Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on January 06, 2014, 08:09:27 AM

Title: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: eytanz on January 06, 2014, 08:09:27 AM
EP429: The Little Black Bag (http://escapepod.org/2014/01/05/ep429-little-black-bag/)

by C.M. Kornbluth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth)

Read by Mat Weller (http://matweller.com/)

--

Old Dr. Full felt the winter in his bones as he limped down the alley. It was the alley and the back door he had chosen rather than the sidewalk and the front door because of the brown paper bag under his arm. He knew perfectly well that the flat-faced, stringy-haired women of his street and their gap-toothed, sour-smelling husbands did not notice if he brought a bottle of cheap wine to his room. They all but lived on the stuff themselves, varied with whiskey when pay checks were boosted by overtime. But Dr. Full, unlike them, was ashamed. A complicated disaster occurred as he limped down the littered alley. One of the neighborhood dogs–a mean little black one he knew and hated, with its teeth always bared and always snarling with menace–hurled at his legs through a hole in the board fence that lined his path. Dr. Full flinched, then swung his leg in what was to have been a satisfying kick to the animal’s gaunt ribs. But the winter in his bones weighed down the leg. His foot failed to clear a half-buried brick, and he sat down abruptly, cursing. When he smelled unbottled wine and realized his brown paper package had slipped from under his arm and smashed, his curses died on his lips. The snarling black dog was circling him at a yard’s distance, tensely stalking, but he ignored it in the greater disaster.

With stiff fingers as he sat on the filth of the alley, Dr. Full unfolded the brown paper bag’s top, which had been crimped over, grocer-wise. The early autumnal dusk had come; he could not see plainly what was left. He lifted out the jug-handled top of his half gallon, and some fragments, and then the bottom of the bottle. Dr. Full was far too occupied to exult as he noted that there was a good pint left. He had a problem, and emotions could be deferred until the fitting time.

The dog closed in, its snarl rising in pitch. He set down the bottom of the bottle and pelted the dog with the curved triangular glass fragments of its top. One of them connected, and the dog ducked back through the fence, howling. Dr. Full then placed a razor-like edge of the half-gallon bottle’s foundation to his lips and drank from it as though it were a giant’s cup. Twice he had to put it down to rest his arms, but in one minute he had swallowed the pint of wine.

He thought of rising to his feet and walking through the alley to his room, but a flood of well-being drowned the notion. It was, after all, inexpressibly pleasant to sit there and feel the frost-hardened mud of the alley turn soft, or seem to, and to feel the winter evaporating from his bones under a warmth which spread from his stomach through his limbs.

A three-year-old girl in a cut-down winter coat squeezed through the same hole in the board fence from which the black dog had sprung its ambush. Gravely she toddled up to Dr. Full and inspected him with her dirty forefinger in her mouth. Dr. Full’s happiness had been providentially made complete; he had been supplied with an audience.

“Ah, my dear,” he said hoarsely. And then: “Preposserous accusation. ‘If that’s what you call evidence,’ I should have told them, ‘you better stick to your doctoring.’ I should have told them: ‘I was here before your County Medical Society. And the License Commissioner never proved a thing on me. So, gennulmen, doesn’t it stand to reason? I appeal to you as fellow memmers of a great profession–”


(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP429_TheLittleBlackBag.mp3)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: matweller on January 06, 2014, 02:23:46 PM
You have my apologies for the delay of this episode. It was a large undertaking wrapped around general holiday confusion.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Sgarre1 on January 06, 2014, 06:38:25 PM
Excellent!  I remember this episode of NIGHT GALLERY!
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: egamma on January 06, 2014, 07:26:46 PM
First though: oh, someone watched Idiocracy and turned it into a short story. Big deal.

But, as I kept listening, it turned into a much more interesting story.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Grashtel on January 07, 2014, 08:24:23 PM
First though: oh, someone watched Idiocracy and turned it into a short story. Big deal.

But, as I kept listening, it turned into a much more interesting story.
Paying a little more attention to the intros might be a good idea, it is somewhat unlikely for a story first published in 1950 to be based on a 2006 movie.  In fact Idiocracy is largely inspired by the follow up to this story "The Marching Morons" which explores the future world glimpsed in this story.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Jompier on January 07, 2014, 08:30:56 PM
I found this story to be very interesting, conceptually. What I liked in particular was how Kornbluth used time travel to highlight the distinction between tools (in this case a doctor's kit) and the technology of medical practice (if we understand technology as a situated set of practices that require manipulation of tools, guided by a particular set of motives and ethics). We typically use the terms "tools" and "technologies" interchangeably, but when you tease them apart you can start to talk about some pretty interesting ideas without fetishizing the tool itself.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: albionmoonlight on January 08, 2014, 02:51:41 PM
Much like Norm, I like Golden Age SF.  I like that Escape Pod tends to focus on the contemporary stuff, but it is great to have that broken up with some classics.

For instance, in a golden age story, you can look back to a world in which journalism involved people conducting in-depth investigations of social problems and then writing detailed stories about the results of those investigations.  In 2013, the reporter's shoe-leather investigation into medical quackery would be replaced by firing the reporter and having an unpaid intern instead create a slide-show of "Top Ten Botched Celebrity Boob Jobs!"

Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: PotatoKnight on January 09, 2014, 10:05:11 PM
The "Marching Morons" part in the frame narration smacked a bit too much of eugenics for my taste, and some of the female characters were kind of uncomfortably stereotypical--as one might expect from a story from the 50s.  I suppose the girl reporter character helps round that portrayal--while also a bit of a stereotype, at least it's a charming one. Politics aside, the story definitely dragged for me in the middle.

That said, I came around a bit as the story wrapped up. I liked how it gave us a stock film noir ending, dismissed that, then came around to a much more chilling conclusion.

(Edit: cut half-finished closing sentence)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Listener on January 10, 2014, 01:07:52 PM
This story was SUPER DUPER LONG. If I hadn't been wearing gloves because it was so freaking cold in my car I probably would've skipped ahead to the outro. Not because it was long, but because I wasn't really feeling it with the whole Dr. Full is a drunk storyline.

I, like Norm, appreciate flawed visions of the future -- the fact that even in the 2400s we'll still have police chiefs, lights that blink on and off, and rampant sexism (as evidenced by the blond woman who asked whatsisname -- Walter? -- to keep telling his story). However, the idea of having "minders" is pretty believable.

Where the story stopped working for me, though, was when Al shut off the bag in the 2400s and it stopped working in the past. Even though Al's remembered discussion with the temporalist does make sense. It's just, all my founding knowledge of time travel comes from the 80s and later.

It was a pretty good story, all told, but sometimes old stories take so long to develop that today's readers aren't able to sit through the opening. That's why I almost didn't read The Name of the Wind -- because it took almost 12 (admittedly-short) chapters to really pick up. Once it did, though...
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: FireTurtle on January 13, 2014, 01:57:13 AM
Agree with the loooooooong build up to the actual action. I could be heard muttering under my breath "this better get better real quick" after again looking to see how much was left of an almighty lengthy story. I also love golden age stories and this is mainly why I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. All in all I found it interesting if a bit squirmy in bits. The eugenics-y bits being the worst of the squirmy parts but also, for me, the eerie predictions about plastic surgery as an easy money maker to pay for the "real doctoring" was equally uncomfortable because it is a reality I face every day at work.

I liked the complexity of the time traveling medical instruments and really wanted me some. Did not like the female characters but expected nothing more from a story of this era. I was also oddly moved by Dr. Full's redemption. To bad he got a knife in the back for doing the right thing but, thems morons is everywhere mucking up things for us smart uns.

Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: HueItzcoatl on January 13, 2014, 03:36:22 PM
When I first started listening to this episode I was about to turn the damn thing off and skip it altogether. The time skips were a little confusing at first and I had no clue what was going on. I think the confusion had more to do with my attention span than the anything wrong the story was doing.

I am glad that I stuck with it though, because by the end I was completely smiling like an idiot over the thing. Sure, the story is horribly dated but it's a pretty interesting take on greed vs altruism when it comes to scientific accomplishment. I especially loved the ending, I think that the woman got exactly what she deserved, but I will be the first to state the obvious fact that I am horribly biased on this fact because I have a deep moral objection to any kind of purely cosmetic alterations to the human form.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: albionmoonlight on January 13, 2014, 04:17:01 PM
because I have a deep moral objection to any kind of purely cosmetic alterations to the human form.

I am not challenging you; I am just curious.  What do you consider "alterations?"  Surgery, certainly.  What about earrings?  Makeup?  A "high-maintenance" hairstyle?  Dying hair?

And, what if someone is born with something generally considered a disfigurement--like webbed toes.  Would you be opposed to cosmetic surgery in that case?  Or, is the objection limited more toward enhancing "normal" bodies?

(re-reading that, it sounds like I am trying to challenge you.  I really am not.  I am just interested in exploring the basis of a moral objection to cosmetic alteration--an activity that I personally find kind of silly, but pretty amoral on the whole.)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Jompier on January 13, 2014, 05:21:50 PM
because I have a deep moral objection to any kind of purely cosmetic alterations to the human form.

I am not challenging you; I am just curious.  What do you consider "alterations?"  Surgery, certainly.  What about earrings?  Makeup?  A "high-maintenance" hairstyle?  Dying hair?

And, what if someone is born with something generally considered a disfigurement--like webbed toes.  Would you be opposed to cosmetic surgery in that case? 

The operative word here seems to be "cosmetic" rather than "alteration" and I would describe the skin tightening and fat removal described in the story to be more cosmetic surgery. This is opposed to surgery to fix things like a harelip or webbed toes, which seems to fall under the heading of reconstructive surgery. Of course, tightening one's skin to appear more youthful than one's age is a kind of reconstruction in a way, but what makes it cosmetic is that it is done more out of a sense of vanity. We expect older adults to have wrinkling skin and so it is not outside the norms of appearance to look our age and no more of a social hardship than for any other older adult with wrinkling skin. Webbed toes or a harelip are a different matter.

Anyway … it's interesting from the story's perspective how the availability of tools that make cosmetic surgery possible quickly cultivate the desire to have and provide those services.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 14, 2014, 05:16:58 PM
I liked it.  I'm with Listener that the prelude with the drunk doc was overlong and more than necessary to establish the drunken baseline from which he rises.  But other than that I liked it through and through.  I wasn't expecting the ending, but it tied together well with the rest.

The one part where I got confused was when the newspaper editor was clicking through articles with his smart-pen (unless I misunderstood that)--I thought that was the 25th century at first, but it turned out to not be.

