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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?

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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. We just ticked off every

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Speaker 1: HP Lovecraft fan there is with that. That was so cheesy. Um,

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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant, and who else is in here? I

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Speaker 1: was gonna wait a minute, Okay, I was going to

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Speaker 1: lead up to that, Well, there's no one else in here, no,

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Speaker 1: no one. Um. Today we are doing a special podcast

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Speaker 1: on Yeah, um and uh. For those of you who

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Speaker 1: don't know what the necronomicon is, it is arguably the

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Speaker 1: most famous fictional text ever created in the history of

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Speaker 1: American literature. It is an evil book, one might say,

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Speaker 1: created by are probably my favorite author, HP Lovecraft. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize this. You told me this, I didn't.

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Speaker 1: I love Lovecraft. My favorite UM stories are Dreams in

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Speaker 1: the Witch House, where he basically equates um physics to Witchcraft,

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Speaker 1: like witches have a really an advanced grasp on physics.

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Speaker 1: It's awesome, it's so cool. Strange case of Charles Dexter

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Speaker 1: Award is probably the greatest one he's ever written. It's amazing.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you gotta read that. And these are short stories. Well,

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Speaker 1: the next one's a novella at the Mountains of Madness.

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Speaker 1: Excellent story. And actually that one kind of factors into

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Speaker 1: what we're gonna be talking about today. Um, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if the Necronomicon makes an appearance, but what the

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Speaker 1: Necronomicon deals with is all over the place there. So Chuck,

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Speaker 1: let's despite my love of love Craft. Yes, it's painfully

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Speaker 1: obvious to both of us that we're mere full these

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Speaker 1: compared to some other people out there who are Lovecraft fans,

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Speaker 1: right the dogs. And we figured that we were going

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Speaker 1: to get nothing but angry emails for this one, and

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Speaker 1: they take it pretty seriously. I would imagine that they

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Speaker 1: don't want us to poop on their hero and their

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Speaker 1: icons now, and he's my hero too, but I just

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Speaker 1: I don't. I can do it justice, you know I can't.

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Speaker 1: So instead we decided to bring in who will call

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Speaker 1: the shield, who can who can take all of the

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Speaker 1: angry emails, and that is our friend, colleague and fellow podcaster,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Paramore. Yes, we have a special guest today.

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Speaker 1: Chuck wasn't lying. I was so, hey, strick how's it going?

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Speaker 1: Hey there, guys, um going pretty well. Thanks for having

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Speaker 1: me on. I I really enjoyed writing both Culhu and

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Speaker 1: the Necronomicon articles, so I'm there as very very cool.

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Speaker 1: You're you're kind of raised on these, weren't you. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: your dad write weird fiction? Yeah? Um, my father's names

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Speaker 1: Brad Strickland, So if you were to do a search

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Speaker 1: for that on Amazon, you would see that he's written

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Speaker 1: quite a few novels, several which fall into the horror

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Speaker 1: or weird fiction category. So yeah, I grew up around

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Speaker 1: the stuff. This was your life. It's pretty cool, and

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Speaker 1: you're you're dead, predicted Teddy Ruxman. That's true, but has

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with Lovecraft or Cathul or into the

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Speaker 1: necronomic right, No, it doesn't. My parents are t school teachers,

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Speaker 1: so not nearly excited it. As a mechanical engineer, I

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Speaker 1: didn't grow up with Cathulhu and strange beasts that would

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Speaker 1: drag him in saying just to look upon its face, right, yeah, yeahs,

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Speaker 1: which is something. It's a point that you make in

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Speaker 1: the in the articles you wrote, strict was that these

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Speaker 1: these creatures that the Necronomicon deals with, um, they'll drive

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Speaker 1: you crazy just by looking at them or by you know,

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Speaker 1: interacting with them. Usually terrible, terrible things happen. Right, And

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Speaker 1: at the center of the Necronomicon is cathulu cthulu or

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Speaker 1: there's a pronunciation um that Lovecraft wrote in a letter

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Speaker 1: to a fellow author. Right, and how how is that

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Speaker 1: one pronounced? You know, why are you hitting me with

