Time warp! Updates from our future's past, multiple mustachios, and the gang gets deep on ourselves (but not as deep as how this author describes a monk's haircut). Dang bro, chill. 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 Face of the Monk by Robert Hichens.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir; drinking Freeland Spirits Bourbon.
Damien is watching Freaky Tales (2024; dir. Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck); drinking a Hibiki Japanese Harmony.
Ryan is reading A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck; drinking a Highland Park 12.
If you liked this week’s story, watch Black Box (2020; dir. Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour).
Up next: "The Stalls of the Barchester Cathedral" by the inimitable M. R. James
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
Jess: [00:00:00] I don't wanna see a floating anybody's head.
I think my own head would be scarier than a stranger maybe. But
Damien: I still think I'd be tempted to do the, am I in a mirror? I'd stick up my tongue and flare my nostrils. Sure. And see if the floating head did the same. I'd probably say like, that's how we marry
Ryan: five times. Just to see if this was candy.
Man. Dude, come on. Live that Candyman. Absolutely. Tony. Todd, we miss you. RIP. So. Welcome back everybody. I'm Father Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm a very tired Jessica Berg
Damien: and I am no title necessary. 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 selections from the British Library's [00:01:00] 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.
The season we turn to a testament of terror as we explore. Holy ghosts. Woo. Classic tales of the ecclesiastical. Uncanny
looks, ecclesiastical.
And now hawk. I hear the cathedral bells. Calling us to Vespers, hasten to your reviere. Scoop more incense on the coals and join us in the pews before the last
Jess: candle
Ryan: flickers out.
For tonight. Jess comes from an all together different lectionary and our master story planner. Jess is here to tell us
Damien: and also master Foley [00:02:00] artist Jess pew. Oh, there's a horse in the studio.
Ryan: The horse has got a suit. I saw a coconut laden's African swallow fly by.
Jess: The Face of the Monk by Robert Hitchens.
Ryan: The Face of the Monk. What a titillating title. Titillating. Well, no, it's gonna be about, well, before we tell you that we've got a couple of things to do tonight actually. I wanna take a bit of personal privilege here and do a little check-in, because in the magic of podcast world, it has only been a week since you heard our sultry tones, but in our lives.
This has been quite a while since we've been together and recorded an episode we've had. We've had a lot going on each of us personally. And I thought it might be nice to just check in. So, I wanna start with Jess, the star of the show
Jess: in other news. I have a lovely bouncing baby boy. He's very cute. So yes, I take 100% of the blame because I had a baby. He came a little early. Mm-hmm. He's exceptionally cute, but he did derail any [00:03:00] semblance of free time or being awake or being conscious or funny or the ability to read for a little bit.
So weird. Getting back on track,
Ryan: but he is adorable, Francis. Thank
Jess: you. He's adorable. Thank you. He's a real cute baby.
Damien: An adorable baby jerk who prolonged the finish the completion of this season. Thanks baby jerk.
Jess: Thanks baby jerk. So yeah, that was, I'm gonna take, I'll take 95% of the blame. I feel like you guys also had some stuff going on.
Ryan: I've got a few, I've got a few things going on. I know Damien had a couple things too, but we're also delighted to see your mason jar again. Yes, it's back.
Jess: Yeah. So most excitedly number one whiskey number two. Cute baby.
Damien: There you go. There we go.
Ryan: Damien, you were in a play. And so how did that turn out?
Damien: I was in a play.
It was a lot of fun. It was a modern biting take on local politic and how it reflective it is of what's going on on our side of the pond for European listeners currently. It was a great show. Great turnout, had sold out performances, and it was a blast. [00:04:00] It makes me feel good about being in theater.
Did it
Jess: inspire you to run for office?
Damien: It inspired me to never even consider running for office, probably even better. What about you, Ry Here you're situated in a do about.
Ryan: We are finally situated in a new house. It has been a long journey for us. I don't want to oversell it. It's been a much longer journey for a lot of other people who are still on this road.
Damien: Yeah, true. But,
Ryan: If you've been following us, we were devastated by Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024. Our house flooded and we had to move out. We moved into a rental for a while, and we have moved into our new permanent residence now, which is delightful. The process of finding and buying a home is fraught with peril no matter who you are.
But as I work for a church, and this church is, church was purchasing the home. It's the new rectory for our parish. I was house hunting by committee, which perfect. I do not recommend. Like normally like one spouse or partner is that is coming this year. Other voices, httv
Damien: house, hunting by committee, house, hunting by committee.
A difficult [00:05:00] task,
Ryan: but. There's all kinds of neat statistics I could tell you about our new place. But the most exciting one to us is that we are now 46 feet in the air. Good. Rather than three feet, which proved problematic last fall. So
Damien: I hear that's the stratosphere for Florida actually. So you're there with some cumul clouds Mount St.
Pete. You hope you're coping well with the thinner air that you're experiencing. That's right. That's right. We have a little oxygen tank on from time to time. That's pretty good. You and your pack mule.
Ryan: So I just thought it would be good to clue our listeners into what's been going on in our lives. It has been a number of months since we've been together for recording and we hope that we still remember how to do it.
I have no doubts that these two, some carried, carried you through. Yeah,
Jess: I have some
Damien: doubt. It's, it's good to see these faces, but not as good as it's, so it's to sees good the face of a monk.
Ryan: Look at that day shit. Wow, wow, wow. Well, before we show you the face of the monk, let's do our bar talk. Damien, what are you drinking tonight?
Damien: Oh geez. I decided because it has been such [00:06:00] a reprieve that I was so excited to see while tonight that I went back to my typical season opener whiskey, which is just an all in all classic. It is my haki Japanese harmony. It is smooth, it is blended. It is a gorgeous straw color. It is so acclimated. My palate is so acclimated to it that I really feel like I don't even taste it at all.
It's just become one with me. You know, I don't add drops of water to it off of a fork. I just poured over a nice big ice ball and I love every minute of it. So that is haki Japanese harmony. As far as stuff I'd done, did consumed outside of these delightful tales of the weird, another set of tales anthology film that was dropped in 2024 to.
Tepid acclaim, I guess, in the theaters, but recently started streaming over here on HBO Max, which is just back to HBO now. Or is it HBO max? No, it went from HBO Max I it to max to HBO Max. Okay. [00:07:00] Anyway, it's called Freaky Tales, written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Do those names sound familiar?
They also wrote and directed the Marvels this anthology stars Pedro Pascal, because it's a movie that
Ryan: what doesn't, right? Yeah, because it came out the last
Damien: two years, so of course he's in it, but it's also got some really cool cam, like Tom Hanks makes it cameo. Anyway, it's a series of four. That's funny.
Slightly interconnected tales that take place in 1987 Oakland. Few of them are actually based on real events, although highly dramatized, including a bunch of punks going to war against a bunch of Nazis, including
Ryan: in Oakland.
Damien: Yeah, inclu, including like a famous basketball player for the Warriors that ended up scoring 29 points in a quarter, which was an NBA record at the time.
