Comments on: Episode 73: Evening Primrose

By: Lamont Cranston

Lamont Cranston — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 21:45:45 +0000

This is a fantastic episode. The only reason that I didn’t rate it as a timeless classic is the setting in the department store. It seems to me that as time goes by fewer and fewer listeners will be able to relate to the setting.
I can picture the scene starting with “Hey kid, go put this in cassette player.” “What’s a cassette player Gramps?” Then poor old gramps trying to explain a department stores & wax dummies to Skippy Snotnose.

By: Joshua English Scrimshaw

Joshua English Scrimshaw — Wed, 30 May 2018 14:25:51 +0000

In reply to Mark Forrester. Yeah, I like that one a lot. Suspense also adapted “Wet Saturday” and NBC Short Story featured “De Mortuis”. I have a vague recollection of another version of “Evening Primrose”, but I can’t remember the series.

By: Mark Forrester

Mark Forrester — Wed, 30 May 2018 09:28:48 +0000

In reply to Mark Forrester. I was reading more Collier stories last night, and was surprised to discover that he also wrote the story that the classic radio episode "Back for Christmas" is based on!

By: Joshua English Scrimshaw

Joshua English Scrimshaw — Thu, 17 May 2018 22:53:48 +0000

In reply to Doug Shaw. Argh! I can't believe I didn't make the Neverwhere connection!

By: Doug Shaw

Doug Shaw — Wed, 09 May 2018 20:18:38 +0000

I love the trope of : Alice In Wonderland, except Wonderland is coexisting with the real world. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is another example of this trope. It is one of the reasons I love learning about subcultures. In Minneapolis, there are Those who Walk Among Us, who we think are living in our world, but all they are doing is mentally reviewing their lists of seven letter words containing TISANE and getting ready for the next Scrabble Tournament, and they only really are themselves when they are in that alternate world of double-clocks and cloth bags that stand up and lazy susans, and STHENIA and EASTING and all that. Or stories about organized crime, where these people share our streets, but can’t go in other peoples’ territories and the bars have secret back rooms where things take place that we never see. Or the time I went busking in Ann Arbor and a homeless person (due to hilarious misunderstandings of my answers to his questions) assumed I was part of that world, and he briefed me about who owns which corners, etc.

Anyway, I love that trope, and this was a great example of it.

By: Mark Forrester

Mark Forrester — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 13:37:47 +0000

In reply to Joshua English Scrimshaw. I got a copy of "The John Collier Reader" out of our library. It contains a lot of stories as well as "His Monkey Wife," which I've read about a third of. It starts out pretty slow, but has some funny moments. I'm hoping the weirdness will built in the rest of the book.

By: Joshua English Scrimshaw

Joshua English Scrimshaw — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 02:03:53 +0000

In reply to Mark Forrester. I would love to take that class! I'm currently reading Collier's short story collection, Fancies and Goodnights. It's very hard to put down. One dark, strange little story after another.

By: Mark Forrester

Mark Forrester — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 15:21:07 +0000

I loved this episode! “Evening Primrose” would be great fun to teach in a literature class.