CW: for child abuse at 33:02. Also racist tweets and disgusting keyboards.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! We chat about literary horror queen Shirley Jackson’s infamous short story, The Lottery, which, upon publication in The New Yorker in 1948, inspired thousands of people to wring their hands and gnash their teeth and write angry letters demanding to know why a nice lady would write such a thing. (Don’t you want to read it now?) We also talk about the horrors of Joyce Carol Oates’s casually racist tweets as well as her retch-inducing keyboard. And speaking of badly-behaving authors, we also discuss the dangers of denying your subjects review rights, then acting SHOCKED when you publish a book essentially making fun of them and they have the audacity to COMPLAIN about it. Finally, we discuss the need to read more women horror writers of color, the disappearing ethics of the American death industry, and how much nicer a place the world would be if we all gave out king size candy bars on Halloween.

Please rate and review us on whatever podcast platform you happen to use. And follow us on:

Our website: hybridpubscout.com/episode-31-ladies-horror-lit

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Okay, are we gonna get sued for slander? I don't think

so. Do you know how many people talk shit about Joyce Carol, oh,

it's like a lot, a lot, a lot. I don't think they're gonna single

us out.

Yeah, probably not,

because we'll see what happened. I know what I'm doing for the

rest of the night popping another bottle of wine about

Joyce killed,

yeah, oh, my God, you

foreign

Welcome to the hybrid club Scout podcast with me, Emily

Einolander and me. Corinne Pulaski, Hello. We are mapping

the frontier between traditional and indie publishing, and it's

the most wonderful and scariest time of the year. Yay,

October.

October. How

do you say it in French? I think it's October. I think so it's

probably not at all. I don't know. Yeah, now it's just the

Rs.

Anyway, what's the, what's the Halloween News in your life? Or

just general, um, the general news in my life? Well, I've had

a rough week to be honest. I'm like, here, I feel like I'm

drinking my weight in wine right now. I mean, if you come to my

house, yeah, you are in need emotionally. That's what's gonna

go down. That's true. That's true. She's very hospitable that

way. And, I mean, she's petting a dog, right? Yeah, no, that's

great therapy. Oh, as he walks away, okay,

but, yeah, I am excited for Halloween. I don't have any,

like, Halloween decorations at home, because I kind of just,

like, transitioned into Thanksgiving for some reason.

Oh, I forgot about, yeah, I have decoration. Oh, Chef. JT get

them done. Yeah, yeah. You should. You should. So I need

to, I probably should buy some, but I want to buy some, like,

spooky stuff to put on the front porch. I also feel very strongly

about being the house on the block that has king size candy

bars. You are gonna do that, yeah? Because I think it's nice.

Like, I don't know, we were always really stoked about the

people who gave us king sized candy bars. And it's like, you

know, like, honestly, I don't live in an awesome neighborhood.

I would think the kids who live there would be like, holy shit.

Like, these are giant candy bars. And every other, every

other house, like, gave me, I don't know, pennies or some

shit. So pennies, you know, there are those people. Oh, my

God, he's in tiny Bible. Oh no, there was one that we got that

was, like, it looked like $100 bill, yeah, but it was folded in

half, uh huh. And I was like, Oh my God. And I opened it and,

like, you open the inside, and it said, disappointed, Jesus is

Lord. And I'm like, How is this supposed to be? Like an

endorsement of Jesus, yeah? Like, made me angry.

I remember, like, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, mom,

because I know you will.

Mom sitting behind me and is like, what the hell

cool. Yeah, she was like, madder than I yeah, that's pretty

shitty.

But anyway, so I'm looking forward to seeing the smiles on

kids faces when I give them a king size candy bar. Did you

Halloween? Did you have trick or treaters in your other house?

No, but it was like, I mean, I lived in like a basically

glorified garage, so Right? And I didn't really have like a

front door. I just had like a gate. So I think now it'll

probably be easier. So anyway, but what about you? What are you

gonna give out on Halloween? I don't know yet. It all depends

on whether it rains or not. Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean, I'm

not that cool. I usually just kind of buy the regular whatever

blah blah blahs, but they're I like doing Skittles, yes, yeah.

I like doing the kind of fruitier candies. Because I

remember when I was a kid, I thought chocolate was for grown

ups. Oh, so I don't know if other kids are like that, yeah,

but I liked, I was very but I was also, like, a little fat

kid, so maybe I like chocolate too. I like chocolate too, but I

was, it was all about the Skittles and Starburst. Oh, so I

just got a mixture. Yeah, I don't get the, like, cheapo fake

candy. Like, nobody wants to get the real brand name. Yeah,

that's good. I'm glad to hear that. I mean, it's, it's it's

not like, it's that much more expensive. No, it's really not.

It's really not. The trick or treaters appreciate it, yeah,

you know, I don't save it from the year previous. Yeah, like,

people did that when we were kids. Yeah, it's disgusting.

It's like, crumbled into dust destroys her te, yeah, yeah,

anyway, so yeah, but that's what I'm excited about. And

Halloween, I don't have any parties to go to which I know

sad. Do you want to come? Oh no, wait, no, you're gonna be you're

gonna be repping for the kids on Halloween. Oh yeah, that's true,

but I don't know. I'll probably find something to do. I just

like, I don't want to not celebrate Halloween, because

it's a very important holiday to me. And I realized the other day

that I have a ton of costume I just like to do.

New costume every year. But if need be, I have, I was Jem one

year I was a zombie cheerleader. One year I was the Bride of

Frankenstein one year. So I have like, options. I just, like,

don't like to recycle stuff, but it'll be fun. So, yeah, what are

you gonna be proud? I don't know. I just realized, I don't

know. Hmm, let's brainstorm. We don't have to brainstorm, yeah,

but post, post your Halloween costumes on our Facebook page.

Well, you'll start a thread and see what everybody's gonna be

doing. Yeah? And if you have any good ideas of what I should be,

please help. Help me. Yes, please help.

All right, well, it's our second Halloween episode that we've

ever done, which is really exciting. And you know, it's our

31st

October. So it's, it's not October 31 but it's our 31st

episode in October. Yes, I

didn't even plan that. No, I know. I know. Oh, my God. Okay,

the universe at work.

So we wanted to talk about some Halloween ish things. And we

kind of started with the idea of talking about women in horror,

but that's way too big of topic, so we kind of narrowed it down,

and it's all over the place, but it started, we're going to talk

about three different

somewhat two are somewhat witchy, and then one of them is

just weird and gross. That sounds right? Yeah.

There will no be no creepypastas this year. No. Have any favorite

creepypastas again, posted on Facebook? Yeah, we're all about

that, and I probably will too, yeah, yeah. Cursed, cursed

website, cursed Reddit threads. Oh, God, those were the days. So

we're going to start with talking about Shirley Jackson,

one of the queens, yes, of horror literature, indeed. Yeah,

you want to. We're going to be getting a lot of our information

from a few articles. One is 11 Things You Probably Didn't Know

About Shirley Jackson from Publishers Weekly, and it's

written by Ruth Franklin, who wrote a biography called Shirley

Jackson, a rather haunted life. Good title, and we also she also

wrote the lottery letters for the New Yorker. And then there

is one more New Yorker article called The Haunted mind of

Shirley Jackson by Zoe Heller, who wrote um Notes on a Scandal.

