Saturday, September 06, 2014

Rish's voice on Pseudopod

It's been a long time since my voice has been heard on Pseudopod, the famed Horror podcast.   But I recently voiced a small part in a fullcast production of James Triptree Jr's "The Screwfly Solution."

This appeared in the last week or so, but today, I noticed that the movie at the top of my Netflix queue is the Showtime 2007 adaptation of Triptree's story.  I thought, "I wonder if that episode of Pseudopod has aired yet."  Well, it's there, their episode 400, which is quite a milestone.

"Screwfly" is a timelessly disturbing story about a plague of religious mania that causes males to despise females of the species . . . and murder them.  It starts with the remote crazies in far-away places, but soon spreads, infecting all corners of the more and more intolerant globe.

As you can guess, it's not a tale for the Hallmark Channel crowd.

In listening, I was disturbed by the story, and fear I may have been the weak link in this particular production.  I have a very minor role in the thing, but sometimes, that's good enough.  Check it out at: http://pseudopod.org/2014/08/22/pseudopod-400-the-screwfly-solution/ 

If you dare.

1 comment:

Rish Outfield said...

I can't believe it's more than a year later, and I JUST watched that "Masters of Horror" episode. The disc they sent me was cracked, so I sent it back, and forgot about it. The movie version (directed by Joe Dante) was really scary, and I immediately wondered, "Did I ever write up a blog post about that episode of Drabblecast I had my voice on?"

So I came on here, and discovered that it was Pseudopod (which doesn't often do full-cast episodes), and that I had, indeed done a post. I mentioned being the weak link in the show, so of course I had to listen to it again to find out what I was talking about. And yeah, I don't like the way I delivered my very small lines, but the big things I came away from the re-listen were: 1) My god, Alasdair Stuart is a great host. A class act, a poet, and someone who FEELS so intensely, you begin to feel it too, like an empathic shockwave. 2) I wish I were a better podcaster, and a better writer. Why can't I write something either as heartbreaking or as terrifying as this story (which, to be fair, is a classic and an award-winner, not just something some 21st century teen scrawled on her Instagram page)? 3) As good as the "Masters of Horror" episode was, the story was even stronger. And the last sentence . . . "I think I saw a real estate agent" . . . holy shit. It makes your butthairs rise up and dance. Well done, Ms. Author.

I realize there's something psychotically masturbatory in commenting on my own blogpost. But who else is gonna talk to me?