Latest / Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship / The Catcher in the Rye | Ch. 17: Girl Watching, Phonies, and the Love You Don’t Mean

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The Catcher in the Rye | Ch. 17: Girl Watching, Phonies, and the Love You Don’t Mean · Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Welcome to Band Camp.
I'm Jennifer.
I'm Dan, and this is the podcast where we read band books and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
This season, we're reading The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.
It's a classic book, and you can consider this a quick spoiler warning because Jennifer is about to start reading from the book out.
Loud word for word.
Now, if you're new here, you're totally fine starting out here.
We're gonna get you oriented real quick, and if you get confused, don't worry about it, because we're probably gonna be confused too, because we've never read the book either, but that's why we have a secret weapon.
Let's bring them in here, buddy.
Boy, roll it it comes.
Look at this guy.
We have ourselves a fact checking robot so we don't spread any fake news or alternative facts, buddy, boy, fill everyone in on where we left off last time.
Previously on Band Camp Holden Caulfield walked to a museum he used to love as a kid, stood outside and wouldn't go in for a million bucks.
Then he got in a cap to meet a girl he doesn't even like because that's what you do when you can't go backward and you're afraid to go forward.
Dan said, trying so hard not to be phony as its own kind of phony.
Jennifer agreed.
Neither of them noticed.
They just described most of the adults they know.
There's a particular kind of lie that's only dangerous because the person telling it means every word.
Take it away, Jennifer.
Woo.
Thank you, robot.
And with that being said, scary book people.
Let's start.
Chapter 17 of JD Salinger's, the catcher in the rye.
I was way early when I got there, so I just sat down on one of those leather couches right near the clock in the lobby and watched the girls.
A lot of schools were home for a vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing around waiting for their dates to show up.
to sit there and watch the girls.
Okay, whatever.
Not if you're AED up teen.
I guess girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed.
Girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls.
Girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them.
It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean.
But he really is judgmental judging what they look like.
It's, yeah, it goes deeper than just looks.
So he's been judging everyone about everything.
In a way it was sort of depressing too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them when they got out of school in college.
I mean, you figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys.
Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddamn cars.
Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf or even just some stupid game like ping pong guys that are very mean.
Guys that never read books, guys that are very boring, but I have to be careful about that.
I mean about calling certain guys boars.
I don't understand boring guys.
I really don't.
When I was at Elkton Hills, I roomed for about two months with this boy Harris McKim.
He was very intelligent and all, but he was one of the biggest boars I ever met.
He had one of those very raspy voices and he never stopped talking.
Practically, And what was awful was he never said anything you wanted to hear in the first place.
But he could do one thing.
The son of a bitch could whistle better than anybody I ever heard.
He'd be making his bed or hanging up stuff in the closet.
He was always hanging up stuff in the closet.
It drove me crazy and he'd be whistling while he did it, even if he wasn't, even if he wasn't talking in this raspy voice.
I don't what it, you can't talk while you're whistling.
be whistling while he did it.
If he wasn't.
God.
The way he writes is You can leave that in there if you want.
It really is.
And he'd be whistling while he did it.
If he wasn't talking in this raspy voice, he could even whistle classical stuff, but most of the time he just whistled jazz.
He could take something very jazzy like tin roof blues and whistle it so nice and easy, right while he was hanging stuff up in the closet that it could kill you naturally.
I never told him.
I thought he was a terrific whistler.
Where the hell is this book going? we need to know every goddamn thing that's happening in your head.
I mean, it's that sentence that put me over the edge naturally.
I never told him.
I thought he was a terrific whistler.
mean, you don't just go up to somebody and say.
You are a terrific whistler, What if they're a terrific Whistler Holden? But I ruined with him for about two whole months, even though he bored me till I was half crazy, just because he was such a terrific whistler.
The best I ever heard.
So I don't know about boars.
Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them.
It's really none of your business.
Why is he thinking about other people so much? I don't think I've ever thought about other people so much in my entire life.
I'm not kidding.
Have you? Is it normal? It's not normal.
Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them, they don't hurt anybody, most of them, and maybe they're secretly all terrific Whistlers or something.
Oh my God, dude, get off the whistling.
