Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / Yes, There’s More To Maine Than Stephen King (Ft. Carrie, A Summer Place, and Wet Hot American Summer)

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Yes, There’s More To Maine Than Stephen King (Ft. Carrie, A Summer Place, and Wet Hot American Summer) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

• 0:00
  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid. Telling
• 0:05
  us to hush, dim our historical light. But darlings,
• 0:09
  we're the Harpies, sharp and keen. Unveiling
• 0:12
  the truth behind the silver screen. History Harpies
• 0:17
  hear us roar. Through the ages we explore. Fashion,
• 0:24
  film, and TV slow. I'm Lauren. And I'm Christine.
• 0:28
  And we're so excited to be in double digit episodes.
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  We are. This is our second episode that will
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  be a hometown devoted episode this week to the
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  state of Maine. State of Maine. I'm so excited.
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  So last time we were in the city of brotherly
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  love, the fighting city of Philly. And today
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  we're going to go to the... I want to say more
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  peaceful, more relaxed. Scary. Scary. Scary and
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  creepy. Scary and creepy Maine. Scary and creepy
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  Maine. But my home state and estate, I love an
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  awful, awful lot. Yes. To know Christine is to
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  know a lot about Maine. So why don't you tell
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  us, Christine, since last week we went over some
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  of the Philly foods and the cheesesteak of it
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  all, what is your favorite Maine staple food?
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  Oh. Absolutely no question, especially since
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  I became a vegetarian, that is the original real
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  Italian sandwich. And anyone who is listening
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  to this, who is from the state of Maine, will
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  understand exactly what I mean. This is a very
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  particular sandwich. It is not a hoagie. It is
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  not a grinder. It is a meat and vegetable sandwich.
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  I don't eat the meat. I get the vegetarian version
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  with no meat. But what is very super special
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  about the Maine Italian is it requires super
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  sour pickles and it is doused with olive oil
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  at the end. This sandwich has, I'm not making
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  this up, this sandwich has never been able to
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  be replicated outside of the state of Maine.
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  Okay. Ever. Ever. People try. And it's just not
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  possible. So if you were to order a vegetarian
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  version of this main sandwich, what do you say?
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  You just say, I want a veggie Italian. Okay.
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  And immediately, immediately, someone knows what
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  you're talking about. And there are enough vegetables
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  to substitute in for the Italian, what I assume
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  are. Absolutely. whatever those Italian meats
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  are, salami, have a cola. Well, just ham. Just
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  ham. Oh, it's just ham. You can get other versions
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  of it, but the base, the platonic form of this
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  sandwich is ham, American cheese, I know it sounds,
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  tomatoes, black olives, chopped onions, green
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  peppers. You might be missing something, but
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  again, SPO. salt, pepper, and oil doused as I
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  said doused with olive oil but the pickles absolutely
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  have to be sour and this is where people cannot
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  replicate the original Maine Italian but one
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  thing that's really interesting about this is
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  Maine especially southern Maine where I'm from
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  it had a huge huge influx of Italian immigrants
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  of course in the early 20th century and a particular
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  family the Riali family in southern Maine has
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  this chain still existing today chain of what
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  we call I mean, corner stores that sell Italians,
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  and then they just spread throughout the state.
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  And you would not expect that to be the paradigmatic
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  food. You would expect, of course, seafood. Of
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  course. And I do also love fried clams, I will
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  say. Okay. Fried clams with the stomachs. That
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  is an important component of real fried clams.
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  The stomach. Anyway. So we're not talking about
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  lobsters. No, no, no. And that actually feeds
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  it, no pun intended, very well into the issue
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  of class that will come up so much when we talk
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  about the state of Maine. Right. The lobster
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  roll. I was working class, state of Maine, and
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  we did not eat much lobster. And of course, do
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  you know what is wrong with the Maine lobster
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  roll? I hate to say this. I hate to say this.
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  Imagine one thing that's wrong with it, but go
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  ahead. Mayonnaise. That is for the places that
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  want to stretch their lobster dollar and make
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  more profits. They will put in tons of filler
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  mayonnaise, which is disgusting. Disgusting.
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  Well, again, I may have to amend my mayonnaise
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  ban. in talking about a lobster roll. Although
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  I prefer my lobster roll the ratio to be mayonnaise,
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  not so much, but unfortunately I will still eat
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  it because it is so delicious. Yeah, I will.
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  Okay, so we're going to talk about a few films
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  today that have to do with the state of Maine
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  or were inspired by the state of Maine or reference
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  the state of Maine and we are starting with What
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  did we say? We're going to start with In the
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  Bedroom? We are going, actually, you know, that's
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  a nice lobster segue because the title of this
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  film, In the Bedroom, actually refers to lobsters,
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  as strange as that sounds. Okay. So this is a
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  film that Lauren did not watch but has seen.
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  I have seen it. Right? Saw it when it first came
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  out. When it first came out. Several years ago.
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  I think it was, what, 2001 maybe? Right. And
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  what is, I think, really perfectly main about
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  this film is, for one thing, it was actually
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  filmed in Maine. It was filmed in Camden and
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  Rockport where the film is set, but it is from
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  a short story that was set in Massachusetts originally
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  by the really wonderful writer Andre Dubus. And
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  In the Bedroom tells the story of a couple that
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  has lived in Camden for a very long time, a doctor
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  and his wife. She is very clearly not from Maine.
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  It was, it is very clear that she is an outsider
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  and they have a college -aged son who is about
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  to go off to graduate school who ends up in a
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  relationship with an older single mother. And
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  the relationship ends very badly in that the
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  son is murdered by the girlfriend's ex -husband.
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  Played, by the way, by William Mapother. Mapother?
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  Mapother? I've never known. Who is Tom Cruise's
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  cousin, who was also in Lost, who also played
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  a villain in Lost. Anyway, and so the movie deals
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  with the grief. of the parents, played by Tom
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  Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek, whom we'll talk
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  about a little bit later. It is about their grief,
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  how they deal with the fact that their son has
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  died, his particular questions about sticking
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  around and potentially being with this woman
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  for the rest of his life, which unfortunately
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  is quite short. And the reason why I say there's
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  a lobster connection is that when the son is
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  thinking that he will stay put and be in a relationship,
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  he thinks that he will become a lobsterman. He
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  has been doing this part time. And the “bedroom"
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  refers to a part of the lobster trap where a
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  lobster is kept. And if more than two lobsters
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  end up in the bedroom of the lobster trap, they
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  will begin to turn on each other. And so it's
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  a very nice allegory. for what ends up happening
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  with this really, really vicious love triangle
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  between the son, his girlfriend, and her very
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  vicious and murderous ex -husband. This is giving
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  me OC vibes with Ryan and going to the boat,
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  and going to work on the barge, and one could
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  imagine the actor, what's his name, who was Ryan's
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  brother who - Oh, Logan Marshall Green. Logan
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  Marshall Green being who, of course, is in -
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  And Just Like That. Yes. Being the husband, right?
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  Absolutely. The ex -husband who shoots, who shoots
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  Marissa Tomei, who shoots the son. Yes, Frank.
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  I'm just thinking this whole situation is to
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  me giving some OC vibes. Well, you know, and
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  it's funny you say that because what is so interesting
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  about of course, the entire film, but also the
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  character who does murder the son is that class
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  comes up in a really weird way in that he is
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  kind of a lowlife who hangs around in bars, gets
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  into a lot of fights, but his father owns a cannery.
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  And so his father is the big employer in the
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  town. And so there's very much this sort of paradox
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  that he is from a more affluent family, but he
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  really is sort of main working class. And this
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  is something that is taken from the original.
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  short story, which is called Killings by André
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  Dubas, where it's the same kind of thing, a young
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  man who is murderous, who is violent, who beats
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  his wife, who again is drinking and taking drugs,
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  but who is from a more affluent family and what
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  that actually means. So I do think it is very,
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  in some ways, redolent of the OC, but significantly
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  more depressing. It is one of the saddest, saddest
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  films ever. And that is one of the reasons why
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  I took a pass on this one. Just couldn't, couldn't
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  do it again. And I knew you watching it and a
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  lot of our other films this week are not exactly
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  cheerleading party films so I set it out and
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  I can't say I regret that decision after listening
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  to you kind of recap for me although I remember
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  the performances being really incredible and
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  the film being pretty incredible but just again,
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  maybe a little too much for me this week, so.
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  Well, and one of the things that's interesting
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  about it is that you and I both loved Tar, which
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  of course is another, what, the third film by
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  Todd Field, who's such a remarkable filmmaker,
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  but who has made almost nothing. And In the Bedroom
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  was his first film. The Equally Depressing Little
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  Children was his second, which I never, ever,
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  ever want to see again. But what is also interesting
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  to me about in the bedroom is he actually managed
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  to make it more depressing than the original
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  short story, which I think is really remarkable
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  because in the film, the son who is murdered
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  is their only child. And this is very much played
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  up as part of the plot that this is kind of the
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  end of their line. And not to spoil it too much
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  for anyone who is listening, but the huge moral
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  question that hangs over the film is, is it listed
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  to murder? the man who killed the son. And so
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  Matt, the Tom Wilkinson character, he does end
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  up killing him. And that, of course, is why the
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  Andre Dubas short story, it's killings plural,
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  because it's both of these, and it's really,
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  really fascinating. But what I do like is that
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  Sissy Speczak, she is an outsider. She went to
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  Brown, which of course we always know, right,
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  in a TV, much like in Gossip Girl, in a film
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  or television, that is the immediate tell. Right.
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  Anyway, so, but it's very interesting again in
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  terms of class, in terms of being an outsider,
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  in terms of this kind of... rough, hewn, sort
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  of working class vibe that you get that is juxtaposed
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  with a much more affluent vibe. And it's just,
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  I think it actually is a really great main film
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  in that sense. I had forgotten the detail of
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  Sissy Spachak going to Brown. Absolutely. Yes.
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  Why? Who knows? And then we can link again to
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  gossip, well, to you with Beck having gone to
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  Brown and that working class. working class,
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  what's his name? Joe, right? Yeah, absolutely.
