CZM Book Club: "The Untimely Death of Northgate Mall" by Evan J Peterson

Margaret reads Gare an urban folk horror story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Book Club book Club, book Club.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Look Club book Club. I was late.

Speaker 4 (00:11):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
No, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
It ruined it.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, no, that's fine. We'll just you know, you can
only go forward, can edit, so fix fix it in post. Yeah, yeah, totally,
that's that's totally what will happen. Absolutely, this is the
cool Zone Media book Club. You're once a week fiction
thing about cool Zone media fiction. Once a week. I

(00:38):
read you a story. I'm Margaret Kiljoy with me today
playing the role of you.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
It is Garrison.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Hello, I'm you.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
That's amazing. Yeah, you really are kind of you know,
the the every them, you know, like everyone can.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Sure, sure, yeah, I can slot into any place.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Much like how the everyman can character of Mickey Mouse,
who has just entered the public domain.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's right, but only the one from nineteen twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, it's okay. I think that was when he was
more than every them.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
No, he was a lot cooler, like if you actually
watch the Steamboat well I shouldn't say cooler because it
really bad. But if you watch the Steamboat Willie cartoon,
it's just him like abusing animals for like ten minutes.
But he's I don't know, Mickey Mouse is so sanitized
now and to watch just like the actual insanity of

(01:34):
that of that original cartoon is a kind of jarring
compared to the current brand image of Mickey Mouse. But
he just instead just goes around like torturing animals and people. Yeah,
but you know, that's like standard cartoon fair it's not
like actual animal abuse.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's like, you know, there cartoon animals.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, come on, come on, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I got really sad this morning. I was thinking about
I was reading something about how Mickey Mouse entered the
public domain because that's what I do with my life,
and it was talking about how Mickey Mouse was like
in some ways inspired by Charlie Chaplin's characters, and then
I was thinking about how Charlie Chaplin was, while not
good on the feminism front, was an anarchist. And then

(02:15):
I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he got
like fucking kicked out of the country over it and
shit during the Red Scare. Yeah, he was upfront and
he identified as an anarchist. Again, it doesn't mean that
he didn't whatever, And none of my notes in front
of me, I'm not trying to like specifically Lion Eye
or talk.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
To Margaret's canceling Charlie Chapman. That's first whatever, Who's who's
ever looked at Charlie Chaplin's life and been like, huh's
a there's a few discrepancies here.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well okay, but the thing that actually happened is I
sort of like defend it because I'm like, people are like, oh,
Charlie Chaplin fucked that guy, and I'm like, it's kind
of interesting politically as an anarchisty he wrote this thing
about how animal shouldn't be in cages and it just didn't. Anyway,
That's not what we're going to talk about today, because
today we're going to read a story about a mall.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I love I love malls.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I really like full car. It's like my favorite genre
of horror. And I really like the idea that full
car can happen in urban environments because it's usually just
like there's bad things in the woods, which is like true, ye,
that's like why we live here, but cities are bad
things too.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Really. Suburban folklore has been like kind of a rising
genre as of late, especially when we have like urban decay,
malls being a really prime example of these things that
used to be places but are no longer actually like
real places. Yeah, and that is just rife territory for
the intrepid folk horror author.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well then today's intrepid full car author, who's usually more
of a body horror author. I don't know how he's
going to feel about me calling him a full car author,
because he's a smarter about horror than I am. Is
Evan J. Peterson, And I'm going to read you a
bio for Evan J.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Peterson.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
He's an author and a game writer. His latest book
is Meta Flesh Poems and The Voices of the Monster,
and recent work includes Dragstar, published by Choice of Games,
which is the world's first drag performance RPG, as well
as The Road to Innsmith Arkham Harr. Evan's writing appears
in Weird Tales, Pseudopod, Nightmare, Queers, Destroy Horror, Boing Boying,

(04:24):
and Best Gay Stories. Evan's serial novel Better Living Through
Alchemy will be published in twenty twenty four, which is
this year, by Broken Eyebooks websites Evanjpeterson dot Com where
you can go to learn more. This story is called
the Untimely Death of Northgate Mall. Even the gumball machines

