Details Are Sketchy
A bimonthly true crime podcast, in which two friends share an unsolved disappearance or unsolved case, a crime they're most intrigued by, and talk all things true crime.
Details Are Sketchy
Horpses
Trigger warning: *discussion of animal death and mutilation.
We apologise for our long absence. Again. Life has been continuing to life, including a hospitalization. We recorded this episode back in July. Rachel has the case this week. She tells us all about the mysterious string of horse mutilations that happened in France a few years ago. There is no missing person again, but as always, we chat about what we've been reading, watching, and listening to.
As mentioned in this episode, we had some technical difficulties with an episode we previously recorded in which we discussed The Poisoner's Handbook. Unfortunately, we weren't able to discuss it in this one, as we had already forgotten the details. We will move on to our next book, listed below.
Our next book: "Wack Job: A History of Ax Murder" by Rachel McCarthy James.
Announcement: We will be putting our episodes up on YouTube this month. We will announce it on Instagram and Facebook once we get the first one up.
Sources:
Please see our Instagram for now (probably posted 10/15). They will be listed here soon.
Get in touch with us:
Instagram: Details Are Sketchy - @details.are.sketchy
Facebook: Details Are Sketchy - @details.are.sketchy.2023
Instagram: Kiki - @kikileona84
Instagram: Rachel - @eeniemanimeenienailz
Email: details.are.sketchy.pod@gmail.com
Hi everyone. We just want to say before we start our new podcast that we apologize for everything for it being our leave of absence. Yes, our long leave of absence. Uh three months or so. We recorded this back in July. A lot's happened since then. We won't get into it. But um we just want to say sorry and hopefully we will be a little more on the ball.
SPEAKER_00:And you can enjoy our thoughts and opinions from July. Probably some of them are like seasonal. Seas seasonal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no doubt. I mean, we were talking about movies we saw back in the spring. So possibly complaining about the weather, things of that nature. Yes. Alright. Uh so here is our episode. Uh I don't even know what number it is. I think we've decided to call it Horpses, and you'll find out why. All right. Talk to you later, guys. Bye. Bye. I'm Kiki. And I'm Rachel. And this is Details Are Sketchy. A True Crime Podcast. And um, it's been another month since we had an episode, probably more since I have to edit this. But um, it's because I lost the other episode. I don't know where it went. It disappeared from my computer. We had a technical issue. That sounds better than what I said, yes. These things happen. And then uh, you know, one thing led to another and we just couldn't do it until today. But we're good to go now.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, it's gonna be Rachel again because I did my episode, but then it KB's episode was the last episode, but then that was our loss episode.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so Rachel got hers going. Um it's about horse mutilation, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is about horse mutilation. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna have a hard time with this one. Um, yeah, because you know, I was having trouble being inspired, but I've I've been uh having a little horsey hyperfixation lately. So I came across this string of of incidents that happened in France in 2020, and I thought it was pretty interesting. Yeah. And so I thought I would go with that since that's a shiny object that's catching my eye. Horses, not horse mutilation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she's been into horses lately.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Also, I think this is supposed to be our book episode, but uh it's been over a month since we read it. Right. If that is true.
SPEAKER_00:Well, because our last episode went missing, I don't think that episode should count.
SPEAKER_01:No, um, I'm just saying, so we won't be talking about it in this episode. We talked about it in the last one. If I ever find it, I will post it. Um, but we have a new book that we'll do in two more up, three more, four more episodes.
SPEAKER_00:So don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and download so I can become wildly rich and afford a horse.
SPEAKER_01:I don't need a horse. I just want to be able to I don't know. You just need a bookstore. I just need my bookstore. There you go. Um yeah.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It probably costs about the same. Probably. Especially if you want like a one of the really nice breeds.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I I've seen some of them like go for like pretty good deals of like auctions and stuff. But the thing about that is that there's like some shady sellers and some good sellers, and so you have to kind of know what you're looking at to know. So yeah, I saw somebody on online buy like a registered Frisian Philly for like$11,000, which is a good deal. Um you know, just like cars in obviously I have that in my back pocket, right? Ready to go. Absolutely. We all do. I don't even have eleven dollars in my back pocket ready to go.
SPEAKER_02:I don't either.
SPEAKER_00:But but as far as as far as that kind of horse goes, is a good deal. But they had somebody with them who was like an expert in freesians and like was like, these are the horses that you should look out for. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So even more money because I bet he had to hire that person.
SPEAKER_00:I think it was like his buddy though, because he's like an influencer. Oh, okay. So influencers get a lot of stuff for free. That's true. So I don't think that I would be a very good influencer. Me either. Yeah, so I wouldn't get free services for the free.
SPEAKER_01:We're not the influency type. Yeah. We're too um, we're not even like the sellable dorky. We're just dorks.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you have to be you have to be pre-rich, right? Uh-huh. You have to be very young and slim and like abnormally good looking and charismatic as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I don't think either one of us fall in that charisma section. So I guess we don't have to worry about being serial killers then.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or cult leaders, damn.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely not. Because I also don't fall into the other end of serial killer of like person who just can disappear into a crowd. Yeah. Like that's also not me. So darn.
SPEAKER_01:Oh. Okay. Anyway. Um again, if you can guess it, no missing person. I had all this time and I didn't. Instead, I cleaned my kitchen and bought stuff on Amazon. And bought stuff on Amazon. I am a master procrastinator.
SPEAKER_00:It happens.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay. But next time we are gonna get on track. Yeah. Okay. And I will no longer be teaching after this one, so maybe I'll actually have time to like juge up this podcast a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it it seems that way because you're like, I won't have this on my plate, but then as soon as you don't have that thing on your plate, like all the other things that you've been neglecting that's come up, and then you have to address those things. Yeah, that's true. Because it seems like we're always like running behind, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That reminds me, I should probably say, I say we're gonna get back on track, but I will be moving, and hopefully Rachel will be too to LA in the coming months. So it may be more sporadic. Right. And starting a new business. Fingers crossed, everybody, that happens.
SPEAKER_00:We can podcast in the bookstore maybe if it's slow. There you go. Hopefully it won't be slow. Hopefully not. Yeah. Okay. So okay. Horsing mutilations. So this started in like the summer of 2020 in France, and it started with so I didn't take very good notes, so I'm just mostly going off of paraphrasing off these articles. So sorry everyone. So it started in June 2020 with a lady named Pauline Sarazin, and I will probably be butchering a lot of French names, so be prepared for that. Um, yeah, I don't imagine that I will be pronouncing any of these correctly. A horse enthusiast in her mid-20s living in Normandy when uh she allegedly found her horse, lady, dying out in the pasture. Um, the horse's ear was missing and some of the skin was ripped off of her face.
SPEAKER_01:Oh god.
SPEAKER_00:Leading uh Sarazan to propose that uh acid had been thrown on her. In subsequent interviews with the press, Polly and Sarazan recalled several further troubling details from the days before her horse's death. She remembered seeing a drone flying over her property in the middle of the night. Uh, she saw somebody suspicious trespassing on her property, and someone she believed was impersonating a vet called for information about the horse. Which uh, to her avote the specter of like an organized group of maybe killings, like a cult or something. Yeah. Um, so she didn't feel like the police were really listening to her and her situation, and so she went online and created like a Facebook group called Justice for Our Horses, or that's like the English translation, it's like a Frenchie name.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But Justice for Our Horses, um, so that she could see if there's anybody else out there who had experienced like the same situation.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:She said, I just wanted to find the assholes who did this. Yeah. Um soon a ton of people joined. Sorry. That's okay. I'm popping my popper. Um, mostly other horse owners, animal activists, animal lovers, and it also attracted quite a following from like the amateur sleuth community. Yeah. Um, so after reviewing like old news reports uh and uh having discussions with members of the group, um Sarazen claimed that they had found some possible 60 previous cases of attacks on horses.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:Going back as far as 2014.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:According to Sarazen, many of the cases had been overlooked. Um, quote, the problem is it's never the same type of horse that is targeted or the same method of killing, she told the French newspaper 20 Minutes. The only link is that the ear is taken. Uh, and that was uh something that they felt was a common factor is that that one ear, often the right ear, was taken off of the horse. Even some cases where there were horses that were were alive, like, but suddenly they were missing an ear. Here's a a Palomino horse. Oh poor horsey, uh, you can't really see, but it's it's a palomino horse with a blaze sticking its head out of a stall, and one of its ears is like halfway missing. And it doesn't look very happy.
