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The Yukio Mishima Story, Part One: Confessions of a Mask · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
0:33
Speaker 1: the myth legend, our super producer, Mr Max Williams, whoa
0:38
Speaker 1: Max is the Best. They call me ben joined as
0:42
Speaker 1: always with my rider Die nol No. This one has
0:46
Speaker 1: been a long time in the making, my friend. Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry for my lackluster Max is the Best
0:53
Speaker 1: because you know, usually obviously I do my little like
0:55
Speaker 1: you know, crowd noise and worshipful of Max because that
0:59
Speaker 1: is what he is do. But today we're kind of
1:02
Speaker 1: talking about someone that sort of stepped out, uh, to
1:05
Speaker 1: to meet what they thought were their public um, the people,
1:10
Speaker 1: to to to greet them and present them with the
1:12
Speaker 1: brave new world, a new way of doing things, and
1:15
Speaker 1: were met with sad trombones. Uh that they're that elicited
1:19
Speaker 1: about the most sad trombone reaction one could possibly um
1:23
Speaker 1: react with, which is committing ritual suicide. Uh pretty heavy spoiler. Yeah,
1:29
Speaker 1: well you know, I mean, I mean, let's just a
1:31
Speaker 1: little bit of a trigger warning because it is. Yeah,
1:35
Speaker 1: this episode is it is. It's got some uh bombast,
1:39
Speaker 1: it's got some iconoclastic kind of behavior, it's got literature,
1:43
Speaker 1: it's got culture of the Japanese variety, and it really
1:47
Speaker 1: also is an interesting story of kind of East meets
1:49
Speaker 1: West in terms of a Japanese you know, writer who
1:53
Speaker 1: really did kind of make a name for themselves in
1:55
Speaker 1: the United States. We are of course talking about the
1:58
Speaker 1: bizarre final year is of Yukio Mishima. Yeah, I see
2:03
Speaker 1: this as um. I see this as a telling illustration,
2:09
Speaker 1: a telling example of how different your favorite artists lives,
2:15
Speaker 1: maybe than what you initially perceive. You might have a
2:18
Speaker 1: favorite musician who all of a sudden, apparently out of
2:22
Speaker 1: the blue, comes comes with some political stance that really
2:25
Speaker 1: surprises you, or a sculptor perhaps, or as in this case,
2:29
Speaker 1: and author. So we are not diving into this alone.
2:33
Speaker 1: This is a two part episode. This is our whole week.
2:36
Speaker 1: It's Mishama Week. Here at Ridiculous Historians and Folks, we
2:41
Speaker 1: are joined for the first time on air with one
2:45
Speaker 1: half of our brand new research associate team. Let's hear
2:48
Speaker 1: it for the one and only Mr Zach Williams. No
2:57
Speaker 1: relations Hi, everybody, keep for having me. It's a it's
3:01
Speaker 1: doctor Zach Williams. As a matter of fact, I'm kidding.
3:04
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. Don't please, don't do that. I'm joking. You
3:07
Speaker 1: did parody parody. One night over sleep down, a doctor appeared,
3:14
Speaker 1: but this was no normal doctor. Who's there? It's Zack
3:20
Speaker 1: Zach who the doctor named Zach. And he's here to
3:28
Speaker 1: bill your scraps just for Colledge. Pett is a cat
3:34
Speaker 1: teaching history books and stuff. Let's go with other things. Yeah,
3:43
Speaker 1: that'll work, Zack. Do you really think you're gonna get
3:50
Speaker 1: out of this now? You? You big leaguus in this way, Doc,
3:56
Speaker 1: doctor Zach. I like doctor Zach because it sounds like
3:58
Speaker 1: both kind of formal and informal. Because Zach I've always
4:02
Speaker 1: just thought as a real fun love and kind of
4:04
Speaker 1: name because I think of Zach Morris from Saved by
4:07
Speaker 1: the Bell. I'm sure you don't love that comparison, but
4:09
Speaker 1: it is what it is. We're we're glad, We're glad
4:11
Speaker 1: to have you, Zach. And this is a this is
4:13
Speaker 1: a topic that is near and dear to your heart
4:15
Speaker 1: and to a mutual friend of ours, a friend of
4:18
Speaker 1: the show, Peyton Fisher, who turned me onto the film.
4:21
Speaker 1: Uh Mishima many many many years ago. Um, how did
4:24
Speaker 1: you kind of come to appreciate and and even know
4:28
Speaker 1: about this very kind of divisive figure. Well, I've always
4:32
Speaker 1: been attracted to iconoclasm generally speaking. And uh, at the
4:36
Speaker 1: time that I first encountered mishmast fiction, I was in
4:39
Speaker 1: a creative writing program and undergrad I was trying to
4:42
Speaker 1: be a poet and a fiction writer and just seeking
4:45
Speaker 1: out things of a sort of like late modernist postmodernist
4:48
Speaker 1: spent which is sort of like my wheelhouse at the time.
4:50
Speaker 1: And I'd always had a sort of like affinity for
4:53
Speaker 1: for for Japanese aesthetics and culture. And I read his
4:56
Speaker 1: book The Sound of Waves, which I thought was like
4:58
Speaker 1: a very standard kind of coming of age story that
5:01
Speaker 1: kind of celebrated this very traditional idea of masculinity and
5:05
Speaker 1: sort of like being a man working hard to get
5:08
Speaker 1: what it is that you wanted despite your poverty or
5:10
Speaker 1: something like that. It's a very bootstraps Romeo and Juliette
5:13
Speaker 1: style story. But one of the things that really struck
5:16
Speaker 1: me was one of the characters in that book, whose
5:18
Speaker 1: name escapes me now because it's been so long since
5:20
Speaker 1: I read it, but she's in love with this uh.