Oh, damn. All right, cool. All right. So Shirley Jackson's bio

is as follows, born December 14, 1916 Sagittarius in Burlingame,

California to a family of Christian scientists. In the 20

years of her career, she wrote six novels, two memoirs and more

than 200 short stories. Her mom was extremely disappointed at

her as a child, because she wanted her to be a beauty queen,

and instead, Shirley stayed inside and read and wrote

stories unrelatable.

She went to Syracuse and was lead editor for the school's

humor magazine. All right. Pause, yes, I love that. Yeah,

me too. I love the connection between horror and humor. Oh,

yeah, so much. I feel like they go hand in hand. Absolutely,

yeah, so um, but on the other hand, that was also one of those

things where I was like, Oh, she's she's just a humor, yeah.

Lady, right, right. She's so quaint and cute. So her husband

was a literary critic. They met at Syracuse, and his name was

Stanley Hyman.

I hate him.

He's a terrible person, okay? They lived in Vermont, ran in

literary circles, had a lot of parties, you know, those swanky

things, fun Vermont, whatever. Yeah, I don't know if you want

to sit around and, like, listen to men talk, yeah.

So her story, her famous story, the lottery, of which we will

speak of very much. Yep. So it was her biggest hit. She made a

lot of money, good for her, and then so she became the

breadwinner of the family with her little frivolous essays,

yeah, short stories, but she made a lot of money, little

doodles

from little doodles, I don't know, oh, oh no, no. It's this

weird rom com. I'll talk to you later, okay, um, but for

whatever reason, I guess it's just because Mr. Stanley Hyman

decided that he can could control all of the matter she

was making, and then he also coerced her into having an open

relationship to justify all of his philandering. Oh, my God.

Like it's not bad if I call it an open relation, she said it

was okay, yeah, yeah. Also, uh huh, I got this ad on Instagram

for Allstate Insurance. Okay? And it was the interviewing this

woman who was, it

was for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and they were

interviewing a woman whose husband, like wouldn't let her

control our money at all. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, wow, yeah. And they have this fund, apparently, that you

can donate to for I don't know anything. I tend to hate

insurance companies, and they're probably terrible anyway. But,

like, I thought that was really interesting. That is interesting

because a lot of people don't know that. That's one of the

main traits of an abusive relationship. Yeah, yeah. It's

like, you just take all the money and, like, so he would

dole out, like, an allowance, her own money. Yeah? Her, like,

it's family money, obviously, yeah, right. Like, right, yeah.

But still, that's, you didn't make that fucking money. No.

He's really into, like, everyone thinking he was, you know, the

host for the parties, Mr. Blah, blah, blah, like, right? Her

most famous books were The Haunting of Hill House, her

fifth book that came out in 1959

and we have always lived in the castle. Her sixth and last that

came out in 1962

this New Yorker article said that one isn't widely read, but

I guess it probably will be now, yeah, because the dynamic, oh

yeah, yeah, right, right. Which I had never finished, which I

meant to watch today. Yeah, is it still up? No, you're thinking

of haunting, of Hill House they made. We have always lived in

the cat. Oh, that's right, that's right, okay, yeah, all

right. And I've been meaning to watch it, but I kind of, I read

something kind of bad about it on Twitter, like they ruined the

spirit of this movie.

Yeah? Maybe not, because I love the book. Love it. I didn't, you

know, I already forced you to read something else. She Yeah,

but that was like, I'm glad you did, because it was well worth

my time, and I regret that I took me so damn long to read it.

Yeah, she's genius.

Yeah. Well, she, she had a lot of spite for suburban life, even

though that's kind of where she understandably, yeah, it's like

she was completely controlled by this, like, by the suburbs and

her mom. I mean, I feel like, if you have mommy issues, you're

probably gonna be, you know, everyone's like, Oh, women have

daddy issues. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Yeah, seen a woman,

woman with mommy issues, yeah, yeah. That's

also terrible, yeah, also, it makes you probably really good

at writing, yeah, scary stories, I would think so. Yeah, that

seems to be what happened. I was listening to an interview today

by Ruth Franklin, who wrote her bio biography, and she was

talking about how she used to tell her kids stories about her

parents and their Christian Scientist stuff. Ah, apparently,

like, one of the kids like broke their leg, and they just like

prayed over him, Oh, God, instead of bringing him to the

hospital, of course, right? Yeah, very effective, but, yeah,

but she was also super witchy. Aha, yeah. So she read tarot,

nice, and this is my favorite thing, like I saw, and I'm glad

I saw it before we started. So Alfred A Knopf, which is one of

the famous publishing companies, yeah, Knopf is still a

publishing company, and he was the guy who started it. Was

having a

contract dispute with Stanley Hyman, and at least there was

this much solidarity in their marriage. Yeah, the guy went on

a skiing trip and broke his leg, and then Shirley Jackson took

credit for it as her putting a hex on for, like, fucking with

her husband. That's amazing. I believe that she's fully capable

of that too. Yeah, I'm sure she was Yeah, yeah. I mean, her

biographers say it's, it was a shtick, right? But how do we

know? I mean, isn't everything a shtick? Yes, it is really, yeah,

fucking Anton LaVey was a Yes, oh my god. Was he ever, was he

ever God

anyway? And then she died in 1965 of heart failure while she

was taking her afternoon. Now, she was really young too, I

think, wasn't she like 44 was it? Was she, I think she was

like 48 I read, yeah, but at least she left us with this

treasure trove of horror literature and so so much over

the course, yeah, 20 years, yeah, she did with four fucking

kids to take care of too, which is like incredible, making all

the money and making all the money during the spite of her

neighbors. Yeah. I mean, yeah, who among us? Not? Amen. Amen.

Sister.

So,

yeah, we're going to talk about the lottery a little bit. Yeah,

sure. So I finally read that about a year ago. Emily really

shamed me for, I don't know, several months before I finally

read it. And it wasn't like, I didn't want to read it. I just

kind of forgot about it. It's also kind of me to be like, No,

you didn't read that.

I read that. I read that.

No, but it's not like, you don't do it like that. You're just

kind of like, did you read the letter yet? Did you read the

lottery out? Did you read the letter? It's only a few pages,

yeah. And then you would, and I remember I read it at work, like

during lunch one day, because it is.

Just a short story, yeah, yeah. And I was like, holy shit. I

can't believe it took me this long to read this, and it's so

good. So anyway, but I do also read, she has this short story

collection called Dark tales that I read every October, and

it's just a Yeah, which I haven't read. Oh, yes, please.

Yeah. It's really, really good. Very, very good. What's your

favorite story from dark tale? There's this one called the

possibility of evil, that is about this old lady who is like,

seems like the beginning of this like, kind of, I don't know,

sweet old lady who, like, is kind of the matriarch of this

town. And then as the story goes on, you realize that like, she

basically sends letters. She is so she, like, perceives all

these things that people are doing wrong in the town or

whatever, and she takes it upon herself to send letters to these

people, which basically, like, fuck up their entire lives. So,

I mean, like, revealing secrets to people and all this kind of

stuff, and then I can't, of course, I can't remember what

happens at the end, but there's, like, the line, the last line is

totally devastating and perfect. Don't tell me. No, I won't, I

won't, but it's just, it's really good. Yeah, it's just

like a few pages, it's not very long, but it's really, really

but I feel like that's like a particular talent she had. It

was just like, building this sense of, like, unease, you

know, with, like, very, not even, like, very few, like, I

don't know, paragraphs or whatever. Like, she was just

very, very good at that sort of building tension and not

revealing very much. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like she

was a master at that. So anyway. But yeah, I recommend dark tales

to everyone. Oh, my god, yeah, dark as you would expect, many

tales with many tales. Anyway. So yeah, did you ever hear about

the Circleville letter writer? No, that's one of those ones

that all the podcast, the true crime podcast. I don't think so.

