Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Talia on April 10, 2013, 12:30:39 PM
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PodCastle 255: The Medicine Woman of Talking Rock (http://podcastle.org/2013/04/10/podcastle-255-the-medicine-woman-of-talking-rock/)
by Pamela Rentz (http://www.pamrentz.com).
Read by Ada Milenkovic Brown (http://accordingto-ada.livejournal.com).
Originally appeared in her collection Red Tape: Stories from Indian Country.
Violet Spinks checked her to-do list for the ceremony: canoe, plants, medicine cap, trails. List-making might not be traditional, but no one would blame her for needing a brain prompt. She set the list in her medicine book and picked up the TV remote. She clicked through the channels and stopped when she spotted a young man with a torso like polished bronze. He shook out a bundle of black rubber cables and attached them to a shiny disk. The camera zoomed in on his brawny arms and legs as they worked the cables with the disk spinning in the middle. He looked like he wrestled a spider. A notice on the screen said three easy payments of $14.99 plus tax and shipping.
Rated PG.
Special thanks to Tina Connolly (http://tinaconnolly.com/) – our Guest Editor and Host this week! Her own podcast is Toasted Cake (http://toastedcake.com/).
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s PodCastle! (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC255_TheMedicineWoman.mp3)
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I'm sorry to say this really didn't do anything for me.
The story itself was in the "ok, I guess" category. The parallel between the medicine woman's encounters with the spirits and modern medical bureaucracy was mildly amusing, but a bit labored (and depressing if you think about it too much). I realize the importance of having an authentic native voice, and as a character sketch it's fine; I'd just like to have more "there" there.
And then there was the narration. It was a little obvious as well. At first I wondered if it was the author reading her work, and perhaps not as polished as some of the other narrators at Escape Artists.
I would prefer to be constructive in my criticism. I would advise listening to stories read by Wilson Fowlie (a gold standard for narration at Escape Artists). He almost never raises his voice unless the story demands it, yet he manages to invest the required emotion in almost everything he does. He does not sound like he's trying to reach the people in the back of the room. I think that was my problem with the narration - it sounded like a recording of someone doing a reading for a public space, a large room, and not reading to a microphone for a more intimate playback.
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I agree with InfiniteMonkey. The narration lacked subtlety, which I think the story needed. And technically there seemed to be something too loud about the audio.
I did enjoy the idea that there was a spiritual health plan... But maybe it wasn't enough to weave an engaging story around.
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On board with Monkey and Brynn. I imagined the narrator was going for a native american cadence, but the reading was very broken and distracting.
and depressing
She's totally digging the crappy aluminum(?) boat at the end. What is that saying? I guess one could be positive and look at it adopting new methods when technology provides them, but I (pessimist-at-large) choose to view it as abandoning century old traditions and joining the bureaucratic machine.
It doesn't help that our insurance rates just got jacked up by 35% this week.
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I could only make it through the first three or four minutes of the narration before I had to skip ahead to the outro. The narration felt like the reader was reading to a much younger age group than the intended audience. I didn't hear enough of the story to make an informed comment upon it for that reason.
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What Listener said, except I listened all the way through. Or well, I let it play all the way through; I’m afraid I had trouble actually listening and following the story, and kept getting distracted by the fact that it sounded like it was being read to children.
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Well, there is nothing more that I can add that hasn't been said. I found the story to be underwhelming. I did think that the reader did a good job of portraying an obnoxious old woman, I'm just not sure that's a good thing.
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I could only make it through the first three or four minutes of the narration before I had to skip ahead to the outro. The narration felt like the reader was reading to a much younger age group than the intended audience. I didn't hear enough of the story to make an informed comment upon it for that reason.
Same. Two minutes in, I couldn't take the narration anymore. It was slow, choppy, and emphasized in all the wrong places. Honestly, I've never dropped a story because of the reading before, but I just didn't have the patience for this one. :-\
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I tend to like stories about Native Americans. I like how the old ways are met with the new.
I didn't care for the reading. She seems like a nice person, someone I would like to know, but it was overlay loud. She got better, as she relaxed. It's a little odd that I didn't think reading was that strong, because I liked the tone of her voice. I'm still going to check out Toasted Cake.
I liked the story. I thought the world was well-defined and the characters weren't flat. What I didn't like is how so many sentences started with pronouns. It seemed repetitive. To me the ending could have a little stronger. With that said, I look forward to acquiring her collection.
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I didn't care for the reading. She seems like a nice person, someone I would like to know, but it was overlay loud. She got better, as she relaxed. It's a little odd that I didn't think reading was that strong, because I liked the tone of her voice. I'm still going to check out Toasted Cake.