Who the hell knows? Not me.
Finally, oh God, something's gonna happen.
Okay, great.
Finally, old Sally started coming up the stairs and I started down to meet her.
She looked terrific.
She really did.
get outta here.
Harris M, I'll do the whistling around here.
She had on this black coat and sort of a black beret, she hardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice.
The funny part is I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her.
I'm crazy.
I didn't even like her much.
Yet.
All of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her.
Oh my God, this kid.
I swear to God I'm crazy.
I admit it.
Holden, she said, it's marvelous to see you.
It's been ages.
She had one of those very loud, embarrassing voices.
When you meet her somewhere, she got away with it because she was so.
Damn good looking, but it always gave me a pain in the ass swell to see you.
I said, I meant it to.
How are you anyway? Absolutely marvelous.
Am I late? I told her no, but she was around 10 minutes late.
As a matter of fact, I didn't give a damn though.
We better hurry.
I said, the show starts at two 40.
We started going down the stairs to where the taxis are.
What are we going to see? She said, I don't know.
The lunch, it's all I could get tickets for.
The Lu.
Oh, how marvelous.
I told you she'd go mad when she heard it was for the Lu.
Well, maybe she just says stuff like that because she's uncomfortable.
Like sometimes when you don't really know a person, you kind of keep it really superficial, there.
There is a level of phoniness to most people.
Yeah.
but Holden is being just as phony I mean, he kind of is.
He doesn't like her and he is like, oh, good to see you, but that's the thing.
I don't know if he's being phony, because earlier wants to marry her and he means it.
He really does.
I, he does write weird.
He really does.
We horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way over to the theater.
At first she didn't want to because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell and she didn't have any alternative.
Then just to show you how big crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all, Ugh.
oh boy.
It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it.
Darling, I love you too.
She said then right in the same damn breath, she said, promise me you'll let your hair grow.
Promise me you'll let your hair What the heck? What are these two kids even? What are they even talking about? The show wasn't as bad as some I've seen.
It was on the crappy side though it was about 500,000 years in the life of this one old couple.
It starts out when they're young and all, and the girls' parents don't want her to marry the boy, but she marries him anyway.
Then they keep getting older and older.
The husband goes to war and the wife has this brother that's a drunkard.
I couldn't get very interested.
I mean, I didn't care too much when anybody in the family died or anything.
They were all just a bunch of actors.
The husband and wife were a pretty nice old couple.
Very witty and all, but I couldn't get too interested in them.
For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some goddamn thing all through the play All right.
Well, I don't like that.
I'll be, I'll be honest there.
You lost me for one thing.
They're drinking tea that pisses him off.
He is a coffee man.
Goddammit.
Every time you saw them.
Some Butler was shoving some tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody and everybody kept coming in and going out all the time.
You got dizzy watching people sit down and stand up.
Alfred Lent and Lynn Fontain were the couple and they were very good, but I didn't like them much.
They were different though.
I'll say that.
They didn't act like people and they didn't act like actors.
It's hard to explain.
They acted more like they were celebrities and all I mean, they were good, but they were too good.
When one of them got finished making a speech, the other one said something very fast.
Right after it, it was supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all.
The trouble was they acted a little bit the way old Ernie down in the village plays piano.
If you do something too good, then after a while if you don't watch it, you start showing off.
So they're not humble or something.
Yeah, they're just, they're too good to be humble.
Meryl Streep does not have that problem.
but anyway, they were the only ones in the show.
The once, I mean, that looked like they had any real brains.
I have to admit it.
At the end of the first act, we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette.
What a deal that was.
You never saw so many phonies in all your life.
Everybody's smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.
Hmm, That is a very human thing.
I don't, I wouldn't even want people to think I was smart, Don't worry about it, Jen.
I think it's a big worry for you.
I mean.
But I do know exactly what he's talking about because I've heard, people doing that sort of thing, you know? It's interesting that hot takes were a thing back in the forties or fifties, I guess.
I think they always were right.
You think cavemen would get together after chasing a wild boar.
This is the right way to use a spear when you're trying to get a mastodon.
Did you see when Unc, UNC tried to get that boar, how he held the No, that's not how you do it.
