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period.

0:46

I'm Steven McKeven. This is the Slate Culture

0:48

Geppist. Women are talking, but is

0:50

the Academy Listening Edition.

0:53

It's Wednesday, January twenty fifth two thousand

0:55

and twenty three. On today's show,

0:57

women talking is the new feature from writer

0:59

director Sarah Polly. It tells the

1:01

story of group of men and night women coming

1:03

to grips with a gruesome

1:06

act of sexual violation, which points

1:08

to a probable history of it,

1:10

and whether to take the radical

1:12

step to leave the only community that

1:15

they've ever It stars Clairevoy,

1:17

Jesse Buckley, Rudy Emera, it's

1:20

a marvelous ensemble cast. And

1:22

then the traitors is

1:24

a pulpy, campy reality competition

1:27

show. It has if nothing

1:29

else that one huge thing going for

1:31

it. It's hosted by the wonderful

1:33

Allan Cummings, the Scottish actor,

1:36

and we'll be joined by Slates own Carl

1:38

Wilson to discuss his

1:41

wonderful reaction to the TV show. And

1:43

finally, I, for one,

1:45

would like to welcome our new AI overlords,

1:49

speak of Simpson's references, right, that you,

1:51

like, go to over and over. I'll never

1:53

forget Kent Brockman and the insect

1:55

overlords. Anyway, mine is in

1:57

reference to chatbot. GPT,

2:00

which the get first crew tried.

2:02

Joining me today is Julia Turner,

2:05

who's the deputy managing editor at the

2:07

LA

2:07

Times. Hey, Julia. Hi, Steve.

2:10

And we've got Dana Stevens, the film critic

2:12

from SLAIT. Hey, Dana.

2:13

Hey, hey, Steve. I should say I've got

2:15

this kind of craggly handsome timber

2:18

to my voice right now because I'm

2:20

just getting over COVID, but I think I can

2:22

power through this. Let's have some fun. Let's

2:24

make a show. Alright. Well, women

2:26

talking. It's the latest feature from Sarah Polly.

2:29

The movie's based on a novel that

2:31

was itself inspired by

2:33

a real event. The real event was a group of

2:35

men and night women living in a very

2:37

isolated rural community in Bolivia

2:40

discovered that they had been drugged and then raped

2:42

in the middle of the night while in a deep unnatural

2:45

sleep. The novel was inspired

2:47

by that event. It's in no way sort

2:50

of faithful non fiction like

2:52

retelling of it. Here in the movie, it's

2:54

been transposed to Canada. But in

2:56

reality, it's kind of a allegorical nowhere

2:59

that is all So everywhere, the women

3:01

have been left to themselves for a few days

3:03

with the men in the city to bail out the Perps.

3:05

So the women sit a hay loft free to

3:07

debate their possible courses of action.

3:09

What follows is an exemplary proceeding

3:12

of deliberative democracy, a cathartic

3:15

therapy session, and a kind of

3:17

total existential and political

3:19

reckoning. The movie stars

3:21

Clairevoy, Jesse Buckley, Rudy Emera,

3:24

and Ben is the one

3:26

man in the cast, he's August the school teacher

3:29

who because the women have been

3:31

strategically kept totally literate,

3:33

is there to take the minutes for

3:35

the meeting. Alright. Let's listen to a

3:37

clip. In this clip, you'll hear AAA bunch

3:39

of different voices. Francis McDormand

3:42

is part of a very important framing device.

3:44

She's sort of the elder of the

3:47

women who argues that women should

3:49

forgive the men who've assaulted them.

3:51

She gets a ton of pushback most

3:53

particularly from Salome played

3:55

by

3:56

Clairevoy. So let's let's have a listen.

3:58

It is a part of our faith to forgive We

4:01

have always forgiven those who have wronged us.

4:03

Why not now? Because now we know better,

4:05

we will be excommunicated, forced

4:07

to leave the colony in disgrace if we do not forgive

4:09

these men. And

4:11

if we are excommunicated, we forfeit our

4:13

place in heaven. How

4:15

could any of you live with the fear of

4:18

that? These are legitimate

4:20

fears. How

4:22

can we address them? The only important

4:25

thing to establish is

4:27

if we forgive them

4:27

in. So

4:30

that we will be allowed to enter the gates of

4:32

heaven. You can

4:33

laugh all you like salem, but we will be forced to leave

4:35

the colony if we don't forgive them anymore.

4:38

How lord, when he arrives, find the

4:40

women if we aren't into the colony? Jesus is able to

4:42

return to life for thousands of

4:44

years and then drop down to earth from heaven to scoop

4:46

up his supporters. Surely, he'd also be

4:48

able to locate a few women's left. On

4:50

track. Alright. I'll stay on track. I

4:53

CANNOT FORGIVE

4:53

THEM. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THEM.

4:56

OKAY DANA, LET me

4:58

START WITH YOU. So coming

5:00

over the newswire right now are the Oscar

5:02

nominations. Good news,

5:04

bad news for Sarah Polly's movie.

