Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / Gracie Delgado on Sentient-Object Romance and Tyler Reads Morning Glory Milking Farm. Plus: Thoughts on the New Sense and Sensibility

Transcript

Gracie Delgado on Sentient-Object Romance and Tyler Reads Morning Glory Milking Farm. Plus: Thoughts on the New Sense and Sensibility · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio 831 Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall, and we're
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: so excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the tropes to the book-to-screen adaptations and, of course, the
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: drama of it all. You know, unpacking what the genre
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: says about who we are and how we love. Sanj, hello. Hi, Tyler.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I miss seeing your face so much.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm missing yours. Welcome back.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: For context, I was in Japan for two and a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: half weeks, so I have not seen Sanj in many years.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Many weeks. I'm really excited, though, because I get to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: see your face Saturday, October 24th at RomCon in Brooklyn.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you do. In Industry City.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Where we will be emceeing and moderating some panels and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: we'll have some great discussions. And there's going to be
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: so many great authors there. And I hope that you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: guys got your tickets. But if you didn't, there is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: still time. If you want tickets, they are at 831stories. com.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Please come see us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's going to be fun. Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: But we also got to reunite in the most romantic
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: fashion I could possibly imagine, which is last night we
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: went to the cinema together. The cinema. We went to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the cinema to see the Sense and Sensibility adaptation starring
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Daisy Edgar Jones, which we have been very eagerly anticipating. Sanj,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: how did you like it? How did you feel? I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: looked over at several points and you were like weeping.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, I was like not well. Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You were like not okay.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Transparently, I am very affected by all sister media, which
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I think we discussed when we reviewed the novel itself.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Many of the reasons why Fleabag season two is so
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: special to me are yes, Hot Priest, but specifically it
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: is Claire saying to Fleabag, the only person I'd run
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: through an airport for is you. Like, I'm such a sucker.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'm such a sucker. So let me preface with that.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I loved it. Yeah. Oh, my God. I loved it.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I was moved. I thought it was funny. I thought
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: it was like a strangely faithful adaptation. It definitely makes changes.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Like there are so many little points that I think
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: like true faithful adopters would take issue with like. Edward
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Ferrer's characterization is a little bit different. Some of the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: plot beats towards the end are different. Colonel Brandon is
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a little bit different. I think really the changes made
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: are to uplift more of the romantic aspect of the story.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: There is still very faithfully this like core sister relationship,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: but I think especially in comparison to like the 1995
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Sense and Sensibility, which I quite love. I was talking
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to a friend about how it's that 95 adaptation is
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: like the light version and this is the darker version
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: of that story. Like they're both different flavors of the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: same thing, but like together they make a beautiful black
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: and white cookie, if you will. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: What a gorgeous analogy.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So the visual language is definitely different. There's something like
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: more raw and earthy and sensorial about this adaptation. I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: loved it though. And I was like, Daisy, a generational talent,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: which is not a surprise to anybody. I think she's amazing.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But she's so wonderful as Eleanor. Like, she really moved me.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I would argue I prefer her as Eleanor and I
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: prefer Kate Winslet as Marianne. I just, I really loved it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I really loved it. What did you think?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Wait, I'm going to tell you in a second, but
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I want you to say more about Strangely Faithful adaptation
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: because I feel like that's such an interesting thing to say.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Because I think it's hard to capture... This spirit of
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Austen's wit and humor while trying to make something that
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: is in many ways drawing on the influence of the
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: 2005 Pride and Prejudice.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: That was a big part of the marketing. And the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: 2005 Pride and Prejudice people have also criticized for being
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: less faithful than the 1995 BBC Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Compared to the 1995 versions of both properties, both the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: 2005 and 2026 Austen adaptations are considered less faithful. But
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I found it to be quite spiritually faithful to sense
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: and sensibility where it mattered. Like, capturing the depth of
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: devotion that these sisters have towards each other. Especially capturing
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: what I think is, like, the beating heart of Eleanor's characterization. That, like,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: she's the only person who is willing to be a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: parent in the room. Even when her mom is there.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Even when other authority figures are there. She is, like,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the only responsible person. I think it captures all of
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: that quite faithfully.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Those.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: pieces felt very true and honest to me in a
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: way that I loved, even if it was stylized and
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: even if there are additions made to make it a
