via “Premiere On Call is our new custom caller service,” read the service’s website, which disappeared as this story was being reported (for a cached version of the site click here). “We supply voice talent to take/make your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts. Using our simple online booking tool, specify the kind of voice you need, and we’ll get your the right person fast. Unless you request it, you won’t hear that same voice again for at least two months, ensuring the authenticity of your programming for avid listeners.”

The actors hired by Premiere to provide the aforementioned voice talents sign confidentiality agreements and so would not go on the record. But their accounts leave little room for doubt. All of the actors I questioned reported receiving scripts, calling in to real shows, pretending to be real people. Frequently, one actor said, the calls were live, sometimes recorded in advance, but never presented on-air as anything but real.

Things I've read lately:

• David Mitchell - Ghostwritten. It's one of those books where a bunch of seemingly-unrelated stories all end up being related, by the end. I'm really tired of those kinds of stories, unfortunately. But, this is ultimately saved by the clever mechanisms he uses to tie those stories together (which I won't divulge). B.
• David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas. I could write the same thing about this that I just wrote about "Ghostwritten". Instead, I'll just refer you to it. And I'll add: I liked the actual stories in this one better than those in "Ghostwritten". Mitchell is a good writer: clever, funny, deft with writing different periods and genres. So, even if the mosaic style bugs me, he's still a good read.B+.
• Jo Walton - Among Others. The story, in diary form, of a Welsh schoolgirl who has an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction books; mostly set in an English public school in the late 1970s; and magic is real. But, this magic it's not the flashy stuff of Harry Potter's world. There are no wand fights, sentient plants, spell classes, or wizarding contests. This magic is subtle, just barely distinguishable from active imagination and confirmation bias. It's so subtle that it took a bit of effort for me to believe that the magic in the story is real and isn't actually all in the narrator's head - which wouldn't be surprising, given how steeped in sci-fi/fantasy the narrator is. Even she can't seem to tell, sometimes what's magic and what's just a wish that accidentally comes true. It was a good read, either way, but I'm rooting for the magic to be real. Otherwise, it's a story about a schoolgirl who can't tell fantasy from reality. And that's kindof sad. B.
• Jesse ball & Thórdís Björnsdóttir - Vera & Linus. This is an odd little book. It's not quite a story, it's more of a set of vignettes, mini-vignettes and micro-vignettes about a couple, Vera and Linus, who live in a surreal, whimsical and dangerous world. The bulk of the danger in the book comes from Vera & Linus themselves, who are murderers, abductors, torturers, robbers and vandals. They kidnap children, kill passers-by, make a career of robbing travelers, etc.. But it's more Edward Gorey than Jason Vorhees. They kill and kidnap for absurd reasons, for magical reasons. Yes, they're monsters, but you get the feeling that they live in a world where the rules aren't quite the same as ours. They also go for walks, and make plans, and grow plants. But there's no chronology to it, every page is a new adventure, completely unrelated and independent of anything that came before.

  The text itself straddles the line between prose and poetry. It's not always as lean and concise as poetry, but it's often more abstract and rhythmic than prose. The page numbers are cryptic, and knowing what I know about Jesse Ball's other work, I suspect there's a meaning in them, but I couldn't decipher it. Here's a sample. B

So yeah, I got the job.

But what's really cool is that it's the same job I've been doing for the past year. But now I'm no longer limited by contract to working just 40 hours per week! Hah! Take that, free time!

It will be a nice change to have a real job, though - for the first time in 21 months. Contracting is fun, but it's tentative, the situation always feels precarious. You could be let go at any minute and you're always at the bottom of the pecking order. But this company has a turnover rate of something like 5% per year - once you're in, you tend tend to stay in, and they didn't have any lay-offs due to the recent economic downturn. So, it feels pretty stable.

Plus, M&Ms.

Garlic Germ & More

SF Gate:

An employer can refuse to hire someone who has ever tested positive for marijuana or other drugs, even if the applicant is now clean and sober, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

That kinda sucks.

Read the article, note the language they use: people who test positive for pot are "addicts", "recovered addicts"; they "need help", they need to "recover". The concept of recreational use is not entertained.

And this from a San Francisco paper.

--

Update:

Stepped into the first floor men's room on my way out of the office today. Twas full of fume d'herb. I vacated promptly, not wanting to linger in its presence lest someone suspect me of indulging on the job on my third day of employment.

Jesus H. Christ

apropos of nothing: a favorite of mine, from e.e. cummings:

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

Former Majority Association for Equality

Like looking at a slaughterhouse through a kaleidescope