0:04

What's up fungal associates

0:07

Welcome to completely arbitrary the podcast

0:09

about trees and other related topics.

0:11

Happy tree azaki to you all I

0:14

am one of your hosts. My name is Alex Croson and

0:17

of course host number dose Hello

0:21

everyone out there in the world. Hello Casey,

0:24

what a beautiful song that is it isn't

0:26

it? Really is it's sort of

0:28

the honorable mention of this month because Howl's

0:32

moving castle is a fan

0:34

favorite all of his films are fan

0:36

favorites Is that a is that is

0:38

that a song from that house moving

0:40

castle? Yes, and so this is sort

0:42

of like a little accommodation to howls

0:45

and and howl in his moving castle

0:47

Happy tree azaki Everybody tree zaki

0:49

Alex. Happy tree is a key Casey. Thank you.

0:51

It's most wonderful time of the year. What is this? We

0:54

are doing a month of Episodes

1:00

Based on the films by Hayao

1:02

Miyazaki. Yeah, Casey Have

1:04

you ever watched Miyazaki film before

1:06

this this series before last

1:08

week? Yeah, no, I have not amazing

1:11

It is not my my style of

1:13

film. I tend to I mean I

1:15

have moved out of the phase of even watching like too

1:19

many animated things specifically,

1:21

but the Way,

1:23

what was it? What's

1:25

the there's Sailor Moon sure

1:27

one when I was a kid and then there

1:29

was the other Dragon Ball

1:32

Z. Uh-huh. I did not like Dragon

1:34

Ball Z Yeah, just not a fan

1:36

of the of the anime the Japanese

1:38

anime. I know I've never been Yeah, it

1:40

was always just like very comic book style. I've

1:42

never been drawn to comic books as a

1:44

style of archery I got you. Yeah, so

1:46

I watched my first one last week. Yes.

1:48

It was it was this one spirited away

1:51

That's right. Casey. Well, I I'm I'm More

1:54

familiar with his works than you are. Yes,

1:57

but you are like this is kind of

1:59

your thing You're not I mean not not

2:02

like as much as some people I know there

2:04

are people out there who studio

2:06

Ghibli Ghibli um is

2:09

like Is

2:12

like their religion or something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:14

Um, but I am a big fan And

2:16

I think that his works are seminal and

2:18

important and beautiful. Yeah, I will say the

2:21

art in the uh In this movie was

2:23

really good. Yeah, like wow, that's really well

2:25

done Like the background kind of like layered

2:28

collages of greenery and things. I

2:30

mean, it's really beautiful Yeah So

2:33

I I went through a phase a few

2:35

months ago Where I was

2:37

like watching As many

2:39

of them as I could find on

2:41

hbo max. Yeah, and I watched both

2:43

the japanese version and the english dub

2:45

version Because I I hate

2:47

to admit it, but they are different. Oh, oh

2:49

no, of course beyond just the dub You know

2:52

like they it's a complete. It almost feels like

2:54

a completely different film Yeah

2:56

to me, but I i'm very

2:58

excited for tree azaki month because mia zaki

3:01

Kind of one of the cornerstones of his storytelling

3:04

is nature. Yes and humans

3:07

specifically humans relationship with the natural

3:09

world with the spiritual world and

3:11

in japan These two things

3:13

are combined That's

3:15

right. Yeah and casey i'm very excited to

3:17

talk about this today because we are talking

3:19

about Shinto yes

3:22

now for people who don't know what shinto is.

3:24

Can you give us a little tweet version 140

3:26

characters? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

3:28

yeah, yeah, none of those. None of those. Yeah. Yeah.

3:30

Yes count by the way. Oh, yeah starting now Shinto

3:34

is the indigenous religion of

3:36

japan And it is

3:39

I would argue an analogous to

3:41

the indigenous Spiritual

3:44

beliefs of native americans in

3:46

the united states prior to european

3:48

conquest cool Essentially, it's

3:50

animism. Yes. That's right. Kacey's shinto. We're

3:52

talking about shinto today. We're talking about

3:55

spirited away We're talking about mia zaki

3:57

and studio ghibli um Bye

4:00

But we also have some other news. Yes,

4:02

we do. A couple big things,

4:04

Casey. Yeah, some big things. Some

4:08

big changes that are completely arbitrary. One of them, of

4:10

course, is that we are moving

4:12

away from Patreon. That's right. We

4:15

are now in our own premium service. That's

4:17

right. Called Premium. Premium.

4:19

Wow, okay. Cool. Okay.

4:22

What if we had a premium service that

4:24

we called Premium? Wow. We wouldn't freak people

4:26

out? That's a little too meta. It

4:29

is, isn't it? Yeah, all right. So

4:31

yes, the way that people, including you,

4:33

hopefully, support the podcast now has changed

4:35

a lot. That's right. We

4:38

are moving away from Patreon. It has served us well, but

4:41

our future is bright, Casey. It is

4:43

bright. We're now, what, we've condensed

4:46

our offerings. Now

4:48

you have these two options to join and support.

4:51

That is the Treehuggers Level, which

4:53

is $6, and that gets you

4:55

extra bonus content. It gets you

4:57

extra access to new live stuff

4:59

that we do, early

5:01

access to some cool stuff, and

5:03

the best part, ad-free

5:06

listening. Huge. You can

5:08

listen to the whole thing, and the best other

5:10

thing, the big reason, one of the big reasons

5:12

that we switched to this

5:14

new premium service,

5:16

is that it is able to be put

5:18

directly into your feed. Yes. So

5:21

you can go to Spotify and you can listen to it straight

5:23

through. So you can essentially skip the line. You don't have to

5:25

go to a different app. It's just all right there. That's right.

5:28

We're very excited. There's also, of course, we couldn't, hey,

5:30

we couldn't get rid of the Cone Club. There's no

5:32

way we could do that. We've condensed

5:35

the name even. The Cone of the Month

5:37

Club is now The Cone Club. The Cone Club.

5:39

We also debated Club Cone, which is very cool.

5:41

Yeah, it's very German, I think. So,

5:43

yeah. Werkommen to Club Cone. It would

5:46

have been like, oh my gosh, I love this

5:48

place. Look at how they dance. Everybody's

5:50

drinking milk. Yeah, wow. Milk.

5:53

Milk. All of

5:55

our German fans are like, no. Shut up, man.

6:01

That's where you get monthly cone stickers illustrated

6:03

by different artists. We have a very exciting

6:05

one coming up this month. So

6:09

if you already support us on Patreon,

6:12

we sent you an email with the,

6:15

through the email address that you signed up with,

6:17

send you an email with all the information and

6:20

a link to a migration tool. That's right.

6:23

That's important. That's very important because if you

6:25

already support us on Patreon, you use that

6:27

migration tool. You can be grandfathered

6:29

in at the tier you're at right now. Exactly.

6:32

So if you're paying $5 for what is now

6:35

the tree hugger's tier, you can keep

6:37

it for $5. That's right. Definitely.

6:39

That's right. Same thing

6:41

for the Cone of the Month Club. It

6:44

is now at $12. We had to adjust

6:46

for inflation, all these fun things that everyone

6:48

says when they raise their prices. Mm-hmm. Meanwhile,

6:50

if you are currently in the Cone of

6:52

the Month Club, then you get grandfathered in

6:54

at $10 as long as you remain in

6:56

the club. That's right. So.

6:59

And to anybody who is thinking, man, I

7:02

would really love to support this podcast. I've

7:05

been listening for a little while. Or

7:07

to anyone who's thinking, hey, you know what? I

7:09

know my niece or

7:12

my cousin really loves this show. That tree friend that

7:14

you have that you're just like, man, I just want

7:16

to get them a gift. Even

7:19

if they don't listen to the show, the Cone of the Month Club

7:21

is kind of perfect. True. If

7:23

you have a friend who just likes

7:25

stickers, yeah, this is a great opportunity.

7:27

Absolutely. You can gift them a subscription.

7:29

That's right, Casey. We now have gifted,

7:32

so I just shifted into Steve

7:34

Jobs mode. Yeah. Announcing the

7:37

first iPod. That's right. That's right.

7:39

You can now gift subscriptions to our

7:41

premium service, our premium platform

7:43

to your friends, family, coworkers, anybody

7:45

who loves trees or completely arbitrary.

7:49

And you can get annual subscriptions, Casey, which

7:51

means you save 17% on a monthly subscription.

7:54

That's right. So you just pay once for

7:56

the year and you're good. You just enjoy. Yeah,

8:00

that's a big that's a big thing happening

8:02

over here. Yeah, so jump on board and

8:05

yeah you You'll be

8:07

hearing about it lest we

8:09

forget. That's arbitrary pod

8:11

supercast.com That's arbitrary pod

8:13

a rb or tr

8:15

a ry pod dot

8:18

Supercast that's right.com go

8:21

get it and

8:23

Casey, huh? There's more news

8:25

what that's right. We're having a sale and

8:27

more And more we're

8:29

having a merch sale right now, that's right

8:32

a December long merch sale the entire month of

8:34

December I believe it's 10% off

8:36

Casey. I believe it's 20% off 20%

8:40

off and now I don't know if we

8:42

can do this, but uh, I'm getting the

8:44

nod Yeah, we're gonna go 20% We did

8:46

it. Congratulations out We

8:48

just redid all of our shirts all of our

8:51

stickers. So if you want something go buy it

8:54

Yep, and it's a coupon

8:56

code trees, that's right So go

8:58

get yourself some arbitrary merch go

9:00

get yourself a brand new Premium

9:02

subscription become a premium member today

9:05

arbitrary pod dot supercast comm get

9:07

yourself some merch at arbitrary pod

9:10

comm slash merch and stay

9:13

tuned Kiyosaki we

9:15

will be right back with

9:17

spirited away here on completely arbitrary

9:24

Oh Guess

9:31

what we have a sale running

9:34

all December long 15% off literally everything

9:38

on our merch store arbitrary pod

9:40

comm slash merch Casey What can

9:42

people find there they can find

9:44

three different t-shirts our Douglas fir

9:46

tree shirt our logo tree shirt

9:49

and our tree buds Wow that's

10:00

all 15% off for the month of

10:03

December. All you have to do is

10:05

use the coupon code TREES.

10:07

That's T-R-E-E-S. Who thought of that?

10:09

So clever. So go to arbitrarypod.com/merch.

10:11

Get your 15% off of anything

10:13

you got on that store. We're

10:15

gonna ship it out as quick

10:18

as you can. Coupon

10:20

code TREES. Happy

10:22

December everybody. Bye. Welcome

10:34

back to

10:36

Completely Arbitrary. Kriyazaki.

10:40

Wow. Are you excited? Everything feels very

10:42

low right now Alex. Very much like,

10:45

hey, welcome. Yeah I guess I

10:47

could pump up the energy. No,

10:51

not in a negative way. I thought you

10:53

were doing it on purpose. I thought you

10:55

were bringing it down. Like a lounge kind

10:57

of vibe. Yeah. When we talk about Miyazaki,

10:59

we are pretty much in a

11:01

karaoke bar but sans karaoke. Well Casey,

11:03

maybe we're just standing

11:06

in a room. How about this

11:08

Casey? We are at a

11:11

bathhouse. Oh. As

11:16

is the setting of Spirited Away. Exactly

11:18

what we're gonna be doing. Casey,

11:21

today we are talking about the

11:26

Sakaki. Yes.

