EP014: Tis the Season

[Swamp]

EP014: Tis the Season

By K.D. Wentworth.
Read by Jonathon Sullivan.

It was Christmas Eve and that nasty, strung-out feeling of anticipation clotted the air like a cheap deodorizer. I hate Christmas the most–all that insincere, pious yap about “peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” I was cruising down the expressway, on my way back from dismantling an illegal manger scene someone had erected at the river park, keeping an eye out for graffiti, you know–”Where will you spend eternity?” or “Buddha lives!”–that kind of crap, spray-painted on underpasses right where impressionable schoolchildren could see it. The last rays of the setting sun were painting the highway a faint rose when I spotted a broken-down van with the metal outline of a stylized fish just above the back bumper. The short hairs crawled up the back of my neck. Them fish guys have been some of my worst busts.

Rated R. Contains strong religious themes, graphic violence, and aggressive Zen.


Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[monkeystuff]

LOL This had a great twist on the holidays.  Oh the religious battles...  They were comical and i really like the zen guy at the end who had a battle of philosophical phrases.  I'm not a big fan of christmas now that I'm not a kid any more.  I do think that "christmas spirit" doesn't have a bad feeling to it, but i wonder why it is so commercialized.  This commercialization of a warm fuzzy feeling kind of pushes me away from the whole christmas thing.  but this was a very pleasant holiday story and I did enjoy it.  I think it takes a person with a since of humor to enjoy this one.  Sometimes people get pretty touchy about religious parody.   I remember when the movie "dogma" came out, the Catholics went freakin nutz.  But it is still one of my favorite movies... 

I herd a good quote one time...  Goes like this, "Don't take life too serious.  You won't get out of it alive"

[Shotobouv]

One of my favorites. Really good to lighten up around the holidays.

[Unblinking]

This one was full of good laughs.  To me it points out a lot of the sillier things about religion without ever trying to imply that religion itself is bad.  The hard-boiled cop protagonist worked well to offset the zanies in the story, and the Zen duel was fan-freakin-tastic!  It put me in mind of insult sword-fighting in the Monkey Island puzzle series.  Instead of actually controlling the sword's motions, it's a series of insults back and forth, each insult you get right throws off your opponent's concentration allowing you to advance. 

[Fenrix]

Outside the title and the time that the story is set, it's not very Christmasy. It's religious satire with a Christmas window display.

[Supernova]

This one was full of good laughs.  To me it points out a lot of the sillier things about religion without ever trying to imply that religion itself is bad.  The hard-boiled cop protagonist worked well to offset the zanies in the story, and the Zen duel was fan-freakin-tastic!  It put me in mind of insult sword-fighting in the Monkey Island puzzle series.  Instead of actually controlling the sword's motions, it's a series of insults back and forth, each insult you get right throws off your opponent's concentration allowing you to advance. 

How appropriate, you fight like a cow 

Enjoyable story, I did laugh at the mad Buddhist monk  I wonder if the story was supposed to have some deep meaning that I missed, but actually I just liked it as a fun story and I took it that way.