5:07

The film is nominated for Picture,

5:09

a huge triumph for a very,

5:11

very small in terms of budget and

5:13

PR film. It

5:16

is also Polly's nominated herself

5:18

for best adapted screenplay, another wonderful

5:20

honor. She's not nominated for

5:22

director. I would love to hear you

5:25

speak briefly to that. And then

5:27

I'm just curious, this is an extraordinary

5:29

document this movie no matter how you look at

5:30

it. I'm just dying to know what you

5:33

made about? I mean, well, to to

5:35

start with the Oscar's part, since we're gonna have that

5:37

as our our Plus segment, we'll get into it more than I

5:39

will just briefly say that that is this seems

5:41

to be part of a now established tradition

5:43

that movies directed by women get recognized

5:45

for everything but directing. And

5:47

I think that reflects very poorly on the directors

5:49

in the academy who are the ones, of course, who

5:51

not nominate that that category. Same thing

5:53

happened to Greta Gerwig with little women a few

5:55

years ago. But to turn

5:57

to women talking itself, women

6:00

talking is quite a a

6:02

complicated document. As you say,

6:05

it's it's based on in part on a

6:07

real life event, which was then turned into a

6:09

novel, which is then turned into this movie that is

6:11

very weirdly stranded between genres

6:13

and I think very deliberately so that's not a

6:15

matter of, you know, not understanding what kind of

6:17

movie it is, but of sort of creating its own genre,

6:20

right, where this is kind of a courtroom movie,

6:22

a socratic dialogue, which is a little bit

6:24

what that clip that we listened to sounded like

6:26

to me almost like a, you know, a classroom

6:28

debate about something it has a

6:30

a strangely kind of legalistic tone

6:32

for a movie that's about something as

6:35

painful and raw as, you

6:37

know, this this incident of

6:39

mass drugging and mass rape that

6:41

occurs in this community. And

6:43

it's a real acting tour de force for these

6:45

actresses, but not necessarily because

6:47

they get star turns because it's a huge

6:49

ensemble cast. I mean, visually, this

6:51

movie is pretty much a bunch of women

6:53

sitting around a Haloft talking, right,

6:56

true to its title. And I think

6:58

all of those scenes are are fantastic and work

7:00

incredibly well. I think a part of

7:02

this movie that for me does not work as

7:04

well is the framing thread

7:06

that goes throughout the movie where we

7:08

flash back in time, there's a very

7:10

bleached out and I think very

7:12

overly aestheticized looking image,

7:14

and there's this sort of Karen's Malek

7:17

esque almost poetic voiceover from

7:19

some of the younger actors, the

7:21

the child and teen actors in the movie.

7:23

While we see some kind of idyllic

7:25

and sometimes not so idyllic images

7:27

of the mennonite community, I think that

7:29

stuff is a little bit unnecessary and

7:32

tonally off. But everything that

7:34

happens in the Haloff is quite brilliant.

7:36

This doesn't quite make it onto my ten best

7:38

movies of the year list because I'm not sure

7:40

all of those aesthetic choices work,

7:42

but it's such a brave and unusual

7:44

movie that I really think everyone should see it.

7:46

I also think it's the best Me Too movie

7:48

that's been made yet, including Tar.

7:50

I think Tar is a better film. Overall, it's

7:53

a greater achievement as a motion picture. But

7:55

as far as an investigation of

7:57

what that firestorm

7:59

meant for our

8:00

culture. I think this movie is smarter

8:02

and stronger. What an interesting distinction,

8:04

a better Me Too movie, but not a better

8:06

film. Julia, what'd you make of

8:08

women

8:08

talking? What I most

8:12

loved about this film is

8:15

the way in which it

8:17

creates a literal space like this

8:19

haloft with with almost no

8:21

men present for the women

8:23

to be honest with each other about how they're

8:25

processing their pain. And

8:29

to fight and to push and

8:32

to have division and to

8:34

not be united in solidarity,

8:36

but to actually wrestle with the questions

8:38

and wrestle I think in some of the most powerful

8:40

moments of the film with their own cult

8:42

ability. Of having lived in this community and

8:44

raised children in this community knowing that

8:46

this is happening, that something

8:48

not right is happening. And

8:52

to also consider the

8:55

humanity and the,

8:58

in some ways, victimhood of the

9:00

men in the system too. Like,

9:02

recognizing that these structures of power

9:04

are a

9:06

trap for everybody. And

9:08

it's just so deeply

9:11

human and

9:13

so far beyond where the

9:15

cultural conversation is,

9:17

where I think there's sort of the

9:20

reflective clenching in

9:22

response to the trauma

9:24

of kind of publicly recognizing just

9:26

how fucked

9:29

life has been for women professionally, for

9:31

how long, professionally, personally,

9:34

bodily otherwise. And

9:36

how, you know, fucked it still remains

9:38

in a in a post row

9:40

world. I'm

9:44

also curious, like, whether we're supposed

9:46

to read this as a story or as an

9:48

allegory. Like, is it a

9:50

story or a fable and

9:52

does it matter? I I think I

9:54

eventually came around to feeling like maybe it doesn't

9:56

matter, but I found myself toggling back and

9:58

forth watching it in between feeling

10:02

like maybe that's what all the chattering

10:04

children are doing is kind of creating this

10:06

dreamy lullaby

10:08

nursery rhyme world of

10:10

fable and allegory, which allows the kind of

10:12

heightened reality of the conversation to

10:16

seem plausible and to

10:18

be listened to, you know, those

10:20

breaks give give you

10:22

space for the conversation

10:25

to sink in. But

10:27

I agree that they didn't work quite

10:29

as well.

10:30

Yeah. No. I mean, listen, first

10:33

of all, let me preface my comments by

10:35

saying, me having an evaluative opinion

10:37

about this movie is really beside the

10:39

point. So but I have a number of times Oh, yeah.

10:41

You're just those to sit in a corner and write down what

10:43

data and I think. I'm August. You're You're

10:45

the Wishaw. The Wishaw of our conference

10:47

system. I take notes and I cry, which is

10:49

sort of the description of my role in the

10:51

gap first as it is.

10:53

Okay. So but that is just I have no

10:55

opinions about this. So let me cast

10:57

off my role is to been wish off this

10:59

discussion and and voice them. I mean, a

11:01

couple of different things. I mean, Julie, I think that's

11:03

absolutely right. I mean, this was this was I felt

11:05

very stuck between is this a

11:08

highly specific situation and

11:10

story or is it an allegory? I

11:12

think it somewhat purposely occupies

11:14

that ambiguous space because obviously

11:16

these are these they're

11:18

voicing some ancient set

11:20

of virtually at this point existential

11:22

truth is about what it's like to be

11:24

women in a patriarchal society that

11:27

virtually, you know, universal condition

11:29

of social arrangements for all

11:31

of time. And I

11:34

admired this movie boundlessly.

11:37

I like that

11:40

the really complicated issues

11:42

of how do you recon due to yourself

11:44

once you leave. Have

11:47

you have you

11:49

denuded yourself of that which made

11:51

you what you were is

11:53

abuse so into the weave of your

11:55

own being that to try to remove

11:57

it, but not the

11:59

tissue of yourself. Also

12:02

is incredibly powerful

12:04

and it's addressed with a specificity and

12:06

rigor in this movie that I found remarkable.

