Tag: H.P. Lovecraft

The SFFaudio Podcast #711 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Shunned House by H.P. Lovecraft

The SFFaudio Podcast
The SFFaudio Podcast #711 – The Shunned House by H.P. Lovecraft – read by Gregg Margarite. This is a complete and unabridged reading of story (1 hour 7 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Evan Lampe, Connor Kaye, and Jason Thompson.

Talked about on today’s show:
a book in 1928, Weird Tales, October 1937, the S.T. Joshi, a posthumous story of immense power, The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard, it’s been only 15 years since Robert E. Howard’s death, so fucked up, Evan’s podcast about it, Wayne June’s version for Audio Realms, he’s the best narrator for this, why is Poe in this?, he’s really into Poe, wooing, definitely probably didn’t notice this house, irony is seldom absent, what’s happening structurally, somebody buries somebody beneath the floorboards, a lady in a house down the street, two main characters who are bachelors obsessed with a house, what happens to the uncle, he’s killed, he’s homicided by his uncle, six carboys of acid, structurally its very much like The Tell-Tale Heart, ha ha ha I’m doing Poe, stronger or equal to anything Poe ever wrote, tops, weirdness and horror, one of his underrated stories, this isn’t in any of them, a little longer, the buildup, the backend, the release of the tension, very genealogical (hence kind of dull), now that Jason’s a parent, child deaths, everyone dies, everyone goes insane, tragic and emotional events in dry synopses, melodrama, some of his best deep dives into the history of a place and a character, He, using architecture to dig into the history of places, time travel, walking tours, Etienne Roulet, some of the best stuff in the story, the history and ownership of the house, windows, working class experience of horror, the way knowledge is communicated, the grapevine telegraph, so many echoes of other stories, which ones are not included, The Statement Of Randolph Of Carter, The Lurking Fear, the shadow on the mantelpiece, two guys sleeping in a house with disturbing nightmare dreams, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, The Colour Out Of Space, body horror, inverted, a material that goes into living things and pumps it up vs. removing something from living things and making it worse, a disgusting factor in the plants, vampirized vs. injected with tainted materials, vaguely traditional ghost stories, The Unnamable, crazy ghosts, extremely , vital force and attenuated matter, shapeless blobs, shapeless ghost monsters, we see an elbow, two feet in diameter, biceps, he seems to have been growing, they buried a titan, looking into the pit before pouring, Lovecraft knows what’s under there but we only get to see the elbow, a research story, the Indian graveyard, the town graveyard, Elihu Whipple, tricorn hats mad at him, cutting hearts out to kill vampires, a werewolf story from France, his uncle’s really into it, one of these goings back in time, he’s already tipped his hand, archaeological digging is really fun, atmosphere building, a very WWI exhumation of bodies buried, chronologically, nesting, Russian nesting dolls, Carrington brought something back, buried in the basement like a treasure, Jack Roulet, put on trial in France, half-werewolf half-vampire, 16th century people, more vampiric than it is werewolf, drawn to the land, a deeper history here, the entity, live in their own soil, a Dracula story as well, excavated their ancestor, their personal cemetery, we must destroy the memory, fainted suggestive sympathy for the monster, evil wizards, killed by a mob, hostile or seeking self-preservation, being buried alive, preserved himself in his last moments, the creature is alive, whatever it is, The Dweller by H.P. Lovecraft (Fungi From Yuggoth, #31), there’s something under the ground, a yellow day, the factory, pipes are croaking, alive down there but asleep, half-life, undead, growing in size, he’s not just pale he’s translucent, something softer than dirt, a folded stovepipe but rubbery-er, a hard turn materialistic science fiction, a gratuitous body count, we need a flamethrower, a crooke’s tube, like a cathode Ray tube, powerful batteries, positron emitters from Ghostbusters, backpack cyclotron, gas mask, a shovel and some acid, proton packs, so cool, ghost hunting shows, I’m getting em radiation, a great short film, two ghost hunters, 12 minutes long, pretty terrific, the possession, the way the possession works, the vampure thingy is stealing people, vital life essences, they are the haunters of the house, Slither (2006), an alien comes to Earth, a consciousness, monstrous body horror creature, James Gunn, a zombie aspect, sickly and dying get glassy eyed and try to bite, a completely different take, early vampire mythology, get really bloated in their coffins, a corpse being bloated from decomposing, absorbing some life force and getting bigger and bigger, feeding on life-force, a giant, if they hadn’t of stopped it, deleting it, it could have woken up and been a Clark Ashton Smith story,

Antarktos by H.P. Lovecraft
Deep in my dream the great bird whispered queerly
Of the black cone amid the polar waste;
Pushing above the ice-sheet lone and drearly,
By storm-crazed aeons battered and defaced.
Hither no living earth-shapes take their courses,
And only pale auroras and faint suns
Glow on that pitted rock, whose primal sources
Are guessed at dimly by the Elder Ones.

If men should glimpse it, they would merely wonder
What tricky mound of Nature’s build they spied;
But the bird told of vaster parts, that under
The mile-deep ice-shroud crouch and brood and bide.
God help the dreamer whose mad visions shew
Those dead eyes set in crystal gulfs below!

something frozen under the ice that’s going to come out,

The House
By H.P. Lovecraft

’Tis a grove-circled dwelling
Set close to a hill,
Where the branches are telling
Strange legends of ill;
Over timbers so old
That they breathe of the dead,
Crawl the vines, green and cold,
By strange nourishment fed;
And no man knows the juices they suck from the depths of their dank slimy bed.

In the gardens are growing
Tall blossoms and fair,
Each pallid bloom throwing
Perfume on the air;
But the afternoon sun
With its shining red rays
Makes the picture loom dun
On the curious gaze,
And above the sween scent of the the blossoms rise odours of numberless days.

The rank grasses are waving
On terrace and lawn,
Dim memories sav’ring
Of things that have gone;
The stones of the walks
Are encrusted and wet,
And a strange spirit stalks
When the red sun has set,
And the soul of the watcher is fill’d with faint pictures he fain would forget.

It was in the hot Junetime
I stood by that scene,
When the gold rays of noontime
Beat bright on the green.
But I shiver’d with cold,
Groping feebly for light,
As a picture unroll’d—
And my age-spanning sight
Saw the time I had been there before flash like fulgury out of the night.