11:28

I was waiting. I wasn't sure if you were gonna say

11:30

the scientific name or what it is but yes, you got

11:32

it right. Sakaki. Thank you. And I

11:34

learned how to say this name. I looked it up on

11:36

the internet as I am one to do and

11:39

it is Sakaki. Yes. And

11:41

I love that. I have to remember

11:43

that Japanese pronunciations are vastly different than

11:45

pronunciations of Latin based languages. Yes. So

11:47

it's very hard for me to like

11:49

not do Sakaki. A

11:52

good rule of thumb that I kind of

11:54

go by, I know this isn't like proper,

11:56

this isn't taught, I don't know, but like

11:58

shift the emphasis one syllable

12:00

back of where you would normally feel

12:02

it would be. Yeah, it still is

12:04

confusing because I don't think I learned

12:06

like what emphasis I put on

12:08

what syllables before you brought it up sometime

12:11

during the podcast. Not literally this one

12:13

but in the laboratory

12:16

universe. So yes,

12:19

that is true. And I also learned that at the end,

12:21

it's not sakakki, it's

12:23

like sakakki. It's almost

12:25

like the eye disappears before it even gets

12:28

there. Wow. It's more

12:30

spirited away parallel. There you go. Yeah,

12:32

yeah, yeah. Casey, well let's imagine that

12:34

you and I are

12:36

on the grounds of a bathhouse

12:39

for spirits. And

12:41

we come across some sakakki. Let's

12:44

ID this tree. Well the

12:46

first thing you'll notice is that it is not necessarily

12:50

inside the bathhouse

12:53

or necessarily inside the temple. It could

12:55

be. There might be a little sprig. It might

12:57

be a little bit in the very front or in

13:00

the middle. But it

13:02

is actually planted and grown around

13:04

the outside. In fact sakakki is

13:07

probably more of a translation of

13:09

border tree than necessarily sacred tree.

13:12

Interesting. Yeah, there's a couple different

13:14

etymological varieties of where it came

13:16

from. But it's ultimately

13:19

called that because it has been

13:21

planted around spiritual places

13:23

or gardens or things like that

13:25

for thousands of years. Is this

13:27

like a protection thing? You

13:29

know, it kind of is. I've actually kind

13:32

of read two different things. It's somewhat of

13:34

a protection thing where it is not necessarily

13:36

keeping things away but it just shows

13:38

that this is a spiritual, a

13:40

highly spiritual place. Kind of a

13:43

mark of like, okay, this is

13:45

a new area. Exactly. Yeah.

13:47

So it's not like keeping anything out because it also

13:49

is used, like if there's a

13:51

little sprig in it, it's actually used by

13:54

priests to bring spirits in and welcome them

13:56

and say, come on into this space. Wow.

13:59

So it's almost a plant thing. It's used as

14:01

a going and coming and

14:03

a welcoming kind of thing.

14:05

I love that. Yeah, it's

14:07

used as a bidder. It

14:10

bids you adieu. Ah. It bids

14:12

you hello. It adieu is goodbye, isn't it?

14:16

Wow. And French. Well,

14:18

shit. I have to say,

14:20

Casey, I'm seeing... I mean, I don't want

14:22

to poke this episode full of parallels. So

14:25

another parallel here, or my first

14:28

of many probably, with kind of

14:31

entering a new space. This space is

14:33

for... This space is spiritual.

14:35

Yeah. Right? I

14:37

think of tori gates. Do you know tori gate? I'm not sure

14:39

that I do. Imagine this. Two

14:42

poles going up with a sort

14:44

of... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:46

...curved beam connecting them on top. Yes,

14:48

I do know these. This

14:50

is a tori gate, and it is

14:52

meant to symbolize, to denote,

14:54

rather, this is a place of spiritual

14:58

things. Yeah, I see. Okay.

15:01

So you'll see them at the front of temples and... Yeah, I

15:03

have. In fact, I believe that's exactly what I'm imagining right now.

15:05

And you'll see them in the first scene

15:07

of Spirited Away when they're driving their car

15:11

on the back country road. They pass a big

15:13

tree. I want you to ID that tree, by

15:15

the way. Cool.

15:18

And you'll have leaned up against it as a

15:20

decommissioned tori gate. Oh,

15:22

I see. Okay. Yeah,

15:24

yeah. Well, this is definitely going to happen throughout,

15:27

because I did research

15:29

on the show, the movie itself,

15:31

and actually tried to find where

15:33

all these parallels were, because I

15:35

do not understand or am familiar

15:37

with Shinto the way

15:40

that anyone else who's actually in

15:42

Japan or has these beliefs or

15:44

has even done a significant amount

15:46

of study, I study the trees.

15:48

Yeah. And then I also look at all these other

15:50

things that have to do with it. So first

15:53

off, I can't say that I am a Shinto

15:55

expert here. Well... I'm pretty sure

15:57

I pronounced every single one of the words incorrectly. It's

16:00

strange to me because on your business card it

16:02

says, Dendrologist and Shinto

16:04

expert. Wait, did you get that? I

16:07

got rid of those. I made them. I made them. Well,

16:11

that is, yeah. So it's, I was trying

16:13

to learn all of these different spiritual kind

16:15

of things that were in the movie that

16:17

I didn't understand. Totally. And so it was

16:19

actually kind of fun to do that. And this is one of

16:21

the things, but I didn't see interestingly, too

16:24

much of this tree in

16:26

the movie and I was watching. Wow. I was

16:28

trying to look for it, but

16:31

it's, I think it's a little

16:33

bit different in that the movie

16:35

is playing a different role than

16:37

the plant does. So the plant

16:40

is not your, the plant

16:42

in instance or in kind of the

16:44

larger scheme, it would be at the

16:47

very entrance of the bath

16:49

house potentially, but it's already in

16:52

the spiritual realm. So like you're just

16:54

spirits are going to the bath house.

16:56

Yeah. So it's not

16:58

necessarily like coming from a non-spiritual

17:00

realm or in a different spiritual realm to this

17:02

realm. Does that make sense? They're not like materializing

17:04

in the bath house. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So

17:06

I was looking for it. I didn't see it.

17:08

So I was like, all right, well, I can't

17:11

see this tree. So I'm going to have to

17:13

identify it myself. Wow. It's very

17:15

frustrating. Casey

17:18

just gave a great like, these

17:20

guys. Google,

17:23

tell me about the Claria Japonica. Claria Japonica,

17:25

that's what we're working with. This is exactly

17:27

what we're working with. Okay. Claria

17:29

Japonica. So this is a plant that used to

17:31

be in the tea family. It's very closely related to

17:33

it. And now it is

17:35

in the Pentefylaceae. Or

17:38

Pentefylaceae, Pentefylaceae, now

17:44

it's in the Pentefylaceae. Pentefylaceae.

17:49

I think that's how it's found. Wow, I see it

17:51

here. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's very challenging to

17:53

say. What does that mean? Five leaves?

17:56

I believe it means five petals. Petals,

17:58

okay. Yes, which I believe along. A

18:00

lot of other plants have five veterans

18:02

back, very many to most of the

18:04

flowering plants that are not monocots have

18:07

petals and multiples of five. But

18:10

ultimately that's what it means. And in fact, the

18:13

Claria is named after a

18:16

German botanist named Andreas

18:19

Kler. Now, this

18:22

is all I know about this guy.

18:24

I do want to specify it's Klera.

18:26

Klera, yes. Oh wait. Yes. You

18:30

said Klera. Oh, Klera, I see. See,

18:33

look, I'm already getting it wrong. Oh, Casey, I don't want to see,

18:35

I don't want to do this the whole time. Yeah,

18:38

Alex is just going to constantly come in and

18:40

be like, Casey, it's a Sakaki. Sakaki.

18:43

God dang it, Alex. Yes, okay, thank

18:46

you, Alex. I appreciate that. But this

18:48

guy, Andreas Klera,

18:51

how would you pronounce his last name? Can you

18:53

see it? It's spelled C-L-E-Y-E-R. Kler. Nice.

18:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, everyone, thanks. That's all I

18:58

know about the guy. Like, I gave him a Google. Wow.

19:02

But he's from the 1600s. He's a botanist. And that's where

19:04

it ends. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, Alex. See,

19:16

sounds like your classic spirit. It does,

19:18

yeah, yeah. Classic spirit. So

19:20

he is the German physician spirit of

19:22

this plant. But actually,

19:24

the name of the plant is

19:27

far more interesting because Sakaki means

19:29

literally sacred tree or divine tree.

19:31

Wow. Also, like I said, could

19:33

mean border tree. And it is interestingly,

19:36

the characters, so

19:39

Japanese, the written language, is

19:41

from initially, it's kind of

19:43

taken from Chinese. Right. So

19:46

a lot of the characters that are in

19:49

Japanese are of

19:51

Chinese origin. Okay. And

19:53

there are some that have been made and

19:55

created strictly for and by the

19:58

Japanese. That's cool. is

20:00

one of those words. And so this is

20:02

sort of it's just the characters is called

20:04

kanji. And now if it is made by

20:07

Japanese people for Japanese people, then

20:09

it is called a wasi kanji.

20:12

And those are specific to certain

20:14

things of and for Japan. Interesting.

20:16

Now, this is interesting also because Alex,

20:18

that means that when you read it, that

20:21

denotes that the thing that it is referring

20:23

to actually, I should say connotes that the

20:25

thing that it is referring to is

20:27

both literally the thing it's naming, but

20:30

also it gives you this kind of

20:32

metadata that it is of Japan because

20:34

the word itself is a Japanese word

20:36

of Japanese origin. Cool. So yeah, it's

20:38

really kind of fun. That's really interesting.

20:40

Way more interesting than Andres Clara, a

20:42

Dutch position that no one knows anything

20:44

about. Oh, sorry, Andres. Yeah, anyway, but

20:46

the tree itself, Alex, I know that's

20:49

really what we want to hear about.

20:51

Sure. I have to say before we get any

20:53

further that we are talking about this as

20:55

a tree in its native habitat, where

20:58

it grows as a small evergreen shrub

21:00

tree thing to about 30 feet. Okay.

21:03

If they plant it outside of that,

21:05

it doesn't get to tree height. Oh, oh, yeah.

21:08

So just just looking around, you see

21:10

one at the some garden outside

21:13

of Japan or Taiwan or mainland China.

21:16

Don't look at it. I do notice a lot

21:18

of these images are of what appear to be,

21:21

and I'll just say it, a bush. It's a

21:23

bush. It's a tiny, not even a shrub, it's

21:25

a bush. It

21:27

is a small thing. And I think that the

21:29

reason it is, it looks

21:32

like that often is that

21:34

it's pruned and like consistently clipped because

21:36

they use sprigs of it in all

21:38

sorts of different spiritual things. So I

21:41

think that it's actually kept low, not necessarily

21:43

on purpose, but purposefully trimmed.