Is that just kind of like that? Is it okay? Yeah, I don't know

what came first off, till I think it came after, oh, joking

story, though, because that's the sort of thing you hear and

you're like, Oh, I thought that was, like, a fiction thing. Oh,

like, yeah, stranger than fiction. Okay, okay. I think I'm

thinking of the watcher, which is different, which is that,

like, creepy guy right in, like, New Jersey. Oh, I don't know

about, oh, yeah, I'll send you stuff. Like, he like, I don't

know, for years and years, it was like, I think it was New

Jersey, or maybe it was in New England somewhere, but like,

there was this guy who would send letters to the occupants of

this one particular house, just like, telling them, like, what

they would be doing all day, because he was watching them. It

was really fucking crazy. And I think, like, I like, obviously,

like, people move out, like, instantly when they get these

creepy letters and stuff. But, um, anyway, I don't know if

they're still going on, or if he's finally died or something,

but I'll send you some stories about it, because it's really

creepy, please. Yes, no problem. It's good. It's good. It's

probably just like a local journalist trying to make the

town Interesting, yeah, which, I mean, hey, can't hate him for

trying. You know, I feel like I would almost just be like,

how could he do it now, though? Yeah, like, all the camera

that's true. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe nobody in

town wants it to stop, because it's like, such a cool story, it

could be. And he has, the only interesting thing about our

town, he hasn't killed anybody, yeah, no, he's just watching

them.

You had corn flakes this morning, didn't you? It's like

fucking the room where Denny's like, I just like watching you

guys exactly.

It's the same thing. So Well, let's talk about, I didn't know

about this, but you told me that there was a big hullabaloo about

the lottery, which, yeah, there should be, which is why I told

you to read it so many times. Though, it's like an old story,

and that's like the most English class thing. It's like all these

people who are like, hot take, I don't think the old man in the

sea was very good. Yeah, hot take. You should read Shirley

Jackson's lottery.

I spoiled it for JT today. Oh, really, also,

I don't think we have to spoil it. No, no. If you haven't read

it, just go read it. Yeah, keep it truly just a few pages long.

It's so short, it's really short, and it's just

fun, devastating, fun, but devastating in a fun way,

disturbing as hell, yeah, it is disturbing. Yeah, that's true,

but, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So one of the things I saw was

that, I guess this was kind of a mythic thing, where she was

like, it's like, that story where John Steinbeck dropped one

of his stories behind his desk, and then, like, had to, didn't

know where it went, Yeah, wrote it, yeah. He found it exactly

the same things, uh huh. She kind of said something like

that. Like, changed one thing and, oh, to the New Yorker. Ah,

okay, but she did write it in one morning she went to the

grocery store and thought of it.

Just think about going to wind cutting, and then thinking about

the lottery, yeah, that's the meme that would make it, yeah,

yeah. I could kind of get that, I guess, yeah. And then the

people into actually, there's a scene at the grocery store, and

we have always lived in the castle too. She must have really

hated, Oh, dude, I.

Feel bad. I fucking hate grocery shopping, especially, like, if

you know people, yeah, that's true. I mean, then you feel like

you've lived in small towns before. Yeah, kinda Yeah. Did

your mom ever like, see someone she knew at the grocery store

and then talk to them for an hour? Yes, and it was only,

only, like, 10 minutes. It probably was. But also, my mom

was like, the kind of person who was like, like, truly happy to

see people and always happy to talk to them. So it wasn't like

she was just like, Oh, I'm just gonna engage you because I'm

trying to be polite. Like she'd be like, Oh, my God, how are you

I can still be annoying when you're a kid. No, it's true. Oh

for me, yes, it was incredibly annoying. But, I mean, I think

she actually enjoyed seeing people. Oh, she she doesn't

sound like a Misanthropy. No. Shirley Jackson, yeah, no, no,

no, not at all.

But yeah. So that was, that was one thing. And you, you want to

tell us about her letters? Oh, sure, well, the New Yorker got

and passed along to her, right? So it was published in 1948 in

the New Yorker. And apparently people didn't, oh, they were

real upset. Well, they didn't know it was fiction, and some of

them, uh huh, yeah, which is, you know, okay.

Jackson received several 100 letters from New Yorker

subscribers, which were dominated by three main themes.

In her words, bewilderment, speculation and plain old

fashioned abuse. She was most alarmed by the letters from

people who wanted to know where such lotteries were still held

and whether they could watch. What the Yeah, it was apparently

the most male that The New Yorker had ever received

regarding a work of fiction up until that point.

Don't read the comments. Surely. Okay, no, I'm just, Oh, your

job. Don't read the comments.

The response of Carolyn green of New Milford Connecticut was

typical gentlemen. She wrote, I have read the lottery three

times with increasing shock and horror. Cannot decide whether

Jackson is a genius or a female and more subtle version of Orson

Welles. What does that mean? Is that just what she thinks an

insult, right? Exactly like, Wells is great. Do you think

everyone was still mad about, like, the War of the Worlds

thing? Wait, when did the War of the Worlds thing happen? I think

it was around that time. Yeah, it must have. Hold on. I have to

look it up, because everyone's gonna scream out, sure, sure,

yeah, yeah. I should probably know that too. Or of the world's

radio broadcast, yeah, because I feel it was around, wasn't it

like when World War Two? No, it was 10 years previous. It was

1938 Yeah, it was around the same time. Because did you ever

listen to that radio lab episode about, Oh man, it's great. I've

listened to it so many times. But I guess there was, like, a

bunch of people who were calling the police. And instead of like,

saying we're being invaded by aliens, they were saying we're

being invaded by Germans. Oh, Jesus, yeah. It was like, So

and, I mean, 38 Yeah, that was early,

so good. So maybe that's what she's referring to. But like,

now he's like, Well, her too, yeah. They're both legends,

yeah, I guess they weren't appreciated no time, not at

their time, but now, I mean, he certainly like enjoyed the

rewards. Yes, he did. He did.

Let's see what else among those who were confused about

Jackson's intentions was Alfred l Kroeber, an anthropologist at

the University of California, Berkeley, Shirley Jackson's

intent was to symbolize into complete mystification and at

the same time be gratuitously disagreeable. She certainly

succeeded. He wrote in an email to me that being the Ruth Ruth

Franklin, her biographer Kroger's daughter, the novelist

Ursula Le Guin Hey, Oregon, Oregon, lady who was 19 years

old when the lottery appeared, recalled her father's reaction.

