Tag Archives: DDOP 2017

Advent Candles

TBM 1712.25 DDOPAdvent-07: A Prayer for Social Justice

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Advent Candles

Description:

#Audio. Many voices, one common wish for peace and social justice

Excerpt:

Fill the hearts of mankind with the fire of your love, and with the desire to ensure justice for all.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:28 — 5.8MB)

Christmas Piano

TBM 1712.22 DDOP-Advent-06: I Pray on Christmas

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Christmas Piano

Description:

#Audio. A mother finds solace in music during a delay at the airport.

Excerpt:

Kathleen stared up at the status board, and couldn’t help letting out a frustrated groan. Her flight had been delayed. Again. She liked her life as a road warrior, for the most part. She got to stay in lovely hotels, spend time in all the great cities of the world, and, she would probably never run out of frequent flier miles and first class upgrades. Flight delays, however, were something she would never enjoy.

Still, there were times when she longed to walk through the door to her own home to a sloppy, drooly greeting from her dog, a nearly ancient flat-coated retriever named Parker. (He was named after her childhood crush, Parker Stevenson, whom she used to watch every week on The Hardy Boys. No one, she thought, had ever made a better Frank.)

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: viperagp / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:43 — 10.0MB)

Menorah

TBM 1712.09 DDOP-Advent-05: In Every Age

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Menorah

Description:

#Audio. Happy Hanukkah! It’s the second night of Hanukkah, so this is a Hanukkah story.

Excerpt:

She played the chord again, and saw the children gathered around her focus their attention. And why not? They’d grown up with digital instruments: violins and cellos that relied on computer chips for their tone, guitars that made their sound through a wireless amplifier, and pianos that could be rolled into a cylinder the size of a zip-top sandwich bag. Her guitar didn’t have any chips, and it couldn’t be made smaller. It was wire and wood and care and love and history, and its lines were the only ones Sylvia had caressed since her beloved Harry had passed on five years before.

“I’m going to sing you an old song now,” she told them. “And you’re going to sing it with me. It’s in Hebrew. So, listen once, and then repeat.”

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: karaidel / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:51 — 9.9MB)

Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

TBM 1712.09 DDOP-Advent-04: Winter Flames

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Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

Description:

Sunday Brunch column for Modern Creative Life. An essay on the flames we light in winter.

Excerpt:

And yet, these winter holidays all have something in common as well – aside from the tendency to celebrate with incredibly delicious, albeit unhealthy foods. They all bring light to the longest nights of the year.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:20 — 5.6MB)

Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

TBM 1712.05 DDOP-Advent-02: Only If It’s Eartha Kitt

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Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

Description:

Flash-fiction: an aunt and niece discuss the holidays and Eartha Kitt.

Excerpt:

The older woman’s dithering lit a fire in her niece. “Aunt Lena you have been playing hermit at Christmas since I was sixteen years old. I’m twenty-six now, and Brian is probably going to propose on Christmas Eve, and I want my only aunt to be there.” She took a beat. “Besides, who else will I be able to mock all the cheesy Christmas music with?”

Links & References:

Only If It’s Eartha Kitt, at MissMeliss.com

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:54 — 4.9MB)

Bloody Rose

TBM 1708.31 DDOP-31: Bloody Roses

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Bloody Rose

Description:

Flash prompt. Days after the fact. Kind of grim.

Excerpt:

It wasn’t usual anymore, the burying of bodies, but I had insisted. “I want to bring him home. I want to bury him next to his grandfather.”

And so, even though we live in an age when the dead are cremated and the ashes mixed into the gardens, or, if you had the resources, consigned to the heart of a star, we put the body of our stillborn son in stasis and carted him half way across the quadrant for an old-fashioned funeral.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:57 — 6.1MB)

Xmas House

TBM 1708.30 DDOP-30: Mel-Babble

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Xmas House

Description:

Mel Babble. Raw, unedited chatter. Probably you should just skip it.

Excerpt:

Vegetables can be cute. My house makes me sad.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Personal Collection

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:49 — 13.4MB)

K'Ehleyr & Worf

TBM 1708.29 DDOP-29: Game Point

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K'Ehleyr & Worf

Description:

Several months ago, I was reminded that K’Ehleyr from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Marshall’s mom on How I Met Your Mother were both played by Suzi Plakson. Fanfiction happened. Nuchtchas was kind enough to read it for me.

Excerpt:

“Arch!” Again, her commands were spoken too quietly for him to hear, but the temperature dropped rapidly as the jungle was supplanted by a frozen pond surrounded by jagged peaks of snow and ice. “Take this,” she said, tossing him a long wooden stick that curved into a soft L-shape at the end.

“This is a hockey stick!”

“You know hockey? Good, that will help.” Again, with the purring. Why did she insist upon making that sound? Did she know how it got to him?

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Memory Beta.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:24 — 9.0MB)

Murder of Crows

TBM 1708.28 DDOP-28: A Murder of Crows

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Murder of Crows

Description:

Flash-fiction. Ravens and Crows aren’t quite the same bird.

Excerpt:

“I’ve grounded and centered and counted to ten – to fifty, even. I’ve done the incantation. I’ve drunk the calming tea, and no matter what I do, I cannot banish the thoughts of Unkindness for longer than a couple of minutes.”

“Unkindness? Unkindness?” The women tilted her head one way then another, peering at him from one bright eye at a time. “But, you’re not a Raven. You’re a Crow.”

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-Prompt Facebook group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:04 — 4.9MB)

TBM 1708.27 DDOP-27: Sunday Brunch: Thoughts on Community

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Description:

This week’s Sunday Brunch column – thoughts on Community.

Excerpt:

As is the nature of living organisms, Communities ebb and flow. Sometimes you’ll have intense relationships with only a few members of a community and more casual ones with the rest. Sometimes you’ll feel like there are people who don’t ‘get’ you, or you don’t really understand. I’ve come to learn that this is normal. It’s not bad or wrong, it’s just life.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

  • Photo Copyright: maglara / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:01 — 9.5MB)