Ryan educates the crew on incense, thuribles, and thurifers, Jess hates on a completely innocent duo, and the crew gives this tale a modern casting, which is heavy on Ralph Ineson. Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're bowing in reverence to our eighth book in the collection, ‘Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny’ edited by Fiona Snailham. In this episode, our featured story is: The Cathedral Crypt by John Wyndham.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo; drinking Heck's Gentle Persuasion Golden NA.
Damien is watching Daddy's Head (2024; dir. Benjamin Barfoot); drinking a Flying Naked (bourbon, Bénédictine, Aperol, lemon juice).
Ryan is reading Aurora Rising by Alastair Reynolds; drinking Highland Park 12 yr 'Viking Honour'.
If you liked this week’s story, read "Procession of the Black Sloth" by Laird Barron
Up next: "The Sexton's Adventuret" by Sheridan Le Fanu
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Ryan: [00:00:00] What just happened? Yeah. And did I read that right?
Damien: It's wild. It's wild. It's a lot of fun. Do you think he's proficient at that? Yeah.
Jess: I am a little bit less of a layered head than you two are.
Damien: You're not a Baroness.
Jess: But I mean, in reading the Cathedral crypt, I immediately knew that both of you were gonna recommend this short story
Ryan: Welcome back everybody. I'm father Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm regular Jessica Berg
Damien: and I am somewhere in between Damien Smith
Ryan: and together this Trinity is Whiskey. And the Weird, the podcast that for the past seven seasons has been delivering you detailed and yes, sometimes even correct analysis of the best spooky stories from times gone by.
Each season, we've prayed that you have been enlightened by our disputations on these themed [00:01:00] selections from the British Library's Tales of the Weird Series. As you know, we cover one volume of these canonical classics every season. And each episode we provide careful exegesis of one story. Please make sure you read the story before listening.
As we always give a full spoiler summary. This season we turn to a testament of terror as we explore holy ghosts, classical tales of the ecclesiastical, uncanny, and now hark. I hear the cathedral bells. Calling us to Vespers. Hasten to your abbreviations friends, scoop more incense on the coals and join us in the pews before the last candle flickers out for tonight's reading [00:02:00] comes from an all together different lectionary.
And our master story planner, Jess, is here to tell us what it is.
Jess: We are going with the well named story, the Cathedral Crypt by John Windham.
Ryan: We absolutely are. And before we get there, wow, wow, wow, wow. We've got some bar talk to do. Damien, what are you drinking tonight?
Damien: Yeah I'll get to that in just a second.
But I have to ask you you're a priest and I am. And Oh, really? The aforementioned incense on the coals, is that just any incense? Is there a specialty like holy incense that's purchased or can you just like, swing by TJ Maxx, grab whatever's on sale? Right. And call it a day.
Ryan: So this is actually a surprisingly good question, and the answer is yes, and I pull 'em out every once in a while. Yes. And there is incense that you can buy from church [00:03:00] supply companies that is quote unquote holy incense. Uh,
Damien: what does it smell like?
Ryan: Any variety of things. Okay.
There are scent options there, there are scent options, there are blends. You can, some, what some churches like to do that use a lot of incense is they'll buy single scented incense. Single flavor. Yeah, single. I was trying to avoid the word flavor, but yeah. Single flavor, because incense is a gum resin from a tree, and then it's usually mixed with herbs or florals of some kind.
And when burned, it creates this. Pleasing mixture of an odor. But so some churches will buy multiple single flavor incenses and blend them themselves to a, that they've, that they've created for a signature scent. For a signature scent. But like all things in the church you can just buy incense from secular incense mongers from the lay incense mongers, right, who often sell it at a far cheaper price.
Sure they do. Annoyed at church supply houses. This is my famous [00:04:00] story about it. I needed a bell for our church that I could ring from the back of the church to signify the beginning of the service so that all the people who are dutifully facing front would know to stand up. Okay, it's time to begin the service.
I needed a bell, a single bell for this,
Damien: but not any bell, right? Church bell.
Ryan: You go to the, you go to the bell page church bell com. The church supply catalog. No, no, we're not net we're not on the internet. This is church catalogs.
Bells bells with two z dot angel fire com. Geo
Jess: cities
Damien: under construction.
Blinking. It's got a MIDI playing.
Ryan: So the church supply house wanted $900 for this bell, and I thought, Nope, that is ludicrous.
Jess: We're talking just handheld bell. We're
Ryan: No, we're talking d we're talking one that, that you can ring with a rope and a, and a tongue that would hang on the, that would hang on the wall, right?
Oh, it hangs on the wall though. It hangs
Jess: on the wall. Yeah. I don't think 900 is out of bounds for a nice No, I do because Wall bell, what
Ryan: this, essentially is a [00:05:00] nautical bell.
So sure is. So I went to a, like a boat supply house, and I bought a damn bell for $45 that does the same thing.
It was cursed and hung it on the wall was You did say
Damien: damned bell. So, you know, it's a, it's, well, there you go. It was
Ryan: called the Black Bell buoy. I don't know. Take it to
Damien: throwback. That's season one, y'all. Uh, so yeah. Nice. No wait to take it to the man. But by the way, Ryan, you are the man. So you took it to you.
Ryan: So I took it to me. You can get special incense. and we do, we don't use incense all that often. I wish we used it more. What's the Inc. Incense holder called regular? The incense holder is, is it the Thal? It's the Thal, that's right. Thal. All right. That's right. And so who's the person who swings it?
Yeah, the UR swings the third.
Damien: Okay, so a Thur swing And a thal.
Ryan: That's right. That's right.
Damien: All right. Anyway, back to the bar. Hey, tonight's story is a good one. I'm looking forward to talking about it and it does involve a certain contingency of monks and so I [00:06:00] thought, why not take our favorite spirit whiskey? Find something that the monks made in this case. Benedictine, throw in equal parts, Aperol and lemon juice and baby mixologist.
I'm drinking a flying naked, a flying naked, equal parts, bourbon, Benedictine, aol, and lemon juice. Not something you
Ryan: normally see in the church, but yes.
Damien: Yeah, well, it depends on what time, I guess. Not your church. Not your church. Yeah, exactly. But no it's tasty. I was actually a little concerned because Benedictine to me is very sweet.
I think a lot of cordial spirits and laurs that are made from the bunks, they're very herbal, but there is also a ton of sugar. I mean, it's what makes the liqueur a laur. So between that and the Aperol was concerned that there might be a little bit of heavy sweetness factor. The lemon juice swinging in like an absolute champ cuts it brings out the flavors, brings out the complexity of all the ingredients, and just makes something that is a lot more delicious than I anticipated.
It's not gonna be one that I ordered at a bar, but it is one that I'm glad I'm drinking [00:07:00] tonight. So that's the Flying Naked Made Equal Parts, bourbon, Benedictine, Aperol, and lemon juice. As far as movies that I've watched recently, I watched. This kind of interesting film. I don't know if it was the writer director's debut.
