Appearances

Name: Goodpods
Rating: 4.8 (3721 reviews)

Mermaid Palace, Radiotopia

1 Creator

FICTION

There’s the family you grew up with: your mom, your dad, your siblings. And then, there’s the family you carry around in your head for the rest of your life. This show is about that second family, the one that lives within.

From Mermaid Palace, Sharon Mashihi brings you Appearances, a one woman audio show that straddles the line between fiction and truth. Appearances brings to life an Iranian American family and community through the real and fantastical mental machinations of Melanie Barzadeh. Melanie is in her mid 30’s and desires nothing more than to become a mother. The difficulty of finding the right partner seems to be directly connected to the struggles witnessed in her home throughout her entire childhood. As Sharon Mashihi voice-acts all the characters in one family, the depth of the love, pain, and struggle is felt with honesty and humour at every turn.

#50 in the Top 100 Indie personal journals All time chart

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12 Listeners

1 Comment

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Top 10 Appearances Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Appearances episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Appearances for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Appearances episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Prologue

Appearances

09/29/20 • 14 min

Part A of the prologue is a note from Sharon about why this podcast is labeled "fiction". Part B is a history of the town of Great Neck, as told by Faribah, the neighbor across the street. As Faribah always likes to say, "In this neighborhood, the windows are very important. What can you see when you look out of them, and what can everybody else see when they look in?"

6 Listeners

Radiotopia Presents: S***hole Country

Appearances

11/10/21 • 9 min

Hi. It’s nice to be back in your ears.
We want to tell you about a new series we think Appearances listeners will especially like. It’s called S***hole Country and it’s an audio memoir about the many, many complexities of being second generation American. And, it’s a story told with a lot of love.
To hear more, subscribe to Radiotopia Presents in your podcast app of choice.

4 Listeners

Episode 04: Last Ditch Effort

Appearances

10/09/20 • 37 min

Melanie asks: Is it still worth trying to make it work with men?

4 Listeners

1 Comment

Episode 02: A Person Who Has Never Even Been Married Fantasizes Incessantly About Divorce

Appearances

10/02/20 • 33 min

Melanie is at her brother’s wedding and feeling out of place. She is unsure about long term relationships, so she takes us inside the intimate details of her parents’ marriage to find out why.

4 Listeners

Episode 01: Voices

Appearances

09/29/20 • 37 min

In this episode, we meet Melanie, her family—who appear as voices in her head—and her ill-fated lover as they discuss potentially having a baby, and her first pregnancy 9 years ago.

[This episode contains scenes that deal with difficult topics, including abortion, and may be distressing for some listeners.]

3 Listeners

Episode 03: Vida

Appearances

10/06/20 • 25 min

This episode belongs to Vida, Melanie’s mom. We twist and turn through the caverns of her past and present to understand what it feels like, as Vida puts it, "to live with your heart outside your body."

3 Listeners