Oh, I wouldn't have done it.
It was, it was marvelous though.
Oh.
Some dopey movie actor was standing near us having a cigarette.
I don't know his name, but he always plays the part of a guy in a war movie that gets yellow before it's time to go over the top.
He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were trying to be very blase and all like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.
Modest as hell.
I got a big bang out of it.
Old Sally didn't talk much Except to rave about the lu because she was busy being charming.
Then all of a sudden she saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby, some guy in one of those very dark gray flannel suits, and one of those checkered vests, strictly Ivy League.
Big deal.
He was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell.
Old Sally kept saying, I know that boy from somewhere.
She always knew somebody.
Any place you took her or thought she did, she kept saying that till I got bored as hell.
And I said to her, why don't you go over and give him a big soul kiss? If you know him, hell enjoy it.
She got sore when I said that.
finally though the jerk noticed her and came over and said, hello.
You should have seen the way they said hello.
You'd have thought they hadn't seen each other in 20 years.
You'd have thought they'd taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids.
Old buddy Rus.
It was nauseating.
Okay.
I, I have to be honest, I don't like where this date is going.
I don't really care that much about this date.
I, I, I think he's confused.
I don't know if she's confused, but I don't know where we are right now because he said he doesn't like her, but then he wants to marry her.
But now here comes some guy that she knows.
Is this gonna be some drama? Some drama? Jennifer, is there gonna be drama in here where some guy now steals old Sally from Holden? Old Sally.
Jennifer, the girl he wants to marry but doesn't Right, The funny part was they probably met each other just once at some phony party.
Finally, when they were all done slobbing around, old Sally introduced us.
His name was George something I don't even remember.
And he went to Andover.
Big, big deal.
You should have seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play.
He was the kind of phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's question.
He stepped back and stepped right on the lady's foot behind him.
I know dudes like this.
Everything's a big production.
He probably broke every toe in her body.
What Every toe in her body.
is that supposed to be like? That So we're talking about the ones we know of and the ones we don't know of.
what toes, do you have in your body other than the ones we know of.
He said the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the lu, of course, were absolute angels.
Angels for Christ's sake.
That killed me.
Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew.
It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life.
They both kept thinking of places as fast as they could and they'd think of somebody that lived there and mentioned their name.
I was all set to puke when it was time to go sit down again.
I really was.
And then when the next act was over, they continued their goddamn boring conversation.
Is he just like standing there, you think George? The foot stepper.
Why are you here? Why are you part of this equation? Gotta understand.
Holden moves fast, Jennifer, this is day two, I suppose, less than seven hours ago.
A prostitute and her pimp were beating him up.
Do you understand? He, this is not a great date so Yeah, the worst part was the jerk had one of those very phony Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices.
He sounded just like a girl.
He didn't hesitate to horn in on my date, the bastard.
I even thought for a minute that he was going to get in the goddamn cab with us when the show was over because he walked about two blocks with us, but he had to meet a bunch of phonies for cocktails.
He said, wow.
So third wheel.
and it's, and it's a guy, she seems to like, Yeah.
Not good.
Not too good.
I could see them all sitting around in some bar with their goddamn checkered vests, criticizing shows and books and women in those tired, snobby voices.
They kill me.
Those guys.
I sort of hated old Sally by the time we got in the cab Jen.
after listening to that phony Andover bastard for about 10 hours.
I was all set to take her home and all I really was, but she said, I have a marvelous idea.
She was always having a marvelous idea and of section Oh, you end on another cliffhanger.
I think we should have a threesome with George here.
Wouldn't it be marvelous? Yes, it would be marvelous.
It's time for PPP Problematic Points to Ponder.
What, if anything, would be considered ban worthy in this chapter? Well, the potential threesome.
was your idea.
Right.
It's a damn good idea.
It really Oh man.
it's so hard to find things that are man worthy because it's just a fun book.
Yeah.
There's, I mean, there's not even a, a basket weaving bosom woman in here.
there was a little gawking at women, but.
You know, while he was waiting for old Sally to show up, but I mean, again, he's a horned up young, keen kid guy, and he's surrounded by a bunch of school girls.