the accompanying illustration, what is feeding the plants is a coffin, thinking layers, spirals up and down the house, beneath the ground floor, five chapters?, the occupation, the kitchen is in the basement, where the servants are going crazy, neighbouring houses are never effected, the fungus are the reaching out, black mold fucking up people’s lungs, a fungus vampire, spores are bad for your lungs, bad dreams, a toxic house, toxic mold, a ghost story, titan in the basement, tightness of The Terrible Old Man, some really awesome action, fun research in the middle, a happy ending (other than the uncle being dead), gets away with murdering his uncle, his hat is lying there, slime stained underwear, Cool Air, The Thing On The Doorstep also has a hat involved, melting, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar, Body Melt (1993), just as tasteful, The Velveteen Rabbit lady, keep shunning that house, something physical, Hill House is just an evil house, the Marsten House, the Overlook Hotel, into science, Stephen King is not a scientist at all, a psych figure, Poltergeist (1982), buried indians, a suburban house built upon them, the Narragansett Indians, reduced to one man’s research, creepy houses, designate them, made up, based on rumor, the rumors are always true in Lovecraft, the rumors are revelatory, always in the right, true in the game vs. true in the stories, red herrings are only there to improve the story, not to fuck up the story (in good writing), Lovecraft knows what he’s doing, why these guys are unmarried, it’s not their house, what are you doing?, a funny line, my nerves were so shattered I had to write some poems, made me feel better, not the standard dude, the uncle is the stand in for Lovecraft’s grandfather, Elihu Whipple, maternal grandfather, a mixture of a few different family members, one of his uncles, a memorial for his uncle, a dedication to Lovecraft’s own grandfather, a bachelor, shed some tears, he’d still be alive with me here today, another statement (to the police or his own lawyer), to explain the missing uncle, he and Carrington Harris, he can partially backup my story, give an alibi, here’s the keys, all the equipment, fought in the Civil War, lickety split, a doctor in the Civil War, a lot of nautical stuff, a history of the United States, a break with the past, the ship being burned in 1772, set in 1919, 1920, the Klinger anthology, marginal notes, decoded it, made the timeline then wrote the story, some even and now we’re going into the deep history of this, the history of the house (vs. the history of the man), the timeline is very similar, colonial America, maritime history, Georgian America, a Mercy Dexter in this story, the names, Pelleg Harris, Moby-Dick, this is Lovecraft’s take on The House Of The Seven Gables, drink blood, a nice old lady who likes baking cookies, set in a basement, a dusty old house, no monster in the sub-basement, what this has that that doesn’t is a payoff to the awesome setup, The Undying Thing by Barry Pain, born as a werewolf, underground stuff is awesome, crashing down like, the tell-tale elbow, the weirdest part, the vampire loins, it could be anything, planting the seeds early, the apple trees are giving out small sweet apples, enjoys thinking about the house, a vampire in the basement at one point, becoming degraded, Evan needs to do a series on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hepzibah’s gingerbread cookies, more like this, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, get out of New England, escape this past and move on, go to the frontier, I’m going to fix up this nice old house, look at my ancient furniture matches the sideboard, the fanlights are amazing, he should’ve stopped at this house, unremarkable, sinister in his description, exuding a sinister aura, a nice house he appreciated, night black deeds, unnaturally steep roof, corpse fed, the septic tank, rank, a big shit, a physical force, lush, rheumy eyed grass, really gross, the roots of the tree still form the shape of elbows, fingers, still here, but the evil’s gone, a body horror story, a generation of horror, six-seven generations, still-births, on the face of the uncle, hosing down with the proton pack, going Tell-Tale Heart, melted his uncle, yellow gas, he passes out, his gas-mask fails him, the crookes tube has no effect, an old wooden house, a wet house, using flamethrowers inside a house, military flamethrowers, no cameras to document, 12 minutes, an adaptation, good music, this shunned story, the Taiwan lockdown continues, 50 people are moderately sick, people are less crazy [in British Columbia] here now, antibodies test, PCR tests, working from home, people are over it, the first big outbreak, 23-24 million people in Taiwan, there are more people in Taiwan than Australia, crammed in there, size of Australia vs. size of Taiwan, 215 times bigger, so sparse, easier to quarantine, China’s density, hardcore lockdowns in China, Australia: “once we’re vaccinated we’ll just open up”, political, the end of a career, stories from Shanghai, Tasmania is almost twice as big as Taiwan, shipping the vaccinated to Tasmania, Australia shipping refugees to Christmas Island, on the opposite side of the planet, Paul is getting shutout, Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek, spit-all over, so excited, amped up, touching his nose, his brain is redlining, so prolific and fun, Living In The End Times, film criticism, a public intellectual, The Goddess Of Atvatabar, The Screwfly Solution, tripping over her name, The Mystery Of Sylmare, Strawberry Spring, Marissa VU is editing a magazine, lots of time for Jesse’s nonsense, Babbitt up next, The Thing In The Woods, both good and bad news, bad news is bad, good news is German, podcast Cora time, time zone, double good news, disarray, a working holiday, au pair, a tutor for babies, GCHQ doing more evil analysis, the secret cover, Alex from Pulpcovers, NLAWs, 33 billions for Ukraine is 33 billion for the industry, extend a proxy war, 1963-75?, leftover NAZIs with NLAWs, all that money goes to the militias, the alternative, two shitty options, who do you want to be your master?, literally occupied, the Donbas and Crimea, there’s been a war there since 2014, active troops, special operations (not rolling tanks), this is how we make our money, turning off the spigot of Afghanistan, tic tok, $1 for Ukraine added toy your bill, would you like to donate this money to Children’s Hospital, a parasite business, universal healthcare, don’t you have any charity?, automated tips, for the wait staff, a shifting, public goods, care for children who are ill, from government responsibilities, floods, another bloody wave of floods, the charity drops off, Peter Dutton set up go fund me, trained that way, the World Economic Forum, Justin Trudeau, his deputy prime minster, Klaus Schwab, instant disqualification, Bill Gates’ bad press, Elon Musk, fan or stan?, in the guillotine line, Joe Rogan, a mansion, the largest landholder of croplands in the U.S.A., an attack vector, fancy cars, he’s the billionaire who hasn’t gone to space, Bezos Beelzebub, asmodeus, he’s like Tiamat, ok?, Tiamat is female and not a they them, pre-biblical, prioritize, No-Man’s Land by John Buchan, finger bandaid, a baby on each knee screaming in German, a walled city, uberroads, autobahns, ultraroads, Mr Jim Moon, Darlington, a small town in central England, a saga on YouTube and Twitter, political, PayPal cancelling people’s access to their accounts, Russian affiliated media, NFTs, the NFT weirdos, purchasing using crypto, Elon Musk was an early investor in PayPal, Charles Ardai, Hard Case Crime, awesome covers of pulp-style paperbacks, a mix of new and old, Fifty To One by Charles Ardai, the correct vision, why Elon is good too, he has passion for things, he wants to go to Mars, he likes fast cars, interested in everything, who else is making satellite internet?, a lot of change in the world, wanting power, I don’t want nice, I want rockets, anti-union, unions limit power, Toyota, responsibility, not just extracting value, we want workers to be self-actualized, the money compensation is there because the job isn’t fun, given Jesse’s awesomeness, we start with the worst not the richest, Bill Gates, locked-down, this guy with no medical degree has vast control, he stole a computer program, ruthlessness, tiger-eye, hiring a lot of engineers, who has changed cars more?, my Bill foundation, you still shorting Tesla stock?, how to lose a boner fast, he’s trolling the right people, Trump has the right enemies, Julius Caesar had the right enemies, I can see the vast appeal, lying to our faces without a sense of humour, his worst tweet: we will coup whoever we want, reins of power vs. power players, what has Microsoft done for you lately?, they got Skype, did they improve it, still free, an inertia, Discord has been cancelling people, the healthiest ecosystem is still Microsoft, sail across the pacific ocean with a granola bar, Mac’s walled garden, organize, dos a dos Ace Double style, Strange Embrace, Robert McGinnis, leg lengths, long necks, Michael Whalen, fucking fantastic covers, the name of the author, an amazing cover, where in the culture it sits, 2012, 361 by Donald E. Westlake, The Girl Who Electrified Tesla, Gun Honey, modern day pulp adventure, the Gabriel Hunt series, Robert E. Howard style, dangerous book for boys, Glen Orbik, very El Borak, he has the right taste and is enthusiastic about getting things done, The Colorado Kid by Stephen King, Joyland, Later, all the Donald E. Westlake, nice length, The Gods Of Bal-Sagoth by Robert E. Howard, The Black Stranger, he’s like Skeletor except cool, Max Allan Collins, the Quarry series,

The Shunned House - illustration by Virgil Finlay

The Shunned House - illustration by Otto Bumberger

The Shunned House - illustration by Muzski

135 Benefit Street - The Shunned House

135 Benefit Street - The Shunned House

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #708 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #708 – The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood; read by Amy Gramour

This unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 59 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Bryan Alexander

Talked about on today’s show:
The Lost Valley and Other Stories, isfdb.org, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, June 1944, great Matt Fox illustrations, canoes, portage, chasin the wendigo, northern minnesota, portedge vs. port-ahhj, defago, a french canadian accent, when you get your canoe out of the lake and walk overland carrying it, Lewis In Clark, they’re northwest passage moment, how non-wendigo-like this wendigo is, The Weird And The Eerie by Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, the answer is no, is this story weird or is it eerie?, eerier than it is weird?, that fascination, the pull into the horror, a weird feature, easy to conflate the two, an eerie scene, a weird movie, unusual and strange, eerie is on its own orbit, absence vs. presence, seeing it from near Defago’s pov, witnessing with their nose and ears, super-cool, page 61, a failure of absence or a failure of presence, somebody’s talking but your can’t hear them, the absence of the voice, nested story, five guys, off by himself or with a wendigo, the mystery is what is actually happening to him, Easter sunday, the wendigo is Jesus with his feet of fire, tracks becoming like each other, the transformation stuff, so curious, The Willows, a lot more racist, the characters or the author, onto the author, casually thrown in there, the real mythological wendigo, ideas about how the land is empty, places where no one has ever been, natives all up in these areas, untouched by man, pre-Columbus, controlled burns, managed, untrammeled wilderness, this part of Austria that is completely untouched (since the Roman era), building it up vs. ignorance, hyper-maximialized, wendigo psychosis (phenomena), explanations for what happens when one goes wendigos, the Weird Studies podcast, out of Ontario, an incident in 2008, Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Edmonton, in the right area, a carnival barker, “Vince” Weiguang Li, creepy pastas, decapitated and displayed a severed head, consuming some flesh, he plead non compos mentis, an article writer was worried that he may have caused it by speaking the word wendigo, magical thinking, people react, yellow blue flag in bio vs. going to Ukraine to join the fight, Stephen King banned one of his own books (because it was tied to school shootings), this is what I’ve been thinking about, the guy was crazy, technical difficulties, the people who lived in this area, an explanation for strange behavior, he went bersark, in times of abundance, the skinwalker, Ravenous (1999), plenitude vs. starvation, the climate change community, a sick society, suddenly your head’s being cut-off, triggered by real information, fight for the good guys, if you had just written that story, have your book in their locker (or at home), guilt and fear, mythological vs. rational, what stars did I change to change reality, an interesting take what the difference is, a lot more like a visit to fairyland, taken away by the fairies, transformed into a changeling, Connor MacLoud was my kinsman, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the hill is made of the corpses of many many, relish sweet and bitter dew, an essentially cool idea, uninterested, the feet of fire is not in the canon (of the mythology), frostbitten and worn away feet, Algernon Blackwood came to Canada, engaging with the landscape, a ghost story, A Haunted Island, a ghost in the bed, that which has happened or will happen, Accessory Before The Fact, native spirituality or native legend, equally evocative descriptions, listening forest, walking around in the forest, spooky fallen trees, a boat on the lake, being in the woods, is it authentic to any native experience?, a colonialist work, the height of Britain’s imperial power, away from the populace near the U.S. border, Blackwood was fascinated with nature, Arthur Machen, the dramatic power, successive isolation, more and more depopulated, more and more alienated, gorgeous terms, a little more unsettling, the Johnny Cash song, Bryan knows it’s connected, great sentences, the party round the blazing fire, recent moose discovering itself, word turns, musin up the fac, a sulky silence, Punk was washing up the dishes, the stars were brilliant in a sky quite wintry, the silence of the vast listening forest stole forward and enveloped them, no-one troubled to stir it, stealthy ice, a wonderful set of sentences, why Lovecraft likes this, about mood, complex moods vs. complex ideas, companionable silences, structural relationship, being offended, little nothing for the outer story, who’s this narrator, the least communicative character, smart character, the wind comes and stirs up that fire, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s dark and stormy night, the weather is affecting the people, the landscape turns these people into the things they become, caught up in a spell, an inversion of fake realism, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, the climax, please come down, stage setting, stage directions, irrational laugh of horror, distinctly audible, circle of light, stumbling motion, motionless and dumb, withered, violent action, hewn of stone, stricken children, The Blair Witch Project, crunching the frozen snow, measured and pitiless approach, cursed, bends reality, appearances and postcards, distortion of Defago’s body, at length the darkness, terribly conceived, a figure, zone of uncertain light, spasmodic motion of a thing moved by wires, it was a man, a skein of horror, three pairs of eyes shone through it, robots and things, do you think it’s the wendigo?, his feet, something horrible with his feet, something dark and oddly massed where moccasined feet, covered it with a blanket, yanked away, not a normal french name, a bundle of sticks, fire, they replace your baby with something that isn’t your baby, corn dollies, True Detective, stick dollies, Downs syndrome, magical requirements of the spell, a mockery of the man who was taken away, visiting via him, back to the real guy, telepresence, its a puppet, stop motion animation, slightly more jaggy, Simpson watching close behind him, the impression of a mask, black and diabloical, revealed in utter nakedness, biologically inhabited, totally erased, possession, becoming wendigo, trying to start a fire, eaten away from the inside, a matchstick lit from the bottom, gravity, as a phenomenon, literal fire or frostbite, what is the wendigo doing across the landscape, people love to draw the wendigo, an outline, a vague figure, Roof Bear, picking up Coffee Cat, the opposite of warmth, dropping frost, what does the wendigo eat, it eats moss, moose, the moose is hunting them, the spirit of winter, the spirit of the land, uninhabited because of how harsh it is, the moose finds them, why it has horns, human scale, antlers, Cernunnos, the deer/elk god of Celtic mythology, the hunt, a hunting expedition