12:08

The question of the complicity

12:10

of men in abuse. The

12:14

question of how change

12:17

and reform must

12:21

include the participation of men and

12:23

and and a kind of

12:25

total change in being on

12:27

on our part as much as

12:29

anybody's is necessary.

12:31

I will say that as a man,

12:33

a landing spot of

12:35

Ben Wishah as a kind of

12:37

male ideal is a bit of a

12:39

hard sell. He's a astonishingly

12:42

passive and benign

12:45

figure that I don't know

12:47

that many male viewers are

12:49

gonna identify with. As

12:51

an enticement to change,

12:53

I thought he was a somewhat weak

12:56

advertisement for

12:57

a post feminine male

13:00

self. That said, this movie is like

13:02

an urgent movie for

13:04

people to go seek out and watch

13:06

and think through I

13:09

I actually think the question of what men should

13:11

do I don't know that that men wish

13:13

us character is

13:16

presented as the model

13:18

exactly or like the model of what the eventual

13:20

reality is. I think I

13:22

think it's more a model of what

13:25

what it looks like to

13:27

listen, which doesn't mean you never get to

13:29

talk, you know. Oh, no. And

13:31

what it looks like to to really listen in

13:33

a way that like, that felt more to

13:35

me the role in the film rather

13:37

than, like, you know,

13:39

we are all been withshaws now. Oh,

13:42

absolutely. No. No. No. I completely agree with

13:44

that. Dana, keep button us on

13:46

this. What what are your final thoughts

13:47

here? One final comment I would make on

13:49

on something that that women talking does that's

13:52

unusual and I think admirable and

13:54

very much in tune with its Democratic

13:56

egalitarian thrust is a

13:58

story, is that it is a true, ensemble

14:00

cast. I mean, it has some stars in

14:02

it. Runimar, Clairevoy, Jesse

14:04

Buckley, even Francis McDormand, although she's

14:06

in a a very small role, and

14:08

Ben Wishoff, of course. But it

14:11

feels like everyone's voices of

14:13

equal importance, including the kids who

14:15

are in the Haloft and, you know,

14:17

the the the lesser known to me at least

14:19

lesser known actor is there's a wonderful,

14:21

wonderful older actress named Sheila

14:23

McCarthy, who's just fantastic and

14:25

gets some great moments. I love that this

14:27

movie is is truly about everyone

14:30

getting voice and having a moment to

14:32

speak. And there's not really anyone that

14:34

you can pull out and say, this is the

14:36

star or even the the kind of out standing

14:38

performance of the movie. Because, you

14:40

know, Julie, you were saying that that Ben Wishaw

14:42

plays this this role of the listener in in

14:44

terms of, you know, the man relating

14:46

to the to the women, but all of the

14:48

women as well who who often

14:50

disagree very deeply. I mean, this is not just a

14:52

movie about female solidarity. They have

14:54

they have as you heard in that clip, very

14:56

fiercely different ideas about how to deal

14:58

with this horrible situation they find themselves

15:00

in. And I just love that the movie

15:02

gives equal and almost

15:04

neutral time to all of those voices. Yeah.

15:07

I mean, it recognizes that the

15:10

truth is multifaceted.

15:12

And it's just a it's a really

15:14

wise it's like a really wise

15:16

movie. Maybe that doesn't sound like a hard sound,

15:18

but it it should be. I really

15:21

loved this. Yeah. Here

15:23

here. Okay. Women talking. Please seek it

15:25

out. Alright. Let's let's

15:27

move on. Okay. Now is

15:29

the moment in our podcast. We discuss a

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Alright. Before we go

17:15

any further, this is typically the moment in

17:17

the pop cast. We discussed business, Dana. I'm sure we

17:19

have some. What what did he got?

17:21

Steve,

17:21

we have

17:21

one big juicy item of business to start

17:23

with, which is that we want to announce. Bigger juicy.

17:25

I love Bigger juicy business. Let's do

17:27

it. This

17:28

is really big and juicy for us. This, I think

17:30

it could it could change the future of the culture

17:32

gap best, which could change

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everything. For our first item of business, we want

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to announce that we are hiring. Specifically, we

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This is a really important role for us

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19:35

the show.

19:36

Alright. Well, the Traders is a huge hit

19:38

for peacock right now. It's a weird

19:40

Gothic Campy reality competition show.

19:42

It's based on Dutch and a

19:44

British president. The American iteration

19:47

is hosted by the peerless one,

19:49

Alan Cummings, the Scottish

19:51

Jack he's hosting a mix of reality TV stars

19:53

and one of these at a Highland Castle.

19:55

By day the contestants compete

19:57

in the usual silly reality TV

20:00

games. At night though, the

20:02

secretly designated traitors

20:04

quote unquote murder couple of the

20:06

other participants, the ideas for everyone to try to

20:09

figure out who the covertly malevolent

20:11

ones are among them.

20:13

Let's listen to a clip. Here's

20:16

Mister Cummings himself, the host addressing the contestants

20:18

in episode one.

20:20

I wonder. How

20:23

far all of you would go for a quarter

20:25

of a million dollars.

20:27

Everyone here was

20:31

handpicked. As you all have the

20:33

essential to

20:33

be a

20:34

glitter. But only

20:35

some of you will take that

20:38

course. Take a look into the

20:40

eye eyes of the people

20:42

around you. Some of

20:44

them will betray

20:46

you. Somewhat.

20:49

Some may murder you.

20:54

You may murder them. Exciting,

20:59

isn't

20:59

it? I

21:03

mean, I I can we all agree that nobody pirates

21:05

more fetchingly on the way to a paycheck

21:07

than Alan Cummings. I mean, just

21:10

just You have to

21:13

picture that too. It's all delivered in

21:15

matchy matchy camo shantors

21:17

and plaid tartans draped across

21:19

his

21:19

body. I don't think he's worn a kill yet, but I'm sure he's on his

21:22

way there. No. It was a kill

21:23

to the first episode. Oh, does he oh,

21:25

I think I think the I the Tamish shantors

21:27

impressed me so much they

21:29

drowned

21:29

thoroughly woolen and tartanized.

