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The Disco Elysium Book - Sacred and Terrible Air: Part 1
35 Plays1 year ago
Phil and Kevin are taking a trip to the world of Elysium to check out the Prequel/Sequel novel to Disco Elysium, Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kurwitz!
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Book Synopsis
On the second-to-last day of summer vacation, the four daughters of Education Minister Ann-Margret Lund disappear from a public beach.
On its maiden voyage, a newly launched ship with fifteen hundred passengers on board disappears.
The girls’ three classmates do not give up the investigation even twenty years later. The world is disappearing, but the hope of finding the Lund children is not.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
This requires a steady hand and you're that hand, my friend.
00:00:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:08
Speaker
You know what else is a steady hand?
00:00:10
Speaker
What's
Introduction and Episode Setup
00:00:11
Speaker
that?
00:00:11
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixelate.
00:00:13
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:13
Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
00:00:15
Speaker
And on today's show, oh boy, here it is.
00:00:19
Speaker
Here we go.
Review Announcement: 'Sacred and Terrible Air'
00:00:20
Speaker
We're reviewing Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kervitz.
00:00:28
Speaker
Nice timing on the pop there.
00:00:31
Speaker
It's the time.
00:00:33
Speaker
What are you drinking?
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm going to reach out to these guys to see if they'll sponsor us.
00:00:37
Speaker
This is my favorite alcoholic seltzer of all time.
Happy Dad Seltzer Discussion
00:00:40
Speaker
Happy Dad.
00:00:41
Speaker
Happy Dad.
00:00:43
Speaker
I adore it.
00:00:45
Speaker
It's really good and it has ruined me for other hard seltzers.
00:00:51
Speaker
Which one would think wouldn't be that difficult.
00:00:54
Speaker
But I really like them.
00:00:55
Speaker
They're delicious.
00:00:55
Speaker
So...
00:00:56
Speaker
Good.
00:00:57
Speaker
Good.
00:00:57
Speaker
It looks like just looking at it from here, it kind of has like 1980s Budweiser vibes to the can.
00:01:07
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:01:08
Speaker
One of their big things is they say no more skinny cans.
00:01:11
Speaker
They don't want to do the skinny can thing anymore.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:01:15
Speaker
Skinny cans are played out.
00:01:16
Speaker
Come on, guys.
00:01:17
Speaker
Give us something...
00:01:18
Speaker
Give it something.
00:01:19
Speaker
I want to give it some oomph, some oomph.
00:01:22
Speaker
And it's very good.
00:01:24
Speaker
I got my spin drift.
00:01:25
Speaker
Maybe my camera will focus on that.
00:01:27
Speaker
Spin drift is one of my wife's favorites.
00:01:30
Speaker
She is a big fan of that stuff.
00:01:31
Speaker
It's good.
00:01:32
Speaker
It's good stuff.
00:01:33
Speaker
I mean, the difference between zero calories and four calories is wild.
00:01:38
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Wild.
00:01:38
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Absolutely.
00:01:39
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In terms of flavor.
00:01:40
Speaker
And in terms of actual juice in it as opposed to whatever else they use in these damn things.
00:01:47
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Real squeezed fruit.
Background on Robert Kervitz's Work
00:01:55
Speaker
But yeah, it's sacred and terrible air.
00:02:01
Speaker
So this book, for those of you who don't know, is the...
00:02:07
Speaker
A book that was written by author Robert Kervitz before Disco Elysium.
00:02:14
Speaker
He wrote it in 2013, and it was based on a tabletop role-playing game setting that he had made with his friends in the mid-2000s, so like 2005 time period.
00:02:29
Speaker
Did you ever find out, is there any note of like what game they would play in this universe?
00:02:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:37
Speaker
There was a note on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is not the best source for it, but it's just that it was based on Dungeons & Dragons, so I guess they just overhauled D&D.
00:02:54
Speaker
But to me, it feels like this setting would work better in a...
00:03:00
Speaker
There's a number of other systems that would probably have played this setting.
00:03:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:03:04
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Really well.
00:03:05
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Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:07
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Even, even cyberpunk or you could, you could overhaul shadow run some, you know, things like that I think would probably even, even,
00:03:19
Speaker
You know what?
00:03:20
Speaker
It's very talky, so I would say Vampire the Masquerade.
Discussing Tabletop Role-playing Games
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, a World of Darkness game would probably fit in this pretty well.
00:03:26
Speaker
A World of Darkness game, just take the vampires out and just make them regular people.
00:03:30
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Just make them pee.
00:03:31
Speaker
There you go.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, you're good.
00:03:33
Speaker
You're good.
00:03:35
Speaker
And who knows, they might have just been making it up as they went along, which is what me and my friends did.
00:03:40
Speaker
That's the real joy of TTRPGs, is just making shit up as you go along.
00:03:45
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It's awesome.
00:03:46
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Get a bag of Doritos.
00:03:48
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Hell yeah.
00:03:49
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A bunch of Fanta.
00:03:51
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And just let your imaginations run wild.
00:03:54
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Imagination.
00:03:56
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With depression and Soviet block style aesthetics.
00:04:02
Speaker
Depression, drugs.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
So just overall content warning for this series.
Content Warning for Heavy Themes
00:04:12
Speaker
Oh, boy.
00:04:12
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We'll mention it before every episode.
00:04:18
Speaker
heavy.
00:04:19
Speaker
There's a lot of... Okay, so let's just call it sexual assault.
00:04:27
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There's that.
00:04:28
Speaker
There is mentions of pedophilia.
00:04:31
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There is going to be mentions of...
00:04:37
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just gore and violence, whether real or imagined, it's there.
00:04:44
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Overall on we depression, nihilism.
00:04:50
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If any of these things are things you don't want to don't want to, you know, hang out with, I'm fine, you know, with you skipping this this series because it's a bleak one.
00:05:02
Speaker
It's a bleak one.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
So that's the content warning for the series.
00:05:09
Speaker
And I'll mention it in front of every episode just to keep you guys out there listening.
00:05:16
Speaker
You know, that you are up for what you signed up for.
Transition from Book to Disco Elysium
00:05:22
Speaker
So continue just talking about Robert Kerwitz a little bit more.
00:05:26
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He writes this book.
00:05:29
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He only ever sells a thousand copies of it.
00:05:31
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And then he falls into a depression and alcoholism for three years.
00:05:37
Speaker
And him, he gets out of depression and him and his friend call Kender.
00:05:43
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Kender is the one who gives him the idea of like, hey, maybe this world that came from a TTRPG might be better suited for a video game instead of
00:05:51
Speaker
a book.
00:05:53
Speaker
And so they begin work on what is then called No Truths with the Furies eventually becomes retitled to Disco Elysium.
00:06:04
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Elysium being the name of the world, the name of the setting.
00:06:09
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And then three years later, the game's released to critical acclaim, uh, 20 in 2019 and 2020, the final cut version of the game is released, which, uh, basically takes the game and voice, voice lines are added to every, every line in the game.
00:06:28
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It's like the definitive version of the game.
00:06:30
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And then beyond that, everything for the collective, the artist collective and company known as Zaum completely
00:06:43
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falls apart.
Zaum Company's Downfall
00:06:44
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Capitalism is going to capitalism.
00:06:46
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All the creators end up unceremoniously.
00:06:49
Speaker
That's Robert Kervitz, Martin Rostov.
00:06:55
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I should have written all their names down.
00:06:59
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and several others are unceremoniously booted from the company.
00:07:05
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There's a lot of back and forth.
00:07:06
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There's been ongoing court cases.
00:07:09
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A lot of the court cases were settled, were thrown, either settled or thrown out last year, but I think Kervitz has said he's
00:07:17
Speaker
going to keep continuing to push because it's his IP.
00:07:20
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The company didn't own it.
00:07:23
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And also there was some weird stuff with the sale of the company to the to the holding company that eventually owns it.
00:07:33
Speaker
There is some shenanigans.
00:07:35
Speaker
Of course.
00:07:37
Speaker
Of course.
00:07:39
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And it's just, you know, the blistering irony that a game, well, the game itself has a lot of nihilism in it, but it has a lot of optimism.
00:07:47
Speaker
But the setting itself is very nihilistic.
00:07:50
Speaker
Oh, God, yes.
00:07:51
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And very communist or socialist, you know, anarchist.
00:07:57
Speaker
And it all falls apart because the company that they founded got too capitalist.
00:08:02
Speaker
Oh.
00:08:02
Speaker
Got two capital.
00:08:04
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Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
Well, that's just the beauty of just literally just just delightful.
00:08:11
Speaker
Of course, this is a lot of set levels.
00:08:15
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Oh, yes.
00:08:16
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This is rain on your wedding day right here.
00:08:19
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Big time, big time, big time.
00:08:21
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Blackfly Chardonnay, death row pardon.
00:08:25
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Two minutes too late.
00:08:27
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Etc.
00:08:27
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Etc.
00:08:29
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And dating Dave Coulier.
00:08:31
Speaker
And dating Dave Coulier.
00:08:33
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It's all very ironic.
00:08:33
Speaker
I mean, honestly, that is no truce with the Furies right there.
Anecdote: Alanis Morissette and Dave Coulier
00:08:41
Speaker
That's it.
00:08:42
Speaker
That's it.
00:08:42
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That's it, baby.
00:08:43
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Dave Coulier.
00:08:45
Speaker
Cut.
00:08:46
Speaker
Cut it out.
00:08:49
Speaker
Something about him always struck me as weird.
00:08:53
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I'm not going to get too far into it, but, you know, Dave Coulier.
00:08:55
Speaker
He's an odd guy, but I will say I saw an interview with him not long ago where they asked him, like, have you ever talked to Alanis Morissette since then?
00:09:03
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If he goes, yeah, like we had dinner and she was really nice to me and
00:09:09
Speaker
I, you know, apologized and she apologized and I think we're good.
00:09:13
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Like it's apparently she's just like forgiven, forgotten with him, which I don't know if you follow her musical track since then, that's not too huge of a surprise.
00:09:25
Speaker
She didn't.
00:09:25
Speaker
She only had so much fury in her.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:29
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All that.
00:09:29
Speaker
All that cool.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yay juice kind of evaporated.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:33
Speaker
It's just she needed that.
00:09:35
Speaker
She just needed a.
00:09:36
Speaker
it out that one time and then she's good.
00:09:39
Speaker
Then she's good.
00:09:42
Speaker
No need to hold that grudge.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
So one of the things I want to talk about before we get into the book is that there's going to be references to something called the Pale, which is a very fascinating, in a TTRPG video game setting is fascinating.
The Pale in Elysium Explained
00:10:05
Speaker
Right.
00:10:06
Speaker
It's a so the world of Elysium is all of these all of these land masses.
00:10:14
Speaker
Right.