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  And the brown, you know, upper, upper echelon
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  contrast. Exactly. It seems like brown is just
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  a marker for elite, obnoxious, outsider, somebody
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  who's just going to come in and... be super smarty
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  and and that's the thing is that that's something
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  else that is introduced into the film that is
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  not in the original short story not just that
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  the wife didn't go didn't go to brown but the
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  idea that there is real marital conflict between
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  the couple because she is an outsider right and
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  the whole vibe is that the tom wilkinson character
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  that his dad was working class he himself is
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  now a doctor the son that might become working
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  class again, and the idea that this moves so
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  quickly in generations, which is certainly true
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  in the state of Maine, absolutely. And so it
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  is interesting that Sissy Spacek, she is this
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  person who clearly has lived there for so long,
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  but cannot find her footing in this community,
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  which again just adds this other component of
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  how sad and just really heartbreaking this film
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  is. Okay, well one thing I'm hearing from you,
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  which you might push back on, is this is a community
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  working class and we've got these some of these
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  downtrodden characters and you're finding it
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  gripping and it's sounding to me like Rocky.
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  Except that there are no brown interlopers in
• 12:42
  Rocky that everyone is 100 % Billy. There is
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  no murder. Yeah. Maybe you just need a little
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  murder in your movies. Perhaps. But see, but
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  this is But here's something that I do think
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  makes Maine distinct. Okay. And here's my argument,
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  which is not the case, sadly, for the Philadelphia
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  neighborhood of Rocky Balboa. And that is what
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  we see in the bedroom. And it's in other movies
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  and stuff about Maine, too, is you have, of course,
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  working class people who are nevertheless living
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  in these beautiful coastal areas. Yes. Right.
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  And so there's one scene in the bedroom where
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  there's the local school that Sissy Spajak's
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  character works at. They're having an outdoor
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  choir concert. And it's all different kinds of
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  people in terms of class, right? Including working
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  class people. But you are seeing a harbor with
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  boats, right? These beautiful boats, not miserable,
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  Billy Joel trawlers, right? And obviously
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  not many yachts, you know, but beautiful boats.
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  And so there is... It's this, again, weird juxtaposition.
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  Tom Wilkinson is playing poker with his buddies
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  and something that I actually thought was very
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  unrealistic. So he's playing poker with his kind
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  of working class buddies, although one of them
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  also owns a restaurant. And one of his buddies
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  spouts poetry all the time. And this is kind
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  of his thing. And near the end of the film, he
• 13:59
  starts reciting a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
• 14:03
  a poet who was born in Portland, whose house
• 14:05
  you could still go see in Portland. And he recites
• 14:08
  a poem about Portland, Maine. this character
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  in the film. And so again, I'm like, I'm not
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  sure I know too many working class guys from
• 14:15
  the state of Maine who would recite Henry Wadsworth
• 14:17
  Longfellow poems. That's also giving very Good Will
• 14:20
  Hunting. Yes. Right. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 14:23
  But that's what I would say is so strange about
• 14:26
  Maine. Right. In part because of the locale,
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  in part because of the geography, in part because
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  of how small the state is in terms of population,
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  but with all of that space, I think class lines
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  get really, really confused. Okay. Okay. And
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  ways in which they do not in Philadelphia. Perhaps
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  in Philadelphia. Okay. So... Or in the South,
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  also, for example. Or in the South, perhaps.
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  Anyway. Anyway. So, I told some of our listeners,
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  some of our nine listeners, that we were doing
• 14:58
  this Maine week. And the first thing they said
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  to me was, oh, you're going to watch a lot of
• 15:04
  Stephen King. movies or talk about a lot of Stephen
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  King books. And I said to Christine, so what
• 15:10
  are our Stephen King picks? And she said, none.
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  And I said, how is that possible? Because everyone
• 15:17
  associates Stephen King with Maine, including
• 15:19
  me. We've got to throw something in and I just
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  feel like we're gonna disappoint that I don't
• 15:25
  want to turn our nine listeners into no listeners
• 15:28
  So and Christine doesn't like scary movies. So
• 15:33
  um, there's that issue. I don't mind them I'm
• 15:36
  fine watching them and in fact like old old scary
• 15:40
  movies aren't even scary anymore. So Anyway,
• 15:43
  so we had a discussion about this and because
• 15:45
  of the Sissy Spacek of it all, we settled
• 15:50
  on me watching Carrie because she's in both films.
• 15:55
  Okay. And then decades apart, decades apart.
• 15:59
  And then Christine wing in on the Stephen King
• 16:03
  and Maine and all the various iterations of Stephen
• 16:08
  King lurking artifacts lurking around. I can
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  go on at great length, even though I did not
• 16:13
  watch. I, of course, have seen Carrie and I've
• 16:15
  seen a lot, a lot, a lot of other Stephen King
• 16:18
  films. I've read a lot of the books, so I can
• 16:21
  contribute. OK, well, I saw Carrie like two nights
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  ago and I have not seen it. I mean, probably
• 16:28
  for, I don't know, a decade at least. I have
• 16:31
  seen it since I was. And a duck. Yes, yes. And
• 16:36
  so watching it, especially after, we'll have
• 16:40
  another episode about that crazy documentary.
• 16:43
  Oh, goodness, yes. Okay, the catfish high school
• 16:46
  thing. But watching it again made me appreciate
• 16:50
  the filmmaking, made me appreciate Brian De Palma
• 16:54
  and the camera work and the storytelling, especially
• 16:58
  since it's not that long and really does invite
• 17:02
  you into the characters and into the feelings
• 17:05
  and into the dynamics. It also made me realize,
• 17:09
  as I told Christine, that the dress that Carrie
• 17:12
  makes for herself to wear to the prom is, in
• 17:15
  fact, Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar dress that Ralph
• 17:20
  Lauren made for the Shakespearean love acceptance
• 17:23
  speech. I never put those two things together,
• 17:26
  but when I saw Sissy in that dress, the pink
• 17:31
  slip dress with the shawl, I said, Gwyneth ripped
• 17:37
  off Carrie, okay? So for those of you who don't
• 17:41
  remember, haven't seen Carrie, Carrie is a miserable,
• 17:47
  isolated teenager who in the first scene of the
• 17:52
  movie gets her period in the gym in front of
• 17:57
  all the other girls and has no idea what is happening
• 18:01
  to her body. freaks out and the girls torment
• 18:05
  her because they're terrible to her anyway, but
• 18:10
  this is a moment where they can really capitalize
• 18:13
  on bullying her. She has a crazy mother who is
• 18:19
  really religious and convinced that you know
• 18:22
  everything is demonic and that now that she's
• 18:26
  a woman she's going to be you know she's gonna
• 18:28
  burn in hell and she just needs to pray and her
• 18:32
  mother is physically and emotionally abusive
• 18:34
  towards her and Carrie is basically forced to
• 18:37
  like walk around in a sack for most of this film
• 18:40
  not talk to anyone she has a PE teacher that's
• 18:44
  sympathetic to her and that tries to console
• 18:47
  her, but she really is just alone in the world.
• 18:51
  To complicate things, she also has these powers,
• 18:57
  telekinetic powers where she can move stuff around
• 19:02
  and she can command objects to do what she wants
• 19:06
  and doors shut and eventually very terrible things
• 19:10
  will happen. So Carrie throughout the film is
• 19:15
  confronted by her peers who continue to bully
• 19:20
  her and then is invited, we don't know whether
• 19:24
  or not, as a joke or for real, to go to the prom
• 19:27
  with basically the jock, the homecoming king,
• 19:30
  this nice guy. Although it does seem to be the
• 19:33
  case that his girlfriend, the Irving character,
• 19:36
  is trying to be kind. to Carrie in doing this.
• 19:39
  It seems that way, although there's always the
• 19:41
  possibility that she is in on what will be a
• 19:44
  terrible, terrible prank to humiliate Carrie
• 19:49
  in front of everybody. So Carrie goes to the
• 19:51
  prom and as most people have probably seen this
• 19:54
  scene, she goes, she's elated and she's, she's...
• 19:57
  Dream come true. Everything's amazing. This boy
• 19:59
  is so nice to her. She has her first kiss. They
• 20:02
  dance. uh she is uh voted in as home as prom
• 20:08
  queen or whatever and she gets up on the stage
• 20:11
  and she's just in in a complete state of ecstasy
• 20:15
  okay and then we see this terrible thing happen
• 20:18
  to her famously where pig's blood is dumped on
• 20:23
  her by these very cruel teenagers who are angry
• 20:27
  at her and feel like assholes they're just yeah
• 20:30
  they're just including John Travolta including
• 20:32
  a john travolta And Amy Irving is stunned, actually.
• 20:36
  This is when we find out, you know, she wasn't
• 20:37
  in on it. And the boyfriend gets kind of conked
• 20:40
  out by the bucket that dropped the pig's blood.
• 20:43
  And she loses her shit, Carrie. OK, the doors are
• 20:49
  locked. The things start to fly around. People
• 20:52
  get impaled. People get electrocuted. And basically
• 20:55
  the entire gym burns. and is set on fire, and
• 21:00
  there are only, I guess, three survivors, Amy
• 21:03
  Irving, John Travolta, and... Nancy Allen. Nancy
• 21:07
  Allen. The two evil teenagers. Right, the two
• 21:09
  evil teenagers. And even the kindly teacher,
• 21:12
  Betty Buckley's character, is killed in the gym.
• 21:13
  Yes, she is impaled by a piece of wood. So, Carrie
• 21:18
  goes home and she washes off all the blood and
• 21:23
  her mother starts to console her, but then we
• 21:27
  see a knife coming towards Carrie's back because
• 21:33
  her mother's like, well, you know, I just have
• 21:35
  to end your life before you invite more sin in.