(04:48):
were empty. Someone already pulled out the mall's directory maps,
leaving behind blank white portals to some shopping limbo. Kyle
paced the midway of the dying mall and surveyed the damage.
At least, it still smelled like a mall pretzels and
bleach and books, while strains of Blondie and other pop
standards still echoed down the promenade. The wrecking ball had

(05:09):
already knocked the teeth out of Macy's. The American flag
still waved in pride against the backdrop of the crumbling facade.
Shopping cathedrals all over the nation were dying out. Maybe
Northgate Mall, now toothless and increasingly vacant, had already died
of hunger. The Northgate Mall was actually the first fully
indoor shopping center in the nation, a decision made thanks

(05:31):
to Seattle's rainy weather. And that's not even the most
interesting thing about it. The Northgate Mall started with eighteen
stores in April of nineteen fifty only in your state
dot com slash Washington. Kyle tightened the laces of his mask.
Ben had sewn it by hand for him, and it
looked like a surgeon's mask, the kind that ties in
the back. It even felt a little fetishy, especially when

(05:53):
he wore it with nitrol gloves to venture out into
the public. No more ben thoughts, he told himself. Others
plodded along the mall in their own masks. Kyle used
to walk up and down through the crowds, elbow to elbow,
with whatever viruses strangers carried, unconcerned if they coughed or sneezed.
Some parents still let their children cavort in the play area,

(06:14):
masked or not. Kyle heard a rustle and a shriek
behind him. His stomach lurched. He expected to see a
bleeding child, some accident of negligence, but it was just
a seagull rifling through the trash. The gulls in the
neighborhood were bolder lately. They flew right into the mall
and stole the trash. If trash could be considered stolen.

(06:35):
Some crazy rich people probably thought so, the same crazy
rich people who wanted to knock Seattle flat and build
a thousand skyscrapers on its broken ribs. The seagulls just
fulfilled their niche and scavenged the mall's carcass. In his
sleeveless Dawn of the Dead t shirt, Kyle leaned against
an empty kiosk and wondered if seagulls could become undead

(06:56):
if they preyed on zombies. He thanked God or whoever
was responsible, that it was just COVID happening outside and
not a zombie apocalypse. Would people still be screaming about
their freedom if it was zombies instead? Probably? He imagined
mal shamblers wearing Don't Tread on Me ball caps reflexively
trying to shoot each other with empty guns. Jesus Fucking Christ,

(07:19):
it was too real. Graham Junior planned Northgate as a
one stop shop for all the suburban America families needs that,
weirdly enough, included a hospital. Northgate General was operational in
the nineteen fifties but defunct by the nineteen nineties. Being
born in a mall is peak Americana. Natalie Graham The
Stranger ten twenty four, twenty eighteen. Kyle worked his first

(07:44):
job in a mall Spencer Gifts. His second job too,
Walden Books. He had his first big crush on a
boy who worked at Hot Topic. He had his first
kiss with a boy, a different boy, in a food court,
both of their mouths sweet with junk food. During this
August heat wave, Kyle walked them all for the refuge
air conditioning. He couldn't afford an apartment with AC, but
even on its deathbed, the mall cranked it. It was

(08:07):
also supposed to distract him from the breakup, but that
strategy failed spectacularly. The mall squatted only two blocks from
Kyle's apartment. He and Ben bought one another presence here.
They people watched and made fun of strangers. Here in
the lusty early days of dating. They even had a
quickie in one of the single occupant bathrooms. Memories infested

(08:29):
the place, and the fact that most of those memories
were happy only made it worse. It's worth noting that
Washington might be the only state to have a mall
that has an entire terrorists and serial killers section on
its Wikipedia page. Only in your state dot com slash Washington,
and do you know who else has terrorists and serial