21:45

Interesting case. But I cannot confirm nor deny

21:48

that. I mean, images of it also

21:50

look like it's sort of ripe

21:53

for topiary art,

21:55

which is, you know, if there's anything that

21:57

the Japanese are good at, it's making things

21:59

into useful. forms and they say

22:01

well if we're going to be cutting this then

22:03

let's keep it really low so whenever it grows

22:05

up we can just cut it at the height

22:07

of where we cut things as opposed to figuring

22:09

out like wow we're going to have to climb

22:11

this tree we're going to have to do this

22:13

like it's always it's very intentional means of pruning

22:16

right? Wow yeah. So that is very likely why

22:19

in many places it's seen as

22:21

a shrub but if you are in the natural

22:23

forest in fact the evergreen forests of

22:25

oak trees which I thought was so

22:27

fascinating. There are many different native

22:30

oak trees in like evergreen

22:32

species of plant that grow

22:34

in southern Japan. How about

22:36

that? And it tends

22:38

to actually create this kind of

22:41

evergreen tall forest with also a

22:43

couple species of pines but then

22:45

underneath are these little

22:47

like these little trees that

22:50

look like kind of second story is

22:52

what everyone's kind of referring to it

22:54

as. Oh. It's an

22:56

understory of evergreen plants in an

22:58

otherwise larger overstory of evergreen oak

23:00

species. It sounds beautiful. Yeah it really does

23:02

and that's where our little tree grows up

23:04

to 30 feet in this native habitat. So

23:07

it grows up and it is like

23:10

I said small shrubby kind of

23:12

tree it has ultimately arranged

23:14

leaves that are really

23:17

robustly like

23:19

glossy evergreen leathery things. You

23:22

can tell that these are like they

23:24

put an extra coat on for the

23:27

winter. Yeah that's a great description. Like

23:29

they are really thick leathery glossy. You

23:31

can tell right away that they're evergreen.

23:34

Yeah. Because it's like oh broadleaf

23:37

like deciduous trees don't need to be

23:40

that tough. They don't care. They just

23:42

let it go and they're like when

23:44

fall comes I'm going to lose you

23:47

anyway. Like let's

23:49

just wait for September to end. Wow

23:52

Billy Joel. I always

23:54

want to say Joel. Yeah

23:56

they look a little bit like miniature magnolia leaves.

23:58

Yes they really do. Yeah, yeah, totally true. And

24:01

so they grow there. They are

24:03

evergreen and are underneath. They're

24:05

actually, they look very similar to camellias. So

24:08

if you flip them, they have a similar

24:10

thing as camellias, which is kind of like

24:12

a lighter green, almost yellowish green on the

24:14

bottom. Yeah, I see that. So these are

24:17

maybe about three to four inches long, and

24:19

when they emerge in the early spring, they

24:22

are a like dark, coppery

24:24

red color. And

24:27

this is probably, it's actually something that

24:29

a lot of plants do. They emerge

24:31

red, and that is because they have

24:33

anthocyanins in their, it's a pigment in

24:36

their foliage. God bless you. Yes,

24:38

thank you. Excuse me. So

24:40

the anthocyanin, I need another tissue, Alex.

24:46

Anthocyanins, yeah, they create the red colors that you see in the

24:48

fall and that kind of thing. Okay.

24:51

As well. And they- I'm a

24:54

little bit shocked here because I always

24:56

think that that red color when they

24:58

first sprout is just an

25:01

absence of chlorophyll. Like they haven't

25:03

built up their chlorophyll yet. Yes.

25:06

Is that, but now I'm learning that it's a

25:08

whole new thing that specifically makes

25:10

that color, not the absence of chlorophyll.

25:12

Well, you can think about it a

25:14

little bit of both. Where

25:16

the same thing in the fall, when leaves

25:19

take the chlorophyll away and they start

25:21

deconstructing it, there are other pigments in

25:23

the leaves that are left over and

25:25

that's the ones that you see. Okay.

25:28

But it is also very likely that they're also

25:30

producing these to kind of take the

25:32

place of the chlorophyll. I got you.

25:35

So in this case, they are their first, as

25:37

the leaves start coming out, they have these other

25:39

redder pigments in them. Those red

25:41

pigments essentially do the same thing as melanin

25:44

does in our skin, where it kind of

25:46

protects us from really harsh rays of the

25:48

sun. Yeah. So it does the

25:50

same thing for plants. It protects them, their nice little

25:52

fresh growth that hasn't put on all of its extra

25:54

tough layers and things. Interesting. It's a

25:57

little bit of likely both, where there

25:59

isn't enough chlorophyll. But there's also

26:01

just these very tender leaves coming out So

26:03

they put certain colors to be a little

26:05

bit protective once they get their nice

26:07

epidermis and everything in order Then they fill

26:09

it with the green protective stuff. Gotcha.

26:11

Cool. So comes out and looks very

26:13

beautiful I'm sure there's probably most photos

26:15

that anyone has ever seen of this

26:17

is Probably showing it

26:20

kind of mid mid coppery

26:22

greenish moment Yeah, looks a lot like

26:24

photinia actually, which is a very common

26:26

shrub you get especially here in the

26:28

West interesting so after

26:31

the leaves First emerged

26:33

their new foliage comes out because remember

26:35

they're evergreen. So they'll always have their

26:38

older foliage on hmm They put out

26:40

these a horrible little flowers. I

26:43

just love these flowers. They're great. They look

26:45

to me like I don't

26:48

they look like There's a

26:50

certain kind of shoe and I don't know why this

26:52

reminds me But it's a

26:54

it's like a woman's shoe that is

26:56

almost like a lacy flat

26:59

slipper, but not slipper You know

27:01

like like a ballet shoe not

27:03

quite a ballet shoe. Just like I'm gonna go out.

27:06

It's a nice day We're gonna go to brunch. I'm

27:08

gonna put on a dress. I'm gonna look nice. It's

27:10

not a high heel It's not a fancy shoe,

27:12

but it's more than it's more than a

27:15

your standard vans or something. Okay. Yeah

27:18

It's kind of like a step up in

27:20

elegance with like a nice little curved toe

27:22

like it's a very specific kind of shoe

27:24

Okay, does it have a buckle on top Casey?

27:27

Not really. No, you just slide your foot in.

27:29

Okay, it's closed toed. Yeah, okay. Oh, it's gonna

27:32

bother me It's

27:36

just a style of footwear like there's no

27:38

brand or anything like that Like I

27:41

have just noticed throughout my life Like

27:43

I am NOT a shoe person But

27:45

for whatever reason whenever I've seen those shoes, I'm

27:48

like those are the cutest goddamn shoes Yeah,

27:51

and I think it's just that they are like

27:53

normally this creamy white color and

27:55

they have this like rounded toe and

27:58

they are just like

28:00

this flower. Wow. I don't know why, but

28:02

I think they have like these adorable little

28:04

curve petals and they're stamens on the inside

28:07

with the little pollen on it. Just have

28:09

a little bit of like orange brown color

28:11

to them. So they look almost like they're

28:13

kind of dotted, but you have to look

28:15

closer and you realize, oh, they're not dotted.

28:17

They're perfectly pale. Totally. I don't

28:19

know, they just look just like it. If

28:21

I could even imagine and say, oh, it

28:23

looks like these little slip-on flats, then

28:26

I would pull up a picture and I'd show you. And you'd

28:29

be like, oh my God. They

28:31

are the footwear manifestation of the Sakaki tree. Well, if

28:33

we're ever out together and you see a woman wearing

28:35

these shoes, we'd go, there

28:37

they are. There are the shoes. Get them.

28:39

The Sakaki flower shoes. Yeah, exactly. Then watch

28:41

her immediately run away. I'm like, who are

28:43

these guys? Sorry. I

28:46

will say at first glance, I look at these

28:48

flowers and I'm like, utility flower.

28:51

And then I spend some time with them. And

28:54

I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. These are

28:56

not utility flowers. These are gorgeous,

28:58

delicate, little graceful flowers. Yes, exactly. They're

29:00

very delicate and graceful. I think that's

29:02

a perfect way to describe it. They

29:06

are perfect flowers. So they

29:08

have both male and female parts. Oh, yeah.

29:11

They are also very fragrant and they come out in

29:13

the axles of the leaf. Now,

29:15

if you have not known what an axle is of

29:17

a leaf, let me first

29:19

say there's gonna be a great book coming out in 2025. I'm

29:22

gonna explain everything about it. Wow. There's

29:25

also lots of different definitions

29:27

you can find on the internet, but just hold

29:29

on until the book comes out and read that.

29:32

They are, it's the space, the

29:34

angle between the branch and

29:36

the actual stem, the petiole of the

29:38

leaf. So it's not necessarily,

29:40

it's just that space. The axle, it's almost

29:43

like your armpit, but it's not the literal

29:45

pit. It's the space between your arm and

29:47

your torso. I got it. You know what

29:49

I mean? Yeah, so that's where they come

29:51

out. They just pop out between the two.

29:53

Interesting. They're usually singular, solitary flowers, but sometimes

29:55

they come out in little bundles of maybe

29:57

two to five. Then

30:00

they mature into a red berry

30:02

that then matures into a black

30:04

berry. Can

30:06

you eat these? I don't think you can.

30:08

I've not seen anything that says you can. And

30:11

usually something says that. Like, oh, they're sweet and

30:13

juicy. I got a little, whoop,

30:15

I got a little, my radar started going off

30:17

when you said a little red berry because,

30:20

in Spirited Away, Haku

30:22

feeds Chihiro, the girl from

30:25

the human world, a

30:27

little red berry says, eat this so

30:29

you don't fucking disappear. Yes, you don't disappear.

30:32

Yeah. And she eats it and she becomes

30:35

opaque. Yeah, and then she

30:37

becomes opaque again. I thought maybe that was

30:39

a Sakaki flower. Yeah. I

30:41

have not found anything that says that it is. Probably

30:44

something else. Yes. I'm

30:46

very curious because I have not

30:48

heard that in any of this

30:50

whole kind of discussion that they

30:53

are, the fruit themselves are used.

30:55

It's really the leaves that everyone

30:57

focuses on. Okay. Now,

30:59

before we get to that, though, we have to finally

31:01

talk about the bark. And

31:04

that's it. The bark

31:07

is so lame. I'm really hoping it's

31:09

going to be interesting. And it's just

31:11

got so little to it. Casey, I'm

31:14

going to give it a pass. I'll

31:16

tell you why. Why? What?

31:19

Because I think a utility bark is

31:21

completely acceptable here because there

31:23

is already so much happening with

31:25

this tree. What? If

31:28

it had incredible bark, I'd be

31:30

like, yeah, you're kind of like,

31:32

it's a hat on a hat.

