Transcript
Speaker: But he is finding ways of making me uncomfortable a new way every chapter, it feels.
Speaker: New way every chapter.
Speaker: You're getting just a little bit more uncomfortable.
Speaker: That's tough to do.
Speaker: I'm usually impressed if a book can make me uncomfortable in one way by the end of it.
Speaker: But getting a new one every chapter.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's reaching high.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Reaching high.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what else is reaching high?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today's show, part two of Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kervitz.
Speaker: I mean, we're going through it.
Speaker: We're doing it.
Speaker: We're doing it.
Speaker: We've been talking.
Speaker: We've been talking about this since basically the beginning of this show.
Speaker: This is one of those like a lot of these books and stuff and adaptations we've discovered along the way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This was one of those early on ones that was like, if we could, because at the time, early a couple of years back, this was not such an easy thing.
Speaker: Yeah, it wasn't like the, the, the, but the translation that you should use wasn't super obvious, uh, at the time.
Speaker: And now it is.
Speaker: And thank God, thank God we are exposing ourselves to this.
Speaker: Now it's, it's, here's the thing.
Speaker: It's, it's good in a way that, but it's also like,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: When I finished Blood Meridian, my wife asked me, did you like it?
Speaker: And I said, I don't know if liking it is actually an option.
Speaker: It's a very different kind of vibe.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a tough one to say.
Speaker: You can respect it on a certain level, I guess.
Speaker: You can find it interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you could be, you could connect with the, some of the themes and elements of it, but like is a lot.
Speaker: I really appreciated the, the writing.
Speaker: I respected his abilities.
Speaker: He had graphic and unforgettable moments.
Speaker: Did you like it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I don't think I would say I liked it.
Speaker: That's kind of how I felt about a book.
Speaker: We actually just, it just went up for our Patreons.
Speaker: Anybody who gives us as much of a dollar gets to listen to my little ramblings about whatever the fuck book I'm reading.
Speaker: Oh, what website is that?
Speaker: Is that patreon.com slash pixelipod?
Speaker: That's the what?
Speaker: How did you just snap it off like that?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I think the pale told me.
Speaker: I think I got an echo.
Speaker: I think I got an echo of a pale memory.
Speaker: That must have been what it was.
Speaker: That's that's probably it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And and I just and so a review of a book I read not long ago went up there a couple of weeks back called The Laws of the Skies, which is basically a French it's a modern French Lord of the Flies situation with a bunch of literal six year olds going into the woods with three adults to do a camping trip and nobody gets back alive.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I respected what the writer was getting at.
Speaker: I admired his writing.
Speaker: I thought the I thought it was incredibly well written.
Speaker: I respected the story and the plot and the meaning behind it and the message.
Speaker: And I and it ruined my life.
Speaker: I am so unhappy that I read that book.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Especially now that I have a son.
Speaker: It's extra fucked.
Speaker: It's like, I am unhappy about this, but I'm glad I read it.
Speaker: I'm glad I read it, but I don't like it.
Speaker: Five out of five stars.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: That's, I mean, pretty much it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I do not like it.
Speaker: Please never stop writing.
Speaker: You are a treasure.
Speaker: Like that's it's that's so I yeah, 10 out of 10 will be traumatized again.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: 10 out of 10.
Speaker: I'm going to bury my copy in the backyard and, you know, you know, put several vigils over it in hopes that a zombie monster doesn't crawl out of its ashes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's 10 out of 10.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think that's an unfair comparison to make with sacred and terrible air.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if you want to hear more about Phil's little reviews, patreon.com slash pixelipod where you can see those.
Speaker: You can get ad-free versions of the episodes.
Speaker: I don't even know if the ads, I'm putting ad breaks in.
Speaker: Don't know if they're making it, but I'm doing it anyway.
Speaker: So when those ads start rolling, you would appreciate having the ad-free feed.
Speaker: So ad-free bonus episodes when we actually get around to making bonus episodes.
Speaker: And at the highest level, $10,
Speaker: You get a shout out.
Speaker: So this is part of the show where I shout out our best patrons.
Speaker: Actually, I shouldn't call them the best patrons.
Speaker: We love all of our patrons equally, but the best patrons at $10.
Speaker: We just love you more.
Speaker: We just love you a little bit more.
Speaker: You are our favorite children.
Speaker: You're our favorite children.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Obviously.
Speaker: Oh, don't worry, Harry.
Speaker: I love you at a pound a month.
Speaker: You know, that's great.
Speaker: Especially because you get to say the word pound in that context.
Speaker: Pounds.
Speaker: He pays in pounds.
Speaker: But yeah, thank you so much to Ruthless Mutter, Kyle Seaman, Jesus loves you, and...
Speaker: Friendly friend.
Speaker: Friendly friend.
Speaker: The OG.
Speaker: The OG friendly friend.
Speaker: Friendly friend is our original donator.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Friendly friend is our Cameron Ladd.
Speaker: If you've ever listened to the Noclip podcasts, Danny's always shouting out Cameron Ladd, who has been at the top tier for, I think, the longest of anybody.
Speaker: So he always goes, Cameron Ladd or something like that.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So friendly.
Speaker: I would love friendly friend to be our Cameron lad.
Speaker: But backslash Patreon ad read end.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: Let's put this this sacred body into the terrible marsh.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: Ain't reality TV.
Speaker: Picking up with chapter nine.
Speaker: Chapter nine is called Sacred and Terrible Air, and it's a loose conceptualization of what the religion of the world is like.
Speaker: And it's based on a recurring motif of someone who reappears throughout different times in history with names such as Pius of Pericarnassus, Erno Pasternak, or Dolores Day.
Speaker: To be honest, I'm not sure I fully understand what was going on in this chapter, but it seems like the Messiah of this world is discussion, is like what happens when the world believes in nihilism and the pale sweeps over the continents.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to talk a lot about nihilism in this section, too.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot of nihilism going on.
Speaker: You might say that's the theme of the book is generally nihilism.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Don't be afraid of anything, Donnie.
Speaker: They're cowards.
Speaker: Fucking nihilists.
Speaker: This guy's going to hurt us, Walter.