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: more romantic story. And Some of the male characters are altered.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: The familial dynamics feel faithful.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really loved it. I was glad that I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: read the book before seeing it. I was glad that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I had that as the grounding point for it. I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: remember when we were talking about the book, I was
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: wondering how they would do the romance adaptation because actually
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the romances are almost secondary.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: In that book.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It's thin in Sense and Sensibility.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I liked the changes that they made because it did
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It made the whole thing more, I want to say
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: like legible for me. It made the differences between the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: two sisters much more legible to me. And also some
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of that were the performances, which were incredible. Like, I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: feel like by the end, I really understood that. forgive
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: me the sense and sensibility of it all. Yeah. You
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Where I was like, hopefully.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And how they influence each other and what they can
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: learn from each other.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Like it was just really, it was really beautiful.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Also, it must be said that Colonel Brandon is so hot.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The heroes are both so hot.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: George McKay, who plays Edward Ferris.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I love him. I think he's a superior Edward Ferris
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: to Hugh Grant. And that's a hot take, but I'm
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: standing on it. In some ways, even though tonally it's
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: very different, I feel like this follows the 2020 Emma
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: for me as like a singular voice, a singular interpretation
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: of like a much beloved text. And I think the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: 2020 Emma is a perfect, like capital P perfect adaptation. Absolutely.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Where it has such a specific aesthetic sensibility. Like I
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: keep thinking about them having like dirty fingernails and like
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: berry stained dresses and Like bare feet in cold river streams.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And the sensory pleasures of this movie are in setting,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: in tone, in performance, and also in this. Like these
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: long shots of them in beautiful scenery, which is actually
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: something that the 2005 Pride and Prejudice also does beautifully,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: but not to the same degree. I think it's really
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: played up here.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It actually reminded me a lot of Hamnet in that sense.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Did you see the adaptation of Hamnet where it was
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of that like.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Grounded earthiness.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It reminded me of I've been consuming a lot of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Anne Carson content recently. She has something about how like
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: often her task in writing is just to try to
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: capture light. Like it's just to try to write about light.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: And I felt like this movie was attempting a similar project. Like,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: can I just capture light? Like I think about how
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: intimate that scene is of Eleanor and Edward Ferrars when
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: she's drawing him and that like little alcove by candlelight.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It's so it's so beautiful. I just thought it was stunning. Yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I did love what this movie did with candlelight and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: also with daylight. Like very good. Very good.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Beautiful work.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Also Fiona Shaw as Miss Jennings.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Fabulous. Fabulous. Oh my God. I would watch that woman
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: go grocery shopping and be thrilled. Yeah. I love her.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I love her.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: She was exactly, she hit like the exact right tonal
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: balance for me of like the humor, like the comedy.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And sincerity.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Would you recommend it to people?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, yes. How about you? Me too. Same.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Yes. I loved it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Well, speaking of fabulous art, we have a wonderful artist
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: on to speak with us today. And that is my
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: dear friend, Gracie Delgado, who you may know as Grapey
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Del Taco on TikTok or Instagram or some other platform.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: She is my longtime mutual. She is also, for the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: purpose of our discussion, very importantly, a preeminent scholar on
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: what we define as sentient object romance. You may recognize
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: such hits as Hinged, the romance between a woman and
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: her apartment door, or No Bones About It, which we
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: discussed between a woman and her not-Home Depot, 12-foot-tall Halloween
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: skeleton in her front yard, and other such delights. So...
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: She's going to come on and talk to us about
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: the aesthetic project of the sentient object romance and the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: cultural connotations of this fabulous, niche, erotic, weird space in
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: romance and erotica culture. Excited to have her on. Gracie,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: welcome to the pod. Thank you for agreeing to share
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: your big, beautiful, sentient object-oriented mind with me today. I
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: do think that you are the preeminent scholar on this issue.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: What do you think is really magnetic about this? What
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: is it that keeps you coming back?
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I love to see, like... trends and patterns within the genre.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Like the fact that we're seeing genre conventions and like
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: standards and like cliches within sentient object romances. But I also,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: I just, the world is full of objects. We can
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: never run out of ideas. And I always like to
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: see what kind of reasoning for the sentient object the
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: author pulls in. Because there are so many reasons for
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: in these stories that an object is alive for some reason, right?