My memory is that my father was indignant at Shirley Jackson's

story, because, as a social anthropologist, he felt that she

didn't and couldn't tell us how the lottery could come to be an

accepted social institution. Because literature is all about

your particular field. Yeah. Since Jackson presented her

fantasy with all the trappings of contemporary realism, Le Guin

said her father felt that she was pulling a fast one on the

reader. That's like such a specific like thing to be angry

about. It is, yes, it is. That's very strange. It's like she, she

gave a piece to the New Yorker, and then he's like, Well, if

she's trying to write, like,

social anthropology, this ain't it. She's trying to write. It's

like, this is fiction, sir, ethnography, like,

way too seriously. But apparently a lot of people did,

yeah, I don't know which is weird, because I have to feel

like in The New Yorker, I'm sure it was in the fiction section.

So that's the thing that I was looking at in this in this

article that Ruth Franklin wrote, apparently they didn't

differentiate. Oh, maybe that's why, maybe the.

Was one of the things that made them

have to do that, maybe, like,

our readers are so dumb, it's like, we have to tell them

what's real, what's not real. I don't know. I mean,

here's the thing, like, there's a lot of dialog, and there's a

lot of, like, focus on a single person, yeah, and it's like,

that's not how news stories are really written well at the time.

I mean, I guess there was a little bit of that, but it

wasn't like, it's not like they could go into the person's

thoughts, yeah? And like, if you're going to be inserting

yourself that much into the story, then you would refer to

yourself, right? Exactly, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I don't you know

what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the response to

cat person. Oh, god, yeah. It's like, How dare this woman talk

about this thing that's extremely like, relatable a lot

of people, yeah? But I think that, like, her contempt for the

suburbs is so obvious in that story, yeah? Oh, totally Yeah.

Look at all these fucking mundane, terrible people, and

the terrible thing that they do that this fucking mundane is

fuck as well. Yeah, yeah. I have to say reading about, like, the

seedy underbelly of the suburbs is one of my favorite subjects

to read about. I love it so much. Like I love Dino Richard

Yates, he wrote Revolutionary Road. I only saw the movie, and

it's, let me tell you, you're getting married in a month.

Don't watch revolution before you got married in a month. Oh,

my God. Oh, it was like a Christmas I'm so sorry. It was

like three months, yeah, but that's still not enough lead

time, yeah? Oh my god. But yeah, he's another one then, like,

that's all he writes about. Is just like people in suburbia who

are like, fucking each other over and, you know, whatever.

Anyway, I love him. So, yeah, go read his stuff. He's great. I

might read that at some point, but he's awesome. To cleanse

myself of the terrible feelings it engendered.

I'm sure that reading it'll make it better. Oh, it definitely

will. It will. So the question I had was, would the lottery have

been met with such fury if Shirley Jackson had been a man?

I mean, probably not. I don't think so well.

I mean, it's impossible to say, Yeah, but I can't think of a

corollary. No, I can't, really. I mean, can you think of a

corollary to cat person?

I mean, that's a very like woman, yeah, experience it is,

but so is the lottery. It's about, like, a woman, right,

right? And she's the central character, yeah? Like, I don't

know, I guess I just thought, like, I mean, because, like, the

way Ursula Le Guin father reacted to it is like people

thought that, like she didn't know what she was doing, you

know what I mean, like, she didn't make her intentions

clear, and she was who needs to make exactly it's like, that's

not, she's a writer, yeah, yeah. Well, so, I mean, I understand

maybe, if she were writing an epic novel of some kind, sure,

getting critical, not upset, but critical about Yeah. But if

you're writing a short story, there is no

it's bad, yeah, make it clear what you're talking about

exactly. Yeah, yeah. I just feel like there was a lot of hand

wringing around, like the lack of clarity and the lack of, I

don't know, I don't know. It just feels mad they didn't see

the end coming. Yeah,

yeah. I'm sure that's true too. Sorry. I am no literary critic,

but I think that we have become accustomed to the punch at the

end of a short story. And I think she was probably an early

adopter of that. Yeah, I would agree with that, because I can't

think of a ton of other ones that were like, I mean, yeah, I

think of Ray Bradbury, but that was around the same time. Yeah,

yeah, right. Nobody called him out on shit, right? I don't

think so, but I haven't really looked into it. I haven't

either, but I'm just assuming he probably got away less shit than

Shirley Jackson did. I mean, yeah, yep. I do love Ray

Bradbury. Though.

Have you read the illustrated man? Nope. That was rough.

There's this one, there's this one story where all of these

astronauts, I guess, are like, their ship blows up, and they're

all just kind of floating in space, and they can't see each

other, and there's no way they can, like, they're gonna die in

space together. God, but they can all talk to each other

through their like radios, and so they're just all in space

talking to each other through their radios, waiting to die.

Oh, my God. And I had a panic attack on the train. Jesus.

I can understand why, though, but it's, yeah, there's another

one where the he's really good at writing shitty kids, ah,

where these, like,

I guess they have these, like, VR rooms, where you go in and it

like, it's like the holodeck, yeah, Star Trek, sure, where you

go in, and it creates a thing, but it's like, real. And so they

go into the jungle, or like the Savannah, and there's lions, and

then they like, well, I don't want to ruin it, but it has a

very gruesome ending, but it's one of those punchy endings. Oh,

sweet. Okay, yeah.

So I don't know. I'm gonna have to get more into the history of

short stories. Yeah, when that

knife twist came in, yeah, because I don't know either,

it's probably when people stopped getting paid by the

word. Probably, that makes sense.

Yeah. Oh, and speaking of that condescension, yes. Like, I Ruth

Franklin, that interview I was listening to. Apparently she had

to Shirley Jackson got admitted to the hospital for something,

and the nurse asked her her occupation, yeah. And she was

like, I'm a writer. And the nurse goes, I'll just put down

housewife. Oh god. I feel like that's still true though. Oh, I

think it is. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh,

yeah, whatever your little doodles, yeah, little puppy,

think it's a real job, and you do, yeah, we need you. We need

you exactly.

And the other thing we're wondering is, which adaptation

of Shirley's work has been the most effective, more like, what

adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House has been most

effective. That's what I said. Yes. That's, I mean, that's

fair. I would, this is, this is a rebuttal. Yeah? QUESTION

current to my perfectly sensible question, yeah, yeah, yeah. I

mean, would I would you be getting attacked for that

question if you weren't a woman, I don't know, probably that's

fine.

What do you think

I let's see, yeah. I mean, I agree with that. I think

Huntington Hill House probably. Well, which one about do you

like the 1963 original, or do you like the Catherine Zeta

Jones version? I do not care for the Catherine Zeta Jones

version. I do like the original much better, but apparently, you

didn't like the TV show that came out last year. Well, you

know what? I liked it. I just never finished it, which is very

characteristic of me and my habits, apparently, because that

happens a lot. I don't know why anyway, but, but, yeah, I did

like it a lot. It's my favorite, the one that came out last year.

But, I mean, I feel like they paid enough tribute to her, but

also completely took liberties, which is fine, yeah, also, I

love that director. Ah, okay, yeah, he's the one doing a

doctor sleep. Oh, nice. Okay, yeah, yeah, but cool. I think

you should give it another shot. I'll give it. Is it still up on

Netflix? Yeah, all right, then I'll watch it. I'll watch it.

I'll just have to not watch it when Ryan's not home. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, oh, okay. It's hard. It's hard when you have

sensitive men who are better people I know, emotionally than

you like dating a Pisces man, let me tell you, and a Leo, yep.

This is, these are our lives, yeah, all right, you want to

talk about her every year. I'm supposed to be the most

emotionally absent. I think that's true.

