Thanks for listening.

“Basically, our memories of many of the key events of our past are now recollections not of “actual” past events, but of the photographs or videos we have taken of them. In a sense, people often now use the “real experience” – a trip to the Grand Canyon, our daughters wedding – primarily as a “pretext” for the more “substantial” later experience of “reliving” these experiences through reproduced sounds and images that magically conjure up for us our past, a conjuration that seems more “substantial” precisely because it can be endlessly reproduced.” Larry McCaffrey, “Introduction: The Desert Of The Real”, STORMING THE REALITY STUDIO (1991)

I have no interest in defending myself, as you have indicated such is not welcome. Nor, do I have any interest in explaining the difference between a critic, a reader/consumer, and a creator. Again.

Myspace is free and has podcasts.

Little girl has daddy issues.

Little girl is a cutter who only bleeds to know she’s alive.

Little girl shoves weird things under her rapidly healing skin.

YAWN

Little girl goes to college and has relationship issues.

Little girl comes out of her shell to the first male to be nice to her, even though he kind of ignores her, too. (See daddy issues)

Little girl stops healing so quickly as she emotionally begins to “heal.”

YAWN

Where’s the horrific element to all this? It ends on a hopeful, cheery note.

Also, when will we get to hear some feedback discussed on the podcast like Escape Pod and the new Podcastle do? It would be nice to not only be told once in almost a hundred stories that our feedback is read and taken to heart, but it would be another thing all together to actually see (hear) it being considered.

I did appreciate Al’s rather eclectic closing remarks. We can all use a gentle reminder now and again that the past is often an ill-suited tool with which to build our futures. Dwelling in our past mistakes is easy, perversely gratifying, but ultimately leads us nowhere and so it is only after we surrender the hold our personal history has on us can we truly grow as human beings. It’s just a pity that Marsh wasn’t able to sculpt the apocryphal elephant, as it were.

“Wounds” reminded me a little of Howard Zinn’s anecdote about Helen Keller as she was represented in the play and film “The Miracle Worker.” Yes, Keller overcame, Zinn wrote. But for what? To be immortalized forever as the girl who merely overcame? What of the life’s work she was responsible for as a grown woman? What of her social activism and controversial politics? I feel the same shortcoming applies to Marsh’s character, especially given how easy a job Tommy had compared to Annie Sullivan’s.

Yes, I understand that “Wounds” is a short story and yes, I understand that short stories tend to focus on small, pivotal moments in the lives of their characters. But Marsh only endowed her protagonist with two interesting qualities: her preternatural ability to heal physically and her all-too-natural inability to heal emotionally. Marsh strips both qualities away by the end, leaving us with nothing more than a vague and uninspired hope for the future.

The idea was interesting, but it did not feed my horror fix. Not that it was bad just could have used more.

The ending was too light.

I think pain defines who we are.

i never really felt the weight of the girl’s loneliness or unhappy family life as much as i really could have. likewise, the bodymodding/healing aspect never really worked it’s symbolism as much as it could have if an effort had been made to try and actually weird us out abit with it.

in current form, i suspect that this one might have been a better fit on one of the other pods.

again, not bad, but had the potential to be much better.

Great to hear your voice again here Mur, definitely missed your voice around here!