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Counter Esperanto Podcast Presents: An Attempted Conversation About Robert Aickman Episode 4

Welcome to the fourth episode of our “Attempted Conversations about Robert Aickman” series. This time around, we were quite fortunate to be able to speak to author, songwriter, book collector and publisher, R.B. Russell. Ray has published several novels, novellas and collections of short stories, is the author of Robert Aickman: A Biography, and along with Rosalie Parker, runs the award winning Tartarus Press, which is a godsend to those of us who enjoy beautifully crafted editions of strange books.

When I asked him if there was an aspect or work of Robert Aickman’s that he felt was underappreciated, he immediately responded with Aickman’s late novel, Go Back at Once which wasn’t published in his lifetime. 

Aickman himself said in one of his letters to Kirby McCauley that Go Back at Once is a deeply odd novel, even for him. Throughout its course, there’s very little that one could describe as “supernatural,” but there’s something of the transcendently weird, especially in the novel’s back half. The first portion of the book, however, feels like a send-up, if not a pastiche of what would now be termed a “Young Adult” novel: a story about two young women making their start in the world, and finding the world lacking. Then, they are whisked away to a strange land, which plays out a bit like a  “fish-out-of-water” story like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz.

Russell couldn’t have chosen a more apt work to discuss, especially as his biographer. The work is steeped in all of Aickman’s interests and predilections, from his devotion to the primacy of Art over all things, to his troubling and complex fascination with Fascism, and, as always, his facility to imbue the ordinary world with a deep sense of unease and the uncanny. This is heady stuff indeed!

Twin Peaks and David Lynch fans will also want to listen, because Russell is a big fan, and he has some very astute observations to make as to the spiritual (if not aesthetic) linkages between the two artists.

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Counter Esperanto Podcast Presents: An Attempted Conversation About Robert Aickman Episode 3

In this, the third episode of our Attempted Conversations About Robert Aickman, we welcome John Thorne back to the show. John is co-creator of the legendary Twin Peaks fanzine Wrapped in Plastic, the book Ominous Whoosh, and most recently, Devious Dreams: Reimagining David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

First, we talk to John about his book, which guides the reader through the strange world of Mulholland Drive, and its unlikely journey from TV pilot to one of the most heralded works of cinema in this still-young century.

Afterwards, we delve into two Robert Aickman stories, “Your Tiny Hand is Frozen,” and his much-anthologized “The Hospice.” While John is a relative newcomer to the strange world of Robert Aickman, he’s a veritable expert on David Lynch, which makes him a perfect companion as we consider the eerie resonances between the two creators’ work, which, while being very different in theme and aesthetic, are both characterized by an abiding commitment to the preservation of Mystery above all else.

“The Hospice” is available for free online, and can be found in Aickman’s Cold Hand in Mine collection.

“Cold Hand in Mine” is available in Aickman’s The Wine-Dark Sea collection.

Music at the beginning: “Che Gelida Manina” from La Bohème, as sung by Enrico Caruso.

Edmund St. Jude – voiced by Ray Russell

Bothersome Caller – Ramsey Campbell

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Advice and Observations for First Time Viewers of Twin Peaks

An April 8 of this year, the anniversary of the debut of the Twin Peaks pilot, I “tweeted” the following list of observations and pieces of advice for first-time viewers of the show.  Now, I would like to present the list, lightly edited, in a format that is much easier to read than it would be on that infernal site.

  1. Seasons one and two were, in part, a parody of popular 80s soaps, like Dallas and Falcon Crest, as well as teen dramas. The melodramatic side stems from that. You will note that the tonal shifts between melodrama, horror, & comedy often relate to specific characters, but the edges bleed.
  2. The “terrible second season” you may have heard about is really only about six episodes late in season two, and while there is a reason things went spotty (to divulge why would be a spoiler), these episodes contain much of the show’s enduring mythology and some great scenes.
  3. Season two rewards your tenacity with possibly the most insane series finale ever aired, and a final scene that I urge you to reflect upon before you move on to Fire Walk With Me and The Return: viewers had to sit with that for a quarter century.
  4. Fire Walk With Me isn’t only a prequel, but a kind of partial sequel as well. Time is wobbly in Twin Peaks. Also, Sheryl Lee gives perhaps film’s most underrated performance in this movie. An absolute masterclass.
  5. The Return is, first and foremost a reflection of time: Lynch/Frost contemplated what it means to come back to this after so many years. It’s a different kettle (percolator?) of fish. Go in with no expectation of nostalgia, take it on its own terms, and you’ll probably love it.
  6. If you are perplexed by the tone or heightened nature of a specific performance (especially in The Return), or a scene’s pacing, remember that David Lynch is first and foremost a painter: in film he uses emotions as a color or texture. Sometimes that color is “frustration.”
  7. At first, you may think that this is going to be yet another problematic “dead girl” show. Rest assured that over the course of the whole saga, it transcends the trope in ways that are both deeply moving and mind-bending. Laura Palmer is one of film and TV’s great badasses.
  8. When you’re done, read Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Final Dossier, which expands the mythology and historical context, as well as The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, masterfully written by Lynch’s daughter Jennifer. To avoid spoilers from the books you can read them in the order of release: Secret Diary between Season one and two, but any time after Season one, really, Secret History between FWWM and The Return, and Final Dossier after The Return, as something of a Coda on the story.
  9. Addendum: someone asked about The Missing Pieces, which is fashioned from Fire Walk With Me outtakes. This you will probably want to watch right after FWWM, and is probably included with any current release of the film. Several scenes in this will dovetail nicely with The Return.
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Counter Esperanto Podcast Presents: An Attempted Conversation About Robert Aickman Episode 2

