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Episode 476 - The Black Cat (Patreon)

Published:
2019-11-23 16:56:03
Imported:
2021-07

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Content

Poevember gets gruesome with Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat!

Special thanks to reader Andrew Leman - check out Voluminous!

Next week: William Wilson 

Comments

The Screaming Moist

Just chiming in with a semi-related “throwing a cat through someone’s window” story. When I was living at my old apartment I was stopped while walking to my car one morning by a super friendly cat. It was meowing loud enough that one of my neighbors heard it and stuck their head out, saying they thought it belonged to the people who lived below them, whose window just happened to be open. Not thinking anything of it, I picked the cat up, gave it a little boost through the window (even on the first floor they were about seven feet off the ground), and left for work. It didn’t occur to me until I was halfway there that this entire sequence of events was based on information from a neighbor I knew nothing about, regarding a neighbor I also knew nothing about, and it was entirely possible I’d just tossed a random stray cat into a stranger’s apartment. Granted, the building wasn’t on fire and the cat was very much alive, but as a method of getting someone’s attention it has its merits. More on topic, I hate this narrator so much. There are a lot of angsty, oblivious protagonists in the stories you guys cover, but I think this one takes home the gold.

Anonymous

Should I ever record an emo album, "Pervish Transgression" will be its name. Thanks for the idea, Chris!

Anonymous

I’ve successfully sampled “Andrew Motherf_ckin’ Leman” and assigned it as a ringtone for the magnificent Mr. Leman. Now all I need is his phone number and a reason for him to call me.

Jeff C. Carter

I’m not saying that Chris Lackey is a ‘Beast Master’, but I have seen him wear a fanny pack containing two mischievous ferrets that obeyed his commands.

Anonymous

I have a one-eye’d black cat (His name is Doctor Mew, I named him), and a one-eyed tuxedo cat (his name is Baby, I did not name him) and after this episode I needed a hug.

Anonymous

Long story short, a friend and their spouse got a black kitten and the spouse knew that Lovecraft had a black cat but not what its name was. So the spouse suggests they name their new black kitten after Lovecraft’s cat and hilarity ensues.

Anonymous
>>29325400

PS - They did not name the kitten after Lovecraft’s cat, And I don’t remember what they went with because that kitty is very skittish and I never see her when I visit, so I never hear them say her name. But they do have another black cat who is very chill and is always around when I visit, so they address him frequently. His name is Mr. Poe.

Anonymous

I feel very bad saying that this was a joy to listen to. Which is to say that nobody handles animal abuse like you fine chaps. I mean... The fact is that there's nobody I'd rather listen to share their feelings about destroying innocent creatures. Shoot. This is not going to go well. But, er, good show. There's a lot going on here about identity. We absolutely hate to think that a perfectly decent chap might become addicted to something that sparks a change in character so profound that he ends up a demon. Surely there must have been something wrong with him. He must have had enormous moral failings. Because if there really was nothing wrong with him, then all of us are subject to the same sort of fate - this is the true state of humanity; one step from the abyss. Which is more or less the same sort of feeling one gets when driving and the thought comes that I could so easily turn the wheel and be done with it all. Or the call of the void when standing at the edge of a balcony or at a window on a high floor. Or the horrendous impulse to drop a baby. Feelings that many, many people are suddenly struck by - and terrified by. We're one step from the demon. Sartre talked about this. That we're all free, but prefer to live in chains. We prefer to think that we are not murderers because we are just not that kind of person. But the fact is that we are not murderers simply because we haven't murdered anyone. Yet. But we could. All it might take is too much to drink and frustration and a weapon to hand... There's a saying that we're all one bad decision (sometimes three bad decisions) from living on the street. An important saying because so many of us share the same impulse to judge a homeless person and think that we would never allow ourselves to come to that. They must have some flaw - some moral failing - that explains their situation. So, yes, the protagonist in this story is a horrible, horrible person. And, I think, what Poe tries to do is to get you to feel some semblance of sympathy for him. He is awful and we want him to deserve the punishment he is about to receive. But there is a sliver of doubt in there that, perhaps, the man is a victim as well. The victim of a disease that caused him to stagger and fall right over the edge. Into the abyss.

Anonymous

I read this in a collection of cat stories I was given when I was 9 or 10. I was horrified. It is not a good story for children.