His name's Benjamin Barfoot. It came out in 2024. It's available on Shutter right now. It's called Daddy's Head, which first of all, obviously there are gonna be porns out there, so search with caution. Second of all, it's just a silly name for a movie. But it struck me as a very pressing tale of grief and endurance.
It introduced a cast that was in a very precarious situation. The movie opens with essentially a mother-in-law who's young and married to a father of a child who is not hers. And the father passes away before the action of the film, and she's left with wondering what she should do about. The boy who has no other next of kid or anything like that.
He's young. [00:08:00] I think he's like seven or eight. And she's going through the grief of losing her husband as well as now being the sole guardian for this child who never took her in as a member of the family. So it's, it kind of hits me in this like dual-sided thing where essentially it, it's a horror movie.
So the creature quote unquote, comes in and the boy seeing something that has the head of his dad that has the face and the voice of his dad, but always lives in the shadows, talks to 'em through really creepy sound design ends up being a really cool, kind of spooky creature. And then, you know, chaos ensues.
Two things that stand out about this one it was very babadook. Baba. Okay. Same themes, right? Grief loss, dealing with it. Yeah. Babadook I think was a, is a superior film, but this was, this one stands up on its own. And two, that there is one death. It's a non-human death in the film. [00:09:00] No, humans die in the actual movie itself, which is very interesting because you have a violent creature thing that, you know, I don't wanna give too much away.
But then you also. Don't see a lot of like visceral violence. So, it's a head scare and I use that pun sparingly. Again, 2024 directed and written by Benjamin Barfoot. It's called Daddy's Head. I think it might be divisive. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a good film. I thought it was well done.
Really like the sound design and I encourage you to go check it out. So with that, maybe I will throw it over to Jess. Jess was in your glass tonight.
Jess: Ooh. Well, it's a can actually.
Damien: Ooh.
Jess: And we are going with another NA beer. for reasons that are related to no longer being able to drink alcohol, but it is fair and it's fine.
I'm doing fine. It is a heck beer. The brewery is called, heck, I bought it because I like the can. It's just black. It says heck in pink. [00:10:00] Le pink
Ryan: letters. I hope it's from Minnesota.
Jess: It is from Portland. Actually, I grabbed it out there. Uh, heck
Ryan: in
Damien: Portland.
Jess: But it is a gentle persuasion. Golden. It's fine.
The beer can is better than the beer. It tastes like na. Beers that are IPAs don't taste like beer. They taste like the worst part of an IPA, uh, na. Beers that are like golden do taste like beer, but because they're not like distinctly flavored, a lot of times they do kind of blend together. Sure. So like, if you gave me this and like the Cole shit I was drinking a couple weeks ago I don't know that I could tell them apart.
Damien: Mm-hmm. Same penny's different level of cleanliness.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's fine. It's very drinkable. It has a cute can and whatever. If it makes people brew better, fake beer, I'm all about it.
Damien: That's awesome.
Jess: And I recently read the book, summer Sons by Lee Mandela. Mm Oh yeah, I've heard of that. It came out in 2021, but I feel like last summer and fall, everyone was really like, alright, [00:11:00] the
Damien: Renaissance,
Jess: you gotta read this book.
Okay. And I found a used copy and I really, really liked it. It is kind of like a mashup of a bunch of different genres in a way that you're like, well that sounds like it doesn't work, but it really works. So it's like a southern gothic, but it has like the right amount of repressed emotions and people like stifled by their family history combined with like dark academia.
But instead of it being about like, you know, dark academia stuff is like. Ooh, witches and spells and double crossing or whatever. This one is just you know, it's really racist graduate school program.
And so it's like slightly take that
Damien: Lee Bargo.
Jess: Yeah. Slightly more realistic. Like, oh yeah, you're professors are gonna steal your work and you can't do anything about it. But then also at the same time, it's like the Fast and the Furious franchise. Wow. You're driving [00:12:00] your, I don't know anything about cars.
Your fast car, I assume that you spend all your money on, but you're driving it through like the Hills in Tennessee while also being a graduate student, while also being, you know, like repressed Southern. You know, 25-year-old guy. It's great, honestly, if you're looking for, so, oh, it's great. A lot of things happen.
Damien: Yeah, there we go.
Jess: Yes. It's a lot of things. It's a real
Damien: literary smoothie,
Jess: but then the writing is like so consistent and so clear and the narrator's voice is very like, everything that's happening, we got ghosts, we got spirits, we got all sorts of stuff. Everything that's happening is like so believable where he's like kind of trying to balance going to college, but then is also just like, ugh, this seems like incredibly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
And you're like, well,
Ryan: right.
Jess: Yeah, maybe So I would, yeah. If you look at fun, I it's good and sad and like sweet [00:13:00] and fast in the furiously. So there's like car races.
Damien: Yeah, it's good. You said fast car. I thought we were gonna start playing some ta. Tracy Chapman here. I'm like, how many things does this cover?
Jess: I'll edit it in the background.
Damien: Nice.
Jess: Ryan.
Ryan: Well. Speaking of sad, I don't mean to bring this down, but I'm afraid I'm going to what I'm drinking tonight come on. Isn't, is an honor of a friend who, who passed recently. All righty.
And this happens to me with greater frequency than a lot of people my age because I'm friends with people that are significantly older than me. So my good friend Russ, who passed at the age of 82 recently was a great lover of Jack Daniels. All right. And his daughter who also likes Scotch, knows that I like scotch and don't like Jack Daniels.
So on the occasion of her father's funeral which I performed to say thank you, she bought me a very lovely bottle of the Highland Park, 12 Viking honor. Oh, wow. Which is a [00:14:00] beautiful thing. To Russ. To Russ Indeed. To Ru. Yes. Cheers. Who would appreciate the shout out? I love the Highland Park.
The Highland Park comes from Orny, which is way the hell up there in Northeast Scotland, off the coast of Northeast Scotland, I should say in the middle of the North Sea. Life has got to be rough in the Nies. This is a remarkably smooth whiskey from coming from such a harsh environment. It's got a little bit of peat, but it also has quite a lot of that salt air that you associate with whiskeys distilled on the coast.
And it's really something special. I first encountered the Highland Park an, well, probably a decade and a half ago when I was talking with somebody who was actually from Scotland and said, look. I know about the Glen Livet and the Glen Fitch and the Macallan and all those, like what do people in Scotland actually drink?
And she told me the Highland Park. So that was when I first encountered the Highland Park. Now since then, Highland Park has really taken on this whole like Viking theme and all of their iterations that [00:15:00] they've released right, are themed Viking, this and Viking that. For as good of a bottle of whiskey as I think this is the Viking Honor 12 it's not as good as the regular Highland Park 12 that I've had, which I'm not sure they make anymore at least I haven't seen it in the, in this country.