SPEAKER_01:Do we do we know why the right ear? Like, is there something special, like a tag or something?
SPEAKER_00:We don't know. As far as I know, there's not anything particular because horses can be tagged in different ways, usually with like brands. Yeah, but usually like a brand is not gonna be on the ear, usually they're like on the flank or the side of the horse, sometimes even on like the face, like the cheekbone. But like the ears of a horse are really sensitive, and so there's usually not like a tag or a brand on the ear. Okay. Alright, so um, as the news of the mutilations grew, horse owners in France started to take a second look at random deaths of their horses that they had had in the past months or years, and they started asking themselves if there was anything unusual about the circumstances surrounding their horses' deaths. People who hadn't lost horses became very fearful that their animals might be targeted next. Yeah. At the height of the hysteria, I don't really like that word hysteria. What's another word that we can use instead of hysteria? The frenzy. There you go. The height of the frenzy around this situation. Uh, the Facebook group at Justice for our horses had over 20,000 members with the community sharing tips and advice to ward off attacks, uh about setting up security cameras, how to detect signs that people were surveilling their property, and people also posted their theories about what was going on.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Some more mundane and some more uh out there. One user warned that the perpetrator perpetrators might be drugging guard dogs during attacks. Others shared what they believe were signs left by the perpetrators, and it could be just a small discovery from manure on a doorstep to card marks on a fence post. Like every little potential sign was being dissected by the community because people were becoming increasingly paranoid that this was gonna happen to them. The attacks became a national concern with no suspects and limited evidence. Basically, everything was on the table. Some people believed that there was like a kind of horse serial killer out there. Some people believed that it was some kind of like internet challenge. Other people believed it was a satanic cult.
SPEAKER_01:Of course they did.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Or some kind of cult, but like satanic cult or like witchy pagan cult, were like leading theories. Yeah. So every explanation is being considered at this point, said a police commander in central France in late June, which to me is kind of a generic cop comment. Yeah. But I guess if you are like a a really terrified horse owner, yeah. Whose mind is running wild, and you know, uh a comment like that, which is just like typical cop speak, could really set you off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Police called for vigilance and encouraged animal owners to report any suspicious death or review sightings of possible suspects. I believe this is August. Oh, no, sorry, September. Lady named Melody Sardin Bravo was working on a Western French studm that she had owned for uh a decade when one of her neighbors called to say that he had found a horse. Horse corpse.
SPEAKER_01:A horse. I like that. A horse corpse is what you meant.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, in a nearby field. And very sadly, it wasn't just any horse, it was a baby horse. Oh the full name Luxury was dead, laying among the first on leaves. His blood was fresh on the grass, it looked to Sir Don Rebo. See, this is what I mean by I'm sure this is not how you pronounce this name, but right. As if his body had been dragged. When she peered closer, her heart sank. She knew the horse killer gang to her mind had struck again. They always leave the same signature, they cut off the right eye and their right ear, a perfectly clean cut clean cut. Sir Don Rab. So wait, the right eye as well? In some cases. Not in all cases. Okay. Sir Don Rabault tells a few weeks later, as soon as I saw that, I called the police. The police arrived quickly, and they already knew the drill because throughout France they had seen hundreds of similar cases. The attackers always struck at night. The next day, horses would appear dead or horribly injured with deep cuts along their flanks or around their genitals. To the police, the wounds look surgical. Many horse owners also believe this, suggesting that a professional, whatever that means, professional horse killer was at work. An eye was often taken, one ear was often removed. There were never any witnesses nor a discernible motive. As the police examined this scene, they asked Sir Don Robot to keep quiet for now because they didn't want to create even more panic. But she didn't listen. She went on Facebook to describe uh what happened, uh, describing the death as cowardly torture and a savage killing. All this time uh the attacks had become a national concern, and multiple attacks were being reported hundreds of miles apart, uh, some within the span of a few hours, which confirmed for many a suspicion that it was an organized gang. France's domestic intelligence service soon got involved, lending its weight to the idea and identified what it claimed to be a clear and indiscriminate effort to attack horses and keep the ear as a trophy. In a report dated from June 30, 2020, they said the attacks raised questions about those responsible and their motives, be they superstition, fetishism, satanic ritual related to a cult or otherwise. I think it's crazy that people still talk about satanic cults because I don't think we have ever fucking seen a satanic cult. I don't think that this is a thing that actually exists. No, it only exists in the mind of people who are looking for a scapegoat. Yeah. Which I mean it's understandable because something scary is happening and you can't explain it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it seems like an easy answer to be like, oh, like it's this evil cult that exists. But I mean, like, you know, I mean, you've looked at lots of cults, like we've talked about lots of cults. Have you ever seen that? They're usually Christian based. Yeah. Or some kind of like positive affect, right? Like love, light, this is a lot of things. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Now nowadays it's more hippy-dippy. I shouldn't say that. It's more of the alternative safes.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's something that draws people in that makes people think that they're transcending, that they're, you know, like something positive in the world. Yeah. Right? Not something that people are like, come on in, we mutilate horses here. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't know of any satanic cults.
SPEAKER_00:Sylvie Michel, a retiree living in Normandy, follow was following the news and the Facebook posts with alarm. She lived alone on an old farm a few miles away from town with her two horses. Uh, fearing that the police wouldn't arrive on time if something would happen, she enlisted her sons and her neighbors to organize patrols of the area. For months, her and her friends would slip out of the house several times each night to patrol the fields. She left her flashlight behind, tracing her steps every day. Quote, each time I went out on my rounds, I took a pitchfork, pepper spray, and a rifle. Quote, if they attacked me, I had to defend myself. Something bothered her though. Quote, we put up put up cameras, some people even caught images of people, so why did they never catch anyone?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then they did find a suspect. Actually, they found several suspects, but this is mostly touching on like their biggest lead. In late August 2020, a little after 10 p.m., a man named Nicolas de Demogine 48 uh was making his rounds of the day at his animal shelter in central France. After he checked everything up, locked everything up, he went to bed at his home on his, which is on the same property. He was fast asleep when around midnight he was awakened by the sound of his pig squealing. Um Jean, who has a mobility disability, uh slowly went downstairs using a cane, and when he got to the patio, he uh came face to face with two men. Uh quote, they didn't run away when they saw me, they just came at me. So a struggle ensued, and which left Demagin uh slashed across his left arm with a knife. He struck back with his cane, hitting the assailant in the face, and his then his dog pursued the other man before both men were able to escape in a 4x4 truck. Afterwards, Demogin saw that he had had two horses and two ponies attacked, leaving deep slashes across their bodies.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:So that was the first time anyone had spotted actual people involved in the dozens of reported cases across the country. Demagine was able to give the police a detailed description of one of his assailants, uh, whom he described as a stocky white man between 40 and 50 years old with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a bit of stubble. So the police were able to distribute a digital sketch of the suspect, uh, which soon went viral, at least in this area. I don't remember. Do you remember hearing about any of these this stuff happening during 2020?
