Episode 374: Your Urban Legends LXXXVIII - Ghosts? Or Quiet Quitting?
/Haunted architecture, haunted museums, haunted bosses? Man, everything’s haunted nowadays. Guess it’s time to quit your job, listen to this new episode of Spirits, and consider becoming a ghost hunter for your new profession.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of law enforcement, home invasion, homophobia, death, misogyny, gender violence, exorcism, accidental death, murder, sex, and suicide.
Housekeeping
- TOUR: Get tickets for our Rolling Bones Tour!
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And hey, when this episode comes out, it's Valentine's Day?
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, one of our annual Spirits traditions in the Spirits calendar that we will one day make—
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —which involves telling each other spooky stories.
JULIA: Because there's nothing really better than telling a spooky story, like nothing more romantic than telling a spooky story, because then you have excuses to cuddle and, you know, just like getting to snuggle up to someone, being like, "Oh, I'm so scared," but actually, you just want to touch.
AMANDA: Hold my hand, it's because I need moral support, not because I— I want our tongues to touch.
JULIA: Put your arm around me, don't touch my boob.
AMANDA: Only if you want to. Do you want to?
JULIA: Only if you want to. .
AMANDA: Amazing. I'm glad I'm an adult. I can use my words now, instead of, you know, those— those little trickeries.
JULIA: Having to find excuses to cuddle, yes, I understand completely.
AMANDA: Exactly. Julia, do you want to, like, platonically cuddle on a shared interest, and swap sort of scary stories today?
JULIA: Of course, I do. That's just my goal. I think every— recently, we were talking— Jake and I were like, "Why in that song"— I can't even remember what Christmas song it is, but they— they tell the Christ— tell ghost stories, and Jake's like, "Why would they do that?" I'm like, "Because it was the darkest night of the year, Jake, and it was spooky, spooky time, and we've gone away from that." And he's like, "We should tell more scary stories at Christmas." I'm like, "Yes, we should. I agree."
AMANDA: Yeah. Remember when we sat around your firepit and told scary stories in the backyard, and then later— then Eric told an incredible one and then was like, "I made it all up."? And we were like, "Whoa."
JULIA: I will say, hey, listen, I think more holidays should involve traditionally telling ghost stories.
AMANDA: We're starting it here now, Julia. 2024, divisible by four, that's romantic. And we're gonna start telling more scary stories.
JULIA: Valentine's Day is now a scary story holiday. You heard it here first, and we're going to kick it off with an email. Amanda, it's a chunky one. I'm gonna tell you right now, it's a chunky one.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: This is from—
AMANDA: Settling for a long like three, four-course meal.
JULIA: Exactly. This is from M., and it is titled Some Spooky Haunted Museum Stories.
AMANDA: Hell yeah, man. Also museums, a place people go on dates.
JULIA: A good date spot, I would say. I love a museum date, personally.
AMANDA: That's why I got married in one.
JULIA: That is true. Alright. So M. says, "Hello, I've been listening to your podcast for several years now, but I've never written in until now. And I'm here writing two messages in only a couple of days. After sending my first email, I remembered that I had been wanting to send you the stories of my experience volunteering and working in a couple of museums. I have an education in museum studies, but for now, I've moved away from the heritage industry. But I still have some stories from my time in museums."
AMANDA: I didn't know heritage industry was a term.
JULIA: That's the first time I've heard of it, too, and I did some museum studies back in college. So I'm like, "Oh, heritage industry, I like that."
AMANDA: Maybe more common in countries that invest in their national heritage and don't just sort of papered over with false monument.
JULIA: This is Canadian, so that does make sense.
AMANDA: There you go.
JULIA: "Museums are strange places when you think about it. Some of them are in old buildings that have their own spooky history, and others are in custom-made buildings but are filled to the brim with old objects that can also have strange and spooky histories. I'm not going to directly name the museums I'm talking about because I want to stay anonymous, but I will tell you a bit about them and what I experienced while there. I live on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia, Canada, and there is a lot of interesting history in this area. Vancouver Island has some of its own interesting history. There are small, picturesque cities that were at one time rough and tumble towns that were stops on the way to the gold fields of the Klondike. There are numerous small towns that grew up around coal fields that were a big part of building Vancouver Island. And there are over 10,000 years of indigenous history in this area long before settlers arrived. There was also plenty of room for spirits and ghosts to exist there, too. When I did my museum internship, I interned at a small museum up island in a small town that, in its heyday, had been the center of a large coal mining area owned by the well-known coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir and his son, James. The town, to this day, sits atop warrens of old coal mine tunnels stack atop each other, in at least three levels. It is one of those places that most certainly must have ghosts, though, I wasn't there looking for them. When I came to this museum, they had only a few months before in the summer done a clean out of their storage. Apparently, it is when a lot of movement is happening that the spirits get stirred up."
AMANDA: Oh, just like a dust mote, Julia.
JULIA: Yes, just like dust motes. "I should say that this is one of those purpose-made buildings for museums, not a historic building. So there was a divide amongst some people about whether there were ghosts or not. One of the supervising staff didn't believe that a new building could be haunted, never mind all the objects that were both on display and in storage. But those that had been involved in the project were adamant about what they had experienced. One of the primary stories I was told had to do with an old crank phone that they had on display. Yes, a hand-crank phone, like in the movies, they exist. Who knew?"
