Latest / My Favorite Things / My Favorite Things Episode 16: Wendy Wagner

Transcript

My Favorite Things Episode 16: Wendy Wagner · My Favorite Things

0:00
Wendy Wagner thanks for being here thank you Brendan it's so
0:04
great to get to chat
0:04
with you today for sure um can you tell us a little bit about
0:09
who you are yeah um
0:12
I'm a writer and editor and I live in the Portland metro area
0:19
um I actually
0:23
I write horror novels,
0:25
which I think is probably a first for this podcast.
0:29
And it's always funny to say out loud because people are like,
0:33
oh,
0:33
a writer,
0:34
what do you write?
0:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, and they're like, oh, you look like such a nice lady.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: And then you say, I write horror novels.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, what?
0:42
SPEAKER_01: What?
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's, I love it.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: I also, I edit a horror magazine.
0:50
So I kind of go through life just kind of being like a big
0:53
advocate for horror and
0:55
SPEAKER_01: all the things it can do.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of funny,
0:59
SPEAKER_01: like so many people just come up and talk to me and say like,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: oh,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't like horror.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't like just the gratuitous violence and blood.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'll be like, well...
1:11
SPEAKER_01: in high school or college.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Did you have to read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka?
1:16
SPEAKER_01: And they'd be like, oh yeah, that's an amazing book.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: That can fall under the purview of horror, right?
1:22
SPEAKER_01: Because horror can do so much more than just be scary.
1:25
It can be a great way to interact and grapple with all of the
1:33
darker side of the
1:34
SPEAKER_01: human condition,
1:35
SPEAKER_01: whether that's being really depressed,
1:40
Franz Kafka's main character in The Metamorphosis or you know
1:45
being scared or being
1:47
angry and I feel like it's a genre that's really fun because
1:52
like on one hand it
1:53
can allow you to like safely engage with like these feelings
1:56
that are terrible
1:58
SPEAKER_01: right like when we have them in real life it's just
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Semi-Rad
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
2:21
SPEAKER_00: and you know,
2:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
2:22
SPEAKER_00: I read your last book,
2:23
SPEAKER_00: even though I don't,
2:24
SPEAKER_00: I do not read or watch horror movies.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't watch horror movies.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't read horror books.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: But I was like, you know, Wendy's, Wendy's nice.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure this is, I bet I can handle this.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't seem like she's ever killed anybody in a violent manner.
2:38
And it was,
2:40
almost felt like,
2:40
to me,
2:41
I was like,
2:41
oh,
2:41
I don't know what I was so scared of.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: This is like a lot more science fiction-y.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: To me, to me.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I feel that way, too.
2:48
okay yeah I've had people say like oh that book was so scary
2:51
I'm like oh I I
2:52
thought it was like a fun adventure novel you know but
2:56
everybody's feelings about
2:58
that kind of stuff is different so for sure yeah it was a genre
3:02
what mystery too I
3:03
would almost say yeah so yeah um anyway we could talk about
3:08
that stuff all day and
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I imagine I imagine some of that's gonna show up
3:12
SPEAKER_00: In this list of favorite things.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: So as you know, this show is called My Favorite Thing.
3:18
So you have put together a list of five of your favorite
3:22
creative works throughout your life.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just going to lead you through the list if that's okay.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be so fun.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Number one is called So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Am I pronouncing her name right?
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:40
when what is this and when when did this come into your life
3:44
what how old were you
3:45
sure I was probably seven or eight when I read this maybe yeah
3:51
I'd say seven
3:51
SPEAKER_01: because I was not a good reader until um second grade I um it was like
4:01
Let me sort of rewind a little and kind of have this set up
4:04
because I skipped
4:05
SPEAKER_01: kindergarten because I went to a school that was so small.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: There were no kindergartners.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: So they just put me in with first graders.
4:12
And so I just like trudged through first grade and was like,
4:17
man,
4:18
this reading stuff is no fun.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: But my family just seems to totally love it.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: What gives?
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And then in second grade, we were doing
4:30
SPEAKER_01: This is a long time ago,
4:31
SPEAKER_01: people,
4:31
SPEAKER_01: when you still had like school plays that could be Christmas plays.
4:36
So our school did the play of like the worst Christmas pageant
4:41
ever or something
4:42
SPEAKER_01: like that,
4:43
SPEAKER_01: which is a hilarious book,
4:46
SPEAKER_01: which we read as a like as a whole school.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: This is a really small school.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: There's like 20 kids in it at that time.
4:54
And so we all read the book together and then we're training
4:58
for a play and like...
5:00
uh after hearing it I picked it up and started reading it and
5:05
all of a sudden it
5:05
was like something had clicked in my head and words just made
5:10
sense for the first
5:12
time it wasn't just like slowly sounding out like the just like
5:17
painfully stitching
5:18
together sounds to like make words and it went from being like
5:21
well I'm reading
5:22
SPEAKER_01: picture books to I could read anything and I we
5:26
had like every two weeks the bookmobile would come and they
5:30
would turn us loose
5:32
like you'd skip PE class and you could be out there as long as
5:35
you wanted and you
5:36
can get as many books as you wanted and like it went from being
5:41
like well this is a
5:42
fun thing to like this is my life how many books can I get off
5:46
the shelf and I
5:48
would take books from every shelf but this book that I found
5:51
was an actual kids
5:53
SPEAKER_01: book and probably the
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Don't take it the wrong way.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: This is a brilliant writer, but she did do something terrible.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: She was...