31:34

Like focus on the

31:36

spiritual practice aspect

31:39

of it, right? I don't know about

31:41

this. This is one man's opinion, but

31:43

I think that I can give it

31:45

a pass on its boring as shit

31:47

ugly bark. Because

31:51

it's so important to this whole

31:53

other, it's like, it's like

31:55

not even the point, you know, I guess

31:57

that's fine. But you know what? good

32:00

designer would take a look

32:02

at everything. And I'm

32:04

not in any way claiming that someone designed

32:06

this tree. However, I

32:09

don't think it should get a pass. I think we need to

32:11

make sure to know. Like, hey, great, 10 out of 10, 10 out of 10, ooh, 3

32:13

out of 10. All

32:16

right, that's fair. Go ahead and drag it.

32:18

That's fine. I will drag it.

32:20

You uplift it and then at the end of

32:22

the day, it would just be completely neutral. The

32:25

perfect five cones. The same kind of cone of

32:27

the barcode. And

32:30

that's it. That's how you recognize it. It's

32:32

a beautiful plant. You can find it

32:34

often while you're walking into or around

32:36

a shrine. That's where you plant it

32:38

or a temple, but also

32:41

like outside people's gardens and that kind

32:43

of thing. But it's also just a very commonly

32:45

grown plant. You can actually find it over in

32:47

the United States, but it likes to be

32:49

in the little warmer areas. So you're

32:51

not probably going to find it up too high

32:53

because it can only go to, I think, a

32:55

USDA zone 8, which is just recently moved just

32:57

a little bit further up than where it used

32:59

to be. Wow. Oh,

33:02

that's, that's, that's loaded.

33:04

Uh-huh. Oh yeah, it is.

33:06

Oh yeah. Jesus. Well,

33:08

that's our tree. That is our tree. And now,

33:10

of course, everyone's next question is, what the hell

33:12

does this tree have to do with anything we're

33:14

talking about? Yeah, Case. Well, let me ask you,

33:17

what the hell does this tree have to do with anything we're talking

33:19

about? You said it just

33:21

like me. I was like, that was really

33:23

good. Turns out, as you are aware, that

33:25

this tree is like known as, like whenever

33:27

you Google it or do anything with it,

33:29

it's literally described as the sacred tree of

33:33

Japan. There's way more material on

33:35

a Google search about its role

33:37

in Shinto than there is about

33:39

the tree itself. Yes, which is

33:41

very curious to me because the

33:43

tree itself, like it has

33:46

not been made clear to me exactly

33:49

why this tree was chosen

33:52

or found

33:54

itself in this aside

33:57

from one specific story.

34:00

Oh my god. But there

34:02

might be an apple slash

34:04

quints issue happening

34:06

here. What Casey's referring to,

34:08

of course, is that apple

34:11

has kind of stolen valor. Yes.

34:14

That should belong to the quints, or that does

34:16

belong to the quints. Exactly. With

34:18

like mistranslations and... Everything is just

34:20

been bastardized by the apple. Yeah.

34:23

It was all just of one big fraud.

34:26

Wow. However, I'm not claiming that with this.

34:28

Okay. This is a linguistics

34:30

issue where the

34:32

term apparently used to

34:34

just apply to any

34:37

evergreen broadleaf tree. So...

34:40

What term? The term like

34:42

a sakaki. Like that

34:44

name... Sakaki. Sakaki. Excuse

34:47

me. Sorry. Sakaki. It

34:50

was generally kind of like corn used

34:52

to be, where before corn, ZMA is

34:54

the plant that we eat and call

34:56

corn. Before that was

34:58

discovered, the term corn in English

35:01

just referred to a grain of

35:03

any sort. So, corn was

35:05

any grain and now it only refers

35:07

to the one grain that we call

35:09

corn. Sure. This is

35:12

also potentially what happened with this,

35:14

where you had sakaki that was

35:16

generally an evergreen plant, but then

35:18

over time, that evergreen plant was

35:20

known to be a Chloria

35:23

japonica. Okay. Does that

35:25

make sense? Yes. So,

35:28

are you familiar with this story? No,

35:30

not even at all. Oh my God!

35:33

It's such an interesting story. Listen, unless it's about

35:35

a 10 year old girl whose

35:37

parents turn into pigs and starts working at

35:40

a bathhouse, I don't know it. Alright,

35:42

well, we're going to expand your horizons real fast,

35:44

Alex. That's the only story I've ever heard. This

35:47

is the story of why this tree

35:49

became so important in Shinto to begin

35:51

with. Let's hear it. So, it

35:54

initially started because there was a...it's

35:57

kind of the creation myth of Japan itself.

36:00

Apparently, there was a god

36:02

that existed only because

36:05

a shoot came up from the water,

36:07

from the ocean, and when So High

36:09

became, essentially went up to the heavens

36:11

and then became a god. It

36:14

became a god and then that

36:16

god ended up creating Japan. Then

36:19

it had two daughters, two

36:22

next gods came from it, and

36:25

not two daughters, just two more gods, let

36:27

me say. When you said a shoot, is

36:29

this a shoot of a plant? Yes,

36:32

of a plant of some kind. Yeah, yeah, there's like

36:34

the OG very beginning, this is, you

36:36

know, the turtles all the way down kind of

36:38

thing. It all began with a shoot of a

36:40

plant. Yeah, exactly. A new root, a new shoot.

36:43

Yeah. So this god was like

36:45

curious what was underneath the water. So took

36:47

the staff, put it in the water,

36:49

and pulled it up and mud fell

36:51

off of it. When the mud hardened,

36:53

it became the islands of Japan. Wow.

36:56

So then these two other gods that were kind

36:58

of created ended up going down into or onto

37:00

this island just kind of explored and were looking

37:02

around seeing what's there. And they're like, yeah, this

37:05

place is pretty sweet. I think we're gonna stay.

37:07

So then they had three children,

37:10

they're called the Precious or the

37:12

Three Precious Children. Those

37:14

children were two girls and one

37:16

boy. One of the girls became

37:18

the sun goddess Amaterasu and

37:21

she had a sister named

37:23

Suku Yami. And

37:25

then there was their brother,

37:28

the mischievous jerk

37:31

Susano. I believe it's

37:33

Susano. Susano. Susano.

37:36

Okay. And what was he the god of? The

37:38

sea. Ah. Yes. So

37:42

naturally he was rambunctious, he was raging, caused

37:44

storms. I feel

37:46

like many sea or ocean or

37:48

water gods are sort of just

37:50

like the

37:52

problem child. Yeah. Which

37:55

makes sense. Yeah. Because

37:57

the ocean is so like rough and causes. so

38:00

much trouble, you know, giant waves and it

38:02

crashes and it brings in the storms like

38:04

it's always causing some amount of chaos. Yeah,

38:07

yeah. Whereas land, the sun and the moon,

38:09

they're up in the heavens, they just kind

38:11

of move, they come and they go. Right.

38:15

Wow, that's interesting, Casey. Yeah.

38:17

So, one time,

38:19

her brother just essentially had a

38:21

tantrum and Susanna O ended

38:25

up causing, he did three

38:27

things that just really pissed off

38:29

Amaterasu. Okay. And those were, first, he

38:31

ruined her rice fields. So, all the

38:34

rice paddies, then he took a shit

38:36

in her house, in her palace. Is

38:38

this real, Casey? This is real. This

38:40

is your fan fiction now? This is,

38:43

and then... You

38:46

drank all of her beers. And then she got

38:48

so pissed. No,

38:51

this is little ix. Everyone says,

38:53

oh, he defecated is the term,

38:55

or he dishonored or disgraced, like something

38:58

like that. So, the imagery is extremely

39:00

clear. I love gods. One person literally

39:02

says, yeah, he just defecated in her

39:05

palace. Wow. So, that was

39:07

the second offense. Okay. And the

39:09

third was that he flayed a

39:12

horse live, threw it

39:14

into the, like her

39:16

weavers studio. And then,

39:18

according to something that I read, and again, translations

39:20

can be fun. One of

39:22

the weavers ended up, like,

39:24

jamming her genitals against the

39:26

weaving shuttle and

39:29

died. Oh, my

39:31

God. So, you know, there's a

39:33

lot of stuff going on with

39:35

this first myth of

39:37

how, essentially, the sun

39:40

god, Amaterasu, ended

39:42

up isolating herself in

39:44

a cave because her brother,

39:46

Suzana O, was just a

39:49

complete jerk on his tantrum before he left

39:51

to go into the sea and be there

39:53

forever. Can I just

39:55

say, wouldn't you love to

39:57

be a fly on the wall of that family reunion?

40:02

Oh, that would be a god damn delight. I

40:05

feel like you could be a fly in a wall,

40:07

but they'd know you're there, you know? There are gods

40:09

everywhere. Of course, yeah. So,

40:11

it ended up being that

40:14

she went to this cave and she rolled

40:16

this boulder in front of her and she

40:18

said, I'm never coming out. So darkness fell

40:20

across the land because she's the sun goddess.

40:23

So the sun beauty, the sun commie,

40:25

K-A-M-I. That's

40:28

right. We'll talk about commies. So, she

40:31

was in there and all the other gods,

40:33

like some 800 other gods in commie,

40:36

all these different deities got together and they're like, what the

40:38

hell are we going to do? She's

40:41

in there, she's pissed, it's so dark out here,

40:43

everything sucks, we need to figure out what to do.

40:45

So they got everybody together and like I said, there's like 800

40:48

commie or like mentioned in

40:50

this ancient story. And

40:52

this was written down in the 700s initially. It's

40:55

in Japan's very first book. Yeah,

40:58

let me see. It's called the

41:00

Kojiki. The record

41:02

of ancient matters. Wow. I love

41:04

that. That's great. So anyway, this

41:06

is like the very beginning of Shinto also

41:08

I should know. Like this is kind of the

41:11

big creation myth within

41:13

this kind of spiritual ideology. Sure.

41:16

So, all these gods got together and they're

41:18

very, they have a lot of Greek god

41:20

parallels here where there's like gods and

41:23

goddesses and deities, commie, all

41:25

about these different things. And

41:27

this is the big thing with

41:30

Shinto where everything has a spirit,

41:32

literally anything and the idea of

41:35

something's like the wind has its

41:37

own commie, rivers, trees, individual trees,

41:39

rocks, people, ideas, you know, like

41:42

emotions, anger,

41:44

sadness. Yeah, everything has a spirit

41:47

or is represented by a spirit.

41:49

Joy of course is voiced by

41:51

Amy Poehler. So the way

41:53

that they, all these gods got together,

41:56

saved the sun goddess. Yeah,

41:58

yeah, yeah. They got

42:01

this huge crew together and they were like, all right

42:03

everyone, we got to get her out. I

42:06

have an idea. The deity of

42:08

wisdom came over and said, okay, so

42:10

here's what we're going to do. I

42:12

need someone to go pull up that

42:14

Sakaki tree from this ancient mountainside and

42:16

it was a Sakaki with 500 limbs.

42:20

Wow. They pulled it up by the roots

42:22

and they brought it over and then at

42:24

different sections at the top, middle and the

42:26

bottom, they started to put things in it.

