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Episode 458 - The Pool (Patreon)

Published:
2019-07-07 18:11:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Patton Oswalt is back to talk Michael Shea in the summer party classic The Pool!

Warning: some language and themes not appropriate for younger listeners.

Don't forget to pick up your copies of The Ghost Box and The Ghost Box II from Hingston and Olsen! You deserve it!

Can't get an affordable copy of Copping Squid? Check out Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea!

Next up this month: On the Slab by Harlan Ellison

Comments

Aaron La Vene

Relistened to all of these, can we please have Patton comeback and cover the autopsy! After seeing it on cabinet of curiosities I’d love to see it covered.

HalkoPunch

Yes! More Shea and more Oswalt.

The Call of Cassandra

Last night I watched one of Patton's stand up specials on Netflix, just because of hearing him on your show. I can't wait to listen to this episode. I hope he drops more Scottish C-Bombs! :D Come at me Patton! Back now after listening to the episode. This is one I had time to prepare for by actually reading the story beforehand. What really struck me about this is the evolution of Shoggoths (something which perhaps Shoggoth Lord could shed more light on?). I remember back in the 90's there was a Call of Cthulhu adventure with a man called Mr. Shiney who hired the characters and was sort of an ally, at least for a while. *spoiler alert* Shiney turned out to be a Shoggoth wearing a man suit. I thought that was neat, because it showed this eldritch horror integrating itself into modern everyday life by mimicry. Like the story Mimic you guys covered (loved the movie by del Toro too!). Anyway, here in The Pool the Shoggoths continue to evolve their mimicry skills. I have to admit, I had no clue until the lady jumped into the pool. Then suddenly it all clicked into place. The spell that Mike Love tricks her into saying, the protagonist reading At The Mountains of Madness, the way the pool was miraculously finished in time, the strange descriptions of the water, it all came together into a moment of penultimate horror. Of course! Btw, is Patton also doing the podcast Every Little Thing Shea Does Is Magic? What about Shea Blinded Me With Science? Crazy Shea Calls Me?

Elisheba

Contrary to the women written by male authors, most women of non fiction, reality as it is called, are not so hyper aware of their boobs at all times they would necessarily notice one coming out of a swimsuit.

Will Hartley

Having listened to this podcast for many years, I must say Patton Oswalt is one of the most entertaining guests you guys have had on the show. He's charming, funny, and genuinely insightful on the stories. His sense of humor and that of yourselves mesh together brilliantly well, and I hope to hear more of him in the future.

Clyde Duensing III

Thanks for the links to two great-looking books I can't have. It's just this kind of disappointment I tune in for each week. Seriously, The Ghost Box I and II look pretty awesome. Maybe I can catch III before it goes bye-bye.

Clyde Duensing III

Great show guys. I look forward to more Shea and much more Oswalt. Since the Copping Squid episode, I've purchased “Demiurge” and read all of Shea's Lovecraftian stories. They evoke a lot of the cosmic fear and address many of the themes Lovecraft suggested, in spite of almost bordering on parody, as when using the "Lovecraft's stories are real" motif, or at times suggesting that the Great Old Ones have more of an interest in puny, insignificant humanity than one might expect. To be fair, HPL did that as well. Cthulhu apparently had uses for humans and cults, as did Yog-Sothoth, the Mi-Go, etc. “The Pool” is perhaps most Lovecraftian in that it leaves more mystery behind it than resolution. There seems to be, not merely one, but perhaps multiple forces manipulating things from behind the scenes, but we don’t get much of a clue about any of them, except for the connection to Lovecraft and his stories. It’s odd that when I read “The Pool” originally, it never occurred to me that Mike Love was directly involved in the occult goings on. I guess I just decided he was the cliche asshole boss that didn’t care about anything but getting the job done. I felt at the time that he had as little understanding of the words on the fax as anyone else, and that some outside force or set of forces was manipulating everyone towards the concluding event. But once you brought up the idea, it does make sense that Love was a agent of the Shoggoths and/or other ancient evil powers. I’m guessing we are supposed to assume there is another force as well, represented by Lovecraft in some way, and attempting to open the eyes of the properly receptive to the looming cosmic dangers that threaten us all. But is it a separate force, and is it trying to help us, or just blow our minds? The word “messenger” in the name of the answering machine could just refer to the idea that the protagonist was meant to receive a message, but it also suggests to the Lovecraft reader, Nyarlathotep who has been called a “messenger” multiple times in various stories. As you guys discussed, when taken along with other stories in the collection, it does almost feel like a piece in what was intended to develop into a full-blown larger arch of people on the fringes of society becoming aware of the mythos forces and gathering to fight against them. It would have been interesting to see where that might have ultimately gone.