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Like in Unhinged by Vera Valentine, which I think is
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: like one of the most popular, well-known, borderline mainstream sentient
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: object romances where.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Borderline mainstream.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: In that one, the lore behind why that one apartment
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: door in a whole complex is alive is that the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: god Zeus had relations with like a wood nymph or something.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And then her saplings would be the children from like...
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: her and Zeus and their interaction and then one of
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: those saplings grows into a tree and then the wood
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: from that tree was chopped down and turned into the
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: door and so this door has a soul and is
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: alive and.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: And that door begins an erotic relationship with the resident
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: of the apartment where the door is.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: The door is also a demigod. Right. Who is just
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: an apartment door and falls in love with its tenant.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Who has no idea that the door is alive. And then...
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: The door knows that the landlord is like really evil
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: and creepy and like was once seen walking with a
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: woman out into the woods and then he returned alone
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: and no one saw the woman again. And the landlord's
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: coming into the apartment without the woman knowing. And he's
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: getting really scared. So then he calls upon his father, Zeus,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: to help him communicate with this woman that he loves
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: to protect her from this landlord. And so then Zeus
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: is like, I got you. I'm going to give you
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: a physical form in her dreams. And if you can
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: convince her in real life to get freaky with you,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: the door. then that will give you a human form
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: in real life.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So then he.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Has to start visiting her in her dreams. And you
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: know what? She lives alone. She gets wine drunk one night.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Who's gonna know? Who's gonna know? A chill just went
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: up my spine.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: And she gets it on with that doorknob. And then
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: she gets a boyfriend. And then they have to buy
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: a new door. And it's really funny.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: One, I find it so interesting how much of this
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: is already drawing on Greek myth, like the notion of Pygmalion,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: the idea of the gods being involved. And I think
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: some idea of a celestial element is not uncommon in
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: these stories. A curse or a hex is not uncommon
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: in these stories. And the other thing I find fascinating
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: about it is that literary fiction writers have been messing
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: about with speculative ideas in fiction forever, right? Like we'll
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: watch cockroaches become main characters and transform and become protagonists
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: in literary fiction all the time. But I think people
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: are then surprised when romance genre fiction is willing to
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: do it as well.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you see these objects become living and have
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: their own like really complicated stories in literary fiction. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: then you also have these stories of human beings developing
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: attractions to inanimate objects. I think there's this really bizarre
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: idea that if you're enjoying and consuming romance, then that
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: must also mean that you actively want everything happening in
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: these romance novels to be something you personally are trying
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: to experience.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, self-insert, always.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: And that's really not always the truth. And romance gets
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: that rap consistently where like that's the default assumption of like, oh,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: you really like that romance novel because you want to
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: bang your door. And it's like, first of all, if
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: I wanted to, that would be none of your business
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: because it would be my door. Second of all, what
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: do you mean me and me having fun reading this
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: weird book? must mean I want to bang my apartment door.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: What are we talking about?
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: What are we talking about? Well, can you also tell
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: me about the recent one you read about the giant
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: skeleton that you get from Home Depot?