The "Marching Morons" part in the frame narration smacked a bit too much of eugenics for my taste,

I didn't get the eugenics impression.  Rather, I thought he was extrapolating the trend of specialization to an absurd degree for comic and philosophical effect.  Society generally rewards people for being very very good at a particular thing, but doesn't so much reward, say, a doctor architect.  You can't be the best doctor you can be if you're spending half your time being an architect, and vice versa and someone who's kindof good at being a doctor and kindof good at being an architect isn't going to be praised for his roundedness, but rather scolded for his wasted potential in both fields .  That's been expanded here to apply not just to career choices but to basic skills.  Hemingway's a good doctor, but he doesn't know how to read (IIRC).  That's because he's a professional doctor, not a professional reader.  I assumed there was a professional reader out there who had no other major skills for similar reasons.  The idea is ludicrous of course especially for a skill with such obvious benefit as literacy since that can be used to learn new skills, but makes sense as an extension of current trends to the point of absurdity.  

And if technology has advanced to such a degree that it can do pretty much anything without people, that kind of extreme specialization might be a handy way to keep everyone occupied so they don't get into trouble.


and some of the female characters were kind of uncomfortably stereotypical--as one might expect from a story from the 50s.  I suppose the girl reporter character helps round that portrayal--while also a bit of a stereotype, at least it's a charming one. Politics aside, the story definitely dragged for me in the middle.

I actually thought rather the opposite.  I thought Angie was an unusually real person for a woman in a 1950s SF story.  She was intelligent, ambitious, capable, and driven to act in the pursuit of happiness.  She saw something was fishy with the original situation and moved it to her advantage, and she worked out a deal with the doc that was mutually beneficial.  She was not a vapid setpiece, nor a sexpot, nor a betraying Delilah.   Was she a bad person?  Sure.  Does that make the portrayal of her sexist?  Not to me it doesn't.

And on the subject of the female reporter--I don't think it's fair to consider her character a stereotype because she is never onstage to prove herself otherwise.  The only exposure we get to her voice is through her words that she wrote was meant to be published in the newspaper.  No matter what a unique individual that she is, she is gainfully employed in a career where her continued employment depends on fitting into her boss's (and the public's) expectations of how she should write.  Could she write something that really steps out of expectation?  Sure, but it would never get published and she'd get fired--her story about Dr. Full already got axed because of its variation from the norm, so there's good reason to think that there are limitations on what she's allowed to say and there's also good reason to suspect that she's pushing those limits by submitting that article.


All in all, I think that from this story alone, I'd guess that Kornbluth had a worldview much more sympathetic to women as real people than did many of his contemporaries.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Sgarre1 on January 14, 2014, 05:56:22 PM
Excellent story and excellent reading!  Those interested should hunt up the NIGHT GALLERY episode as a compare/contrast.  I didn't find it long at all and actually quite liked the long hangover start, as it allowed the chance to get to know the Doctor a bit better.  Also loved the real-world editor details of the time and the woman reporter (who seemed to have gone above and beyond)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: HueItzcoatl on January 14, 2014, 09:40:14 PM
because I have a deep moral objection to any kind of purely cosmetic alterations to the human form.

I am not challenging you; I am just curious.  What do you consider "alterations?"  Surgery, certainly.  What about earrings?  Makeup?  A "high-maintenance" hairstyle?  Dying hair?

And, what if someone is born with something generally considered a disfigurement--like webbed toes.  Would you be opposed to cosmetic surgery in that case?  Or, is the objection limited more toward enhancing "normal" bodies?

(re-reading that, it sounds like I am trying to challenge you.  I really am not.  I am just interested in exploring the basis of a moral objection to cosmetic alteration--an activity that I personally find kind of silly, but pretty amoral on the whole.)

No worries, I have no objection when someone does challenge my views. That's what makes things interesting. I should have probably clarified what I meant. I have an issue with alteration to the human form which radically alter the underlying infrastructure for purely vain reasons. Corrective surgeries are another thing entirely and I personally love body modification such as tattoos and piercings and make up. To me that's more like decorating the canvas not tearing it down.   

That being said, if someone chooses to have a tummy tuck, or a breast augmentation, or a face lift, I am not going to think less of that person. I have very strong opinions on the matter but don't try to impose those opinions on others. Free will and all that jazz.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: ThomasTheAttoney on January 14, 2014, 09:55:35 PM
Good recording of a classic.  It is going in my mix of sample escape artists podcasts on an sd card to give to a friend you orignally introduced me to CM Kornbluth.  I am looking for other recommendations.  Which is the Tim Pratt with the sentient spider robot?  Who did the one about the librarian or barbarian who was going to kill a Troll who was very honored to be killed by the famous Conan or Cohen and called his troll kids over to witness his best day ever (the hero did not kill him in the end).  What other main stream would be recommended?  Thanx
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 15, 2014, 03:25:58 PM
Great story! I love hearing the classics, mainly because half the time I've not read 'em myself. Was glad to learn in the comments that "Idiocracy" has its roots in this author, as I couldn't get it out of my head while listening. I agree with the consensus that the story took a while to warm up and get going, and that the time jumps confused the heck out of me at first. But I really enjoyed watching the drunk old doctor transform into a well-respected do-gooder with his magical black bag (and more than a little coercion from his young "friend" Angie).

While this story definitely had the expected sprinkling of embedded sexism, I'm mostly with Unblinking on the character of Angie, who was better-drawn and more interesting as a character than you usually get in stories of this time period.