In this version, however, he takes on an astral projection ninja persona and ends up above the rating the remain. It's got too short in it [00:08:00] and his. Famed rap battle with a duo of female rappers called Danger Zone. All these are like actual events that took place in this timeframe, and they've been highly dramatized.
It was a weird, like, really quirky fun. I definitely think it's got cult status written all over it. Hmm. Again, it's called Freaky Tales. It's an Easy Hour 45. A delightful anthology by Anna Boden. Ryan Fleck, again came out in 2024, and it's available on HBO Max
Ryan: as of recording. Nice. I think it was just recommended to me by that streaming service as something
Damien: I might
Ryan: like.
Damien: You might, it's got a lot of Green lightning, but it is, super weird and fun. And Tom Hanks alone, like he's just, he's America's treasure. He's a delight, and he comes in as the most like weird VHS store owner character. Love it. Who goes on about the underdogs and the top five underdog movies and never gets to one.
I hope he recommends commends the burs to somebody in that film. That would be hilarious. Although the Lost boys get a lot of [00:09:00] nods the film, the Lost Boys gets a lot of hat tipping throughout the entirety of this film. So with that, I'll pass it on to Jess. Jess, what's going on? What's in your glass?
Actual booze.
Jess: Actual booze. I am drinking the Freeland Spirits Bourbon, which I like and like to have on my shelf 'cause it has a really pretty bottle. It's like a teardrop shaped bottle. Nice. It also tastes pretty good, but I'm drinking it because it was on my shelf and they are fairly depleted because I have not been drinking for a very long time.
So hashtag
Ryan: her address is, should you center a bottle? Yeah, seriously.
Jess: Sponsors, enthusiasts, kind, mothers, whoever's around. And I just finished a book that I think was recommended probably 100 years ago at one of our like original book club meetings called Gideon the Ninth. Oh yeah, I wanna say that our mutual friend Kelly, recommend I will give them the credit.
Damien: Kelly, shout out to Kelly.
Jess: So Gideon the ninth by Tamson Muir, and the [00:10:00] blurb on the front says, lesbian Necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space. And uh, yeah. How did you go wrong?
Damien: That's Kelly. That's a Kelly book.
Jess: That's what it is.
It's a fantasy sci-fi horror novel that like, if you ask any questions about it. Immediately falls apart. It's like space colonies that seem to have a skeleton based economy. And I don't think that's how any world would ever work, ever. But as long as you don't actually think about it, it's really fun.
It has about 15 million characters and I think that is why it has at least a few sequels. So I know there's at least three books in the series. I've only read the first one, but it is significantly more fun than I thought it was gonna be. I've heard
Ryan: they're all very different.
Jess: Okay, great. So I'll let you know, I just ordered the second one.
This.
Ryan: I've got the first one, but I haven't read it yet. So it's
Jess: fun. It's like a, you know, funny dialogue. People reacting to things the way that like a normal [00:11:00] human would, like if you're being attacked by a giant skeleton monster or whatever, like, you're gonna be mad and swear and think it sucks and try to hit it with a big sword, I think.
Which they
Ryan: have in space
Damien: here. Yes. Big chords. Yes. Yes. We knew this from our previous episode. Yeah. We did.
Ryan: Laser sword. Laser swords.
Jess: Exactly. No, this is, it's like old timey regal sci-fi fantasy space magic. Don't ask too many questions. Love it has, I have so much going on that you just read it and have a good time, but I don't think it's one that you wanna think too deeply about how anything exists or why it works, but I'm having a good time with it.
I'll pick up the next couple, I think. Nice. Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Well, thank you so much for asking. I, I also wanna give, she doesn't care. She doesn't shout care because they were my first official guest in my new home, so that, no way. Lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, oh, that's fun. Alright, well, Kelly centric podcasting, right, right.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Check out Horror and a Half podcast, their own podcast. Please do their own podcast. Yes. It's [00:12:00] a lot of fun.
Jess: It's a delight.
Ryan: I went tonight with a very, very, very good whiskey. That used to be one of my favorites, but others I think have supplanted it in the years gone by. This is the Highland Park 12.
Mm-hmm. It's a, it's a whiskey from the very northern part of Scotland. It's from the Isle of Orie. It's slightly peed. It's got that sea briny salt air in it. And yet some of the smoothness of the upper highlands. It's a really good whiskey. My bottle says Highland, part 12. Viking Honor, and this is part of where I think some of these distilleries have gone wrong.
They've done so many like mm-hmm. Iterations of themselves, like
limited runs. Right. That they sort of
forget what the original one was. So I can't tell you if this is their original. Highland Park 12 that is now just called Viking Honor, or it's a variation special. Yeah, it is a very cool bottle.
I know. Not everybody can see it, but I'll show it to my co-hosts here. It's not everybody can see it. No, that is great. We know you're all watching at home. Yeah. But it is a good whiskey and [00:13:00] I actually finished my first glass of it in the pre-show periods.
Damien: We, we did chat while before we hit record.
We did chat while, so
Ryan: wait, we hadn't seen each other in a while.
Jess: We like each other.
Ryan: as for I, as for what I've been doing. I read a short little novella that's been on my list for some time. Everybody that I know that's read it has said, oh, this is a must read. It's called A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck. Have either of you read this?
Damien: No, I have not.
Ryan: This is a clean 110 page novella about a gentleman who finds himself in hell upon his untimely demise is interviewed by a demon so that the demon can sort him into what hell he will experience. Mm-hmm.
Damien: As one does,
Ryan: as one does, and this is not giving anything away.
This is in the first couple of pages, the demon says, the reason this man has been sent to hell is because he chose the wrong religion. And the guy's like, well, I was like a good boy my, my whole life. I, he's like, Nope, you chose the right. He's like, what is the right religion? And he's like, well, it turns out it was Zoroastrianism.
And the guy's like, who's ever heard of [00:14:00] that? And he's like, that's part of, that's part of our issue is that nobody,
they didn't have a great pr.
Damien: My, my only experience with Zoroastrianism is along the top of a House of Blues stage, it's got all these religious symbols and one of 'em is a Zoro, right?
Ryan: Well,
Damien: maybe we should pay more attention because
it appears to be the correct religion. And so what happens immediately is he says, oh, I see that you really loved books in your life, so this hell will be great for you. He pushes a button on his laptop and zap off. The guy goes to his own personal hell, which is , a real quote unquote real life version of the Library of Babel as portrayed in Jorge Luis Borges's story by the same name.
Okay. It's a, library that has not only every book that was ever written in it, but every book that could ever possibly be written. Perfect. So it's an infinite. Or almost infinite library. Yeah. And the man's task in order to get out of hell because getting out, I mean, they're not unreasonable in hell for Pete's sake.
Or maybe I should say like for [00:15:00] like, as we get it's sake. Yeah. Anyway, they're not unreasonable there. Uh, to get out, you have to find , your biography on the shelves of this infinite library.
Ah, geez.
Ryan: And so there's several other people that have been sent to this version of hell who mean he encounters in the pages.
