UNSONG Audiobook Version

"In retrospect, there had been omens and portents." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/prologue-2/ Episode 1 Length 6:38

"The apocalypse began in a cubicle." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-1-dark-satanic-mills/ Episode 2 Duration 20:31

"Richard Nixon was confused and upset. It wasn't that he hadn't expected problems. He'd only been on the job six weeks, but he knew a president had to be ready for anything. But "anything" was supposed to mean economic downturns, or crime waves, or The Russians. Instead Apollo 8 had crashed into some kind of weird space glass, the sky was cracking open, the clouds were forming ominous patterns, and Tuesdays had stopped happening." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%90-the-cracks-in-the-sky/ Episode 3 Duration 8:05

"Right down the road from Berryessa Station there's a big house with a hidden basement. The people who live there – usually six to eight of us, rarely the same from one month to the next – are the sort of artsy college students and aimless twenty-somethings who think that houses should have names. We call it Ithaca." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-2-arise-to-spiritual-strife/ Chapter 4 Duration 21:02

""The Code Of The World", by Aaron Smith-Teller, Published in the March 2017 issue of the Stevensite Standard The Talmud says that God created the Torah nine hundred seventy-four generations before He created the world. Generations of who, I don't know. The Talmud is kind of crazy." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%91-the-code-of-the-world/ Episode 5 Duration 11:51

"Ever since the sky cracked there has been a hurricane off the coast of Louisiana that never moves or decays. In its eye stands the Archangel Uriel." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-3-on-a-cloud-i-saw-a-child/ Episode 6 Duration 15:25

"Even before Erica finished formally adjourning the meeting, I wove my way through the crowd of garrulous people and up the stairs into my bedroom. I grabbed my laptop from the desk, then knocked on Ana's door. She was there waiting for me." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-4-tools-were-made-and-born-were-hands/ Episode 7 Duration 9:00

"I remember the first time I met Ana Thurmond." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/ Chapter 5 is 10 times as long as most chapters. Its 5 sections will be recorded as individual episodes. Episode 8 Duration 11:14

"I remember my first morning there, the morning it all came together. The girls finally dragged me out of bed and insisted on making me breakfast." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/ Chapter 5 is 10 times as long as most chapters. Its 5 sections will be recorded as individual episodes, of which this is the second. Episode 9 Duration 15:48

"I remember the day I first saw Ana in her element." Here is a personal note to explain the unannounced hiatus which this podcast experienced over the last two months. Thank you to those who asked after me. There's a happy reason and a sad reason. Let's get the sad out of the way. I no longer have access to the laptop which I was using to record this. It had several more episodes recorded on it, which I had not yet published, and which must now be re-recorded. That audio was the rest of Chapter Five, which is complex and surprisingly exerting to narrate for multiple reasons. The good reason is that over the last two months, I switched from my 9-to-5 employment routine, and have been focusing my effort on some other passion projects that bring in money. I look forward to telling you about them when the websites launch. Until then, suffice it to say: I hope you like games. I also run an annual convention, Penguicon, a combination of a science fiction/fantasy literature convention with an open-source software conference. Penguicon consumes most of my time in April every year. I had the pleasure to meet up with the author of UNSONG there. We got more than 1550 attendees. It was exhilarating. Another piece of good news is that a fan of the podcast recently sold me a new laptop for really cheap. It appears to have decent USB ports which will not corrupt the sound quality as much as my regular laptop would do. You can expect the podcast to resume its regular schedule. I would appreciate any tips you may wish to provide. As with all things related to UNSONG, this tip jar is provided with the explicit permission of the author. It's fast and convenient to send money through Square's Cash service. Here's my own Cashtag page: http://cash.me/$MattArnold While you have my thanks, of course tips are not necessary. And as always, here is a link to the author's site containing the original material narrated in this episode. Until next time. http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/ Episode 10

"I remember the day I asked Ana on a date." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/ Chapter 5 is 10 times as long as most chapters. Its 5 sections will be recorded as individual episodes, of which this is the fourth. Episode 11 Duration 5:17 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"And I remember the day Ana and I got married." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/ Chapter 5 is 10 times as long as most chapters. Its 5 sections were recorded as individual episodes, of which this is the fifth. Episode 12 Duration 9:46 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"Those who speak the Names of God aloud are called cantors and singers. Like everything, these terms have both overt and kabbalistic meanings." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%92-cantors-and-singers/ Episode 13 Duration 8:36

"The computer whirred and chattered: the speaker producing Names faster than the ear could follow. I stared at the screen. I already knew I wouldn't sleep tonight." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-6-till-we-have-built-jerusalem/ Episode 14 Duration 21:54 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"My watch read 5 AM. Bill Dodd lived an hour's walk away, close to the weird morass of swamps and mud flats that passed for the San Francisco Bay in this area. He woke up around six and left at seven for some tutoring job up in the North Bay. I figured by the time I got to his home, it would be just about morning and I could catch him while he was getting ready." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-7-the-perishing-vegetable-memory/ Episode 15 Duration 22:58 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"Love is the law, but it is poorly enforced. — Reverend Raymond Stevens, "Singers In The Hands Of An Angry God"" A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-8-laughing-to-scorn-thy-laws-and-terrors/ Episode 16 Duration 31:45 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"WE SAY THAT MAN WAS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD," said Uriel. "BUT GOD IS INEFFABLE AND WITHOUT PHYSICAL FORM. RESOLVE THE PARADOX." "I'm hungry," said Sohu." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-9-with-art-celestial/ Episode 17 Duration 16:16 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"Campus library hadn't changed much since I got expelled. I checked out three big books without even so much as a "You don't look like an Ana Thurmond," let alone UNSONG goons hauling me off somewhere. Thank goodness for automatic card reader machines." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-10-bring-the-swift-arrows-of-light/ Episode 18 Duration 09:09 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"The shortest effective Name of God is the Tetragrammaton. This was the Name recorded in the Bible, the one the High Priests of Israel would speak in the Temple of Solomon. The rabbis said it was so holy that God would smite any impure person who said it. Some of them went on wild flights of raptures about the holiness of this Name, said it was the Shem haMephorash, the holiest Name of all. In these more enlightened times, we know better. We call it the Mortal Name, and it just so happens to be a Name whose power is to kill the speaker." A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%93-n-grammata/ Episode 19 Duration 10:10 Tip jar: https://cash.me/$MattArnold

"Time and chance, according to the Book of Ecclesiastes, happeneth to us all. Ana had planned to sleep in, but it so happeneth that she woke up hungry and found herself out of milk. She threw on an old t-shirt – one she had gotten at a theodicy conference a few years ago, with the motto WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMAKER? on the front – grabbed a shopping bag, and headed out to the 7-11 on the corner." Sorry for the delay between episodes. As a freelancer, my financial situation is quite feast-and-famine, and I needed to recover from famine. I did not quite get a feast, so there may be another famine in the near future. Thanks for your patience. If you'd like to help make episodes appear more often, please use my tip jar at: https://cash.me/$MattArnold A serialized story narrated by Matt Arnold with the permission of the author, Scott Alexander. Here is the website on which he is publishing the text: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-11-drive-the-just-man-into-barren-climes/ Episode 20 Duration: 13:44