21:32

Alright, guys. Guys, we're having too much fun. We

21:34

haven't introduced our guest as

21:36

Carl will the music critic for SLAID, of

21:37

course, and very good old friend of this

21:40

program. Carl, welcome back.

21:41

Hello. Thank you. Among

21:44

the bigger surprises here is

21:46

Europe. You're a traitor. You're covertly malevolent. You're actually

21:50

a reality TV fan, but of

21:52

a very very narrow

21:54

sort. Why don't you explain to us

21:57

your attraction to this

21:59

particular sort of show in

22:01

its in its foreign precedence and

22:02

variants? Yeah. So, generally,

22:05

I'm not really a reality

22:07

TV fan, particularly,

22:10

that the the strain of

22:12

reality TV that I usually

22:14

cleave to is some kind of, like,

22:16

nearly skills based competition.

22:18

You know, from great British Bake

22:21

Off to various

22:24

kind of like project runway

22:25

to, you know, there was a glass

22:27

blowing show on Netflix, a couple of

22:29

years ago. We

22:29

talked about it. We did not show.

22:32

Yeah. Like, basically, anything where people

22:34

are competing with

22:36

some kind of generally humble

22:38

skill and you get to watch them

22:40

make things. However, The

22:43

traders is based very much in

22:45

its concept in what are

22:47

known as social deduction games.

22:50

Which are basically parlor games

22:52

of the ilk of

22:54

mafia and werewolf and

22:57

secret Hitler and the thing.

22:59

They're all variations on the same idea,

23:02

which have these kinds of, like, they're

23:04

a secret fifth column like

23:06

agents among you who

23:08

undercover of darkness, which

23:10

is, you know, a cycle of

23:12

the game. Will eliminate or murder

23:14

the innocence among the

23:16

players. And the goal of the game is

23:18

for people

23:20

to route out who those people

23:22

are. And at a point in

23:24

the two thousands, mafia

23:27

got introduced to a a

23:29

friend circle of mine by somebody

23:31

who'd played it at an artist street treat or

23:34

something. At the time, it became kind of

23:36

a central social activity,

23:38

which is now very fondly

23:40

remembered among that group of people, even though

23:42

we don't all see each other very much

23:44

and When we do, we don't play that game anymore.

23:47

But that as soon as I heard

23:49

that there was a TV program based

23:52

on this, I

23:55

felt incredibly compelled to watch

23:57

it. And the first thing that I watched was

23:59

the UK version which

24:01

came out in December competing

24:04

against the World Cup for viewers for

24:06

the first little while and gradually

24:08

came a word-of-mouth phenomenon in the

24:11

UK and really, really,

24:13

really took off there. And when you watch it,

24:15

you realize why because it's the

24:17

most adorable, chaotic, insane

24:19

bit of television I've seen

24:21

in a long, long time. And

24:23

when it was over I

24:26

simply had to have more, and

24:28

I found out that there was an Australian version.

24:30

So I found online how

24:32

I could watch the Australian version.

24:35

Then I found out that the original program was

24:37

a Dutch program called DeVarados,

24:40

which premiered a couple of

24:42

years ago, and I

24:44

found a fan subtitled version online, so I

24:46

watched the first season of that, and

24:48

then the American version came on. So

24:50

I've now watched four international versions of

24:53

the traders and found myself with

24:55

this kind of just

24:58

expertise born of born of AAAAAAAA

25:00

weakness and obsessiveness. So I had to

25:03

write an article about it.

25:05

Carl since we have only prepped for this by

25:08

watching some of the American traders, I

25:10

have to ask you, in particular, the

25:12

English one that first made you fall in love

25:14

with it, what it had that was different. Because I

25:16

have to say that with the exception of that

25:18

deliciously hammy tartan

25:20

clad Allan Cummings framing,

25:22

I don't really see what sets this apart from

25:24

your average. I didn't come here to make

25:26

friends reality

25:27

show. But I gather that that has to do with the way

25:30

the American one was cast as a kind

25:32

of all star team

25:34

of stars from other reality shows.

25:37

Exactly. The the international versions

25:40

overall don't really feel like

25:42

reality TV in the sense

25:44

that they're not really

25:46

cast of people who

25:48

seem to be preening for

25:50

some kind of long term television

25:52

career. There's some doesn't seem like people

25:54

breaking into the entertainment

25:57

business uncertainly not into a reality TV

25:59

business so much. And

26:01

the UK version, particularly

26:04

has has an incredibly diverse cast in terms

26:06

of age and class. You know, they

26:08

range from, like, students in

26:10

their early twenties to, like, seventy

26:13

something grandma and

26:15

people with disabilities and people of

26:17

from all walks of life in terms of region

26:20

and and jobs and all

26:22

of that. And

26:24

what ends up playing out is

26:26

that they're on one level doing this

26:28

competition and and throwing themselves

26:31

into it. With an

26:33

incredible kind of blind gusto that

26:36

completely obviates the fact that they have no real

26:38

strategy or any understanding of

26:40

how this is going to work out. But at the same

26:42

time, there's also, like, an underlying

26:44

curve of of their their kind

26:46

of a bunch of exiles who form

26:48

this community because

26:50

they've been thrown together into this

26:52

Scottish Castle for two weeks and

26:54

they have nobody else and they don't have

26:56

phones in any Internet access. So they

26:58

just all fall in love with each other and

27:00

become each other's best friends

27:02

at the same time. But I do think

27:04

that the reality TV so called

27:06

stars on the American version

27:08

really

27:08

undermined, and it feels like there are two different

27:11

games going on rather than one

27:13

big one. I

27:15

was so excited to like this

27:17

show because I

27:19

did not go through a phase of my

27:21

life where my group played mafia all the

27:23

time, but that's, like, only an

27:25

accident of a butterfly wing. You know, like,

27:27

I was deeply ripe for

27:29

such a such a chunk of life, you

27:31

know. And

27:33

on the occasion when I have

27:35

played those games, they're incredibly

27:38

fun. To play because they

27:40

allow you to

27:42

perform. They allow you to play with

27:44

lying. They allow

27:46

you to indulge in thinking about

27:48

how you are perceived instead

27:50

of, you know, being

27:52

supposed to be uninterested in

27:54

such a shallow matters.