Oh, FWIW, Toasted Cake primarily features Tina's readings (who hosted this episode, but did not read this story). So even if you didn't care for the reading this week, I'd highly recommend checking out Toasted Cake.
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I liked the story. I thought the world was well-defined and the characters weren't flat. What I didn't like is how so many sentences started with pronouns. It seemed repetitive. To me the ending could have a little stronger. With that said, I look forward to acquiring her collection.
This sums up my feelings nicely.
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While I would also agree with the comments about the reading, the idea behind the story interested me. What would we do if our 'gods' suddenly adopted a 'modern medicine' approach. While the idea was interesting, it wasn't carried through well. After the interaction with the gatekeeper, which left you thinking that nothing would be done, she does have a vision about Luther's back and the ceremony begins to go okay. This leaves me wondering if: 1) the old gods reasserted themselves?, 2) the new system did work - just with delays, or 3) none of the above. I figured we'd get some conclusion, but I was really dissatisfied b/c the story just stopped without seemingly wrapping up anything. Was the 'new system' in place to stay? Had something happened to allow the main character to bypass it? What happened? With the abrupt ending, nothing was concluded.
The story was set-up, there was a 'new process' in place, and then nothing was resolved. Unsatisfied with the ending....most definitely...
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There were moments of this story I LOVED. Overall it felt lacking something. The narration was fine, if a little "Oh wow, reading for the big boys is scary!"
I wanted to like this story more then I did, but it was good for filling a drive out to the nearby town to pick up new shoes.
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I thought our reader for this story just knocked the inflection and tone right out of the park with this one! Excellent job! It certainly improved the way this story flowed.
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Just dropping in to post a comment on the narration.
I don't think she was going for any specific culture, I just think she's used to reading to four-year-olds, and that's just how she reads stories. I didn't last even a full minute, but that's my issue, not hers.
I'll come back once I've read the story.
Also, Tina, it's awesome hearing your voice on this 'cast.
EDIT: Um... there's no text up on the site. I mean, there is, but it's just the first paragraph...
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Just dropping in to post a comment on the narration.
I don't think she was going for any specific culture, I just think she's used to reading to four-year-olds, and that's just how she reads stories. I didn't last even a full minute, but that's my issue, not hers.
I'll come back once I've read the story.
Also, Tina, it's awesome hearing your voice on this 'cast.
EDIT: Um... there's no text up on the site. I mean, there is, but it's just the first paragraph...
Disclaimer: I haven't listened to this episode yet so I don't know what was said, but PodCastle never puts the full text of stories up on the main site. We sometimes link to a page when an online text version of a story is available, but that doesn't appear to be the case with this story, at least not that I can find.
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Somehow this story got wrapped up in my mind with a recent This American Life story here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/491/tribes?act=1) that detailed how a Native American tribe in California is slowly kicking out many of its members based on lots of bureaucratic red tape. It was an interesting juxtaposition, and I think added some life to a fantasy story that was otherwise lacking somehow.
I think it's an idea worth the telling, but it was hard enough connecting to the medicine woman (she seemed to be simultaneously about 65 and 250 years old), and there was no connection at all with the other characters. I think that if the various requests of the tribe members had all been parsed into one or two that we explored deeply, it might have been more impactful for me.
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I find myself worrying about the 2 missing kitty cats.
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I feel like I would like the book this takes place in. I love most native american lit I read. Often it has some of the best magial realism you can find this side of Mexico. Yet just hearing one story from a book where all the stories where woven together feels more like I got a sample rather than a story. I loved the style and narration, but I just wanted something more to go a long with the overall plot.
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Somehow this story got wrapped up in my mind with a recent This American Life story here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/491/tribes?act=1) that detailed how a Native American tribe in California is slowly kicking out many of its members based on lots of bureaucratic red tape.
Ohhhhhhhhhh. Haven't managed to hear this one yet (actually - somehow - way behind in TAL listening). Thanks!
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Somehow this story got wrapped up in my mind with a recent This American Life story here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/491/tribes?act=1) that detailed how a Native American tribe in California is slowly kicking out many of its members based on lots of bureaucratic red tape.
Ohhhhhhhhhh. Haven't managed to hear this one yet (actually - somehow - way behind in TAL listening). Thanks!
I worked for a few years in an Indian run casino and got whiffs of things done to keep per caps up. This tale of a culture extinguishing itself was just plain depressing.
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Uh, the TAL tale? Or the PC one?
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I don't think she was going for any specific culture, I just think she's used to reading to four-year-olds, and that's just how she reads stories. I didn't last even a full minute, but that's my issue, not hers.
I agree with you that this was culturally unspecific, but having heard a lot of people who read at cons, I stand by my belief that this is someone used to reading for a roomful of people rather than specifically children.
