audio compost box: authors, texts & voices
Eight ROM chips, each limited to twenty three seconds of audio, required some editing of the original recordings. Below are complete quotations with, in brackets, text that exceeded the twenty three seconds and had to be edited out of the final file.
Kate Atkinson Case Histories Doubleday 2004 page 40
She would be a student somewhere now if she hadn’t had the baby, she’d be drinking like a fish and taking drugs and handing in mediocre essays on the 1832 Reform Act or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall instead of sprinkling coriander seeds on a tray of compost while listening to the baby (cry wherever it was she had left it when she couldn’t stand the noise anymore).
Read in Upper Falmouth, NS by Dr. Janet Hill (friend)
She would be a student somewhere now if she hadn’t had the baby, she’d be drinking like a fish and taking drugs and handing in mediocre essays on the 1832 Reform Act or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall instead of sprinkling coriander seeds on a tray of compost while listening to the baby (cry wherever it was she had left it when she couldn’t stand the noise anymore).
Read in Upper Falmouth, NS by Dr. Janet Hill (friend)
Martin Amis Dead Babies Penguin Books 1984 page 27
‘Yeah, he’s a mess, isn’t he.’
‘Sort of baby’s face on a dwarf’s body.’
‘Like a sort of wrecky little doll.’
‘Breath like a laser-beam,’ mused Quentin.
‘Or an oxy-acetylene burner.’
‘Fat as a pig.’
‘Smells like a compost heap.’
Or a dotard’s mattress.’
Be bald as an egg by the time he’s twenty-five.’
(‘Or twenty-four.’
‘Or twenty-three.’
‘Or twenty-two.’
‘He’s that now.’
‘At least').
Read in Upper Falmouth, NS by: Dr. Barrington Fox (friend)
‘Yeah, he’s a mess, isn’t he.’
‘Sort of baby’s face on a dwarf’s body.’
‘Like a sort of wrecky little doll.’
‘Breath like a laser-beam,’ mused Quentin.
‘Or an oxy-acetylene burner.’
‘Fat as a pig.’
‘Smells like a compost heap.’
Or a dotard’s mattress.’
Be bald as an egg by the time he’s twenty-five.’
(‘Or twenty-four.’
‘Or twenty-three.’
‘Or twenty-two.’
‘He’s that now.’
‘At least').
Read in Upper Falmouth, NS by: Dr. Barrington Fox (friend)
Margaret Drabble The Witch of Exmoor Penguin Books 1996 pages 22/23
(So there you have them. The dishwasher churns on into a noisier mode, and Patsy puts the kettle upon the tray. Yes, there you have them – Daniel and Patsy Palmer, David and Gogo D’Anger,) Nathan and Rosemary Herz – for Nathan has sneaked back in again, his fag ends in his pocket. He extricates them and drops them discretely into the waste bin - the wrong waste bin, for it is the one Patsy reserves for compost, but how is he to know? The middle classes of England. Is there any hope whatsoever, or any fear, that anything will change?
Read in Dartmouth, NS by Linda Hodgins (friend)
(So there you have them. The dishwasher churns on into a noisier mode, and Patsy puts the kettle upon the tray. Yes, there you have them – Daniel and Patsy Palmer, David and Gogo D’Anger,) Nathan and Rosemary Herz – for Nathan has sneaked back in again, his fag ends in his pocket. He extricates them and drops them discretely into the waste bin - the wrong waste bin, for it is the one Patsy reserves for compost, but how is he to know? The middle classes of England. Is there any hope whatsoever, or any fear, that anything will change?
Read in Dartmouth, NS by Linda Hodgins (friend)
Peter Carey True History of the Kelly Gang: a novel Faber & Faber 2002 page 75
(Come said she) lifting the hem of her fancy dress and drawing me out throught the steamy slippery kitchen into the hotel veggie garden where my Uncle Wild Pat the Dubliner were lying blotto under the tank stand. Not a glance did my mother give Wild Pat but escorted me down between the dunny and the compost heap and there she asked me bluntly how I liked her dancing partner.
Read in Australia by Dr. Vaughan Dai Rees (friend)
(Come said she) lifting the hem of her fancy dress and drawing me out throught the steamy slippery kitchen into the hotel veggie garden where my Uncle Wild Pat the Dubliner were lying blotto under the tank stand. Not a glance did my mother give Wild Pat but escorted me down between the dunny and the compost heap and there she asked me bluntly how I liked her dancing partner.
Read in Australia by Dr. Vaughan Dai Rees (friend)
Janet Fitch White Oleander Little, Brown & Company 1999 page 31
We sat on the roof in the burnt wind.
"This ragged heart," she said, pulling at her kimono. "I should rip it out and bury it for compost."
I wished I could touch her, but she was inside her own isolation booth, like on Miss America. She couldn’t hear me through the glass.
Read in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England by Sarah Bygrave (niece)
We sat on the roof in the burnt wind.
"This ragged heart," she said, pulling at her kimono. "I should rip it out and bury it for compost."
I wished I could touch her, but she was inside her own isolation booth, like on Miss America. She couldn’t hear me through the glass.
Read in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England by Sarah Bygrave (niece)
Richard Neely Shattered First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition 1991 page 171
I stood for a minute arguing with myself to return to my car and go home. I lost, and continued on. Then, abruptly, there was no place farther to go. Facing me through the fog was a mountain of stinking debris – garbage and dirt and rocks and crates and the roofs of crushed shacks all intermingled as in some noisome compost heap.
Read in Nantucket, USA by: Ben Maycock (son)
I stood for a minute arguing with myself to return to my car and go home. I lost, and continued on. Then, abruptly, there was no place farther to go. Facing me through the fog was a mountain of stinking debris – garbage and dirt and rocks and crates and the roofs of crushed shacks all intermingled as in some noisome compost heap.
Read in Nantucket, USA by: Ben Maycock (son)
Mo Hayder Birdman Seal Books 1999 page 229
“Don’t know what sort it is,” Dean said solemnly. “We didn’t see it, we heard it. Walking about in the leaves.”
“Oh, that’s all right,then.” Essex heaved himself out of his chair. “It’s probably just one of them invisible compost heap monsters.”
Read in Ottawa, ON by Ceridwen Maycock (daughter)
“Don’t know what sort it is,” Dean said solemnly. “We didn’t see it, we heard it. Walking about in the leaves.”
“Oh, that’s all right,then.” Essex heaved himself out of his chair. “It’s probably just one of them invisible compost heap monsters.”
Read in Ottawa, ON by Ceridwen Maycock (daughter)
Stephen Fry The Hippopotamus Arrow Books 1995 page 80
(The moment passes, of course, and we return to the proper realm of our dull thoughts and our duller newspapers: in less than a second) we are part of the world again, ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of a government minister or lured into caring about some asinine movement in conceptual art; once again, we become part of the great compost heap. Our absence is so fleeting and our control over it so negligible that an act of will cannot reproduce the experience.
Read in Dartmouth, NS by me (Composter-in-Chief)
(The moment passes, of course, and we return to the proper realm of our dull thoughts and our duller newspapers: in less than a second) we are part of the world again, ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of a government minister or lured into caring about some asinine movement in conceptual art; once again, we become part of the great compost heap. Our absence is so fleeting and our control over it so negligible that an act of will cannot reproduce the experience.
Read in Dartmouth, NS by me (Composter-in-Chief)
I am indebted to these talented authors, whose inclusion of the compost image in their novels fed my imagination. Their books were a pleasure to read and I believe that visitors to this site would also enjoy reading them.
