The mountains were a thick molasses pouring slowly down the glass

[sovay]

I am honestly surprised that no one other than me, five minutes ago, in the shower, to spatch, has ever described radio drama as "black box theater of the mind."

Farah linked me to the glass art of Shayna Leib, thinking correctly that I would like it. Unaffordably, I covet much of her Wind & Water series.

Anthony Tao's "Coronavirus in China" is a very good poem.

Comments

[asakiyume]

The fact that the word "coronavirus" has corona in it somehow makes the divisions of that poem extra prayer-like: neat.

[sovay]

The fact that the word "coronavirus" has corona in it somehow makes the divisions of that poem extra prayer-like: neat.

It's such a weirdly evocative word.

[thisbluespirit]

has ever described radio drama as "black box theater of the mind."

It is a very good description!

[sovay]

It is a very good description!

Thank you! I just assumed it would have occurred to somebody before me!

[a_reasonable_man]

Spatch should take that name and start a podcast.

[heron61]

That glass art is astonishingly gorgeous - wow!

[sovay]

That glass art is astonishingly gorgeous - wow!

It's simultaneously abstract and organic-looking, a combination I really enjoy.

[nodrog]

“Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless.” - Steve Allen

[sovay]

“Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless.” - Steve Allen

That's pithy, but it can't be an uncomplicated statement coming from the man who gave us late-night TV as we know it.

[moon_custafer]

One of the things that strikes me about podcasts is how different they are from most golden-age radio drama. The former usually followed the rule of movies, tv, and theatre that it is not actually necessary to explain how it is we’re privy to the events unfolding. An exception to this was the first half of the Mercury Theater War of the Worlds, and maybe it’s because that’s the best-known radio play of all time that most dramatic podcasts I’ve listened to feel the need for some kind of faux-documentary or broadcast framing narrative; then again, most of the stuff I listen to is sf/fantasy/horror, which has a long tradition of compensating for the weirdness of the subject with the ring-of-truth vibe you get from an epistolary or found-footage narrative.

[sovay]

then again, most of the stuff I listen to is sf/fantasy/horror, which has a long tradition of compensating for the weirdness of the subject with the ring-of-truth vibe you get from an epistolary or found-footage narrative.

Weird fiction especially has a long tradition of the documents in the case; those are honestly the antecedents I assumed for something like The Magnus Archives, not necessarily the frame-story of War of the Worlds.

[moon_custafer]

Yeah – I guess I was thinking of something like the original version of Homecoming, which I haven’t listened to but which apparently took the form of phone calls, answering-machine messages and recordings of therapy sessions, specifically so the audience wouldn’t wonder “how are we eavesdropping on these conversations?” while the tv version had no worries about showing us the events in fairly standard third-person PoV like you get on most tv shows (though it did use a lot of high-angle shots for that ominous rats-in-a-maze feel, and also played with aspect ratio as it jumped between the two time periods).

ETA, much later-- OK, so there *is* a podcast called Tales from Beyond the Pale that’s trying to be like Suspense, though the only one I’ve listened to was still mainly first-person narrative with a little bit of dialogue, as though the writers didn’t trust the audience to follow a conversation without being able to see the actors. Might be worth trying others for comparison, though—they’ve got some good guest stars: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/masters_of_horror_tales_from_beyond_the_pale_returns

[isis]

WOW that glass art! I want it all.

[sovay]

WOW that glass art! I want it all.

I love how live it looks.