(08:52):
killers woven throughout?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
I mean, our actual show more so terrorists than serial killers.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's true, that's true. We're doing the only crime, the
only crime, the true crime, wrong you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, but I'm also suspecting that there will probably be
advertisements for something serial killer related since you are listening
to a podcast, so you enjoy enjoy that.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, and I hope it's for another podcast and not
an ad to become one like a cop ad. Here's
the ads go, and we're back. He stopped a stare

(09:45):
at the Bear baseball cap display rack and the window
of Champs, the translucent plastic domes looking like a swarm
of jellyfish without the hats to engulf them. This was
the spot where the relationship had finally begun to rot
at the core. They were brows sneakers when Kyle asked
if they should move in together. They had been dating
over a year, and it made sense. Living alone in

(10:07):
Seattle came with a steep rent. Ben froze, and Kyle
could actually see Ben disassociate, his eyes fixing into the
middle distance. Christ it wasn't a marriage proposal, it was
a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for. Then the pandemic hit,
and dust to dust. He heard the gull scream again,

(10:28):
plucking him out of his memories, and now there were
two of them. They flapped around, rooting in the trash,
spreading it everywhere. A gray haired woman from the still
standing jewelry store ran at them with a broom, yelling
in what sounded like Spanish, but the gulls didn't retreat.
They lunged and screamed, spreading their wings to intimidate her,
and it worked. She backed right off. See Gulls one Mall,

(10:51):
Lady zero. The thought made him laugh for the first
time in two weeks. Kyle stopped for a pretzel covered
in cinnamon sugar sides of icing. The pimply underaged pretzel
girls behind the counter flirted with him, and he flirted back,
using every charming trick he knew to get a discount.
The smell of hot dough and sugar filled his nostrils.

(11:13):
He sat on a bench, undoing the top laces of
the mask and letting it fall against the hollow at
the base of his throat. Next to the pretzel stand
was a cavern formerly occupied by Spencer Gifts, not the
one he'd worked for, but they were all the same. Inside,
someone from the corporate office had already removed the exterior signs,
but Kyle knew the spot. He went in once a

(11:34):
year or so for the nostalgia to remember what it
was like making a shitty mall wage and cleaning up
after customers that broke more than they bought. Back when
he worked there, there were blatantly homophobic and transphobic items.
Kick me stickers that said gay pride meant for covert
placement on someone's back a real laugh riot. Now. The

(11:56):
store sold T shirts with the painted faces of famous
drag queens and posters of yawie boys. Please cut that?

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yawi? How you pronounced that?

Speaker 3 (12:06):
I kind of want you just to leave this in.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
The fact that I don't know how to pronounce this,
that you don't know how to pronounce you? Okay? But
am I right? Am I right? Huh?

Speaker 3 (12:17):
You are right?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, all right, fine, you can leave it in al Sorry.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
I like that you went to me for expertise on
how to You're my gen z friend.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Do you you know all the stuff?

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Uh huh yeah, uh, well I know my way around
some yowie.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, which is good because the store sold T shirts
of the painted faces of famous drag queens and posters
of yawie boys kissing and holding hands. A word I
totally knew how to pronounce the first time It was disorienting,
but that was the first real test of acceptance in capitalism.
Did it cost more to persecute marginalized people or to
assimilate them. Queer was cool now when it sold a

(12:59):
lot of merchant, but it couldn't sell enough to save
a dying mall. Black tarps blocked the glass storefront. Kyle
could see a bit inside through the door, and of
course it was dark abandoned, but the door was slightly open.
Kyle entered the cave forgetting to retie his face mask
to his head. He poked around in the dim light,
hidden from outside view. Lots of empty, cheap shelving, but

(13:21):
maybe he'd find something fun. His shoe bumped something large
but lightweight on the ground. Kyle stooped and found it
was a Halloween mask. The store must have begun stocking
for the season, after all, even though someone in the
chain of management knew it was pointless. Maybe it was
a vain attempt to resuscitate business, a kind of sympathetic
magic of supply and consumption. Or maybe no one really

(13:45):
knew what else to do. Kyle certainly didn't criminal incidents.
In nineteen seventy three, the serial killer Ted Bundy reportedly
apprehended a purse snatcher late at night in the Northgate
Mall parking lot, a few weeks before his first dock
mented murder. Many of his subsequent victims were approached in
parking lots. On September twelfth, nineteen eighty three, Tracy Ann

(14:08):
Winston was abducted from Northgate Mall and murdered by Gary Ridgeway,
the Green River Killer. The following year, on April twenty third,
nineteen eighty four, a seven man force of the Order
attacked an armored car at the mall after first staging
a diversionary bombing. Wikipedia dot Org, slash Wiki, Northgate Underschool Mall, Underscore, Seattle.