AMANDA: Dang.
JULIA: "If you turned the crank, the bells on the phone would ring very softly, but you weren't really supposed to touch it. However, one of the volunteers told me that during the move, it would ring without anyone touching it. It wasn't very loud, but louder than if you would just crank it, and it would do it intermittently and when no one was near it. I didn't experience it, but the volunteer was very clear about it when they told me."
AMANDA: Especially because it's a manual device and, you know, you know exactly how to make it work, that's particularly creepy. It's not like it's plugged in and/or like a Furby with batteries, where you're like, "Alright. Maybe like the circuit is doing something weird." No, no, no. Like, you have to manually move something to get noise out of this thing.
JULIA: I also think that it's creepier that it would ring louder than if you were actually turning it, which means the ghost was, like, really, like, shaking that thing.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: "My own experience was a bit more mysterious. I'm someone who wants to believe, but also always looks for explanations for my experiences. So I've considered answers to what I experienced, but let me just tell the story. During my first few weeks at the museum, we were preparing for a celebration of Lunar New Year. There was once a very large Chinese and Japanese population in the town, so they still have a Lunar New Year celebration every year. The event itself was in the rec hall across the street, convenient for the event, but it also meant that it was easy for the venue to ask us to clear everything out for the next day. The event ran long, so we ended up clearing up until after midnight. In the end, I was asked to hold down the fort at the museum so that they could open up both the front and back loading doors, and go back and forth. Now, I think everyone will agree that museums are creepy at night when they are empty and it's dark. That's just a fact."
AMANDA: True.
JULIA: "And the creepy mannequins that they had in a few different corners of the museum, did not help matters at all." Again, mannequins, so creepy, just the creepiest.
AMANDA: Always. You just— you expect movement and then there is none.
JULIA: "People were coming in and out to drop off items and boxes, but there were long stretches where I was in the space alone. I finally turned on all the lights because I was so creeped out. Sidenote, the only thing creepier than mannequins are mannequins at night in the dark." Which I agree with.
AMANDA: Yep. Just your— your animal brain wants to perceive a threat, and then nothing happens, and you're like, "This is still somehow worse."
JULIA: "It helps a little but it was shortly after that, that I heard a crash. It wasn't exactly loud, but more like the sound of things falling over after they had been stacked too high. That naturally made sense since things were being dropped off in the back area of the museum, and I figured some of that had been stacked awkwardly and toppled over. Makes sense, right?"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Total sense. You're there to load, there's going to be loading noises.
JULIA: "Well, I decided to go and check just to make sure there was no huge mess scattered across the floor, and when I got back there, though, nothing. Everything was carefully set out and there was only a little bit of stacking. Nothing had fallen over, there was no mess. And yet the sound had been distinct and I was absolutely the only person in the museum at the time. The museum was connected to another building, but remember, it was after midnight, no one was next door, no one had a reason to be next door. I never did find out what was that I heard."
AMANDA: Creepy, no doubt about it.
JULIA: M. continues, "Another time, I heard a sound almost like steps on stairs or a ball bouncing down the stairs. I chalked it up to something going on in the building next door, but it wasn't at a weird time. It was a weird building and a strange place to work. After I finished my internship, I ended up volunteering for another museum. Again, I won't name it, but it was in an old historic public building that was over a 100 years old and had a long, interesting history and was known in part for its ghosts."
AMANDA: Alright, strong start.
JULIA: "I was there to help the museum move its collection to a new location. It was a strange, spooky building that was not as well-maintained as it should have been, and there were lots of stories about experiences that people had. Being the flexible skeptic I am, I looked for possible reasons for some strangeness." I love the term flexible skeptic. That's very fun.
AMANDA: I think it's really good. It's like, "Hey, I— you know, I— I need some burden of proof here, but I'm— I'm flexible. Like if— if things come up and proof is there to be proved, I will prove it. "
JULIA: If I can't figure it out, then it must be ghosts, right?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "For example, there was a back staircase that when going down, it would sound like there were footsteps coming down behind you."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "The first time it happened, I literally stopped on the stairs and looked back. I think I went up and tried going down again, and the same thing happened. I worked out that the building being old and the way that the stairs were suspended, meant that they settled in a way that made it sound like someone was following down behind you. It was very unsettling when I experienced it, though. Another thing about the space was how frequently strange sounds could be heard. I discovered that because of how old the building was, and the fact that many of the windows were still single paint, a lot of sound was able to come in from outside. And because of the strange acoustics of the building, those sounds would come in and bounce around the space, making it sound like they were coming from inside. That didn't explain—"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "—all of the sounds that I'll share with you soon, but it did make it easier to dismiss some of the strangeness of the space."
AMANDA: And also just makes it feel a lot more random. Like even if you know that there is an explanation why, you know, a motorcycle going by outside may sound kind of like odd and haunting, and you're like, "Okay. Well, it's probably an outside noise." That doesn't mean it's still not very unsettling as you are here in it.
