Pseudopod 105: Pattern Masters

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 105: Pattern Masters

By Jeff Carlson

Read by David Moore

Sauber wasn’t crazy. He’d planned on never hitting the same place twice. He even kept a check-list — near the toilet, in case it needed to be destroyed in a hurry. But two hundred and nine days crawled past before he’d bagged every store in Berkeley and Oakland, so it seemed impossible that anyone would remember him at Greenwald’s, his favorite. His first.

 Sauber was at the register before the girl stopped him. "Those are mine," she said, reaching out.

 He held the packet against his chest.  "What?"

 "Look at the label."

 Of course he'd already studied it carefully.  Thirty-six exposures, regular 35mm film.  Jennifer Crisp.  The address, written in delicate cursive, was just two blocks from here.


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Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[MacArthurBug]

I really liked the flow of this story! Fun and strange picturing these unique and strange people and their very odd lives. The ending was pretty good. Over all a nice tale. I liked the imagry, the thought that the man put into his creations. *clapclap* yay!

[Zathras]

Wow!

I loved this story, but where's the horror? 

Maybe I'm always looking for a twist, but I felt the ending was telegraphed.

I do like the way Sauber's motivations were shown.

[JoeFitz]

You got your castle in my pseudo! Eww. Okay as stories go, but not what I hope for when I listen to PP (nor PC for that matter).

[eytanz]

I liked this story more than I felt I should have. On the one hand, unpleasant people, living unpleasant lives, and I had no sympathy for them. And ickiest sex scene in a long time. On the other hand, I liked the thrust of the plot. I liked how the ending did manage to take me by surprise - I was excepting either it will be discovered that the statue was concealing the body of his ex-wife (and the author quite cleverly toyed with that cliche), or with some other violence. There was violence, but it was an act, not real, and while the ending was ambiguous, by the end I did find myself rooting for Sauber - he may have been entirely dislikable, but he was also the underdog. So, while not a story I'd like to hear again, I feel that the author did a pretty good job with it.

You got your castle in my pseudo! Eww. Okay as stories go, but not what I hope for when I listen to PP (nor PC for that matter).

Wait, what? Were we listening to the same story? As far as I could tell, this story was entirely grounded in the real world - unrealistic, perhaps, in that it was somewhat contrived, but not fantastical.

[Chivalrybean]

I started out creepy, a guy stealing photos, then wasn't so creepy when he was only using them for art, and not doing anything too creepy with them. I felt the story started to go down once wassername showed up at his apartment, only because it never amounted to much, other than making a specticle to get publicity. It worked, yeah, but I was just expecting something more horrible.

Of course, if it was actually bad art and people paid lots of money for it, then it'd be horror. But, eye of the beholder, and all that. I paid $20 for a assemblage of bike chain, spoons, spark plugs, gears, etc, that lookes quite a bit like a deep one, and I think it is totally sweet, whereas someone else might think I wasted $20. I just got one from a booth at a Saturday Market, no homicidal displays were required to interest me.

[Dwango]

I think the point of the story is the horror you feel seeing the standard horror patterns laid out.  If you believe that either the guy or the girl are going to turn out the have a horrific background or motive, you become tense waiting for the moment of truth.  But that does not come in the way you expect, it turns out each has less nefarious purposes.  I thinks its more telling when you are disappointed that the patterns of standard horror are not satisified as you are expecting.  I was somewhat disappointed as well, but realize I enjoyed the tensions up to the revelations of the story.  I did enjoy the narrative of the art as well, as it really was detailed and coallecsced in my mind eye really well.  Overall I found the piece interesting and realized it was better the ending was different than the standard one of the people is a dangerous psycho as would normally be expected in a horror story.

Of course, I could argue that the real horror is there a probably people out there spying on our lives like they are.  But thats a given when you are paranoid.

[Listener]

I too didn't really think it was horror except in the "hey, look at how easy it is to deduce what you're like from your patterns" way. But I really liked the story in a lot of different ways. The characters were a bit cliche, and the ending reminded me a little too much of the DeNiro movie "15 Minutes", but I still liked the story quite a bit for its examination of patterns, the idea of the photosculpture, and the little twinges of "would you go crazy if you were JUST far enough over the line".

Good reader. Not great, but good.

[Sandikal]

I listened to it tonight while out walking in the dark.  It didn't scare me in the least.  I wasn't horrified either.  It just seemed like an ordinary mainstream short fiction piece.

[gelee]

Reminded me of the chick from Fight Club.  I tried, but I just couldn't get a hold of this one.

[Enigma K]

I'm not sure I liked it as horror, but I enjoyed this story very much. 

There's always something satisfying in a story about overcoming your own fears.  The protagonist did so very creatively.

[Cerebrilith]

I really enjoyed the smart ending to this one.  I bought into the character falling apart until he reveals himself just at the end.

[Zathras]

Reminded me of the chick from Fight Club. 

Really?  I've watched Fight Club literally more than 200 times, and read the book several.  (Paluhnik is one of my favorites).

I didn't see any of Marla in her.

[deflective]

i didn't see Marla in the story but i definitely thought of it as derivative of Palahniuk.

[DKT]

Well written -- the pacing of this story felt pretty perfect to me.  The little twists throughout were nice. I'm gonna have to look for more of Jeff Carlson's stuff -- I thought "Exit" over at Drabblecast was pretty good, too.  The reading was good -- I'd enjoy hearing more from David Moore. 

The one thing that bothered me was I felt like there were this funny little info dump that went something like this:

"Nina Chavez had worked for a credit card company for a month before she became obsessed."