Life with an Aquarius means you get a lot of like, remote

emotions until you don't,

and then it all washes over you. Oops, I tripped and spilled my

water.

Get it? Oh.

Shall we talk about real life monster?

So I could say that this was a purposeful transition, but I

only knew after the fact researching it that there was a

connection. So this person that I'm about to talk about. Did

edit a collection of Shirley Jackson's work, and like, loves

her, we're gonna talk about the horrors of Joyce Carol Oates.

All right, there are so many. They're bare Legion.

Truly, this woman. Wow. Have you ever read a Joyce Carol Oates

book? I read one of her stories in high school. I don't remember

which one it was. I had one of those, like, super rapey ones, I

don't think so it was in, like, one of those, like Norton

anthologies of literature. I remember enjoying it, but I have

not read anything since then, so I guess I wasn't really that

curious about the rest of her work. So, I mean, she's not a

particularly, like, amazing writer, but, yeah,

I remember that I read a short story by her, and that was my

first introduction. It's like, I grabbed mom, yeah, had we were

on vacation, and mom had, like, a collection of short stories,

and I happened to, like, open up to Joyce Carol Oates. And it was

a like, about a woman getting kidnapped by a rapist. Oh, my

God. And it was, like, the first time I'd ever read anything like

that. I think it was like,

I don't know, middle school or something, no, no, okay, okay.

It wasn't that horrible. That's good. But it was more just like,

I think

it was seventh grade because I had already read, like, this

book somebody gave,

you know, I guess some people like, you know, see porn in the

locker room, like boys and all that stuff someone gave me,

like, one of those rage porn, child abuse self published books

where it's like, look what they did to the.

Poor child. It was just like describing, oh, my god, the last

hours of some kid. And that's horrible. So I'd read that

first, and it was way worse than that, okay. Well, that was real,

right, right? Like, basically just a terrible, self published

true crime. Terrible. Look how terrible they are. I mean,

terrible, sure, yeah. But so, but that it's same, same feel,

yeah, yeah, same Joyce Caroline, yeah. I read three different

books by her. One of them was one of her early ones, okay, it

was like 1973

is that? What it says? Is it 1971 Oh, okay. Called

Wonderland, okay. And she's very good at, like, trapping you, ah.

And it was about some sociopathic dude who becomes a

brain surgeon. Oh, and he's just, like, a terrible person,

yeah, no feelings. Oh, great. Which not to say, like,

sociopaths can't help it, sure, like, yeah,

he's just an asshole and very imperious and like, cheats on

his wife and does all these terrible things. But like, there

was something about it that was just so made you feel dirty and

gross, yeah, and so we all, I was living in China, and there

were only so many English books and so many English, like

movies, so all of us American people who were living there

would trade them amongst each other, yeah. And so I'd been

reading it, and I walk into like, my friend's office because

she'd been wanting to read it next, yeah. I like, put it on

her desk, and she's like, well, was this book a wonderland? And

I was like, No, it absolutely was not. It was it was so fun.

And I was like, really upset. And she, like, stops and takes a

breath and she goes,

You can't talk to me like that. Oh, my God.

I mean I deserved it. Yeah, I deserved it. But it was like, I

was like, I just left the room, yeah? Like, I don't even know

what to say right now. And so, like, you know, we made up and

everything. But, like, a week later, she comes back and she

goes, I'm so sorry. I totally understand like that now,

because my life is ruined. Oh, God. Joyce Carol, oh, my God.

Then I read that, and then I also read zombie, wrote in 1995

which was the year after the year after Jeffrey Dahmer was

arrested. And it is basically just Jeffrey Dahmer, but because

he wanted to make a love zombie, yeah, yeah. So it's just like

that from inside of his head or whatever. And the only

difference was, there was this scene where he, like, creates

this ruse so he can trap some guy that he's been stalking. And

the ruse involves, like, dropping a because he's like the

guy he's talking as a bike messenger spilling a box of baby

ducks in an alleyway that he usually passes through. So he

had to stop his bike, and then he like, Oh, Baby ducks. That's

odd. This is the one thing I'm adding to Jeffrey Dahmer story

to make it unique.

Anyway. But then I found out that there's, like, she also

wrote, like, Chappaquiddick, basically, but like, in a

different book. So, I mean, she wrote, what, 40 books, something

like that. Yeah, a lot. What are I wrote it down. Oh, 40 books

and 20 novellas. 40 books and 20 novellas. Yeah, like, yeah, she

was prolific. She's super prolific. And that's like,

that's the difference. She's not she's not amazing, she's

prolific, she's brilliant. She was born in 1938

June 16, classic Gemini. Oh boy, yeah. Just wants to purposefully

alienate everyone who might love her that, right? No, it's true.

It's true, yeah? But like,

for an 81 year old woman, she sure knows how to tweet.

And this has, you know, everyone's all surprised,

because I think a lot of people don't read her work, yeah, I

think they just see her and her, yeah, oh, she's a name, yeah,

this person, right? She must be good, yeah, and she's fine. I

mean, she's great. She does a lot of you know, whatever. She's

talented. She is dedicated, yes.

Tweets, yeah. She's got the expected racist grandma. Tweets,

Oh, for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they are terrible.

Once Twitter came out, everyone, everyone got to find out that

this wasn't just an outlet. This was her mind is a dark and

terrible it's true. It's true also, like,

in a funny way, uh huh, yeah. Like.

Grandma, get back in the rocking Do

you want me to go Fox News? Grandma, you want some insure,

yeah, just read a couple of her terrible All right, you want to,

you want to read this? Oh, sure. Okay, don't take this out of

context. These are quotes by Joyce Carol. They are all right,

agree, no, we do not endorse any of these, alright, where 99.3%

of women report having been sexually harassed and rape is

epidemic. Egypt, natural to inquire, what's the predominant

religion? Joyce, Carol Oates, July 5, 2013

there's an ampersand and two em dashes in that tweet. Yeah,

that's true there, yeah, she's, she's an author, yeah? And

then there were a lot of other ones like that, yes, yeah.

You know, insinuating, do they understand what I'm saying?

There was a there was a girl, and I don't know if I told you

this story, who like, after the,

after the Paris attacks was like, would this have happened

if Islam didn't exist? You did tell me, yeah. So I'll shorten

it, but basically, like, I came on and like, what is the like,

natural progression of your thought here? Because, what are

you gonna do, eliminate Islam? Yeah. Like, how's that gonna

work? How is that gonna work? How you gonna eliminate Islam?

Yeah, and so, you know, that went nowhere. This was back when

I actually fought on Facebook. Oh, yeah, sure, yeah,

simpler time. Don't do it anymore.

No flame wars. No flame wars. Pam,

listen to our Ben Franklin episode. It's really good.

But the next day, she like, tagged me in something, and was

like, here's a thought experiment. Emily einlander. And

I'm like, Bitch, I'm in grad school. I blocked her. I was

like, I don't want to get a fucking fight with you about

this anyway. So she probably really likes Joyce Carol. I'm

sure she does. Um, so here's another one. If Zimmerman had

killed another quote, unquote, white man M dash, would any of

his supporters care at all about him now? Ampersand and why not?

