]
• Role offered to Second City comic. [19:01]
• Understudy? [19:31]

23 April 2025

Troubleshooting onboard apps.

• Three new contracts. [8:54]
• First full act transferred from one voice artist.
• I'm laughing. #notnewsactually
• A Backstage mystery problem solved.
• Three Acts transferred.
• 1.75 acts transferred.

24 April 2025

Friday.

• Some new recordings transferred. [6:13]
• "That" is the most frequently-used non-distinctive word in Act 1-Act 5, Scene 1 — followed by "what." [13:05]
• "Michelle" is. [18:26]
• Google Play is 127 pages. [18:26]

25 April 2025

Possibly found "Chris."

• "Parvati" and "Morgan" cast.
• Audio of "Charlotte" in Acts 1-5 transferred and downloaded. [9:51]

26 April 2025

Hi "Mason."

• Meet with "Melissa" [21:52]

27 April 2025

Editing Act One is underway.

• Emailing India with a hope of sourcing their field recording of Ashtangic breathwork.
• Leigh Hunt. [12:49]
• Act One mocked-up in GarageBand thanks to "Alistair," "Ava," "Charlotte," and "Michelle." [14:29]
• "Marcus" and "Maxwell" I presume.
• ISO "Martin" and "Chris."

28 April 2025

Complete lines transferred from "Matt" and "Charlotte" {9:28}

• "Martin" signed! {3:53}
• Chris Kraus, I beseech you in the name of Katherine Mansfield and my first boyfriend Dino, the illustrator!
• Readings of the Act/Scene number will be included as a harmony in Act Two-Five. Google Play will feature a highlight reel segment at the end.
• Acts One-Five laid out.

29 April 2025

Extensions granted to "Parvati," a Minnesota/Annoyance Theatre comedian choosing between two roles, and "Archie" {17:35}

30 April 2025

Chris Kraus = McKenzie Wark

• "Archie" recorded 20 takes per scene.

1 May 2025

Thanks for alerting me to a numbering issue on Google Play!

• Thanks to everyone playing Alistair, Archie, Ava, Charlotte, Madelyn, Mary, Matt, Michelle, and Morgan for sending audio.

2 May 2025

Google Play! will have a comic book edition online and in print.

3 May 2025

"Padma [14:37–39]" and "Parag [11:38–48]" hired.

4 May 2025

Negotiating with a volunteer editor.

• Grateful for all the wonderful performances I'm experiencing thanks to contributors!

5 May 2025

An audio engineer signed my NDA. [23:54]

6 May 2025

Comicbook illustration begins.

• First task is drawing the characters.

8 May 2025

Full audio from 15/21 actors.

10 May 2025

Requested studio time from 1871.

12 May 2025

Trying to reconnect with the nicest guy I ever thought of as my boyfriend, illustrator Dino Thibault from New Zealand, for the role of "Chris."

• Server hasn't rejected my message at 9:08 and 9:10 to his address. 3/9 addresses in general pool [9:19] failed at 9:19.
• At 9:51, finding another undeliverable from general message. [9:24]
• It's 2:52 a.m. tomorrow in New Zealand.
• Buzz is on, but who's narrating? Not Bissinger!
• 

13 May 2025

"Martin" and "Prashantha," hi "Chris."

16 May 2025

The listing is expired, and "Google Play"/go(o)gel play is *this close* to full ensemble.

• 
• Zac Farley remains my best friend, though we haven't spoken audibly since December 2019. He is a video editor who loves music.
• my RMS was low

19 May 2025

Full audio from 18/21 actors.

• Requesting a local presentation of the material via a staged reading.
• 

22 May 2025

20/21

26 May 2025

• Scheduling time at Experimental Sound Station hopefully.
• Requesting budget from Field of Vision to film my short "COVID-19 Girltalk" starring Rumi Chaudhry, voice of "Praveen," et al.
• They will respond within two months. [13:46 p.m.]

29 May 2025

Recasting "Martin":

• Invited Rigo Perez to Experimental Sound Station, presuming I will get access!
• For the staged reading, lip-syncing.

30 May 2025

October release date.

• , coinciding with Halloween and Yoko Ono's "Music of the Mind" at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
• https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501717048/a-disability-of-the-soul

7 June 2025

Scheduled recording for "Martin" and narrator.

• Full-time dedicated editing can begin July 14.

9 June 2025

Two samples for ESS, creating a third as preparation for DUSK on June 28.

• to Chris S.: "My microphone stopped working and I borrowed two yesterday and those aren't picking up either." [15:12]

12 June 2025

Finalizing post-production will happen, and maybe from the Sound of Places residency in Bethlehem (September 1 to October 15).

13 June 2025

"go(0)gel play! or Google Play" will not have an AI-narrated edition. If you would like to hear an AI-narrated audiobook Мол is adorable! like that on the Google Play store.

18 June 2025

Thank you EVERYBODY, including the solar-powered Mystery Street Recording Company: all twenty-one roles, and narration, were produced.