• 21:39
  And then we see Carrie, you know, running down
• 21:42
  the stairs and in the end, you know, she... She
• 21:46
  takes her powers to get five or six knives into
• 21:51
  her mother. And then the entire house just starts
• 21:54
  to fall apart and move into the ground and everyone
• 21:59
  dies. So everyone dies. Including Nancy Allen
• 22:04
  and John Travolta. Including Nancy Allen and
• 22:07
  John Travolta. basically the only survivor of
• 22:14
  all of this it seems like is Amy Irving and Sissy
• 22:18
  Spacek of course is of honor, and that's Carrie
• 22:24
  for you. Although we also do, I have to add,
• 22:26
  we have the very famous sort of jump scare at
• 22:30
  the end where Amy Irving approaches Carrie's
• 22:33
  grave and Carrie's hand reaches up from the grave,
• 22:36
  which then turns out is just a dream. Or is it?
• 22:40
  Just a dream. Right. So it's another downer,
• 22:44
  basically. It's another downer. Oh, it's a downer.
• 22:46
  It's a downer. It's so sad. It is sad. So it's
• 22:51
  bullying on a number of levels. She's bullied
• 22:55
  by her mother, she's bullied by her classmates,
• 22:58
  and then she also is misunderstood in terms of
• 23:01
  the telekinesis as well. So she doesn't understand
• 23:04
  herself in addition to other people just making
• 23:08
  her feel like complete shit. And there's not
• 23:11
  a whole lot of redemption in Carrie. It's just,
• 23:17
  you know, she dies with everyone else. I guess
• 23:19
  allegedly because she has killed all these people
• 23:22
  and there's nowhere for her to go. Stephen King,
• 23:27
  basically original in Maine, but the film does
• 23:31
  not take place in Maine or there are no signifiers
• 23:33
  of Maine and it doesn't look anything like Maine.
• 23:36
  Looks like California, which is where it was
• 23:38
  filmed in Culver City. So I think a question
• 23:42
  for me to ask for you is what is Maine about
• 23:47
  Carrie and what is Maine about Stephen King more
• 23:51
  broadly? Oh, goodness. I mean, one, one of the
• 23:55
  things that I think, and I don't know if everyone
• 23:58
  from Maine would agree with me, but it really
• 24:02
  is true to me that Maine has a particular darkness
• 24:06
  that relates to, I mean really simply, the Puritan
• 24:11
  founding in the early 17th century. As crazy
• 24:15
  as it sounds, I think that a lot of that sort
• 24:17
  of almost like... Nathaniel Hawthorne kind of
• 24:20
  DNA, not that he himself was a Puritan, of course,
• 24:22
  but he was someone who looked back right on the
• 24:24
  Puritan history of New England and made those
• 24:27
  kinds of observations, right, that this obsession
• 24:30
  with... evil, with Providence, all of the Providence,
• 24:35
  the thing, not Providence, the city, that it
• 24:37
  sort of infused New England with that DNA. And
• 24:42
  so I think that that is really true. And I mean,
• 24:44
  my hometown of Portland was founded in 1632.
• 24:48
  And certainly my family has been there since
• 24:51
  the 1630s. And there really is this feeling of
• 24:58
  darkness that this kind of good versus evil,
• 25:02
  kind of Manichaean model has always been at play
• 25:05
  there in sort of the, I mean, if you look at
• 25:07
  like the woods, right? I mean, all of them. I
• 25:09
  know it sounds really, really strange, but then
• 25:11
  on top of that, there's a much more realistic
• 25:14
  vibe that I think you get with Stephen King generally
• 25:16
  that you see in Carrie and that is absolutely
• 25:19
  the state of Maine. And that is a very particular
• 25:22
  kind of poverty. Rural poverty, people who are
• 25:26
  out in the woods, people without a lot of resources,
• 25:30
  junk yards, you know, again, if you drive through
• 25:32
  rural Maine, right, this is absolutely what you
• 25:34
  see. And things that are just, obviously it's
• 25:38
  different, say, from the rural landscape that
• 25:40
  we might experience here where we live in lots
• 25:42
  of different ways. I'm now wondering if Christine
• 25:46
  has anything to do with your name. Well, that's
• 25:51
  one of the one of the many reasons why I don't
• 25:54
  like thinking and talking about Stephen King
• 25:55
  because it was exactly that came out Christine
• 25:58
  came out exactly at the point where What I was
• 26:01
  in high school. I had been I had certainly read
• 26:03
  a lot of Stephen King at that point You know
• 26:06
  dating from what like maybe fifth grade, which
• 26:08
  is a terrible terrible idea But so I also think
• 26:11
  then there's this really realistic component
• 26:13
  to so much of what Stephen King writes. And again,
• 26:16
  you do see that in Carrie, right? So you have
• 26:18
  the mother who is obsessed with Satan, right?
• 26:20
  With good and evil, with demonic, sort of the
• 26:23
  difference between demonic powers and understands
• 26:26
  Carrie's powers to be that way. But then you
• 26:29
  also do have the sense of like, this is a poor
• 26:31
  family, right? An isolated family. And so I think
• 26:35
  that you do have it one in the same time. You
• 26:37
  have this weird sort of metaphysical sense of
• 26:40
  darkness and that kind of battle between good
• 26:43
  and evil but then you also have this reality
• 26:45
  that it is a state full of very very poor people
• 26:48
  who have been very poor for a long time with
• 26:51
  this physical isolation right all of the woods
• 26:54
  and that's the thing that i think certainly when
• 26:56
  i talk to people who are not from maine they
• 26:59
  of course tend to think of like oh everyone's
• 27:01
  on the seacoast with lobsters like we were just
• 27:03
  talking about with In the Bedroom. But of course,
• 27:05
  most of the state is not like that. It's the
• 27:08
  Carrie landscape. And the interesting thing too,
• 27:11
  again, going back to Cary's high school is even
• 27:14
  set in California, but they're replicating the
• 27:18
  book and that you do get a sense of, sure, there
• 27:21
  are some families, Amy Irving's family, that
• 27:24
  may be kind of middle class and presented that
• 27:27
  way, but there are other families that are not.
• 27:30
  And that even the teachers are kind of these
• 27:32
  working class figures. and that there are different
• 27:36
  kinds of students and even just kind of driving
• 27:39
  around or in the parking lots, it's definitely
• 27:42
  not a vision of affluence. And that carries poverty.
• 27:48
  isn't the reason that people are making fun of
• 27:50
  her. Yeah, exactly. And even that interesting
• 27:53
  scene where Carrie goes to like, I guess, the
• 27:56
  general store, where she goes to buy the makeup,
• 27:58
  right? She tries on all those lipsticks and people
• 28:00
  are kind of looking at her. But you see the way
• 28:03
  that that drugstore, not only is it set, of course,
• 28:05
  set in the 70s and very 70s looking, but it also
• 28:09
  looks kind of off and it looks like, again, we
• 28:14
  don't get a sense that these people are shopping
• 28:16
  in the mall or doing anything like that. That
• 28:20
  it's very mom and pop, local, kind of who you
• 28:24
  know, kids walking around. It doesn't have the
• 28:28
  fast times at Ridgemont High vibes. And even though
• 28:32
  it's maybe set in the... same blaze or blaze
• 28:35
  like it. But I yeah but I think that that's you
• 28:37
  know and it's interesting you say that because
• 28:39
  because what we're not seeing right is this John
• 28:41
  Hughes style. No. There's the Richies and then
• 28:44
  basically like you know some poor you know Andy
• 28:46
  character from Pretty in Pink or whatever. But I
• 28:48
  also think, you know, one thing that is so kind
• 28:50
  of resonant to me is so when I was growing up
• 28:54
  in the seventies, I mean, it was a huge deal
• 28:56
  for my relatives who lived further to the north
• 28:59
  in Clinton, which is around Waterville. It was
• 29:02
  a huge deal for them to come down to Portland
• 29:04
  to go to or South Portland, technically to go
• 29:06
  to the Maine Mall. Right. That was a thing. I
• 29:08
  mean, there was a mall in Bangor at some point,
• 29:10
  which is where Stephen King lives in Bangor,
• 29:12
  Maine. Right. And so at some point there was
• 29:14
  a mall there. But the main mall down in southern
• 29:17
  Maine. was the thing, right? It was a trip to
• 29:20
  go. It was a big deal to go. And, you know, of
• 29:22
  course it was a mall like any other mall, but
• 29:25
  that was an event, right? Most people in Maine
• 29:28
  weren't living in a place where they could go
• 29:30
  to the mall. And, you know, it might be different
• 29:32
  now for all I know, but that absolutely tracks,
• 29:35
  right? Was sort of when Carrie was published
• 29:37
  in the early 1970s. Right, right, right. So I
• 29:41
  think that... in some ways, satisfied or scratched
• 29:46
  my Stephen King itch. Although, again, like you,
• 29:50
  if you grew up when we did, I read the Stephen
• 29:53
  King books, I watched the Stephen King movies,
• 29:57
  and Cujo, and Pet Sematary, and again, all of
• 30:01
  it, and found it much scarier than I certainly
• 30:05
  do now. But I think Stephen King is somebody
• 30:08
  who has lived in our imagination for a long time,
• 30:12
  that association with Maine. And yeah, I mean,
• 30:16
  that's going to be think of creepy, isolated,
• 30:20
  woods, maybe a rabid dog. An old hotel. Maybe
• 30:25
  something coming back to life, things like that.
• 30:29
  Well, I mean. I think I told you this before,
• 30:32
  but I also want to say it for our 10 listeners.
• 30:35
  I mean, it absolutely is the case. And maybe
• 30:38
  this is true for other places. He is so insistent
• 30:42
  about localizing the works in a way that I think
• 30:46
  a lot of Maine people are like, oh, this is so
• 30:49
  fantastic, right? We're seeing all this wonderful
• 30:51
  stuff that is familiar to us. but that, in my
• 30:54
  case at least, I find to be really terrifying.
