Escape Artists

PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on August 05, 2018, 09:15:17 PM

Title: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: Bdoomed on August 05, 2018, 09:15:17 PM

PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager (http://pseudopod.org/2018/08/03/pseudopod-605-the-town-manager/)

by Thomas Ligotti (http://pseudopod.org/people/thomas-ligotti/)
Narrated by Anson Mount (http://pseudopod.org/people/anson-mount/)
Hosted by Anson Mount (http://pseudopod.org/people/anson-mount/)

The Town Manager was first published in Weird Tales, September-October 2003

---

One gray morning not long before the onset of winter, some troubling news swiftly travelled among us: the town manager was not in his office and seemed nowhere to be found. We allowed this situation, or apparent situation, to remain tentative for as long as we could. This
was simply how we had handled such developments in the past.

---

Listen to this week's PseudoPod. (http://media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo605_TheTownManager.mp3)

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: pammurphy on August 07, 2018, 09:10:19 PM

Intriguing and fascinating tale, hosted and narrated by one of my favorite people, Anson Mount.  Definitely worth the listen. Anson makes you feel like you are there and part of the story.

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: harrietpodder on August 08, 2018, 09:04:15 PM

Found myself wondering after listening to the story, whether resistance to the trump administration will cease or continue once he is out of office. Is this era of political action and engagement of flash in the pan? Will we go back to acceptance without protest? Such a question assumes that there has been always someone accepting the status quo in the first place. But if instead people have always been fighting said status quo but something like the unknown powers that be with whom the town made the pact years ago, prevents change from occurring? Or what if it's all in your point of view could it have been possible for the residents of this so-called funny town to say well yes we will do what you want but we do not think this is funny because we still have civic pride? And if they did do this, what with that look like?

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: julkaz on August 09, 2018, 03:09:32 PM

There's a pretty cool Jeff VanderMeer story that I think must have been influenced by this--similar themes of evil, bullying bureaucracy, but with bioengineered monsters. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I'd really like to find it again.

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: Scuba Man on August 13, 2018, 01:14:52 AM

 This might be my first negative response to an Escape Pod story. >:(

It came across as a remake of a 1960s Twilight Zone episode. If I try to be charitable, I'll assume the story was about...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...a hell where the residents are forced to change to the whim of a demon. It was a collection of souls who were too stupid or resigned to fix their situation. They passively did whatever the manager told them to do. The manager-entity butchered the trolley operator.  Um, what?! The execution would have made sense if it was meant to be a punishment against the population.  Was this a post-apocalyptic world where the suburbs were being decimated by each subsequent generation?

Was this story the author's attempt to show a possible consequence of populations that REFUSE to act up and let themselves be ground up to nothing? If this story was meant to provoke a fiery response in me, it failed.  Did the story exemplify 100% despair & slavery. Yep.

The author wanted me to struggle my interpretation of his story... that the struggle itself was 'art'. No thanks.

Ah, well. Fast forward to the next episode.  :-\ :-\ :-\

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: Jon Padgett on August 23, 2018, 06:07:14 PM

Excellent narration by Mount.

Here's my recent take on Ligotti's classic story, which appears in Weird Fiction Review: "Absurd Degenerations and Totalitarian Decrepitude in 'The Town Manager' (http://weirdfictionreview.com/2017/12/101-weird-writers-47-thomas-ligotti/")

Title: Re: PseudoPod 605: The Town Manager
Post by: Fenrix on October 12, 2018, 03:27:38 AM

Quote

The mayor from Jaws is still the mayor in Jaws 2. It is so important to vote in your local elections.