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Before she became a children's writer,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: she worked for Hanna-Barbera,
6:09
SPEAKER_01: and she is the person that created Scrappy-Doo.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: I know most people hate Scrappy-Doo, so if you're one of them...
6:18
SPEAKER_00: I was waiting for the bombshell to drop.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, okay.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fine.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this book...
6:27
SPEAKER_01: It's a really great book that came out, I think, in like 1983 or 84.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: So it was not brand new when I found it.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: And it's this great story about these kids.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: They are both kind of misfit kids.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: And both of them have...
6:42
one at like the library one at a used bookstore um have found a
6:48
copy of this book
6:49
it's like you know it's supposed to be like a volume in a
6:51
series it's like so you
6:52
want to be an astronaut so you want to be a teacher so you want
6:56
to be a cook but
6:57
this one is so you want to be a wizard and like you know the
7:01
main character Anita
7:03
she finds this book and she's like this has to be a joke but
7:06
she starts reading it
7:06
SPEAKER_01: as full of all this interesting stuff and she's like
7:10
Well,
7:10
if it's a joke,
7:11
it's no big deal if I take this wizard's oath and nothing will
7:16
happen.
7:17
spoiler things happen and the cool thing about this book and I
7:22
think one of the
7:22
reasons why it spoke so much to me as a kid is it combines you
7:26
know magical stuff
7:28
as you would expect from the title but it's really really
7:32
pro-science like you know
7:35
Nita has a telescope she loves to watch the stars the first big
7:40
spell that she and
7:41
SPEAKER_01: her
7:42
fellow new wizard Kit the first spell that they do together
7:46
accidentally summons a
7:47
white hole who is on a mission to help save some stars in his
7:54
side of the galaxy
7:56
and it's hilarious because he's constantly like burping out
8:01
emitting matter and
8:03
SPEAKER_01: he's trying not to emit things like gamma rays to like cook them and
8:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm like seven and I'm reading about gamma rays and things.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, what's this?
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Mom, can you tell me what this thing is?
8:14
And it was like so exciting because it was just this really
8:18
great way to like learn
8:21
SPEAKER_01: all this cool stuff about like physics and biology and stuff like that.
8:27
coming wrapped up inside like an adventure story about misfit
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kids which I felt
8:35
like I was a misfit kid and yeah and then of course they're
8:39
doing magic and saving
8:40
the world and there's also truly horrifying monsters like they
8:48
wind up going to an
8:50
SPEAKER_01: alternate earth it's an alternate Manhattan and
8:55
And they come through a world gate on top of,
8:58
I think it's the Pan Am building.
9:02
And they're being chased by like sentient helicopters whose
9:07
like skids are like big claws.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: When they get down to the bottom of the building,
9:13
SPEAKER_01: they're like go out in the street and they see...
9:18
fire hydrant like eat a pigeon and then spit out the bones and
9:23
you know everything
9:24
in this version of New York City is extremely malignant um and
9:29
and they make their
9:30
way as best they can they befriend this uh it's like a a lotus
9:35
esprit that is
9:36
injured by another evil car and it's just great in the meantime
9:41
they're you know
9:41
SPEAKER_01: they're using magic to save their lives while um
9:46
SPEAKER_01: learning how quickly light moves to Earth and things like that.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
9:52
so do you think it was the subject matter or it was just like
9:56
developmentally that
9:57
SPEAKER_00: exact time that it happened to work out for you?
10:01
SPEAKER_01: I think it was a little bit of everything because like our family,
10:10
SPEAKER_01: we often had sort of limited access to
10:14
television because of the way the reception was so a lot of
10:16
times the only things
10:17
we ever watched were PBS um so we were like really into science
10:22
my mom really loved
10:23
science fiction um and she was always reading Stephen King and
10:31
others all of my
10:32
sisters loved scary books and stuff so we loved having like
10:36
thrilling stuff but
10:38
SPEAKER_01: then we were a very sciencey household um
10:42
So I think,
10:43
I think,
10:44
yeah,
10:44
it just was the perfect match for my personality at that time.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: And it was just packed with wonder.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: In my term we use in like the science fiction fantasy world,
10:58
SPEAKER_01: it's less used nowadays,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: but it was really big,
11:02
important element of the industry and like what books were
11:05
trying to do in like the
11:07
SPEAKER_01: 50s,
11:07
SPEAKER_01: 60s.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: It's all run together.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Sense of wonder.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: That's what books are supposed to be about.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: They're supposed to leave you with a sense of wonder.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like this book really captured it.
11:19
And it's kind of coming out of a time,
11:22
you know,
11:22
in the late 70s,
11:23
Madeleine L'Engle was writing.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: And she had, like, The Swiftly Tilting Planet.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And Susan B. Cooper was writing for kids.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: And there were just a lot of books for...
11:37
like late elementary early middle school age kids that were
11:42
really like they were
11:45
like really full of populated by like smart kids having
11:50
adventures and when you
11:51
read them you felt like oh it's cool that I like math or you
11:56
know Zilpha Keighley
11:57
Snyder had books that made you like the Egypt game that made
12:01
you like oh yeah it's
12:02
SPEAKER_01: okay to like history like that's a cool thing
12:05
and yeah I feel like this book is strongly situated within the
12:09
nexus of all of
12:10
those books got it so it sounds like nobody in your family
12:15
would be like when when
12:17
you start writing horror stories and and books they're not like
12:21
Wendy what happened
12:22
no okay like oh this is we saw this coming yeah okay just a
12:28
natural development
12:29
SPEAKER_00: we'll read it too uh
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
12:32
SPEAKER_00: so next up on your list,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing there's a little jump in years here,
12:37
SPEAKER_00: but Twin Peaks,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: the TV series.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, yeah.