It's actually the target of cosmetic surgery that made me roll my eyes the most. I know it's common and accepted even to this day to make fun of people who get these procedures and mock them as shallow, but I think it's only fair to point out that in a culture that places such a high premium on youth and beauty, it's hardly fair to blame people for buckling under the pressure. I had a lot of pity for the old woman character, who was socially isolated and who was really only seeking a way to be taken seriously again after the loss of her youth and beauty. After all, we'll mock women as shallow for spending too much time on making themselves meet beauty standards, then turn around and mock those who don't spend enoughtime/money meeting those standards.

So the message is, "You'd better make yourself look good enough, but you'd better hide how you did it, and what the cost was." Thus leading to some truly hilarious conversations with my male friends where they claim to like girls who "look natural", but then when you push for clarification, they don't mean they're okay with unshaven legs, unplucked facial hair, and skin that's as naturally blotchy and uneven as their own.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: evrgrn_monster on January 16, 2014, 02:36:25 AM
Ah, good ole golden age sci-fi. It's a security blanket of warm fuzzies for me. Much thanks for this story.

Since pretty much everything I would say about this story has been said, I'd just like to take a sentence or two to say that I thought the narrator did a great job with this story. Sound editing as a whole was actually very solid; I think without some of the effects that were added, I would've gotten quite confused with the time jumping.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 16, 2014, 03:04:09 PM
It's actually the target of cosmetic surgery that made me roll my eyes the most. I know it's common and accepted even to this day to make fun of people who get these procedures and mock them as shallow, but I think it's only fair to point out that in a culture that places such a high premium on youth and beauty, it's hardly fair to blame people for buckling under the pressure. I had a lot of pity for the old woman character, who was socially isolated and who was really only seeking a way to be taken seriously again after the loss of her youth and beauty. After all, we'll mock women as shallow for spending too much time on making themselves meet beauty standards, then turn around and mock those who don't spend enoughtime/money meeting those standards.

Did you think the story dealt with the plastic surgery patient poorly?  I had sympathy for her, and I didn't feel like the story was telling me otherwise, but I might've missed some cues.  I can understand the position she's in that would make her feel such a thing was important, and I appreciated that she was shrewd enough to raise objections when she saw the cutting tools instead of just passively accepting whatever would happen after she's seen a red flag.  That shrewdness saved her life, as it turned out, otherwise Angie would surely have cut the woman's throat and killed her by accident when the tools were switched off.  She didn't get out of it free of consequence since she did have to witness Angie accidentally cut her own throat (the urge to sell concessions onna stick and sausages of questionable origin just overcame me at that phrase), but she avoided dying at least.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Jompier on January 16, 2014, 03:34:29 PM
Did you think the story dealt with the plastic surgery patient poorly?  I had sympathy for her, and I didn't feel like the story was telling me otherwise, but I might've missed some cues.  I can understand the position she's in that would make her feel such a thing was important, and I appreciated that she was shrewd enough to raise objections when she saw the cutting tools instead of just passively accepting whatever would happen after she's seen a red flag.

I think this scene from the story captures a great deal of what I liked about the story. Whether it was a cheap shot at cosmetic surgery seems beside the point to me. What appealed to me about the patient's confusion regarding the cutting tools is that it mirrors a similar lack of understanding shared by Angie and Dr. Full. The difference is that where uncertainty leads to the patient's anxiety, Angie and Dr. Full seem far less concerned and more willing to be guided by the tools.

The nugget that has me still thinking about the story is that the surgical tools, transplanted to the future, are built around a worldview of medical practice that didn't exist in Dr. Full's time, but possession of the tools provides enough scaffolding for anyone, even a drunk (as the author goes to great lengths to point out) to engage in those practices regardless. On one hand this is a somewhat disconcerting outlook because it suggests that our tools make us and our activities in their image (a decidedly deterministic look at technology). But what differentiates Dr. Full from Angie is Full's sense of medical ethics which guides his sense of propriety and (mostly) shapes his willingness to submit to the affordances of his tools, which he seems to clearly recognize. Angie lacks this specific professional ethic, which allows Kornbluth to set her up (deservedly or not) as the "dumb brute" who is thoroughly and unconsciously shaped by her tools. If there is a point that bothers me about the story it might be how Angie is portrayed as lacking any moral or ethical agency. Certainly we all have some sense of ethics that doesn't derive from professional oaths and that would enable us to get some critical distance our technologies, but Angie doesn't show any such.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 16, 2014, 05:58:36 PM

Did you think the story dealt with the plastic surgery patient poorly?  I had sympathy for her, and I didn't feel like the story was telling me otherwise, but I might've missed some cues.  I can understand the position she's in that would make her feel such a thing was important, and I appreciated that she was shrewd enough to raise objections when she saw the cutting tools instead of just passively accepting whatever would happen after she's seen a red flag.  That shrewdness saved her life, as it turned out, otherwise Angie would surely have cut the woman's throat and killed her by accident when the tools were switched off.  She didn't get out of it free of consequence since she did have to witness Angie accidentally cut her own throat (the urge to sell concessions onna stick and sausages of questionable origin just overcame me at that phrase), but she avoided dying at least.

