The Strange Recital –– featuring Paul Smart's "Overlook"

Transcribed by Jerome Kazlauskas

Brent Robison  0:03  
"Listen, I was wondering if you had finished that Woodstock Times in there. If so, would it be? Oh, that's a humdinger of an issue just out yesterday—already read it cover to cover, I did. He scampered back inside and reappeared with the newspaper before finishing his sentence."

Brett Barry  0:21  
That's Brent Robison reading an excerpt from Paul Smart's novel, "Overlook: A Rock and Roll Fable" on the podcast, "The Strange Recital"—and this is "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast." If you've been tuned into local media for a while, you might remember Paul Smart, writer for "The Woodstock Times" and author of the 1994 book, "Rock & Woodstock." Paul lives in Mexico now, but he's still writing about the Catskills and "The Strange Recital," a podcast about fiction that questions the nature of reality, published Paul's book through their imprint, "Recital Publishing." This week, I sat down with Brent Robison and Tom Newton, both of "The Strange Recital" and "Recital Publishing," to talk podcasting, publishing, and writing. Following our interview, stay tuned for a podcast takeover and hear the full "Strange Recital" episode featuring Paul Smart and "Overlook"—and here we go to Mount Tremper, New York, where I asked Brent to introduce Tom and Tom to introduce Brent.

Tom Newton  1:34  
Brent Robison lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York with his wife, a maker of fabulous masks and the wisecracking teenage daughter. His fiction has appeared in over a dozen literary journals and several anthologies, and has won the "Literal Latte" Short Award, the "Chronogram" Short Fiction Contest, a Fiction Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. His collection of linked short stories, "The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility," and his mystery novel, "Ponckhockie Union," are available from booksellers everywhere.

Brent Robison  2:15  
Tom Newton is the author of "Warfilm," Bloomsbury [2015], "Seven Cries of Delight" from Recital Publishing [2019], and "Voyages to Nowhere" from Recital Publishing [2021]. He spent many years working in the film industry as a prop man, while pursuing a parallel existence as a musician, sound engineer, and mastering engineer. He was a participant in London's punk music scene in the late seventies. He lives on a mountain in Woodstock, New York with his wife and daughter.

Brett Barry  2:49  
While you guys have the types of voices that I'd want to listen to on a podcast, so we're off to a good start. What is "Strange Recital" podcast? How did it come to be and how long have you been producing it?

Brent Robison  3:02  
Well, Tom and I met through our ... our writing ... our mutual interest in writing, but his audio talents led us in our early conversations to say why don't we do a podcast about writing or about fiction and we just happen to sync up quite well in regard to the kind of work we were interested in: both in doing ourselves and in showcasing from other authors, which was stuff that's very hard to categorize ... being kind of on the fringes of ... of literary work, not really genre work, but stuff that like we say somehow ... questions the nature of reality.

Tom Newton  3:46  
Originally, we met because I'd written this novella, "Warfilm," and Brent had come across it on the internet and wrote a pretty good review. And I thought, "Wow! I should contact this guy and thank him." We kind of back and forth on Facebook about and then we thought when we realized we live fairly near each other, so why don't we actually meet in the real world? And then, you know, the idea of the podcast came about. From the very get-go, you know, it was a way of putting our own writing out there and this was 8 years ago. So podcasts, you know, they were in a different stage, then it was a way of showcasing our own writing—but then we realized that we didn't want it to be just about us. We wanted to be inclusive and try to find, you know, different voices and different styles and authors that we could bring to the public attention.

Brent Robison  4:38  
We just found those mutual interests and plunged in and made a few episodes in advance before we launched and this was in 2016. So we went for a while with two episodes a month found that ... that was a little too much for us, so we cut back to one episode a month and we're into our eighth year.

Brett Barry  4:56  
And what's the general format of the show if there's any kind of a continuity there that you wanted to talk about?

Tom Newton  5:03  
First, we have the story, and then a little interstitial music, and then an author interview. Sometimes they're just, you know, a pretty straight ahead with their interview, and other times they verge towards the kind of radio play. We like humor, so there's humor involved, but it's not a comedy show. It's almost the humors there ... make us not come over as important to her, you know, what I mean? And we wanted to have it not just a reading like in an audio book or something, but a little bit more, but not as far as a radio play. So, hence the sound effects. They just sort of provide a little shift in reality ... that was the plan and that's what we do.

Brett Barry  5:55  
So let's talk about the types of writers that you feature on this show. I noticed there are quite a few who are local to the Catskills, so we got Paul Smart and Alison Gaylin, Roger Wall, Miriam Silver-Altman, Bob Wyatt, Violet Snow, Sparrow, and then lots of other authors who aren't necessarily Catskills based, and even some authors from the past like Edgar Allan Poe or Nathaniel Hawthorne, even Kurt Vonnegut of the recent past. How do you choose who you want to profile? Is it to have anything to do with where we are or is it more about the work? How does that process work?