Speaker: Fucking nihilists.
Speaker: Chapter 10.
Speaker: Good night, Ani.
Speaker: Jesper comes home to see that the place has been freshly cleaned and that Therese's bedroll and vomit bowl is gone.
Speaker: So this chapter is weird because it's a this is a flash forward to start the chapter and then it goes back.
Speaker: It's like I will say of all the narrative decisions, I am usually able to follow where he is.
Speaker: This part was just like, why are we flashing forward without any any not like there's no you don't know why like that they have flashed forward at this point.
Speaker: So it just becomes what follows gets confusing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it it starts out tough enough with following going back, going forward, going back, going forward.
Speaker: And it only gets worse as it goes on.
Speaker: Yeah, it only gets tougher.
Speaker: So so he's watching his girlfriend, Anita, sleep.
Speaker: The age gap between them is problematic.
Speaker: She is 19 and he's 34, but she was 15 when they started dating.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Yes, Roy wakes her up because he needs to get at something under the bed and he tells her that he's leaving right now and needs to pack some stuff together.
Speaker: Tells her that he's going to disappear to continue his path
Speaker: on his path for looking for the Lund girls.
Speaker: She mentions about a time when he talked about the Lund girls at her parents' cabin when he got drunk.
Speaker: The girl's name is Anita, by the way, but he calls her Ani.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: She just kind of goes with it.
Speaker: She just rolls with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jasper tells Anita that she should just take his apartment and then try to sell off his property in the city center because property values are going to drop soon.
Speaker: Anita calls him a pedophile because of his obsession with the Lund girls and says she's not staying at his place.
Speaker: He retorts with a line about her working in an ammo factory in Grodd.
Speaker: They continue to argue until Jesper drops a truth bomb on her.
Speaker: Her home, Revachol, has been destroyed by a big bomb.
Speaker: And her sister was in Revachol at the time.
Speaker: This changes things.
Speaker: Anita begs him not to leave, but he leaves anyway.
Speaker: And he gets into a taxi with Torres and it drives off.
Speaker: We cut to seven days earlier, immediately following the Zaum incident with Derek Trentmuller.
Speaker: They are speeding away towards Jesper's place, even though he knows that his girlfriend, Rabishol, will be visiting soon.
Speaker: Therese's memory is jumbled again, and he's drifting back and forth between his memories and that of Trentmuller and Vidken Hurd.
Speaker: Therese flashes back to the funeral of the Lund girls and how authority used found bones to identify the bodies of the girls.
Speaker: In his haze, Therese remembers a doctor coming by to inject saline into him on back-to-back nights and also a news report about the collapse of the Northern Passage because of the pale.
Speaker: He believes at this point they will never know what happened to the Lund girls.
Speaker: Anita arrives at the apartment.
Speaker: Khan has wildly inappropriate thoughts when finding out that Jesper is dating her, going on and on about her tits in his head.
Speaker: It is so weird.
Speaker: And I like Khan.
Speaker: I like Khan a lot.
Speaker: I like Khan.
Speaker: But there's this weird little injection about what his thoughts are when he sees her.
Speaker: His thoughts are literally like boobs, boobs, boobies.
Speaker: Like it's so uncomfortable.
Speaker: I mean, we've all done it.
Speaker: He's just saying like, he's just saying tits, tits, tits, tits.
Speaker: Show me your tits.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, Khan, buddy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Or Robert.
Speaker: We didn't actually need to see inside of Khan's head right at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, that was that one.
Speaker: That one.
Speaker: That one.
Speaker: I, I question a lot.
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: They say that Therese is suffering from food poisoning.
Speaker: Khan makes his exit and Anita talks about how it's weird that they're here and she doesn't remember Yess for ever mentioning his school friends.
Speaker: She goes to the bedroom and sees the small ring box on his table, on his bedside table and gets excited for a moment.
Speaker: And she opens it.
Speaker: She
Speaker: She forgets everything.
Speaker: Meanwhile, in Vasa, ICP agents are looking for Therese and go to the police station where he had been arrested four days prior.
Speaker: Elsewhere, Khan is holding his model of the Haran Kaur like a baby.
Speaker: For those of you not watching the video version, I just shrugged because that's what happens.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And then Therese emerges from his cocoon and has tea with Jesper.
Speaker: Meanwhile, at a nearby cafe, someone nearly chokes on their coffee when they see an ad that has been published in the newspaper.
Speaker: It's a it's the Malin Lund's letter of her saying that she is OK and she is with the man.
Speaker: And at the bottom, the ad requests any information regarding the Lund girls kidnapping.
Speaker: So I just imagine this in like Robert Stack's voice.
Speaker: It's like the end of Unsolved Mysteries of you or anyone you know happen to know that any information about the disappearance of the Lund girls, please call 1-800-UNSOLVED.
Speaker: This is the Estonian Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker: It's extra fucked.
Speaker: God, that show is so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was that theme was the original X-Files theme, by the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like that theme song that would like strike terror into your heart without even knowing a thing about what was about to happen.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: You know what would would unnerve me is the theme to mystery on PBS.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that oh you gotta we gotta we gotta we gotta play that we gotta look that up it's a mystery pbs uh intro
Speaker: Let's see here.
Speaker: Mystery intro.
Speaker: I might.
Speaker: Mystery.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let me share this.
Speaker: So on the stream, on the recording, so we can.
Speaker: Everyone can enjoy it.
Speaker: Everyone can enjoy it because I think it's necessary.
Speaker: Share.
Speaker: Screen.
Speaker: And there we go.
Speaker: Share.
Speaker: That's some Edward Gorey shit.
Speaker: It is Edward Gorey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Can you hear that?
Speaker: Mystery is made possible.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Even YouTube freaked out.
Speaker: Mystery is made possible by a grant from Mobile Corporation.
Speaker: Oh, that's the scariest thing of all.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Oh, Vincent Price, fuck yeah!
Speaker: Yeah, baby.
Speaker: Yeah, that's absolutely worth a little bit of chill in the bones.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, it scared the shit out of me as a kid.
Speaker: And so for those who don't see it, I don't even know if I'll be able to show it on the screen, but it's an animation by Edward Gorey who used to do these cartoons like...
