Casting a spell.

Three separate times on the tube today, somebody asked me what I was listening to on my iPod (probably because I tend to laugh out loud).

When I explained to them that I only used my iPod to listen to podcasts, they were perplexed: who doesn’t have music on their iPod?

I don’t.

I do have a lot of podcasts, however, and because they asked me to share my playlist, here’s a quick list of what’s playing in my headphones today:

Tech: CBC Search Engine, CBC Spark, This Week in Tech, net@nite, Macbreak Weekly, commandN.

Sports: Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, Best of Mike and Mike, Football Today, Tirico and Van Pelt.

Film: mamo! *, The /Filmcast, Cinemaslave.

Culture: Do Right!, Indiefeed Performance Poetry, Mahalo Daily, NPR Pop Culture, This American Life.

Humor: Ask a Ninja, Russell Brand, You Look Nice Today.

* mamo! is my favorite podcast of all time. Seriously. If you’re just starting out with it, go back a few episodes and learn more about the dynamic between Matt and Matt — they’re great.

Do you have any favorite podcasts I’m not listening to? Let me know!

Speaking in tongues

I recently joined the cast for a small community theatre production. As part of my role, I need to spend a good chunk of the production speaking in a Central Asian accent.

If you’ve never tried to adopt a realistic foreign accent before, you’d be surprised how hard it is to learn.

These links came in handy, at first:

• Speech Accent Archive
• International Dialects of English Archive

In the end, however, the best way to pick up an accent is to become completely immersed in the language and culture.

A few nights ago, I went out to a Persian nightclub right after rehearsal and met a new ‘friend’. Some may call it unnecessary salaciousness; I call it character study.