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 199. 199 ideas that I hadn't made into podcasts yet - transcript
This is the 199th episode of the show, and since before this show began, so for nearly a decade, I have been jotting down ideas in two documents - one for short ideas, one for long ideas. There are always more ideas than I have time and ability to make podcasts about, so now the documents are altogether 66 pages long and growing every day. So in this episode, you’re going to hear 199 ideas that I wanted to put into the podcast and haven’t yet.
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.