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There were a lot of small things that kind of bugged me about the story, ranging from the sort of uncreative direct port of HMO procedures to gods. I would have been more interested if it had changed a bit more instead of just find-and-replacing "doctor" with "spirit" and "receptionist" with "gatekeeper." What does it mean to have a bureaucratic organization to the spirit world? Who decided to make the change and why?
Between my lack of enthusiasm at the unmetaphorical metaphor, the reading (which I shan't belabor save to note that I agree it was suboptimal), and the uninspiring ending (the story presents a problem, poses a solution, says "No, that won't work," then does it anyway), this one was kind of a whiff for me. I didn't actively dislike it, but it didn't excite me much.
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Uh, the TAL tale? Or the PC one?
Well, both were depressing, but TAL, being real was more soul-crushingly so.
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Somehow this story got wrapped up in my mind with a recent This American Life story here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/491/tribes?act=1) that detailed how a Native American tribe in California is slowly kicking out many of its members based on lots of bureaucratic red tape. It was an interesting juxtaposition, and I think added some life to a fantasy story that was otherwise lacking somehow.
I also felt a strong connection between that episode and this story. Maybe that's one reason why I liked this story more? But--oh for a dimensional viewer where we could check this experimentally--I think I still would've liked this story even without that TAL.
I'll admit that, in general, I enjoy the concept of modernizing the mythical; but whereas in many of those stories, the premise comes out as either "damn this modern red tape" or "look at how primitive our myths are," I felt this story hit a very pleasant third-way. That is, the drift boat may be easier to handle than the cedar canoe (point to modernity), but there are still past medicines to help the elder's back. So we can have medicine rituals while also using lists (not traditional) or mugs that say "World's Best Elder."
Now, just from the title alone we can pretty much tell that this isn't going to be a big event piece. Our medicine woman isn't about to save the sun from one of Coyote's crack-brained plan. This story is going to be quieter, smaller--no one lives or dies depending on the medicine woman's actions, only people's lives get better or worse, often in very small ways. But I'm fine with that: a piece that focuses on themes of modernity and tradition at least has that focus.
So far, this might be my favorite story this week (of catching up with podcasts).
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Many readers have voices that draw me into the stories: Graeme Dunlop, Kara Grace...of course M.K. Hopson. However there are a few that force me to look for other stories. This unfortunately was one of the latter. With no offense directed at Ms. Brown (whom I understand to be a talented actress and singer), the sound of this story just didn't work for me and I could hardly start, much less finish.
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Well I can't add much to what has already been said. I made it through 4 to 5 minutes and bailed. I typically can force myself to give the story a chance. But I found the subject matter slow and made more painfully so by the narration. Her voice reminded me of someone off an old game show and yes, as mentioned, like she was reading to a class of 2nd graders. I didn't think she did a bad job, just not to my taste.
Hopefully I will give this one another try later.
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The narration was slightly difficult to listen to at first, but by the end it seemed to fit the story perfectly (no to mention the acting was great).
Enjoyed the story. At first I thought it was going to be an "oh geez, the spirits have fallen prey to the bureaurocrats" type story, instead its kind of a commentary on how the old ways aren't necessarily better just because it's tradition.
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I enjoyed the setup of this one. Stories where religion is taken in a non-traditional way tend to entertain me. But I felt like it set up a story that it never finished.
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I enjoyed the setup of this one. Stories where religion is taken in a non-traditional way tend to entertain me. But I felt like it set up a story that it never finished.
I would guess that depends on your perception of the story. The story of a traditional woman having to deal with upsetting changes felt pretty finished to me personally.
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I enjoyed the setup of this one. Stories where religion is taken in a non-traditional way tend to entertain me. But I felt like it set up a story that it never finished.
I would guess that depends on your perception of the story. The story of a traditional woman having to deal with upsetting changes felt pretty finished to me personally.
I would have if it had seemed like more than a minor inconvenience to her.
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I liked the story, but the narration was stilted. It all had the same tone.
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This episode has been re-presented as PodCastle 646: TALES FROM THE VAULTS — The Medicine Woman of Talking Rock
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I was very glad to have this story brought up from the vaults. As a few of the responses to this story above point to a lack of plot and a lack of drama in the reader's presentation (please let me know if I've not summed up those comments fairly) I would say those are two reasons I really like this story. I agree that podcastle has some amazing readers that are often as entertaining as the story. The bar for reading in this podcast is very high. Ada Milenkovic Brown's reading was effective for me because her presentation was so well suited to the text. She was reading a story more about a place and state of being than about action, trauma, or triumph. I especially appreciated this because it concerned a very unique and wonderful group of people.