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Speaker 1: that all all of a sudden. Okay, let's let's let's

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Speaker 1: be clear here. Lovecraft actually makes a point to say

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Speaker 1: that these otherworldly creatures have their own language which humans

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Speaker 1: are incapable of repeating. That makes it very mysterious and

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Speaker 1: creepy to me. Yeah, it's the same sort of nature

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Speaker 1: as as they. They have this appearance that we are

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Speaker 1: we cannot comprehend. If we were to look upon it

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Speaker 1: as you say, we would go crazy. So it actually

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Speaker 1: takes a lot of pressure off because you can name

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Speaker 1: things whatever you like. You can put as many consonants

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Speaker 1: and little apostrophes in there, and so you can call

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Speaker 1: it whatever you like. And when people say, how do

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Speaker 1: you pronounce it? You just respond you can't. But Coutulu

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Speaker 1: is one that I think most Lovecraft um scholars would

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Speaker 1: argue as the appropriate pronunciation. But the way I've always

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Speaker 1: said it, in the way that most of the fans

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Speaker 1: that I've talked to have always said it as Cathulu,

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Speaker 1: right was it wasn't there a rumor early on that

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Speaker 1: the clover filled movie was the monster was the Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was very early on when that that preview first hit,

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Speaker 1: and there was not even a title for the movie yet.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there was no title internally for the movie.

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Speaker 1: People could only get little glimpses of what was going on,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people said, Hey, maybe this is

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Speaker 1: the Cathulu movie we've all been waiting for. This is

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Speaker 1: actually the monster. I wonder I haven't made that yet.

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Speaker 1: I think, Well, there have been several movies that have

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Speaker 1: tried to tap into the Lovecraft universe, and only a

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Speaker 1: few have been really successful. I think part of the

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Speaker 1: problem is that how do you portray a monster that

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Speaker 1: is so horrible that you'd go crazy looking? That was

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Speaker 1: what I was thinking was, it's probably pretty intimidating for

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Speaker 1: a filmmaker to try and tackle this. Well, there there

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Speaker 1: are descriptions of Cthulhu. What's right? So he basically he

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Speaker 1: has wings. Um, he resembles just by looking at this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you think about this, do you think do you think

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Speaker 1: feminine when you hear this? Wings? Huge leathery wings, part octopus,

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Speaker 1: part dragon woman, part part man. Now I wouldn't say,

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Speaker 1: I just seem so with Lovecraft thing he would say

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Speaker 1: it is agenda that cannot be defined. Yeah, unnamable. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we'll call him he. Okay, so we will call

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Speaker 1: Cthulu he Okay, So um, Cthulhu in the whole reason

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Speaker 1: we're talking about him is the he figures at the

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Speaker 1: center of the Cthulhu mythos that that Lovecraft created during

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Speaker 1: the course of his writing in Strickland. When was he

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Speaker 1: most prolific, It was it during the twenties. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about just right around that era, late twenties. Um,

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Speaker 1: pretty much. What what's really interesting to me is that

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Speaker 1: Cthulhu became the central of this the center figure of

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Speaker 1: this mythos. But it's not the creature that Lovecraft wrote

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Speaker 1: about the most. Cathula really only factors into a couple

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Speaker 1: of stories, and in fact is described in some as

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Speaker 1: being a priest kind of figure for the Old Ones,

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Speaker 1: which is this race of creatures Lovecraft created. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: he never said whether he was a priest that led

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Speaker 1: the worship of the Old Ones or whether he was

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Speaker 1: the priest to the Old Ones. That's that's correct. So

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Speaker 1: that's you know, I'm just gonna leave the rim. You

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Speaker 1: guys are nerd and out all. Well, the point I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to make here is that it's really the fans

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Speaker 1: of Lovecraft who kind of latched onto Cathulu and made

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Speaker 1: it the central figure of his mythology. Uh, if you

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Speaker 1: were to read all the stories, you would say why.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it is a very striking kind of image,

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Speaker 1: but why this over any other particular like why not?

