"Oh, you thought that too, didn't you? No? What an angel you are!"

I said, expressing skepticism about the story, reported in the NYT, about a grizzly bear in Alaska that "terrorized a man for days."

Now, I'm seeing the Daily Mail report, "Alaska gold miner is accused of making up story about bear stalking him for four days":

Now, however, locals are questioning his version of events after going to the cabin where he was rescued but finding no evidence of the days-long battle he described. Other local miners who were interviewed by The Nome Nugget went to the cabin where Jessee was rescued but found no bear tracks. They did however find the ATV and attached trailer that Jessee said the bear pushed into the water. They think he simply crashed the ATV but was too embarrassed to admit it, so made up the story after being rescued....

'There’s no hair, no tracks, no scat, nothing. He made a fool of us. We found out that his story didn’t match what we found.'... 

Thanks to reader Scott for sending me that link and for making one of the cleverest comments ever back on the original post, processing the elements of the NYT-reported story from the perspective of the bear:

How a male audiobook narrator does female voices.

This is a fascinating and technical discussion: 

I found that when I was looking for discussion of how a female narrator does male voices. I'd just finished an audiobook that had a very skillful female narrator, but after watching the movie of the same book, I realized how much the narrator had influenced how I thought about the male character in the book. 

She was great at producing a lower pitch for the male, but she also used a somewhat morose, gruff, flat tone. Maybe this particular character deserved that interpretation, but is that what the author intended? It's not really any different from the way actors in the movie have their interpretation of the character and don't and can't simply channel the author.

But I wondered whether female audiobook narrators are relying on a stereotype of men — that they are emotionally flat. Here's an opinion I've read in a few different places: When female audiobook narrators do males they sound like all women sound when they are mocking men and doing a "male" voice.

That might be a reason to prefer male audiobook narrators, but I've certainly noticed that a lot of them rely on the idea of women as gentle and restrained or bubbly and lightweight. The video above shows a male narrator — Travis Baldree — who is impressively serious about producing a full range of female characters. What books does he narrate?  I looked it up. Not the sort of thing I'd read, but here's "Shadeslinger: The Ripple System, Book 1." 

It's LitRPG. I need to look up what that is. Per Wikipedia: 

LitRPG, short for Literary Role Playing Game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of computer RPGs with science-fiction and fantasy novels.... [G]ames or game-like challenges form an essential part of the story, and visible RPG statistics (for example strength, intelligence, damage) are a significant part of the reading experience.

RPGs — I had to look that up too — are role-playing video games, "where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world, usually involving some form of character development by way of recording statistics." It's funny to think of wanting to set aside the game and read that in a book, but then again, why trouble yourself with playing a game when you can just read the game-like story? And with the audiobook, you can get out of the house, go walking and running and doing your errands or commuting. You can't do those things while playing a videogame.

FROM THE EMAIL: Scott sends the "obligatory Seinfeld reference":

AND: Andrew writes: "This is one of those rare times when Seinfeld is not the go-to reference. Rather, it's Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos" — here. "If you wish to manipulate, use a deeper voice." It's weird that her manipulation worked — apparently on some ridiculous older men. To me, she sounds like a huge phony. Which is what she was.

"It was as if he had been preparing for this absolutely unpredictable, completely public, and incredibly vulnerable moment for his entire life. His composure was astounding."

"And when he connected the entire event to the word metamorphosis, I distinctly remember thinking — how in the world did you just do that?"

Says Jeff Probst in an interview about last night's episode of "Survivor," which we're already discussing in a post I put up right after the episode. In the comments on my post, there's an accusation that the show is scripted and some blaming of the show for setting Zeke up. I think Probst's interview deals with that. Here's his response to the interviewer's question about how Zeke — the outed transgender — had thought about what might happen in the course of the competition:

I met Zeke in casting and loved him. I still have my original notes from that meeting. He was very engaging, gifted in his ability to manipulate with his words, and he wore this crazy Hawaiian shirt and had poofy hair. We knew we were doing Millennials vs. Gen X as a theme and we wanted him on the Millennials tribe immediately. It wasn’t until after he left that I was told he was transgender. From that point forward we agreed that if his story was to be told, he would be the one to decide when, where, and how.

As for someone else bringing it up, Zeke was fully aware someone might suspect it or bring it up and he said, “I will deal with it as it arises.” And I have to add it was never a question of Zeke being worried his story would come out. Zeke is a massive Survivor fan and his point with us was very clear — he wanted to be seen as a Survivor player. Not the first transgender Survivor player. I really respected that distinction and I understood it.

Back at my post from yesterday, Scott said:

"I took a weekend class at NYU on speed fiction."

"The instructor would hold up a picture or postcard for 20 seconds or so. Then the class would write a short story about what they saw — in five minutes."

Great idea! Okay, here:



Quick now! Time yourself! 5 minutes!

"Don't look too closely... or you'll see the swastikas...."

Reading this comment from Scott (in the previous post)...

I haven't been through Albany in years. But I do recall that the NY State Education Building is this gigantic federalist pound cake of a building that takes up the entire block and comes right up to the sidewalks. The scale is just so wrong. It's a frightening building....

... made me want to post the little video I took while walking by that building yesterday. The post title is part of the video dialogue:

The Supreme Court opened its new Term yesterday, and the big question, of course, is...

... how much did Sonia Sotomayor speak up?

... an inquisitive new justice... displayed no reticence.... she asked as many questions and made as many comments as...  was far more active Monday than in her first hearing as a justice...was part of an animated bench... Sotomayor's active questioning...

I guess it can't be helped. Everyone's hungry for something about the new Justice.

The case — Maryland v. Shatzer —was about when police may question of a person who has asked for a lawyer.  The basic rule is that the police must stop asking questions until the lawyer is brought in. But the problem here is whether there's ever an end to the proscription against more questions. What if years have passed? What if there is new evidence and a new investigation?

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. posed this hypothetical: What if someone was arrested for joy riding in Maryland, invoked his Fifth Amendment protection, and was never convicted? Could police in Montana question him as a murder suspect in Montana 10 years later?

When Davis said no, Alito replied: "And you don't think that's a ridiculous application of the rule?"

When Alito raised the hypothetical ante to a crime committed 40 years later, Sotomayor joined in.

"He is arrested for joy riding, he is let go, and you are saying that for 20, 40 years he is now immunized from being re-approached by the police?" Sotomayor asked.

So Alito asked a great question and Sotomayor repeated it.

Can we infer, then, that she didn't ask any interesting questions?

IN THE COMMENTS: Scott said:

Can we infer, then, that she is a parrot?

MadisonMan said:

Can we infer, then, that she is a parrot?