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Study 108 - Dress of White Silk / I Can't Help Saying Goodbye (Patreon)

Published:
2024-10-03 14:00:06
Edited:
2024-10-04 07:09:51
Imported:
2024-10
Tags:

Content

It's an October double feature narrated by two spooky little girls: Dress of White Silk by Richard Matheson and I Can't Help Saying Goodbye by Ann Mackenzie!

Special thanks to reader Heather Klinke, who kills it!

Check out this week's sponsor: The Path of Veins! Grab the soundtrack on Bandcamp!

And while you're there, grab your Halloween Pitch Black Manor for Bandcamp Friday!

Files

Comments

Daniel Weber

In Dress of White Silk, if it is a vampire story, maybe the hole in the dress is where the mother was staked through the heart? That story pulls off the trick of being satisfyingly ambiguous. So cool! Ok, gotta go listen to the second half of the episode. Love you guys! Keep up the great work.

Jason Thompson

How do you become a sponsor of the show? I really honestly want to know! What are the rates etc? Sorry I could not find the official link for this, please help!

Patrick J McManus

The only thing I love more than Patton Oswalt as a guest host... is when the reader is Heather Klinke!

Nathaniel Lekki

Bad at social editing= corporate for no filter XD

ESTY

What a delightful double-header! Two really good strange tales, perfectly paired for contrast and comparison. Chef’s kiss 😘 👌

REO Jackwagon

I nearly drowned half a dozen times as a kid. Seems like I was dragged from the surf twice a summer for a while there. Libby isn't going to murder Karen. Poor kid is just destined to drown, explaining her fear of water. I myself live a thousand miles from the sea, and I don't swim.

Billy in Paducah

The Goodbye story was adapted on Tales from the Darkside

Matt Baldwin

Fantastic stories and reading! Heather's dedication to her craft is unmatched. Even Daniel Day-Lewis wouldn't live as a creepy little girl for a role. Actually maybe he would.

Stacy Schumacher

I think the Dress story is absolutely about a vampire, and I think maybe we've got a Blade situation the grandma is trying to stop from progressing. Didn't quite work though, as the narrator 100% fed on that kid

Jerrod Brown

This 1st story made me think of the old “wedding dress covered in formaldehyde” tale from when I was a kid. I know they are very different, just funny what your brain will draw back on for a reference/memory.

Allison Albright

These were both great stories. And Heather is such a good reader! The first story was genuinely creepy. It reminded me of dressing up in my mom's clothes as a kid, or playing with her make up and perfume. This was, of course, forbidden, but it was so much fun because it made me feel both closer to my mom and also because all kids love to imitate the adults they love. This story captured some of that feeling and also some of how those things feel in hindsight as an adult, if the things your family has passed on to you include some not so great stuff. Stuff that seemed normal to you when you were a kid though, because you didn't know any different.

Rafe Ball

On the nature of the mother in "Dress of White Silk", when the story was reprinted in "The Eureka Years" it included a letter from Matheson to the editors regarding the tale: Dear Tony, As you suggest, I'll assume momma to be some type of were-creature who does not necessarily change on the outside. I'll work in that ring finger idea. (I never knew of that before.) [in story "Dress of White Silk"]* As to the dress I'll try to make it clearer what I mean. I had visualized that what was left of momma's powers were in the dress she had once worn during those times she traipsed around digesting the good citizens of the town. The leaves and smell bags were meant to be some sort of abortive power like garlic with the vampire. I'll see if I can bring it out better. Best, Dick P.S. Just looked at my own hand. Ye gads! *I suppose it is common knowledge that one identification of a werewolf can be made by establishing that the ring finger is longer than the middle finger of the hand. Personally, I had to check it out with better-versed supernaturalists.

Philip Cowan

A spooky pair this week - a bit like those twins from The Shining. I have a theory regarding Dress of White Silk. I think the girl is a projected disguise of the vampire, designed to lure in the little friend. I assume she believes in her own disguise, as she thinks as the girl after feeding and being locked up back in her coffin. Anyway, another great show. Nice to hear Heather reading again. How about a kickstarter for an audiobook of stories read by Heather (ones she likes) and soundscape by Chad? Even I might be able to find a £1 coin down the back of the sofa for that… PS: Just read Rafe Ball’s post. So not vampire then, but still works for werewolves…maybe…?

