Network: Voice because Alex gotta Alex.

[11calls]

Who: Alex Reagan
Username: alexreagan
Warnings: None right now, will edit to include if things come up.


[Because Alex is most at home in the audio format, that's what she's set this up in, and will respond to everything in an audio format. Her voice is cool and radio ready, but with a Canadian accent that sometimes trips her up on center words.]

You know, it's so weird that this is like five years later than when I'm from. Like the tech and everything is so close but so different. Back home, my podcast was pretty well known, but now there's so many, it's shocking to me. I knew things would get bigger, but I never expected this!

[Alex has been poking around on the podcast apps, of course and trying to see if her show is there on it. It's not, which is both reassuring and not. But it's second nature for Alex to explain what a podcast is so she does:]

A podcast is like radio on demand on the internet, if you know what radio is. Back home, I worked for Pacific Northwest Stories, and I started my podcast with the idea of doing various stories on interesting people with interesting jobs.

[And all that ended up f i n e. Really. Totally fine. Which is one of the reason Alex gets to the heart of the matter:]

One thing I love is people's stories. I'd been working as a producer telling people's stories for three years before I ended up on my own show, and honestly I kind of miss it. More than kind of. Honestly, it's just something that would make me feel more normal. So if anyone's interested, I've got a meal on me if you're willing to talk at my record and answer questions. Oh! I'm Alex, by the way. Alex Reagan.

[A soft and self deprecating laugh follows before Alex adds:]

Which of course you already know from my username. Sorry.

Comments

[cacophonish]

Oh yeah, my dad listens to that. And, um... [ What's his name. ] Michael Jackson-- the British Michael Jackson, I mean, not the Michael Jackson.

God, that stuff used to put me to sleep.

[ A beat. Oh shit, that could've been insulting. ]

I mean-- not that I think you're boring or your job is or anything! I bet you do great interviews!

[11calls]

It's okay! And I mean it's not for everyone. The studio I work with: PNWS they end up telling a lot of stories around just like feel good stories about love, or helping people reunite with their lost tapes or pictures, or injustices in the legal system. It's kind of like This American Life. At least for the main show, my producer Nic and I are telling different kinds of stories though.

[cacophonish]

Never heard of it. [ Apparently, Jeff's canon point juuuust barely predates This American Life. ] But that sounds cool.

So you guys do the more offbeat stories?

[11calls]

Yeah, we definitely do. It's kind of an understatement. We can definitely go ahead and call them just plain old weird.

[cacophonish]

Right on. [ They may be on voice, not video, but the grin is probably evident in Jeff's voice. ] What's your favorite weird story?

[ A beat. ]

Fuck, that's a big question, isn't it? I mean, it's like when people ask me what's my favorite song, or who's my favorite artist, and it's like, dude, I can't narrow it down to one, you know?

Maybe it's better if I just ask, um... what's the first to come to mind?

[11calls]

[Alex's favorite story and the story that first comes to mind are two entirely separate things, but her response is automatic, but also vast.]

The Order of the Cenophus.

[cacophonish]

Sounds... culty.

[ GO ON. ]

[11calls]

[And Alex would slap her hand across her mouth if it would have done her any good, but of course it wouldn't.]

It is definitely very culty. They're a group of monks who'd started as part of a Benedictine Order but there had been a member who had committed a sin so bad that he was going to be walled up for it. But he made a deal that he would construct a bible for them within a year. Bibles at this time were huge hand written things that were also illuminated manuscripts so they had elaborate borders and illustrations and the like. The Monk tried to produce the work and prayed to God every night that he would help before the time was up. Then on the last night, the man prayed to the Devil who agreed to do it for his soul of course, and in the middle of the bible, there was also a massive illustration of the Devil inside of it. That's why they call The Codex Gigas 'The Devil's Bible.' It became the Abbot's favorite book but then the monastery had money troubles and they decided to sell the bible.

The apprentice original monk who had made it was furious about that so in an effort to do something: either lower it's value or because there were things in that were present that there wasn't supposed to be, he tore pages from the Codex, and those pages comprise a lost book: The Cenophus.

Different orders grew up around the Cenophus but the most important one is a monastery in Glushka, Bulgaria. Gluskha is very much an active order even today.