WEBVTT - From the Vault: Grimoire of Horror, Volume 1 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.479 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.720 is Robert Lamb. Today's Saturday, So once more we venture 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.080 into the vault and who This one originally published ten 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.880 thirty one, twenty twenty four, Halloween of last year. It's 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.000 Grimore of Horror, Volume one. This was the first in 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.680 a new tradition that we'll be continuing this year in 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.240 which Joe and I each select a horror short story 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:32.680 of note and then we discuss it and even maybe 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.839 get into some of its science and cultural content as 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:40.280 well on the show. So last year, in this episode 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.120 we discussed a Clark Ashton Smith story and a Stephen 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.320 Graham Jones story. What will we discuss this year, Well, 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:48.880 you'll have to tune in to find out. So let's 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.080 go ahead and listen to the episode from last year 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.320 right now. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.280 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:08.960 is Robert. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:10.880 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.759 So over the years here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.039 we've done Halloween and Halloween adjacent episodes that pick from 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.720 us sorted tales of one sort or another, horrific tale, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.119 scary tales, creepy tales, and then use them as sort 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.720 of a springboard to look at a particular scientific topic 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.480 or just look at that story through a scientific or 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.959 cultural lens. At one point we did a series of 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.920 episodes based on different creepypastas. Then Joe and I turned 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.720 to TV horror anthology episodes for a number of years, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.880 and this year we're starting what I'm hoping we'll be 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.440 a new tradition, one that sticks to shorter horror works, 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.600 but also gets back into the written word, which I 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.480 know many of our listeners missed from the days when 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.760 we did summer reading episodes, so kind of meet me 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.840 halfway on that as well. Written horror fiction often does 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.040 come up on the show anyway, so it seems like 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.480 a solid direction to go in. Though this may be 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.360 in part because this is our first time out of 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.280 the gate with this particular series. It was kind of 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.480 a mad dash to put this episode together, and it's 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.800 going to be a mad dash as well for JJ 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.920 to get it edited and out there, but hopefully it'll 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.000 be worth it. I don't know about you, Joe, but 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.040 I had a number of trials and tribulations finding my selection. 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.440 I had like a list of stories I was considering, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.000 and then I ended up not really using any of those, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.399 and I had one that I thought was perfect, and 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.440 then it really took a turn halfway through the story 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.080 and went in a direction that I wasn't crazy about, 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.799 and only then I had to start from ground from 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.320 just ground zero on the whole thing. But I do 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.600 think I finally picked out a story that is going 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:52.799 to be fun to chat about here. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:58.000 You know, frankly this, I always enjoyed doing our anthology 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.520 of horror episodes, but I had the same issue with 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.880 those when we were doing like TV or movie anthology things, 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:09.120 where I would just spend forever in the pre research phase, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.880 where I'd just be like trying to find an appropriate 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:13.840 one that had some kind of hook of something to 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.959 talk about that we hadn't already covered extensively before. And 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.760 I gotta admit I'm having the same issue here. I 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.920 spent probably more time trying to find a story to 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.880 talk about than I did actually getting ready for the episode. 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.680 Yeah, so we'll go ahead and put the call out 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.760 to listeners help us make up our minds in advance 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.320 next year Salloween. If you can think of a really 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:43.600 great horror, halloweeny, creepy short story that would benefit from 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.880 this treatment. Go ahead and write in and let us 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.400 know again months in advance, and that'll help us be 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.560 ready for next year. All right, well, let's go ahead 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.880 and jump in here. I'm going to start with my 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.280 selection here. I ended up going with a story titled 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.680 The Maker of Gargoyle by Clark Ashton Smith, who lived 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.240 eighteen ninety three through nineteen sixty one. Clark Ashton Smith 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.560 remains probably my favorite writer of weird fiction from the 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.680 pulp era, mainly for his exceedingly rich and textured dark 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:20.360 fantasy tales, often stories in which doomed wizards delve deep 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.880 into forbidden knowledge and brings some sort of disastrous curse 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.160 down upon their own heads. Sometimes there's a little twist 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.680 of gallows humor to the whole affair. Along these lines, 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.200 I highly recommend the tales The Double Shadow, the Seven Geeses, 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.120 and The Empire of the Necromancers. Those are three of 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.960 the finest dark fantasy short stories you could possibly hope 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:42.279 to read. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.760 In my opinion is that last one, the one where 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.720 the two Necromancers are like wandering around in this terrible 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.880 landscape sort of arguing with each other. 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.520 Yes, yeah, and eventually they're like, well, we're going to 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.440 go to this ancient tomb city and we're going to 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.680 raise everyone from the dead and make them serve us eternally. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:06.840 And you know, they're absolutely horrible, comedically evil characters. And 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.480 of course eventually the undead creatures that they summon rise 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.040 up against them and tear them to pieces. Of course, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.240 now I have to stress I've never been a Clark 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.400 Ashton Smith completist, though you know, he wrote a number 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.800 of tales set in a very contemporary twentieth century weird 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.040 tales setting, even though one of them, Return of the Magician, 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.039 is often considered one of his best works and was 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.680 actually adapted into a Night Gallery episode feature featuring Vincent Price, 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.200 but I've never read it. I tend to steer more 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.080 towards his dark fantasy. There's a great deal of his 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.600 work along these lines that I've never read. So his 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.080 work is largely centered in a few different settings, mostly 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:54.440 within the fantastic realms of Hyperborea, Poseidonus, Avarn, and Zohaka. 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.600 Today's tale takes us to Avon. This is a fictional 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.719 French province and it depends on the story. The stories 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.520 may be set anywhere between the years four seventy five 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.880 CE and seventeen eighty nine see depending on the story 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.599 in question. I haven't read all of these, but I 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.839 do remember the Beast of avar On being quite good. 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.160 He generally, in the story you're about to talk about, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.240 lays out kind of a landscape that hints at other 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.239 tales yet to be told elsewhere. Like he just mentions 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.720 this dark, haunted wood full of lou Garoo and other 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.000 kind of inhabitants. 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.840 Yeah, yeah, alluding to you know, we've had problems with 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.440 Succuby and Incubie in the past and that sort of thing, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.520 you know. And I haven't read all the tales from 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.440 the Avaron cycle either, so he may be referring to 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.320 specific stories or possible stories, like you said. So. This 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.880 particular short story, The Maker of Gargoyles, was published in 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.799 nineteen thirty two and it's set in the year eleven 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.680 thirty eight. If you want to read it for yourself, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.520 you can find it on the Clark Ashton Smith website 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.320 dark dot com, and it is also featured in the 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.960 collection The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, a Ventage 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:12.080 from Atlantis the Collected Fantasies, Volume three. It's long title, 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.360 but worth it. This is one of those authors whose 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.080 work is in the public domain, as I understand it, 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.560 So there are a lot of less than satisfying publications 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.760 of his work out there if you're looking for an 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:29.000 actual like high quality digital or a physical collection, so 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.040 I recommend this. I also recommend there's a Penguin edition 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.320 that also features some of his stories. But if you're 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:37.880 looking to do it on the cheap, yeah, it's all 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:39.880 apparently in the public domain, and you can find it 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.240 all at that website I just referenced, all right. So 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.120 in the story, Clark Ashton Smith establishes Avaron is a 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.840 medieval city on the edge of dangerous and evil wilds, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.200 a province in quote a world where the devil and 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.360 his works were always more or less rampant. Here, the 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.920 walled city of Villon has suffered more than its share 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.119 of demonic cars. But everyone's pretty confident that this newly 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.280 constructed cathedral is going to really shore things up. It's 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.120 going to bring greater protection against the darkness. Everything's going 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.040 to be all right. But unfortunately this is a Gothic 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.400 world where supernatural evil is absolutely real, but who can 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.000 say for sure about supernatural good. It's kind of a 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.320 gambol on the latter. So it's definitely a demon haunted world. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.040 And I like how in this story, the one main 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.480 representative of the church that we get seems primarily concerned 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:37.520 with the exquisite sophistication of the representations of evil on 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:38.319 the cathedral. 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.360 Yeah, and pretty much the only thing that the church 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.640 is able to do to stand against the evil is 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.000 they send to Rome for some high grade holy water. Yeah, 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.200 and it never shows up. It never actually features into 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.560 the story, but that's all they can really do. So 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.240 the cathedral here, as they describe it, pretty standard fair 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.560 Gothic medieval cathedral and so forth, except two of its 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:05.520 mini gargoyles are creations of Villonne's own artisan Blasse Reynard. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.760 This is the titular maker of gargoyles. He's kind of 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.720 a coffin Joe character, you know. He's he's hated and 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.840 feared by the townspeople. He has a lot of like 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:21.080 obvious inner turmoil. Most people tend to just sort of 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.040 put up with him and ignore him the same way 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.320 that they put up with and ignore all of the 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.560 supernatural evil that is writhing in the world around them. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:31.880 All Right, I'm going to read the description that Clark 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.160 Ashton Smith gives us of these gargoyles. Okay. The two 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.720 gargoyles were perched on opposite corners of a high tower 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.280 of the cathedral. One was a snarling, murderous, cat headed 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:48.840 monster with retracted lips revealing formidable things, and eyes that 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:55.000 glared intolerable hatred from beneath fearine brows. This creature had 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.320 the claws and wings of a griffin, and seemed as 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.440 if it were poised in readiness to swoop down on 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.640 the city of Villonne, like a harpie on its prey. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.760 Its companion was a horned sadder with the vans of 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.920 some great bats, such as might roam the nether caverns, 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:16.320 with sharp clinching talons, and a look of satanically brooding lust, 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.079 as if it were gloating above the helpless object of 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.400 its unclean desire. Both figures were complete even to the 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.080 hind quarters, and were not mere conventional adjuncts of the roof. 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.200 One would have expected them to start at any moment 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.640 from the stone in which they were mortists. So some 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.800 terrifying looking gargoyles here, yes, like very detailed, like fine 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:44.920 works of art, but really hard to take in. We 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.240 learned that, quite unknown to Renard himself, he has just 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.640 poured all of his hatred for his hometown into one 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.440 gargoyle and all of his lust for the tavern owner's daughter, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.839 Nicolette in the other one. Naturally know what's going to happen. 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.760 Hard soon descends on the city once more, as a 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.640 swooping demonic monster begins to slay people in the night. 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.440 The body count intensifies. Everyone's afraid, but the best anyone 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.800 can do is against sin for that special holy water. Meanwhile, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.679 another demonic form, the lusty one, is creeping on women 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.800 all around the city, but leaving them untouched and unattacked, 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.120 as if it's not seeking any woman but one woman 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.839 in particular. All of this comes to a head at 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.080 the tavern one night, deep in his cups and himself 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.400 traumatized by the horror in the streets. Like It's important 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.280 to note that he's not like, oh, the agents of 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.880 my hatred and lust are running rampant, like he doesn't 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.080 really put one and two together here, but he's drinking 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.959 in the pub. He's watching a rival court fair Nicolette, 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.280 and eventually he just loses it. He causes this big 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.320 embarrassing scene, and that's when the windows implode with the 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.240 arrival of the two animate gargoyles. The first of the 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.720 two begins massacring everyone in sight, spilling blood, ripping open throats, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.240 and the second one grabs Nicolette, and a heavy stone 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.920 wing of one of the two gargoyles catches Reynard in 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.880 the head and knocks him unconscious. The next morning, he 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.440 awakens in this blood drenched tavern, surrounded by dead men 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:20.520 and the lacerated but still living body of Nicolette. Horrified 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.880 and suddenly understanding more of the connection he has to 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.680 these monsters, he forces his way through the angry crowd. 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.560 He collects his hammer from his workshop and he heads 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.800 up to the cathedral roof. He finds his creations there, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.800 and he notices that their mouths and their claws are bloodied, 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.440 and so he begins to strike at them with the hammer. 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:46.200 But then the gargoyle that he strikes, the wrathful one, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.920 knocks him to the edge of the of the roof, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.360 and then like sinks, one of its talons into his shoulder, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.800 and I believe takes to the air with him and 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.520 he's striking at the talon foot that holds him. Eventually 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.080 shatters that foot, but he falls to his death in 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.160 the street. And then we end with the archbishop finding 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.400 his corpse and noting the talent limb now relaxed quote 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.600 as if like the paw of a living limb, it 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.640 had reached for something or had dragged a heavy burden 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.120 with its fearine talents. 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.320 I like that it's implied to me, at least that 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:23.240 the archbishop's response is when he finds this is like, oh, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.840 my gargoyles, they're ruined. Yes, It's like as if, you know, 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.120 finding a murder scene where someone has been had their 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.959 head smashed with a vase and the person's like, my vase, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:33.680 what happened? 