So maybe this is the best I'm gonna get, but I'm glad for it. I'm thankful to Jennifer for gifting me with this bottle and honor of her dad. Thanks, Jennifer. Yeah, thanks Jen. And, um, more than deeply appreciative of Russ's friendship. So instead of drinking Jack Daniels and thinking of him, which.
Which would cause me to swear. I'll drink a nice Scottish whiskey and think of him. All right. Very cool. As for what I've been reading I finished a while ago a book called Aurora Rising by Alistair Reynolds, and I know I recommend, that's a mouthful.
The title. Yes, you
Damien: have. But Aurora Rising Just I know, and that is tricky.
Ryan: It used to be called The Prefect and he's rereleased it under a new title. So I gave the title, oh, it's,
Damien: it's Rereleased as Aurora Rising. Yes, it's [00:16:00] a rising rereleased,
Ryan: the rural. I know that you read Revelation space, which I recommend.
I sure did. So, for Jessica's for Jessica's understanding, this story takes place before the melding plague of flicks Chasm City, and the glitter band is destroyed. God,
Damien: you're losing me.
Ryan: I know. I'm sorry. So this is a, space opera slash police procedural of course. And Aurora Rising is a phenomenal standalone story.
If you like sci-fi, but you don't want to get into a big long series, this is a great one to read. Now, this is the first of a trilogy, but each of the three books are standalone. Standalone they're episodic. Okay. Uh, it's, it's police procedural. It's like next week's episode. Right. So I, what I did just finish was the second episode of this trilogy, which is called Elysium Fire.
And I didn't like it as much. I didn't really like it at all. Uhoh. It was okay. Are you gonna read the third one? I am, because what I'm trying to do is read all of these stories in chronological order [00:17:00] as they occur within his universe, because I'm a total dork. Um, except these
Jess: are prequels to the things you already read.
Ryan: These are prequel to the things that I've already read. And in fact, they're prequels to the things that I just really would like to read again. But I'm forcing myself through this gauntlet first. Aurora Rising was awesome. Elysium fire was a little dull, and you can tell that he's thinking about Brexit.
You can tell that he's thinking about who isn't various and sunny thinking about it right now, economic Xi Brexit is my room. Yeah. Like, he's like, all these things are swirling in his head and he tries to. To create a story out of it, and it just, maybe if I read it two or three years ago, it would've been more prescient, but it was just a little dull for me.
But Aurora Rising is awesome. AI has a big impact in this story. There's a lot of ai. Instigated war and violence on a grand scale. Ah. And it's pretty cool. And you got this one, like noir detective who's trying to stand against it in his trench coat and his half [00:18:00] drunk bottle of whiskey and his, you know, his divorce in the background.
And he's doing all he can and this like space operay setting to, to stand against this rise of this horrible ai,
Damien: uh, is his name Ethan Hunt? Is this mission impossible dead reckoning?
Ryan: It's not. This is not, this is, or what was the e was it equilibrium? I think equilibrium. Oh wow. That's a space, a pro back.
Yeah. But so here's the thing, like if you like police procedurals, if you like detective mysteries, if you like noir detective stories and you like sci-fi. Aurora Rising slash The Prefect is a great book for you to read. It was an easily an easy five star read for me. I loved it.
Damien: Wow.
Ryan: And
Damien: you all came in with hot and heavy, like multi genre things.
And I came in with a movie called Daddy's Head about a thing that recreates daddy's head. Step
Ryan: it up next time. I don't know what, I don't know what to tell you.
Damien: I don't know either.
Ryan: Is the third book in the
Jess: trilogy
Ryan: out? The third book in the trilogy is out. And here's the [00:19:00] two reasons why I'm going to read it.
One, it's vastly shorter than the first two novels. Alright, sounds. So I think I can move through it quickly. And two, it returns to the character's, themes and plot lines of the first, all right. So it's like, as an author, he recognized one. I didn't do a very good job there. No one liked that. Nobody like that.
Okay. So, I mean, and there's enough at the end of the first book to, to lend itself to a sequel. So I'm hoping for a proper sequel in the third book, which is called Machine Vendetta. And all three taken together are the prefect Dreyfus emergencies. Nice. The first one being Aurora Rising. Terrible title or the original title?
World
Jess: Juror.
Ryan: The Prefect. Alright, that's gonna take us to our author and publication info for this evening. Tonight we're reading The Cathedral Crypt by John Wyndham and the writer we are tonight referring to as John Wyndham liked to mix it up with his names, creating various non de plumes. [00:20:00] And Juan Genum.
Why wouldn't he? He had six names to choose from. Oh wow. His full name. Lemme take a breath. John Wyndham Parks Lucas. Bain Harris. Was born. That's
Jess: crazy. Like
Ryan: on July 10th. That's right. I hate him now.
Jess: Well, I'm crazily enough like I'm having a boy, and that's exactly the name I've picked
Ryan: that is uncanny, Jess.
Jess: Wow. Wow,
Ryan: wow.
Damien: You'll just call 'em Triffids for short.
Ryan: That's right. Oh, we're jumping ahead, Damien. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, that's all right. In any event, this, um, longly named fellow was born on July the 10th, 1903 to a couple who may have wanted triplets, but when they just got one little away, they decided not to let all that name selection go to waste.
No. Well done. What's up with airline food? He was born in Warwickshire to Gertrude Parks and George Bain and Harris. When he was [00:21:00] eight. His parents separated and in an unusual and fairly well-publicized case. His father sued for, but lost custody of John. John then moved through a series of private schools in quick SEC succession.
His longest stint in one being only four years long. Following school. John was what we might call now a failure to launch, relying on family money when no career would stick, and he tried lots of them in the late twenties, though he found success writing short stories for the sci-fi pulps. Throughout the thirties, he continued writing to a great deal of success and across several pen names.
He met the love of his life, Grace Wilson, and after many, many years of courtship, they married. It wasn't until the sixties in the Second World War, Wyndham served in the Ministry of Information in the British Army, landed at Normandy Beach several days after D-Day, which is really [00:22:00] when you went to land at Normandy Beach.
Yeah, I guess if you're gonna land at Normandy, yeah.
Damien: Okay. That's a good time.
Ryan: And was involved in some fairly significant combat scenarios. His letters to Grace from this period are preserved in historical societies, and they show a man plagued by conscience, complete with doubts about humanity and fears of permanent war.
They're real. Pick me up reads,
Damien: I guess.
Ryan: Sounds like it. Uh, he further worried that war would so mar his soul that he would not be the same man when he finally returns to his love. I mean, I simultaneously want to read and don't want to read these letters. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. After the war, he continued writing and in 1951 he published his most famous work, which Damien has spoiled.