Speaker: Edward Gorey did animation in this or cartoons in the style of like Adam's family, but they were actually unnerving and terrifying.
Speaker: Like they would just be like a woman looking sad, holding a carriage, and then she would walk to the edge of a cliff and push the carriage over.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: No punchline.
Speaker: That's the woman just murders her baby.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some genuinely fucked stuff.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: It was like, it was like,
Speaker: Just yeah, it's just upsetting.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, there's no cleverness.
Speaker: There's no, you know, morbid humor.
Speaker: It's just upsetting.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: But, you know, so Edward Gorey falls into the that that category, I think, of five out of five.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: Don't like it.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Don't like it.
Speaker: Thank you for all your hard work, Mr. Gorey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So at the end of the chapter, we get a scene with a man named Olve and he buys out a store supply of cigarettes and alcohol as well as a bunch of sausage while everyone else in the area is evacuating.
Speaker: I mean, this sounds like this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This sounds like me in grad school like this.
Speaker: I was like, yeah, the world's burning around me.
Speaker: I'll take three cartons and that big bottle and you got any smoked sausage back there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And any and any cured meat whatsoever that you have.
Speaker: Just kidding.
Speaker: It leads into chapter 11 where we are going to learn a lot more about Ulf titled Self Chiller.
Speaker: We hear this.
Speaker: I love this.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We hear the story of Ulf who even as a little kid was too cool to hang out with other kids.
Speaker: He doesn't talk to his parents actually and he only talks when he's alone.
Speaker: Ulf is self chilling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We cut to Khan.
Speaker: Khan says he's in charge now and he's talking about how he never really believed in a criminal solution to their problem.
Speaker: Khan and Therese talk about how they collect knickknacks and criminals respectively because they think it will lead them to more information about the girls.
Speaker: Jesper says he doesn't collect anything.
Speaker: Um, Therese is not 100% sure that Derek didn't do it and also points out that the Zaw machine is not admissible in court for this reason.
Speaker: Um, it's, it's not tried and true.
Speaker: Uh, Khan leads the other two through the woods, um, and isn't being forthright in his plan for fear that they'll say no.
Speaker: He does mention that he put an ad in the newspaper with Malin's letter though.
Speaker: They get to an overlook and Khan mentions that they're going to consult with the self chiller.
Speaker: Jesper laughs at the idea, but Khan mentions it's the self chiller that found bodies after 500 years missing with his methods.
Speaker: Jesper says he can't go because he has a design conference and mentions that going to Lemminkais is not a good idea right now.
Speaker: We get more from Ulf's childhood.
Speaker: Ulf is only interested in music and he is so hardcore.
Speaker: All the kids think he's so hardcore.
Speaker: He's so hard.
Speaker: How is he so hardcore?
Speaker: And we get a little weird interstitial mixing Ulf and Khan's childhoods.
Speaker: Khan is praying for Malin to like him back.
Speaker: It also mentions that Jesper sold his collection of adventure novels to help pay for the cherry speed that the girls wanted.
Speaker: Khan and Therese are driving into the zone of entropenetic collapse.
Speaker: They're being driven by a madman named Kenny who wants to set a record for driving there.
Speaker: He's a rally car driver.
Speaker: As they're driving, trees are already starting to be uprooted and pulled into the sky as well as houses.
Speaker: Most folks are fleeing Lemongais while they are driving towards it.
Speaker: While they're driving, Therese mentions that he's not with the ICP anymore.
Speaker: Khan tells him he knows because he's been using fake papers at every checkpoint on the drive.
Speaker: It's not generally something the cop has to do.
Speaker: And this scene is this scene is funny because like they're all like Therese and Khan are in the backseat of the car getting drunk.
Speaker: And then like Kenny is like drinking as well.
Speaker: And they're like, shouldn't you not be drinking?
Speaker: And he's like, no, it's fine.
Speaker: It makes me a better driver.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's one of those guys.
Speaker: It's one of those guys.
Speaker: Well, those fucking guys, guys, don't I know this.
Speaker: I know our listeners are super smart and you would never go in for that.
Speaker: That guy is a liar.
Speaker: That guy who told you that we all know that guy and he's lying to you.
Speaker: He's lying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you're and if you're the one who tells other people that I'm looking you in the eye right now and calling you a liar.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Just don't stop it.
Speaker: Get hammered and get someone else to call you.
Speaker: Get you a ride home.
Speaker: That's damn straight.
Speaker: Be an adult.
Speaker: We flash back to two years ago when Khan received a phone call from a child's voice who told him terrible things and made him cry.
Speaker: I don't understand what it is.
Speaker: Is that supposed to be Malin or?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I was.
Speaker: That's another.
Speaker: There are lots of these little interstitials that I'm just kind of like, what is this?
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: Yeah, it's certainly it certainly progresses like the weird atmosphere of this world.
Speaker: But I wonder sometimes that the actual plot.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 12, Ziggy.
Speaker: Who is another interesting character.
Speaker: We get some background on Ziggy, the drug dealer.
Speaker: This is 19 years ago.
Speaker: One time, Khan saw him write graffiti on the front of the school that said the whole world is a zone of imminent entropanetic catastrophe.
Speaker: Ziggy's a bad boy.
Speaker: He's repeated in 10th grade twice.
Speaker: His mother is friends with the Lund girls.
Speaker: Mother Ziggy is a nihilist and communist when necessary.
Speaker: And he's also one of those kids that's super influential who gets other kids to ask their parents really awkward questions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, there's something about like, he convinced a girl to ask her dad about why social democracy doesn't work.
Speaker: Uh, and communism is the only true answer.
Speaker: Why don't we have a, why don't we have a nice communism father?
Speaker: It's like, God, you just imagine him tearing his hair out.
Speaker: Ziggy has theories about the pale, how it's all the memories of the world and it's sweeping over everything and the collapse will happen in their lifetime.
Speaker: And in this scene that he's talking about this, he's telling it to a little kid.
Speaker: He's like, he's like, he's like, he's just like, there's a little boy and he's like, listen, if you're lucky, it's going to happen during your lifetime.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Won't that be fun?