Like a lot happens in 110 pages. It is existential, it is horror even though it's not. Bill is horror. It is literary. It's quite well written. It is theological. It asks a lot of great questions. It doesn't provide a lot of answers. I loved it. I'd love to teach a class on it. I'd love to sit down in a room full of people that have read it and jaw about it.
Stephen El PA short stay in hell. You should read it and then email me and we'll chat. I know the cover.
Jess: I feel like it might be in my stack of books I own in Pile,
Ryan: but it's small so it's hard to Yeah, it's hard to, it's easy to misplace, I should say. Funny. But yeah. I'm also gonna be investigating Zora Aism.
I know. Not just case someone's got, you. Might as you might as well buff
Damien: up, you know? That's right. Buy a small [00:16:00] condo and hopefully. Maybe it carries you over the promised land. Maybe we'll start
Ryan: the timeshare and go from it. Alright, that's gonna take us to our author and publication info for this evening.
Robert Smy Hitchens, a dapper dressed man with a high collar and thick mustaches. Was born on November the 14th. Mustaches, plural. Mustaches, yeah. You have one on each side. Mustache. Yeah. November 14th, 1864. Abigail Elizabeth Smythe and the Reverend Frederick Harrison Hitchens. His early education was in music, but it was writing that captured his interest the most from the Royal College of Music.
He became a music critic taking George Bernard Shaw's place in that position at a publication called London World with a few works published. He came to national attention with his novel, the Green Carnation. It satirized the relationship between Oscar Wilde and Lord [00:17:00] Alfred Douglas, but not in a mean way.
Hitchens himself was gay as any cursory reading of his works would suggest. And so the Green Carnation was written in great sympathy to Oscar Wilde's aesthetic movement. However, because it was explicit in stating the nature of its character's relationship, it was unfortunately used as evidence against Wild at his trial.
After the trial, Hitchens refused to allow any more copies of the book to be printed, and it would not reappear until 1948. Many of Hitchens other works would go on to be a huge success. His novel, the Garden of Allah, was set to film on three separate occasions. Hitchens enjoyed a dear friendship with a name familiar to many of us.
Ghost story writer, EF Benson. Mm-hmm.
Jess: Mm-hmm. There is
Ryan: no indication that theirs was a romantic relationship. It does seem he found love though in his later years with a Swiss writer named [00:18:00] John Nitel, but that is hearsay. As far as the record books are concerned, most of Hitchen's work is not weird or horror fiction, but he does have a handful of spook tales.
In addition to this one tonight. Chief among them are. How love came to Professor Gildea, or maybe Gild, I don't know. But no one does this story guys has been positively compared to other significant contri contributions to the field like Oliver o's the beckoning fair one and Ance the Hola one commentator even called it one of the greatest stories of its age.
I, I didn't have time to read it. I wanted to, but , it's a long one it's like 65 pages. I did have it in one of my old collections of Supernatural Tales of Terror. The one that's edited by Fraser and Wise, for those of you who are collectors out there and it is very highly recommended.
So I do look forward to checking that out at some [00:19:00] point. Hitchens was very successful and lived a long and prosperous life. He died on July 20th, 1950 and published his memoir yesterday. That's actually the title of it. The book came out in 1947.
So that's Robert Smy Hitchens for you. And that's gonna take us to our summary for tonight. And Jess, I believe you have that for us.
Jess: Oh heck yeah, I do.
Ryan: Excellent.
Jess: Well, let's dive right in. Uh, we find out eventually, but our narrator is named Bernard. Seems important to know that now Bernard is visiting his friend Hubert, after a three year absence.
But while Bernard was in America for the past three years, Hubert had some kind of breakdown and is now institutionalized and under a doctor's care in London, I think our doc says, well, our man, Hubert declared himself unfit to live, that he was a burden on some unknown person and that [00:20:00] every sin affected this unknown guy.
The doctor calls it acute religious mania. Which is great. Bernard doesn't really believe over
Ryan: Tism,
Jess: right? He's got some options here. So Bernard doesn't really believe the doctor because our man, Hubert has always been this brilliant free spirit, and he hasn't been gone that long. Like three years is a pretty short time to have a complete breakdown, I guess.
So he asked to see his friend. Hubert starts off the conversation as kind of a weirdo. He says, I'm altered in ways that no one will believe, but except for Bernard, because he immediately assumes Bernard will believe him, so Hubert regas us with his history as a manic playboy Dirtbag, who's plagued with occasional bouts of very serious depression.
He was very up, up, up or down, down, down, that a lot of [00:21:00] in-between drinking drugs, pretty ladies, pretty guys, you name it. But one during, one particularly bad bout of depression, he was worried that he might be a danger to himself. So he took a little walk outside his apartment, eventually stumbling across the sign for vain, the clairvoyant, he was mysteriously drawn in.
Vain does his thing. Everything you assume that a clairvoyant is gonna do makes him sit across from a little table
Damien: like name themselves, vain
Jess: names himself. Vain has a little sign on his door, I assume, one of those neon hand palm reader signs. Of course, that you see. It's, it's blinking, it's, it doesn't have a
Damien: steady electrical circuit, so it's like blinking, flickering.
Jess: He does a quick reading of Hubert and declares him depressed, which like, yeah, no kidding. I imagine this guy hasn't bathed in weak, so it's probably not that hard to figure out. [00:22:00] But then vain says, did you know that everyone has a companion and then proceeds to describe that there's a floating version of his own face, just above his shoulder?
Same mouth, same eyes, same nose, except the face has a monk haircut and a monk's robe. Because he is a monk. Hebert asks a real, you know, W2 F question and vain says, I guess he must have been a monk once. Hebert doesn't really believe him and leaves, but he can't really stop thinking about this. If someone tells you you have a monk's head that's your own head floating above your shoulder, and he is like, what kind of monk is he and why him did this?
Monk renounce the world. How does Hubert's behavior affect the monk? Can he see it? Can he feel it? He decides. He's pretty perturbed actually, but dives back into his dirt bag lifestyle. But he keeps picturing the monk every time he does anything [00:23:00] sinful and he starts imagining that every bad deed that he does is an actual physical harm to his friend, the floating monk head that is also his head.
He contemplates leading a better life and decides to leave London to do a little traveling apparently. Immediately he wanders up to a monastery in some sad gray mountains. He's allowed to stay the night because the monks there realize that if you've hyped up a weird remote mountain, there's probably not another option.
Super nearby. He snuggles into his bed and a mat
Ryan: stays in down the road, but they don't, right?
Jess: The Holiday Inn sweetss or whatever. He snuggles into his bed and he imagines his monk, and he's hoping that he'll be able to feel his monk vibes tomorrow when he's in this like peaceful resting mountain monastery.
And guess what? The monk is there in real life. So Hubert asked to visit the chapel [00:24:00] and it's very peaceful. He's praying, he's doing his thing until he realized there's a pretty familiar man praying next to him. In the shadows, he longs to see his face, and when he does, of course, it's his own face, which we know is the monk's face.