• 30:58
  And I think I mentioned to you the one example
• 31:01
  is that in The Dead Zone, which actually I really
• 31:04
  liked as a book, I think The Dead Zone is a great
• 31:05
  book, then later made into a film with Christopher
• 31:08
  Walken as the main character, John Smith. And
• 31:12
  there's a scene in the Dead Zone where Johnny
• 31:14
  and his father go to a very familiar restaurant
• 31:17
  in Grey, Maine, Coles Farm. And it was a terrifying
• 31:20
  scene to me because they're in the waiting room
• 31:22
  and Johnny is thumbing through all the coats
• 31:25
  in the coat rack and he is seeing the futures
• 31:28
  of every single person who owns these coats.
• 31:31
  You know, some of them dying in these terrible
• 31:32
  ways and this is, it's this sort of little model
• 31:36
  of how his psychic powers are manifesting in
• 31:39
  that way. And I think I just have to, you have
• 31:43
  to humor me with one more story about Stephen
• 31:45
  King. Actually, two more. Two more stories about
• 31:47
  Stephen King. Girl, you go. I could go on forever.
• 31:49
  You go on, Stephen King. Again, you said this
• 31:51
  wasn't going to be a Stephen King episode, so
• 31:54
  now it is. But I just, I can't, I can't help
• 31:56
  it. Again, trying to explain further why I cannot
• 31:59
  consume the media. So did you ever see the David
• 32:04
  Soul television version of Salem's Lot that came
• 32:08
  out in the 1970s. I do not believe that I have.
• 32:12
  Sweet Lord Jesus. I mean, it's one of the scariest
• 32:14
  things ever. So it was a mini series. It probably
• 32:17
  came out in 1978, 1979. It was a mini series.
• 32:21
  It was a huge hit. A multi -night show. David
• 32:24
  Soul plays the main character. A town in Maine,
• 32:28
  which is then overrun by vampires. Again, absolutely
• 32:32
  terrifying. He has a young boy, like a 15 year
• 32:35
  old, who is kind of helping him to track down
• 32:38
  and kill the vampire. And there's a terrible,
• 32:41
  terrible, but famous scene where a young boy
• 32:43
  who was turned into a vampire. Are you familiar?
• 32:45
  Oh, yes. With the Danny Glick scene? Well, the
• 32:48
  news, there was a newer Salem lot that just happened.
• 32:50
  Oh, yes. Rob Lowe in it or something? On HBO,
• 32:53
  and I've actually watched that. Oh, okay, okay.
• 32:56
  So I'm familiar with, I've actually saw it fairly
• 32:59
  recently. Okay, okay. Well, the Danny Glick scene
• 33:03
  burned itself into the brain of, I mean, every
• 33:06
  single person, I think my age. and where he's
• 33:09
  sort of scratching at the windows and he's begging
• 33:10
  his childhood friend to let him in, obviously
• 33:12
  to turn him into a vampire. But the story part
• 33:15
  of this is that when it was originally broadcast,
• 33:18
  we were visiting my Aunt Rachel in Clinton, Maine,
• 33:22
  which is Boondock, Maine. I was not allowed to
• 33:25
  watch Salem's Lot because I was too young, which
• 33:28
  was a sensible decision on the part of my mother.
• 33:31
  But I was upstairs and I could hear everything.
• 33:35
  So I'm by myself in this bedroom, totally isolated,
• 33:40
  Maine location, woods across the street, looking
• 33:44
  around in this dark room and I can hear... It's
• 33:47
  replicating the scene. Yes, and I can hear from
• 33:50
  downstairs the whole Danny Glick scratching on
• 33:53
  the window saying let me in, Johnny or whatever
• 33:56
  his name is, and I have consumed a lot of Stephen
• 34:00
  King media since that. But it was absolutely
• 34:04
  terrifying. So my parallel to that, which has
• 34:08
  nothing to do with Stephen King, but it is about
• 34:12
  life and art. So my bedroom was set up in the
• 34:18
  exact same way as the Poltergeist bedroom. There
• 34:21
  was a tree outside the window, there was a clown
• 34:26
  doll on a chair, and there was a closet. in exactly
• 34:30
  the place of that room. And Twin Beds, the whole
• 34:34
  story of it. Of course, I didn't have a sibling
• 34:38
  in the room with me. My brother had his own room
• 34:42
  and he and I are almost 10 years apart. So anyway,
• 34:46
  I was alone and unfortunately, as happened in
• 34:52
  the 70s a lot or 80s or whenever that movie came
• 34:55
  out, somebody thought it was a good idea to show
• 34:57
  that movie to a bunch of nine or ten year olds,
• 35:01
  okay, at a sleepover, right? And for the entire
• 35:05
  summer, my mother had to sleep in the room with
• 35:08
  me because I was too scared to sleep, to just
• 35:13
  even close my eyes, because I was going to be
• 35:15
  sucked into the closet, because a tree was going
• 35:17
  to come in. I can't imagine thunderstorms. What
• 35:21
  did you do when there was thunderstorms? It was
• 35:22
  just... absolutely terrifying and the verisimilitude
• 35:26
  of the Poltergeist movie and my room and I put
• 35:31
  the clown away I mean all of all of it but it
• 35:34
  was still like I couldn't change the situation
• 35:39
  of my room and then I was like well maybe if
• 35:42
  we move the beds didn't matter it really just
• 35:44
  didn't matter So these movies from that era,
• 35:48
  I mean, they really struck a chord. And they
• 35:51
  were merciless. They were merciless. And I think
• 35:53
  that whoever made them knew that many of us were
• 35:55
  going to watch them inappropriately when we were
• 35:58
  too young at sleepovers. Or whatever. Or we're
• 36:02
  going to hear them, right? I cannot stress to
• 36:07
  you how terrifying. And actually, maybe a couple
• 36:10
  of years ago, I'm like, I'm just gonna watch
• 36:11
  that scene again. I'm just gonna find it on YouTube.
• 36:14
  And what was funny about it is that when I watched
• 36:16
  it again, I'm like, immediately, I was like,
• 36:19
  I wish I had not. watch that. It's just so terrifying.
• 36:23
  So terrifying. And I later read the book, Salem's
• 36:26
  Law. And in the book, one of the guys who becomes
• 36:29
  a vampire, when he's bitten, he goes to a McDonald's
• 36:33
  on Route 1 in Falmouth, Maine. Then he goes home
• 36:36
  and becomes a vampire. And of course, that McDonald's,
• 36:39
  right? Super familiar. Sure. the last Stephen
• 36:43
  King story I'm going to tell. I have one more.
• 36:45
  I have one more. Can you indulge me? It's starting
• 36:48
  to creep me out, even this conversation. And
• 36:50
  again, I could say more creepy stuff, but I'm
• 36:52
  just going to restrict myself to this, that when
• 36:55
  David Cronenberg's The Fly with Jeff Goldblum,
• 36:58
  when that came out in the late 80s, whenever
• 37:01
  it was, and I went to go see it at the main mall
• 37:04
  cinema next to the main mall, and Stephen King
• 37:07
  and his entire family, they were at the showing,
• 37:09
  but I was not, and I didn't even recognize but
• 37:12
  the friend that I was with, he had gone to camp
• 37:15
  with Joe King, one of Stephen King's sons. And
• 37:17
  so we're walking out and he's like, oh, there's
• 37:19
  Joe King. Oh, there's Stephen King. And because
• 37:21
  there were two hotels right next to the movie
• 37:23
  theater across the street from the main mall
• 37:24
  and Stephen King and his family walked over to
• 37:26
  the hotel. They clearly had come down to Portland
• 37:29
  to go to the Maine Mall as. as people do, as I
• 37:32
  just said. So yeah, so. So that is quite a celeb
• 37:35
  sighting for you. Apparently it was. But it made
• 37:38
  sense that it was The Fly, right? That it was
• 37:39
  a horror movie. Yes, that makes complete sense
• 37:42
  that he would go and see that. Okay, so our other
• 37:47
  text that you recommended was a text that my
• 37:52
  mother also recommended, not having to do with
• 37:54
  Maine, but just having to do with the pod. So
• 37:56
  shout out to my mom. Called A Summer Place. And
• 38:02
  a summer place, which is actually referenced
• 38:06
  in the lyrics of the Grease song, Look at Me.
• 38:09
  Oh, yes it is. As for you, Troy Donahue. As for
• 38:13
  you, Tridonahoo. So that's kind of how I knew
• 38:16
  of it, but I had never seen it before, but it
• 38:20
  does take place in Maine. And as you say, very
• 38:23
  much encapsulates both the Maine resort vibe,
• 38:27
  as well as all the class issues that are reflected
• 38:31
  in our other texts. Yes, absolutely. And what
• 38:35
  I think is also really nice about A Summer Place
• 38:37
  in terms of our pod is that it is yet another
• 38:41
  instance that films from 60 years ago might be
• 38:46
  interested in things that we we might not expect
• 38:48
  them to be talking about because a summer place
• 38:50
  is almost entirely about sex. In addition to
• 38:54
  class and the state of being, it is about, we
• 38:57
  have a family that is living in a large, large
• 39:01
  house now turned in, in a place called Pine Island
• 39:04
  off the coast of Maine. Not Pine Island, South
• 39:07
  Carolina. And not Camp Pinewood, which is actually
• 39:13
  the camp in wet, hot American summer, if we have
• 39:14
  a chance to talk about that. Pine Forest, which
• 39:18
  was another camp that was in the Poconos in Pennsylvania.
