Drabblecast 240 - Trifecta XXI

[StalinSays]

Feature: Divorce in the House of Flies by Dustin Reade
Feature: Wendigo Bake Sale by Leslianne Wilder
Feature: Knit by Brenda Stokes Barron
Drabble: How to Deal by Chris Schryer



Friday, April 20th, 2012
We bought our first yarn baby at a garage sale. The ends of its arms were frayed and its eye buttons dangled loose on bare threads.

The Mega-Beast Death-Match

Art by Gino Moretto

Read by Josh Roseman and Ray Sizemore

Twabble: The crowd at the gallows looked up, then down. Up. Down. "That bungee noose is makin’ my neck sore," one man finally said. by Travelin' Corpse Feet

[strawman]

Wendigo Bake Sale is my favorite of these three.
I don't get the point of Divorce in the House of Flies. It's appropriately Kafkaesque, but simply reminds me that some teens relate to their parents this way, and some teens drop acid; and I wonder if it's Kafkaesque or if Dustin is one of those teens.
On Knit, I reserve judgement. It's almost a Golem story. I want more. Maybe the comments will provide the spark.

[Ignoranus]

Wendigo Bake Sale is my favorite of these three.
I don't get the point of Divorce in the House of Flies. It's appropriately Kafkaesque, but simply reminds me that some teens relate to their parents this way, and some teens drop acid; and I wonder if it's Kafkaesque or if Dustin is one of those teens.
On Knit, I reserve judgement. It's almost a Golem story. I want more. Maybe the comments will provide the spark.

I agree with everything here - though I don't see why it can't be both LSD AND Kafka at the same time. I was deeply puzzled by the first story. It definitely was bizarre and surreal.

Knit was also almost a little too strange for me. I think I might get more out of it if I were to listen through it again.

The Wendigo story was definitely my favorite as well. As I was listening to it, the thing that occurred to me is that I could really see it being read by Hearty White.

Though, to be fair, if there was a podcast read entirely by Hearty White, Larry Santoro, Ian and Alisdair Stuart, I'd never listen to anything else. EDIT: Herp. And Norm, of course. (boy, that sounds like I'm covering my ass, but I'm serious - just forgot when I made this post)

[Seraph]

'Knit' was my favourite. It was creepy - something about the idea of the yarn-babies was very unsettling. And the yarn-mother at the end ? *shudder*

[cinnamon]

I've listened to Divorce... a couple times and digested. And personally my take is that the kid is very imaginative and maybe making up or living in a fantasy world either as escapism or entertainment. It's odd, there are moments of very childish thoughts (and footie pajamas) mixed in with really adult thoughts that make me feel there's much, much more to this kid than meets the eye initially. Like he's either been in therapy, or is older than he seems at first blush, or something. Can't quite put my finger on it.

Have to listen to Knit again. Not sure how I feel about it. I enjoyed Wendigo Bake Sale, fairly straightforward but I love, love the use of "refrozen roadside slush" to describe a color.

And the drabble for this episode is maybe one of my favorites, ever.

[strawman]

'Knit' was my favourite. It was creepy - something about the idea of the yarn-babies was very unsettling. And the yarn-mother at the end ? *shudder*

It's the After-Yarn that's really creepy.
Is that what "plarn" is?

[Richmazzer]

Wendigo Bake Sale was my favorite too. Hearty White would have been great reading it but Norm certainly did the story justice also. The imagery was great in this story, the frozen roadside slush that Cinnamon mentioned, the blood covered camper cover, the rusty old gas station. I lived in a small town growing up, small communities like this are resistant to change and it was fun to see something crazy like a family of Wendigo being the point of investigation into this topic. Could've just as well been an African American family moving into rural Saskatchewan.

Divorce in the House of Flies was textbook Drabblecast surrealism. Felt like Frank Key could have written it. But it had some poignancy to it and all in all was a nice little flash piece. I liked the line referring to how the mother used to play with the child's hair "I guess she will have to stop... now that she is bugs".

Knit was some dark stuff! Ray Sizemore's straight narration made it even creepier. A world where we could change and restitch every little thing we don't like about someone is an interesting one, especially if you think about who would try to change you, and what specifically they would try to change.

And yes, great Drabble!

[cinnamon]

Knit was some dark stuff! Ray Sizemore's straight narration made it even creepier. A world where we could change and restitch every little thing we don't like about someone is an interesting one, especially if you think about who would try to change you, and what specifically they would try to change.

Haha, I was just going to come back and say "I guess that's what happens when you try to change people to suit you."

[jennybean]

I agree with the comments-- Wendigo Bake Sale was awesome. I loved the imagery, and the contrast between the otherworldy and the pedestrian of a bake sale.

I was all ready to love Knit, as I am an avid knitter/weaver/spinner... but that was probably to my detriment when listening to the story, because it appeared to me that the person didn't really know much about knitting. The terminology used, the descriptions, were just "off" enough for it to distract me. It sounded more as if the wife/mother was sewing the new babies.

[Travelin Corpse Feet]

Wendigo Bake Sale had me at Wendigo Bake Sale.

[tbaker2500]

The drabble was top notch. Really hit it out of the park with that one!

Flies was surreal.
Wendigo was good. I mean, really good. Having the child pop up at the end, saying "I'm a butterfly!" It could have been the Wendigo's child, it could have been someone else's child. The point is, it didn't matter. I give it 97/100.
Knit was good. I'm no writer, but I feel that it would've been better (and not quite a fatalistic) if it ended 3/4 the way through.

Great Trifecta!

[Unblinking]

"Divorce in the House of Flies"--Okaaaaayyyy. This one had me wondering if I'd missed something. Interesting idea, but it seemed like it was intentionally not actually explored, and instead was just a normal slice-of-life with the idea overlaid atop it as if nothing were happening. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I guess it doesn't wow me when the speculative element doesn't really matter.

"Wendigo Bake Sale" was okay. I'm interested in Wendigos, have written a story about a Wendigo. The thing about these is that they didn't really feel like Wendigos, they just felt like someone had decided to call them Wendigos but didn't actually MAKE them Wendigos, particularly their defining characteristic. It would help if their bake sale included some human pies.

"Knit" was far and away my favorite of the three. Very creepy to remake the baby for smaller and smaller reasons as the story went on and to remake the spouse at the very end. Yeah, I see jennybean's point that it didn't really sound like knitting (I don't knit, but my wife does and she talks about it all the time), and maybe if I were a knitter myself that would've put me off but I liked it.

[zZzacha]

Great Trifecta!

Knit was awesome! My absolute favorite of the three. The reparing/re-making of something that isn't really broken in the first place makes you think about our world today, where people do try to change themselves because they think there's something wrong with their nose/ears/eyes/whatever. Nothing wrong with a few flaws! It only makes people more human! But that might be the problem this couple had: they didn't want a human baby in the first place.

[tbaker2500]

But that might be the problem this couple had: they didn't want a human baby in the first place.

Ooh, nice! Great way to hit the nail on the head.