June 9, 2022 • 12 mins
*Please listen to this episode first*
This episode introduces your host, J.C. Rede, and delves into the whys and wherefores of this particular podcast; Sets the goals and defines the journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to forward into thepast.
I am your host JC Rede, and thisis our first podcast and it's a
very important one.
It's the description of thepodcast and why I'm doing what
I'm actually doing.
Now, before we get into thehousekeeping stuff, let me fully
introduce myself to you.
My name is JC, as I said before,and I am a professional voice
(00:23):
actor.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, as the name implies, I aman actor and I use my voice to
do stuff like documentaries,phone IVR, explainer videos,
narration for film.
Video games commercials.
And the list goes on and on.
One of my favorite things to dois audio book narration.
Now, books are one of mypassions.
(00:44):
A true story.
I have been able to read for aslong as I can remember.
Yeah, I must've been about, oh,about four years old.
And I remember sitting in mydad's lap and he would have me
read the paper out loud to him.
It gave him kind of a giggle.
Now by the time I reachedkindergarten, I was master of
ceremonies for our schools,bicentennial celebration.
(01:04):
Yes, I am that old.
I really didn't know what wasgoing on to be fair.
They just asked me to read fromsome index cards and stand in
front of this microphone.
That's about all I knew at thetime.
But I enjoyed the applause and Igot a kick out of it.
Now forward a few more years.
And I soon realized that whatwas torture for the rest of my
third grade class was likebreathing to me.
(01:27):
Now think back to your thirdgrade class, you remember when
the teacher would go around theroom and ask every student to
read the next paragraph forwhatever story we were reading.
Remember your reaction?
Yeah, I had the oppositereaction.
I was always looking forward toit.
I eventually started to readthese stories in different
voices.
(01:47):
Inflections I added comedicpauses.
I became a character.
I was basically just having funwith it.
I didn't know any better.
And I just continued thatthroughout the rest of my
schooling.
It wasn't really, until I turned35 that I discovered.
Heck, I might be able to do thisfor a living.
Well, I took a course around2004 in Las Vegas.
(02:10):
I finished the course recorded ademo reel and the rest is well,
no.
Life happened.
I got married to a wonderfulwoman.
We moved to Orlando.
And I didn't know anybody outhere.
And then back in 2004, Nowinternet recording.
Wasn't what it is today.
So I kind of had to just puteverything on pause for a little
(02:32):
while.
Well, that little while turnedinto about 15 years.
Forward to 2021 Christmas time.
And I turned to my wife and say,you know what, I'm going to go
ahead and revisit my voiceovercareer.
Well, she turned to me and toldme that for Christmas, she got
me a course in voiceover.
Talk about serendipitous.
So I took the course.
(02:53):
I finished the course andrecorded another demo reel and
well, here I am back in thesaddle and ready to go back at
it.
And while I'm waiting for therest of the world to catch up.
I decided that I would put mychops to good use.
As I said before, I'm a voiceactor and one of my specialties
is recording audio books.
Well, sadly, I can't just picksome random author's book.
(03:17):
Recorded.
And put it out there withoutasking for permission first.
Without auditioning anddefinitely without signing a
contract.
Yeah.
They kind of frown upon stufflike that.
So, what do I do now?
Well, I thought to myself, wherecan I get books that I can read
to the public?
(03:37):
Hey, how about public domainbooks?
So all the stories that you willhear on this podcast are all
taken from the public domainlibrary at project Gutenberg.
More on that a little bit later,but the important thing to
remember right now is that theyare all part of the public
domain.
The copyrights have all expiredand they belong to the public.
(03:58):
You and me.
Now with the thousands uponthousands of books out there, I
could literally be here foreverand not even get through half of
them.
So, what do I do?
Well, I decided to focus.
There are lots and lots ofrecordings of people reading,
literary classics, like prideand prejudice, Dracula
Frankenstein, a Christmas Carol,and so on and so forth.
(04:20):
You get the idea.
I wanted to focus on a moreneglected area.
Growing up.
My favorite books were the Hardyboys mysteries, the three
investigators featuring AlfredHitchcock and encyclopedia
brown, boy detective.
You see a pattern there.
Yup.
So my love of detective storiesled me down the proverbial
rabbit hole, and I ended upsmack dab in the middle of the
(04:43):
world of the dime novel.
Now what exactly is a dimenovel?
