Found-footage skate punks chasing cult documentaries, the financial death of novelty beer, luck vs fate, and why “big hat + short dude” apparently counts as historical expertise. Plus, a shocking amount of elevator-cam horror! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pondering what could have been with our ninth book in the vast collection, Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond. In this episode, our featured story is: The Curfew Tolls by Stephen Vincent Benet
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is watching The Household (2025; dir. Luke Shaw); drinking Meier's Creek Backwoods Trail.
Damien is watching Super Dark Times (2017; dir. Kevin Phillips) & Soft & Quiet (2022; dir. Beth de Araujo); drinking Hai Seas San Oaks Whiskey.
Ryan is watching Civil War (2024, dir. Alex Garland); drinking Tullibardine 15.
If you liked this week’s story, read Famous Men Who Never Lived by K. Chess.
Up next: "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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
Damien: [00:00:00] A Newton grown up in a thieves' den might have devised little but a new and ingenious picklock." It's like, okay, we get it.
Thanks for- Right, right ... putting that up front. This is obviously about a genius personality in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the wrong
Ryan: place at the wrong time.
Jess: What if you're in the wrong place in the wrong time?
Damien: Gee, I wonder what this story's gonna be about.
Ryan: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith. Woo!
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird, the podcast that for the past eight seasons has been bringing you unrivaled literary critiques of the best of yesteryear's weird fiction, as collected in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series.
Each season, we have journeyed together through one edition of this now voluminous series, and each episode, we've turned to one story for in-depth discussion, but never along the table of contents' [00:01:00] prescribed path. If you don't want the stories spoiled, make sure you take the road less traveled and read ahead.
Alternatively, our summaries will just do the work for you. This season, friends, we were fated to pluck the strings of the multiverse as we take a dimensional left at the corner of reality to trek through roads of destiny and other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms, edited by Alice Dare Richmond.
Look there, though, through the fog. Is that a road sign? Maybe. With an arrow? But which way does it point? And to what time, time or, or place or ... Where am I? Why am I wearing a bicorne hat? Jessica, help.
Jess: What am
Ryan: I doing?
Jess: Okay, tonight we're doing The Curfew Tolls by Stephen Vincent [00:02:00] Benet.
Ryan: By Stephen Vincent Benet, Benet.
Jess: Benet.
Ryan: Benye? Benet? Benet. You tell us, fair listener. We're not French. But before we get to that discussion, let's have a little bar talk, shall we? Jess, what are you drinking tonight?
Jess: I'm going with a beer this fine evening. It is the Myers Creek Backwoods Trail Czech Dark Lager. I decided I was tired of bitter beers.
This one is nice. It's toasty. Got a nice looking can, very important.
Ryan: You know, it always delights me when you're drinking something you enjoy. Yeah.
Jess: You know what? '
Damien: Cause
Ryan: it's rare.
Damien: Yeah. You
Jess: present- Well, I think big change this season ...
Damien: you present so much mid, and it's just like it's refreshing to see you actually enjoying your beverage.
Jess: This is maybe the biggest influence of having a child, is that I feel slightly guilty spending 30 to $40 on a novelty thing of alcohol that I know [00:03:00] I won't like. Now that has to go to diapers and daycare. So we're going with old standbys a little bit more than perhaps we would have. But I've been spending a lot of my time watching, of course, foundtv.com.
Ryan: Of course.
Jess: Where-
Ryan: Tell us more.
Jess: Yeah. Well, it's just your premier found footage streaming network.
Ryan: All the films about Ring camera crimes that you could imagine. Yep,
Jess: and worse. There's some real clunkers on there.
Ryan: Elevator cam horror.
Jess: But I did watch one that I actually really liked. It's called The Household, and it is from last year.
The director is Luke Shaw, who may also be one of the actors. It is Australian.
Damien: Oh, good on ya.
Jess: And it is basically some, like-
Damien: That was... I- That was terrible ... I thought you were clearing your throat. It was ...
Jess: it's some, like, adult, formerly kinda [00:04:00] punky skateboarder kids who got their start, like, filming skateboarding and now make documentaries, and they're trying to make, like, a really good one to fund basically, like, a move out of Australia.
And so they wanna make this documentary about, kind of the, , Manson Family story. But it gets, you know, like, obviously, like, conspiracy theory and, "Oh, who's that behind you?" And so, like, the idea isn't the most original thing in the world, but it's filmed significantly more believably than some of them where it's like, you know, a lot of found footage is just like, "I'm an influencer, so obviously I film everything that I do," or, "I'm making a, you know, dissertation or whatever."
This one is just like, "We need to make money to move, so we're making this documentary." Yeah. "And even when things get weird, we need money, so we're still gonna keep making it." It's good. Anyway, it's called The Household, and you can find that bad boy on foundtv.com, which is legitimately [00:05:00] a really delightful website
Damien: I'm going there right away after we finish recording Right now, actually.
I just, I don't know- Everyone ... if I c- if I have the capacity or the bandwidth, and I mean that figuratively, to go to another streaming service provider, because I just feel like I'm overrun right now. Yes, but- I take a bunch of, like, add to my watch lists. Now my watch lists are so disparate that I'm just like, "Where do I go?"
I pick a portal and then try and chip away. It's stressful. I'm stressed TV watching. And
Ryan: then what's even worse,
Damien: Damien, is that I have the same problem, but then I start watching a show that I watched 20 years ago, just 'cause I liked it. It's comfort food
Ryan: of
Damien: streaming television. Right.
Jess: Anyway, this one is free.
You can watch the ad, ad-supported version, so you don't have to pay for it if you don't want to. Great, so it even takes
Ryan: longer to get through. Thanks, Jess.
Jess: You're welcome.
Ryan: But it gives you bathroom breaks
Damien: That's the pause button, you dink.
Ryan: I like the authentic old school experience.
Jess: Where you gotta hustle back?
Ryan: That's right. You can have my TV.
Jess: It's on! Hurry. It's
Ryan: on. [00:06:00]
Jess: Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Well, Jessica, thank you for asking. You're welcome. I am drinking a whiskey that is new to me tonight, and I'm very excited about it. Ooh. Yeah. This is the Tullibardine, and I think I'm pronouncing that right.
Jess: Mm.
Ryan: Tullibardine, it's their 15-year-old iteration.
Damien: Bennet.
Ryan: Yeah. This is a whiskey that is technically classified as a Highland, although it comes from a region known as the Midlands, but I guess there isn't a Midland classification. I would say that it tastes a little bit like an Auchentoshan, which is a Lowland whiskey.
So I guess being so far south, it is sharing some characteristics of Lowland whiskeys that I've, I've enjoyed. It's, it's floral, it's, it's heathery. It's got that hint of green apple that Lowland whiskeys, at least in my experience, tend to have. But it's-
Jess: It's the
Ryan: southernmost
Jess: northern whiskey.
Damien: A Lowland whiskey a day keeps the doctor away.
Ryan: There you go. It's a, it's a beautiful amber bead color. This one, one w- was one that was brought out for our [00:07:00] recent Burns Night extravaganza.
Damien: Hey, that was
Ryan: real.
Damien: Um- How did that
Ryan: go? Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was terrific, as, as always. We had some great speeches and toasts made. We had-
Damien: How was the haggis? ...
Ryan: 12 whiskeys, I think.
Lord have mercy.
Damien: Wow. Congratulations.
Ryan: Uh, the haggis was good. Congrats. The neeps and tatties were delicious. The sticky toffee pudding was the star of the show this year. It was phenomenal. Mm.
Damien: Isn't it always after
Ryan: eating intestines? It was moist.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: It was- Sweet. It was wonderful. Great. So that's, that's what I'm drinking.
That's what I was eating last week anyway. And as for what I've been doing otherwise I went down a real dark path, guys. No. I must have been in a mood.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: And I watched, in a row, over three consecutive days-
Damien: Here we go ...
