[COMPLETE] Ebony and Crystal by C. A. Smith-icequeen

[Tortilla]

Ebony and Crystal by Clark Ashton Smith (1893 - 1961).

This project is now complete! All audio files can be found on our catalog page: https://librivox.org/ebony-and-crystal-by-clark-ashton-smith/


Volunteers outside the USA: C.A. Smith died in 1961. The author's work is still protected by copyright in places like Europe and Australia, where copyright is author's death plus 70 years.

As stated in L'Alouette: A Magazine of Verse, "Ebony and Crystal is an artist's intrepid repudiation of the world of trolleys and cash-registers, Freudian complexes and Binet-Simon tests, for realms of exalted and iridescent strangeness beyond space and time yet real as any reality because dreams have made them so. Mr. Smith has escaped the fetish of life and the world, and glimpsed the perverse, titanic beauty of death and the universe; taking infinity as his canvas and recording in awe the vagaries of suns and planets, gods, and daemons, and blind amorphous horrors that haunt gardens of polychrome fungi more remote than Algol and Achernar. It is a cosmos of vivid flame and glacial abysses that he celebrates, and the colorful luxuriance with which he peoples it could be born from nothing less than sheer genius.

The summation of Mr. Smith's exotic vision is perhaps attained in the long phantasmal procession of blank verse pentameters entitled, "The Hashish-Eater; or, the Apocalypse of Evil." In this frenzied plunge through nameless gulfs of interstellar terror the Californian presents a narcotic pageant of poisonous vermilious and paralysing shadows whose content is equalled only by its verbal medium; a medium involving one of the most opulent and fastidiously choice vocabularies ever commanded by a writer of English."

Clark Ashton Smith, referred to as one of the big three of Weird Tales, was a romantic-style poet, a Lovecraftian-style writer and a literary friend of H.P Lovecraft. As a poet, he was considered one of the last great West Coast Romantics. Ebony and Crystal, published in 1922, was Smith's last collection of pure poetry. (Mary Kay and L'Alouette: A Magazine of Verse)

• 1. How to claim a part, and "how it all works" here To find a section to record, simply look at point 5. below at the sections. All the ones without names beside them are "up for grabs." Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which section you would like to read (include the section number from the left-most column in the reader list, please). Read points 6. to 8. below for what to do before, during and after your recording.
  2. New to recording? Please read our Newbie Guide to Recording!
  3. Is there a deadline? We ask that you submit your recorded sections within 1-2 months of placing your claim. Please note that to be fair to the readers who have completed their sections in a timely way, if you haven't submitted your recording(s) after two months, your sections will automatically be re-opened for other readers to claim, unless you post in this thread to request an extension. Extensions will be granted at the discretion of the Book Coordinator. If you cannot do your section, for whatever reason, just let me know and it'll go back to the pool. There's no shame in this; we're all volunteers and things happen.Please do not sign up for more sections than you can complete within the two month deadline.
  4. Where do I find the text? Source text (please only read from this text!): http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100116659
  5. Please claim sections (the numbers in the first column below)! If this is your first recording, please let me know under which name or pseudonym you'd like to appear in the LibriVox catalogue. We can also link to a personal website/blog.
     
     Prospective Prooflisteners: Please read the Listeners Wanted FAQ before listening! Level of prooflistening requested: standard
     
     
     Please don't download or listen to files belonging to projects in process (unless you are the BC or PL). Our servers are not set up to handle the greater volume of traffic. Please wait until the project has been completed. Thanks!
     
     
     

     Magic Window:

     
     
     BC Admin
     ===========================================
     This paragraph is temporary and will be replaced by the MC with the list of sections and reader (Magic Window) once this project is in the admin system.
     
     • Project Code: GAxE9ti2
     • Link to author on Wikipedia (if available): (Clark Ashton Smith) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Ashton_Smith
     • Link to title on Wikipedia (if available):
     • Number of sections (files) this project will have: 115
     • Does the project have an introduction or preface [y/n]: Yes
     • Original publication date (if known): 1992
     • If you are a new volunteer, how would you like your name (or pseudonym) credited in the catalog? Do you have a URL you would like associated with your name?:
     
     ============================================
     
     Genres for the project: Poetry/Single author
     
     Keywords that describe the book: poetry, death, fantasy, California, epic poetry, gods, rhyme, universe, monsters, romantic style, contrasts, lovecraftian, west coast romantic, demons
     
     ============================================
  6. BEFORE recording: Please check the Recording Notes: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6427#6430
     
     Set your recording software to:
     Channels: 1 (Mono)
     Bit Rate: 128 kbps
     Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
  7. DURING recording:
  8. DURING recording:
     At the beginning say: "[Poem title], from Ebony and Crystal, by Clark Ashton Smith, read for LibriVox.org by [your name]" or some variation on that, adding date, location, your personal URL, etc., if you wish.
     
     Then read the poem.
     
     At the end, say: "End of poem. This recording is in the public domain." and leave five seconds of silence.
     