Something to chew on, I almost don't know. Speaking of

something to chew on,

cat food, quote, unquote, cat food in China actually is May

13, 2014, and here's the follow up, which is what makes it

amazing. Okay, is this not true? Everyone seems outraged. A

friend who has traveled to China a dozen times have said this

period in in parentheses, is he mistaken? Oh,

Joy's the horse, yeah. So, okay, so even this uh huh, even these

things, it's just like, okay, terrible, racist Grandma, please

stop talking.

But also train wreck in slow motion, yeah, oh yeah. This is

the most horrifying thing of them all. The keyboard, yeah, it

happened. This happened about a month and a half ago. Ah, okay.

It was July, okay. So at first,

the podcast I bring up all the time, print run, yeah? Were the

people who, like, talked about this first, and when I was

hearing about them, they're like, ew. Joyce, Carol Oates

posted a picture of her keyboard. Keys are all worn

down, and I look at my keyboard, yeah, the D key, the N key, the

A key, they're all like, you can't see them, yeah. And I'm

like, I feel attacked. Ah, okay, that's not nice, yeah. Then I

saw the picture.

Yeah. Did you see it? I saw it. It looks really weird, and also,

like misshapen, and I don't know how she like types anything on

that, because it wasn't flat either. So it's like a wave. It

was like, it was like, she could have planted

sprout, yeah,

beans on, my God, it's disgusting.

And she tweeted it all, like, oh, because her cat, her

adorable, yeah, like, Rufus. That's not our cat's name, but,

like, is keeping watch in the late hours on my keyboard. But

you know, she's tweeting a cute tweet about her cat, right,

right? And everyone's looking at her, like, what?

What is going on here? And so she deleted the tweet, but there

are still screenshots, and we will link them. Yes, no, it's

really it's pretty hilarious. It's also funny because in the

picture, her cat is doing a blep. Oh, yeah, that's true.

Yeah. It's almost like her cat is disgusted. Yeah, he's in on

the joke, Matt. And then, like, later, it's like, I got a new

keyboard, people. It's not even that bad. I.

But lately, she's mostly been posting pictures and videos of

tiger cubs. So she got the she got the message, then we need

you to be less racist. So okay,

it's tiger cub season. Enjoys Carol Oates house. All right,

shall we move on? Yeah, this is, this is your thing? Yeah, I know

nothing about I know. I'm surprised you did. Oh, like,

shit I do. And like, also, as you can probably tell, yes,

people who are terrible and say terrible things, but also have

no power, yeah,

which is why I am okay with talking

power. No, she doesn't. She totally doesn't, all right, so

what I would like to talk about now is there was this book that

came out, I want to say in like, 2015

maybe 2014 something like that, called witches of America. And

it was by Alex Marr, who is purportedly a journalist, looks

like 2013 Oh, 2013 totally, just based on it, based on the

review. Oh yeah, that makes sense.

14, yeah. Okay. So she had actually made a documentary a

few years earlier called American mystic, which I have

not seen, but I've heard, is actually really good. You had to

pay $4 on prime for Oh, really. Well, it's basically, I mean, I

think this was, like the central conceit of the book, and it was

just, like the documentary was about, like, sort of exploring

all these kind of, like fringe religions, sort of in different

I don't know if it was just in America, maybe it's all over the

world. Yeah. So this book, called witches of America by

Alex Marr, there was a lot of controversy, controversy

surrounding it when it came out, because the way that I

understood it, and the way that she sort of presented it was

that it was supposed to be this, like journalistic account of the

practices and traditions of a bunch of, like fringe pagan

movements. But it definitely ended up being much closer to

memoir than like an objective, unbiased journalistic account.

But I mean, like my Well, I should just say from the

beginning here, like, there was this article in The Guardian

that came that came out in like, 2015 where they'd interviewed

her, and she had said that she'd sent many of the book subjects

their own copies before publication so they could review

it and, like, make sure they were like, okay with the things

that she'd written about them and the rituals she'd witnessed

and all this other stuff, whatever. And then what I

thought was interesting, that if you go to Amazon and look at the

reviews for the book, The one at the top rated as the most

helpful is written by someone in the i hope i pronounced this

correctly, koru Kathu bodua priesthood, who says that the

priesthood decided to participate in Miss Mars book

based on three factors, and one of those factors was the

conferring of review rights by Miss Marr to the portions of the

manuscript where our order was depicted. This occurred in

December 13, 2013 phone call between Miss Marr and our then

communications chief did no they didn't get it in writing. Get it

in writing. On November, get everything. Get everything

seriously on November 18, 2014 we contacted ms Marr, requesting

an update on the project, and inquired about our opportunity

to review her manuscript. Our review rights were rescinded by

Ms Mar in a reply email from her dated November 23 2014 stating

that the manuscript will not be made available to us for review,

citing industry, quote, unquote standard that's not, which is

not a thing, that's not at all. It's not so anyway, she just

basically lied to them, and I, which makes me think that she

knew that parts the manuscript were, like, problematic, and

that she was gonna get blowback from the people that she'd like,

you know, basically gone into like, they're like, you know,

completely ritual. Yes, all that exploited money too. Yeah,

totally. So, anyway, so she, I don't know, I feel like she just

pretty much outright lied about it. And also, like, I mean, the

book was good in the sense that, like, it was very interesting to

me, because I find, like, pagan sex or whatever, interesting.

Like, I don't know much of any surely about that religion. And

I think it's really, like cool, and I want to know more about

it. It requires a lot of reading. It does. It's true,

it's true,

but it's all it was also true that, and as much as the book

read like a memoir, like she was obviously really uncomfortable

with some of the rituals she witnessed, and she skated pretty

close to just being amused at some of them, and kind of, like

smirking a little bit and being like, Hardy har har is in this

kind of funny, which, lol, I'm uncomfortable, yeah, exactly,

which is, like, pretty disrespectful to, like, a

religion in general. I think so I wasn't surprised when there

was outrage in the pagan community, because she

definitely portrays, as I've written here, some of them as

airy fairy weirdos who are basically just LARPing rather

than serious people committed to a belief system that means a

great deal to them, even if it's totally alien to our Christian

nation. So I'd really, I would really love to read a book about

pagan rituals and about, you know, the different sects in

America, set by someone who isn't going to like stand.

By the sidelines and be like, he, he, oh, you're, you're

naked, I'm uncomfortable, or, Oh, you're, like, summoning some

Goddess, and I'm uncomfortable. Why she was uncomfortable?

Because they were naked. It was something like that. It was

something really silly, something really obvious, yeah,

yeah, which is, like, it's fucking paganism. Of course.

They're naked. They're naked all the time. The first thing you

do, yeah, take your damn clothes, because I don't know.