Ryan: all the most recent American dystopic films. So I watched Civil War, I watched Eddington, and I watched One Battle After Another.
Damien: Well, I haven't- Okay ... seen the last two, so let's not go too deep in the, into those. Yeah. But Eddington being an Ari Aster, I feel like I've, I've- It's, it's, it- ... kicked myself for not having already
Ryan: watched it. Yeah, no, it's, it's definitely worth watching. I will say that [00:08:00] my favorite of the three was Civil War, which was a 2024 film- It's a tough one
directed by Alex Garland, who I really like, starring Kirsten Dunst, who I also really like. And it drops you in media res with no explanation into a modern-day American Civil War and, and what that might look like. It gives you no, no- What might it look
Jess: like? ...
Ryan: history. It gives you no history of what the c- the conflict is about or what the s- what the sides are or what the, what their ideals are at least.
It does very cleverly pair the state of California and the state of Texas as being the leading states versus the federal government. So I, I thought that was very clever because it, it, it, it destroys any possible connection that you might try to make to current events. As you're watching the film,
You see several battles and , you don't know who's on what side because , the story is about journalists that are covering the war. And it is, it is a powerful film. It is a powerful film. I would say it would be a powerful film at any time in American history, but it's particularly poignant now as we watch this movie and go, "No, [00:09:00] we certainly do not want to do this."
Damien: Yeah. It's interesting when we thought well, we have a certain ideology. We're looking at administration moves and happenstances in the media and thinking, "Remember that movie Idiocracy?" Like, that's what's going on right now. And then you have a little chuckle, and now we're like, "Hey, you know that movie Civil War?"
Yeah. That's what's happening right now. Yeah. It was quite the shift, and it was quite, quite immediate. Yes. Hooray. Hey, guys, I'm also drinking and watching stuff. And if you weren't before, you are now.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: What's up, Damien? What do you got in your glass? Oh boy, taking us out of that doom spiral. No, uh, thanks Ryan.
I, I am trying a new whiskey. It's a Chinese whiskey. A what? Yeah. It's a Chinese whiskey. It's out of the Hi-Seas Distillery, and it is called ... Rats.
Jess: Ugh, that is-
Damien: Terrible name for a whiskey. [00:10:00] It's a bad-
Jess: Oh, okay.
Damien: San Oaks, okay. Well, thank you, Ryan. I am enjoying a Chinese whiskey tonight. What? Yes, a Chinese whiskey.
It's out of the Shanghai region. It is from the Hi-Seas Distillery, and it is called San Oaks Whiskey. San Oaks Whiskey. I had never heard of it before. It was introduced- Oh ... thanks to my little box o' whiskeys from around the world. Mm.
Ryan: Oh, okay.
Damien: I'll tell you what, it's finished in bourbon barrels. I can't really pick out the profile.
I didn't read too much on the bottle itself. But I can tell you that it tastes like baking spices and a nougat front. You know, it's, it's vanilla. It's- Mm-hmm ... it's- Like a dessert whiskey? ... vanilla whiskey. It's pretty, it's pretty sweet on the palette. It's very smooth, but then it kicks you with a little bit of a tongue tingling spiciness at the finish.
Ryan: Naughty.
Damien: So a little bit of sweet fruit in there, but mostly that, like, caramel, oozy, you know, molasses [00:11:00] sweetness. A lot of brown sugar up front. I like it neat. I wouldn't wanna mix this with anything. I didn't even put ice cube in it. Mm. I'm usually pouring out a perfect cube. I noticed that Glen
Ryan: Cairn glass you got
Damien: there.
Yes, I got the Glen Cairn. It's a beautiful glass. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a perfect sipper. It's really, really nice. Again, incredibly smooth. I'm not gonna go out of my way to get it. I think it, it averages retail around 70 to 75 a bottle, but I do find it to be incredible. And it's nice to say that I've had a Chinese whiskey because I've never had a mainland
Ryan: Chinese whiskey.
I applaud your willingness to try whiskeys from around the world. I, I just don't have that same willingness generally. I was gonna say, the one time I had,
Jess: like- I'm
Ryan: pretty tribalist ...
Jess: a Swedish whiskey or whatever, everyone was like, "Blah, ooh, yeah." So anyway.
Damien: Well, you know,
Ryan: you're- 'Cause that was just vodka.
Damien: No, but I, I do approve. And so if you find yourself passing by a bottle of this High Seas Sun Oak Whiskey give it a shot. It's pretty scrumptious. Okay. Things I'm watching. So I'm, I'm doing a twofer. You did a threefer and [00:12:00] focused on Civil War, and that's cool. I'm doing a twofer for things that I watched because I watched them- I'll be the only one
Jess: that follows the rules.
Damien: Yeah. I watched them back to back, and they were movies that are a little bit older. Not traditional horror in any stretch of the imagination, but high-dread, high-tension films that were really unique. They were from first-time directors that I've, that I've watched, and they stuck with me. And so the first one is, we'll go oldest to newest, is Super Dark Times from 2017, directed by Kevin Phillips.
Jess: That must be newly streaming somewhere because I just watched that one also.
Damien: Are you serious?
Jess: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like-
Damien: It was, it was pretty intense. Um-
Jess: Yeah ...
Damien: I don't
Jess: want to- I think I'd seen it when it came out, like on a DVD or something. Really? Yeah.
Damien: Wow, look at you. All right. Well-
Jess: But I just, I did re-watch it recently.
It must've been one of the, like, the algorithm decided we needed to watch this.
Damien: Maybe it said, "Hey, Damien was watching this, and so you need to watch it, Jess." I think it's sweet. It's, it's [00:13:00] a couple of high school, you know, misfits that are hanging out doing typical high schooler things. All of a sudden, a t- a tragic event takes place, and their friendship and social standings and the mood around their neighborhood plummets.
And- Hmm ... what follows is a bunch of super dark times. Really outstanding- A few ... outstanding cast. Strong acting performances especially Charlie Tahan, who plays a character named Josh, and Owen Campbell, who plays a character named Zach. Just really, really fantastic range of emotions of going through, like, a tragedy and, and what happens after the tragedy.
Super impressed. A cast member's name was Elizabeth Cappuccino, and I just like that. I felt it was worth- That's fun ... mentioning. Check this out, but not if you're in too good a mood, or if you are in too good a mood and you wanna bring yourself down a bit. It is a tense, tense, tense 90 minutes.
Ryan: Where did you say it was streaming?
I'm sorry.
Damien: I, I think it's on Netflix. Okay. Uh, I [00:14:00] think I watched it on Roku Channel or something like that as well. So it's in a few spots. The next one is 2022's Soft and Quiet. And I- Oh, God. Also, whoa. Yes. I went into this as blind as I could. I'm fascinated by the cover art, which gives a little Speak No Evil, like the original Speak No Evil.
Oof. But it just has two seemingly somewhat beaten-up women screaming at each other. And I'm like, "All right. I don't know what this is. It's got a good rating. I don't wanna look too deep. Let me discover it." And I watched it, and it is he- it is heavy. It is- It's so heavy. You have no idea where it's gonna go, and then you get a semblance after it establishes itself, and then it goes off the rails in a tight 88 minutes.
This one is directed
Jess: by- God, is that all the longer it is? It feels like it's a 10-hour movie.
Damien: It, [00:15:00] it really do- 'cause you're gritting your teeth the entire time. It is directed by Beth de Araujo, and I apologize if I butchered your last name.
Ryan: We're doing great with names this episode.
Damien: Fan- it's, it's a fantastic movie, and I strongly, strongly suggest that you find it.
I think that this one was actually pulled off of most streaming services, but I did find it on Roku. And it's-
Ryan: I just looked them both up. They're both on Roku.
Damien: Okay, great, great, great. Yeah I wouldn't do what I did and watch them as a, you know, as a movie and a chaser. Just put some time and space between them.