00:10:15
Speaker
And some of the land masses, a few of the land masses are archipelagos and some of them are just big continents, but they're all land masses and they're connected by this.
00:10:25
Speaker
tissue, connective tissue called the pale.
00:10:29
Speaker
And what is the pale, you might ask?
00:10:31
Speaker
Well, I know I asked that.
00:10:34
Speaker
That's tough to really explain.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's basically entropy.
00:10:39
Speaker
It's like
00:10:40
Speaker
But that's almost too simple of an answer.
00:10:45
Speaker
It's like entropy, things, once the pale is in an area, that area is basically functionally does not exist anymore.
00:10:55
Speaker
It is, how do you measure nothingness?
00:10:58
Speaker
Well, you can only measure nothingness by what is around it.
00:11:01
Speaker
And that is basically what the pale is.
00:11:03
Speaker
In the setting, the pale is where physics and mathematics goes to die.
00:11:10
Speaker
Nothing makes sense anymore once it is in the pale.
00:11:15
Speaker
This is a bit of a part.
00:11:16
Speaker
This is a part of Disco Elysium.
00:11:20
Speaker
Not to spoil too much of Disco Elysium.
00:11:23
Speaker
There's a part in toward, I would say, the middle act of the game, towards the end of the middle act of the game.
00:11:30
Speaker
where you're kind of split off onto a side investigation where you're trying to figure out something that is going on with the pale in a church across the river from where you start the game.
00:11:47
Speaker
So what is it?
00:11:49
Speaker
It's this mass
00:11:53
Speaker
of nothingness that ties all the continents of the world together.
00:11:57
Speaker
And it is expanding at an unknown rate.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's like what I could take from it when I started to get my head around it was because the amount of space it takes up on the world is eerily similar to the amount of space that the oceans take up on our current planet.
00:12:21
Speaker
So it's this kind of strange...
00:12:23
Speaker
It's like a cross between the oceans and the warp.
00:12:26
Speaker
If I can bring in 40K one more time.
00:12:28
Speaker
You may bring in 40K.
00:12:29
Speaker
It is basically an oceanic warp.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
And it's just nothing.
00:12:36
Speaker
And they had expeditions into it to like see what the fuck it was.
00:12:41
Speaker
And like, what was it like nine expeditions and only the last one came back alive and sane.
00:12:48
Speaker
Right.
00:12:49
Speaker
It's it's just yeah, everything falls apart.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
Everything falls apart in the pail.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:56
Speaker
And some of the times when they talk about like trains and mag labs, it's like, how do they get from continent to continent?
00:13:03
Speaker
Well, they just have to launch something in like over top of the pale.
00:13:11
Speaker
Right.
00:13:12
Speaker
And it'll just keep going until it hits the air space above another plane.
00:13:19
Speaker
continent and then it just kind of like start like physics turns on again and it starts landing right hey my watch is working again sweet sweet all right we must be out of there okay well where the hell are we i have no idea no idea uh but here's where we're starting the story in chapter one
00:13:43
Speaker
We start in Charlotte's Y'all.
00:13:47
Speaker
And this is one of those chapters that feels... There's a lot of elements to this story that feels like... Stand By Me.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:02
Speaker
I was thinking It, but yes.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
That nostalgic... It's almost like a Stephen King-ish...
00:14:12
Speaker
look back to the point at which everything changed.
00:14:16
Speaker
And that's kind of what chapter one is, right?
00:14:18
Speaker
So the first chapter sets the tone in the central mystery of the story, the disappearance of the four Lund girls at the vacation town of Charlotte's Y'all.
00:14:28
Speaker
And the way this captured the imagination of the country and the surrounding areas.
00:14:32
Speaker
And this is despite other places in the world having events like this weekly.
00:14:37
Speaker
The disappearance of the Lund Girls was considered the end of an era, basically an end to like this age of innocence and social progressivism.
00:14:45
Speaker
Um...
00:14:46
Speaker
The details of the case are as follows.
00:14:48
Speaker
The youngest girl is Madge, and she is four.
00:14:52
Speaker
The other three girls are Annie Ellen.
00:14:54
Speaker
She is 12.
00:14:55
Speaker
Malin is 13.
00:14:57
Speaker
And Charlotte is 14.
00:14:59
Speaker
They were seen at 9.30 in the morning getting on the tram in Lovisa.
00:15:03
Speaker
by the tram driver whose name is Roland, who even 20 years after the events of that day still talks about his part in it from the retirement home.
00:15:12
Speaker
Like his one little brush with greatness is being tangentially involved in the disappearance of these four girls in this mystery.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:21
Speaker
He's been telling this story over and over forever.
00:15:24
Speaker
For 20 years.
00:15:26
Speaker
They arrived at the beach at Charlottesville at 1025.
00:15:31
Speaker
I think it's Mullen.
00:15:32
Speaker
Mullen and Annie Ellen go to the ice cream parlor to buy some ice cream.
00:15:38
Speaker
The worker there, Agatha, later testifies that there was a man with them, but is never quite sure if that's the actual truth.
00:15:45
Speaker
And then we cut to a living room.
00:15:48
Speaker
where there's three boys anxiously discussing calling the Lund girls, even though it's, quote, too early to call.
00:15:56
Speaker
One of them, a chubby Ilmiron boy, who we will later know as Iniek Khan, one of our main characters, believes there's something wrong, though.
00:16:04
Speaker
They call and there's no answer and light fades from the windows.
00:16:09
Speaker
And that's chapter one.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's it's just real.
00:16:13
Speaker
It's a real quick hit tone setter.
00:16:15
Speaker
Like, here's what this book is about.
00:16:17
Speaker
It's it was it's such a funny introduction to this because I never finished Disco Elysium.
00:16:23
Speaker
I actually mentioned on the show I got about five or six hours into it.
00:16:27
Speaker
I really did enjoy it.
00:16:29
Speaker
And then something happened that, like, fried my save game.
00:16:33
Speaker
And I would have basically had to start over from the beginning.
00:16:35
Speaker
And I had this moment of.
00:16:36
Speaker
I can't.
00:16:37
Speaker
I can't.
00:16:38
Speaker
I just can't.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's too tense.
00:16:40
Speaker
I can't do it right now.
00:16:41
Speaker
I'll have to come back to you later.
00:16:43
Speaker
But what I do know of it, I was not expecting our intro to this world to, yeah, be this weird virgin suicide nostalgia, like, man, those are the girls.
00:16:54
Speaker
Those were the days, like kind of thing.
00:16:56
Speaker
Right.
00:16:57
Speaker
It's so
Nostalgia in the Book
00:16:58
Speaker
funny.
00:16:58
Speaker
It's such a funny introduction to this whole thing.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:17:03
Speaker
I it's it's almost like a.
00:17:09
Speaker
It's like a Dateline special or something like that.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit.
00:17:13
Speaker
Or like the beginning of like a, it's like the first five minutes of the new season of Serial.
00:17:20
Speaker
Like, you know what I mean?
00:17:22
Speaker
It's like breaking down the mystery.
00:17:26
Speaker
And then they throw in a little hook at the end of that first chapter.
00:17:29
Speaker
But what if?
00:17:31
Speaker
But what if?
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:33
Speaker
I love it.
00:17:34
Speaker
So chapter two, titled Class Reunion.
00:17:38
Speaker
It's 20 years later, and Iniyat Khan is having a discussion with his mother about whether he should go to his class reunion.
00:17:46
Speaker
His mother tells him it would be great to see his friends, Therese and Jesper, while Khan is worried about the fact that his suit doesn't fit and he looks like a fat idiot.
00:17:58
Speaker
Khan daydreams of Malin Lund for a moment as he arrives to the reunion.
00:18:04
Speaker
Another former classmate of his, a woman wearing a pantsuit, arrives at the same time.
00:18:08
Speaker
And I love the description of her as something like, she's like, a woman in pantsuit is wearing a pantsuit or something like that.
00:18:17
Speaker
Right, yeah.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
Con tries to break the awkwardness by showing her a pen with a disappearing photo in it.
00:18:27
Speaker
So it took me a little bit to figure out what he was doing.
00:18:30
Speaker
So it's like one of those pens where if you like... The nudie pen.
00:18:33
Speaker
It's like the nudie pen.
00:18:34
Speaker
But in this case, it's a photo of a guy.
00:18:38
Speaker
And there's a very real world reference to this.
00:18:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:42
Speaker
So the picture of it is like one of these like communist leaders that...
00:18:48
Speaker
And in one way, he tilts the pen.
00:18:50
Speaker
You can see one of the commissars standing next to him.
00:18:55
Speaker
And if you tilt the pen the other way, the commissar disappears.
00:18:59
Speaker
So this is a reference to a photo of Stalin standing on.
00:19:04
Speaker
He's like standing on the bow of a ship.
00:19:06
Speaker
And there's like a couple people next to him.
00:19:09
Speaker
And there's like in the original photo, it's like four people.
00:19:12
Speaker
And then there's like an edited version where it's like three people.
00:19:17
Speaker
two people or something like that yeah like slowly one by one they were early old school photoshopped exactly existence yeah and so it's just fucking Stalin so so Khan who is just who is probably my favorite boy in this in this story I was just gonna say he's my favorite in the book he's just this he's just this chubby dude who just doesn't know how to interact with anybody really he's just awkward
00:19:47
Speaker
He's just standing there with this woman in pantsuit.
00:19:50
Speaker
And he's like, look, commissar.
00:19:52
Speaker
No, commissar.
00:19:53
Speaker
Commissar.
00:19:54
Speaker
No, commissar.
00:19:56
Speaker
That's his that's his version of breaking the ice.
00:19:58
Speaker
And it's it's kind of fucking adorable.
00:20:01
Speaker
It really is.
00:20:04
Speaker
So Khan looks sadly looks on at the gathering of his former classmates.
00:20:09
Speaker
Jesper and Therese are nowhere in sight.
00:20:13
Speaker
We get a scene introducing Jesper as an adult.
00:20:16
Speaker
He is a world famous designer.
00:20:19
Speaker
We get a scene introducing Jesper as an adult.
00:20:21
Speaker
So this is like a flashback now within within the series of events.
00:20:29
Speaker
He was a world famous designer in his 20s and he lived high off of nose candy and partying at the time.
00:20:35
Speaker
And now he's just a bit of a drunk and he calls a taxi.
00:20:39
Speaker
Everyone likes their speed in this world.
00:20:42
Speaker
Everyone loves their speed.
00:20:44
Speaker
They love their speed.
00:20:45
Speaker
Meanwhile, Therese is now a member of the International Collaboration of Police or ICP.
00:20:52
Speaker
How do magnets work anyway?
00:20:56
Speaker
Fucking who fucking knows.
00:20:59
Speaker
That's an insane clown posse reference for those of you keeping score at home.
00:21:03
Speaker
Enjoy that.