JULIA: I think there's also something to be said about, like, a lot of the architecture that we live in as, like, modern people in the Western world kind of thing. It's all kind of built the same. So to spend a lot of time in a building that is not similar to the ones that we exist in, the acoustics will always kind of sound off to us, and that'll be like very disturbing and creepy. So I think there is something about, like, distinctly different architecture that makes things feel more haunted.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So M. continues, "All that being said, it didn't mean that there weren't a lot of strange things that I experienced while I was there. Some of them were small, while some definitely came close to the level of haunted. On one of my first days there, I remember walking up the front stairs to the second floor, and on one step, I felt my leg almost buckle."
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: "It wasn't like my legs suddenly became weak or that there was something weird about the stairs themselves, it was a feeling that is almost impossible to describe unless you experienced it. But the closest is that weird weak feeling some people get in their knees when looking down from a great height. But it was like a full-on buckle, like my leg temporarily turned to jelly. It only happened once in that spot, and I went up those stairs hundreds of times during my time there. I never experienced it again, in that spot. Later on, a room was rediscovered that hadn't been opened in a while. I was curious and I went inside very briefly. It did not have a good feeling to it, but I experienced that strange, weak knee feeling again when I first stepped into that room."
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: I know, that's so weird, right? "I did not step into it again after that first day. Luckily, I didn't have to. There was nothing in there to pack up for the move. I still don't know exactly the cause of that strange reaction, though."
AMANDA: Puzzling.
JULIA: Puzzling. Very puzzling. Sometimes your body just does things and you're like, "What— why— why did you do that?" And you're just, like, very curious. I mean, I'm very curious as to why my body does things very often. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know why my body, like, just all of a sudden gets like a weird, like, spasm in one arm or something like that.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. Like, I got that thing the other night where I was, like, falling asleep, and then I jerked, and I was like, "Oh, this is just— I— I hate this, this is the worst."
JULIA: You're like, "Let me fall asleep. I'm not dying. Let me fall asleep quick."
AMANDA: "My limbs do not need to do this death switch. I— I promise we're okay."
JULIA: "Body, I promise."
AMANDA: But it is really curious for it to happen in the same place in your body, as you're entering like different spots in the museum. Like, crossing a threshold and your body does something, I too would assume that those were related.
JULIA: Yes, for sure. M. continues, "I did have some experiences that do fit better into the idea of ghosts and hauntings. There were a few occasions when I was left to hold down the fort at the museum. Now if you thought the small mining museum I interned at would have been spooky. Imagine a museum in a three-story, a 100-year-old building, and being left alone there. I did not love being left alone in that building, but sometimes the supervising staff had to step out for one reason or another, so I was left alone. During one of those times, I was tasked with updating information and locations in the collections database." We love collections databases.
AMANDA: I know. I'm also hearing like these are such intern tasks, like, "Oh, we have to do this, like, incredibly annoying, and troublesome, and, you know, laborious process over the summer. Get some interns to help."
JULIA: You've got that, right? "When I spend time doing so, there were inevitably questions that cropped up, which I would run past my supervising staff member. However, on this day, she had stepped out for an hour or so. So I put aside the records that I had questions about and carried on. Of course, I was listening for her, waiting for her to come back. Even though the office I was in was on the third floor, the front door had a very distinct sound when it opened and closed, that echoed up the stairs. And it also had a bell installed that would ring when the door was opened and could be heard from the third floor. So as I was sitting there, I heard the door, and so I got up and thought that I would meet my supervisor on the stairs. But there was no sign of anyone on the stairs and no sound of anyone coming up. I even went down a few stairs to check, but sure enough, no one was there. I shrugged it off, thinking that maybe I had imagined it. You know how when you're listening for something specifically, you can sometimes think that you heard something, but it's really just your imagination? Yeah, I figured that was the case. I went back to what I was doing, and I waited. A little while later, I was sure that I heard the door again. So I did the same thing, going to the stairs, even going down to the second floor to see if anyone was there, but once again, there was no one. I'm not sure how many times this happened before it was actually my supervisor, but it was at least twice more. And I know one of those times, I went all the way down to the first floor to see if anyone was about or if my supervisor was down there doing something else before coming up, but there was no sign of anyone. I was alone in the building, but I definitely heard the door more than once, and it was locked during the day since it was closed to the public."
AMANDA: Oh. That was my main question, is, like, did someone— or someone sort of popping their head in to see if you're open? Is someone trying to, you know, nip in for a free visit? But damn.
JULIA: Apparently, not. Apparently, not. "Another time I was alone, doing some packing on the second floor. There were two staff members on site as well, but they were up on the third floor in their respective offices. The second floor had several gallery spaces that could be accessed by main doorways, but there are also places where there were little corridors that I would use as shortcuts between the galleries occasionally. On this day, I was doing just that, cutting a path between a small display that hadn't been packed up yet. Remember, I was alone on this floor. The only person in the building were upstairs in their offices. But as I cut through the spaces, I clearly heard a woman's voice. The voice sounded like it was coming from the other side of the thin interior wall between where I was and the large second-story back landing. On the other side was a storage room and an office that had been empty for several months by that time. I couldn't make out what the voice said, but the voice was very clear. Like, hearing someone talk from in a room next door. I immediately checked to see if someone was there, but there was no one."
AMANDA: Yeah. It's the person in the wall.
JULIA: Person in the wall. Apparently, the walls are very thin though, so I don't know if someone would be able to. Or maybe they're thin, because they're hollow and someone is walking through.
AMANDA: Yeah, Julia. We haven't really explored the possibility of Flat Stanley ghosts.