But Soft and Quiet , is quite the film. The camera work is really outstanding because there's a lot of prolonged single takes.
Jess: It, it's shot as though it's a single take, right?
Like, it, it's just one... You're just watching 88 minutes of a woman and assorted antics, I guess.
Damien: Yeah, antics. That's a good way to put it. So anyway, those, those are my two recos. Wow. Super Dark Times and Soft and Quiet.
Jess: Okay, speaking of Elizabeth Cappuccino, I watched a movie the other day [00:16:00] where the main actress's name was Midori Francis.
Damien: Well, hello.
Jess: I thought that one was really good also.
Damien: Let us not forget- I feel behind ... Tila Tequila from back in the day. Late '90s MTV icon, I believe.
Jess: Yeah, something, something icon.
Damien: Let's not also forget, too,
Ryan: Stephen Vincent Benet.
Jess: Boring. What else you got?
Ryan: That's not a spirited name. But it is gonna take us to our author and publication information for tonight.
Stephen Vincent Benet was born in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania on July 22nd, 1898 into a military family of some renown. His father was a colonel, and his uncle was a manufacturer of the light machine gun that replaced the manually operated Gatling gun. Benet was educa- yeah, there's a, there's a fun family fact for you [00:17:00] Benet was educated at Yale, where he was awarded his master's degree, get this, upon submission of his third published volume of poetry, which time the professor decided he would not be required to write a thesis.
Jess: Fair.
Ryan: In 1921, he married Rosemary Carr, whom he'd met in France, where they eventually established a residence. It was there that he wrote his most famous work, John Brown's Body, an epic poem about American abolitionist John Brown and the American Civil War.
Jess: Interesting.
Ryan: The first one. Benet was both well-regarded and well-decorated as a poet, racking up awards and adulations.
Many of his works have been adapted as stage plays, films, and even an opera. Poetry didn't pay the bills, though, especially in 1929, and so he wrote short stories, screenplays, magazine articles, and more, all for the dough. [00:18:00] The Depression gave Benet loads of good poetic fodder, and he churned out volumes of poetic political criticism in the form of what have now come to be called nightmare poems.
Hmm. At the outbreak of World War II, he wrote American propaganda and was a staunch supporter of President Roosevelt and his policies. During the war effort, Benet worked himself tirelessly, which eventually took its toll on his body. His curfew in this life was on March the 3rd. He suffered a heart attack and died in Rosemary's arms.
Today, Benet is remembered as one of America's finest national poets. The short story tonight was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post on October the 5th, 1935. Post has been a longstanding American publication, but it ceased being run weekly in [00:19:00] 1963. In 2013, it began to be published six times a year, and today, for only $17, you can get an annual print and web subscription, giving you complete digital access to every archived issue.
The Post is quite famous for both its illustrations and its stories, having featured artists such as N.C. Wyeth, Charles Chickering, John Philip Falter, and a young, heretofore unknown 22-year-old artist named Norman Rockwell. Saturday Evening Post discovered Norman Rockwell
Jess: Is this our first Saturday Evening Post?
Ryan: I was wondering that myself, and I don't- It's
Jess: weird if it is ...
Ryan: I, I don't think it is, but I'm not sure we went into it as much if, if it has. We'll have to do some research. Someone let us know. But Marisa and Jess, Jess will look it up. She's, she's got a terrific spreadsheet, friends. As for writers that appeared in the Post, well, if you were a famous writer, you were published in the Post.
Everybody and their [00:20:00] brother, I think, was in there. And that's our author and publication information for tonight, and Damien, I believe, has our summary for us.
Damien: I do. Thanks a lot, padre. So in a few minutes I will take to you the epistolary stylings of The Curfew Tolls by our good friend Stephen Vincent French Donut it, it is, as I mentioned, told in epistolary style.
So our narrator, who is announced immediately at the beginning of the story, Sir- General Sir Charles Geoffrey Escort CB, I actually looked up what CB meant, that's a topic conversation unto itself- Right ... is writing to his sister, Harriet, who is the Countess of Stokely. So everything comes pretty much pre-seasoned with his bias, his personality, which is definitely this air of polite superiority, a little bit of chronic boredom, and that kind of self-awareness that almost becomes real self-awareness, but not until the very end.
The very first letter starts on a great date, September 3rd, [00:21:00] 1788. So Chuck is writing from the s- French spa town of Saint-Philippe-de-Baix- ... where he's recovering, and it's a scenic, blue, Mediterranean, distant from Corsica, like, tasteful little promenade area. But spiritually, it's like being trapped in a screensaver 'cause-
his day is baths, walking, Oshin, no flying toasters. Oshin being the, the French, or excuse me, the, the Irish poet, yeah, Ossian maybe, who he's fascinated with. And his servant, Gaston, and he's desperately pretending that this counts as his way of life. So he keeps trying to study human nature. Local options are pretty bleak.
He's a dull doctor. There's a duller priest. There's a- ... and an English social climber whose conversation cannonades with aristocratic name drops. So Chuck decides that he'd rather- Yes, he did ... read in a garden than endure any of that garbage. The highlight of this [00:22:00] town life is basically the daily sta- stagecoach that arrives, rock and roll.
Go to the next letter, got a little bit of a detour in French politics. Chuck is optimistic about the monarchy in a way that will shortly become a historical jump scare. He finally finds a real, honest neighbor in this town. Mm. It's a short, kind of theatrical, slightly shady guy wearing a very peculiar straw hat.
Straw, a straw hat, and he's pacing all along the promenade all by himself. He, he's giving off this vibe that he thinks he's destined for greatness, but he keeps getting sat at the kids' table, and it's not just because of his stature. So they end up connecting, they form a bond. Chuck talks... He- Chuck starts reading his Ossian, Oshin, Irish poet aloud.
The guy recognizes who it is, surprising Chuck, who again, is a little snobby.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Damien: He completes the quote in English. They form a bond, and then they start chatting. But it's not like they're friends, they just, you know, hit it off.
He... They, the, [00:23:00] the, the house marm or whatever who's in the area knows this guy and says he's basically a bandit.
He's a thug and a bandit, and Chuck is like, "Hey, if he's a bandit, at least he's a literate one, so I'm gonna talk to this cat." So he's, he's basically digging into who this mysterious person is and talks to Gaston, and all he knows is that he's foreign-born, he's ex-French Army, he's rumored to have an evil eye, and he's got a pretty questionable wife.
What's questionable? Oh, you'll find out. Hmm. But still, that hasn't, the guy hasn't tried to borrow any money from Chuck yet, so that's, he's relieved. Uh, he's not trying to take advantage of status. And eventually Chuck dines at his house. He has a bad meal, but it's served by his kooky wife- ... who's sort of faded coquettish, but a touch of the tar brush, he s- detects, which is a person of dark skin.
Jess: I was gonna say.
Damien: Yeah, it's not the best term. Sounds racist. Not the best term. Very [00:24:00] racist. So that coupled with awful teeth sends him into a little bit of an awkward tizzy. But then the real show begins because the Major, he calls himself the Major, takes Chuck into his study and shows him all these maps, and he reveals this near, like, obsessive...
Well, it's, it's an obsession with India, and it's so, so, so particular that he's able correct Chuck's own memories from his time in India which is wild. 'Cause
Ryan: everybody loves that at a
Damien: dinner party. Yeah, everyone loves being corrected. So anyway, once India comes up he basically turns into this walking alternate history subreddit.
All right? He's, he calls Clive a genius and then he revokes it, and then he says that Clive should've marched grenadiers or grenadiers to parliament. He lays out how he would've beaten the English in 1757, and he uses corks as troop markers and maps out his strategy in, in live action. It's completely absurd, and Chuck is completely transfixed.
So he decides he's gonna [00:25:00] keep this friendship going, partly out of curiosity and partly because the Major is lonely in a way that only shows through his minute brana- bravado, as you could say. Well, that and also the fact that this shorty's getting... He's sick, and he's getting more and more ill. It's getting worse and worse.
