Author Topic: EP281: The Notebook of my Favourite Skin-Trees  (Read 38228 times)

Devoted135

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Reply #25 on: March 01, 2011, 09:22:40 PM
at least one was specifically described as being only two inches tall, to obscure the bearer's missing eye. I don't remember how tall the shoulder ones were supposed to be.

mmm, pomegranate :)



Talia

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Reply #26 on: March 01, 2011, 09:25:29 PM
I'm not sure, but I think they're genetically modified miniature trees. In which case, I want a pomegranate tree. Because yum.

You'd need tweezers to get at the seeds

I figure you'd just crush it to extract the juice. A whole tree's harvest might give you an ounce or two, but hey. :P

(Maybe a yuzu tree instead).

Quote
at least one was specifically described as being only two inches tall, to obscure the bearer's missing eye. I don't remember how tall the shoulder ones were supposed to be.

mmm, pomegranate

I'm pretty sure some of them were big enough to produce fruit of an edible (if small) size. The leaves have to be big enough for passersby to read the advertisements, after all.

I just like the thought of my own portable fruit tree. :P Though I wouldn't like it so much if it had ADIDAS or something written all over it
« Last Edit: March 01, 2011, 09:29:35 PM by Talia »



Kanasta

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Reply #27 on: March 01, 2011, 09:36:00 PM
I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to protest in favour of a new type of advertising. I mean there are plenty of perfectly reasonable and just causes to inspire you to take to the streets, but tree advertising is not one of them.

My take on this was to imagine a huge Asian metropolis where every available space is taken up by neon and flashing billboards and ads on top of ads, with no room for nature. By putting the ads on trees, they would be able to bring nature back into the city and lessen the amount of intrusive advertising.
That said, I still wasn't convinced by the validity of the idea. If that were the case, everyone in the country would have to be a skin tree to replace the normal ads! Plus, a large part of the argument in the tree ads' favour was that they got a lot more attention. Well, yes, a banana tree growing out of a person is going to catch attention. But once they were everywhere, they would no longer seem so novel and their efficacy would wane...



kibitzer

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Reply #28 on: March 02, 2011, 01:49:14 AM
I think I was so caught up in the narration I overlooked many weaknesses! The only weird thing that came through to me was, why the Hell use skin-trees for advertising??? And if you did would it really wipe out paper/neon/etc advertising? I can't see it.

Actually when I think about it, the PoV seemed to be switching from 1st to 3rd person narration which confused me. I lost track of who the MC was. It'd be easier to follow in print, obviously.

But back to the narration which really brought out the naked sensuality of this story. Now, I mean this comment in a positive way: I was walking to and from the train station listening to this story and I almost felt embarrassed to be listening in public! Pamela Quevillon has such a smooth, expressive voice; just wonderful! I could hear her smiling, her enjoyment of the whole piece. I hope you get her to narrate some more.

I enjoyed this very much. Sure, there was some strangeness in the setup but in the end I liked it.

[Edit: added Pamela's name and another "weird thing"]
« Last Edit: March 02, 2011, 01:53:53 AM by kibitzer »



BlueLu

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Reply #29 on: March 02, 2011, 04:47:45 AM
I'm not sure, but I think they're genetically modified miniature trees. In which case, I want a pomegranate tree. Because yum.

If you eat your own pomegranates, are you a cannibal?

Lena


Kanasta

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Reply #30 on: March 02, 2011, 10:30:37 AM
If you eat your own pomegranates, are you a cannibal?

I think you would only be a cannibal if you hacked off a branch and ate that. Eating your own pomegranates is probably a bit more like chewing nail clippings or eating bogeys.. Not something to do in public, but not as taboo as cannibalism  ;D  ;D



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Reply #31 on: March 02, 2011, 02:24:08 PM
On first listen I really enjoyed this story – it had a lyrical flow to it, the main character’s enthusiasm for and love of the skin-trees was infectious, I cared about the protagonist, and the narration was fantastic.  But, unlike most EP stories, the longer I sat with it the less interesting it became.
I think ElectricPaladin nailed what I found dissatisfying about the story.
  • Firstly, I really hated the advertising angle. It seemed... well, I won't say unrealistic, because people do all sorts of dumb stuff. What it was, however, was distracting. "We're people, but plus trees!" is cool. It redefines humanity. "We've found a new way to advertise" is ultimately rather mundane. Humanity is essential to our being - challenging that makes for good science fiction. Advertising is so much more prosaic that the addition was distracting.