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't remember it. I think we were more consumed. I think that the the news was probably localized to France and also maybe like the equine world. Yeah. Um well, also, I mean, it was the year of COVID. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and and that to me just kind of maybe heightens the the paranoia, right? Yeah. Like nobody, nobody is out, nobody is around to see what's going on. It's so hard to get services in 2020. Yeah. Although maybe France did a little better than we did. So anyway, soon that sketch was shared on Facebook. It was picked up by the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Fox News, among other news organizations. Police across the country were dedicating extensive resources to solving the case. And on September 7th, 2020, a 50-year-old unemployed man with prior drug convictions was arrested after a witness recognized him from the police sketch, but he was later released soon after with no charges. Hundreds of people were calling the government run hotline uh every day. Quote, there was really they were really on edge, and there was a pattern of people wanting to take action into their own hands, says Mathilde Doland, a spokeswoman for the French Institute of Horses and Horse Riding, which is part of the agricultural ministry. Quote, mostly what we did was call for calm on the Justice for Our Horses group. Tensions grew. Cops came out and they interviewed victims. Remember Marie Le Pen? She like did some kind of like press thing with uh the guy who got attacked to and pledged support to all those affected, saying, quote, harming animals with such cruelty is a sign of savagery, which I thought is an interesting big difference between like European far right and American far right, because American far right people usually don't give a fuck about animal welfare.
SPEAKER_01:No, I mean look at the lady who's what our our NSA had, she killed her dog, yeah, because she thought it was worthless.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and uh Yeah, what a bitch. Rami with his dog strapped to his car. Remember that? Oh, I didn't know that. He took some kind of road trip with like his dog in his crate strapped to the roof of his car. Oh my god. Yeah. So authorities sought not only to prevent the attacks, but also to calm the rising panic among these rural communities. In Brittany, where only one alleged horse, Mamie, had been reported, police were still overwhelmed with causes of suspicious activity. So basically anything that looked weird, like people were reporting it um because they were so scared that this was gonna happen to them. Officers in camouflage surveilled properties with night vision in an operation dubbed war horse. With the pandemic restrictions on movement only recently lifted, city dwellers and foreign tourists flooded to the French countryside right when locals were becoming increasingly wary of outsiders. So sightings of suspicious vehicles were shared all the time on Facebook. The head of local equestrian centers posted photos of a white Suzuki chimney 4x4 with foreign plates, which he said it stopped for extended periods in restrops near fields where horses graze. See, if I was like driving, I would want to stop just so I could like look at the horses. So, I mean, that could be a thing, but yeah, I can understand in light of this situation. Yeah. But I'm always like, woo, horsey. Local news reported that story and posts appeared on Facebook uh with the same digital police sketch, as well as some people also included this the photo of the truck. One all caps post screamed, just spotted a few hours ago in Alsace, they were deranged. Police followed up, but it turned out that that lead was a dead end. The vehicle belonged to a Dutch woman and her mother, two geocaching enthusiasts who were on vacation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:In the midst of the panic, lots of fake stories also spread quickly. One story posted on Facebook was later debunked by fact-checkers, which identified the suspects as, quote, two young assholes with knives in southern France. The scope of the alleged crimes and the lack of any arrests uh created a really tense atmosphere, and which lots of amateur sluuths uh examined press reports and online rumors for clues about the identity of those behind the killings. One popular theory claimed that the horses were being killed for their blood. Some people claimed that that the blood was being used in the production of the COVID-19 vaccine. Of course. Um, far right commentators on YouTube suggested the attacks might be part of a broader campaign of quote low level terrorism waged by jihadis.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, possibly linked to the accidental 2019 fire at Notre Dame Cathedral.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:But the most popular explanation was Satanists or some kind of alternative religious group. Quote, it is a cult. That much is clear. Why else would they take an ear, an organ, or testicles? says Damagin, the man who had been confronted by attackers in August 2020.
SPEAKER_01:Because Christians have never done that.
SPEAKER_00:Right. He said he would receive several anonymous letters containing threats since the attack. It has to be professionals because not anyone could do this, he speculated. I think it could be former vets or butchers. I could see the vets are butchers, yeah. In September 2020, French police launched a huge investigation into more than 500 reports of horse killings or maiming. Police veterinarians and forensic experts were brought in to review each case before they ultimately made a shocking announcement on December 2020. Only about 84 of the cases, about 16% reported, could be formally linked to human action, while more than 400 of the cases were able to be classified as natural deaths. I mean 84 is still a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Police confirmed several individuals were arrested in relation to isolated crimes, including one for bestiality. Ooh. But no individual or group was brought to justice for committing attacks across the country. And there is no pattern of an attacker systematically taking horses, ears, or other body parts.
SPEAKER_01:So wait, so in other words, they're saying of the 84, like only a handful maybe lost the ear.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sounds like it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because they said no pattern, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If there were no killers, how did almost everyone, from government ministers to farmers to police to the media, coalesce around the idea that an individual or group was responsible for the deaths of so many horses? Across the border in Switzerland, Olivier Rabault, a former police investigator and expert in forensics, had an idea. Rabault, now 58, had been watching the news when he first learned of the mutilations in France. He listened carefully, noting the similarities to a case that he had known intimately from 15 years earlier. As soon as I saw that, I said, it's starting again, he told me. In 2005, Rabault was working as an analyst with the Swiss police when the force was hunting a mysterious killer dubbed the Sadis by the press, whom they believe was attacking animals and taking ears and genitals from their corpses as trophies. Amid a media frenzy, police began a twenty four hour surveillance of fields while suspicious animal owners harassed Taurus lingering near fields. No arrests were ultimately made. The head of the judicial police in one cantone, Olivier Genet sounds like the other guy's name, but it's not. Review the evidence, testing every theory. One day Jenet, who passed away in twenty seventeen, told Ribot he had cracked the case of the Sadis. I know who it is, he told me Ribaux recalled. A note of mischief crept into De Jenet's voice. It was a fox. Soon after, Swiss police announced their findings publicly. In most cases, there was no evidence of human intervention. The sadist had never existed. Forensic experiments had shown what initial observations failed to realize. Most of these incisions, which had been described as surgical and attributed to knives, were in fact the mark of the sharp teeth of a fox or similar scavengers, a theory confirmed by DNA samples. Similar waves of animal attacks have been reported in other countries with no serial animal attacker ever convicted. As you may know, a wave of reported cattle mutilations in New Mexico in the 1970s was eventually debunked by a former FBI investigator who blamed the injuries on scavengers. His final report included recommendations for police officers confronted with cases of purportedly mutilated animals. Don't use the terms, don't use terms such as surgical precision. Those are conclusions. Stick with the facts. Let the laboratory experts draw the conclusions. Also, do not be misled by statements made by non-authoritative sources. Later on, police investigated a quote horse ripper suspected of killing some 160 animals between 1983 and 1993. Widely reported theory suggests that Satanists or even pedophiles were behind the death. But no convictions were ever made. In 2001, after two decades of investigation, a former police officer declared most of the injuries had been caused by accidents or by other animals. A horse scratching itself on a bush can incur cuts that can be mistaken for knife wounds, says Doland. Historically, these events follow a similar pattern. A rising number of attacks, no arrests, and finger pointing everywhere. The only thing that has changed over time is to whom the finger is pointed, said Alan Jones, a British historian who has studied animal attacks in the UK. In earlier times they would include vagrants, the unemployed or outcasts, whereas now we have pagans, witches, Satanists, or spacemen. If faced with our uncertainty, we often reach for scapegoats. Previous cases of mass panics also point to our human capacity to find evidence of sinister plots in mundane events. When people are frightened or anxious, they often reinterpret cues in their environment, says Gary Small, an expert on mass hysteria and chair of psychiatry psychiatry at Hack and Sack University. That sounds fake, but I'm sure it's not. University Medical Center in New Jersey. In these difficult situations, we look to others for explanations for what is happening, says Agenda Fisher, a professor in emotion and effective processes at the University of Amsterdam. Quote, the more intense an emotional event, the more it will spread, she says, and by sharing stories and our emotions about them, we can also share the same interpretations of that event. Each voice in this case, the media, police, and the public reinforced the theory of a serial attacker until it became the only theory, says Rabault, the Swiss investigator. And in France, we saw the same pattern. The case started, was reported to the television, and people began organizing themselves, which was further amplified by social media. The result was a textbook case of confirmation bias. Once the theory has been laid out and politicians, police, and the media converge around it, it makes it really difficult to offer any alternative, Robozas. Even asking seems stupid at a certain point. It is established. There is a serial killer, and that's something we can't contest. What ultimately happened? The panic over the horse mutations spread above all in the press and online. But some of these reports were later revealed to be false or entirely fabricated. Following a bad breakup, a man in eastern France claimed that he and his horse were attacked before later retracting and admitting he had fabricated the story to win sympathy from his ex. Then this passed, uh, this past June, I think 2021, Pauline Sarazan, the creator of the Facebook group, Justices for our Horses, and the person that started this whole thing off, was convicted of false testimony and mistreatment of animals. It turned out that she had completely lied about the story to protect her dog after it attacked and killed her horse lady. And it turned out that not only that, but she had a long past history of horse abuse and neglect.