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BURNING WORDS: Podcast Reviews, May 2007

by Tamara on May 30, 2007

by Tamara Kaye Sellman

Welcome to Burning Words: Podcast Reviews, a monthly column reviewing short prose podcasts featuring fiction or creative nonfiction.

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.

Note: All podcasts reviewed in this column were downloaded to either an IBM ThinkPad or a Creative Zen V mp3 player for listening and review.

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MAY 2007 PODCAST REVIEW

Title: The Stuffed Fabulist on Air
Overall Rating: 10/10
URL: http://www.stuffedfabulist.com/
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/stuffedpod
Language: English
Genres: From the website: “A collection of contemporary fables, parables, and other reports of ‘things that go bump in the night.’”
Email: permissions@stuffedfabulist.com

Background
This podcast was launched in August 2005. A complete listing of all 109 episodes can be found at pluggd.com

General Review
While I’d hesitate to say that The Stuffed Fabulist is for everybody, it sure is fun to listen to, and producer/writer Geoffrey Grosshans does a top-notch job, so I’d recommend that everyone give it a go. What the heck, with each episode clocking in at around 5 minutes, what do you have to lose?

Frankly, you can only gain. The Stuffed Fabulist, as the title implies, is all about parables and fables. That’s a bright spot, to me. Sometimes I think that if we Americans, in particular, would spend more time listening to parables and fables (whether secular or religious, it doesn’t matter), we might just change the way that we collectively (selectively?) see the world. (I focus on American worldviews here, but these parables and fables seem utterly relevant to anyone in the English-speaking world.)

Wikipedia defines a parable as “a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. It differs from a fable in excluding animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.” The Stuffed Fabulist produces both as regular episodes in a simple, clean format.

Seattleite Geoffrey Grosshans seems the perfect person to write and deliver these original parables and fables. He holds several degrees—a BA in English Language in Literature, an MA in English and Comparative Literature, a BA in Japanese Language and Literature, and a BA in Chinese Language and Literature—and has put a major emphasis of his studies on European, Japanese, and Chinese literature, art, history, and politics. I don’t normally give a hoot about background when it comes to podcasting credentiality—one of the most important aspects of podcasting is its democratic, free-speech access for anyone willing to give it a shot, regardless of background—but in the case of a show featuring original parables and fables, it makes sense that the person writing them know a bit about the importance, structure, and history of these older storytelling forms, which can be far more complicated to interpret and deliver than they appear to be. Not only does Grosshans have a mastery of this literary art form, he excels at writing and producing it, having also authored a series of collections called Likely Stories which are available in both print and CD formats.

I’ve discovered, after having listened to myriad podcasts, that there are some podcast readers who have great work to deliver, but their voices often get in the way. Grosshans, on the other hand, wields the perfect voice for reciting these once-weekly tales: his is a smooth, unassuming voice completely dedicated to the dramatic telling of the story. You forget you’re listening to a voice; all you notice is the story. That’s the way it should be.

One other aspect that I’ve really enjoyed about these little stories is that, generally, I’ve always associated parables with religious teachings, and my own personal bias connects religious teaching with conservative thinking. Not so with The Stuffed Fabulist. If these little snippets are anything, they’re political to the core and definitely not pious or self-righteous in tone. Neither are they ultra-liberal, for that matter. “These commentaries present an independent point of view,” Grosshans says in his introduction to each tale. “The ultimate moral or lesson of each tale is left to the listener to decide.”

I’ve listened to just about all of these tales and have found them all practically spotless in production, as well as entertaining and enlightening in content. For this reason, I give this podcast a 10/10 rating. Below, I simply highlight some I found most memorable.

Episodes reviewed

NOTE: Always check content ratings for individual episodes of all podcasts; some may not be work-safe or family friendly.

The Ersatz [PDF]
[air date: 3.13.2007; 6:23 min]—“ Once an ersatz found itself in everybody’s thoughts.” What a charming idea…animating an abstraction in this manner. I found myself chuckling while listening. (Dead giveaway: if someone’s listening to their mp3 player and they’re laughing, then they’re listening to podcasts and not music!)

The Fatted Calf [PDF]
[air date: 4.01.2007; 5:23 min]—“Once a fatted calf suspected something might be up.” Funny and sad. Its prominent understory is at once pleasingly political, spiritual, and philosophical in nature. A story for everyone to learn from, regardless of religious affiliation.

The Roadrunner [PDF]
[air date: 4.08.2007; 5:37 min]—“Once a roadrunner feared it was running out of road.” Ha! I let the image of the cartoon roadrunner and his nemesis, Wile E. Coyote, race around in my mind’s eye while listening to this and, heck, it worked.

The Homing Pigeon [PDF]
[air date: 5.06.2007; 5:36 min]—“Once a homing pigeon lost its sense of direction.” What can I say…lovely and sad. Stories of identity and connectivity are universal; this bit is sure to make you think. (By the way, it occurred to me while listening to this podcast that all of Grosshans’ concepts would make excellent conceptual launchpads for film.)

The Leopard [PDF]
[air date: 2.06.2007; 5:06 min]—“Once a leopard declared it had changed its spots.” Okay, so you think you know how this one is going to end? Fine. The thing is this: why can’t we seem to learn from this traditional tale? Why does history, indeed, repeat itself?

© 2007, TKS

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