The more I thought about the history of the world being built here, the less it made sense to me. It really felt like a fantastic idea – I love the idea of skin-trees, an interesting conflict – a search for a cure of an evil corporate caused disease (I’m a sucker for evil corporate villains, even if only in the background), and a very weak backstory.

That being said, it wasn’t until after the story had stopped that I noticed the problems.  So, while I won’t save this story for future listens, I did enjoy listening to it.  I’d say it was 45 minutes well spent, but probably not 90.



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Reply #32 on: March 02, 2011, 04:18:11 PM
Actually when I think about it, the PoV seemed to be switching from 1st to 3rd person narration which confused me. I lost track of who the MC was. It'd be easier to follow in print, obviously.

Yup, it switched between 1st and 3rd.  The journal entries describing her sexual encounters were in 1st, the main plot about the search for the cure were in 3rd.  I also had a bit of trouble remembering which character wrote the entries--but that was offset by the fact that the journal entries seemed to have nothing to do with anything else, so it didn't really matter who wrote them.



Talia

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Reply #33 on: March 02, 2011, 04:33:21 PM
I think the journal entries were a way of illustrating why the skin trees were so important to her. She clearly had a fetish, but that linked into her affection for her partners.



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Reply #34 on: March 03, 2011, 07:37:38 AM
Reading through these posts makes me wish I had stuck with the story somewhat, but after fast forwarding through annoying voice guy I got to the story and heard the narrator speak.

I got about two, maybe three minutes, in and had to just move on. It sounded like someone had given the story over to a bad phone sex operator and told her to ham it up. Her voice and inflections were so over the top that I felt embarrassed for her.



gord42

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Reply #35 on: March 03, 2011, 02:13:23 PM
Is it just me, or did "Pamela Quevillon, narrator" sound remarkably like "Dr. Pamela L. Gay, astronomer"?

Good work, Pamela!



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Reply #36 on: March 03, 2011, 02:31:18 PM
I think the journal entries were a way of illustrating why the skin trees were so important to her. She clearly had a fetish, but that linked into her affection for her partners.

If that was the only point then there were too many entries.  The first journal entry made that point very clearly, so the others were just dead weight.



stePH

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Reply #37 on: March 03, 2011, 02:57:28 PM
I think the journal entries were a way of illustrating why the skin trees were so important to her. She clearly had a fetish, but that linked into her affection for her partners.

If that was the only point then there were too many entries.  The first journal entry made that point very clearly, so the others were just dead weight.


Dead wood?  :P

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Talia

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Reply #38 on: March 03, 2011, 03:00:17 PM
I think the journal entries were a way of illustrating why the skin trees were so important to her. She clearly had a fetish, but that linked into her affection for her partners.

If that was the only point then there were too many entries.  The first journal entry made that point very clearly, so the others were just dead weight.


I enjoyed them personally, particularly paired with the excellent reading.



ElectricPaladin

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Reply #39 on: March 03, 2011, 03:11:16 PM
I think the journal entries were a way of illustrating why the skin trees were so important to her. She clearly had a fetish, but that linked into her affection for her partners.

If that was the only point then there were too many entries.  The first journal entry made that point very clearly, so the others were just dead weight.


I enjoyed them personally, particularly paired with the excellent reading.

Me, too, actually. Much of the rest of the story was kind of messy, but the diary entries were clever and atmospheric.

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Bdoomed

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Reply #40 on: March 03, 2011, 08:10:00 PM
Dead wood?  :P

I'm going to banyan you for that.

Seriously we need to institute some sort of rule making puns a pun-ishable offense.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Listener

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Reply #41 on: March 03, 2011, 08:51:11 PM
I thought the narrator did a wonderful job, especially with the sex parts.