John Wm. Thompson

This one (the story) felt a little bit loose to me - or at least the pool party action felt a little too disconnected from Dare's personal haunting. Perhaps that's just a function of how nebulous the motives of HP's Faceghost were. I personally assumed that "get one" was the message being whispered, but it still leaves me mystified and I have to say that being divinely (infernally?) directed to buy an answering machine isn't what I'd call a great plot device. I also wish the question of Dare's life direction and the threat of age were resolved somehow, as they were presented so prominently in the early going. Maybe the point of the end is that he's found his calling and will join the city defense? All that said, the images in that final scene were super uncanny and weird, and tapped an unexpectedly sublime tone out of the pool lady's last moments. It was a smart choice to make the deaths ecstatic rather than strictly horrific. Shea really pulled that whole scene off perfectly.

Devin Morse

I live in the Bay Area so this story really hits home for me. SF is so gentrified now it borders on an Eloi and Morlock situation.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

Let us say a large and heartfelt "Congratulations!" and "Thank you!" and "Way to use that couple-o-pounds o' thinky-stuff inside ye olde skulle!" to our fine construction workers who noped the heck out at the end. Seriously, I give Shea a lot of credit for endowing his characters with a modicum of sense. Not quite the action movie resolution we dine out on most often, and more the welcome for it.

Forrest Rush

Every time there’s a mention of a character reading something they shouldn’t, I always get a Buffy flashback of Riley (worst boyfriend, worst season, best episodes – eg Hush) reciting aloud something from one of Gile’s tomes only to have it burst into flames followed by Buffy calmly remarking “Don’t speak Latin in front of the books.”

Steve

Show me what you got!

Steve

From the Catholic Dictionary. Witness: One who can give evidence based on personal and immediate knowledge of a fact, event, or experience. The Christian concept of witness adds to the popular notion the idea of a religious experience to which a believer testifies by his life, words, and actions, and thus gives inspiration and example to others by his testimony. Implicit in Christian witness is also the element of courage in giving testimony, either because others are not favorably disposed or because they are openly hostile to the message of faith being proposed.

H P Lovecraft's Cat

Actually Mike Love is probably a stand in for David Bowie who after moving into a home close to the Sharon Tate murders in Los Angeles (another Beach Boy tie in with Dennis) had an exorcism performance on a pool.This was a fairly famous story during Bowie’s lost time in LA, I lifted this from a story about the procession of the pool. “There’s no easy or elegant way to say this, so I’ll just say it straight. At a certain point in the ritual, the pool began to bubble. It bubbled vigorously (perhaps “thrashed” is a better term) in a manner inconsistent with any explanation involving air filters or the like.” The rock and roll couple watched in amazement. Angie says she tried to be flippant – “’Well, dear, aren’t you clever? It seems to be working. Something’s making a move, don’t you think?’ – but I couldn’t keep it up. It was very, very strange; even after my recent experiences I was having trouble accepting what my eyes were seeing.” Angie insists that she would peak through the glass doors leading to the pool every so often and was dumb founded by what she saw. “On the bottom of the pool was a large shadow, or stain, which had not been there before the ritual began. It was in the shape of a beast of the underworld; it reminded me of those twisted, tormented gargoyles screaming silently from the spires of medieval cathedrals. It was ugly, shocking, malevolent; it frightened me. “I backed away from it feeling very strange, went through the doorway, and told David what I’d seen, trying to be nonchalant but not doing very well. He turned white but eventually became revived enough to spend the rest of the night doing coke. He wouldn’t go near the pool, though.”

Rafe Ball

There’s another possible reason why Mike Love doesn’t read the spell himself: “Okay, okay, let me just find this spell... where is it? Ah! Here it is - Enchant Swimming Pool! What the... costs 10 Magic Points and a point of permanent POW?!? No way am I casting this myself... Hey! Lady! Come over here and read this... uh... weird fax my building materials supplier just sent me! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

Darble Yarble

I'm eagerly waiting for the Shea story about the mythos mural that all the local graffiti artists put together, can't remember what it's called, one of my favorites from Demiurge.

Mark McCartney

Can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE encourage Patton to write is own weird tales???

James Anthony

These episodes have ruined me. I can't read Shea anymore without hearing it in Patton's voice, or watch Patton in anything without picturing his character as being in a Michael Shea story.

MonsterTalk

I’d like the Finding Bigfoot guys to get into these stories. If it helped them, we could say with glee: “Shea cured Moneymaker”