Latest / My Favorite Things / My Favorite Things Episode 11: Zoë Rom

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My Favorite Things Episode 11: Zoë Rom · My Favorite Things

0:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: Zoe Roam, thanks for being here.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Excited to be here in the ether chatting with you once again.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: Once again.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: Can you tell people a little bit about who you are right now?
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
0:15
SPEAKER_00: I am a journalist and podcaster,
0:18
and every day I feel weirder and weirder about having to
0:21
delineate between those
0:22
SPEAKER_00: two things,
0:23
SPEAKER_00: but they do feel somewhat separate.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: And I specialize both in environmental journalism,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: looking at public land policy in the West,
0:33
SPEAKER_00: and podcasts about running.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: We host a running podcast together called The Trailhead.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
0:39
I knew I recognized you from...
0:41
Yeah,
0:42
I know I recognized you from my place of work.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: From having to listen to your voice for hours on end.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: That's part of my paid work.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: And I co-host and produce a podcast called Your Diet Sucks about food,
0:59
SPEAKER_00: movement,
1:00
SPEAKER_00: fitness culture,
1:01
SPEAKER_00: and why pseudoscience is so darn appealing.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll get into some more stuff.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: You're also a running coach as well.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm also a running coach, elite ultra runner, raging theater adult.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: I am part of an improv group and I do stand up comedy.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: I need to do less things.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm like a human collage right now.
1:26
You know,
1:26
if you have time,
1:27
you should just do as much stuff as you like.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into your list.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: This is super fun.
1:36
First on the list,
1:37
we put these in chronological order before I hit record.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: And the first one is Blalox Indie Rock Playlist.
1:43
So I'm not sure how good idea it is to give the full story on
1:47
this live on air.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: But back in the day,
1:50
I feel like everyone romanticizes the audio medium when they
1:55
first got into music.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: For our parents, I think it was vinyl.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have a thing for...
2:00
cassette tapes or cds but um coming of age in the early mid
2:05
aughts i have i still
2:07
have an extremely sort of romantic fond uh relationship to lime
2:12
wire which is a
2:13
totally illegal music downloading platform but as like a kid in
2:19
nowhere arkansas
2:20
with pretty limited access to what we would refer to as culture
2:24
my primary like
2:25
SPEAKER_00: pipeline to what was like
2:27
cool and new and different outside of what I had access to was
2:32
these playlists that
2:33
I would find on LimeWire of like all of these bands that I had
2:36
never heard of.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And my favorite of these curated playlists is Blaylock's Indie Rock
2:42
playlist it's every month for over 10 years this guy josh
2:47
publishes a list of his
2:48
100 favorite songs that came out in that month and i am
2:53
obsessed with it like the
2:55
vibe of it hasn't changed much which is perfect because i think
2:58
i've made peace
2:59
with the fact that my taste in music is not evolving and not
3:02
going to get any
3:03
SPEAKER_00: better but ideally won't get any worse and
3:06
and i used to you know get these playlists i would download
3:09
them onto my giant ipod
3:12
megawatt device to listen to and it just felt like a window to
3:18
a whole different
3:19
musical world than what i typically had access to in again in
3:23
arkansas and it sort
3:25
of felt like this promise of like if you can make it out of
3:27
this like weird high
3:29
SPEAKER_00: school limewire phase
3:31
This is the world of creative work and of like surf rock and
3:35
like punk music and
3:36
this like really more different eclectic sort of sampling of
3:41
what was out there
3:42
SPEAKER_00: musically.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: It felt like every month I got to see sort of.
3:46
below the tip of the iceberg of what there was to listen to and
3:52
i'm still obsessed
3:53
SPEAKER_00: with these i think particularly in the age of spotify and all of this
3:57
algorithmically driven discovery i really hate the like
4:01
computer mixes that ai
4:03
SPEAKER_00: makes of like if you liked this song
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Here's a song that we think you will like,
4:07
SPEAKER_00: but it never quite captures like,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: oh,
4:09
you liked this song because it has like a yearning quality and
4:13
a killer banjo
4:14
SPEAKER_00: intro.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: It always is just like, because these things kind of sound the same.
4:18
And it always ends up sort of sounding like tapioca pudding to
4:21
me on the other end.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And so having a giant handball.
4:25
hand human curated playlist of stuff that still kind of
4:29
scratches my like mid
4:30
aughts indie rock itch every single month feels like a feels
4:35
like a miracle have
4:38
you do you remember how you initially found this like how you
4:43
found out about it
4:44
literally I think I was like probably typing like indie music
4:47
into LimeWire and
4:50
SPEAKER_00: there was this huge bulk file that I encountered and a lot of the
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
4:55
SPEAKER_00: and I think it just,
4:56
SPEAKER_00: like,
4:57
SPEAKER_00: I did what one should never do,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: and I downloaded a giant file to my parents' computer,
5:03
SPEAKER_00: and then just started listening to it and was like,
5:05
SPEAKER_00: oh my god,
5:05
SPEAKER_00: like,
5:06
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard stuff like this.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not coming up on the radio stations where I live,
5:12
SPEAKER_00: and I was just immediately hooked,
5:14
SPEAKER_00: because it felt...
5:16
transgressive and it also had this like really handmade indie
5:21
quality that I'm
5:22
always looking for of like bands who just will do it in one
5:25
take and they keep the
5:27
one take or like you can hear like the fingerprints on the
5:30
guitars like it still
5:31
SPEAKER_00: has this like extremely human not overproduced
5:35
quality of like college rock and i went on to be music director
5:40
at my like
5:41
university radio station and i feel like i credit that love of
5:45
wanting to foist my
5:46
musical taste on other people to stumbling into josh's
5:50
playlists all those years
5:52
ago how much do you know about him like nothing really i
5:57
literally looked his name
5:58
SPEAKER_00: up for this podcast
6:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's in the about page, but it doesn't even have a last name.
6:03
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: So you have no idea this person has really affected your life.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, huge.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Would blame this person for a huge amount of life decisions,
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SPEAKER_00: people I've dated,
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SPEAKER_00: jobs I've had,
6:19
SPEAKER_00: t-shirts I've purchased,
6:20
SPEAKER_00: concerts I've attended,
6:22
SPEAKER_00: vinyl I now own,
6:23
SPEAKER_00: jobs I've gotten.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Work in radio and digital media.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And thank you, Josh.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Josh.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: It's funny to think about trying to explain,
6:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:37
like I remember my dad trying to explain to me what eight
6:39
tracks were because he
6:40
had a few of them left from the seventies and trying to think
6:44
of how to explain to
6:46
SPEAKER_02: my kid what like LimeWire was or Napster and like,
6:50
like wait it was illegal to download music and like yeah it's
6:54
um so yeah that and
6:56
also you could just like accidentally download a giant like a
7:00
virus to your
7:01
computer or like porn you know because it was like yeah it
7:04
would you know just get
7:05
like an amazing death cab for cutie like demo track or you
7:10
would end your parents
7:12
SPEAKER_00: computer and you never knew which one
7:14
SPEAKER_00: It was going to be,
7:15
SPEAKER_00: but like,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: I love listening to things on vinyl,
7:18
SPEAKER_00: but I feel like,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: again,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: like growing up in the mid aughts,
7:21
like my connection to this type of music was like downloading
7:25
stuff from the
7:26
SPEAKER_00: internet and then putting it on an iPod,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: which is a thing I miss so much because it was sort of this.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: it felt like you had access to more music than you reasonably should,
7:37
SPEAKER_00: but you still did have to download it.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Like,
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it's not just the Spotify infinite scroll of there's just more
7:43
than you could ever
7:44
SPEAKER_00: reasonably have any meaningful relationship to,
7:47
SPEAKER_00: and I'll hear something once and then never again,
7:49
SPEAKER_00: but when you have this giant playlist on your mega iPod,
7:53
SPEAKER_00: you can listen to it again and again and again,
7:55
SPEAKER_00: and it still has this sort of,
7:56
SPEAKER_00: like,
7:57
SPEAKER_00: tangible...
