Writing Wrongs

November 21, 2006

Once upon a time, or back in the day, or a really, really long time ago, I received an AM/FM cassette recorder as a gift. Sure, you could listen to music, but that wasn�t its real purpose. No. The real joy of this device was the built-in microphone, and the real purpose was making �talking tapes.�

What are talking tapes? Well, they are those thirty minute (or forty-five if you got lucky) segments of . . . whatever. My sister and I were fond of creating game shows. I had a couple of friends who also adored the concept of �talking tapes,� and we created our own sitcom.

Obviously, these things were dialogue/noise heavy. Think the old radio shows, only produced by a bunch of ten year olds. The sitcom was particularly noisy. It was about three girls, my friend, her sister, and me. My friend was a drummer, her sister a singer, and I was (gasp) a writer. All of this involve lots of noise (cuz you know, back in the day, you used a typewriter).

Last night, Andrew discovered that his school-issued laptop has a built-in microphone. It also has a software program called Garage Band. The two together = instant fun.

So now, Andrew and Kyra are recording their own songs. Andrew is big into percussion and loud proclamations. Kyra is into warbling like a Radio Disney pop princess--she even tries to get that vibrato going. Her song begins with: You are in my heart and it is beautiful.

The song also involves teddy bears who are dressed like cheerleaders and unicorns who are not (unicorns are above all that). Andrew comes in at the end with the drums (which sound remarkably like someone pounding the floor) and an emphatic: �Cleveland rocks!�

Kyra echoes, �Yeah. Cleveland wocks.�

Talking tape, 2006.

It�s nice to know that some things never change.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 10:17 a.m.

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