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Speaker 1: A reason that I think it's mainly because when you

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Speaker 1: do read the descriptions, Uh, they are very compelling, and

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Speaker 1: I think that I think it's also probably one of

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Speaker 1: the ones that are that's easier to imagine than some

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Speaker 1: of the other A lot of the other ones end

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Speaker 1: up being shapeless. Well that's kind of hard to imagine

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Speaker 1: or mindless um being cosmic being who ruled at the

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Speaker 1: center of chaos, that's kind of difficult to um to

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Speaker 1: conceive of. I think so it's it's very hard to

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Speaker 1: make a plush toy of that, right. I think the

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Speaker 1: other reason that Cathulum has become such a prominent figure

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Speaker 1: in love crafty and lore is that he's still here

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Speaker 1: on Earth. He was, um, he was one of the

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Speaker 1: rulers of Earth along with the great old Ones, right,

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Speaker 1: that's correct. And then he had a city that was

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Speaker 1: called really a actually still is that sunk under the waters.

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Speaker 1: And what's interesting is that depending on which story you're reading,

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Speaker 1: you can kind of locate where really is. It's off

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Speaker 1: the coast of South America, and uh, there have been

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Speaker 1: some interesting, weird things that have gone on in in

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Speaker 1: that general area that people jokingly attribute to Cathulhu, uh, saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know it's Cathulu snoring, right, Like I know you

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Speaker 1: put a little sidebar that was pretty interesting that they

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Speaker 1: detected with underwater microphones what a very loud, low rip

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Speaker 1: eating sound somewhere out in the middle of the ocean

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Speaker 1: out there, right, and that they said, oh, well, that's

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Speaker 1: just a whale song. But then marine biologists came in

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Speaker 1: and say, oh, that's not a whale, and that's unless

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Speaker 1: that's the biggest whale in the history of the universe. Right,

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Speaker 1: it was such a loud and prolonged sound that it

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Speaker 1: would be it would have to be made by a

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Speaker 1: creature larger than anything that we currently know of, right, So, hey, Cathula,

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Speaker 1: it's got to be him. It's interesting if you listen

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Speaker 1: to the sound unaltered, it's just this really low rumble

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Speaker 1: and it goes on for ages. But if you speed

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Speaker 1: it up really fast, it goes really which is why

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Speaker 1: they call it the bloop. There you have it, which

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Speaker 1: is also why a lot of people thought the clover

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Speaker 1: Field Monster was Cathulu because apparently on the on the

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Speaker 1: official website, there was a bloop, was there? Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: tied it into a a fictional um slushy maker Japanese company,

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Speaker 1: and so that had something to do with it as well.

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Speaker 1: Once people started seeing the supplemental material, they started draw

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Speaker 1: their own conclusions, and of course they turned out to

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Speaker 1: be wrong. But it just shows how imaginative and passionate

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Speaker 1: the Lovecraft failure, and it shows how smart J. J.

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Speaker 1: Abrams is, the marketing genius, master marketer. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about the sure um. So the

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Speaker 1: text Strickland is often considered a book of spells. Most

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Speaker 1: of the people who get their hands on the Necronomicon

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Speaker 1: in lovecraft stories um end up using it to conjure

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Speaker 1: some of the Great Old Ones. Remember Cathulus, the priests

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Speaker 1: of the Great Old Ones. Um, and terrible, terrible things

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Speaker 1: happened this guy's open up. People tend to disappear in

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Speaker 1: in under terrible circumstances. And um the author. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the author of the Necronomicon. He himself, the mad

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Speaker 1: arab abdul al has read. That's correct, the mad arab

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Speaker 1: abdul l has read A fiend. Yes, the eighth century

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Speaker 1: Opium fiend from supposed to be supposedly a poet who

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Speaker 1: at some point gets this um. Well, I suppose he

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Speaker 1: gets some strange inspiration, possibly fueled by drugs, and writes

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Speaker 1: down this book called the Necronomicon, right, originally called al right,

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Speaker 1: and that that refers to a sound made by night

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Speaker 1: insects in the desert or demons howling, depending on who

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Speaker 1: you ask. Right, that's correct. And so we have this

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Speaker 1: this text that's supposed to be very rambling and crazy,