27:57

And I almost had the reverse

27:59

experience of watching this show that I

28:01

did watching the last

28:03

divest where, you know, which took that

28:05

is interactive and that is experienced through

28:07

a first person encounter with

28:09

a bunch of gameplay mechanisms and

28:12

works. And this one I felt like did the

28:14

opposite where I was like, I don't

28:17

I don't feel allied

28:19

enough with any of your base personalities

28:21

to get interested and now you're contorting

28:23

those personalities. Like, it's it's

28:25

just too crowded at the beginning. And

28:28

then as it moves along, I

28:31

don't know. I I do wanna just pour

28:33

one out for like the lost cause of

28:36

American reality TV, and I didn't

28:38

watch any clips of the British, but I

28:40

feel like can imagine the British one

28:42

from being a British bake off and where

28:44

you're right, they do cast these

28:47

like normies and set

28:49

them up for you to kind of fall

28:51

in love with them a little bit. And

28:53

I remember when we spoke about Jersey

28:55

Shore, like nearly fifteen years ago

28:57

on this show and felt like it was

28:59

kind of anthropologically showing

29:02

us a specific slice of

29:04

Americana, which may I

29:06

wonder if that opinion holds up.

29:08

But, like, So I was just bummed. Like, I

29:10

would have loved to see this with

29:12

a slightly more anthropological approach

29:14

and sort of the promise of reality TV, which

29:16

is that it makes us watch, like, documented

29:19

human behavior all the time, which should

29:21

be amazing, but instead

29:23

just gives us these, like, preening,

29:26

you know, people

29:28

kind of straining to become a reaction

29:30

gift with

29:32

with extensions and, like, couldn't

29:34

get into it. Wish wish we could

29:36

invite Allan coming over for T to

29:38

just do that. That would be what I would take

29:40

away from the show.

29:42

Am I getting at something here by

29:44

saying that that that these

29:47

shows have a weird kind of

29:49

traction and dare I say it

29:51

relevant because there some analogy to

29:54

what constitutes real

29:56

life now for better and for worse.

29:58

So they're Darwinian, they're

30:00

lurid, They're about both self selling

30:02

and undermining others even

30:04

as you pretend to work with them.

30:07

And it's finally a competition with

30:09

effectively one or very limited set of

30:11

winners. And it's a

30:13

desperate attempt to grab cash and become famous.

30:15

I mean, it's sort of all the things that

30:17

American life have maybe always been heightened

30:19

recently by social media.

30:21

So you're trying to keep

30:23

this analogy to known, experience,

30:26

intact while also trying to refresh

30:28

the genre. And keep it from becoming a

30:30

rope, then routine, and trying

30:32

to top all previous such shows. So you're sort

30:34

of lengthening the thread without trying to

30:36

snap it in some sense. By

30:38

going to meta. And this

30:40

one is very smart and it's premise in that way. It

30:42

sort of has bumped everything up to the next

30:45

highest power. But just the sheer

30:47

conventionality of this format

30:49

as it confuses to these

30:52

worst human ethics and emotions, like,

30:54

apparently, you

30:57

know, competitive famish you know,

30:59

being sort of famished competitively

31:02

and fame famished and back biting and

31:04

stabbing. I get it, we're

31:06

capitalist society, we're ultra Darwinian

31:08

and have been for a while. I

31:10

mean, God, part of me just thinks,

31:12

is it am I

31:14

just naive to think that this could go too far

31:16

and the thread snaps? And

31:19

people are like, actually, I'm

31:21

cultivating I mean, I I don't know whatever.

31:23

Like, I'm withdrawing. Could go

31:25

too far? Could go too far? Didn't you

31:27

live through the Trump president? It. Like I know what I

31:29

mean. I know what exactly we're

31:31

on the far side of the Trump

31:33

presidency. We've had to, like, you

31:35

know, Nip Luz Ultra or whatever.

31:37

We've had the, like, this is where it goes.

31:39

It's not harmless. It's not meta. It's not

31:41

post modern. It's not warhol. Actually

31:43

where it goes is, like, you know,

31:45

fucking fascism and, you

31:47

know, social collapse. Like

31:49

like, do we really wanna keep echoing?

31:51

Like like, why do we keep sending the

31:53

echo around the chamber. Like, that's, you

31:56

know, I don't know, babbling, but don't

31:58

people wanna withdraw ultimately. I mean, like, I

32:00

I could turn away. It was

32:02

my point.

32:02

Yeah. I mean, I guess, we'll get to this when we talk

32:04

about chat GPT next, but like,

32:06

I had this perverse

32:09

response to that of this

32:12

simulacra of humanity just

32:14

makes humanity more valuable.

32:16

And I have that a little bit

32:18

with reality TV, although know, the

32:20

the ratings for the most popular reality

32:22

TV competitions may be challenged that

32:25

pollyanna's view of mine.

32:27

I will say, I don't know if the American ratings for this are so

32:29

great. It's on peacock. It was all dumped at once. It

32:31

it has been pretty well reviewed.

32:34

Surprisingly to me having now seen some of it. But

32:36

I don't I haven't actually seen any

32:38

viewership numbers from peacock even of

32:41

the, like, most watched

32:43

So I don't have a sense yet of the

32:45

American one being a sensation on

32:47

the level that the British one was in

32:49

the UK.