It wasn't the scenes themselves (which I agree were well-handled), just the choice of cosmetic surgery itself, which I couldn't help feel was picked out of all the off-label medical procedures of the world just because of its association with vanity, shallowness, and yes, women. There are lots of embarrassing non-lethal medical conditions that someone might pay a lot of money to correct: poor vision, hemorrhoids, bad breath, etc etc. But when you need to evoke femininity, beauty, vanity, and stupidity, you whip out cosmetic surgery. It was only an eye-roll on my scale of annoyance, so really not a huge deal in the scope of a really great story (and its historical context), but certainly worth noting.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Myrealana on January 16, 2014, 10:01:06 PM
I was acutally more interested in the future society than in what Dr. Full chose to do with the black bag in his present.

Super fancy tool drops through a time vortex. Some want to use it for good. Some for personal gain. Meh.

But the future society that developed it, that's a gold mine!
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Grashtel on January 17, 2014, 04:28:01 AM
I was acutally more interested in the future society than in what Dr. Full chose to do with the black bag in his present.

Super fancy tool drops through a time vortex. Some want to use it for good. Some for personal gain. Meh.

But the future society that developed it, that's a gold mine!
Fortunately Kornbluth seems to have agreed with you having written a followup that does just that: The Marching Morons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 17, 2014, 03:19:29 PM
It wasn't the scenes themselves (which I agree were well-handled), just the choice of cosmetic surgery itself, which I couldn't help feel was picked out of all the off-label medical procedures of the world just because of its association with vanity, shallowness, and yes, women. There are lots of embarrassing non-lethal medical conditions that someone might pay a lot of money to correct: poor vision, hemorrhoids, bad breath, etc etc. But when you need to evoke femininity, beauty, vanity, and stupidity, you whip out cosmetic surgery. It was only an eye-roll on my scale of annoyance, so really not a huge deal in the scope of a really great story (and its historical context), but certainly worth noting.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think that cosmetic surgery made more sense than anything else would have in the context--it was a pragmatic choice for how to make more money.  For obvious reasons, most medical procedures in most fields are meant to treat a condition that can be medically confirmed.  For example--you have cancer, so let's try to put the cancer in remission, prolong your life, or make you as comfortable as possible.  Or--you have heart disease, let's keep those heart attack risk factors as low as possible.  If a doctor peretends you have these conditions when you don't, he is legally liable.  If a doctor pretends to treat these conditions when he really doesn't do anything, he is legally liable.  But for cosmetic surgery, the "condition" that's being treated is subjective and based heavily in opinion.  "You have bags under your eyes." or "Your paunch is a bit paunchy" can't be held legally liable in the same way, because if the patient is electing to change things that are not considered actual medical problems, where do you consider it fraud and where do you consider it not fraud?  There's certainly a line, but the line is much, much fuzzier.  And they were already making money by having customers who had medical conditions that needed treatment, so to widen their customer base they had to aim for elective procedures.  Pragmatically, it makes sense for a fraudulent medical practitioner to go for cosmetic surgery because the legal obligations are not as obvious in that sub-field, and also pragmatically it makes sense to aim for elective procedures when you're looking to widen your customer base. 


So I didn't see the inclusion in the story as a commentary or condemnation of cosmetic surgery, but rather an acknowledgment that it would be easier to try to pull something in the cosmetic surgery field than other medical fields.

While the story certainly condemned Angie, I didn't think that had anything to do with her condoning cosmetic surgery, but rather because she is a murderer.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 17, 2014, 03:46:30 PM
Can we make a case for why the cosmetic surgery makes sense in the case of the plot? Sure. Does that mean it lacks sexist underpinning? Not necessarily. Considering when it was written and the presence of other sexist dog whistles in the story, and the fact that it's by an author who also wrote "The Marching Morons" in the same universe, I feel relatively confident that my reading is not entirely accidental, especially when you take into account some of the greater implications of setting up the (eventually) competent male doctor vs. his evil, incompetent assistant whose big crime seems to be stepping outside her rightful place by daring to study the black bag's manual and coming up with some novel new ways to apply it (her moneymaking scheme aside).

But as I've said, I'm not terribly interested in the sexist elements of this particular story. We're pretty much guaranteed a little sexism every time classic SF takes the stage, and in this case I'm more inclined to note that it's there and move on to more interesting elements of the story, rather than argue about whether the sexism is there to begin with.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 17, 2014, 04:12:04 PM
especially when you take into account some of the greater implications of setting up the (eventually) competent male doctor vs. his evil, incompetent assistant whose big crime seems to be stepping outside her rightful place by daring to study the black bag's manual and coming up with some novel new ways to apply it (her moneymaking scheme aside).

I though it was pretty clear-cut that her big crimes are murder and concealment of murder.  From the start she proved herself to not be incompetent, and her innovational idea of how to use the tools showed that.  The bag wasn't turned off because she was uppity and overstepping her station expected of a woman in the 1950s.  The bag was shut off because she violated the physicians oath to "do no harm" by killing the doctor and they shut off the bag as a result.  The guy in the future wasn't even aware of the cosmetic surgery--he was aware of the murder, and that's where the line was drawn that led directly to her accidental suicide.

I hear what you're saying about the story not lacking sexist underpinning, and as you say I don't know how a story from that era could be completely devoid of that.  But I would also rather not make assumptions about the author's prejudices without seeing what I see as clear signs of them simply because of the era he was writing in, any more than we should make excuses for a person's obvious prejudices simply because of the era he was writing in.