And so Chuck basically indulges him with war games and lets him talk his strategies and, and share what he would've done. And honestly, the guy just needs a hobby that isn't spiraling out, out of control and into this, like, destitution. So he thinks that the major might have done a little bit better as a priest, and not because he's pious, but because the church is one of the few career ladders where a nobody can sometimes end up as somebody.
That was for you, Ryan. Thank you, bud. Love ya. But he immediately admits the man would've been a terrible priest, which feels correct. So anyway, the major gets sicker and sicker. Chuck becomes more of a caretaker than a friend. The major, as he's getting sicker, is getting more rude and touchy and manipulative, and it's just the way it is.
So you could [00:26:00] tell it's a true friendship because they have this bond that, like, can't be separated by jerkery. He... The major's getting to a point towards the end of the story where he's, you know, he's, he's on death's door. And so he asks for poetry instead of scriptures. He's dying, which is lovely. Mm-hmm.
Gray's Elegy is what's read. It hits him pretty hard, especially the lines about unrealized greatness, and for a moment he almost sounds like he's reflective and a little bit sorry about how he led his life. But then he snaps back to his grandiose nature. He starts raging about being born at the wrong time and insisting that with the right timing, he'd outdo Alexander and reshape Europe with his fists-
and his troops. It's much less of a humble dying man than we would've... we were led to believe at this stage. It sounds more like a, a final boss speech, actually, probably from, like, a Final Fantasy movie or game. So he dies during a wicked thunderstorm. Thunder's booming off like artillery in the background, and his- Tears hit the rain.
Yeah, like leaves, blades of grass, yeah. And his last ecstatic whisper is [00:27:00] basically, "
Ryan: The head of the army. I could have been the head of the army."
Damien: Well, as it turns out, Chuck was tasked with taking care of everything that happens to this man after his passing, and so it's only then that he finds out his identity And can anyone guess who this man was?
Jess: I think it was, uh- A guess? Brian? ... Garfield the cat.
Damien: Thomas Jefferson. Both of you, very close, but very wrong. The dead, bitter, brilliant, petty tyrant dreamer was none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. Yeah.
Ryan: Who's
Damien: that? But it wasn't, it wasn't the fact that it was Napoleon Bonaparte that was so grating to our narrator, it was the fact that he said he was Sardinian, and he was actually Corsican.
Ryan: Corsican.
Damien: Like a little plebeian. Anyway- What? The big reveal was that it was Napoleon D- uh, Bonaparte. Alt Napoleon. The end.
Ryan: Great recap, Damien. That, uh, I think that was a tough- Thank you. That was good ... tough, tough story. I mean, epistolary stories- It was hard ... are hard
Damien: to
Ryan: recap.
Damien: It was, it was hard. Yeah. 'Cause there was a lot of just observation- Asides
speculation, and [00:28:00] historical asides. Yeah.
Ryan: Right. Well, I, I sorta wanna start at the end with this one. And I have to ask, at, at what point in the reading of this story did you actually catch on to what was happening? And I don't, I don't mean necessarily that it was Napoleon, but that you understood that this was about this guy who was out of, out of sync with time?
Damien: I know I just talked for a lot, but I will say that it's sort of unfair reading these stories with so much context because- Yeah, I know. I know ... you go in thinking, "Where's the hook? Where's the- Yeah ... and it's not just a crazy dude with six- Like, if you're just opening the Saturday
Ryan: Evening Post-
Damien: Right, exactly
it's a different
Ryan: experience,
Damien: yeah. Totally, totally. Even if you're familiar with Benét's other works, you know? So I went in right away asking the question. Because of that, I think I prepped myself up for the obvious signs shooting off like- Yeah ... fireworks, that, "Okay, we know who this is." And the fact that early on Escort is like, "Oh, he's French, and you know we hate the French," I was like, "Okay, you snooty jerk," but okay, clue number [00:29:00] one, he's French.
All right, great, great, great. And, and then as it progressed, it was like, okay, we know who this is. He's talking about his short stature, talking about his kooky hat, which was made of straw, not felt like a tr- to his traditional, like, whatever admiral's hat. But, or major's hat, excuse me. But yeah, like I, I, I caught that right away, and then for the rest of the time I only pictured it as Napoleon, and specifically Napoleon from, from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Ryan: So specifically, then.
Damien: Yeah, specifically him. He was eating the pig from the ice cream shop.
Ryan: What about you, Jess? Were you, were you as clued in as Damien was?
Jess: So yes, but also for stupider reasons, which is short stature, big hat, literally the only two things I know about Napoleon. To the point where I was just like, "When was Napoleon born?"
Is this just like, is this just a story about Napoleon later in his life? Like-
Ryan: Right ...
Jess: I just am an idiot, and I don't know history, so I think I'm probably [00:30:00] not necessarily the target audience for like, ooh, it's an alternate history but based in history, because I don't know history. I don't know when Napoleon was around.
I have his Wikipedia page up. I thought about watching the Napoleon movie, then it looked long, and so I didn't. And that's as much history as I know. Literally, big hat- That's
Damien: funny ...
Jess: and I think- The,
Damien: the short guy, big hat. And he- The only other thing is, is that I knew that he idolized Alexander the Great.
Jess: Yes.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so that was the, that was the onl- that was the third thing. That was sort of the nail in the coffin.
Jess: So yeah, like I knew it was Napoleon, but I didn't know why that was a twist, because I didn't know when Napoleon died. It'd just be like reading about George Washington and being just like, "Well, what's that guy up to?"
I just don't know anything.
Ryan: So I am notoriously bad at this kind of a guessing game.
Jess: Right.
Ryan: I don't know why. I, I've mentioned it before, I think, but I don't know why, but like- I think you're just
Jess: along for the ride, you
Ryan: know? I'm just along for the ride normally. However, [00:31:00] with this story, I had literally just completed a six-episode podcast on Napoleon Like, and it, it wasn't, it wasn't planned, it wasn't timed.
I just, I had just finished listening to this historical podcast all about Napoleon. So
Damien: you were snickering through the whole thing, weren't you?
Ryan: So the whole time- You're like ... I'm like, oh my God, like this is, I mean, this is so obvious. I did, I did give a tip of my hat to all the little clues that he does drop, which are, which are straight out of Napoleon's history.
Like when Napole- when, when the character in the story says, "I would march grenadiers into parliament," well, he did that.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: The Corsica-Sardinia thing was, was obviously a big clue. The, the, his whole... So what this, what he describes his military career in this story as being the totality of his military career, that was his early military career, and he launched off from there.
Damien: What's the red herring with his wife? And, and-
Ryan: The Creole-Haitian
Damien: wife ... yeah,
Ryan: he had a, he had a ter- he had a terrible relationship with his wife. She cheated on him a lot. He [00:32:00] cheated on her a lot. They didn't really like each other a whole lot. No, but
Damien: that's his real wife, but what about his alt wife, his, his madame that was Creole-Haitian?
Well,
Ryan: that, that, that was probably one of his mistresses- Oh, okay. All right ... in, in, in real life- Sure ...
Damien: is my guess.
Ryan: Yeah. Oh, there was another one. I don't remember what it is off the top of my head. But I, I, so for once in my life, I felt smart reading one of these kind of twist stories. Look at you going to
Damien: town.
Nailed
Ryan: it. And that Napoleon podcast, by the way, if you're interested in Napoleon, was, was, was great. It was, and it was short, too. You have six episodes- What was it? ... and you... I think it's called Napoleon. Hmm.