12:41
So I didn't get to see it when it was first on ABC because we
12:46
still lived in Ash
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Valley,
12:49
SPEAKER_01: which didn't,
12:50
SPEAKER_01: it was the kind of town that's not a town and had no reception.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: And kind of a setup for that is that
12:58
SPEAKER_01: You know,
12:58
SPEAKER_01: we're living in a part of rural Oregon where,
13:03
SPEAKER_01: like,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: our town,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: which had about 60 people in it,
13:11
everybody there either worked as a logger or they worked at the
13:16
sawmill or they
13:17
SPEAKER_01: were like a weird hippie who...
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Or possibly were like on the lam from the law.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, like nobody's normal in this town.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: It's like the kind of place that people moved to to escape from reality.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And we were about 25 miles outside of like the real town.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Just kind of in the coastal mountains.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Like just really nowheresville.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: So...
13:50
when I right before I started high school our house burned down
13:54
and we had to move
13:55
to town and it was it was a shock but it was great because then
14:00
we had cable and
14:04
which I will preface this by saying that the cable company in
14:08
the real town they
14:11
did not believe in MTV they thought it was evil so they refused
14:15
to carry like we
14:17
SPEAKER_01: nobody had MTV in our town it was
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe they could do that.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: I know.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: It seems illegal.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: And yet you will carry, you know, Showtime and Skinamax, but whatever.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: So we,
14:36
I just remember like the first time that I was like flipping
14:42
through the channels
14:43
SPEAKER_01: and it was,
14:45
SPEAKER_01: we got Bravo,
14:46
SPEAKER_01: which was like full of art entertainment at that time.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
14:50
it just seemed so cultural and so exciting um and when Twin
14:58
Peaks was picked up by
15:00
Bravo they recorded these special introductions to each episode
15:05
where the log lady
15:06
sits holding her log and she'll say something that is semi
15:13
usually semi like
15:15
SPEAKER_01: impenetrable and mysterious and um
15:19
you know just full sounds incredibly wise and I just like I hit
15:25
the channel right
15:26
at the moment and she's talking and I'm like whoa what a what a
15:30
what am I hearing
15:31
here right like this lady's talking about like we must ask why
15:37
until the final
15:38
knowing there is no room for why I'm like wow this sounds like
15:44
deep philosophy I
15:45
SPEAKER_01: gotta watch this show and then it
15:48
SPEAKER_01: It goes from this to the credits with a bird and a sawmill.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, they're speaking my language.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: This is my métier, my milieu.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: I've gone from the pinnacle of weird to just normal.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And then I was just sucked in.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: I was like...
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Wow, this town is exactly like where I grew up.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's entirely full of just weird people with mysterious secrets.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Only their secrets are interesting secrets.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just like, well, I went bankrupt or something like that.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: These people are very dangerous and interesting.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: And that combination of just...
16:31
Extreme normalcy with just that sense of the weird was for me
16:37
absolutely captivating.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: And I just fell in love instantly.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: I just thought it was like the best thing I'd ever seen.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Like for a show that ran two seasons,
16:51
like it is incredible how much of a that latched on to people
16:56
and like how many
16:57
SPEAKER_00: people like are super,
16:59
SPEAKER_00: super into it.
17:01
um so you're you're in high school like this is teenage years
17:05
where you're watching
17:05
this yeah and you came from you're coming from this town of
17:09
weirdos did you think
17:10
you were one of the weirdos or did you think you were normal at
17:13
that time uh well
17:17
this I I assumed that I was normal until I went to high school
17:22
on the first day and
17:24
then I was roundly informed by the other kids that I was in
17:28
fact a weirdo um
17:31
I started high school when I was 12 and I very I picked out
17:35
like the best best
17:37
possible outfit to wear the first day of school I was like this
17:39
is a cool outfit it
17:40
is so cool I had like these cream colored slacks and a red
17:46
t-shirt and a fedora and
17:50
like you know white wingtips all of these were from like the
17:54
thrift store and I was
17:55
SPEAKER_01: like I look rad
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And then I got to school and they're like, you can't wear a hat.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Take off your hat.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: What are you wearing?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And then it's like,
18:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:04
SPEAKER_01: my mom cut my hair and I was like,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: oh,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: I have this totally,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: I like had this idea for this great haircut.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: So, but mom...
18:13
didn't have those skills so basically I just had like a really
18:15
short bowl cut and I
18:17
looked exactly like a guy who was on the football team and then
18:21
say just spent like
18:22
the next three years just brutally like picking on us for like
18:27
looking like twins I
18:29
don't know who was more offended him or me oh you know I was a
18:35
kid that like other
18:36
SPEAKER_01: kids like took their
18:39
backpack from like the locker room in PE and threw it in the
18:42
garbage and I was just
18:46
constantly like the freshman year was just so horrible it was
18:51
really bad not fond
18:53
SPEAKER_01: memories of high school then well then my sophomore year I like a
18:58
I made friends with kids who knew freshmen and I became a drama
19:04
nerd and I found my
19:06
SPEAKER_01: people and then high school was fun.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: It was just that first year.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any social skills and it was a huge learning experience.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: In more ways than one.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:25
Number three is Car O'Keefe Kahlo Places of Their Own by Sharon
19:32
Rolfson Udall.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: This book came out in 2000.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: What year do you think you read it?