5:21
Speaker 1: This lead character Shinji, and has gone to university, comes
5:25
Speaker 1: back find that he's in love with Um, the daughter
5:29
Speaker 1: of of like a shipping baron um named hut Sue,
5:32
Speaker 1: and basically contrives to break up their relationship by spreading
5:37
Speaker 1: rumors about her um ill repute will say, her sort
5:41
Speaker 1: of promiscuity. And one of the things that's so interesting
5:44
Speaker 1: about that book is that it really comes alive in
5:46
Speaker 1: the sections where you're kind of stewing alone with this
5:49
Speaker 1: character kind of thinking about her motivations and her kind
5:52
Speaker 1: of guilt and shame over having come between these two people,
5:55
Speaker 1: And there's this really interesting sort of psychological kind of
5:59
Speaker 1: depth to those moments that isn't quite present in the
6:03
Speaker 1: plot of the rest of the book. I was like, well,
6:05
Speaker 1: it's very interesting kind of approach to this character, this
6:08
Speaker 1: idea of like you could have contempt for somebody while
6:10
Speaker 1: also having some sort of empathy. It's empathy, but also
6:14
Speaker 1: you know, you're relating to them in a really in
6:17
Speaker 1: a real way. Because we we can all be spiteful,
6:20
Speaker 1: kind of backbiting, conniving people when we're not getting the
6:23
Speaker 1: things that we want. We feel like we've been denied
6:25
Speaker 1: of something. So I thought, Wow, that's actually a really
6:27
Speaker 1: lovely sort of section of the book. And then I
6:29
Speaker 1: saw the film Mishima Life in Four Chapters, because I'd
6:32
Speaker 1: read the book cold and found all of this stuff
6:34
Speaker 1: about this fellow, all of these contradictions a true postmodern figure,
6:39
Speaker 1: if you could ever think of one, because so much
6:41
Speaker 1: of his life is shrouded in like this sort of
6:44
Speaker 1: public persona, this performance, but also the ambiguities of his
6:47
Speaker 1: private life, the ambiguities of his political affiliations in ideology,
6:51
Speaker 1: whether or not those things we're actually like serious kind
6:55
Speaker 1: of pursuits or or just another part of the window dressing.
6:58
Speaker 1: And I always find that sort of thing very, very fascinating,
7:01
Speaker 1: like somebody who turns their life into a sort of
7:03
Speaker 1: theater and object of art, and in many cases much
7:06
Speaker 1: to their own detriment, which is definitely kind of like
7:09
Speaker 1: the cautionary tale of this story. I think, yeah, agreed,
7:12
Speaker 1: And if we and also when we look at the
7:15
Speaker 1: life of someone who is uh universally considered to be
7:20
Speaker 1: one of the most important writers in Japan during this
7:23
Speaker 1: time period, we see that he lives through some crazy
7:30
Speaker 1: events in history, I think we're right to have that
7:34
Speaker 1: disclaimer trigger warning here. But there's a lot that goes
7:37
Speaker 1: into that final act. Uh. Like many many authors then
7:42
Speaker 1: and now, this guy takes a pen name the Mishima
7:47
Speaker 1: Yulkyo we know now was not born Mishima Yukio. Correct. Yeah,
7:53
Speaker 1: he was born a Hiraka Kimitake. And one of the
7:56
Speaker 1: funny things about any sort of encounter with Japanese literature,
7:59
Speaker 1: you end up with his um, especially early translations in
8:02
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. There's always this weird orientalism to it
8:06
Speaker 1: um And at one of the front notes, the author
8:09
Speaker 1: bio in a fairly recent vintage edition of The Sea
8:13
Speaker 1: of Fertility Books lists of this like a like a
8:16
Speaker 1: sort of like a son of a samurai family. Everyone's
8:20
Speaker 1: very quick to kind of play up these associations between
8:23
Speaker 1: like the old samurai and the sort of this sort
8:26
Speaker 1: of modernist writer and things like that. Of course, a
8:28
Speaker 1: lot of that comes from the turn in his politics
8:30
Speaker 1: near the end of his life, but it's a very
8:33
Speaker 1: interesting kind of thing to see him having sort of
8:36
Speaker 1: come out from under this um. It's sort of like
8:39
Speaker 1: old money um. They were vassals of the Maiata clan,
8:43
Speaker 1: for instance, in the northwestern regions of Japan, and naturally
8:47
Speaker 1: his family very impressive, comes from this incredibly impressive background,
8:51
Speaker 1: and you have this young man who, ostensibly, in his
8:54
Speaker 1: younger years as a child, very quiet, subdued, isolated, not
8:59
Speaker 1: part securely impressive by any means, um sort of frail
9:03
Speaker 1: and constitution and asthmatic um, definitely not the picture of
9:06
Speaker 1: masculinity that you would expect from like you know, the
9:09
Speaker 1: vassals of old samurai, you know, sort of families and
9:13
Speaker 1: things of that nature. So it's a very interesting kind
9:17
Speaker 1: of thing to sort of see him make a new
9:19
Speaker 1: version of himself from out of his failures to embody
9:22
Speaker 1: these um, these very kind of auspicious beginnings. And I
9:27
Speaker 1: think too it's also a very kind of apt metaphor
9:30
Speaker 1: for the transitional period that Japan would find itself in
9:33
Speaker 1: later on, in the forties and fifties and in the sixties,
9:36
Speaker 1: where things become very very fraught. Indeed, and uh, it's
9:39
Speaker 1: always something that I find myself drawn to, is uh.
9:42
Speaker 1: This sort of failure. Failure is a theme not only
9:46
Speaker 1: in literary production, but also in like the production of
9:48
Speaker 1: the stuff of life and sort of like making one's
9:51
Speaker 1: own self and identity also Japan on me, I've always
9:54
Speaker 1: been fascinated by their sort of mix of you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: such you know, steeped tradition in and like this kind
10:01
Speaker 1: of like almost you know, um surf and vassal kind
10:04
Speaker 1: of you know, militarized highly almost like medieval kind of structure.
10:09
Speaker 1: And then you know, after the bomb is dropped and
10:12
Speaker 1: all of that, then they have to kind of reimagine
10:14
Speaker 1: themselves culturally in this almost like kind of futurist kind
10:18
Speaker 1: of mode. Uh. And so it really is this very
10:21
Speaker 1: fascinating mix that I think creates some really incredible culture,
10:24
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, literature or on anime or technology
10:28
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. It is a culture that
10:30
Speaker 1: literally has had to reinvent itself. But then of course
10:33
Speaker 1: there are always echoes of of the past as well.
10:36
Speaker 1: So I think you know, Mishima kind of like embodies
10:38
Speaker 1: that to a degree as well, in terms of kind
10:40
Speaker 1: of being this modern figure but also being this kind
10:44
Speaker 1: of like person that came from those those ancient traditions. No. Absolutely,
10:48
Speaker 1: And it's worth noting too that before all of this
10:51
Speaker 1: um this business with you know, the suicide, the sort
10:55
Speaker 1: of stage coup data which we'll get too later. UM
10:59
Speaker 1: a very cosmo allaton Um polly math like he was.
11:03
Speaker 1: He was a lyricist and singer and actor, a poet,
11:06
Speaker 1: a novelist, short story writer. UM, a theater director and writer.
11:10
Speaker 1: He had his own theater groups. He was all over
11:13
Speaker 1: the place. I can't imagine um a more prolific figure
11:17
Speaker 1: from that time. And you know, naturally nowadays people have
11:21
Speaker 1: hard time finding even time to read much less. Right.
