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BURNING WORDS: Podcast Reviews

by Tamara on March 28, 2007

BURNING WORDS: Podcast Reviews
March 2007
by Tamara Kaye Sellman

Introduction
Welcome to Burning Words: Podcast Reviews, a monthly column reviewing short prose podcasts featuring fiction or creative nonfiction. My hope in penning this column is to build mainstream awareness of podcasting’s tremendous potential as an accessible, diverse, high-quality, intellectual, and practical form of entertainment.

What is a podcast? It might be thought of as the 21st Century equivalent to the old time radio show. Using the latest technology, listeners can download these radio shows as media files to their mp3 devices and computers and, with a single click, listen at their own convenience, either through headphones or through a speaker. Most podcasts are free and can be downloaded through various directories such as iTunes and Podcast Alley.

History
I have owned an mp3 player (Creative Zen V) since September 2006, but I don’t use it to listen to music or watch videos. Instead, I listen to a variety of audio fiction, nonfiction, and poetry programs which all fall under the aegis of the podcast.

What a treat! Only a year ago (2006), I was telling someone how I missed listening to the nostalgic radio shows that reran in Chicago back in the 1980s when I lived there. “I wish,” I said, “that someone would borrow from the success of those old radio shows to figure out a way to bring contemporary poetry and fiction alive through mp3 technology.”

Little did I know, then, how podcasting had already emerged from its infancy and was developing into the wonderful utility for mass communication that it’s becoming today.

What’s more, you can find every type of programming under the sun, thanks to the emergence of technology that provides an easy and inexpensive interface between the performer/producer and his or her audience. The advent of podcasting directories to link podcasts to listeners easily unifies the process.

Now, while I still enjoy downloading Nostalgia Radio from the 1940s (yes, you can still listen!), I have also discovered the pleasures of listening to NPR on my own schedule. I can also catch my daily dose of Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor or any of the other assorted talk-radio programs I like, which focus on topics that fascinate me (i.e. psychology, science, conspiracy theory—Art Bell, anybody?).

But what I really dig are short prose podcasts. These days, it’s hard to catch live storytelling without going to a festival to do it. Most live readings in literary circles focus on poetry readings or slam competitions. Short prose doesn’t get much attention outside the print and online magazines which house stories and essays. Even then, finding and reading these magazines can be difficult for casual, mainstream readers.

This is where podcasting can make a difference. Short fiction and creative nonfiction podcasts have proliferated since 2004 and show no signs of abating Whether one prefers fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, literary, personal monolog, comedy, bedtime stories or other forms, there’s bound to be something out there for every listener.

About me
I’ve worked in some form of editing, writing, and/or publishing since 1983. Currently, I direct a small editorial services firm, Writer’s Rainbow, while managing MRCentral.net, an interactive community which is the world’s only magical realism network. I’m a published author (of poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction) with credits in magazines across the US as well as in Canada, the UK, Mexico, and Malaysia. I collected a second Pushcart Prize nomination this year and have won various other small prizes for my own creative writing over the last decade. I also volunteer for the small press and creative writing and literary venues in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the Seattle area. You can read more about me at my home page.

I hope you’ll let Burning Words: Podcast Reviews serve as your home base for podcast listening. Want a podcast reviewed? E-mail me and I’ll check it out. Also, I hope to develop Burning Words not only as a column, but also as a podcast in its own right, so stay tuned for those developments.

TKS, 3.28.2007
Note: All podcasts are downloaded to either an IBM ThinkPad or a Creative Zen V mp3 player for listening and review.