The monk also sees his face and he runs right out of the chapel. Hubert follows him but can't really catch up to him, or the monk is yelling and calling him a demon. Not the best first impression. The next day he meets the monk outside by the big door to the monastery and they chat. The monk like Hubert somehow knew that he has this matching floating face, but although he was like an imaginary guy, he could feel Hubert influencing his behavior.
Except instead of Hubert thinking his monk would like him to be a better guy, the monk has been suffering through Hubert's terrible behaviors. So every time Hubert [00:25:00] thinks I should be a better guy and doesn't, Hubert has been torturing this poor monk.
Damien: It's the portrait of Doreen Gray.
Jess: Yes, but it's a mountain monk.
You know? It's mountain monk.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: But despite all of this, our monk is weirdly understanding, saying oh, I get it. You're not a demon. He's just his cross to bear. But wouldn't it be better if Hubert sucked less and was a crown instead of a cross? And you know what? To his credit, our man Hugh takes this to heart.
Back in the institution, talking to his friend, he says right there at the monastery, he made a vow. He's not gonna torture this monk and he's gonna go live a nice good life. And he has, except for the one time when he backslid and tried to kill himself, which is of course why he's institutionalized.
But in here he can't sin and corrupt people or be a gross human. And he says he's happy, probably, which means the monk is [00:26:00] happy. Probably Bernard's like K by. And then as he's leaving, the doctor says that yeah, Hubert's nuts. But he's happier in his mania than everyone else in their sanity. So don't worry about it.
Bernard wonders if that's true. The end.
Ryan: It reminded me of that scene in the Big Lebowski where they're going to interview the nurse is like he has health problems. Wow. Well, thank you, Jess. This is a weird one. Yeah, this is a weird one. Weird. It was a weird one.
Damien: It was a weird one. I didn't know where it was going, and I was waiting for it to turn into a story instead of just like a dissertation or almost a lecture.
Mm-hmm. On morality.
Ryan: You know what, Damien, I couldn't have queued that up better. We already talked about that extensively. So, , look, one possible way to interpret this story is to note that what it's about is empathy. What's your reaction to that? [00:27:00] Is that a part of how you encountered this tale? I, is this a story about empathy?
Damien: I don't know if I'd call it empathy. I'd say something like emotional listlessness, if that makes sense . and personifying that struggle to find self. Mm-hmm. And not self as a reflection of a mountain monk, but like truly find self true.
Obviously going through the trauma of suicidal thoughts and attempts. But I don't know if it really stirred this sense of like, this is why empathy is important or this is why empathy exists. Because it was, and this is where the weirdness of the story into play. I thought it was going towards this ethical and moral like heightening moment.
Mm-hmm. But it wasn't, it was like huey goes on the mountain , he sees this monk and he ends up being this, parallel of being the cross to bear, but really he's the crown. Yeah. And it was like, okay, so what's going on? Who is the evil one here? Right. Right. Like, [00:28:00] right. The ambiguity at the end of the story, I was just like, I don't know who to push for. Like Yeah. And it just ended up being, I think that's part of the point, is it possible to be empathetic to either of them?
So that's why I think that empathy maybe isn't the best term.
Ryan: Well, I, I was thinking empathy in, in the sense of the empathy that Hubert is feeling forced to feel for the monk, but you can't be forced into an empathetic state. Well, you can't. I agree. But that was, that was one of the ways the story has been interpreted over the years.
Jess, what's your, what's your opinion? Hard to say.
Jess: Okay. So the first two thirds of the story. Don't read as empathy because we don't know that the Monk Right. Really exists.
Ryan: And so it'll just be the spectral figure, right?
Jess: Yes. It reads as like
Damien: the guardian angel.
Jess: Yeah. Like a mm-hmm. Jiminy Cricket angel on your shoulder kind of situation.
It would've
Damien: been a lot cooler.
Ryan: Yes. Face, if you're in Zoroastrianism, they've got Jimi Cricket. I hear
Jess: face is a face of a [00:29:00] cricket and so it's just like you're reading it as like half mental break, half like, okay, this guy realizes that he's being kind of a dirt bag to everyone that he meets in this, you know, he's like a literary guy.
He's running in these like artistic circles and he's corrupting everyone he sees and something is telling him to cool it maybe don't be such a terrible person. And you read it as like, okay, it's his own face as a monk telling him like, there's probably a different way you could be doing this.
But then there's a real monk who for some reason looks just like him, but with a monk haircut that he is physically actually hurting with all of his horrible decisions. So every time he drinks and parties and mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Goes out with the gang, this poor monk in the mountains is suffering because you, this is the
Ryan: sort of thing you wanna discover after college,
Jess: or not at all.
What if you could just keep pretending [00:30:00] your monk is imaginary or whatever, that seems fine. Or
Ryan: you don't have a monk, or you don't have a, who needs a monk in this case? Yeah.
Jess: So, was interesting. It's not even really like a twist, to be like, oh, your monk face is a real guy.
No, it
Ryan: was just like a really unfortunate discovery.
Damien: I just like, I just like that moment where they're both looking at each other and he is like, oh, you're real. Yeah, you're real. It's like,
Ryan: well, crap.
Damien: It's like right. Do we do, we do the thing where we pretend we're in a mirror and hold our hands up next to each other.
We hug. Are we hugging or fighting? It was a little bit awkward. Yeah. He drops to his knee and it's like, all right, at least somebody did something. Well, there's no, you said succession or No,
Jess: there's no explanation of like, why do they look the same? Why does that matter? Right. Is it just like if a guy, the
Damien: inner self, like he's facing his inner self.
Mm-hmm. And like, you know, you, but like, if
Jess: I'm from the Midwest, I'm very blonde and regular looking compared to every Midwestern lady that's ever existed. If someone who's born who looks like [00:31:00] me, is that all it takes to just have a floating monk head? It's just like another Midwestern lady floating by my head.
Ryan: Look, I think the intentions of the story are actually much more about becoming who you are. And maybe this is because I have a middle schooler now, but like all the agony and ecstasy that entails. Right. How do you see the theme of becoming in this story,
Jess? If at all.
Jess: I like that it took multiple efforts. Right? So he thought about it. Mm-hmm. Backslid tried to do it, realized he needed a change of location, met the bunk, was pretty sure this time it was gonna take, it didn't And now he's institutionalized. Yeah. There's this like a sand reading to that. But it's also like, okay, he has the support he needs now to be a better person.
But you also have removed everything that you liked in your life,
Ryan: right? So you've, you've stripped, you stripped everything down to the bare, like he says, he [00:32:00] picks
Jess: this because there's just, there's no way he can sin in here. He's just hanging out in an, I assume, I dunno about that.
Ryan: I think he can figure it out.
Jess: Listen, if you try hard enough.
Ryan: Damien, what do you think the theme of becoming who you are?
Damien: Yeah. There's that after that awkward introduction, like a first date, and then the supplication, and then a lot of the heavy handed symbology and metaphor that goes into the end. I think that's fair.
The fact that the story closes out by like, oh, you discovered who you were, you found your inner self, so you're insane, but at least you're blissful. I think that sort of takes a little bit of the piss out of that discovery, to be honest. I feel bad, but, at the end of the day I think that is probably a little more prevalent, like facing inner demons, but it's not a demon.
