Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Study 007 - The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-19 20:20:13
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

We're dipping a toe in The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be by Gahan Wilson - grab a drink and join us!

Special thanks to reader Erik Peabody of Viking Guitar Productions!

Here's Neil Gaiman's remembrance of Gahan Wilson.

And that article on The Walrus and the Carpenter from The Wisdom Daily.

Next up: Desertion by Clifford Simak

Comments

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Just starting and the mention of Garth Marenghi makes me smile—especially since Marenghi announced he has a new horror anthology coming out this November.

Ben A

You two hit the proverbial nail about the importance of what the audience brings to art and meaning. Over the last 13 years you have made the case for this so many times, but I think your discussion about Lewis Carroll and his writing is a perfect example. Art is a meeting of minds, an exchange of perspectives through a medium. The writer, the artist, the composer brings the first part and the audience meets them in the imagination. I know far too often I have sought what the author was thinking when they were writing. (See my comments way back about Turn of the Screw…) Heck, that’s why there’s such a good trade in the letters and notes of authors, as well as annotated volumes. (Chad, if anything as an exercise, you should grab a copy of the annotated Alice.) But does it always matter what the author intended, especially in strange/weird fiction? Carroll may have thumbed his nose at the literati, but that doesn’t keep them from ascribing political and cultural meaning to his nonsense. So, I’d argue that the best art really is as much a Rorschach Test of the audience as it is a measure of the creator’s intent. And that’s why we’re still talking about and adapting Alice, among so many other works, to this day. All this to say that Wilson’s story is clearly a vampire tale. I won’t accept a different interpretation. (Just kidding.)

Adequately Excellent Entertainment

I honestly don’t think either Jabberwocky nor The Walrus and The Carpenter are nonsense poems. They of course contain nonsense. In Jabberwocky it’s in the vocabulary, while in The Walrus and The Carpenter it’s in the absurdity of the situation. But, like when the Walrus tells the little oysters that the night is fine and asks if they admire the view, it’s a distraction. Just because the Carpenter could have been a butterfly doesn’t mean this poem isn’t a warning to children about the existence of duplicity in adults/people in general. (Or, as Little Red Ridinghood says in Into The Woods, “Nice, is different than good.”) I bring up Little Red RidingHood from Into the Woods in part because this story is basically that story. Just with a walrus and a carpenter instead of a wolf, and little oysters instead of a little girl. Also, there’s no huntsman or wood cutter to come to the rescue to the little oysters. Little Red’s solo from that show just sums up the whole thing really nicely. “I weep for you”, the Walrus said, “I deeply sympathize.” With sobs and tears He sorted out those of the largest size. Holding a pocket handkerchief before his streaming eyes. A poem full of nonsense? Yes. But not without meaning. It includes, (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) “… nonsense up with which one should not put.” In addition to the absurdity That obfuscates the absolute darkness of the poem and makes people think it’s suitable for children when it’s really more of a kind of thing that Ramsey Campbell and 80% of your listening audience would be likely to have read under the age of 10.

It's a Ghost.

I was happy to hear the “shoes and ships and sealing wax” part because I recognized it . . . from an episode of Doctor Who (The Rings of Akhaten) where the Doctor said, “Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, those elements came together to form new stars and new planets and on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another.”

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

On the subject of interpreting "The Walrus and the Carpenter," I am somewhat amused that the first and primary source of deeper meanings attributed to it that I've seen was Kevin Smith's Dogma, where an expatriate angel played by Matt Damon uses it as an argument for religous traditions exploiting the vulnerable masses and "devouring" them—with the Carpenter being a stoic Christ figure, while the tusked and rotund Walrus is (in his argument) meant to be a pan-Asiatic allegory, blending features of Ganesha and one of the more corpulent Buddhas. I like this interpretation because it's implied to be faux-scholarly drivel he made up on the spot purely to "mess with the clergy" for a bit, without any real meaning to it. A nonsense interpretation for a nonsense story has a nice ring to it.

Joshua

Much to say here. So glad to see Gahan Wilson arrive on the show. His ‘The Cleft and Other Odd Tales’ was such revelation coming from someone I thought only drew. His writing is uniformly cutting & curious. This story is a great introduction to his style. Wilson also illustrated a novel of Roger Zelazny’s called ‘A Night In The Lonesome October’ - perhaps the perfect Halloween read after Bradbury. All the classics appear: Drac, Frank, Wolfman Talbot plus Sherlock Holmes & Rasputin for good measure - all of whom are competing for or against Lovecraftian Horrors on Halloween night. I know novels are more work for the two of you than shorter fiction, but it would be *ideal* for an October read. Also it’s told from the pov of Jack the Ripper’s dog. Can I bait this any hook more?? On Alice, of all the versions worth delving into the 1966 British tv play is still perhaps the best. I’ve no notion of it’s availability, but it is so worth the search.