(And if you don't want to discuss this further, I'm fine with leaving it be.  But I disagreed strongly enough about what Angie's major crime was that I thought it bore saying)

Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 17, 2014, 04:28:48 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're supposed to dislike Angie before she commits the murder, though. The doctor's desire to hand over the bag for the general benefit of all humankind is contrasted to Angie's desire to make more money specifically through the use of a new cosmetic surgery technique. The murder and subsequent accidental suicide flow from that, and I think at least in part, we're supposed to see this as her comeuppance for her ambition and the "obvious" shallowness of cosmetic surgery itself. Let's not forget all the bits about Angie and finishing school, which strengthen her association with female vanity.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: matweller on January 17, 2014, 04:40:55 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're supposed to dislike Angie before she commits the murder, though.
Yeah, the beginning of their relationship is her blackmailing him. She's the foil. That's not sexist. I'd need to listen again, but I can't think of a single thing she does in the story for which you couldn't swap in a male character. I take that back, they wouldn't have let a man into finishing school. That's sexist.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 17, 2014, 05:01:33 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're supposed to dislike Angie before she commits the murder, though. The doctor's desire to hand over the bag for the general benefit of all humankind is contrasted to Angie's desire to make more money specifically through the use of a new cosmetic surgery technique. The murder and subsequent accidental suicide flow from that, and I think at least in part, we're supposed to see this as her comeuppance for her ambition and the "obvious" shallowness of cosmetic surgery itself. Let's not forget all the bits about Angie and finishing school, which strengthen her association with female vanity.

Sure, I disliked her before the murder.  But I didn't particularly like the doctor either.  The doctor's desire to hand over the bag for the benefit of all mankind was portrayed explicitly as being a selfish act, despite the obvious good for humanity:
1.  He wanted to be acknowledged for it.
2.  He wanted to do this good thing to counterbalance the bad things he'd done in his life, not because it was a good thing.
3.  He wanted to do this good thing in large part because he was old and making tons of money at this stage of his life wasn't all that appealing to him.
4.  He wanted to do this because of the benefits to himself primarily, and secondarily because of the benefits to humanity , but did not think at all about what he was asking Angie to give up for nothing.

The crime that HE died for was lack of empathy because he didn't think about her position, how she would lose everything by allowing him to do what he proposed.  If he had any empathy he could've at least conceived an outcome that would also benefit Angie, such as giving her credit for the discovery to make her a celebrity.  Whether he liked her or not, they'd been working together for quite some time.  Even if he only cared what she thought for reasons of self-preservation, that would've been something.

She, on the other hand, was just trying to live the 1950s red-blooded American dream of financial prosperity through capitalism--she was the very model of an American hero of the time.  Where that went awry was where the doctor tried to force his will upon her, and she responded to his crime with a crime of her own, and they both died as part of that exchange.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 17, 2014, 05:04:53 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're supposed to dislike Angie before she commits the murder, though.
Yeah, the beginning of their relationship is her blackmailing him. She's the foil. That's not sexist. I'd need to listen again, but I can't think of a single thing she does in the story for which you couldn't swap in a male character. I take that back, they wouldn't have let a man into finishing school. That's sexist.

Guys, I know you mean well, but I really, really hate winding up in situations where the burden of proof is on me to prove to a bunch of dudes that the sexism isn't all in my head. It makes me feel utterly exhausted. I think there's something to be said in these situations for giving those of us a lot more familiar with sexism a little credit. But, here we are, so here I go:

Association of Angie with cosmetic surgery and shallowness, and a minimizing of the importance of cosmetic surgery as I discussed in my original comment:
Quote
The girl, for instance, was too much interested in money. She had wanted to specialize in cosmetic surgery–removing wrinkles from wealthy old women and whatnot. She didn’t realize, at first, that a thing like this was in their trust, that they were the stewards and not the owners of the little black bag and its fabulous contents.

More of Angie's shallow ambitions, this from her own thoughts of what she has to lose, once again coded in vain female terms:
Quote
Her mink, her convertible, her dresses, the handsome man she was going to meet and marry–

Angie's appearance getting commented upon by the doctor, once again in terms of female vanity:
Quote
He liked the way she looked as she climbed the stairs; neat, not flashy, he thought. A sensible girl like her, she’d understand.

Can we just acknowledge the sexism is there, and move on?
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 17, 2014, 05:06:07 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're supposed to dislike Angie before she commits the murder, though.
Yeah, the beginning of their relationship is her blackmailing him. She's the foil. That's not sexist. I'd need to listen again, but I can't think of a single thing she does in the story for which you couldn't swap in a male character. I take that back, they wouldn't have let a man into finishing school. That's sexist.

Yeah, I can see how the finishing school detail could be sexist--it would've been expected at the time for a women working with the public.

I don't think that Angie could have been a man without other changes or changes in implications.  I think that the reason that the doctor got murdered is because he assumed (despite his history with her) that he could make a decision and she would have to accept it because she's a woman.  If she had been a man, then I suspect he would've made that decision with more thought about the resistance he would get.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 17, 2014, 05:10:19 PM
Guys, I know you mean well, but I really, really hate winding up in situations where the burden of proof is on me to prove to a bunch of dudes that the sexism isn't all in my head. It makes me feel utterly exhausted. I think there's something to be said in these situations for giving those of us a lot more familiar with sexism a little credit.

Fair enough.  I am interested in trying to understand your perspective, but I hear that the conversation is stressing you out, and I will leave it alone.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: matweller on January 17, 2014, 07:46:40 PM
Of course, you're right. As I stated in the thread for Heart of Joy, I do realize that my statement is made standing in a pool of white male privilege and that the failing is probably mine.