11:24
Speaker 1: You know, I've succumbed to the pressures of work, and
11:27
Speaker 1: I barely myself right anymore. This man produced upwards of
11:30
Speaker 1: thirty plus novels over the course of his career, poems, plays,
11:34
Speaker 1: critical essays as well, Yes, very importantly critical essays. Yes,
11:39
Speaker 1: one of the most obvious kind of I guess doorways
11:42
Speaker 1: into his ideology and his thinking comes from his long
11:45
Speaker 1: form essay Son and Steel, which the read the listeners
11:49
Speaker 1: can't see it. But if you look at the cover
11:51
Speaker 1: of this book, and this is a Japanese modern writer's addition,
11:54
Speaker 1: it's an English translation from a Japanese print by Kodansha Um.
11:58
Speaker 1: He is shown Uh in traditional uh Samurai underclothes, clutching
12:03
Speaker 1: a katana which he is pulling from the scabbard absolutely yoked,
12:07
Speaker 1: which is like another thing we'll talk about later. Right now,
12:10
Speaker 1: this this I love that you're showing us to cover here,
12:14
Speaker 1: and folks, uh, do check it out on your browser
12:18
Speaker 1: choice you get a sense of this this Um I've
12:21
Speaker 1: always thought that humans are the stories they tell themselves,
12:24
Speaker 1: for good or for ill. Right, you're building your own mythology.
12:27
Speaker 1: And this cover photograph stands and start contrast to Mishama's
12:34
Speaker 1: early childhood. So we said he's born January four, Zach.
12:47
Speaker 1: In some of your research, you introduce us to his grandmother,
12:53
Speaker 1: and he starts out kind of sheltered under a little
12:58
Speaker 1: bit of an authoritarian regime. I was I was startled
13:01
Speaker 1: to learn that the grandmother takes him in because she
13:07
Speaker 1: says he can't live with his parents. Uh, it's the
13:11
Speaker 1: situation is too dangerous, based apparently on the fact that
13:15
Speaker 1: the home as a second floor. Yes, it's all very
13:19
Speaker 1: um strange stuff and that sheltering that sort of like
13:21
Speaker 1: comes down a lot to like a sort of physical constitution. Like. Um,
13:26
Speaker 1: it's just it's it's very very interesting when you kind
13:29
Speaker 1: of dig into this sort of like cloistered environment that
13:32
Speaker 1: he comes out in. Um. He is socialized almost only
13:36
Speaker 1: with with with girls. He is kept in her sort
13:39
Speaker 1: of drawing room, surrounded by the sort of objects since
13:43
Speaker 1: the aesthetics of femininity and things like that. It's very
13:47
Speaker 1: very interesting sort of how much this kind of the
13:50
Speaker 1: room itself is a kind of metaphor for psychology, kind
13:54
Speaker 1: of like looking inward, constructing a sense of self. And
13:56
Speaker 1: I'm by no means like a psychologist or even like
13:59
Speaker 1: a Mishima X spurt, Like I don't want to sort
14:01
Speaker 1: of prop myself up as such, but you know, it's
14:03
Speaker 1: it's pretty common knowledge that our experiences and you definitely
14:06
Speaker 1: sort of like barn to who we become as adults.
14:09
Speaker 1: And it seems to me that this is sort of
14:11
Speaker 1: the beginning of all of that. And I think also
14:13
Speaker 1: like those ties to the sort of old Japan which
14:16
Speaker 1: his grandmother represented and held onto a deeply classist woman,
14:19
Speaker 1: for instance, would not take him to the theater because
14:21
Speaker 1: they'd be rubbing like elbows with the rabble and things
14:24
Speaker 1: like that. So without past times, without a sort of
14:28
Speaker 1: means of socialization that most people would find conventional, he
14:32
Speaker 1: instead turns to these interior flights of fancy sort of
14:36
Speaker 1: the poetry, the writing um. And if I may read
14:39
Speaker 1: from the opening of A Son and Steel for just
14:41
Speaker 1: a moment, just to get his own sort of um,
14:44
Speaker 1: please do two cents on it. Max, Let's get some music.
14:51
Speaker 1: So this is on page eight of Sun and Steel.
14:54
Speaker 1: When I examined closely my early childhood, I realized that
14:57
Speaker 1: my memory of words reaches back farther than the memory
14:59
Speaker 1: of the lush and the average person. I imagine the
15:02
Speaker 1: body precedes language. In my case, words came first of all. Then, belatedly,
15:09
Speaker 1: with every appearance of extreme reluctance and already clothed in concepts,
15:12
Speaker 1: came the flesh. It was already as goes without saying,
15:15
Speaker 1: sadly wasted by words. First comes the pillar of plain wood,
15:20
Speaker 1: then the white ants that feed on it. But for me,
15:23
Speaker 1: the white ants were there from the start, and the
15:24
Speaker 1: pillar of plaine would emerge tardily, already half eaten away.
15:30
Speaker 1: And it's sort of obviously lovely sort of metaphorical passage there,
15:35
Speaker 1: but also indicative of like an intense neurosis and anxiety
15:40
Speaker 1: surrounding this tension between being a man, specifically a man
15:46
Speaker 1: of action and a man of letters, which is a
15:49
Speaker 1: tension that comes up over and over and over again. So,
15:52
Speaker 1: I mean, the grandmother was concerned about him living with
15:55
Speaker 1: his parents because she thought he was too soft basically,
15:58
Speaker 1: and they were gonna like break him, right, and so
16:01
Speaker 1: she wanted to kind of handle him with a little
16:03
Speaker 1: bit more not kids gloves exactly, but you know, put
16:06
Speaker 1: him down a path that maybe more suited his constitution,
16:08
Speaker 1: which was a little more feminine and a little bit
16:11
Speaker 1: less you know of that kind of warrior class mentality
16:14
Speaker 1: kind of right. And then you know, when she passes away,
16:17
Speaker 1: he is returned to his parents, and all of the
16:21
Speaker 1: progress that she has made they essentially attempt to undo
16:25
Speaker 1: before his very eyes. Right. Absolutely, As father is um
16:30
Speaker 1: obviously a very intense figure in his life, as with
16:33
Speaker 1: many people, UM, but it was not particularly enamored with
16:41
Speaker 1: his son's personality proclivities talents. Uh. And I used the
16:45
Speaker 1: word talents because these talents emerge like very early, um,
16:49
Speaker 1: especially with regards to poetry twelve, when he when he's
16:53
Speaker 1: when he's transferred back to live with his birth parents,
16:56
Speaker 1: grandmother's yeah, and he's you know, he's already kind of
17:00
Speaker 1: laying in that sandbox that that so many people who
17:03
Speaker 1: who don't have that kind of physical acumen find themselves,
17:06
Speaker 1: you know, like the aesthetics, the arts literature, you know,
17:09
Speaker 1: like and those things. But oh absolutely yeah. Um. And
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, and eventually we all go through the phase
17:16
Speaker 1: where we start lifting a lot of weights, you know,
17:17
Speaker 1: and uh and I love it. Yeah, we all want
17:20
Speaker 1: to become people of action to some degree. Even later,
17:24
Speaker 1: when he you know, finds some success, his father still
17:28
Speaker 1: is like, nah, man, this isn't this isn't a real thing.