Speaker: And he ensures the little kid that even though it's the end of the world, it will be the peak of humanity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ziggy was also an accomplished.
Speaker: I'm sure that subtlety was lost on that kid.
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure the kid just didn't appreciate the luck of all of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's sort of like, it was like, by the way, in your lifetime, a meteor is going to destroy the world.
Speaker: be you're going to be a part of the apocalypse isn't that fun like no i'm six it's there's a date here's a date for you it's going to happen yeah write that down write that down remember it yeah uh ziggy was also an accomplished rapper then he gets expelled from school because he was a drug dealer and sent to live with his father in grod
Speaker: You're like, and by the way, you liken this Ziggy kid.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Fascinating character.
Speaker: Fascinating character.
Speaker: Fascinating character.
Speaker: Few years later, his charred body is found in an incinerator.
Speaker: I'm going to tell you straight up.
Speaker: This is my favorite chapter in the book.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It's like a five page interstitial.
Speaker: And I love this chapter because I said last episode, I think the thing that this guy does that works for me so well is he creates very vivid characters.
Speaker: And this character, I think we all knew this guy.
Speaker: I knew this guy.
Speaker: You knew this guy.
Speaker: And when we were that age and we were,
Speaker: We would just thought they were the smartest, most insightful, intelligent human being alive.
Speaker: And you'll still think of that person and you'll go, whatever the fuck happened to that guy?
Speaker: Because he's an idiot and I'm an idiot.
Speaker: And I was, of course I fell for that and everything.
Speaker: And you rarely get to find out that it's anything more satisfying than, oh, he's in an MLM.
Speaker: Or something like that.
Speaker: Or, you know, it's like you never find out about the charred body.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: He's like, crypto, bro.
Speaker: No, Ziggy died.
Speaker: And his body was burned in an insinuerator.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just, just, I love this chapter.
Speaker: So it progressed almost nothing.
Speaker: And I just, I just, I love it.
Speaker: It was just background on the guy who sells them the cherry speed.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And it's great because he's a true believer.
Speaker: He, he absolutely.
Speaker: And if you ever were, if you were ever into drugs at any point, you also knew this guy who would like sell you something.
Speaker: And then he just hang out and he's just like, just please leave.
Speaker: I just don't want you to, you're not, you're not now.
Speaker: I want to, I want, I would like to do drugs and I don't necessarily want you to be here.
Speaker: And he's like, what are you, are you sure you don't want to talk about the battle for Blair mountain or something?
Speaker: And you're like, I just, I'm thanks.
Speaker: I don't, I just want to,
Speaker: I want to cozy up with this.
Speaker: And it's like this guy is so real.
Speaker: The dealer starts talking about like conspiracy theories is like, Hey man, you know what the Bilderberg group is?
Speaker: And we're like, please, I don't need to know anything more about you.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I need you to go.
Speaker: I need you to go.
Speaker: That guy is either a drug dealer or he is a late night Uber driver.
Speaker: It's always your Uber driver from a concert you went to or a bar that went a little late and it's two in the morning and you're driving home and he just starts talking to you about the birds don't exist and shit like that.
Speaker: Birds aren't real, man.
Speaker: Birds aren't real.
Speaker: And, and.
Speaker: And you just have to sit there and go, uh-huh, because your life is in his hands.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And our economy is thriving.
Speaker: This reminds me of a, we were doing this, April and I, when we first met, where she was doing this leadership course in the county that she was living in at the time, Martin County, which is a very conservative area.
Speaker: It's a very conservative county in Florida.
Speaker: It's like just north of Palm Beach.
Speaker: So Palm Beach County is pretty it's pretty blue.
Speaker: And then right up from Palm Beach is Martin County, which is hard red.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I remember we were doing this thing where we're talking to business owners in Martin County.
Speaker: We're talking to this guy.
Speaker: So Obama was president at the time.
Speaker: Obamna was president.
Speaker: And... Soda!
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: So he's talking about, he seemed normal until he started talking about economics.
Speaker: And then he started talking about economics.
Speaker: Like this is when like not too long, this is not too long after the banks had started collapsing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's like, it's all planned, man.
Speaker: It's all planned.
Speaker: Like Obama, he and the banks and they're all working together, man.
Speaker: They're working together and they're, I guarantee, you know who, so bank of America, they're the next ones up.
Speaker: They're going to collapse.
Speaker: And he's like going into this weird, it's like,
Speaker: He never really gets antisemitic with it, but you know, he's about to, if you let him talk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You give him any more time and he's going to tiptoe right up to that line and sneeze.
Speaker: He's going to be like, he's going to go globalists.
Speaker: He's going to George Soros and like, Oh, I know where this is going.
Speaker: Ironically enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ironically, Bank of America was one of the only banks that didn't actually fall apart in that whole thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I'm sure he had a I'm sure he had a perfectly logical explanation for why that was that particular prediction didn't work out in his favor.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, where were we?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Ziggy.
Speaker: Ziggy is that is that guy.
Speaker: He's that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got one more chapter left, but it's a doozy.
Speaker: So before we go into that chapter, we're going to take a quick break for some products and services.
Speaker: We're back.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So chapter 13 is titled matterimony, which is there's actually a did you see the footnote about this?
Speaker: there's a footnote in the book about how it's like the word that is used is actually like it's like a made up portmanteau in another language which is even harder to translate than like normal so they did their best they tried their best
Speaker: That's the key to translation.
Speaker: There's not always going to be a one-to-one kind of thing.
Speaker: So you have to use your discretion.
Speaker: I mean, that's great.
Speaker: So they just put it in a footnote.
Speaker: Be like, we tried.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: We did our best.
Speaker: So chapter 13, it is 20 years ago again.
Speaker: The boys are waiting for the girls on the train platform.
Speaker: Jesper has 24 speed pills that he bought from Ziggy.
Speaker: Therese has beer.
Speaker: The boys talk about how chicks hate beer and that it smells like piss, but Therese thinks it's still necessary.
Speaker: They wait sitting on the bench with their flowers in hand.
Speaker: The girls arrive and they look stunning.
Speaker: It's like it's like cut back and forth between these girls arriving.