Uh, the Day of the Triffids. Sorry. It's, uh, if you know John Windham right? Fill in the blank. Yeah. You're gonna know Day of the Tris. You're gonna, you're gonna know it's not a spoiler, right? I kid. This is a post-apocalyptic novel about an alien invasion of [00:23:00] man eating plants. The praise laid on it by other genre luminaries is considerable.
For example, Arthur C. Clark called it, quote, an immortal story. It has served as inspiration for several adaptations, but the most recent one might be hard to guess. And I want, I wanna see if you can come up with it. This is a film from our generation. Critters. It's probab. No it's older than that.
I would say it's from the early two thousands, maybe even 2000 and tens. Any guesses?
Damien: Gremlins. Wait, no, that's way older.
Jess: I already know the answer because I was looking it up earlier.
Damien: What a jerky butt move I was. I,
Ryan: I need a hint was, what is it? No, I need a
Damien: hint. I need a hint.
Ryan: Oh. Um, what's a good hint for this?
Not plants, but zombies
Damien: for the day of the Tri IDs.
Ryan: Indeed. Early two thousands or 2000 and tens. I don't know where. About the date
Jess: 2002.
Damien: 28 days [00:24:00] later.
Jess: Yep.
Damien: You got it. All right. Nice. There it
Jess: is. I don't think that's a useful answer. Oh, go. But I did see that when I was like, looking.
Damien: Well, thanks for cheating, Jess. You know, I
Jess: was looking up because I know I read
Damien: the game.
Jess: I knew I read the story and I was very convinced we had covered one of his other stories, but apparently we hadn't. We
Ryan: haven't. No. And.
Jess: I for sure have seen the weird like mid two thousands mini series.
Mm-hmm.
That wasn't very good.
I mean, it was, I had a great time. I saw
Ryan: Alex Garland at least took inspiration from it for 20 days. Now, today, John Windham is considered one of the absolute best classic science fiction authors whom no one reads anymore. We don't know why this is, but people that like discover him and pick him up, they're like, dang, this [00:25:00] guy's good.
I should read more of these. And we hope to fix that tonight as we take a look at one of his horror offerings. The Cathedral Crypt was originally published in the March, 1935 edition of Marvel Tales of Science and Fantasy. William Crawford was the publish. Who believed the pulps of the day were too limited in the scope of what they would print.
I would like to spend a day in that guy's imagination be limited. Uh, while this zine was very short-lived, less than two years. In fact, it did publish some stories by some serious names in the business, including of course, Robert E. Howard, and HP Lovecraft. And so that's the Cathedral Crypt by John Windham.
And Damien's got our story summary now, and the challenge here is gonna be, is the summary longer than the story?
Damien: It's an eight page banger. So the answer is no. The summary is not as long as the story. I'm gonna zip through this bad boy in less than three minutes. Here we go. [00:26:00] Cathedral Crip by John Windham, Raymond, and Clarissa, who knows it all?
Am I right? Had to. Anyway, there are a couple of newlyweds vacationing in a small town, Spain, which small town in Spain Shut up. It's never mentioned. The story opens with the lovebirds, admiring an antique church from the outside, seemingly vacant with the president of, I don't know, one priest who's blessing a car that goes speeding off, leaving nobody inside except said priest.
Well, after a few minutes of waxing historic about how legacies of beauty and architecture like this are no longer present or appreciated, Raymond convinces his hesitant wife to explore the inner workings of this cathedral. They go from room to room, admiring the ornate decor and heavy wooden doors to, oh, like the chapel, which they then go in and explore.
[00:27:00] Clarissa starts to get a little panicky without any real reason. Save the overwhelming, quiet and creepy stillness of this vacant establishment. She starts to lose color, starts to go a little. Juan Raymond notices. She begins to build her bubbling unease and low upon their attempt to exit Har Hark. Those heavy wooden doors built so long ago from the chapel have been closed and seemingly latched shut.
They can't get out from once they came. Turns out there's some other doors. New parishioners. Yeah, there's some other doors in there. So great. But all the other doors also latched with seemingly increasingly clunky latches. And the ones that are open don't go to anywhere other than deeper into the church.
So they're facing the fact that there's no way out. Oh, they must have realized. They must have not have realized that we were in here. Says [00:28:00] Raymond of an assumed clergy staff. No worries though. Well, it could be safer than a church. Right? All of a sudden after being there for quite some time. So not all of a sudden a soft, a soft, but rising chant could be heard emanating from the main room.
Raymond looks at his clock at his watch, and it's almost two in the morning at this stage. So what could be happening at this time? The voices get louder and then they notice peeking over the benches in this chapel, but still hidden from view, a congregation of first accolades Theraflu or whatever the swinging around the incense burners, right?
The first Yeah, I, I got it right. Yeah. Followed by a cross bearer, followed by several brown robed monks. Mm-hmm. Followed by a. [00:29:00] Gaggle, maybe of black cloaked nuns, followed by two more of said brown rib monks pulling a rope, which is tied to a sobbing nun who also has their hands tied together.
Jess: What
Damien: is going on?
It's not good. It's not good. They're still chanting the thein are swinging their THCs. Oh boy. And, you know, always seemingly ceremonial except something is afoot. This nun who's at the end of the train, kidnapping
Ryan: and incapacitation of a woman. But
Damien: yes, definitely we can't ignore that. She is struggling against her shackles, against her confines.
She's sobbing more and more as the group approaches the altar until finally after passing the first pew or so, she resigns herself to her fate. Which is still unknown to the spectators, but suspected by Raymond and Clarissa, they understand knowing a little bit about this religious history, although they're disbelieving [00:30:00] of what could happen, the assumption is that this nun has broken her vows and the punishment is pretty much straight out of a medieval torture manual of penant stones and mortar.
And if you're a fan of the cask of a Manolo, which if anyone was drinking sherry tonight, you might get what ends up coming next.
Ryan: I knew that would come up.
Damien: The couple. Here's a very ominous incantation in nominee Patis and Philly. Or in Philly, I at Spirit is Santi. Anyway, it's the father of the son, the Holy Spirit.
Right. Did I get that right? It was a good try, Danny. I, you know, Latin's a dead language and it's late. We hear that summons, we hear that incantation followed by the sounds of monks shuffling stones and the sound of a blade against, of mortar against a wall, which essentially they can assume is sealing off a recess in this room in which they disappeared.
This room happens to be the titular cathedral, crypt for the [00:31:00] sacrilegious, Clarissa gasps. They can't be. And then she faints. Sometime later, once all was silent in the crypt Raymond wake, his wife, who had fainted being confident that this papal posse had left the building. I know it probably isn't papell that's very specific, but I couldn't think of a better literative term.
So papal posse, it is had left the building. They pushed past the crypt door shimmied down a spiral stone staircase to notice a set of six niches in this crypt. And a niche is basically a place where you would put a dead body in a mausoleum or in a crypt anyway, so they see a, a slate of six niches in a very small crypt quote.
