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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: So over the years here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 2: we've done Halloween and Halloween adjacent episodes that pick from

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Speaker 2: us sorted tales of one sort or another, you know,

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Speaker 2: horrific tale, scary tales, creepy tales, and then use them

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Speaker 2: as sort of a springboard to look at a particular

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Speaker 2: scientific topic or just look at that story through a

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Speaker 2: scientific or cultural lens. At one point we did a

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Speaker 2: series of episodes based on different creepypastas. Then Joe and

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Speaker 2: I turned to TV horror anthology episodes for a number

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Speaker 2: of years, and this year we're starting what I'm hoping

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Speaker 2: we'll be a new tradition, one that sticks to shorter

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Speaker 2: horror works, but also gets back into the written word,

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Speaker 2: which I know many of our listeners missed from the

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Speaker 2: days when we did summer reading episodes, so kind of

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Speaker 2: meeting me halfway on that as well. Written horror fiction

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Speaker 2: often does come up on the show anyway, so it

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Speaker 2: seems like a solid direction to go in. Though this

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Speaker 2: may be in part because this is our first time

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Speaker 2: out of the gate with this particular series. It was

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Speaker 2: kind of a mad dash to put this episode together,

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Speaker 2: and it's going to be a mad dash as well

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Speaker 2: for JJ to get it edited and out there, but

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Speaker 2: hopefully it'll be worth it. I don't know about you, Joe,

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Speaker 2: but I had a number of trials and tribulations finding

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Speaker 2: my selection. I had like a list of stories I

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Speaker 2: was considering, and then I ended up not really using

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Speaker 2: any of those, and I had one that I thought

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Speaker 2: was perfect, and then it really took a turn halfway

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Speaker 2: through the story and went in a direction that I

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Speaker 2: wasn't crazy about, and only then I had to start

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Speaker 2: from ground from just ground zero on the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: But I do think I finally picked out a story

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Speaker 2: that is going to be fun to chat about here.

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Speaker 3: You know, frankly this I always enjoyed doing our anthology

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Speaker 3: of horror episodes, but I had the same issue with

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Speaker 3: those when we were doing like TV or movie anthology

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Speaker 3: things where I would just spend forever in the pre

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Speaker 3: research phase where I'd just be like trying to find

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Speaker 3: an appropriate one that had some kind of hook of

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Speaker 3: something to talk about that we hadn't already covered extensively before,

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Speaker 3: And I gotta admit I'm having the same issue here.

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Speaker 3: I spent probably more time trying to find a story

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Speaker 3: to talk about than I did actually getting ready for

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Speaker 3: the episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we'll go ahead and put the call out

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Speaker 2: to listeners. Help us make up our minds in advance

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Speaker 2: next year Salloween. If you can think of a really

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Speaker 2: great horror, halloweeny, creepy short story that would benefit from

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Speaker 2: this treatment, go ahead and write in and let us

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Speaker 2: know again months in advance, and that'll help us be

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Speaker 2: ready for next year. All right, Well, let's go go

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Speaker 2: ahead and jump in here. I'm going to start with

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Speaker 2: my selection here. I ended up going with a story

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Speaker 2: titled The Maker of Gargoyles by Clark Ashton Smith, who

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Speaker 2: lived eighteen ninety three through nineteen sixty one. Clark Ashton

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Speaker 2: Smith remains probably my favorite writer of weird fiction from

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Speaker 2: the pulp era, mainly for his exceedingly rich and textured

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Speaker 2: dark fantasy tales, often stories in which doomed wizards delve

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Speaker 2: deep into forbidden knowledge and brings some sort of disastrous

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Speaker 2: curse down upon their own heads. Sometimes there's a little

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Speaker 2: twist of gallows humor to the whole affair. Along these lines,

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Speaker 2: I highly recommend the Tales The Double Shadow, The Seven Geeses,

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Speaker 2: and The Empire of the Necromancers. Those are three of

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Speaker 2: the finest dark fantasy short stories you could possibly hope

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Speaker 2: to read. In my opinion.

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Speaker 3: Is that last one, the one where the two Necromancers

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Speaker 3: are like wandering around in this terrible landscape sort of

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Speaker 3: arguing with each other.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and eventually they're like, well, we're going to

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Speaker 2: go to this ancient tomb city and we're going to

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Speaker 2: raise every one from the dead and make them serve

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Speaker 2: us eternally. And you know, they're absolutely horrible, comedically evil characters,

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Speaker 2: and of course eventually the undead creatures that they summon

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Speaker 2: rise up against them and tear them to pieces. Of course,

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Speaker 2: now I have to stress I've never been a Clark

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Speaker 2: Ashton Smith completist, though you know, he wrote a number

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Speaker 2: of tales set in a very contemporary twentieth century weird

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Speaker 2: tales setting. Even though one of them, Return of the Magician,

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Speaker 2: is often considered one of his best works and was

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Speaker 2: actually adapted into a Night Gallery episode feature featuring Vincent Price,

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Speaker 2: but I've never read it. I tend to steer more

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Speaker 2: towards his dark fantasy. There's a great deal of his

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Speaker 2: work along these lines that I've never read, so his

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Speaker 2: work is largely centered in a few different settings, mostly

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Speaker 2: within the fantastic realms of Hyperborea, Poseidonus, Avarn, and Zophoqua.

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Speaker 2: Today's tale takes us to Avaron. This is a fictional

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Speaker 2: French province, and it depends on the story. The stories

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Speaker 2: may be said anywhere between the years four seventy five

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Speaker 2: CE and seventeen eighty nine see depending on the story

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Speaker 2: in question. I haven't read all of these, but I

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Speaker 2: do remember the Beast of Averron being quite good.

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Speaker 3: He generally, in the story you're about to talk about,

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Speaker 3: lays out kind of a landscape that hints at other

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Speaker 3: tales yet to be told elsewhere, Like he just mentions

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Speaker 3: this dark, haunted wood full of lou Garoo and other

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Speaker 3: kind of inhabitants.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, ye, alluding to you know, we've had problems with

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Speaker 2: succubi and incubie in the past and that sort of thing,

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Speaker 2: you know. And I haven't read all the tales from

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Speaker 2: the Avarn cycle either, so he may be referring to

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Speaker 2: specific stories or possible stories, like you said. So, this

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Speaker 2: particular short story, The Maker of Gargoyles, was published in

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two and it's set in the year eleven

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Speaker 2: thirty eight. If you want to read it for yourself,

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Speaker 2: you can find it on the Clark Ashton Smith website

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Speaker 2: Eldrick Dark dot com, and it is also featured in

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Speaker 2: the collection The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith. A

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Speaker 2: Ventage from Atlantis the Collected Fantasies, Volume three. Its long title,

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Speaker 2: but worth it. This is one of those authors whose

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Speaker 2: work is in the public domain, as I understand it,

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Speaker 2: So there are a lot of less than satisfying publications

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Speaker 2: of his workout there if you're looking for an actual,

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Speaker 2: high quality digital or a physical collection, so I recommend this.

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Speaker 2: I also recommend there's a Penguin edition that also features

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Speaker 2: some of his stories. But if you're looking to do

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Speaker 2: it on the cheap, yeah, it's all apparently in the

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Speaker 2: public domain, and you can find it all at that

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Speaker 2: website I just referenced. All right, So in the story,

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Speaker 2: Clark Ashton Smith establishes Avaron is a medieval city on

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Speaker 2: the edge of dangerous and evil wilds. A province quote

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Speaker 2: a world where the devil and his works were always

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Speaker 2: more or less rampant. Here the walled city of Villonne

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Speaker 2: has suffered more than its share of demonic cars. But

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Speaker 2: everyone's pretty confident that this newly constructed cathedral is going

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Speaker 2: to really shore things up. It's going to bring greater

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Speaker 2: protection against the darkness. Everything's going to be all right.

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Speaker 2: But unfortunately, this is a Gothic world where supernatural evil

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Speaker 2: is absolutely real, but who can say for sure about

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Speaker 2: supernatural good. It's kind of a gambol on the latter.

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Speaker 2: So it's definitely a demon haunted world.