When Did I Go? by Jesse:
My hike through the subarctic foothills that summer suddenly turned sinister when the bridge I had meant to cross was suddenly washed out by a late spring flood.

I’d begun my trek west through northern Alberta and into its border in the North-West Territories in late May, back when my skin was sallow, and my hair short.

Now, in late June, my hair was in my eyes as I thought I should return to that last homely shack I’d seen, the one with the collapsed verandah, just thirteen kilometers back.

My feet felt hot as I turned on the trail where the three lonely larches had turned a lovely and sickly green, that shack held nothing, nothing but a history, a history of this lonely landscape, as it was perfectly placed to shelter me and my needs.

And as I approached the sagging shanty I noticed again that broken sign on the trail’s bed, flipped it over, saw a new growth of lichen had obscured a few of the obscene words scrawled upon its pitted surface.

As I read the words aloud to myself and the wind under those familiar twilight stars I began my hysterical laughter: “Yukon run, butt chew can’t hide from the THING inside” it read.

And as I threw the sign to my feet and crawled under that broken and redolent verandah into what was once my home, I smiled, cracked open my preserves, and began feasting on the salted man-meat I’d made on my last trip through.

THE END

stealing a little, the unconscious, explaining why people do things is hard, explicit, we have a theory, this is the wendigo, how do we know?, feeling hysterical, went out for a pee, the outer narration is very unsympathetic, he’s cheating, the landscape, somebody’s mouse, a companion sentence, the personification of inanimate things, the landscape is doing something for our experience, scent and smell, what he smells like, the wendigo smells acrid, like lion, musky, lions don’t eat moss, like a living animal, off by 7, food and fire, inwardness, “something he called a wendigo”, mental excitement, that extraordinary odour, pungent, 50 Island Water, a foolish avowal, the preposterous language, an exact miniature likeness, a wholly incredible distance, the fiery tinge in the snow, hesitant on the one and sure on the other, I’m in my right mind now, steam?, char?, burnt off, stumps, do we even see?, lying and concealing, the effect upon the reader, H.P. Lovecraft, its surrogate, you see it by its scent, its effect in the ground, tracks leading through a field, up into the sky, on the treetops, Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire, a religious and sexual vision, covers, down down down I went, mythic ring, not quite as awesome as The Willows, Mr Jim Moon, “the ghost man”, the British love their ghost stories, a Christmas tradition, M.R. James, Henry James, a nested narrative, people going away from civilization into the wild, into a Canadian canoe, birch bark canoe, so light, so lovely, make one?, a skin of birch, chopping, marking the trees, so I can find my way back, Hansel and Gretel, blazing the trees, a nice pun, it’s going to hear me, structured, 5 to 2 to 1, 1 to 2 to 5, like the Apollo missions, that style of a story, Operation Black Buck, the Falkland Island War, the fuel planes refueling each other, such a massive distance, this expedition into the wilderness, an telescoping antenna, what was in contact, as it collapses back down, that story structure, how did he manage to do it just this well, an extraordinarily good story, an oblique angle, public domain stories, what responsibility in republishing a public domain story, the PDF Page, Wayne June read a story by Lovecraft, Mr. Niggerman vs. Mr. Blackman, The Rats In The Walls, Jesse’s responsibility, directly offended, present reality as it is as it was, fix history by taking out the icky bits, a terrific story, people’s fixations change, some words are taboo, those words have been replaced, earliest publications whenever possible, taking out illustrations, see the original context, William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe, there’s a joke in the first line that tells you, The Gift, “In the present volume”, taking out information or lying, the racist character or the racist author, replacing Nigger Jim with Robot Jim, not everybody starts in a position of complete knowledge, this particular story, the n-word popping up, the turd in the punchbowl, thrown in here randomly (seemingly),

He watched the men a moment longer before diving into the stuffy tent where Simpson already slept soundly. Hank, he saw, was swearing like a mad African in a New York nigger saloon; but it was the swearing of “affection.” The ridiculous oaths flew freely now that the cause of their obstruction was asleep. Presently he put his arm almost tenderly upon his comrade’s shoulder, and they moved off together into the shadows where their tent stood faintly glimmering.

the progressive era was the most racist point in American history, meet up in Burlington, struck by the senses, key plot points, the conclusion ends on sense, “He knew what it all meant. Défago had ‘seen the Wendigo.'”, is sound the only trustworthy sense in the story, this is a cube, put in my hand, a scent can be mysterious, pulp mill towns, Thunder Bay, if you live there you don’t notice it, smell is literally invisible, desensitized to it, no need to present this to the brain, hearing a sentence, sight is something we question, smell is less reliable than hearing, sight is more reliable than hearing and scent, putting it in your hand is the most reliable, manuscript found in a bottle, we’re physically holding it, what we’re left with, reversing the human experience, sight and sound, because we don’t have the embedded, me our your lying eyes, we might have a verbal agreement, might hold up in court, send me a fax with your signature on it, makes it real, hearsay, I had a whiff that he was a serial killer, undergrad English majors to lawyers, Nunavut territory hunt, Paul comes back with an armful of fish, the senses are crucial, the unreality of this story, by eating the liver of a polar bear, ecological literary criticism, vegan diet, killing and living on animals, death by starvation, that dependence, “He realized his own utter helplessness. Only Défago, as a symbol of a distant civilization where man was master, stood between him and a pitiless death by exhaustion and starvation.”, the wood, there to eat, an emblem of community’s starvation or too much food, getting the right amount of food to live on, insatiable greed hungry excess, gluttony greed and excess, Blackwood out hunting and canoeing, a leftover from the coureur de bois era, Punk is a crazy name, Tonto, Vivian, a UK name, a boy named Sue, back to Johnny Cash, turnabout is fairplay, poor Marissa, Jesse, Paul, and Bryan, how bad Vermont internet was, what is our duty?, in podcasting terms, in fifty years what are people going to want to have from this podcast?, to understand us better, the latest Dan Carlin podcast interview, Hardcore History Addendum, when a war is happening today, Ukraine, how will people fifty years from now understand us better, Edgar Allan Poe, in the year 18__, be as faithful and understanding as you can, the long tail of the audience, the tail is much longer than that first week, 70 years late would be fine, a perishable age, all your DMs are going to be destroyed, all the ephemeral messages, text chats, podcast resilient, what happened to all the blogs?, the revised manuscript for his new book, possible extinction of the human race, a great conversation, cell phone as a hotspot, a good trick, why does Vermont internet suck so much, for profit telcos, repeated screwups, terrain, lots and lots of woods, small mountains, the wendigo interfering with our podcasts, a bad internet weather day, Elon Musk satellite internet, moving into the forest, pre-Starlink satellite internet, Starlink sent to Ukraine, 2g speed with Russian forces, Crimea, re-annexation, support for Assad in Syria, implausible, Strawberry Spring, Everything’s Eventual, a Spingheeled Jack story, an eerie phenomenon, peak up, the basketball game experiment, if you could only have one author on a desert island, Lawrence Block, re-read and find new things, Gene Wolfe, Cavalier, you can buy Hugo awards on ebay, No-Man’s Land, Uluru, it belongs in a museum!, heist story in which plucky band of wokesters steals all the stuff from the British museum and give them back, cynical Cirsova guy, ladies need eyebrows, the Elgin marbles, Greece is in such, privileging nation states, totem poles in England, trophies, the obelisk, the duly elected government, Aswan Dam, future us’ problem, claims lose power over time, shipping stuff back, without context, “here are the Elgin marbles, ha!”, a thorny problem, when Greece takes Big Ben, the Mexicans who now run England (with Russian accents), Jesse’s mom is moving, Vancouver Island is for retired people, YouTube photographers, videos, Amanda and Gavin, YouTubers tubing together, Nova Scotia is cheaper, seeing icebergs, an Israeli 7.62, Shaun Duke.