As a privileged white male, I'm going to opt to be enraged that it shows all poor people as greedy and too stupid to know what to do with a good thing when it comes to them.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 17, 2014, 10:11:18 PM
Mat, Unblinking: you guys are class acts. :) Many thanks.

And white dudes have their own POOL?! And you can post to the forums while standing in it? What, is it like one of those swim-up bars they have at fancy resorts or something?  ;)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Devoted135 on January 20, 2014, 07:08:54 PM
*awkwardly strolls in amongst the spirited discussion* Wow, you guys (and here I'm using the male version of this word, not the group inclusive usage) turned Varda's molehill into a small mountain! Glad to see it worked out in the end.


I liked this story and (as always) appreciated the opportunity to hear another classic SF story that I've never even heard of. I'll also second the appreciation for both the reading and the subtle sound effects. Really helped navigate all of the transitions!

Stories that predict the utter debasement of humanity always make me squirm because it's simply too terrible to think about. However, I liked how the tension of that was portrayed here. May humanity never go down this particular path...
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 20, 2014, 07:46:15 PM
Quote
*awkwardly strolls in amongst the spirited discussion* Wow, you guys (and here I'm using the male version of this word, not the group inclusive usage) turned Varda's molehill into a small mountain! Glad to see it worked out in the end.

I do find it awkward in turn to have someone make comments publicly directed toward me about my part of a conversation which I've agreed to not continue in the same location where I've agreed not to continue it.  I do want to stress that I wasn't trying to be confrontational or dismissive.  I was just going for the usual pedantic, loquacious, philosophical rant like we were enjoying over in the Scry thread.  I understand that the specific subject material was the reason for the difference, and will do my best to keep that in mind in the future.  Can we leave it at that?

Stories that predict the utter debasement of humanity always make me squirm because it's simply too terrible to think about. However, I liked how the tension of that was portrayed here. May humanity never go down this particular path...

*shrug*  I can imagine much worse futures, many of which are probably more likely than this one.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: HueItzcoatl on January 20, 2014, 08:30:31 PM
Of course, you're right. As I stated in the thread for Heart of Joy, I do realize that my statement is made standing in a pool of white male privilege and that the failing is probably mine.

As a privileged white male, I'm going to opt to be enraged that it shows all poor people as greedy and too stupid to know what to do with a good thing when it comes to them.

As a non white, I didn't find that part of the story offensive at all. I've met my fair share of people that act like she did, and it's easy for me to know that she's not the norm. My parents are living proof having been born in rural Mexico. ((Well my mother anyway))

I think it sticks out more to people that may not have had the experience. When it's already part of your life experience it doesn't really register.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Devoted135 on January 21, 2014, 03:24:00 AM
Quote
*awkwardly strolls in amongst the spirited discussion* Wow, you guys (and here I'm using the male version of this word, not the group inclusive usage) turned Varda's molehill into a small mountain! Glad to see it worked out in the end.

I do find it awkward in turn to have someone make comments publicly directed toward me about my part of a conversation which I've agreed to not continue in the same location where I've agreed not to continue it.  I do want to stress that I wasn't trying to be confrontational or dismissive.  I was just going for the usual pedantic, loquacious, philosophical rant like we were enjoying over in the Scry thread.  I understand that the specific subject material was the reason for the difference, and will do my best to keep that in mind in the future.  Can we leave it at that?

I apologize, no offense was intended.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 21, 2014, 03:56:55 AM
Quote
*awkwardly strolls in amongst the spirited discussion* Wow, you guys (and here I'm using the male version of this word, not the group inclusive usage) turned Varda's molehill into a small mountain! Glad to see it worked out in the end.

I do find it awkward in turn to have someone make comments publicly directed toward me about my part of a conversation which I've agreed to not continue in the same location where I've agreed not to continue it.  I do want to stress that I wasn't trying to be confrontational or dismissive.  I was just going for the usual pedantic, loquacious, philosophical rant like we were enjoying over in the Scry thread.  I understand that the specific subject material was the reason for the difference, and will do my best to keep that in mind in the future.  Can we leave it at that?

I apologize, no offense was intended.

 :)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 21, 2014, 04:32:53 AM
I do want to stress that I wasn't trying to be confrontational or dismissive.  I was just going for the usual pedantic, loquacious, philosophical rant like we were enjoying over in the Scry thread.  I understand that the specific subject material was the reason for the difference, and will do my best to keep that in mind in the future.  Can we leave it at that?

100% understood on my part, my friend. :) Thanks again for being so understanding.

As a privileged white male, I'm going to opt to be enraged that it shows all poor people as greedy and too stupid to know what to do with a good thing when it comes to them.

Channeling our formidable philosophical ranting energies in another direction, it strikes me as interesting how the humor of this story seems to rely upon the base impulse to see ourselves as "not as bad as THOSE people". It's the same impulse you get in redneck jokes, dumb blonde jokes, that sort of thing, where you set up a moronic straw man and associate characteristics of a group with said moron to insinuate that blondeness/Southern accents/etc in and of themselves stand for stupidity.