00:21:04
Speaker
That's the only one I'm really going to be able to make.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the only one you need to make.
00:21:10
Speaker
I think that's good.
00:21:11
Speaker
I think we covered it.
00:21:13
Speaker
We can just go on pretending that juggalos don't exist.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
So we watch as the city goes by after he gets on a train and we get some lore dump about the surrounding area.
00:21:23
Speaker
This world uses some sort of magnetic levitation train system in conjunction with the pale in order for long distance travel.
00:21:33
Speaker
Back at the reunion, Khan is lying about what he does for a living to people, saying that he's a private investigator.
00:21:38
Speaker
And he basically created this lie as amalgamation of what he does, which is sit in his basement and work on his toy collection and what Therese does, which is an actual missing persons cop.
00:21:50
Speaker
Right.
00:21:50
Speaker
Right.
00:21:55
Speaker
The woman in the pantsuit realizes that he's still looking for the Lund girls and says that it's kind of sad and goes on about how it's sad.
00:22:03
Speaker
Khan then tells her to go fuck herself and storms off.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
Because why not?
00:22:10
Speaker
You know, he gets our fat boy gets a little, you know, he's he's upset, you know, he gets a little pissed.
00:22:22
Speaker
I think he's entitled.
00:22:24
Speaker
I think that's fine.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, you go off, Khan.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
You're sweet, chubby king.
00:22:30
Speaker
You're just pinching your cheeks.
00:22:33
Speaker
They... Listen, Robert Kervitz, there are some things about his writing that are kind of...
00:22:43
Speaker
not great.
00:22:45
Speaker
Uh, yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
In terms of how, like, he's not very, he, he has some, some fat phobic tendencies with how he talks about, especially con.
00:22:56
Speaker
Um, so like, I don't want to lean into it too much.
00:23:01
Speaker
Uh, but con is our chubby King.
00:23:02
Speaker
So let's, let's, we, and we support him and we love him.
00:23:06
Speaker
That's what's important.
00:23:07
Speaker
And we love him.
00:23:09
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:23:10
Speaker
Like after reading this, I was like, and, uh,
00:23:13
Speaker
this side note is like Robert Kervitz is kind of like, there's some reports out there that he's just, he's really a massive asshole.
00:23:22
Speaker
Like Zahoum is like, Oh, we fired him because he was harassing employees.
00:23:26
Speaker
And I'm like, well,
00:23:28
Speaker
Maybe he was an asshole, but also he was, you probably didn't have cause to fire him because he owns the IP.
00:23:37
Speaker
So there's like, there's like some balancing there that needs to be like reading this, just the way Kervitz writes about certain things.
00:23:47
Speaker
I could get the sense that
00:23:50
Speaker
You could kind of get some sense of of how he views certain things.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's a level of I had I had I had a problem initially because I just didn't like him based on the first like chapter or two.
00:24:07
Speaker
I just because I was kind of torn.
00:24:09
Speaker
It was a Quentin Tarantino kind of thing.
00:24:11
Speaker
where it's like, I just, I got a feeling I wouldn't like you.
00:24:15
Speaker
I got a feeling we wouldn't get along.
00:24:16
Speaker
I wouldn't want to hang out with you.
00:24:18
Speaker
Despite the fact that we clearly agree on a lot of stuff.
00:24:21
Speaker
Sure.
00:24:21
Speaker
You just seem kind of up your own ass about it.
00:24:24
Speaker
On the other hand, he writes characters wrongly.
00:24:28
Speaker
really well.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:30
Speaker
And so I wouldn't be surprised if he's a pain in the ass or, you know, none of that would surprise me.
00:24:38
Speaker
I don't know.
00:24:41
Speaker
But that but it is it is.
00:24:42
Speaker
That's good writing.
00:24:44
Speaker
You can't can't can't distract from that.
00:24:46
Speaker
No, exactly.
00:24:48
Speaker
So Jesper arrives at the reunion while looking at the name badges.
00:24:56
Speaker
By the way, I don't know if I'm pronouncing these names specifically right.
00:24:59
Speaker
I know Khan and that's basically it.
00:25:01
Speaker
Khan!
00:25:06
Speaker
What choice do you have?
00:25:11
Speaker
So he's looking at the name badges and his stomach goes into a knot knowing that the Loon girls won't be there when he looks at the row of girls.
00:25:21
Speaker
And he thinks back to when he became famous eight years ago.
00:25:24
Speaker
And even then he was distracted by their disappearance and playing with a scrunchie that belonged to one of the girls.
00:25:30
Speaker
That he had taken from a pile of their stuff.
00:25:33
Speaker
He snaps back to the present and wonders where Khan and Teresa are.
00:25:39
Speaker
We flash back 20 years ago, and this is kind of the difficulty with reading the book is that it's changing timelines a lot.
00:25:48
Speaker
So we flashback 20 years ago to a playground fight between Khan and a boy named Sven von Fiersen, where von Fiersen is making fun of Khan for saying that he kissed Malen Lund before a full on brawl breaks out.
00:26:04
Speaker
But before a full on brawl breaks out, Jesper breaks it up.
00:26:07
Speaker
So Jesper and Khan finally see each other.
00:26:11
Speaker
Jesper apologizes to Khan as they shake hands for something that Jesper did eight years ago at the height of his fame.
00:26:20
Speaker
And we'll get more on that later.
00:26:22
Speaker
Khan and Jesper leave the class reunion together while Khan shows him the disappearing Commissar pen thing again.
00:26:30
Speaker
Again.
00:26:31
Speaker
He's like, Commissar, no Commissar.
00:26:34
Speaker
You rule, Khan.
00:26:35
Speaker
Never change.
00:26:36
Speaker
Love you, Khan.
00:26:37
Speaker
Don't do anything.
00:26:38
Speaker
Anything different.
00:26:39
Speaker
You're good.
00:26:40
Speaker
Therese meets them outside and he asks Jesper if he apologized.
00:26:44
Speaker
And Khan mentions that Jesper did.
00:26:46
Speaker
They decide not to return at the class reunion as it isn't cool.
00:26:50
Speaker
And they go to find a new place in the city.
00:26:55
Speaker
We flashback eight years ago.
00:26:57
Speaker
We get a flashback to a time when Jesper was partying up while listening to music from Vasa, which is another like it's another locale in the world by a person named Fackengaff, an Oranje's immigrant and music producer.
00:27:13
Speaker
In present day, they are in Vasa while in a taxi, while Therese thinks about the time gone by.
00:27:19
Speaker
Khan and Therese badger Jesper while they're driving about the hair tie and scrunchie.
00:27:24
Speaker
And Jesper is like, no, I don't have it.
00:27:26
Speaker
And then he's like, fine, here it is.
00:27:28
Speaker
And he takes out this black ring box and he shows it to them.
00:27:34
Speaker
We jump back to that same party eight years ago while Jesper is coming down from his high and he wants everybody to leave his place because and the music is too loud.
00:27:42
Speaker
So he can't get her and finally gets everybody out and he ends up having to search the trash for the scrunchie because somebody threw it out.
00:27:51
Speaker
Back in present day, Khan remarks that the scent of the scrunchie is gone and that there is something very wrong with that.
00:27:59
Speaker
And the scrunchie belonged to one of the Lund girls, as it were.
00:28:05
Speaker
Chapter three is so every once in a while we get a chapter that does not have anything to do with the story is literally just a historical piece about the.
Concept of Non-entities in the Story
00:28:21
Speaker
the world.
00:28:23
Speaker
And this chapter three is the first of them and it's called non entity.
00:28:28
Speaker
And it's about how the Roman Roman garage conference defines 10 different types of missing persons and missing person.
00:28:37
Speaker
Number nine is called a non entity and that their person is not only missing, but their existence is no longer recognized as having been in the first place.
00:28:49
Speaker
They are a non-entity.
00:28:51
Speaker
And they exist.
00:28:53
Speaker
And this is because a violent state has decided to wipe them from existence.
00:28:59
Speaker
The person's not missing.
00:29:01
Speaker
Their existence is no longer recognized.
00:29:04
Speaker
The chapter gives a quick lesson to the rise and disastrous fall of communism in the world of Elysium, which involved several people becoming non-entities.
00:29:12
Speaker
And this is the thing that is referred to in the edited photo of the commissar disappearing.
00:29:17
Speaker
The chapter details a bunch of Mazovian followers and Mazov is kind of like the Lenin.
00:29:22
Speaker
He's like a combination of the Lenin and Marx of the Elysium world.
00:29:29
Speaker
Mazovian followers meeting untimely ends and the attempts to cover up their existence.
00:29:34
Speaker
But part of the thematic element of the book that ties into this is that memories and the existence of people are
00:29:42
Speaker
are difficult to erase even with the intention to erase them.
00:29:46
Speaker
Like, yeah, like they, the, that they existed still bubbles up, uh, even with the weight of a entire government body trying to erase them from existence.
00:30:00
Speaker
Uh, chapter four,
00:30:02
Speaker
It's titled Vidkun Herd.
00:30:05
Speaker
Khan, Therese, and Jesper are sitting in Cafe Kino in a soundproof booth.
00:30:11
Speaker
The cafe was designed by a student of Jesper's.
00:30:14
Speaker
And it looks like basically there's all these booths in the cafe.
00:30:17
Speaker
And it's, you know, you can kind of like go in and have a private conversation.
00:30:21
Speaker
And there's a there's a projection screen.
00:30:25
Speaker
Jesper tells them what he has found.
00:30:28
Speaker
And a friend of a friend is a documentary filmmaker who is producing a film about a man named Vidken Hurd.
00:30:34
Speaker
And the other two are like, fuck, no, we already know not Vidken Hurd.
00:30:39
Speaker
So absolutely not.
00:30:41
Speaker
Absolutely not.
00:30:41
Speaker
Vidken Hurd is basically a known like rapist and pedophile.
00:30:47
Speaker
who has been arrested, who was active around the time that the Lund girls went missing, but he couldn't be the guy for the Lund girls because he was 600 miles away or something like that.
00:31:00
Speaker
There's no way.
00:31:02
Speaker
There is a convenient option, but probably not.
00:31:06
Speaker
He's convenient as the guy, but there's too much.
00:31:11
Speaker
He has too strong of an alibi.
00:31:14
Speaker
They know where he was at that time.
00:31:17
Speaker
Um, Jesper says that documentary filmmaker got some information out of him though, and puts on the reel.
00:31:22
Speaker
And we go into an interview with Vidkun Hurd, who talks mostly about the history of his people in a very racist way and how other races are degenerate to his.
00:31:34
Speaker
Uh, Hurd also talks about how his people came to the land they ultimately lived on by riding dog sleds through the pale and only the strongest made it through.
00:31:45
Speaker
And as he's talking, he's drawing something on a piece of paper.
Constellation and Character Revelation
00:31:49
Speaker
And then he says, a rare creature, the middle one of them, a unique treasure.