     At the end of the book, say (in addition): "End of Ebony and Crystal by Clark Ashton Smith"
     
     There should be 5 seconds silence at the end of the recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes.
     No more than 0.5 to 1 second of silence at the beginning of the recording!
     
     For the Preface:
     START of recording (Intro)
     • "Preface of Ebony and Crystal, written by Clark Ashton Smith. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
     • If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
     • Say:
       "Ebony and Crystal, by Clark Ashton Smith. [Preface]"
     
     END of recording
     • At the end of the section, say:
       "End of Preface"
     • If you wish, say:
       "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
     • At the end of the book, say (in addition):
       "End of Ebony and Crystal, by Clark Ashton Smith. "
     
     There should be 5 seconds silence at the end of the recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes.
     
     Please remember to check this thread frequently for updates!
  9. AFTER recording
     Need noise-cleaning?
     Listen to your file through headphones. If you can hear some constant background noise (hiss/buzz), you may want to clean it up a bit. The new (free) version 1.3.3. of Audacity has much improved noise-cleaning. See this LibriVox wiki page for a complete guide.
     Save files as
     128 kbps MP3
     ebonyandcrystal_###_smith_128kb.mp3 (all lower-case) where ### is the section number (e.g. ebonyandcrystal_001_smith_128kb.mp3)
  10. Example ID3 V2 tags
      (To find out more about ID3 tags, go to our wiki: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/What_is_ID3)
      Add the following tags to your .mp3 file (how you do this depends on which software you use – if you are unsure about ID3 tags, send me a message). Please mind upper and lower case!
      Artist: Clark Ashton Smith
      Title: ## - [Section title]
      Album: Ebony and Crystal
      
      Please ignore tags for Genre and Track Number - these will be filled in automatically at the cataloguing stage.
      Transfer of files (completed recordings) Please always post in this forum thread when you've sent a file. Also, post the length of the recording (file duration: mm:ss) together with the link.
      • Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader: https://librivox.org/login/uploader
        
        (If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin)
      • You'll need to select the MC, which for this project is: icequeen
      • When your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread.
      • If this doesn't work, or you have questions, please check our How To Send Your Recording wiki page.
      
      
      Our DPL is craigdav1.
      
      Any questions?
      Please post below

[silverquill]

Finishing up a long book of verse as DPL, so will have room for a new one. This certainly sounds intriguing -- another new writer for me. But, I can't figure out how to access the text from the link given.

[silverquill]

Okay, so Erik helped me link to this!

i'm looking for some words to describe this, just perusing. Words that crackle, cadences that captivate. Full of passion and madness and spirit.

I love poetry for poetry's sake sometimes, the dark side as well as the light and inspirational.

Well, I'd love to be DPL, if you'll have me along again.

And, the long poem, the Hashish Eater, is one that would be an engrossing experience to read, if you want to keep that as one long section. You could put me in for that.

Let me know.

[annise]

You'll need to add
Volunteers outside the USA:C.A. Smith died in 1961. The author's work is still protected by copyright in places like Europe and Australia, where copyright is author's death plus 70 years.

Anne

[icequeen]

Now I am intrigued! I'll MC for you! Back in a moment with your MW!

[icequeen]

OK, your MW is ready to be filled in, and the death date warning has been added to the OP. I haven't added Larry yet as DPL, I will do that as soon as Mary Kay has seen your offer! Otherwise, everything else looks good. Do you want to keep the part about filling in the tags in the OP?

[Tortilla]

MW is up (I'll add the word count...eventually...) and silverquill is free to be our DPL. Thank you! Also, I have one section too many. Could you remove it?

[silverquill]

MW is up (I'll add the word count...eventually...) and silverquill is free to be our DPL. Thank you! Also, I have one section too many. Could you remove it?

Section 45 is 4168 words. Trying to do some research on it and the author.

This will be a fascinating ride!

[Tortilla]

I realized doing the word counts, that two of the poems should be read as dramatic readings - The Witch in the Graveyard and The Ghoul and the Seraph. But all of the word counts are posted, so we can probably start. I am also going to be using the shortened intro.

[silverquill]

I realized doing the word counts, that two of the poems should be read as dramatic readings - The Witch in the Graveyard and The Ghoul and the Seraph. But all of the word counts are posted, so we can probably start. I am also going to be using the shortened intro.

Oh, yes, I saw that, and I think that will be cool to do them that way!

[icequeen]

Shortening the intro is fine, since it may be longer than some of those poems! Larry has been added to the team, thanks Larry! I will move us over to Short Works tomorrow sometime.

[2peltons]

May I read the Preface?

Mike

[Tortilla]

May I read the Preface?

Mike

Thank you!

[2peltons]

Here is the short Preface at 2:31 in length.

https://librivox.org/uploads/icequeen/ebonyandcrystal_preface_smith_128kb.mp3

Mike

[icequeen]

Moving on to Short Works!