Director's Notes - 140 - A Blood Stone Carol

(NOTE: As always, Director's Notes contain spoilers)

I hate A Christmas Carol.

There are a few reasons. The first is that it’s a Christmas story, and when you’re Jewish, Christmas is something that is constantly shoved into your life whether you want it or not. And, like many things placed upon marginalized groups, if you react to this intrusion it is seen as a flaw in your character rather than any problem of society at large.

The second is that it is a story that we have all heard a thousand times. Christmas season brings ten local productions to every town, as well as of course every tv show having to do their version. So why did I add to the pile by doing my own?

Well for that we go to reason number three. I love ghost stories and horror. So why don’t I like A Christmas Carol, the most famous ghost story of all? I think it’s because the ghosts aren’t scary, and they’re there to deliver obvious, boring lessons. I respect teachers. My family is full of teachers. But I don’t want my ghosts to be teachers, I want them to be ghosts.

So I decided to try to approach my least favorite story with one simple question: What happens to A Christmas Carol if you take out the moral, and indeed any moral? What happens if you go into it with only the intention of creating fear? By destroying the heart of the story, can I turn it into one I enjoy? The answer is yes, for me. I can’t guarantee the same results for anyone else.

Jon Bernstein (Disparition) took it upon himself to create a special holiday soundtrack for this special holiday episode. I am particularly fond of the outro, which is the closest he’s ever come to writing a klezmer song, and also is an echo of the format of another podcast we do together, Alice Isn’t Dead, in which he wrote an ending song for every episode.

This little holiday ghost story ends our 2018. We look forward to 2019, where we already have a number of stories I’m looking forward to sharing, plus more in our continuing experimentation into new ways stories can be told within the format of sound. In our seventh year making this show, I still get so excited about the stories we tell here. Thanks for being the folks we get to tell these stories to.

- Joseph Fink
December 15, 2018