WEBVTT - Part Two: Halloween Special: Spooky Stories 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.920 Cool Zon Media. 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.160 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.280 the podcast. That's always Margaret reading fiction to Prop. That's 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.480 been the setup of the show the entire time, as 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:14.960 well gaslight you and believing in it. 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.360 I don't know why I keep saying cool people and 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:18.560 is not just cool person? 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:20.960 Yeah, well it was because you too. It's all three 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:22.240 of us. We're all cool people. 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.560 Oh yeah, we're cool, says Margaret. 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:27.720 We are us. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:30.639 The voices you're hearing in case you didn't listen to 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.960 part one is Prop and Sophie. Hi, how are you 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:34.400 all doing? 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:34.959 Hi? 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.640 We are us. You know what I'm saying. Dodgers are 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.880 in the World Series. Yeah, Lakers have won a game 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.640 a game. Yes, it's great being from Los Angeles for 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:46.640 the next two days. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.199 I can bring myself to care about basketball so much 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.080 more than I can bring myself to care about baseball. 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.680 Yes see, here's the trick. No, I'm vibe with that. 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:57.760 The trick is caring about Los Angeles. 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.080 Okay, huh, it's not that care about baseball. But like 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:02.639 the Dodgers, that's culture. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.000 That's culture exactly. The Dodgers are culture. 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:07.080 Yeah, I know that makes sense. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.960 I don't watch Baseball till the playoffs, and only if 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.720 the Dodgers are playing correct, you know, So like, yeah, 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:14.840 it's it's culture. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:16.240 It's literally culture, So. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:17.000 That's what you care about. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.399 I mean, I grew up watching the team that shall 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.680 not be named because I grew up outside d c M. 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:25.560 And so that was the that was the culture of 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.240 watching the Yeah, watching the did they they only changed 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.120 their name to like the Washington Sports team or something? 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:31.960 What did they change their name? 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.160 Commander It's Commanders now, oh okay, yeah, yeah, but yeah 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.920 it at first it was the Washington Football. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.920 Club, yeah, which I thought was hilarious. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.520 Yeah, but it's Commanders now. Yeah. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.240 But then everyone who like was into the culture of 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.440 that got really annoying during all of that, and so 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.720 then I stop paying any attention to it. I know, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.040 everyone tunes in to hear my opinion. 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.960 About all our all our opinion on sports. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.240 Yeah, well you all actually have opinions about sports, so 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:01.240 they're actually interesting. 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.280 I have a good balance within like our group of 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.560 friends of like us who like really like sports, but 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.760 we are self aware enough to relegate that to its 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.400 own group text, you know, and like it's fine, like 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.080 we're not going to subject everybody else to our meme sharing. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.160 I spent so long hitch hiking, and the secret to 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.880 hitchhiking is to just learn what the other person is 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:28.840 interested in and then become interested in it. 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:29.239 Yeah. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.120 Facts, so also the secret of dating. 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:32.679 Yeah that makes sense. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:33.520 How many do you? 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.920 Many friends of mine that like, do not watch a 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.760 single minute of sports, but they come over and they 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:43.040 watch me watch sports, or they like the other day, 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:44.680 I have a friend and I won't I won't name it. 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:50.560 My friend spit out a lebron fact like no other 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.520 and I was like, chills, My soul is. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:55.000 Just kind of. 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:58.840 And then she and then she knew who the enemy 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.440 was too. She knew that's important. She's like, oh, was 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.320 that the guy that got the game winner that made 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.320 you so unhappy that one time? And I was like, yes, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.280 yes it was actually, yes. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.800 Yes, yes it was, yes it was Yeah. 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:12.480 Beautiful. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.160 That is a good love language. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.239 It really is. You know, like, if you are listening 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.600 and you're on the apps, we're giving you incredible game. 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.880 Just just pay attention and be curious and let yourself 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.880 be teachable and don't be weird. Maybe I'm talking to 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.080 the to the cis hep fellas. You know what I'm saying, like, 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.480 can't give nobody else because that's all I know, you know, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.400 So like I'm saying, as cis hep, like just just 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:45.360 listen and be curious, ask questions and don't be weird. 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:46.240 Just don't be weird. 