17:32
Speaker 1: And I don't care what quote unquote level of success
17:35
Speaker 1: and admiration you have achieved. What you're doing is you know,
17:40
Speaker 1: worthless essentially, you know. I mean this is like a
17:42
Speaker 1: classic overbearing, mean spirited kind of disciplinary and parent attitude
17:48
Speaker 1: when a kid goes away, that that that branches off
17:51
Speaker 1: from the path of the parent expects that even when
17:53
Speaker 1: they see that you succeeded, they still can't give you
17:56
Speaker 1: that praise and um kind of you know pat on
17:59
Speaker 1: the back that that you probably need. Incredibly passive aggressive
18:04
Speaker 1: as well. Um. And when when Misha was like fifteen
18:07
Speaker 1: or sixteen, he writes them a letter, he doesn't just
18:10
Speaker 1: sort of come out right at dinner, you know, he says,
18:13
Speaker 1: I hear that some high and mighty writers speak of
18:14
Speaker 1: you as a genius or precocious, or some kind of
18:17
Speaker 1: devia it or just unpleasant. I think it is high
18:19
Speaker 1: time you took stock of yourself. And this is like
18:21
Speaker 1: a letter I wrote you, and I wrote you a note,
18:25
Speaker 1: and I just want you to take that into consideration,
18:27
Speaker 1: which has to be one of those things, just like,
18:29
Speaker 1: come on, man, we could have had a conversation about
18:31
Speaker 1: this over tie or something. Whenever I need to pick
18:34
Speaker 1: up from either Ban or Nolan something, I write it
18:36
Speaker 1: as a letter and millet to them. It's usually really
18:40
Speaker 1: passive aggressive. It's nice to uh. It's nice to get
18:43
Speaker 1: mail that is in junk mail or a bill though,
18:45
Speaker 1: so keep it up, Max. One thing I think will
18:47
Speaker 1: be helpful for all our ridiculous historians looking for maybe
18:52
Speaker 1: a more modern analog. Sadly a lot of people have
18:55
Speaker 1: a tension with their parents. But a more modern analog
18:58
Speaker 1: of this sort of Persona and Japan would be the
19:01
Speaker 1: so called carnivores. Right. This is a term uh. It's
19:05
Speaker 1: a social term for uh, like the meat eaters, the
19:09
Speaker 1: guys who have steak right, the salary men who um
19:12
Speaker 1: who keep their keep their house, tightly regimented, keep their
19:17
Speaker 1: spouse in quote unquote their place, and they have these
19:21
Speaker 1: concrete expectations that are pretty pretty carved out in stone
19:28
Speaker 1: before the kids born, like what your role is supposed
19:30
Speaker 1: to be, what you're supposed to do and win. And
19:34
Speaker 1: so to Mishima's father, this is and at like almost
19:40
Speaker 1: absolute waste of twelve years. There's other stuff he should
19:43
Speaker 1: have learned. And yes he is writing him these honestly,
19:49
Speaker 1: like these emotionally abuse of letters, let's be honest. But
19:52
Speaker 1: he also is doubling down, right, Zach. He is doing
19:56
Speaker 1: crazy stuff to sort of man up the boy. You know, like,
20:01
Speaker 1: uh what what There's this scene where he's holding in
20:04
Speaker 1: close to speeding trains, right, That's that's a real thing,
20:09
Speaker 1: and that's something that you know, you can say you're
20:12
Speaker 1: a tough love parent or authority figure all the livelong day,
20:17
Speaker 1: but when you get that close to throwing your kid
20:20
Speaker 1: into train, I think that's the time for the father
20:23
Speaker 1: to take stock of himself. That seems a little deviant
20:26
Speaker 1: to me, absolutely, And so much of that relationship, you know,
20:31
Speaker 1: has to do with these very classical ideas of masculinity
20:34
Speaker 1: that you know, you're talking about the carnivores, the stuff
20:36
Speaker 1: of her lip, right, the sort of social like the
20:39
Speaker 1: emotional kind of negation and things like that. It's a
20:43
Speaker 1: very kind of I think it's a common archetype across cultures,
20:47
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of authoritarian, stiff upper lip father.
20:50
Speaker 1: But it's also worth noting that these sorts of personalities
20:54
Speaker 1: also kind of they mask and insecurity and of itself.
20:58
Speaker 1: And you know, um aside in Japan, the rates generally speaking,
21:02
Speaker 1: like salary men very very high, um as far as
21:05
Speaker 1: like people who commit suicide because that lifestyle, however, it
21:09
Speaker 1: brings productivity, However, it's sort of reproduces certain home styles
21:15
Speaker 1: and certain economic incentives and things like that, it's still
21:19
Speaker 1: personally very corrosive, difficult to maintain. Well, I mean it's unrealistic. Yeah,
21:24
Speaker 1: it's such a it's such an ideal. And I started
21:27
Speaker 1: watching this show um Industry, which is about like, you know,
21:30
Speaker 1: kind of young people coming up in the stock you
21:33
Speaker 1: know market in London, and um no spoilers, but there's
21:36
Speaker 1: something that, you know, really horrible that happens to a
21:39
Speaker 1: character because they just can't keep up the dance, like
21:43
Speaker 1: they're they're so worried about letting down you know, their
21:46
Speaker 1: mentor or or letting down their parents or whatever it
21:49
Speaker 1: might be, that they're putting themselves in psychological harm's way,
21:53
Speaker 1: you know, like every single day. And there's some people
21:55
Speaker 1: that can deal with it better than others, and maybe
21:57
Speaker 1: some people that kind of deal with it through drug
21:59
Speaker 1: abuse us sir alcoholism or whatever it might be, or
22:02
Speaker 1: just becoming completely hardened and sociopathic. And I think that's
22:06
Speaker 1: sort of the culture that creates those kind of figures.