In this, our second Attempted Conversation about Robert Aickman, we have brought in a formidable duo as guests to grapple with two Robert Aickman stories: “Ringing the Changes,” and “No Stronger Than a Flower.” Hilary and Indigo of the Full Blossom of the Evening Podcast, who are newcomers to the Capital-S Strange world of Robert Aickman, bring their talents of intertextual analysis to bear on two very different (yet tantalizingly resonant) stories of marital tension.

Like your “Humble Hosts,” Hilary and Indigo fell quickly in love with Aickman’s world of “The Strange,” because, as fans of David Lynch, it was easy to do so: while both artists could hardly be further apart aesthetically, they are both committed to the power of mystery, and the understanding that the line that divides the concrete world and the world of the unconscious, is both porous and slippery.

While we believe that Aickman’s stories are uncommonly resistant to the detrimental effects of spoilers, you can find one of them for free online at this link:

Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman Free Online

And the other can be found cheaply in the Faber & Faber collection The Unsettled Dust. If, like us, you love Aickman’s work enough to spring for something fancy, Tartarus Press has the complete short fiction of Robert Aickman in beautifully crafted hardcover editions of Aickman’s collections under their original titles. Here is a link to one of his best titles, Sub Rosa. Links to the other titles are also on this page:

Robert Aickman on Tartarus Press

A big thanks to all of you who have stuck with us over the years. Here’s to many more!

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Counter Esperanto Podcast Presents: An Attempted Conversation About Robert Aickman Episode 1

Greetings listeners!

We are pleased to bring you the first episode in a series about one of our favorite writers, Robert Aickman. As longtime listeners of Counter Esperanto know, we are something of a hybrid podcast: we began as a Twin Peaks podcast which filtered that series, and other David Lynch projects through weird stories, folklore, and history. In that process, we have often featured authors such as Thomas Ligotti, Franz Kafka, and of course H.P. Lovecraft.

It is Robert Aickman, though, that we feel deserves special attention. As we will discuss in this inaugural episode, those who have loved the mystery of Lynch’s films, especially the late films, and especially Twin Peaks: The Return, will find much that resonates with Robert Aickman’s brand of “the strange.”

To get a sense of what this author is all about, read one of his most anthologized stories, “The Hospice,” right here.

Robert Fordyce Aickman, born June 27, 1914, was in his time chiefly known, and now chiefly remembered, for two things. First would be his work as co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, which was instrumental in the rejuvenation of the British canal system, which, by the mid 20th century, had long fallen into disrepair.

The second would be for his career as a writer of what he called “strange stories.” While he wrote all his life, Aickman was something of a late-bloomer, publishing most of his work after the age of 40. Still, he must have felt that being an author was in his blood. His maternal grandfather was Richard Marsh, a contemporary of Bram Stoker whose macabre and spooky novel The Beetle initially outsold Dracula upon release.

Aickman was a believer in ghosts and the supernatural, and as a young man participated in ‘ghost hunting’ investigations, which included excursions to the Borley Rectory, which was infamous as one of the most haunted buildings in England.

When he began writing stories in earnest, Aickman had become editor of the Fontana Book of Ghost Stories, generally including one of his own recent tales in the mix.

Robert Aickman wrote 48 “Strange Stories,” In addition to a handful of novels and novellas. While not great in number, Aickman’s stories stand alone not only in their economy and effectiveness of characterization, but also in their ability to submerge the reader into the feeling of a real dream, or nightmare. These are subtle stories which, while they aren’t necessarily to everyone’s taste, they have nonetheless gained new life, an “Aickmannessance,” if you will, thanks to the wide availability of Faber & Faber’s reprints, the masterful and astute readings by actor Reece Shearsmith, available on Audible, and of course deluxe volumes of his stories under their original titles published by Tartarus Press, run by authors R.B Russell, and Rosalie Parker. Russell also wrote a fantastic biography of Aickman, also available by Tartarus.

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