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The History Of What We're Saying Phrased And Confused From Eli Burnstein · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: There's a brand new podcast that we created. It's called
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  Speaker 1: Music's Lost History. We know the music, but if I
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  Speaker 1: were to question you about a song or about an artist,
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  Speaker 1: could you and would you be able to really point
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  Speaker 1: it out before I get to the end of the piece?
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  Speaker 1: The answer is waiting inside your memories. Music's Lost History,
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  Speaker 1: only on Arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net. Enjoy your exploration. Eli, man, I
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  Speaker 1: got to tell you what, you are speaking my street
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  Speaker 1: with this book and I got to ask you what
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  Speaker 1: the truth is behind you putting this book together. Is
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  Speaker 1: it because you say things that are just absolutely remarkable
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  Speaker 1: and people don't understand it? Or is it that you've
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  Speaker 1: got a passion for English and any type of language
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  Speaker 1: and you just want to get to the bottom of
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  Speaker 1: its history?
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  Speaker 2: Man, I wish it was the first, but it's definitely
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  Speaker 2: the second. It is an unrelenting and sometimes insufferable curiosity.
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  Speaker 2: I need to I cannot rest content with the beauty
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  Speaker 2: of these often poetic and moving and thought provoking phrases.
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  Speaker 2: I need to kind of pick them apart and pin
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  Speaker 2: them down and figure out what they actually mean.
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  Speaker 1: Well, the title alone is priceless, phrased and confused, because
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  Speaker 1: it's exactly where we are right now. Because I have
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  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with it with the younger generation. But they're
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  Speaker 1: saying stuff that I know that is just pieces, parts
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  Speaker 1: of what has been here for two and three hundred years.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, and, you know, we have to
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  Speaker 2: embrace that. Language, drift is inevitable. Language belongs to everyone.
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  Speaker 2: And we're essentially playing a giant game of telephone. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, when Horace 2,000 years ago said carpe diem,
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  Speaker 2: he meant something closer to pluck the day, harvest the day.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. Much more genteel or at least much more
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  Speaker 2: relaxed and laid back than seize the day. But at
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  Speaker 2: the same time, if we were too picky about our words...
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  Speaker 2: perhaps we wouldn't, that phrase wouldn't be in circulation at
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  Speaker 2: all because seize the day is such a nice, it's
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  Speaker 2: not just a nice idea. It's a nice phrase. And so,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it, there's a reason Robin Williams says it
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  Speaker 2: in dead poet society and he doesn't say pluck the
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  Speaker 2: day or harvest the day.
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  Speaker 1: You know, let me ask, I mean, your doodling really
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  Speaker 1: caught my attention only because I've been a daily writer
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  Speaker 1: for 34 years. Doodling is a major league importance to
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  Speaker 1: people who travel beyond a simple thought. I got to
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  Speaker 1: know that doodling in there. That's you seeking, isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, so I wish I could take credit for
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  Speaker 2: the illustrations. What? But they are, no, they're not mine.
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  Speaker 2: They are the work of the excellent Liana Fink, who
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  Speaker 2: also illustrated my first book. And yeah, I thought it
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  Speaker 2: would just be a great compliment. You know, some of
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  Speaker 2: these lines, they're big. They're from philosophy. So that sometimes
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  Speaker 2: scares people. And I just wanted to really make the
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  Speaker 2: book feel more accessible and also more fun. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if we're going to look at a line like, I
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  Speaker 2: think therefore I am, or the medium is the message. Sure.
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  Speaker 2: I only talk about it for two pages, so it
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  Speaker 2: shouldn't be too too scary. But I think having an
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  Speaker 2: illustration to kind of complement the text to set off
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  Speaker 2: people's imaginations, I think it really kind of casts or
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  Speaker 2: kind of adds a little halo to the essay and
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  Speaker 2: and makes it more enjoyable.
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  Speaker 1: I love the name of his book, Phrased and Confused.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to be right back with Eli Bernstein. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: thanks for coming back to the conversation with Eli Bernstein.
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  Speaker 1: The name of the book, Phrased and Confused. So much
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  Speaker 1: of the writing of the past, when they do these
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  Speaker 1: beautiful quotes like you're featuring inside Phrased and Confused, I've
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  Speaker 1: often called it hidden speak. It's almost like they're hiding
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  Speaker 1: the truth, but they want to be able to get
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  Speaker 1: something out. So they're going to put it in their
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  Speaker 1: own interpretation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting way of putting it. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I certainly I agree that, you know, these lines are
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  Speaker 2: memorable lines. And moving precisely because they're hard to understand. Right. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, Gertrude Stein says a rose is a rose
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  Speaker 2: is a rose. You know, what the heck does that mean?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's provocative and it's moving and
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  Speaker 2: it's kind of lodges in your brain. And so the
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  Speaker 2: catchiness to it is kind of the music of it
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  Speaker 2: is kind of bound up with the kind of difficult,
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  Speaker 2: chewy meanings. Another example from the Bible in the beginning
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  Speaker 2: was the word. That was one of the ones that
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  Speaker 2: gave me the book. I thought I thought that's a big,
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  Speaker 2: interesting sounding line. I don't know what it means, but
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  Speaker 2: I really like it.