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Speaker 1: and uh. Interesting thing is that Lovecraft never wrote the

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Speaker 1: full Necronomicon. He actually wanted to create it, and and

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Speaker 1: dabbled on a shorter versions at one point, right, right,

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Speaker 1: he wrote a couple of passages from an abridged version,

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Speaker 1: and there are there are a few passages that are

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Speaker 1: that are fairly famous in lovecraft lore. But he wanted

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Speaker 1: to create this mythology where scholars in his world would

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Speaker 1: have certain books they would refer to whenever they needed

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Speaker 1: to study these creatures. Okay, and some of those books

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Speaker 1: actually were real, right, that's correct. Some of the books

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Speaker 1: were in fact real books that have a historical background.

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Speaker 1: Most of them were just figments of his imagination. He

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Speaker 1: created the Lovecrafts, I should say, a Lovecraft's imagination, not

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Speaker 1: the mad Arab. No, not the mad Arab. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. You're talking about an author Lovecraft who creates

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Speaker 1: this fictional author, the mad Arab, who in turn creates

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Speaker 1: a fictional book called the Necronomicon, parts of which Lovecraft

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Speaker 1: actually wrote outright, So that is the that is the

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Speaker 1: spoiler for those of you who weren't familiar with this

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Speaker 1: at all. Necronomicon completely fictional, mad Arab, completely fictional. And actually,

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Speaker 1: what's cool about um Strickland in the in the article

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Speaker 1: you make the point that the uh, the Necronomicon has

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Speaker 1: not only survived lovecraft death, it's thrived. You can find

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Speaker 1: um versions of it on Amazon. Um there's actual cults,

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Speaker 1: whether they realized that the Necronomic con or except that

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Speaker 1: the Necronomicon is fictitious, they still um this this philosophy

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Speaker 1: of the necronomic and still figures very much into their outlook.

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Speaker 1: Then there's other maybe I got the impression slightly nutt

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Speaker 1: of your cults that actually don't believe the Necronomicon. It

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Speaker 1: is fictional, right, but it's it's pervaded into reality. Correct. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all of that is right. The uh it's it is

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Speaker 1: fascinating because since Lovecraft left such huge gaps with the Necronomicon,

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Speaker 1: you know, he only wrote little bits and pieces, it's

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Speaker 1: allowed other people to swoop in and fill in those

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Speaker 1: gaps and make money and make money. Yeah, I'll never forget.

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Speaker 1: I was in a bookstore. Um, I was in uh,

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Speaker 1: I think it was South Carolina. I was in a bookstore.

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Speaker 1: This is when I was a teenager, and I'm looking

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Speaker 1: through the books. I'm just trying to find something to read,

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Speaker 1: and I come across a copy of the Neck Anomicon,

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Speaker 1: and I had to stop and look again because I thought,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, what why would I find a fictional

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Speaker 1: book in a bookstore? And so I took it down

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Speaker 1: and started reading it, and it was filled with lots

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Speaker 1: of of tortured kind of prose. No, it was terrible.

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Speaker 1: Did bite your hand when you try to grab it?

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Speaker 1: It did not? Reference will come back to that later. No, No,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was a terrible book. It was a

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Speaker 1: terrible attempt at trying to make a book sound really

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Speaker 1: dangerous and spooky. But it was transparent. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: was obvious that it was someone trying to be funny.

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Speaker 1: All Right, you guys, this reality parts boring. Let's go

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Speaker 1: back into the fictional world of Lovecraft in the Necronomicon. Okay,

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Speaker 1: where are we actually We're no, we're in no particular place.

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Speaker 1: We're just in this version of reality that Lovecraft created.

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Speaker 1: How about that? Oy? Alright, So within this world you

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Speaker 1: have various creatures, you have various books that all of

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Speaker 1: all of which are bad. I mean, that's just there

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Speaker 1: are people who think they can take advantage of them

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Speaker 1: and gain either power or knowledge or some combination thereof.

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Speaker 1: But it always turns out badly for them. In fact,

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Speaker 1: you kind of wonder why people keep bothering. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: really I mean, that's really what weird fiction is all about.