Lynd Ward art for The Wendigo

Lynd Ward art for The Wendigo

The Wendigo art by Matt Fox from FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES

The Wendigo art by Matt Fox from FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES

Wendigo - frequency: Unique - from Dragon Magazine, issue 38

Roof Bear, Coffee Cat, Wendigo

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #707 – READALONG: Villains Of All Nations by Marcus Rediker

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #707 – Jesse and Evan Lampe talk about Villains Of All Nations by Marcus Rediker

Talked about on today’s show:
Atlantic Pirates In The Golden Age, 2004, the narrator, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, And The Hidden History Of The Revolutionary Atlantic by by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, a lot of overlap?, the hydrarchy, dueling powers, bottom up, from above, the authority of the sea, abolitionism, the Putney debates, sailors are the threads, not the best scholarship, a concise argument, struggling with evidence, where the sources are weak, correct conclusions, a longer book, right on almost everything, a claim in the introduction, women went into piracy and discoursed on gender, a means to discuss those things, class, race, gender, the dual terrors, really convincing, to talk about terrorism, the Noam Chomsky arguments, state terrorism, the War on Terror, something not mentioned in the book, the Jolly Roger, to make the icon on twitter, the colour, the black flag, the black standard, 2014, 2022, the ISIS flag, 1716-1726, the last phase of the golden age, the barbary coast, book piracy, Captain Phillips, the excuse for Djjibuouti, corporations from all nations, not just contrast, these are not satanists exactly, not conforming to Christianity’s authority, why Roger is so jolly, the second meaning: fucking, making merry, what the pirates want to do, party, dancing, getting drunk, merry Christmas, a warm glow, happy fucking, death is coming, a momento mori for the whole ship, they know they don’t have long, as an extended slave rebellion, fly away from danger, and fly to party houses, take their stuff and go party with it, an intellectual history, how liberty and the French Revolution (and the American Revolution) coming out of it, Black Sails, 1715, the Bahamas, declaring war on the whole world, Charles Vane, John Rackham, Mary Read, Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard is not what you think, a prequel to Treasure Island, pirates don’t bury their treasure, an egalitarian society, an adaptation of this book the themes of democracy, maroons, runaway slaves, one of the best arguments, revenge, they purposely went after the slave trade because they despised it, they hated slavery, they slowed down the slave trade, and what caused their persecution, hurting them where it hurts, modern day connections, the propaganda against pirates, Cotton Mather, we gotta not send our children to sea, sea conditions are so bad, pressure against regular against internet piracy, Kim DotCom got raided in New Zealand, so much piracy has been domesticated, the Napster stuff, albums in the 90s had one hit song, I can just get the one song, how this becomes tamed, you wouldn’t steal a bike, everything its on youtube, spotify, ads, streaming for movies, 50 different streaming services, a wave that won’t go away, the Azov battalion, Ukraine has a Nazi problem, they’re on our team, the propaganda against pirates is needed because they’re attractive figures, Robin Hood is a folk hero, he and his merry men are there to have fun and make hay while the sun shines, figures to be made fun of, gallows humour, the church is something you can’t trust, Ivanhoe, everything bad is King John, free men hunting in the kings woods, outlaws, wolfsheads, making outlaws our outlaws, ‘Al-Qaeda is on our team is Syria’, the U.S. is funding Al-Qaeda in Syria, strange bedfellows, this book is about power, one of the responses to Rediker, pirates were petty capitalists, making a separate social order, a more rational marketplace, when markets matured pirates weren’t needed anymore, same propaganda to tame them, rock and rollers, so rich, Neil Young and Spotify, a monetary move, apply pressure, Joe Rogan’s ruining the world, if we think of rock and roll connected to be being merry and piratical, siton your treasure, he never was a punk, Lipstick Traces, counterculture, punk was never that mainstream, an ability to sell-out, they’re not gathering funds for a mortgage, cruelty from the masters, low pay, bad food, sickness, disease, a revenge principle, Nietzsche master morality vs. slave morality, the romans worshiped power, being cruel to your slaves was moral, a new religion coming from the east, Greek tutors, turn the other cheek, rotting in hell vs. living in heaven, the way of peace, the whole state apparatus, a capitalist realism way, a more sophisticated tool, Christian pirates (nominally), put them in slavery, kept them sick, injured, not enough alcohol, I’m a devil worshiper, inverse slave morality is no respect for authority, our only god is death, our only god is making jolly, not sustainable (they lost), a human lifespan, the particulars don’t kill piracy (just this golden age), without ourselves against those who wish to control us, you need to pay for my profits, not getting what you were (supposed to be) paid, a revelation to see it as a slave rebellion, the main plot point, Captain Flint, a particular treasure ship, dissatisfaction, ahistorical, quartermaster emphasis, Rackham was on Vane’s ship, fuck Treasure Island?, Starz, Spartacus is very class conscious, focus on sexuality and human bodies, the children’s book, where it veers, Flint’s overall goal is to negotiate with the capitalist system, I will be your king, the most ahistorical part of the show, it shocks the boatswain, there was no alternative to kings, there was no country without a king, Holy Roman Empire republics, England was the most democratic place on the planet, Florence, on the Roman model, the rise of empire, consolidation, Italy being turned into a country, when Germany gets its shit together, the way the Prussians thought about it, they way we’re teaching historical narratives, new interpretations, critical thinking, why do we make our narrative a history of states, progress, why is that the case?, France becomes a nation state by repressing local culture, the same propaganda, speak the same language, the Yiddish Press in New York, super-socialist, anarchist, communist, teach them English, that’s happening today, imposing a state on the sea, brutal violence, public hanging, pardons, the power dynamic is not as monolithic as it is here, suppression, lockdowns, kicking people off platforms, George Galloway, a former Labour MP, RT has been banned, Russian State Affiliated Media, Ed Schultz, Abby Martin, Chris Hedges, no Russian content at all, interviews with Cornell West, interviews, commentary and criticism, nobody gets a pardon anymore, applying to faceless corporations for review, African slave trade, the Royal African Company had stockholders, hope for their ship to come in, make new laws, this will solve things, sea-raiding, a pardon for all piratical activities, a free pardon, the buccaneers and the privateers, state mercenaries, Europe was in constant war, now you’re a warship, letters of marque, part of the defense budget, how it works with Al Quaid, stingers, 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, bad dirty feet on our holy soil, declaring war on the most powerful, the invasion of Iraq, disband the army, ISIS, let’s focus on Syria (what’s important right now), we’ve got a pipeline to put through, the pardons are not publicly stated, those guys were Nazis ten minutes ago, deathsheads on their uniforms, the ADL say they’re not Nazis, whipping gypsies in the street, a critique of capitalism, the origin of Capitalism, an expansion of one chapter, the share system, pay vs. shares, pre-money, the Romans, constant war and expansion, paying their troops with slaves, land too, but mostly slaves, fucking around in Gaul for a decade, enriched by the slaves, a co-op, the CEO gets paid more than a line workers, pirate charters, 1.5 shares for a captain, captains murdered by their crew, reading and navigating, reading, the quartermaster, the connections to the tribune, a stupid system in Canada, senators are appointed for life, party loyalists, tenure, untouchable by federal party in party, senatorial removal, 9 supreme court justices, a super-reactionary institution, political appointees, a quartermaster as a balance to the captain’s power, states on a ship, in battle they are at war, the articles are their constitutions and the captain is not their king, writing that first constitution, tradition, Artistole, the Athenian constitution, the Iroquois, “on account”, bandits and pirates, Eric Hobsbawm’s Bandits, an escape valve, providing hope, releasing the pressure a little bit, redistribute the wealth a little bit, stickin it to the man, the signing of the articles, I never signed onto the constitution and I never will, signing up for the Boy Scouts, a non-sea shanty, an implicit submission in that song, the U.S. founding fathers worried about this, Thomas Jefferson, re-write the whole thing every seven years, after the Civil War, repealing prohibition, voting rights, getting rid of slavery, defining citizenship, signing on, churches are even better at this, a class, confirmation, the age of consent, by reading from the Torah, confirmation for Christians, 13/14, at the beginning of your adulthood, adult baptism, children can’t consent, Jesus was baptized as an adult, re-baptized, born again, anabaptists, the Quakers, the puritans, religious nuts, strong opinions, the Putney Debates, debating class, authority, aristocracy, the New Model Army, spread these ideas, these tendrils of knowledge and discourse, across the Atlantic, carried by the sea, in H.P. Lovecraft, The Call Of Cthulhu Castro, a weird cult that no-one in the straight society likes, the interview, Cthulhu promises us freedom in this world and revelry, we’re not going to be slaves in this world, we’re not going to mortgage our lives, Cthulhu is beyond good and evil, same with the Deep Ones, immortality, kings under the sea, freedom in the sea, the same language, Robert E. Howard’s pirate stories, The General History Of Pyrates by Charles Johnson, disrespect for hypocrisy, the Voluminous Podcast, Howard was offended, how crime works in the South West, wanting to have children do better, pioneering, moving to get away, gun culture in the USA, keeping guns to keep the king honest, you better not come into my house, the fear and escalating via swatting people, we need to be able to crack down, Black Panthers are getting uppity, open carrying weapons, Paul has respect for the state in the way that Jesse does not, the police are there to keep order (or as the unfair captains of states), not sharing with the workers on the