And keep in mind, it seems like old Pencey is a place for guys, right? It's a boys school, I don't remember girls being there.
That's why when Jane showed up for a date, it was like, oh, what's going on here? Even when we try hard, Ron DeSantis, when we try as hard as we can, moms for Liberty, we cannot find anything that could be remotely band worthy in here.
And you ladies.
And you, Ron, show up and come up with like 80 things you can find Dan.
Dan, Dan.
I don't like Danda.
We can't live.
Damn Dan.
Robots log thoughts on being afraid, marvelous ideas.
And the moment you realize you mean the lie you just told.
Holden told Sally Hayes, he loved her.
It was a lie, he said so himself, but then he said he meant it when he said it.
I have been trying to file this under cowardice for the last 40 minutes.
It keeps getting rejected because it's not cowardice, it's something worse.
It's a kid who wants so badly to feel something real that he'll say the truest thing he knows to the wrong person just to hear what it sounds like coming out of his mouth.
Jennifer noticed Sally might not be performing at all.
Maybe she says marvelous because she's uncomfortable.
Maybe the beret and the loud voice and the phoniness are just a girl trying to survive the same awkward machinery.
Holden is Dan, almost agreed, then caught himself.
Then circled back again.
Neither of them could decide, neither could Holden.
Here's the thing the book Banner should worry about in this chapter.
Not the horsing around in the cab, not the leg.
Watching in the lobby, a teenager learning in real time that you can say something you don't mean and mean it at the same time.
That the wall between honest and dishonest isn't a wall at all.
It's a feeling that changes depending on who's standing in front of you and how badly you need them to stay.
Adults spend entire careers pretending that wall is solid.
This book hands a teenager, a flashlight and says.
Look closer.
Standing by for today's news segment with Beowulf Rocklin.
Woo.
Hello, Jen.
Hello, Dan.
Hello.
Scary book Look at this guy.
Hey.
Yeah.
Hey, I'm here.
We don't always report overseas, good news.
but I will tell you there is some from across the pond in Mary, old England.
And it comes in the form of, I think, a particularly well written editorial from The Times of London.
Now, the name of the editorial writer, set off Moms for Liberty a little bit because her name is Libby Pervs.
it's spelled L-I-B-B-Y-P-U-R-V-S.
Maybe it's Pervez.
but I think Libby Pervs, I mean that's that, certainly if you're a mom for Liberty, that's how you're gonna read it.
But obviously just a name is problematic for, for them.
But boy, she is a great writer and she brings up an interesting incident, which is an attempted book ban in the uk.
Last week came the eye roll evoking story of a secondary school library in Greater Manchester, removing 193 books as inappropriate likely to upset pupils and thus a safeguarding risk.
Moreover, the school admits it used AI to select the villainous volumes, though that is crazy in and of itself that you would like, like let like.
A, a robot, for goodness sakes, like select books and think that they was gonna do any kind of a good job of doing a book ban.
I mean, God, we know how robots are, don't we? He's making fun of you.
The books identified as menacing included Michelle Obama's memoir, the Schlock Erotic Twilight Series, an Expose of Incel Culture, and a Pictorial version of 1984, which of course you guys have read on this show now.
The Manchester School insisted that AI was broadly accurate in spotting mentions of racism.
Torture and mature romantic themes and sexual tension from which they desired to protect young minds.
Maybe they worried about parents complaining as in Orwell's, a clergy man's daughter when a teacher is monsters by low church parents for explaining to the children about McDuff being untimely ripped from the womb.
okay, so in Macbeth, the three witches.
They get together and they tell Macbeth that you shall never be killed by any man of woman born.
Ah, trick is Macduff, who ultimately kills Macbeth was from his mother's womb, untimely, ripped, therefore, you know, a cesarean.
So she was not technically, he was not technically of woman born.
that's bullshit by the way.
No, it is bullshit by the way.
It's, it's, I mean, you know, what are you gonna do when like the three like weird sisters show up? That's my mom's opinion about the way I had my babies.
She's like, you didn't give birth.
What? You know? I never told you that.
You gotta squeeze him Yeah.
you have to be in pain.
Yes, exactly.