42:28

At the top, they put some banners, at

42:30

the bottom, they put some beads in the

42:32

middle, they put a big mirror. Each

42:36

one of them moved it over and they

42:38

had another one that was really strong. Someone

42:40

else had this magic rope and

42:42

they ended up getting all of the,

42:45

I believe it is young roosters, like

42:47

cockroles is what they call them. They're

42:50

just not adult roosters,

42:52

they're young juvenile roosters. Apparently,

42:55

they're very annoying and loud. They

42:57

got all of them in this

42:59

area, this southern, I believe it's

43:02

the southern section, to be

43:04

very loud. They just made all the birds

43:06

go all at once. Then

43:10

another one of the kami started this

43:12

dance and it was a provocative dance.

43:16

Everyone else was like yelled and laughed and have a

43:18

good time. She all laughed all

43:21

at once very loudly and this

43:23

piqued the interest of the sun

43:25

goddess. She was like, what

43:28

the hell could they be doing out there when

43:30

I'm in here? There's not even any sunlight out

43:32

there. How could they be having any amount of

43:34

fun at all? She rolled the rock over and

43:36

was like, the hell are you guys doing? Then

43:39

they responded and said, well, actually, we found another

43:41

goddess out here who's way cooler

43:46

than you. She was like, what? No.

43:49

She piqued out further to see who this

43:51

other greater goddess was. They

43:56

showed her the mirror and two things. One,

43:58

they said, well, I'm going to go and

44:00

get her. said it's actually you, so she

44:02

just saw her own reflection and B, that

44:05

reflection opened a reflected sun out into

44:07

the rest of the world and they brought it back.

44:10

Wow. Isn't that a great myth?

44:12

That is so great

44:14

and so convoluted. All

44:17

these myths are so

44:19

like, they could have cut

44:21

out so many steps. I understand that

44:23

they're metaphorical, they're analogous. And they

44:25

brought a pin of three different things. What?

44:30

Yeah, there are these, a lot of

44:32

little things that I'm sure are A,

44:35

lost in translation, but

44:37

B, are surely like have

44:39

reasons for it, you know, to go

44:42

back. There's even like little bits and

44:44

parts about this plant and

44:46

like certain colors, like everything is

44:48

very symbolic and there's a lot

44:50

of imagery to it. So I

44:52

wonder, once they, once the mirror

44:55

caught the reflection of the sun,

44:57

did the sun got us come back out or did

44:59

they just like, you

45:01

know, what happened from there? Yeah, you remember that

45:03

magic rope that one of the kami brought? Yeah.

45:06

Pulled it across the cave

45:08

entrance so she couldn't go back in.

45:10

Of course. Can't cross that

45:13

magic rope? Nope, it's magical. That's why

45:15

they made it that way. That is

45:17

in the design. How fascinating, Casey. And

45:19

then ever since this tree, the

45:22

sakuki, has been explicitly

45:24

seen as a welcoming

45:26

thing. Because again, it kind of calls back

45:28

to it when you have it in a

45:30

modern temple or shrine, it

45:33

is something that calls and basically says,

45:35

hey, spirits, come here. So it's a

45:37

welcoming kind of thing. So

45:41

that is where it initially came from because it

45:43

coaxed out the sun goddess. It was the big

45:45

500 branched tree that

45:47

they used to get her out.

45:49

Wow. So that is why it's kind of

45:51

kept through this metaphor and why it initially

45:54

has been so, so

45:56

specifically called out as

45:58

an important sacred tree. It's

46:00

basically because it is what brought the

46:03

Sun back and then all of the

46:05

other spirits in the spirit world kind

46:07

of have been Allowed

46:09

to be around or are still around because

46:11

the Sun came back out. So this is

46:13

how everything really got going Yeah in the

46:16

whole idea of Shinto Wow, I would love

46:18

to read more about Shinto. That is so

46:20

fascinating Yeah, it's a it's a very very

46:23

Like rich history everything has got something. Yeah,

46:26

so Casey I'm looping back here to

46:28

something you said earlier then we'll go on

46:30

our break You

46:32

mentioned That

46:36

Sakaki, yeah could

46:38

be like an apple quince thing

46:40

Maybe there's a mistranslation like we

46:42

don't know for sure that it

46:44

was this species of tree Yes,

46:47

that originally was in the book

46:49

of the book of ancient

46:51

matters, right? Potentially.

46:53

Yes potentially. Yes and that You

46:56

know, we we now know it to be

46:59

this important tree to Shinto Yeah, but

47:01

it's possible there's a prodigal son out

47:03

there in the forest who's

47:06

like it should be me Yeah,

47:08

theoretically and I I don't

47:10

know and I don't want anyone who does

47:12

you know have a way deeper Understanding

47:14

of this. Yeah to come be like well

47:17

actually because it does come

47:19

down to us as myths always do If

47:21

we say it is then it is yeah, you

47:24

know So it's a you just

47:26

have to believe ancient myths ancient stories

47:28

ancient history Because at one point you

47:30

just you just don't know and if everyone

47:32

says it then we're like, okay. Yeah, that's it

47:35

and The

47:37

the thing why I think it's

47:39

reasonable for us to do that Is

47:42

that famously the Japanese are very good

47:44

at horticulture? They've been doing

47:46

horticulture things with different plants for thousands

47:48

of years. So it would be I

47:52

think a little uh disingenuous

47:54

of us to say well, they couldn't

47:56

tell the difference between this evergreen or

47:58

that evergreen and There are

48:01

like peoples of this era and

48:03

prior had such a Closer

48:06

relationship with the plants of in this is

48:08

everywhere in the world So

48:10

if I think it's a little

48:12

heuristic of humans to kind of even bring

48:14

that up I bring it up because yeah, I read it.

48:16

I think it's important to say well No,

48:18

this was the old translation. It could

48:20

be something different, but you're not challenging

48:22

it. You're not taking it on as

48:24

your Personal opinion. I shall

48:27

not die on that hill. No But

48:30

it's a I think it is a fascinating If

48:33

we if you consider it and this is something

48:35

I think people are Are good

48:37

to do in the the larger

48:39

kind of history is to think of the

48:41

context, you know Like if we're just

48:43

gonna look at these people and say well They didn't know as

48:46

much about plants as we do now so we can question them

48:48

Like well, maybe that's accurate, but it's also

48:51

accurate that they were way closer to plants

48:53

and use them way more

48:55

specifically Maybe they didn't specifically know

48:57

the differences of the you know Well these

49:00

leaves and flowers are just a little bit

49:02

different so we know they're separate You have

49:04

to ask yourself like does that matter? Yeah,

49:06

maybe that knowledge matter They just looked at the differences

49:09

and just say yeah. Yeah, there's a and there's B

49:12

Right, but then and then later we

49:14

name all these things and we go

49:16

deep into the genetics. Yes Yeah, now

49:18

we know about these trees, right? They

49:21

might have just said yeah that like tree a

49:23

B and C are all the same because they

49:25

all look the same for general purposes

49:27

Yeah, you know, this is folk taxonomy

49:29

again about a hundred times. Yeah, so

49:31

they could have had a folk taxonomy

49:34

that included multiple evergreen

49:36

species that they all called

49:38

Sakaki but then as they learned they

49:40

said well, okay Well, this was actually a

49:42

different species for this reason or that reason

49:44

and even camellia that's named after a person

49:47

That's a that's the last name of a

49:49

guy So we don't I don't even

49:51

know off the top my head what the Japanese term

49:53

is for that Maybe they use the same one. Maybe

49:55

they will just call them Sakaki. I don't know.

49:57

Yeah, interesting case. So there you go That

50:00

was fascinating. I cannot wait to give

50:02

the review to this tree Yeah,

50:06

I've got some got some tricks up my sleeve Oh, I want

50:08

to hear you tricks and then we're gonna talk about how

50:11

Shinto works with the movie Spirited

50:13

Away That's right. What a great

50:15

series we've we've built here Hey,

50:18

you know what we're gonna do all that but we

50:21

got to do it after a break We will be

50:23

right back with completely arbitrary Shriyazaki Shinto

50:37

Welcome back to completely

50:40

arbitrary's Shriyazaki that was our discussion

50:42

of the Sakaki

50:45

and its place in the

50:47

origins of Shinto. That's right

50:49

Wow Casey It

50:52

is time for a review of this tree. Here's

50:55

how it works. We're gonna give some final thoughts on On

50:58

the Sakaki and then

51:01

give it a rating hmm of zero

51:03

to ten Hokora

51:06

Now Casey. Yes, Hokora

51:09

our little roadside stone

51:13

houses meant to provide

51:16

a home for Kami in the forest Okay.

51:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Hokora is in

51:21

the very beginning of the the

51:23

film. Yes doesn't doesn't our hero

51:27

Shakira Shakira

51:30

Shakira Shakira

51:33

Shakira Yeah,

51:36

our hero Shakira She

51:42

starts twerking for all the spirits hey, you

51:44

know what if they're into it they're all

51:46

getting gold that's that no face Just throwing

51:48

gold at her Yes

51:52

Yes, she finds like a bunch of little

51:54

houses and she literally makes a comment those

51:56

look like little houses yes They're all just

51:58

like strewn and broken Yeah, it almost looks

52:00

like somebody just dumped them on the side of the

52:03

road, but I don't think that is true. I think

52:05

that those were put there for the kami. Yes. Now,

52:07

what are they called again? These

52:09

are hokora. Those are

52:12

like little stone birdhouses. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

52:14

we're going to give this tree a rating

52:16

out of 10 hokora. Oh,

52:18

an honor. How many kami? Golden

52:20

hokora. Golden hokora of honor. Okay.

52:22

How many kami would you invite

52:25

to live among this tree? Oh,

52:27

would you invite one to ten? Yes.

52:29

Ha ha ha. Casey

52:32

will begin with you. Okay. Let's see if

52:34

I can remember all these words. How

52:40

many kami can fit in... So

52:43

is it golden kami of honor or

52:45

is it golden? Golden hokora. Okay. Hokora

52:50

of honor. Hokora. Okay. Like, like,

52:52

like yukora. Hokora.

52:55

Hokora. All right. Ha

52:57

ha. So we have

53:00

an adorable little

53:02

tree here. I have

53:04

to say, I really, I'm kind

53:06

of perplexed about it because if

53:09

I am thinking of this in

53:11

the good old-fashioned Casey way, which

53:13

is how is this useful

53:16

and enjoyable in a

53:18

lovely plant? As a tree. As a

53:20

tree. Yeah. As a tree, I have

53:22

to say this is, this is on

53:25

that spectrum of like pomegranate and the

53:28

curry leaf tree and even

53:31

like, I don't know, we haven't

53:33

actually done a witch hazel yet, but it's on that

53:35

level. I still want to do witch hazel. So it's

53:37

in that realm of little tiny trees that we

53:40

have to like really be like, yeah, that's a,

53:42

that's a tree. If you

53:44

have anything to say, don't. It's

53:48

culturally insensitive to suggest that this is not

53:50

a tree. Thank you. So

53:53

I believe that if I was just to say,

53:55

you know, you should plant this. I think I would say, yes,

53:57

you should. I have not heard that it's

53:59

invasive. It looks beautiful. The foliage

54:02

is like a really stunning

54:04

dark shiny color. I like

54:06

the flowers the most. Oh

54:09

yeah. An adorable fragrant flower that

54:11

also just falls down. They

54:14

hang pendulously so you can't just walk over and

54:16

be like, look at that flower. It's not in your

54:18

face. It's a flower that you have to go find.