22:11
Speaker 1: You know, when you have this very regimented society, you
22:14
Speaker 1: you either end up with people that are like mentally
22:16
Speaker 1: unwell or that just harden themselves so much they just
22:19
Speaker 1: become kind of, you know, not good people. Yeah, but
22:23
Speaker 1: regimented society is inherently an exclusionary society, absolutely, And that's
22:31
Speaker 1: sort of I don't want to get too into the
22:33
Speaker 1: weeds about this sort of thing, but um, I mean
22:36
Speaker 1: it is a sort of type of social Darwinism, uh
22:40
Speaker 1: and something that you know, capital requires something that empire,
22:44
Speaker 1: specifically in the context of Japan in this case requires
22:47
Speaker 1: you know, because at this point, Japan, before the end
22:51
Speaker 1: of World War two, is still an imperial power. Um,
22:54
Speaker 1: there's the sort of patriarchal figure is very, very much
22:58
Speaker 1: at the center of things, because at the point, you know,
23:00
Speaker 1: the emperor is not only the head of state, but
23:03
Speaker 1: a spiritual figure, if only in a sort of pageant
23:06
Speaker 1: and ritual um. A lot of people like to say,
23:09
Speaker 1: you know, the Japanese literally believed that hiro Hido was
23:11
Speaker 1: the incarnation of of God um or something along those lines.
23:15
Speaker 1: Would really like, that's mostly a sort of pageant, but
23:18
Speaker 1: still something that's so necessary to the structure. And one
23:22
Speaker 1: of the things I will say again, I want to
23:23
Speaker 1: reiterate this is not unique to Japan. I'm not engaging
23:26
Speaker 1: in an orientalism. This was the same type of mindset
23:28
Speaker 1: that led to fascism in Italy. Mussolini is a father figure.
23:32
Speaker 1: It will do say it's definitely something that seems to
23:36
Speaker 1: be at the center of nearly all patriarchal society. And
23:41
Speaker 1: it's difficult to make heads or tails of these sorts
23:43
Speaker 1: of things because so much of the world has changed
23:45
Speaker 1: over the course of the last fifty some odd years
23:48
Speaker 1: with regards to our relationship and our skepticism to those
23:51
Speaker 1: ways of living, those types of ideologies, and you get
23:55
Speaker 1: the impression that Mishima is such um a conflicted figure
23:58
Speaker 1: because he also has a it of that ingrained skepticism
24:01
Speaker 1: and his himself. So many of those characters not only
24:05
Speaker 1: are beneficiaries but also people who succumb to these types
24:09
Speaker 1: of systems and ideals. Can I ask really quickly, you know,
24:13
Speaker 1: since obviously he's returned back to his parents. His father
24:16
Speaker 1: seems like a bit of a bastard, but also cut
24:18
Speaker 1: from the mold that we're describing of that more traditional
24:21
Speaker 1: kind of macho Japanese, you know, mindset of like what
24:24
Speaker 1: what men should be. Why did he let his son
24:28
Speaker 1: go live with his grandmother in the first place if
24:32
Speaker 1: he felt so strongly about this, and possibly was he
24:36
Speaker 1: not wise to how she was going to raise him.
24:38
Speaker 1: Was there a need that arose or they couldn't take
24:40
Speaker 1: care of him just or or is there also just
24:43
Speaker 1: sort of a deference to you know, parents where she
24:46
Speaker 1: stepped in and said, I want this to happen, and
24:48
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it because i'm your mother or i'm
24:50
Speaker 1: you know, you're elder. It seems to be exactly that
24:54
Speaker 1: she just sort of put her foot down, was like,
24:56
Speaker 1: this boy will not climb to the second floor landing.
24:59
Speaker 1: He will instead live in my drawing room where he
25:01
Speaker 1: will be safe and kept. Um. That seems to be
25:04
Speaker 1: the the sort of context of the thing. Yeah, and
25:08
Speaker 1: we an interesting inversion of those dynamics, right, and then
25:13
Speaker 1: again that's part of the the regimented society, right, there
25:18
Speaker 1: is respect for the elders, so ultimately they can have
25:22
Speaker 1: a sort of veto power the similar to the way
25:26
Speaker 1: the guy who blows leaves outside of uh, outside of
25:31
Speaker 1: my window every Monday morning can make himself known in
25:35
Speaker 1: this I I gotta tell you, I'm never recording there's this,
25:42
Speaker 1: but so I want to acknowledge that, folks. But there's
25:46
Speaker 1: something that I think is really interesting, not just about
25:50
Speaker 1: this part of his life. This is a bit of
25:52
Speaker 1: a segue. Uh. We as students, whereas readers, have a
25:59
Speaker 1: unique in site into Mishima's life because he tells his
26:04
Speaker 1: own story in an incredibly interesting way, decades before people
26:10
Speaker 1: start making thinly veiled autobiography a genre in film. Mishima
26:18
Speaker 1: has his breakout work in the literary scene. Right, it's
26:21
Speaker 1: Confessions of a Mask And if you go to the bookstore,
26:27
Speaker 1: it's in the novel section, but it's you know, it's
26:31
Speaker 1: a novel that draws like the very least you can
26:34
Speaker 1: say is it draws a great deal on his personal history,
26:40
Speaker 1: his story, and so people are again they are taken
26:45
Speaker 1: to these really interesting emotional explorations that you mentioned at
26:49
Speaker 1: the top of the show's act. But these explorations are
26:54
Speaker 1: taking you into the mind of the author. And maybe
26:59
Speaker 1: you can tell us a little bit about this first novel,
27:02
Speaker 1: or this first breakout novel, just so people can see
27:06
Speaker 1: how closely this cleaves to the true story. So obviously,
27:17
Speaker 1: as you've already pointed out, it's a sort of kind
27:19
Speaker 1: of autobiography what we would now call auto fiction, this
27:22
Speaker 1: kind of thinly veiled fictionalized version of of events or um,
27:28
Speaker 1: I guess, um his own personality. Is there really something
27:32
Speaker 1: else that you could compare that too, maybe that others
27:35
Speaker 1: in the audience might be familiar with. I mean, I
27:37
Speaker 1: think that Proust is kind of known for having done
27:40
Speaker 1: these sorts of things very early on in the Remembrance
27:43
Speaker 1: of Times pastor I can't remember the full title, but
27:47
Speaker 1: you can make sponsor say that sort of thing. Similar
27:49
Speaker 1: argument with some early Joyce, maybe like Stephen Hero which
27:54
Speaker 1: becomes Confessions of the Artists. Um as a young man
27:58
Speaker 1: got it no. And I think this is a This
28:01
Speaker 1: is something that has increasingly become very very popular as
28:05
Speaker 1: a sort of literary genre. Books by Ben Lerner and
28:09
Speaker 1: Teju Cole and things like that are very closely associated
28:11
Speaker 1: with this auto fiction movement, where generally speaking, the narrator
28:15
Speaker 1: is a stand in for the author and in some
28:17
Speaker 1: cases shares the author's name outright, despite the fact that
28:21
Speaker 1: some of the things have been sort of twisted to
28:23
Speaker 1: be made a bit more fictional. So Confessions of a
28:25
Speaker 1: Mask is I think indicative of a broader tendency within
28:29
Speaker 1: literary production that that's been with us since the beginning
28:33
Speaker 1: of Letters, right, the fact that the artists can and
28:37
Speaker 1: should not separate themselves from their own experiences, and in fact,
28:40
Speaker 1: their own experiences can be this sort of stuff of
28:43
Speaker 1: art and a sort of necessary means of understanding not
28:46
Speaker 1: only the world but themselves, and hopefully you know, through
28:49
Speaker 1: the audience, right, building that sense of empathy and intimacy
28:53
Speaker 1: with them, forcing them into a place where they begin
28:55
Speaker 1: to understand things. And I think this is where, like
28:57
Speaker 1: Mishima as a literary figure is most kind of powerful,
29:01
Speaker 1: This person who understands acutely the sense of being cleaved
29:05
Speaker 1: in half identity wise, this person who, on the one hand,
29:09
Speaker 1: has this kind of secret inner life, and these obligations
29:14
Speaker 1: to be ambitious, to to sort of be the figure
29:18
Speaker 1: of masculinity, to submit to military service if necessary, all
29:22
Speaker 1: of these things that are just sort of warring inside
29:25
Speaker 1: of him because not only of his upbringing, but also
29:27
Speaker 1: because of you know, the fact that he's he's building tastes,
29:31
Speaker 1: He's building this this reality for himself that's so at
29:33
Speaker 1: odds with what's actually going on in the world around him.