Jess: I won't remember
Ryan: that. It's by-
Jess: What a title
Ryan: I will tell you in one- It takes me to remember
Damien: this stuff
Ryan: in one moment, 'cause it's by a whole, it's by a whole s- podcast network. Yeah. It's, it's just called Napoleon by the Noiser Podcast Network, which does a lot of historical podcasts, so. All right. And there's some-
Jess: Did
Ryan: anyone watch
Jess: the Napoleon movie from
Ryan: a couple years ago? I haven't watched the Napoleon...
It's entirely too long for me to- With Joaquin? ... to, to think about. Yeah. No, I haven't watched it yet. Yeah. He,
Damien: he gives good Napoleon face. [00:33:00]
Ryan: I, I think he is Napoleon in some ways.
Damien: Perhaps. See the way he dances up and down those stairs? So Napoleon.
Ryan: So we talked a little bit about the difficulty of summarizing- Hang on
The difficulty of summarizing an epistolary story. Do you... Like, so an epistolary story is not automatically better or worse than any other story. Does the, does the format, though, of an epistolary story help or hinder or, or not affect at all what this story is trying to accomplish?
Damien: You know, when you think of the classic horror novels like Dracula and, and most obviously Frankenstein, like, you know, being predominantly, if not entirely, epistolary, like that kind of warms me up to the format.
But by nature, I want to read a narrative as a narrative. Mm-hmm. And it's taking me some amount of thawing and softening towards the epistolary style to see it and appreciate it, as opposed to seeing it and going... Because I automatically wanna [00:34:00] do that. When you- Right ... especially in this story, when you pair that with a little bit of a hot personality who, you know, comes across as better than thou, holier than thou, and establishes- Mm-hmm
that right off the bat, it gets me even more grated. Because like Jessica, I, I hate when despicable people are, like, front and center in books. But I like it when bad things happen to them, and neither of those things happen. I, I would say that originally not my favorite, but because of the classics where that is the dominant style, the horror classics, like I am more open to
Ryan: it.
I felt like it, it detracted for me, and, and I'll tell you why. I, I get so annoyed with epistolary stories when they have long stretches of dialogue. It's like- Sure, sure, sure ... who is recalling verbatim this, this conversation and writing it down- Okay, that's a good point. That's a good point ... in that, in that manner.
Damien: But you can say that about any, like, first, firsthand account, right? Yeah, but
Ryan: if you're gonna tell a story, just tell a story. 'Cause the epistolary thing, like, takes me out of the fact that I'm- ... I'm reading a story. Do
Damien: you know what's... Do you know what's funny? There is a, there is a part of this story where at one point Chuck [00:35:00] says, or he writes...
Or no, it's a part of the edit for the publication of the story- Right ... where they, where they pull out, they go, "We removed three pages of historical, like- Right ... of historical recollections just to, just to save time." I was like, "Not enough. Not enough." Yeah.
Jess: I don't mind, you know, writing a letter as a format- When it reveals something about the narrator that we wouldn't necessarily get if it was just him narrating.
And so sometimes that means, like, when you're in a new place, you might be narrating to yourself about the differences or whatever, but you're gonna describe things differently to an audience than you are to yourself.
Ryan: Right.
Jess: And so some of that I think is useful in this because most likely our narrator isn't actually going home and being like, "Oh, what a weirdo, and here's the 10 million things that he-"
Ryan: What a great conversation.
I have to write it down.
Jess: Yes. Yes. But because we, you know, through these [00:36:00] letters we get that he's snooty and dying of boredom and is trying to, like, entertain himself and an audience- I think you get a little bit more out of that than you would if it was just him recounting to himself. I think in this case, like, having an audience that he's, like, trying to entertain helps play up some of the, like, more bombastic Napoleon thingies.
Damien: Also, it may seem like they're, they have to find a way to galvanize that friendship over the course of a year, or at least a few months. If we... It starts in, like, '78 and then ends in '
Ryan: 79. Yeah. So yeah, the epistolary format makes time jumps easier.
Damien: Yes. So it can make the time jumps easier- For sure ... but I really don't think it did any favors that a good flowing, you know, pro-style narrative would have done just to talk about a time jump that occurred.
Ryan: I agree. I agree.
Damien: And the only other thing I can think of is th- this is probably an easier path to preserving the identity of that second person until the [00:37:00] very end. Because even if you had a first-person narration through this, he probably... It, it would've made sense for him to just go ask, and I feel like he was doing a little bit of a performance to his sister.
Yeah. And so he wanted
Ryan: to preserve-
Damien: That,
Ryan: that
Damien: makes
Ryan: sense ... the
Damien: identity
Ryan: until the very end. I can, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he can preserve the surprise for the sister. Interesting. Yeah. Okay.
Jess: Yeah, the, the having an audience portion of it to, like, what he's, what he's trying to say, I think is effective in this.
Just the details that you present to someone else are gonna be different than the details that you think. And I think that- Right ... the story is, like, effective and like, being realistic in, in what you would write to your, your snooty sister as a snooty guy.
Ryan: Yeah. I think I agree with Damien when he said that, you know, when you, when you approach a story now that is in this format, I've gotta be sold on it.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Why is this, why is this important? It's starting
Damien: in the negative.
Ryan: Yeah. There, there's a modern story by Gemma Files called Everything You Show Me Is a Piece of Your [00:38:00] Death, and it's all told in email exchanges.
Damien: Good title.
Ryan: Good title. And it, and it's phenomenal. It's a wonderful horror story. And the reason it's so wonderful is because of the email format that it's told in, complete with all the, like, little, like, forward lines and, and quote indents and all that.
Like, it just, it just, it just worked in a way that a lot of these stories don't work quite as well.
Damien: Well,
Ryan: so what,
Damien: what- That, that, that- Oh, sorry, Daniel ... no, that's okay. It hearkens back for me to things have gotten worse since we last, last spoke- Per se, yeah, yeah ... at Air Portal. That's- Yeah. And I also know that there were a few...
Like, Paul Tremblay in some of his short stories have, has like dabbled in the art of, like, alt epistle, epistle format letters. In fact, the only format Paul Tremblay
Ryan: hasn't dabbled in is straight writing.
Damien: It's just, it's just getting it out there.
Jess: Yeah. Take
Damien: that, Paul. There was like, there were like Reddit posts and, you know,
Jess: obviously like- Wasn't there like a dog, dog sitter notes or something?
The dog walker notes. Yeah. The
Damien: dog sitter notes. Yeah. Yeah. The
Jess: notes
Damien: from
Jess: a dog walker, I think is what it's called. So, like that's the equivalent of these like [00:39:00] terrible found footage- Like tweets ... movies that I like, where it's just like- That's true ... you gotta figure something fun to tell a story. I mean- And dog walker notes, eh, pretty funny It's,
Damien: it's a neat arc, but...
Jess: It's gonna be better as a short story than a novel probably.
Damien: Yeah. God, yeah. Could you imagine a novel of Reddit posts or, or dog walker notes? I'm
Ryan: sure it's out there. Goodness. I'm sure it's out there. Yeah. What about the title? What do you think the title is, is a symbol for, or a reference to, rather? The Curfew Tolls.
I
Damien: mean, it's, it's explained. It's a line from a classic
Jess: poem. Yeah, it said in the intro. Rose
Damien: by Machine.
Ryan: But why pick that as a title?
Damien: I don't know.
Jess: Well, the story's theme echoes Gray's musings on the possibilities of a life denied.
Damien: That's incredibly erudite. It's so organic to us. It was just... I, I can't believe how off the cuff that was.
I have no idea. I didn't know what it meant. I read it in the, in the preamble. I
Ryan: mean, because-
Jess: Yeah, same thing ... it feels
Ryan: like it's this supposed to be this heavy thing about meditation on, on mortality and death, but [00:40:00] that's not what the story's about. The story's about a twist ending.
Jess: The story's about a twist ending, and also, I don't know if it's relevant, but I did picture Napoleon wearing a Hawaiian button-up shirt through most of the story.
Super
Ryan: important.
Damien: I mean, when you find out he had
Jess: a straw hat- And
Damien: that really helps, I think. Yeah ...