54:20

Like a pair of woman's shoes on a power line.

54:23

Just hanging on out there. Wow, look how

54:25

beautiful it is. I think that this

54:27

tree is probably, I'm going to give

54:29

it a six and a half out

54:31

of ten. I'm sorry. That's okay. That's

54:33

okay. It's wonderful. I wish the

54:35

bark was better. I truly do. That would

54:37

put it up a little bit for me. It's

54:40

interesting in that it is the tree that brought

54:42

the sun that like they

54:44

hung stuff on to bring the sun

54:46

out. Also, because it's evergreen, it has

54:48

this idea of everlasting life and like

54:50

permanence and things like that. Amazing. So

54:53

it has all these mythic things to it. But

54:56

it's very much like on

54:58

a different level than other

55:00

plants. Where like

55:03

certain plants, like the

55:05

pomegranate for instance, it's heavily, heavily

55:08

full of mythos because

55:10

of like how it grows and how

55:12

it's been used. Whereas

55:15

this, it's the plant that just

55:17

has the gods, it entices the

55:19

gods to come into a space.

55:24

But like that's it. Like I don't know. It's

55:26

on a different level. It's hard for me to describe. Okay. That's

55:29

fine. Does that make sense? I think so.

55:32

There's not like a particular aspect of the tree that

55:34

everyone's like, oh, that aspect makes it that specific thing.

55:36

You know, like the pomegranate fruit is

55:39

like the certain colors and the certain shape

55:41

and everything and it makes this feel

55:43

very like fertility goddess kind of

55:45

thing. So it has this like this

55:47

metaphor of use. Because

55:49

in the case of the

55:52

Sakaki, it's the tree itself. Like

55:55

it's like, no, no, no, there's nothing about

55:57

me that is used to bring back. the

56:01

kind of gods, the goddesses, it

56:03

is just me. You're saying sort

56:06

of that the Sakaki

56:08

won the mythological lottery.

56:10

Yeah, I think so. Where

56:13

everything else, there's a purpose to it

56:15

that it provides. In this case, it's

56:17

just the existence of this tree period.

56:19

Fair enough. So I think that that is doing a

56:21

lot of heavy lifting for it because everything else

56:23

except the flowers, I'm kind of like, meh, meh,

56:26

whatever. I basically agree with you there. 6.5? 6.5

56:29

is what I give it. I'm sorry. Not everything

56:31

is perfect. 6.5, Hokura. Of

56:34

honor. Golden Hokura of honor. All

56:38

right. Well, the Sakaki.

56:43

The leaves. Yes. Meh. Ooh.

56:47

The bark. Meh. The

56:53

overall morphology. Meh. The

56:56

flowers. I

56:59

like them well enough, but they don't blow me away. Wow. The

57:03

mythos, the

57:06

cultural significance, the

57:10

practical significance in

57:13

terms of the indigenous

57:15

religion, right? Used for ceremony

57:17

and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

57:20

That's opposite of the meh. Off

57:23

the charts. I

57:25

think I kind of

57:28

have to ignore how this tree

57:30

looks to give my score because

57:32

it is not a stunner. Yeah.

57:34

It is not superfluous by any

57:36

means. It is not

57:38

a practice. Wait. Hold on. Isn't

57:41

superfluous, you mean, big? Superlative.

57:44

Superlative, Alex! Alex,

57:47

Alex, Alex. I do not like superfluous

57:49

trees. You got that wrong.

57:51

I like superlative trees. Thank you. For

57:53

those of you who want a little

57:56

bit of peek in the background, it

57:58

took us 10 minutes to turn... Remember

58:00

the world you were actually trying to look up. But

58:02

for you it took a mere moment because

58:04

of my editing skills. Yes,

58:07

yes, yes, yes, incredible. Yes,

58:09

I like superfluous trees only so

58:13

that I can just walk right over them. Sure.

58:16

My God. Was

58:19

it worth it? So nothing

58:22

about this tree is superlative.

58:24

Yes. Except for

58:27

its meaning to people. And

58:30

as you know, I love a tree that gives back.

58:33

This means food. This

58:35

means cultural significance. Ceremonial

58:40

significance. And this tree, oh

58:42

boy has it got it. I mean like, this

58:45

might be like top 10 important

58:48

trees to this sort of thing in the world,

58:51

right? Yeah, I think so. And it's

58:53

always hard to like make those

58:55

analogies, those comparisons. But yes, I

58:58

mean this is the sacred

59:00

tree of Japan. It's not a

59:02

contest. But there is no denying

59:04

that this tree is like,

59:07

wow. It's in the fucking

59:09

creation myth, man. Exactly. Casey,

59:12

I would be silly to not give this

59:14

tree a

59:17

9.0 out of 10. Wow,

59:19

certainly we approached it from different places.

59:22

And that's the beauty of completely armored

59:24

trees. Isn't that the beauty of it?

59:27

You're completely and I am arbitrary.

59:29

Yeah, excellent. That

59:32

was our review of the

59:34

Sakaki. We hope you enjoyed it, Casey.

59:37

Yes, sir. I don't have a clever

59:39

name for this. Maybe we will next week. But

59:41

it is time for our segment where

59:43

you and I discuss the movie that

59:46

this episode is based on. I think

59:48

that sounds great. This is Ghibli Chat.

59:57

This week, of course, we...

1:00:00

and based this episode off

1:00:02

of Spirited Away. Yes. Which

1:00:05

is a film by Hayao Miyazaki, that's the whole

1:00:07

fucking point. Casey,

1:00:10

this was your first Studio Ghibli

1:00:12

movie. It was. This

1:00:15

movie came out in 2001. It

1:00:17

did. It runs for two hours and five

1:00:19

minutes. That's correct. And let me tell you,

1:00:21

does it fly by? Well, the first time

1:00:23

I watched it, it did not fly by.

1:00:26

Mmm, yeah. It crawled by. Because,

1:00:28

as I told you, Casey, these

1:00:31

movies, I will say, feel

1:00:34

very different than Western media, which

1:00:37

is very strict and

1:00:40

structured on a three-act structure. Yeah. I

1:00:43

believe that these movies also have a three-act structure,

1:00:45

but it's a little less blunt

1:00:49

and a little more nuanced. And

1:00:51

so the first times I watched

1:00:53

it, I was like, I don't know where the

1:00:55

fuck we are in this story. Yeah, but you

1:00:57

pay attention to those things like pacing and timing,

1:00:59

and where are we? I do. I

1:01:02

was just watching it, being like, okay. And

1:01:05

then this happened. Okay. Yeah. It's

1:01:08

the same thing with, like, what is it, Killers

1:01:11

of the Flower Moon. Same thing, where

1:01:13

I was just like watching it, watching it, watching it,

1:01:15

watching it, and up and down. Yeah. I

1:01:18

was like, oh, okay. It's like a Coen Brothers movie. There

1:01:20

is no beginning, middle, or

1:01:22

end. It just starts, then

1:01:25

it's in the middle, and then it is done. Eventually it

1:01:27

stops. Yeah. See,

1:01:30

oh, I wish I could watch movies like that. It's torture. So,

1:01:37

on its kind of surface level, Spirited Away,

1:01:40

is about a young girl, a 10-year-old girl

1:01:42

named Chihiro. Her family is

1:01:44

moving to a home in the country. She's leaving

1:01:46

her old school and her old friends behind. They

1:01:50

get a little lost on

1:01:52

the way to their new home. A little bit

1:01:54

hubris on the dance part. That's

1:01:57

right. And they end up

1:01:59

sort of... in this what appears to be

1:02:01

almost like a boardwalk. It reminds

1:02:04

me a little bit of like what's

1:02:06

it called it like the Atlantic City

1:02:08

boardwalk. Yeah right it's called an amusement

1:02:11

park. Yes. Which they make a reference

1:02:13

to as being something that is it

1:02:15

was developed heavily in the mid early

1:02:17

80s in Japan. Oh wow. And then

1:02:20

in the late 80s there's a huge

1:02:22

economic crash and like I think into

1:02:24

the 90s. Wow. And

1:02:27

so then a bunch of these places just

1:02:29

closed and just became kind of these ghost

1:02:31

towns. That is really interesting and hey. They

1:02:34

make a reference. So

1:02:37

they they come across

1:02:39

her and her parents come across this this

1:02:42

restaurant that appears to have like

1:02:44

huge bowls of food set out

1:02:46

ready to go. Just ready. Yeah

1:02:48

and the parents start eating. They can't

1:02:50

hate they can't even contain themselves.

1:02:53

No it is very it's almost creepy.

1:02:55

They're like they're a little they're

1:02:57

a little obsessed almost. Yeah yeah yeah.

1:03:00

Consuming. Feels like they're under a spell.

1:03:02

Wow. Chihiro

1:03:05

leaves and ends up through

1:03:07

through many plot points that

1:03:09

we won't get into. And we should say

1:03:11

patently refuses to eat the food because it

1:03:14

is not theirs. That's right. No this isn't

1:03:16

ours. We shouldn't be eating it. And her

1:03:18

parents almost like try to get

1:03:20

her to. It's okay. We I have dad says

1:03:22

I have cash and credit cards. Yeah exactly. Okay

1:03:25

dad. Little little humble brag there.

1:03:27

It's actually I read up on

1:03:30

this. That was very much a

1:03:32

call on Americans where

1:03:35

Americans like it doesn't matter. I

1:03:37

got money. For the okay. Yeah

1:03:39

that makes sense. Yeah he's also

1:03:41

wearing a American style polo shirt.

1:03:43

Yeah. And drives an imported Audi

1:03:45

car. That's right. Interesting Casey.

1:03:47

Yeah. You know a little bit more about this

1:03:49

than you let on. Well it's only because they

1:03:51

have a lot of interesting Wikipedia pages out there.

1:03:55

So Chihiro leaves and ends

1:03:57

up working at a bathhouse.

1:04:00

Yes, finds herself in the spirit

1:04:02

world. Yes, a bathhouse for spirits.

1:04:05

She is a human and in the spirit world.

1:04:10

The main goal of her story is

1:04:12

to escape and get her parents back.

1:04:14

Exactly. So she works hard at the bathhouse

1:04:16

to do that. It was a

1:04:19

very interesting tale because I

1:04:21

was expecting that there's a

1:04:23

lot of imagery

1:04:25

and symbolism that is

1:04:27

peppered through. I

1:04:30

was right, thank you very much. But

1:04:33

I was reading up on a lot of it because a lot of it

1:04:35

also has to do specifically with Shinto

1:04:37

as an idea. Each

1:04:40

one of the spirits, or any of the

1:04:42

spirits in the whole spirit world inside this bathhouse,

1:04:45

which is where spirits go to essentially get

1:04:47

themselves cleaned and have a little spa day.