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:47.040 Don't be weird. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.640 Don't be weird. Do you see this person is into sports? Hey? 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.640 Who's your team? Wow? That's dope. Do you go to 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.240 bars to watch games? Oh? Cool? I found a bar 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.440 that's down the street. Maybe we could go watch it there, 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.440 like you see all that's just like, yeah, let's go 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:04.200 watch the game. 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.800 Yeah, I'll see. That's another one. Probably so mad right now. 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.360 I'm so frustrated because it's just like this is nothing, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.640 like this is our scooky season stuff because I just. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:16.760 Be like, in a way, is there anything scarier? 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.599 Yeah? Trying to dating a man, trying to date straight man? 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.919 Yeah, like why y'all so weird? Like I just I 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.440 get so frustrated because of you know, just like the 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.599 mannosphere stuff where I'd be like, fellas, like boys, where 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.760 are your antennas? Like you know this man talking about 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.719 he got seventeen bitches a day? Okay, words, So a 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.320 man with seventeen bitches, right, who make one hundred thousand 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.839 dollars a day on their online store? Why they's selling 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.560 you classes? Don't you think if you had seventeen bitches 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:51.800 and one hundred thousand dollars a day, you would have 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.599 time to be online on TikTok selling people where is 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.040 your Antenna's? Fellas like, I'm sorry, no. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.160 But see this is actually frustrated me about other things too, Right, 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.440 where I like, whenever I want to go, like I 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.120 watch music production videos, right, I'll go on YouTube and 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:07.719 I'll be like, I want to learn how the following 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.680 style is produced. But everyone's just trying to sell you 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.560 the service of like of the classes. And I'm like, yeah, 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.560 I don't want. I want someone who makes music for 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.640 a living, not someone who sells online classes for a living. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.239 I mean, real teachers are real teachers. But it gets 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.240 so scammy so quick, and I'm like, it's so annoying 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.240 to sort through. Who's actually so annoying? 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.839 Man? And just like yeah, I just I'm like, Fellas, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.559 it's like it's really it's really not that serious. Player, 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:43.200 like just it's not that serious. Just it's what do 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.400 you like if you're into something. Would you like people 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.960 to ask you questions about the stuff you into? Do 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.920 you like sharing the things that bring you joy? Okay, 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.360 so do other humans? Uh? Read the story? Read the story, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:56.080 mad guy. 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.080 We're going to read stories. That's why we're here for 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.520 Spooky Week. As Sovieks correctly pointed out, the scariest thing 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:03.640 is dating men. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:08.400 But apologize. I apologize. No, No, I mean you know, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.720 I gotta own it. No, listen, you listen. I had 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.760 to tell me that, Like, listen, if you're in the 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.040 front of a line, that is your line, you are 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.359 responsible for the dudes in the back of the line. 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.360 They still that's still your line, you know. So I'm like, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:23.839 you're right, that's still my line. 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.520 Yeah. Anyway, well it's okay because I don't have any 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:29.919 I'm not in the white line, so it's wait no, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:30.560 yeah I am. 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.760 Yeah, good for you. Yeah. 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.640 So I'm going to read you a story speaking of racists. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.520 Uh have you ever read Lovecraft? 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.720 Because of exactly what you're talking about, Like, I do 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.679 not need I do not need this for for fun. Yeah. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.240 So what I'm going to read you is a story 0:06:55.279 --> 0:07:00.799 that was for a an anthology of people reacting to Lovecraft. Okay, 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.080 and so because I grew up reading some Lovecraft, but 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:05.920 I kind of pretty quickly learned that he was this 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.040 horrible racist, where like, literally I can't say the name 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.160 of his cat, you know, that's how racist he is. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.600 Like that, But I thought it would be fun to 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.840 write a story in which I claim that Lovecraft stole 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:25.400 all of his ideas from a black man. Oh so, okay, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:27.720 that's the story I'm going to read for you. 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:29.720 What is happening? All right? 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.040 And I don't think you know, it's going to talk 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.640 about Lovecraft. This story is going to talk about Lovecraft. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.280 But I think it should work. You know, I haven't 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.760 read everything Lovecraft's written, and you know, for the aforementioned reasons. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:43.120 I'm here for it. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:49.520 Yeah, this story is called The Bones of Children to 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.960 most of society. I am a monster. I don't have 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.160 tentacles or horns or goat's feet or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.320 the first entry of Lieber Monsterum, the oldest known Western 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.440 book of monsters, is a man who dresses as a woman. 