(14:30):
Kyle pulled his phone out to inspect the mask by
the led light. It wasn't a horror mask. It was
a stylized bird head, gray and white, not made of
rubber or plastic, but what felt like real wood, a
lightweight fiber like bamboo. It looked handmade and meticulously crafted,
not the kind of licensed pop bullshit the story usually stalked.

(14:53):
He didn't recognize whatever character the mask represented, something from
a video game, might be a pigeon. He heard the
faint scream of the gulls. Again, that's what the mask was,
a seagull. The whole coincidence of it was unsettling. Would
anyone be a seagull for Halloween? Maybe it was part
of a hitchcock bird's theme. Kyle checked the mask for

(15:17):
a price tag and sku something that would indicate whether
it was inventory. There were no stamps, labels, or stickers.
Maybe it really was handmade, which meant it didn't belong
in here. He could almost hear Sweet Ben daring him
put it on. What's the worst that could happen? Superstition
got the better of him and he didn't try it on. Instead,

(15:37):
curiosity and boredom pressed him further toward the mall's inner workings.
He navigated the dark sails floor, pussy footing his way
to the doorway of the back room. He smelled it
before he walked through, that dumpster smell, not quite nauseous,
but getting there, a salty sweet smell of recent garbage
and cigarette butts. The break room was completely black. No

(16:00):
good light reached from the mall promenade, and no light
came in from the door on the far side of
the space. The other door would lead to the mall's
labyrinthine bowels. The passages that joined the break were rooms
of every store, the kitchen of every food vendor, to
loading docks and disposal bins. Kyle fumbled with his phone
in the mask, and in a moment of failed instinct,

(16:20):
he held tight to the mask and dropped the phone.
The clack of it against the floor echoed in a
way that sounded wrong, like the room was far bigger
than it should be. The light of the phone's screen
blinked out. He crouched to pick it up, pat it
around for it, and felt something slice his finger. The
icy zing of it frightened him more than it hurt.

(16:42):
He brought it to his mouth and almost socked the
wound before he stopped himself. Fucking idiot, he thought, this
is how he gets staff. He realized that his cotton
mask wasn't tied in place, but he left it for now.
He thought of the film DEMONI that the woman cutting
herself on a prop mask coming possessed by a demon.
Italian horror was weird like that. All the elements were

(17:05):
here for a real Giallo Clusterfuck the mall, the mask,
the wound, Kyle wiped whatever blood leaked from his finger
onto his jeans. Hopefully it was just a superficial wound,
but right now it's stung like hell. When the late
celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain came to Seattle in twenty seventeen,
he also asked me about serial killers. What was it

(17:28):
about the Northwest and serial killers? Bordein asked, I joked
that it is an easy place to hide the bodies
Newt Berger, Seattle Magazine, March twenty nineteen. And you know
I already did the serial killer cut.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
You already did the serial killer bit.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah? Fuck?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, wow, we're just bitless, like a screwdriver that you've
lost the parts for. Here's the ads, and we're back.