I certainly enjoy this type of humor on many occasions (including in this story, and I mostly liked "Idiocracy" too), but Mat's got a point about there being something troublesome about applying it to poverty in general (and without Lazarusing the sexism debate, it's possible the sexist elements fall into this category as well, both in how they serve the plot and the problematicness). I'm very fond of the saying that "good humor punches upwards" -- that is, it's funny when you mock people who are powerful, and less funny when you mock people who are already weak. So making fun of people for being morons is fair game, but suggesting that people of a lower socio-economic status are only there because they are morons is kinda like kicking someone when they're down. It's not something that occurred to me while listening to the story, but maybe that's just a testament to the author's craft (and Escape Pod's, because dang if the production and reading wasn't amazing!).
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 21, 2014, 03:58:15 PM
Channeling our formidable philosophical ranting energies in another direction, it strikes me as interesting how the humor of this story seems to rely upon the base impulse to see ourselves as "not as bad as THOSE people". It's the same impulse you get in redneck jokes, dumb blonde jokes, that sort of thing, where you set up a moronic straw man and associate characteristics of a group with said moron to insinuate that blondeness/Southern accents/etc in and of themselves stand for stupidity.

I certainly enjoy this type of humor on many occasions (including in this story, and I mostly liked "Idiocracy" too), but Mat's got a point about there being something troublesome about applying it to poverty in general (and without Lazarusing the sexism debate, it's possible the sexist elements fall into this category as well, both in how they serve the plot and the problematicness). I'm very fond of the saying that "good humor punches upwards" -- that is, it's funny when you mock people who are powerful, and less funny when you mock people who are already weak. So making fun of people for being morons is fair game, but suggesting that people of a lower socio-economic status are only there because they are morons is kinda like kicking someone when they're down. It's not something that occurred to me while listening to the story, but maybe that's just a testament to the author's craft (and Escape Pod's, because dang if the production and reading wasn't amazing!).

Hmmm.... I'm not sure how much I can contribute to that line of discussion because I don't remember thinking the story was funny.  The future where doctors could use their automatic tools but couldn't read was an interesting if absurd extrapolation of tech trends, but I don't think I thought any part of the story was funny.  The future part was interesting, the drunk part was dull, the redemption and resolution kept me interested, but I didn't think them funny.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Varda on January 21, 2014, 10:48:40 PM
Probably speaks more to my sick sense of humor, then. >:-D I laughed all the way through "Paradise Left", too, although that was more obviously funny in my book.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Unblinking on January 22, 2014, 03:36:53 PM
Probably speaks more to my sick sense of humor, then. >:-D I laughed all the way through "Paradise Left", too, although that was more obviously funny in my book.

That one I thought was funny.  :)
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Fenrix on January 30, 2014, 02:52:10 PM
I was also in the camp of folks who almost turned it off with the first section. Between the drunk and the uneven levels (yell away from the mic, please) it was challenging to want to stick it out for another hour. I'm glad that I did. This was a rotten little story full of awful people. Truly delightful!
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: SF.Fangirl on February 01, 2014, 12:24:17 AM
I enjoyed and appreciated this story as classic science fiction.  It held up well enough enough that I could enjoy it as a classic.  It is rather dated (even in the jumpy style and interruption for a newspaper article in the middle), but it helps to picture the story taking place in the 50s as an "X File" that was never solved.  I mean, doctors, black bags, house calls - very dated.

personal comment on length: I have a 50 minute commute to work.  I often avoid stories longer than just because I don't want the story to be interrupted.  And when I am doing something other than driving like cooking, I usually go for a non-fiction podcast because it usually requires less attention.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on April 01, 2014, 11:00:51 AM
Playing catchup here.
I love the golden age science fiction, and this was no exception. I don't think I would have read this on my own, so thank you EP for presenting it to me, and thanks to Mat for such an excellent reading.
I particularly liked the humanity-breeding-itself-into-stupidity storyline. I am definitely going to look up The Marching Morons. I too found the time jumps a little bit disconcerting at first (wasn't the doctor named Full? Where did this Hemingway character come from?) but I caught on quickly enough. Thanks for the audible cues, those helped.
Anything else? Oh yeah. Where can I get me a time-traveling nanotech black bag?
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: doctornemo on April 30, 2014, 11:55:42 PM
A very good reading of a classic.  Kornbluth had a keen eye for satire.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: CryptoMe on May 14, 2014, 04:02:23 AM
Catching up slowly on both the podcasts and forums.
I liked this one. It was a classic classic. The characters were all a very sanitized type of dark, being dealt their deserved come-uppance. Very film noir. 
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: hardware on May 20, 2014, 09:00:16 AM
I can see this being a classic. Like someone said early on in this thread, the implied eugenics did bother me (much more than any sexism, that I expected from a 50:s story, and got much less of than I expected), that kind of deterministic, genetic view of intelligence seems very outdated, and I shiver when I think about that 'bridge' they had to cross. The story also had a unexpectedly advanced structure for a golden age story with it's frequent jumps between timepoints and perspectives. In the end, it was mostly a story about bad people doing bad things - reminded me of Emile Zola, actually.
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Fenrix on May 24, 2014, 01:54:08 AM
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet or not, but here's a podcast of THE MARCHING MORONS

http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=29212
Title: Re: EP429: The Little Black Bag
Post by: Fenrix on June 18, 2014, 02:40:18 AM

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet or not, but here's a podcast of THE MARCHING MORONS

http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=29212


Just listened to MORONS today. Kornbluth's satire is even darker and rawer that with BAG.

Also, everyone should go check out Paolo Bachigalupi's story PUMP 6 - it's like both of these but pushing even more raunchy and dark buttons.