32:50

I would say that, you know,

32:53

UK version, if anybody,

32:55

is willing to take a

32:57

flyer on it, just whatever your reaction

32:59

to the American version. Does a

33:01

weird thing where it comes out the other end of the

33:03

rabbit hole and becomes weirdly life

33:06

affirming at the end. And

33:08

and and somehow that it doesn't

33:10

it doesn't display the Darwinianness. Apparently,

33:13

I think that is something in the

33:15

format in that compared

33:18

to most reality shows, it doesn't

33:20

really play out as

33:21

a popularity contest in exactly the

33:24

same way because the game mechanics are

33:26

weird. And it also kind

33:28

of do devolves to survival

33:31

of the unfitest because

33:33

if anybody starts seeming too

33:34

smart or too strategic at the

33:37

game, the the traders kill

33:39

them. And so what you end up with is,

33:41

like, the most kind of, like,

33:43

dough eyed gentle

33:45

people at the end being

33:47

being dragged toward the toward the finish

33:49

line by, like, usually one or

33:51

two, like, very clever,

33:53

good line traders. that and

33:56

that that end Tableau

33:59

always each time it arrives

34:01

in in each of the versions, feels

34:03

to me like, you know, at once at

34:06

once a very bleak

34:08

metaphor and at the same time some kind of

34:10

like comfort foods with this soul and it's

34:12

that paradox that

34:14

I find kind of compelling about the whole

34:15

thing. So you're saying Dana is the

34:18

killer. No.

34:18

I think Dana goes

34:21

home with the with

34:24

the cord a million

34:25

bucks. We

34:25

all knew this. We all knew this from

34:27

the first episode of

34:29

this show. Anyway, Carl, as always,

34:32

it is a huge pleasure to have you

34:34

on next time, maybe we'll talk music.

34:36

But I have to

34:36

say, you outside of your wheelhouse

34:39

is every bit is delightful. Thank you.

34:42

I was so glad to

34:43

be here. Alright. Let's keep the

34:45

lights on. Let's talk about a

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Now is the moment in our podcast.

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36:51

Alright. In the long and storied

36:54

tradition of the Gavis

36:56

team trying a relatively

37:00

new technology, live on air. But we're going to

37:02

discuss chat GPT. It's

37:04

a chatbot developed by a

37:06

company called

37:08

open AI. It is sort of what it sounds like. It's an AI

37:10

program, but it seems to have made quite

37:12

a leap in a capacity to

37:15

respond in a recognizably

37:18

human and fluid way,

37:20

conversational way to questions, it's

37:22

capable of writing, a decently

37:24

cogent college style essay.

37:26

It can solve complex

37:28

science and math problems and

37:31

it seems to have made the kind of sci

37:33

fi leap in its

37:35

ability to code which,

37:38

of course, in everyone's, like, fearful sci fi paranoid

37:40

imagination means it can cause you,

37:42

like, begin to replicate itself. We won't

37:44

get into that today. Hopefully, we won't

37:47

release the blob or the thing or the

37:50

whatever. We're just gonna ask it

37:52

questions and see what it does and also

37:54

maybe discuss the implications of it a

37:56

little

37:56

bit. Alright. Anyone have

37:58

like a fun prompt to get us going? Well,

38:00

I mean, I don't know that this is the most

38:02

fun one, but it feels like the greatest panic has

38:04

been induced in the halls of academia where

38:07

professors are like, how the hell

38:09

am I gonna know, whether my

38:11

students are not just getting trapped GPT to

38:13

write all their papers. So

38:16

let's do write a

38:19

five paragraph essay about the

38:22

wordsworth poem. My heart leaps up

38:24

when I behold. Alright.

38:26

So we've got My heart leaps up as a

38:28

poem written by William Wadsworth in eighteen

38:30

o two. The poem reflects on the joy and beauty

38:32

of nature and how it can bring a sense of wonder

38:34

and awe to the observer. The speaker of

38:36

the poems observes how whenever he sees

38:39

a rainbow, His heart quote, leaps up with joy and he

38:41

feels a sense of connection to the natural

38:43

world. The Palm Central theme is the

38:45

idea blah blah blah

38:48

blah blah. In

38:48

conclusion, my heart leaps up as a powerful poem that explores the themes

38:50

of nature, wonder, and continuity. Through the years

38:53

use of vivid imagery and language, yeah, this

38:55

would get what grade would this

38:57

get in a in a, I don't know, high school or freshman in

39:00

college, English class, do you guys

39:02

think? It's probably what

39:04

a b plus or an a minus. I don't know.

39:06

It doesn't it doesn't have

39:08

any, like, extra.