Well, the quick answer is thatit was a paperback book.
That was devised at the tail endof the 18 hundreds, right around
1860 or so.
The more apt description takesome time.
Well, that is exactly the pointof this particular episode.
(05:04):
Dime novels first made the scenearound the American civil war.
It was a cheap way for a soldierto have something to do while he
was waiting around for the nextskirmish.
Right around the mid 1890s, themagazine Argosy was reintroduced
to the public in a largerformat.
Up until then dime novels wereactually paperback books about
the same size as mass paperbacksare today.
(05:26):
But that magazine, Argosy, wasprinted on larger sheets of
paper, but it was still a fairlythick book.
Roughly about 192 pages.
Our go see, however, wasoffering something new to the
public.
A wide variety of storieswritten by several authors in
one magazine for almost next tonothing.
(05:47):
It's not difficult to understandthe importance of this
phenomenon.
Up until dime novels wereintroduced books, although they
were plentiful.
We're still well out of thereach financially for most of
the young working class folk ofthe industrial revolution.
But a dime novel could be hadby.
Everyone.
In the 1860s through the 1890s,most of the stories featured in
(06:11):
dime novels were about theWestern frontier.
Featuring characters like DanielBoone and kit Carson.
But that all changed when ourgo-see hit the market in the
last half of the 19th century.
Not long after our go-see beganconquering the masses with their
offering, the publishing companyof street and Smith introduced
their weekly magazine.
And it was called the popularmagazine.
(06:34):
And boy, it was popular.
And it was around this time thatthe simple dime novel began to
become something entirelydifferent from where it started.
Street and Smith's publishinghouse churned out story after
story to feed the growing,working class.
And kept strict regulations fortheir books, but they paid very
well.
And many, a young strugglingauthor would join their stable
(06:56):
of writers.
Many times writing under variouspseudonyms.
Oftentimes one writer wouldshell out three or four stories
under different names in thesame magazine.
So to the reading public, itwould look as if the publishing
house had more authors providingexcellent stories.
Writers like Jack London, Edgar,rice Burroughs, and even Agatha
Christie would often write forthese dime novels.
(07:19):
And enduring characters werefirst started among their pages.
Buck Rogers, Tarzan, conan thebarbarian, just to name a few.
Now, beginning with street andSmith's the popular magazine.
They began to use glossy paperfor their covers and featured
illustrations that usually had adamsel in distress and a hero
terrorized by a villain.
(07:39):
The stories began to become moretantalizing, more escapist, and
definitely more over the top.
And around 1920, the dime novelreally hit its stride.
It was around this time.
That printing presses becamemore and more automated.
Especially steam printers, whichthe major print houses would
employ to keep their operationalcosts lower.
(07:59):
Another one of the ways theseprint houses kept costs down was
in their choice of paper.
Back then pretty much the sameas today.
Magazine covers were printed onhigh gloss paper.
It made for a superior product,caught people's eyes and even
allowed for color, which backthen was a huge deal.
However, even though thecolorful covers may have been
(08:21):
printed on glossy papers.
These print houses opted for theleast expensive paper possible
to print their stories.
The idea was to use cheap paperand fill it with mostly printed
text or on occasion, maybe ablack and white image.
High gloss paper was used by themore highbrow magazines and not
just for the covers, but fortheir printed pages as well.
(08:43):
And so people began to callthose magazines slicks.
Slickers or glossies.
Dime novels on the other hand,used really cheap paper, very
unrefined stuff.
So cheap.
That you could still see woodpulp in the pages themselves.
And so dime novels over timebecame known as pulp magazines.
(09:09):
And the stories that filledthose magazines.
Pulp fiction.
Yeah.
That's where we got the name.
Now the heyday of thesemagazines, whatever you call
them was from about the end ofworld war one, which is around
1920.
To about the end of world warII, which is around 1950.
During these 30 years, thesepulp magazines became sort of
(09:31):
specialized.
Each publishing house hadspecific magazines devoted to
different genres, like detectivestories, westerns adventures,
early science fiction, and thenstuff.
Just a freak you out.
As I mentioned earlier, severalnow famous writers started off
as pulp fiction writers.
And in this podcast, you willencounter stuff from HG Wells,
(09:53):
Agatha Christie, RobertHeinlein, Isaac Azimov.
Just to name a few.