19:38
SPEAKER_01: It must have been 2000 or 2001.
19:41
I had graduated from college where I was a philosophy major
19:49
with minors in music and literature.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: My goal was obviously to be very easy to employ.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's practically an MBA, right?
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: And I was working at a sheet music store,
20:06
SPEAKER_01: which is,
20:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: you might find it hard to believe,
20:11
but Portland actually had a couple of sheet music stores and I
20:16
worked at one that
20:17
SPEAKER_01: was like,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: it was the
20:23
it was like the biggest sheet music store in the United States
20:26
like it was like a
20:27
big deal and I worked in the choir in the choral department and
20:31
you know you get
20:32
calls from all over the US and Canada and people would be like
20:36
ordering their sheet
20:37
music which to this day like when there is like an emergency
20:43
that's not an
20:44
emergency we I still call things a sheet music emergency
20:47
because like how big of a
20:49
SPEAKER_01: problem can it be is sheet music right
20:52
um and it was it was a fine job but it was also you know a
20:56
little bit boring um and
20:58
so I was like looking I was like it was I hadn't gotten into
21:03
writing yet again at
21:05
that point because even though I'd always wanted to be a writer
21:08
um what I wanted to
21:10
write were you know books full of monsters and slimy things and
21:16
fun adventures in
21:16
SPEAKER_01: the woods and I had just you know
21:21
SPEAKER_01: completed a literature minor that was like,
21:24
SPEAKER_01: books should be,
21:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:27
SPEAKER_01: of gravitas and meaning and the slime should be to the minimum.
21:33
And which is kind of funny because it's like so much of like
21:37
the so many of the
21:38
books that they actually like assigned us to read were like
21:41
science fiction.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like.
21:44
Ray Bradbury great science fiction writer you know and you're
21:48
reading like
21:49
Fahrenheit 451 and it's like that's a fine reading you know
21:53
you're reading
21:54
Stanislav Lem and I mean there's so much great science fiction
21:58
that is recognized
21:59
SPEAKER_01: as literary but you know
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Semi-Rad
22:16
but yeah so I was looking for ways to expand my cultural
22:20
experiences and I was
22:21
going to the art museum and uh taking advantage of all the
22:25
Portland culture I could
22:26
and um I got really interested in art and I was interested in
22:34
Frida Kahlo because I
22:35
didn't know anything about her um until one day I went to this
22:39
really great Mexican
22:41
SPEAKER_01: restaurant in town it was like
22:44
at the time it was too small to have a bar they just had like
22:48
all these crazy
22:50
vegetable drinks the place was called Laca Laca Comalona and it
22:54
was it had this
22:56
amazing beverage called the Dracula at the time I was too young
23:00
to drink so I guess
23:01
that would have been 2000 right after this book came out and it
23:05
was beets pineapple
23:08
SPEAKER_01: jalapeno and cucumber like juiced
23:12
and I must say yeah it's delicious it's very healthy uh and it
23:17
was also the first
23:18
place I ever had a tortas you know like the like delicious like
23:21
football size
23:22
Mexican sandwich I was like this place is like paradise but
23:26
what are all the weird
23:27
pictures on the wall and um like who is this weird lady with
23:33
one enormous eyebrow
23:35
SPEAKER_01: and so like
23:37
It was because of the posters on this Mexican joint that I
23:41
learned who Frida Kahlo
23:42
SPEAKER_01: and Diego Rivera were.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, of course, I got to get a book from the library.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: And there was this book at the Central Library in downtown Portland.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And it was called Car O'Keefe and Kahlo.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: And so I checked it out.