Jess: when you find out he had
Damien: a straw hat. They go together, I think. I would say pri- you know, a- aside from the title, which again, I couldn't make that connection whatsoever, but it, the story itself opens with a quote.
Right. Which is, "It is not enough to be the possessor of genius. The time and the man must conjoin. An Alexander the Great born into an age of profound peace might scarce have troubled the world. A Newton grown up in a thieves' den might have devised little but a new and ingenious picklock." It's like, okay, we get it.
Thanks for- Right, right ... putting that up front. This is obviously about a genius personality in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the wrong
Ryan: place at the wrong time.
Jess: What if you're in the wrong place in the wrong time?
Damien: Gee, I wonder what this story's gonna be about.
Ryan: I mean, the, the, the word toll obviously calls to mind Hemingway's title, For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is itself a [00:41:00] reference to John Donne.
But beyond that, I don't know that that's significant.
Jess: I think-
Ryan: Toll ... I was just doing a word association
Jess: exercise. Yeah, I think probably people who are maybe paid to put a edition like this together can make those connections, but I didn't.
Ryan: Right. I did not.
Jess: I didn't get them or- Even really, like I, I understood the intro and I thought it was probably very smart and accurate,
Ryan: So let's continue on this theme of things I didn't get then.
Jess: Yes, let's.
Ryan: Some articles I read about this story, of which there are surprisingly a few, suggested that there are themes of fear to be found here, and I, I didn't see it. I, I don't know what you guys think. I mean- Is there
Damien: fear in this story? Fear-
Ryan: Fear of missing out, but-
Damien: Well, yeah. N- a little bit. No, that's it.
It's, it's, it's, it's literally FOMO. It's what could have been.
Ryan: 18th century FOMO.
Damien: And that's, that's expressed through the entire thing, from Lil, Lil Nappy Bona, you know, going around talking about how [00:42:00] he could have done it better, how he would've done it this way. He could have been a contender. Yeah, he could have been a contender.
It's... And I think that's the fear, but I don't know. I- Maybe
Ryan: it didn't, it didn't strike, strike true, or if it, if it rang a bell- I guess you could be wrong ... it, it wasn't a very loud one.
Damien: Maybe fear, you could be thinking of, like, terror, and it's not that. It's, it's fear in the form of, like, immaterial regret or immaterial potential.
Ryan: Like the dread, am I doing the right thing in my life? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have I gone, have I made the right choices?
Damien: Hmm. But also bravado translated for- That way madness lies ... someone who's going toward, toward death, you know, spiraling toward death, and knowing it, and just making it more angsty and more frustrated, lashing out more, being more of a jerk.
Who knows? Do you catch fear, Jess?
Jess: Mm, there's some fear from our narrator. Like, in... His was also kind of a FOMO of, like, he wanted to make friends, and then he made this friend, but then he thought he was kind of annoying, so then he [00:43:00] didn't really wanna hang out with him, but then he- That's the worst ... but then he did hang out with him Crisis.
Yeah, I don't feel like fear was a... It didn't fear for me, maybe. Way to re- One out of 10 fears.
Ryan: I didn't write the article
Jess: I wrote this article
Ryan: So here's a quote from page 176 in our volume. This is probably maybe not quite halfway through the story Says this, "But you have never known the curse," and his voice vibrated.
Yes. "The curse of not being employed when you should be employed. The curse of being a hammer with no nail to drive. The curse, the curse of sitting in a dusty garrison town with dreams that would split the brain of a Caesar, and no room on Earth for those dreams." And here's my question, is this a curse?
Is this a curse story? Or are you just an incel?
Damien: Well, it's easy, it's easy for a self-absorbed person to feel that it's a curse. It's the, uh, you know, "I'm [00:44:00] so destined for greatness that the only thing that could keep me away is
Ryan: supernatural interference." You have to be self-absorbed to think that that it's a curse.
For sure. Yeah. Yeah,
Jess: exactly. Which fits with our, what we know about our, our man.
Ryan: Right, that's true.
Damien: Our
Ryan: man. So let me take this perhaps in a more meaningful direction, then. What is... If we're not all, if we're not all sitting around thinking that we're cursed because we're not the great people that we are in our heads, what is the role of agency in fate?
Do those two intersect?
Damien: Man, you can't ask that question because the sense of agency negates the concept of fate.
Ryan: That, that's what... Yeah, do they, do they even connect?
Damien: And I, they can't.
Ryan: You can't, you can't bring about
Damien: your fate? Well, you know,
Ryan: fate
Damien: in the... Fate... No, because fate by definition is predestination, right?
It's, it's what's bound to happen regardless of your interference or regardless of your actions.
Ryan: But you can't foil it. Isn't that the plot of however many stories and plays out there, foiling fate?
Damien: But what... I mean, fate unrealized is still your fate. Like, whatever happens is your fate, according to the [00:45:00] denotation of fate, right?
Ryan: If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked the question. I
Damien: think that agency, I think that agency and fate are opposing forces.
Ryan: So in this story then, because Napoleon was born at, earlier than he should've been, he could not have become a great soldier.
Damien: Newton born in a den of thieves would make nothing more but the petty pickpocket device, or whatever the quote was.
Yes, I think-
Jess: Nature versus nurture, you know?
Damien: I th- yeah, I think that's the, I think that is the, the s- the central, like, theme to this entire story, is no matter how great his mind was, he is, he's born in a time of peace or away from the front lines, like, he just couldn't, he couldn't act it out. He couldn't do it.
Ryan: Well, then that's terribly sad. Yeah, well, for the part about- How many great people are we missing out on?
Damien: That's the big question. You know, when theorists and humanists say every person who dies of hunger, disease, you know, famine, they could've been the next fill in the blank. Right. They could've had the mi- they could've had the cure for [00:46:00] cancer, et cetera, et cetera.
It's like, that's why we need to take every, every human life, every potential as the potential they could've been, and maximize it, because-
Jess: Maximize it ... that's
Damien: how you, it's how you build empathy, right? If it's not for the person themselves, it's what they could have contributed to society.
Jess: Mm.
Damien: Mm. I don't think, I don't think Jess is buying it.
Jess: I understand that argument, but it also echoes the, like, no one should be allowed to have an abortion because what if the baby you aborted cured cancer or whatever. Interesting. And then it's just like, well, what if that mom could have cured cancer? Give me a break. Get out of here. Yeah, Damon, what if that
Damien: mom could have cured cancer?
Jess: You know? What if that mom... We can keep that in or not, but that's the-
Damien: I had taken down abortion road there, Jess.
Jess: Yeah, sorry, folks. Well,
Damien: I think it's, I think, I think it's a f- I think it's a fair point. It is, but... Okay.
Jess: That,
Damien: that, that dives into when does life begin and that sort of thing, but that's, that's a different story.
Jess: Yeah. That's- Or right, like, [00:47:00] what is, is your destiny, what is your agency before you're born?
Damien: Does
Ryan: everybody have a destiny or a fate? Only special people? I don't think anybody has a fate. Nobody does. No.
Jess: No. I, like, I feel like I- So you
Ryan: are the agency of your own ends. I think we're flying by the seat of our
Damien: pants.
Jess: I just, I watch- But it's, that's a- I feel like I talk about this all the time. I just watch a lot of, like, cooking shows, like cooking competition shows, and just, like, there are, like, like a destin- it's all into two categories. One is just, like, I'm, I, I gotta prove my haters wrong. My parents didn't think I could do this.
Right. Now I gotta win to prove to my mom I'm worthy of love or whatever. Or- And a mortgage on a bakery ... or the o- the other one is I know that I'm the best chef. I know that I'm destined for these great things. And I'm sure it's probably that's echoed in a lot of reality shows. I just mostly watch cooking ones.
And [00:48:00] I just think, like, you're on a cooking show with four other people. Like, I imagine they also think they're destined
Ryan: for
Jess: great
Ryan: things.