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: So the plot of No Bones About It, a woman
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: and a 12-foot-tall Halloween decoration plastic skeleton from vague, nondescript
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: hardware store chain Because she's just gotten out of this
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: nasty divorce to this toxic man who would never let
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: her buy one and said that it was stupid and
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: tacky and he would not have it on his lawn.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: So post-divorce, this is her first act of like, I'm
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: doing what I want now. And she buys one to
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: put on her lawn and she takes pride in assembling
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: it herself and she names it Mr. Bone Jangles.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Mr. Bone Jangles.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Mr. Bone Jangles does not speak, but... He does make
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: a lot clear through how he does communicate. And long
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: before our main character even realizes that he's alive, her
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: local HOA keeps pestering her about the lawn decoration because
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: they're like, in subsection four, you can't have holiday decorations
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: that exceed four feet. And she's like, I actually read
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: the rules. I read it front to back. That's for inflatables.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: This is not an inflatable. So fight me about it.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: And they're like, we will. And she posts about it
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: on social media. And then all of a sudden, like
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: all of these people who are extremely personally, emotionally invested
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: in Halloween rally, there's a protest.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: It's like a Hallmark movie.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: There's no real interaction between our main character and BJ
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: because she's working with the politics of it all.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So he doesn't speak?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: He doesn't speak verbally, no. It's a lot of motioning
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and body language.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a mime.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: This understanding with each other. But when no one's around,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: then he feels free to move.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: They engage. The way kissing is described in that book
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: is really interesting.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I was going to say.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: So his physical form doesn't really change much. And for
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: the longest time, He's just putting in the work with
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: his giant skeleton bone fingers.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: And there's a moment. They have many interactions with each
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: other in that way.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Those are long fingers on a 12-foot skeleton.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Girl.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: What? Okay. And there's nothing soft about that. No.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: And then it was the funniest thing because we're getting
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: close to the end. And she has this moment where
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: they're intimate and she's like... I wish you had a penis.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Like she's just like, like she has said that. And
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: he just sort of stops. And it's described as a
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: spine like skeleton penis that unfurls like a fern. That's
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: the exact description. And it was one of those things
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: where it was like, oh, You just had to ask
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the whole time. Like, he had one ready. It was
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: just put away. And it unfurls into, like, this spine-like
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: thing for him to use. And he somehow, someway does
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: have some sort of substance to complete with. And it
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: is canonically pumpkin spice flavored.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Actually, I need a second. I actually need a second
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: to process this.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Take all the time you need. Oh, my God.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: That is one of the craziest things I've ever fucking heard.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: It's so funny.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: The sheer audacity of it, the sheer creativity of it,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the sheer gall of it is something that will impress
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: me every single time.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I always go into these like looking to see the lore, right?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, always.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: When you say it's like a Hallmark movie, truly it
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: is because it uses the same logic as the Hot
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Frosty movie.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was going to say Hot Frosty. I was
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: thinking about that.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: It is very much that. Also in the lore in
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: that the explanation is just Halloween magic.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: That's also one of the funniest parts of Hot Frosty
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: where you have this storyline of this woman who, who
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: put a magic scarf on this weirdly anatomically correct hot
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: naked man snowman. That was just put in the town.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Still no idea who made it. It's not confirmed canonically.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: But it is the story of Frosty the Snowman. It's
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: just a hot guy and he becomes human and they
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: have to figure out a way to keep him permanently
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: human or else he's going to melt and it's a
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: whole thing. And they're keeping it a secret from the town.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: But there's this really funny moment towards the end where
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: She's like, you're not going to believe me. It's so crazy.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: But he is a snowman and he came to life.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: And they're all like, we're going to help you. And
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: she has this scene where she's like, you just believe me?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: And one person in the audience goes, it's Christmas. And
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I think that's one of the funniest pieces of dialogue
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: in any movie ever.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: It's so good.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Also, for those who have not watched Hot Frosty, I
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: cannot recommend it enough. I don't think George Bernard Shaw
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: knew that this was what was going to happen when...
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: he wrote pygmalion there's no way right like how could
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: he possibly have fathomed what this would become as a phenomenon.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: And yet and it's also like.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: This actually isn't that far of a step from the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: druids of greek mythology like slipping from being willow trees
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: to being women to be you know the idea that
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: the things around us have meaning and uh like an
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: animus to them that we we are privy to is
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: actually such an old, primitive idea. And that's what's crazy
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: about this. It's not new.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: None of it's new.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It's bananas. It defies explanation.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: We've been this way.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We've been doing this. We've been so weird for so long. Yeah. Gracie,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: if you could recommend sentient object romances to a reader,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: what would they be?