I'm very excited to share thesestories with you.
Since many of them have not beenseen or heard in almost a
century.
Now time for a full disclaimer.
All of the stories you are aboutto hear are part of project
Gutenberg.
As I mentioned earlier, and allof them are available to read
(10:17):
and download as eBooks on anybrowser by visiting their
website, which is gutenberg.orgorg.
So if you like, you can findthese books and download them
yourself and follow along.
If you want.
What I suggest you do is justvisit their website.
And if you find something thatpeaks your interest, go ahead
(10:39):
and download it, read it.
And Hey, if it interests youenough, send me a note.
Maybe I might include it in oneof these podcasts.
As I said before, all of thebooks and stories that are found
out there on project Gutenbergare out of copyright and
therefore in the public domainand absolutely free to
distribute.
Now that being said, this isagain, a very full disclosure.
(11:03):
Please remember that several ofthose stories that you will find
out there on project Gutenbergour products of their time.
And they may contain themes orideas that may seem antiquated
or flat out just wrong.
When you look at them throughour 21st century prism.
Now I intend on reading thosebooks exactly as they were
(11:24):
written warts and all.
My suggestion.
Try to enjoy them as best as youcan.
And please try to keep an openmind.
Storytelling is fast becoming alost art, and I feel these
stories still deserve to beremembered as a period of time
that did exist.
One final note.
(11:44):
For those of you that found thispodcast and thought that I'd be
talking about the Firesigntheater.
Yeah, sorry to disappoint you.
I just kind of borrowed thatphrase for the podcast, but
stick around anyway, I'm goingto be reading some detective
stories.
And of course those stories arethe very thing that Firesign
theater was parodying.
So.
Stick with it.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoythese stories.
(12:06):
And I will try to keep youeducated as well as entertained.
Any suggestions or comments,feel free to reach out to me.
And if you like what I'm doingand sharing with you.
Feel free to support me bybuying me a cup of coffee, using
the link, provided subscribe tothe podcast and share it with
your friends.
Sign up for my email list orvisit me on Facebook to keep
(12:26):
yourself informed and find outwhen the next podcast will be
released and what it's going tobe about.
Well, I've talked long enough.
Stories should be coming upsoon.
In the meantime, thank you forjoining us on this journey.
And let's go forward into thepast.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to forward into thepast.
I am your host JC Rede, and thisis our first podcast and it's a
very important one.
It's the description of thepodcast and why I'm doing what
I'm actually doing.
Now, before we get into thehousekeeping stuff, let me fully
introduce myself to you.
My name is JC, as I said before,and I am a professional voice
(00:23):
actor.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, as the name implies, I aman actor and I use my voice to
do stuff like documentaries,phone IVR, explainer videos,
narration for film.
Video games commercials.
And the list goes on and on.
One of my favorite things to dois audio book narration.
Now, books are one of mypassions.
(00:44):
A true story.
I have been able to read for aslong as I can remember.
Yeah, I must've been about, oh,about four years old.
And I remember sitting in mydad's lap and he would have me
read the paper out loud to him.
It gave him kind of a giggle.
Now by the time I reachedkindergarten, I was master of
ceremonies for our schools,bicentennial celebration.
(01:04):
Yes, I am that old.
I really didn't know what wasgoing on to be fair.
They just asked me to read fromsome index cards and stand in
front of this microphone.
That's about all I knew at thetime.
But I enjoyed the applause and Igot a kick out of it.
Now forward a few more years.
And I soon realized that whatwas torture for the rest of my
third grade class was likebreathing to me.
(01:27):
Now think back to your thirdgrade class, you remember when
the teacher would go around theroom and ask every student to
read the next paragraph forwhatever story we were reading.
Remember your reaction?
Yeah, I had the oppositereaction.
I was always looking forward toit.
I eventually started to readthese stories in different
voices.
(01:47):
Inflections I added comedicpauses.
I became a character.
I was basically just having funwith it.
I didn't know any better.
And I just continued thatthroughout the rest of my
schooling.
It wasn't really, until I turned35 that I discovered.
Heck, I might be able to do thisfor a living.
Well, I took a course around2004 in Las Vegas.
(02:10):
I finished the course recorded ademo reel and the rest is well,
no.
Life happened.
I got married to a wonderfulwoman.
We moved to Orlando.
And I didn't know anybody outhere.