Ravewolf

Having read the poem as a kid, I have since often thought to myself: '"But not on us!" the oysters cried.' whenever I see folks come into a bad situation that they probably should have seen coming. It was kind of my "I never thought the leopards would eat MY face." meme before the Internet era. I happened to come across this story only a few years ago, and I just loved the way the author seemed to "get" how dark the poem really is, even if just taken at face value. And so, we get a story inspired by the poem that fits it quite well. There is something a bit desolate about beaches in general as it is that I think is captured in both works.

Ben Gilbert

The look of Karl Tenniel’s illustrations are what we think of when we think of Alice in Wonderland. Even productions that stray far from the traditional Alice seem to keep some aspects of Tenniel’s art.

Ben Gilbert

I found the Playboy Book of horror on cassette tape at a thrift store long ago. I have my favorites but all the stories are very readable. Having lived in LA you may appreciate John Collier’s Softly Walks the Beetle, an amusing story about a Hollywood producer who may be the Devil. He also wrote Pictures in the Fire about a Devil who wants to be a Hollywood producer sort of like Get Shorty. Collier’s work was the source of several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, not to mention a Sondheim musical made for TV.

Forrest Rush

My Korean vet dad had the complete opposite reaction Chad. "If I had to eat it every day, you damn kids can too."

Trond Helstrup Poulsen

In my youth I would watch the Walt Disney cartoon hour. It would always be two blocks of Darkwing Duck, Ducktales and the like, divided by a couple of shorts. Most times it would be short Disney productions, but every once in a while a program director would mess up. That is how I came to know of The Walrus and The Carpenter as a very small child: https://youtu.be/00WCEbKM_SE

Jim Cannon

I never connected with the Alice stories the way I did with Wizard of Oz (a story about friendship) or Narnia (a rollicking adventure story where Santa Claus endorses the notion of child soldiers by handing swords to the Pevensies) or Flash Gordon or any of the other stories in the same genre. I don't know why. I think there's an underlying current of menace to Wonderland that just creeped me the hell out as a kid. So Wilson's story and in particular his afterward struck a chord with me.

Corey Wittig

I’m slightly shocked I’m the first to really mention the Disney Alice film which I was big-time affected by. Chad, did you say you saw this? It is, ultimately, pretty faithful. However, I remember many iterations growing up: made-for-tv movies, star-studded Through the Looking Glass in prime time (with Carol Channing’s white queen singing “jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today!” and many more. Anyway, being into all of this, and seeing the true weirdness beneath the Disney sheen, I read the books in high school when I was binging children’s classics I’d missed (now a kids’ school librarian btw) and found they were even weirder than I’d guessed. I didn’t know Tinniel’s name until today but I could spot those illustrations a mile away. I have plans to recite the jabberwocky at this year’s school talent show! 😛 Another weird note, I discovered Gahan Wilson as a preteen when my grandmother gave me a bunch of cd-rom games that came packaged together from Walmart (around 97 I’d guess) and my favorite one by far was called Gahan Wilson’s ultimate haunted house. It was a dark humor point and click adventure game where you had to escape the haunted house before 13 O’Clock or you’d be there forever. The game included an evil and a kind ghost of Gahan that would visit you throughout. Also lots of bawdy humor. If you went to the attic in the game you could view real Gahan Wilson comic strips by clicking repeatedly on an easel. Great memories! Finally, cheers on the new show! Been traveling along nye these many years (I think I jumped in during year two or so) and I love it more than ever. Thank you, my friends!

Sean McGivern

It was kind of skimmed over here, but the Martin Gardner who wrote the introduction to the Annotated Alice is THE Martin Gardner. (Maybe that only makes sense to me because I studied mathematics?) He's probably most famous for popularising a bunch of mathematical problems through his puzzles, but he had a long and interesting life: https://martin-gardner.org Carroll also did similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tangled_Tale I'd be really interested to hear you explore the influences from logic and mathematics in Carroll's work. Even in the poem mentioned here, the nonsense sections are very clearly explained to make the contradictions apparent.