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that she had had like four or five horses previously that had had to be euthanized because they were underfed and neglected. And in fact, the reason that her dog attacked the horse is because she was also starving the dog. So the dog was underfed. The horse was weak because it was underfed.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so that led to the dog attacking the horse and killing it. And she lied because she didn't want her dog to be euthanized. She was given a suspended four-month sentence, which is like fucking nothing. And a ban from keeping animals for three years. Why only three years? Yeah, she's not a few. Why not she forever? Yeah. On the Facebook group, she created the public reaction was scaling. Some called for her to be locked up, while others encouraged people to contact her directly. With scumbags like this, we lose all credibility, complained one member. The Facebook group, though diminished, remains active, and many users continue to believe one or several organization organized groups is killing horses. Domagin, whose attackers remain at large, does not believe natural causes can explain the reported horse deaths and injuries, and has since installed cameras across his property. I am 100% convinced that people did this, he says. They need to stop saying it was animals because animals don't remove organs, and animals can't open the thorax of a horse. She begged to defend animals absolutely can't do that. Back in western France, Melanie Sedan Brabeau is still looking for the person she believes killed her foal. An autopsy concluded that Luxury died of natural causes and the wounds on his body were inflicted by post post mortem by animal scavengers, but Serdam Brabeau is unconvinced. The police asked me to not tell anyone about the case, but I didn't listen, she tells me. She's convinced that clues were lost due to flaws in the investigation. I told them I'm going to keep looking into this, and we are organized to make noise about this all over France. It's not over, Sedan Robot continues. These people are still out there and they are still mutilating horses. So basically, I do think that there may have been like a few people out there who went around and like mutilated horses in some instances, like maybe trying to be copycat killers. And I think that may have been what happened to what's his name, the guy who was attacked.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because there were like a like that one Palomino I showed you a few times where people's horses got their ears cut off and they were still alive. But in most of these instances, these were animals that were like found dead in fields. And when it comes to animal scavengers, particularly like France doesn't really have any large scavengers. They do have like foxes, there's like crows, ravens, and like whatever, maybe some kind of vulture buzzard uh situations. Those kinds of smaller scavengers usually go for the soft parts of the animal, the eyes, the tongue, the genitals, the anus.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because the like they can't like tear open like the belly of the horse. Now a dog can, absolutely. And that may have happened in in some of these cases. I saw one where like the cheek of the horse was slashed, but that was like a living horse. But yeah, so I think that maybe while some people may have heard of that, since it was such a hysteria around France, that and and some people were like, I'm gonna get in on this too. I think, yeah, for the most part, that most of these instances were like death by natural causes or possibly death by neglect, like in the the original instance, especially in 2020, when people were like confined to their homes, they probably couldn't get out as often to check on their horses, and so in some instances, like some of these horses, like that that foal, it sounded like was laying in that field for a little while. Yeah, um, so yeah, but that's crazy. It's crazy to think that uh that this is something that happens like seem seemingly in like almost waves, right? Yeah, and and that it causes this mass hysteria where people think it's alien autopsy, it's satanic cults, yeah, or all of these like absolute insane theories.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and like I bet it happens throughout, it's just that there's something probably going on that causes that, like the one from in the 80s, that would be the satanic BC satanic panic era, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And and and like they said, like, you know, if it catches fire in the news, right, then people are like, oh shit, my horse died too. And then like they said, they start like double checking if their horse died, they didn't think anything of it, and they're like, oh, maybe I should like look at this again because something suspicious happened, maybe. Yeah, and it's it's I feel like easier in a way to be like somebody is out there like killing my animal rather than my animal was maybe not in good shape and I didn't notice or I neglected my animal.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or in the case of I mean the foal, like some babies are just not well and they just don't make it regardless. Yeah. Although to me it sounded like maybe that lady was in over her head, like she had a whole stud farm, like her neighbor had to tell her like the horse was dead. That seemed like maybe like like she is not checking in on her horses as often as she ought to have.
SPEAKER_01:You mean the lady that started it off?
SPEAKER_00:Uh no, not the lady who started off, the lady with the the luxury full. Oh, okay. Her neighbor reported that the horse remember I said corpse instead of horse corpse. But I thought that that was really interesting. Um because at first, like it does really seem like oh no, like somebody is is going after these horses and and attacking them, and it's really a case of mass hysteria, which in it in itself is a really interesting phenomenon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um that happens far more frequently than we think. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it does. Um yeah, so I thought that that was really interesting. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was interesting. I'm a little bummed it wasn't an actual like crime, but yeah, I mean it may have been in some instances.
SPEAKER_00:In some instances, yeah. That dude did get attacked. That's why I'm sure that he can't let go of the idea that there's like a killer or a cult out there. And if you're out there, if you're like, hey, I'm a horse killer, or I'm like the part of this cult who kills horses, then let us know.
SPEAKER_01:Or don't. We'd report you. We don't stand animal abuse on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00:No, we sure don't.
SPEAKER_01:No, yeah, no, it's interesting. I'm surprised I was able to sit through it. I can't handle animal stuff.
SPEAKER_00:I had some pictures, but I decided to not show them to you. Thank you. I only showed you the picture of the live horse.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I appreciate that. I mean, god, I can't even handle Disney.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I oh the other thing about the blood too, like, because that's a common theme that people think with with like mutilations, they're like, they were exanguinated. And like somebody's describing like how would they carry off these buckets of blood. But I haven't actually found, I couldn't find any evidence that there was actual exanguination. Like the police are not reporting exsanguination. No, vets are not reporting exanguination, but once like rigor mortis or whatever sets in, right? The blood pools at the bottom of the animal and like coagulates. So if you came along and like you ripped open the animal, or sometimes like if the animal is like decomposing for a while, then like gases will build up, yeah. And the animal can bloat, and that can even like rip the skin and make it look like it's like a round, like quote unquote surgical cut. Yeah. But it's not. No. And people people always think that like animal bites are like gonna be really ragged and stuff like that. Because Hollywood. Animal teeth are very miraculously designed, not miraculous, I don't want to assume, but like they're very efficiently designed, right? Many animals have evolved very efficient mechanisms that are are tailored to to scavenging or whatever they do. Um so I mean, like, you know, like teeth are like little knives, and they can extract like a very neat cut or area as well. And also beaks like of birds, like they could easily clear out an eye socket and not leave like a big mess or evidence behind.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, we don't give animals enough credit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so we took our break and now we have our very expensive terramisu. Oh my god, it's delicious though. It is. We will try not to make the sounds on the this is now mukbang podcast.
SPEAKER_00:So, what did you watch? Oh, we're gonna talk about the stuff we watched together first.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, okay, so together we watched. I I don't remember if we mentioned this in the last podcast or not. I don't remember when we saw it, but we saw Sinners, which was a fantastic movie.
SPEAKER_00:I think best movie of the year.
SPEAKER_01:Me too, hands down.
SPEAKER_00:And then we we saw Lilo and Stitch and Jaws double feature. Yep. It was it was not like a market as a double feature, but we saw it as a double feature. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because we had to go, we had to go to a different state to see it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Because it's the 50th anniversary of Jaws. And that was uh Katie's first experience watching Jaws and probably her last.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I mean, it was a good movie. I enjoyed it. Yeah. But yeah, I'm the the ocean scares me. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I want to go live next to it.
SPEAKER_00:It's irrational fear.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and then uh we watched Materialists. Is it the materialists or just materialists?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:One of those.