Mm-hmm. Even though you're called with demon Well, and that, and
Ryan: that's the, that's where the biography comes into play, I think. Right. And there are others far more qualified to talk about this than I am certainly. But the idea of, at least at the time the story was written struggling with a gay identity is Yeah.
It's what the story is about, frankly.
Jess: [00:33:00] Yeah.
Ryan: Well, to tag onto that then one of my margin notes was that there's a lot in here between ab, about the wrestling between two natures. I think that now that I've studied the hitchens eye, now that I've studied Hitchen's bio, I, I get that even more.
But when I wrote my margin notes, what I wrote down, of course I did was religious versus secular. Question mark. How do those scenes play here? Like, is that what's going on?
Damien: It may be, but I think the partition is that it's inherent that you think that the monk is the good pious entity.
Jess: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Damien: And then you get thrown a 180 that actually is a little more nuanced than that. I think so when we get to the, does it church, I have an opinion.
I, I have, I have an opinion and I, I will say that we've got a question about that, so we save that. Yeah, I will, I will save it for the does it church, but I think it's more, symbolic that mm-hmm. His doppelganger perceived or otherwise as a monk, because the assumption is the monk is the [00:34:00] pure one.
Ryan: Oh, I like that. I'm interested to hear more about that. Jess, what do you think?
Jess: I think the easiest reading is religious versus non-religious, but I don't know. There's other more fun ways to read it. Like maybe it's good haircut versus monk haircut. Maybe hair,
Damien: by the way, the monk cut has gone into detail.
Jess: Maybe it's regular clothes versus
Ryan: robes, no robes went out there, I have to say. But this goes to what Damien mentioned a bit at the beginning. What I wrote down was, is this just a morality play? And if so, is it successful?
Jess: Yeah,
Damien: I, I don't think it would last on stage.
It'd be an easy like high school thespian one act to do though, but no,
Ryan: in part 'cause I think the author is confused about the answer.
Jess: It's also like, I think if you wanna think about what would make a successful ending, I think it's more rewarding if he learns to live in the world.
Mm-hmm. And just be a [00:35:00] moral guy, but also can exist and go to the grocery store and, go out and have one drink without ruining everything. And everyone he encounters. But the fact that he has to be locked away in order to be any semblance of good and without sin is interesting. Mm-hmm. That it's not.
I've learned a valuable lesson and now I'm a good guy. It's, well, I learned a valuable lesson and I just know I can't be around society.
Damien: There's, that's a good point.
Ryan: It's, it's an excellent point. There's two conversations I want to have about this story. One is with the body of people that is currently in front of me and one is with a group of clergy because like invite '
Damien: em on,
Ryan: which
Damien: we are not.
Ryan: Well, I think this story gets pretty theological. No, I have, have my
Jess: internet license.
Damien: Oh, I do too. Letter of good standing. See, I like my, like my brother. I could marry
Ryan: anybody got before me so he could say he was ordained before I was,
Damien: I know. That's pretty funny.
Jess: It is pretty funny actually.
Ryan: But there's a lot that can be said theologically about this [00:36:00] story and we'll get into a little bit of that in a second, but.
You know, one of the reasons that this doesn't work as a morality plays 'cause he's confused about the tenets of his own religion. Hitchens. I'm talking about the author.
Damien: That's fair.
I would say that is reflected within the story itself. No,
Ryan: it absolutely is.
But it, what it smacks of to me is a story written by a pk, a priest kid, right? Who's rebelling against their father's profession, rebelling against their father's life, but yet is inundated, inculcated, and educated by it. And so they, they have this like push, pull relationship with it, say, inculcated. Did you write that
Damien: down?
Ryan: Are you checking a note? No, but you didn't tell me. I couldn't use that. You just said I wasn't, not used to mure it anymore. Okay,
Damien: demure. It is off the table, but inculcated has a few more runs.
Ryan: Yeah, I will let you do that a couple more times. But I see this with my own children, right? The way they push, pull against the faith, against going to church, against the practice of religion.
Hitchens is doing that. Is father's a minister. He doesn't want to go down that road himself. And yet he's [00:37:00] frustrated when he finds himself halfway there. Can I ask you question's happen? Do you ever do that?
Damien: You're saying about your kids, do you ever vacillate in your faith, based on State of the Union, based on daily occurrences?
Does that happen internally for you?
Ryan: That's a great question. And worthy of its own podcast. Podcast. My, so here's my, short answer to that, Damien. 'cause I think it's an important question. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. This has always been my goal. Yes, that's fair. That's fair.
Right? The opposite of faith is certainty. Okay. And, and certainty is what will lead you astray. And so do I have doubts from time to time? Yes. But I feel that's the other side of the coin from faith and that certainty it when I start getting certain about things. Yeah. That's when
Damien: I feel like I'm going off the rails.
Okay. That makes a lot of sense and thank you for putting it in a T-shirt phrase. So
Jess: Yeah, absolutely. There's also, I've thought about that. I think there's some overlap in what you do and what I do in the nonprofit world where it's like, mm-hmm you shouldn't ever not wanna go to work because this is your calling.
Right? But it [00:38:00] is also your job and it's exhausting. And some days you just wanna call in sick, but it's like why, nonprofit workers. Take lower pay because they should be so fulfilled. They're
Ryan: passionate about it, right? Yes.
Jess: But then the reality is still just 90% of my job is writing so many emails that my hands are gonna fall.
That's
Ryan: not, you know, I'll give you a definition of calling from a religious figure, but the definition is not religious. And I think it can apply to everyone. Your calling is in fact where your great passion meets the world's great need. Yeah. That's a quote from one of my favorite writers and pastors, Frederick Ner.
But it doesn't have to be, you don't have to take it as religious, right? So if you're not religious and you're listening to this and you're trying to figure out where are you in the world, your calling is where your passion. Meets the world's need. And so if you have found yourself at that intersection, yeah, there's gonna be long days.
Yeah. There's gonna be times where you're grumpy and you don't want to go to work and you wish that there was a long weekend, but that's [00:39:00] okay. That, that, that's normal. I think that if I continued, it would devolve into a sermon. So I'm gonna devolve, evolve. I don't know.
Don't get a good
Damien: Baptist choir going right now if you want.
Ryan: Well, look. So, uh, yeah, I think, I think that the question is, is this a morality play and is it successful? Is one that's, that's highly debatable and perhaps even more interesting depending on who you're talking to about it. But of great consequences to this narrative also is the notion that one's person, one, one person's sins, do damage.
Whether you interpret that as psychic or spiritual to another person. So here I kind of wanna get a little personal if I can. If you were to discover that your own actions did damage to somebody, what impact do you think that might have on you?
Damien: It depends on who they
Ryan: are. Yeah. Does it, how bad do they suck?
I mean, is it me? Well, like I think it, well is it a different question? Like in the story it's somebody he doesn't know,
Jess: but who he sees like a shadow of like he Right. Recognizes there's [00:40:00] someone out there.