JULIA: We haven't explored Flat Stanely ghosts. You're absolutely right. We got to think more about that, just in general. As a society, we need to talk about Flat Stanley ghosts.
AMANDA: Exactly. We've— we're all out here thinking, "Oh, maybe the ghosts are incorporeal. Oh, maybe the ghosts, you know, can turn invisible. Maybe the ghosts are just really, really flat."
JULIA: That's very— Amanda, very possible.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Ghosts may just be flat. Maybe there's just not a lot of 3D ghosts, and every ghost is actually two-dimensional, have we considered that?
AMANDA: I don't think we have. I really don't.
JULIA: Y'all, tell me stories about your two-dimensional ghosts, I need to know about it now.
AMANDA: I know. Maybe they're quantum. Maybe they slipped between particles. I don't know.
JULIA: I'm not a quantum physicist. I couldn't possibly say. M continues, "I have never been able to find a satisfactory explanation." Except for Flat Stanley ghost, we— we provided you that now, so—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. You're welcome.
JULIA: "If it had been one of the other women in the space with me, they wouldn't have come down and gone back up, and I would have heard them in the bare wood stairs. If they had been at the top of the stairs talking, the voices would have echoed. If they had been shouting, it would sound like it came from above and would not have had the same quality of sound as when the other sounds came in from the outside. And there was no one behind the building when I looked out the window. So the closest I've come to is a definitive ghostly experience."
AMANDA: Dang.
JULIA: "I think the weirdest thing about the building was the way that people seemed to vanish sometimes. I used to talk about it in a semi-serious, semi-joking way about the vortex, because given the size of the building and how empty it was and how much needed to be done, people would be hard to find when you needed them." I think that's just any job, actually. Just like if you're an intern and you need someone to do something for you, finding them is impossible.
AMANDA: They've simply vanished. I have no other explanation.
JULIA: M. continues, "From early on, I remember making statements to other volunteers along the lines of, quote, 'I'd better go ask our supervisor my question before she vanishes into the ether.' It started as a joke referencing how big the building was and how our supervisor was so prone to going off to do something without letting anyone know where she was, that she just seemed to disappear sometimes. Later on, though, it became a little bit less of a joke. It was more noticeable when there were fewer of us, and I was often the only volunteer on site. Two occasions I particularly remember, though, had to do with my supervisor apparently disappearing, only to turn up exactly where I expected her to be." Like your keys, supervisor is your keys.
AMANDA: Exactly. I'm— Julia, I— I can't shake the thought now that your supervisor is simply shirking their duties, and not— not showing up.
JULIA: I'm sorry, like— and this is like, "Oh, we're moving all of our stuff from one location to the other." Maybe the supervisor wasn't going with them to the new location and was just—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —like, " I'm not dealing with this. I'm done, actually."
AMANDA: Maybe she was just taking a long lunch, you know?
JULIA: "On one occasion, I remember wandering around the museum, looking for her. I walked around the entire second floor because she had mentioned that she would be down there. When I went by the area that she said she'd be in, I didn't see her, so I searched the rest of the floor for her. I may have even gone upstairs and checked for her in her office, but I didn't find her. Finally, I went back to the gallery and collection storage room where she said that she'd be in. And there she was, working on some object or another. I mentioned that I had come by a short while ago, and I didn't see her. She told me that she had been there the entire time and hadn't gone anywhere else. The storage space was very small, so when looking in, it was very hard to miss anyone, but I didn't see her. The only thing I could think of was the storage room was L-shaped, and it did have a very short piece at the end. But there really wasn't anything there that she was likely to be working on. So unless she was around the corner, there was no way I could have missed her."
AMANDA: Okay, but— but maybe is she lying to you and just not working very much during the summer when the interns are moving the collection?
JULIA: It's either that or she's like— she went to the bathroom and she forgot to tell or like— I don't know. I— I just think it's just— this might be ghost, but it also might be just like job negligence.
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: She might be quiet quitting on you, I don't know.
AMANDA: Truly, who can say?
JULIA: Yeah. "On another occasion, I was doing something in the collections and had a question for her or wanted to check in with her, so naturally, I went to her office where I would have expected her to be, only discovered that she wasn't there. I figured that she was in one of the other spaces, doing something collections-related. Maybe she was checking the packed boxes, or maybe she was checking what still needed to be done in the displays. There were all sorts of reasons for her to step away, so I began my search. I started on the third floor where I already was, but there was no sign of her. Not in the collections, not in the board room, not in the staff room, so I headed down to the second floor. I did the rounds of the galleries, no sign of her there, either. So with a sigh, I headed down to the main floor. There was still a lot to be packed up down there, so maybe she was doing something there, but nope, no sign of her. So I trudged all the way back to the third floor and naturally went back to her office, just to see if she was back. And sure enough, there she was, sitting at her desk. 'Oh,' I said, 'I've been looking for you.' 'I've been here,' she said, or something to that effect."
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "I checked, but you weren't here. I spent 20 minutes searching the building for you. 'I haven't moved for at least half an hour,' she told me. I thought maybe she went to the bathroom and just didn't think about that. I don't know. All I know is that she wasn't there when I checked, and she insisted that she had been there the whole time." I feel like you're being gas-lit.