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Speaker 1: You're talking. When you use the word weird, you don't

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Speaker 1: just mean unusual, you mean incomprehensible to the human mind. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think Josh told me off Mike that. A lot

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Speaker 1: of other authors kind of have said that's a bit

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Speaker 1: of a cop out on lovecraft part because a lot

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Speaker 1: of times he doesn't have to end up being real

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Speaker 1: creative with his descriptions of things, and he can just say, well,

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Speaker 1: trust me, look upon it, and you shall go and

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Speaker 1: see or or unnamable. Yeah, and and I think it's brilliant.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, there's definitely an argument on either side. You

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Speaker 1: could argue that, well, the human imagination is so powerful

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Speaker 1: that if you leave it up to the individual reader,

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Speaker 1: it's that person is going to make his or her

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Speaker 1: own most horrifying creature. And there's nothing that you, as

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Speaker 1: the writer could describe because you don't know that person.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what would horrify that person exactly. But

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Speaker 1: by leaving it up to the to the reader's imagination, Uh,

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Speaker 1: suddenly you've made a much more effective monster, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of what they did with clover Field. Actually, they

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Speaker 1: did kind of tap into that because they didn't show

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Speaker 1: the monster very much at all, and I thought it

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Speaker 1: was effective. I like the movie. No, I I really

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Speaker 1: enjoyed that as well. I haven't seen it yet both

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Speaker 1: of you showed up. Oh sorry, spoiler alert, there's a monster.

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Speaker 1: Another thing I thought was cool was that Lovecraft at

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Speaker 1: one point said that there are um only a uh

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Speaker 1: several official copies of the Necronomicon located in I think

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Speaker 1: you listed five different libraries, and uh, two of them

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Speaker 1: don't even exist. So he he dabbled. Yes, he dabbled

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Speaker 1: so much between reality and fiction that I think it worked.

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Speaker 1: It ended up being like, you don't know what's real

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Speaker 1: and what isn't. Dude, we're back in Lovecraft's world. Okay, sorry,

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Speaker 1: so strickling. The Necronomicon was written by al has red Right,

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Speaker 1: and um he I believe he died fairly horribly. Either

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Speaker 1: he was swallowed up after conjuring somebody using the Necronomicon.

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Speaker 1: I think I remember another story where Lovecraft writes about

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Speaker 1: how he was beheaded but his head was still able

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Speaker 1: to speak. Um, there there's several different ways that he

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Speaker 1: supposedly died, but either way he died, but his book

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Speaker 1: survived and it stayed in Arabic, which actually I believe

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Speaker 1: none of the Arabic original copies in Arabic exist today.

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Speaker 1: But the UM in nine fifties, somebody else found it

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Speaker 1: and it was translated into Greek. Right, Yes, that's right.

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Speaker 1: There are actually several different translations UM that are mentioned

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Speaker 1: in Lovecraft's stories. Uh, there's Greek, there's there's Hebrew, there's

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Speaker 1: a few others. There's Latin. I think he said Alias

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Speaker 1: Wormings was a priest that translated into Latin, and then

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Speaker 1: it was banned by Pope Gregory nine. But in reality,

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Speaker 1: this is what I love the fiction. Again, you're not Catholic?

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Speaker 1: Was that not Pope Gregory nine? The nine? Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but Gregory the Night? Uh? In reality that Elias Warmius

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Speaker 1: was actually a Dutch physician, so there was no tide

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Speaker 1: there whatsoever. Yeah, that was the mixture of reality and fantasy. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: the the really cool stuff, as far as I'm concerned

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Speaker 1: here is that that he's he's built up a believable

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Speaker 1: enough base that if you were to just read the

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Speaker 1: story without without any other background information, you could totally

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Speaker 1: buy into this mythology. He's really made it very rich

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Speaker 1: and believable. He's he's he's anchored it in reality and um.