Ryan: If it's somebody you love. Does that change your answer? Well, yeah.
Damien: I mean obviously it changed , but if I found out it was some like externalized personification of my inner, mind or something, I don't know.
It's kind of like if I made out with my clone, is it really making out or is it just like a. Question for the ages. You know, that's, it's good question for the ages question.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: No, but , it's one of those things where if it damages someone I'm close to, even if it damages a stranger, if it damages another person who is otherwise, unattached and innocent, a
Ryan: quote unquote innocent.
Yeah.
Damien: Yes. And innocent, then yes, it probably would affect my behavior. I mean, when you think about it, that's morality in a nutshell. Mm-hmm. That's ethics and a code of behavior. It formulates a code of law. Yeah. So, it's how we operate. Some people operate because they don't want to be punished or face punitive consequences for breaking a law.
Other people do it just because it's the right thing to do. Mm-hmm. You know, so I think good, bad, or indifferent. But I'm a pretty law abiding citizen. I'm a pretty good [00:41:00] dude nerd. I think overall Yeah, it's true. He is, he is. I'm a pretty, I'm a nice guy. I'm a, I'm a humanitarian, you know, I'm not religious, but I do respect other people, all humans.
So it's just one of those things where if I found out that stuff that otherwise would, OI would only be the, I would be the only one to suffer the consequence, then I might still do it. But if I found out that my actions were causing pain, hardship, suffering damages to another person, it would 100% curb those behaviors.
Mm-hmm. But it's not like I'm doing a lot of that anyway. What about you, Jess?
Jess: So my, so my constant source of anxiety is that the, like, well if you have a smartphone. You are damaging children across the world who are mining for your battery components. Mining nickel somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And so like you just have to do the best that you can without going crazy because otherwise you live in a bubble and, oh man,
Damien: you made this real and weird.
I was [00:42:00] talking magical, mystical damage. Okay, well let's, it's not actually like child labor. Listen, we're getting,
Ryan: Hard here.
Jess: Child. Yeah, child labor. Okay. So there's that short story that Ursula Kay La Gwyn wrote in the seventies, the ones who walk away from Omali. Mm-hmm. You guys read that one?
We talked about
Ryan: that before. I think
Jess: probably it's like a perfect society where it's like the only way this perfect society can be sustained is there's like a tortured child locked up in a basement. It's like a rite of passage where everyone who lives in the society has to go and look at this kid.
And so the ones who walk away are the ones who are like, good. Nope. Can't do that. My perfect society is not worth this. And that's not this, but I'm gonna bring it up anyway. 'cause it's a story that it's good. It's, but it's another way to think of okay, are you doing good? Are you doing bad? It's probably hurting someone somewhere.
And how much can you live with? Do you have a [00:43:00] smartphone? How far
Ryan: down the line do you have to divest yourself of interest? Yes. Yeah. Right.
Jess: You know, like, do you still shop at whatever store you're not supposed to shop at? Right.
Ryan: Right. Which happens to be sometimes the only grocery store in town or something like that.
Yes.
Jess: Right. You know, like, do you buy stuff from Amazon because you live in the middle of nowhere and there's literally no other, you can't get that stuff. Right. You know, it's just sort of like.
Ryan: , Let's be real, like you can get it today when you need it, versus you can get it in two days when it could be delivered from somebody else,
Jess: or it'll cost you $5 more.
Right. You make those $50 more. Yeah,
Damien: we're, but at least we put up partitions to protect ourselves from consequences of things. Like, yes, if we buy an iPhone and there's a good chance that, there's some blood in the circuitry based on where these things are fabricated, et cetera, et cetera.
But at least there are degrees of separation to where we can bury our head in the sand and not bear personal onus to this the way I interpreted. And that sounds crappy, but that's the way it is, right? Mm-hmm. Because literally [00:44:00] everything that we do, we drive a car, we wear an article of clothing, we purchase television.
Yes. If you participate in commercialism, if you participate in the consumption of goods and services, then someone is paying the price for that. So it's, we've killed Jessica, by the way. It's true. Jessica, my shoes, my Christmas
Jess: uplifting episode back I'm a vegetarian, but
Damien: I'm just saying like,
Jess: but like, yeah, quinoa kills everyone.
It's the worst crop. You can grow quinoa. Yeah, but is abysmal.
Damien: No, it's good. I
Jess: love quinoa,
Damien: but at least, so I took a more literal, like my direct action affects somebody else. Like mm-hmm. I do something bad. Someone else sits there goes someone else. Like I just stabbing into a
Ryan: voodoo doll. , Like a voodoo doll.
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Likey
Damien: t or a voodoo doll. Yeah. And that's the way I looked at it. 'cause of that direct connection, it's more difficult to say, oh, I can turn my head to this because by a series of consequential actions, yeah, I'm affecting this person, but this is a more.
[00:45:00] If this, then they suffer. Mm-hmm. And so do I feel bad for doing this then? Yes. It's a little more prevalent and it sounds terrible, but we're an egoistic society, so we always think of self. And the closer it gets to self, the harder it is to internalize. I think.
Ryan: Let's keep going down this rabbit hole because this is kind of fun.
And this is verging on a subject I've been thinking a lot about. So here's a big idea that I've been wrestling with for several months now. And to what extent do we as people, as citizens bear accountability to the whole, whether that's a particular community or to the body politic in general to what extent do we as individuals bear a responsibility or an accountability to the whole?
I'm beginning to conclude it's one of the most significant moral failings. At play in our country, the United States right now, this growing narcissism that has been growing for decades. Sure. And I wondered if you'd [00:46:00] engage with me on that for a bit. Do you see that? Am I, do you feel I'm off base.
I saw it on an individual level in this story and it just screamed out at me because in part because I've been thinking about it. So let me just read you a quote from the story to, to ground it narrative tonight, grind it before we go on this sort of wide ranging conversation about narcissism and the body politic.
This is on page 202 of the volume that we're reading from This is the quote, the pathos of the night, shivering in the snow, and of this brotherhood of aspiring souls detached from the excitement of the world forever. Seeking Restlessly, their final salvation day by day, night by night in clouds of mountain vapor and sanctified incense entered my soul and I thought of that imagined companion of [00:47:00] mine.
If he were with me now, surely he would feel that he had led me to his home at length. And when I read that, I just thought of all these things that I've been wrestling with the last number of months, the ways in which I've been paying careful attention to how I at least interact with society. Where is it?
And these are everyday occurrences. Mm-hmm. These are not monumental occurrences. These are everyday events. Like where is it that I have put myself in front of someone else for no other reason? Then I felt like I deserved it or it was my time, whether it was traffic or the grocery store. To what extent do you see this narcissism as an issue in our society, in our country, in the world?
Um, and, and if you want to tie it to the story,
Jess: fun. Okay, so I'll talk about this, but in a professional capacity because this is something we deal with [00:48:00] at work. So I work in animal rescue. One of the, and this is, I don't know, enormous, huge conversation, but one of the conversations that we have every day at the shelter is, who are we helping? Are we helping this person?