00:31:54
Speaker
We cut out of the interview and back into the cafe and Jesper shows the two what the paper is.
00:32:00
Speaker
And it looks like a constellation of dozens of dots.
00:32:04
Speaker
And Khan is horrified.
00:32:07
Speaker
And Therese makes a note in his notebooks.
00:32:10
Speaker
We cut, we go to a flashback of 20 years ago.
00:32:13
Speaker
The boys are walking through the woods towards the beach.
00:32:17
Speaker
Khan is talking about the differentiation between bodies of water, while Jesper and Therese compare cigarettes.
00:32:24
Speaker
They get to an overlook and begin using a pair of binoculars to look at people on the beach, specifically Annie Ellen Lund, as she sunbathes.
00:32:33
Speaker
On her back is a constellation of birthmarks that go from above her butt to her shoulder blade.
00:32:39
Speaker
And we cut to present day.
00:32:41
Speaker
The vibe is very cold now in the little booth.
00:32:44
Speaker
And Khan begins freaking out about how Vidkun Hurd knew about her birthmark pattern on her back.
00:32:53
Speaker
They talk about how it's called a control fact, something that is left out of official documentation so that only a few people would actually know about it.
00:33:03
Speaker
And Khan and Jesper are pressuring Therese to do something about this.
00:33:10
Speaker
Therese mentions that things are really bad right now in the ICP.
00:33:13
Speaker
It's not a good time to begin digging up old cases, but he's going to Kronstadt tomorrow, which is where Vink and Hurd is being held.
00:33:23
Speaker
And then Jesper daydreams about finding the girls and being thanked that they were all being looked for for all this time.
00:33:33
Speaker
And I have to say that this is where I started to kind of... At first, I was kind of rolling my eyes as I read this, because there are a lot of big ideas in this book, which is no great surprise to anyone who's played Disco Elysium for even a minute.
00:33:51
Speaker
A lot of big ideas.
00:33:53
Speaker
And to me, I told Kevin at one point, I was like, well, no wonder this...
00:33:57
Speaker
was a video game, you know, because it's just he's all over the place.
00:34:00
Speaker
It's so so many different ideas and that kind of thing.
00:34:05
Speaker
And the funny thing is, is this chapter right here when he talks about seeing the freckles on her back and everything like that, that was when it turned for me.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I was like, fuck, that's exactly how that feels.
00:34:16
Speaker
I remember that summer.
00:34:18
Speaker
I you had that summer.
00:34:19
Speaker
I had that summer.
00:34:21
Speaker
If you're lucky, most of you had that summer where there was some girl
00:34:25
Speaker
maybe a group of girls or something that were just totally out of your league and you doggedly pursued them anyway and tried to impress them.
00:34:31
Speaker
And it was just part of that.
00:34:33
Speaker
It just captured something very universal and good.
00:34:37
Speaker
Like you said, a very kind of stand by me sort of way.
00:34:40
Speaker
You know what?
00:34:40
Speaker
The flashbacks, the flashbacks are basically like the sandlot.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yes, yes, exactly.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
00:34:48
Speaker
There's a lot of that.
00:34:49
Speaker
Good natured sexism.
00:34:51
Speaker
You know, it's yeah.
00:34:55
Speaker
And this and this is honestly where I started to turn where it's like,
00:34:59
Speaker
that's good writing.
00:35:00
Speaker
Like that's just, that's just, that's really very real.
00:35:04
Speaker
And I don't know how he is.
00:35:07
Speaker
What's most impressive.
00:35:08
Speaker
I think about this book in general is how he's able to balance that kind of weird childhood, nostalgia stuff with a speculative fiction detective novel.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:19
Speaker
It's so weird that he's able to combine all those genres and it actually works.
00:35:24
Speaker
And what's the, and what's the, the other genre this would be is like fan fan.
00:35:29
Speaker
fantasy realism or something like that.
00:35:31
Speaker
I mean, yeah, like, yeah, yeah.
00:35:34
Speaker
What do you call it?
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
I forget.
00:35:36
Speaker
Fantastic realism or something like that.
00:35:37
Speaker
Because it's like, it's ish present day ish.
00:35:42
Speaker
It's got fantastical elements sort of kind of,
00:35:46
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
That's I, when it comes to that, I just, I just throw speculative on it.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's all speculative.
00:35:54
Speaker
It's it's weird.
00:35:56
Speaker
It's fucking weird.
00:35:58
Speaker
They got void oceans.
00:35:59
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:01
Speaker
But that's the thing.
00:36:02
Speaker
It could have just been a very effective, you know, tale of nostalgia.
00:36:07
Speaker
It could have been just a very effective detective story.
00:36:10
Speaker
It could have been just a very effective speculative world.
00:36:13
Speaker
And he managed to combine all three and it's,
00:36:16
Speaker
Kind of uncanny.
00:36:18
Speaker
It's bizarre.
00:36:19
Speaker
You don't, you don't see that a lot.
00:36:20
Speaker
So yeah, it doesn't always work, but when it works, fuck, it's really good.
00:36:24
Speaker
And that was the turning point for me.
00:36:26
Speaker
And you know, what's, what's amazing is you might think I've had a lot of story beats to read out so far.
00:36:32
Speaker
This is like 25 pages into the book.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:37
Speaker
And that's what I mean when I say this is dense shit.
00:36:42
Speaker
This is dense.
00:36:43
Speaker
I got about 15 minutes into reading this book and I was like, oh, I'm glad Kevin took the lead on this one.
00:36:50
Speaker
Oh, boy.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
A lot of work.
00:36:55
Speaker
A lot of work.
00:36:56
Speaker
So we start chapter five, which is titled Zaum.
00:37:03
Speaker
20 years ago, the girls on the beach noticed the glint of the binoculars off in the distance and
00:37:09
Speaker
and can see the boys as Malin flashes an evil grin in their direction.
00:37:14
Speaker
The boys try to dive to the ground and be like, ah, they see us, and they try to hide, but it's too late.
00:37:19
Speaker
The girls already saw them.
00:37:22
Speaker
Khan gets off the ground and checks on them, and the girls now have a pair of binoculars.
00:37:26
Speaker
Like, this is such an amazing little moment where Khan peeks his head up, and one of the girls is now holding a pair of binoculars up to look at them.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:40
Speaker
So Therese decides to do something drastic.
00:37:42
Speaker
He stands up and waves to the girls shouting hello to them.
00:37:45
Speaker
And then he jumps off the cliff down to the sand from four stories in the air.
00:37:51
Speaker
This is this and they cut it here.
00:37:53
Speaker
Like they, we, isn't this, don't they like cut to another?
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:57
Speaker
We cut to present day.
00:37:58
Speaker
It's like, it's like he's about to do a goddamn superhero fucking landing.
00:38:03
Speaker
And they're like, all right, but, but present day.
00:38:05
Speaker
It's like, no, did he die?
00:38:06
Speaker
How did that work?
00:38:07
Speaker
It's truly crazy.
00:38:10
Speaker
It's truly crazy.
00:38:12
Speaker
Present day, Therese is making his way into Vasa on his way to Kronstadt, where he is going to see Vidkenherd.
00:38:19
Speaker
He is on a ferry and the waves are tossing him about as he thinks about how, to most people, he could easily be mistaken as someone from Grodd.
00:38:28
Speaker
So Grodd is kind of like the big superpower of the world-ish.
00:38:32
Speaker
at this time.
00:38:34
Speaker
He is not from Grodd.
00:38:35
Speaker
He's from an area that Grodd took over and people refer to him as a Kyoko, which at one point was like a slur for his people and they just took on as a mantle of pride.
00:38:51
Speaker
Sure.
00:38:52
Speaker
We have no examples of that in our country, so let's move on.
00:38:56
Speaker
No, we'll move on.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah.
Cultural Reflection and Superpower Influence
00:38:59
Speaker
Uh, Therese also reminisces about how he took a, he one time took a train trip, uh, through the pale just to hang out in Charlotte's y'all two years ago, but he didn't tell, uh, Jasper or Khan because they were still arguing over quote, the restaurant thing.
00:39:15
Speaker
Um,
00:39:16
Speaker
The but the police psychologist banned him from more pale travel that year for taking that trip.
00:39:25
Speaker
We cut back to 20 years ago.
00:39:26
Speaker
Therese clearly landed safely because Khan also ends up jumping off the cliff.
00:39:33
Speaker
And but Jesper decides not to take the risk and takes the long way down, which takes the better part of a half hour.
00:39:41
Speaker
When he gets down, the girls are nowhere to be seen, but he tracks them by scent.
00:39:46
Speaker
Which.
00:39:47
Speaker
Oh.
00:39:49
Speaker
Well, there's the thing is you find out that his mother is a perfumer.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:54
Speaker
So he's like very he's he's very knowledgeable about perfume and things like that.
00:40:01
Speaker
And they have a lovely day together.
00:40:05
Speaker
Not going to get on until the beats of the day, but it's like it.
00:40:08
Speaker
But it is.
00:40:09
Speaker
It's such a it's it's a summer loving kind of like scene.
00:40:13
Speaker
It's fucking great.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's adorable.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's wistful.
00:40:17
Speaker
I really enjoyed it.
00:40:18
Speaker
It really has the vibes of any cute moments or, hey, these kids are having a good time.
00:40:23
Speaker
Look at those young love, all that shit.
00:40:25
Speaker
It's very cute.
00:40:26
Speaker
It's very cute.
00:40:28
Speaker
Meanwhile, someone only known as the linoleum salesman is watching them.
00:40:33
Speaker
Oh, fucking linoleum salesman.
00:40:36
Speaker
which God damn it.
00:40:37
Speaker
Linoleum salesman is like, it's, it's just the most unnerving title he could have chosen for a villain for, for who is probably the most unnerving character in this, maybe in the entire series of books we've ever read.
00:40:56
Speaker
I is a, what an upsetting fucking character, what an upsetting character, the linoleum salesman.
00:41:02
Speaker
Um, so, uh,
00:41:06
Speaker
Present day, Therese is arguing with the guard to let him talk to Vidkun.
00:41:10
Speaker
The guard leaves and Vidkun begins shouting his racist nonsense.
00:41:15
Speaker
Therese begins pressuring him about the drawing and Vidkun is like not back.
00:41:20
Speaker
He's not going to give him anything.
00:41:22
Speaker
Um, so he's making a lot of noise and the guard begins rattling the door to try to come back into the room.
00:41:28
Speaker
Um, and Therese at this point, like jams the lock and is like, listen, you know, I have a right to be in here.
00:41:36
Speaker
Uh, and, and he, Therese opens the, the, his briefcase to reveal the Za'um, um,
00:41:43
Speaker
which is, you know, there's some descriptions here and there.
