Flipping Patriarchy – Horace Walpole and The Castle of Otranto

VOTE FOR US by the 14 of February 2019 Australian Podcast Awards

This episode of The Frankenpod Morgan tells Brent a bit about the first gothic novel The Castle of Otranto and its creator, Horatio Walpole the 4th Earl of Oxford, known for our purposes as Horace Walpole.

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You can read The Castle of Otranto for free thanks to public domain and Project Gutenberg here

Horace Walpole was the son of the first British prime minister Robert Walpole and entered into politics himself as the elected member for Callington Cornwall. Horace Walpole never went to Callington. The constituency was what was known as a rotten borough which meant that an elected member of a very small area could be gain the same amount of influence as someone who was elected by a very populated area.

Horace spent 43 years building a gothic mansion called Strawberry Hill which is a quilt of gothic architectural elements all represented in one large building, as promised during the podcast here are some photos of Strawberry Hill:

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Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto anonymously in 1764, but the preface claims that it is a found text discovered by Catholic family in the north of England.

It is a story in which a tyrant and illegitimate ruler of the castle of Otranto named Manfred attempts through various nefarious and immoral means to maintain his lordship of Otranto.

When his son Conrad is killed by a massive helmet with a particular resemblance to the helmet on the statue of the founder of Otranto, Alfonso the Good, Manfred begins to panic and freak out. He tries to divorce his wife Hippolita and marry Isabella the young woman who his son was supposed to marry.

Thankfully it turns out that more that one person or entity is determined to stop Manfred’s evil machinations.

The Post Christmas Disappointment – Muppets vs. Dickens – A Christmas Carol

You know how we said we’d be better organised for season 2? Well that may only be marginally true. The Christmas Special that we had in the works for over a month turned into somewhat of a Christmas Disappointment .

Still keen to listen? Really? Okay well here are the links.

Direct Download MP3 here

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So for the heck of it let’s divide the episode into five staves just like Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.

Stave 1

In which we deal with Facebook and Get Grimm, we read a lovely review from Courtney of the Cult of Domesticity and play everything is gothic, unless it’s not, then it’s something else. We also introduce the gothic texts of the episode A Muppet Christmas Carol (1990) and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843).

Stave 2

In which Morgan gives a narrative summary of the events of the book and movie (for once they were pretty faithful to the plot of the source material, even if they do include Muppets).

Stave 3

Being a discussion of gothic elements… and Harry Potter. These elements include the tyrant, the curse, the haunting and the gothic city. Then a promo for Electric Monks.

Stave 4

In which Brent gets muppety, both hosts read movie names from IMDB (riveting) and Morgan is disappointed in Michael Caine.

Stave 5

We hear from the Lady Pod squad and we rate the stories out of 5 ice skating penguins. Three penguins a pop. In case you care.

 

The podcast mentioned include

Rabbit Holes Podcast

Whatshername

Get Grimm

The Cult of Domesticity

Electric Monks Podcast

Nihilist Podcast Network

Vocal Fries Podcast

and don’t forget to subscribe to Morgan’s new podcast The Hoopy Froods Podcast which is fan exploration of the works of Douglas Adams

 

Not My Mothman – The Mothman Prophecies feat. Jenni and Shelby from Wives Tales

Picture credit

“Mothman IMG_1819” by OZinOH is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs.

– John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies (1975 novel)

John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?

Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?

– The Mothman Prophecies (2002 movie)

You can listen on Libsyn

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On December 15th 1967 Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge collapsed resulting in the tragic deaths of 46 people. There are still many residents of the area who were directly effected by the disaster.

This tragedy would have become a sad part of local history if it were not for a ufologist, author and paranormal investigator, John Keel, who happened to be investigating sightings in the area in the months prior to the bridge collapse. Point Pleasant locals seem to have mixed feelings about the way that Keel’s book the Mothman Prophecies framed and sensationalised the events that took place in their city.

So about 3 months ago we thought it would be fun to cover the mothman. I even sought out the source material and I knew that Jenni and Shelby would be able to give some insight as their whole darn podcast is about myths, legends and cryptids. But it turns out that the 2002 film would prove to be not quite what we expected from our old pal the mothman. If you want more info on the mothman or weird demon things that braid women’s hair I highly recommend checking out the Wives Tales podcast!

Our promo this week is from the amazing Cutaways podcast. Honestly we’ve all internalised countless rom coms, even if we aren’t too keen on the genre and this podcast has a lot of fun while taking down some of garbage people and situations that go unquestioned.

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