Are we turning this person away? Are we not helping this person? And one of the things that we end up doing is helping a lot of people who have very, very recently adopted a dog or cat from another shelter, like within the week, and they realize they cannot keep the cat or the dog or the, it's usually cats or dogs, sometimes something else.
And it's normally because the other agency didn't check if the adopter could have a pet in their apartment. They didn't check if everyone in the home can have an animal or is okay with having an animal tell her
Ryan: wife is allergic. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: Like people will, like, I'm gonna get a dog to surprise my wife.
Don't do that. Never do that. Don't
Damien: ever do that.
Jess: Don't ever do that folks.
Damien: But buy a rabbit for my kids on Easter. [00:49:00]
Jess: A, there's a lot of rescues that prioritize getting every animal out the door as fast as possible versus getting every animal into a home. Mm-hmm. That is suitable for them. Mm-hmm. So a lot of the animals that we are dealing with are recently adopted animals with pretty major either behavioral or health issues that adopters can't deal with.
And so these shelters are just sending animals out into the world with anyone who will take them because it makes their numbers look better, it increases their ability to apply for grants because they're adopting out more animals. Their adoption stays are shorter, but they're giving little old ladies, little old lady chihuahuas who need massive thousand dollar, multi-thousand dollar dental surgeries and saying, ppe,
Ryan: good luck with your also a daily walk.
Jess: Yeah. Just like crazy stuff like that where. You are putting kind of your agency above the people who are taking home these animals. And so this is something that we struggle with all the time because it's like we need to make sure that [00:50:00] we're not patting our own numbers. Mm-hmm. To make ourselves look better at the expense of a well-meaning college student who really wants a 2-year-old dog in the dorm where they can't keep a dog.
You don't have to give them a dog, it's not gonna turn out well. But if you just close your eyes and give them a dog, your numbers look better and you'll be able to, get more money down the line. And that's just one example that like we are dealing with every day of we could self
Ryan: centeredness.
Like agency centeredness. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Jess: Like we could be sending home a bajillion more animals, but into worse situations. With people who aren't equipped to deal with medical or behavioral issues and can't afford the veterinary care required or whatever, whatever. But it would make our, and then may
Ryan: result in a pound issue.
Or a euthanasia issue.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, but once they're out your door, you don't have to worry about it. If you don't want to, you don't care about it as the,
Ryan: as the Rescue Society. Sure.
And it's what's big tech [00:51:00] have to say about this?
Jess: Can I yell about ai? Yeah. Big tech. Lemme finish my drink.
Damien: I work chug chug. I work for the Downfall Society, but hey, at least I get premier or premium cereals at my house. Oh yeah. We eat nothing but the finest brands. No, you get
Jess: real Cheerio brand Cheerios,
Damien: yeah.
That you could take your joos and shove 'em up your Joey butt. No, I love Trader Joe's. No, I think it's interesting because, I say this as a middle-aged white man with very few societal concerns that I still feel an onus to help and then a want to help. Because at the end of the day, I'm a humanist.
We all should be humanists. We all should be looking out for, for each other that's why
Ryan: you're a good person, Damien,
Damien: especially right now, , our given society , is being pushed towards a period of recidivism, normalizing historically bad things and making it seem like it wasn't as bad, and then actually trying to usher in a new era of said bad things.
Ryan: It's [00:52:00] very serious right now it's real dumpster fire.
Damien: So of course I'm gonna do what I can, but also when it comes to bandwidth and resources, I'm gonna dedicate that to my nuclear family. And being is how That requires really a less focus of what's going on outside , the microcosm that I live in.
And I recognize this. I do own that privilege and take advantage of it. I do participate in local political committees. I do participate in standouts. I do participate in what could easily be interpreted as, theater. And it's a bummer that that's the case and it's a bummer that's why people do it.
But tying this back to religion, I think there's also a lot of people that participate in organized religion who do it because they're going through the motions and want to put out the, to be
Ryan: clear, his latest performance on stage was not something that could be interpreted as theater. That that was theater.
That was theater. I think that one
Jess: might have been theater.
Damien: That was theater. But I'm talking about like social theater, you know, like the grandstanding. I know, I know, I know. But you know, I do see a lot of people that do that, and [00:53:00] it bums me out. I also recognize that I could be doing more and I'm electing not to, I'm prioritizing other things in my life.
And that's a hard decision because there's only 24
Ryan: hours in a day. Right. It's a hard
Damien: decision to make, but it ultimately, it boils down to I have to prioritize the people in my household. Mm-hmm. The people in my family.
Ryan: Well, it's what this story raised for me.
I'll be clear about that. Just, maybe it's because I've been thinking about it so much and writing personally in my diary so much about this. But this story really brought it home. Returning then to the text of the narrative, at least briefly. What did you make of the writing here?
Hitchens has been accused by many others of purple prose. Did you see that? I didn't see it in this story, but I am, I'm inoculated You're immune. Yeah, yeah,
Damien: yeah. That's true. I would say it was pretty emotionally charged. I guess you could be purple there, but when I think of purple, I think of like perhaps a little overly academic mm-hmm.
As opposed to, melodramatic. And I feel like this had a lot of melodrama. Yes, but also, yeah, yeah. It was a [00:54:00] cry. It was a little bit of a cry for help. I mean, there are a couple like lines directly outta here where he's speaking on behalf of the character saying, I'm gay, I'm full of gaity. Like, right.
And so it wasn't even subtle. It was, it was just, it was a definite, plainly stated, yeah, it was a definite appeal. And, you could tell that, so you felt it, it wasn't just for the art of the story. I appreciated that, but still, it's not my jam. And I think that it was a probably a little over emotional for the elements here.
And so I might call it mov mov, not, not fully purple, but,
Ryan: well, and I wanna get to what Jessica says. But just to, to back up Damien's point, here's a quote. This is from the bottom of 2 0 3 and 2 0 4. I thought this was one of the better pieces of writing in the story, but it definitely is mov As he drew near to me, I scarcely knew why.
But I hid my face deep in my hands with a dreadful sense of overwhelming guilt, which dyed my cheeks with blood. I shrank, I cowered, I trembled and was afraid, and I felt [00:55:00] a gentle touch on my shoulder. I looked up into the face of the monk, Bernard. It was the face of my invisible companion. It was my own face.
The monk looked down into my eyes. Searchingly. He recoiled, Monon, he whispered in French. Monon, mom, my demon.
Damien: My demon, my
Ryan: demon. I thought that was some of the best writing because it's not what you want to hear from the guy that you share the mirror with. Right, right. Jess, what do you think? What about the writing?
Jess: Yeah, the Over the topness, I think works in this story because the guy narrating. Adventures to find his monk face, right, is over the top. Yeah. He's known for being a character and he's manic depressive ups and downs and highs and lows. So he is, when he is in his depressive state, this is 1 94. Mm-hmm.
Life is at once a hag, weary, degraded with tears on her [00:56:00] cheeks and despair and her hollow eyes. I feel that I'm deserted that my friends despise me. That the world hates me. Yeah. That I'm blessed than other men. Lessen powers less than attraction. That I'm the most crawling, the most groveling of all the human species.