Yeah, you want to commune with the earth. Yeah, exactly fucking

anyway, but yeah, so it was just, it was, I don't know, I

don't know. I can try this. I don't trust this lady, as far as

I could throw her. So that's like, that whole Jill Abramson

thing where she's like, yes, all these young reporters who I

don't respect, but I'm going to paraphrase all of their writing

anyway, because I don't feel like working. Yeah, pretty much,

yeah, yeah. So anyway, it was an interesting book, but yeah. I

mean, I definitely could understand why there was

controversy surrounding it when it came out, because she was

pretty disrespectful to the people. And I mean, pretty much

everyone she spoke to in the book has, like, since disavowed

it and been like, yeah, she really exploited us and fucked

us over. So that really sucks. That's really sad. Yeah, it is

because cool. It could have been very cool. And it's like me, I

haven't done a lot of research into it, so I don't know if

there have been books written since then by people who

actually, like, are respectful of these people, but I think

there have been that I can't remember off the top of my head,

yeah, talk about later, yeah, yeah, we should so anyway, yeah,

so that's unfortunate. That's a sad story, sad story. Sorry,

everybody, sorry to bum you out. But yeah, whatever. I mean, it

doesn't actually like ruin their lives. No, it doesn't. It just

kind of just a dick move them, not discredits. But yeah, it is

a dick move. It just makes them seem like silly and kind of like

caricatures, instead of being like real people who believe in,

like a religion that they've hold dear. So I like that we had

like one cool person and then two Dick moves. Yeah,

that's been the theme of this episode. Yeah. I guess that's

the through thread, two two lies and a truth. Yeah, exactly, yep.

All right. Well, I realized in the course of the research for

this, especially as I'm like, looking at this totally

undeserving like Joyce, Carol Oates, and I'm like, I read

three books by her, but here I am sitting like here, not being

able to think of any women of color who wrote

photo horror books. Sure, the

only one is Toni Morrison's Beloved. Oh, right. Which Have

you read it? I did a long time ago? Yeah, it is a ghost story.

It is. It's true. Yeah, I did not know when I first. I

actually would recommend this to anyone is getting the audio

book, because Toni Morrison reads the audio Oh, she's a

great voice, yeah, I mean, and who knows better, yeah, to like,

pace it than she does. Totally, yeah. So it's devastating, but

it's also scary, yeah, in a ghost way, like there's, you

know, the real horrors, the horrors of resounding traumas of

slavery and, like, the things that it causes, yes, even after

it's over,

but there's a ghost, baby, yeah, spooky.

So every, like, every list, I was like, I need to read some

women of color, the horror books, yeah, you know, like, I'm

okay with the movies, yeah, with that. But, like, not so much the

books, yeah? And so that was the one I got, and it was on every

list. Helen, oh, yeah, yummy, yeah, you just gave me your book

of short stories or loaned it to me. You didn't give it to me.

I'm not, I'm obviously not keeping I trust you. Thank you.

Is what is not yours, is not yours, right? Which is a great

title. It is a great title. Yeah, I guess that was, I didn't

think that was horror. I thought it was more. I know that magical

realism is like specifically originated in Latin America, so

it's not necessarily that, but it still kind of works with all

that way. Yeah, sure. But apparently her other books are

horror,

also Octavia Butler, who is a sci fi writer, um,

I found out that fledgling, one of her books, is a bout a tiny

vampire child. Oh, cool,

yeah, I am. I downloaded that, yeah. Oh, nice for it, but I

downloaded it and

so that's going to be my goal this month, is to read that, and

hopefully one other book, The other book that I'm thinking of

reading is her body and other parties, which is a popular I've

been meaning to read. That car came out, Machado.

Hmm, well, we were like messaging each other about this,

right? Yes, yeah. So there's this short story. It's a

collection of short stories, and there's one called the husband

stitch, and that makes me afraid to

understand, yeah.

Should I tell them what that is? Yeah, tell them what it is,

because, honestly, I did not know what this was until, like,

two years ago or something. It's like, it's like, people say it's

a myth. Yeah, it's real. People also say the female orgasm is a

myth.

It's like, the same that's very mystical, yeah, where it's like,

I guess it's like, the doctor stitching up the woman's vagina

after birth, right? Not vagina, vulva, vagina, I think, because

it's like, I think so God, we should know this. We're not

gonna give birth. We're not doctors. So I don't know it

sounds terrible,

it does, but, yeah, there's usually splitting and so it gets

sewn up. But there's something that is kind of, as they say, an

urban legend, but isn't actually an urban legend, according to a

lot of people who have experienced it, they put in the

husband stitch, yeah, the pussy will be tighter,

Yep, yeah. And usually, like is for his pleasure painful for

women and ruined sex, yeah. So this is a short story all about

that, making me scared to read it, but, you know, but maybe

it's not about that at all. It's about the Triangle Shirtwaist

Factory Fire. Maybe it is. You won't know till you read it.

We're gonna have to put a trigger warning at the beginning

of this episode. Beginning of

this. There's, like, a lot of terrible shit. There really is,

but be Halloween without terrible Oh, yeah, but this is a

little too like real life. Well, I don't know, we talked about

the murder writers last time we did, and that was very real. And

that lady is still in jail the Portland one. Yeah, great. I

wonder if she's

still writing, God, we should have looked that up.

Like, has she published

anything while she's been in jail?

Nancy Crampton, Brophy, Oh, that's right, I drove by her

house. Oh, you did live in the in Highland Hills. Oh, the

hills. Oh yeah.

April 19, 2019 Oregon romance novelist charged with killing

husband had 10 Ways to cover up a murder bookmarked on iTunes.

Wow. Pretty ballsy. Yeah, smart, just really lazy and stupid. She

also stood to reap more than a million dollars for multiple

life and accident insurance policies in the event of

brophy's death. Yeah? Well, they've been married 27

years. That is a long time. She's 68 oh, how long is she in

jail for?

I don't, honestly, I don't know if it's been,

has it gone to trial? Yeah, it's gone to trial. Yeah, things take

forever. These are just the charges. Yeah. Oh, man, that's

okay. So this is, this is coming up, yeah, yeah, we will keep you

all yes, we will

of the Brophy trial. Brophy trial, yeah, Crampton Brophy,

Crampton Brophy. That definitely sounds like a like New England

blue blood name or something, yeah, but it's like a shaggy

Pacific Northwest, like, couple names, yeah, yeah, you know

that's just sad. It is really sad, yeah, yeah, divorce. I know

you don't have to kill someone because you don't like them

anymore, but she wanted the she wanted the money, right? Yeah,

she couldn't do that. She just divorced him. So, yeah. Oh,

well, pathetic, pathetic.

See, like, I would worry about her tweets more than Joyce.

Carol Oates, yeah.

I would too. I would too, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm getting

her mixed up with is Louise Erdrich, who's a completely

different person. I don't know who that is. He, oh god, she

was. She's a really good writer too. And, like, who is not like

a racist grandma on Twitter, yeah, yeah, but she's pretty old

too. Did she die? Ursula Le Guin was old and she was in a race?

No, she was great, yeah. You know, until the very end, you

don't have to be a racist. Guys now you don't. You can, know,

cool, you can.

Oh, man, so, uh, you're reading dark tales. Oh yes, I'm reading

dark tales. I'm also reading smoke. It's in your eyes, by

Kaylin DoDI,

which, yeah, which? I who I love a lot. And follow her on. What

is it? The order of the good death? I think she has a YouTube

channel called Ask a Mortician. That's right, yes, yeah. So she.

Really a pioneer, I feel like in the like green, what do they

call it? Green funeral movement, or whatever, a natural death or

something. That's what it is. Yeah. It was also something that

she

she just had another book come out called to called, will my

cat eat my eyeballs, which I think is a kid's book, actually,

death acceptance. Death acceptance. Yeah, there you go,

yeah. And it's really, I've heard her on a couple podcasts,

and it's really interesting to hear her talk about death,

because obviously, like, she deals with the like,

I mean, the most like, kind of obvious parts of death every

day, like, the most tangible, I guess, parts of it, you know.