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Speaker 3: And I like how in this story, the one main

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Speaker 3: representative of the church that we get seems primarily concerned

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Speaker 3: with the exquisite sophistication of the representations of evil on

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Speaker 3: the cathedral.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and pretty much the only thing that the church

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Speaker 2: is able to do to stand against the evil is

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Speaker 2: they send to Rome for some high grade holy water. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and it never shows up, it never actually features into

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Speaker 2: the story, but that's all they can really do. So

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Speaker 2: the cathedral here, as they describe it, pretty standard fair

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Speaker 2: Gothic medieval cathedral and so forth, except two of its

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Speaker 2: many gargoyles are creations of Villone's own artisan Blasse Reynard.

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Speaker 2: This is the titular maker of gargoyles. He's kind of

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Speaker 2: a coffin Joe character, you know. He's he's hated and

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Speaker 2: feared by the townspeople. He has a lot of like

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Speaker 2: obvious inner turmoil. Most people tend to just sort of

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Speaker 2: put up with him and ignore him the same way

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Speaker 2: that they put up with and ignore all of the

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Speaker 2: supernatural evil that is writhing in the world around them.

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Speaker 2: All Right, I'm going to read the description that Clark

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Speaker 2: Ashton Smith gives us of these gargoyles.

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Speaker 3: Okay.

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Speaker 2: The two gargoyles were perched on opposite corners of a

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Speaker 2: high tower of the cathedral. One was a snarling, murderous,

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Speaker 2: cat headed monster with retracted lips revealing formidable things, and

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Speaker 2: eyes that glared intolerable hatred from beneath eye brows. This

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Speaker 2: creature had the claws and wings of a griffin, and

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Speaker 2: seemed as if it were poised in readiness to swoop

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Speaker 2: down on the city of Villonne like a harpie on

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Speaker 2: its prey. Its companion was a horned sadder with the

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Speaker 2: vans of some great bats, such as might roam the

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Speaker 2: nether caverns, with sharp clenching talons and a look of

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Speaker 2: satanically brooding lust, as if it were gloating above the

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Speaker 2: helpless object of its unclean desire. Both figures were complete

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Speaker 2: even to the hind quarters, and were not mere conventional

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Speaker 2: adjuncts of the roof. One would have expected them to

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Speaker 2: start at any moment from the stone in which they

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Speaker 2: were mortised. So some terrifying looking gargoyles here, Yes, like

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Speaker 2: very detailed, like fine works of art, but really hard

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Speaker 2: to take in. We learned that, quite unknown to Renard himself,

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Speaker 2: he has just poured all of his hatred for his

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Speaker 2: hometown into one gargoyle, and all of his lust for

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Speaker 2: the tavern owner's daughter, Nicolette in the other one. Naturally,

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Speaker 2: you know it's gonna happen. Hord soon descends on the

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Speaker 2: city once more as a swooping demonic monster begins to

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Speaker 2: slay people in the night. The body count intensifies. Everyone's afraid,

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Speaker 2: but the best anyone can do is against sin for

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Speaker 2: that special holy water. Meanwhile, another demonic form, the lusty one,

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Speaker 2: is creeping on women all around the city, but leaving

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Speaker 2: them untouched and unattacked as if it's not seeking any woman,

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Speaker 2: but one woman in particular. All of this comes to

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Speaker 2: a head at the tavern one night, deep in his

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Speaker 2: cups and himself traumatized by the horror in the streets.

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Speaker 2: Like it's important to note that he's not like, oh,

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Speaker 2: the agents of my hatred and lust are running rampant,

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Speaker 2: Like he doesn't really put one and two together here,

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Speaker 2: But he's drinking in the pub, he's watching a rival

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Speaker 2: court fair Nicolette, and eventually he just loses it. He

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Speaker 2: causes this big embarrassing scene, and that's when the window

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Speaker 2: implode with the arrival of the two animate gargoyles. The

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Speaker 2: first of the two begins massacring everyone in sight, spilling blood,

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Speaker 2: ripping open throats, and the second one grabs Nicolette, and

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Speaker 2: a heavy stone wing of one of the two gargoyles

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Speaker 2: catches Reynard in the head and knocks him unconscious. The

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Speaker 2: next morning, he awakens in this blood drenched tavern, surrounded

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Speaker 2: by dead men and the lacerated but still living body

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Speaker 2: of Nicolette. Horrified and suddenly understanding more of the connection

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Speaker 2: he has to these monsters, he forces his way through

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Speaker 2: the angry crowd. He collects his hammer from his workshop,

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Speaker 2: he heads up to the cathedral roof. He finds his

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Speaker 2: creations there, and he notices their mouths and their claws

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Speaker 2: are bloodied, and so he begins to strike at them

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Speaker 2: with the hammer. But then the gargoyle that he strikes,

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Speaker 2: the wrathful one, knocks him to the edge of the

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Speaker 2: of the roof, and then like sinks one of its

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Speaker 2: towels into his shoulder, and I believe takes to the

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Speaker 2: air with him, and he's striking at the talent foot

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Speaker 2: that holds him. Eventually shatters that foot, but he falls

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Speaker 2: to his death in the street. And then we end

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Speaker 2: with the archbishop finding his corpse and noting the talent

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Speaker 2: limb now relaxed quote as if like the paw of

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Speaker 2: a living limb, it had reached for something or had

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Speaker 2: dragged a heavy burden with its fearine talents.

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Speaker 3: I like that it's implied to me, at least that

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Speaker 3: the archbishop's response is when he finds this is like, oh,

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Speaker 3: my gargoyles, they're ruined. Yes, It's like as if, you know,

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Speaker 3: finding a murder scene where someone has been had their

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Speaker 3: head smashed with a vase and the person's like my vase,

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Speaker 3: what happened?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, there are other points in the story too

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Speaker 2: where you have more concern given for just the state

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Speaker 2: of the art concerning these gargoyles as opposed to what

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Speaker 2: their horribleness means, you know, either you know, physically or

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Speaker 2: just the idea of them. This story doesn't deliver or

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Speaker 2: I think, aspire to the dizzyingly dark magic vibes of

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Speaker 2: other Clark Ashton Smith's stories. I think it's a pretty

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Speaker 2: solid little horror tale in its own way. It delivers

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Speaker 2: both a sinister physical monster as well as a tale

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Speaker 2: of twisted inner torment, you know, so you know, those

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Speaker 2: are great things to have in a horror tale. And

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Speaker 2: I think we can all imagine some version of the

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Speaker 2: story which the gargoyles are his intentional creations and like

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Speaker 2: conscious minions of his wrath and lust. But instead he

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Speaker 2: only really glimpses his connection to them at the very end,

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Speaker 2: finally realizing that he has poured all of his own

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Speaker 2: darkness into these works and that he has to destroy them.

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Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot to potentially dig into

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Speaker 2: their regarding a horror writer and his work. And it's

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Speaker 2: worth noting that Clark Ashton Smith himself largely abandoned writing

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Speaker 2: in favor of painting and sculpture in the second half

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Speaker 2: of his life, So you know, I think it's fair

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Speaker 2: to assume a lot of those ideas were on his

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Speaker 2: mind when he wrote this tale, and I think this

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Speaker 2: one would. I don't think this has ever been adapted,

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Speaker 2: but I think it would make a pretty great horror

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Speaker 2: anthology adaption, because who doesn't love a great animate gargoyle story? Right?

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Speaker 3: Sure?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, They're a staple monster in Dungeons and Dragons. They're

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Speaker 2: the subject of a fan favorite nineteen nineties Disney animated series.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever watch that, Joe Gargoyles?

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Speaker 3: I was only a very little bit. I never like

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Speaker 3: followed the story, but I've actually heard good things about

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Speaker 3: it from people as an adult, Like, some people think

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Speaker 3: it was a really good cartoon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I've heard. I think I may have

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Speaker 2: watched one or two episodes as a kid. I've looking

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Speaker 2: back on it. I see it had a tremendous vocal cast,

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Speaker 2: including Keith David in the lead. But I brought it up.

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Speaker 2: I showed an episode to my son. I was like, Hey,

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Speaker 2: maybe this can be the new series we're watching together,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, no, thank you. So oh okay,

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Speaker 2: so I'm not going to watch it on my own.