And like it goes on like that for another paragraph.
Ryan: Yeah. This is in middle school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reflection. And like
Jess: in this, in this instance, like it works like you get how a guy who feels this way. Ends up at a medium and is told there's a monk head floating around, just yeah man, you're primed for this
Damien: Easy money.
Ryan: Alright, well Damon, here's a question you've been waiting for Alright. Did it church?
Damien: I don't think it churched and it's crazy to say that, but I think the monk as a figure was more allegorical than it was directly tied to any sort of religion or religious tenet. It was simply a symbol of piety and goodness.
That all of a sudden gave you a little bit of a 180. But is [00:57:00] it so I don't think it churched, i'll give it a one and a half outta 10.
Church bells a half a bell. It's the dome of the bell, but no ringer on the side. It's a flat. Yeah. What about you, Jess?
Jess: I think it's a medium church. The monk is there. He's in a monastery. We've got some just like basic church basics. And then the monk does kind of give a little I'm a religious guy.
I had to forfeit all of these things and all your terrible sins really hurt me. Mr. Monk, the religious man. So I'd give it maybe, let's say four outta 10 floating monk heads.
Ryan: Okay. I'll be the most generous then. I'm going with six out of 10 church cathedral bells, if you will. All the trappings of church life are here at least in the monastery scenes.
But here's where it fails for me and. Maybe it should have failed more. I don't know. Ratings. He can't commit to an answer. The author, right? He is caught between these two worlds that he's existing in and he can't commit either way. And so it fails as a story. I think that [00:58:00] the distance at which he holds religion, classic pk move, like my son sits in the back and doesn't pay attention.
It holds the story back too. If he committed to the idea of, I mean, I don't want to, I don't wanna get too deeply theological here, that's not the point of the podcast, but he makes a misapprehension when he assumes that the person to whom he should be applying his life and making the example of his life is not another human being.
It's Jesus in the Christian religion, that's what he should be doing. Okay. As a Christian, and again. Trying, not trying to get theological. I'm just saying that's the basic facts of the Christian religion, but to apply that to another person is setting both of you up for failure.
And I think the story falls down on that account.
Damien: See? And so if you ask me does it anti-church, I would probably give it a higher rating.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. And I would agree with you on that. So, does the scare hold up for me? Not really. This isn't a scare. It wasn't really scary. No. Yeah. I mean,
Jess: I don't wanna see a floating anybody's [00:59:00] head.
I think my own head would be scarier than a stranger maybe. But
Damien: I still think I'd be tempted to do the, am I in a mirror? I'd stick up my tongue and flare my nostrils. Sure. And see if the floating head did the same. I'd probably say like, that's how we marry
Ryan: five times. Just to see if this was candy.
Man. Dude, come on. Live that Candyman. Absolutely. Tony. Todd, we miss you. RIP. So. Whiskey rating. This is how we rate our stories here on whiskey and the weird from zero fingers of whiskey all the way to the coveted full fist or five fingers of whiskey. Jess, what are you giving the face of the monk?
Jess: I have two and a half because I just do not know what this story was. Neither he I'm confident. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah,
Jess: it was interesting, like it's one of the more original plots that we've read.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: But I don't necessarily think that that was maybe enough to bump it up in the ratings. So we'll go with the two and a half
Damien: D.
There are like, I think we've all seen Jud AAU [01:00:00] movies and when I think of a Judd AAU movie, I think of something that previews very well, has good trailers, usually has a pretty like humorous cast. Makes you feel a range of emotions. But the problem I have is they never really wrap up. They don't find an end
Jess: stop.
Damien: And it's like you think it's, it's about to end, but then it doesn't, and then you think it's gonna end one way and then it goes a completely different direction. And so that's my big criticism. And unfortunately this didn't have the Judd Appal writing or laughs for me. It didn't have the cast of characters for me, but it did have that frustrating lack of ending or direction.
Mm-hmm. So I come in at a two.
Ryan: Okay. So we got a two and a half and a two. I did not think I would be the high vote here. I had a three. Sure. Fair. I'm trying to think. Like, perfectly average. Yep. I didn't hate, hate reading it. Remember the story was fine. I hate reading it. It, and I'm gonna remember it because of it's sense of like unresolvedness and its sense of lack of direction.
But yeah it didn't totally do it for me, [01:01:00] but again, didn't hate it. Three fingers a whiskey for me. Alright. That's gonna take us then to our, if this, then that. If you did like this story quite a lot, then Jess has another recommendation for you.
Jess: Yeah. If you were like, I wish the story.
We're more like a 2020 sci-fi movie made, I think by Apple tv. Well, you're in luck because there is a 2020 Apple TV production. It's called Black Box, and it's by directed by Emmanuel Oe Kor Jr. It is a kind of sci-fi mystery about a father who was in a car accident and has lost his memory, but he's getting flashes of what we can't tell if they're his memories or someone else's memory, if he's connected to someone else in some way.
Something feels off about this, and he's like dealing with having these feelings and emotions that are affecting [01:02:00] him, affecting his young daughter, trying to figure out what is going on and basically like instead of institutionalizing himself, he. Finds a fancy scientist to help him map out his brain and figure out what's going on.
And it's good. It's a, fun sci-fi movie that's worth watching one to two times. It was on Apple tv, but it for sure is on like Hulu and Netflix and is pretty easily findable at the moment.
Ryan: Showing at your local monastery is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He, that sounds at least worth a watch.
Thank you for, yeah. Well, thank you very much for joining us for this reconstituted episode of Whiskey and the weird, we're glad to. Would we add
Damien: water?
Ryan: What?
Maybe, maybe we can, we've been
Jess: slightly deflated, but we're back now, baby. We're, we're a
Ryan: dinosaur shaped, sponge stuffed into a thin plastic capsule. I prefer thinking of ourselves as nuggets rather than sponges. Maybe. I'm hungry. Anyway, constituted for joining us. We are [01:03:00] glad you were here. If you were also glad you were here.
Drop a rating and review wherever you catch your podcasts. We would deeply appreciate that. We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandis for providing the music for whiskey and the weird, and Damien, if they want to tell us about the face they see in the mirror that isn't theirs, where can they do that?
Damien: Uh, you can hit us up on the socials.
We have officially vacated from the Twitter X space, so don't find us there. But everywhere else we're at whiskey. And the weird that's at whiskey and the weird on all those other, all them, their other properties. We spill our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do too. If not, we'll get you into a moral quandary while facing your own spectral opposite.
And you can sit there and tell us whether you're a passion player or not because I think it's something that we all really want to know.
Ryan: Well, in the event that doesn't happen, Jess, what's our next story?
Jess: We're gonna go with a heavy hitter to wrap up our season. Mr. James? Yeah. The stalls of [01:04:00] Bar Chester Cathedral
Ryan: been there.
I can't wait. I can't wait. Uh, I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Burr.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we are whiskey and the weird somebody Send us home.
Jess: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Take care. Bye bye bye.