1:04:50

Then they leave and they go back to do whatever they're

1:04:52

doing. The

1:04:54

whole thing is that you get

1:04:56

to know this personification of the

1:04:59

spirits of these other things that

1:05:01

exist. So there's a radish, I

1:05:03

think it was a radish spirit, which

1:05:05

I love that. Which

1:05:09

is a thing that is real. Is

1:05:11

it really? Yeah, but they don't look

1:05:13

quite like this guy looks. He looks

1:05:15

like a big overgrown radish. Yes, yeah,

1:05:17

yeah, yeah. But they don't look like

1:05:19

that in Shinto. Oh, okay. Well, radish

1:05:21

don't? Or the? The radish

1:05:23

spirit stuff. I had

1:05:25

no idea. I've never given

1:05:27

a thought of what do these spirits look

1:05:29

like. I assume they are just of and

1:05:31

by the things that they are. But

1:05:34

of course there are things that are representative of

1:05:36

it, but also what would that form be like?

1:05:39

And they use their imagination to think what would

1:05:41

the form of a radish

1:05:44

spirit look like if it became

1:05:46

kind of personified. And

1:05:48

he's very adorable. He's a little creepy. Yeah, you

1:05:50

just can't trust him. And

1:05:54

then you find out as they go through the thing, he seems like

1:05:56

he's kind of on her side. Yeah, he

1:05:58

for sure is. At one

1:06:00

point ends up, there's a,

1:06:03

what they call a stink

1:06:05

spirit. Yes. Originally. He's

1:06:07

this big like muck monster comes in. This

1:06:09

is probably my favorite sequence of the movie.

1:06:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

1:06:14

where, also where a big

1:06:16

thematic point arises. Yes. This

1:06:19

stink spirit, I'm putting in

1:06:22

air quotes, gets a big

1:06:24

bath. Yeah. And

1:06:26

they end up, they end up pulling,

1:06:29

in the

1:06:31

process of bathing the spirit, they end

1:06:33

up pulling a bunch of mud covered

1:06:35

garbage. Yeah. Out of him. It

1:06:38

almost to me looks like a, like a,

1:06:40

what is it, the thorn in the lion?

1:06:42

Isn't this the thing that happened somewhere? I

1:06:45

think it's a lion. It might be

1:06:47

an elf. Oh, the thorn in the lion's paw or something.

1:06:50

Yeah, exactly. Where you can't get it out and so it's

1:06:52

just like really angry and pissed off. Yes. It's

1:06:54

like one compassionate little creature to say, I'll

1:06:56

pull that out for you. Yes. And

1:06:59

then the lion becomes very happy and sweet again. Yes. This

1:07:02

was a similar thing where there

1:07:04

was one little like bit of

1:07:06

a bicycle's, I think, handlebars that

1:07:10

at the time now it's Sen finds

1:07:12

because now the witch

1:07:15

who runs the bath house will take

1:07:18

your name. Yeah. She

1:07:20

took the second syllable,

1:07:22

the second symbol from her name. Do you

1:07:25

know about this? I don't really.

1:07:27

I learned a little bit, but yeah, can you explain

1:07:29

that? Sure. Yeah. Well,

1:07:31

she, she hero signs her name on a contract to work at the bath

1:07:33

house. Yes. Which is how

1:07:35

you Baba, the owner of the bath house

1:07:38

controls the people who work there. She literally

1:07:40

steals their name. Yeah. And

1:07:42

she, she sort of does this magical

1:07:44

hand wave above it and the symbols,

1:07:46

the characters are

1:07:48

just off the page leaving one character. Yeah.

1:07:52

And that is Sen, which is a part of she

1:07:54

hero's name. Exactly. And Sen means 1000. Yeah.

1:07:58

And so I think the idea is that. To

1:08:00

her her employees are just like you're

1:08:02

just a number now. Yeah, exactly Yeah,

1:08:05

so then is now this

1:08:07

character and Sen Finds

1:08:10

that little thing and says oh, I see

1:08:12

why you're so unhappy and stinky

1:08:14

right now and then everybody Including

1:08:17

what Baba ya Baba you Baba you

1:08:19

Baba. Yeah, you Baba says wow Oh my

1:08:21

gosh We got to help out this spirit our

1:08:23

client and then they like tie a rope around

1:08:25

it and they pull it out and it creates

1:08:28

cascade of trash and garbage And

1:08:30

then they blast out this

1:08:32

certain like fancy infusion, right?

1:08:35

And then what happens after that Alex

1:08:37

the real form of the spirit

1:08:39

comes out and it's a river

1:08:41

spirit Yes, and the river

1:08:44

spirit was Polluted

1:08:47

yeah, ah, I know I love

1:08:49

that. It's amazing Yeah It's like you need to

1:08:52

cleanse the river of all the pollution that has

1:08:54

destroyed it and turned it into a stink spirit

1:08:56

and Minor spoilers for this movie by

1:08:58

the way, if you haven't seen it so if you want to

1:09:00

go watch it watch it now before we talk about the rest

1:09:02

of this because You've

1:09:04

been spoiled you've been warned of spoilers. Yes

1:09:08

Boiled I'm gonna throw you in the trash You

1:09:11

are now a stink spirit River

1:09:14

spirits in this movie are represented by Japanese

1:09:17

style I should say maybe Asian

1:09:19

style dragons Yeah, you're more like

1:09:22

snake like and one

1:09:26

of the main characters Haku who

1:09:28

is another spirit who works at

1:09:30

the bath house and is the

1:09:32

one to help Chihiro escape. Yeah

1:09:35

He takes on the form of a dragon and

1:09:39

toward the end Chihiro

1:09:41

realizes that he is a river spirit

1:09:43

and calls him By

1:09:46

his real name, which is the name of

1:09:48

the river that that she knows him from

1:09:51

Yeah, he's her once yes. He pushed her

1:09:53

when she was drowning. He pushed her to

1:09:55

the shore and she says

1:09:59

Like She says the name of

1:10:01

the river and she says that's all apartments

1:10:03

now. Yeah, and all apartments

1:10:05

Casey I thought of you because we've

1:10:07

you have something that's been on your

1:10:09

mind lately has been development. Yeah Yeah,

1:10:12

there's been a development in the

1:10:15

story of this farm in and

1:10:18

The Willamette Valley that's oh, yeah, there's a new story

1:10:21

that I was reading about last week. Yes And

1:10:24

you're very passionate about development You worked for the city

1:10:26

for many years and are on the side of you

1:10:28

work for the people and the trees specifically So

1:10:31

I thought about you and when I said it kind of broke

1:10:33

my heart when she said that's all apartments now Yeah,

1:10:36

there's no more river. The river's gone, which

1:10:38

is why he doesn't know who he is

1:10:40

and he's lost exactly I

1:10:42

I love that because that is

1:10:46

it's where it brings environmentalism and

1:10:48

like other like

1:10:50

ideas in Japanese culture to

1:10:52

the forefront and Marries

1:10:55

it with their kind of indigenous

1:10:58

religion this shit. Oh idea that

1:11:01

there are Spirits within everything if you

1:11:03

crush something or you get rid of it Then

1:11:05

you're you're getting rid of the spirit at the

1:11:07

same time. You're not honoring that and

1:11:09

if you are Contrasting that

1:11:11

specifically the movie does is quite

1:11:13

a bit contrast it against European

1:11:15

and namely American Consumerism that

1:11:18

obviously the parents literally turning into

1:11:20

pigs Yeah, as they are eating

1:11:22

and looking like Western American eyes

1:11:24

kind of people. Yeah, and it's

1:11:27

kind of clash of culture versus this clash of

1:11:30

new age New

1:11:32

age modern capitalism essentially and

1:11:35

I love that this is a movie that is about

1:11:37

that not to mention This is something that I have

1:11:39

run into a lot is that it is

1:11:41

from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl

1:11:44

like Experiencing these things and coming

1:11:46

of age and also learning about what it's like to

1:11:48

you know See these things and

1:11:50

understand spirits. Yeah, and so it's like

1:11:53

more important I think that kids are taught

1:11:55

these things rather than grow up and become

1:11:57

a doctor and make millions of dollars. Yeah

1:12:00

to say, yeah, consider the spirits of

1:12:02

everything else, you know, and that will

1:12:04

get them, kids, to

1:12:06

see things not as objects

1:12:08

to be used, but as entities that exist

1:12:10

in their own rights. They should be kept

1:12:12

clean and beautiful and that are like

1:12:15

our spirits have spirits within them. So

1:12:18

don't treat them just like trash or else then you're

1:12:20

just trashing the spirit. Yeah. Casey very

1:12:22

well said. I, you know, Miyazaki

1:12:24

is legendary for a reason. His

1:12:27

movies aren't just like cutesy

1:12:30

animated movies. Yeah. They

1:12:32

are so rich and so deep and have so

1:12:35

much going on in them, both

1:12:37

visually. This movie refreshes itself a

1:12:39

lot. Nothing ever

1:12:42

gets like really boring because there's just always

1:12:44

like a new environment or a new room

1:12:46

that they're in or some sort of new

1:12:49

visual thing happening. But

1:12:51

they're also just like the message

1:12:53

in them is so beautiful and so clear.

1:12:56

And I think it goes back to

1:12:58

we've talked about before, we're not Japanese experts

1:13:01

or Japan experts, but

1:13:03

we've talked about our, what we've noticed

1:13:06

in Japanese culture, which this sort of, this

1:13:09

sort of meeting this

1:13:11

crossroads of tradition and

1:13:14

modern ideas. Right. Yeah.

1:13:17

Yeah. And these movies

1:13:19

are a, I would say these movies, all of

1:13:21

them that I've seen are a perfect representation

1:13:24

of that. They

1:13:27

bring in a lot of traditional,

1:13:30

you know, indigenous Japanese ideas, but

1:13:32

then you have this modern 10 year old

1:13:35

girl experiencing all these

1:13:37

things. Yeah, right. That was our

1:13:39

discussion of Spirited Away. What a great movie. What

1:13:41

a lovely film. I also want to say in

1:13:43

terms of like, you know, we

1:13:46

can have all these like philosophical discussions

1:13:48

about Spirited Away and its themes and

1:13:50

it's all this important shit. Yeah. But

1:13:53

it's also just very pleasant to watch. I

1:13:55

put it on in the background sometimes while

1:13:57

I'm like doing housework and I'll just. like

1:14:00

walk by it and smile. You're like,

1:14:02

oh, I love that funny turnip spirit.

1:14:05

So cute. The only thing that

1:14:07

I want to ask you while we transition to

1:14:09

our last segment is this, Alex. How

1:14:13

long do you think the car was parked

1:14:15

there? Now, this

1:14:17

is interesting because

1:14:19

when she gets back to her

1:14:21

parents, it's almost like a Narnia

1:14:25

thing where, to her, it feels like

1:14:27

it's been weeks. But they're like,

1:14:29

there you are. Come on, we're going to be late. And

1:14:32

they act like it's been 20 minutes. Right.

