Escape Artists

PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on August 21, 2015, 08:47:46 PM

Title: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Bdoomed on August 21, 2015, 08:47:46 PM
Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh (http://pseudopod.org/2015/08/21/pseudopod-452-abandon-all-flesh/)

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Abandon All Flesh” first appeared in Tales of Jack the Ripper, a 2013 anthology. Silvia remembers the wax museum in Mexico City burning down in 1992, which helped to inspire this story.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel Signal to Noise has been released by Solaris. It focuses on magic, music and Mexico City. Her short stories have been collected in Love & Other Poisons and This Strange Way of Dying. This weekend she is a Special Guest at Necronomicon in Providence. You can follow her on her blog at http://silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/ (http://silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/) or on Twitter @silviamg

Your narrator — Pamila Payne — is a Los Angeles writer and voice actor. Her noir horror, vintage crime and drama can be found at vintagevice.com (http://vintagevice.com). Her most recent work was included in Exiles: An Outsider Anthology (http://amzn.com/B00KJNKJPE). She is available to hire for Audiobook narrating and all things spoken word. She recently narrated a story for Podcastle – The Chimney-Borer and the Tanner, by Thoraiya Dyer (http://podcastle.org/2015/06/23/podcastle-369-the-chimney-borer-and-the-tanner/)



“The chamber of horrors. The cobwebs and the torture instruments and the lights. And Jack. She loves Jack most of all. He stands in a corner, past the mummies and the witches, in his cape and stylish top hat. Black satin. Gloves. Right hand raised, knife gleaming. He sports a wicked smile.

If you stand in front of Jack all you can see is the smile. The angle of the hat wraps the rest of his face in rich shadows. However, if you move to the side and step a bit forward, against the velvet ropes, you can look at him up close.

The quality of the wax sculptures varies. The older ones are good and the newer ones are less detailed. But Jack. Jack is not good, he is great. The one who crafted him did so with exquisite detail, labouring over the eyes and the skin, striving to approximate life as much as one can within the confines of a wax mold. The result is a face that seems alert, capable of speech, of drawing a breath. The fingers curl around the knife with true strength, the body tenses, ready to leap down from its dais.

Even the background of this exhibit is flawless. Behind Jack there is a bed, unmade, the sheets splattered with blood. The subdued lighting reveals a brick wall and a shuttered window.

Julia stands in front of Jack and touches the sleeve of his jacket. She is fourteen. During class she draws skulls and dragons in the margins of her notebooks. In the afternoons, she does her homework with more haste than effort. Twice a week she walks the wax museum, pausing before Jack and admiring him.”




Be sure to check out our Fourth Annual Flash Fiction Contest! (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=8576.msg141049#msg141049)

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Listen to this week's Pseudopod. (http://media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo452_AbandonAllFlesh.mp3)
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Unblinking on August 25, 2015, 02:48:20 PM
I didn't really get into this one.  I'm sure part of it is that I'm just getting very weary of serial killers, having read slushpiles full of them.  I also thought the voice was pretty distant and my attention ended up fading in and out. 

Ah well, on to next week !
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Not-a-Robot on August 26, 2015, 11:08:23 AM
It bothered me that the supposed time traveler saw Jack with the same face as the wax works replica.  Jack the Ripper was never identified, thus, the wax works image would be arbitrary. 

I guess, in her delusional killer fantasies, it doesn't really matter, she can imagine whatever she wants to, but still, ignorance bothers me.   Especially if it is in some teenage psycho killer who acts as if she completely understands the universe, but, hell, thems teenagers for ya.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Airotciv on September 07, 2015, 05:35:43 AM
This was the worst story I have ever heard on this podcast!  This is my first comment here, but I had to say something...  
Less this crap continues.  >:(

Question: Who chose this story? Seriously

It was hard to pay attention, and the girl ended up sounding like a bored, neglected lunatic.  I understand from the comment left here that Jack the Ripper was visiting her through a sort of time travel, but that all got buried in bits about her period, her absentee father and her overworked mother.  