SPEAKER_01:But it's got Daddy Pascal.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. And Chris Evans.
SPEAKER_01:And Chris Evans, Mr. Captain America. What's the lady's name? Um, Dakota Johnson. Dakota Johnson. Who I know, she's a great actress and she has her own career, but I will forever think of her as Don Johnson's daughter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And Melanie Griffith's daughter. I don't know. I was raised by my grandparents, so I know the older older generations.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, it was cute. I haven't seen uh we haven't seen a rom com in a in a hot minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, there's there's a lot of debate about whether or not that's actually a rom com or rom drama.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what else would it be?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I never I didn't read any of those articles because I knew it would only irritate me.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, just because it's making like a point doesn't mean it's not a rom com. Right. So I would say it is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would too. And I think it has but it has it's it's a thinking persons romantic comedy drama thing.
SPEAKER_00:It has like a you know, whatever some kind of low triangle situation, which is like similar to other rom coms. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, it's a yeah, it's more of an like artsy sophisticated versus rom-com. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It was good. I I feel it was worth the money to see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I liked it as well.
SPEAKER_01:There are a lot of times I get out of the theater, I'm like, I don't know if I should have spent that money on that.
SPEAKER_00:I liked it more than I expected to.
SPEAKER_01:Me too. It's really not a movie. I mean, I like rom-coms, but but that kind of rom-com is not really something I would want to watch. Yeah. Like, honestly, I haven't seen a rom com I like since You've Got Mail.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:But um I saw it because it's got Pedro Pascal, and who doesn't want to support Pedro Pascal? And Chris Evans, who's also a very nice man. Yeah. Yeah. And it's from an isn't it from A24? Or am I? It is from A24. And who doesn't want to support them? They're doing good stuff. We like A24. Yeah. So yeah, it was a surprise in many ways.
SPEAKER_00:They were, I think the studio in 2024 voted to be like have the most like racial and queer diversity in their cinema. I don't doubt it. Yeah, I don't doubt it either. So good.
SPEAKER_01:Was Centers A24 or was that a a uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Actually was that a big studio. Proximity media, produced by Proximity Media, distributed by Warner Brothers.
SPEAKER_01:Oh well, good for them. Yeah, indeed. Well, sort of speaking of A24, we're debating seeing Eddington, right? Which was filmed not too far from where we are now, about what, an hour, hour and a half? How far is TRC? I think it was filmed in Torque.
SPEAKER_00:And it's directed by Ari Aster. Oh yeah. Who did Hereditarian Midsummer? Yeah. And Death of a Unicorn. He didn't. I looked that up. He didn't? No. Oh, I thought he did. No. Was he a producer on it? Possibly. It is an A name, though. Oh, he was an executive producer. That's it.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I loved Death of a Unicorn.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, when I heard Ari Astor was involved, I was like, that makes sense because there's a scene. I don't want to give it away, but there's a thing that we were discussing that Ari Aster does in his a lot of his films. Yeah. That was in there. And I'm anticipating that it's gonna be in Eddington as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. It feels so politically charged. Yeah. Or at least via the trailer.
SPEAKER_00:That's the vibe I got as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I have a hard time with those. Because it's so much a part of our life. I just kind of if I'm gonna pay money, I don't really want to pay it.
SPEAKER_00:It's very true. It is hard to see stuff that we're living, especially since we're living through it right now, and it's so hard to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, all of the other movies we mentioned are political.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:For sure. But that's not the point of the film necessarily.
SPEAKER_00:It just amplifies that lived experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Whereas Eddington, I think, is very much. But I mean, at the same time, it's got Pedro Pascal, it's got Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Thompson, not Emma Thompson, Emma Stone. It's filmed here. They used a lot of local crew. Kind of want to support New Mexico because we don't get a lot of love in any other way.
SPEAKER_02:That's true.
SPEAKER_01:Hollywood uses us for our cheap, cheap labor and cheap uh whatever.
SPEAKER_00:And like available like landscaping.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And that's about it. Or they buy up all our land, like Turner.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay. Anyway, not to bring that down. But we're thinking about it. What did you watch? Like just by yourself. By myself. I don't even remember. I know I had a bunch of stuff last time we did this. I think.
SPEAKER_00:You watched some Korean revenge drama.
SPEAKER_01:I did. Most recently, I watched a Korean revenge drama. I believe it's called The Glory. I believe it's on Netflix. I watched the dub version. I know. Don't stick your noses up at me. I just I I can't. Since the pandemic, I have been, unless it's in the movie theater, I have been unable to sit through something and actually watch it. I have to be doing something else. Otherwise, it's not gonna get watched. So the reason I have the the Korean stuff dubbed is because of that. So I don't get to watch that many Korean shows because they aren't usually dubbed. But this one was, and it was well done, I think. Um the dubbing and also the show. And I, yeah, I love a good revenge story. Love a good revenge story, yeah. And this was very much part of that. Although, if you're gonna watch it, just be aware there's a lot of um, it's based almost entirely on bullying, so just FYI.
SPEAKER_00:I don't usually like dub stuff because it bothers me how their the words are out of sync with their mouths, yeah. But um they're getting better at it though, yeah. I think they are. Um, a few years back, I don't know if it's still on there, I watched a pretty good horror movie that is either from Spain or Italy. I don't remember, called The Platform. And that was a dub film and it's pretty good. Um so if that's still on Netflix, I would recommend it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean it's it's also in just Korean with the subtitles, which historically that is what I prefer as well. But again, I just can't focus anymore. Um so really oh, I watched um the new uh uh documentary on the July 7 bombing in Britain.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which I kind of talked about because I covered the the white widow, who is very much part of this. So if you're if you saw that and you're interested in any of that, particularly the white woman. White woman. White widow. Particularly the white woman. Well, she is a white woman, that's why she's a white woman. That's why she's a white woman. Um but if you are interested in her that aspect of it, not so much what the documentary covered, but her specifically, I'd rather. Recommend watching that episode. I forget which number it is, but um she's got an interesting story. Um so I saw that and I saw I saw something else, but I don't remember what it was. Oh, I guess I could say I uh in I have summer classes and because I only have like five students in my class, it there it doesn't take as long to get through the material, so I've had to fulfill a lot of time by watching movies that are appropriate to what we're talking about. So because of that, I've watched 1917, which I never watched before, um, rewatched Reds, or at least half of Reds. Yeah. Um watched some Twilight episodes, watched um my god, I watched another movie and I cannot think oh Chicago.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what what was the movie we watched before Chicago? I don't remember, but it's one that I watch all the fucking time in that class. I just can't remember it off the top of my head at the moment. Um yeah. And I'm surprised. I I gave them because I we're at the end um for next week. Next week is the last week of classes, and um, I don't really go beyond 2008 in my classes. Um so I I gave them options to watch, and one of the options was uh Red Dawn, the original, the one from the 80s, which is usually what my classes pick because it's a nice adventure, you know, pew-pew, everybody's dead kind of thing. And it's got Patrick Swayze and whatever in it. And um, but that's not what my class picked. I forgot what they picked, but I know they didn't pick Red Dawn or Wall Street. Yeah. Um, also surprisingly, I was like, or we could just like say fuck it and just watch like a fun movie from the 80s. I was like, I have romancing this stone. Takes place in the 80s. It got it has a little bit of the you know Colombian drug trade stuff. So we I so if anybody asks, I can tangentially say that it's part of it. But they didn't want to watch that either. They didn't pick it, huh? No. I would have picked it. So would I. I was like, oh, you guys are boring.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they couldn't watch it. Um what about books?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, books, yeah. Um oh you didn't say what you watched.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, um, so I had a little temporary shutter trial that I was like, oh I'm gonna sign up for for this.