00:41:46
Speaker
It's kind of tough to like, it was kind of tough to visualize, but it, this is basically, it's like a truth serum machine, but also what's the thing from Blade Runner?
00:42:02
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh fuck.
00:42:04
Speaker
What is that called?
00:42:05
Speaker
I have to find that out now.
00:42:07
Speaker
The test from Blade Runner.
00:42:11
Speaker
Voight-Kampff test mixed with a truth serum machine mixed with like, I don't know, some other types of horrifying fucking steampunk drug stuff.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:26
Speaker
It's just nasty business.
00:42:28
Speaker
The guard continues to rattle at the door and Therese shouts at the guard.
00:42:32
Speaker
He has a right to be there and he better stop fucking with the door.
00:42:37
Speaker
What follows seems to be an acid trip, and I'm not sure what's real.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
But basically, Therese injects... He puts a cuff on himself, and he puts a cuff on Vidkun and injects him with stuff, like yellow, this sickly yellow fluid, and eventually it...
00:43:07
Speaker
breaks his blood brain barrier and to raise this where he's like shouting about he's fucking him or something like that or i i i'm not sure he might be he might be chatting that yeah he also yeah he's saying some horrible shit to him he's saying some horrible shit and he also i and this is the thing i don't know if this actually happens
00:43:31
Speaker
It says he cracks Vidkun's head open.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
And Vidkun is trying to catch parts of his brain as they fall down to the floor with his hands, but they're too slippery.
00:43:45
Speaker
Now, I don't know if that actually happened or if that is just what Vidkin is seeing.
00:43:50
Speaker
Like, is he scarecrowing him?
00:43:53
Speaker
Is this the Batman villain scarecrow doing this?
00:43:57
Speaker
That's what I assumed.
00:43:59
Speaker
That's what I assumed based on the machine that they talk about.
Mystery of the Lund Girls Solved?
00:44:05
Speaker
But...
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:06
Speaker
But in the following chapter, we'll find out.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'll just so basically he gets into Vidkun's head to find out what's going on.
00:44:16
Speaker
And then we cut basically from that to later Therese being standing on the ship of a police boat with handcuffed.
00:44:29
Speaker
And he's saying to himself that he solved the mystery of the Lund girls disappearance.
00:44:37
Speaker
How'd you do that?
00:44:39
Speaker
Nevermind.
00:44:39
Speaker
Nevermind.
00:44:41
Speaker
Chapter six.
Historical Insight: Frantichek the Brave
00:44:42
Speaker
Chapter six is called Frantichek the brave, which is another one.
00:44:46
Speaker
It's like kind of like chapter three.
00:44:47
Speaker
It begins with a hit, a lesson on how progress is built on the history of failure.
00:44:52
Speaker
And it talks about an opera singer, like how some things are better to not know.
00:44:57
Speaker
Like, yeah,
00:44:58
Speaker
this story about and how an opera singer sings the concert of her life.
00:45:02
Speaker
She goes out and she disappears and how probably a bit better if people had just never found her, but instead they find her bloated corpse, uh, dashed on some rocks and her rip, her dress was all torn up.
00:45:16
Speaker
And she's just like the lasting image of her is this like bloated dead being rather than just mysteriously disappearing.
00:45:25
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
And it talks about how Mazov, the Lenin Marx of this world, killed himself.
00:45:31
Speaker
Now, things that he wanted for the world ultimately fell apart at the feet of Grodd, a country that has expanded like a tumor.
00:45:39
Speaker
And
00:45:42
Speaker
we hear about the story of a Koiko's revolutionary named Frantichek the Brave, who was someone who scared Grodd militiamen because he seemingly seemed like he could be anywhere.
00:45:53
Speaker
He was like the boogeyman, right?
00:45:55
Speaker
And this kind of like loops back around to the sometimes things are better left unknown.
00:46:01
Speaker
He was a hero that couldn't be stopped.
00:46:03
Speaker
And then one day it's discovered he had just been shot and killed behind a waste facility.
00:46:07
Speaker
Like the idea of his...
00:46:11
Speaker
even if he disappeared, his legend as a man and as a hero would be stronger than if they're like, oh, there he is.
00:46:20
Speaker
He's dead in a 7-Eleven parking lot.
00:46:25
Speaker
Those final moments can mar the legend.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's... Real Batman level stuff.
00:46:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:46:33
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:46:38
Speaker
Chapter seven is titled, The World is Going Wrong, Time is Out of Joint.
Khan's Mysterious Basement Life
00:46:43
Speaker
And we start with Khan getting ready for his day.
00:46:46
Speaker
He lives in the basement of his mother's house and he's surrounded by toys, trinkets, doodads, models that all come alive in the morning while Khan sings and dances to a song and he looks over all of his stuff.
00:46:57
Speaker
And amongst the piles of stuff includes letters from Malin, which are sent after she was kidnapped and had a 95% match for her handwriting.
00:47:06
Speaker
But he's always like held on to them as they seem something seemed weird about them.
00:47:11
Speaker
Khan's mom calls downstairs to tell him that his friend is here and to brush his teeth.
00:47:19
Speaker
I love the little detail.
00:47:21
Speaker
Like his mom, his mom is amazing.
00:47:24
Speaker
She gets like only a few pages in this entire book, but she's hysterical.
00:47:28
Speaker
Well, that's what I mean.
00:47:29
Speaker
He writes characters so well.
00:47:31
Speaker
Even this mom character who we barely see is just she's memorable and funny and good.
00:47:36
Speaker
I I'm impressed by this guy's chops.
00:47:39
Speaker
It sees he's a good damn writer.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:41
Speaker
We got to two years ago.
00:47:43
Speaker
We see Khan on a date at a restaurant and he's having trouble focusing because he believes everybody is talking shit about how he looks while he's sitting there.
00:47:52
Speaker
Right.
00:47:52
Speaker
Been there, buddy.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:55
Speaker
Date comments on the restaurant and Khan mentions how it was his friend who actually designed it.
00:48:01
Speaker
And he talks, he's like, oh, yeah, my friend Jesper, he's the best, blah, blah, blah.
00:48:05
Speaker
And the girl is like, oh, I've heard of him.
00:48:08
Speaker
And she like looks over behind Khan and he like turns around and there's Jesper and he's meeting with his friend, Conrad Gessel.
00:48:16
Speaker
And Conrad Gessel is the guy, I forgot to mention it.
00:48:19
Speaker
He's the documentary filmmaker that was interviewing Vidkun Hurd in the earlier scene.
00:48:24
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:48:26
Speaker
Khan makes a big scene of it being like, Yes, for it's your buddy, Khan.
00:48:31
Speaker
Hey, you got me the reservation.
00:48:34
Speaker
And yes, for is like, I don't know this guy.
00:48:37
Speaker
I don't know.
00:48:37
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know her.
00:48:40
Speaker
And now we know what the restaurant thing was about.
00:48:46
Speaker
Finally.
00:48:46
Speaker
Finally.
00:48:47
Speaker
Why they were fighting.
00:48:52
Speaker
We jump back to 20 years ago with the girls and the boys, the Lund girls and the boys are hanging out on the cliff that they had been at earlier.
00:49:02
Speaker
Jesper is obsessed with Ani in a somewhat...
00:49:05
Speaker
not great way, uh, the book seemingly hints at, um, we continue this scene of them hanging out in deep descriptions of how the, of how the, of the girls, uh, like there's,
00:49:19
Speaker
It could be a little uncomfortable to read.
00:49:21
Speaker
There's a lot of like descriptions of like how they look.
00:49:23
Speaker
And remember, these are like 13 year old girls, right?
00:49:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was of two minds about it.
00:49:30
Speaker
On one hand, it was like this is through the eyes of these boys who are smitten and all that shit.
00:49:36
Speaker
So a lot of it makes sense.
00:49:37
Speaker
But and they are age appropriate for.
00:49:41
Speaker
it, but I am 41 and uncomfortable now.
00:49:46
Speaker
So yeah, it was tough.
00:49:49
Speaker
It's tough.
00:49:52
Speaker
But still, you know, it's more of the, hey, things were good.
00:49:56
Speaker
Weren't they back then?
00:50:00
Speaker
So Khan is also doing his thing where he talks.
00:50:05
Speaker
He's like basically a walking encyclopedia and he's talking about a bunch of stuff.
00:50:09
Speaker
And he starts telling the story of an emperor who sent his fleet off into the world to find peaches that would make anyone that ate them immortal.
00:50:20
Speaker
We cut to present Therese is released from jail and given his clothes back.
00:50:25
Speaker
And his memories are all kind of jumbled up as a result of using the Zaum on Vidkenherd.
00:50:33
Speaker
He's also, and this is the thing that leads me to believe maybe not all of it was fake because he's covered in Vidkenherd's blood.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:44
Speaker
That's the thing.
00:50:45
Speaker
That's just it.
00:50:46
Speaker
There's enough of it that like, well, how maybe he wasn't literally grabbing pieces of his brain, but some shit went down.
00:50:53
Speaker
Some shit went down in there.
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:02
Speaker
And then meanwhile, we cut to the aftermath of the restaurant scene from two years ago.
00:51:09
Speaker
Khan comes home from his date and he makes a call to someone and he's looking for the instruction manual to his Harnan Kaur model airship.
00:51:18
Speaker
Present day, Khan is showing Jesper his collection of model things that have disappeared.
00:51:23
Speaker
So basically all of his models are of things that famously disappeared.
00:51:28
Speaker
Like they just vanished off the face of the earth.
00:51:31
Speaker
Like the story of the fleet that disappeared looking for the peaches or this airship called the Harnan Corps that disappeared.
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:41
Speaker
And so he shows Jesper the Harnon core and he's like, look at this thing.
00:51:47
Speaker
They're marveling at the model.
00:51:49
Speaker
And it's something that could it was something that could pass through the pale.
00:51:55
Speaker
And they sit.
00:51:57
Speaker
So they sit down and they're just looking at it, talking about whatever Therese must be doing now.
00:52:02
Speaker
And they wonder what Vidkun might have told them.
00:52:05
Speaker
Jesper gives Khan a present, but hides his charity under the cover of one of his, oh yeah, one of my female friends gave it to me and they totally forgot what size I am.
00:52:17
Speaker
Here you go, buddy.
00:52:18
Speaker
Because Khan only owns one shirt.
00:52:23
Speaker
It's such a it's such a guy thing of like how I took it as both hiding the charity like of like like I don't want to make him feel bad, but also it's such a bro thing.
00:52:33
Speaker
That's like it's like I didn't get you a present.
00:52:36
Speaker
I'm not gay.
00:52:36
Speaker
Like I just I just thought, you know, sure.
00:52:39
Speaker
She she she got me the wrong size.
00:52:43
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:52:43
Speaker
No homo.
00:52:44
Speaker
Like it's it's right.
00:52:46
Speaker
I took it as both of those way.