• 39:22
  So there are a lot of pine -related sleepover
• 39:25
  camps and things like that. Well, and you know,
• 39:27
  Maine is the Pine Tree State. That is our official
• 39:29
  nickname, the pine tree state. It's not vacation
• 39:32
  land. What was the name of the camp that you
• 39:34
  went to at Maine? Taboingo. Ah, OK. Okay. So
• 39:38
  anyway, to get back to A Summer Place, and so
• 39:40
  we have a sort of wealthy family that has now
• 39:45
  fallen on hard times. The beautiful old house
• 39:47
  has now turned into an inn for vacationers. And
• 39:51
  we have an unhappily married couple, Bart, the
• 39:54
  rich guy who's now turned poor guy, who's an
• 39:57
  alcoholic, he has a wife, they have a teenage
• 39:59
  son, the incredibly handsome Troy Donahue, who
• 40:03
  looks fantastic in this film. And as I wrote
• 40:07
  to you before, the clothes that Troy Don he was
• 40:10
  wearing, so modern, he could wear every single
• 40:13
  one of those outfits today. It's like Ralph Lauren
• 40:16
  designed it before the time, basically. But we
• 40:20
  have very much this kind of parallelism, because
• 40:22
  the idea is that another family is coming to
• 40:26
  stay with them, a man can. who used to be a lifeguard
• 40:32
  at the property 20 years before, and he was poor,
• 40:38
  again, working class, who now is rich. He is
• 40:41
  there with his kind of bitchy, terrible, awful
• 40:43
  wife, Helen. She is super bitchy. Horrible. She
• 40:47
  really is horrible. She is horrible. We can talk
• 40:49
  about that in a second. And their own teenage
• 40:51
  child, Molly, played by Sandra Dee. And so we
• 40:55
  have absolutely this parallelism that Rich Bart
• 40:58
  is now poor, poor Ken is now rich, and they are
• 41:03
  all going to spend the summer together because
• 41:05
  Ken and his family are coming as paying guests.
• 41:08
  But there is also tension because the wife...
• 41:12
  of ken sylvia sylvia had had a fling many many
• 41:17
  years ago with uh ken ken the rich guy richard
• 41:25
  egan's character who's also quite handsome he
• 41:27
  is richard egan was a very handsome the lifeguard
• 41:30
  turned millionaire okay they had this flaming
• 41:33
  lot passion which and clearly had they had done
• 41:36
  it Oh, of course. And they had done it. They
• 41:38
  had not been able to resist. Yes. Okay. So they
• 41:41
  had had sex and but moved on. Moved on. Class
• 41:46
  differences. Class differences. He was not wealthy
• 41:48
  enough for her parents. Right. But they're still
• 41:50
  thinking about each other. Still madly in love.
• 41:53
  Neither one has ever found anyone to equal that
• 41:57
  love miserable marriages right and they have
• 41:59
  always now they haven't been in contact in now
• 42:02
  intervening 20 years right now letters no phone
• 42:04
  calls no visits this is the first time they are
• 42:06
  seeing each other since that 20 year old break
• 42:09
  up right so the the rich family comes and chaos
• 42:15
  ensues Or drama ensues. Drama ensues. A lot of
• 42:19
  sex drama. A lot of sex drama. A lot of sex drama
• 42:22
  ensues. The young people immediately connect
• 42:25
  and Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue are smitten,
• 42:29
  but they're holding hands, they're not holding
• 42:31
  hands. They're kissing, they're not kissing.
• 42:34
  And bitch mom, who's a lot like Carrie's mom.
• 42:37
  Who's a lot like Carrie's mom. Helen. Helen is
• 42:39
  bitch mom. continues to bully her daughter into
• 42:45
  being chased, into not talking about her body,
• 42:50
  into... Wants to wrap her down in a super tight
• 42:52
  bra. Yeah, wants to put her in a chastity belt.
• 42:56
  I mean, she really wants to lock her in the closet
• 42:59
  in the way that Carrie's mom does. Very much
• 43:01
  so. And she wants her to deny any kind of sexual
• 43:04
  feelings and tells her she's gonna be a total
• 43:06
  slut if she doesn't pull it together. And her
• 43:09
  father, Sandra Dee's father, is sort of like,
• 43:12
  well, you know. Young people have passion. life
• 43:15
  is life and I've always had passions and she
• 43:18
  should just do as I do and so there's rifts between
• 43:21
  the couple over their daughter's sexuality as
• 43:25
  well as between Sandra Dee and Rodanahoo who
• 43:28
  are constantly should we should we not how close
• 43:32
  should we stand or people are looking at us And
• 43:35
  then we also have tension between Bart and Sylvia,
• 43:39
  Troy's parents, because Bart is an alcoholic.
• 43:43
  Sylvia is trying to keep this business and family
• 43:46
  together. But she can't help her love for...
• 43:49
  But she cannot help her love for Richard Egan.
• 43:51
  No. She just tells him, I'm going to leave my
• 43:55
  husband, you know, and be with you. And what
• 43:58
  do you think? And if we can keep the kids, let's
• 44:02
  just do it. Because they do start an affair.
• 44:04
  They do. They start when they are all in Maine
• 44:06
  together. And that's like from the jump. From
• 44:09
  the jump. From the jump. It's like he goes and
• 44:11
  what? Changes the light bulb. And she has this
• 44:14
  kind of matronly aunt who's like, go for it.
• 44:18
  Right. Your husband's a dud. He's an alcoholic
• 44:20
  fool. This guy's rich. This guy's rich. He's
• 44:23
  Richard Egan. It looks incredible. So just go
• 44:26
  ahead and have the have the affair. So but I
• 44:28
  will say something that I do find really kind
• 44:31
  of disturbing about this film, which again is
• 44:34
  so frank about sex, but we do have, and I don't
• 44:38
  know if you agree with me, we have a couple of
• 44:41
  really creepy, gross conversations between the
• 44:43
  Sandra Day character and her father. where almost
• 44:47
  in the very beginning, when we first are introduced
• 44:49
  to them, she says something to her father like,
• 44:52
  oh, I don't, you know, when I have naughty dreams
• 44:55
  at night, you know, and I'm like, this is gross.
• 44:57
  They have the whole argument where our discussion
• 44:59
  about her getting a bra, like a better bra, because
• 45:03
  her mom wants to lock her down. And we have the
• 45:05
  whole like, well, mom says I bounce when I walk.
• 45:07
  She's having this conversation with her father.
• 45:10
  I find, and again, then they have the whole sort
• 45:12
  of like lying in bed discussion about healthy
• 45:15
  sexuality and I just found that to be kind of
• 45:17
  gross. But it's also in a lot of ways surprising
• 45:20
  because we do expect in that 50s model, right,
• 45:24
  the father knows best and the separation of gender
• 45:27
  roles and a mom who's going to educate her daughter
• 45:30
  on the birds and the bees and the father's out
• 45:32
  at work and this film really shows in a lot of
• 45:35
  ways a reversal of that. Yes. A mother... repressing
• 45:39
  sexuality, not providing very much help, really
• 45:44
  just tormenting her daughter for just becoming
• 45:48
  a woman, essentially. And then her father being
• 45:51
  much more supportive, even though he does eventually
• 45:54
  marry Sylvia, and that's... Yeah, we can talk
• 45:59
  about that more. But he acts in a kind of, you
• 46:03
  know, he's like, you know, to hell with it. I'm
• 46:05
  just going to live yolo. And she's kind of the
• 46:09
  same way. And, you know, what that does to the
• 46:12
  kids, again, we can talk about that. But it is
• 46:15
  a fifties movie that has a male fatherly lead
• 46:20
  who is taking on that nurturing role. And you're
• 46:25
  absolutely right, and I think that that is so
• 46:27
  interesting, but it's also made very clear that
• 46:31
  he himself is someone who has been completely
• 46:33
  sexually deprived in his own marriage. They sleep
• 46:36
  in separate bedrooms. We are told immediately
• 46:39
  when they arrive at the inn, Helen says, Molly
• 46:43
  and I will sleep here, you'll sleep over there,
• 46:45
  that it has been like beyond dead bedroom. and
• 46:48
  that in effect, Helen is herself, right, to use
• 46:52
  a very 1950s word, frigid. And that it's not
• 46:55
  just that she's concerned about Molly because
• 46:57
  Molly is unmarried, because Molly is a teenager,
• 47:00
  but that her rejection of sexuality even encompasses
• 47:03
  her own long -term marriage. And so, yes, it's
• 47:07
  not just that she's not going to get any kind
• 47:08
  of positive information, but there's a sense
• 47:11
  of active discouragement, right, of any kind
• 47:13
  of healthy sexuality, even within a marital context.
• 47:16
  Yes, that's true. That's true. So as this film
• 47:20
  unfolds, Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee go on a
• 47:24
  boating outing that turns... There's a storm.
• 47:30
  And there's a storm and they have to spend the
• 47:33
  night together on some sort of island and no
• 47:36
  one knows where they are. It's not, however,
• 47:39
  the Blue Lagoon Island. It is not the Blue Lagoon.
• 47:41
  They don't immediately strip down. We don't,
• 47:44
  and again, we have no sense of any improprieties
• 47:48
  that may have occurred in between them. However,
• 47:52
  when people find them in the morning, everyone
• 47:55
  freaks out and starts to think these two slept
• 47:59
  together and we need to separate them and this
• 48:03
  is going to be all over the news. But we also
• 48:07
  have the coming together of the other two couples
• 48:12
  who reveal to their spouses that they are going
• 48:16
  to divorce. we have Sylvia and we have Helen
• 48:20
  that are or Ken rather saying like bye because
• 48:24
  Helen Helen has already caught on to the affair
• 48:27
  because the night watchman or whatever the only
• 48:30
  person in the film who has a main accent by the
• 48:32
  way just just in the bedroom there's like one
• 48:35
  person with a main accent but anyway uh and so
• 48:38
  she has already found out about it she is just
• 48:40
  waiting to kind of catch them in the act But
• 48:42
  of course what we also have after that night
• 48:44
  is that we have the super disturbing fact that
• 48:48
  Molly has to submit to a forced, abusive virginity
• 48:54
  test where her mother has called a doctor to
• 49:00
  make sure that she is still a virgin, presumably
• 49:02
  through a pelvic exam, although who knows, which
• 49:04
  is just so gross and disgusting. And Molly runs
• 49:08
  away briefly as a result of this. And everything
• 49:10
  blows up. And so then we do embark upon this
• 49:13
  really, again, interesting for a movie and from
• 49:16
  what, 1959? that we have not only the two divorces
• 49:19
  of the couples, but then the Richard Egan character
• 49:23
  and Sylvia, they do get married. So he marries
• 49:28
  his mistress. Who knew? Apparently it happened.