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MARCH 2007 PODCAST REVIEW

King Bonk’s Campfire Cast:
A Periodic Setting of Sound and Story
Overall Rating: 8/10
URL: http://www.kingbonk.libsyn.com/
RSS: http://kingbonk.libsyn.com/rss
Language: English
Genres: short fiction, essays, poetry, music, soundscape
Email: kingbonk@gmail.com

Background
From the website: “A surreal world of soundscape, scary and/or scintillating stories, and poetry—with a little philosophy thrown in the mix to keep you pleasantly confused! Just as your mind wanders when warming your hands by the bonfire, let King Bonk take your mind to strange and distant places—some of them vaguely familiar, some of them kinda stupid. Come to the fire, sit down, gather round, and listen to King Bonk’s proving ground for sound.” Podcast Pickle also describes King Bonk’s Campfire as “a surreal trip into soundscape, stories & music, hailing from Philadelphia, PA.”

This podcast launched in Jan 2006. In the year that followed, King Bonk’s Campfire has produced 28 episodes which are available free for download. King Bonk is currently on hiatus until Jun 2007.

General Review
King Bonk’s Campfire focuses on personal essays which can be intense, confessional, darkly comic, evocative, and even erotic. They generally circle around favorite topics: real-world ghosts, fear, church, beliefs, and social commentary. It’s unclear whether these pieces are written first, and then delivered, or done improvisationally. While the episodes seem to be produced “on the fly,” small passages of crystalline prose poetry do crop up in some of the more insightful narratives. The quality of the narrator’s voice for King Bonk’s Campfire is edgy, hypnotic, and captivating. Listeners may feel like voyeurs, but this only adds to the dramatic and intimate quality of this podcast. His work is, if nothing else, unforgettable. Production values are better than average, thanks to some carefully selected background sound and music. The crackling campfire sound in the background is kinda fun. After listening to several episodes, I do not get the sense that this podcaster has fully realized his focus here, but his undeniable passion for storytelling plus the powerful subject matter of his content and the podcast’s above-average production make King Bonk’s Campfire one to listen for. I hope he keeps going. KB reports he will return to the podcasting world with new material (equivalent to the power of “Latter-day Ghosts,” I hope) in June 2007.

Episodes reviewed

NOTE: Check ratings for individual episodes; some are not work-safe or family friendly.

King Bonk’s Campfire #001: All-Seeing Eye
[air date: 1.01.2006; 35 min]—The very first episode. Some sparks of quality in an uneven production. I especially liked the narrator’s discussion of his fear of the moon. Commentary is arch and reminds me of an edgy, neurotic, and personalized episode of This American Life. Rating: 6.5/10

#15 - A Prairie Home Apocalypse
[air date: 6.12.2006; 28 min]—This is a special and atypical episode that KB produced to offset what he considered a dark previous episode. Sort of a variety show, with poetry, live music and essays. The chatter about visiting the barber is funny and weird. A little too scattered for me, overall. Rating: 4/10, but remember, this isn’t a typical episode.

#18 - Feeling Gravity’s Pull
[air date: 8.16.2006; 18 min]—One of KB’s more lurid episodes. Recorded at 3 am, if that tells you anything. Segments about being off Zoloft, having insomnia, auditioning before a sexy high-school stage director, and adjusting to a $2,000 bed called the Flexiline Sleepdeluxe Dreamcatcher lend this late-night episode an erotic surrealism. Funny and strange, probably best listened to with earphones… Rating: 7/10

#23 - Latter-day Ghosts
[air date: 11.21.2006; 28 min]—Wow! Outstanding pastiche of ideas: tornadoes, architecture, living ghosts, the passage of a loved one. Some real gems being mined here. This episode was so intense that I almost couldn’t continue listening to it, but had to, anyway, to see how it resolved itself. A little long, in spots, but still, an evocative blend of anguish, terror, melancholy, and insight. This one will blow you away. Rating: 9/10

Bonus Show: Breaking into Radio
[air date: 6.13.2006; 5 min]—Podcast equivalent of flash fiction, despite the fact that it isn’t fiction. KB as narrator seems strange enough to make the events of this story somehow believable all the same. Fun, quirky stuff. Rating: 9.5/10

© 2007, TKS

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