Speaker: And it's like, you know, because they're there are the daughter of a former supermodel, I think is like kind of the thing.
Speaker: And they're like the wind is always blowing their hair back.
Speaker: And it's cutting back to the boys who are just like sitting on.
Speaker: It's truly every, I mean, that's the thing though.
Speaker: That's how I remember it being though.
Speaker: When you're, when you're that age, they do this in movies all the time.
Speaker: You're coming of age movies where the girls are pretty and look nice and they're well, you know, put together and everything.
Speaker: And the boys are just schlubby kind of, but that is, that is how it was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To quote Dana Gould, we were not raised, we were housed.
Speaker: And that's just, I'd love to be annoyed at things like that where it's like, oh, come on.
Speaker: But that's honestly how I remember it.
Speaker: This guy continues to be good at that nostalgia.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He really hits that.
Speaker: I mean, he's around our age, I think.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he really hits that.
Speaker: This is what it was like.
Speaker: It's good to know that in a completely different country, things really aren't that different.
Speaker: That's that's pretty cool.
Speaker: More of the same.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Present day, we cut to present day.
Speaker: Kenny, Therese, and Khan arrive at the self-chiller's house.
Speaker: Kenny parks the car so it's ready to take off when they're done.
Speaker: When Khan and Therese enter the house, it seems like no one is there and they make their way through a maze of rooms.
Speaker: And they realize that the building is an old discotheque.
Speaker: And then they find the self-chiller who is like, he's ready to drop a beat.
Speaker: And he's like, don't ruin my intro.
Speaker: Bruh.
Speaker: So Khan just places the envelopes on his monitor, uh, that they need him to look into and they just back away.
Speaker: Um, and then suddenly the music makes things seem like they were 80 years ago, or I guess not the music, but the influence of the pale is starting to like do some weird warped shit.
Speaker: Uh, it seems like things were, yeah, fucking with them.
Speaker: It seems like things are 80 years ago.
Speaker: Uh, and they're seeing like when Kras Mazov was killed, um,
Speaker: Meanwhile, Jesper is standing in one of the Hav Sanglar hotel rooms practicing fake answers for what happened at the design conference and what happened in Lemon Kais.
Speaker: So he has to lie to his friends that he was at the design conference and he has to lie to Anita that.
Speaker: what was going on in Lemon Kies, I think is, is kind of like the, where things are, right?
Speaker: He's like practicing two sets of lies.
Speaker: And while he continues to, he can, he continues to explain who the self chiller is as a practice answer.
Speaker: He walks around the room and he's trying to observe what Derek Trent Muller saw that day.
Speaker: And then he leaves the hotel room and he goes down to the beach and he considers walking into the ocean.
Speaker: And he's just like observing surfers and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We cut to 20 years ago and the Lund girls and the friends are set up in the woods to party.
Speaker: Therese has slipped into a bad mood because Charlotte didn't hug him and is thinking of a genocide that happened to his people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whoa, let it go.
Speaker: Come on, buddy.
Speaker: This is where he goes when he's in a bad mood.
Speaker: He thinks about a genocide.
Speaker: Like, Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, they began passing out the drugs and Charlotte mentions that it's important to stay hydrated while on it.
Speaker: Charlotte is very mom mode in this scene.
Speaker: Like she is like, I am the oldest, uh, drug user here.
Speaker: I'm telling you how to, how to handle your high.
Speaker: It's it's.
Speaker: And, and I think at one point, one of them, she says like, what do you think?
Speaker: And one of the guys goes, I think there are bank robberies that are less planned than what's going on right now.
Speaker: It's such a great line.
Speaker: It's because she's being such a control freak about everything.
Speaker: It's like, come on, man, let's just do some drugs, please.
Speaker: And she's like, everybody gets one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, Therese thinks about what Ziggy said when they bought the drugs from him, how good the drug is and how it's better than all the others.
Speaker: He's talking about Ziggy's like, yeah, man, you know, uh, uh, nose candy.
Speaker: Fuck that shit.
Speaker: You know, pop is like talking about all these other drugs.
Speaker: He's like,
Speaker: this shit is the real deal.
Speaker: He is basically like Eric Stoltz's character from Pulp Fiction talking about the heroin that he is selling.
Speaker: That is exactly it.
Speaker: And it's like, this is the only truly communist drug.
Speaker: They get over there and they bring it through the pail.
Speaker: And it's like he's telling you about everything, a little aspect of it.
Speaker: It's like, you know, these are teenagers, right?
Speaker: They don't know shit.
Speaker: Listen, I don't fuck around with this non-premium shit.
Speaker: This is premium shit.
Speaker: This is premium.
Speaker: This is pure communism as a drug, man.
Speaker: What are you not getting?
Speaker: I don't think I'm going to sell it to you now.
Speaker: At one point he says, I'm not going to sell it to you now.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
Speaker: And Ziggy continues to be one of my favorite characters.
Speaker: Seriously, the best part of this book is like, it's funny because in the first half of the book, his name pops up a couple of times for like whatever reason.
Speaker: And then in the second half, when he's an actual character, you're like, oh, I see why this random drug dealer that went to school with them.
Speaker: is somewhat important in the story.
Speaker: I see why he warranted a mention earlier.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Character creating characters is Robert Kervitz is really fucking good at creating characters.
Speaker: That's which makes a lot of sense when you consider this is a TTRPG thing.
Speaker: And
Speaker: that makes sense.
Speaker: Uh, I just, I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: His characters are a one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Uh, so he calls the drug.
Speaker: He's like, uh, the girls call it cherry speed.
Speaker: Uh, I call it, uh, matter of money, the matrimony of matter.
Speaker: And this is where it had like the, uh,
Speaker: It had the sub the little note and like literally translated.
Speaker: It's like the marriage of drugs or something like that for the word that they used in the original language.
Speaker: So Malin took two.
Speaker: She said she took two much to Charlotte's dismay.
Speaker: And the drug begins affecting all of them.
Speaker: For Malin, it makes her think that she is pregnant.
Speaker: And then they we see that there are 12 pills left and we find out that Malin did not take two.
Speaker: She took six.