AMANDA: This is— this is sinister in one way or another. Either there is truly a vortex or your supervisor has IBS and needs to poop a lot and is lying, or is trying to quiet quit.
JULIA: "I also had occasions when I would be left by myself and people would suddenly seem to appear." Again. this is the vortex, I love it. "The one that stands out in my mind most strongly was when I had briefly been left alone in the building again, and I was coming out of one of the second-floor galleries. I hadn't heard anyone on the stairs, but as I stepped out into the landing, I heard someone say, 'Hi, how's it going?' And I nearly jumped out of my skin. One of the staff members had just come up the stairs, but she may as well have appeared out of nowhere. I didn't hear her and I didn't see her as I was approaching the landing, even though you could see the stairs through the doorway. I may have been lost in thought, but it seemed like she appeared out of nowhere. That was the weirdest thing about the building, the way that people sometimes seem to disappear and appear out of the clear blue sky. It was a very unsettling space overall. I love that I have stories to share, but I hope you enjoy these stories of my creepy times working in museums. There is one last non-haunted story about my time at the second museum." Would you like to hear this one, Amanda?
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: "Sometimes strange experiences could be totally mundane, but still weird. There was one day when I was taking my lunchbreak and the staff member that was there needed to step out. As I was sitting there about to eat, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I thought the staff member had returned for something. I went out to meet her and made a joke like, 'Oh, what did you forget?' But the two people in the steps were strangers. And after a moment, I realized that they were the police."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "The staff member had let them in as she was leaving, and they had come up to check something out. Apparently, they had been chasing someone who may or may not have been intoxicated, and this person had climbed a tree that gave them access to our roof. And apparently, this person had tried to get in a window, and it scaled down the other side of the building."
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: "I think this had happened earlier in the day or the night before, I don't remember. But the police wanted to check things out and make sure that this person hadn't found a way inside. It was very strange, but I gave them a little tour, and showed them around, what we had been doing, and they left without a fuss. It was very strange."
AMANDA: I— I do like this as a response to the carceral state, though, to be like, "Hi, police. Let me show you our local history and give you absolutely no sort of guidance or help otherwise."
JULIA: Yeah. "It seems like you guys don't really need to be here, so would you like a tour?" I don't know. Tax dollars at work.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So M. finishes, "I hope you enjoyed my spooky stories and sorry, that they're so long. Thank you for the amazing podcast. Love you all. Best, M."
AMANDA: M., this is one of the rare situations where I sincerely hope you were being haunted, because the— the alternative of your workplace culture, bad.
JULIA: Yeah, no, it's not— it's not good. I'm so sorry.
AMANDA: Alright, Julia. let's go digest that a little bit with a quick refill.
JULIA: Sounds great. Let's go.
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AMANDA: Hey, guys, Amanda here. Welcome to the mid-roll, where first and foremost, I have got to thank our newest patron, Haley, for supporting the show with your dollars to help us do this and pay Sally and Bren and make this our jobs. Thank you to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. To have your name read, to enjoy the hundreds of bonus posts we have put up on Patreon over the years, go on over to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And if you are somehow not aware, hey, join us on tour. Oh, man, I'm so excited. This is my recommendation for this week, is text somebody that you know who lives in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, or Washington, DC. Text them, okay? Like, think of someone right now. Okay? You know, somebody who lives in one of those cities, text them and say, "Hey, you should go to the Spirits live show, spiritspodcast.com/live." Alright, that's the message. You should go. It's going to be incredible. Your friend can buy you some merch. You— if you are in those areas and you want to come, we better see you, folks. And if you live somewhere else, and you want us to come visit your city, your country, you want to see us go to Finland, or England, or Australia, or, I don't know, Denver, then we have to make this tour a success in order to plan new ones, okay? You have to prove to us that you want this to happen and you want us to come out, and you need to show up and buy tickets. So please buy tickets now at spiritspodcast.com/live. This is happening in the last week of March, we are so excited. Come on through, text your friends, help us make this a success. Alright? Thank you. Let's go in on here at Multitude. Have you heard that there is an eclipse happening this year? Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. And if you've ever wondered, huh, I wonder what like, I don't know, a religion all about an eclipse would look like, or what if we had multiple suns like Tatooine? What would that kind of do to, like, the way we operate in society? I have a podcast you're going to love, which is Exolore. This is a podcast hosted by Dr. Moiya McTier, who you've heard before on our advice from folklore episodes. where every other week, she explores fictional worlds. She makes new ones. She interviews professional world-builders and reviews the merits of worlds that have already been built. She is planning some very exciting stuff for the next few months. We just went over it with her, and I can't wait. It's gonna be great. I love listening to Exolore. So go ahead and check it out now on your podcast app, exolorepod.com. We are sponsored this week by Marley Spoon, which— listen, guys, I love to cook. I truly feel like it's a way for me to unwind. But between like deciding what I want, buying the ingredients, actually cooking it, blah, blah, blah, it can be super time-consuming. And if you're looking for ways to be a little more efficient with your time, Marley Spoon is a great thing to keep in mind. They are the best-tasting meal kit on the market. And with code Spirits, you can get up to 25 free meals, but more on that in a minute. Now, with Marley Spoon, you get to choose from over 100 delicious recipes