SPEAKER_01:I was telling you have they taken it off yet?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they did take it off now. That was um, but yeah, it lasted for a few more days than I expected before they were like, excuse me, you haven't paid. I was telling Katie how I was bummed how trials used to last like a month and now yeah, like a week or a few days. And so this was a week-long trial, and I managed to watch like three movies. I watched Ash, which is uh like a sci-fi horror thriller time-bendy like memory kind of deal. Memory is in no memory. What's the memento like uh kind of thing? Yeah. Uh with uh I forget the name of the main protagonist, but it has um I want to say his name's Aaron Paul Jesse from Breaking Bad in it. Um so that was pretty good. It wasn't anything like groundbreaking, but it was a fun sci-fi thriller, and um I also watched The Ugly Stepsister, which is a movie that I've been getting a lot of hype uh this year, and I will say it was quite good. Like I I don't think I've heard best of the year. I still think Sinners undisputed. Yeah. Um but yeah, it was it was quite good. It has like it's pretty much a Cinderella retelling, right? Which is not really a spoiler because it's pretty much right there in the title The Ugly Stepsister. But it uh it uh has come to my attention that some people did not know that.
SPEAKER_01:How do you not know that?
SPEAKER_00:Right? I don't know. It is like a Swedish uh film, so it does have subtitles, and I didn't know that going in because like the the trailer didn't really have any talking in it, yeah. And so that was a surprise to me. Um but yeah, it's it's real good. Uh it it it is body horror. Um, so I didn't think it was worse than like the substance or Smile 2 or like some other stuff that we've seen. Um, but uh it does have a few like kind of moments, like it's hard to watch. Yeah. And also I will give a warning because I wasn't expecting it. It's got quite a bit of like graphic sex content, like you see asshole, you see penis, you see jizz. So well it is Swedish, they they aren't shy in that part of the world. No, but I'm just it if I'm just letting that be out there because I wasn't expecting it. And so in case that's something that you're like hard line, I don't want to see it. Right. If you're like, I don't want to see Cinderella's asshole, then maybe skip it. But it was it was really it was really good.
SPEAKER_01:Well, since I'm a smut lover, maybe I should watch it.
SPEAKER_00:You should watch it.
SPEAKER_01:You should. Although body mutilation is hard for me.
SPEAKER_00:Like it doesn't have like these extended sex scenes, but like, you know, they'll just be going along and then they're like boom, penis, you know. Um so yeah, it was a good movie. And uh I also watched Triangle, which is like a movie from like early-ish 2000, I want to say like 2009. And that's also like a time-bendy, mind-bendy kind of movie, like about uh woman who's going for like a little day sailing trip over the Bermuda Triangle, and then things kind of happen, and like I don't really want to tell you because it will get into the spoilers. Also, don't fucking really look at the cover art too closely because it also kind of gives away spoilers, which is pretty whack. Yeah, but uh thankfully I didn't notice that until after I watched the movie, and then I was like, hang on. What was that movie called? Uh it's called Triangle. Triangle.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, because of the Bermuda Triangle.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, gotcha. So yeah, that one was pretty good as well. And uh I watched the newer Carrie, the one with um what is that actor, actress's name? Julianne Moore? Yes, it did have Julianne Moore, and uh I'm trying to remember the name of the actress who played Chloe. Um, or not Chloe, Carrie Hum. I can I know I was like, wait a second. I read and seen Carrie several times, so I don't know why. You don't know why Chloe came in there? I don't know why. Um uh Google it. Um maybe the actress's name Chloe.
SPEAKER_01:Does Julia Julia Moore plays the mom, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Does she say dirty pillows? She does. Oh yeah, the actress's name is Chloe. Chloe Grace Moore is. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was a reason that my brain was telling me Chloe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Good job. Yeah. Yeah. So it was actually uh surprisingly, yeah, pretty true to the book and nods to the original film as well. Um, there were like a few moments where I was like a couple of moments where I was like, eh, like I don't know about that choice, but it was pretty good. Yeah. And uh I watched that with my daughter because for a few days she was like, show me scary movies. Which she wasn't scared of at all. No, she wasn't.
SPEAKER_01:She's hardened at the age of seven.
SPEAKER_00:Although I feel like she was more invested in Carrie than she was uh with like we also watched like a Korean zombie movie alive, not turning to Booson. I was like, turning to Boosan is probably a bit much. Um but yeah, this is kind of like a more standard. She was not impressed.
SPEAKER_01:No, she's not scared of zombies.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No. But but yeah, I feel like she was invested in what was gonna happen to Carrie.
SPEAKER_01:Well that's good.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. And uh then after that, she she's been like, This is boring. I don't oh, Jay and I watched Nope. I this is my second viewing. Um, and I tried to get her to watch that one with me, and no, she wouldn't have it. So yeah. She was just like, that looks boring. Yeah. Um but yeah. What it don't get offended if you're like, I love the I love Note 2, but she's seven. Right. Yeah, so that is about it for stuff of I I have watched. You've read a lot, haven't you? I've read a lot. Like, I don't remember where we last left off, but I'll talk about the last like three. Okay, yeah, like I have read a lot for the month of June, I guess. And uh if I can find my good reads, I've achieved 87% of my 52 books gold. Oh wow. Alright, we're at 45. So I don't know what we last talked about. I finished Mrs. Dalloway. I don't know if I mentioned that. I read a book unmasking autism, discovering the new faces of neurodiversity. Yes, Rachel got diagnosed finally. I got my official diagnosis A-U-D-H-D.
SPEAKER_01:And she's looking forward to saying stick it to her doctor.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Um I read The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling, which was a nice uh like medieval kind of setting. We got some starvation, we got some uh cannibalism, we got some stuff that feels like a fever dream, we got some magic. So it's got all those elements in there, and also a little bit of uh claustrophobia because Caitlin Starling seems to throw claustrophobia elements into all her books. Uh I read The Shards by Brett Easton Ellis, I read Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson, apparently again, but I don't remember the first time. Um I read for the second time, I do remember, August Kitko and the Mecca's From Space, and I read Hunger Stone uh by Kat Dunn, which is a Carmilla retelling, and it was quite good. And uh now I'm currently reading Arlen Arden Violet and the Infinite Eye, uh, which is the sequel to August Kitko. And I'm also reading The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, um, which is a story about like uh a girl who has like little magics or whatever, and and she's like a servant, and then her boss basically finds out that she can do these little magics and starts using her to like gain more prestige for their house by having her do like these parlor tricks or whatever, uh-huh. And uh it just kind of gets out of her control where she ends up in this contest to like impress the king or something.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:But she also is hiding the fact that she has Jewish ancestry, and that would be bad if like the king and all the people find out. So it's like set in a fantasy type realm, but also with a lot of like historical realism aspects. Uh-huh. But it's it's definitely more of a character-driven book than like a settings-driven book. And yeah, I feel like I have have read what is that series that got made made into a Netflix? There are a lot of them. By Late Bardugo. Oh, um. There's like Shadow and Light or some shit like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00:I read the first one and I liked it, and then the second one I was like, eh, kind of, it was the story fell apart for me. And so I kind of gave up on this author, but I uh because I feel like I don't know, some series are really good, but I feel like a lot of series kind of fall apart.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so lately I've been just reading a lot more like standalones. And this one uh I saw like on a book Talks and who was talking about, and they didn't care for it that much, but they were like, it's a standalone, and I was like, okay, well maybe I'll give it a shot. Because if I don't like it, it's not the whole like series that I feel like I'm abandoning or whatever. So far it's okay, like it's not the most amazing thing I've ever read, but it's it's a nice solid story, yeah. So yeah, that's going all right for me. So Lee Bardugo, write more standalone novels.
SPEAKER_01:Um, let's see, I've actually read quite a few for me. Um, I won't talk about four of them because it's their romance novel, five of them because they're romance novels. Because I mean, it's not really that exciting. I mean, it's, you know, uh four of them are from uh by Amanda Quick, who's also Jane Ann Kretz, who's also Jane Castle. Amanda Quick is her historical fiction. So these are, I don't know, early 19th, mid-19th century. And um, you know, it's the usual uh spunky lady in her twenties meets a spunky dude. No, sadly, no, these sadly she's very uh boy meets girl. Yeah. Yeah, they're singular. Um but uh they are into something called fanza, which is really just like a meditation martial arts thing. And uh they have to solve a sort of mystery. Yeah. So and all four of them are connected loosely because the dudes are part of this organization.