The world of podcasting is becoming quite bloated, and this story is proof.
Title: Re:
Post by: bounceswoosh on September 07, 2015, 01:18:46 PM
Airotciv, please follow forum rules. You can criticize the story, but don't criticize the staff, author, narrator.

If you don't like a story, there will be another the next week.

Also, it's "lest."
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Sgarre1 on September 07, 2015, 01:28:05 PM
Answer: that would be me  seriously . Any other questions (that won't cash out in a conversation about styles and subjectivity)?
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Unblinking on September 09, 2015, 03:07:05 PM
This was the worst story I have ever heard on this podcast!  This is my first comment here, but I had to say something...  
Less this crap continues.  >:(

Question: Who chose this story? Seriously

It was hard to pay attention, and the girl ended up sounding like a bored, neglected lunatic.  I understand from the comment left here that Jack the Ripper was visiting her through a sort of time travel, but that all got buried in bits about her period, her absentee father and her overworked mother.  

The world of podcasting is becoming quite bloated, and this story is proof.

It's very interesting how tastes can differ so widely.  Another story that you said you loved "Boys Will Be Boys" is one that got some very negative responses from multiple other forumites, probably a higher proportion of negative responses than most other stories in the feed.  If stories were left off because some people might not like them, that story wouldn't've been published.  I didn't personally care much for either story, but that's fine.  I like that Shawn has a good variety of kinds of material, I like some I dislike others, I absolute love yet others.  If there weren't some stories I loved, I'd quit listening, but I've never felt I've been close to that point after 6 years of listening.

Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Fenrix on September 10, 2015, 02:38:09 PM
I really enjoyed this one. I will admit to having a soft spot in my heart for creepy kids.

I saw it as a coming of age story in a numb and nihilistic world. One interpretation is it's a creepy kid cutting to feel something and slowly going mad within their own head. The risky sexual behavior is another manifestation of self loathing and low self esteem. Another interpretation is this piece as a response to Barker where a jaded teen uses her sexual awakening to summon something from another plane of existence to allow her to feel. It's just Jack instead of Pinhead helping break through the numbness.   
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: Bdoomed on September 20, 2015, 08:12:16 AM
Listened to this one with my fiancée on a long drive, punctuated by a visit to a historic site containing an animatronic.  Scariest animatronic ever, damn this story!

Really enjoyed it.  Super creepy kid, loved her detachment from life, her kinship with the ripper.  Sufficiently creeped out
Title: Re: Pseudopod 452: Abandon All Flesh
Post by: literatish on October 12, 2015, 08:21:04 AM
I disagree with Fenrix that Julia is even exhibiting risky sexual behavior, or that it might indicate low self esteem. First of all, sexuality is something imposed on her, not something she has sought out for herself. She is always an observer with David, no more (until the end, of course). Her dreams and visions of Jack partially represent, among other things, a society that seeks to destroy and obscure her as a consequence of coming of age in a female body. Despite experiencing this lowering in the eyes of her society, internally she knows that she is smarter and more powerful than most people around her.

David's arrogance, his willingness to touch her without her permission, to take her silence as permission, to coerce, and his ridiculously self-absorbed failure to acknowledge her words or body language... I think these are almost universal experiences for girls. It's disassociative, to be so completely misunderstood. The plunging of the knife is a clear parallel to the penetration of the penis, turned on David in the moment of his self-congratulatory and oblivious passion. It's an inversion that, I know, many women have imagined and longed to see borne out.

I guess I'll leave it at that. I've listened to this story so many times already, perhaps I'm over-interpreting, but my ideas around it just keep getting more complex. I could say so much more to say about it. I love this story. I think it's one of my favorite escape artists stories of all time, and that is saying a lot. Thank you for publishing such a wonderful piece. I really look forward to devouring the rest of Moreno-Garcia's work, and hopefully hearing more of her on the podcast in the future.

I also absolutely adored the narration! It was perfect. Great job to Pamila Payne and hope to hear more of her in the future too.