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Speaker 1: And there are lovecraft Ian scholars and fans who will

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Speaker 1: talk of this as if it were all real, as

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Speaker 1: if these Greek and and other translations of the Necronomicon

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Speaker 1: do in fact exist and are in fact in these libraries. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: I know what earlier we were talking and I thought

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Speaker 1: it was odd that he would use people like Elias

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Speaker 1: warmis their name, which you know was a physician, and

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Speaker 1: then in six Dr John D was an Englishman and

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Speaker 1: a magician, when in fact he was really just an

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Speaker 1: adviser to Queen Elizabeth. And I thought, well, how strange

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Speaker 1: to use these real people like wouldn't he be found out?

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Speaker 1: But you said that, you know, this is the nine twenties,

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Speaker 1: and there weren't You couldn't go up on the internet

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Speaker 1: and look up who John D was, right, And now

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Speaker 1: you had people who those names would sound familiar, and

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Speaker 1: they think, hey, that does lead leads some credence to

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Speaker 1: this and I and I also compared it to Bram Stoker,

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Speaker 1: who did base Dracula off of the real person Vlad Tepish.

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Speaker 1: But if you were to look into Vlad tepish Is life,

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Speaker 1: you would see that it doesn't really parallel Dracula at all.

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Speaker 1: You could just see where the inspiration came from. But

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Speaker 1: because you have laud Dre Cool, you have this whole

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Speaker 1: persona there, it lends your story a stronger base in reality. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like you guys said, the Lovecraft is a master at

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Speaker 1: mixing reality and fiction, like with the libraries where you

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Speaker 1: could supposedly find the Necronomicon, but also he would pepper

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Speaker 1: um some of the books like on the shelves ire

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Speaker 1: were in the strange case of Charles dexter Ward his

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Speaker 1: ancestor what was his ancestors name, I don't remember either, um,

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Speaker 1: but he there was there were tons of books of

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Speaker 1: magic and the occult, and some of them were real,

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Speaker 1: like the Rs Magna at Ultima uh, and they would

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Speaker 1: be sitting alongside the Necronomicon. So there were some that

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Speaker 1: were real and some that weren't. Um. And not only

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Speaker 1: did Lovecraft write about that, he would use books that

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Speaker 1: some of his contemporaries had made upright in his books,

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Speaker 1: and they would do just the same, right, they would

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Speaker 1: mention the Necronomicon in their books. Yeah, there was a

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Speaker 1: lot of cross pollination going on at this time, where

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Speaker 1: you would. Lovecraft loved having friends who were also authors.

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Speaker 1: He was prolific letter writer, and he encouraged his friends

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Speaker 1: to write stories set in his mythology, and then he

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Speaker 1: would write stories there's as well. So you started to

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Speaker 1: get this really rich background that didn't exist in other

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Speaker 1: authors works. Because I mean, in a way, it's almost

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Speaker 1: like writing fan fiction, except in this case, the people

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Speaker 1: who are writing fan fiction are really well known authors, right, right,

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Speaker 1: But that continues today. You still have people writing within

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Speaker 1: Lovecraft's mythology, and of course, you know, it's expanded beyond

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Speaker 1: just writing books. It's also in movies and television. Right.

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Speaker 1: There's some pretty pretty noteworthy cameos that the Necronomicon has made,

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Speaker 1: most notably in the Evil Dead series. Yes that was

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Speaker 1: it an Evil Dead or just Evil Dead too, No,

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Speaker 1: it's in It's an Evil Dead, Evil Dead to an

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Speaker 1: Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness actually was my favorite

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Speaker 1: scene with the Necronomicon because he has to approach it

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Speaker 1: on the hill and repeat the Klatu varata and then

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Speaker 1: which the last word isn't that from the day the

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Speaker 1: Earth still? Yeah, that's actually that was the one of

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Speaker 1: the things about Yes, Sam Raimi just loves to quote

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Speaker 1: from other movies and and and science fiction, horror everything.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's he's one of those guys who just

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Speaker 1: has like that huge Labrintheian Library of of Trivia instead

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, he brought a lot of that out

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Speaker 1: into those movies. But the interesting thing about the Necronomicon

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Speaker 1: and those and those movies is that it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: resemble the one in Lovecraft stories. Right. It's the Book

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Speaker 1: of the Dead is what they call it, and evil

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Speaker 1: dead and it's a or at least an army of darkness.