7:59
and it feels curated and the constraints of even though 100
8:03
songs is extremely long
8:04
like having those limits makes a better playlist and it has
8:09
like it's had the same
8:10
aesthetic from the jump and I think that the mixtape is a lost
8:16
art I think the
8:17
SPEAKER_00: playlist is a lost art and we should bring it back
8:21
I have non-public playlists that I put on YouTube and I collect
8:27
on YouTube and on Apple Music.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: But the YouTube ones,
8:32
I enjoy YouTube way more as a music listening app because
8:38
there's so many covers
8:40
SPEAKER_02: and live performances on there that you don't get them.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Which you could get on LimeWire,
8:45
SPEAKER_02: but you don't get on Spotify and Apple,
8:46
SPEAKER_02: like the corporate music thing.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: I know I have one playlist that's literally all...
8:53
all covers of this one misfit song that i'm blanking on right
8:57
now for some reason
8:58
oh astro zombies and it's everything from like it's just like
9:02
eight hours of astro
9:03
zombies it's probably only like 15 or 20 tracks but it'll just
9:07
be like somebody
9:08
covering it with a ukulele and i'm like you know what that's
9:10
actually pretty dope
9:11
SPEAKER_00: you know i have to have that
9:13
but you can find that it's so fun you know so do you have oh go
9:17
ahead this is a
9:18
relic of like i feel like this is a relic also of like the few
9:22
years where the
9:23
internet was awesome and people were kind to each other and it
9:27
was like primarily a
9:28
big weird message board where we were all talking about like
9:33
niche subcultures and
9:34
SPEAKER_00: like
9:35
You know,
9:36
things were fun and joyful rather than kind of what it has
9:39
become.
9:40
And I feel like these playlists also sort of like harken back
9:44
to and romanticize
9:45
SPEAKER_00: that particular moment in the internet where it was like a kinder,
9:50
SPEAKER_00: gentler,
9:50
SPEAKER_00: weirder place.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe more mysterious, too.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: More mysterious.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: You could find that track,
9:57
SPEAKER_02: but you couldn't find out much about the artists,
10:00
SPEAKER_02: maybe,
10:00
SPEAKER_02: or anything like that.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:02
Do you have a memory of some of the early songs or artists you
10:07
discovered through...
10:09
these playlists oh man I do I remember hearing a cover of a New
10:17
Order song by a
10:18
band called Jukebox the Ghost and because I was a young woman
10:23
had not quite yet
10:24
been exposed to the deeper cuts from New Order the song was
10:28
Temptation and that
10:29
cover just blew my mind I was like this is the greatest song
10:32
ever written and it
10:34
SPEAKER_00: sounds even better with this like extremely doofy sort of like
10:38
overdone keyboard bit that the band was doing and i would just
10:42
like ride the bus
10:43
and listen to that song over and over and over and another one
10:48
i was obsessed with
10:49
was the song welcome home by radical face which like went on to
10:53
become actually
10:55
popular and you get to have that incredible feeling of like i
10:59
knew it before it was
11:00
SPEAKER_00: like in an apple commercial
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Oh,
11:02
SPEAKER_02: did it get,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: the first time I heard it was Uli Steck,
11:06
SPEAKER_02: the alpinist,
11:07
SPEAKER_02: was like speed climbing the Eiger,
11:10
SPEAKER_02: and it was in a film.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now it's in like all ski films.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Boy, that was a long time ago.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: But first it was on my iPod.
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yes right yeah i miss i miss ipods i miss like there's
11:24
something about the finitude
11:25
of like not having everything and i think like dating is
11:28
probably you know harder
11:30
nowadays because you're just like oh it's infinite who i could
11:33
maybe encounter i
11:34
don't ever have to settle or like pick you know it's like oh i
11:37
you know i don't
11:38
have to settle or pick an imperfect person or whatever um
11:41
compared to like there's
11:43
SPEAKER_02: always the opportunity of something else over the horizon like a
11:46
And I think that constraints are actually really important for
11:50
creative work.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that's great about vinyl is how constrained it is.
11:56
And putting together an incredible album that fits on such a
12:00
small piece of plastic
12:02
SPEAKER_00: is pretty amazing.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And,
12:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:04
SPEAKER_00: I think that leaning into those constraints rather than now,
12:08
SPEAKER_00: so much of music is dictated by,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: what will go viral in a TikTok.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And the music that was incentivized by the sort of,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: weird,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: niche-y subculture that,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: I think Brian Eno would call it,
12:20
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:21
SPEAKER_00: sceniness of,
12:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:22
SPEAKER_00: mid-aughts indie rock,
12:24
SPEAKER_00: the incentives were really different.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And the incentives were fun.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And, like, there's always going to be constraints, but the constraints...
12:32
meant that we got a lot of like really interesting weird
12:35
innovative music with
12:36
people trying shit and trying to get it out there and people
12:39
really wanting to
12:41
share and advocate for the cool music they were discovering
12:45
yeah yeah who was it
12:47
SPEAKER_02: who had the album of like 10 one minute songs a few years ago
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, uh, Tierra Whack.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: It was actually pretty amazing,
12:56
SPEAKER_02: but it was just kind of like her producer was just like,
12:58
SPEAKER_02: you can't focus on anything.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's just put this out.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: Number two is a book called About a Mountain by John DeGotta,
13:12
SPEAKER_02: who I feel like I heard about,
13:14
SPEAKER_02: I haven't read this book.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: I heard about this book through our mutual friend, Nick Triolo.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: This feels very Nick coded.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:20
Did you introduce him to it,
13:22
or did he introduce you to it,
13:23
or is that not even a connection?
13:24
SPEAKER_00: I feel like with all things with Nick,
13:26
most likely it would be one of those things that a couple beers
13:30
deep at a bar,
13:30
SPEAKER_00: we were like,
13:31
SPEAKER_00: oh my god,
13:32
SPEAKER_00: I love that book,
13:33
SPEAKER_00: no way!
13:35
SPEAKER_00: So the book is About a Mountain by John Degotta,
13:38
SPEAKER_00: who is one of the,
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I think he's one of the most...
13:42
SPEAKER_00: interesting,
13:43
SPEAKER_00: if not great,
13:45
SPEAKER_00: creative nonfiction writers,
13:47
which is kind of a bizarre genre that I feel like he kind of
13:50
defines for me,
13:51
SPEAKER_00: which probably if I had to name a favorite genre would be this one,
13:55
SPEAKER_00: which means taking sort of
13:58
real stories and stretching them as far as one can credibly do
14:03
while still claiming
14:04
SPEAKER_00: to be engaged in nonfiction.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: And so this book,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of times when you're describing a great book,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: the description of any great book inevitably sounds like the worst,
14:15
SPEAKER_00: most annoying book of all time.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Because for me, this book is
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
14:19
SPEAKER_00: it is about a specific mountain,
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Yucca Mountain,
14:22
SPEAKER_00: outside of Las Vegas,
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Nevada,
14:24
at the time where the federal government was soliciting
14:28
feedback on wanting to
14:30
deposit nuclear waste inside of Yucca Mountain and how that
14:34
impacted surrounding
14:35
SPEAKER_00: areas.