I saw some of the issues with the story that others did -- using this cool technology for advertising, the relative need/lack of need for the explicit sex, dendrophilia -- but for me the only thing that was a dealbreaker was that, unless I completely missed it, we never found out exactly who created the skin-tree plague. They can just make another one, can't they?

Also, the happy ending didn't seem to fit the story. I really expected something a little more downer, and would probably have been more satisfied with one.

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #42 on: March 03, 2011, 09:00:36 PM
Dead wood?  :P

I'm going to banyan you for that.

Seriously we need to institute some sort of rule making puns a pun-ishable offense.

No fair! You shouldn't cypress good jokes.

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stePH

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Reply #43 on: March 03, 2011, 09:23:17 PM
Dead wood?  :P

I'm going to banyan you for that.

Seriously we need to institute some sort of rule making puns a pun-ishable offense.

No fair! You shouldn't cypress good jokes.

Leaf it alone. You're already out on a limb.

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Bdoomed

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Reply #44 on: March 03, 2011, 09:27:01 PM
You birch, you're lucky my bark is worse than my bite.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


ElectricPaladin

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Reply #45 on: March 03, 2011, 09:34:54 PM
You birch, you're lucky my bark is worse than my bite.

I think you're getting to the root of the problem.

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Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #46 on: March 03, 2011, 10:28:41 PM
You birch, you're lucky my bark is worse than my bite.

I think you're getting to the root of the problem.

Not alder way there yet.

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Ocicat

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Reply #47 on: March 03, 2011, 10:46:51 PM
My problem with the story (well, in addition to many of the others listed already) was that the protagonist had a durian tree grafted to her, but still managed to find lots of sex partners.  How could they stand the smell?!?   :o



eytanz

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Reply #48 on: March 03, 2011, 11:10:57 PM
There were two big things that bothered me about the story. The first, that has been already mentioned by several people, is bad social psychology. I can believe a trend of body modifications that involves trees being grafted to human bodies. But I can't believe that the driving force behind it is a universal rejection of advertisements. Not only for reasons like the fact that never in the history of mankind did one form of advertising replace another, but rather they just add up incrementally. And no democratic government would outlaw an existing business model - putting thousands of advertising agents, printers, graphic designers, etc. out of work - because a vocal minority thinks they have a better solution. But there's a far simpler reason - people like advertising. Not all the people, and not all the time, but advertising is designed to appeal to people, and in aggragate, it is succeeds.

The second reason is - bad botany. Occicat mentioned the smell of Durian trees, a detail that the story conveniently forgets. But the story starts with bananas - bananas don't grow on trees. They grow on tree-sized herbs. There are some crucial distinctions - one of them is that each banana "tree" only flowers once and only produces one set of fruit. After that, it will start producing shoots that will grow into other banana "trees", and the main stem eventually dies. If it's smaller, it will go through it's life cycle quicker.

For a story about people and plants, it is a rather big problem that neither people nor plants acted in a way that seemed vaguely realistic to me. That left the third main theme in the story, sex. Which, unlike people and plants, the story seemed to understand quite well. But I personally have a pretty negative reaction to body modification - I find it extremely unsexy. And one theme in SF/horror I find really terrifying human-plant hybrids (the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers scarred me for life when I was very young). So I found the sex scenes disturbing rather than erotic or appealing.

Overall, then, not a story I enjoyed, at all.



« Last Edit: March 03, 2011, 11:15:27 PM by eytanz »



Gamercow

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Reply #49 on: March 04, 2011, 01:08:52 AM
I...but...WHY?  Why use trees as advertising?  Because people stare at you?  That would work until, like any other ad, it became so prevalent that it became useless like everything else.  How could the rewards in any way offset the costs of performing these surgeries?  It just makes no logical sense to me.   In addition to this, the story was sloppy, the narration a bit hammy in spots, and the first to third jump was jarring and confusing.  I stuck through to the end, but with no real tension and an obvious ending, I'm not happy I did. 

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