24:00
and I had no I knew who Georgia O'Keeffe was but I think to
24:06
this day most people
24:08
probably if I went up to them on the street said do you know
24:10
who Emily Carr is I
24:12
think 99.99% of all people would not and so like the mix of
24:21
these three artists was
24:24
SPEAKER_01: so riveting to me because at their time
24:30
Emily Carr was the most notable female painter in Canada
24:37
Georgia O'Keeffe was the
24:38
most notable female painter in the United States and Frida
24:41
Kahlo was the most
24:42
notable female painter in Mexico and they aren't exactly
24:48
contemporaneous but they
24:49
all were alive at the same time O'Keeffe and Kahlo met each
24:55
other and O'Keeffe and
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Carr had
25:00
they communicated they were like they'd had some letters
25:03
exchanged um and you know
25:07
like Georgia O'Keeffe she grew up I believe in West Texas like
25:12
really middle of
25:14
nowhere-ish before she like moved out of there and went to New
25:19
York and got sucked
25:21
SPEAKER_01: into like the art life like that we would know of um
25:26
and then like Emily Carr grew up on Vancouver Island she lived
25:31
in Victoria and like
25:32
SPEAKER_01: I think her dad was a doctor and she was just really really interested in
25:40
indigenous people in what it meant to be a Canadian artist like
25:47
at that time Canada
25:51
even you know even in the 80s like Oregon was a backwater right
25:56
like nobody would
25:57
you wouldn't go to Portland for any reason except like maybe to
26:02
go school shopping
26:03
you certainly wouldn't go there to look for culture I remember
26:07
when my sister was
26:09
who is 10 years older than me she was a foreign exchange
26:12
student and she was in
26:15
SPEAKER_01: England and ran into like people from our own east coast and they said
26:21
from Oregon like aren't you people still hunting Indians back
26:26
there and she was
26:27
like what the hell so like even when I was just a kid like it
26:32
felt like it felt
26:34
like living in a colonial backwater so as soon as I read about
26:39
Emily Carr's like
26:40
experience of being like wow we are a colonial backwater this
26:44
is like 1910 1912 and
26:45
SPEAKER_01: uh it's a
26:50
her story was extremely resonant also she was kind of a crazy
26:54
cat lady which
26:55
appealed to me and then of course Frida Kahlo is like she was
27:03
completely immersed
27:04
SPEAKER_01: in like the cultural hub of her nation but like
27:10
we have like American artists and European artists have like
27:14
such different
27:15
perspectives of like what Mexico is like compared to people who
27:19
live in Mexico so
27:20
all three of these women are like dealing with like these
27:26
trying to be the greatest
27:28
artists they can while you know just dealing with these burdens
27:33
of like colonialism
27:35
SPEAKER_01: and
27:36
other people's opinions of what it means to be a oh you're a
27:40
woman artist you know
27:41
pats on the head that kind of thing and you know both O'Keefe
27:46
and Kahlo were really
27:48
kind of playing second fiddle to like their gigantically famous
27:52
husbands and I
27:54
don't know so this book like when they found it it was just so
27:59
interesting it was
27:59
SPEAKER_01: like it was kind of like a a
28:06
each one of them was like the star of their own kind of Twin
28:08
Peaks-esque soap opera
28:10
and they're just like being the weirdest possible person they
28:13
can and just trying
28:16
to get be themselves in a time when that was so so hard and I
28:22
think I felt that
28:23
because I really really really wanted to be like writing my
28:27
weird things and I felt
28:29
SPEAKER_01: like I couldn't like write my weird things so it was great to like
28:35
SPEAKER_01: have these historical women just being great role models.
28:40
So I find like a lot of times when I feel stuck or stymied or
28:48
just kind of like the
28:49
SPEAKER_01: well is dry,
28:50
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to go back to visual arts a lot.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Checking out books about art from the library,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: like that became something really important to me.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And this is a book that kind of started that for me.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: It's just like,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: just delving into the lives of other people in the arts,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: I think can be so restorative and empowering.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: And it just,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: it's,
29:20
it reminds you that you're part of like this bigger legacy of
29:24
human creation that,
29:25
SPEAKER_01: you
29:26
you can kind of lose you can lose track of that right like like
29:32
you get so focused
29:33
on oh man I'm struggling to get published or oh man getting
29:38
ripped off by AI or
29:40
whatever like that and it's like oh you know it's always been
29:43
crappy there's always
29:47
SPEAKER_00: been people making the poor decision to try to make a living through art
29:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they struggled too.
29:56
Do you have an idea of what's the timeline between you reading
30:02
this book and
30:02
feeling empowered as both someone from the Pacific Northwest
30:09
and a woman and an
30:10
SPEAKER_00: artist who wants to do things that you say are weird?
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:16
What was the timeline between reading that book and you kind of
30:19
starting to like
30:21
SPEAKER_00: experiment or write the stories you wanted to write?
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it already happened before you picked up the book.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Well,
30:29
I did get a little sidetracked because I thought maybe I should
30:32
try the visual
30:32
SPEAKER_01: arts,
30:33
SPEAKER_01: which not really,
30:35
SPEAKER_01: no.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I wrote my first novel in 2004.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: So...
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Not long, wow.
30:44
Yeah,
30:44
it took a little while to just,
30:47
between like getting,
30:51
I tried a lot of other things.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I got really into clothes making.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: I got really into, and then I had a kid.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: And,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: so there was just like,
31:01
it was a turbulent time of trying a lot of different things and
31:05
trying to decide
31:06
SPEAKER_01: like,
31:06
SPEAKER_01: am I going to go to grad school?
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should do something as a philosopher, you know.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: and starting a lot of stories.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: I did write some short stories and struggling to find my way with them.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of growth going on there.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe you didn't finish your novel when you had a kid.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievable.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect time to create.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Actually, people probably do it.
31:35
That's actually how I got my first novel written was I just
31:41
like finally was like I
31:45
actually I went home and as a single parent for a while I was
31:48
living with my mom
31:49
and when my daughter would take a nap I would write yeah and so
31:56
that's how I got
31:57
like the first book written and then like once she stopped
32:00
sleeping there was like
32:01
SPEAKER_01: a time where I didn't write for a while
32:03
until we taught her that until I taught her that like listening
32:09
to audio books is
32:10
just like the best thing you can do for an hour and she'd be
32:13
like I'm gonna go it'd
32:15
be like it's rest time here's an audio book man I gotta try
32:22
that trick wow it
32:24
worked out really well for a while for a while I'd take a while
32:29
it'd be good
32:31
uh okay next thing on your list is the last Christmas mixtape
32:35
created by the
32:36
members of the band Harry and the Potters while on tour in 2010
32:40
I gotta be honest I
32:42
had not heard of this until nobody nobody has ever heard of
32:45
this this is not like
32:46
SPEAKER_01: an official item um I think like so that
32:54
There was sort of this weird subculture that rose up in the
32:59
early 2000s around J.K.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: Rowling's Harry Potter books.