14:36
And I'm pretty sure,
14:37
like,
14:38
I stumbled into this book because it had the word mountain in
14:40
it.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: I was like, great, don't need it.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: That's all I need.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: There's a mountain.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
14:46
And I think it is an amazing example of environmental
14:50
literature that also really
14:52
SPEAKER_00: stretches what we might define as being environmental literature,
14:56
SPEAKER_00: because,
14:57
SPEAKER_00: yes,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: it's about Yucca Mountain,
14:59
SPEAKER_00: but it's also a lot about Las Vegas,
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Nevada,
15:02
SPEAKER_00: and about,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: you know...
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Capitalism,
15:04
SPEAKER_00: nuclear waste,
15:05
SPEAKER_00: life in America,
15:06
all of these big themes that John DeGotta teases out through
15:10
what I think I can
15:12
SPEAKER_00: only describe as found literary objects,
15:16
SPEAKER_00: almost.
15:17
Yes,
15:17
there is reportage in this book,
15:20
but it's also interspersed with newspaper clippings.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:24
flyers that he's found or transcripts from BLM meetings and it
15:29
creates this
15:30
incredible collage that really does feel to me like an
15:35
encapsulation of what it
15:36
feels like to be alive right now and thinking about the
15:40
environment both the
15:41
natural environment and the built environment and what it means
15:44
to relate to those
15:45
SPEAKER_00: things in
15:47
SPEAKER_00: a language,
15:48
SPEAKER_00: like a sort of disjointed,
15:50
SPEAKER_00: eclectic,
15:51
found objects language that to me sort of simulates a lot more
15:54
of what it feels
15:55
SPEAKER_00: like to be alive today,
15:56
SPEAKER_00: which isn't just the,
15:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:58
SPEAKER_00: like sort of two-dimensional,
16:02
SPEAKER_00: like typical journalistic,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: novelistic style of writing,
16:05
but is bringing in all of these different threads to tell a
16:09
really complicated
16:11
SPEAKER_00: story in a way that I think feels extremely modern and challenging.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: When you say stretch, is it like in what way?
16:23
This is one of the best parts of this book is that he stretched
16:29
the facts of this
16:30
book so much that he ended up writing a play about how
16:34
difficult the fact checking
16:35
process of this book was because it was originally intended to
16:39
be a magazine
16:40
SPEAKER_00: article for Harper's Bazaar.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And they hired a fact checker named Jim Fingal to fact check it.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And Jim Fingal quickly was like, oh, my God, absolutely not.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, what the hell with this book?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: It is unfact checkable.
16:57
And John DeGotta was extremely effusive and made this poor fact
17:00
checker's life
17:01
SPEAKER_00: extremely challenging.
17:03
and that harper's bazaar ended up not publishing the article
17:07
and it went to um a
17:09
smaller literary magazine that had slightly different fact
17:13
checking standards and
17:14
was a little more comfortable publishing it as like creative
17:16
non-fiction emphasis
17:18
on the creative and from that process the play a lifespan of a
17:22
fact was born and
17:24
SPEAKER_00: being a
17:25
so bad at facts that someone writes a play about you write a
17:29
play about yourself is
17:30
a pretty enviable journalistic distinction of like you your
17:35
fact check led to an
17:36
exploration of the original work in an entirely different
17:41
medium which I think the
17:42
way that these two pieces are in conversation with each other
17:46
is fascinating and if
17:48
SPEAKER_00: people ever have the chance to
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
17:50
SPEAKER_00: read Lifespan of a Fact,
17:51
SPEAKER_00: also incredible,
17:52
SPEAKER_00: but to see it performed,
17:53
SPEAKER_00: it's like an action thriller about fact-checking.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And in grad school,
17:58
I helped pay for stuff by doing freelance fact-checking and
18:02
have an immense
18:03
SPEAKER_00: appreciation for that extremely quirky job.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: But this book about a mountain stretched so many things.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: There were composite characters, and there's some sort of...
18:19
poetic license taken but I feel pretty comfortable with that
18:25
because you know not
18:27
in terms of the debate of like we all live in a weird fractured
18:30
reality and no one
18:31
knows what's up anymore in a way that's like disturbing and
18:33
that I don't totally
18:34
have an answer for in literature sort of being confronted with
18:41
the mystery of any
18:42
SPEAKER_00: particular story
18:44
being just sitting in tension with is this real is it not for
18:49
me when I'm reading
18:50
this book I don't really care because the story that comes out
18:53
the other end is
18:54
just so dang good yeah yeah yeah kind of like um I'm thinking
19:00
of the Vietnam uh
19:01
book what the things they carried by Tim O'Brien Tim O'Brien
19:05
yeah it's a little
19:06
SPEAKER_02: where you're like oh is that
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Is that all?
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Was that actually nonfiction?
19:10
SPEAKER_02: Not sure.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:14
And I think creative nonfiction is such an interesting and
19:18
slippery genre for that reason.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: And again,
19:21
SPEAKER_00: one could ask a bunch of really tedious questions about like,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: well,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: does nonfiction actually exist in a universe where we're all subjective?
19:28
And that's probably a much more annoying conversation for a
19:32
different and worse podcast.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
19:35
i think that being able to really bravely and brazenly combine
19:40
so many different uh
19:42
source materials and storytelling approaches when i read this
19:47
book i was just like
19:48
holy fuck i didn't know you could do that in a book and oh my
19:53
god this guy just did
19:54
SPEAKER_00: this thing and it was so
19:56
punk rock and so weird and so hard to pin down um and he now is
20:03
a uh john dagata is
20:04
a teacher at the iowa writers workshop this like extremely
20:07
famous like all the good
20:08
writers go there except for the ones who don't and he has
20:12
written one other book
20:13
called hall of fames where he travels across america to visit
20:17
all the various hall
20:18
SPEAKER_00: of fames which is
20:19
slightly less readable than about a mountain it's a little more
20:23
form breaking in a
20:25
way that i don't know that i recommend for like folks who
20:28
aren't really down to go
20:29
on a journey with their book that sounds really fun to do
20:34
actually i wonder if you
20:35
SPEAKER_02: got some sort of grant for that like
20:38
i think he i think he got like paid by gray wolf press just
20:41
like yeah the last
20:42
thing you wrote was freaking great take yeah take this and go
20:45
make us another one
20:46
oops yeah do it do that again yeah that book is like not
20:50
amazingly successful i
20:53
think i'm like i'm looking at the amazon page and only has like
20:56
65 reviews uh yeah
20:58
SPEAKER_00: which i mean it's yeah
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I would highly recommend About a Mountain to everyone,
21:03
and I would cautiously recommend Halls of Fame to people who
21:07
are just like,
21:07
SPEAKER_00: fuck it,
21:08
SPEAKER_00: let's get weird.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: Where did you see the play?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Here in Carbondale, actually, put on by our local theater.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: One of my my really good friend for my improv group, Jack, was the star.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And it was awesome.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Like it.