29:36
Speaker 1: Like when we said cloistered earlier, not only by class,
29:39
Speaker 1: but also by the physical space of the room Japan
29:43
Speaker 1: at this time during his childhood. People talk about, you know,
29:46
Speaker 1: the wartime period specifically most of the time, but much
29:49
Speaker 1: of the early twentieth century is a period of imperial expansion,
29:53
Speaker 1: wars elsewhere, um, violent protests, and political turmoil at home.
30:00
Speaker 1: Mean the elements within the government staging their own coude
30:03
Speaker 1: a toss, an incredibly fraught time to be alive, even
30:06
Speaker 1: before the war happens, and that retreat to that room,
30:11
Speaker 1: trying to find oneself in that space life is theater.
30:15
Speaker 1: All of those things seems to be at first something
30:18
Speaker 1: that really gives him a sense of confidence in himself,
30:21
Speaker 1: but then of course ultimately morphs into something that is
30:24
Speaker 1: again a bit more corrosive, a bit more psychologically damaging. Yeah. Here,
30:29
Speaker 1: there's there's something I think is key to this auto
30:33
Speaker 1: fiction approach in his in his breakthrough novel, which is
30:38
Speaker 1: it gives you a bit of a fig leaf. It
30:42
Speaker 1: gives you a bit of a defense or a buffer.
30:46
Speaker 1: Maybe we could say, uh, some kind of a safety
30:50
Speaker 1: switch one can pull if something about your life appears
30:54
Speaker 1: controversial against the norm, or to deviate from these Uh, again,
31:01
Speaker 1: pretty concrete visions of what proper society should be. What
31:06
Speaker 1: we're talking about specifically here is that Confessions of a
31:11
Speaker 1: Mask goes through childhood up to the adolescence of the
31:16
Speaker 1: protagonist and then reveals his awakening, Like this is all
31:23
Speaker 1: about arriving at one's identity as a young adult ultimately,
31:30
Speaker 1: and in this in this spirit, in this evolution one
31:34
Speaker 1: of the I hesitate to call it climactic moments, but
31:38
Speaker 1: there's this realization that this protagonist is attracted to people
31:45
Speaker 1: of the same sex. That's how you would have put
31:47
Speaker 1: it at this time. And this is obviously a controversial
31:52
Speaker 1: identity right in in this immediately post war Japan, because
31:59
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of traditions have been carried over,
32:01
Speaker 1: even if those are being intensely interrogated at this time
32:05
Speaker 1: due to the horrors of World War Two. But now,
32:08
Speaker 1: I I wonder Zach how society received this novel, because
32:13
Speaker 1: it was it was quite successful. But was there any
32:16
Speaker 1: calculus on Mishima's part to have that that safety net
32:20
Speaker 1: where one could say, well, this is just a novel. Honestly,
32:24
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit the opposite. He sort of
32:27
Speaker 1: leaned into it pretty much immediately. Um, and sort of
32:31
Speaker 1: one of the things that it, you know, attracts you
32:33
Speaker 1: iconoclastic personalities in the first place, as they're willingness to
32:36
Speaker 1: kind of swim against the current, to sort of be
32:39
Speaker 1: the person to put their foot down and say no, actually,
32:41
Speaker 1: this is who I am. However, mediated his own image
32:44
Speaker 1: is Um, he very much kind of leaned into his
32:47
Speaker 1: status as a kind of on fontoib like a sort
32:49
Speaker 1: of like almost like a Rombo figure, this person of
32:52
Speaker 1: ambiguous sexuality, and but also this kind of like later on,
32:56
Speaker 1: this adventurous personality, right like Rombo went overseas and and
32:59
Speaker 1: and at all these adventures after he quit writing. I
33:01
Speaker 1: call them adventures. They're not great things. Look it up.
33:03
Speaker 1: It's not the best. But you know, he he very
33:07
Speaker 1: much as tailored as the image is, right, it wasn't
33:10
Speaker 1: tailored in service of kind of tamping him down or
33:13
Speaker 1: making him more palatable to the public. In fact, it
33:16
Speaker 1: was something different. Like I said, he kind of he
33:19
Speaker 1: he fashioned himself as this like defeat dandy, this cosmopolitan figure,
33:24
Speaker 1: this kind of sexually ambiguous person. And that's definitely something
33:30
Speaker 1: that I think is appealing to a lot of people,
33:32
Speaker 1: because so much of our own identities are unclear to us.
33:36
Speaker 1: To see somebody lean into those ambiguities with such not
33:40
Speaker 1: only say confidence, but also like contempt for what others
33:44
Speaker 1: thought of it um is very interesting. And it's it's
33:48
Speaker 1: doubly interesting because of how sensitive he's portrayed in the
33:52
Speaker 1: film with regards to these sorts of things, like the
33:55
Speaker 1: sort of public life aspect of it is one thing,
33:58
Speaker 1: but he was very very aware of what it was
34:02
Speaker 1: that he was feeling, very very aware of sort of
34:06
Speaker 1: his place within that milieu as well, which I find
34:08
Speaker 1: incredibly interesting. And he definitely wanted to be famous, oh absolutely,
34:14
Speaker 1: and to to to that end, he reminds me of like,
34:17
Speaker 1: you know, Andy Warhol type to a degree. I mean,
34:19
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol was sort of cre curated this image of
34:22
Speaker 1: himself as this sort of like, uh, this similarly kind
34:25
Speaker 1: of dandy effect, well dressed, you know, kind of cosmopolitan
34:29
Speaker 1: weirdo who very much wanted to be famous. He also
34:32
Speaker 1: reminds me a bit of Truman capote Um to a degree.