Two long filled in, three more niches, empty and darkly waiting, and one lighter patch of white stones and new mortar. Well, they could easily put two and two together. Raymond begins to claw at the mortar for the [00:32:00] sixth niche, which demonstrated new soft ceiling materials. And as he starts to bring and loosen the stones to save the young nun assumed to be within, he drops a few of those disengaged stones with a thud only to hear something else in the room.
And that's something else when they turn around is a steady exasperated sigh from a group of six monks who happen to be blocking the only way out. The story ends with this ominous note quote In the morning, only one niche stood empty and darkly waiting, meaning that our two protagonists of this story, oh, were sealed off from public.
For the rest of days and separately, which is just rude. It's just rude. You know, if you're gonna steal off a married couple, seal 'em off together.
Jess: Save space.
Damien: Yeah, seriously. All right. That's the end of the story.
Ryan: The end. Thank you, Damian. [00:33:00] Succinct, as promised. Well, on the first page of this story, even in the first line, Wyndham gives us his thesis for the story.
The past seems so close here, and a few lines down, quote, most of our cities strive for change. They throw away the past for the sake of progress. I wanted to get your reaction to that in relation to the story. Sure. But also just as a comment on contemporary life, do you think that's true?
Jess: Yes,
Damien: I agree. Also, that was a very old man question.
Jess: Yeah, that's right. I'm an old man. Yeah, I am. I mean, that's the price of progress is you're moving forward and as you get a new iPhone, probably you're not going to keep your rotary phone, even if someone thinks there's value to it.
Ryan: I was just thinking today that I wanted a rotary phone.
Jess: I think you can still get one,
Ryan: damon, you live in a historic Yeah, I mean, I, I like, what do you [00:34:00] feel?
Damien: I would agree. there's a sense of appreciation, but it's mostly from tourists with regards to the roots of the modern American society being in and around Boston.
So, for context, you can go and see the birthplace, the plaque for the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, but it's over a copy cop, or it's over like a Xerox store. So it's just like, eh, sort of loses its thrill and fun. I think what's nice about this though is it's very pristine and sort of frozen in time as a building and as the architecture.
And then what they soon come to find out also the practices within
Ryan: Yeah. Here in St. Petersburg. Which for the longest time was the sleepy town. In the last 20 years has really been a booming place especially for real estate. With the storms that occurred last fall, it has redrawn the map. It's change driven by a certain necessity. Yes. But it's also it's also changed. It's seen as a destruction of what once was. In favor of what we're not yet too [00:35:00] sure about. Sure. In the meantime, I'm sure like in all big cities in the meantime we've got giant condominiums going up downtown and absolutely no plan for parking or traffic patterns, a city.
So yeah.
Damien: Build first plan later.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I, I see that our cities strive for change indeed, and throw away the past for the sake of progress. I as an old man in, in waiting, I resonated with that line.
Damien: Back in my day we had
rotary phones and houses and we didn't have these tics in there.
So, moving on then on page 284.
Clarissa was shocked to think that what was going on was an ancient form of punishment for a nun who broke her vows. I didn't know what she was talking about. Did either of you know what was talk, what she was talking about? She didn't describe it. It seemed too horrible for her to think about. Do you have any insight?
So
Jess: my, my first instinct was like, Ooh, this is gonna be some sort [00:36:00] of like sexual violence because we got just a bunch of men parading around some mean nun and some monks and
Ryan: robes
Jess: and robes, you know, sorry, Ryan Robes are always like on the edge of a little too creepy for a 2:00 AM Tell that to the
Damien: hotel industry.
Jess: 2:00 AM parade into a church. But so anyway, then I Googled it and there was like some mentions of like, depending on how you broke your vows, you could in theory be murdered.
Ryan: Right.
Jess: But like I didn't see anything in my, listen, in my expert five minutes of Google that led me to believe like that this was a real old practice that ever actually happened with any frequency.
Damien: Yeah. I was under the impression that they had some sense of knowledge of the historic practices because I'm assuming that they took a look at what was in front of them. They could tell that in the way that this woman presented that she was one of the nuns. Maybe she [00:37:00] had a tattered habit or something like that.
She was obviously being mistreated or held at a distance. Oh, whi bull gone astray. Straight. Yeah, backwards. It's wimble. So the chance is, is that whatever she did was in violation of her vows. Mm-hmm. And that what they saw, sort of the punishment. Doesn't necessitate the crime. You don't need to figure out what the crime is.
It's very obvious that she was in the wrong somehow because of how she was being treated. I don't think that they knew what she did or what the sin was that she committed, you know? Okay. Okay. But I
Jess: thought it was interesting that they jumped right to oh, the nun must have done some, the young nun.
That
Ryan: was interesting. Yeah.
Jess: Whereas I would've read it as like, oh, these weirdos are doing like a. Midnight sacrifice. Well,
Damien: that, yeah, that's where I thought, that's where I thought that maybe they had some semblance because there was some illusion that they both understood what was happening.
Right. There was a reference to that. So I think that maybe that's the reason they were in the town was to see this old cathedral. Maybe that's the reason that they were checking out the cathedral from afar and then wanting to go in because they had a, a sense of like, they knew more than we did [00:38:00] religious history that Yeah.
That they didn't share, that the exposition didn't outline.
Ryan: There, there actually is a deep history to this and it is profoundly disturbing bet the more we learned about it. Bet. This is a reference to the medieval practice of Im Mument, which is walling someone up alive and yet leaving them with a little food and water in the cavity in which you oof wall them.
What that insult to injury there and this was a practice prolongs. Right by monastic groups. And this is what's so horrible about it. This was specifically a a punishment for nuns who broke the vow of chastity.
Jess: Sure. Okay.
Ryan: Uh, okay. Knew it. Now you wanna know what's the most awful part of this? They would carve onto the interior of the wall in which you were bricked in the Latin phrase, va meaning [00:39:00] go in peace.
It's just salt on the wound as far as I'm concerned. This practice was so awful that in the year 1350 Archbishop of Tous appealed to King John for a mitigation of this punishment. Check this out. A mitigation, but not a cessation. This is what he asked the king for. He asked only that the punished be visited twice a month for consolation.
So these women that are like, walled up in this brick, like impossible to move in area let's send somebody to visit her. And in addition to a social call, he asked that they also be allowed to request a visit twice a month from a monk for prayer. Oh yeah. The monastic groups complained about this and apparently resisted these watering down of their ways. This, the [00:40:00] more I learned about this, the more awful it was. In your summary, , you highlighted the colors of the robes of the various people and that triggered something further in me.
These were practices specifically in my research I learned these were practices specifically of the Franciscans and the Dominicans. We heard from you that he referenced both black robes and brown robes. Those were the colors of the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Franciscans were brown. Dominicans were black.