00:52:47
Speaker
It's right.
00:52:50
Speaker
So meanwhile, Therese goes to a little convenience store.
00:52:56
Speaker
He asks for cigarettes.
00:52:58
Speaker
They don't have them.
00:52:59
Speaker
So he takes hard candy instead.
00:53:01
Speaker
And he calls Khan's house.
00:53:04
Speaker
There's a funny bit with Khan's house.
00:53:07
Speaker
Khan's mother answers and she's like, oh, Therese, you always used to listen to me.
00:53:13
Speaker
You should stop looking into this.
00:53:15
Speaker
I saw the girl's mother at the doctor the other day and you need to she can move on.
00:53:21
Speaker
You guys can move.
00:53:21
Speaker
It's just like this.
00:53:24
Speaker
And he's like, yes, Mrs. Khan, can you tell is any out there?
00:53:30
Speaker
And she's like, OK, then and any yacht is like, who is that mom?
00:53:37
Speaker
And she's like, OK.
00:53:40
Speaker
I forget the name.
00:53:41
Speaker
She says it's like some soup.
00:53:43
Speaker
It's your secret admirer.
00:53:44
Speaker
And it's some like supermodel name or whatever.
00:53:47
Speaker
Right.
00:53:47
Speaker
Right.
00:53:50
Speaker
And so then, yes, Therese.
00:53:56
Speaker
And Khan get on the phone with Therese.
00:53:59
Speaker
And he's like, all right, you guys got to meet me in a town in a town called Lovisa by an old folks home named Skyming, which houses a man named Derek Trent Mueller, who also references something called the Kexholm Circle, which the other two thought was an old wives tale.
00:54:21
Speaker
We then have an interlude about how people obsessed with the stories of the girls' disappearance believe that they love the girls more than their own mother did because she moved past it, which is like a biting commentary to like this like...
00:54:35
Speaker
this culture of like, you know, it's almost like, it's almost like perfect commentary for like true crime stuff, you know?
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
There's like almost a parasocial kind of commentary.
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:47
Speaker
It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's like the family moved past it.
00:54:51
Speaker
So we clearly love the girls more and be like, no, they just wanted to get on with their lives.
00:54:56
Speaker
Well, that that ownership that people have of somebody that at least these guys knew the girls, you know, at least they actually met them, you know.
00:55:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:06
Speaker
But yeah, there's there's definitely a true crime vibe to it.
00:55:09
Speaker
They had their one summer with the girls.
00:55:12
Speaker
And then they were taken away, you know, like I understand it.
00:55:17
Speaker
I get it.
00:55:17
Speaker
There's just like, yeah, they have this, this, this sense of closure.
00:55:22
Speaker
It's not, not saying it's healthy.
00:55:24
Speaker
It's definitely unhealthy.
00:55:27
Speaker
Guys will open up a 20 year old cold case instead of going to therapy, you know?
00:55:32
Speaker
That's the subtitle for this book.
00:55:37
Speaker
Really?
00:55:38
Speaker
I mean,
00:55:40
Speaker
What these boys really need is therapy.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:45
Speaker
Without a doubt.
00:55:49
Speaker
So that we have an interlude while they travel about how.
00:55:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I said that we move back to the past where Khan is finishing the story to the girls of the crew that went off to find the immortal peaches and things get flirty between the group.
00:56:05
Speaker
And then the girls ask what the boys are doing on Saturday.
00:56:09
Speaker
And the and be like, oh, we got nothing going on.
00:56:11
Speaker
So the girls are like, all right, well, you know, we'll find a place and we need you guys to get some cherry speed, which is some sort of amphetamine.
00:56:20
Speaker
They also point out that by Madge, their youngest sister, who's only four, will not be joining them.
00:56:27
Speaker
on this.
00:56:28
Speaker
Good.
00:56:28
Speaker
Good.
00:56:29
Speaker
Yeah.
Task to Acquire Amphetamines
00:56:30
Speaker
I'm all for kids, you know, enjoying drugs together, but leave the four year old at home.
00:56:36
Speaker
This is where it gets really it.
00:56:39
Speaker
You know?
00:56:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:41
Speaker
This this kind of stuff.
00:56:44
Speaker
Madeline gives Khan the number for a kid named Ziggy who they can get the drugs from.
00:56:51
Speaker
Chapter eight and the last chapter we'll cover for today is titled Linoleum Salesman.
Sinister Motives of the Salesman
00:56:58
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ.
00:56:59
Speaker
This fucking guy.
00:57:01
Speaker
The opening of the chapter.
00:57:03
Speaker
And whenever he's introduced, he is it is linoleum salesman, linoleum salesman.
00:57:08
Speaker
The linoleum salesman is what is is the first few sentences is the first like three words.
00:57:15
Speaker
It's over and over again, over again.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:17
Speaker
Like like Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.
00:57:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:20
Speaker
That kind of shit.
00:57:20
Speaker
That kind of shit.
00:57:22
Speaker
The opening of the of the chapter is a bit creepy and talks about a man called the linoleum salesman who is clearly some sort of pedophile who stalks children.
00:57:30
Speaker
He ends up in Keck's home and meets a bunch of other quote unquote professionals that only go by names like Gardner, podiatrist, et cetera.
00:57:39
Speaker
We cut to the guys and they are power walking towards the old folks home while Khan struggles to keep up.
00:57:46
Speaker
They tell him he needs to get his heart checked out.
00:57:50
Speaker
Therese talks about how Derek Trentmuller was part of the Kecksholm ring and knew a lot about what certain members did.
00:57:56
Speaker
And he imparted that stuff to Vidkun Heard.
00:57:59
Speaker
Therese shares that the picture of the constellation that is Ali on her back,
00:58:11
Speaker
was given to her by Derek, who had been given it by the leader of the Kexholm ring.
00:58:17
Speaker
And the Kexholm ring is literally just this ring of vile, pedophile guys, basically, that lived in Kexholm.
00:58:26
Speaker
So it's likely Derek knows who took the girls.
00:58:29
Speaker
But the problem is, Derek is going senile.
00:58:33
Speaker
We cut back to the linoleum salesman's point of view.
00:58:36
Speaker
He was there the day that Sven von Fursten beat up Khan and then and he walks away.
00:58:42
Speaker
He was like watching through the fence or something like that.
00:58:45
Speaker
He's obsessed with the Lund girls and he realizes as he walks away, he decides that before he kills himself, he is going to have them.
00:58:55
Speaker
Therese, Khan, and Jesper find Derek.
00:58:59
Speaker
Therese begins questioning him about the drawing, and Derek claims he doesn't remember because of his memory disease.
00:59:05
Speaker
Things get heated.
00:59:06
Speaker
Therese is like, ah, fuck you up, old man.
00:59:10
Speaker
And then he threatens Derek with his own machine.
00:59:12
Speaker
He's going to like, I will scoop your memories out like ice cream.
00:59:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:20
Speaker
Therese is not doing well.
00:59:22
Speaker
Gets real Nick Cage on him.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:27
Speaker
Face off.
00:59:34
Speaker
Therese.
00:59:35
Speaker
So then Khan intervenes and is like, let me let me try.
00:59:40
Speaker
Derek admits to Khan by with the softer thing that his boyfriend went by the name, the linoleum salesman.
00:59:47
Speaker
And the only way the Kexo and that was the only way the Kexo guys refer to themselves by their profession.
00:59:54
Speaker
Derek then reveals that the linoleum salesman used to watch the girls from the hotel window and have sangular.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:05
Speaker
We flashback 18 years to Derek and Vidkun in a jail cell together.
01:00:09
Speaker
Derek talks about how the linoleum salesman stitched the girls together to join them together.
01:00:19
Speaker
The smallest died, but the others lived.
01:00:23
Speaker
Ugh.
01:00:26
Speaker
We get another interstitial scene of the linoleum salesman walking around Charlotte's Y'all thinking about how much he loves this beach town and how much he loves the girls.
01:00:47
Speaker
The guys walk out of the old folks' home to a cab, and Jesper says they can go to Telefunken and make all the calls they need, which I assume later, it seems like it's like a restaurant or something like that.
01:01:00
Speaker
Khan tells Therese that he is not happy that he used the Zaum on herd because he could get himself let go from the police department because it's like...
01:01:08
Speaker
kind of a war crime.
01:01:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:11
Speaker
It's used as a machine.
01:01:14
Speaker
It's frowned upon.
01:01:15
Speaker
It's frowned upon generally.
01:01:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:18
Speaker
Therese tells them not to worry about it because he has it all under control.
01:01:21
Speaker
Spoiler alert.
01:01:22
Speaker
Therese does not have anything under control.
01:01:25
Speaker
No, no.
01:01:26
Speaker
As per his Nick Cage-ness earlier.
01:01:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:32
Speaker
We cut back to 20 years ago from the liminoleum salesman's point of view.
01:01:35
Speaker
We are seeing the girls on the beach.
01:01:39
Speaker
We're seeing the scene on the beach when the boys first talked to the girls from his point of view through the spyglass.
01:01:46
Speaker
He had been he remembers how he had been following them around for days, inventing stories about them.
01:01:52
Speaker
And then he he wanks it thinking about them.
01:01:58
Speaker
And in his post nut clarity forgets about his persona as the linoleum salesman.
01:02:05
Speaker
And the way he describes this is so like it literally says that the linoleum salesman leaves him through his penis, basically with the nut.
01:02:19
Speaker
And and and he's a new person now, essentially, which.
01:02:24
Speaker
I think anyone who has understands that feeling on a certain level, but maybe not on the psychopathic level.
01:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, maybe not on this level.
01:02:32
Speaker
This is.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:34
Speaker
Much present day.
01:02:38
Speaker
We got to somewhere completely different.
01:02:41
Speaker
There's a research vessel that tracks the progression of the pale, a formless entity of entropy as it approaches.
01:02:50
Speaker
The research vessel basically goes into a panic mode because it's noticing the pale is starting to move at a certain clip that is uncomfortable for everybody.
01:02:59
Speaker
They send out an SOS and parts of Gharad are now to be labeled as zones of intimate, intimate,
01:03:07
Speaker
entroponetic catastrophe.
01:03:11
Speaker
And the book says the class reunion was two nights ago.
01:03:15
Speaker
Now it's the end of the world.
01:03:18
Speaker
The guys are at a restaurant while Therese is on the phone talking with the secretary of the Hav Sanglar Hotel and making her read out the entire guest list from June and July in the 52nd year.
01:03:33
Speaker
The secretary hangs up several times, but once Therese sends a note to management that the lives of four little girls are on your hands, they begin to comply again.
01:03:42
Speaker
Meanwhile, Jesper is volunteering to figure out Kexholm.
01:03:45
Speaker
He's like, I know some people in Kexholm.
01:03:47
Speaker
Maybe I can go down there and figure some stuff out.
