IRIS ICHISHITA: There's so many different ways to try and understand this text. And there are so many different pieces of evidence that point us in these different directions. Is it fan fiction? Is it pirated fiction? Is it pastiche? Is it creative licence, creative liberty? Is it an alternate version? Could it have been Bram Stoker's original version, his director's cut? What are these texts in relationship to each other?
HZ: Well, they are first cousins, I'd say?
IRIS ICHISHITA: Yeah, yeah. If not shadowy twins.
HZ: Maybe it's more like identity theft.
Allusionist 228. Draculae part 2: Surprises in the Vaults transcript
ÁSGEIR JÓNSSON: It is very different from the Dracula that we know. First of all, it is a more political thing. Dracula is discussing socialism and anarchism. And he seems to be preparing a revolution, which in many ways is similar ideas that you would later see with Fascism and Nazism, where he basically says that the powerful should dominate the weaker. And secondly, it is much more graphic. You have a much greater number of female vampires, and you have a much more graphic scenes of sex and violence that Count Dracula is actually taking part in.
Read moreAllusionist 227. Draculae part 1: Enter the Castle transcript
A literary mystery about the novel Dracula came to me via a meme, just as Dracula came to Whitby in a box of soil in a ship. The meme said something like, “Someone translated Dracula into Icelandic, and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fanfic rewrite of what he wanted the story to be.”
Read moreAllusionist 159 Bufflusionist transcript
HZ: ‘Vampyre’ with a Y was pretty interchangeable with ‘vampire’ with an I when it first landed in English. Actually, I think the first appearance in English was with a Y. We probably got it from French or German, but it was based on - it’s a little unclear, but it was based on Hungarian, possibly, or Slavic languages. And it was because, at the time, they were doing a lot of coverage of the Serbian vampire epidemic of 1725 to 1732.
JENNY OWEN YOUNGS: Oh, of course.
HZ: Apparently there were a lot of Eastern European vampire epidemics.
KRISTIN RUSSO: What is a vampire epidemic?
HZ: I assume an epidemic of vampires. Imagine Covid, but for vampirism. And no vaccine. No masking is going to save you.
Allusionist 148 Bonus 2021 transcript
TAMSIN MAJERUS: Male killing is caused by bacteria that live in the female ladybird, and they get into her ovaries and, and into the eggs that she produces and somehow, and we don't really know how, they kill off the embryos that are destined to become male. So when she lays her clutch of eggs, normally we expect half of those will end up being female ladybirds, the other half will be male ladybirds; but a female ladybird that has a male killer will often have a clutch of eggs where only about half of them hatch and the whole for hatch go on to become feat. So the males were killed right at the very beginning of their lifetime. it works surprisingly because the female larvae and something, which is slightly disgusting as they emerge from the egg, they need to eat something very quickly or they'll starve to death.They've got male eggs right there that aren't hatching into larvae. They eat those eggs. So they eat their dead brothers, nasty little bit of cannibalism, but -
HZ: Well, it’s pragmatic cannibalism.
TAMSIN MAJERUS: Yeah, exactly.
Read moreAllusionist 147 Survival: Today, Tomorrow part 2 transcript
HZ: In 2019, the law changed so that as well as the previously available last name suffixes -son and -dóttir, there was now also a genderfree one, -bur.
ÞORBJÖRG ÞORVALDSDÓTTIR: Samtökin ’78, the national queer organization, worked with Trans Iceland and Intersex Iceland in forming that legislation that added this suffix to the last names. This specific change to the naming laws that we have - because we do have restrictions on what you can name your children and how you can be named yourself - this happened through a different kind of legislation. So it wasn't really a legislation that was meant to change the name laws. It was just the fact that we added a third gender registration.
HZ: In 2019 the Icelandic government, the Alþingi, unanimously voted to add a third option for legal gender: X, neither male nor female.
ÞORBJÖRG ÞORVALDSDÓTTIR: Then of course the naming laws had to be updated to suit that need. So that's why -son and -dóttir didn't work anymore, and there had to be added -bur, or the option to just leave son or daughter or child out.
Read moreAllusionist 146 Survival: Today, Tomorrow part 1 transcript
HZ: The Icelandic word for ‘mansplaining’ translates as ‘ramsplaining’. Like the original, it’s a portmanteau, but there’s also a bonus pun in there.
ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: That's hrútar, ram, and explaining.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: The word for explanation is utskyring. So you add in front of it H and R.
ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: H R, that’s Mr Explaining.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: It becomes hrutskyring.
ÁGÚSTA ÞORBERGSDÓTTIR: Hrutskyring, Mr Explaining, herra utskyring.
JÓHANNES BJARNI SIGTRYGGSSON: Hrútar also means a ram, a male sheep, so in many ways it's a very funny word.
Allusionist 87. Name v Law - transcript
JÓN GNARR: I had a daughter in 92, and she was named Camilla after her grandmother, it was Camilla with a C, spelled with a C. And so when I got the confirmation note from the National Registry, where they tell you that your child is now named something in the registry, they had spelled her name with a K. It's confirmed that the child Kamilla Jónssdóttir, blah blah blah. And I called them, because it was spelled with a C, and I just wanted to tell them it was a misunderstanding, my daughter's name is spelled with a C and she said yeah, wait, and I waited on the line and then she came back and she said no, it's no misunderstanding: C has been banned in the Icelandic alphabet.
HZ: C has been banned??
JÓN GNARR: C was banned. Yeah.