(18:12):
He didn't know whether to grope for his phone again
and risk another cut, or just grab the mask and
feel his way back to the door. Fuck it, it
was about time to get a new phone. Anyway he
could erase the data remotely. Kyle found the door, push through,
and it spilled him out into not the store. He
found the wrong door, and now he was in the
mall's inner maze, but where he did expect brassy moth

(18:34):
splattered fluorescent lighting. The hall glowed red. As his eyes adjusted,
he saw the walls and floor glistened and seemed to ripple.
It was humid in there, too, with a thick smell
of dumpsters and animal shit that made him gag. He
almost fainted, grabbing the wall for support, and his hand
clutched the slick, warm flesh of it. That pushed him

(18:55):
over the edge, and he spewed onto the floor.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Now.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Sound came then, and he spit and cleared his mouth,
rustling wings. A dozen seagulls careened around a corner, diving
into his pool of vomit and consuming it. He wretched again,
but nothing came up. Some of the gaulls looked at
him and screamed, real bird screams, not some synthesizer growl.
To match the peeled reality of this nowhere place. Kyle

(19:19):
knew in some deep genetic memory that he was an
animal space now, bloody and hungry, he'd fallen from the
apex of the food chain and was somewhere outside his
world and inside a primordial space beneath it. It was
not a world made for him. The gulls cried again,
some hopping toward him. He backed away, but they popped

(19:40):
forward and raised their wings, threatening him. God, they were
so much bigger up close. A couple of them lunged
toward him, and in a docking instinct, he pulled the
bird mask onto his head to protect his bare face.
Sounds stopped. It was perfectly dark inside the mask, and cool,
not hot and steamy and filthy, like the passageway, if

(20:01):
that grotesque hallway existed under his reality. The inside of
the mask was another layer down. You've come back, said
the voice inside the mask.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
I've been waiting.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
It was a feminine voice, ageless, deep in velvety. Was
it outside or inside his skull? Who are you? Kyle,
asked the vast and empty space inside the mask.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
You already know, you know me and your bones.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
He was helpless, a small and flightless creature that didn't
know how to communicate without words. Perhaps whatever this entity
was and knew, he needed words to understand.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
I am the Northern Gate, the crossroads of land and hunger.
Mother whose milk is snow and whose womb is burial clay.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
You a goddess, like a Duwamish goddess.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
I was here long before them, before blood became warm.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Where is here?

Speaker 4 (20:56):
Where are we in me?

Speaker 2 (21:00):
We all took time to consider what that could mean.
Did she eat him or was he in her womb?
Or could both be true? As primordial magic could fuse
life and death into the same experience. He had the
sense that he should be terrified, but all that he
felt were warmth and wonder. The darkness surrounding him was
still perfect, no threat of gulls or stink of carrion.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
I will feed you, Kyle, I will protect you. I
will burn away your pain and grow fruit from the ashes.
But you must also feed me.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Little white stars opened in the darkness, like holes punched
through canvas. They twinkled and pulsed, growing larger, and he
saw that they weren't stars at all. They were birds,
flying towards him from every direction.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
You must sacrifice the things that stand between us.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Kyle swallowed and tried to remove the mask. But he
wasn't wearing a mask, and he didn't have hands. He
was just a bird, a little white and gray bird
in a hungry, black void. Now, my warm blooded thing,
said the mother's voice.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Bring me nourishment.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
When he awoke, the mask was gone. The two pretzel girls,
in their purple uniforms and visors crouched over him. You okay,
one asked, I think maybe you fainted. Which story do
you work at? He sat up. Everything looked normal on
the inside hallway, even the pool of vomit next to him.
I'm fine, he said, and tried to stand.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
Whoa dude?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
The other girl said, you're bleeding. He looked at his fingers.
The cut still bled, but it looked worse than it felt.
We have a first A kit at the pretzel stand.
I can bandit you, but you should like go to
the hospital. I think get a tennis shot or something.
Can you get a ride? The second girl asked, you
probably shouldn't drive. Kyle laughed. The girls laughed too, but nervously.

(22:53):
I'm gonna be fine, he told them. Mother will take
care of me. With his other hand, he reached for
his phone, found it back in his pocket. When it
was out, he saw the screen head indeed cracked, but
was still usable. Can I just stay here after you
bandage me up, I'll call someone to come get me.
The girls looked at each other. Okay, one said, your

(23:17):
mom right?