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Speaker 2: So it's not for me, but a lot of people

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Speaker 2: love it, you know.

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Speaker 3: Thinking about movies with animated gargoyles and the stone comes

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Speaker 3: to life, there's a great movie scene that's actually the

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Speaker 3: opposite process, and it's in Grimlins two, which we covered

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Speaker 3: on Weird House Cinema. I remember when the there's the

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Speaker 3: joke where the Grimlin escapes the building, falls in wet

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Speaker 3: cement on the sidewalk and then flies up to the

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Speaker 3: top of a building, perches, and then freezes in the

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Speaker 3: cement to become a gargoyle.

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Speaker 2: I'm so glad you brought that up. That had slipped

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Speaker 2: my mind. But that is one of the many wonderful

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Speaker 2: scenes in Grimlins two. Let's see. On the b movie front, there's,

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Speaker 2: of course the nineteen seventy two TV movie Gargoyles that

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Speaker 2: various listeners have suggested for Weird House Cinema, and it

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Speaker 2: remains on our short list.

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Speaker 3: I believe it's one of those that we've never seen,

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Speaker 3: but we keep like five different movies have pinged back

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Speaker 3: to it for some reason. I don't know. What are

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Speaker 3: those like Nexus movies that are like kind of weird

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Speaker 3: and get our attention, but we never watched them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think I've seen part of

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Speaker 2: it maybe on A and E back in the day,

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Speaker 2: like on a Sunday afternoon, but yeah, I haven't watched

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Speaker 2: it in a full maybe one day, yeah, one day.

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Speaker 2: I'll also point out that the best sequence in nineteen

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Speaker 2: nineties Tales from the Dark Side. The movie retails the

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Speaker 2: classic Japanese ghost story a Yuki ownA the snow Woman,

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Speaker 2: but with a with an urban setting and a killer gargoyle.

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Speaker 2: That's the one that stars James Ramar and Raydon Chong. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and more recently, there is a twenty fourteen film titled

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Speaker 2: I Frankenstein in which Frankenstein's monster battles gargoyles like CGI gargoyles.

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Speaker 2: And I have not seen that, but there's a part

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Speaker 2: of me that really wants to watch that. On an

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Speaker 2: airplane one day.

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Speaker 3: You included a screenshot from it. It looks dreadful, just terrible.

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Speaker 2: It's got some good people involved. I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 2: it's good. I don't know. It looks like great airplane viewing, though.

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Speaker 3: I'm just commenting on the CGI Garboy. No, I know

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Speaker 3: nothing about the movie.

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Speaker 2: Now. Curiously, this is one of the things that really

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Speaker 2: led me to select this story by Clark Ashton Smith

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Speaker 2: is that it apparently plays an important role in the

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Speaker 2: establishment of the animate gargoyle trope. Though I should note

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Speaker 2: that naturally, as we've discussed in the show before, myths

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Speaker 2: of sculptures coming to life, these go back to ancient times,

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Speaker 2: and we might well look two obvious influences from not

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Speaker 2: only Pygmalion, but also the Golom of Prague and so forth. Still,

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Speaker 2: according to the Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters

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Speaker 2: by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, there are two key works, both

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Speaker 2: from nineteen thirty two, that seem to influence gargoyle fiction

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Speaker 2: to come. One is this story by Clark Ashton Smith,

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Speaker 2: and the other is a Lewis Spence tale titled The

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Speaker 2: Horn of Vapula or Vapula I'm not sure which, in

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Speaker 2: which a gargoyle is not an evil construct but a

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Speaker 2: vessel that a demon is bound to by a corrupt bishop.

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Speaker 2: He also cites the nineteen seventy two Gargoyles TV movie

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Speaker 2: as the first work to establish a gargoyle as a species.

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Speaker 3: Huh. As a species, you mean, like not just a

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Speaker 3: sculpture that comes to life, but as a type of

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Speaker 3: living being on its own.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, these are creatures, and we may have stone

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Speaker 2: versions of them that sort of thing, as opposed to

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Speaker 2: these are creatures that these are sculptures that we made

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Speaker 2: and then they in the case of these two nineteen

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Speaker 2: thirty two stories, they either come alive because of the

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Speaker 2: dark magic we've put into them one way or another

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Speaker 2: from ourselves, or you know, we've summoned some demon out

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Speaker 2: of the abyss and placed it in the stone form.

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Speaker 3: Right, So the idea of a gargoyle not as a

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Speaker 3: generic term for certain types of sculptures or architectural features,

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Speaker 3: but as like an orc with wings.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, essentially. Now, when it comes to the reality

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Speaker 2: of the gargoyle, we could probably do a whole invention

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Speaker 2: episode on these. There are a lot of ins and

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Speaker 2: outs here, with different time periods and different architectural styles,

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Speaker 2: and then resurgences of those styles and re explorations of

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Speaker 2: those styles. But the basic are that a gargoyle is

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Speaker 2: an architectural flourish, is a decorative water spout to drain

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Speaker 2: water away from the building, and the origins of the

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Speaker 2: word itself are often linked to the Old French word gargoui,

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Speaker 2: as well as the Greek gargarazine. If these words remind

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Speaker 2: you of the word gargyle, then right on, because that's

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Speaker 2: essentially what we're talking about here, a word used to

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Speaker 2: describe the clearing or washing of the throat. Again, these

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Speaker 2: were animal and or humanoid creatures depicted in stonework with

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Speaker 2: rain water draining out of their spout mouths. The basic

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Speaker 2: concept here apparently dates back to the ancient world, with

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Speaker 2: examples found even in ancient Egypt in ancient Greek architecture

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Speaker 2: as well, often taking the form of a lion. And

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Speaker 2: it's kind of a no brainer, right, We can't help

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Speaker 2: but anthropomorphize the world around us, so a drainage spout

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Speaker 2: essentially becomes a barfing mouth. You know, many of us

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Speaker 2: did the same thing during the height of the pandem

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Speaker 2: with their Halloween candy shoots, like can I get candy

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Speaker 2: to a child fifteen feet away from me? And should

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Speaker 2: I make it a vomiting monster mouth? Of course I

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Speaker 2: should make it a vomiting monster mouth.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you should.

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Speaker 2: Now, the term gargoyle itself really comes about during the

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Speaker 2: thirteenth century, still referring to water spout flourishes, while the

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Speaker 2: various other non functional creatures I made out of stones,

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Speaker 2: various little goblinoid creatures and you know, and whatnot. On

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Speaker 2: the outside or even the interiors of churches, these are

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Speaker 2: generally described as grotesques or grow teskeeries, generally apotropaic statues

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Speaker 2: to ward off evil, you know, getting down to the

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Speaker 2: basic Corgonian impulse that we see throughout human history, like

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Speaker 2: let me make a monster face to drive away the

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Speaker 2: evil vibes. The Catholic Church also sought to use these

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Speaker 2: statues at times as illustrative aids to reach illiterate masses.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of what we think think about regarding

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Speaker 2: gargoyles today are really more properly these grotesques and grothesqueries

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Speaker 2: as opposed to something that is actually spitting water away

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Speaker 2: from the church. You know, we tend to think more

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Speaker 2: of just sort of like corner of the building, monsters

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Speaker 2: leering out overlooking the empty space between the church and

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Speaker 2: the next building. And you know, and then we also

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Speaker 2: again we have these different periods of like Gothic Revival

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Speaker 2: and even Art Deco. The Art Deco period ends up

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Speaker 2: utilizing gargoyles of one form or another, depending how stringently

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Speaker 2: you want to use that term. Like I've seen the

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Speaker 2: the iconic like bird heads on the Chrysler building described

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Speaker 2: as gargoyles for example.

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Speaker 3: Oh interesting.

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Speaker 2: Now, we love gargoyles in part because they seem counterintuitive.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's a church, one of their monsters all

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Speaker 2: over it, but it's also just part of it. It's

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Speaker 2: like if you see a fancy cathedral, you're like, show

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Speaker 2: me the gargoyles.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a famous quote a criticism that is attributed

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Speaker 2: to a twelfth century individual. This is Saint Bernard of Clervaux,

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Speaker 2: who was apparently speaking of interior sculptures in the church

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Speaker 2: as opposed to stuff on the outside, but it sometimes

401
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 2: applied to gargoyles. And I'm not gonna read the quote,

402
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 2: I'm just going to paraphrase him, but he was basically saying, hey,

403
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Speaker 2: maybe we shouldn't have any of these at all, but

404
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Speaker 2: at the very least, maybe we shouldn't be paying for them.