• 49:30
  We have remarried people who were having an affair.
• 49:35
  who get a Frank Lloyd Wright design house. Which
• 49:39
  apparently really is a Frank Lloyd Wright design
• 49:42
  house in California. I am going for it. It looked
• 49:46
  very nice. And they invite their children who
• 49:50
  have been away at different boarding schools,
• 49:53
  single -sex boarding schools in New England to
• 49:57
  come and stay with them. And Molly and... What
• 50:04
  is Troy Donahue's character's name again? Johnny.
• 50:06
  Johnny and Molly. Johnny and Molly have been
• 50:08
  writing letters, and they are still in love,
• 50:12
  but there's a huge problem because can they be
• 50:15
  together? We have the issue of Helen. Helen is
• 50:18
  still, you can't see him, you can't write to
• 50:20
  him. Plus, there's the whole, again, dynamics
• 50:24
  of marrying your stepbrother, stepsister, which
• 50:29
  is very OC. Very Blake Lively and Penn, right?
• 50:37
  So we have a gossip girl. So we have this issue
• 50:43
  of do you want to date your stepbrother? Which
• 50:46
  is not an issue at all in the film. Nobody ever
• 50:51
  addresses this. No. And the parents don't say
• 50:54
  they shouldn't see each other because now they're
• 50:55
  kind of related. They don't say it at all. And
• 50:57
  they, of course, don't have sex until they are
• 51:01
  stepbrother and stepsister. Right. When they
• 51:03
  both go back to the new parental Frank Lloyd
• 51:05
  Wright home, that is when they first have sex.
• 51:08
  Right. So they have sex, and as much as they
• 51:11
  try not to, they give in to temptation. And Molly
• 51:18
  becomes pregnant. Shocker. Very first time. Very
• 51:21
  first time. Shocker. And they don't know what
• 51:26
  to do and they can't get married without some
• 51:30
  parental consent because they're underage. And
• 51:35
  they, for some reason that is unclear to me,
• 51:38
  don't think to ask the rather libertine parents
• 51:42
  to help them until the very end. They go to drunken
• 51:49
  Ken. They go, they try to get married on their
• 51:52
  own. When they are turned away. When they are
• 51:54
  turned away. And then finally, finally, after
• 51:57
  they're like living under a bridge and at the
• 52:01
  end of their rope, they go to, back to Sylvia
• 52:05
  and Ken. And are welcomed with open arms. They're
• 52:07
  like, oh great, they're gonna be a baby and you
• 52:11
  know, you'll love each other and let's all take
• 52:14
  care of each other. You're my grandmother times
• 52:15
  two. Anyway, you're my grandmother and my step
• 52:18
  -grandmother. Oh my god. Yeah, I just I spent
• 52:20
  too much time. It's like Chinatown, right? Well,
• 52:22
  it's not that bad. It's not that bad as Chinatown.
• 52:25
  All these references coming up. So in the end,
• 52:28
  we have two divorces, an illegitimate child.
• 52:33
  Step -brother and step -sister getting married.
• 52:35
  Who do get married? Who do get married. And then
• 52:37
  vacation in Maine. And vacation in Maine. And
• 52:39
  everybody's happy. It's a happy ending. It is
• 52:41
  a happy ending. Now, we have no idea what has
• 52:43
  happened to Helen. No. Right, no clue. What happens
• 52:46
  to Bart? He's still drinking. Bart's still in
• 52:47
  the Coast Guard. Or some kind of naval thing.
• 52:50
  Naval thing. He's wearing his uniform. But he's
• 52:52
  still like a drunk. He's a lush. It's not like
• 52:55
  he's sobered up. Well, he also got some kind
• 52:57
  of ulcer. So he may not be well. He probably
• 53:02
  has liver problems at this point. Yes, he probably
• 53:04
  does. But at the very end of this film, at least
• 53:07
  our young lovebirds are happy and they're going
• 53:11
  to go on their main vacay. And maybe they'll
• 53:15
  restore the fortunes of the inn. And everyone's
• 53:17
  rich! That's the other thing. And everyone is
• 53:19
  rich. Because we now have Rich Ken, right, who's
• 53:23
  going to support them. And yeah, they can restore
• 53:27
  the inn or they can just do whatever. Open a
• 53:30
  lobster shop. And everything's great. And they
• 53:33
  need to fire the night watchman who kept telling
• 53:35
  on them and stuff. For real. So get rid of him
• 53:37
  and find someone else who does have a main accent.
• 53:40
  So I think that what I kept thinking of in watching
• 53:44
  this film, in addition to thinking of Greece,
• 53:46
  which I did think of, of course, as you mentioned,
• 53:48
  but I kept thinking about... Peyton Place. Now
• 53:52
  we have not watched Peyton Place as part of the
• 53:55
  pod but I think I've told you I watched Peyton
• 53:58
  Place so many times as a kid. Yet another inappropriate
• 54:01
  film that my mother allowed me to watch. You
• 54:03
  were allowed to watch every day. Well she just
• 54:05
  wasn't paying attention and so that's the explanation
• 54:07
  for that. But of course in Peyton Place we do
• 54:10
  have like we have stepfather assaults and we
• 54:13
  have pregnancy and we have murder right all this
• 54:15
  very sort of soap opera stuff. And in some ways,
• 54:17
  A Summer Place seems downright restrained compared
• 54:20
  to Peyton Place. But of course, we do have, again,
• 54:23
  a 1959 movie that is so different in terms of
• 54:27
  its treatment of sexuality. It is, and apparently
• 54:30
  quite shocking at the time. Quite shocking at
• 54:32
  the time. And as I understand it, right, well,
• 54:35
  certainly Sandra Dee was still was a teenager
• 54:37
  when this was made. And this was the big selling
• 54:41
  point. And it's interesting to think of A Summer
• 54:43
  Place as a teen film. Yes. Right. But my understanding
• 54:46
  is that it was very much marketed that way. Right.
• 54:49
  Like she's a young teen star. Right. And you
• 54:51
  know, Troy Donahue, again, he's so appealing.
• 54:54
  And it's so it's interesting to think of it as
• 54:56
  something comparable to like, I don't know, the
• 54:57
  Breakfast Club or whatever. In turn, it's really
• 55:00
  about their I mean, it is about them, but it
• 55:02
  is equally about the parents. And in that way,
• 55:05
  again, going to the OC gossip girl model, which
• 55:09
  may be from a summer place where you have adults
• 55:13
  behaving badly as well as teenagers in states
• 55:17
  of questioning and romance and separation and
• 55:22
  coming back together. There is that model in
• 55:24
  a summer place. Yes. And I absolutely think that
• 55:28
  the older couples stories. It's like a million
• 55:31
  times more compelling. Yes. Than Sandra J. and
• 55:34
  Troy Dominic. Well, their story is, should they
• 55:36
  have sex or not? We love each other. Should we?
• 55:40
  Okay, we do. Now I'm pregnant. Yeah, pretty much.
• 55:43
  I mean, that's - And this whole, like, you know,
• 55:44
  kind of heavy petting, like, oh, Johnny, you
• 55:46
  know, this isn't right, you know, whatever, blah,
• 55:49
  blah, blah, blah. Yeah, no. They're a snooze
• 55:51
  fest. The adults are really, really interesting.
• 55:54
  and they're much more layered. And again, even
• 55:58
  bitch Ola Helen is interesting because she's
• 56:01
  somebody who is very frank about not being sexually
• 56:04
  satisfied, but also isn't going out to get any.
• 56:07
  And we don't know why she's coming from this
• 56:10
  perspective of not wanting to have any kind of
• 56:12
  sexual relationship with her husband. Your husband?
• 56:15
  Richard Egan looks hot. Incredible. He looks
• 56:18
  hot. You know, I actually looked it up. Richard
• 56:20
  Egan, seriously, is like 38 in that film. I'm
• 56:24
  not kidding, which is of course so hilarious.
• 56:27
  But anyway, so he looks amazing. I'm gonna say,
• 56:30
  I mean Sylvia, Dorothy McGuire, she looks incredible.
• 56:34
  I mean she looks very like 1950s healthy, but
• 56:36
  she looks beautiful. But she does look beautiful.
• 56:38
  She does look beautiful. So I think that it is,
• 56:40
  I mean it's, so we do have this whole, you know,
• 56:43
  not a lot of questioning should we have the affair,
• 56:46
  right? They go to it pretty quickly. But there
• 56:50
  is this struggle about divorce, which I think
• 56:53
  is fascinating, because as you mentioned before,
• 56:56
  when they are thinking how can we be together,
• 56:58
  the main question is custody of their children.
• 57:01
  Right. Right. Will Bart let me have my son? You
• 57:03
  know, will Helen let me have my daughter? And
• 57:06
  the idea that this is the practical issue, right?
• 57:10
  That they want to create this kind of family.
• 57:12
  Right. Right. But how, what will the reaction
• 57:14
  be of their spouses? And of course, Bart, Bart
• 57:16
  does say, even after he knows about the affair,
• 57:18
  he says to Sylvia, All is forgiven, but you just
• 57:21
  have to come back to me." And she's like, fuck
• 57:23
  that, basically. I'm never coming back to you.
• 57:25
  You're like blah. So it is, I mean, I do wonder,
• 57:30
  and of course your mom could tell us about this,
• 57:32
  I do wonder how is it, not just in terms of the
• 57:36
  sexuality, but the idea that we are presented
• 57:38
  with this frank conversation about divorce, about
• 57:41
  divorce and custody, and again, nobody's sorry
• 57:44
  for the affair. They're not apologizing for the
• 57:46
  affair, right? They're just like. And of course,
• 57:50
  very, very different than the women. Yes. We're
• 57:53
  going to go back to one of our earlier pods where
• 57:56
  divorce is a big deal. And this is again, well,
• 58:01
  we're having an affair. Now we're going to get
• 58:02
  a divorce. And so are you. And we're OK with
• 58:06
  that. And then what do you know? We got married.