21:25
I mean,
21:25
because it feels like it's part of the John DeGotta extended
21:29
cinematic universe.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So this extremely niche book that I have a really strong connection to,
21:33
SPEAKER_00: like you can't even there is no audio version of this book.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Like it is not.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
21:38
everywhere like I feel like it's pretty avoidable which is
21:41
unfortunate because I
21:42
think it's an astounding read so when you know living in a town
21:47
of 6,000 people out
21:49
of the four plays put on here per year one of them is
21:53
specifically in conversation
21:54
SPEAKER_00: with like my spirit book I was pretty excited
21:59
SPEAKER_02: So you had read the book and then the play arrived in Carbondale.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow, that's crazy.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, that kind of feels like destiny in a way.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
22:08
SPEAKER_00: and I mean,
22:09
SPEAKER_00: it's so,
22:11
SPEAKER_00: again,
22:11
SPEAKER_00: I would just recommend everyone read it and then read Lifespan of a Fact,
22:15
which I think is a slightly less squirrely piece of work to
22:18
wrap your hands around.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty accessible play.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
22:24
I'm just down for any action thriller that's about how
22:27
journalism is actually
22:28
SPEAKER_00: exciting.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: There's a couple of books I think of when I think about that.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: And it's like Tom Wolf's books about like, uh, yeah, the right stuff.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: The new journalism stuff.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: And then like the,
22:40
SPEAKER_02: uh,
22:40
SPEAKER_02: the sort of like speculative,
22:42
SPEAKER_02: um,
22:42
SPEAKER_02: like the perfect storm,
22:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
22:44
SPEAKER_02: where you're like,
22:44
SPEAKER_02: well,
22:44
SPEAKER_02: they all died,
22:45
SPEAKER_02: but here's what you think might've happened.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: And then,
22:47
SPEAKER_02: There's one called into the raging sea and I forget the author's name,
22:51
SPEAKER_02: but it's like the perfect storm,
22:53
but for shipping container ships that when it just goes
22:57
straight into a hurricane
22:58
SPEAKER_02: and they're like,
22:59
SPEAKER_02: and you're like,
23:00
SPEAKER_02: how did they get all this?
23:01
Like audio footage that she's actually like building the
23:05
narrative around and like,
23:06
And they had recorders in the ship,
23:09
and the ship,
23:09
of course,
23:10
sank to the bottom of the ocean.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it's two miles deep at that point.
23:13
So part of the book is about this grid search that they did for
23:16
the black box on
23:18
SPEAKER_02: the ship,
23:18
SPEAKER_02: which apparently is not that small,
23:21
SPEAKER_02: but it's still small,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: you know?
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, compared to the ocean.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: So those are those are like kind of what I think of.
23:29
And I'm probably not even close to what you're talking about
23:32
with about a mountain,
23:33
SPEAKER_02: but it does sound.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: No, it sounds like in that in that vein.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Number number three is called ways of hearing.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: A podcast by Damon Krakowski, the drummer of Galaxy 500.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: I have no familiarity with this.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: What is it?
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my gosh.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: You will love this, Brendan.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: So this was a limited series podcast,
23:56
SPEAKER_00: and I'm a huge fan of podcasts that aren't ongoing,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: but just like step up to the mic,
24:01
SPEAKER_00: say their piece,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: and then they're gone.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Damon Krakowski also now,
24:05
SPEAKER_00: because everyone has a substack,
24:06
SPEAKER_00: he has a pretty great Substack sort of about analog listening culture.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: But this podcast, Ways of Hearing, is all about what it means to...
24:18
record music and listen to it um so the first episode is about
24:23
the concept of time
24:25
and thinking about how digital audio and music recording and
24:28
radio uses a different
24:30
sense of time than we use in our offline life um and it he
24:35
interviews folks from a
24:36
SPEAKER_00: tribe called quest
24:39
And looks at like the concept of swing time in jazz music and
24:44
how analog recordings are.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Well,
24:48
one of the things that he talks about that sticks with me so
24:51
much as someone that
24:52
SPEAKER_00: still is pretty passionate about recording things,
24:54
even albeit in my own way into like a cheap digital microphone
24:58
for the Internet to
24:59
SPEAKER_00: enjoy for nine days before forgetting and moving on to the next thing.
25:03
But like that idea of anytime you listen to a song,
25:07
you're not actually listening to a song.
25:09
You are listening to a moment in time where five people or
25:13
whatever were in a room.
25:15
And you're hearing what that song sounded like on that day at
25:18
that particular
25:19
SPEAKER_00: moment in time as those people played it.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And hearing that changed how I listened to music forever.
25:26
forever and it makes it harder to engage with music as like a
25:30
background thing
25:32
because now i get so caught into trying to experience the
25:36
reality of that song and
25:38
how it's happening in real time rather than just like oh yeah
25:41
like you know
25:42
SPEAKER_00: whatever listening to this thing um
25:46
And there's also an episode about the importance of ear contact
25:50
and to the extent
25:51
that people kind of have been trying to guard their hearing
25:54
from the noise of the
25:56
of the world and about noise canceling headphones and
25:59
everyone's propensity to walk
26:00
SPEAKER_00: around with stuff in their ears all the time.
26:05
And I think that this and it's there's only three and a half
26:10
episodes of or there's
26:12
SPEAKER_00: like five and a half episodes of this.
26:15
But it is so interesting to hear a musician talk about how he
26:19
thinks about making music.
26:21
recording it and listening to it and i think again as someone
26:26
who really loves and
26:28
SPEAKER_00: is passionate about consuming media but also sort of suspicious of that
26:35
relationship as that of a consumer and wanting to actually have
26:39
some sort of
26:41
relationship to the things i'm listening to other than just
26:44
like gobbling down a
26:45
ton of slop and being able to think of every song i listen to
26:49
as a real moment in
26:51
time a thing that happened a feeling that was had by a person
26:54
who wrote it down
26:56
SPEAKER_00: kind of still explodes my brain every time i listen to it and
27:01
One of the reasons I love podcasting as an audio format and the
27:05
reason I wanted to
27:05
go into audio journalism originally was because audio is such
27:11
an intimate medium.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: When you write a word,
27:14
you're writing a thing down and it gets printed or published
27:17
and sent away and it
27:18
sort of exists in the ether and someone has to read it in order
27:24
to relate to it.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: But...
27:25
SPEAKER_00: when you're making sound that's recorded,
27:28
SPEAKER_00: by the time people are actually hearing my voice as we're recording it,
27:32
SPEAKER_00: my voice will actually be physically interacting with their eardrums.
27:37
It is going into their heads to physically vibrate this like
27:40
delicate little part
27:42
SPEAKER_00: of their inner ear.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And then that sends a signal to their brain and they hear my voice.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: So unlike reading, which does not physically touch the person doing it,
27:51
SPEAKER_00: More often than not,
27:53
SPEAKER_00: when you're listening to something,
27:54
SPEAKER_00: you're actually having a physical,
27:56
SPEAKER_00: real-time relationship to it.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: I wonder about that and the rise of podcasting and interview shows.
28:05
I always thought that people love interview shows because we
28:10
don't have so many
28:12
SPEAKER_02: conversations with people we're interested in.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: Anymore?
28:16
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
28:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't have this group of interesting friends,
28:20
but I can access this group of interesting people through this
28:23
podcaster who
28:23
SPEAKER_02: interviews people I find interesting.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm always like, what the hell?
28:27
SPEAKER_02: How do people have time to listen to a three-hour podcast?
28:29
SPEAKER_02: Dude.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And actually,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: I think it does come out of,
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I think some of what we talked about with playlists earlier of like,
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I actually think the constraints of like,
28:41
SPEAKER_00: rather than I think listening to experts is cool and yada,
28:44
SPEAKER_00: yada,
28:44
SPEAKER_00: it's my job.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: We should do that.