Anonymous

When we produced our adaptation of "Rats in the Walls" for Dark Adventure Radio Theatre we renamed the cat Pluto in honor of this story and because the original name was not an option. I wanted to thank Chris and Chad for mentioning the new HPLHS podcast, Voluminous. They are absolutely an inspiration to all podcasters everywhere but specifically to us. We shamelessly borrowed their format and I can only hope we will one day do as good a job.

Anonymous
>>29325650

The best villains are, I think, the ones in whom you can see yourself, or at least for whom you can come up with some sympathy. Sometimes you can go too far--Percy Shelley couldn't see what the problem was with Milton's Satan, for example. I'm pleased to say, though, that all of my students writing about Medea right now have drawn a line. I just wish that they wouldn't spell her name "Madea."

Anonymous

By chance I'm in the middle of re-listening to some older episodes, and so when I finished this new one I returned to "The Repairer of Reputations" just in time for some more man-on-cat violence (although to be fair there's a lot of it going the other way--OR IS THERE?). What has your podcast got against kitties??? Oh--thanks for frequent mentions of Jeffrey Combs' Poe show over the years. My girlfriend and I got a chance to see it in Sleepy Hollow last month and it was amazing.

Anonymous

There's a film that covers 2 Poe stories directed by Romero and Argento which includes The Black Cat, with Harvey Keitel as the narrator. Well worth a watch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100827/

Anonymous
>>29341279

You and Sean are already doing so. Sorry my patron budget can't be stretched to support you guys as well, but Voluminous is already a podcast I am delighted to see in my feed each week. More so that there is little chance of running out of material any time soon. Thanks for doing this as I don't think I would ever devote the time to his letters.

Tom Král

I'm really sorry to hear that your grandpa was an alcoholic and an abusers. The two go very often hand in hand. My grandpa was also very violent towards my mother and my grandma but I think sometimes these horrible people and events in life make you actually more kind and caring. Often people go in the same path as their abusers but occasionally, the abused become very kind and absolute opposites. I know have a very nice relationship with both of my parents as my mom wanted to marry a kind man and let her children endure nothing that she had to. I just wanted to pinpoint that even the horrible things can have a brighter upside to them. Amazing episode as always btw!

Anonymous

Now I have a new podcast to subscribe to. Not enough hours in the day!!!! That said, the narrator of the Black Cat was a chap that I would live to brain with a cast iron skillet. I treasured our black cat, he was the scourge of squirrels in his prime.

Anonymous

I first read this story so long ago, I think I've taken it for granted and never really registered how horrifying it is. I was surprised at first how distressed Chris was by it, until you guys really drove home what a grim and nasty story it is. By the by, there's a pretty cool record called Closed on Account of Rabies which has readings of Poe stories by all sorts of celebrities, and by far the creepiest is Diamanda Galas reading The Black Cat. It's like having a bedtime story read to you by your goth girlfriend who is definitely planning to murder you the moment you doze off.

Anonymous

The talk about dreams and not controlling one's own thoughts had me thinking of the concept of "intrusive thoughts"; the kind of thoughts you have that just seem to appear, and are usually not the kind of thing you would ever do. The guy that first put a term on these for me used the example of seeing a baby playing on the ground, and then having the thought of just running up and kicking it - a horrible thought that just kind of popped in there. I've certainly had my share of this kind of thing. A BIG fear of mine was that one day, somehow, my brain would short-circuit and misinterpret one of these intrusions as an actual command.

Funes the Uxorious

While it's hilarious instead of horrifying, Roger Corman's Tales of Terror The Black Cat in the middle of the piece as an amazing standout. "My head! Give me back my head!"

Anonymous

I hadn’t read this in decades, but now having seen the recent Star Wars films, I see the narrator could easily be named Kylo Ren.... the act of harm as a ritual of self flagellation seems to me to stand out on both counts.

Anonymous
>>29440699

Poe actually wrote another story that deals with this exact idea called "The Imp of the Perverse," which was the term he created (at least he's thought to be its creator) to describe this phenomenon of intrusive thoughts. The story begins with a short essay concerning the concept itself, then a tale about a man who has the irrational idea to murder his neighbor simply out of jest. The idea grows so strong within him, however, just because he knows he shouldn't, nothing other than that, that he actually does it. Yet, in a twist of ironic fate, that very thing gets him caught in the end as well.