Speaker: Six.
Speaker: Six.
Speaker: And they all wait as the drugs begin to affect them.
Speaker: Meanwhile, in present day, Jesper is standing alone on the beach wearing a wetsuit and he enters the water.
Speaker: It's very cold and within 45 minutes, hypothermia will begin.
Speaker: He continues pushing into the water with his surfboard.
Speaker: Back 20 years ago, Therese is trying to get a better handle on what it will feel like.
Speaker: And Charlotte and Ani are trying to convey to them what it's like.
Speaker: Khan and Malin separate from the group and sit together and Khan begins talking about things again and Malin says she likes hearing him talk.
Speaker: She likes hearing him just do his like, I'm very smart shtick.
Speaker: Doing his, and what does he, she like gives him a really nice compliment and he goes, and you have very nice posture.
Speaker: It's just the most standard pseudo intellectual white guy kind of thing.
Speaker: Like, it's just like, you know, you have value as well.
Speaker: I know I'm a big smarty pants and you have very shiny hair.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I like, I like the choice of hair conditioner that you use.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's the same.
Speaker: That's absolutely the same.
Speaker: God damn it, dude.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, Khan's not a white guy.
Speaker: He's, he's, I think he's supposed to be, he's supposed to be Indian, like relative to fair enough.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: But still, but he's pulling a white guy.
Speaker: He's pulling a real white guy move here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is a deeply white guy move.
Speaker: So then she begins having a hot flash and asks Charlotte to pull her dress off because she is overheating.
Speaker: Malin's having a bit of a bad trip at first.
Speaker: And then she seems like she's having a good one.
Speaker: And she's connecting deeply with Khan and they're cuddling together and letting the world vibrate around them.
Speaker: present day, Khan and Therese make their way out of the manor and Kenny is glad to see them because shit is getting weird.
Speaker: Tiles are floating off the roof of the house and then come back down.
Speaker: Snow has stopped.
Speaker: Like they're just hanging in the air.
Speaker: Snow is just hanging in the air now.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: As they make their way to the car, there's a deafening, there's like this deafening beat drop that goes like from
Speaker: So it's like the techno.
Speaker: And it's just like they look back in horror as it's like rattling the window panes.
Speaker: It's so much chaos.
Speaker: There's so much happening in the press.
Speaker: In the past, Therese is dancing and his mood is totally changed.
Speaker: Malendo is now on back to having a bad trip.
Speaker: She's having trouble now from the amount of pills that she took.
Speaker: Yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's having trouble keeping cool.
Speaker: Somewhere in the pale, Frantichek the Brave tells Adia Harenkor that the world still has eight years left and anything can happen.
Speaker: The party continues in the past.
Speaker: Ani and Khan are tending to Malin while Charlotte continues dancing half naked in front of Therese while telling everyone to stay hydrated.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: That is also incredibly relatable.
Speaker: Like that's absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I keep into that party.
Speaker: Keep drinking water, people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm just going to dance over here.
Speaker: Therese thinks about the first time he met Charlotte at school.
Speaker: He was wearing his school uniform like a dork because it was his first day at the new school and he like didn't know that you...
Speaker: you were given a school uniform.
Speaker: You're not supposed to wear it.
Speaker: Otherwise you look like a loser.
Speaker: And he finds, he sees Charlotte that first day and she's beautiful and she's hanging around with her like,
Speaker: her, her best male friend who is also beautiful.
Speaker: He's like handsome Andy or something like that in the book.
Speaker: I forget what his name is.
Speaker: It's literally like handsome Dan or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, that's the first time he's like thinking back to the first time you ever saw Charlotte.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Present day, Khan and Therese watch as the destructive nature of the pale rips the world apart beyond where the house stands.
Speaker: They all get in the car.
Speaker: Therese believes that the whole area will be pale within the next half hour.
Speaker: In the past, Khan is telling the tale of the killer waves to Jesper, Ani, and Malin.
Speaker: And how math of the smaller waves meeting each other works out to create the massive waves.
Speaker: And then he explains how the similar math can be used to calculate the movement of the pale.
Speaker: Present day in Charlotte's Y'all, Jasper is on a surfboard and he sees a killer wave and he works.
Speaker: He's paddling to try to get on top of it.
Speaker: In the past, Jesper and Ani have paired off to talk more.
Speaker: Jesper never quite got the hive the others did from the pills.
Speaker: Ani takes one and shows him how to snort it because that might help him feel it better.
Speaker: She's like, oh, no, you sometimes you just got to, you know, snort it.
Speaker: She's like, it'll hit you faster, but it'll end faster, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Present day, Jesper is on the wave surfing, but the wave begins to collapse.
Speaker: And Jesper thinks about how this cluster of memories that he holds on to makes him impossible for the world to support.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: I hear you, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Right there.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Been there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've been there.
Speaker: Yeah, man.
Speaker: Elsewhere, Khan looks up at Olf's house, which is now floating in the air.
Speaker: They expect it to be ripped to shreds by the pail, but the pail stops.
Speaker: Ulf comes to the doorway and throws down the envelopes and tells them they have to go now.
Speaker: The pale begins moving again, destroying everything in its path.
Speaker: Ulf sits inside his house.
Speaker: The only trace of the Lund girls is in the memory of Jesper right now.
Speaker: Kenny outside drives as fast as possible as the pale continues to chase them.
Speaker: Khan looks at the papers inside and says, I was right all along.
Speaker: In the past, Ani and Jesper return with a big thing of water to everyone's delight.
Speaker: They all drink.
Speaker: Khan is riding on Therese's shoulders, pretending he's a robot.
Speaker: They all run across the beach and into the ocean, and they float together in the water, looking up at the stars.
Speaker: And Malin says, like, I don't know what's, it's like, when I read this, it's like, damn, that line hit me.
Speaker: She says about the stars, they are no longer there, but I still see them.
Speaker: Next morning, the group wakes up and the boys take the girls to the tram station.
Speaker: They make plans to see each other in August after the Lund girls' family trip to Grodd.
Speaker: They're awkward but cute with each other as they say goodbye.
Speaker: It's the last time they see each other.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: End of chapter.