And so to her, I mean, I'm sure she has to kind of like,

desensitize herself, obviously, to the fact that like these,

like bodies that she's dealing with are, like people's like

mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and whatever. But I

think that her whole thing is she wants to respect that. Yeah,

right, exactly, yeah. She's not into pumping people with

Vermont, yes, yeah, yeah, right. She's into like, natural burials

and yeah, and, like, not having, like, you know, yeah, somebody

pumped full of all those chemicals so you can, like, go

look at them. And pretty, like, you look fucking weird. You look

like a wax figure, like you don't look like my mom or dad or

whatever. So anyway, which I very much respect, so I guess

she's and she's doing a lot of like, awesome things for and

also, I didn't know, like, how insidious and terrible the

American funeral industry was until I read her books too. And

it's just like, it's really disgusting that it's like, such

a I mean, it's a business. I get it. They have to make money. But

it's also like, you would like to think that they would have a

little more decorum and a little more like, respect for the fact

that, like, these are people's lives and people's loved ones,

you know? And it's just like, it is just such a fucking business,

and it's all just about the money, and it's pretty

disgusting. So a friend who worked,

you know, as part of, like a family funeral home, and we were

driving one day, and we just saw like, a, you know, mortuary

advert, you know, it's over here, off the 26th or whatever,

and she just kind of like, flipped them off. She didn't.

She's, you know, she's more gentle than that, yeah, sure,

right. But I was like, what? And she goes, they're part of this

big conglomerate. And they're like, terrible, yeah, there's so

little I know about this. Yeah, I know I did too, before I read

those books. Well, did you ever watch six feet under the show

the entirety, yes, oh my god. Like one of my favorite shows of

all time. One so good, yeah, but I feel like that did, like, even

that show alone, I feel like, in like, educated me a lot on the

funeral industry and how just how gross it is. It's so gross,

yeah, it's really just also made me more afraid to get struck by

lightning. Do you remember that episode? Oh, my God, that was

really bad. It's the one where you think he's gonna, like, kill

that girl, yeah, and then he, like, walks into the parking

lot, gets struck by lightning, and you're just like, What the

fuck.

Oh. But anyway, yeah, Three cheers for Caitlin Doughty,

because she is truly doing the Lord's work. So, anyway, but,

but, yeah, so that's what I'm reading. And if you want to hear

more adulation of Caitlin Doty, listen to episode 16, where we

interview Chris Curran, yeah, who got to meet her at a book

event? Yeah, lucky him. Yeah, he's, he's been talking to

she's. He's the reason I know about her. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Anyway. So I think that probably wraps up our Halloween ish

exploration. Halloween and Jason

Shirley Jackson, who's great, yeah, she's great. The rest of

them are no quibbles about Shirley Jackson. No moms, nope.

Anyway,

follow us on Twitter, at hybrid pub Scout, go join our mailing

list. Join our troop. Join our troop. Yeah, with like, a cheer

or something. Is that what? Troops probably, I mean, I did

door chance in the sorority. I'm sure I can come up with some

kind of door chance. Okay, you know during all right, I'm gonna

tell you a story. So, okay, you did not rush. So you want to

understand this, but ever I know, I don't know how it

happened to me either, but so you're good at you're in my

emergency contact. Thank you.

So anyway, so when you rush sororities, you go around to

each house, and basically when you open the doors to the

sorority, all the sisters in the sorority, kind of like form,

like for us, we for kind of forms, like a human pyramid kind

of thing, like in cheerleading. Is that, like, that terrible

video that's exactly where, thank God we're posting that. I

don't think ours was as psychotic as those girls in

their eyes? Yeah, no, I don't think ours was that bad, but,

but that's what it is. And then you, like, have, like, a chair

that you like, a chant or whatever, that you say to, like,

welcome the new girl, or the like, potential pledges or

whatever, and you did it. Now, I don't know if it was a pyramid.

It was more just like in front and the top.

Standing back,

you're all up on each other's shoulder. No, oh, you know what

it was, is like we put chairs behind the like, short girl or

No, maybe it was the short, I don't remember. Oh, sorry,

you did, like stands in the choir. Yeah, it was like that.

So it

wasn't Acrobat,

but, yeah, it was a lot of chanting and singing things and

being clapping and, like, well, which I think about now, and I'm

like, I don't know. I am not that kind of, I mean, if you're

in the witches, that's perfect, yeah, I guess that's true.

That's true any ritual, yeah, that's true. There were

definitely a lot of rituals there so and, I mean, not like,

but unfortunately, no witchy rituals, but shame to me, yeah?

All right, that's fair. Anyway, that's what a door chant is. So,

yeah, there you go. I don't want to. I can sing mine if you want

me to, but I won't please sing your

chant. All right, so the name of the sorority I was in was alpha

z delta, and I remember her door chant went, a, l, p, H, A, X, I,

D, E, L, T, A, come on in and join the fun. Be in alpha c and

be number one. That's all I remember. Anyway.

Thank you very much. My greatest humiliation,

no, that's the Porsche.

That's true. I still hear about that on a weekly basis. You'll

never, I'll never live without hear about it. You hear it at

least twice a week, because I know Ryan's doing it, and then

I'm also doing it. That's fair. That was a really stupid

mistake. So, yeah, it's so great. It's so great. Twitter at

hybrid pub Scout, Facebook at hybrid pub Scout, Instagram at

hybrid pub Scout, pod website. Go there. Join our newsletter.

Also on our website, we're starting to have a blog. So if

you are in the publishing industry and you want to, like,

pitch us a blog, yeah? Or if you're an author or you have

something to say, Yeah, publishing adjacent book,

selling adjacent send your pitch to emily@hybridpubscout.com

and corinne@hybridpubscout.com

and we shall give it a look. See a Luxie. And we're pretty nice.

So we are mean no no to your pitch. We're not Joyce Carol,

we're not God Carol Oates, we're not gonna go like because and

then like that other lady Mar and go, be condescending. Yeah,

we won't do that. Why

did she get naked? Actually, don't get naked, please. Oh god.

Anyway, also leave us a review, yes, leave us a five star

review, because then you'll get us to read it in an accent.

Yeah, I realized. I mean, maybe that's why we're not getting

reviews. Maybe people don't want us to I don't know. I think my

my accents are pretty good. Also, I was thinking about this

the other day, and the one I haven't done yet that I would

love to do is a Minnesotan accent, because I lived there

for a couple years, so I can do it pretty well. Okay, who's

doing it? Whoever? Whoever gets in there next? Yeah, you get the

Minnesota Sure do. And I'm pretty good at it. She know she

is pretty good, yeah. So anyway, got that luck to look forward

to? Whoo, yeah. So, oh, and also, if you have some

publishing related victories, please send us those. If you

have a book coming out, if you got a new job, if, like,

literally anything that's positive in, like, publishing

related and book related to us, because we want to celebrate

with you. If you're going and giving a talk about at a library

or something like even that, even if it's just you're like,

Oh, it's just in my town or whatever, yeah, yeah, we want to

know, yeah, yeah. Tell everybody you want to celebrate you. Yeah.

So we gave you our email addresses already. Yeah, we did.

So you got those? Yep, all right,

happy October, Happy Halloween, and thanks for giving a riff

about books. You

you.