Speaker 4 (23:18):
You sure? You're okay? He smiled, and.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Better than okay. One girl left to get the first
aid kit while the other held him up. A seagull
hopped into view from around the corner.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Ugh.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
The girl said, they've been getting in here every day lately,
fucking garbage eagles. Kyle laughed again. They were here before
we were. They have the right to clean our bones.
The pretzel girl got up and left without a word.
She looked back at him once and sped up. The
gall stared at him, daring him to do something. Sound

(23:52):
Transit is currently burrowing toward Northgate at a not fast
enough pace. By twenty twenty one, the light row will
have a stop up there. A complete redeveloped into the
area around the station, including changes to the mall, is
under way. Natalie Graham, The Stranger ten eighteen. He texted Ben.
He knew Ben would come, even after everything. I'll be

(24:14):
right there. Ben texted back, stay safe. Kyle knew what
to do. First, he would take care of this little distraction.
Then you'd make sure the mother was fed. Dun, Dunt, dunn.
That's the end of the story.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
Classic Pacific Northwest Limital Folk Corner.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I'm into it, you know, like probably says stuff
about like capitalism and consumerism and gentrification and malls and stuff.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
You know.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
That happened to a friend of mine once, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Got gentrified or became a seagull.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well closer to the second one. I don't think it
was quite a seagull. But if you if you disassociate
in a and abandoned all too much, that will definitely
happen to you.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I like
it because, like I like things that break the divide
between like city and not city and just sort of
admit that it's all wilderness, even if it's like wilderness
of yeah, our own making and then decay and stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, there's a few things that kind of straddle
that line really good. Where you get like this intense
like industrialization, this very like heavily like like urban environment.
It interacts in like a magical realism way, the same
way that like walking through a forest and night does. Yeah,
and they kind of they crossed into this very similar plane.

(25:39):
And I mean a lot of stuff specifically set in
the Pacific Northwest gets into that, and it's it's a
really it's a really fun space to explore.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
That makes sense to me. I wonder whether and I'm
just completely conjecturing. I spent a fair amount time in
the Pacific Northwest because like the climate of the Pacific
Northwest is a very present character in your life when
you live there. You know, Like I wonder if it's
like since that climate stays with you whether you're like
in the city or not in the city, Like it
is still raining, you.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Know, like yeah, it's the sky is still great no
matter where, Yeah, no matter where you go. Yeah, I
don't know. I mean I think this also could just
play into fiction inspiring other fiction. I mean, I feel
like in many ways we have like twin Peaks as
a thing that definitely it do not start this trend,

(26:28):
but it's definitely one of the hallmarks of this trend
that other people have definitely continued to kind of play from.
It's like it's like a starting point that that is
where we still see a lot of culture that is
in this genre. Yeah, kind of play off of that idea.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
It's certainly a fun space and the past really since
the pandemic, which makes makes sense why the story is
set in the pandemic, we've seen a lot more liminal
horder because people got to like experience the whole world
like that for a while. Yeah, and many places haven't
like come back, like malls aren't really things anymore in
a lot of.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
In a lot of cases coming back I had. I
don't know, I'm not sure how we've been advertising that
people invest in mall coin though.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
No, there's there's there's one mall specifically in Portland, the
Alloyd Center Mall. It's is just my favorite favorite place
to go if if I want to enjoy some dead
mall vibes, because it is it is eerie in there. Yeah,
it's it's really really fun. But no, we we've we've
had this massive explosion of like limital horror. Liminal spaces
were popular for so long. We get this brought into

(27:34):
things like the back rooms and very so there like
lots of lots of like young writers who are like
writing what used to be fanfic and is now just
kind of it's it's it's more just like uh, internet fiction.
I guess. Yeah, creepy like creepypasta, I guess is kind
of it's kind of what it's in the vein of
I suppose. But we're getting a lot of a lot