405
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Speaker 2: And you know, I think Clark Ashton Smith's story kind

406
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,359
Speaker 2: of like toys with this sentiment a little bit like,

407
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Speaker 2: how do how does the church feel about evil monster

408
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 2: sculptures on or in the church? Right?

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Speaker 3: Well, I made reference to the character I think is

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Speaker 3: the Archbishop Ambrosius, who's like into them, he thinks they're great.

411
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Speaker 3: But it's I think it stated that there are other

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Speaker 3: figures in the church who are like, I don't know

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Speaker 3: about these things. Seems like an extravagance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, a quick note on monster lore. I looked

415
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Speaker 2: up gargoyles and Carol Rose's encyclopedia, as I often do.

416
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Speaker 2: From my monsters. She references a Northeastern French legend in

417
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Speaker 2: folkloric story regarding a kind of dragon known as the gargoyl.

418
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 2: She describes it as a kind of river dragon that

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Speaker 2: would target fishermen. And there's apparently a legend that a

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Speaker 2: seventh century saint by the name of Saint Romain finally

421
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Speaker 2: baited the creature with two condemned criminals, transfixed it with

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Speaker 2: the cross, and then marched the monster into town, where

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Speaker 2: it was executed. Thus, the taming of the water beast

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Speaker 2: leads to a tradition of tame beasts that redirect water

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Speaker 2: away from our churches.

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Speaker 3: Okay, it feels like kind of a loose fit, but

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Speaker 3: I can see it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, there's much more we could say about

429
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 2: the history of gargoyles, perhaps deserving a full inventioned episode.

430
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 2: But it's interesting to think about all of this, and

431
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 2: in connection with the story, you know, when we channel

432
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 2: the dark creative spirit into an act of creation, what

433
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,400
Speaker 2: is the result. Can a vessel intended to ward away

434
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 2: darkness actually aggregate it? Do such creations take on a

435
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:04,360
Speaker 2: life of their own?

436
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:06,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think there's a lot to

437
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 3: be said about the history of creating imagery that is

438
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 3: supposed to be a depiction of evil and is supposed

439
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 3: to be revolting or scary or something like that, but

440
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 3: in fact it becomes an object of interest to people.

441
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 3: People instead they're kind of like, oh, I like that,

442
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 3: I want more of that.

443
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Or in the Clark Ashton Smith story, you

444
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 2: also get a sense of perhaps here is a horror

445
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 2: writer suddenly realizing that he recognizes more of his own

446
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 2: inner darkness in these external works of darkness than he

447
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 2: perhaps intended on, you know, or at least it's a

448
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 2: meditation on that possibility. So it's a yeah, it's I

449
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 2: think it's a it's a juicy little story to bite into. Again,

450
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 2: maybe not on the same level, certainly in my opinion,

451
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 2: not on the same level as some of his more

452
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:02,439
Speaker 2: almost darkly psychedelic works, but still a solid little monster story.

453
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 3: Nice.

454
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 2: By the way, Jackie Craven, an author, has a great

455
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,880
Speaker 2: article about gargoyles for thought dot Co titled The Real

456
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 2: Story of the Gargoyle. I recommend checking that out. She

457
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 2: goes into a lot more detail, and I also I

458
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 2: turned to that in researching this, in addition to Winstock, Websters,

459
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 2: and rows.

460
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 3: Well, is it time for my selection?

461
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I'm excited for this one because you picked

462
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 2: a story by an author that I've long admired, but

463
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 2: I have not read much of in recent years. So

464
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 2: this was a nice return for me.

465
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 3: Oh cool, Well, I'm excited to hear what you think

466
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,479
Speaker 3: about the story. So I wanted to pick not just

467
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 3: a horror story, but because today is Halloween, I wanted

468
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 3: to pick specifically a story that had a Halloween theme

469
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 3: or Halloween as a setting. It took me a while

470
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 3: to find one, find just the right one, but I

471
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 3: eventually settled on a story by the author Stephen Graham Jones,

472
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 3: who has come up on the show several times before.

473
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 3: I think I talked about one of his horror fiction

474
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 3: collections on a summer reading episode we did years ago,

475
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 3: and Rob, I think you actually might have recommended one

476
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 3: of his novels. Was it Mongrels? The werewolf novel from

477
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen.

478
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really great novel. I hadn't thought about

479
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,160
Speaker 2: this one recently, but it's a coming of age story

480
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: with were wolves lovingly crafted, and I think we see

481
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 2: a similar sentiment in this story. Maybe this just runs

482
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 2: through all of his writing, but like, these aren't just

483
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:28,479
Speaker 2: tales of horror and or monsters. There's a lot of

484
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 2: like the personal connection there, you know.

485
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 3: Yes, the story we're going to talk about today, I

486
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 3: think it is a great You can take it as

487
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 3: just a great spooky tale of the weird, but you

488
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 3: can also find a lot of feeling in it, Like

489
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 3: I found it a strangely moving story.

490
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

491
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 3: So just brief rundown on Stephen Graham Jones. From my

492
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 3: point of view, Jones is a prolific and really interesting

493
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 3: writer who dives into a lot of different genres, but

494
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 3: much of his work is horror and generally what you

495
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 3: might call weird fiction. So with his fiction, I like

496
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 3: the kind of the variety and range of authorial sensibilities

497
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 3: that you can find all wrapped up in the same piece.

498
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 3: Like a Stephen Graham Jones story can be sweet and

499
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 3: thoughtful and even sentimental, but also brutal, grizzly and cruel.

500
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 3: It can kind of plow straight into very familiar horror

501
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 3: tropes in a way that does not feel too you know,

502
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 3: meta or screamy, you know, not overly self conscious, but

503
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 3: it can also be like fresh and full of new

504
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 3: ideas and bring a lot of intellectual curiosity, scary but

505
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 3: also funny, et cetera. So I really like that variety

506
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 3: you get within his writing. And I also really like

507
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 3: that while some of his horror stories do have a

508
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 3: very explicit monster or villain, like a you know, a

509
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 3: cursed item or just a straight up vampire, in the

510
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 3: same collection that this story is in, there is a

511
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 3: pretty awesome messed up vampire story called Welcome to the

512
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 3: Reptile House.

513
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: Have you read that one, Rob, I haven't, but I

514
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 2: picked up this collection of short stories for this episode,

515
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 2: so that'll have to be the one I read next.

516
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I don't want to spoil too much, but

517
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 3: it involves a tattoo artist who practices a beginning tattoo

518
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 3: artist who practices his craft on dead bodies at a

519
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 3: morgue and then happens to in doing so, irritate a vampire.

520
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 3: Oh but anyway, coming back to my point. So, while

521
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 3: some of the stories have a more explicit or classical monster,

522
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 3: you know, he writes were wolf tales and stuff, I

523
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 3: also really like his stories that have ambiguous, strange, unexplained

524
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 3: situations that just create this thematically loaded atmosphere of dread

525
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 3: without a specific monster, or at least not one that

526
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 3: we ever meet directly. I'm a big fan of that

527
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 3: kind of story, you know. I like ambiguous horror, the

528
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 3: kind that does not tell you the full solution to

529
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 3: the puzzle, that gives you some tantalizing details but leave

530
00:28:58,720 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 3: some of the mystery alive.

531
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, we don't really know what the rules are

532
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: with this threat, we don't even know exactly what it is,

533
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: but here it is pushing against the limits of our world.

534
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I like that. So Jones is currently a

535
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 3: professor at UC Boulder, and I don't know when he

536
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 3: last updated his faculty page on the university website. I

537
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 3: know those can go untouched for eons, but as of

538
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 3: when I last checked, the final sentence of that page reads. Jones'

539
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 3: current projects are a paleoanthropological thriller set in Boulder, A Slasher,

540
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 3: and another slasher, God Willing. I do know several of

541
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: his recent novels have been described as slashers, and I

542
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 3: haven't gotten to those yet, but I would like to Anyway,

543
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 3: all that aside, the story that I wanted to talk

544
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 3: about today is called thirteen, and it's the first piece

545
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 3: in the twenty fourteen collection, After the People Lights Have

546
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 3: Gone Off. I have a print copy of this book.