1:14:36

So I think that there's this

1:14:38

interdimensional thing happening where when she

1:14:40

enters the spirit world, time moves

1:14:43

differently. Maybe time doesn't even

1:14:45

exist. The

1:14:47

sun still rises and sets. There's night

1:14:50

cycles, whatever. But when she gets

1:14:52

back, I think once

1:14:54

they went through that and they say,

1:14:56

he even says, this isn't old. This

1:14:58

is artificial. It's plaster. This

1:15:01

tunnel that they go through. And

1:15:03

the very front of that tunnel is a stone

1:15:06

spirit, marking

1:15:08

the entrance to the spirit world, a

1:15:11

barrier. So I believe that she probably got

1:15:13

out of the car in the real world,

1:15:16

walked through that tunnel, and then disappeared

1:15:18

to go play. Yeah. And then, and that's

1:15:20

what they have. The forest grows in. There's

1:15:24

a bunch more moss over the front of it. But

1:15:26

it looks. Right. It looks

1:15:29

like it's been months. Wow.

1:15:33

I didn't even notice that. When they're

1:15:35

pulling away at the very,

1:15:37

very end, driving back down the road that

1:15:39

came, there's lots of

1:15:42

overgrown stuff. Everything's overgrown. The

1:15:44

initial wall, you see the bricks with the

1:15:46

plaster on the top of it. Then

1:15:49

when they leave, it's all covered in green. It's

1:15:51

in like the plant grew over the top of

1:15:53

it. There's dust on

1:15:55

the car. They make a note of this. It's like, God,

1:15:57

the car's so dirty. Was it some kind of prank? Like

1:15:59

leaves? fell on it. I completely missed that.

1:16:02

Yeah. So I'm curious how

1:16:05

long in the real world,

1:16:08

in the parents' world, how long were they

1:16:10

there? Because their whole thing is we're going

1:16:12

to be late to see, we got to meet the movers. And

1:16:14

do you think that the movers like, where

1:16:17

the fuck? We

1:16:19

just dropped your stuff off months ago. Yeah, they've

1:16:21

been foreclosed on by this point. Yeah, exactly. I'm

1:16:24

very curious. They never touch it. Maybe

1:16:27

this is just, I'm just a bad like

1:16:29

spiritual person. Well, I'm just like, now

1:16:32

how long has it actually

1:16:34

been? Anytime you get into like time travel

1:16:36

or like spirit world, like there's going to

1:16:38

be some like questions of like, well, how does

1:16:40

that work? It's very fair. Well,

1:16:42

it's the in the famous movie Inception,

1:16:45

they cover that. It's like they give it,

1:16:47

they give a timeline. Oh yeah. You

1:16:49

know how long it is. What a terrible

1:16:51

movie. That movie's not terrible. Oh my God.

1:16:53

All right, Casey. All right, Casey, that

1:16:56

was our discussion of Spirited

1:16:58

Away. We hope you enjoyed it. It

1:17:01

is time for our Completely Arbitrary

1:17:03

AMA. Wow.

1:17:07

Casey, this is our first

1:17:09

question from our brand

1:17:12

new support platform, Completely Arbitrary

1:17:14

Trimium. And our

1:17:16

website for that has a amazing Q&A

1:17:19

section where you can post a question,

1:17:21

we can answer it and we'll send

1:17:23

you a basically it sends

1:17:25

you an email once we say that we've

1:17:27

answered the question with a timestamp to the

1:17:30

episode in which it's placed. Amazing.

1:17:32

It's great. Casey, this week's

1:17:35

question is from... Not

1:17:37

Set. We

1:17:39

say that because we have a

1:17:42

setting incorrect somewhere on our website,

1:17:44

our new platform where we

1:17:47

cannot see who asked this question. Yeah. We're

1:17:51

working on some bugs here. Yeah. We're

1:17:53

smoothing out the folds. Yeah. Anyway. But you

1:17:55

will know it is you when you hear

1:17:57

the question and we thank you for this

1:17:59

great Great question. I love

1:18:01

it. Casey, hypothetically, if

1:18:04

someone in the Pacific Northwest wanted

1:18:07

to start producing delicious tree

1:18:09

syrup in a few

1:18:11

decades, what would be the best

1:18:13

syrup to go all in on?

1:18:16

And they say if the answer is the

1:18:18

sugar maple, would the syrup theoretically be as

1:18:20

good as the stuff that comes out of

1:18:23

the famous maple syrup production areas like New

1:18:25

England and Canada? Or is

1:18:27

there something special about that climate? Or something in

1:18:29

the water like New York pizza? Ah, yeah, yeah.

1:18:31

Well, first off, why are they putting water in

1:18:34

New York pizza, Alex? It's

1:18:36

this new trend. You get pizza and you get

1:18:38

a glass of water and you pour the water

1:18:41

on the pizza. No shit. It's really good. I

1:18:43

don't know. Don't hate on it until you

1:18:45

try it. Yeah, sounds really good. Sounds like something I'm definitely going to

1:18:47

try. Definitely going to try. What do you

1:18:49

think, Casey? Well the answer is, well, don't

1:18:51

wait any decades. Just go do it right now on

1:18:53

the big leaf, maple. Ah. Yep,

1:18:57

that is the newest, coolest thing.

1:18:59

West Coast's cousin of the sugar

1:19:02

maple, eh? Yes, exactly. And they

1:19:04

are very actively trying to do

1:19:06

this. In fact, there is a

1:19:08

whole group in Oregon trying to

1:19:10

make maple syrup out of big

1:19:13

leaf maples. Wow. Yeah,

1:19:15

Oregon State University has got a whole thing

1:19:17

that they're working on it. Of course they

1:19:19

do. There's other people who've tried to do

1:19:22

this. In fact, I think I just Googled

1:19:24

it real fast and there's a Nels Big

1:19:26

Leaf Maple Syrup thing that's in Washington. So

1:19:29

it is here and people are actively doing it.

1:19:32

And apparently the flavor is just a little bit more

1:19:35

zingy, I guess is the kind of term for it. Okay.

1:19:38

Yeah, so every maple tree, every tree

1:19:40

has its own kind of personal chemistry.

1:19:44

And so the chemistry that adds certain

1:19:46

flavors to or doesn't have certain flavors

1:19:48

on a different species, you

1:19:50

just have to figure that out by trying them.

1:19:52

Interesting. It's all essentially the

1:19:54

same sugars like throughout trees, you

1:19:56

know, the saccharine bits, it's all

1:19:58

the photosynthetic sugars. trees make.

1:20:01

However, it just might

1:20:03

be a little bit, I think, more

1:20:05

robust. Like, it's not quite so smooth,

1:20:07

but I haven't tried it. It's just the things I've

1:20:09

heard. So, like, you remember you

1:20:11

and I had black walnut

1:20:13

syrup? Yeah. And it was, like, intense.

1:20:16

It was really something. Yes, this is

1:20:18

the similar, similar kind of thing. Okay,

1:20:20

I will say that was, like, it

1:20:23

almost tasted like they

1:20:25

just concentrated it for too long.

1:20:27

It was just, like, really pure

1:20:29

concentrated syrup flavor. Yeah, see, I

1:20:31

think that is the same

1:20:34

that they do with maple syrup

1:20:36

from the sugar maple. Yes, I'm sure that

1:20:38

it's the same process. I don't

1:20:40

think they fucked it up. I just think,

1:20:42

like, that was sort of, like, the taste

1:20:44

impression that I got. Yeah, just, like, very

1:20:47

intense. Like, a little goes a long way.

1:20:49

Exactly, and I think that that's pretty similar

1:20:51

for big leaf maple. But,

1:20:53

no one has sent it to us yet. Wink,

1:20:57

wink. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so,

1:21:00

yeah, how long does a, how long do you reckon

1:21:02

a big leaf maple, if I went out and planted

1:21:04

a sapling today? Yeah. In its natural

1:21:06

habitat here in the Pacific Northwest? Uh-huh. How

1:21:08

long do you think it would take to

1:21:11

get to the sugaring stage? I

1:21:13

think they only need to be a few feet

1:21:15

in diameter, or a few inches in diameter. Like,

1:21:17

maybe six or eight. Like, it doesn't

1:21:19

need to get huge, but a six or eight

1:21:21

year old tree, big leaf maple, it's probably gonna

1:21:23

take you maybe 20 years to get there. Oh,

1:21:26

geez. Yeah, but there are plenty that are already

1:21:28

around. So, if you happen to live somewhere that

1:21:30

has big leaf maples already growing, which is a

1:21:33

likelihood, for sure, you could probably use them

1:21:35

to make a little bit of syrup. There

1:21:37

you go. Yeah. Well, thank you

1:21:39

so much for your question, NotSet. If you've

1:21:41

got a question for us, hey, wow, this

1:21:43

is my first time saying, join

1:21:46

Completely Arbitrary Tremium.

1:21:48

That's arbitrarypod.supercast.com. It

1:21:51

is the best way to support this podcast.

1:21:53

There are a couple different levels there. Annual

1:21:55

subscriptions, gifted subscriptions, everything you

1:21:57

would want as bonuses. material

1:22:00

for Completely Arbitrary. I'll

1:22:03

say it kind of completes the compendium. It

1:22:05

really does, yeah yeah yeah. You can get extra

1:22:07

episodes to hear all the other things that we

1:22:09

don't necessarily get to talk about. That's right. You'll

1:22:11

be surprised to hear that sometimes I talk too

1:22:13

much about trees and Alex says,

1:22:15

um we're just gonna put that over

1:22:17

here. We'll

1:22:20

side dish for the supporters.

1:22:23

Exactly, exactly. Again that is

1:22:25

arbitrarypod.com. That link can also

1:22:27

be found on our website

1:22:29

arbitrarypod.com and in the bio

1:22:32

of our Instagram at ArbitraryPod.

1:22:34

You can find us is

1:22:36

what we're saying. Just Google

1:22:38

it. You'll get there. Casey!

1:22:44

Alex Cresson. What a great way to start

1:22:46

Triazaki. I'm having a great time so far.

1:22:48

I am too. I cannot wait for next episode.

1:22:51

What is next episode going to be? Next

1:22:53

episode we're going to be talking about the classic

1:22:56

My Neighbor Totoro. Oh

1:22:58

Totoro. Probably the

1:23:02

cinematic character that I resonate

1:23:04

most with. Oh really? Big

1:23:06

fuzzy friendly person, creature

1:23:09

that wants to sleep all day.

1:23:11

Yeah, okay. Yeah, alright. That does

1:23:13

feel a lot like Alex Cresson.

1:23:15

Okay, this is gonna be good. My

1:23:18

Neighbor Alex. Yes, My Neighbor Alex

1:23:20

and My Neighbor Casey. Yeah. These

1:23:22

neighbors will see you next time.

1:23:25

Sweet listeners. Completely

1:23:37

Arbitrary is produced by Alex Cresson

1:23:40

and Casey Clapp. Our artwork is

1:23:42

by Jillian Barthold and our music

1:23:44

is by Aves and the Mini

1:23:47

Vandals. And you can support the

1:23:49

podcast at patreon.com/arbitrary pod and find

1:23:52

additional readings at completely arbitrary.com. Thanks

1:23:54

for listening. you