01:03:50
Speaker
And while he's talking, he's talking about this.
01:03:52
Speaker
Therese is like, wait, wait, shut the fuck up.
01:03:54
Speaker
Say that again.
01:03:55
Speaker
The secretary has mentioned Derek Trent Miller's name.
01:04:00
Speaker
He was there in June in the 52nd year.
01:04:03
Speaker
His, the reason he was there was for vacation.
01:04:08
Speaker
His occupation listed linoleum salesman.
01:04:15
Speaker
Ah.
01:04:15
Speaker
And when I, the first time I saw that, I was like, ah, like the little chills on my back.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:23
Speaker
They break into Derek's room at night and Therese uses the Zaum machine on him.
The Zaum Machine's Exhausting Effects
01:04:28
Speaker
He comes through all of Derek's memories, but the actual act is not there.
01:04:36
Speaker
The girls, he does find a memory of the girls going missing, like Derek Trump-Miller seeing a news article that the girls have gone missing.
01:04:47
Speaker
And he was upset that the girls have gone missing because he didn't get to take them.
01:04:54
Speaker
The Zaul machine takes a lot of Therese and the other two drag him away to sleep it off.
01:05:03
Speaker
And that's where we'll leave off for tonight's episode.
01:05:07
Speaker
Woof.
01:05:08
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
01:05:17
Speaker
chapter eight is a fucking ride chapter eight is is is um yeah that is a turning point it's it's it really twists the knife at that point right when you said that you were going to make sure to get through chapter and i was like i thank god we gotta end on that note that has to you can't we can't start a new episode with chapter eight we've
01:05:39
Speaker
No, no.
01:05:40
Speaker
Chapter eight is, it feels, felt like, okay, well, this is the end of, you know, an act basically in the story.
01:05:48
Speaker
Pretty much.
01:05:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:51
Speaker
Because Therese is saying, I'm sorry, guys, it's a dead end.
01:05:56
Speaker
There's nothing else we can do.
01:05:57
Speaker
It's a dead end.
01:05:59
Speaker
And Khan is like, I might know a guy that can help.
01:06:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:04
Speaker
So it's like there Therese as a cop has has exhausted all of his options, basically.
01:06:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:15
Speaker
So what do you think so far?
01:06:17
Speaker
Oh, this is, this is the kind of writing that, um, this is, by the way, is the closest we're going to get to covering something like something hardcore lit wise, like blood Meridian.
01:06:29
Speaker
Yes.
01:06:31
Speaker
This is, this is lit lit.
01:06:32
Speaker
Like, uh, despite the fact that it didn't do well, you can't deny there's a level of, uh, of lit quality there that we don't, that might be absent in a lot of the, uh, Sonic hedgehog adaptations we cover.
01:06:45
Speaker
Uh,
01:06:48
Speaker
I think this is a valuable kind of book for people to read, especially if you're an American or someone who was on the West side of the Cold War, for example.
01:07:02
Speaker
The Estonian people were part of the Soviet bloc until 91, and just like any American
01:07:13
Speaker
part of the any tentacle of the Soviet empire, if you will, that shit did not go away lightly.
01:07:23
Speaker
It did not go away easily.
01:07:24
Speaker
And what you get from this is all, as you pointed out, Kevin, all these parallels to your Leninist character, your Stalin character.
01:07:32
Speaker
You've got there are some undeniable parallels to a history that and this guy's own.
01:07:40
Speaker
He's your age.
01:07:41
Speaker
I think he was born in 84.
01:07:42
Speaker
You're born in 84, yeah?
01:07:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:45
Speaker
And so that's, you know, it's not a huge amount of time to have lived under those conditions, but to have lived in it and the immediate aftermath of its dissolution, you can see how that shit doesn't really go anywhere.
01:08:03
Speaker
And it's...
01:08:04
Speaker
there's a fascinating take here.
01:08:07
Speaker
Uh, yeah, this is, this is, it's a very interesting world because on one hand it's super individual and super unique and interesting.
01:08:14
Speaker
And on the other hand, you're like, this is Soviet shit.
01:08:17
Speaker
Like this is, this is post post Soviet cold war fantasy, uh, kind of, kind of stuff.
01:08:24
Speaker
Really neat because a lot of times, I mean, there's other, uh, I feel like, what is it?
01:08:29
Speaker
Um,
01:08:30
Speaker
uh stalker i think is something uh in that vein as well um stalkers yeah roadside roadside picnic is the name is the name of the book and then there's the movie tarkovsky movie stalker but yes metro i think is also yeah um
01:08:49
Speaker
Metro Exodus and all those games.
01:08:52
Speaker
All those, yeah.
01:08:53
Speaker
They're all like based on it's good to experience this stuff because it kind of broadens your point of view on the way, like just the way stories are.
01:09:07
Speaker
Because there is a lot of, there's a heaviness to everything in this.
01:09:15
Speaker
Oh, pathologic.
01:09:18
Speaker
Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:09:19
Speaker
Jesus.
01:09:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:21
Speaker
There's that's Eastern European as fuck.
01:09:24
Speaker
My, my dad always told me about this.
01:09:27
Speaker
My dad always got a kick out of, um, when I, when I started reading animal farm in high school, my dad got really excited because he loves that shit.
01:09:34
Speaker
Sure.
01:09:35
Speaker
And, uh, and, and he always told me he always enjoyed the bleak,
01:09:40
Speaker
cold sense of humor that you get from that Eastern kind of atmosphere.
01:09:46
Speaker
And he said, I wish I knew what story this is from.
01:09:49
Speaker
But the thing he always references, this story of some guy standing on a bridge, puking his guts out over the side of the bridge.
01:09:58
Speaker
And this other guy walks up to him and nods at him, goes, I know exactly how you feel.
01:10:02
Speaker
And it's just, he said, that summarizes that kind of,
01:10:08
Speaker
Dark, nihilistic sense.
01:10:11
Speaker
And I get a lot of that from this.
01:10:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:14
Speaker
There's a lot of really interesting stuff here.
01:10:17
Speaker
It's bleak.
01:10:17
Speaker
It's dark.
01:10:18
Speaker
But it also has a sense of humor, which might seem odd to somebody who isn't familiar with this kind of aesthetic.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:27
Speaker
But it's done really well.
01:10:29
Speaker
I'm enjoying it.
01:10:30
Speaker
I really am.
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's and Estonia, by the way, which I didn't realize that Estonian, the language is actually Finnish.
01:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's not Finnish.
01:10:45
Speaker
It's Finnick as in it's not it's it's in the Finnish zone, you know.
01:10:50
Speaker
Right.
01:10:51
Speaker
But it's not like Slavic, you know.
01:10:53
Speaker
Right.
01:10:53
Speaker
It's yeah.
01:10:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:56
Speaker
Because if you look at it, I mean, look at Estonia on the map.
01:10:59
Speaker
It's like, oh, yeah, it's almost touching.
01:11:02
Speaker
I'm actually on Visit Estonia's website and they've got a Soviet era tour.
01:11:09
Speaker
Ooh, that seems like something that you would you would nom up.
01:11:14
Speaker
I would love it.
01:11:16
Speaker
Four days, 22 sites, all by tour bus.
01:11:20
Speaker
You start at the KGB museum, make your way to, oh my God, a submarine base.
01:11:28
Speaker
This is bonkers.
01:11:31
Speaker
And you end up at the, uh, the Bamu museum of occupations and freedom.
01:11:36
Speaker
Uh, I need, uh, I need someone who speaks Estonian to, to, uh, take me on this trip.
01:11:43
Speaker
This sounds amazing.
01:11:45
Speaker
Well, yeah.
01:11:46
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure if you could find like a Rick Steves type of thing, uh,
01:11:49
Speaker
Right, right.
01:11:51
Speaker
This sounds fun.
01:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, I would love this kind of thing.
01:11:58
Speaker
So yeah, this is very different from anything we've read so far on a lot of levels.
01:12:03
Speaker
And I'm really glad we're finally getting to it because this is pretty outstanding stuff.
01:12:08
Speaker
The current president of Estonia is a molecular geneticist.
01:12:14
Speaker
Sick.
01:12:15
Speaker
It's so fucking cool.
01:12:17
Speaker
I don't know what I don't know what his politics are, but yeah, they elected a scientist, though.
01:12:23
Speaker
That's kind of amazing.
01:12:25
Speaker
Interesting.
01:12:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:27
Speaker
Political party.
01:12:27
Speaker
Independent.
01:12:28
Speaker
Doesn't really that's wild.
01:12:31
Speaker
The Wikipedia on him is like really not much there.
01:12:37
Speaker
That's interesting.
01:12:39
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:12:42
Speaker
With all that being said, Phil, I have a question for you.
01:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, hit me.
01:12:47
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:12:49
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad you asked that because I'm actually playing some interesting stuff.
01:12:54
Speaker
I'm of course playing the card game that shall not be named because it's a game of the year.
01:13:02
Speaker
It's going to be there.
01:13:03
Speaker
It's always going to be there.
01:13:04
Speaker
It is this year's.
01:13:05
Speaker
You put it very well last episode, I believe.
01:13:08
Speaker
It is this year's Vampire Survivors for us.
01:13:10
Speaker
It's just always going to be running in the background.
01:13:15
Speaker
I have been playing more of I've been actually playing a ton of on my switch lately because, you know, I've got I got the kid and we spent, you know, I don't I don't get to spend as much time with the family as much as I as I might have in the past.
01:13:30
Speaker
And so we'll just be sitting there watching TV or something.
01:13:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:13:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:33
Speaker
Because you're on my switch.
01:13:34
Speaker
You're working now.
01:13:35
Speaker
You're you're working.
01:13:36
Speaker
Exactly.
01:13:37
Speaker
I'm working, man.
01:13:38
Speaker
I don't work from home anymore.
01:13:40
Speaker
And so it's it's it makes everything different.
01:13:44
Speaker
And I've been playing Darkest Dungeon still, and it actually might lead to my first ever finish of that game.
01:13:50
Speaker
I've never finished that game because I tended to play it in like larger chunks than maybe I should have.
01:13:58
Speaker
And I would get frustrated and take too many chances and fuck everything up.
01:14:03
Speaker
And when you're doing it like
01:14:06
Speaker
two, maybe three dungeons, uh, in a set and then putting the switch down.
01:14:11
Speaker
Uh, it actually, there's a level of patience built into that, that I think is necessary for a game like this.
01:14:17
Speaker
So that's been enjoyable.
01:14:19
Speaker
And I played a couple of, uh, demos actually.
01:14:22
Speaker
I played, um, super Mario versus donkey Kong.
01:14:26
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:27
Speaker
Uh, the demo for that, which is kind of just, it's, it's, it's just a, it's a puzzle game.
01:14:31
Speaker
Uh,
01:14:31
Speaker
Sure.