each week. They are suggesting ones like poached salmon, butternut squash gnocchi, vegan burrito bowl, Cajun spiced chicken, delicious. I am waiting on my first delivery of Marley Spoon, because I was out of town recently. And I am extremely excited to try some of the Martha Stewart recipes. We had a lot of Martha Stewart recipes growing up in my house and I'm very excited to see what her Marley Spoon collabo is all about. They're also, by the way, completely customizable. Whether you're looking for vegetarian, family-friendly dishes, maybe you're trying to, I don't know, have like a low-carb or a high-protein diet, Marley Spoon can help. They even have an in-house registered dietician who actually assesses every recipe to take the guesswork out of eating healthy. So experience the most personalized meal kit out there with Marley Spoon. Head to marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits and use code Spirits for up to 25 free meals. That's right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. One last time, that's marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits for up to 25 free meals. And make sure you use the promo code Spirits, so they know you came from us. We are also sponsored this week by Volante Design. Now, I'm sure that there are people out there who expressed with their style, just how cool and funky and unique they are in the daily world. One of the best places that I've ever seen that, like, make clothes that look like what I think people feel like on the inside, if that makes any sense, is Volante Design. They make absolutely incredible high-quality, handmade, ethically sourced, and truly like the kind of quality that will last you for years, jackets, outerwear, all kinds of cool design. Now, they have official licenses from series like Assassin's Creed and Star Trek, so you can look, you know, vaguely Starfleet-inspired in your daily life, but they also have some incredible original collections like Cyberpunk and Modern Ninja. I know several of you have written into say that you have Volante Design jackets and you're obsessed with them and you are so glad we're working together, so am I, alright? So if you go to volantedesign.us and use the code Spirits, they very kindly offered you, our listeners, 10% off your entire order. That is volantedesign.us, and the code Spirits will get you 10% off your entire order. And with stuff this well made, that really makes a difference. So go on over, show them your support, volantedesign.us, code Spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
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AMANDA: Now, Julia, normally, we kind of pregame a little bit and talk about what we're going to talk about when we get back from a refill, but I'm just going cold into this one because what I've been enjoying recently was your Hanukkah gift to Eric and me, which is a homemade Schifini limoncello. It is so delicious, and my very favorite way to enjoy it is about an ounce or ounce and a half of limoncello over ice with some seltzer. And just making essentially a limoncello spritzer. It tastes like summer, and it's absolutely delicious.
JULIA: I love that. Thank you for— for drinking it. It's one of my favorite things to make every holiday season and I'm so glad—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —that, like, we get to hand it up to our friends, and they're like, "Yum, yum, yum, yum. It's limoncello time."
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: It's so easy to make, y'all. More people should be making limoncello at home. I'm not going to share you my recipe because that's a trade secret, a family secret.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But hey, it's pretty easy to make. It's just a bunch of lemons, and Everclear, and then sugar.
AMANDA: It is. I— I must say somebody offered me a limoncello at a family party the other day, it came from a store-bought bottle, and I was like, "I'm good. Like, no, no, no."
JULIA: Get out of here.
AMANDA: What have you been enjoying lately, Julia, alcoholic or not?
JULIA: I've also been enjoying our limoncello. Is that a good answer?
AMANDA: How do you prefer to drink it? Just like cold? You keep it in the freezer, of course.
JULIA: Yes. It's a freezer one, so it gets nice and, like, syrupy when you keep it in the freezer.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And I just do a little shot glass, but you don't take it like a shot, you just like— you sip it. It's an—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —aperitif, you know? You have it like as a digestif at the end of your meal.
AMANDA: Delicious. Well, I'm— I'm glad we're so— we're so, you know, in sync.
JULIA: Yes, we are, indeed. Well, Amanda, do you have a— a digestif and aperitif for us after my museum stories?
AMANDA: I do, Julia. This one came in during spooky season, that's the— for the— the Gregorian calendar, the rest of the year, October. Of course, we are spooky all year long. This had a title so good, I couldn't say no. It's from Madison, she/her, and it's called Boozy in Bruges.
JULIA: Ooh, I love that. That's fun.
AMANDA: Now, do you know anything about Bruges, Julia?
JULIA: Is that in Brussels?
AMANDA: It's in Belgium, the country of which Brussels is the capital.
JULIA: I just couldn't remember the name of the country.
AMANDA: All good. Also, the name of a movie is in Bruges, very moody, Colin Farrell. And it's a place I've been, so I was particularly excited. It's a small city, accessible.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: It's like a day trip. A lot of people do it from Brussels, and I am very excited.
JULIA: Well, you'll have to give me some context as they reveal some information, but I'm so excited.
AMANDA: I sure will. So Madison writes, "I was just on a trip throughout Europe. My best friend just got married to a delightful French woman, and they figured since it was going to be a destination wedding one way or another, since they're from different countries, why not get married at a chateau in the French countryside?"
JULIA: You know what? Why not?
AMANDA: I love that for you.
JULIA: If I had that option, I would have done that, too.
AMANDA: "So since I had a good excuse to go to France, I figured why not and continue to visit some other places in Europe while I was at it."
JULIA: Heck yeah, make it into a whole thing. I love that.
AMANDA: You gotta. "So I've been to Europe before, and I know my way around train stations, so I decided I'd still go to a few places I know and a few that were new to me. Keep it relatively simple as a single person traveling internationally alone. My boss suggested Bruges, Belgium, which I returned will now highly recommend to anyone who wants to do a little trip. And yes, the same one as that Collin Farrell movie."