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.560 That part's true, by the way, actually, uh oh, and 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.640 then yeah, the first I'm no longer reading the story. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:12.880 I'm just telling you a thinking yeah, I figured the 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.280 first book of Monsters is just fucking the first page 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.520 as a trans woman, and then like page three as 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.880 a black man, you know, like it's. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.320 Like, you know, what's scary? 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.360 Yeah, yeah, exactly, and then it's like a chimera after 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.840 timura whatever, like a fucking you know, like centaurs and shit. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:29.240 Yeah. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.920 Anyway, sure, I'm a woman who dresses like a woman, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.560 but most of society doesn't believe me about that, because 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.719 trans women are still seen as deceivers. That book was 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.760 written sometime in the seventh or eighth century, and I'm 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.640 not entirely certain I can say that much has changed. 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.359 It's strange, then, that I should wind up hunting after monsters. 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.920 It's strange that I should be referring to ancient tomes, 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.520 both real and fictional, as potential sources of truth. It's 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.480 strange that I should come to take loved crafts works 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.800 far too seriously, especially considering what I assume he would 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.840 make of me. It's strange that I should be searching 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.679 in atticts for portals into unknown and unknowable dimensions. Okay, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.040 that last bit would be strange for anybody. I mean 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.600 to say, only that I was a reluctant scholar of 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.280 the occult, as though any claims I might make of 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.200 my inherent skepticism will make what I have to relate 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.640 any more believable. I want to be clear that I 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.000 understand HP Lovecraft to be a writer of fiction. I 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.040 don't think he believed any of what he wrote to 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.440 be true. His work is fanciful, and while his prose 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.520 was outdated even for the time, I enjoy his ability 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.000 to weave stories and touch at the horror hidden inside 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:42.760 the human mind. 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.400 Took all of me not to interrupt you and go, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.119 let's be clear immediately. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:48.520 Yeah, hey, let's be clear. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.040 It's just embedded in my brain. 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.760 Wrot is fucking Lovecraft stuff. 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.240 No, oh, Barack Obama, Barack Obama. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.080 Let's oh shit. Oh okay yeah yeah, second. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.360 Said, I was like, oh, it's like, my brain is rot. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.079 It's mush. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.240 What I've come to believe, however, and what I expect 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.240 to fail to convince you of, is that HP Lovecraft 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.320 worked from sources, sometimes near to plagiaristically, that were not 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:22.240 nearly so fictional. It started with my dreams. I've always 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.520 been a deep sleeper, never bothered much by dreams. No 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.240 dreams so beautiful that waking life cannot compare. No dreams 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.760 so horrid that I wake up screaming. I've always had mundane, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.640 forgettable dreams until two years ago, in my fifth decade 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.840 of life, I moved in with a partner, a woman 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.200 named E. Two years ago, along with a small group 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.200 of miscreants and queers, we'd bought a derelict farm in 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.040 western Massachusetts. Everyone else wanted to build their own houses 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.360 on the property, so E and I moved into the 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:56.080 old farmhouse. Things were fine for the first six months 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.600 when we lived in the library on the ground floor, 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.360 but as soon as we finish renovations on the master 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:06.280 bedroom and moved upstairs, the dreams started. Most of the dreams, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.400 though bizarre, were non egregious. I had dreams about washing 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:15.440 blades and washing bones in a skyscraper overlooking a dead city. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.960 The city was always the same, full of brutalist structures, 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.160 shorter than the tower. The tasks I was engaged and 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.240 changed from dream to dream, but they were always mundane 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.720 and generally contained enough traces of what I'd done that 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.240 day to convince me that nothing untoward was happening to 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.880 my mind as I slept at midwinter, I dreamt of 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.320 carving a living child into quarters. As I dreamt of 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.640 piercing his skin, my hands shook. The visceral feel of 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.440 it made me want to wretch or cry or stop, 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.280 but I did none of those things. As I pulled 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.000 bones from sockets, my whole body shook so hard that 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.559 I woke. I wanted E to hold me, but she 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.800 slept every night with the help of pills, haunted by 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.040 her own nightmares, as she had had been since her youth. 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.160 So I held her instead and cried into her hair. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.800 Only in the morning did I notice the dried blood 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.760 beneath my fingernails. It was E who told me that 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.160 my dream reminded her of a Lovecraft story, The Dreams 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.679 of the Witch House, and set me on the terrible 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.559 path I walked today. I listened to an audio production 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.160 of the story the next day while I worked in 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.280 the garden. Then I devoured book after book, after story 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.400 after poem by H. P. Lovecraft. Every word he'd put 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.040 to paper felt like it hit some discordant note in 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.600 my soul. Okay, I don't believe in soul, so let's 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.880 say brain. Everything he'd written was so close to yet 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.439 so far from some truth. I knew it in my 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.840 heart and by heart again, I mean brain. In the 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.120 story the City of the Elder Things is lit by 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:52.720 three stars, one red, one yellow, one blue. In my dreams, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.080 that dead Brutalis city had three yellow sons, and it 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:01.120 had buildings suited for people, not winged demon barrels. So close, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.880 get so far away. A few weeks later, I had 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.400 another dream about another human sacrifice. I still didn't believe 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.920 the dreams, but I assure you I went over every 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.240 inch of that bedroom with tape measure to prove the 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.080 euclidian nature of its geometry. In the end, I started 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.439 sharing ease medication, and the dream subsided. Thank the Lord, 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.439 and by the Lord, I mean pharmacology and the sponsors 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.920 of this show, which probably include sleep aids. I don't know. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:34.760 Try keep getting me. I started doing this like a 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.400 very long time ago. I would read my partner stories 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.160 and then I would just change them as I was 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.680 reading them, like not stories i'd written. I'd be reading 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.400 her some book and I'd be like, and then, yeah, 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.120 I've learned I should probably just write instead. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:48.960 Was it like waiting for her to catch on? 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.280 Yeah? I think so. It's also a good way to 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.440 test if like someone's falling asleep when you read to 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.320 them totally is he then like you then like say 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.959 their name and just like work in the story and they're. 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.120 Like yeah, uh huh yeah yeah. Oh, I as the 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.800 parent of a nine year old who we just now 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.320 stopped reading our stories at night. Yeah, and like barely, 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.040 like it'll rather than every night now it's like down 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:14.720 to four to five nights. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:15.320 Yeah. 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.120 We all fall asleep before she does, like as me reading, 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.120 or if I'm in the room while Alma's reading, I'm 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.840 dozing off, like she's putting me to sleep. Yeah, it's 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:27.360 just it's great. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.400 One of my one of my best friends, listens to 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.040 my podcast to go to sleep. So now when I 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.000 when I hang out with him, he's like, oh, I'm 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:35.840 getting kind of tired whenever he talked to him. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.120 Man, yeah, stop talking. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:38.560 It's so funny. 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:39.680 Yeah. 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.560 Anyway, what puts me to sleep are the ads? Here 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:55.160 they are and we're back. None of my landmates, least 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.520 of all, my partner wanted to discuss the matter with me. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.760 He herself had lost a child to sit and I 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.000 knew better than to push the issue of dead children. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.359 I did what any girl would do in the same situation. 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.480 I joined a support group for the Lovecraft obsessed. A 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.160 few friends from Boston had been into all this occult shit, 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.640 so I hit them up and started going to meetings, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.920 driving the couple hours every week. They didn't call them 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.920 support group meetings. And if there had been twelve steps, 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.800 they would have been the twelve steps for summoning Yog's 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.120 a thoth or something, not the steps for ridding oneself 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.800 of eldritch nightmares. Yeah no, Lovecraft had terrible names for everything. 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.640 Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.600 I still used it as a support group. Everyone had 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.560 stories about occurrences and observations of the uncanny and arcane. 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.920 I didn't believe any of them, and I eventually realized 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.760 I thought they were idiots for believing me. Still attending 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.600 seemed to quiet the growing nagging sensation in the back 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.160 of my throat, in the back of my mind. It 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.840 stopped for a few blissful hours, the ever present sensation 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.760 I had under my fingernails of rending and tearing. It 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.400 stopped the chanting the demonic mantras that broke into my 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.720 consciousness as intrusive thoughts. A man named Why was at 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.080 almost every meeting. He was a young, attractive, light skinned 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.200 black man with old fashioned spectacles perched perilously on the 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.240 edge of his nose. He always had a different book 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.800 sticking out of his coat pocket, and he always kept 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.640 his eye on the door of wherever we met, often 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.640 a bookstore's basement or some diy show space that would 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.680 never pass fire code. For months, he never said a word. 