Speaker: It's just such a... I...
Speaker: I don't fully know how much I like this book in terms of its plot and and even sometimes the world and stuff like that.
Speaker: I love, however, the way that he makes me feel with his characters and with in particular that nostalgic thing, because it is taking.
Speaker: what has been examined in high school movies and books and stuff for generations and upping the ante by, you know, saying that was the summer I fell in love with so and so.
Speaker: And then we all went away and, you know, we all got jobs and got married.
Speaker: It's like, no, no, we had that summer together and then they fucking died.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And no one ever saw them again, let alone us.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it explains the obsession of their adult lives.
Speaker: And that to me, I will follow this book as it goes, simply based on the fact that he is able to keep me enthralled to-
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: These characters.
Speaker: I mean, they they they were with these girls.
Speaker: They had this magical summer with them.
Speaker: It's implied, but never specifically stated that they like they they all lost their virginity together to the Lund girls.
Speaker: You know, that's it's kind of like.
Speaker: And that is and then that's it.
Speaker: You know, the last that's the last time they see them is is that night is that morning.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: After the sleepover in the woods, you know, welcome to the train and and that's it forever.
Speaker: Forever.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's that's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's the thing that a lot of stories that have that.
Speaker: That's the you know, and then we all grew up and that was the last time we saw each other type of thing is that I don't think those stories necessarily always deliver the hammer blow of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The pain.
Speaker: So there is a scene in Mad Men that I love to reference because I think it's probably some of Jon Hamm's finest work as an actor.
Speaker: It's a scene where he is demonstrating this photo wheel to Kodak, right?
Speaker: And he gives this beautiful speech on nostalgia, right?
Speaker: And he's talking about how he knew this Greek ad copywriter at his old job named Teddy.
Speaker: And Teddy would talk about nostalgia.
Speaker: And Teddy would say in Greek, it's nostalgia is...
Speaker: it's not just looking back fondly, but it's the pain of remembering.
Speaker: It's like the pain of an old wound.
Speaker: It's the pain of remembering.
Speaker: It's not just like looking back fondly.
Speaker: And I think I always think of that moment as like when a lot of people are writing nostalgically about things that happened,
Speaker: They'll they won't balance the good out with the pain of it can never be again.
Speaker: And I think a lot of stories really fail to to hammer that as hard as possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because this is the end of that summer story.
Speaker: It's not the end of the book, right?
Speaker: We still have more book to go.
Speaker: This is like the second third of the book, but that's the end of their story together.
Speaker: And I think...
Speaker: ending it that way, they got on the train, it's the last time they see each other, really did hit that home.
Speaker: It hit that nostalgia.
Speaker: It hit the pain of remembering that scene that despite how good it was, it could never happen again.
Speaker: So like just even remembering it is a bringer of pain.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He, he, he nailed it.
Speaker: He absolutely nailed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think, you know, obviously we have the pale doing its thing in this chapter, which is just like a weird quirk of this world.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's, and that's what I mean where it's just like, it's kind of funny because it's like,
Speaker: That is fascinating.
Speaker: That is interesting.
Speaker: And I'm, as a reader, so taken in just by this, you know, virgin suicides kind of thing that they're like, oh, and the pail's coming and it's ripping everything apart.
Speaker: And it was just like, I don't really care.
Speaker: The pail feels a little bit like a hat on a hat.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it absolutely does.
Speaker: And this is coming from a guy who writes genre fiction, but the genre add-ons I do not care about in this book.
Speaker: Anytime he gets sci-fi fantasy about it, I just, I don't care.
Speaker: I'm not, I don't, it doesn't, it doesn't fascinate me on that level.
Speaker: Yeah, his strengths are character, like full stop.
Speaker: His strength is character.
Speaker: And what's interesting is I think because we talk about adaptation on the show a lot.
Speaker: And I think that this is probably one of the best examples of why.
Speaker: A certain piece of it worked as a game and a certain piece of it worked as a book and never shall the two beat.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's that revolutionary stuff, that weird communist versus fascist kind of like.
Speaker: speculative fiction, Soviet era shit is so good in the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Atmospheric.
Speaker: It, it, it bleeds into everything.
Speaker: I think partially because it's a visual medium.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And so it's impossible to avoid.
Speaker: Um, and that's fucking great.
Speaker: It's one of the reasons that people think so fondly on disco Elysium's aesthetic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, and, and its themes and whatnot.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's kind of distracting in this.
Speaker: But the story, the meat of this obsession with these girls from your childhood, the pain of nostalgia and all that is excellent.
Speaker: And it's harder to pull across in a game, I think.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Some games have done it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Night in the Woods comes to mind.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Stuff like that.
Speaker: But I think it's far more appropriate in a book in this case.
Speaker: So I'm starting to see why maybe this book didn't get picked up.
Speaker: Well, it did get picked up, but I don't know.
Speaker: It only sold a thousand copies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It feels to me like a self-published thing, but... Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know what the... I mean, it's like probably just a small press in Estonia.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: Probably, yeah.
Speaker: But I don't know much beyond that.
Speaker: So I can see like... I can see why it might have gotten middling reviews or something like that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But the book, I mean, I like it, but...
Speaker: Yes, that's pretty much my stance.
Speaker: There's some issues and we'll finish it up next week.
Speaker: We'll ride that pale wave to the end of the book.
Speaker: You guys get that?
Speaker: You get it?
Speaker: Pale?
Speaker: Pale?
Speaker: It's a pale wave.
Speaker: We have fun.
Speaker: We're pale riders.
Speaker: We're pale writers.
Speaker: Call me Clint Eastwood because I'm a pale writer.
Speaker: I'm a pale writer.
Speaker: We have a good time on this show.
Speaker: We have fun here.
Speaker: We have fun.
Speaker: We have fun.
Speaker: So, Phil, I only have one question for you.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, there's only one game for me these days.
Speaker: I can't stop playing Pacific Drive.
Speaker: It is between that and the card game that shall not be named just constant because it's... I don't know.
Speaker: I was telling Kevin this before we got started that this... I think...
Speaker: The fascinating thing for me about Pacific Drive is it is a survival game, crafting game, all that stuff that I have not traditionally gone in for.