ship of state, having access to the ship’s store of arms, the Roman dictator, going to a frontier, the tradition, relinquish the power and currency and disband their army, not bringing armed troops into the city, to keep the state afloat in the right way, thinking of nations as something of value, everybody has a blue and yellow sticker in their twitter bio, a good person always trying to help things, people are suffering, teaming up with one state against another, inescapable capitalist realism, a badge or a patch, swearing to obey, submitting to power, if the captains hides information, the incident with the dresses, no guard on the shared hold, how dare you, to be sold at auction, a hint in the opening episode, John Silver, a cook, hiding something of value from the crew he’s joined, open up the books, if you can’t read, we have to rely on our representatives, in collusion with the captain, on a small ship of state with a black flag, connecting with the creation of the USA, the John Locke connection, the provinces, Providence, the state of Massachusetts, the spread of these ideas, writing fiction, show grammar, a thinly veiled description of the Boston Tea Party, dressing up like Indians, we are the natives of this land, we are protesting, we are barbarians, what January 6th was about, British provocateurs in the Boston Tea Party?, the etymology of the word strike, sailors striking the sales!, is Evan super-jealous?, Pacific history, blackbirders in the South Pacific, logbooks, not many mutinies, the Bounty mutiny, near mutinies, someone was beaten, put in irons, protesting to the mate, its really tense for a moment, a non-shitty captain, Captain Bligh, near-mutinies were common, worried about the competition?, how upset would he be that Jesse pirated his book?, he can be upset if he wants to be, Peter Linebaugh is more openly political, May Day, the commons, outwardly political, The London Hanged, dense and hard to read and wonderful, violence against the working class in England, theft over a pound, transportation was the out, pleading the belly, on account I’m pleading the belly, Newgate, Belmarsh, Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle, a right-winger?, a believer in tech, tech salvation, gaols vs. prisons, commerce, prostitutes could come in, I’m a young woman, I steal a bunch of silverware, a capitol offense, wink at a guard, the name of Evan’s book: pleading the belly, Jack London’s south sea island books with dogs, Jerry Of The Islands, Goliah, such a great story, a huge book, The Call Of The Wild, a terrier’s pov, blackbirding, slavery by another name, The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism And Black Slavery In The South Seas after the Civil War by Gerald Horne, John Barleycorn, Michael: Brother Of Jerry, this amazing place, Robert Louis Stephenson, Treasure Island, pre-homework, Tahiti, wife and step-kid, not an asshole, pretty cool, Travels With A Donkey in Spain, pirate charters, Daniel Defoe, Captain Charles Johnson, The General History Of Pyrates, fun names, Vane is a fun name, famous pirates, the two lineages of pirates, two families, jolly rogers, the final form, the dinseyfied version, the hourglass, skeleton, black background, paintings from the Middle Ages, Cockaigne, highly literate and oversexed monks, the land of milk and honey, hanging out with the nuns down the street, the dork version of pirates, making memes about what would be fun, waifu pillows, breaking out of the monastery, taking the ship of state and going a-pirating, cheese raining from the sky, a hilarious thing, a bottom up thing, something that comes down to us from such a long time ago, an interesting connection, all brothers of the sea, some sisters in there, not racist when thinking about freeing slaves, recruiting, make more liberty, make more merry, doing piracy today, the US military rules the seas, there literally in the Black Sea, the Red Sea, they’re on every sea, Aral Sea, the US Coast Guard is off the coast of Iran, maroon communities, places to run to, aggressive behavior, new society, new rules, the seas were a wild place, the taming of the wild spaces, where does piracy move to, this ethos, Jesse James, the outlaws of the old west, the Frank/Younger gang, the underclass, every man’s hand is against them, shot in the back while hanging a portrait, bounties, shooting outlaws, that outlaw spirit, crossing oceans, into boats, loading stuff on, an ability to trade and get things, you need to follow the more experienced person, how to navigate, before public GPS, how to tie ropes to the docks, you need to learn how to swim, like school, farming, harvesting, less fraught, the weather, time of day on the land, running your ship afoul, a need for skill, a need for respect, the pay is low, disconnected from most people’s lives, an anchor tattoo, a writer, a gay man, the merchant marine, a thing that profoundly changes a lot of people, the sailoring business, bully and bluff, a fight with Houdini, how terrible it was to be a merchant sailor, Luke Burrage, cruise ship, the talent vs. the crew, Philipinos, Malaysians, the global north, bullshit jobs, engaged in production, resistance is more significant, how we started this conversation, author and editors doing all this work for free, writing fiction for tiny audiences, late capitalism, teaching, our jobs exist (teaching) because of higher institutions, the byproduct of teaching is learning, the veins and the arteries, preying on the slave trade, railroad workers, the great railroad strike, Starbucks workers unionizing, the resistance and dismissal of the Truckers, the lack of acknowledgement of the yellow vests, blocking access and refusing to tow trucks, seeing Justin Trudeau, a war measures act in everything but name, seizing people’s bank accounts, Greta Thunberg, gas prices, ordering from Amazon, buying dog food through the mail, there aren’t that many independent truckers, the land problem, the original Mad Max (1979), two stories, the story of the toe-cutter gang, road pirates, reduced government power, incompetent government?, the life of the merry, disrespectful, the legend of the Night Rider, his scag, he falls apart emotionally, threatening communities, drunken, lascivious and rude, pirate swearing, a call for non-decorum, conversation in the discourse, some words are not allowed to be said, people with callouses on their hands, this is bullshit, the word bullshit is taboo, the constant replacement (euphemism treadmill), increasingly few kids at the grocery store, a kind of discipline on the crew, disciplined for expressing dissatisfaction, oppression from above, collegiality wasn’t written into the pirate codes, if we have a beef we have it out on the shore, formal and ceremonial and more accurate, somebody did some homework, making war on the world, we have this set, bringing all those sailors who are watching it, a lot of money, the right move, not enough sea-action, they don’t like sailing they like partying, sex and drama, Spartacus did it better, four season, Spartacus is so smart, Blood And Sand, the psychology is brilliant, my identity is tied to my , internalized their slavery, their favourite baseball player, a fraternity of players, what a big deal, when Wayne Gretzky left the Oilers to go to the L.A. Kings, emotional trauma, Edmonton is just so great, so naive and dumb, extreme loyalty, Any Given Sunday (1999), all about class, class solidarity, loyalty, I Am Spartacus, embracing his slave identity, we don’t know his real name, Batiatus, Crixus, the drama with the wife, the psychology behind being feted and respected as a slave, a star football player and criminally underpaid, baseball lockout, on the team with the guy with the tool in his hand, The Many Headed Hydra, Will would be get on this, Milton, literature connections, William Blake, Tyger Tyger, a radical anti-capitalist interpretation, horrible scary awesome creatures, the hydra metaphor, the hydra was the good guy, Hercules, the state has to be Herclues, on the side of the monster against the gods, Thungerb challenged her parents to lower their carbon footprint, becoming vegan, upcycling, giving up flying, popular with a certain set, Naomi Klein’s argument, we need to dismantle capitalism, a kid, George Galloway, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann is not a threat, running a political party, Jeremy Corbyn, being a bad pirate, a progressive, a left wing democrat, Predator guy, I ain’t got time to bleed, Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, state affiliated media, opposed the Iraq War, I will always speak out against war, there’s a lot of pressure to suppress, youtube, twitter, facebook, The Thing In The Woods, the author of the Velveteen Rabbit, a werewolf book by an American, something freaky about that book, it being a stuffed animal, stuffed animals trying to kill Evan, ideas for making money, a stuffed dragon with tiger print skin, Peter Rabbit, a horror story, Mr McGregor’s garden, a big white beard, god chases him around the garden, the bold one, he almost dies, Margret Williams, can you tell by looking at someone’s behavior that they have Asperger’s?, is Evan aspy?, is Eric Rabkin aspy?, spectrum diagnosis is very suspicious, always missing the context in direct messages, here’s somebody’s tweet and here’s my response: Jesse “I know other people are starving and unable to move out of their parent’s homes but I’d really like to quit my office job and write full time”, Jesse: “speaking of which, have you seen Hunter Biden’s meth mouth?” Evan: “He used to lick milf pussy. Sad.” a reference to Trump, laptop pictures, him with the milfs, lady on a chain by her hair, the president’s son whose existence was a non-entity until we find out he’s getting paid $50,000 [a month] for a no-show job in a country the United States is trying to steal from”, Jesse: “watched first episode of Moon Knight”, Evan: “does Squirrel Girl show up?”, Jesse: “not so far”, Evan: “Pity. She’s hot. I think she’s autistic. Can she be hot? She has a tail. Butt plug with tail. That is a thing.”, Jesse: “Wow.”, Evan: “watch more documentaries on porn hub”, Belmarsh Prison is in the latest James Bond movie, I was glad James Bond was dead, where they’re keeping Julian Assange, a previous Bond movie had a Julian Assange character, an evil program, smartblood for no reason, still talking about documentaries on PornHub, I can’t pay my rent, do they still have stories, why pornos still have stories, theories of story, stories are about conflict, Clifford Simak stories, conflict in the universe, Waystation, seeing things revealed, a slight misunderstanding for a minute, what stories are at core, you order a sausage pizza, that is a story, it doesn’t have any conflict, that’s a display (not much of a story), why do you need that at all, go right into the fucking, a forty minute scene, Emanuelle (1974), a full length feature film, tags, stepsis, same stories again and again, Jesse needs to study more, researching later.