Damien: Well, even if, even if one of
Ryan: them can win too, I bet all four of them are pretty good cooks.
Jess: Yeah. So it's just sorta like-
Damien: I mean, that's intrinsic- Does your- ... versus extrinsic motivation, right?
It's like, uh, I need to prove the haters wrong. Okay, that's extrinsic because it's for his, their success is reliant on- The haters ... an external. But intrinsic is I'm the best and I know it, and here's my chance to prove it. Like, I don't know if that's
Jess: necessarily fate. It's just funny to hear people say that in a room full of other people who are all thinking like-
Damien: The same thing The same
Jess: thing
the exact same thing.
Damien: Yeah. That's where the best competition comes into play, and that's why those shows do so well, right? Because those personalities kind of glom around that.
Ryan: Well, 'cause everybody watching that has the same thought about themselves.
Damien: Exactly. Exactly.
Jess: Yeah. If only I was on Chopped, I could make a- Cumin?
Damien: Really? Cumin? You idiot.
Jess: You idiot. What did
Ryan: you think would happen?
Jess: Cotton candy squid, terrible.
Ryan: You dummy. Well, in thinking through [00:49:00] this, this question myself, I, I came across a quote from the Roman writer Seneca- Of course ... which you've probably heard before.
Damien: Seneca. He did, he did, he did Julius Caesar wrong.
Ryan: Yes. Yes, I suppose he did.
Jess: I'm Katniss
Ryan: Everdeen. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and I feel like you've probably heard this quote before in one way or another, but- Yeah ... I think that, that bolsters the there is no fate. It, it, you are the agency of your own end.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: But you also have to be met with a certain amount of opportunity.
It's just that when that opportunity shows up, you've gotta be ready. Right. You have
Jess: to
Ryan: take it, right? And you have to grab it. But you have to be- Yeah, and you, and you have to have the courage to grab it, yeah.
Jess: You have to be presented with that opportunity. I don't like the, I don't like the everything is fate, but I don't like, I don't like that nothing is fate either.
There's gotta be some middle ground, 'cause the nothing is fate is the everyone can bootstrap themselves up-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Jess: which is also, I believe, wildly inaccurate. We got some middle ground where sometimes good things [00:50:00] happen- Well, I think some people start
Ryan: at home ... but we'll use, use- Some people start at first base, some people start at second base
Damien: in this game.
Right, right. Maybe. See, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and th- that's the opportunity and the l- lack of equality, but do you... So would luck be a measure , of fate's involvement, maybe? 'Cause if you're saying- I suppose you could... Be- because I, because to me it's like it's more binary. It's like either fate governs us all or fate governs nobody, you know?
Right.
Ryan: There is a muse or there isn't one.
Damien: Right, exactly, and what you're saying is actually- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... luck as a condition is how much fate intervenes, because it could be on a sliding scale, or how much fate, like, guides you versus-
Ryan: If you believe that luck has that much in- influence.
Damien: Right.
Right.
Ryan: Could luck be a measure
Damien: of that? I
Jess: like that.
Ryan: It's-
Jess: I like that idea. Sliding scale ... some people,
Ryan: some people make their own luck too, right? The, you know, people that, that, that tend to say yes to every opportunity that comes their way, or every new, new thing
Jess: that comes their way. People who were born with a lot of money and a safety net.
Ryan: That, I mean, that too. I don't think
Damien: that's luck.
Jess: Luckier. You can take more risks if you have [00:51:00] a safety net.
Ryan: Yeah. You can. You're right. You can. That's,
Damien: that's a good point
Ryan: To what extent does this story rely on its surprise ending for its power?
Jess: This is one where you like, I, you have to put yourself in the head space of like the original reader.
Right. Somebody reading the
Ryan: post. Exactly. Yeah,
Jess: yeah, yeah. Yes,
Ryan: exactly.
Jess: Because for me, knowing it's in this collection, knowing Napoleon wore a big hat and literally nothing else, the twist was more of a like, kind of an eye roll.
Ryan: A bit of an eye roll, yeah.
Jess: Yeah. Than anything super useful. But I guess had I been reading this and I wasn't aware it was in a, you know, Roads of Destiny based collection-
Damien: Right.
And that was its intent, right? That's- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... the original publication. So for that, I think, and you mentioned the word power, I think using the word power and I would, I would maybe counter or refine that to impact. Punch, yeah. Super [00:52:00] important for original publication. The zip. Because otherwise it's somebody talking about a loon.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: And then all of a sudden that loon happens to be one of the most, you know, well-known military leaders. Significantly impactful
Ryan: people in the, in the world.
Damien: So because of that, that's the wow, gotcha. You know, that's the M. Night- Right ... Shyamalan popping up at the very end. But it has to be out of similar context, and it can't be in an anthology to have that same impact.
Correct.
Jess: Yeah, yeah. That's
Damien: true. Yeah.
Jess: Because if you're just reading it, you're not necessarily expecting the same thing. But then it could also be like, "It's Napoleon's dad." You know, like, like there's a way to make it make sense in universe. So,
Ryan: so this le- this leads
Jess: me then- Again, I don't know when Napoleon was born or died.
Ryan: Is there anything more to this story than just a, just a fun what if tale?
Damien: No. I think it genuinely
Ryan: is just a what if tale. You think that's all it is? Yeah. Yeah. I
Damien: mean, yeah. It's, it's, it's a dialogue. It could've been a one-act play.
Jess: Honestly, it would've been a good one-act play. [00:53:00]
Ryan: Especially if he was wearing his hat.
Jess: You know? Oh, he's gotta wear a hat. How would you know who he is if he doesn't have a hat on?
Ryan: So how about the writing then? Did, did the writing work for you?
Jess: It was convincingly snooty.
Ryan: Yes.
Jess: Like I- I was just
Ryan: gonna say impressive- Nice ... in its haughtiness.
Jess: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like, I got a kick out of the like- Wow
"Oh, I don't know- Yeah ... if I can hang out with this guy anymore." And it's just like,
Ryan: eh. My ennui.
Jess: Like, the letters were convincing. He said he was
Ryan: Sardinian, but he was Corsican, that fool.
Jess: Like, it was not necessarily like funny, but I was entertained by, by the narrating.
Ryan: The writing was pretty strong. There were, there were lines I liked.
There's one on page 183, which Damian referenced already. "Fool! If I had had Alexander's chance, I would have bettered Alexander. And it will come too. That is the worst of it. Already Europe is shaking with a new birth. If I had been born under the Sun King, I would have been a marshal of France. If I'd been born [00:54:00] 20 years ago, I would mold a new Europe with my fists in the next half dozen years.
Why did they put my body Why did they put my soul and my body at this infernal time? Do you not understand? Russell? Is there no one who understands? Like, you can see this. Like, this is the one- Yes ... act play stuff. Like, you can see this on his face. He's pacing back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. And
Damien: he's grumpy. And
Ryan: he's just red with fury- Mm
over, over just indignation. Throwing
Damien: a straw hat. And I picture, and I picture that same little monologue, that little tirade being given by the guy who played Napoleon in B- in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Right, right. I'm telling you, it works. He's like, "No," when he's trying, when they're trying to take him out of the water park and he's getting all pouty.
I'm telling you.
Ryan: All right, then, uh, out of 11, how many destinies are you giving this story?
Damien: Oh. I mean, by nature of it being alt Napoleon I j- I'll give it eight. Eight out of 11 destinies.
Ryan: Fair. Jessica? [00:55:00]
Jess: I think six and a half straw hats. In this collection, I thought it was a fun thing to include, right?
Like, it's an alternate reality kind of. Mm-hmm. It's a, you know, could be kind of time travel-y in a, you know, in a way that was just like, different from what we've talked about so far. It also includes the, you know, the kind of the big question of, like, you know, is it, is it weird fiction if it's not weird to anyone in the story?