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Speaker 1: It was like this, uh had an evil face. It

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Speaker 1: was like leather bound, but had a mouth and eyes,

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Speaker 1: and that's why it bit him when he tried to

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Speaker 1: pick it up, which is what I was referencing right right.

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Speaker 1: It's actually bound in flesh and written in blood. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's uh, it's a little different from the Necronomicon

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Speaker 1: and Lovecraft stories. But the Necronomicon, you gotta admit, that's

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Speaker 1: an awesome name for an evil book. So it totally

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Speaker 1: made sense to to reference it, you know, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of people I think have sort of a passing

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Speaker 1: familiarity with Lovecraft stories stuff, so if you mentioned it,

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Speaker 1: they get the idea, oh, that's an evil book. They

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Speaker 1: don't need to have this wealth of information in their heads.

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Speaker 1: So my favorite reference, um, and you actually pointed out

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Speaker 1: in the article Strick is um the appearance of the

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Speaker 1: Necronomicon in the Simpsons. You guys see this one. It

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Speaker 1: was in the episode Brawl in the Family where there's

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Speaker 1: a meeting of the Republican Party and Mr Burns goes

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Speaker 1: and now Bob Dole will read from the Necronomicon. And

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Speaker 1: Bob Dole comes to the podium and he's wearing like

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Speaker 1: a black robe and he starts channing in Latin and

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Speaker 1: reading from the book. It's perfect. Yeah, My I think

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Speaker 1: my favorite is when it makes a very very brief

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Speaker 1: appearance in Friday of the Thirteenth, Part nine, Jason goes

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Speaker 1: to Hell. It's it's just it's one of those things

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Speaker 1: where the camera's just panning by and if you pay attention,

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Speaker 1: you see, hey, that's the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead movies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just it's just there in in the shot. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's no reference to it. No one picks it up.

418
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Speaker 1: Where was it? Was it like Jason's house, Yeah, it's

419
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: it's towards the it's towards the end of the movie.

420
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: There's a few different references. I think you also, if

421
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 1: you look, you see a crate that's labeled Arctic Expedition,

422
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 1: So fans of horror movies, you'll know what that's from. Too,

423
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: so awesome. Jason goes to Hell? Was that was that?

424
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 1: That was also in Pumpkinhead two? Yep. Also in Aquitine

425
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:14,200
Speaker 1: Hunger Force, which we love, and The Real Ghostbusters, The

426
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: Grim Adventures of Billion Mandy and metal Lock. You don't

427
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: know that that's that's the that's the cartoon on Adult

428
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: Swim that details the misadventures of a death metal band

429
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: called death Clock. You almost said adventures, very nice catch.

430
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: Misadventures much different. So this was actually in strict Thank

431
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: you so much for coming in, dude, you say this,

432
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: this is one of those every once in a while

433
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 1: we'll do a podcast where like this is just the

434
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:47,119
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg. Go read the article. You clearly

435
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: should go read these articles. If we piqued your interest

436
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: in all. First of all, go start reading Lovecraft. He's awesome. Um.

437
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: He was also an awesome person his real life. He

438
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: he had a woman that he lived with who was

439
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:00,159
Speaker 1: old enough to be his mother, that he love up

440
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: very much. But people posit that they never consummated their relationship.

441
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yep. He was just an all around

442
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: weird guy, but really sweet and cute and um not

443
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: really well I think he does in that nine He

444
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: doesn't have like uh, yeah, you're right, um, but he

445
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: he was an interesting character, uh, an incredible writer and

446
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: uh Strickland wrote two really good articles on him. So

447
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: if you want to read more about it, you can

448
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: go to how stuff works dot com and typing cthulu

449
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: c t h U l U in the search bar.

450
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 1: You could also type in necronomicon, which would be spelled

451
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: n E c R O n O M I c

452
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:48,479
Speaker 1: O and necronomicon you can find both of those articles.