SPEAKER_00:See? Now you just told us about that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I did. Um I mean I I I like them, but I'm embarrassed to say that I like them. Lots of people like romance, though. I know and are embarrassed to say it, so don't be embarrassed. Okay. Say it with your chest. I I also read Jane Castle, again, who's also Amanda Quick. Um, she has a yearly series that comes out on Harmon called the It's the Harmony series, and um, it's basically Earth-like, but everybody has some sort of psychic ability of some kind. And um, so it's you know, it's the boy meets girl psychic thing, they have to solve something. Um, but there are dust bunnies involved, which are adorable little creatures and uh lethal creatures. So at this point, because all of the books are exactly the same, yeah. Uh I'm pretty much in it for the dust bunnies. Right. Because all of them have a dust bunny pet.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds adorable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um that isn't to say that they aren't good. I enjoy them. I enjoy them. They are fun time driving to work every day, right? Like I have an hour, hour and a half to and from. So it's a nice way to spend the time. But on more serious books, I did read a couple more serious books. I read um bibliophobia, not bibliophilia, bibliophobia. Um, which is the fear of books, like the actual fear of books. I didn't know that was a thing, you know, where like you think they're judging you or they're going to attack you, or I think my kids have that. Really? Um, but uh so it's a it's a short little memoir involving her, this phobia, um, as well as other sort of mental health issues that the woman is going through. And it also touches on um race and immigration. Um, although it's it's not heavy-handed in those areas, it's more just about kind of how she got her entire identity from the books themselves rather than um just existing. Um, but they're good, and I got some good uh recommendations out of there. And then I read God, I am so irritated I spent so much fucking money on this book. So I got this book called Hunchback. It is a translated fiction translated from Japanese. The author is I'm gonna mispronounce her name, Sao Ichikawa is her last name. It is about a woman who is a hunchback. It's written by the the author herself has the similar medical condition that this protagonist has. I'm not saying it was a bad book. It wasn't a bad book. I'm annoyed that I spent$25 on a 90-page book. Um, because it it's hardcover.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But yeah, it's about this woman who has this condition, and her parents uh took good care of her financially, so she doesn't really have to worry, but she still wants to be kind of independent. So she um makes additional money by writing porn and smut and stuff like that, and also she takes um classes, she's got like several degrees, and she's in the middle of getting another degree, and but she also wants to her idea of normalcy would be able to get pregnant and have an abortion because because um often, and this is true throughout history, people who are disfigured or who have some sort of disability um are often not allowed to have children or not seen as being sexual in any way, and so it's a way for her to exercise autonomy. Exactly. And so um it's kind of about that and how she comes, you know, about being her particular form of disabled, and it's about disablement in Japan, and it was it was good. I'm glad it didn't go on for more pages because there wasn't really a plot to it. But um it was an interesting 90 pages or so. It's certainly um not something I have ever read before, you know, which at all. Um and it was well done, and I always like to support authors who are not necessarily quote unquote normal. I don't, I don't normative, norma, uh what is a different word we could use besides normal? Yeah. I'm asking. What?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you're asking? I don't know. I don't know either. That reminded me of a book that I I read last year. Let me see if I can find on my list because I don't remember the name of the author. There's like a a novella like that book, and it's a translated Korean novella. Uh it's called The Whole. I'm not sure if I'm saying this right, probably not, but Hai Jong Pion. And uh it's about uh this a man who wakes up basically in the beginning of the the story and discovers that he's been in a horrible car accident um which killed his wife, and he is completely paralyzed uh from the neck down, and so he is suddenly become dependent on his mother-in-law uh to take care of him, and it's about yeah, like disability in Korea, about um how the disabled people are treated, and about being completely helpless and like having your life and care in the hands of somebody else. Yeah. Um and then there's a bit of a twist as well that we I'm not gonna tell you about. So but it's it was uh it was really good. Yeah, so I highly recommend that. Yeah, yeah. Um but yeah, we read things, we watched things, yeah, we did things.
SPEAKER_01:We did. Oh, speaking of things we read earlier, I bought this book. I haven't read it yet, I've just skimmed through it. Um, it's called Night by Edna O'Brien. And the only reason I'm bringing it up because I haven't read it is because remember at the beginning of the year I read The Story of the Eye.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, I do remember.
SPEAKER_01:This feels similar.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um just glancing through. I think it's more literary, and I don't think it's I don't think it involves sticking eyeballs in certain orifices, but you know, or eggs or anything like that. But it is very like what I've read is very cringe and cringe-inducing. And so I'm kind of excited to read it. I want to see if it can gross me out more than the story of an eye.
SPEAKER_00:You read the book about sticking the eyeballs in a certain orifice. I read a book about sticky eyeballs in a different orifice.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, which orifice are you talking about? The mouth? Mouth, yeah. Oh, that's somehow worse. Yeah. Oh, gross.
SPEAKER_00:Which is obviously the eyes are the best part. Yeah. Is the book.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Yeah. Which I bought. Yeah. So I will read it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We were supposed to read together, but I got ahead of myself. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01:You're always getting ahead of me. Yeah. That's okay. I have I go in in waves.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to scroll up so I can give our readers, listeners, I don't know why I keep calling them readers. Um the name of the author. Monica Kim. The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monica Kim. Yeah. So if you like female villain trajectories, if you liked Mayfly. That's the one. Yeah, then you'll probably like this one too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, which is still, I think, up there for books for me.
SPEAKER_00:Did you ever read American Rapture? No, I don't think so. I don't know if you would like that one as much, although I enjoyed it, but there's a pretty bad scene that I don't think that you would manage well.
SPEAKER_01:Does it involve animals or it does? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's kind of one of the reasons I won't read that one by Kingfisher that everybody keeps talking about. Yeah. Because I hear there's doggy death or something. Which one? I don't know, the one about the lady in the woods.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, um the twisted ones.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I thought her dog lived.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, you told me it didn't. I'll have to reread it. Or that something happened to it. Because I'm pretty sure it lived. Yeah. Well, then I'll read it. Maybe I read two by her and I didn't particularly care for them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's just not my cup of tea. But I mean this one sounds more up my alley.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to think if there was another book where the animal didn't live. Because I'm I was pretty sure her dog did live. But maybe I'll reread it again and let you know.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah, I just I don't know. I have a hard time at anything.
SPEAKER_00:At times like this, I wish I had uh a physical copy so I could just flip through and check. Yeah. But yeah, no, I have an audiobook.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. Yeah, old people and animals I have a hard time with. Yeah. Dying. Yeah. Somehow children are okay though. Shaking my head. I feel bad about that. I don't really want any children to die, but their deaths aren't as sad to me. Fictionally, in real life, it bothers me quite a bit, but fictionally it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like a lot of people have that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I promise I'm not a horrible person.
SPEAKER_00:No. I don't think that you're a horrible person.
SPEAKER_01:I know.
SPEAKER_00:I know you don't, but no, I think a lot of people have trouble with animals more than that. Yeah. Maybe it's be because we see human nature, you know, and feel like children are ultimately doomed to fall into the same traps as the rest of us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:While animals kind of remain innocent in a way. Although kind of not really, because a lot of animals are not innocent in a way. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, but they are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We see them that way, and we see them as being. I guess it's because they're non-human. Yeah. Right. Like, like I I also have a hard time with plant stuff. Like, I I hate the giving tree. I can't stand that book. It made me weep for a week. I can't handle it like at all. You know?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, yeah, plants.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, even eating them. Like some ever since I saw that Ray Bradbury episode where the the vegetables are like, don't eat me. Yeah. I even I still have a hard time sometimes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, just eat nothing.
SPEAKER_01:I think that was the point of the diet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But um or cannibalism.
SPEAKER_01:Or cannibalism. There you go. No. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it it is. I do enjoy a good child who commits murder, though.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I know.