01:14:32
Speaker
It's fine.
01:14:33
Speaker
It's okay.
01:14:35
Speaker
But I also played a demo for, this surprised the fuck out of me how much I enjoyed this, Princess Peach Showtime.
01:14:43
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:44
Speaker
Have you seen this?
01:14:46
Speaker
I heard about it.
01:14:47
Speaker
I haven't watched anything about it, though.
01:14:49
Speaker
It's just it's a side scrolling.
01:14:52
Speaker
As far as I can tell, two button Mario style game.
01:14:57
Speaker
You play Princess Peach.
01:14:58
Speaker
You go for a night at the theater.
01:15:00
Speaker
And this theater is like a multiplex.
01:15:02
Speaker
It's got a billion different stages and stuff going on.
01:15:05
Speaker
Sure.
01:15:06
Speaker
A witch casts a spell on the place.
01:15:08
Speaker
You gotta kick some ass and each, you gotta go into these different plays and in each, and so everything, you're on a stage and has a big theatrical cardboard set up and every one of them has a different costume you can take.
01:15:20
Speaker
Like you become a swashbuckler and the different powers that come from it.
01:15:24
Speaker
And it's very simple.
01:15:26
Speaker
very straightforward, is not a challenging game.
01:15:28
Speaker
Right.
01:15:29
Speaker
But that's exactly what I need right now.
01:15:32
Speaker
And it's fun.
01:15:33
Speaker
It's really cute.
01:15:35
Speaker
The soundtrack is nice.
01:15:36
Speaker
And I haven't played like a modern Mario game in a very, very long time.
01:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, same here.
01:15:44
Speaker
The first Mario game I had played in like eons was I played a little bit of Odyssey.
01:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:15:52
Speaker
And then stopped playing it because I was like, it was cute.
01:15:56
Speaker
And then, but it wasn't like, I need to come back and play more of it, you know?
01:16:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:01
Speaker
Which is, it's fair.
01:16:03
Speaker
I think that's just me.
01:16:05
Speaker
The mascot platformer, so to speak, type of game, the 3D platformer.
01:16:13
Speaker
I honestly haven't played them since 1996.
01:16:18
Speaker
Exactly, same, absolutely.
01:16:20
Speaker
No, that's exactly how I feel.
01:16:23
Speaker
The last time I played a game like this, we were measuring systems in bits still.
01:16:29
Speaker
And so I'm behind.
01:16:32
Speaker
And so people who have been following, it might be unimpressive for other people maybe, because it is very simple.
01:16:38
Speaker
It brings to mind the idea that people have talked about with Nintendo, that they're not really a video game developer as much as a toy maker.
01:16:46
Speaker
Sure.
01:16:48
Speaker
It's simple.
01:16:49
Speaker
It has it has your challenges and your little collect-a-thon thingies like they do.
01:16:55
Speaker
And I just there's something about it that really charms the shit out of me.
01:17:02
Speaker
And I'm really enjoying it.
01:17:03
Speaker
I described it to my wife and she was like, I'm going to play this.
01:17:06
Speaker
This sounds really fun.
01:17:08
Speaker
And it is.
01:17:09
Speaker
It's really simple.
01:17:10
Speaker
It's very straightforward.
01:17:11
Speaker
It's cute.
01:17:12
Speaker
It's adorable.
01:17:12
Speaker
That's what I need right now.
01:17:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:14
Speaker
It's, it's something straightforward and cute.
01:17:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:18
Speaker
Aside from, aside from, you know, uh, jokers, um, right.
01:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:17:24
Speaker
Jokers and, and, and, and five of a kind flushes and all that shit.
01:17:29
Speaker
Um, I, uh, and I, and I did start playing, um, oh man, I'm so pissed that I can never get this name right.
01:17:38
Speaker
Uh, Pacific, I can't, I want to say Pacific Rim and I'm wrong.
01:17:42
Speaker
Pacific Drive.
01:17:43
Speaker
Thank you.
01:17:44
Speaker
Pacific Drive.
01:17:45
Speaker
I have not played enough of it to make a strong opinion on it yet, but the very, very little amount I've played, I can already tell I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it just because of the way it feels.
01:17:57
Speaker
It feels so good.
01:17:59
Speaker
The aesthetic is really nice.
01:18:01
Speaker
There's something that makes me think about Firewatch a little bit.
01:18:05
Speaker
A little cartoony, but still very beautiful.
01:18:08
Speaker
No, I could see that.
01:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:11
Speaker
So I have barely gotten into that, but I can tell that that one is going to be something I'm going to want to really sink my teeth into.
01:18:18
Speaker
So that's that's what I've been doing.
01:18:19
Speaker
Kevin, what have you been playing?
01:18:22
Speaker
Well, in concert with the book that we're reading, I have decided to really lean into a replay of Disco Elysium.
01:18:31
Speaker
Nice.
01:18:33
Speaker
And so I'm playing a character, a version of the character that is very high on emotional and actual intelligence and very low on physical fitness and reflexes.
01:18:49
Speaker
Okay.
01:18:49
Speaker
He's got a lot going on up here.
01:18:52
Speaker
But, you know, don't push him because he will fall down.
01:18:59
Speaker
I love it.
01:19:00
Speaker
I love it.
01:19:03
Speaker
So, yeah, and that's the thing I love.
01:19:05
Speaker
I like about this go Elysium is because it's it really takes me back to like, oh, you can solve this among the you can you can solve the puzzles in the game a number of ways.
01:19:16
Speaker
Right.
01:19:16
Speaker
Depending on your build.
01:19:17
Speaker
So like because you have a you have a way you can have your detective be like,
01:19:23
Speaker
all brawn where he might be dumb as a rock, but sure can punch the shit out of somebody if he needs to.
01:19:30
Speaker
Right.
01:19:32
Speaker
Or lift things or whatever.
01:19:33
Speaker
Or you can have him be like really emotionally intelligent, but not very intelligent otherwise.
01:19:40
Speaker
Or you could have him be super intelligent, but terrible at emotional intelligence.
01:19:45
Speaker
So everyone will kind of hate some a little bit.
01:19:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:50
Speaker
Either way, the dialogue is going to be interesting.
01:19:54
Speaker
The dialogue is going to be interesting and you're going to have a lot of fun.
01:19:58
Speaker
So yeah, back into Disco Elysium, the final cut, which, you know, I always have mixed feelings about playing it because...
01:20:08
Speaker
I'm like, ah, but Zahoum is like, you know, ah, but at the same time, I mean, I've had the game in my Steam library since it came out.
01:20:16
Speaker
So it's done.
01:20:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:18
Speaker
The transaction is done.
01:20:20
Speaker
I'm not going to worry too much about it.
01:20:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:24
Speaker
So, yeah, I think that's it.
01:20:27
Speaker
You know what we forgot to do is we forgot to talk about our favorite website.
01:20:34
Speaker
We did forget to talk about our favorite website.
01:20:37
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
01:20:38
Speaker
I can't believe it.
01:20:38
Speaker
What's our favorite website?
01:20:40
Speaker
That would be patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
01:20:44
Speaker
Obviously.
01:20:45
Speaker
Obviously.
01:20:50
Speaker
If you want to hear more from us or want to read more or whatever, go to patreon.com slash pixelitpod where you can, A, follow us for free.
01:21:00
Speaker
It costs you nothing.
01:21:01
Speaker
You can just hit that follow button as long as you have a Patreon account.
01:21:05
Speaker
Boom.
01:21:05
Speaker
You'll get all of our free updates.
01:21:08
Speaker
Might as well do that.
01:21:09
Speaker
It's just like being on Twitter.
01:21:12
Speaker
So I recommend it.
01:21:13
Speaker
I recommend it.
01:21:14
Speaker
I do too.
01:21:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:16
Speaker
Or you can throw us a little bit of money.
01:21:17
Speaker
We got three tiers.
01:21:18
Speaker
$10.$5, $1,
01:21:20
Speaker
donate or pledge however much you would like and join one of those tiers.
01:21:26
Speaker
We have the three tiers.
01:21:32
Speaker
$1 gets you our happiness.
01:21:35
Speaker
We are happy that you are here.
01:21:36
Speaker
$5 gives you access to the ad-free feed slash bonus feed for our stuff.
01:21:46
Speaker
And $10 gets your name shouted out
01:21:50
Speaker
In the episode.
01:21:51
Speaker
So to that end, we got a new person to shout out.
01:21:57
Speaker
We got, we got, well, we got friendly friend.
01:22:00
Speaker
I'm always going to shout out friendly friend first because I'm on friendly friend.
01:22:03
Speaker
Come on, friendly friend.
01:22:05
Speaker
We got Jesus loves you.
01:22:07
Speaker
We got ruthless mutter and we got Kyle Seaman.
01:22:10
Speaker
Thank you so much for your patronage.
01:22:15
Speaker
It's truly appreciated.
01:22:18
Speaker
Um,
01:22:19
Speaker
Patreon.com slash Pixelipod.
01:22:22
Speaker
Do it.
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Speaker
Do it.
01:22:26
Speaker
If you're wondering where to follow us, you can follow us on Twitter.
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Speaker
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01:22:34
Speaker
And you can follow us on Instagram.
01:22:36
Speaker
All at PixelitPod.
01:22:38
Speaker
You can type in PixelitPod.com, which takes you back to Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
01:22:44
Speaker
What am I doing?
01:22:45
Speaker
Another Patreon ad read?
01:22:47
Speaker
No, I'm not.
01:22:48
Speaker
I'm kidding.
01:22:49
Speaker
I'm kidding.
01:22:49
Speaker
Don't.
01:22:50
Speaker
It's covered.
01:22:51
Speaker
Although I have made I've set it up.
01:22:53
Speaker
I'm going to be I'm going to continue with the book reviews.
01:22:58
Speaker
We're going to be getting them on Mondays now.
01:23:00
Speaker
I have actually it's it's going to be once a week.
01:23:04
Speaker
I've actually dug into old reviews for books that I read in years gone by just to make sure we've always got something in there.
01:23:12
Speaker
And some of these are really funny and it's it's nice to get back to it.
01:23:15
Speaker
So we've got we've got book reviews come your way as well.
Subscription Perks: Book Review
01:23:19
Speaker
And that's your way.
01:23:21
Speaker
Any tier, any tier, any paid tier, any paid tier, get a book, a dollar gets you a book review.
01:23:26
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
01:23:27
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
01:23:28
Speaker
Yeah.
Closing Remarks and Rating Request
01:23:30
Speaker
That'll do it for tonight's episode.
01:23:32
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening.
01:23:33
Speaker
If you have a moment, please rate us five stars on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this.
01:23:41
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:23:42
Speaker
And I hope you have a good evening.
Farewell to the Audience
01:23:45
Speaker
Bye.
01:23:51
Speaker
Bye.