(27:54):
of people kind of got indoctrinated into writing in that space.
So we just see a a whole bunch just stuff
coming out of that, and it's been it's been fun
to see because there is there is some good stuff,
Like anything like that gets like too popular to mainstream,
it gets filled with a lot of a lot of
more like filler type stuff that just maybe isn't super unique,
but there is some really special stuff mixed in there too.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah. And you know, it's like when I first started
in book club, I figured we'd be doing almost entirely
science fiction, right or like climate fiction, you know, sure, sure,
And then I've been thinking a lot about how like
some of this type stuff is also representative of where
we are. Like genre that is like fantasy or horror
has things that are supernatural in it is like also

(28:37):
a way of describing where we are a society. It's
like not just imagining scientific futures that allows that, you know.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Like yeah, I mean, and magical thinking is exploded like
across everyone we like even just on something like TikTok,
where you have a whole bunch of young people getting
getting surrounded by different types of magical thinking. Yeah, for
better or for worse, often often for worse.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
In many cases, the splentering of reality is not something
to celebrate, it something to notice.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Sure, you know, but I think with that we I
think that sort of magical realism reaction to just the
increasing unreality of everyday life is a super understandable reaction.
I mean I play with that reaction quite often for
like my work and a lot of my hobbies and interests.
It's kind of exploring that that more fluid space. But no,

(29:29):
I think I think like magical realism and that this
sort of in between genre. It's not quite sci fi,
it's not quite fantasy. It's not quite horror either. Like
I really like it when it's there's just this there's
kind of this little little bit in the middle where
just it's just weird shit. Like it's just like it's
just kind.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Of that's just seagull stories. I mean, come on the high.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Strangeness, the high weirdness genre. I think, like another great
example that kind of blends this like mystery of the
forest with like the the unreality of urban living is
the TV show Atlanta, which specifically was riffing off of
Twin Peaks as well. But there's there's so many great
bits where people are getting lost in forests while also

(30:10):
getting like lost in high rises or getting lost in
like underground parking lots, and it's the same thing and
both like it explores very similar ideas. I mean, I'm
very happy to see more stuff in the genre because
it it does feel kind of an indicative of where
we are in some degree, because we are stuck between
the neoliberal death spiral and whatever is going to happen next.

(30:32):
But we're not quite in either space anymore. Like we're
not in the nineties, we're not in the peak of neoliberalism,
but we're not living in the post apocalypse, right, We're
living in this weird in between era.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Right, the right, the non post apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, and you're like, maybe this is just it. Maybe
it's just gonna be this forever, which completely copy because
there will always be because there will always be new things.
But it definitely has this very strongly liminal vibe. Yeah,
it's a fund space to explore.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, well, if dear reader, you want to explore more
of it. I've read a bunch of other of Evan's
stories and they are genuinely really creepy and weird and interesting.
And I haven't read it yet because it's not out yet.
But to plug here at the end of it. Evan's
new novel Better Living through Alchemy is going to be

(31:20):
coming out this year in twenty twenty four, and people
can follow him on Instagram at evant j dot Peterson
or go to his website, which I probably already said
at the top, but you can probably google it and
no one's going to type in the URL anyway. People
are going to type in Evan Peterson author website. That's
what I would do. You got anything to plug? You

(31:42):
do have podcasts that people are already listening to the
feed of, but maybe they're not sure.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
We have some fun stuff for Rick had appen here
planned in the new year. We have a week long's
worth of episodes about different aspects of The Daily Wire,
including a dissection of their new anti trans basketball quote
unquote comedy movie, which I I have seated. Oh I'm jealous,

(32:09):
so you're not. It's barely even worth the hate watch.
It's it's it's simply not a good piece of media.
But we will we will include a dissection of that
within our our weeks of Daily Wire themed episodes. And
then also I will be heading to the the What
I would say is the is the capital of Artificial

(32:31):
and Reality uh Las Vegas uh TO to report from
the Consumer Electronics to showcase in the new year as well,
So very exciting stuff.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Excellent and people can check that out on It Could
Happen Here, which might be the feed you're listening to
this on, or you could be listening to it on
the Cool People Did Cool Stuff feed, because this show
is on both and if you listen to on the
cauld Happen Here feed, maybe you'd like my history podcast
which is called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff? And
if the other way around, then the other way week bye.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.