Category Archives: Tales from the Tub

0219 - Marcy - via flash-prompt

TBM-1808.03 – DDOP-003: Grain

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0219 - Marcy - via flash-prompt

Description:

#Audio. #FlashFic A safari to see hippogriffs goes horribly wrong.

Excerpt:

Later, as the hippogriffs circle closer to their open-sided buses, the kind you used to see laughing tourists riding on their oh-so-expensive photo-safaris, they find comfort in the fact that she is armed.

After all, those leonine paws have claws sharp enough to eviscerate a man, those beaks – adapted from birds of prey, she explains – can snatch a bleeding leg of lamb right from her hand.

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 a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:10 — 6.1MB)

0220-Escher meets Okeefe

TBM-1808.02 – DDOP-002: Just That

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0220-Escher meets Okeefe

Description:

#Audio. #FlashFic Art and magic were more than his vocation. They were his life.

Excerpt:

An art appreciation seminar gave him his heroes. He fell in love with Escher’s skewed reality – Möbius stairs and the like – mixed math and art, while O’Keefe made cow skulls beautiful and flowers sexual.

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 a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:05 — 3.8MB)

0315 - smoke ink via flash-prompt

TBM-1808.01 – DDOP-001: The Shape of You

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0315 - smoke ink via flash-prompt

Description:

#Audio. #FlashFic Her partner has been dead for three years, and yet, he’s never quite left her.

Excerpt:

At night, when I lie shivering in what was once our bed, but is now solely mine, is it your hands that pull the covers up, protecting me in a cocoon of cotton sheets and quilts as you once sheltered me in the curve of your body?

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 a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:10 — 2.9MB)

TBM-1807.31-DDOP-000: The Dog Days are Coming

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Description:

#Audio. The Dog Days are Coming!

Excerpt:

I’m participating in The Dog Days of Podcasting again this year.

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 a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:48 — 2.4MB)

Dancing With Ghosts via Flash Prompt

TBM 1804.15 – Faeries, Ghosts, and Myths

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Dancing With Ghosts via Flash Prompt

Description:

#Audio. Three stories by The Bathtub Mermaid: Take Back the Light, Waltzing in the Woods, and Daedalus, Diminished.

Excerpt:

And everyone knows that you shouldn’t wade while wearing velvet. It soaks up the water and drags you down to the bottom of the sea.

The cold, dark Atlantic is unforgiving that way.

Links and References

  • Take Back the Light, read by Jeremy Bredeson. Read the story here.
  • Waltzing in the Woods, read by Melissa A. Bartell. Read the story here.
  • Daedalus, Diminished, read by Clay Robeson. Read the story here.
  • Clay Robeson info and social media links.

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 a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:21 — 10.1MB)

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)

Poinsettias

TBM 1712.07 DDOP-Advent-07: Poinsettias

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Poinsettias

Description:

Flash-fiction written for 2016 Holidailies: A young woman and her grandmother add Holiday Magic to some seasonal plants.

Excerpt:

The inside of the greenhouse is a technological marvel, with heat lamps and misters and every kind of measuring implement ever invented to track growth rates and division patterns, to determine optimal climate zones and confirm hardiness. Even the ceiling was programmable on a section-by-section basis so that day-lilies could thrive next to night-blooming cactus if the Gardeners so desired.

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: 6:11 — 8.0MB)