547
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 3: I was looking around and it seems like maybe the

548
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 3: physically it is out of print, I think because I

549
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 3: was only finding used to buy, but maybe I wasn't

550
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 3: looking in the right place. I don't know, but I

551
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 3: think you can get a digital edition, right.

552
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. I bought it on Kindle for a dollar ninety nine,

553
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 2: and that is a steal for an award winning collection

554
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: from an author of this caliber. So yeah, no reason

555
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:15,719
Speaker 2: not to pick it up.

556
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,239
Speaker 3: So warning that I am going to go ahead and

557
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 3: summarize this story. If you want to look it up,

558
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 3: you know, get the collection for yourself and read it

559
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: without any spoilers. Maybe you could go ahead and do that.

560
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 3: And I also want to say that, of course, it's

561
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 3: always the case that you cannot communicate the full effect

562
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 3: of a piece of literature by summarizing it. But I

563
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 3: after I tried to summarize it, I found, in particular

564
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 3: with this story, it is hard to give a sense

565
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 3: of the feeling and the way that it works as

566
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 3: horror with a synopsis. So a lot of it just

567
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 3: kind of depends on little phrasings and the way a

568
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 3: kind of pyramid of details is built piece by p

569
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 3: So you'll be missing some of the effect just through

570
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 3: a synopsis. But I will do my best.

571
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And that holds for everything I just

572
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 2: did with Clark Ashton Smith's story as well. You know,

573
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 2: you can summarize it, but you can't really create the

574
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 2: sort of blow for blow build that is present in

575
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 2: a good horror story.

576
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 3: So the story thirteen begins, like a lot of Jones' fiction,

577
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 3: with a kind of frisky sentence. It says, here's how

578
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 3: you do it, if you're brave enough. You know a

579
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 3: lot of his stories have a very a voice, kind

580
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 3: of speaking directly to the reader's style. Opening and the

581
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 3: narrator of this story is presumably an adult or a

582
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 3: young man recounting a series of memories from his childhood,

583
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 3: specifically when he was in middle school around the eighth

584
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 3: grade or around the age of thirteen. The title of

585
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 3: the story, the narrator remembers in his hometown, there was

586
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 3: a movie theater called the Big Chief. Kind of a

587
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 3: low effort movie theater because it had only two screens,

588
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: and they were in fact right next to each other.

589
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 3: And in fact, originally the two theaters were just one

590
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 3: big room, now separated only by a heavy curtain, so

591
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 3: that sound from one movie would always bleed through and

592
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 3: become audible to the audience for the other movie. So

593
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 3: there's kind of a loudness war the soundtrack from a

594
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 3: war movie with machine guns and mortar shells encroaches on

595
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 3: the quieter movie next door.

596
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 2: I've never been to a movie theater like this. I've

597
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 2: been to some that have you know, that are a

598
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 2: little you know, kook ear and a little bit d

599
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 2: i y to a certain extent, but never one quite

600
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 2: like this. There was a was a really good one

601
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 2: in Asheville called the Gray Ol movie House, and I

602
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 2: think there will be again, but it was sadly heavily

603
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 2: damaged during the flooding there recently. Oh that is sad,

604
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 2: so look for it in its next incarnation. I think

605
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 2: those guys really love cinema. It's a great place.

606
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 3: Certainly, Best of luck to them. So the narrator of

607
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 3: this story sort of relates to this theater personally in

608
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 3: a number of ways. But one interesting detail he gives

609
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 3: early on is that the theater is right next to

610
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 3: the pizzeria where his father worked when he was in

611
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 3: high school. And he thinks about the smooth scars on

612
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 3: the tops of his father's forearms, which are I guess

613
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 3: burns from working with the ovens, which he says, yawn

614
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 3: with fire like mouths to hell. And it's a lot

615
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 3: of details like this in the story that just kind

616
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 3: of add up to create the full effect of the thing. Again,

617
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 3: I can't communicate all of these details in my synopsis,

618
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 3: but I love that kind of stuff.

619
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, these little just sort of fragments of memory that

620
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: he brings up that may not even be too closely

621
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 2: connected to the plot and the story that he is

622
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 2: laying out, but they are a vital part of the

623
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 2: vibe that he is building and ultimately that tension of horror.

624
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 3: That's right. So the story is about the movie theater.

625
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 3: It's not only notable because it's all and kind of

626
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 3: shoddily built. There is something special about this place. There

627
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 3: is a power in it which is hard to explain,

628
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 3: but everybody seems to know about, or at least all

629
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 3: the kids do. There are weird rumors and stories that

630
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 3: attach themselves to it. Who knows if they're true. There's

631
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 3: one very grizzly story that fifteen years ago, somehow a

632
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: guy mysteriously got castrated in one of the bathroom stalls.

633
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 3: The narrator's friend's uncle heard all about it. There's no

634
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 3: further detail on this story. It's just that kind of

635
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 3: weird detail you'd hear about when you're a kid. It'd

636
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 3: be like.

637
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, And no additional real explanation is provided, which

638
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 2: keeps it cryptic and strange.

639
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 3: But then he gets to the real point of the story,

640
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 3: which is what should we call it? The game? Maybe

641
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 3: the game?

642
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 2: Yeah?

643
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 3: Yeah. So one of the urban legends that all of

644
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 3: the kids know about this movie theater is the following.

645
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 3: You get your ticket, your popcorn, you settle in to

646
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:00,040
Speaker 3: watch a scary movie. It needs to be a horror movie.

647
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 3: And when it gets to the scariest part, maybe when

648
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 3: the vampire is approaching the heroine's bedside to drink her blood,

649
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 3: or the killer is raising up the knife, whatever, is

650
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 3: the really scary part that makes you want to close

651
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 3: your eyes because you can't bear to see what's next.

652
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 3: You give in, and you do close your eyes, but

653
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 3: you don't stop there. You also plug your ears and

654
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 3: hum so that you can't hear what's happening. And then, finally,

655
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,839
Speaker 3: and this is crucial, you suck in your breath and

656
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 3: you hold it, and you count to one hundred and twenty.

657
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 3: So you've got to hold it for two straight minutes.

658
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,439
Speaker 3: And if you can keep your eyes shut and keep

659
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 3: the sound out and hold your breath for the two

660
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 3: full minutes, something happens, something dangerous. Now apparently, in the

661
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 3: world of this story, kids are trying this all the time.

662
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 3: Everybody tells the story and they all practice it, and

663
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 3: they do it, but basically nobody ever makes it the

664
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 3: full two minutes. They let their breath out early. You know,

665
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 3: they start laughing or something. They look back up at

666
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 3: the screen, and when they do look back at the screen,

667
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 3: they find themselves relieved, giddy in fact, to see nothing

668
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 3: but the same movie they were so scared to look

669
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 3: at a moment before. And the narrator says that your

670
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 3: friends sitting next to you will be looking at you,

671
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 3: wanting to know if it worked. So how is it

672
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 3: supposed to work? Well, you get the feeling that nobody

673
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 3: really knows. It's just a ritual. We don't know why

674
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,959
Speaker 3: we do it. It just gets passed on. But there

675
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 3: is an attempt to explain it that feels kind of

676
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 3: back engineered from the minds of kids trying this out.

677
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 3: The narrator says, quote, how it works is that when

678
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 3: you're not looking or listening or breathing. It's like how

679
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 3: you're supposed to hold your breath when your parents are

680
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 3: driving by the cemetery. If you don't, then you can

681
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 3: accidentally breathe in a ghost. That's sort of how it

682
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 3: works at the Big Chief, with you not breathing, playing

683
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 3: dead like you are, it makes like a road or

684
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 3: a door, and the movie seeps in and then a

685
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 3: little later it goes on quote it's there because you

686
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 3: and vice, because you left a crack it could come

687
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 3: through because you made a sound like a wish, and

688
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,439
Speaker 3: the darkness just washed up in that direction to cover

689
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 3: it up. Oh, and I love the ambiguity of the

690
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 3: lore here, Like, how does it connect to the guy

691
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 3: who supposedly got castrated in the bathroom stall? Unclear, but

692
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 3: it suggested he must have done this game. Something from

693
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 3: the movie came out and got him.