34:36
Speaker 1: And I think they actually crossed paths to uh at
34:39
Speaker 1: some point, like in nineteen fifty seven when Mishima came
34:42
Speaker 1: to the United States and apparently, you know, was not
34:47
Speaker 1: given the royal treatment let's just say by Truman capote
34:50
Speaker 1: or at least he claimed so. I believe in exchange
34:52
Speaker 1: for a time where Campodi came to Japan maybe and
34:56
Speaker 1: then Mishima kind of gave him tours around and all
34:59
Speaker 1: of that, and he felt like he didn't get the
35:01
Speaker 1: same treatment in return. Truman Capodium historically great friend, a
35:06
Speaker 1: great person to yeah, yeah, beautiful, famous for he wrote
35:15
Speaker 1: a couple of books, and he also never forgave other
35:18
Speaker 1: people for existing. It was just too egregious to him.
35:23
Speaker 1: Murdered by Death is a good film, I mean, you know,
35:27
Speaker 1: and That's the thing too, is thankfully we've gotten away
35:30
Speaker 1: from this sort of personality in the arts, like romanticizing
35:33
Speaker 1: the person for whom everything is, Yeah, exactly. Thankfully art
35:40
Speaker 1: seems to be trending towards a more empathetic, intimate direction.
35:44
Speaker 1: Some people decry that sort of thing, but I think
35:46
Speaker 1: it's ultimately good to have these writers taken down a peg.
35:49
Speaker 1: You know. There's also there's really uh fastening here when
35:53
Speaker 1: we look at the fame level, the chase for fame
35:58
Speaker 1: and being image call just to the level uh to
36:01
Speaker 1: like Maschima level. Uh, he is he is becoming a
36:07
Speaker 1: study in contradiction right to the outside observer. Without knowing
36:13
Speaker 1: the inner workings of the fellow's mind, ourselves, we can
36:17
Speaker 1: say that he was he was doing a lot. I'm
36:21
Speaker 1: not gonna say too much, but he's doing a lot.
36:23
Speaker 1: Uh renaissance writer, you know, a literary icon by the
36:29
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. And this is when he starts, uh, this
36:34
Speaker 1: is when he starts getting more a little bit more
36:36
Speaker 1: macho man. Right. He starts working out to earn that
36:41
Speaker 1: photograph on the cover this of the translation to Zach
36:46
Speaker 1: showed us uh, and he continues saying, look, yes, I'm
36:52
Speaker 1: getting in shape, i am getting swollen. I work out
36:55
Speaker 1: three times a week. I'm also not gonna hide my
36:59
Speaker 1: sexual or orientation. So for a lot of the more
37:02
Speaker 1: traditional observers in Japanese society, this guy is just not
37:08
Speaker 1: computing right, like, why are you so manly? Why are
37:12
Speaker 1: you getting so buff when you're not obeying what we
37:16
Speaker 1: see as proper social roles. There's that, and I think
37:20
Speaker 1: there's also this tendency to sort of lean into one
37:24
Speaker 1: of the things that, especially the right wing that he
37:28
Speaker 1: became associated with later on down the line, we're critical
37:31
Speaker 1: of him for it was like this sort of fostering
37:33
Speaker 1: of a cult of personality, this um, this kind of
37:36
Speaker 1: emphasis on image, and this emphasis on kind of propping
37:40
Speaker 1: himself up as a figurehead of something. Um In mind,
37:43
Speaker 1: you that Japan has a very sort of individualist kind
37:47
Speaker 1: of character, as many sort of you know, we'll say,
37:52
Speaker 1: as many capitalist countries do. But people were very skeptical,
37:57
Speaker 1: not not necessarily just because of that sexual ambiguity, but
38:01
Speaker 1: also he was a try hard. He was always somebody
38:04
Speaker 1: who was putting himself out there. He was always sort
38:06
Speaker 1: of flying in the face of convention and and and
38:09
Speaker 1: sort of like received modes of like our understandings of
38:12
Speaker 1: like humility. Right, Like, it's not enough that we read you.
38:14
Speaker 1: We have to see you in movies, We have to
38:16
Speaker 1: listen to your music. Could you maybe take it down
38:19
Speaker 1: a notch? He's like like have like a written by,
38:23
Speaker 1: produced by, composed by based on theme tune originally whistled by,
38:31
Speaker 1: but actually a really good writer. No, and that's that
38:35
Speaker 1: that's what makes you begrudge him even further. Right, are
38:38
Speaker 1: you bad mouthing Garth Marenguey. I will say that admitting
38:42
Speaker 1: that you've written more books than you've read is a
38:44
Speaker 1: bad look. Well, yes, but I think that's masterful comedy.
38:48
Speaker 1: Oh it's great now that that that that guy really
38:51
Speaker 1: is the satirical kind of apex of what we're describing here.
38:55
Speaker 1: And and to your point, Zach, that Mishima actually was
38:58
Speaker 1: good at all of these things. That's something that will
39:01
Speaker 1: also piss people off, you know what I mean. We
39:03
Speaker 1: can almost stomach a try hard hack better than we
39:07
Speaker 1: can someone that is really good and makes it points
39:10
Speaker 1: out kind of how mediocre a lot of other you know,
39:13
Speaker 1: like kind of multi disciplinary artists are. Oh absolutely, And
39:16
Speaker 1: I just imagine you know nominated for the or like
39:19
Speaker 1: sort of considered for the Nobel Prize throughout the sixties,
39:23
Speaker 1: incredibly like mattenee Idle, attractive, uh, sort of very focused
39:28
Speaker 1: on physical fitness, and then increasingly politically involved in a
39:32
Speaker 1: way because of his visibility and his sort of like
39:35
Speaker 1: just individual charisma and magnetism. Obviously that's going to rebel
39:39
Speaker 1: out of the old guard the wrong way. Yeah. And additionally,
39:44
Speaker 1: so we we do see some glimpses of I would
39:47
Speaker 1: say painful inner life because around this time when he's
39:51
Speaker 1: uh you know, when he's doing too much, as some
39:54
Speaker 1: people would say, when he's being a bit of a
39:56
Speaker 1: pick me in the world. Uh, he also agains creating
40:01
Speaker 1: these images that can seem to contain suicidal ideation. And
40:06
Speaker 1: it's easy to dismiss those in the beginning as simply
40:09
Speaker 1: being edgy committing seppuku. Uh, images of like I'm drowning
40:15
Speaker 1: and stuff. These are coming out around, like coming out
40:18
Speaker 1: in the same era as real thirst trap pictures that
40:22
Speaker 1: you would call him these days where he's in a
40:24
Speaker 1: speed oh and some motorcycle gear. But he's dangerous. Uh.