453
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: And I think if you type you those words in

454
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: the Google in general, you're going to find a whole

455
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: world away to you. Just interesting stuff. Interesting way to

456
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: waste some time. You dare not speak it and look

457
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: at it or you shall go insane. And also we

458
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: can all look forward to the day the stars aligne

459
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: and the Stone City of Relay rises up out of

460
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: the ocean and takes possession of the Earth again, and

461
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: we are all screwed awesome, or as we would say

462
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,640
Speaker 1: in love Crafts universe, Yeah yeah, kutula fatagan. No better

463
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: way to end then for that, no better way to

464
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: end the than that? All right, Well, since Strickling just

465
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 1: said something that we can't pronounce ourselves, that means it's

466
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: listener mail time. Alright, So Chuck, what do you have

467
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,160
Speaker 1: for us today? You're just gonna call this the saddest

468
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard. This is from Vic in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

469
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 1: It's a little lengthy. If I'm gonna I'm gonna read

470
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: it fast. Vic is a listener who has borrowed his

471
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: daughter's iPod and definitely he said, I was kind of

472
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: taking it over. That is the saddest thing I've ever

473
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: uh And he he This came about as a suggestion

474
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 1: that we do something on wrongful death lassy bots or

475
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: just wrongful death period. I don't Back in nine seventy

476
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: my dad had a heart attack and was hospitalized in

477
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: the co ordinary care unit. They had trouble stabilizing his

478
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: heart rhythm and decided to implant a temporary demand pacemaker.

479
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: I guess in theory, when his heart needed and assist,

480
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: the pacemaker would kick in and get things back on track.

481
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 1: We went to visit him the next morning. We could

482
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: tell that everything was kind of crazy in the CCU,

483
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 1: people in a frenzy, all kinds of activity, and we

484
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: stood beside my father talking to him. I was sixteen

485
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: years old, and I was fascinated with the ocloscope on

486
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: the shelf above his head, routinely drawing a regular paced heartbeat,

487
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,880
Speaker 1: now familiar from all the medical shows in the last

488
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: forty years. Okay, the nurse on duty saw us at

489
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: dad's bed and quickly came over to clean him up

490
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 1: for the visitors, comb his hair shave him. She was

491
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: running late and hurriedly plugged his electric shaver into the outlet,

492
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: the same outlet as the temporary pacemaker power supply. Almost immediately,

493
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: the heartbeat trade went wild on the monitor. I had

494
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: my eyes on it the whole time. It first confused

495
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: as to whether I was seeing electronic interference or actual

496
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: interference with the beating of my dad's heart. It quickly

497
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: became clear that it was a ladder. My dad yelled,

498
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 1: almost leaping out of bed and fell back dead. Oh

499
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: my god, right in front of his face. At sixteen

500
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: in the hospital because the nurse plugged this thing in.

501
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: Wow awful, no happy ending here. They tried in vain

502
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: to revive my father, aged fifty nine. A wrongful death

503
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: lawsuit ensued, but my mother became too sick to go

504
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: through with it. My understanding is that the pacemaker technology

505
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:36,959
Speaker 1: is vastly improved over the years. I'm not sure if

506
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: there are other stories like mine. And here's a little

507
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: interesting side note. At the end uh in the CCU

508
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: at sixteen, I noticed four little shelves about seven feet

509
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: off the ground in the corners of the room. I

510
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: asked the resident past or what they were there for.

511
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: He informed me that someone was doing an experiment with

512
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: near death out of body experiences because of the high

513
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: quote traffic in that room. Apparently there were cards with

514
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: little shape on them, one on top of the on

515
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: top of the shelves. Have my dad been revived, they

516
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: would have asked him if he were called hovering above

517
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: his bed and did he look down and see those shapes? Weird?

518
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: So that is a side note, and Vic, it's a

519
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: hell of a side note. This is a long time ago,

520
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: and I wrote you back and said I was very

521
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about this, but it was a great story.

522
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: And thanks for sharing. And we will definitely add wrongful

523
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: death lawsuits to the suggestion box for sure. And thanks

524
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: for sharing that interesting and awful story. If you have

525
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: any interesting or awful stories, or you just want to

526
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: say hi, or what up? Or what what does it mentioned? Unicorns?

527
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: Maybe sure you can put in an email and send

528
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: that to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com

529
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

530
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

531
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

532
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: com home page. Yeah, brought to you by the reinvented

533
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you