694
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

695
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 3: So the narrator goes on to tell the stories of

696
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:31,879
Speaker 3: two people he knows who enacted the ritual to let

697
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 3: the movie in. One was a boy in his class

698
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 3: named Marcus, who was the new kid in school. He's

699
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 3: very handsome, popular, full of bravado, and he's on the

700
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 3: swim team, so he is good at holding his breath.

701
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 3: His new friends tell him about the movie theater, they

702
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 3: tell him about the game, so he does it. He

703
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:51,800
Speaker 3: plays dead for two minutes at the climax of a

704
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 3: horror movie with this writhing, horrible, tentacled monster. They don't

705
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 3: say what the movie is, but I was imagining like

706
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 3: some kind of Cronenberg thing. And then it seems that

707
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 3: nothing has happened to him. He's fine at first, until

708
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 3: a few months later when Marcus suddenly gets sick and

709
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 3: dies from the growth of an aggressive tumor, and the

710
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 3: kids who know what happened. They're in a life sciences

711
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 3: class and they see images of tumors and the shapes

712
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 3: look familiar to them, and the ones who were there

713
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,359
Speaker 3: that night agreed they think somehow the monster from the

714
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 3: movie got inside his body. Next, we learn about a

715
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 3: character named Grace, and this is a character the narrator

716
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 3: cares about a lot. They've been friends since they were young,

717
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 3: and now they're in middle school and it seems like

718
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,720
Speaker 3: they're in that awkward phase where they're trying to figure

719
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 3: out if their boyfriend girlfriend or not. But the narrator

720
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 3: he is in love with her, and Grace's family has

721
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 3: been through troubles. Her father recently moved away and her

722
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 3: parents separated, and her mother seems to be from clues

723
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 3: we get suffering from depression, and the narrator plans to

724
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 3: take Grace to a homecoming game at school, but he

725
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 3: ends up sick and unable to go, and so he

726
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 3: stays home by himself. In having fear related to what

727
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 3: happened to Marcus. He's obsessed with the idea that he

728
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 3: has a monster tumor inside him as well because he

729
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 3: was sitting close to Marcus the night of the game.

730
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 3: Could it be contagious, But nothing happens there. So to

731
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 3: make up for the failed homecoming date, the narrator and

732
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,760
Speaker 3: Grace decide to go see a movie at the theater.

733
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 3: Not a horror movie this time. They're done with the horror. Instead,

734
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 3: they go see a romantic comedy about a young woman

735
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 3: who gets her heart broken and then her well meaning

736
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 3: but bumbling father tries to set her up with the

737
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 3: perfect guy. And it's a comedy of errors. By the way,

738
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 3: there's a detail that while they're watching this movie they

739
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 3: hear screams and clanking metal bleeding over from the theater

740
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 3: next door. And the movie date is going well, but

741
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 3: at one point during the film, the narrator leaves to

742
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 3: get some more snacks from the lobby and sneaks a

743
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 3: look into the theater next door, and Jones writes, quote,

744
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 3: it was in there chainsaws and were wolves. It looked

745
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 3: like no were wolves with chainsaws. The chocolate and peanut

746
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 3: butter of the horror world. Very good line.

747
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm pretty sure this is not a real movie.

748
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 2: He's alitty to this is something made up, But I

749
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 2: love the idea of the just pure excess of this.

750
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 3: I mean, he has written novels that invoke both were

751
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 3: wolves and chainsaws. That one of his recent novels was

752
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 3: called My Heart as a Chainsaw.

753
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I don't know about that anyway.

754
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 3: The narrator in the story comes back to Grace and

755
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 3: he finds her having a strangely emotional experience with the

756
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 3: romantic comedy. He says that he could see that her

757
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 3: cheeks were shiny and wet, and that she had her

758
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 3: eyes closed, and then when he brushes against her arm,

759
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 3: she suddenly gets very startled and she starts coughing like

760
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 3: she's going to vomit, so she runs to the bathroom.

761
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 3: Narrator doesn't know what's going on, but then she comes

762
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 3: out later after the movie and they go home without

763
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 3: discussing what happened. Then the final setting of the story

764
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 3: comes a couple of weeks later, on Halloween night. So

765
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 3: here's the Halloween tie in. The narrator has plans to

766
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 3: sneak off and smoke cigarettes with the bad kids in

767
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 3: the graveyard behind a condemned convent building perfect and there

768
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 3: are more urban legends. I mean they're urban legends throughout

769
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 3: the story. One is the story that the kids tell

770
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 3: about the abandoned convent. They say it's haunted by a

771
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 3: zombie nun who wanders at night carrying a candle in

772
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 3: front of her, and when she sees you, she comes

773
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 3: closer and closer, and just when she draws right up

774
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 3: to you, the candle goes out. The narrator and his

775
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 3: middle school friends are out in the cemetery behind the

776
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 3: you know, the haunted graveyard, and they are engaging in

777
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,399
Speaker 3: a performance of courage. You know, they're breaking rules, doing

778
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 3: what they're not supposed to. They are treading where the

779
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 3: ghost thread is high. And at one point the narrator

780
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 3: steps aside from the group, I think to be sick

781
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 3: because he smoked a cigarette and you shouldn't have and

782
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 3: he's going to be sick. And he goes to the

783
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 3: edge of a small cliff looking out over a neighborhood

784
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 3: where kids are trick or treating below. He knows that

785
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 3: Grace is out there because she apparently volunteered to chaperone

786
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 3: elementary school kids for the evening while they're trick or treating.

787
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 3: The narrator called her mother earlier to try to call

788
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 3: her house to try to make plans, but her mother

789
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 3: answered the phone, said where she was going to be,

790
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 3: and just said look for bo Peep. So looking out

791
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 3: over the children wandering the neighborhoods in the dark, he

792
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 3: does see her in the bo Peep costume with a

793
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 3: shepherd's crook, escorting a second grader in a robot costume,

794
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 3: and they're just coming up to a house that the

795
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,800
Speaker 3: narrator knows it's his former English teacher, who would always

796
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 3: write out verses of poetry on little strips of paper

797
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 3: and tie them to the candy she handed out on Halloween,

798
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 3: and the narrator remembers once getting a candy bar from

799
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 3: her that told him the fields are white, the fields

800
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 3: are long, the fields are waiting. He never knew what

801
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 3: that meant. And frankly, I tried to look this up,

802
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure I might have just missed the

803
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 3: reference somewhere, but it could be referring to a verse

804
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 3: in the Gospel of John where Jesus talks about the

805
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 3: fields being white, meaning essentially, you think that they're not

806
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 3: ready for harvest, but they are. It is time for

807
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 3: the harvest and now anyway, what happens next in the

808
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 3: story is so strange. The narrator sees Grace he's looking

809
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 3: down from the cliff, and he tries to wave and

810
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 3: get her attention, but she doesn't see him. Instead, he

811
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 3: watches as she begins to talk to someone in a

812
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:28,280
Speaker 3: car that's been driving around the neighborhood. Then, for some reason,

813
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 3: she just abandons the kid that she's been chaperoning and

814
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 3: gets into the car, and it starts to drive away,

815
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 3: and the narrator is very confused. He runs along the

816
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 3: cliff until he finds a place he can climb down.

817
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 3: He chases through the neighborhood looking for the car, and

818
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 3: finally he sees it just before it it leaves the

819
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 3: town and pulls out onto the highway. When he sees it,

820
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 3: he sees the driver and he is sure he recognizes

821
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 3: the face. It's the face of a movie character, the

822
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 3: father from the romantic comedy movie they saw in the theater,

823
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 3: with what the narrator characterizes as a wide, sharp and

824
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 3: trustworthy smile. He sees them in a flash, and the

825
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 3: car drives away, and then nobody ever sees Grace again.

