The Cubby House & "A Returning Appetite"
I"m very excited. Jay Neal, my fiction-writing alter-ego, has had his first radio-drama experience–sort of–and it's pretty cool.
Near the beginning of the year I got an email from a new friend named Jack, who had the following to say:
I am one of the creators from the podcast "The Cubby House". The Cubby House is a bear themed podcast based in Melbourne, Australia. I am seeking to add more variety to the show and I would be thrilled if you could allow us to use your prose in the podcast.
Here's the home page of "The Cubby House". In the adorable masthead photograph, Jack is the middle one of the three (and the youngest, also apparently single as I write this.)
Jack was thrilled; I was thrilled. As he tells the story a friend had sent him a reading of my early story "A Returning Appetite", which I once described this way:
Battered by the lingering memory of a failed relationship, the narrator has little taste for his routine meal at a local restaurant, when his anxieties and fantasies are stimulated by his noticing the bear of his dreams, who is eating there as well.
The story turns out to have a very welcome, very happy ending, by the way. This is the story that Jack Fritscher once described as "like Woody Allen on pork chops", which is odd but sort of makes sense once you know what happens in the story. It correctly implies that the narrator (who, by the way, is unnamed in the story) is somewhat neurotic.
The story was beautifully read by yet another cute young cub who goes by the name of Thaneross; he's currently in Toronto. I particularly enjoyed his reading because it was different from the way I would have read it, but it made good sense the way he read it. It's a real treat to hear an interpretation that's different from the one I hear in my head when I'm writing. I learn a lot from listening to what someone else finds in the story that motivates the words. It was like hearing the story for the first time–it seemed all fresh and new. I enjoyed the way the emotions played tag in the narrator's head and the way Thaneross brought that out. Sure, I wrote it and I knew what was happening but it still seemed spontaneous since I got to sit back for a change and just listen to it. I cried tears of joy for the narrator at the end.
I also felt a certain pride that the podcast came with this message:
*Warning: This story is for adult listeners only. It contains coarse language, adult themes, sexual references and sex scenes. Listener discretion is advised*
What good is being a suburban pornographer if there's no shock left in the possibility of "coarse language, adult themes, sexual references and sex scenes"? Woo hoo!
The podcast, dated 5 February 2009, and called "11 – Sleeping Cookie, Returning Appetite", can be found in the archives at The Cubby House and listened to there; the program lasts a little over 19 minutes. They also provide this direct link to the mp3 file. The Cubby House blog has a posting that announces the podcast: ""It's so lonely being lonely" – A special Cubby House is now live."
Not only is this my first ever podcast story, it appears to be the first time that The Cubby House has presented a narrative like this. I'm really pleased with the result, and really pleased that I could contribute.
So, to Thaneross and Jack, and Cookie and Ryan, let me say a big thank you. It was good for me–I hope it was good for you.
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on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 at 21.26
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Apparently Ron Suresha popped Jay Neil's podcast cherry on "Bear Soup" not The Cubby House