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, since we're on the subject of
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, I want to hear Stephen Furtick of My
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  Speaker 1: Church Elevation to be able to get up there and say,
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  Speaker 1: religion is the opium of the masses. And I want
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  Speaker 1: to see how many people sit in their seat on
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  Speaker 1: that one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that that's a great one. And that's certainly what
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  Speaker 2: I look at in the book, too, and has one
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  Speaker 2: of my favorite illustrations. So, yeah, that is a good
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  Speaker 2: example where, you know, the difference isn't huge, but it's
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  Speaker 2: commonly thrown around as a kind of critique of believers that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, Marx was kind of insulting people who believe
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  Speaker 2: in God by saying, oh, it's kind of dumb. You're
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  Speaker 2: just kind of indulging in this foolish pastime. But really,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the true Marxist that he was was actually
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  Speaker 2: saying something more about, you know, the ruling class kind
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  Speaker 2: of driving us to religion, that the kind of toils
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  Speaker 2: of the working class makes us need a kind of escape.
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  Speaker 2: So he ultimately saw religion. He didn't love religion, but
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  Speaker 2: he wasn't insulting believers. He was insulting the ruling class
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  Speaker 2: for kind of driving us to, quote unquote, self-medicate with
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  Speaker 2: these thoughts of the next life. If we can't be
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  Speaker 2: happy in this life, Let's look forward to the next.
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  Speaker 2: And he was trying to say, let's get rid of
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  Speaker 2: this stuff so that we feel that pain. Let's get
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  Speaker 2: rid of our Tylenol, so to speak, so that we
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  Speaker 2: can re-feel our pain and actually do something about it
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  Speaker 2: and not just kind of.
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  Speaker 1: That's exactly the same reason why I'm a writer. It's
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  Speaker 1: like my wife is promote, promote, promote, reading, reading, reading. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you can't read anything unless you've written it first. So therefore,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll take you into my world anywhere you
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  Speaker 1: want to go. Just give me a subject. And that's
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  Speaker 1: what I love about this book is that it's like going...
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  Speaker 1: These guys went somewhere and now I get to do it.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost like a dear feature, a dear future reader
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  Speaker 1: moment here, dude.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I, I, I love the way you put that. I, I,
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  Speaker 2: I cert, I could not agree more that, that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: by writing, we really, we, we grapple with the ideas
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  Speaker 2: in a much deeper level. Um, you know, hearing is good.
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  Speaker 2: Reading is great writing. I find, you know, it's, it's,
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  Speaker 2: and of course it's hard to, kind of make sense
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  Speaker 2: of something on the page but you really feel like
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  Speaker 2: you're tracking these ideas in a much more granular way
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  Speaker 2: and it's very uh gratifying.
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  Speaker 1: I just wish my teachers would have looked at hamlet
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  Speaker 1: the way that you did because i mean when you
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  Speaker 1: have a quote here do you see yonder clouds that
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  Speaker 1: almost take the shape of a camel why didn't my
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  Speaker 1: teacher explain that to me why they just give me
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  Speaker 1: a stupid book and say read it and the test
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  Speaker 1: is on friday.
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  Speaker 2: I completely agree. I mean, a great English teacher is
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  Speaker 2: someone to follow around as long as you can. I mean, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so that comes from Hamlet. The line I look at
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  Speaker 2: in that chapter is, to thine own self be true,
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  Speaker 2: which is commonly thrown around as a bit of kind
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  Speaker 2: of fatherly advice. And fatherly advice it is, but a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people forget that it is charged with a
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  Speaker 2: dramatic irony because the man who spoke it was one
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  Speaker 2: of the most insincere and inauthentic characters in all of Shakespeare.
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  Speaker 2: And that's Polonius. Polonius gives this kind of famous speech
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  Speaker 2: to his son Laertes, and You know, the literary critic
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  Speaker 2: North of Fry, in fact, says, you know, we get
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  Speaker 2: the impression from Laertes that he's heard it all before
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  Speaker 2: and not very long before. So, you know, nowadays we
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  Speaker 2: hear that speech and we go, oh, what are all
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  Speaker 2: these beautiful sentiments? You know, because Shakespeare's writing was so
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  Speaker 2: good that but but but at the time, I think
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  Speaker 2: it was intended more like, oh, here's just a list
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  Speaker 2: of here comes dad with his kind of nonstop platitudes
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  Speaker 2: and cliches about, you know, how to live a good life.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I got to get on this boat.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. I love where your attitude is. And
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  Speaker 1: I love this book because like I said, I love
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  Speaker 1: words and I love it when people dive into it
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  Speaker 1: as deep as I do because it shows I'm not
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  Speaker 1: as much of a freak as I thought I was.
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  Speaker 1: You got to tell me where people can find out
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  Speaker 1: more about you because I want them to dive into
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  Speaker 1: your cause and effect here, dude.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, well, thank you. Yeah. So, I mean, I got
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  Speaker 2: a website, EliBernstein.com. That's E-L-I-B-U-R-N. This is my second book,
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  Speaker 2: Phrase of Confused. The first one, Dictionary of Fine Distinctions.
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  Speaker 2: As the name suggests, I look at how words are
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  Speaker 2: different to other words. So you could tell I have
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  Speaker 2: got a bit of a theme. Basically, I've expanded from
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  Speaker 2: words to whole sentences. Maybe paragraphs are next. In the
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  Speaker 2: third book, who knows? But clearly, yeah, I'm interested in
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  Speaker 2: language and language at a very kind of minute level.
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  Speaker 2: I love it.
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  Speaker 1: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.
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  Speaker 1: The door is always going to be open for you, Eli.
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  Speaker 2: I would love that. Thanks so much, Ara.
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  Speaker 1: Be brilliant today, sir.
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  Speaker 2: You too.