33:05
And there were,
33:06
you know,
33:08
the fandom for that was just so giant and so exciting and so
33:13
fun.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: And I got to see Harry and the Potters twice.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: Once at a library show and once at like an actual, like,
33:23
rock venue here in Portland and they're just really great and
33:28
less really focused
33:30
on like doing positive things for people and the importance of
33:35
reading and like
33:37
they are very gender and sexuality positive and just great and
33:45
so I think like I
33:48
SPEAKER_01: had like subscribed to like their newsletter or something and
33:53
SPEAKER_01: They would, you know, you'd get a newsletter from them once in a while.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: And then around 2010,
33:58
SPEAKER_01: they like,
33:59
SPEAKER_01: one of the newsletters came out and they said,
34:02
SPEAKER_01: well,
34:02
what we've been doing while we've been on tour is we discovered
34:06
that there are,
34:08
SPEAKER_01: there's at the top,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: I have not found a website that compiles all of these.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Maybe if you use the Wayback Machine, you can have it.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: They had found
34:16
like somebody had like tracked down how many covers there were
34:21
of Last Christmas
34:22
which is a lot like a lot like I think they said while they
34:28
were on tour across the
34:29
United States I think they said they listened to like over
34:32
2,000 different covers
34:34
of The Last Christmas which is a mind-boggling mind-boggling
34:40
number of Last
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Christmas covers and
34:43
So what they did is they compiled their favorite versions of
34:49
The Last Christmas and
34:51
SPEAKER_01: made a mixtape that you could download from them.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: There's no copyright.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: It's totally illegal, but it's great.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: And every year at Christmas, I listen to it.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: like a billion times in the month of December.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: There are versions on there.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: There's a version recorded by a marching band.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: There's a version by a band.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: It's not rat.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like rat, though.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Like hair, 80s hair.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hair metal.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: There's a hilarious clip where it's Dick Cheese.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever listen to any of the Richard Cheese?
35:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
35:36
He's like,
35:38
all right,
35:38
I'm going to do a,
35:39
tonight we're going to sing Last Christmas.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, no, I'm not, because that song fucking sucks, you know?
35:47
SPEAKER_01: And there's this bizarre and amazing version by,
35:52
SPEAKER_01: like,
35:53
SPEAKER_01: this,
35:53
SPEAKER_01: like,
35:53
SPEAKER_01: girl band that's,
35:55
SPEAKER_01: like,
35:55
SPEAKER_01: deeply unsettling that will give you kind of,
35:58
SPEAKER_01: like,
35:58
SPEAKER_01: goosebumps,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: like...
36:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: There's just so many versions.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: There's one by a band from Japan that's mostly in Japanese.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's a fabulous thing.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So I have questions.
36:16
This is,
36:16
you're talking about the song Last Christmas by,
36:19
the original was by Wham,
36:20
right?
36:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: All right.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: So that song, which someone made a movie.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Based on that song a few years back, right?
36:27
SPEAKER_00: What?
36:28
SPEAKER_00: No way!
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, based on the idea.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: It was like a heart transplant, I believe.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of took it literally.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: I might have to track that down.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Second, how many tracks are on this mixtape?
36:43
SPEAKER_01: I think there are 11.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: 11?
36:46
SPEAKER_00: So you're listening to essentially the same song 11 times in a row.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:50
And then you probably listen to it every day during the
36:54
holidays for a while.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: At least twice a week.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: Maybe more.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody else that you've talked to about this,
37:04
SPEAKER_00: have they picked up on it and been like,
37:05
SPEAKER_00: hey,
37:05
SPEAKER_00: this is rad.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: My sister-in-law wanted a copy of it.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if she listens to it at all.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: But she's the only person who has voiced any interest in this product.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: My daughter is like, oh, God, it's Christmas.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Why are you bringing this out?
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Mom, what is wrong with you?
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: People are like, we play Whamageddon for Christmas.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I already lost.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: I already listened to that song 12 times today.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: Who am I lying?
37:36
SPEAKER_01: It's 22.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think it grabbed a hold of you in 2010?
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, for one thing, it was just so quirky, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Like just the idea that there could be
37:52
thousands of different versions of that song of all songs
37:57
seemed so weird so like I
37:59
listened to it just out of like this is weird why does it exist
38:04
um and then I don't
38:06
SPEAKER_01: know it's it's
38:09
Like,
38:10
kind of amazing just to see what different people bring to the
38:15
same material.
38:16
Like,
38:17
just in general,
38:18
I have a huge appreciation for adaptations and covers.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Like,
38:22
SPEAKER_01: I love to watch a movie that's based on a book I've read and,
38:27
SPEAKER_01: like,
38:27
SPEAKER_01: compare them and,
38:28
SPEAKER_01: like,
38:29
SPEAKER_01: see how you say the same thing in a different language,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: right?
38:34
SPEAKER_01: Like...
38:36
SPEAKER_01: And what comes through and what doesn't.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: So I think I just naturally have a deep interest in that kind of thing.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: But then I feel like there's...
38:50
SPEAKER_01: It's also a little bit like...
