PseudoPod 663: Birds of Passage (http://pseudopod.org/2019/09/01/pseudopod-663-birds-of-passage/)
Author: Gordon B. White (http://pseudopod.org/people/gordon-b-white/)
Narrator: Steve Anderson (http://pseudopod.org/people/steve-anderson/)
Host: Alasdair Stuart (http://pseudopod.org/people/alasdair-stuart/)
“Birds of Passage” first appeared in Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles (ed. C.M. Muller)
Show Notes
From the Author:“This story draws a lot from my relationship with my late father, as well as an actual canoe trip we took when I was young. Since my father passed away, I’ve thought a lot about how encounters with the Weird or strange need not necessarily invoke horror, but how the revelation of infinite possibility could — once the immediate shock fades — be a source of hope or comfort, even in the face of loss.My father was a fantastic storyteller and had a great talent for repurposing classic tales. As a result, while several readers have mentioned finding echoes of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” in this story, my only previous exposure to Blackwood’s tale had been through my dad’s retelling of it. I’ve since read “The Willows” and can see where my dad took liberties with his version, but then again I’ve done the same here. In a way, that seems fitting. I like to think that he would have enjoyed this one.”
From Alasdair:
Twice Told
https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Told-Collection-Doubles-C-M-Muller-ebook/dp/B07MLYH2PD/
Cloverfield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloverfield
The Mist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist_(novella)
The Fog Horn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_Horn
If I didn’t inherit my father’s natural instinct for adventure, it was drummed into me steadily enough by the time I was a young man that you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. If you don’t go looking for adventure, he would say, adventure will come looking for you. Over the years, I got so used to the counter-programming against my inborn tendency towards the comfort of safety that I wonder – if left to my own natural limits – would I have turned out differently? Are there other dimensions with less driven, but perhaps more content, versions of me? I’ve thought about that a lot since my father died.
My father and I had plenty of what he would call “adventures,” even though we sometimes disagreed on what qualified. Road trip to the mountains and across state lines? Sure, that counted. Pushing his broken car to the dealership and walking home? Not in my book. Nowadays, although I would not trade any of them for the world, the years have smudged away most of our individual adventures. However, I will never forget Cotner’s Creek.
Listen to this week's Pseudopod. (http://traffic.libsyn.com/pseudopod/Pseudo663_BirdsOfPassage.mp3)
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