• 58:08
  We got married. But of course, we do have. the
• 58:11
  explanation slash apology that they fell in love
• 58:15
  when they were teenagers right much like forever
• 58:18
  right and they are wrenched apart but not wrenched
• 58:21
  apart no he just wasn't rich enough he wasn't
• 58:23
  rich enough and so we have the sense that there's
• 58:25
  family pressure on silvia to let him go, et cetera,
• 58:29
  et cetera. And of course, we also have where
• 58:32
  he says, I vowed I would never come back until
• 58:34
  I was super rich. He gets super rich. And so
• 58:37
  we really do come back, as in so much of this
• 58:39
  other stuff, to that question of class, right?
• 58:42
  Not only that they're sort of flipped, but that
• 58:45
  as you mentioned before, everybody still remembers
• 58:48
  him. But they're like, you're the lifeguard,
• 58:51
  you're the lifeguard. And basically he's like,
• 58:53
  well, I'm a rich guy now. And so I think that
• 58:56
  that does, that tracks so interest. So we don't
• 58:59
  have, maybe before we move on a little bit, so
• 59:03
  in terms of Maine, right, we do have this kind
• 59:07
  of coastal, okay, coastal beauty, people from
• 59:11
  different classes, class conflict, but we don't
• 59:15
  have this sense that the Maine coast is like
• 59:20
  Rio. There are other beaches. It is not an exotic
• 59:24
  place. It is not an exotic place. It is a familiar
• 59:27
  place and a place where you can be enticed to
• 59:32
  do things that you might not normally do if not
• 59:36
  in Maine. Blame it on Maine. Blame it on Maine.
• 59:39
  But it's also of course that the water is so
• 59:41
  much colder. And the coast is so much rockier.
• 59:44
  And being topless in Maine isn't going to work.
• 59:48
  Even in southern Maine! Not to speak of down
• 59:51
  east or north of Maine. Okay, so let's see. What
• 59:55
  else did we think about for this week? I watched
• 59:58
  wet hot American summer. As did I. And so I have
• 1:00:03
  to ask, did that then evoke in you memories of
• 1:00:08
  your own going to camp experience? in Maine?
• 1:00:13
  No. It did not. Say more, Lauren. Say more. It
• 1:00:17
  did not. First of all, there are so many things
• 1:00:23
  about that movie that are wrong, that are flat
• 1:00:28
  out wrong. There are some things that are really
• 1:00:31
  funny, just ridiculously funny, but there are
• 1:00:34
  so many things that are just... wrong. Do you
• 1:00:37
  mean the people ending up with like children
• 1:00:39
  or like making out with children? I won't even
• 1:00:42
  go to the Molly Shannon place. But the idea that
• 1:00:46
  a bunch of Jewish losers are going to this summer
• 1:00:50
  camp in Maine was not my memory of my Jewish
• 1:00:56
  camp in Maine. And part of that is the issue
• 1:01:01
  of class, okay? Let's hear it. So if you are
• 1:01:05
  going to summer camp in Maine, or any of New
• 1:01:08
  England, because I only went to Tapu ago for
• 1:01:10
  one summer, and my other camp, Woodmere, was
• 1:01:13
  in upstate New York. But if you can afford to
• 1:01:15
  send your kid to camp in Maine for eight weeks,
• 1:01:18
  okay, which presumably these people have been
• 1:01:21
  there for that long, I was there for that long,
• 1:01:23
  you are not somebody who's kind of, Scraping
• 1:01:27
  by and I mean again the kind of affluence to
• 1:01:31
  go to camp in Maine was not represented in wet
• 1:01:35
  hot summer Okay, even in the 70s. They're not
• 1:01:40
  wearing uniforms as we did. Okay, they're like,
• 1:01:44
  I don't know just kind of rando counselors that
• 1:01:49
  are making out with each other that are not Supervising
• 1:01:53
  the kids haven't been trained Again, I understand
• 1:01:57
  that's part of the satire of it. Yeah, but they're
• 1:02:00
  all fuck -ups. The show is supposed to be a satire,
• 1:02:04
  but it rubbed me the wrong way. The best part
• 1:02:08
  of that movie was when they go into town and
• 1:02:11
  go to the crack den. Which I mentioned earlier.
• 1:02:15
  That is the best scene of a movie. The off day.
• 1:02:20
  Because that is really what we envisioned our
• 1:02:22
  counselors doing. Was like going to crack dens,
• 1:02:25
  right? Well, and of course in the film it's only
• 1:02:27
  supposed to take like a half hour. Right, that
• 1:02:28
  they're doing all of these things and it was
• 1:02:30
  like a half hour. That is the funniest part.
• 1:02:32
  The rest of that film I probably could have done
• 1:02:35
  without. And most of it I just was like, can
• 1:02:39
  we get through this? Can we fast forward through
• 1:02:41
  this? the David Hyde Pierce, like, I mean, just
• 1:02:44
  all of it. You didn't like it when he got tenure
• 1:02:47
  at the end. No, no, he didn't get tenure. Oh,
• 1:02:50
  that's true. He got the Nobel Prize and he got
• 1:02:53
  to work in like NASA or something. We don't even
• 1:02:56
  know if he got tenure. That's true. But I love
• 1:02:58
  that he was so absolutely sensitive about the
• 1:03:01
  fact that he was an associate professor. He was
• 1:03:03
  an associate professor. And but the rest of it
• 1:03:07
  just was really hard to take. And again, I like
• 1:03:12
  Friday the 13th, I mean, in terms of that genre
• 1:03:15
  and camp movies and meatballs, all of it. But
• 1:03:19
  this just was wrong on so many levels, although
• 1:03:23
  it really does just bring the question of Bradley
• 1:03:26
  Cooper's sexuality. Absolutely. I mean, you're
• 1:03:29
  just like, how are people not talking about this
• 1:03:33
  more? It's not like a Tom Cruise lowdown, down
• 1:03:36
  low situation, right? It's like... He's doing
• 1:03:40
  a lot of making out with Michael Ian Black. For
• 1:03:45
  people who haven't seen it, everybody is in this
• 1:03:49
  movie. Everybody. Everybody is in this movie.
• 1:03:52
  The entire class of SNL. Again, Jeanine Garofalo,
• 1:03:56
  as you said, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth
• 1:04:00
  Banks, basically everybody who's in The Last
• 1:04:03
  American Virgin, 40 -year -old Virgin. tons of
• 1:04:05
  people in it um and actually one thing that was
• 1:04:08
  coincidental is when i watched it uh i watched
• 1:04:11
  it on the same day again coincidentally that
• 1:04:14
  uh michael showalter his episode of sex in the
• 1:04:17
  city where he is billy the friend of brother
• 1:04:20
  who plays Coop in Wet Hot American Summer, and
• 1:04:25
  it was just a total coincidence. Sex and the
• 1:04:27
  City always come together. I knew there was a
• 1:04:30
  connect. And I was sort of like, that guy, it
• 1:04:33
  kind of looks like Adam Scott, but it's not Adam
• 1:04:37
  Scott. But it's not Adam Scott. Billy. When they
• 1:04:40
  go to bed. When they go to bed, and he tells
• 1:04:43
  the story of a post -it. And it was so funny,
• 1:04:46
  because I was like, oh my god, I just saw him.
• 1:04:49
  and so i think yeah the bradley cooper because
• 1:04:51
  bradley cooper looks great in this movie he does
• 1:04:53
  look great he looks great he always looks great
• 1:04:55
  he does always look great but from my from town,
• 1:04:59
  from Abingdon, Pennsylvania. So if we're going,
• 1:05:02
  you know, making some bridges here between the
• 1:05:05
  two towns. That's, yes, excellent point. Well,
• 1:05:08
  my understanding is that, what was it, whoever
• 1:05:10
  wrote it, it might've been Michael Showalter
• 1:05:12
  or someone else, whoever wrote it, actually had
• 1:05:14
  gone to a Jewish sleepover camp in Maine, and
• 1:05:17
  that it was based on his experiences. Well, I
• 1:05:19
  don't know when they went to, but. But it is
• 1:05:22
  very, but. combined with movies like Meatballs
• 1:05:24
  and Little Dogs and stuff, right? That sort of
• 1:05:26
  late 1970s, early 1980s. I will say I loved the
• 1:05:29
  soundtrack. Oh, The Lover Boy. I really enjoyed
• 1:05:32
  that. I thought that the, when Christopher Maloney
• 1:05:35
  starts talking to the can of vegetables, I get
• 1:05:38
  so... I just like, conquer. I just couldn't get
• 1:05:40
  on board with it. I think I was just, again,
• 1:05:43
  there was so much of it that I'm just like, this
• 1:05:45
  is a satire, but it was also made, you know,
• 1:05:49
  in the early aughts. And I'm just kind of like,
• 1:05:51
  this seems too late to make this satire. It just
• 1:05:55
  didn't have the same feeling for me as like,
• 1:05:58
  you know those satires of the... I know what
• 1:06:01
  you did last time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those were
• 1:06:03
  resonant or like the naked gun or like the naked
• 1:06:05
  gun, right? It doesn't feel like that to me.
• 1:06:07
  It feels like all over the place and some of
• 1:06:11
  the ideas are funny, but not really well executed.
• 1:06:16
  And again, even when Molly, when Molly Chen like
• 1:06:19
  hooks up with that kid, I mean, you just like,
• 1:06:22
  come on now. And then we have the other counselor
• 1:06:24
  who's making out with the other kid, which to
• 1:06:27
  me is like so dis - Disturbing so when when what
• 1:06:31
  the guy is like come back right to hook up with
• 1:06:33
  this girl and she's with one of the campers and
• 1:06:36
  not like a Teenage camper right like a kid who
• 1:06:39
  looks like 11 or 12 years old. Yeah, it's really
• 1:06:42
  really gross I really could have like done now
• 1:06:44
  the best part about that movie for me and for
• 1:06:47
  Jim by the way with the sheets In the in the
• 1:06:50
  in the on the box the rainbow sheets I missed
• 1:06:53
  the bedding the bedding is so on spot because
• 1:06:57
  that actual bedding was in all of our houses.