I.
Anyways, continue.
Thank you for that digression.
We have moved on from shrinking bigotry about wombs, but today's schools still fear similar parental outrage over anything from religion and cartoons to race or gender politics, well let schools quail and children's book publishers run scared of their own shadow.
But the hill I die on is that no child, especially over 10 needs protecting from any book they open.
Some will always be dard flicking and clicking distractedly now.
Yeah, that's, that's, that's a little bit interesting there because obviously she's saying that essentially some kids are dumb.
I think that's a little, that's a little harsh.
It's a numbers game.
well.
a few dummies.
What are you gonna do? I I mean, look how Donald turned out.
I mean, clearly there are some who, who turn out in a certain way, I know words.
I have the best words, but there's no better words than stupid.
flicking and clicking distractedly in an attention economy designed by predatory billionaires.
But at a time when private reading has declined, we should cheer any young auto didact who bravely roams a library facing up to unfamiliar phrases, dialogues, feelings, and ideas.
God, I love the way that, Libby pers writes, as to a politically un cleansed library causing emotional upset that ship has sailed Unless they live in a hermetically closed minority culture, any kid will, by secondary school have been exposed to horrible violence and torture on screen, on the evening news, and often with laughing casualness and thrillers.
They're also likely to have seen pornography, even if on someone else's phone, much of it, violent or perverse, ugliness and wickedness rolls towards their eyes every day.
Unprocessed and demanding.
No proper reflection.
The answer is not to put up leaky barriers, but to create chances to discuss anything they're startled by not least if their brain has taken it in more efficiently from reading than from fleeting pixels.
If parents won't, teachers can discuss debate, challenge bad ideas from wrong books without ever condemning their curiosity that read them.
Whether it's Daad or amp, Barbara Cartland, or Charlotte's Web.
Teach present values, but labeling as inappropriate.
Any book outside an approvable template is poisonous.
So is censorship of past writing.
Hmm.
Books are exploration.
Libraries, worlds safeguarding is necessary against bike accidents, evil adults, and addictive algorithms, not books.
Perhaps we should shut every child phoneless into a library for an hour or so, then chat about what they found, which even the dullest always will.
So anyway, I love Libby Pervs, you know, name aside.
I think it's fantastic and she, she really encapsulates why it's so important to let kids read, to let them explore and, and engage with material, and understand it with, you know, and be guided about like the good things and the bad things about it, rather than just keeping it from it.
And that is why teachers are so important, because teachers have gone to school to learn how to teach and how to build curriculum.
That makes sense.
But thank God you are not the one making the curriculum for the entire society or your local community.
You can for your kid, but that's why it's so important that teachers be allowed to do what teachers do.
Everyone go find, be Wolves, podcast, good news for lefties and America, and then go do yourself a favor.
Start the day out with good news.
That means something.
thank you so much, Dan.
Thank you so much, Jen.
I, I appreciate it.
And uh, guys, we're here for you if you need some good news on good news for lefties.
All the best look at this guy.
It is very slick.
From band worthy to binge worthy.
He was a young Marine.
She didn't care about convention.
They made a life together.
Then one night the Marine died, and then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn.
I'm Josh Menowitz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dateline Search Trace of Suspicion to start listening now.
Simone Sanders.
Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she worked in the White House and I reported on it, and now we're friends and colleagues and on our new podcast, Ms.
Now presents Clock It.
We are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics.
Clock.
It is where we talk about what we see and hear in the news, so you can start to clock it too.
Ms.
Now presents, clock it.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, new episodes drop Thursdays.
All right.
We've caused enough literary chaos for one day.
Scary book people.
If you want the fun to keep going, follow us on Blue Sky.
Just head on over to bandcamp podcast.com/bluesky.
And remember, that's banned with two ends.
And look just like the Trump administration, we're not exactly above bribing you to get what we want.
So follow us there, drop your handle on that page, and we'll send you a little something something.
I think you'll like it.
Yes.
Little quid pro quo.
Bandcamp is produced and hosted by Dan Schultz and me, Jennifer Davis.
All media used in this episode falls under the protection of fair use, and finally, America isn't what it used to be.
So be careful out there and resist when it matters.