Brent Robison  6:32  
Part of it is about where we are. I was publishing a literary journal at the beginning of this century that was focused on showcasing Hudson Valley writers and I've always had an interest and wanting to give a voice to people who haven't been heard so much. So we didn't necessarily want to chase after famous writers. We liked the idea of showcasing people who aren't well-known, but we think who are good writers and who have something to say. But it is a constant search for material that is accessible to us that we don't have to spend too much time and energy asking permission for. I'm constantly on the ... on the lookout for stuff like that. We had the Pulitzer Prize winner, Paul Harding—his book, "Tinkers." I loved the excerpt. I read so much that I found him, reached out to him, and he was perfectly willing to ... to come on. Unfortunately, we had to record him over the phone, but it's a constant search. That's ... that's basically all I can say.

Brett Barry  7:43  
Originally, when we connected with each other, Brent, you had told me about an episode that focuses on Paul Smart's new book, which you also published and we'll get into that in a moment. So Paul Smart is known by many in the Catskills as a local journalist. He lives in Mexico now and he wrote a book called "Overlook." So tell me a little bit about the book, and then also, how the podcast made a leap to publishing.

Brent Robison  8:10  
Well, first, let me say that this book has a long history with me. I'm a friend of Paul Smart and ... long ago, when he was a working journalist in the area, he ... he knew of my literary interests and ... and asked me to read his early draft—and so I gave him a little feedback on ... on that, and then he went away and disappeared as far as I knew ... nothing would ever come of it, and then he decided to resurrect it again and he reached out to me. I had thought about it actually over those years because it's something that sort of fits into what we're doing it. It's very Catskill oriented, very atmospheric about the Catskills featuring an odd loner character, Catskill's Mountain Man, but primarily, being about, you might say, "The Ghost of Richard Manuel," the great singer from the band immediately after his suicide—wildly imagined trip that he makes from the motel in Florida where he died—back to Woodstock and in ... in his journeys he intersects with this lone mountain man who was a hardcore fan of the band and other music—and so it takes place in an alternate reality. Essentially, it's, I think, our thirteenth book in our catalog. I think that's where we're at now.

Tom Newton  9:35  
After having done the podcast for 3 or 4 years, we were talking ... we were sort of limited to time, you know, the time of an episode. So, to publish books would be a way to further our interests in a deeper way. We hummed and hawed about it and how much work it would be and then, you know, we went for it and I'm glad we did.

Brett Barry  9:59  
So I'd like to play the episode that you produced of Paul Smart's "Overlook," before we get into it, I mean, it should speak for itself, but as are there any kind of notes that you would like to impart about this particular episode: how it was recorded, how you connected with Paul in Mexico, and ... and the process that went behind it?

Tom Newton  10:22  
Well, you know, we connected with Paul via email. We had Brent read the story. Brent read the story. I edited it. I put the sound effects in and then, you know, we interviewed Paul remotely.

Brent Robison  10:36  
The piece of music on this episode was commissioned by Paul through a friend of his. It's a beautiful piece of cello music.

Audio  10:45  
[MUSIC STARTS]

Brett Barry  10:46  
Stay tuned to hear the full "Strange Recital" episode featuring Paul Smart and "Overlook." But first, a message from our sponsors.

Audio  10:59  
[MUSIC]

Campbell Brown  10:59  
This episode is supported by Hanford Mills Museum. Explore the power of the past and learn about the ingenuity of the historic milling industry. Watch the waterwheel bring a working sawmill to life. Bring a picnic to enjoy by the millpond. For more information about scheduling a tour or about their 2024 exploration days, visit hanfordmills.org; and by Briars & Brambles Books. The go to independent book and gift store in the Catskills, located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path. Open daily. For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call 518-750-8599.

Audio  11:38  
[MUSIC ENDS]

Brett Barry  11:49  
Spring is in the air and we've got some vernal episodes in the archives, if you'd like to check them out—like episode 35: "Woodstock NY Pollinator Pathway," episode 37: "Vintage Baseball in Delaware County," episode 86: "Black Bears Sharing Space," episode 65: "Six Ticks: in the Lyme Light," and episode 62: Leslie T. Sharpe's "The Bluebird Chronicles: A Catskills Romance." A quick way to get there, just type kaatscast.com followed by a slash and the episode number. Vintage baseball, for example, is episode 86. So you can just type kaatscast.com/86 to get there and all our shows are keyword searchable, so you can discover or rediscover all your favorites at kaatscast.com and be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss a new one. There's plenty in the hopper. And now, "Overlook" from our friends Brent and Tom at the podcast, "The Strange Recital." Oh, and a quick note, we've added a few bleeps like this one ...

Audio  32:27  
[BLEEP]

Brett Barry  33:28  
... to words we thought might be questionable if younger ears are in the room. Enjoy!

Audio  34:37  
["THE STRANGE RECITAL" EPISODE 23101]

Brett Barry  44:57  
And this is "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast." Find us at kaatscast.com. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on Instagram @kaatscast. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

Campbell Brown  45:19  
Kaatscast is supported by a generous grant from the Nicholas J. Juried Family Foundation and by listeners like you! If you'd like to make a donation, you can do so at kaatscast.com. Thank you!