Speaker: I don't care for most of those because there is because they can be very they leave you very rudderless and I need some direction with my video games.
Speaker: It's very rare that I can pick up a video game and it just goes, well, just play and I can go on.
Speaker: Painting a world.
Speaker: I'm just not that.
Speaker: I'm not that guy.
Speaker: I need a little more than what those type of games generally give you.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And this is it.
Speaker: The world they've created is...
Speaker: mysterious and very fun to explore.
Speaker: The characters are interesting.
Speaker: The story is interesting.
Speaker: And it happens to have a huge crafting element to it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it works.
Speaker: There's something just so wonderful about the way it balances.
Speaker: This is absolutely a game of the year contender for me.
Speaker: And it falls right into what I was saying before as a new dad, how games now need to have chunks that I can just bite out of here and there.
Speaker: And this is like that.
Speaker: This is this is a thing where I was like, OK, it's chunking an hour.
Speaker: Yeah, I got an hour.
Speaker: I can hop in here and go and explore this one section of the map and and add some stuff to the log book.
Speaker: And I need more chemicals because I'm running out of, you know, you know, fixing solution or whatever it's called.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I I really enjoy that.
Speaker: I am having an absolute blast with this one.
Speaker: And that's and that's it.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: I've just been playing this.
Speaker: and Bellatro and Darkest Dungeon on my Switch.
Speaker: It's just been, I'm gonna do one level of the wield or whatever in Darkest Dungeon, or I'm gonna try to get the next ship on my red deck.
Speaker: Yeah, this stake on this deck.
Speaker: Yeah, it's...
Speaker: That is where I am right now.
Speaker: And I am in this beautiful, just snake eating its own tail of these three games.
Speaker: An Ouroboros, if you will.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: An Ouroboros of contentment, of old man gamer.
Speaker: And I don't know.
Speaker: I've never been more content in my gaming life, Kevin.
Speaker: I feel great.
Speaker: I feel great.
Speaker: You feel great.
Speaker: I feel great.
Speaker: What are you playing, Kevin?
Speaker: I am still just playing Disco Elysium because, I mean, I'm playing Bellatro on my Steam Deck before I go to bed at night.
Speaker: But aside from that, Disco Elysium is been my main squeeze recently.
Speaker: I am like 75% through my current playthrough of it.
Speaker: And it reminds me of like...
Speaker: There's so many moments in this game that just remind me like, fuck, this is so good.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: And so like the pale is part of Disco Elysium, but it is much less important or you don't really need to like engage with the pale...
Speaker: subplot necessarily.
Speaker: It's like not, not, not nearly as important as it is in a sacred and terrible air.
Speaker: Um, so, but yeah, I think it's, it's a, it's a, it's a great game.
Speaker: Uh, I, I love, you know, playing on difference.
Speaker: Um, I want to try another play through with like a completely different type of detective and just see where that goes.
Speaker: Um, someone very punchy instead of a brainy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Especially with your main character.
Speaker: Such a mess.
Speaker: Like you've got to get a punch.
Speaker: Such a mess.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, spoilers for disco Elysium.
Speaker: You play as a guy who, after a particularly long five days of drinking, has forgotten everything about who he is.
Speaker: He is, there is nothing.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: I think that's the first line of the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're coming out of nothingness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There is nothing.
Speaker: Only warm primordial blackness.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: As your ancient reptilian brain talks to you over a black screen and you're getting dialogue options of nothing, never, and your ancient reptilian brain goes, never, ever, ever, baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That game gets you into what the game is about.
Speaker: And I mean that in the sense of like, right off the bat, but it's like not what the game's about, but what the game's about.
Speaker: If that makes sense.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then your limbic system ruins it by pointing out that you have a head.
Speaker: Well, as it always does.
Speaker: It always, it always, it's always there to ruin everything.
Speaker: But yeah, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: Dragon's Dogma 2 releases tomorrow as of recording this.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: You know what came out?
Speaker: You know what came out today?
Speaker: What came out today?
Speaker: You know what came out today?
Speaker: Alone in the Dark.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Pym did a review of it, right?
Speaker: Yeah, they were doing, I don't know if they did a review, but they did do it kind of like an early stream of it because they got an early copy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm very intrigued.
Speaker: And they tweeted a little bit about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Looks interesting.
Speaker: Looks interesting.
Speaker: I think I'm definitely going to have to...
Speaker: Give it a go.
Speaker: A lot of good games early in the year this year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm going to have to check that out.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Alone in the dark, as we all know, is kind of the kind of the thing that makes Resident Evil a thing.
Speaker: Oh, very much so.
Speaker: Very much a foundational survival horror title.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like Alone in the Dark and Sweet Home are really important in the building blocks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but yeah, that'll, aside from that, that'll do it, uh, for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you want to hear more about us, uh, follow us on Twitter, blue sky, Instagram, uh, LinkedIn, uh, Pinterest.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Friendster.
Speaker: Angelfire.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: Is Geocities still around?
Speaker: Did they close out?
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: We should have a Geocities page.
Speaker: We should.
Speaker: If there is something.
Speaker: That would be awesome, actually.
Speaker: Actually, you know what?
Speaker: I think there's a fake.
Speaker: There's like a new version of Geocities called Neo Cities.
Speaker: It's supposed to be like what Geocities was back in the day.
Speaker: Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker: Geocities officially kicked the bucket March 2019.
Speaker: Yeah, so NeoCities, maybe we should get a NeoCities.
Speaker: It's free.
Speaker: Why fuck not, I ask you.
Speaker: Why the fuck not?
Speaker: Do it, baby.
Speaker: Yeah, baby.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: So yes, follow us on all those platforms with the exception of Pinterest, LinkedIn, Friendster, and MySpace.
Speaker: Just most of them.
Speaker: Most of them.
Speaker: Or Patreon.
Speaker: Best place to follow us.
Speaker: That'll do it.
Speaker: We're all done.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: We've been doing all the talking.
Speaker: How are you guys?
Speaker: I feel like we've dominated the conversation.
Speaker: We've really dominated the conversation.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Tell us.