39:10

Right? It's it's, like, it

39:12

this one really sounds to me like a

39:15

AI wrote it, whereas I

39:17

asked last night, I asked

39:19

the the program to compare

39:21

Aristotle's poetics to Nietzsche's birth of tragedy. And

39:23

I think it produced kind of

39:25

a a quality paper for a sophomore

39:28

at a top college. I

39:30

was I was floored. I thought this is end

39:32

end game

39:32

here. You know, I had exactly the opposite experience playing

39:35

with it last night. I entered some

39:37

pretty simple things, sort of, you

39:39

know, film criticism type questions among others,

39:41

just things that I thought I that

39:44

were that required a evaluative language,

39:46

which it sounds like your your prompted as

39:48

well, Steve. And there were some

39:50

just factual impossibilities

39:52

that occurred in the responses that came

39:54

up with. One of the things I asked because it was the

39:56

eve of the Oscar nominations is why didn't

39:58

citizen Cain win best picture? Because this is a longstanding, you know,

40:00

sort of film historical debate. Like, what else

40:03

was going on that year? And, you know,

40:05

what does it mean that what

40:07

what unquestionably, the most influential movie of nineteen

40:09

forty one did not win best

40:11

picture. And the the answer that it came up with

40:13

well, there were several paragraphs, but here's

40:15

here's just the the the bizarre moment in

40:17

it. Another reason the AI chatbot says is that the

40:20

film faced strong competition from

40:22

other films that were released in

40:24

nineteen forty one such as how green was my

40:26

valley and suspicion, which were both

40:28

awarded the best picture Oscar

40:30

that year. So

40:32

clearly, there's some logical fallacy in

40:35

there that the the chatbot didn't

40:37

see. Then I asked what

40:39

was Buster Keaton's life like something that, you

40:41

know, obviously, I have a lot of thoughts

40:43

and opinions about and another

40:46

factual impossibility

40:48

or simple contra factual thing popped up, which is it

40:50

says, Ketan's career went into

40:52

decline in the nineteen thirties, true as the

40:54

advent of sound films and his own alcoholism

40:56

took its

40:58

toll true. He struggled to find work, and his final starring role

41:00

was in the Scarlet Empress, nineteen thirty

41:02

four. No. Not only did

41:04

he not star in the Scarlet

41:06

Empress. He wasn't in it at all. That's the

41:08

Marlene Dietrich movie that has nothing to do with

41:10

Buster Keaton. So somehow

41:12

when you ask I think when you ask

41:14

historical questions, the chatbot might

41:16

just be folding in things from some

41:18

other database about film. I

41:20

mean, that that's just a movie that exists in

41:22

nineteen thirty four that

41:24

has nothing to do with my question. So I wonder if any of you found

41:26

things like that as you were playing with

41:28

it. Well, I

41:28

asked it to write my Wikipedia page and it

41:30

said it was the current editor of The

41:33

New York Times a book review. So

41:36

maybe it knows something you

41:38

don't. Yeah. I mean, I think there's sort of

41:40

two ways to use it. One is

41:42

to like ask it to tell us

41:44

facts, which I think is a

41:46

reasonable use of it. Like, there was an interesting

41:48

story in The New York Times about

41:50

how Google is

41:52

freaking out about this

41:54

because it's so good. It

41:56

puts pressure on them to

42:00

make Google Search experience closer to

42:02

this. But if they do that and it just

42:04

tells you the right answer

42:06

immediately, you won't have to click through a bunch of the

42:08

ads that are responsible for its revenue

42:10

on your way to

42:12

getting that answer. And so

42:15

Google has had this technology for a long time and

42:17

in fact made a bunch of the technology that

42:19

this is based on. But

42:22

may now be pressured to deploy it more

42:24

readily or risk getting leapfrogged

42:27

by other outlets in terms of the

42:29

quest for information. But

42:32

to me, the information was

42:34

really, you know, kind of transparently,

42:38

shoddy, and

42:40

thin but good enough to make you appreciate how quickly

42:42

it could get excellent, I think,

42:44

in terms of of the

42:48

precision of the information. But I also thought way in

42:50

which it's echoing language types and

42:53

trying to write in

42:55

the manner of different you

42:59

know, different things is is fun

43:01

and is not yet

43:03

a killer app, but again

43:05

is sort of creepily

43:08

good enough that it makes you wonder where it

43:10

could go. So I asked it to write

43:12

a musical about

43:14

California's drought and water shortage

43:17

in the style of Hamilton.

43:20

And let

43:22

me see if I can find this. That

43:23

is such a great prompt, Julia. I wish I had thought

43:25

of these ideas of of asking it to to to do something in the voice

43:28

of something else. That's a

43:29

really, really cool question. I think that's like what

43:31

it's really good of. Like,

43:33

that that's it's better at echoing voices

43:35

than it is at committing information, I think. So act

43:38

one, scene one, California

43:40

twenty twenty, The stage is set as

43:42

a barren landscape with a few scattered trees

43:44

in a dry river bed. The characters enter

43:46

dressed in modern clothing with the few

43:48

wearing old fashioned costumes to represent

43:50

California's history. Opening number.

43:52

Water water everywhere. Ensemble.

43:54

Water water everywhere, but not a drop to

43:56

drink. California's in a crisis. The droughts

43:58

on the brink. We've got to take action

44:01

before it's too late. We've got to save our water before

44:03

it's too late to change our fate. Scene

44:05

one, governor's office. Governor Newsom, spoken.

44:07

The state is in a crisis my

44:09

team, we need to find a solution to this trap before it's

44:11

too late. You know? I mean,

44:14

hilarious also, like, not at

44:16

all, very

44:18

much, like, hamilton, particularly. So

44:20

it I don't know. It was sort

44:22

of interesting to see it

44:25

it reminded me of those kind

44:28

of Hollywood, Old

44:30

West towns where there's a very thin

44:33

paper facade on the front,

44:35

but no real house behind it.

44:37

Like, the info seems thin and the ability

44:39

to mimic us seems thin. But

44:42

again, impressive enough that if this is

44:44

the AI that first crawled out

44:46

of the ooze, it does make you wonder what

44:48

it's gonna be doing in one or two or five

44:50

or twelve years or months

44:52

or weeks, honestly. It

44:54

immediately made me think about plagiarism in

44:56

academia. I don't know what kind of

44:59

safeguard that would be against that and how

45:01

searchable, you know, all of the

45:04

many, many prompts that have

45:06

been entered in in these chat bots are by

45:08

other people. But you know, those that that

45:10

wordsworth essay was, as we all agreed,

45:12

completely passable as a fine

45:14

kind of undergraduate essay.

45:16

So are these just gonna

45:18

result in ramp an untraceable plagiarism? Are people talking about

45:20

that? Howard Bauchner: I mean, I

45:21

think the quick answer is yes, absolutely.

45:23

There's ton of hand wringing

45:25

about it. I mean, just looking at the chronicle

45:27

of higher ed or whatever, as

45:30

there would be. And I certainly is a person who

45:32

used to you know, teach and TA and various other things as a

45:34

graduate student. Like, it's,

45:36

yeah, it's a little bone chilling.

45:38

At the same time,

45:40

you know, I

45:42

think the thing that you're trying to

45:44

teach young people both as interpreters of

45:47

literature or culture and

45:49

as writers is a degree of

45:52

originality tied to something distinct about their

45:54

own personality.

45:56

And a somewhat generic sounding

45:58

as a that, you know,

46:01

flows forth relatively fluidly

46:04

in good English and hits all the main points, you know, ought

46:06

never be much more than a b plus

46:08

anyway. I mean, I think that there

46:11

ought to be some discernible premium

46:13

in the grading on the ability to actually

46:15

be yourself as a

46:17

writer and carry

46:20

fourth, your judgments and personality in your own writing in

46:22

a way that I really don't think is

46:24

gonna be possible for these devices to

46:28

mimic period. I mean, I think ever. I mean, I think the thing

46:30

that makes us my understanding of

46:32

how this works is that it just has

46:35

an unbelievably quick sifting

46:38

capacity over unbelievably vast

46:40

amounts of extent material on

46:43

Internet from which it can piece

46:45

together, process, blend, and produce

46:47

a facsimile of, you

46:50

know, a sort of

46:52

synthesis. And Of course,

46:54

it's gonna be able to do that. It's just doing

46:56

what computers have already done just better,

46:58

quicker, faster, and with more. But there's

47:00

still a leap. Like, you know, I

47:03

mean, far be it for me to

47:05

be the, you know, you're humanist

47:08

anachronism, you know,

47:10

flogging the same three talking points

47:12

over and over again, but they're

47:14

you know, human individuality, human personality, human spontaneity, or

47:17

a spontaneity or inextricably linked to the

47:19

leap that machines won't be

47:22

able to make is

47:24

from a competent seeming

47:26

essay on Words With or Shakespeare

47:28

to being Shakespeare or Words With.