And then back in 2004, Nowinternet recording.
Wasn't what it is today.
So I kind of had to just puteverything on pause for a little
(02:32):
while.
Well, that little while turnedinto about 15 years.
Forward to 2021 Christmas time.
And I turned to my wife and say,you know what, I'm going to go
ahead and revisit my voiceovercareer.
Well, she turned to me and toldme that for Christmas, she got
me a course in voiceover.
Talk about serendipitous.
So I took the course.
(02:53):
I finished the course andrecorded another demo reel and
well, here I am back in thesaddle and ready to go back at
it.
And while I'm waiting for therest of the world to catch up.
I decided that I would put mychops to good use.
As I said before, I'm a voiceactor and one of my specialties
is recording audio books.
Well, sadly, I can't just picksome random author's book.
(03:17):
Recorded.
And put it out there withoutasking for permission first.
Without auditioning anddefinitely without signing a
contract.
Yeah.
They kind of frown upon stufflike that.
So, what do I do now?
Well, I thought to myself, wherecan I get books that I can read
to the public?
(03:37):
Hey, how about public domainbooks?
So all the stories that you willhear on this podcast are all
taken from the public domainlibrary at project Gutenberg.
More on that a little bit later,but the important thing to
remember right now is that theyare all part of the public
domain.
The copyrights have all expiredand they belong to the public.
(03:58):
You and me.
Now with the thousands uponthousands of books out there, I
could literally be here foreverand not even get through half of
them.
So, what do I do?
Well, I decided to focus.
There are lots and lots ofrecordings of people reading,
literary classics, like prideand prejudice, Dracula
Frankenstein, a Christmas Carol,and so on and so forth.
(04:20):
You get the idea.
I wanted to focus on a moreneglected area.
Growing up.
My favorite books were the Hardyboys mysteries, the three
investigators featuring AlfredHitchcock and encyclopedia
brown, boy detective.
You see a pattern there.
Yup.
So my love of detective storiesled me down the proverbial
rabbit hole, and I ended upsmack dab in the middle of the
(04:43):
world of the dime novel.
Now what exactly is a dimenovel?
Well, the quick answer is thatit was a paperback book.
That was devised at the tail endof the 18 hundreds, right around
1860 or so.
The more apt description takesome time.
Well, that is exactly the pointof this particular episode.
(05:04):
Dime novels first made the scenearound the American civil war.
It was a cheap way for a soldierto have something to do while he
was waiting around for the nextskirmish.
Right around the mid 1890s, themagazine Argosy was reintroduced
to the public in a largerformat.
Up until then dime novels wereactually paperback books about
the same size as mass paperbacksare today.
(05:26):
But that magazine, Argosy, wasprinted on larger sheets of
paper, but it was still a fairlythick book.
Roughly about 192 pages.
Our go see, however, wasoffering something new to the
public.
A wide variety of storieswritten by several authors in
one magazine for almost next tonothing.
(05:47):
It's not difficult to understandthe importance of this
phenomenon.
Up until dime novels wereintroduced books, although they
were plentiful.
We're still well out of thereach financially for most of
the young working class folk ofthe industrial revolution.
But a dime novel could be hadby.
Everyone.
In the 1860s through the 1890s,most of the stories featured in
(06:11):
dime novels were about theWestern frontier.
Featuring characters like DanielBoone and kit Carson.
But that all changed when ourgo-see hit the market in the
last half of the 19th century.
Not long after our go-see beganconquering the masses with their
offering, the publishing companyof street and Smith introduced
their weekly magazine.
And it was called the popularmagazine.
(06:34):
And boy, it was popular.
And it was around this time thatthe simple dime novel began to
become something entirelydifferent from where it started.
Street and Smith's publishinghouse churned out story after
story to feed the growing,working class.
And kept strict regulations fortheir books, but they paid very
well.
And many, a young strugglingauthor would join their stable
(06:56):
of writers.
Many times writing under variouspseudonyms.
Oftentimes one writer wouldshell out three or four stories
under different names in thesame magazine.
So to the reading public, itwould look as if the publishing
house had more authors providingexcellent stories.
Writers like Jack London, Edgar,rice Burroughs, and even Agatha
Christie would often write forthese dime novels.
(07:19):
And enduring characters werefirst started among their pages.
Buck Rogers, Tarzan, conan thebarbarian, just to name a few.