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.720 Along with the other women and people of color who came, 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.840 we shared a sort of illicit bond. We were the 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:42.160 sorts that Lovecraft reviled, and that brought us together. At 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.160 least I assumed it did. Maybe that was just me 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.080 as a white girl projecting. One night in early May, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.800 at least fifteen of us crowded into the back room 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.080 of a punk owned pizza joint after clothes. We just 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.480 heard from another woman with dreams of child sacrifice frighteningly 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.280 similar to my own, though hers took place in a 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.399 birch forest. When Why walked to the center of the 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.720 room to speak, I'm going to find the witch house, 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.080 he said. That's what Lovecraft called it, right, the witch house, 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.120 a boarding house with the bones of children in the walls, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.520 with a person faced rat in a timeless witch, a 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.960 house with an attic room. You can't measure right, it's real. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.840 I'm going to find it. The room got so quiet 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.480 we heard a bicycle pass on the street. Most of 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.040 you don't know me well enough to know I'm a 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.520 cat burglar by trade, but I am. It pays me 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.200 well enough. I don't have to work more than once 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.280 or twice a year, and I'm good enough at my 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.520 job that even if you ratted me out to the cops, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.560 they wouldn't be able to pin anything on me. I 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.399 don't think. He looked around the room as he talked. 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.040 Gone was the quiet, shy man i'd seen for months. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.399 In his place was a man who was charismatic, outgoing, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.480 with a sort of infectious enthusiasm. I started coming here 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.399 to this group because of a book I found robbing 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.399 a place last year in let's just say, a different city, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.760 a real far north city. I got a tip about 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.200 a rare book collector who didn't treat people very well. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.439 And I like sleeping at night, so I like robbing 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.000 people like that. I got in the front door because 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.520 people think having their locks and alarms and cameras wired 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.280 into the internet is a good idea, made my way 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:15.840 to the library and took my fill. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.000 Such a good line, thanks, and think plugging their locks 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.119 to the internet. It's a good idea, like yeah, maybe 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:24.480 that's yeah, anyway going. 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.879 I sold off the esoteric pornography in the overpriced occultist 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.760 groups easily enough, but some of what looked interesting to 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.560 me was much harder to find buyers. For a few 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.960 things were so rare I couldn't safely move them without 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.639 going through so many middlemen that I wouldn't make shit. 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.199 And a few were just so weird that I couldn't 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.200 figure out how and where to list them, let alone 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.439 figure out how to advertise them as worth anything. He 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.840 walked back over to his chair, picked up his book bag, 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.240 and pulled out a stack of pamphlets and plastic sleeves. 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.080 He held up one, yellow aged its tattered cover, but 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.920 in black letter font I could see the title Ruminations 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.240 on non Secular Matters. He held up another, The Church 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.280 of Christ the Weeping Man, a third Underneath The Dreams 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:16.960 of Men, a final inside the Stars of Gods. I 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.840 looked around the room. All of us were almost hungry 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.879 with desire for those books. Whatever they held, that was 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.560 the sort of obsession. This group fostered that I was 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:29.560 participating in. All of these works are anonymous, all of 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.840 them can be dated to the turn of the twentieth century. 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.879 None of them exists on the Internet, even as references 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.760 or in library catalogs. They're written in fairly different styles. 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.840 If I'd had to guess, I'd say Dreams of Men 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.720 and Stars of God have one author, and the other 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.679 two were written by two different people. And if I'll 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.640 cut right to it, the thing is, I am convinced 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.840 that Lovecraft read these and maybe others in this series. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.720 I am also convinced that these are works of journalism. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.679 I gasped. I was kind of embarrassed by the gesture 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.679 and put my hand over my mouth. But there it was. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.639 Why didn't you say anything? One of the more cumbersome 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.000 of our group asked, that was G. I think there 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.960 were three types of people in attendance, the curious who 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.040 came for entertainment, the cursed like myself, who came to 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.080