28:46
But I think sometimes people get really bogged down into trying
28:49
to over optimize
28:50
SPEAKER_00: every part of their lives,
28:51
SPEAKER_00: every bit of media they consume.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: So rather than like,
28:54
I'm just going to have a chat with Brendan where I somewhat
28:57
poorly describe how
28:59
SPEAKER_00: audio works in a romantic way.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:01
Other like rather than listening to that people like I actually
29:04
want to hear what
29:05
SPEAKER_00: so and so from USC expert in child hearing pathology has to say about it.
29:10
And I actually would advocate more for us settling for our
29:13
friends shitty takes in
29:15
SPEAKER_00: the real world.
29:16
i think that that's important and we're losing out on our
29:20
closest friends bad takes
29:22
because those are great and important and i always think about
29:25
like you know back
29:26
in like eight uh like 19th century paris they would have these
29:29
like salons where
29:30
it'd just be like smart people who like kind of didn't have
29:33
jobs other than like
29:34
occasionally writing a poem or a like bit of philosophy that
29:37
got rejected from like
29:40
SPEAKER_00: whatever newspaper, they would get together and just chat about shit.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think that,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:45
you don't necessarily have to be Simone de Beauvoir to get a
29:49
bunch of people
29:49
SPEAKER_00: together in a room,
29:51
SPEAKER_00: add some liquid and have a good time.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: And also,
29:55
SPEAKER_02: like,
29:57
SPEAKER_02: what does that do to you if all you listen to is experts,
30:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:01
SPEAKER_02: as opposed to...
30:03
SPEAKER_00: It'll make you insane.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Right?
30:07
SPEAKER_02: It's also maybe not that fun.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: That's an interesting question to
30:11
I think it limits how much you are actually thinking about and
30:14
engaging with the
30:15
SPEAKER_00: material,
30:16
because likely that person knows more than you and is going to
30:19
have a better take.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: But your French shitty take,
30:21
SPEAKER_00: I would say,
30:22
is more likely to spark interesting debate and relationship to
30:26
whatever the subject
30:27
SPEAKER_00: matter is.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a really interesting thing to think about.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: Huh.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: So you see, there's like five and a half episodes.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: Like one's just short.
30:39
SPEAKER_02: It's like short or do they just cut off in the middle?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: One is he was featured.
30:44
This podcast was featured on the other podcast song exploder
30:48
and they do a song
30:49
SPEAKER_00: exploder episode about how to make the podcast.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:52
okay okay got it okay number four nathaniel russell's art and
31:00
you emailed me this
31:01
and explained a little bit in a paragraph and i have to show
31:03
you that i own
31:04
nathaniel russell's no way oh my god public notice of all these
31:09
fake flyers is that
31:11
is that a more polished version okay it's the one where like
31:15
you get it and it
31:16
comes with all of these different flyers that you're encouraged
31:18
to post around
31:20
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if they have the same ones in there.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Because like I follow him on social media.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: And at some point he was like,
31:27
SPEAKER_02: hey,
31:27
I just found like a hundred of these that I never they were in
31:30
a storage unit.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'll buy that and bought one.
31:34
Can you describe what what we're talking about,
31:38
like what we're holding up here?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: So Nathaniel Russell is an artist.
31:42
I'm not sure how he would describe himself who makes these
31:46
extremely weird,
31:48
SPEAKER_00: silly and quietly profound fake flyers and posters.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: He does some like commercial art.
31:53
He's done like a Wilco album cover and like does like different
31:57
posters for music
31:58
SPEAKER_00: festivals and whatnot.
32:00
But I remember the first time I saw a flyer on the wall of a
32:04
guy I was dating in college.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: I was like that guy.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: That is the greatest shit I have ever seen.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And it is,
32:12
SPEAKER_00: they,
32:12
I think it's extremely funny to take the idea of a flyer and to
32:17
make it into art in
32:19
SPEAKER_00: ways that aren't immediately obvious.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think the thing that really gets me about this art is always the
32:26
juxtaposition of the very poorly written sentences and the
32:30
really profound ideas
32:32
SPEAKER_00: that they're trying to carry.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Um,
32:35
like this one says help wanted freedom cruise we ship out at
32:39
dawn no hassles and
32:41
just has a picture of a boat like one of my favorite ones has a
32:46
picture of a duck
32:48
and it says found don't come looking for him we're bros now yes
32:53
yes i know this one
32:54
SPEAKER_02: yeah for sure yeah
32:56
And so it's like taking the idea of like lost dog posters or
32:59
like support group
33:00
SPEAKER_00: posters and making them about like,
33:03
SPEAKER_00: let's go to outer space.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a summer picnic.
33:06
And these kind of like sweet,
33:08
funny things that are really hard to capture in art.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: He also has this amazing drawing of, I need to find the one of Sisyphus.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, hold on.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh...
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah,
33:25
SPEAKER_00: he has this amazing poster of Sisyphus that says,
33:30
SPEAKER_00: inspirational message,
33:32
SPEAKER_00: keep trying that thing.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: And it has a picture of a guy pushing a boulder up a hill.
33:37
And I think the weird disjointed syntax and the sort of like
33:43
found materials
33:44
SPEAKER_00: quality of the photos he uses and of the way that he sort of uses his own
33:48
SPEAKER_00: printmaking features
33:49
makes this extremely fun art that is always really surprising
33:54
and really delightful.
33:56
And I think that people go looking for a lot of different
34:00
things from art.
34:02
Delight is not usually something I'm looking for,
34:05
but it's something that I increasingly need.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: But it has to sneak up on you for it to be impactful.
34:11
And Nathaniel Russell's art always sneaks up on me and always
34:16
delights me.
34:17
So your original exposure to it was a fake flyer that was on
34:21
somebody's wall on
34:22
SPEAKER_02: your college boyfriend's wall.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: wow, he's been at it a while.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: I guess these flyers are from 2016, so it's not new.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: That's funny.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm like,
34:33
SPEAKER_02: art that is like,
34:35
SPEAKER_02: delight in art is like,
34:37
SPEAKER_02: I think of a lot of artists I follow on Instagram,
34:40
SPEAKER_02: and I'm like,
34:41
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if delight is the emotion I would say happens all the time,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: but humor is generally what I'm looking for in a lot of it.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's that mix of,
34:56
SPEAKER_00: again,
34:56
SPEAKER_00: both humor and profundity,
34:58
SPEAKER_00: because one poster will have a joke about a duck being a dog,
35:02
SPEAKER_00: and the other one will be like,
35:03
SPEAKER_00: let's go to the moon.
35:05
And it also has this dead serious quality that I think is
35:09
extremely funny and
35:10
SPEAKER_00: extremely earnest,
35:12
SPEAKER_00: and I think it's just that fun mashup that...
35:16
also helps recontextualize other things out in the world now
35:20
whenever i see another
35:21
like actual flyer reading it sort of through the nathaniel
35:25
russell lens makes all
35:27
the like sort of charming mistakes and the like sort of bad
35:30
handmade quality of you
35:31
know all the things we see on telephone poles and on different
35:34
like at the on the
35:35
cork board at the coffee shop it makes all of those things seem
35:38
so much more fun
35:39
SPEAKER_00: and so much more charming and
35:42
helps me re-see them so much more as these genuine attempts
35:47
from one person to
35:49
SPEAKER_00: reach another person through kind of a funky medium.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of what I find so compelling about them.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever created a fake flyer for the purpose of comedy?