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.720 Yes? Yeah. There are other points in the story too, 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.680 where you have more concern given for just the state 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.360 of the art concerning these gargoyles, as opposed to what 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.880 their horribleness means. You know, either you know physically or 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.320 just the idea of them. So this story doesn't deliver 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.520 or I think, aspire to the dizzyingly dark magic vibes 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.959 of other Clark Ashton Smith's stories. I think it's a 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.600 pretty solid little horror tale in its own way. It 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.200 delivers both a sinister physical monster as well as a 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.200 tale of twisted inner torment, you know, So you know, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.400 those are great things to have in a horror tale. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.320 And I think we can all imagine some version of 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.040 the story which the gargoyles are his intentional creations and 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.240 like conscious minions of his wrath and lust, but instead 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.320 he only really glimpses his connection to them at the 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.280 very end, finally realizing that he has poured all of 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.520 his own darkness into these works and that he has 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.760 to destroy them. And I think there's a lot to 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.920 potentially dig into their regarding a horror writer and his work. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.840 And it's worth noting that Clark Ashton Smith himself largely 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.200 abandoned writing in favor of painting and sculpture in the 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.880 second half of his life, so, you know, bec I 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.600 think it's fair to assume a lot of those ideas 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.200 were on his mind when he wrote this tale. And 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:51.960 I think this one would I don't think this has 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:53.840 ever been adapted, but I think it would make a 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.760 pretty great horror anthology adaption, because who doesn't love a 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.920 great animate gargoyle story, right? Sure? Yeah, they're a staple 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.960 monster in Dungeons and Dragons. They're the subject of a 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.200 fan favorite nineteen nineties Disney animated series. Did you ever 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:09.760 watch that, Joe Gargoyles? 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.920 I was only a very little bit. I never like 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.400 followed the story. But I've actually heard good things about 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.080 it from people as an adult, Like, some people think 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:19.200 it was a really good cartoon. 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.000 Yeah, that's what I've heard. I think I may have 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.920 watched one or two episodes as a kid. I've looking 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.760 back on it, I see it had a tremendous vocal cast, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.000 including Keith David in the lead. But I brought it up. 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:32.840 I showed an episode to my son. I was like, hey, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:34.720 maybe this can be the new series we're watching together, 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.680 and he was like, no, thank you, So oh okay, 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:38.440 so fine. I'm not going to watch it on my own. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.160 So it's not for me, but a lot of people 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:42.720 love it. 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.360 You know, thinking about movies with animated gargoyles and the 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.120 Stone comes to life, there's a great movie scene that's 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.400 actually the opposite process. And it's in Grimlins too, which 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.880 we covered on Weird House Cinema. I remember when there's 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.400 the joke where the Grimlin escapes the building, falls in 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.040 wet cement on the sidewalk, and then flies up to 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.880 the top of a building, perches, and then freezes in 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.440 the cement to become a gargoyle. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.920 I'm so glad you brought that up. That had slipped 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.040 my mind. But that is one of the many wonderful 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.840 scenes in Grimlin's two Let's see. On the B movie front, there's, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.800 of course the nineteen seventy two TV movie Gargoyles that 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.320 various listeners have suggested for Weird House Cinema, and it 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:23.720 remains on our short list. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.200 I believe it's one of those that we've never seen, 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.640 but we keep like five different movies have pinged back 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.520 to it for some reason. I don't know what are 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.160 those like nexus movies that are like kind of weird 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.160 and get our attention, but we never watched them. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think I've seen part of 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.240 it maybe on A and E back in the day, 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.920 like on a Sunday afternoon, but yeah, I haven't watched 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.400 it in a full maybe one day, yeah, one day. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.760 I'll also point out that the best sequence in nineteen 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.960 nineties Tales from the Dark Side. The movie retails the 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.560 classic Japanese ghost story a Yuki ownA The Snow Woman, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.840 but with a with an urban setting and a killer gargoyle. 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:03.480 That's the one that stars James Ramar and Raydon Chong. Yeah, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.320 and more recently, there is a twenty fourteen film titled 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:12.480 I Frankenstein in which Frankenstein's monster battles gargoyles like CGI gargoyles. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.200 And I have not seen that, but there's a part 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:16.760 of me that really wants to watch that. On an 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:17.600 airplane one day. 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.080 You included a screenshot from it. It looks dreadful, just terrible. 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.200 It's got some good people involved. I don't know. Maybe 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.399 it's good. I don't know. It looks like great airplane viewing. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.800 Though, I'm just commenting on the CGI guardboy. No, I 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:33.840 know nothing about the movie. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.560 Now. Curiously, this is one of the things that really 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.240 led me to select this story by Clark Ashton Smith 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.520 is that it apparently plays an important role in the 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:48.240 establishment of the animate gargoyle trope. Though I should note 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.240 that naturally, as we've discussed in the show before, myths 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.960 of sculptures coming to life. These go back to ancient times, 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.159 and we might well look too obvious influences from not 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:05.160 only Pygmalion, but also the Goloam of Prague and so forth. Still. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.200 According to the Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.280 by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, there are two key works, both 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.560 from nineteen thirty two, that seem to influence gargoyle fiction 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.919 to come. One is this story by Clark Ashton Smith, 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.240 and the other is a Lewis Spence tale titled The 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.080 Horn of Vapula or Vapula I'm not sure which, in 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.919 which a gargoyle is not an evil construct but a 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.600 vessel that a demon is bound to by a corrupt bishop. 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.720 He also cites the nineteen seventy two Gargoyles TV movie 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.120 as the first work to establish a gargoyle as a species. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.479 Huh. As a species, you mean, like not just a 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.679 sculpture that comes to life, but as a type of 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.200 living being on its own. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.240 Yeah, Like, these are creatures, and we may have stone 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.720 versions of them that sort of thing, as opposed to 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.639 these are creatures that these are sculptures that we made 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.399 and then they in the case of these two nineteen 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.359 thirty two stories, they either come alive because of the 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.720 dark magic we've put into them one way or another 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.719 from ourselves, or you know, we've summoned some demon out 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.080 of the abyss and placed it in the stone form. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.560 Right, So, the idea of a gargoyle not as a 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.520 generic term for certain types of sculptures or architectural features, 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:22.640 but as like an orc with wings. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:35.200 Yeah, yeah, essentially. Now, when it comes to the reality 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:37.520 of the gargoyle, we could probably do a whole invention 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.560 episode on these. There are a lot of ins and 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:45.960 outs here, with different time periods and different architectural styles, 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.359 and then resurgences of those styles and re explorations of 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:54.679 those styles. But the basics are that a gargoyle is 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.960 an architectural flourish, is a decorative water spout to drain 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.040 water away from the building. And the origins of the 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.720 word itself are often linked to the Old French word gargoui, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.719 as well as the Greek gargarazine. If these words remind 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.720 you of the word gargyle, then right on, because that's 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.960 essentially what we're talking about here, a word used to 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:20.480 describe the clearing or washing of the throat. Again, these 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.760 were animal and or humanoid creatures depicted in stonework with 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.040 rain water draining out of their spout mouths. The basic 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.800 concept here apparently dates back to the ancient world, with 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.160 examples found even in ancient Egypt in ancient Greek architecture 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.120 as well, often taking the form of a lion. And 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.600 it's kind of a no brainer, right, We can't help 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:46.479 but anthropomorphize the world around us, So a drainage spout 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.639 essentially becomes a barfing mouth. You know, many of us 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.480 did the same thing during the height of the pandemic 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.800 with their Halloween candy shoots, like can I get candy 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.119 to a child fifteen feet away from me? And should 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.520 I make it a vomit monster mouth? Of course I 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.240 should make it a vomiting monster mouth. 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.200 Yes, yes, you should. 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.840 Now. The term gargoyle itself really comes about during the 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:13.199 thirteenth century, still referring to water spout flourishes while the 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.800 various other non functional creatures I made out of stones, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:21.960 so various little goblinoid creatures you know, and whatnot on 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.920 the outside or even the interiors of churches. These are 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:31.760 generally described as grotesques or grow teskeries generally apotropaic statues 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.080 to ward off evil, you know, getting down to the 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.399 basic Corgonian impulse that we see throughout human history, like 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:40.879 let me make a monster face to drive away the 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.960 evil vibes. The Catholic Church also sought to use these 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:50.960 statues at times as illustrative aids to reach illiterate masses. 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.200 But a lot of what we think about regarding gargoyles 0:21:54.200 --> 0:22:00.000 today are really more properly these grotesques and growthesqueries as 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.320 pose to something that is actually spitting water away from 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.320 the church. You know, we tend to think more of 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.760 just sort of like corner of the building, monsters leering 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.679 out overlooking the empty space between the church and the 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.560 next building. And you know, and then we also, again 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.359 we have these different periods of like Gothic Revival and 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.040 even Art Deco. The Art Deco period ends up utilizing 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.760 gargoyles of one form or another, depending how stringently you 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:34.719 want to use that term. Like I've seen the iconic 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.719