• 1:07:02
  Those comforters, those sheets, the decor of
• 1:07:07
  it really was spot on. And there are a lot of
• 1:07:11
  details like that that I think were great but
• 1:07:14
  sacrificed in terms of the larger... I don't
• 1:07:19
  know, script or the satire or just being funny.
• 1:07:25
  Again, a lot of it, like this scene with the
• 1:07:27
  sweater and the flannel. See, I actually thought
• 1:07:30
  that was funny. You know, because I realized
• 1:07:33
  I only laughed like maybe in the last like 20
• 1:07:36
  minutes of the film, half hour. But I actually
• 1:07:38
  I thought that was funny just because. Did you
• 1:07:40
  laugh at the guy from the Catskills? No, but
• 1:07:44
  I thought that but I thought that it was actually
• 1:07:46
  a good sort of meta joke. to have the joke being
• 1:07:50
  that they are laughing at the guy from the Catskills,
• 1:07:52
  right? So I thought I'd like, and that's Michael
• 1:07:54
  Showalter, the guy from the Catskills. Like he's
• 1:07:58
  playing that guy. So yeah. Yeah, I'm just like,
• 1:08:02
  you know, again, not funny to me. I mostly agree
• 1:08:06
  with you. I think my, I think the... The person
• 1:08:09
  who, to me, came out the best was actually Christopher
• 1:08:12
  Meloni, but only because it's so unusual to
• 1:08:15
  see him in a console. Yes, and in a crop top!
• 1:08:18
  And in a crop top! See, okay, I know why you
• 1:08:21
  didn't like it. You didn't like it because it
• 1:08:23
  made fun of training montages that end in a freeze
• 1:08:27
  frame with arms lifted. No, and actually, that
• 1:08:30
  part, I said, here's the connect, right? Here's
• 1:08:32
  the connect. next between our movies is that
• 1:08:34
  there's a training montage and then these two
• 1:08:37
  guys in crop tops and tiny little shorts and
• 1:08:41
  they're and they're bonding and I love that I
• 1:08:44
  love that part of it. I think again seeing Christopher
• 1:08:47
  Maloney in a crop top. It was reminding back
• 1:08:50
  to Sex and the City, a recent episode that I
• 1:08:53
  watched where Charlotte goes to a sex shop and
• 1:08:55
  is wearing a crop top. Okay, I do remember. You
• 1:08:58
  never see Charlotte in a crop top. And I sort
• 1:09:00
  of felt the same way when I saw Christopher Malone.
• 1:09:03
  Because I'm just so used to him in his like,
• 1:09:06
  SVU. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shirt and tie. Or like
• 1:09:08
  in Oz, or whatever. Yeah, those things. Looking
• 1:09:11
  hardcore. So I actually, I enjoyed that part
• 1:09:14
  of it. But I mean, it really does seem like a
• 1:09:17
  film that came together because a bunch of comics
• 1:09:20
  were getting really hammered, right? They're
• 1:09:22
  smoking dope. And they're just like, you know,
• 1:09:23
  let's do these little set pieces. And all of
• 1:09:26
  our friends will ask them to come in. But I mean,
• 1:09:28
  seriously, the worst part was the Molly Shannon
• 1:09:30
  part. I mean, just absolutely, I just... Really
• 1:09:33
  wish any, like when the kids start giving her
• 1:09:35
  a massage and I'm like, where is this going?
• 1:09:38
  But then when she actually like says we're getting
• 1:09:40
  married like next week, anyway. Everyone is okay
• 1:09:44
  with it. Everyone is okay with it. But you know,
• 1:09:47
  it was filmed in Pennsylvania. It was not even
• 1:09:50
  filmed. So set in Maine, filmed in Pennsylvania.
• 1:09:53
  And I wondered that because it does, when it
• 1:09:55
  shows Waterville, it very clearly is not. Waterville.
• 1:09:59
  And so I was curious about that. So this whole
• 1:10:02
  kooky idea of mine to do these hometown episodes
• 1:10:05
  worked out in the end. Yes. We just keep coming
• 1:10:09
  back, actually, to Pennsylvania. We do. We just
• 1:10:11
  keep coming back. And you know, why not? Fair
• 1:10:14
  point. Fair point. So I will say one thing in
• 1:10:18
  terms of the main kind of motif about Wet Hot
• 1:10:22
  American Summer. Not so much in terms of class,
• 1:10:25
  although it is related to class. And that is
• 1:10:28
  something that certainly always drove and probably
• 1:10:32
  still does drive Maine people crazy, right? Is
• 1:10:35
  the idea that for so many people, it is simply
• 1:10:39
  a rentable place for the site. Right. And obviously
• 1:10:42
  we touch upon this a little bit in the summer
• 1:10:44
  place, but they're sort of skewed because the
• 1:10:46
  rich guy coming back is native, right? He's not
• 1:10:48
  from away. He's native, right? But of course,
• 1:10:51
  to see that in wet hot American summer, right?
• 1:10:54
  Or a bunch of other things where the idea is
• 1:10:57
  like, This is a place where like we go to in
• 1:11:00
  the summer, you know, we send our shoes in the
• 1:11:02
  summer. Yes. And we have, but we have no investment
• 1:11:05
  in it. Right. Right. And there's, you never see,
• 1:11:07
  of course, anybody really, except maybe the crack
• 1:11:10
  house. You don't see anyone from Maine, right?
• 1:11:12
  In Wet Hot American Summer. Right. And so that
• 1:11:14
  also, of course. That speaks a profound truth
• 1:11:18
  about the state of Maine. That it is simply a
• 1:11:21
  playground. And as somebody from the Jersey Shore,
• 1:11:26
  I can relate to that. um yes yes and i certainly
• 1:11:31
  you know i've forgiven you for the fact that
• 1:11:32
  you went to camp there but i will say one of
• 1:11:35
  our one of our colleagues so i hope is not listening
• 1:11:37
  one of our colleagues suggested to me that um
• 1:11:40
  he might retire to the state of Maine and i i gave
• 1:11:43
  him some some advice about stuff and i did not
• 1:11:45
  say which of course any Maine native is tempted
• 1:11:48
  to say which is that we don't want you there
• 1:11:50
  right we don't want you there If you are not
• 1:11:53
  already a native of Maine, I'm sorry, but you
• 1:11:56
  can't come in. It's sort of like Judaism. It's
• 1:11:57
  sort of like Judaism. Exactly! You have to knock
• 1:12:00
  on the door three times. And we still may not
• 1:12:03
  want you. And you still may not, as I just saw
• 1:12:04
  with Charlotte again, since I just re -watched
• 1:12:06
  that arc. But you don't have a ritual bath. You
• 1:12:09
  don't have the mikveh in the state of Maine.
• 1:12:13
  You're gonna eat the sandwich! You eat the sandwich,
• 1:12:18
  and then you actually go swimming in the freezing
• 1:12:21
  cold Atlantic And then you watch like four Stephen
• 1:12:23
  King movies and take a test on them or something.
• 1:12:26
  You emerge again, a native of Maine. No, I'm
• 1:12:31
  kidding. Anyone who's listening who wants to
• 1:12:32
  actually do that. But yes, that's your make up.
• 1:12:34
  All right. Okay. So are we going to have any,
• 1:12:36
  this is actually a week where we probably should
• 1:12:38
  have book recommendations. Okay. I do actually.
• 1:12:39
  I have a book recommendation and it in some ways
• 1:12:43
  hearkens back to your ideas about pure. And my
• 1:12:46
  book is Devil in the Shape of a Woman, Witchcraft
• 1:12:49
  in Colonial New England, which is all about the
• 1:12:54
  study of, of course, witches, witchcraft, the
• 1:12:57
  Salem witch trials, but goes beyond the Salem
• 1:12:59
  witch trials. It's not Maine, but it is New England,
• 1:13:03
  or Colonial New England. It is authored by Carol
• 1:13:07
  Carlson. will post it in the show notes, but
• 1:13:11
  it really talks about gender and mysticism and
• 1:13:15
  spirituality and non -normativity and all kinds
• 1:13:19
  of things relating to witchcraft. And it's one
• 1:13:22
  of the better books on the Salem witch trials,
• 1:13:26
  but written large ideas about women in New England
• 1:13:29
  as... witches, which we could think of Carrie
• 1:13:32
  as absolutely one of the women burned at the
• 1:13:36
  stake. Yes. Very literally. Very literally. So
• 1:13:40
  that is my suggestion for the week. Well, that
• 1:13:42
  sounds great. And I will, of course, also point
• 1:13:43
  out that at the time of the Salem witch trials,
• 1:13:46
  there was no state of Maine because the territory
• 1:13:48
  was still part of Massachusetts until 1820. So
• 1:13:51
  it technically is a Maine book. Technically,
• 1:13:54
  even though Salem was not in Maine territory,
• 1:13:56
  but technically. Well, mine is actually going
• 1:13:59
  to be the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millet.
• 1:14:03
  Unlike Stephen King, a writer from the state
• 1:14:07
  of Maine who lived in a very different time,
• 1:14:11
  a poet chiefly famous in the 1920s. She was a
• 1:14:14
  celebrity very much as kind of the quote unquote
• 1:14:15
  girl poet after she had won a major prize after
• 1:14:19
  graduating from Vassar. She was a seven sisters
• 1:14:22
  girl, just like you. And the poems, a lot of
• 1:14:25
  them do reflect Maine. reflect, I mean, main
• 1:14:29
  geographically, but they also reflect very much
• 1:14:31
  a kind of main ethos filtered through her very
• 1:14:35
  sort of independent style. and some really, really
• 1:14:39
  wonderful poems. So that's what I will be putting
• 1:14:41
  in our show notes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Excellent.
• 1:14:43
  This is a lot of Maine. I feel like we've really
• 1:14:47
  raked it through. And we have the Emmys on Sunday
• 1:14:52
  night. So excited. So hopefully we will have
• 1:14:54
  some comments about that in our next show. Until
• 1:14:58
  then. Until then.