SPEAKER_01:I don't mean good as in the good or bad. I mean like a good story.
SPEAKER_00:That's what you were trying to get me to do. You were like, that's our most downloaded episode, yeah. Probably not very many people hear about the horse means. So sorry. That's okay. I was kind of like, eh, this is more your thing than my thing. Since I have kids, I don't want to like look too closely.
SPEAKER_01:No, I know. I only I only Suggested it because you wanted something, and I was like, well, our most listen to episode is a good idea. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_00:And I appreciate I appreciate, but I did get onto although it's not traditional, uh, you know, the traditional thing that we do. Yeah. Um, but uh yeah, my son was like watching some like true crime YouTube, whatever. And it was like they were talking about some guy who uh had cancer and then he did like a murder suicide of like himself, his mom, and his sister. I was like, why are you watching that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. No, I bet I bet it would be scary to if you had a child to watch that kind of stuff. Yeah. I know my grandmother would occasionally read true crime. And um I remember one time she was reading a book and then she closed it and she like hid it under a pillow and like walked away. And I was like, why'd you do that? And she was like, Because it's about a granddaughter who kills her grandparents. Oh no. I was like, oh granny, I'm not gonna kill you, I promise.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No boy is worth that. It was for a boy, that's terrible. It usually is. Boy or a or a girl. There's there's one true crime where it was a a girl just a girlfriend.
SPEAKER_00:Like regular, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But well, anyway, that's what we've been reading.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And watching.
SPEAKER_00:And doing.
SPEAKER_01:And doing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
unknown:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Alright. Anything else we want to talk about? Do we want to talk about that whack job book you're doing?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so our next book is I saw a copy at Barnes and Noble, so I know that it is um not terribly long.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and right now it is, if you have an honorable membership, uh, it's downloadable. So I remember I was pleased I didn't have to spend a credit on it.
SPEAKER_01:So it's called Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James. Um, hardcover is a bit pricey even on Amazon for because I don't think it's actually that long. So if you're like me and you're looking for price, price versus page, uh, it's 272 pages.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, well, that's not that bad. Um, it felt like less and it's got bigger print, so yeah. But it looks good. It looks like a lot of fun. Speaking of, you reminded me actually by saying Audible that it's on Audible. We are currently reading, we should, we should hype up Alex White's Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Uh Alex. Yeah, I mentioned that I was reading them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, Alex White. Um, what is the the series called? I don't know. Let me check.
SPEAKER_01:The first one is called Alex No. August August Kitko and the Mecca's from space, and the second one is Violet Ardent and the Giant Eye. Infinite Eye. Infinite Eye.
SPEAKER_00:So uh the series is called the Star Metal Symphony. Star Metal Symphony, that makes sense. That kind of is white.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So um, if you are into evil AI, ginormous mechas. Meccas.
SPEAKER_00:Like if you if you like Evangelian, if you like Gundam, that sort of thing, yeah. This is gonna be your jam. Yeah. And it's queer as fuck. And it's fast paced and it's fun and it's nerdy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What else?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't know. I I'm all I'm the only reason I'm in it is for the AI because that's one of my favorite troops. Evil AI and um or not even it doesn't even have to be evil, I just like AI and these giant AI things that are out to destroy humanity. Yep. And some of them go.
SPEAKER_00:Not just humanity, but all sentient like organic life in the universe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Although I think we don't find that out until Violet Ardent, right?
SPEAKER_00:No, we do find it out in the in the first book, but I guess toward the end. Whoops.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but yeah, it's really good. Yeah, and it's it doesn't really get hyped up on like book talk or anything like that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They're and they're fun covers too. I really like the kind of digging the um the the bright colors. And I mean, that don't let the page count daunt you, they are quite it's an easy read though. Yes, it's very easy and it's um action-packed.
SPEAKER_00:And it's it's a sci-fi, but it's not intimidating sci-fi.
SPEAKER_01:No, not at all. If you're a genre crossing person like I am and like Rachel is, then I think you'll enjoy it. It's a fun time. And the first book is on Audible, the second one is not on Audible yet. No, it's not, but the first it's fun to listen to it.
SPEAKER_00:It will be, though. Yeah, it would be nice. It would be really more people got to pick up the series because it makes it, yeah, accessible. It makes it like disability accessible for a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01:So which is kind of I mean, I don't think it's meant to be, but there is some disability in it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Alex White's publisher's Let's Go Audiobook version of Ardent Violet published by Orbit. Come on, Orbit. Yes, please get it. Give us an audiobook version, please. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Hire the people that do the um uh Carl books. Yes. What what is it?
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god, I'm losing um Dungeon Crawler books.
SPEAKER_01:Dungeon Car Crawler Carl books.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, those are fun. Yeah, I like that. And I would say I re-listened to the first one, like they have like a little musical refrain in the opening, but I thought it'd be so cool if they did like music, like, because music is a big theme of the book. So they like communicate with their mechas through music and and they coordinate their attacks and stuff with music. And so it would be so cool if like they put a lot of music into the audiobooks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And one of the reasons I also like the first book, I mean, this is kind of off topic a little bit, but I like that August Kitko is kind of a schlub. Yeah. You know, like he's he's not somebody who's supposed to be saving the world at all. Exactly. And I really I really love that.
SPEAKER_00:And he he he doesn't really develop that. He doesn't really like transform into the character. He's still kind of a whiny nerd.
unknown:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean he's he is where he is at the beginning of the book, kind of not like he shouldn't be there, really. I mean he was invited there, but he he he doesn't fit in to that. Exactly. Um so it's kind of a fluke that he's there. But yeah. So if you like schlubs, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Ums who are professional jazz pianists.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Absolute dorks. We like a good dork.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, I wasn't gonna say this, but I because I have been avoiding the book, but I bought Lord of the Rings because it's been a challenged book. So we should read Lord of the Rings. Let's do it. Yeah. I've been avoiding.
SPEAKER_00:It's not that bad.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the first time I attempted to read it, it was I got three pages in and I was like, fuck this. You gotta get further than that. I'm 41. I don't have enough life for that. It's okay. I will. I will read it. I'll try. I will try. Okay. I will read it.
SPEAKER_00:You gotta get get far enough to where you're immersed in the story. Okay. I'm still not watching the movies again. You say that now. I watched them before when they were out the first time. Have you watched the extended editions?
SPEAKER_01:No, I didn't like the regular editions. Why would I watch more? I want to like them. I also want to like C. S. Lewis's.
SPEAKER_00:Be in there with uh Tolkien readers. We should read the Cimmerillion.
SPEAKER_01:No, thank you. Um I also want to like the C. S. Lewis wardrobe, whatever books, but I've tried like two or three of them and I hate them. And not even Sir Patrick Stewart's voice on the Audible version will get me through.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I I read them, you know, I'm kind of a fan in that I'm not a fan, but it's like a you know, whatever childhood kind of thing for me, but I don't I don't think you're missing anything by not.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't like them as a kid either.
SPEAKER_00:By not reading those.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm never much of a kid reader. I always remember.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I mean Lord of the Rings has nods to religiosity, but like the Chronicles of Narnia is straight up religion. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I saw the movie, I remember. I was like, wait, this is Hasselon is Jesus. Yeah. I got that. Thank you, everybody. Sorry that it's been so sporadic.
SPEAKER_00:We will do our best to get better. We will try and get back on schedule.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Okay. We oh, oh, uh if you would be so kind. You could email us, please review, like, subscribe. Subscribe would be awesome. As well as download. Downloading really helps as well.
SPEAKER_00:It would be great if you sent us an email, but please don't send us an email if you're like trying to sell us like whatever like we have zero dollars. Audible, like yeah, management or or what is it? A social media management. Yeah. Yeah. We can't afford that.
SPEAKER_01:So no, if we could, I would not be the one editing. Yeah. Um, but yes, so like, subscribe, download, email, um, hit us up on Instagrams. Uh, there's a Facebook for the podcast. Rachel and I both have also have our personal Instagrams. Yep. Uh, and all of that is in the show notes. And we will talk to you next time. Bye.