JULIA: Ah, nice. I'm glad everyone's like, "You know, the Collin Farrell movie, our claim to fame."
AMANDA: One town square with one big old church and like— it is truly— it's— it's the one from the movie like— you know?
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: "So before I get into the story, a bit of history and context on the town. Bruges had its golden age around 14 to 1600 before they pissed off a French king, and is largely the same as it was back then. Due to the pissing off of the said French king, the city went from being one of the richest most sought-after places to live to a poor, forgotten place nearly overnight. Now, it's a fairly affordable, charming as hell, and very easy to get around, with the addition of a boozy adventure, yours truly found that features are more creepy than cool story."
JULIA: Ooh, okay. Alright.
AMANDA: "I found a delightful adult-only hotel and my room featured a lovely Safak wallpaper that you could find a few 100 years ago in a woman's sitting room." I'm sure historians would say they were just great gal pals, roommates, even.
JULIA: As always.
AMANDA: They were roommates. Onto the main event. "I took a walking tour that was built as the dark side of Bruges." What are your thoughts initially on this?
JULIA: My brain immediately goes dark, but in like a misogyny and gender violence way, unfortunately.
AMANDA: Yes. I figured it's a gender violence tour. Maybe not. Let's— let's see what happens.
JULIA: Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.
AMANDA: "I was hoping for a lovely time and some spooky stories. And this being Europe, I was hoping for a lot of very haunted stories. And, oh, did my tour guide deliver?"
JULIA: Okay, good. I was worried there was just going to be like, "Yep, and it was just real sad shit."
AMANDA: Well—
JULIA: It will also be sad shit. Yeah, yep. The pause was poignant.
AMANDA: Well, a little sad. This is not the note we're going to end on, but it does tie into some recent episodes. So I— I thought this was a good one to bring up today.
JULIA: I'm excited.
AMANDA: "So during the Golden Age of Bruges, again, 14 to 1600 or so, a nun and monk or a priest, I forget which, fell in love with each other."
JULIA: Classic.
AMANDA: "They secretly started to see each other. They're residents who were across the canal from one another, so sneaking around must have been fairly easy."
JULIA: So romantic.
AMANDA: "But as Bruges was still a small town back then, even though it is smaller today in terms of population, was still pretty small back then. My guide says if you had too many amazing Belgian beers one night and did something funny, or silly, or ridiculous, your mates would surely know the day after through word of mouth. True then, and it was true now."
JULIA: Hmm. So I hear that their neighbors were gossipy bitches.
AMANDA: Exactly. Imagine how that gossip mill was running back in the day without the internet. Everyone knew about the nun and the priest somehow and it was a pretty big story. "But one day the priest and the nun disappeared, and no one knew what happened. A short time later, the nunnery began to experience something so unsettling that they left the property and it stood there vacant for over 200 years."
JULIA: What the hell?
AMANDA: "So at night, after they locked up and all the nuns went to bed, they would hear a man screaming."
JULIA: Hold on, sorry. That's— that's terrifying, but for some reason, you said, "When all the nuns went to bed," I'm like, "That's a children's book right there." That's just like— it's like if you give a mouse a cookie, but like when all the nuns go to bed, it reminds me of a— a children's book that my parents used to read to me. It wasn't Good Night, Moon. It was another one. It was about like all these little animals going to sleep.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: And so it was like, "Time for bed, little mouse, little mouse. Darkness is falling all over the house." I'm like something with nuns— something with nuns going to bed.
AMANDA: Looking back, of course, it makes a lot of sense that children's books are about going to fuck to sleep.
JULIA: Go to bed.
AMANDA: Go to bed. "So in this case, as all the nuns are going down and darkness is falling around the house, they would hear a man screaming. Nothing that they did stop the screaming. All night long, there was a man screaming and abject horror."
JULIA: Cool, cool, cool.
AMANDA: "After a few minutes of trying to bless the nunnery, pray the ghost away, fasting, the nuns had reached the end of their rope. So as I said they left the property and it sat there vacant."
JULIA: That's wild.
AMANDA: "Sometime in the 1800s, though, a Spanish family bought the property for what they thought was the deal of the century."
JULIA: Do you love a lifetime?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. "Even though Bruges had been on the decline for many, many years, it was still an incredible deal for a huge property."
JULIA: There's no better investment than property says the worst people on the internet ever. If you're going to buy something, hey, better than it's cheap, you know?
AMANDA: However, Julia, it was cheap for a reason because, "It wasn't too long before the family heard the screaming once again. Now, they were more persistent than the nuns, or maybe more financially invested. Nuns do take vows of poverty—"
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "—after all. And well, probably had more money to address the issue, so they hired a well-known exorcist to help."
JULIA: Sorry, I'm just thinking about how everything's better when you're rich and, like, you could even buy better exorcists.
AMANDA: Yeah. Yeah. "So the exorcist arrived at night and promised that in the morning, he would begin his work. Well, instead, the work began much sooner." Dun, dun, dun.
JULIA: Dun, dun, dun.
