Latest / Doug Reads With Friends / Ep 8: Unimportant Joy, Stylin' Mermaid & Cocktail Time (with Jeremy Hornik)

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Ep 8: Unimportant Joy, Stylin' Mermaid & Cocktail Time (with Jeremy Hornik) · Doug Reads With Friends

• Doug Cutchins: man. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, choosing a great book, and for being my friend. That was so much fun for me. Jeremy and I do not talk nearly enough. Someone with whom I have decades and decades and decades of shared experience, so many so many things that we've done together. And it was really wonderful to reconnect with him, to have a conversation about a book, relive some of things that we've done, learn a little bit about him. Hello friends and welcome to Doug Reads With Friends This is a podcast in which I invite my friends on to choose a book. We both read that book and then we have a conversation here about our friendship, about them as a reader and about the book that they chose. If you have watched this podcast before you are noticing, that I am in a new location. Welcome to. ⁓ was preparing for this and I started writing down a list ⁓ all of the ways that have and all of the different parts of our friendship and ⁓ things we've through together. And the list was getting longer and longer and longer. And I was finally satisfied it. then 10 minutes later, I was like, ⁓ and Mount Holyoke College Summer Theater, we spent two summers together. And it's like, those are two ⁓ significant summers. And that's the, ⁓ 10 minutes later, I remember that as well. Like there's so many facets our friendship, so many things we've experienced together, so many things we've done together. So is there for you, is there a part of our friendship that you look back on as like... a hotel apartment in downtown Abu Dhabi. The conflict here in the UAE and with Iran, with the US and Israel has meant that our home we had to move out of on the NYU Abu Dhabi campus and move into a hotel apartment about a month ago. What that meant was Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: write that. Doug Cutchins: I really, really had fun with that. hope that you enjoyed to that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it for the episode of Doug reads with friends. ⁓ I am to be talking with Tammy Draughon about the book, The Longest Race Tammy and I met in the late nineties when we were both teachers at Enloe high in Raleigh, North Carolina. was a physics teacher. Inconvenience for us, which I think is a one out of 10 on the scale of ways that an armed conflict can impact your life when it comes to your city. We are perfectly fine. We are perfectly safe. Life is much more normal than not normal, especially because as I record this in the last few days, there has been a ceasefire, which meant that there has not been any more alarms going off on our phones telling us that there are incoming missiles or drones being intercepted by. Either definitional to us or a thing that you remember the most or like, this is Doug, this is how we know one another or what our friendship's about. was a social studies teacher. had a lot of the same students in common. Tammy ⁓ continues to be teacher ⁓ in California where is also an amazing cross country and track coach. She has been the California state cross country coach of the year. And the book that chose, The Longest Race is about the Oregon project the problems with the Oregon project. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Well as you say, there's a zillion and you can trace the threads in so many directions, at the center for me is the Mermaid Theatre Company ⁓ where we did Shakespeare out in the churchyard for a couple of summers it was just ⁓ fun. Doug Cutchins: UAE government. We are very grateful to the UAE government for keeping us safe for knocking down all of those drones and missiles. ⁓ we're very, very hopeful that the ceasefire will hold and that peace will be ⁓ the way. It also means that my podcast has been interrupted. This is perhaps the most minor consequence of war like this, the interruptions of a podcast. the and ⁓ ⁓ Alberto and that project caused. ⁓ Really interesting great conversation. When are you going to hear it? That's a great question. I don't know yet. I'm hoping early May. That's the goal. We will see. Again, thank you for hanging in there with me. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: It was a group of six of us. were all pals. I we swapped in a couple of people for the second year. And it just goofiness ⁓ and out doing bits along with the high of Shakespeare and the Revenger's tragedy and that stuff. Doug Cutchins: So for those of you who have ⁓ been waiting for podcasts to come out, I appreciate your patience. I'm hoping to get back on schedule soon. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: That's mostly what I remember because it really sort of took over those particular summers and it was great fun. Doug Cutchins: as I work through my production schedule on this podcast. you have feedback on the podcast, please go ahead and email me at dougreadswithfriends@ gmail.com. I'm on media. We've got a Facebook page. We've got an Instagram page. We've got a TikTok page which I post clips. Music for Doug Reads Friends is provided by my friend, Eiren Caffall Yeah, it was a magical time. And you get the credit for that, right? Stylin' Mermaid was your idea. You were the director. You were the leader of all of it. I was honored to be invited and to take part in it. I think it was like the summer after my first year of college. probably it's like summers of 1990 and 1991. right? We were both in our early 20s. a deeply talented musician and author. She's had two books out already. support Eiren's music. I am deeply grateful to her for allowing me to use it here on Doug Reads with Friends. Check out on Spotify. thank you so much for listening. Thank you again to Jeremy. Thank you ⁓ to all you for being my friend, and I'll see you on the next episode. Like you said, was a tight group of us. help me remember, summer we did ⁓ by Shakespeare. And was Revengers tragedy first summer second summer? believe it was first summer. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm. Doug Cutchins: today's podcast. I have my friend, Jeremy Hornik I think I have known Jeremy longer than any other friend of mine. I moved to the town of Amherst, Massachusetts in 1979, the summer that I turned eight years old. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yup. I believe it was first summer and I think we did Gulliver's Last Travels the second summer and I don't remember if we did another one the second summer. Doug Cutchins: Yeah, I my sense is it was just the Gullivers the second summer. it was basically a way for all of us to stay out of trouble. Right. Like early ⁓ 20s. ⁓ We're home college for the summer. And especially Pericles to me, there was something just ⁓ magical about that. doing Shakespeare like it was Shakespeare. It was like pretty serious Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Okay. Doug Cutchins: Jeremy was one of the very first people that I met. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: You deeply serious. Doug Cutchins: But deeply serious, I don't remember for example, for context for people who were not there and did not experience the glory and the beauty that was Stylin Mermaid, that one the first of all, there a slow motion fight scene that just, I think I can still do the choreography of the slow motion fight scene to this day. I was working at a theater and Kevin Costner's, Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yeah. Yeah. Doug Cutchins: Robin Hood came out and we had big life size Kevin Costner cardboard cutout, which was involved in the fight, like somebody behind the Kevin Costner ⁓ running around with it. it beautiful. It was it was a glorious, glorious thing. ⁓ But. ⁓ we have kept in touch and had a very close friendship for now almost. 50 years. I had that realization today as I was getting ready, 50 years of friendship with somebody. That's pretty amazing and remarkable. I always describe Jeremy as one of the funniest people I know. One of the smartest people I know. One of the best people I know. chose a book, PG Wodehouse's Cocktail Time I had read Wodehouse before. It was a delightful book. It is a hoot of a book. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Brilliant stuff. And I all forever will associate you with corn because of that play. And I don't even remember why. Well, yes, of course. But you had a big shirt with corn on it and you were eating corn. And it's like, well, I guess we committed to the bit. Doug Cutchins: Because I went to college in Iowa. Yeah. We had a really fun conversation about it. So please enjoy this episode of Doug Reads with Friends as I talk with my friend, Jeremy Hornik about PG Wodehouse's Cocktail Time. There was, believe we, Yeah, there was a million bits, ⁓ is it too much to those were like the best summers my I mean, those were, ⁓ they were glorious. They were absolutely ⁓ magical. Theater has been a way we, I mean, we've connected then. mean, high school, we did theater together. summers at Mount Holyoke College, summer theater when we were in high school, the two summers of Stylin' Mermaid. ⁓ You a lot of performance and theater right after That was kind of like why you moved to Chicago, is that correct? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Okay. Yeah, basically I moved to do theater stuff and I got an improv and I did all the other things. I directed a couple of shows and then gradually found I could make more money doing other things. yeah, gradually it kind of fell away. I still can very occasionally do ⁓ some random script reading or ⁓ like that. But mostly, my is now all corporate ⁓ and I'm just standing up in front people and doing bits. Doug Cutchins: can you talk little bit about like 90s Chicago improv? ⁓ There were a of now very famous people came out of Chicago ⁓ 90s improv scene that you a part of. Can you. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yeah, I mean, it was a great scene, very alive. know, Tina Fey is probably the biggest. I was in various shows with her, but never for very long, because she always had better things to do and moved on. Amy Poehler as well. Seth Meyers, I understudied for him at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and so he went off to do a show in Edinburgh and I actually went and slept in his bed. So I like to say that I slept in Seth Meyers bed for a while. It was just ⁓ a way of ⁓ supporting each other and doing ridiculous stuff, but also ⁓ encouraging the ⁓ flow back and of ideas, learning listen and support as well as just ridiculous. Doug Cutchins: How did you get started in all of that? performance has always been a part of both of our lives, at least growing up. Was improv, improv was not something kind of in the eighties, at least at the high school level that anyone was doing. Did you start to get involved with it in college or how did you really find your way into? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: fascinated by it because my dad had the ⁓ Brooks Carl Reiner 2000 year old man records which are improvised and you know listening to it and sort of having it explained that ⁓ they're just making it up so when I was doing car trips ⁓ as a with my dad I just would ⁓ make them interviews with me as ridiculous characters ⁓ and I'm it was a deeply tedious ⁓ went to see a second city show at Mount Holyoke, I think, where I got free tickets that. I took classes in improv. When I went to Chicago in my in college, I went to Chicago. I worked as a literary intern, worked as a loose term because what I did is read bad scripts. went and saw a whole bunch of improv back then and did improv and stuff. when I first met Adam McKay, who is now a big fancy movie director. if you are involved in a scene like that, you ⁓ will up meeting a lot of ⁓ people eventually become famous and you will... ⁓ sit in people's living rooms and do terrible scenes in front of them and they'll know all the terrible things that you ever did. So I can't meet any of them again ever because it'll be just painful. Yeah, so came back to Wesleyan and helped a founding group by coming in as the wise expert from outside. ⁓ That improv group's is Gag Reflex. I believe it is still going 300 years later. Doug Cutchins: Now you also had a big interest in stage combat and trained, you did a lot of training in stage combat. Where did that come from? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yes. Because some dude at UMass did an extension course on stage combat. so I knew some of it and then ⁓ when you know something and you're in school theater, you will do that thing. So I choreographed some fights for that and I choreographed fights college and I eventually went off and got ⁓ certified as an actor combatant and done nothing it at all. ⁓ ⁓ You know somebody said it's like directing a play but only the high points, only the exciting moments. Doug Cutchins: ⁓ if I'm talking you to one of my friends, right? Professionally like, ⁓ I know this guy, Jeremy, ⁓ he, and the line I would use is, is an artistic director who helps design slot machines. Am I close? Am I right? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm. So kind. So kind to put it that way. I design slot machine games. For video slot machines. And my joke ⁓ is ⁓ artists very good at art. We have engineers who know how to code. We have mathematicians ⁓ who do all hard math part and figure out the probability, make sure it's all correct. We have sound engineers who are terrific musicians. And I'm the one with no skills at all. Doug Cutchins: Yeah Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: yeah, job is to come up with the game idea, ⁓ work with a theme or invent a theme ⁓ and out, what are the rules the game and how does everything work together and make slot machines. And I have made a lot of slot machines. I recently passed an exciting, very exciting career milestone. I have been at company doing this job Doug Cutchins: Okay? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: longer than one of my newer coworkers has been alive. ⁓ was learning ride a bike and I made a slot machine and she was eating her first solid food and I was making a slot machine and she went to her first dance in high school and I was making a slot machine, just all the way Like, ⁓ yeah, so many slot machines. Doug Cutchins: The timelines intersect, but the slot machines stay constant. I think that anyone who doesn't know you, doesn't know your story would say, okay, this is a guy who did a ton of theater, a ton of improv and now he's designing slot machines. Those two things are completely disconnected. I know the story of kind of how they're connected, but can you that for us a little bit? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yeah, I did improv for a while and then got a job writing funny trivia questions for a company called You Don't Know Jack, ⁓ And it was a crew, very, very funny, talented people. trying to write questions about like if the planet Pluto was Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto. did for a while and ⁓ kept coming up with kind of new question that didn't fit in the format. And they were like, great, terrific, thank you, you use this, great, terrific, thank you, that one's not usable either. Eventually, made me a game designer there, ⁓ I designed a completely terrible game there. And then went off and did kids toys for a little under a year and got And then ⁓ over and said, my friend is at the slot machine company. Well, I can do that, I imagine. ⁓ Or at least can get hired there and we'll find out if I can do it. And ⁓ then I'll figure out the next thing is after that. And so far I haven't figured that part out yet. Doug Cutchins: You if I recall correctly, when you were at the company that did, you don't know Jack, you were writing for a video game version of who wants to be a millionaire. And the reason I remember this is because you sent me an email at one point and you were like, Hey, could you take a few minutes to answer like 150 trivia questions? It doesn't if you get them right or wrong. In fact, we're not even going to tell you, but just for each one of these, there'll be four answers and you just give us your best guess. And I was like, sure, no problem. And what it turned out was that it was for who wants to be a millionaire if you ask the audience ⁓ that ⁓ you had to have actual audience members. So I am in the virtual audience of some 1990s. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: That's right. That's right. Doug Cutchins: or early 2000s version of who wants to be a millionaire, giving my best guess to a bunch of trivia questions that I probably mostly did not know the answer to. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: You might have killed him. I don't know. were some of them were really easy, so I'm sure you got those. but it turns out you can't just make that stuff up. Doug Cutchins: so ⁓ slot design. I mean, if you've been doing it for a couple of decades now, it must've changed a lot. mean, and I will say, I know nothing about slot machines. I think I have ⁓ once and put a quarter in a slot machine and lost my quarter, which is I think what it's designed mostly to do. Is there a way for you to begin to quantify how it has changed over the years or what the biggest changes are? Like if I were to go see the slot machine today, would I, I mean, I feel like if I picked up Madden today, I would have no idea what to do because it's so big and so complicated. Is that the same for slot machines or is it, or is it built to have an, an easy entry into it? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm. ⁓ I mean slot machines cater to the people who like slot machines ⁓ they have been playing slot machines all that time and so stuff gotten somewhat more complicated in the way of Madden ⁓ but they're very you put money in and you push a button and it sees if you won or not ⁓ and then keep doing that and eventually either win or you don't win over the long haul your money goes away Some people it doesn't or they get out at the right time on their progression curve. It's very simple, it's very straightforward, it hasn't really changed all that much in basic principles. It resists all the things that are going to make it clever. hooking it up to the internet, giving it dynamic, giving player control. No, players don't want control. So it remains a very simple kind of pattern-finding where you are just trying to give players sense ⁓ of possibility and excitement in two and a half Doug Cutchins: when designing a new slot machine, what are you looking for? What are you trying to do with that? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: very much like popular culture kind of design kind of thing. like if you're doing ⁓ or a TV show or something like that, ⁓ are trying to do something that ⁓ novel, different, feels like own thing, but also reminds them of their favorite things and is not. that so different that it is off putting or hard to understand. want something where the player ⁓ sit down at it ⁓ everything is either very understandable or to instant question of like, ⁓ interesting. How does that part work? And then they can resolve that within, you know, 20 bucks or whatever. ⁓ So like, I get it. ⁓ if I get that at this time, this will be amazing. kind of stuff. And you know it's a well-defined audience. People ⁓ know it I'd say the biggest thing that has come along to change slot machines is that we now Nielsen ratings for slot machines. ⁓ There is a company that Doug Cutchins: Really? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: rates the performance of all the different machines across all the different games, across all the different casinos. And everybody has this information. All the companies who make it, all the companies who buy it, ⁓ and only wants the biggest hit games now. And so ⁓ in that it's tougher than it used to be to make these But... They're the same games, kind of. Doug Cutchins: let's talk a little bit about family stuff as well, because our families have been ⁓ intertwined a while. ⁓ We've Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm. Yes, indeed. Doug Cutchins: the word rockababy means a lot to you and me, but probably not to a lot of other people who are listening to this podcast. So you wanna talk about rockababy a little bit? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: to talk about Rockababy. Rockababy a summer hangout by a bunch of Amherst High School graduates who got together for a few summers in a row and ⁓ it ⁓ out before but it really was cemented in when we all had kids and they were all very young and and all showed up at the same time. More or less, more or ⁓ sort go to each other's cities ⁓ and we'd out. ⁓ Grinnell, we'd go all to Grinnell and hang out there and it was fun. And then we'd go ⁓ to Chicago. think we went to Chicago one time. We definitely went Salem. ⁓ And Vermont. We went up and hung out in Vermont a couple of times. And was just very low key and easy. you know, when you have little kids, ⁓ they need and they need a very predictable experience where there's food at the right times and all that stuff. Yeah, it was great fun. All the tiny little children being just ridiculously adorable is what I remember mostly. Doug Cutchins: it was glorious. were about five families that would come together the kids were wonderful we also went to Puerto Rico. Actually, I think that was the last Um, It, cringed a little bit in the side in the beginning when you said Rockababy was, and you use past tense. I think I still have, I think I still have this hope in this. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ yeah, think that was, yeah. ⁓ Still have hope for it. Doug Cutchins: There's burning hope inside that maybe someday, like we'll all get back together with, mean, kids are now almost grown, right? So, some of that, yeah, mean, Emma, my eldest daughter was the oldest of all the Rockababy kids. I mean, she's, you know, she's an adult now. She's out of college and working ⁓ ⁓ Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Some of the kids are distinctly grown. Some of them are less grown than others. ⁓ Yeah, well Emma and Molly and Jonas and you know, there's a stack of kids who are all through the educational chute and are ready to unleashed upon the world. ⁓ Well, of course, Jay is 17 and into the rock and roll hard and... Doug Cutchins: Yeah, and your kids now are how old? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Adler is 12 into ⁓ everything for about two weeks at a time and switches off. ⁓ Where course I am not mentioning Donna who was ⁓ at early rockababies and died of a brain tumor ⁓ when was four. And I that also kind of brought that group together on some level. It's a... Doug Cutchins: Absolutely. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: tragedy and a terrible thing, but it definitely people found some chance to support us through community and I think that community helped stay tight. Doug Cutchins: I feel like Donna's passing I know like when I was preparing for this, I was like, God, we gonna, will we talk about Donna? Will this come up? You know, do I raise it? Like, but I also remember that at Rockababy, there was this great strength. I remember Sheila, your wife at one point said that she really appreciated people bringing up Donna because she said, it's not like you're gonna remind us we're not remembering, right? Like this is like the one of the biggest things in our lives ever. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm. Doug Cutchins: ⁓ it's, It was such a horrible, awful time for people on the outside who weren't in your immediate family. And for your immediate family, it obviously was the biggest and the worst possible thing. But yeah, I think that that brought us together as well with great love and affection for all of you. And then just the absolute tragedy of that as well. work and being a dad basically what takes up your time or do you have other stuff that you get to think about and do too? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: 97 percent 98 percent there's not a lot of other time right at the at the moment every once a while ⁓ we do sheila and i just went on a trip to portugal ⁓ hooray just her me ⁓ which was literally first trip we've done just the two of us Doug Cutchins: OK. Yeah, yeah, that that sounds about right. How about that? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: without kids since we had kids. it was pretty great. I gotta say, it was pretty great. Doug Cutchins: are absolutely wonderful. But then also not being around kids is occasionally nice to Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Oh, it just makes everything easier. a very lazy person, as it turns out. If you give me the opportunity, I will and get my coffee down the street in the morning and bring it back and sit and drink it and read a book. Oh man, it's terrific. Doug Cutchins: ⁓ That's a pretty great way to spend a day. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yeah, so we're just starting to glimpse the future without children and entirely disappointed by the prospect. Indeed. Doug Cutchins: you just mentioned I'll go grab and read a book. I've always known you as a voracious reader ⁓ and ⁓ your apartments when were your home now has always had and just ⁓ massive bookshelves filled with books. ⁓ you get to read much Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: So many books. I read a lot less ⁓ I used to and I blame this. This thing here. It just absorbs the brain in ways. I mean, I also have less like big chunks of time than I used to. ⁓ It's shorter. ⁓ It's hard to read right before because I'm tired. I still try to read. Goodreads tells me I read like 30 or 40 books a year at this point, It feels like a big down. You know, I always used to have a book or two open, and now I have a book or two open and it stays open for a really long time. And then eventually I finish it. Right I got ⁓ a... the new Pynchon I'm sort of slowly working my way through and I just finished one of the Patrick O'Brien's Sea Story books that was on vacation that was very nice and know this and that ⁓ but it's it's definitely less I'm less through them than I used to. Doug Cutchins: I you mentioned Goodreads, you used to write a lot on Goodreads as well. If I recall correctly, you had kind of a like, I'm benefiting a lot from Goodreads. So therefore I need to contribute to this. Also, do you still write a lot of reviews on Goodreads? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: I a little something about every book I read, but it's a little something. It is not much. And I've basically to myself, all you want to do is be able to remember which of the Elmore Leonard books this was, and I read it again? So it's generally just a few ⁓ words just to myself whether I it or not. I still it as a book recommendation service. particularly for the good trashy books that won't necessarily come across your transom any other way. know, if somebody reads a really good trashy thriller and is like, this was awesome, I'm like, okay, ⁓ me up right now. Cause that is fun and like fun. Doug Cutchins: Do you reread books much? You mentioned this a moment ago, like, oh, I need to remind myself whether or not I want to reread this in the future. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: definitely a few books that I'll reread over and over again. Master and Margarita, back from Russian class in high school. Yet another way. Didn't think about Russian class, now did you? Doug Cutchins: ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. yeah, I, that way Russian class was not on the list of ways in which you and I know for shout out Jude Wobst in the 1980s. That's Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Woo! Margarita. mystery novels that I think are really good. ⁓ by George Higgins, Patrick O'Brien's I will reread but not on purpose. It's just because I forgot that I read that one ⁓ and haven't gone about it in any particular order. Mostly I tend towards, wow, this was neat. How did they achieve these effects? How did they get this going? What's the artistry there? could reread the Parker books ⁓ Richard Stark, Donald Westlake, over over over and over again because they're formulaic and so well done and he manages ⁓ to crack formula in new ways every single time he does it and they're just fascinating. Doug Cutchins: Would you ever write a book? I mean, you're a very, very creative guy, very, very smart guy. mean, use slot machines now as a creative outlet. you ever tease idea? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: I think that if I had a more boring job, I probably would have written by now. I made the mistake early on of having sort of interesting jobs which ⁓ creativity ⁓ ⁓ that forward. But definitely pulls that energy out of you and then there's not as much left for your own All the way back at Jellyvision. When I started we had all kinds of little side projects going on ⁓ gradually those went away just that is your full-time gig and you're doing that 40 hours a week. some point you have to do dumb stuff like watch movies and ⁓ food and things like that. that's my suspicion that if ⁓ I had interesting jobs ⁓ I would more personal creative output. And I'd like get back to it but... The truth is, I do bits of writing every now and again, it's like once every couple of months, and I'll write three pages, and that's You need to sustain it. Doug Cutchins: let's talk about the book that you chose for us to read. so what are you holding there? What book did we read? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: This is P.G. Wodehouse Cocktail Time. And why did I pick this book? Because one of our favorite people in the world, Bethany Schneider, told that this was the best Wodehouse and her favorite book. I don't that it's actually her favorite book. She reads a zillion books ⁓ and is very smart person. Yeah, she's for real ⁓ and novelist Doug Cutchins: She's a certified tenured English professor. It's her job to read a lot of books. Yeah, yeah. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ I love P.G. Wodehouse. I have always loved P.G. Wodehouse. ⁓ I got this and sort of sat on my shelves a while because I am very slow at reading books. So then I was like, ⁓ this will be perfect. I want a book I know I will read that I won't get distracted by, but also that is not too long and relatively ⁓ this came up and was perfect. ⁓ I love Wodehouse. He is the funniest writer ⁓ to me just so much his thing. there's a Wodehouse ⁓ that is connected and unlike any other writer's work. full of idiot lords and smart servants and big country houses ⁓ clubs people having fancy cocktails. none of it matters. in any particular way. Like there is not, you know, he wrote let's say 3,000 books there if you go through them there is not one piece of socially relevant stuff in any of them. There's not one, you know, was writing from the 30s to like the 60s and 70s maybe even the 20s Doug Cutchins: Hahaha. They're just for fun. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: You know, stuff happened during those years, specifically to England, little bit of this and that, and somehow you would never know. You just have no idea. Doug Cutchins: ⁓ There were events. Yeah. ⁓ do we need a greater description of what this book is or is that kind of general Woodhousian ⁓ idea do you think, if anyone doesn't know this book and is interested in it? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: can give ⁓ a very ⁓ plot summary and try not to get into the weeds because book's all It's just weeds. The book is weeds. ⁓ It's 90 % weeds. So ⁓ we'd call him, I the main character, but I think you could also call him the... Doug Cutchins: There's a lot of weeds. It's mostly weeds. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ instigating character is Lord Ickenham who is a rich chaotic individual and ⁓ is out the window of his son's club nephew think nephew Doug Cutchins: Nephew, I think nephew, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ Nephews, there's no sons. It's all nephews in Wodehouse. And they a jerk along in a big top hat and ⁓ Ickenham to shoot it off a Brazil nut, which makes this guy, who it turns is well known to Ickenham, beefy, Raymond, beefy bastable, he decides that he's going to write a book about how terrible the modern youths are because of this humiliating incident that happened outside his club. he writes the book and it is a massive success. And he realizes he must do it anonymously because he has hopes to join the House of Commons And they will be appalled ⁓ at an author in there of such popular tracts. And ⁓ so ⁓ the starts ⁓ and it goes on from there. Doug Cutchins: I kept writing down the word ⁓ throughout ⁓ reading this, just it's fast paced. It's ⁓ like said, it's all weeds. ⁓ The are short. huge cast characters. kept to like, wait, who like, who is this and how do they know and how Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ yes. Mm-hmm. this one can't get married? Okay. ⁓ Doug Cutchins: Right. Yeah. And wait, this one needs 500 pounds or has one has 500 pounds and obviously is going to get transferring from this person to that person. And wait, why are they stealing this oak cabinet again? And who has the letter and what's what does the letter say? Like, I don't care. I'm just like, it was so funny and such just ⁓ a hoot and a romp. And like you said, it's it's not is it an important book? I mean, it's it's Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Mm-hmm you Doug Cutchins: No, like it's not saying great things about our time. Is it fun? it is an absolute blast to read. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yeah, I count me in that group of people ⁓ believe that importance in literature is overrated. my opinion, there is ⁓ ⁓ really valuable ⁓ about pure entertainment. things that are purely delightful just on their own merits. And there is also merit in taking things seriously. But I feel like things that ⁓ are glorious and entertaining and hilarious and not demand a serious approach you're thinking about them, just have... like a shining of their own. There's a star, they they shine, they are beautiful, ⁓ and do not need to be justified in any kind of important way because they're glorious and perfect and really underrated how they are to make. No one can write like Wodehouse. Nobody can do it. Doug Cutchins: I absolutely agree. And I mean, what that actually makes me think about is circling back to the very start of this conversation and Stylin' mermaid, we were talking about how glorious and wonderful and unserious and making Shakespeare right? And bringing Costner's cutouts into But the glory and the beauty how much fun that was. and how much we enjoyed that and how much clearly that meant to both of us here, know, 35 years later is massively important to both of us. And yeah, I wouldn't say, maybe I said unimportant and I should take that back, but yeah, it's so fun. Just an absolute blast to read this book. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Unimportant is the key. Unimportant means like you don't have to treat it seriously. Like if I am reading this book I have to give it up because the city I'm living in is being shelled and know country is doing terrible things or whatever ⁓ and you it down ⁓ then you it back up. when you have time for it again, it's just as delightful. It has not any of perfection in the time ⁓ real life has you don't ⁓ rethink your approach to it. I'm sure there things that can make people rethink their approach to Wodehouse. But. Basically, it's this weird little perfect gemstone that doesn't fit in anywhere. It's just its own little thing and it floats out there. The ⁓ prose, jokes, his way of dropping in ⁓ a deep reference out of nowhere ⁓ in the dumbest Doug Cutchins: the the ⁓ the the repeated jokes to me, in this book, whether it is what Ecclesiastes, the US Marine Corps, Roget's thesaurus. ⁓ again and again and again and to the point of inanity, but also ⁓ hilarity throughout the entire thing. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yes. It's a masterwork both in joke structure and callbacks and how to set that up going. But also ⁓ it's rewarding to the reader who is sticking ⁓ this little thing. And each one is a ⁓ ladder rung that you can pull yourself up and get to the next thing. ⁓ He just moves you along through. not as voracious a reader as once I was, and I definitely am a slower getting thrower of things. But I that I have to take breaks with Wodehouse because it's so good and so ⁓ light that if try to power through the whole book... it's like trying to eat an entire souffle at once. You're just like, whoa, what have I done to myself? Like you want one slice and then you eat it and you're like, that was perfect. And you put it down for a while and you pick it back up and you're like, slice please. Doug Cutchins: found that I had, there were times when I was like, alright, I've got some time to read right now. And then I realized I didn't have enough energy to pick up this book. Like, it isn't like it takes effort. buckle your seatbelt. Here we go. Like, we're on the ramp again. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Ha Mm-hmm. demands a certain attentive reading. Like you can't have this open and TV show going on at the same time or droning in the background and so forth. Because the they're very dry, they're very subtle, except of course when a guy gets chased into a pond by a swan. That's more of a ⁓ big fat joke. So much is just on this very delicate tone and the way a sentence is written that you have to pay attention to it and you have to kind of enjoy it on its own merits. You have to drop into that world. Doug Cutchins: I you to think about maybe if there was something you wanted to read from this to people who are listening a sense ⁓ of the and how it works. Was there something from this that you wanted to read? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: I would be happy to. are introducing a character named Bruce here. And Nanny Bruce ⁓ is the long-term servant of one the lesser characters ⁓ said there are a lot of characters this book? There's lot of characters and they all have servants who are also characters. Doug Cutchins: Right. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Nanny Bruce, a tall, gangling, light heavyweight, with a suggestion in her appearance of a private in the Grenadiers dressed up to play the title role in Charlie's Aunt, ⁓ was one of those doggedly faithful retainers who would to almost all old families like barnacles to the hulls of ships. As what she called a slip of a girl, though was difficult seeing her now to believe that she'd ever had a girlish sliphood, ⁓ she had come to Hammer Hall to act as nurse the infant Johnny. By the time he went off to his first school, and the need for her services might have been supposed to have ceased, the idea with dispensing with them had become an idle dream. She was as much a fixture as the stone lions on the gates or the funny smell in the attic. Beautiful just This is very Wodehouse structure here as what she called a slip of a girl that was difficult seeing her now to believe that she'd ever had a girlish slip hood girlish slip hood is like that makes in the context of that sentence and it It is both a idea like I can't imagine that she was ever very small expressed in a way that's weirdly complicated and twisted so that have to read slow. You have to think it through and if you eat too many of those in one sitting you will have a stomach ache. Doug Cutchins: and yet completely understandable as well. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: In that context, it is complete girlish sliphood. It just pulls itself forward in the most wonderful ways. again, that also comes to callbacks. There was a very long section that I wanted to read, and I was like, hmm, it's a podcast, man. ⁓ one of the other many characters getting chased by a swan on a island in the middle of a pond and he runs to the shore and ⁓ his emotions are described as being like Xenophon in the 10,000 when they reach the beach to realize that there are no ships to take them back to Greece, ⁓ which is perfect metaphor ⁓ for the ⁓ in history, absurd because talking about a man getting chased by a swan. but also like it's and deflating all at once. ⁓ It's ⁓ so and so much depends on having read other books and being this kind of world of that and it's just so ⁓ funny. It is funny. You have to get the joke. If you don't know who Xenophon is you're like well I guess I'll go to Wikipedia and you're ⁓ Doug Cutchins: Hahaha Yeah. Hahaha Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Ha! Okay, alright. As a man who has ⁓ Xenophon's Anabasis up in his library right now, ⁓ appreciated it. ⁓ think he wrote that one for me. ⁓ Yeah, it's good one, trust me. ⁓ You just gotta, you know, have read Xenophon maybe 20 years ago and... Doug Cutchins: Hahaha Yeah, I was on Wikipedia. I didn't get it. Yeah. It's a banger. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ a Greek general who wrote a great story about his ⁓ about invading Persia. It doesn't go well and the makes its way back to Greece having been shattered and in different pieces and it's all terrible. And I know and you're like, wait, did he just Xenophon? Doug Cutchins: All right, that's enough souffle for me then. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Because it is the perfect reference. ⁓ He references a lot of Tennyson and other British poets who I know nothing about. And I would absolutely have to go to the books for, and I don't because I'm lazy. even if you don't get all the references, you get that there was a reference made. And you're like, boy, wow, we have just referenced some... He gives you just enough to understand. it is that he's doing and if you know what he's doing it's even better. But ⁓ he's great dropping those in without being alienating about it. Doug Cutchins: Right. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: You you can see a book in which that kind of reference was made and it is, ⁓ you know, like, ⁓ well, if you don't get this, you're going to lose this terrific joke. But no, there's a man being chased by a swan, angry swan while trying to dig up a letter. I don't remember. Anyhow, it is So out he Doug Cutchins: Absolutely. So Jer, we need to start to wrap up. It has been far, far, far, far, far too long since we got to see one another. As you know, one the things that I do on the podcast is try to imagine where and how we might meet perhaps with some ⁓ piece of this. I've got some ideas. What do you think? ⁓ Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: Yes indeed. ⁓ lay the first one on us. I can riffle it. Doug Cutchins: I kept thinking that would be a spectacular play and I could see this at Mount Holyoke College Summer Theater, a summer British farce. So, you we've made theater together in the past. I think we should, I think we should produce. I don't know if it's ever been done as a play, but I think we should do a play of Cocktail Time. Bethany can join us for sure. ⁓ Back with Mermaid. So maybe this is a third summer of Stylin Mermaid that we do a performance of Cocktail Time. What do you think? Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ absolutely. shave my beard and mustache and be the beefy angry Raymond Bastable. Yeah, no, that's terrific. That's a great idea. I was much less deep on yours and I just thought, oh well, we got to meet in London because it's kind of halfway. And then wander around and try and find a gentleman's club to get have people shoot Brazil nuts at us from. Doug Cutchins: You You Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: you can never get the Wodehouse's world because it's imaginary, in the best of all possible ways, ⁓ but you can get near it. Doug Cutchins: Jer, thanks so much. know, almost 50 years of friendship. I appreciate you so much, and, and adore you as a friend and ⁓ one of the funniest, smartest that have ever come across in my entire life. ⁓ and really, really appreciate you doing this. You chose a marvelous book and just thanks so much for coming on the podcast and thanks for being my friend. Jeremy Lord HornIckenham: ⁓ You are so welcome and thank you so much for inviting me. If we can't hang out, at least we can do this.