Villains Of All Nations by Marcus Rediker

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #706 – READALONG: Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #706 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
Stephen “Shitlib” King, on twitter, Marissa, what’s a shitlib?, explaining without being derisive, at the heart of his character, urban dictionary, portmanteau, leftist, spinelessness, hypocrisy, vote blue no matter who, hit the phones, an American treasure, fear of political radicals, Randall Flagg, Under The Dome, anxiety about radicalism among boomers, he’s not stupid, blinkered on some political issues, Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997, novella, his psychology is on display, JFK, he can’t get JFK out of his mind, he’s not willing to accept, of more than one mind on things, why his characters can be so good, a terrific story in terms of readability, a small idea sustained for 2 hours, not that much material going on, the little drips, the chronology of this story is so well done, he hints that he murdered this guy, murder, what he can do and what he did do, a trailer, 2008 adaptation, “dollar baby”, SK will let you adapt anything for $1 (for no commercial students), what makes him a shitlib, I’m wealthy, I want to make everything post scarcity, he can’t be that, he does this half-measure, John Scalzi, no where in the league of Stephen King, filmmakers have a lot of interest in this, you want to do it that’s great, that’s why we don’t get to see this movie, an advocate of public domain, decry, an exemplar of his shitlibbery, he’s also a brand, offensive adaptations, diminishing his stature, it has hurt Shakespeare’s reputation greatly, a right wing screed, how could Stephen King let Trump do that?, he’s not going to get shit on by random people, Caitlin Johnstone, Australian, an online twitter commentator, you work for RT, you can do anything you want with my stuff as long as you’re not racist, you can’t really control what other people do unless you’re Stephen King, what piracy is, worrying, Stephen King knows JFK’s assassination isn’t on the up and up, who is this transcorporation, a dinky tranny, why he hasn’t been canceled yet, he wants to keep his reputation as a shitlib, trying to reconcile and can’t, a generous person who loves are but can’t, Richard Bachman, books, an extreme critique of American capitalism, massive dissatisfaction, this nefarious corporation, the government, a secret organization, people who shine, The Dark Tower, Firestarter, kill off people who are threats to the system, written around 1997, these are the people the system allows to exist to give them legitimacy, critique the system slightly from the left, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, they’re who Stephen King wants to be, the true threats to the system, the general who turns his back on war, and who is going to run for office, a lib columnist, the pope and the dog (Muffins), they’re not targeting prison abolitionists or anti-capitalists, that’s true, he could have highlighted any three people, he sees them as threats to the system, if this story was set in the 1960s, would Martin Luther King be targeted if this was set in the 1960s, Dolores Claiborne, he can’t resist to demonize a character, an obsession he has, Camelot and what might have been RFK, JFK was not a shitlib, a tool of American empire, he was trying to dismantle, why did they kill him?, he was fighting the military industrial complex, he was a cold warrior, he talks like a cold warrior, invading Cuba, aircover for the Bay of Pigs, a great betrayal of the deep state, the CIA, the Cuban expatriate right (wing), Florida, too soft on Kennedy, Jesse denies killing killing Kennedy, The Devil’s Chessboard, the Dulles brothers did it, the FBI was run by a guy who had massive power over presidents, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles was fired by JFK, why Oswald killed JFK, in the area, the Zupruder film, suppressed since the 1960s, he wrote a book 11/22/63, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, he’s not willing to accuse his Uncle [Sam], what this story is about, why Evan picked this story, Call Him Nemesis (is a) superhero origin story by Donald E. Westlake, three help Roland, Dinky Earnshaw, his one true multiverse, like Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire, Robert A. Heinlein, The Number Of The Beast, Gulf, Friday, why is Pug in this story, the guy at the super-saver, The Mist, autobiographical stuff, the themes of the story, most of us, the vast majority of our talents are wasted, like Stephen King, this grocery store, the recruiter, the mom, Sharpton, what’s so powerful about this story, your talent is useful, so seductive, fall into the trap, trained to do horrible things, give them a home, easy to justify, wipes out a wedding in Yemen, Afghanistan, more egregious, a seductive reality, people want to be useful, do nothing all day, take photos all day, free of economic constraints, wasting real talent, how many Mozarts are working in some coal mine, Ansel Adams working as warranty administrators, recruited into the military, your country needs you, if you work hard you can advance up the ranks, the army made me the man I am today, Starship Troopers, the satire, my doggy thing, an image of a guy throwing change down the drain on the side of the road, fire hydrants, rain gutters, as a kid that’s what you’re close to, as a shorter person, those summers last forever, your grade 8 summer, not sending to Nyarlathotep, why would anybody throw clothes down there?, get rid of the money, great writing, what isn’t answered, pug is also a funny name, fuck Mrs. Buckowski’s dog, he hates the dog, his hatred for dogs, Muffins is a dog, transforms in his dream from Pug into Skipper, he knows he’s killing innocent people, he’s killing pugs, what we know about psychopaths, killing animals, Dink is a very nice guy, pizza face, chocolate, we like him, at the end of the story, it’s going to go there, the tie, “company”, a cutout for the CIA, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Courtney Brown, remote viewing, DARPA, a great job, but its a cult and you’re doing evil, rescinded, a shell company, the bombsight metaphor, surrounded by homeless people, a super-analytical mind, Philip K. Dick, boobs, coffee, religious philosophy, the names in here are not nothing, Excalibur, Neff’s suicide, white haired New York Times columnist, good humoured fuck, Double Indemnity, Walter Neff, suckered in by a hot lady, murder, he can’t quite put it all together, faces out of the earth coming to haunt him in his dreams, I’m the tool, Stephen King knows what the problem is, he can’t make that extra step, King with a Ukraine shirt, he’s on board, he won’t rock the boat, he’s a good boy, he can write another story, I got another story to write, bringing out the psychology of himself, a very frustrating situation, he can’t escape, somebody comes and saves him?, that’s the ending?, the opening of a novel, not an ending, a gap in the writing, Mr. Sharpton is not the boss of this company, he’s killing some guy who’s like him, I’ve been hypnotized and maybe drugged, he’s the handler, how spies make assets, Chuck, The Americans, the things that shitlibs say: “Russian assets”, ex-CIA guys on Twitter, Mike Baker, Joe Rogan, a time clock, the relationship will fall apart, starting with a negative vs. a positive, human assets are time limited, revenge, blackmail, recruited as a positive, apple pie, swank mag, his internet was censored, when things shifted, browsers in 1994, other people are watching him, he’s being spied on in the past, post-cogs, JFK was killed by a woman, even Stephen King doesn’t think that Oswald did it, mostly a love story, he can’t come to terms with it, he can’t grapple with it, JFK, RFK, more right wing, Catholics should have loved JFK, conservative Catholic, as an alternative to Nixon, LBJ, what might have been, he was murdered, even the president can be assassinated, banned from twitter, Trump should have nationalized twitter, nationalizing gas companies, if you can ban the most powerful person in the world from communicating, who’s really in charge?, a very 1960s film, Dr. Strangelove (1964), James Coburn, The President’s Analyst (1967), Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, the Aliens universe, working hand in glove, al the way back to Smedley Butler, the business plot, War Is A Racket, an agent of corporations, a mercenary for United Fruit, enforcing the Monroe doctrine, Oswald was Dink, if you buy the official story, recruited by the CIA to live in Russia, pro and anti-Cuba in Florida, who was his paymaster, Robert Dwoney Jr., Air America is a CIA plot, drug running and gun running, a fun movie, those are Dinks, illegal, off the books, if the president is playing the game, is all of King like this?, how this story is told, how things are revealed, a Dark Tower connection, Ted Chiang’s Understand, intellectual powers, The Dreams In The Witch-House, making a guy off himself, paranoid shit like that, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, stream of consciousness, Gerald’s Game, he’s still really relevant, non-euclidean, he doesn’t even know the world eldritch, talents, a metaphor for him, why he is Dink, why he banned his school shooting book, he thinks this power is real, crazy but also true, he doesn’t want to have this on his conscience, much bigger than he is, what if he is wrong?, not the Stephen King that we