AMANDA: "Before retiring to bed, the exorcist was overcome and became almost mad-like in the parlance of the day. He was screaming, just like the screams that the family had heard before. The exorcist made his way to a hidden tunnel in the house. A tunnel that ran underneath the canal. Most of them were human-made for trading easier, and connected to none other than the house that the priest lived in all those years ago."
JULIA: Yo. Oh, my God, they had a secret tunnel.
AMANDA: "And that is where they found the body of the nun."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "Later investigation and some major theorizing, seeing as the skeleton had been there at that point for quite a while, was the commonly agreed to explanation that somehow the nun had been killed. In whole, the theory is that while they were in flagrante delicto together, they got a bit enthusiastic, and either she hit her head or someone came upon them, and somehow she died."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: "The exorcist claimed that the priest was so traumatized and heartbroken that he rushed out of the tunnel and threw himself into the canal. And his spirit had been trapped there, wanting to get back to his lost love in the afterlife."
JULIA: I mean, at least it wasn't that he killed her, that would have been worse, you know?
AMANDA: Yes. I can't tell if it's like, you know, a sort of, like, Madonna-whore complex, just like, "Oh, you know, this nun who would, like, break her vows of chastity, you know, was like having sex so much that she, like, died."
JULIA: It does seem like that. Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. Or, you know, maybe someone found them and murdered her, as often they murdered women who are found in compromising situations, despite a man also being there. Right.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But there is a silver lining here. "Because after the nun was discovered, the haunting stopped in the house and the family lived there for many happy decades. After the tour, I visit a bar and drink in their honor, hoping that after they found one another in the afterlife, they can bone in peace. Cheers and thanks for reading, Madison."
JULIA: Our listeners are funny.
AMANDA: Our listeners are funny.
JULIA: I'm having conflicted feelings about like, "Yeah, you know, we settled this business, so now our investment is sound. We— we made money off this house, it's good."
AMANDA: You know, yes, there is absolutely a capitalist motive for it, and they could only accomplish it, as you said, because they had the money to, like, hire a good exorcist. But I do like that there is a, you know, after-effect of this torment being ended for this ghost, and hopefully, the nun is getting it on happily, in heaven.
JULIA: We hope so. Now, Amanda, did you have one more for us that we can— we can end on here?
AMANDA: I do. I had another fun follow-up and a tie-in to a more recent episode, from Emma, they/them about names in Judaism and a short spooky story.
JULIA: Ooh, fun.
AMANDA: Yeah. So Emma writes in to say, "Hi, folks. Foremost, mazel tov and Yasher Koach," to me. Thank you very much. "Secondly, a response to requests from Episode 339, about traditions in our families about names. So I'm from a very traditional Ashkenazi family, and that there's only ever one person with a given name born into the family. Everything gets cycled through every 100-ish years. My English name is after a friend of my mother's, who passed before I was born. My Hebrew name was my great grandmother's, same with my brother and my cousins. Everyone comes from, 'Oh, you are named after so and so. They would have loved you,' type situation."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "That brings us to two of my grandmothers' favorite Yiddish curses. The first one is, may a child be named for him." You touched on this belief in the episode.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "And may his name be forgotten."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "The second one ties most closely to the concept of memory and grief in Ashkenazi tradition, where the most common way of sharing condolences is to say, 'May their memory be a blessing,' because for as long as somebody is remembered, they are never truly gone. In my family, at least, this is part of the rationale behind recycling names. It allows the stories of our ancestors to be tied into our upbringing to continue into who we then become. Last bit, my only experience as a creepy child. My grandmother died when I was 13, and the funeral and burial were held on a rainy October afternoon. I don't remember the eulogies or anything the rabbi said, but I do distinctly remember walking up the path to the graveside with my aunts, and seeing a pink granite headstone adorned with roses and my grandfather's name, despite the fact that he was perfectly healthy, walking just a few feet behind me. What the heck? I kept walking, but looked for it on the way back, and couldn't find it again."
JULIA: And I need a pink gravestone. It's not like a— a super common color in a— in a cemetery.
AMANDA: Uh-uh. "I didn't see it again in our next trip to the cemetery, but I kind of did on the third, at my grandma's unveiling."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "My dad pulled the piece of muslin off the headstone that they had commissioned for her, revealing a pink granite slab etched with crowns of roses, and room for my grandfather's name one day, right next to hers."
JULIA: That's wild. Yo, you, like, saw a little bit of the future. Also, I think that if I saw a gravestone with the name of someone I knew, my immediate reaction would also be, like, look at the date, you know? Like, what— what— like, is that their birthday? When is the date that they passed away on there? And I would just be, like, freaked out and be like, "Now, I need to know if I'm seeing the future, I need to know the future, you know?
AMANDA: I think I would shut my eyes and— and hope desperately not to notice any information, such as the date.
JULIA: No, I want to be burdened by the— the knowledge, Amanda. I want to be burdened by the knowledge.
AMANDA: That's your right, Julia. But thank you so much, Emma, for writing in. They conclude, "Stay creepy, y'all. Much love from California."
JULIA: Aw, thank you. And thanks for writing in. That's great.
AMANDA: Thanks for writing in.
JULIA: I— I hope that your grandpa lives a long life.
AMANDA: I hope he does, indeed, and you know, his name will live on.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, the next time you're walking through a cemetery and you see a gravestone with the name of someone you know—
AMANDA: Ahh.
JULIA: —stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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