38:53
if you take an art class and the teacher sets up the still life
38:57
and then you see
38:58
what each person like creates and it's like how did you get
39:02
that out of that I
39:04
SPEAKER_01: think we get that a lot in like
39:09
I write a lot of short fiction for anthologies right and you'll
39:12
get like a themed
39:13
call you know like man I wrote this story about a werewolf um
39:18
you know she's like I
39:19
bet everybody's story about a werewolf is like this too and
39:22
then you like see the
39:24
stories and they're vastly different even though you had the
39:28
same like instructions
39:30
to start with um it's I don't know I think it's like such a a
39:36
testimony to like
39:39
SPEAKER_01: The power of creativity and just the uniqueness of,
39:44
SPEAKER_01: like,
39:45
the human voice and human experience that you can take the same
39:48
notes and then,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: like,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: just have completely different tone and vibe and almost have,
39:54
SPEAKER_01: like,
39:55
SPEAKER_01: a completely different meaning,
39:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
39:56
SPEAKER_01: the way that different people come at it.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it's cool.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:02
Halfway through you talking about that,
40:04
I remembered that I have this YouTube playlist.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a private thing, but it's all covers of the Misfits Astro Zombies.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Which is a fun one because there's a Hawaiian guy doing this very...
40:18
SPEAKER_00: I think he's playing on a ukulele in...
40:21
but there's just like endless you know and there's like metal
40:24
cover and then like
40:25
you know acoustic guitar and it's yeah so it's phenomenal have
40:30
there have you
40:31
SPEAKER_00: searched out covers of any other songs in that way
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Or is it just Last Christmas?
40:38
SPEAKER_01: I am kind of obsessed with covers of Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of them out there, like a ton.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: It's really fun.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: And Season of the Witch, originally by Donovan.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of different versions of that that are really good.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:03
um okay last one this is our first board game I believe on this
41:08
podcast so let's go
41:10
for it Ark Nova tell us about this board game so we are huge
41:16
board gamers in our
41:17
house I say we but mostly it's my husband he's like his brother
41:22
got him into board
41:23
gaming in like 2010 or so and it was like it unleashed some
41:29
kind of maniac and we
41:31
SPEAKER_01: now own
41:35
like 150 board games at least and like every he tries every
41:43
year to organize like a
41:45
two to three day like gaming event at our house where people
41:51
just like come by and
41:53
SPEAKER_01: like play board games all weekend and and basically you just like
41:59
SPEAKER_01: Tried all of our friends to like board games.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, we play a lot of them.
42:06
And I'm kind of terrible because I tend to like board games
42:10
that I can win.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: That's usually a primary thing.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, I like this game because I can win it.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: Or...
42:19
the other two things that I really like in a board game are if
42:22
you can make really
42:23
silly noises to go with it like for example if you've played
42:26
the game Ticket to
42:28
Bride it's really fun you know you build your train and I like
42:32
to say chugga chugga
42:33
SPEAKER_01: choo choo like
42:35
SPEAKER_01: That makes the game more fun, right?
42:37
SPEAKER_01: Or if you,
42:38
we have another game called Survive where like whales can come
42:42
over and knock over
42:43
SPEAKER_01: your boat as you're trying to escape Atlantis.
42:45
And I like to make crazy whale noises,
42:47
you know,
42:47
so that's a good,
42:48
good addition.
42:49
The other thing is if it has anything cute,
42:54
this game Ark Nova,
42:56
you are trying to
42:58
um create a zoo so there are all these cards that you can
43:03
select from and there are
43:04
pictures of cute animals and which to me all animals are cute
43:09
we just watched what
43:10
do we watch oh we're watching um the old tv old by it's like
43:18
2015 there's a
43:21
and there's like a a weird worm monster they're looking at and
43:25
it's all like oh
43:26
it's kind of cute and my my family's like yep that's you all
43:30
right um they just
43:32
like I like creatures I they find them interesting and
43:35
enchanting even if they're
43:37
slimy or fangy or things like that so I love this game because
43:42
it's like I mean
43:43
SPEAKER_01: there are some really cute animals like there's this um
43:47
Dusty Leaf Monkey it's a new world monkey so kind of like a
43:51
spider monkey looking
43:52
guy but he's got like a little white fur on his lips he looks
43:55
like he's got a cute
43:56
white mustache it's very charming that's my favorite when when
44:01
that guy comes out I
44:02
always say it doesn't matter if you win the game or not if you
44:04
built them if you
44:05
got to like have a home for the Dusty Leaf Monkey really it's
44:09
like you won the game
44:10
SPEAKER_01: because you built the cutest animal yeah
44:16
uh yeah and it's just a really fun it's it's complicated
44:20
without being like you
44:22
know we have some friends who are like we play war games and it
44:26
takes 17 hours to
44:28
play one game or I mean there are some really long complicated
44:34
board games um
44:36
and Ark Nova is for me the longest of the board games that I
44:39
really want to play
44:40
it's like for two players it runs about two hours if you have
44:44
three players it runs
44:45
SPEAKER_01: about three hours um
44:47
And it's kind of fun because you've got like your own board
44:52
that where you're
44:52
SPEAKER_01: trying to like create little enclosures for your animals.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: You've got,
44:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:57
to keep track of money and keep track of like spaces and then
45:02
the requirements of
45:03
SPEAKER_01: each animal.