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Because I have my...
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Actually,
36:04
SPEAKER_00: well,
36:05
SPEAKER_00: I did create a fake flyer for...
36:08
SPEAKER_00: We have Aspen Ideas Festival once a year in Aspen,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: and I wanted to make flyers for Bad Ideas Festival,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: which is a thing that doesn't exist.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: So made some Bad Idea Festival flyers.
36:21
Maybe it's an alternate festival to have at the same time,
36:24
like Carbondale Bad Ideas Festival.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: That's,
36:27
SPEAKER_00: well,
36:28
I want to host Bad Ideas Festival and do one of my favorite
36:31
improv formats is
36:32
SPEAKER_00: called the ASCAT,
36:34
where you have someone do a monologue and then you improvise
36:37
long form theater
36:39
SPEAKER_00: based on that monologue.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
36:42
SPEAKER_00: back to the Nathaniel Russell of it all,
36:45
one of the things I find so funny about the Flyers is they'll
36:49
always just like,
36:50
SPEAKER_00: they'll have a time or a place,
36:51
but it's never got all of the information that would quite make
36:54
it make sense.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: People show up.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:59
And in high school,
37:00
I was because I've always had this booming radio voice.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: I was in charge of announcements for my entire high school.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: And once a week,
37:08
SPEAKER_00: every week,
37:09
SPEAKER_00: I would announce a meeting of the John Candy fan club,
37:12
SPEAKER_00: giving either the time or the place,
37:14
SPEAKER_00: but never both.
37:15
Just to see if anyone ever tried to actually come to the John
37:18
Candy fan club.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And did anybody ever, like, were they just like, hey, I'm curious.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: I really actually want to come to this.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: Where is it?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: I had someone mention that,
37:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
37:29
SPEAKER_00: there was a guy,
37:30
SPEAKER_00: one of my friends was like,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: blah,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: blah,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: blah,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: this guy.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Is he in the John Candy fan club?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: I might go to that.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that's the place to meet men, but I could be wrong.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: What do I know?
37:42
SPEAKER_02: There is a John Candy documentary.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: Did it come out already?
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen?
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Very sad, but good.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: You saw it.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I did put up a fake flyer when I lived in Denver.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: A buddy of mine made these like flyers that were like up for a lost bear.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, people lose a cat or a dog.
38:01
And this is like,
38:02
God,
38:02
this must have been like 2008 or something like that.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: And we thought that was pretty funny.
38:06
And I don't know if this was before or after that,
38:09
but I had seen one online that was –
38:12
SPEAKER_02: Beaker from The Muppet Show.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: Beaker only says, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: And it was a photo of Bunsen.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: And it just said that the big headline at the top was meep.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: And there was all this meep, meep, meep, meep, meep.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: And then all the little tear-off strips were like, meep, meep, meep.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Just like, meep.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: I love the fun,
38:31
quirky tear-off strips of every so often you'll see a poster
38:34
where it's like,
38:35
SPEAKER_00: do you need a small piece of paper with numbers on it?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Take one.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just fun, you know?
38:42
SPEAKER_02: And,
38:43
SPEAKER_02: like,
38:44
SPEAKER_02: the,
38:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
38:45
SPEAKER_02: to,
38:45
SPEAKER_02: like,
38:45
SPEAKER_02: double take on a flyer is,
38:47
SPEAKER_02: like,
38:47
SPEAKER_02: a pretty...
38:48
SPEAKER_02: That's an art form right there,
38:50
SPEAKER_02: you know?
38:50
SPEAKER_02: That's an art form.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: And there's really no policing of these things.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: Like,
38:53
SPEAKER_02: you go to,
38:54
SPEAKER_02: like,
38:55
SPEAKER_02: the coffee shop where they're,
38:56
SPEAKER_02: like,
38:56
SPEAKER_02: hung up and they're,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: like...
38:58
SPEAKER_02: There was a fake ad that I found in our vegan donut shop here for...
39:03
SPEAKER_02: It was,
39:03
SPEAKER_02: like,
39:04
SPEAKER_02: dog meat is what it was called.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: And it was, like, essentially you could buy...
39:10
meat that was made it's dogs like is what they're saying and it
39:13
was like meat comma
39:14
it's dog yes it's a satirical website that's like run by like
39:18
uh you know militant
39:19
vegans or whatever and i thought it was so hilarious i was like
39:21
this is amazing you
39:22
know that's because it's like flyers inherently again have this
39:26
like diy sort of
39:27
SPEAKER_00: anarchic quality that i'm always looking for that like
39:30
You can't get on the internet because everything feels
39:33
formulaic or like it's meant
39:34
SPEAKER_00: to go viral.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Like everything is meant for maximum attention capture.
39:38
Whereas like flyers have very limited attention capture and
39:42
they're just kind of
39:43
SPEAKER_00: inherently not that great.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what makes them so charming is it's such like a flawed,
39:49
SPEAKER_00: imperfect attempt on the part of one human to communicate something.
39:53
something either extremely specific or like extremely big to
39:58
one other person of
39:59
SPEAKER_00: like,
39:59
SPEAKER_00: come to the support group,
40:00
SPEAKER_00: help me find this dog,
40:01
SPEAKER_00: help me find this cat,
40:02
SPEAKER_00: or I'm selling dog meat.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: I saw one on like,
40:06
SPEAKER_02: it was over on the,
40:07
I was running on our multi-use path and it was on a telephone
40:10
pole and it was
40:10
somebody who just literally printed out a Facebook post about
40:14
their lost cat and
40:15
SPEAKER_02: put it on paper.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, wow, that's really...
40:19
SPEAKER_02: What is that?
40:19
SPEAKER_02: It's either meta or the opposite of meta.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: This is either a really interesting art or a 65-year-old woman.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: And then I thought, why not?
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe both.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't you do that?
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Why not both?
40:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: So, okay.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: Number five, Lady Bird, the Greta Gerwig film.
40:37
oh man which which we discovered came out in 20 2017 2018
40:40
because like to me this
40:43
still feels like an extremely new like this is 21st century
40:47
film canon um but man i
40:51
SPEAKER_00: love this film and it was the directorial debut of greta gerwig
40:56
potentially my favorite director and this movie sort of like
41:00
this is one of the
41:01
films that i remember the theater i saw it in like the shirt i
41:04
was wearing i
41:05
remember everything about that night so specifically and
41:09
vividly because this movie
41:11
also blew my mind and i think that growing up as as a lover of
41:16
film were offered
41:17
SPEAKER_00: all sorts of built for guys every single coming of age story and
41:22
for every type of guy and one might think looking at the
41:26
american film canon that
41:28
girls simply don't come of age were like born full women or
41:33
were the 20 year old
41:34
blondes in any comedy meant to like laugh at like seth rogan's
41:37
jokes and this film
41:39
i think for the first time that i saw in a way that really
41:43
resonated with me put
41:46
girlhood in this in it made art out of girlhood it took
41:51
seriously the concerns of
41:52
being a girl of wanting to talk about boys and giggle and laugh
41:57
and eat cheese it's
41:58
in the front seat of your car while crying listening to dave
42:01
matthews and those
42:02
sense memories for many girls are so acute that seeing them on
42:07
the big screen
42:09
captured by again this incredible visionary director who makes
42:12
these really silly
42:14
but also profound bits of girlhood renders them as art was
42:19
amazing because i was so
42:21
used to seeing other people's lives represented in that way
42:24
other people's
42:25
SPEAKER_00: experiences that like the life of a again like a suburban teenage girl in
42:31
california seeing it rendered as real art was really amazing
42:36
and the structure of
42:37
SPEAKER_00: this film
42:38
structured like the 12 stations of the cross because Greta
42:41
Gerwig is a good
42:43
Catholic girl and it also gives it sort of this like pitches
42:47
the tone upwards with
42:48
almost like a bit of religiosity and I think that that's a
42:53
really fascinating tone
42:55
SPEAKER_00: to think about girlhood in and
42:59
So often any creative work about girlhood is like seen as
43:03
lesser than like it's
43:04
SPEAKER_00: chick lick chick.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: It's either a chick.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: It's like a chick flick or chick lit.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's cast as this like lesser than thing.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's like pink and it's small and it's stupid.