826
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,439
Speaker 3: So the implication is that Grace played the summoning game

827
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 3: two In the interval when the narrator was out looking

828
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 3: in on the werewolves and Chainsaws movie, she must have

829
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,919
Speaker 3: closed her eyes and held her breath. But it wasn't

830
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 3: a horror movie. There was no monster, so what did

831
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 3: she summon? Later, having swirling emotions about this whole series

832
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 3: of events, the narrator sneaks out one night and he

833
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,839
Speaker 3: sets fire to the movie theater. He burns it down.

834
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: He never gets caught for the arson. His friends come

835
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 3: and meet him there and they sort of give him

836
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 3: an alibi, and they never tell on him, so he

837
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 3: gets away with it. But in the fire that night,

838
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 3: he sees shapes moving around in the flames, including a

839
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 3: boy covered in blood and Marcus and his swim goggles.

840
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 3: And then finally it says quote, and I saw a

841
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 3: pale white shepherd's crook ahead of them, leading them through,

842
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 3: leading them on, And he ends the story saying that

843
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 3: he's waiting to meet her again. So, as I said earlier,

844
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 3: I love this story, but I think it's kind of

845
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 3: hard to convey the force of the story in summary,

846
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 3: because so much of it comes from this careful stacking

847
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 3: up of these only vaguely related details, but you can't

848
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 3: tell all of them without just reading the text in full.

849
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 3: But this is my favorite kind of horror story, one

850
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 3: that's both evocative and full of all these little observations,

851
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 3: but also with an original mythology and also just ambiguous

852
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 3: enough about what it all means. I was thinking, like,

853
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 3: how are we supposed to interpret the way the summoning

854
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 3: game works, especially since it's presented as just one of

855
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 3: many silly urban legends that the kids in the story

856
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 3: make up and repeat. Where does the power come from? Also,

857
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,280
Speaker 3: how are we supposed to interpret what happens to Grace

858
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 3: when she tries it? Is it more benign or more sinister?

859
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 3: I feel like that's kind of left open. Has Grace

860
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 3: transcended the mundane world and become a kind of shepherding

861
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 3: angel for the lost? Or has she been like murdered

862
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 3: by a demon that she invited onto our plane and

863
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 3: become a ghost ready to reap a harvest of souls?

864
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,400
Speaker 3: And the shepherd's crook is such a wonderful image because

865
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 3: it adds to the ambiguity there. If you're the sheep,

866
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 3: the crook could be seen either as your protection, keeping

867
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 3: you in the flock and away from predators, or it

868
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,320
Speaker 3: could be your doom pulling you in for the mutton slaughter.

869
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:30,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so good. I too love the ambiguity here.

870
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 2: I also loved the completely accidental synergy with the Clark

871
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 2: Ashton Smith story, and that both to some degree deal

872
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 2: with the idea of a channeling of dark energy and

873
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 2: works of art, yes, in this case cinema. So it's

874
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 2: a nice to a certain degree, this story meditates on

875
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 2: the power of cinema and the importance of cinema in

876
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 2: our life, and then it has this wonderful coming of

877
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 2: age energy to it, like young a young character trying

878
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 2: to sort of figure out how he works as a

879
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 2: as a human and how he fits into the world,

880
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 2: how the world works. It's just so beautifully put together,

881
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 2: and again, to your point, almost completely defies any kind

882
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 2: of an elevator pitch, because you can't make a statement like, oh,

883
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 2: this is a movie about a monster that's X, or

884
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 2: about a haunting that's why. No, it's You've got to

885
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 2: take in all the pieces in order to get the

886
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 2: full mosaic.

887
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 3: I feel it took me great length to explain it,

888
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 3: and I feel like I still didn't fully get it,

889
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 3: like you cannot summarize this story in a sentence. Another

890
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 3: thing I really love about the story is that it

891
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 3: creates an original urban legend. And it's not just a

892
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 3: descriptive legend, one that tells a story, but it's the

893
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 3: kind of legend that has an enacted ritual. So with

894
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 3: this kind of urban legend, you you can go through

895
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 3: the steps of a specified behavioral algorithm, and in doing so,

896
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 3: you can experience the subject of the legend directly in

897
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 3: some kind of paranormal encounter. I was trying to figure

898
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 3: out if there is a standard term for this type

899
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 3: of ritual summoning game in the anthropology, in folklore literature.

900
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 3: Maybe there is. If so, I couldn't identify what that

901
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 3: term is, but a well known example from American culture

902
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 3: would be the Bloody Mary game. Where you stand in

903
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 3: front of a mirror in a dark room, perhaps on

904
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 3: Halloween night in some versions, and you recite an incantation.

905
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 3: Often it's just the name Bloody Mary a specified number

906
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 3: of times, maybe you say three times or thirteen times,

907
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 3: and according to the legend, you will have a supernatural encounter.

908
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 3: Maybe you will see a witch standing behind you in

909
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:52,880
Speaker 3: the mirror, or maybe you'll see a woman covered in

910
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 3: blood who screams at you, or maybe a ghost that

911
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 3: reaches out of the mirror and tries to harm you,

912
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 3: tries to attack your eye or something. And though I'm

913
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 3: less familiar with these, apparently ritual ghost summoning games are

914
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 3: very popular in multiple East Asian cultures as well. For example,

915
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,280
Speaker 3: there's something known as the I think the Corner game

916
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 3: in Korea or the Square game in Japan, which involved

917
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 3: four participants, and it's a similar kind of thing. You

918
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:22,240
Speaker 3: do a sequence of activities and it's supposed to summon

919
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:22,720
Speaker 3: a ghost.

920
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, this weird connection between thought and action and ideas

921
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,240
Speaker 2: of the supernatural. And if you put thought and action

922
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 2: in motion, like what does that? What does that do?

923
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 3: You know?

924
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 2: It's weird because that also sounds like completely simple, like

925
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 2: I'm making them out out of a molehile here, But

926
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:46,880
Speaker 2: there is there's something strange going on. I think we

927
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,760
Speaker 2: we sometimes interact with this in a like non game

928
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:56,319
Speaker 2: even almost subconscious level, you know, like choosing not to

929
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:58,839
Speaker 2: think about the thing that you know isn't real lest

930
00:49:58,840 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 2: it become real.

931
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, totally, No, I think we do, even people

932
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 3: who you know, at the rational level, you don't think

933
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 3: that your activities it will become a kind of spell

934
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 3: to summon spirits. You know, there's a part of you

935
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 3: that wonders, and you just kind of shy away from it.

936
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:18,879
Speaker 3: And it does require I would say, like, I am

937
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 3: not a person who believes in ghosts. I don't literally

938
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 3: believe in ghosts, but I think it would take some

939
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 3: real bravery for me to play a ghost summoning game,

940
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 3: because like there's a difference between what you consciously assent

941
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 3: to believing and what kind of scares you in theory.

942
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:40,880
Speaker 2: My family and I we've been watching Agatha all along,

943
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 2: which is a witch based show on Disney about the

944
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 2: witch Agatha or Coven, and there's a scene with the

945
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:48,799
Speaker 2: Wigi board, and so we had to explain to our

946
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 2: son what a Ouiji board is because they just had not

947
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 2: been exposed to it. And it's weird to explain this

948
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 2: as like, oh, yeah, it's like a supernatural summoning game

949
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 2: that as children growing up up and you know, predominantly

950
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 2: you know these very you know, Christian environments, you were

951
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:08,959
Speaker 2: totally not supposed to do. It was witchcraft. Stay away

952
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 2: from it. But at the same time, you could buy

953
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 2: it at Walmart.

954
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, made by Parker Brothers. Yeah, so, I don't know.

955
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 3: This story got me thinking about these kinds of summoning games.

956
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 3: Scholars studying the history of the Bloody Marry game. In fact,

957
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 3: they relate it back to earlier summoning games. I think

958
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 3: there were a lot around the turn of the twentieth

959
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 3: century which were sometimes practiced by young women with the

960
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 3: goal of seeing the face of their future husband.

961
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:42,919
Speaker 2: This is oh my god. Yeah, that's like gets into

962
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 2: a whole other realm of board games, right, like those

963
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 2: yeah street date stuff.