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I do highly recommend Pounded in the Butt by My
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Own Butt. which is the story of a scientist that
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: somehow makes a clone of his own butt. But the
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: butt clone is sentient and it can fly because reasons.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Highly recommend that being everyone's intro to Chuck Tingle.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Okay. Ooh, okay.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: The Kyleverse by Nicole Parker. That's a series of interconnected
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: standalones that are really only interconnected because of Kyle. There's
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: a side character named kyle who is never the main
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: character in any of these books but he will appear
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: at some point in the story either to help communicate
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: something or to give directions somewhere or to be fully
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: involved in like a group of situation with whoever the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: main character is.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Like intimately.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Intimately.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: And they're sentient objects. I like to go into each
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: one wondering how Kyle will be involved this time.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: I really like that. I love that as a through line.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on, Gracie. This was
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: truly like the treat of a century. And also all
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: of the screen grabs from this on social media are
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: going to be me covering my face like this. It's
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: going to be me going. I'm so excited.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. I love it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Tyler, I just love talking about monsters with people. I
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: really do.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I know you do.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: You know this about me.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I know this about you.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm actually so thrilled that we're doing what we're
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: doing today, which is a homework assignment. And I specifically
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: had you read Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: which is a romance between a minotaur and a human
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: woman named Violet who is charged with relieving him of
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: his sperm at a sperm factory. Did I put that elegantly?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: You put it succinctly.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. I really do think I credit
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Morning Glory and Milking Farm with being the book that
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: kicked off this burst of monster romance that has appeared
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: in the last five years. Not that no one has
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: ever written a monster before, but I think preceding this novel,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the more popular romance with monsters was Vampires, Witches, Werewolves,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: with occasional deviations to demons and other species. There was
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: this real allegiance to the humanoid form or human adjacent form,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: even if That form was adaptable, shiftable, whatever it is.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: But Morning Glory, Milking Farm is one of those first
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: books that, one, took the tone of the sort of
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: cozy monster romance and also really, really, really commits to
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: the idea of a strange, monstrous form as a subject
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of desire. Also, it's just, like, iconic. It has how
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: many reviews on Goodreads? 81,000 ratings.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Damn.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: It is an incredibly generative work. And in the five
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: years since it was published, people have not stopped talking
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: about it, myself included. What did you think?
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: This is a book that has been, like, in the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: ether for me, for sure. Like, it pops up on
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: my radar every now and then. I don't even know
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: where to start.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Correct. That's right.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: You explained it so succinctly, and I understood the plot
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: going in, and it doesn't really ease you into it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really ease you into the concept of milking
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: minotaurs for... their semen. So I appreciate that it was like, why? Like,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: why are we doing this? And it turns out that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: that is the key ingredient in a Viagra type pharmaceutical.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Which isn't that much of a stretch. People have been
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: extracting bull semen for a folk remedy for ED for years. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So there's that. The thing that I was most struck by,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I read it in a day, mere hours.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: It's fast.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: It's a fast read.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Very readable.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: The thing that I was really struck by is how
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: sweet it was.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Like it's so sweet. If you removed, which you can't
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: for plot purposes, but if you removed the semen milking
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: aspect of it, it's like a Hallmark movie. Like it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: like girl struggling in the big city, finds a charming
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: small town with local businesses and like, People who want
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to befriend her and a bunch of different species living
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in mostly harmony and like meets a man who sweeps
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: her off her feet and like is super gentlemanly. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: they just met when he had weekly appointments for her
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: to jerk him off into a machine and like.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's beautiful.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Like, there's something really beautiful about that, honestly.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Like, how different is this from those romances that are
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: set up around her being a barista and him coming
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: in to get his coffee from her every day? No, exactly.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is. It is fundamentally different.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: It is fundamentally different. And the frame is familiar. Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: The framing is very familiar. It also was very that
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: moment in community that has been like gifted me to
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: death of this better not awaken anything in me.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So it was my first monster romance. Like I have
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: not read any kind of monster romance. I have dabbled
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: in Omegaverse, which we'll need to get into Omegaverse one day.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But I have dabbled in Paranormal, which feels adjacent. But like,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: True monster romance haven't actually done.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And I, you know what?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'd do it again. I would read another monster romance.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I was looking up the other books in the series.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, what other monsters are we working
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: with here? I hear there's one that has two dicks.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: What's that about?