So this is a targeted assault. The fact that these two people like contemporarily knew about this. They must have been, they must have been history professors, I suppose. Probably
Jess: better Google than we had. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: But this practice was really something and it's absolutely what Ed Growling PO playing with in the Cask of ado.
Yeah.
Jess: How much food are you getting? Do you get to pick your food?
Damien: That's a good question.
Ryan: I don't know. Don't gimme anything if you're gonna do that to me. Yeah. I'm not a survivor. I, I would like quicker, please. Yeah.
Jess: I'm out of here.
Ryan: Like in all the images that you see, they leave their head and their hands out, which is [00:41:00]
Damien: the most worst.
Rude. Yeah. Then how do you eat the food? I don't understand the system. I don't wanna see visuals. It's not understandable.
Ryan: It is really disturbing. And the fact that people like protested against it and men, like men of God. I said, nah, we're good. This is a good idea. We don't like
Damien: change.
No, we're gonna keep walling up these broken women. It's terrible.
Ryan: It's a real, it's a real disturbing chapter in the church's history, which is,
Jess: luckily it's the only one. So
Ryan: Somewhat full of,
oh, I,
I, again, I have no defense. I hate no defense. S sometimes we do good things. Yeah. I hope. So knowing now what the punishment is for, why do you suppose these two hapless tourists are subjected to it? They did not break the vows of chastity. Oh. But
Damien: They say it in the story.
They're like, you know, what will they do if they discovered that they've, this has been witnessed?
Ryan: It, it obviously wasn't a, because this punishment for seeing [00:42:00] what they shouldn't have seen. Yeah. It
Damien: obviously wasn't a public display because it's happening in the middle of the night. 2:00 AM Yeah.
So this is one of those are these ghost dirty little secrets? Are these ghost these ghost monks, or are these real monks?
Jess: Nah, these gotta be
Damien: real monks. They're real monks. Really?
Jess: Yeah.
Damien: Here's why. Here's why. Oh, I
Ryan: totally picture them as skeletal ghost monks.
Damien: No they're real. And no, that's disturbing more.
I actually think because of the constant reference of the number six, that Yeah, it could be a little bit of the. Other side of the coin. A little bit of a, well, ab Satan sect. Yeah.
Ryan: No. Right. So, so, so if you don't know what Damien's talking about, seven is the biblically perfect number. And so the number of the devil is one shy of that.
Six which in Trinitarian form 6, 6, 6 makes the number of the beast from Revelation. That's a whole. And 7, 7, 7 is a jackpot at the old slot machines. Hey, there you go.
Oh, that's fascinating. I totally pictured these guys as ghost monks.
Jess: No, I think they're just [00:43:00] throwback, like they're the monks who were told not to do this, and they're just like, okay, we're gonna go at 2:00 AM Oh,
Ryan: that makes it even darker. Yeah. They got
Damien: their own monk clans going on where they're just like, Nope, we're keeping the old ways.
Because all this reference of like how modern society is escaping from the past, right? No, it sense from the past still exists. It just exists in the shadows, you know?
Ryan: Oh wow. That really colors this a bit differently. We're gonna have to go back and read it again. Which is only gonna take me five minutes.
Yeah, you could literally do it while Jess and I vamp for five
Damien: minutes.
Ryan: So I, and I know this might not make, if you're just following the podcast and not reading the text. I know this might not make sense to everybody, but the placement of this story and the volume, I think is actually really smart.
Yeah. This is it. The end. This is the last story's The last story, yeah. And in particular, because it follows Mr. James' the stalls of Bar Cathedral, which we're also gonna cover later in this episode, or excuse me, later in this season. But the stalls, this is just it's just so good. The stalls of Bar Cathedral.
Spoiler. But [00:44:00] it's a Yeah, I know. Sorry. But it's a slow burn. So, so to pair this sort of longish slow burn story that does something similar with this, with a slap in the face. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jess: Movie trailer. Movie trailer of
Ryan: a story. Good call. It's a brilliant move on the part of our editor, and I really wanna thank her for that and mention that.
Do you like this as an anchor story for a collection like this? Do you think that's a good move a short, punchy story at the end?
Jess: I think so, but I also think because it's so different than most of the other stories. Yeah. Honestly, it could have gone anywhere and you would've been like, Ooh.
Like if it was at the beginning, like, oh, this was fun to kick off, if it's in the middle oh, this was a nice break from, you know, boring monks. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. But boring monk
Jess: at the end also because it, you know, feels so much more contemporary than some of the other ones. I think it's good to put it there.
Damien: It definitely does, but I think it gives a little hat tip to man size and marble, to be honest. Like, [00:45:00] okay, sure. You know, like hapless victims get a weird sense of religious justice or whatever.
Ryan: So. Well, speaking of that, in another of his famous stories, which is called the crystal lids, Wyndham takes a more protracted critique of religious extremism.
Do you think he's doing that here in this story, or is this really just a spooky setting with a dark history to it? Or is he saying something?
Jess: I think he's saying if you have two characters looking around and being like, oh gosh, look at these cool churches. I sure wish we had more old, cool churches and did things like this.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Oh, do you? Because I'm gonna walk. But they did back in the day. Yeah, yeah,
Ryan: yeah. Because she's the one, right. Clarissa is the one at the beginning that says, the past feels so close here. Yes. Right. Yeah. And they're both
Jess: just sort of like looking around in awe at everything. Oh,
Ryan: so you think they're guilty?
Damien: that's no assessment of guilt. That's so, I don't know.
But just, do you see these as bad people making dumb decisions, which is your favorite kind of No, I think, [00:46:00] no, they're not bad.
Jess: I don't think they're as bad.
Damien: What do you mean as bad? There's nothing they did was bad.
They wanted to do a church. No,
Ryan: nothing they did was
wrong.
Jess: Yeah. If you're idolizing the past in the way that maybe Ryan did earlier complaining about new technology or whatever, you know, like, I feel like you're maybe a couple steps away from throwing a measles party because you don't have any memory of how bad measles are.
So they're not this, but it's just if you don't have any understanding of. The past or perhaps the horrible things that happened in your majestic or the totality.
Ryan: Yeah, the totality of the past. Right.
Jess: If you just think it's a cool, beautiful thing that's
Ryan: interesting. So their fault is in idolizing a past that they don't understand fully.
Sure. I like that. I actually like that Jess. I do
Damien: that. That to me is a stretch. I think that they're faultless. I think if anything they've exhibited heroic tendencies. They were scared, they were outnumbered. They were in an unfamiliar place. They tried to make the best of it. Raymond tried to comfort Clarissa whenever [00:47:00] those, you know, innate and subconscious fears, like over rotor, they tried to save this nun at the end by digging her out of this cave at, you know, to their own demise at the end.