964
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. So you know. A version of this is

965
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 3: you like get a candle and a handheld mirror and

966
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 3: you walk backwards up or down a staircase holding the

967
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 3: candle in the mirror. Don't please do people, no one

968
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 3: listening try this because you heard it. That sounds so dangerous.

969
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 3: But you do this, and then you look in the

970
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 3: mirror and you are supposed to see a glimpse of

971
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 3: the future, either your future husband's face or you see

972
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 3: the grim face of death, which means you'll die instead.

973
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 3: And other versions of this don't rely on a staircase,

974
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 3: just a dark room and a mirror, some kind of

975
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 3: ritual Rabbi attached here for you to look at. Some

976
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 3: just like one hundred year old Halloween postcards that are

977
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:29,879
Speaker 3: like again to come back to, like the Parker Brothers thing.

978
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 3: These are just like mass produced postcards that are like,

979
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 3: here's how you look in the mirror and see the ghost.

980
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 3: But I guess it's a little more benign because it's

981
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 3: giving you this supposedly happy information about like ooh, look

982
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:42,800
Speaker 3: at the handsome face of your future husband.

983
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at the cute cartoon cat in the background. Yeah.

984
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 2: I love old timy Halloween stuff like this.

985
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 3: So the technical term for divination specifically with the use

986
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 3: of a mirror is catoptromancy from catoptron Greek for mirror,

987
00:52:57,480 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 3: and in a more general sense, as a type of

988
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 3: div nation practice. This has been documented since ancient times

989
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 3: in many cultures. The treatment of it more like a

990
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 3: scary game allah bloody Mary, played by young people to

991
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 3: conjure a supernatural encounter. I'd say, primarily for fun and

992
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 3: to test one's bravery. That's something I would be really

993
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,760
Speaker 3: interested in finding evidence of going farther back in history,

994
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 3: but I couldn't. I wasn't able to turn up anything

995
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 3: explicitly of that sort. It seems like the most ancient

996
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:33,759
Speaker 3: references to catoptromancy are about sincere attempts at divination, genuine

997
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 3: desires to get hidden information from the gods or from

998
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 3: the spirit world, or to commune with the souls of

999
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 3: the dead. So that obviously the lack of evidence doesn't

1000
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 3: rule out that there were games of this sort going

1001
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 3: back hundreds or thousands of years. I just haven't come

1002
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 3: across that documentation of that anyway, whether it's for sincere

1003
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:56,760
Speaker 3: attempts to get hidden information or just as a game

1004
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 3: you play to scare yourself for fun. It's interesting to

1005
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 3: think about the phenomenon of seeing faces in mirrors. I

1006
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 3: don't have space to rehash everything here, but in our

1007
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 3: series on the Invention of the mirror, we extensively got

1008
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,319
Speaker 3: into research on something known as the strange face in

1009
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 3: the mirror effect, which is a documented psychological phenomenon where

1010
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 3: people with typical psychological histories will often report hallucinating strange

1011
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 3: faces if they simply stare into a mirror for a

1012
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 3: long period of time in low light conditions. I think

1013
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 3: the rough numbers were that if you just like darken

1014
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 3: a room look in a mirror for ten minutes, roughly

1015
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:44,279
Speaker 3: two thirds of people reported seeing weird stuff. This was

1016
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 3: largely explored in some papers by a researcher whose name

1017
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:51,720
Speaker 3: is Giovanni Caputo, and there are a number of interesting

1018
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:55,239
Speaker 3: perceptual and neurological explanations that might contribute to it. But

1019
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:58,359
Speaker 3: the strange face in a mirror effect has been postulated

1020
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 3: as contributing to the pop popularity of catoptromancy games and

1021
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 3: things like Bloody Mary. Due to this common quirk in

1022
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 3: our brains, it's apparently just not unusual to actually see

1023
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 3: weird stuff if you stare into a mirror in a

1024
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 3: darkened room. And it doesn't take drugs, it doesn't take

1025
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 3: a history of hallucinations. It's just a normal thing that happens.

1026
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:20,319
Speaker 3: So if you want to hear all the details about

1027
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,760
Speaker 3: that research, go look up our episodes on the invention

1028
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 3: of the mirror. We go in depth there. But to

1029
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:27,799
Speaker 3: bring it back to the Stephen Graham Jones story, I'm

1030
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 3: interested that this invented ritual, this invented summoning game, involves it,

1031
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:35,800
Speaker 3: like there are a lot of parallels with the Bloody

1032
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:38,560
Speaker 3: Mary thing, but it involves not a mirror, but a

1033
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 3: movie screen, and not prolonged staring, not prolonged stimulus relating

1034
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 3: to the surface, but actually the opposite, completely cutting yourself

1035
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 3: off from the stimulus while everyone around you is still watching.

1036
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 3: So by playing dead and not watching the scariest part

1037
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 3: of the movie, this is actually what quote lets the

1038
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:05,840
Speaker 3: movie in. It conjures the most terrifying or powerful aspect

1039
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 3: of it into our world. I love this variation and

1040
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 3: I love how it interacts with the standard lore. And again,

1041
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what to say about what it means,

1042
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 3: but it feels so potent.

1043
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, this reminds me of something my

1044
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 2: friend David Streepy does or used to do, where he

1045
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 2: said that if he was watching a scary movie and

1046
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 2: there was a scary part, he didn't necessarily want to

1047
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 2: watch the scary part and he would like squint his

1048
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,359
Speaker 2: eyes blur out his vision during that portion. You know.

1049
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,279
Speaker 2: So maybe it is rooted in sort of especially a

1050
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:42,240
Speaker 2: you know, a childhood attempt to sort of save face

1051
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 2: but make it through the scary parts of the movie

1052
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 2: without actually watching them. And yeah, it kind of turns

1053
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 2: that on its head. What if by not watching you're

1054
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 2: allowing it to seep into you in other ways. But again,

1055
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 2: it's very ambiguous here, and that's kind of the beauty

1056
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 2: of the Stephen Graham Jones. You know what actually is

1057
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 2: going on here? Am I? What am I doing or

1058
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 2: doing wrong that allows the darkness to seep in at

1059
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 2: least at this one theater, you know, wherever it is

1060
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 2: and whatever its dark history may be.

1061
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I love that story. I love a lot

1062
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 3: of Stephen Graham Jones's work, And if you want to

1063
00:57:20,320 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 3: pick up that collection, you look for after the people

1064
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 3: lights have gone off in twenty fourteen.

1065
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I noticed that Joe R. Lansdale wrote the introduction

1066
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 2: to that collection, which I think is fitting because, I mean,

1067
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 2: these are both authors of sort of the same era,

1068
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 2: I believe, and their work kind of reminds me of

1069
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,480
Speaker 2: each other's work. You know, both have a often have

1070
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 2: a great sense of sort of in a way something

1071
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 2: that Stephen King did a lot. I mean, Stephen King

1072
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 2: wrote a lot about author about professional writers dealing with

1073
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 2: you know, darkness, but also a lot of like working

1074
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:58,440
Speaker 2: class blue collars sort of characters encountering a very you know,

1075
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 2: unpaved road level version of horror. And I get that

1076
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 2: in these two authors as well.

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00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm gonna have to look and figure out

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00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 3: if Stephen Graham Jones's paleo anthropological thriller and Slasher and

1079
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 3: Other Slasher are already out, so I'm I'm gonna try

1080
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 3: to read them.

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00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 2: All right. Well, there we have a couple of I

1082
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 2: think solid Halloween stories for you to potentially read, or

1083
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 2: maybe you have read them, or maybe you feel like, Okay,

1084
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 2: I got enough, I don't need to read them, but

1085
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 2: you have thoughts about them, you know, write in. We

1086
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you. If you have ideas

1087
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 2: for next year, If you want us to continue this series,

1088
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:43,080
Speaker 2: ride in and let us know. Just a reminder that

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00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

1090
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 2: culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but

1091
00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just

1092
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird Houses Cinema. If

1093
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 2: you're on Instagram, follow us. We are stb ym podcast

1094
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 2: and that's a good way to just stay abreast of

1095
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 2: whatever's coming out in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1096
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 2: podcast feed.

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00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:07,440
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1098
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1099
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1100
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1101
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:16,760
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.