43:14
And the concerns of women aren't nearly as interesting as all
43:17
of the things that we
43:18
SPEAKER_00: see in the,
43:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:20
SPEAKER_00: great male film canon.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: And I love that this movie is about young female friendship.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: I love that it's about,
43:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:29
having a challenging relationship with one's mom and trying to
43:33
figure out who you
43:34
SPEAKER_00: are and about falling victim to the charms of Timothee Chalamet.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: All very relatable things.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say,
43:43
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if that's why the film doesn't feel very old,
43:45
SPEAKER_02: because Timothee Chalamet has not aged since it came out.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: And probably Saoirse Ronan.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: I feel like, did I not know the thing about the Stations of the Cross?
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Was that like a...
43:58
SPEAKER_00: It was a thing I read in an interview with her years and years ago.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, man, did I just miss that?
44:05
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I would not say that it's extremely obvious upon watching.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: So you said you remember being in, where is the theater?
44:15
SPEAKER_02: And what shirt were you wearing?
44:17
SPEAKER_00: At the Cherry Creek Theater in Boulder.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: was wearing a green shirt with a black sweater over it.
44:24
And I remember this because I was supposed to meet up on a date
44:29
afterwards.
44:29
And I remember absolutely just talking at this poor gentleman
44:32
about the movie the entire time.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, really did one for feminism by Zoe-splaining a movie to a man.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: You know,
44:42
SPEAKER_02: I haven't dated in a long time,
44:43
SPEAKER_02: but I have a friend who has in the last 10 years,
44:47
and I feel like many of her experiences were the opposite of
44:50
that with a guy.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: She would literally text Hillary and say,
44:53
SPEAKER_02: this guy's been talking for six minutes nonstop,
44:56
SPEAKER_02: has not asked me a single question.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: So maybe you're just evening the score a little bit there.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Whereas I was like,
45:02
here's why you have to understand why it is so funny that she's
45:06
referencing
45:06
SPEAKER_00: Sondheim throughout this movie.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh my God, never again.
45:13
um do you yeah do you remember other things you brought up in
45:16
that conversation
45:17
like fresh out of the theater i i just remember telling like i
45:22
had seen this movie
45:23
the first day it came out had like gotten like a ticket ahead
45:26
of time and i had
45:27
taken my roommate at the time to see it and we exited the
45:30
theater and i looked at
45:31
her and i was like oh my god that was incredible and she was
45:35
like yeah it was
45:35
SPEAKER_00: pretty good yeah
45:37
SPEAKER_00: and just being like, oh, we just had really different experiences.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
45:43
that's also what makes film amazing is that like people can
45:47
have really radically
45:48
SPEAKER_00: different experiences.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
45:51
I think that anyone can watch that film and enjoy the story of
45:56
it and it's made
45:57
SPEAKER_00: extremely well,
45:58
SPEAKER_00: but I think that it does what,
46:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:00
SPEAKER_00: in creative work,
46:02
often we talk about how the specificity is what makes things
46:05
universal and
46:06
And it has that auteur film quality of being so specific that I
46:11
relate to every
46:12
SPEAKER_00: element of it,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: even though I don't relate to every element of it.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: And it feels so much like the product of a person's like vision,
46:20
SPEAKER_00: like the creative work they were born to make and they made it.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think especially in like...
46:27
big film culture we don't get to see that extremely frequently
46:30
definitely not from
46:32
women and so when you get to see this like big piece of
46:35
mass-produced media that is
46:36
so specific and then so carefully made and has that like
46:40
handmade human quality
46:42
that I'm look that's like kind of a thread throughout all of
46:44
these works I was just
46:45
like like that feeling of oh my god art is alive we're gonna be
46:50
okay you guys like
46:51
SPEAKER_00: we did it we made an art
46:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
46:55
SPEAKER_02: and she got to go on to make the Barbie movie,
46:57
SPEAKER_02: which was probably a dream come true for,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: with the budget.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Do you think,
47:04
SPEAKER_02: so there's,
47:04
SPEAKER_02: like,
47:05
I remember one of the things I remember about the film is the
47:07
conversation Lady
47:09
SPEAKER_02: Bird,
47:09
SPEAKER_02: Saoirse Ronan's character,
47:11
SPEAKER_02: has in the pool with her.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: She becomes,
47:13
SPEAKER_02: like,
47:14
SPEAKER_02: she gets to hang with the popular crowd for,
47:16
SPEAKER_02: like,
47:16
SPEAKER_02: a few weeks or whatever,
47:17
SPEAKER_02: and she's in the rich...
47:20
you know popular girl friends pool talking about how much she
47:24
can't wait to leave
47:25
sacramento and the popular girl's like i love sacramento you
47:29
know like i want to
47:29
stay here do you feel like there was there's something like do
47:33
you is that
47:34
something you have in common with that character is that like
47:38
wanting to leave the
47:39
SPEAKER_02: place to discover other like leave your hometown leave leave you know
47:45
SPEAKER_00: 100%, again, being from a pretty small town.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in rural Washington County,
47:48
SPEAKER_00: Arkansas,
47:49
SPEAKER_00: and spent my entire childhood just like,
47:52
SPEAKER_00: what do I got to do to get out?
47:53
SPEAKER_00: And just like Shersha Ronan wanted to,
47:55
she talks about wanting to go to a school on the East Coast
47:58
where writers live in
47:59
SPEAKER_00: the woods,
47:59
SPEAKER_00: and I had that exact same program.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I want to be, I am going to be thorough.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: Surely we're going to have a transcendental revival,
48:08
SPEAKER_00: and I will be at the tip of the spear,
48:10
SPEAKER_00: despite the fact that I actually don't love New England.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: And
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Just like,
48:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
48:14
I ended up going to college in my hometown and sort of had like
48:19
the saw Lady Bird
48:20
at the time in my life when I was in grad school and had
48:23
finally like done the
48:24
SPEAKER_00: thing had finally jumped ship and was like out on my own.
48:29
having like left home and had that like same challenging
48:34
feeling of maybe you know
48:35
now being a little further removed really dearly loving the
48:38
place where I'm from
48:40
Arkansas is an incredible place I love it so much I get so
48:43
upset when other people
48:44
talk down on it and yet it is the butt of like 90% of my jokes
48:48
because it is also
48:49
an extremely weird place and an extremely hard place to be from
48:54
it's not a place
48:55
SPEAKER_00: where I would like necessarily recommend like
48:58
Go raise a family with a lot of independent,
49:00
free-thinking daughters there.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: It'll be great.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: And totally related to that idea of both really loving where you're from,
49:10
SPEAKER_00: actively romanticizing it,
49:12
SPEAKER_00: and being like,
49:12
my whole existence is kind of premised on being anywhere else
49:16
for a while.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, there was another question I had about, Oh, the, the soundtrack.