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, certainly. Can I recommend the Mothman romance that Sam
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Nicasa writes? It's called Sweet Berries, and it's very sweet.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: But I will say, like... I think the part of
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: the thing that is so charming about this book is
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: that it is on the surface a book about a
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: minotaur and a human woman, but actually it's a story
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: about millennial ennui. Like, it is about this woman who
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: is overqualified for the jobs that she wants to be
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: doing and underpaid and ends up making this, like, post-recession
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: transition into working in not quite sex work, but not
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: quite health care, which is... Unfortunately or fortunately, sort of
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the story of a generation of millennials. And there's all
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: this commentary about class and poverty and privilege and interspecies
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: dynamics that in some way reflect the interspecies dynamics that
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: we have in our own world. I'm not going to
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: say that this book is a searing manifesto of capitalism,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: but it is making pretty astute commentary about the choices
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: people make to live in the world. And romance is
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: the vehicle for that. I can't help but be really
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: impressed by that.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I was also really interested, by the way, the book
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: sort of tries to juggle this idea that, again, despite
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the highly sexual nature of the job, that it's not
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: sex work.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: For them at least.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Like for the people doing the actual work. I will
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: confess that I did have a difficulty sometimes with– how
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: do I want to phrase this? I had a difficulty
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes with the adjacency to like actual like animal work.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: type descriptors that was a bit I was like oh
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: okay I don't know how close I want to toe
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that line do you know what I mean like this
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: is not totally not for me but for the most
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: part I was into it I was having a great
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: time I fully get it I.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Find this book to be so worthy of examination because
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: yes it's doing all of these things really well and
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I find that it's a book that sort of accidentally
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: co-opting aesthetics of interracial porn in its descriptions of the
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: dynamics between Violet and Rourke, right? I'm thinking a lot
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: about a scene where he's telling her about how, you know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: lots of other minotaur bulls, like, come in to donate
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: sperm or... give their sperm at these factories so they
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: can afford to take their kids to whatever their equivalent
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: of disneyland is that food for certain species is placed
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: on lower or higher shelves because they're not considered as
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: central like there are systems of power and privilege that
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: push rourke and other minotaurs into donating the way that
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: they do so he's giving this like quite i think
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: maybe poignant it's not the right word but like incisive
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: exploration of why it is he's in even in this
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: position why this like successful businessman is in the position
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: of being milked for sperm right yeah yeah and she
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: is in the meantime fully just fantasizing about fucking him
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and there's also a moment in the book where she
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: looks up interspecies porn with minotaurs that look like him.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And it's hard not to read that and be like, wow,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: that's like a really fetishistic, extractive lens through which to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: view a partner. And something about that, I think, also
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: reflects some of the themes that I've read in scholarship
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and seen in media of monsters as racialized others. The
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: idea of him being called a bull, the fixation on
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: him having an enormous penis. It's all this stuff that
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: is contributing to a specific kind of racialization, which, I mean,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: this is not me talking about the author in any way.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's just me talking about the in-world logic of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: book and the message that it's telegraphing, the signs and
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: symbols of the text itself. And then you pair that
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: with this language around being an animal, being bred in
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the way that animals are on farms, which are commercialized thing.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: The reason I'm going on this circuitous tangent is that
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: there is a lot of interesting stuff happening where there
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: is sexual objectification happening. There is fetishization happening. This minotaur
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: is not a human man. He is a fictional minotaur.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: And there are ways that this is conveying the aesthetics
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: that porn producers have preyed on to make interracial porn.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: And so I think it's worth examining that. And I'll
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: thinking about how like writing about monsters can be a
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: slippery thing and an imperfect thing as well.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah slippery is the best way that I would I
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: would describe like the reading experience too I mean.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: So good Tyler that was so good And you're right.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm right. I'm right on two levels. And it
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: works on two levels because the amount.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Of sperm produced is copious.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: There are so many fluids.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: There are so many fluids. It's an obscene amount of fluids.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I believe 24 ounces was the marker of.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I didn't. I thought about that. I'm holding
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a standard water bottle right now and it's 16.9. That's
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a lot. So that's a lot.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So it's slippery in that sense. But it is slippery
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: in the sense of like, I said it and I
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: was like, I would be reading it and I would
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: be like. oh, I'm super into this. And as I said,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it would like dip into these things that did make
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: me think, like draw those connections that you're talking about.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I think you just have to let it wash over you.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: For the record, would you recommend it? Would you recommend
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: this to someone?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, I would recommend it, yeah.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, hell yeah.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I would recommend it with like a lot of like,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of hand-holding.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Just know you're in for something.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of hand-holding into that recommendation. But yeah,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I had a great time.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Beautiful.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Good. If you've read Morning Glory, Milking Farm or other
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: monster romance and have thoughts about monstrousness in the world
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: let us know you can send us a voicemail at
• 31:09
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• 31:14
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• 31:17
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• 31:24
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• 31:27
  Speaker 1: at 833-831-LOVE That's 833-831-5683.
• 31:35
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  Speaker 1: hosted by Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall. The show is
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• 32:16
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