It was just dropped in there, like in the middle of dialogue or something, and threw me because up until then we'd been in Sauber's POV. 

Also, I may have completely missed this part but who was calling?

All in all, I really enjoyed listening to this.  It creeped me out in places and made me feel a bit dirty in others.  I could do with more from this author. 

i didn't see Marla in the story but i definitely thought of it as derivative of Palahniuk.

What mad you think it was derivative Palahniuk?  It didn't sound at all like him to me, but I'd love to hear why it reminded you of him.

[Void Munashii]

  I found this story to be well written, well paced, and very engaging, but I kept waiting for the horror to happen. I thought for sure when he pulled out the saw towards the end that the horror would finally arrive, and he would put her face on the statue or something like that.

  Very satisfying, but not horrifying. As other have mentioned, this may have been better suited to Podcastle (although I sure there are plenty who would complain had it been there), but it was a really good story, so I'll take it. Thanks.

[Cerebrilith]

  I found this story to be well written, well paced, and very engaging, but I kept waiting for the horror to happen.

The guy was creating his art out of stolen bits of the private lives of strangers, which to me seems pretty creepy.  Each little bit of those pictures on that statue represented another violation of the people whose memories were stolen by this guy.

Then the guy terrorizes this girl with a saw to get himself on the news.  Even if he doesn't actually harm the girl with it that's got to be pretty horrifying for her.  That sort of cold exploitation of other people for personal gain seems bad enough without his carving off her face to put on the statue.

[deflective]

What mad you think it was derivative Palahniuk?  It didn't sound at all like him to me, but I'd love to hear why it reminded you of him.

first, i should say that i don't necessarily think that derivative is a bad thing. as a big fan of open source software i don't have a problem with taking work and putting your personal spin on it.

that said, you're absolutely right that it didn't sound like Palahniuk's language. he has a fantastic ability to create strong phrases, who doesn't remember the first rule fight club?

what he does do is create characters on the fringe of society that exploit social expectation. most of his stories center around two such characters meeting and having a relationship. characters with access to people's personal lives (eg, insurance adjuster) is a favourite of his, so is taking stuff no one would expect you to take.

[Void Munashii]

  I found this story to be well written, well paced, and very engaging, but I kept waiting for the horror to happen.

The guy was creating his art out of stolen bits of the private lives of strangers, which to me seems pretty creepy.  Each little bit of those pictures on that statue represented another violation of the people whose memories were stolen by this guy.

Then the guy terrorizes this girl with a saw to get himself on the news.  Even if he doesn't actually harm the girl with it that's got to be pretty horrifying for her.  That sort of cold exploitation of other people for personal gain seems bad enough without his carving off her face to put on the statue.

  I guess because he was doing it for an artistic purpose, I did not find taking other people's photos to be all that creepy. Now if he were papering his walls with them for his own enjoyment (a la "One Hour Photo") that would have been creepier to me. He was not getting his jollies out of it in the same way Nina (?) was out of following the people's credit use.

  I'm sure it was terrifying for her, but as I did not find her to be particularly likable it felt to me like she kind of deserved it for using other people for her pleasure. Once Sauber reveals that he has no wish to do her physical harm, it became darkly funny to me. I love dark humour, and I found a lot of it in the ending.

  Maybe I'm just too cynical and too willing to excuse otherwise creepy behaviour for art's sake to find a story like this all that horrifying. Enjoyable? Yes. Fun? Yes. Scary? Not so much.

[Enigma K]

The more I think about this story, the more I really like it.  Again, I'm not so sure about the horror aspect even if there was a lot of overall creepiness to it.

This could have easily been one of the revenge fantasy stories that I really dislike hearing.  Instead, it almost seems to be the antithesis of those tales.  Rather than ruin and possibly end everyone's life to "teach that no-gooder a lesson", the guy made sure to come out ahead. 

This story is just growing on me.  If this was a risk for Pseudopod then I am glad that they took it.

[Bdoomed]

who doesn't remember the first rule fight club?

wait wait wait... i know this one... is it... ... no shirt no shoes no service?

anyways i can see a little Palahniuk in here... the characters have the same... eccentricities i guess... not necessarily Marla, but i could see these characters in a Palahniuk book.

[Zathras]

I agree that I can see similarities between the characters in this story and those in Pahlinuks'.

If you haven't read Survivor by Chucky P, then do so.  I think it's my favorite. 

Anyway, the characters on the edge of society that are happy there, but still have to deal with day to day issues is very powerful.  Maybe it's my blue mohawk affecting my thinking, or the ink from my tattoos, but I can easily relate to that.

[Darwinist]

I agree that I can see similarities between the characters in this story and those in Pahlinuks'.

If you haven't read Survivor by Chucky P, then do so.  I think it's my favorite. 

I'll second the Survivor recommendation.  Hard for me to pick a Chuck P fav, but that is right up there. 

Pattern Masters, on the other hand, didn't do much for me.  The characters were neat, but the story was easily forgotten after the podcast ran out. 

[Schreiber]

So maybe this story doesn't exactly fit the mold of "horror."  So what?  It's a good story and it belonged on Pseudopod more than it belonged on Escape Pod or Podcastle, and that's enough for me.  I'm not saying that Escape Artists should start serving up Alice Munro or Darin Strauss every week, but let's try to keep an open mind.

[Thaurismunths]

Creepy, creepy, creepy!
Stuff like this makes me wonder what really happens to my lost mail and missing socks.
I have an artist friend who is only a few shades less weird (and conniving) than this guy. The creativity of the sculpture is pretty cool, and each person on their own is interesting, but the thought of an underworld of people obsessed with finding patterns and tracking our lives from the shadows give me the willies.