Everyone else, they don't their own danger.
Jess: They don't have measles. We still gave everyone measles.
Damien: It was just, it was the sweet first couple in a horror movie that gets absolutely brutalized that they're just like, oh, we're just having a picnic out in the park. You know what can you say? You know what
Ryan: the, that's an interesting point too, Damien, this does feel like the opening scene, A longer movie.
Yeah. Less movie
Jess: trailer more. Now the family has to track down what went wrong. Yeah.
Damien: After the eighth page and introduce a wider cast, it goes into the mythos of this sect, of this, you know, possibly rogue sect of the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Is that what you said? Franciscans? Yeah.
Franciscan. Yeah. So there
Ryan: you go. Writing Francis, there's your writing prompt. If you wanna follow up on the end of this story, finish this story chance. I, I don't know about you, but we've referenced the way this story feels so many times, but I'd love to see this story get something like the Cabinet of curiosities [00:48:00] treatment.
Yeah, that's a good call. Mm-hmm. And I want to know who are you casting as? Our couple. And who are you casting as Our lead monk.
Jess: Who's the guy from The Witch?
Damien: Oh, Ralph Sison.
Jess: Yeah. He gets to be the evil monk, but he's gotta do a good monologue or whatever. Just, I think he's great.
Damien: We just need to hear his voice. Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. I'll put him in everything.
Damien: I wish Christopher Walken was still in films. 'cause I could see him as being like a really ominous, Lead Monk
Ryan: and then for the Couple and John Malkovich down
Damien: the couple could be anybody, I don't know who's sweet and unassuming.
Ryan: Yeah. I picked Rupert grin.
Damien: What an odd, odd choice. Although he was in one of the cabinet of curiosities. So for
Ryan: exactly that reason, he's kind of sweet and unassuming and I struggled with the woman, but I came up with Lucienne Buchanan who's in a show I've recently watched in which she plays like sort of wide-eyed, doe-eyed, dumbfounded person.
Very
Damien: well.
Ryan: Sure.
Damien: See, and when I think of [00:49:00] that kind of in, in the spotlight, I think of Ella Purnell who's in Fallout and Yellow Jackets. Yeah,
Ryan: exactly. And then
Damien: I want to give. I don't know. Somebody who seems like he would play a good hero, but also you kind of wanna see, get the Dirty Inurement treatment, which is like a Glen Powell or something.
Uhhuh, like a dash dashing. Yeah.
Jess: Right. So
Damien: they would be the couple falling victim to I like that Christopher Walken and his cast of characters.
Jess: Perfect. That sounds good. That's better.
Damien: Well,
Jess: what
Damien: did you guys, but nothing to add. Who's your cast? Wait, hold on. Who's Jesse's cast?
Jess: I don't know.
Okay. I don't know any young a Well, you already
Damien: said Ralph Sison.
Jess: Actually. I think he should play all the characters
Damien: then. It'd be like that movie men or whatever. Yes.
Jess: Yeah, it's exactly that. Except he's, yeah, he's also the wife.
Damien: I'd see that movie. Alright. Done Ralph. I, the wife
Jess: and the young nuns. And it's
Damien: spelled like, the Nutty Professor where it's like Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy. Yes. And Eddie Murphy. Except it's Ralph Sison. That's great. [00:50:00]
Jess: As a young nun. What a
Ryan: silly film.
So the writing in general, what'd we think?
Damien: I liked it. It was good. It was fast.
Jess: It was fast.
Damien: Told a dirty story.
Jess: Even for a short story, nothing was a filler. Right. We're right. We're just going right.
There was nothing more innate about it. There was nothing poetic. I agree with Jess saying it read like a screenplay a little bit.
Mm-hmm. Or you could see it getting the screenplay treatment like that makes a lot of sense.
Ryan: The thing I liked about it is also the thing I think a lot of people would criticize it for, which is these periodic sentences, particularly at the beginning that were like the book should have come already highlighted.
These are the things I would like you to know about this story. I kind of like that. So, the lines that I referenced already, most of our cities strive for change. They throw away the past for the sake of progress. But I, yeah, I really liked this idea. And Damien, you referenced the blessing of the cars in your summary.
A thing I've done on a handful of occasions, even [00:51:00] Interesting. Um, but on page 2 79, Wyndham writes this, which I thought was a great line. The car. With its celestial premium paid, yes. Move on. Yes. Love that line. And with it went all sign of the 20th century. Right? I thought that was great.
Jess: Yeah. Like for a kind of sparse, that's not even quite the right word. It's not that sparse, but you know, it's a short story, but you know, fully where you are, the churches describe, the monks are described, so it's not like it's Yeah it's
Damien: not, it's not sparse. It's tight. It's just tight riding.
Yeah. It's, it's Hemingway ish, you know, where you're like, I
Ryan: mean, the church I served in Philadelphia could have been described in that way. Like if you didn't see cars around or if you framed a shot without automobiles in it, yeah. You could jump back 300 years. You could jump back 300 years. A hundred percent.
Damien: Interesting.
Ryan: Well, did it church? How many cathedral bells this time, Damien?
Damien: I mean, the fact that it, well, one, it took place in a church and that's fine, but two, like the baddies, it took place in multiple spots of the church. Oh yeah. [00:52:00] And the baddies were religious figures. Yep. I mean, this is pretty high church geometer, so it's ringing.
Mm-hmm. What are the collection bells called again? A Caron. Yeah. It's ringing most of the Caron, I would say a four out of five. A four and a half out of five Caron. Fair enough. Jess?
Jess: Yeah, I think five carons.
Damien: That's, it's a full Caron.
Ryan: I agree. I'm gonna round up. Oh, interesting. I gave it a LA slightly less score on this seven out of 10 carolon bells.
Okay. Yes, it takes place in a church, but I was like, it's more cryp, which could be, that's true Crypt. But it is a Crip that's in a church, and,
Damien: and it was given a religious treatment that has historical context, so. Right,
Ryan: right. No, I'm persuaded by your argument. I think my score is too low.
Damien: All right.
Ryan: Lesson learned, the fear. Hold up. Indeed.
Damien: This was a terrifying story to me, but probably because the fate of the victims is arguably one of the most terrifying things I can think of. So, yes, it was very scary.
Jess: Knowing more context that they got a little snack in there really [00:53:00] doesn't help.
Actually.
Damien: Isn't that awful? They're like paving you up and they're like, I left you some grapes. Yeah. Sandwich. There's a lowfat milk. Um, I just hope like,
Ryan: is that to assuage their guilt? Like I gave you a sandwich. Yeah. Just, just go
Damien: in peace. Go in peace.
Ryan: That's, it's the worst. It's the worst. Oh I got so mad when I learned that.
Damien: Nah, it's pretty brutal. But also any favors. But also the fact that, you know, the offenders. Are supposed to be positive religious figures, right? The fact that they felt safe 'cause they were in a church, the fact that they were like, we have nothing to worry about.