Leprejuan

I have to second (or third) the recommendation for In the Lonesome October. What really occurred to me was that I am just enough older than you for Alice in Wonderland to be a thing. I was eight in 1974, and those hardback, illustrated editions were in libraries. Alice was very hard reading for a kid, but totally worth it because of how subversive it is. Every time that Alice is well-behaved or polite to the people (creatures?) she meets, they give her shit about it. The Walrus and the Carpenter deceive and eat the well-behaved oysters they meet. Both books are about how you need to codeswitch and examine the motivations of the adults you meet. I didn't have the words to explain those two ideas, but I remember what a shining realization it was. I couldn't believe that power-seeking grown ups let those books be accessible to kids. It was like a real version of The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups book.

Jason Thompson

Random gripe: I can’t believe the Tim Burton Alice movies took this book which is basically a series of weird encounters and social parrying and grafted a clunky basic Good vs Evil heroic quest narrative and fight scenes on it. I guess somebody had to do it.

Devin Morse

The description of Carl being "born dead" is actually how Gahan Wilson referred to himself a few times, including an appearance on Letterman. There's also a documentary about him called Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird.

Steve

As the old joke goes, The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking hand in hand, "If only," said the Carpenter, "the law would understand."

Steve

I don't know if it's something to with the age that you come to Alice, and it being so strongly a part of British culture, but I never thought there was any secondary meaning. And it has never occurred to me to look for one. I'm not sure I can listen to a perhaps ill-advised attempt to so do.

Karlandos

Walrus and the Carpenter is one of my favorite poems and this story does a really good job of putting a horror spin on it. Not only that, I think you can literally feel the self loathing that really sells the feeling the character's have and their problems. It almost makes the brief moment when they feel relief and happiness almost desireable even if they all kind of knew that meant they were going to die shortly afterwards. Better to leave the world happy than live in misery I suppose.

Stacy Schumacher

I read the Lewis Carroll stories not as nonsense, but as a very good example of surrealism... before that term was coined. Also, thinking of the original Walrus and the Carpenter poem, how much more truly horrifying would the story be if the illustrator had chosen "butterfly"?

Karl Haikara

I find it almost incomprehensible you guys and your ignorance of the Alice books, I grew up with them being a huge part of my childhood alongside the Disney movie which is to this day one of the few Disney movies i will return to as an adult. However it is good you're rectifying this now. I love the Alice books, the whole Walrus and the Carpenter story as told in the book and the movie always made me feel real weird and creeped out as a kid the feeling sticks me to this day. I loved this story and how he used this feeling in a proper horror story.

Cacodaemoniacal

The ending was horrible when I first read it, but now it seems a flat trope.

Jeffrey Kahrs

Avram Davidson has a story on this also called “All the seas with Oysters”

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I'm coming to this rather late because I just spent rather an extra amount of time in Evanston. Where I grew up. And went to B-Fest for many, many years. I was there with my wife and children to visit my parents for the first time in 2 1/2 years due to COVID. We could spare only a week, but we were very happy to spare it. Sad to have been apart for so long. It was, we reckon, during our long, long wait in the not-social-distant, precious-few-masks-worn line at Immigration that we all contracted COVID. Which we promptly passed on to my parents. And then we could not return to Japan. Japan requires a negative PCR test (this will change soon, but not soon enough for us) in order to enter the country. So we made an every day practice of going down to the free testing facility until - and even after - we could get a negative result. Result in hand, we could call Japan Airlines for permission to try to get on a flight. Which we couldn't do. And couldn't do. And finally just did. I returned to Tokyo two days ago. Our time in Evanston felt rather like going down the rabbit hole. COVID did a number on our brains and drained our energy. I got further whacked out by time shifting 14 hours to work my Tokyo job. And the testing site was beautifully LC-esque. Hours were posted but not held to. You could pay $100 for test results by 9am the next day but they wouldn't come by 9am the next day. Or you could pay nothing for test results in 48-72 hours but they would actually come 24 hours later. Different testers met us each day. Each with different rules for how they took our information. Or didn't. I could go on and on in the way of many a B-Fest movie. But I'll call it off here and just say for all the Evanstonians, thanks for the shout outs gents!

Chris

This story and the poem made me think of this scene from what we do in the shadows, where one of the vampires has someone over for a date who he's going to kill, and he's all earnestly romantic - "It's their last moment alive, so why not make it a nice experience?" Though the happiness in the story may have been more hypnotic, relative to being devoured living, a nice experience - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_VWGV6_N9o