Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Talia on May 01, 2011, 04:21:44 AM
-
PodCastle Miniature 62: The Transfiguration of Maria Luisa Ortega (http://podcastle.org/2011/04/30/podcastle-miniature-62-the-transfiguration-of-maria-luisa-ortega)
By E. Lily Yu (http://www.princeton.edu/~eyu/)
Read by Julia Rios (http://www.juliarios.com) (of the Outer Alliance Podcast (http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/781))
Originally published in the Kenyon Review Online (http://www.kenyonreview.org) (read it online here (http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro_full.php?file=yu.php))
The first time María Luisa Ortega cursed, after stabbing herself with a pair of steel tweezers, she turned into a sea urchin. Two weeks passed before a peripatetic priest found her lying in the sand and uncursed her. It was a frequent occurrence, he explained, and for this reason he always carried a squirt bottle of holy water in his bag, to bless the poor souls he found in the shapes of dolphins, fish, lobsters, or, in less fortunate cases, mollusks.
Rated G.
-
That was a seriously weird story.
Perfect for flash, though; if it had gone on much longer, I think it would have started to irritate me.
I liked how it seemed to be an indictment of cursing and an endorsement of holiness, but then turned orthogonally into something just a little more subversive.
-
Well I loved this one. Felt like the beginning of a longer story but I can totally see why it stopped where it did.
*!#$@*&&!"\|!!
(turns into a sea slug)
-
Cute. I am left wondering how a person who has been transfigured is recognized though. ;D
-
Win on this one, def'nitely. Reminded me of me, if that's not blisteringly arrogant to say. (As in, this is like an idea I'd have used over at Mirrorshards; short, weird, and slightly off-kilter in viewpoint.)
-
I enjoyed this story: short, sweet, and deeply weird. I don't have a lot more to say about it, because not a lot happened, but what happened kept me heartily amused, for a little while.
-
I'm left wondering "but why????" As in, why did she take up his job and why did he want to be a sea lion??? But I guess that's a mark of a good flash piece, so yeah, I liked it :)
-
Had a Gabrial Garcia Marquez vibe from this. Combination of Spanish names, ocean setting and some weirdness with people being turned into animals.*
*Who's to say that the old man in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" didn't speak, say, half a swear? Maybe a "heck" or "darn" might do that much damage. :P
-
Short, bizarre, and clever. Well done.
-
I have two thoughts concerning this story:
1. Why didn't their mothers warn them? "If you keep swearing like that you'll get turned into a flounder!" So much more effective than washing a child's mouth out with soap.
2. How does one tell the difference between an ordinary clam and a human who should have clammed up? (Get it?!)
3. The part that-
I'll come in again.
1....
2....
3. The part that really made this story enjoyable for me was when I heard the story's title again at the end. That was an epic O-OH! moment, and I loved it.
-
(http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r125/tanyasing/clams-got-legs.gif)
-
what's this? a Podcastle flash piece that I actually liked? Awesome. Possibly i liked it because it didn't leave me wanting more that the tiny bit i go, so maybe it was good because it wasn't that good... no, that's just silly. It was exactly as short as flash should be and left me satisfied by it at the end. a perfect little nibble that sated my appetite, instead of leaving me wanting more, like flash usually does.
-
Why didn't their mothers warn them? "If you keep swearing like that you'll get turned into a flounder!" So much more effective than washing a child's mouth out with soap.
Really? Imagine you're a 10-year-old and your mother says that to you. Is your first reaction "Uh-oh, better not swear," or "Really? Kewl! $#!%"
-
Why didn't their mothers warn them? "If you keep swearing like that you'll get turned into a flounder!" So much more effective than washing a child's mouth out with soap.
Really? Imagine you're a 10-year-old and your mother says that to you. Is your first reaction "Uh-oh, better not swear," or "Really? Kewl! $#!%"
Yes, I would chose the second one, and if my mother had any sense, she would leave me in that state for a few days, just so I'd learn my lesson.
-
I need to send this to my husband the next time he swears at the computer. "Sweetie, say the F-word one more time and you're gonna turn into a starfish. And I'm not going to change you back."
-
I need to send this to my husband the next time he swears at the computer. "Sweetie, say the F-word one more time and you're gonna turn into a starfish. And I'm not going to change you back."
You know some people say "starfish" to mean butt-hole, right? :P
-
I need to send this to my husband the next time he swears at the computer. "Sweetie, say the F-word one more time and you're gonna turn into a starfish. And I'm not going to change you back."
You know some people say "starfish" to mean butt-hole, right? :P
Well, then, he should have no complaints about it then. :D
(Awww...now you're gonna make me feel guilty about dissing him...guess I better cook another steak for him...)
-
(Awww...now you're gonna make me feel guilty about dissing him...guess I better cook another steak for him...)
I cooked steaks last night. My wife holds the sexist view that cooking steaks is man's work, just like home repairs or carpentry. :P
-
A cute little story which seemed to shift in tone. In the beginning it seemed like an indictment of swearing, but then when the priest turned into a sea lion much less so.
I could see a whole branch of research opening up about swearing. The priests' blessings don't actually seem to cost anything, so you could hire a whole team of researchers and keep a few priests on staff. Like the priest pointed out you could experience foreign anatomies firsthand, which would help all kinds of scientific research. You could study to find out if there's a predictable pattern between the curse word used and the final form of the change. I could totally dig becoming a sea lion, especially if I knew someone could bless me out of it, but I'd rather avoid the sea cucumber word. Maybe it's not the word itself that defines the form but the force with which you say it? Or maybe there are secondary factors involved, or it could just be random. These are the things I'd want to find out!
-
Though I'm not usually a fan of such blatent religious themes, This was a fun story and for 5 mins I wouldn't have wanted to do anything but listen.