Episode 157 – Fishhead
Swim out into the lake with us as we tackle the Irvin S. Cobb classic, Fishhead!
Special thanks to guest Matt Burriesci (with his own special guest, Violet) and reader Andrew Leman. There are always fishy things happening at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society!
Thanks so much to everybody who donated to the Kickstarter – there are still a few days to go!
We’ll be back talking mummies next week!
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HP Lovecraft’s “The Orange Kazoo.” Surely this is the instrument the blind pipers play for Azatoth.
This story reminds me a great deal of Jack Arnold’s 1954 film, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” The most obvious similarity is the title character: a human/fish hybrid, sympathetic and solitary,intruded on and hunted. The opening of Cobb’s story, with its vivid description of primordial swamp life is echoed in Arnold’s film, as well as his reliance on atmosphere for effect. Here I quote Arnold:”In most of my sf films I tried to create an atmosphere because I think if you shoot an imaginative film–a film in which you ask an audience to believe things that are bizarre–you have to make them believe it. You can’t do this with the story or actors alone, you have to create a kind of atmosphere while shooting it in which the audience’s credibility will be suspended to the point where they don’t say to themselves: ‘That’s impossible!'”
I’m realizing I instantly love ANY story when Andrew Leman is reading it. He’s a really good reader.
Also: good news about The Red Hand, I feel you skipped over Arthur Machen without getting to the good parts.
Thanks for the tip on Highsmith’s book, which I went looking for at Amazon. Read the contents, and can you believe it? She didn’t include Saki’s “Sredni Vashtar”! How anyone can publish a book with that title and NOT include Sredni Vashtar is beyond me ;>)
Great job all. I agree about Cobb’s writing but the reading given of it was wonderful too. I just referenced Cobb at my blog a little bit in his capacity as a crime writer. Am familiar with Reelfoot Lake too.
YES! I’v LOVED and Thrilled to this story for years! This is one of my VERY favorite fish-man stories next to the Creature and HPL’s the deep ones. One other fun Fish-man-monster is the 1st place winning “SURF” short film made by BODY GLOVE called “The disappearance” : Surfers on a remote tropical island seek the perfect wave, and fins the perfect monster! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDi8EmFBW0A
I sure hope that either Chris or Chad will read this comment, even though this particular podcast is so old!
First, thanks so much for this wonderful discussion of I really curious story by a talented writer I was ignorant of until now.
Secondly, the main comment I have concerns Chad & Chris statement at the 4:29 mark, which declared that you two would be devoting a podcast (or more) to Arthur Machen’s “The Three Imposters”. I was so excited to hear this, since this is the story that includes Machen’s excellent “Black Seal” and “White Powder” novels. And yet here it is in 2018 and no podcast! Please, if you can, I hope you two can cover this Machen story. Even though the overall story isn’t so great, yet these two novels are awesome!
P.S. You were discussing animal revenge stories in this episode. Please consider doing an episode on the Bram Stoker story “The Squaw”; I was definitely rooting for the mama!