Duckfeed Presents

Three days of physical and mental unrest have sent a man to seek sanctuary at the services of the Cathedral of St. Barnabé. But far from being able to escape his problems, he finds himself pursued by an unearthly church organist all across Paris to his own home, unable to escape that which hunts for his very soul.

"In the Court of the Dragon" is the third story from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. This massively influential work of weird fiction would go on to inspire a number of other creators whose work you love.

Other Halloween Readings:

• "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers

• "This Band Could Be Your Life" by Gary Butterfield

• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• "The Mask" by Robert W. Chambers

• "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski

• "The Prodigy of Dreams" by Thomas Ligotti

It's hard to choose the way you want to die. But this wasn't the case for Arthur Emerson... too bad he can't remember doing it. One day the swans and cats start acting weird. Then the fog rolls in. Then he remembers a night long ago when he rambled down the cramped streets of an Italian city, and met a man who spoke of a strange being: Cynothoglis.

"The Prodigy of Dreams" was published in a collection of Thomas Ligotti stories called Noctuary in 1994. It's impossible to get ahold of, as Ligotti only ever prints small runs of his work.

Thank you so much for your support. I wish you a safe and happy Halloween! - Kole

Featured Music:

• "Out of the Mist", "Gene of Deception", and "A Love Song for Humanity" all by Jami Sieber.

Other Halloween Readings:

• "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers

• "This Band Could Be Your Life" by Gary Butterfield

• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• "The Mask" by Robert W. Chambers

• "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski

This year's Halloween is the short but chilling horror story "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski, first published in 1955.

A woman named Caroline is fascinated by a ruined tower near Florence, after having learned of its unfortunate inhabitants and their mysterious demise. So she goes to visit, and this story documents every agonizing step of a trip she never should have taken.

Thanks so much for your continued support!

Featured Music:

• "Winter" by Vivaldi

• "E Lucevan le Stelle, Tosca Act III" by Giacomo Puccini

• "Devil's Trill Sonata in G Minor" by Tartini

• "Dreamhouse" from Pathologic 2

• "Air Castle" from Pathologic 2

Other Halloween Readings:

• "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers

• "This Band Could Be Your Life" by Gary Butterfield

• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• "The Mask" by Robert W. Chambers

We're pleased to announce our first new podcast in quite some time! Coming this fall, Gary and Kole will premiere ORB: A Venture Bros. Podcast.

We've taken our approach to video games, movies, music, comics, and books... and now we're dedicating a show to one of our favorite television shows. The Venture Bros. is a long-running show on Adult Swim about a miserable superscientist, his miserable arch nemeses, and his oblivious sons. It's a love letter to all kinds of pulp entertainment from the mid-20th century, including classic animation, exploitation films, and progressive rock.

We're announcing this early because we want help. We'd like to commission the cover art and theme music. So please contact Gary at [email protected] with your portfolio. BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists are strongly encouraged to apply.

Listen to the audio announcement for more details. The show will be launching in about a month, it will come out weekly, and it will replace Monster in My Podcast, which we are putting on mothballs for the time being.

We're extremely excited about this, and we hope you are too. If you'd like to watch along, The Venture Bros. is available for purchase in most of the expected places, and is currently streaming on Hulu.

Hey everyone, we've got some announcements. You can listen to the audio for full details, but it boils down to: the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee has been canceled, the Portland Retro Games Expo has been canceled, and we cannot in good conscience plan and execute a Duckfest with the global pandemic being what it is.

We will not be doing any live events this year, and this really, really bums us out.

To ameliorate this, we will be holding a virtual Duckfest sometime in June, and also putting out a Switcheroo Bundle a few months after that.

We apologize for any disappointment this might bring, and we hope you are staying save and sane under these trying circumstances.

The tradition continues with another horror short story for Halloween. This year it's another story from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. "The Mask" is the story of a love triangle between three artists in Paris, which is disrupted by a miraculous elixer and a stray copy of the accursed play.

Thank you so much for your support, and have a safe and happy Halloween!

Get ready for a day of Duckfeed. On August 31, 2019, we will gather at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland Oregon for live performances of many Duckfeed shows, and a few local podcast friends. Listen to the announcement for more.

More details are forthcoming, including ticket details.

In this season finale of Heartbeat City, Cozy Snugglefield is joined by Jenn Burleton to answer your questions.

Links:

• TransActive Gender Project — The organization that Jen leads.

The tradition of Halloween readings continues this year with Kole's reading of The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

It's an early work of feminist literature, and an early psychological horror story. Like Frankenstein, its horror results from the depiction of extreme medical malpractice. Gilman wrote the story to protest the way women's psychological and emotional health were being treated by a chauvinist, male-dominated medical profession.

The narrator and protagonist of the story is a woman suffering from an unnamed mental illness, and her doctor husband insists that the best treatment is rest therapy. She remains confined in a room covered with hideous yellow wallpaper, and over the course of weeks, she slowly unravels.

I fell in love with this story when I first read it in college, and I'm excited to share it with anyone who hasn't read it yet.

The music used in this presentation is from the soundtrack to Rule of Rose, a 2006 survival horror game.

In this episode of Heartbeat City, Cozy is joined by Autumn Greer to take your questions.

Special Guest: Autumn Greer.