Escape Artists

PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on September 20, 2020, 02:53:11 AM

Title: PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2
Post by: Bdoomed on September 20, 2020, 02:53:11 AM
PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2 (https://pseudopod.org/2020/09/18/pseudopod-722-teeth-part-2/)

Author: Matt Cardin (https://pseudopod.org/people/matt-cardin/)
Narrator: Jon Padgett (https://pseudopod.org/people/jon-padgett/)
Host: Alasdair Stuart (https://pseudopod.org/people/alasdair-stuart/)
Audio Producer: Chelsea Davis (https://pseudopod.org/people/chelsea-davis/)

“Teeth” was the first story published at “Thomas Ligotti Online” in 1998. It was later reprinted in The Children of Cthulhu in 2002, in Dark Awakenings in 2010, and in the excellent 2019 collection “To Rouse Leviathan.” This last book was editor Alex’s favorite collection from 2019 and recommends it strongly to all fans of Ligotti.



Show Notes
Part 2 of 2
Listen to the first part here: https://pseudopod.org/2020/09/11/pseudopod-721-teeth-part-1/

Other Notes:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)




The words on that page signaled the end of my journey through the dark corridors of Marco’s obsession. Rather than trying to see what lay past page forty-six and risking another encounter with that awful picture, I closed the notebook and shoved it far back into a drawer, wishing fiercely that it could be equally easy to bury the memory of it. But try as I might, I could not stop my thoughts from returning to it and gnawing on it like a trapped animal might gnaw off its own leg. That was exactly the way it felt: as if  I had become ensnared in some vile trap and grown so desperate to escape that I might willingly do violence to myself. But no matter how many times I examined and reexamined and struggled violently against the notebook’s all-encompassing message of horror and despair, I could find no way to extricate myself from it, no loose spring or faulty trigger in its mechanism that might allow me to slip free. Its internal coherence and emotional power, as well as its universal scope, made it the perfect prison for mind and spirit.




Listen to this week's PseudoPod. (https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pseudopod/Pseudo722_TeethPt2.mp3)
Follow us on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLeMuTcFDtF2C3MiF6GPfQ) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/7ahtswbjEhqKQifCwMX8o1?si=GMgBgLFHRsCzJ8xlvf9nOw)!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2
Post by: Scuba Man on September 20, 2020, 06:36:59 PM
Whoah Nelly! That was a bit of glorious, purple prose (without the bigotry and nastiness of Lovecraft). I wonder if the dreaded page 46 would be a cognitohazard as outlined in the SCP universe.

I appreciated the low tech approach of the horror. No stargates. No spaceships. No woo woo. No chanting (with Bloom County’s, Bhagwan Bill The Cat [ack!]). No thermonuclear-fueled rips in space-time. It was a picture. A 2-dimensional image in a notebook. Using some kind of insanity-causing, violent geometry.

I’m looking at the world a little bit differently after this story. Nice!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2
Post by: Lisa3737 on September 24, 2020, 08:07:49 PM
I really enjoyed the story, and the narration was fabulous!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2
Post by: Scattercat on June 02, 2021, 09:44:20 AM
The story was good and well-written, but I was struck while listening by a thought.

A fairly significant percentage of the Cosmic Horror subgenre feels like it could be summarized as, "Neurotypical person experiences depression and anxiety for the first time."  Oh, you've realized that life is meaningless?  That you are not special and are, in fact, only a very elaborate meat puppet whose awareness of its own existence is wholly accidental and probably illusory?  That entropy always wins and death is inevitable?  That the universe is a cold machine that did not intend you to exist and will not care when you stop existing?  Yeah, join the club, bucko.  We have pins.

I appreciate the time spent with this protagonist in advance to show us how and why this came as a shock to him, so that I could at least feel bad for him going through the process so abruptly and so roughly.  Often such stories take as a given that you, the reader, currently think you are a special and beloved child of $DEITY and that your life has meaning and purpose, and that their revelations are therefore a surprise that will unsettle you. 

Or maybe strict-materialist strong atheists with chronic depression just aren't the target audience for that stuff.  XD  Shame, 'cause I like 'em.
Title: Re: PseudoPod 722: Teeth – Part 2
Post by: Scuba Man on June 18, 2021, 07:01:20 PM
The story was good and well-written, but I was struck while listening by a thought.

A fairly significant percentage of the Cosmic Horror subgenre feels like it could be summarized as, "Neurotypical person experiences depression and anxiety for the first time."  Oh, you've realized that life is meaningless?  That you are not special and are, in fact, only a very elaborate meat puppet whose awareness of its own existence is wholly accidental and probably illusory?  That entropy always wins and death is inevitable?  That the universe is a cold machine that did not intend you to exist and will not care when you stop existing?  Yeah, join the club, bucko.  We have pins.

I appreciate the time spent with this protagonist in advance to show us how and why this came as a shock to him, so that I could at least feel bad for him going through the process so abruptly and so roughly.  Often such stories take as a given that you, the reader, currently think you are a special and beloved child of $DEITY and that your life has meaning and purpose, and that their revelations are therefore a surprise that will unsettle you. 

Or maybe strict-materialist strong atheists with chronic depression just aren't the target audience for that stuff.  XD  Shame, 'cause I like 'em.
You, Scattercat, are able to do some purple prose OF THE VERY HEAVY DUTY CALIBRE... TOO TRUE... TOO TRUE (say this in the same voice of Dr. Teeth of the Electric Mayham [The Muppet Show]).  :)