Daniel Restione

Matheson was a genius and doesn’t get enough credit for the amount of excellent material he left us. Hell House is up there with Jackson’s Hill House in my opinion. Great show!

HRPrice

In Dress of White Silk, if it’s a werewolf story, maybe the reason it smells good to the narrator and bad to everyone else is because she has a canine sense of smell? And if it’s a vampire story, maybe the mother has been dead longer than she’s been “gone”, bolstering the friend’s belief that the narrator has no mother?

The Lonely Sand Person

I think the hole in the dress is where Mom got staked or shot or whatever.

It's a Ghost.

I think Karen is so resigned to her fate because it's simply set. When she "says goodbye" it doesn't seem like she knows how people are going to die. If she did, she could have said, "Hey mom and dad, don't go to the bank," or "Hey Dick, you need to see a doctor." I think, as the title indicates, when someone is about to die, she simply knows it, it’s set, and then she can’t help but say goodbye.

Karsa Torvald

In the white dress, I took all of the sensory cues to mean that she in fact was already the thing the grandmother feared she would be. Decaying meat often can smell sweet, and I imagine for a creature that feeds either on death or is surrounded by it, sights and smells and perceptions would be very different from a human being. And that mean little girl has gotta be dead.

Jim Cannon

These two kids are the protagonists of the creepiest Tori Amos songs you could possibly imagine.

Beanz

Regarding white dress: They won't catch her if she's wearing her dress... it transforms her in some way? Could mother have been a selkie? The dress as a pelt. The "silk" being soft fur. The rotting smell being due to the rotting pelt. Big weird hands easily fuse to make flippers? Can't selkie pelts be taken and worn by others?

Ethan Cordray

The mystery of "Ann Mackenzie" made my librarian senses tingle, so I decided to see what I could find. Not much... 1. According to the FictionMags Index (http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/n06/n06509.htm#A126), Ann Mackenzie published four stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Night of the Scarecrows (April 1976), My Father Knows Your Name (August 1977), My Dear Jenny (1978), and I Can't Help Saying Goodbye (May 1978). None of the other three has ever been anthologized as far as I can tell, and I haven't found scans of the original issues yet. 2. According to an authority record (the things us librarians use to tell authors with the same name apart), this Ann Mackenzie was from southern Rhodesia, current-day Zimbabwe. She might be the mother of Jassy Mackenzie, a romance novelist from South Africa who grew up in Rhodesia. She is (almost) definitely not the same person as the Ann Marie Mackenzie who wrote From Scarlet to Snow. Maybe the original issues of EQMM might have more biographical information. If anybody can get their hands on them, I'd love to know more!

Eric S. Vallone, M.D.

“Dress of White Silk” is a great story. I never heard of it before. But the narration reminded me of another great Matheson really short “short story,” called “Born of Man and Woman.” Too short to make an episode out of unless you combined it as part of a “weird children” episode. But definitely a must-read, packing a punch in a few short pages.

Aaron La Vene

WOW absolute bangers. Great stories that leave quite the impression damn

Michael Cunliffe

I somehow managed to read Dress of White Silk as entirely devoid of supernatural elements, a psycho-style situation where the mother was a mentally ill woman in a time where treatment was not an option. She went out in the dress and was killed, perhaps during an act of violence. The daughter was attached to the dress so emotionally that the Grandmother could not bear to throw it out, but was scared of her daughter’s obsession with it, afraid that she would also become ill and hurt someone. Teased by her ‘friend’, the daughter lashes out, confirming the grandmother’s worst fears. Amazing how easily I missed the most obvious monster explanation 🫣

Anne Ominous

Such great short stories! How did I miss so much? Thanks as always for the readout!

David Halstead

I couldn't help thinking the hole in the dress was from where the vampire woman was staked. It could also be that she wasn't a real vampire but someone thought she was, maybe the grandma, and staked her for that.