45:03
So you've got like little goals that you're working for that
45:06
are like your private
45:06
SPEAKER_01: secret goals where it's like,
45:08
SPEAKER_01: oh,
45:09
SPEAKER_01: if I can get,
45:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:11
SPEAKER_01: X number of animals from that are
45:15
Predators and I'll get you know all these bonus points or uh
45:20
and then there's lots
45:21
of little tracks you can go up on there you know you want to
45:24
you've got your point
45:25
track you've got your reputation tracker um so it's like how
45:31
smart your staff is uh
45:34
and Anna has this other fun track that you can go on which is
45:37
like to keep track of
45:39
like the time of the game I guess it's the coffee break track
45:43
so you're moving a
45:44
little coffee mug around to keep track of how many turns you've
45:48
taken and you know
45:49
you've got a game that combines cute animals with coffee which
45:54
are the two greatest
45:55
things that have ever existed on our planet in one fun board
45:59
game How often do you
46:02
SPEAKER_00: win?
46:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's probably 75 to 80% of the time.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
46:15
um did you we I the other podcast I do we interviewed this
46:20
philosophy professor C.T.
46:22
Nguyen um it's like three or four weeks ago maybe more but he's
46:27
a philosopher and
46:28
he um was trying very hard to do like serious philosophy you
46:32
know work academic
46:34
work and then realized he was really into games and he wanted
46:36
to like study the
46:37
SPEAKER_00: philosophy of games have you heard of his book
46:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, I heard it on your podcast.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: I would really like to check it out.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:49
He broke down the types of players and I am like blanking on
46:53
the two types that it is.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: But you are the...
46:56
It's like one wants to compete and the other one just wants to
46:59
actually play for
47:00
SPEAKER_00: the sake of playing.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: And apparently you're the competitive type.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Which is weird because I'm not really like a competitive person.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: I guess I just like to...
47:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: I like to feel like, oh, you've done a good job.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: You get the reward of you won.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Well,
47:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
47:18
SPEAKER_00: he'll explain to you why that is and like what you,
47:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:21
SPEAKER_00: it's really like the fact that you don't,
47:27
SPEAKER_00: it's kind of like you don't want to be that person in your everyday life,
47:30
but games allow these parameters and a safe space for you to be
47:35
that person.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Try that out, but then you can put it away when it's over, you know?
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a fascinating reach.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: It makes sense.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: To me, that speaks of what I was saying at the beginning about horror.
47:48
It's like a realm where you get to try out the things that
47:51
maybe in your day-to-day
47:53
SPEAKER_01: life you might shy away from.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: But it's like in a horror video game, right?
48:01
SPEAKER_01: You're like, yeah, I just took down that zombie.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: Rawr!
48:06
SPEAKER_01: Or in real life, you'd be like, oh dear.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: Is the zombie okay?
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: What a cute zombie.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: Let's take care of it.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: That's what everybody says.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at this board game online.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this thing is 75 bucks.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Ark Nova.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: They are so expensive.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Is everything like that nowadays?
48:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even...
48:29
SPEAKER_01: There are, like, Wii...
48:32
SPEAKER_01: I met this, like, cool couple.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: They were amazing ultra runners.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: And her, I said that we kind of liked board games.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: And her husband's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna get this.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: I just bought this game.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: And he's talking about it.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: And I looked it up.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: It was $300 for a board game.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: We often, we, one of the things about Portland, it's a very nerdy town.
48:54
So we have a lot of board game stores and they all sell like
48:56
secondhand games.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: So that's usually, we pick up a lot of our games that way.
49:02
Or also like for the holidays now,
49:05
people are like,
49:06
well,
49:06
we got John for Christmas.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: He wants board games, so we'll give him like board game bucks.
49:11
So that's,
49:12
that also,
49:13
if we do get a new game,
49:14
it's probably because of that.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: to add to your stockpile of 150.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I had one more question I was going to ask.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um,
49:26
like do you think does it ever strike you that you know that
49:30
board game designer is
49:31
a job and like I believe it works somewhat in the same way as
49:35
the book publishing
49:36
industry works like do you think we should have done something
49:40
different like
49:40
looking at the prices of these games like 75 bucks per game you
49:45
must be clearing
49:46
SPEAKER_01: like oh no what are your royalties on that you think
49:50
SPEAKER_01: I've actually done some work in the gaming industry.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: You do probably get royalties off of stuff,
49:57
but board games are so expensive to make because they have all
50:02
these little fiddly
50:03
SPEAKER_01: bits.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: Tariffs impacted them horribly.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: In recent years.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: So the amount of profit is actually even lower than books, I think.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Great.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Because of the stuff.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: All right.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: That's so fun that we start with books and end with board games here.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think this sort of thing is,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: that your husband got really into games,
50:31
SPEAKER_00: but is it important as a family to
50:33
now for you and like who you are that you do these sorts of
50:37
things I think sort of
50:39
our daughter like we my husband tried to get her into games and
50:43
she's just like no
50:45
SPEAKER_01: that's that's that's junk no but yeah like I think for us it's sort of
50:56
Board games are really sort of a glue that has kind of helped
51:00
us connect with
51:01
pretty much all of our family and friends as something that
51:06
really helps us just be
51:08
SPEAKER_01: together.
51:10
And it's just a huge part of our socialization and it's just
51:15
such a nice way to do
51:18
SPEAKER_01: something fun together.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, it's Oregon.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: It rains a lot.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: You need something to do inside sometimes.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're right.
51:29
It's like his third thing you're doing that's not watching TV
51:32
or something where
51:33
SPEAKER_00: everybody's actually present.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a great way to look at it.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, I think this is a perfect spot to end.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for doing this.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: This was super fun having you on.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: This was a blast.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.