Ryan: And I think that's what I said like at the, in the first episode, like, what is my hope for this series?
Like the hope is that we get a religious character that's decent.
Damien: Well we had that with what, the Parsons Oath oath.
Ryan: yeah. We had a good guy there. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was a good guy.
Damien: So you got your wish. Now let everyone suck.
Ryan: But I agree. Damon, this was one of the creepier stories I think we've read in a long while.
Yeah, actually, for sure. The imagery was terrifying. That's gonna take us to our whiskey ratings. This is how we rate our stories [00:54:00] here on Whiskey and the Weird From Zero Fingers of Whiskey to the coveted full fist. Jessica. Four and a half. Four and a half. All right.
Jess: Yeah. Fun movie. I'd watch this
Ryan: on YouTube.
Yeah. Probably on, on
Jess: YouTube. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Damien: Yeah I never get these, and I, the fact that I read the story three times and I just, I loved it. And the fact that it was so scary to me and the fact that it, it was remarkably rich in its tightness. I'm giving it five, I'm giving it a full fist.
Ryan: Hey, there's a full fist.
Damien: We have one I never give full fist, but this one is just one that I was like I want to read more of this expanded universe. I want to see what happens after this teaser trailer dropped, right? Um, and yeah, it was only eight pages and I could fault it for it, but it told a complete story in eight pages, and it was a scary story.
Ryan: Absolutely. So I'm coming in with four and a half as well. All right. We all rated this story very highly. I loved it for all the same reasons you guys have said. It's very visual, it's very fun. It's super creepy. I lopped off a half finger though for [00:55:00] lack of characterization. This is all about the shock, but for me, if we knew more about these people, then the shock would hurt more.
That's fair. And I think it, it could be more if they're on their
Jess: honeymoon and they've got a kid to get back to
Damien: Only three weeks in on that honeymoon though, they're newlyweds. Right?
Ryan: There's two pages that could be added to this. You don't have to make it a protracted long extended story.
That's fair. You add two pages and you tell me who these people are, and this is a full fist for me.
Damien: Yeah. I I think that's really fair. I think the ogness of Yeah. Their fate. It didn't matter if you knew 'em or didn't, right. Just the sheer terror of the fate itself was enough to just scare the be.
Mm-hmm. Bejeebus outta me, so,
Ryan: absolutely. Well, that's gonna take us to our, if this, then that for this evening. And I've got one for you. Woohoo. Um, yeah, so if you liked the story in the cathedrals crypt or I think it's just the cathedrals crypt, John the cathedral crypt, yeah. Then I've got a story with another religious procession for you, and that's [00:56:00] Procession of the Black Sloth by Laird Baron.
This is from his debut collection, which is called the Imago Sequence, in which almost every single story is fantastic. A fantastic story. This is a really dark story. It's a story that made me question humanity. It's a story that you question my own reality. It features a truly uncanny and dark procession.
At one point it's about travel. It's about being hung over and jet lagged and all the weird things that can happen and perhaps the reason I liked it so much and was confused by it so much was that when I first read it, I read it on an airplane and it opens with the main character on an airplane.
And I was just in it in a way. Is this me? Like I checked into my hotel and I was like, I'm not sure I want to do this.
Damien: He looks out on the wing, he sees a gremlin tearing off chunks of the plane. He's like, no, I'm in a different story. Okay, we're good. We're good.
Ryan: Yeah, that's right. Look, I love Laird Barron.
It [00:57:00] was his birthday a few days ago. Happy birthday Laird. Happy belated birthday lad. And I know that at least one, if not both of you have also read this story, would you? Yeah. We both. Would you agree? Yeah.
Damien: Uh, love it and love Laird's ability to sort of blend the modern with the gothic historic weird, because as Ryan mentioned, like the story opens on a plane, but it's about , I believe an American businessman who's going out mm-hmm.
To meet business partners in Japan. And That's right. A lot of it takes place in contemporary Japan and going through the Tokyos of the world and enjoying all the sights and sounds there and then all of a sudden takes this really dark, weird. Turn and never looks back
Ryan: Like you read it and you go, what the hell?
Yeah. What, can I read that again? What was
Damien: that? I love the fact that he does this because I think Lair does this with a number of stories in the Imago sequence. A number of his other stories, and one that I wanna mention is this novella that he wrote that was called Man With No Name. That takes place largely within Yakuza and Japanese clan culture about a, it's like an enforcer within one of the clans in the Yakuza that essentially does [00:58:00] his deed, runs through, listens to his bosses, but then decides that he or is tasked with killing like a professional wrestler and then decides course he doesn't wanna do it course, and then they're out in these woods and the story otherwise has no spiritual supernatural elements.
And then all of a sudden like these ogre come into play and these like mythical beasts come into play and then people are killed, but then come back to life. It's just so weird and out of nowhere because otherwise it feels like a crime to war. He does that story so well. Yes, he does
Ryan: Make you question what?
What just happened? Yeah. And did I read that right?
Damien: It's wild. It's wild. It's a lot of fun. Do you think he's proficient at that? Yeah.
Jess: I am a little bit less of a layered head than you two are.
Damien: You're not a Baroness.
Jess: But I mean, in reading the Cathedral crypt, I immediately knew that both of you were gonna recommend this short story
LD Head.
Damien: I just can't compare layered head. It's such a good term. Just a bunch [00:59:00] of layered
Jess: heads over here.
Ryan: Couple lair
Damien: noses.
Ryan: That's gonna do it for us on this episode of Whiskey and The Weird Friends, thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed hanging out with us, would you please rate or review whiskey and the weird wherever you find your podcasts?
We would be grateful. We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandis for providing the music for whiskey and the Weird, and Damien, if they'd like to tell us about their strange and uncanny processions, where can they do that? Yeah.
Damien: Feel free to hit us up on the socials We're at Whiskey and the Weird on all the meta socials on Blue Sky.
Who knows what else we'll dig up where you won't find us as on X. So at whiskey and the weird on Instagram, Facebook book, gram of instance blue Sky of course. And hit us up let us know what's going on. Drop us a follow, ask us a question. I know we're pretty open, we're pretty responsive. We spell our whiskeys with an E by the way, and we hope you do too.
If not, well, you learned what a yurman is and you learned what a thibo is. That's [01:00:00] right. And I got snacks, so don't push us. Wow.
Ryan: Jess, what are we reading next?
Jess: We are gonna read the Sexton's Adventure by Sheridan.
Ryan: Ooh. I like him. I like his stories. Hey, I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're whiskey in the Weird, somebody Send us home.
Jess: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps and the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye everybody.
Jess, what are we reading next?
Jess: God, I don't know nothing. Uh,
Damien: we're gonna live in an existential pause.