Like, the guy's just like- Yeah. "What's up with this- Mm-hmm ... hat man?" You know? We've
Ryan: talked about that- Yeah ... many times.
Jess: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: And this one is just like they both think it's normal. Like- Right ... Napoleon is annoyed that he wasn't born at a different time, but it's like he doesn't necessarily actually believe he's-
Ryan: That he's out of time.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. So he's, you know, like, then it's just like it is a weird story
Ryan: with a twist. It'd
Jess: be funny if his
Ryan: wife started, like, looking for his ships and his men and started [00:56:00] ordering this guy around. Right. Right. Yeah.
Damien: Yeah. Well, if you're giving it a weird six and a half straw hats, I'm changing mine to eight wine cork soldiers.
Jess: Sure.
Ryan: I gave it eight and a quarter roads myself.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: Right? I, I, I firmly believe that this story could have been the titular tale of, of, of the anthology, right? This is, this is o- You had to
Damien: one-up me by one quarter?
Ryan: I wrote it down year you know, weeks ago. Years
Jess: ago.
Ryan: Yeah. Could have been years ago.
September 3rd, 1788, that's when I wrote it down.
Jess: When I read this story in the post-
Ryan: , This story is what this anthology is all about- Yeah ... pretty much.
Damien: Yeah. All right.
Ryan: That's fair.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. But I, but I, but I do, I do feel Jessica's point about is it weird if, if they don't believe it's weird.
I-
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: That's perhaps why I didn't go all 11 roads. All right, that's gonna take us to our whiskey rating then. This is how we rate our stories here on Whiskey and the Weird from zero fingers of whiskey, the empty glass, to the coveted full fist of whiskey. Jessica, what are you giving The Curfew Tolls?
Jess: I have no idea.
Let's go with, like, a three. I thought it was a fun story, but [00:57:00] again- I'm an idiot. I'm not the target for this.
Ryan: You
Jess: are not an
Ryan: idiot.
Jess: Like, like the twist of like, "And he was Napoleon all along," is just sort of like- Okay ... like I... It's weird.
Ryan: I did also love it that the two things you said you knew about Napoleon were the two things that gave it away in the story.
Jess: Yeah. And also the- Like it was not
Ryan: cleverly hidden ...
Jess: also I don't, I don't think Napoleon was actually that short. I think he was just like caricatured as short. I think he was like- No, he is- ... 5'7" ... he is short.
Damien: I think he is short. He was short for the time, but not necessarily very short.
Jess: Whatever. He wasn't a wee
Damien: man.
Jess: So I know, I know one and a half things about Napoleon. He may or may not have been short. He was a wee man.
Damien: He was a yes man. 'Cause he's French. Get it? All right. Oui, oui.
Jess: All right. That's what I got. A three for no reason. I had a good time with it, but probably other people would have a better time with it.
Damien: D? Two and a half. It was a story I read. I probably won't think about it again.
Jess: [00:58:00] It was a story you recapped. It
Damien: was a story I recapped, which was tough I give
Jess: it a half.
Damien: Wow.
Jess: Is that our lowest score ever? Bry Ryan does- Has anything gotten a zero? ...
Damien: not like this story.
Ryan: I gave it a half finger, and that's just because I wanted some whiskey.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: I hated this story.
Damien: Wow.
Ryan: I was, I was bored the whole time I was reading it. I was looking around. I was trying to find something else to do. Looking
Jess: around.
Ryan: That I, I was imagining a time in which I didn't have to be reading this story. Mm-hmm. The
Jess: twist- I wish I was born in a different time when I didn't know how to read
Ryan: the, when you were The twist made me roll my eyes. I wish I wasn't required to read out of this
Damien: town.
Ryan: Yeah. You know, as we said, and, and perhaps, you know, spoiled a bit by the fact that I, I had just listened to this Napoleon podcast, but l- listen, I thought the writing was very strong. I gave it a half finger for great technical writing, asking an interesting question or two, and, and as I mentioned, because I was a wee bit droothy, so a half finger for
Damien: me.
A wee bit droothy. First of all, I, I wanna [00:59:00] go back in time and check tape, because I know for a fact that you've given higher ratings based on strong writing alone, and you are coming in with a scathing knuckle- Hated it ... of whiskey.
Ryan: Hated it. Wow. A knuckle of whiskey. I hated this story. I think this is the wor- I mean, I think I gave Rappaccini's Daughter-
Damien: The worst story ever written.
The worst, worst words on paper ever committed.
Jess: Rappaccini's D-
Ryan: I think I gave Rappaccini's Daughter more fingers than this.
Damien: Rappaccini's Daughter was a delight. Shut your
Ryan: face. I hated that story too.
Jess: It was, it was fine.
Ryan: Oh, wow.
Damien: Half finger.
Ryan: Well, if you liked this story, then you might need to make an appointment with somebody.
No. If you liked this story, then Jessica has something else you might like.
Jess: You know what? I sure do, and it is a novel that came out in 2019 called Famous Men Who Never Lived. Great title.
Ryan: Great title.
Jess: Author is K. Chess, like the game. The brief synopsis is a universe finds out that their universe is ending, and they invent a [01:00:00] portal to take them to- Collectively.
Yeah, basically. They're just all like, "Oh, whoa." There's a lottery, and they invent a portal that takes them to an alternate reality that is the same as theirs, except with, you know, the light twists that come along with being an alternate reality. The main character you're allowed to take something with you from your reality- She brings a science fiction novel by her famous, or her favorite famous author.
But when she gets to the new reality, she finds out that the famous author actually died young in this reality and never wrote the book.
Damien: What?
Jess: And so she then is trying to figure out the differences between these two realities. When did they split? What kind of thing makes an author famous and exist and write these great works?
She also then has a partner who realizes they're now in an alternate reality and is trying very hard to fit into the new reality. There's [01:01:00] a bit of, like, a conspiracy theory element. It's a really, like, just kind of- Now, see,
Damien: that sounds like a fun read.
Jess: Yeah, it's a fun little read.
Damien: Sounds pretty cool to me.
Jess: And it has a a fun twist where the, like ... I understand this is not that great, but I enjoyed it. Underneath the dust jacket, the book you're reading is made to look like the book that she smuggled in from her alternate universe. I like that. Mm-hmm. So that's fun. So anyway, pick up that one because if nothing else, it has a great title, Famous Men Who Never Lived.
Ryan: I think I just might. I think you will. Well, thank you for that recommendation, Jess, and thank you everybody for tuning in to this episode of Whiskey and the Weird. We're glad you did, and if you're glad you did, drop us a line. Drop us a rating or a review wherever you find your podcasts. We'd be delighted to hear from you.
We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for Whiskey and the Weird. Damien, if they would like to tell us about the great person they might have been, where could they do that? [01:02:00]
Damien: Are you a famous man who's never lived? Well- Yes ... follow us. You should follow us on the socials. We're @WhiskeyandtheWeird, @WhiskeyandtheWeird on all those meta properties, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, Threads, everything.
@WhiskeyandtheWeird. We spell our whiskeys with an E, and we hope you do, too. If not, I'm gonna write you a very long, overindulgent series of letters where I come across someone who's famous, but they don't even know it, and they're gonna be slightly taller than Napoleon Bonaparte. And Jess, if they're still in our timeline at the end of that, what are we reading
Ryan: next?
Jess: Oh my God, I'm so excited. We are covering The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. What? Oh, wow.
Ryan: Yeah. Charlotte
Damien: Perkins.
Ryan: That's, that's gonna be a great episode. Boy.
Damien: Maybe you've heard of this story. I don't know.
Ryan: Until then, I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: Jessica Berg.
Ryan: And I'm
Damien: Damien Smith.
Ryan: Together, we're Whiskey and the Weird.
Somebody send us home.
Jess: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your [01:03:00] creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye, everybody.