19 June 2025

A gallery exhibition about 'goog play!'

26 June 2025

'proprietary font' > staged reading

29 June 2025

Ideally the GOOG Play media kit will be offered as a freebie at Printer's Row in September before going to Colorado Oct. 18 for the Pikes Peak Zine Fest, since there's a co-production opportunity for "Spells" at the Dairy Arts Center.

13 July 2025

Forwarded contributor agreements to Illinois Arts Council for grant request beginning September 9. Tech has not arrived.

14 July 2025

Post-production was 'always already' in earnest, though the aspiring engineer's offer to assist me with it was diverting. Unfortunately he cannot complete the project; his approach to compilation was not at the standard I was achieving but he communicated on the relevance of sound-mastering which is still being worked out.

15 July 2025

I'm relying on my own data-gathering to write blurbs for each artist and/or actor that contributed though if you have specific asks for me to reference lmk. 500 copies in 64-pages saddle-stitched from a Northbrook, Illinois, HP facility tentatively distributing 9 September 2025.

16 July 2025

Thanks for the sabbatical, I've returned in the scene files.

18 July 2025

I'm compiling.

• Today finished arranging all recordings into discrete scene files.
• AI will help cross-fade room tones.
• not yet a usable file since the timing is auto-generated, but I'm happy with how it sounds:





• testing the limits of automation:



• I synced the files with a second backup drive today.

20 July 2025

Achieving two scenes-worth of compilation a day is motivating, so I'm phoning in a meeting with the banker.

• on line but holding.
• actually given my recorded narration took latitude for devising, there aren't cues parseable by automation in the playscript.
• Google's world maps onto Simon & Schuster's international footprint.

21 July 2025

Progress.

• not at clip but quality.
• It's like one scene is a movie.
• Each scene was originally typed on a manual word-processer until I had no ribbon left.
• actI_scene-1 is past handiwork.
• Processing: Scene-1.wav Loading: input_audio/Scene-1.wav Original: 208.98s, 2ch, 44100Hz, Peak: -0.1 dBFS Applying noise gate... Applying EQ... ⚠️ Stereo audio with odd sample count 9216143 — treating as mono. Applying multiband compression... Normalizing loudness (LUFS)... ffmpeg version 7.1.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2025 the FFmpeg developers built with Apple clang version 17.0.0 (clang-1700.0.13.3) configuration: --prefix=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ffmpeg/7.1.1_3 ---shared ---pthreads ---version3 --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags='-Wl,-ld_classic' ---ffplay ---gnutls ---gpl ---libaom ---libaribb24 ---libbluray ---libdav1d ---libharfbuzz ---libjxl ---libmp3lame ---libopus ---librav1e ---librist ---librubberband ---libsnappy ---libsrt ---libssh ---libsvtav1 ---libtesseract ---libtheora ---libvidstab ---libvmaf ---libvorbis ---libvpx ---libwebp ---libx264 ---libx265 ---libxml2 ---libxvid ---lzma ---libfontconfig ---libfreetype ---frei0r ---libass ---libopencore-amrnb ---libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg ---libspeex ---libsoxr ---libzmq ---libzimg ---libjack ---indev=jack ---videotoolbox ---audiotoolbox ---neon libavutil 59. 39.100 / 59. 39.100 libavcodec 61. 19.101 / 61. 19.101 libavformat 61. 7.100 / 61. 7.100 libavdevice 61. 3.100 / 61. 3.100 libavfilter 10. 4.100 / 10. 4.100 libswscale 8. 3.100 / 8. 3.100 libswresample 5. 3.100 / 5. 3.100 libpostproc 58. 3.100 / 58. 3.100 [aist#0:0/pcm_s32le @ 0x1248071f0] Guessed Channel Layout: stereo Input #0, wav, from 'temp_in.wav': Duration: 00:01:44.49, bitrate: 2822 kb/s Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s32le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s32, 2822 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (pcm_s32le (native) -> pcm_s16le (native)) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help Output #0, wav, to 'temp_out.wav': Metadata: ISFT : Lavf61.7.100 Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 192000 Hz, stereo, s16, 6144 kb/s Metadata: encoder : Lavc61.19.101 pcm_s16le [out#0/wav @ 0x600000c78300] video:0KiB audio:78368KiB subtitle:0KiB other streams:0KiB global headers:0KiB muxing overhead: 0.000127% size= 78368KiB time=00:01:44.50 bitrate=6143.5kbits/s speed=31.3x Applying limiter... Adding subtle roomtone... Final peak: -9.7 dBFS Exported: processed_audio/Scene-1.wav Exported: processed_audio/Scene-1.mp3 Exported: processed_audio/Scene-1.ogg Waveform preview: waveform_previews/Scene-1_processed.png Processing complete! Check processed_audio for results.