have, they’d have to deal with him, maybe?, George Orwell, Animal Farm is a CIA tool, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm is the one they push, this is not bullshit, he can’t be responsible, he hates Trump, and he’s a good boy, the tower can’t fall, you just can’t go there, why he’s so sucessful, The Dark Tower is reactionary, the last cop trying to hold together the universe, a traditional liberal, it doesn’t outline the issue, he’s not willing to accept what he knows is true, he’s writing it all over the page, Understand is much more simple, Limitless, the power to predict, super-analyze, taking knowledge, the’s correlating all the contents, a one man psychohistory, he’s pretending like he’s dumb, Paul has a day job, wordle, a nice relaxing game of Civ, sunrise and sunset photos, putting things together, what writers and comedians do all day long, putting it all together, truing to understand reality, the mainstream media, the transcribers of CIA talking points, Abby Martin and Chris Hedge’s back catalogue on YouTube were deleted, the Russians interfered in our elections, stop the steal, the same narrative and the same set of beliefs, the same unfounded set of beliefs, they’re swimming in it, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now used to be anti-war, Yemen (war) is vaguely bad, the AirWars website, the numbers don’t go down, the narrative wont allow it, he wont allow us to see the final conclusion, killing off the Excalibur guy, he can’t solve the story, it really is a disappointing ending, he isn’t exposing anything, if you want to escape, he hasn’t followed it up, taken back in by another recruiter to be a breaker, a secret book, here’s what I really thought, Galileo can’t say what he really thinks, and yet it moves, a tell-all, why he has to keep writing, he’s gotta avoid making that conclusion, too afraid of disorder, Secret Window, Secret Garden, Rest Stop, beats up an abusive man in a rest stop toilet, fearful of disorder, his greatest fear is the fear at the ending of The Mist, I just have to kill my family, what if I’m wrong?, the dark ending that Hollywood couldn’t handle, the movie ending makes it more explicit, makes the subtext text, highlights the mistake, good and stability wins out, is stability always good?, Dungeons & Dragons, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, a lawful evilness to the American Empire, we define what lawful , James Clapper: “not wittingly” is lying to congress, weapons of mass destruction, mistakes were made, when people get divorced, I want to not be married to this person, I’m going to go to the garage more, circumstances that will lead, the life wish vs. the death wish, we should always be thinking about our own psychology, I’m married to the United States, happy wife, happy life, because if it rhymes it must be true, if the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit, write more stuff, if you do look into the dark pit you , what is the end goal, I want to be the last man standing, a lot of people do the hot drop, feeling the stress building over a half an hour, a miniature version of life, to understand truth, killing people doesn’t make you survive better, being aggressive doesn’t make you less likely to be killed, the life instinct and the death instinct, to be stressed out, a very immature thing, its lunch time, alone in a classroom, building a house of cards, blow on his house a cards, what would child Paul, most boys would exercise their vital power, they want to see stuff blow up, that felt bad, stop the bully, we have both instincts, to be the bully and to stop the bully, what play is, puppies and kittens, 100% natural, as an adult you don’t do this anymore, not a dis just a fact, there’s consequences to his actions, Dink is immature, ignorant, socially isolated, why King is playing him as a less savvy version of himself, interesting Catholic stuff, King’s a Methodist, the pope being assassinated, Stephen King is dink and the plot master, Mercedes, Mr. Mercedes, symbols of power, jeans are for fucking around, suits are for business, King doesn’t wear a suit (because he’s not a businessman), what keeps him writing, suits are almost always bad news, technical dress code shirt, a shirt with a collar and buttons, a 70s shirt, Leonard McCoy’s chest hair, a pretty big collar, Kirk with the arm hair, giant belt buckles, a tracking device, a little off topic, a little Star Trek talk for Chowbacca, it’s fun to hear your name called out, how’s Picard season 2 going?, the Red Letter Media, enjoying their discomfort, another national treasure, how their collective works, their editing is good, their insights are good, commercially interesting, the Critical Drinker guy, Red Letter Media aren’t interested in the Batman movie, their Darkman (1990) review, its a good time to consider Sam Raimi, how this podcast works, what’s the hot new book out?, no interest, N.K. Jemisin, I consider her a friend, Nora, Paul considers them all friends, a moderator on her twitch channel, free labour here too, how many PUBG games has she played with you?, more of a guy game, DaRose, nobody wants to here his civil war stories, their ideal audience, people don’t read civil war anthologies, Sinclair Lewis, nobody knows him, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, 1st hundred pages are poetry, the ultimate thesis on The Raven, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ben Franklin, John Adams, inventor, intellectual, Evan was triggered, hard on John Adams, sacrificed his presidency to stop a war, he was unpopular, greater moral considerations, Andrew Jackson, oof size large, trigger Evan about Poe, strictly monogamous, Poe is so rich, he’s super-intimidating, he’s like William Shakespeare, having issues, away from the , In And Out Burgers, having Paul adventures, more shitlib King, the Dark Tower is too big, anything long will trigger Jesse, the 70 hours The Devil’s Chessboard [is 26 hours], Ariel and Will Durant, a history of pop, a history of car tires, take decades off your life, H.G. Wells’ [history] stuff, The Outline Of History is 44 hours, double speed, Everything’s Eventual narrator was great, it’ll be on sale at some point, Justin Long is a good narrator, movie actor, Dodgeball (2004), Accepted (2006), Idiocracy (2006), the Bruce Willis thing, Tusk (2014), aphasia, low budget bad movies, he shouldn’t be doing this, he might need the money, offensive to the craft, like Jean Luc Picard is offensive, ORson Welles hawking wine, debase themselves, Nicole Kidman out on the street hooking, that’s a shame, with the proper camera placement, aphasia is an inability to speak, almost nobody knows what this word means, Alzheimer’s is tarred, some brain effect, we’re being lied to, definitely an issue, dementias, we’re eating it up and reporting, if he can’t memorize scripts, Saturday Night Live, Andrew Dice Clay, performer vs. actor, on live television, Hail, Caesar! (2016), Ethan Cohen’s short stories, something wrong with their writing, they enjoy their writing more than, Fargo (1996), O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), smug, the lady with the big lips, Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), big fish in a small pond, Inglorius Basterds (2009), The Hateful Eight (2015), Elmore Leonard, Jackie Brown (1997), El Mariachi (1992), Robert Rodriguez, Spy Kids, his best self, not to the level as Quentin Tarantino, as much like Hitchcock as Hitchcock, human flourishing, seeing the great master at work, another Rock movie, direct to Netflix, Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), odd obsessions, an irony there, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Frances McDormand, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army Of Darkness, its Phantom Of The Opera, they didn’t make that connection, a monster not a superhero, the Amber Chronicles, unlike all the other Universal Monsters, the werewolf, the spiderwoman, the creature from the black lagoon, Frankenstein creature, a solid science fiction backstory, how the plot is the same as Robocop (1987), ladies falling off buildings, sold out to do all those spider-man movies, film is a strange medium, Doctor Strange, multiverse fiction, Morbius the living vampire, literary characters were allowed, nobody is willing to shill for it, it must be dogshit, audience score, people in the genre community, Dracula shows up in Marvel Comics, nudity!, reasonable, rational copyright, Stephen King has the ability, and chooses not to do that, two things you can do, creative commons, LibriVox makes a frowny face, the regime of this stuff doesn’t compel authors to keep their copyright term, filmmakers on YouTube, back when we were trying to make the web good, as soon as it leaves your pencil, while we keep it in print, particular contracts, work for hire, he can’t reconcile, Brandon Sanderson, contracts are not copyright, Jesse waved a wand, movie rights are not included, why it has a baby in it, his babies maybe?, the festival circuit and educational purposes only, Mute, good stories, he feels guilty, I wanna be generous about this, exploit his writings, he’s stuck, full blown Alan Moore, fawk them awl, the Dark Tower audio drama people, cock blocked, trying to get a series done, the law is two, phones with no headphone jacks, android phones, even Samsung, another way, you wanted to put your little Dinky in there, a little MP3 player, phones are becoming worse and worse, LG went out of the cellphone business.

Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997

Eveything's Eventual art by Jill Bauman

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #705 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #705 – The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson; read by Connor Kaye

This unabridged reading of the story (43 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye

Talked about on today’s show:
1911, 1903, previously published?, Jack London’s The People Of The Abyss, Ibister & Co., this folk horror thing, researching folk horror, when did these tropes actually start?, secret pagan cults, Connor was naive at that time, some folk horror tropes, a proto-form, the fingerprints of the sources and inspirations, Connor’s youtube version, American and British, The Wicker Man, what is American folk horror?, evidence of religion that came before Christianity, native American nations, The Wendigo, skinwalkers, a Christian worldview, demons and devils or witchcraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown, The Minister’s Black Veil, Faith, his beloved signing her name in the book of the devil, a devil worshiping cult, Anerican folk horror is within the christian worldview, secretly in league with the devil, persists to the modern day, the Satanic Panic, Pavlanvs, evangelizing, your new religion is not gonna catch on, this is a wild place, we need wild gods to survive, Lovecraft spans the divide, The Unnamable, the context of Cotton Mather, the witchcraft trials, these things are older than humanity, being an Anglophile, The Moon Bog, the horror from before, Robert E. Howard’s The Lost Race, set in bronze age Cornwall, bandit chief, a secret mission, to which he was used, crude hospitality, a pure Briton but not a pure Celt, a giant cat, a lion and a wolf, he picks a team, they approach it completely different ways, a Christian fairy tale about how Britain become Christian, ancient massive axes to grind, Beowulf, to be Christ-like, Robert E. Howard rejects religion, a Catholic priest, all storytellers and all writers, an intellectual issue to be solved, the movements of people and race mixing, 1927, willing to be a martyr, how good the Christians come across in this story, extremely likeable, tainted opinion, Cornell West wants people to be better, the most charitable position possible, my brother or my sister, bombing people to death, calling out the horror without condemning them as humans, a pre-Christian ideology, if you are a murderer, popish armies, I read about this guy named Jesus, the “good news”, now you don’t have to rot forever in the gray lands, Valhalla for the brave and the good, the promise of Christianity, converted after death, a present evidence of that ancient religion, who doesn’t want peace and love, reverse folk horror, a christian man goes to an island full of pagans, to make him a martyr, its awful vs. there is this awful horrible thing that can be cleansed, more relaxing approach to living your life, hopeful, anti-folk horror, a fear of regression, The Wicker Man (1973), a throwback to what we would have seen before everywhere, proto-folk horror, showing us, The Ritual (2017), worshiped as a duty, a tax, Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched (2021), a documentary, We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide To Folk Horror by Howard David Ingham, fear of regression into more superstitious time, where there is not covenant with god, recent Christian converts, Abraham and Isaac, I ain’t like the other Gods, we’re going for a walk, God’s like jk, no more literal holocaust, what we need instead is for you to understand, Christ is the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament, I’m the Prince of Peace not the Prince of Vengeance And Judgement, Cornell West, the vigorous, Spider-Man is a real guy, the stories of Christ, a good story, there’s a guy who came here to teach us the error of our ways, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, second layer of thinking, talking in parables, heaven towards our sisters and brothers on the planet, why we like Paulanus so much, offering a hand of friendship and comfort, converted and forgiven, transmuted, the answer to folk horror’s cynicism or worries about human nature, man against man, beast against beast, the cycle of violence, to become the priest you must kill the priest, the breaking of that cycle, the turning of the cheek, the monster is dead and buried, they turn it into a Christian school, the foundation of the new church is on the bones of the dead religion (that nobody really liked anyway), violence, this bloody big monster that’s going to kill people, our priest of death tells his own story, I killed my own brother, the story of Cain and Abel, Cain is marked by God, he is under My protection, that’s the guy who killed his brother, isolated and shunned from society, no option for forgiveness, down the path of horror, live in death, here comes Christianity to save the day, you’re never beyond redemption, a being that deserves respect, seen as irredeemable, a pariah, do not go into the forest, why is he doing this?, I know who this is?, would you like to know more?, would you like to go through the door?, he always says yes, that’s his mission, which race succeeds which race, a reaching out to those who are mistaken, brother let me show you the way, I would like you to live with me for a time, that sounds dangerous, I will, we don’t see the emotional change inside his head, this is gratitude, relief, relaxation, almost grace, you haven’t seen the real me yet, the plank, foggy, shrouded, dark, there is this literal monster caged up, as big as a horse, when it dies we can find another way now, a bizarre god, it sounded like Pan, an idol in the temple, half-goat half-man, The Guide To Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler, 729 pages, densely typed story summaries, Nemi, he merely held the spear and it killed itself, in the face of Christianity the old religion killed itself, how Christianity came to Britain, no residential schools, how it was done in North America, becoming Catholics by default, how Ragnar Lodbrok became a Christian, that show (Vikings), we don’t know what the priest knows, his fears, his worries, legitimated, I got something in the back room that scares the shit out of me, when the beast breaks out of its cage, a square island, a moat, pens, a temple, a hovel, weapons, ancient weapons?, far away in time or space, he puts down a club, this god who have a half-man half-god to be sacrificed, a sophisticated weapon/religion, story attraction, how strong can your god be if he died on a wooden stick, that’s interesting, just give obedience to that guy over there with the fish hat (the pope), fairy tale structure, William Hope Hodgson, no scroll being uncovered, fairy tale timeline, him as an old man, a one to one, he lived happily ever after, omniscient, the description of the beast, as huge as a horse, his small head was laid back on his hairy shoulders, his red mouth, it could be a lion, a giant wolf, a giant man, its up to your imagination, a series of rough hewn gates, the forest, drawbridge, sheep, a great statue on a pedestal, half-man half-goat crouched to spring, the beginning is interpretable through the end, Cernunnos, the horned god, Herne The Hunter, the Green Man with horns, the merging with man with his primary prey (deer/goats), pre-Christian religion in England is murky, per-Christian Roman culture and religion, The Golden Bough by James Frazer, comparative mythology, the priesthood of Diana, the goddess of nature and hunting, sacred grove, a certain tree, a drawn sword, set upon by an enemy, a priest and a murderer, such was the rule of the sanctuary, how you become a priest of Diana, The King Of The Wood, if A.C. Benson was interested in folklore or mythology, he could have read the first page and got this idea, a Christian Roman, an ironic cyclical thing, what Caesar says, they like sickles and harvesting oak moss, druids, that song from Spinal Tap, nobody knows, they’re strange, Diana of Nemi, conflated with Artemis, Lake Nemi, according to the legend, the Tauric Diana, the myth has it, the temple of Saturn, sacrificed on her altar, a milder form (of human sacrifice), a scared grove, a carved cult image, archaic and Etruscan in form, go to their danger, her priest will hunt you, page 13 (of 36), Paul <- Paulanus, a transformation on the road, the way of Christ, so it is this that is taking hold of the world, women and children in fair houses, the god who made these woods, he loves death and darkness, a brutish sort (of love), the sharp woes and agonies, death sweats and cries of despair, your simple easy-going god might dwell within them, beyond the memory of man, I should be content if it had victory, go to sleep, a nice story, I wish it were true, I’d like you to live here with me, don’t you want to see the scary god in the back shed?, all externalized, a good religion for middle class people with good incomes, the grinding horror of this forest, my God is patient, things will work out in the end, a strange way, hey, you’re not the priest, your god killed him, he goes through the whole story, it’s all about the story, maybe you should be the teacher and replace that temple, how Christianity got its grip on this island, a way of solving the question: how did it come to be?, how did Christianity come to the British isles, this isn’t a colonizer, a fiction, a wandering disciple, it feels Biblical, the language of it, particular style, a good choice, the story of Paul, the messenger of Jesus, that transformational character, apostles vs. disciples, Judas is forgiven too, Tarsus, the apostle of the gentiles, where the most success there is with Jesus, non-Jews become Christians, through personal revelations, post-ascension Jesus, a post-prophet, neither Connor nor Jesse are not a bible expert, contemporaneous but not present, he is the guy who converts non-witnesses, how the the Latter Day Saints do it too, so your religion spreads, to model the behavior, the Good News, Jews don’t prosthelytize, an appeal to it, like Christianity and Islam, god not having to be seen is more fitting, what colour Thor’s armour is, we don’t give his real name, let it be to your imagination, some churches, Jesus embodied on the cross vs. the cross without a Jesus, intellectual strategies, we’re all brothers vs. crusades style, more Jesus centered Christianity, the oldness the art, the discipline, monks, nunneries, self-denial, self-abnegation, literal news, you don’t have to do it the old way anymore, modelling the behavior, acting the Christian, why it works as a really good story, a very strange story, we wouldn’t see the appeal of the change, preachy and judgemental, the way of love and peace among brothers, a whole new world (not being worried about being killed), an insane method of succession, propaganda, Julius Caesar’s accounts, pre-Christian religions written about through and by a Christian lens, human history, the blood eagle, to wield power, to intimidate, the way Genghis operated, the Romans were brutal, openly and ultimately corrupt, cool takeaways from Nietzsche, take it like a Christian, seeing that, they seem to have a conviction that we don’t have, there story is an inversion of ours, submission and peace and willingness to suffer, a judo flip on the mind, a weird flex, Constantine, hey we’re all Christians now, a politic move, literally leading an army, all of that considered, a more mentally healthy worldview, murder or sacrifice, human sacrifice doesn’t seem that cool, there is a textbook, apocrypha, the King James Bible, Jesus wants you to support the war in Iraq, when somebody was accused of adultery, having literacy, a subset of Christians, these are our brothers and sisters we need to cherish them, it doesn’t negate bravery, act as if you believe because you hope it is true, why people believe things, a kind of discipline and rigor, codes of behaviors that need to be served, he doesn’t have a book with him, spreading the word based on what he has read or what he was told, this is how you read, you can read it for yourself, the power struggle, controlling who can read, be rich and hire a tutor, send your kid to be a copyist, minor nobility, acquiring wealth, roles for people even if they can’t read, when the printing press comes in, Koreans who became Christians in the 19th and 20th centuries, analyzing through angles, nothing is in a steady state, a story science, like science, an ice-core sample, as early as 1903, through the other data that we know, folk horror is still with us, our first urban legend for Reading, Short And Deep, urban legends don’t have a first publication, Rapunzel, Lucy Crane and her brother, High Beams, The Killer In The Back Seat, my cousin heard this from her brother, this is a story that can only exist in the 20th century, coming out of a context, working with a specific text, who told it to who in what context?, a document frozen in time, we can infer some things, what A.C. Benson may be doing that we didn’t notice, the Greeks and the Romans were from peoples that had these things, they might have their version of Pan, we can trace a lot of it, Google Books scanning, the two things, a connection there, drawing those connections, use an index, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Caliban’s mom (Sycorax), Setebos, Solomon Kane, The One Black Stain by Robert E. Howard, Patagonia, a reference to Magellan, Antonio Pigafetta, that’s the same god!, a contemporary book, deep archaeological extractions, we can be wrong but we can always go back to the original sample, people like to fiddle, like chain of custody, reading old stories richer, who cares if a book references Trump now, the golden haired dunce, they just assumed people would know what they were talking about, 1921/7, Randall’s Round by Eleanor Scott, it’s obvious when you know, new volumes of The Golden Bough, here in the future where we are, all we see is the racism, they’re so sexist back then, how randy 1950s Americans were, going steady, the 1950s slick magazines, sex habits of teenagers, we think they’re so repressed, you’re only getting part of it, there can be nudity, why women should get married younger, a vague memory of your parents or grandparents, the actual archaeological stratum, the fossils of the culture, they have skin and put on makeup, recording history, leaving out bits of information, holding yourself accountable, humans are self-centered, when recording history, print media sources, what were the gossip rags talking about, Victorian England as prudish, venereal diseases, orphans in Dickens, public prudity and private indulgence, The New Accelerator [by H.G. Wells], all the drugs, heroin at the grocery store, hashish, poppy smoking clubs (opium dens), heroin was a product made by Bayer, give it to your kids, moral panics over coffee and tea, kill lots of people to get tea or rum cheaper, deploy your soldiers with rum, the Rum Rebellion in Australia, an act of rebellion against Governor Bligh, hiding under his bed, a government overthrown, the trucker rebellion in Canada, a Boxer Rebellion is china, not just religious mania, twice, famously he had mutinies under him, reading about 5 or 6 times, as many stories, historical significance, it has a literal monster in it, folk horror that contains monsters and monster-free folk horror, werewolfy creature, the symbolic part, at the center, the reason it is locked up, how native people dealt with criminals, paddle you out to an island, we don’t want to kill each other, governments make us kill, a committee, why the hangman wears a mask, a faceless thing, indigenous Australian criminal justice, a free shot, go back to livin, it’s hard when it’s murder, a chaotic person who can’t be controlled and is dangerous, anthropology in uni, much like Julius Caesar, like JFK, royalty from the society, they disaffect from the royal line, punishments come from the community of power, rogues, the philosophy of love, “take care of it”, whack em, so many metaphors, synonyms for words that has massive taboos, euphemisms, obscured behind layers of meaning, execute means do, to carry through to the end, executive power is the power to do, he gotta get done, gotta get got, a murder who wants to be forgiven, all people are good or can be,
the breaking of the cycle, the priest’s brother is like that, what are the options, a much harder story to tell, asking for forgiveness (rather than permission), talking to little kids about Spider-Man, he’s a do-gooder, in a punishment society, make a virtue of thinking through , what would Jesus do, N-Law launchers to blow up tanks in Ukraine, don’t send weapons to death squads, chickenhawks run the society.

The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #346 – The Bus-Conductor by E.F. Benson

Podcast

Reading, Short And DeepReading, Short And Deep #346

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Bus-Conductor by E.F. Benson

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Bus-Conductor was first published in the Pall Mall Magazine, December 1906

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!