The Scarlet Letter
This week in Novel Ideas, we discuss a classic of guilt and shame. Were I to deliver this explanation in the style of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the next two thousand words would describe the feel the paper, the alignment of the typesetting, the quality of the ink, and the deeply emotional cover. And then maybe I’d say something about the content, but it would be a bad idea to get your hopes up on that account. Unlike Hawthorne, we like content, so we discuss the characters, the prose, the wisdom of exposing yourself as a witch to your Puritan neighbors, demon-elf children, the difficulties in adapting this story for film, and, of course, feminism.
The music bump is Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in G minor, K. 108. It was chosen because if ol’ Dom was your pen pal, he would send you Scarlatti Letters.
Novel Ideas 
June 26, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Oh hey, would you look at that: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282140/
“After a little white lie about losing her virginity gets out, a clean cut high school girl sees her life paralleling Hester Prynne’s in “The Scarlet Letter,” which she is currently studying in school – until she decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing.”
Not exactly the movie you two were suggesting, but it does have an extra dose of meta, which should please Ben.
June 27, 2012 at 8:41 pm
Hey, guys.
So, I have only listened to the Hitchhiker’s guide podcast so far. I liked it. Almost felt like sitting in the Roman living room, especially with the inclusion of features such as Ben’s hearty and abrupt laughter. However, his laughs were sometimes 50x louder than an exploding garden planet, in sharp contrast to the rest of the audio, which sat at a baseline that was about half as loud as everything else I have on my iPod. I would be tickled pink if you guys were to use Dynamic Range Compression, because that would allow you to set upper and lower limits for the volume of your audio. You can dial it in just right so that you can continue to speak naturally and act spontaneously while providing a consistent audio experience.
I know at least one podcast I subscribe to uses Audacity, which is free audio recording software that I also have used to record band practices and the like, and it has a built in compression effect that I think would be perfect for your purposes. Unless it sucks, in which case ask Caleb about it. Maybe he’ll be your sound bro on the 3’s and 4’s.
June 28, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Hahaha. Ben sucks so hard.
#Gabs
July 5, 2012 at 11:12 am
I did some tweaking with the audio for the new episode, I think it should be 3/4’s of the volume of the rest of the stuff on your iPod with 50% less eardrum bleeding. Let us know if it’s better. #Ben