40:29
Speaker 1: This this is something we've been teasing for a little
40:32
Speaker 1: bit now. His growing political ideations, is growing fascination with
40:42
Speaker 1: the past of Japan and his own burgeoning concepts about nationalism.
40:51
Speaker 1: And say what you want about Mishima. Obviously we think
40:54
Speaker 1: he's a fantastic writer, but see what you want about
40:57
Speaker 1: his personality. You can never say that he did half measures.
41:01
Speaker 1: This guy was all gas, no breaks whenever he was
41:04
Speaker 1: interested in something. So it's not as if he just
41:07
Speaker 1: gave one interview and said, I'm kind of embracing nationalism.
41:12
Speaker 1: How far did he go? Zach? Is that for part two?
41:15
Speaker 1: I think that's probably good for part two. But one
41:17
Speaker 1: of the things I will also say about the sort
41:20
Speaker 1: of political awakening as sort of contrasted by the rest
41:23
Speaker 1: of his life, he forgot to mention that he was
41:24
Speaker 1: a model in things like that. We can't necessarily speculate
41:28
Speaker 1: too much about where he was going with regards to
41:33
Speaker 1: sort of where he ended up at the time. So
41:35
Speaker 1: to put to put more frankly, in Confessions of a Mask,
41:39
Speaker 1: there's a scene where he describes this sort of homosexual
41:42
Speaker 1: awakening as a sort of encounter with a painting of
41:45
Speaker 1: Saint Sebastian sort of strung up to a tree littered
41:49
Speaker 1: with arrows that that that painting would be reproduced several
41:53
Speaker 1: times in photographic form with Mishima is the subject, and
41:58
Speaker 1: this sort of drive towards like destruction, self destruction, UM,
42:03
Speaker 1: all of those things sort of becomes very obvious in
42:07
Speaker 1: the sort of the suicidal character of many of these photographs,
42:10
Speaker 1: so much so that the turn that happens next uh,
42:13
Speaker 1: and those photographs are roughly contemporary with what at the
42:16
Speaker 1: end of his life, um, But even before then, this
42:20
Speaker 1: kind of fashioning himself is like this sort of um,
42:23
Speaker 1: this bright star that's burning out quickly, this kind of
42:26
Speaker 1: doomed um figure begins in the sixties and then ultimately
42:31
Speaker 1: comes to it's uh, it's ultimate bloody outcome. And there's
42:36
Speaker 1: a lot to be said about that, a lot of
42:38
Speaker 1: speculation as to why the political turn happens and its
42:41
Speaker 1: relationship to ultimately what does transpire in nineteen seventy, which
42:45
Speaker 1: I think is a good place to sort of pick
42:47
Speaker 1: up with episode two. Agreed, Agreed, So we are going
42:53
Speaker 1: to come to our own, uh, our own brief conclusion, thankfully,
42:58
Speaker 1: not a bloody conclusion. This is the end of part
43:01
Speaker 1: one of Yukio Mishima The Bizarre Final Years, and Zach
43:06
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the show. I
43:09
Speaker 1: was I was super gassed about this, Noel. I believe
43:12
Speaker 1: you were as well, because we really, like we've been
43:16
Speaker 1: teasing this for months. Man. I think I I hope Noel,
43:20
Speaker 1: that our fellow ridiculous historians didn't suspect we were only
43:24
Speaker 1: blowing smoke. Yeah. He gives to another school, right. Uh yeah,
43:28
Speaker 1: our our our new research associate with Zach is from Canada.
43:31
Speaker 1: He doesn't come around now. He's real. Uh, he's you.
43:34
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sach. Also, just thank you, I think our
43:37
Speaker 1: listeners thank you for some of the amazing topics you found.
43:39
Speaker 1: Really has kind of turned a corner a little bit
43:42
Speaker 1: of a of a refresh of of the show and ore.
43:45
Speaker 1: We've been really super excited to do some of these
43:48
Speaker 1: and this one is no exception. So UM look forward
43:51
Speaker 1: to having you back on part two. Absolutely, thank you
43:54
Speaker 1: all for having me. I look forward to the conversation.
43:56
Speaker 1: It gets really fascinating. All right, do hear that? We
43:59
Speaker 1: got a second eight, So we're gonna call it a day.
44:02
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams.
44:06
Speaker 1: No relation, you can verify that, right, zach Um. No
44:09
Speaker 1: relation except in the great tapestry of humanity. Oh shucks,
44:13
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I just believe that Zach
44:16
Speaker 1: is my long lost little brother. I love it. We
44:19
Speaker 1: can we can act accordingly. We can act accordingly. We
44:22
Speaker 1: we we can, we can chosen family. That's what I
44:24
Speaker 1: like to call it. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
44:27
Speaker 1: We are the stories we tell ourselves. But then we
44:31
Speaker 1: also do have obligatory family like Alex Williams, who composed
44:34
Speaker 1: our theme. Huge thanks to Christophersciotis here in spirit, Eve,
44:38
Speaker 1: Jeff Coats here spirit as well, and um who else
44:41
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Big thanks to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
44:45
Speaker 1: The Quister. We're not gonna say his name anymore because
44:49
Speaker 1: it seems to have He seems to obey beetlejuice rules
44:52
Speaker 1: on the show and handyman rules. And we wanted to
44:55
Speaker 1: save you, as you know, this is your first time
44:59
Speaker 1: as a gay s Zach, but we do we know
45:01
Speaker 1: your return for part two. We can't wait to explore
45:05
Speaker 1: more in the future. In the meantime of folks. While
45:09
Speaker 1: you're waiting, check out check out the work of Michinema.
45:12
Speaker 1: Check out some of those pictures. Let us know what
45:14
Speaker 1: you think on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians Gaghetti Images
45:18
Speaker 1: is a pretty spectacular collection that you can browse. Uh.
45:22
Speaker 1: And then you can also get sticker shock when you
45:23
Speaker 1: see they want five dollars for the full resolution one
45:26
Speaker 1: to printing your publication, which you can look through. There's
45:29
Speaker 1: some incredible images of these kind of jacked, you know,
45:34
Speaker 1: Martyred kind of you know tableaus that Mishima was was
45:38
Speaker 1: very fond of. Uh. And it'll be a really good
45:40
Speaker 1: primer and set up for part two. You might even
45:44
Speaker 1: see some pictures of a militia. Spoilers we'll see next time. Books.
45:57
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
45:59
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
46:02
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.