• There's one version of the draft testing the auto-processing that's okay.
• I would love to incorporate music in lieu of narration/stage directions at certain moments.
• "the eye of the needle"... it's almost there (<- that line emerged in the last batch processing, reminiscent of subliminal messaging) though MATT's quiet. whether it was an automated addition is a suprising question because though the python-script was coded by a bot, it's a text file running on my hardrive...
• hopefully a2s2 with full ensemble could be assembled and likewise processed tomorrow for the total story.
• There's one version of the draft testing the auto-processing that's okay.
• I would love to incorporate music in lieu of narration/stage directions at certain moments.
• "the eye of the needle"... it's almost there (<- that line emerged in the last batch processing, reminiscent of subliminal messaging) though MATT's quiet. whether it was an automated addition is a suprising question because though the python-script was coded by a bot, it's a text file running on my hardrive...
• hopefully a2s2 with full ensemble could be assembled and likewise processed tomorrow for the total story.

22 July 2025

Found it.

• no luck with roomtone crossfades.
• zero AI processing.
• A1S2 is halfway done, with ETA by night; our timeline is set.
• (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7297331)
• keyboard glitch again.
• a1s2 is compiled, restarting.
• Two scenes complete for review on Friday with my new file drop system.
• if next week my rate is 1.5 per day, and 2/day the following week after Monday8/4 (estimate), the first draft could be reviewed from 8/12 through September.

23 July 2025

• I'm hearing some clicking during the narration, now twice and this line's not expendable.
• neither Audacity nor ChatGPT is responsive.
• I uploaded an edited version of the script to Google Play because that's the only way to extract their robot for the narration, which will replace me but not today since it'll be 24 hours or more before the live epub is on sale and eligible for automation.
• The review link I'll send individually (much) later today.
• Itch enables surveillance by Doubleclick and Google; Neocities got a Google tracker recently.

25 July 2025

• what if, in print each of the 500 'media kit' comix provides secure log-in credentials to a proprietary streaming site; for retail instead of freebie.
• electronic access to the media kit or streaming would be provided gratis to vision- and hearing-impaired communities in lieu of review copies for journalists, as typical by industry standard.
• volunteers for researching solar power?

27 July 2025

• Extracted a 'click' from Martin's "line"
• almost got the workflow together!

28 July 2025

• haven't replaced my narration, and won't

31 July 2025

Thanks to stellar труд from 21 actor-artists/artist-actors (wrt A1S3, Shazia Edgell and Suwanrie Janse van Rensburg)

• having a 'backing track' will be incidental.
• a "literary variety" revue for "experimental work that may not always be able to be preformed easily elsewhere" begins October 16.

31 July 2025

• rememberedly Gary Shteyngart wrote his first novel during a nonprofit job, four hours a day: knowing that is probably why the Random House publicity job wasn't for me.

4 August 2025

"an audio zine featuring contributions by twenty-one voiceover artists reading asynchronously (before compilation) from a shakespearan script model."

6 August 2025

Itch.io doubledquadrupled the upload capacity for this project.

• Vicky Ward calls Christopher Mason a "former Maxwell friend" (Ep. 1 41:21).
• Martin Dillon is "Robert Maxwell's biographer" (Ep. 3 50:38). Yet so is Tom Bower (54:34)?

8 August 2025

Charlotte was 2024's most popular "city-inspired baby name" with Madison ranking 6th according to my Internet provider.

10 August 2025

More clicking during my narration from the audio enginner, Act Three Scene Three ('bottom of 69') "She enters the frame, throwing a look to MARCUS" I say "Padma" instead of "she."

• Ben Tupper got on stage at Old Town School of Folk Music with his acoustic guitar and memorable orange jumpsuit; then one afternoon I kissed him. (A walk after school; he asked to know what 'no' sounded like in Russian ('nyet' — Yahoo!) A best friend from Ogden enrolled with another school knew about ska, which had a concert on that stage I attended thanks to Ben perhaps.
• thanks, Caroline Brackett, for A3S3 _an-arch/y.

11 August 2025

A few seconds of GOOG Play maybe audible on my podcast here.

• Safari profiles Google trackers on my.itch.io/~, Google Analytics (which I practiced at The Fashion Spot) and Google Tag Manager, which is also on neocities.
• recording unmasked location (IP addresses... search term: "what is my ip"), browser version and operating system, plus time spent on each URL for a narrative view on user activity per session at the specified domain, Google leverages data to subscribers.
• Probably DockDockGo's aggregating to macro.

12 August 2025

A surge of excitement greeted me when I recalled going back to "GOOG Play" composition tomorrow after a weekend [of drawing font].

17 August 2025

ai mocks Human

18 August 2025

the app to vend at Midwest Queer & Trans Zine Fest (Oct 18-19) is successful.

19 August 2025

hearing phrases sound radically different based on where they're interlocuting

20 August 2025

Billing "Chanel" in place of a 'found name.'

The character "Mary" renders simultaneously like the author of Frankenstein (sometimes presented 'as if' via Hollywood reimagining), my fiction, and her actant: Dr. Leigh.

21 August 2025

Itch.io has no apparent maximum project price: GOOGPlay-font's retail price will be decided...

22 August 2025