49:23
SPEAKER_02: So the,
49:23
SPEAKER_02: the,
49:24
SPEAKER_02: the scene where they're crying in the car,
49:26
SPEAKER_02: listening to a crash into me by the Dave Matthews band.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: Um,
49:31
SPEAKER_02: There's,
49:32
I believe it's a 60 songs that explain the nineties episode
49:36
where they delve into
49:37
SPEAKER_02: that song.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: And like,
49:38
SPEAKER_02: um,
49:39
I think they touch on Greta Gerwig having this quote somewhere
49:42
where like,
49:43
SPEAKER_02: no,
49:43
SPEAKER_02: I just liked that song.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with like,
49:45
SPEAKER_02: like,
49:46
SPEAKER_02: like I know that people don't like it and it's not cool,
49:49
SPEAKER_02: but I'm like,
49:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm,
49:50
and she makes this case for embracing things that maybe other
49:53
people don't think
49:54
SPEAKER_02: are cool or have fallen out of being fallen out of favor.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's what good creative work can do really well,
50:00
SPEAKER_00: because,
50:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:01
SPEAKER_00: I,
50:02
SPEAKER_00: like any other,
50:03
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:03
SPEAKER_00: high school girl in Arkansas in the,
50:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:06
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:06
SPEAKER_00: early 2000s,
50:07
SPEAKER_00: love Dave Matthews Band,
50:09
SPEAKER_00: absolutely had,
50:09
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:10
SPEAKER_00: a Dave Matthews Band CD in my vehicle at all times,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:13
SPEAKER_00: as is basically state mandated.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: And when I left home and realized that that is not cool,
50:19
SPEAKER_00: it was like,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: oh,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
50:21
SPEAKER_00: no,
50:21
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:21
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, who likes that stuff?
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, bro music, so lame.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: And then seeing it in Lady Bird and having just,
50:27
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:27
SPEAKER_00: the full body sense memory of,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: I have also definitely cried in a car to this song.
50:33
And seeing it,
50:34
again,
50:34
rendered on the big screen as art,
50:37
I was just,
50:37
like...
50:38
no this is fucking good this is what art is like it
50:42
recontextualizes that whole
50:44
song and she you know we hear a lot about the idea of
50:47
millennial cringe and how us
50:49
millennials are like so intolerable with our like earnestness
50:53
and just like desire
50:54
to relate honestly to things and i see so much of myself in
50:58
that idea of just like
50:59
no screw it let's reclaim dmb like we got it crash into me is a
51:03
banger and you
51:04
SPEAKER_00: can't deny it
51:06
I wonder what the age range for people who had that experience
51:10
in the theater,
51:11
SPEAKER_02: like you did with that song.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: Because I listened to the Dave Matthews Band in college,
51:15
SPEAKER_02: like owned probably every album up through a certain point.
51:19
And then just like kind of just stopped for a very long time
51:23
and just have never
51:23
SPEAKER_02: hit play on a Dave Matthews Band song.
51:25
SPEAKER_02: And then that came up and I was like,
51:27
oh yeah dave matthew's band and i was like ah you know i really
51:30
did like that album
51:31
he did at luther college with tim reynolds and like you know
51:34
like yeah yeah like
51:37
you know there it's i have this like now that i'm like getting
51:40
older and i'm
51:41
anxious about my relationship to popular culture and if i'm
51:45
cool and relevant and
51:47
like one like still having this desire to be like i'm listening
51:49
to good things like
51:51
SPEAKER_00: i'm i'm a good person i have good taste
51:53
And realizing that that is like a thing that has never existed
51:56
and be certainly is
51:57
SPEAKER_00: not my reality now.
51:59
Just like unapologetically owning being like,
52:02
oh,
52:02
actually,
52:03
I decide if this shit is cool.
52:04
I'm Greta Gerwig and I'm putting Dave Matthews band in my film
52:07
and it's cool now.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
52:10
there's a bumper sticker I see in a car in our neighborhood
52:13
somewhere when I'm
52:13
SPEAKER_02: running by a lot.
52:14
And it says,
52:15
I may be old,
52:16
but I got to see all the good bands or all the cool bands.
52:21
And I always think that's just like literally everybody who
52:25
ages thinks that.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:27
SPEAKER_02: You're like, yeah, the music was good back in my day.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: And then like,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: like,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:31
SPEAKER_02: you only say that because you're like 40 to 75,
52:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:35
SPEAKER_02: like that's the only reason you say it or maybe 35 to 75.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
52:39
You hear people talk about the heiress tour and it's like how
52:41
it's like when Dylan
52:42
SPEAKER_00: went electric,
52:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
52:44
SPEAKER_00: like that's just just a slightly different cultural touch point.
52:48
your woodstock or something like that yeah that's our woodstock
52:51
yeah again girl
52:52
shit you know let girls make art at scale yes at scale um yeah
52:59
there's something to
52:59
i think of the narrative of like leaving your hometown again
53:03
and like i always have
53:05
had this weird experience when i meet people who come from
53:07
someplace interesting
53:08
SPEAKER_02: and they just stayed and
53:10
And I don't understand how you,
53:13
that doesn't fit my narrative map of someone's life.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, what did you spend your teenage years being angsty about?
53:21
SPEAKER_00: If not obsessing about getting out?
53:23
SPEAKER_00: What did you even write your college essay about?
53:26
SPEAKER_00: I live somewhere nice and my family accepts me?
53:28
SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
53:30
SPEAKER_02: did you have angst at all?
53:31
SPEAKER_02: Were you just like, I know it's cool here.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: It's the best.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: I had one more question for you.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: Other, other Greta Gerwig films.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything she has ever been in and made is perfect to me.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: I think honorable mention is Frances Ha,
53:52
SPEAKER_00: which she kind of ghost directed,
53:54
SPEAKER_00: which is another,
53:55
SPEAKER_00: I would say,
53:56
SPEAKER_00: incredible piece of girl art,
53:57
SPEAKER_00: even though it's written and directed by Noah Baumbach,
54:00
SPEAKER_00: who honorary girl as co-author on the Barbie movie.
54:04
But that's another movie about being in your 20s and kind of
54:08
trying to make it happen.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's just not happening.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: But the just not happening is actually so fun and exciting.
54:15
And maybe not reaching your dreams and not quite making it in
54:18
New York City can
54:19
also be beautiful when you film it in black and white and you
54:22
have Greta Gerwig act
54:24
SPEAKER_00: in it and Noah Baumbach right in it.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: And sort of,
54:27
SPEAKER_00: I think,
54:28
SPEAKER_00: captures this extremely fun,
54:30
SPEAKER_00: also resonant,
54:31
SPEAKER_00: sort of like Brooklyn,
54:33
SPEAKER_00: a little...
54:34
too smart for your own good but you're also not quite as smart
54:36
as you think you are
54:38
way of being where like having good taste and things also is
54:42
not quite enough to
54:43
SPEAKER_00: make up an entire human personality that one can navigate life with
54:49
SPEAKER_02: You've just described the entire premise of this podcast.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: Because the argument here is this is your entire personality.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: Or much of it anyway.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: Or much of who you are as a person.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: This is like my material DNA.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: I think that's actually a great place to end it.
55:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for taking the time.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: This has been super fun.
55:14
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.