Now, beginning with street andSmith's the popular magazine.
They began to use glossy paperfor their covers and featured
illustrations that usually had adamsel in distress and a hero
terrorized by a villain.
(07:39):
The stories began to become moretantalizing, more escapist, and
definitely more over the top.
And around 1920, the dime novelreally hit its stride.
It was around this time.
That printing presses becamemore and more automated.
Especially steam printers, whichthe major print houses would
employ to keep their operationalcosts lower.
(07:59):
Another one of the ways theseprint houses kept costs down was
in their choice of paper.
Back then pretty much the sameas today.
Magazine covers were printed onhigh gloss paper.
It made for a superior product,caught people's eyes and even
allowed for color, which backthen was a huge deal.
However, even though thecolorful covers may have been
(08:21):
printed on glossy papers.
These print houses opted for theleast expensive paper possible
to print their stories.
The idea was to use cheap paperand fill it with mostly printed
text or on occasion, maybe ablack and white image.
High gloss paper was used by themore highbrow magazines and not
just for the covers, but fortheir printed pages as well.
(08:43):
And so people began to callthose magazines slicks.
Slickers or glossies.
Dime novels on the other hand,used really cheap paper, very
unrefined stuff.
So cheap.
That you could still see woodpulp in the pages themselves.
And so dime novels over timebecame known as pulp magazines.
(09:09):
And the stories that filledthose magazines.
Pulp fiction.
Yeah.
That's where we got the name.
Now the heyday of thesemagazines, whatever you call
them was from about the end ofworld war one, which is around
1920.
To about the end of world warII, which is around 1950.
During these 30 years, thesepulp magazines became sort of
(09:31):
specialized.
Each publishing house hadspecific magazines devoted to
different genres, like detectivestories, westerns adventures,
early science fiction, and thenstuff.
Just a freak you out.
As I mentioned earlier, severalnow famous writers started off
as pulp fiction writers.
And in this podcast, you willencounter stuff from HG Wells,
(09:53):
Agatha Christie, RobertHeinlein, Isaac Azimov.
Just to name a few.
I'm very excited to share thesestories with you.
Since many of them have not beenseen or heard in almost a
century.
Now time for a full disclaimer.
All of the stories you are aboutto hear are part of project
Gutenberg.
As I mentioned earlier, and allof them are available to read
(10:17):
and download as eBooks on anybrowser by visiting their
website, which is gutenberg.orgorg.
So if you like, you can findthese books and download them
yourself and follow along.
If you want.
What I suggest you do is justvisit their website.
And if you find something thatpeaks your interest, go ahead
(10:39):
and download it, read it.
And Hey, if it interests youenough, send me a note.
Maybe I might include it in oneof these podcasts.
As I said before, all of thebooks and stories that are found
out there on project Gutenbergare out of copyright and
therefore in the public domainand absolutely free to
distribute.
Now that being said, this isagain, a very full disclosure.
(11:03):
Please remember that several ofthose stories that you will find
out there on project Gutenbergour products of their time.
And they may contain themes orideas that may seem antiquated
or flat out just wrong.
When you look at them throughour 21st century prism.
Now I intend on reading thosebooks exactly as they were
(11:24):
written warts and all.
My suggestion.
Try to enjoy them as best as youcan.
And please try to keep an openmind.
Storytelling is fast becoming alost art, and I feel these
stories still deserve to beremembered as a period of time
that did exist.
One final note.
(11:44):
For those of you that found thispodcast and thought that I'd be
talking about the Firesigntheater.
Yeah, sorry to disappoint you.
I just kind of borrowed thatphrase for the podcast, but
stick around anyway, I'm goingto be reading some detective
stories.
And of course those stories arethe very thing that Firesign
theater was parodying.
So.
Stick with it.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoythese stories.
(12:06):
And I will try to keep youeducated as well as entertained.
Any suggestions or comments,feel free to reach out to me.
And if you like what I'm doingand sharing with you.
Feel free to support me bybuying me a cup of coffee, using
the link, provided subscribe tothe podcast and share it with
your friends.
Sign up for my email list orvisit me on Facebook to keep
(12:26):
yourself informed and find outwhen the next podcast will be
released and what it's going tobe about.
Well, I've talked long enough.
Stories should be coming upsoon.
In the meantime, thank you forjoining us on this journey.
And let's go forward into thepast.
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