47:30

And the question is, hasn't even a

47:32

high school student producing an essay. Isn't

47:35

there some part of that student you're

47:37

trying to get to be more

47:39

like Shakespeare Wordsworth? So I

47:41

don't know. I mean, I the real let me put

47:43

it this way. Let's not take the real danger, which

47:46

is that all

47:48

of these Qualities that I just

47:50

enumerated as human are now being stricken from the

47:52

curriculum altogether, but the death of the

47:54

humanity is a problem

47:56

that cannot cannot be scapegoated to

47:58

enhance capacities of computers.

48:00

I guess, I had the

48:04

feeling playing with

48:05

this, that it just

48:08

made the specificity

48:12

of human thought all the more valuable? I mean,

48:14

I had to do a ton. I had to write television

48:16

episodes. I had to write a

48:18

condolence note. I asked it to

48:20

invite someone out to dinner using new

48:22

slang, and it wrote, Yo, dog, you

48:24

down to grab some grub with me tonight. I'm

48:26

thinking of getting up that new

48:28

spot in town, and I'd be straight up hyped if

48:30

you came with. It's gonna be there, trust

48:32

me. So what do you say? You wanna roll with me

48:34

and chow down on some

48:36

fire food. Which which

48:36

is, like, wait for that text to be

48:38

incoming to your inboxes. I am never going

48:41

out to dinner with that chat but

48:43

it sounds like I'm a very irritating

48:45

companion. You know, the thing that I

48:48

wrote that was most persuasive was press

48:50

releases, and I do think if I

48:52

worked in are, I would be concerned like I had it write a

48:54

press release about the launch of

48:56

Jennifer Aniston's Smartwater

49:00

campaign. And I mean,

49:02

it wrote just like

49:04

verbatim, I think, what I get in my

49:06

inbox and delete twenty gazillion

49:08

of every

49:10

day. There just is so much garbage language in the Right?

49:12

Like, we are all

49:15

great appreciators of language. We

49:18

appreciate the precision of its use, the

49:20

creativity of its use, the power of its use.

49:22

I mean, we just spent,

49:24

you know, time praising

49:26

women talking a movie that is

49:28

about how language can

49:30

free us and change us and

49:32

move us forward. Right? And

49:36

yet there is like a

49:38

gigantic war online right now

49:40

between words and images

49:42

and images are already

49:44

winning and you know,

49:46

if if what the Internet becomes full of as

49:48

even more of these kind of garbage

49:50

sentences that, yes, have some semantic

49:52

meaning, but have no spark of

49:54

thought in them. I

49:56

worry that the kind of

49:58

Igloo's response to language will

50:01

be even more prevalent. On the other hand, I think

50:03

it will only enhance the power

50:06

of of kind of load

50:08

bearing language, like weight

50:10

lifting language,

50:12

levered language that's actually conveying unique and original human

50:16

sentiment, thought, feeling,

50:18

and wisdom. To

50:21

move us and sway us. So I I don't know. weirdly came out of this

50:23

hopeful and feeling like the

50:26

computer has nothing

50:28

on humankind which I know

50:30

is just Act one of the

50:32

movie. So color me

50:34

color me and that you've red shirt

50:36

in the in the coming AI wars.

50:38

My

50:39

god. Here comes the

50:41

digital cut do. Alright.

50:44

So I Lucas, I'd love to hear from

50:46

our listeners

50:48

on this. Is something you toy with, play with, you have relationship

50:50

between, you know, garbage in

50:52

and human spontaneity out. We'd love

50:55

to hear them. Let's move

50:58

on.

50:58

It's time to reboot your credit card with Apple card.

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51:34

Alright. Now

51:35

is the moment or not podcast when we endorse

51:38

day nah. What what do

51:40

you have? Steve, my endorsement this week is inspired by the Oscar

51:42

nominations, to some extent, in that

51:44

it rifts on one of the movies that

51:46

was nominated for best documentary. If you

51:48

remember last year, we

51:50

talked about fire of love, that

51:52

documentary about the the married volcanologists who spent their

51:54

lives and eventually gave their lives

51:57

to the study of volcanoes and filming volcanoes and

52:00

and recording, you know, eruptions of

52:02

magma, etcetera. That was this

52:04

popular and beloved documentary of last

52:06

year directed by Sarah Dosa, and it

52:08

was just nominated for best

52:10

documentary. It's on that that

52:12

list. But there is a better

52:14

documentary about those same two

52:16

married volcanologists from last year, and it's directed by who,

52:18

as it turns out, was making a documentary

52:20

from the same trove of archival

52:22

material at the same time.

52:25

As seridosa. That must have been a real drag for

52:27

both of them to realize that there was

52:29

competition about this very unusual niche

52:32

subject for a documentary coming onto

52:34

the market. But her songs

52:36

documentary came out second and never

52:38

played in theaters. I don't think it went straight to

52:40

streaming. And so it was much less talked about because it

52:42

was sort of like, we've

52:44

already done the the married French volcanologists.

52:46

But surprise surprise when a

52:48

Herzog's documentary is a

52:50

better version of the same

52:52

material. It's very different too. Even if you liked

52:54

fire of love, which I did with some

52:56

reservations, I think this is worth worth

52:58

watching to see how tonally different the

53:00

treatment of very similar material and some of the exact same clips

53:02

can be. It's Herzog in

53:04

his sort of somber, energetic

53:06

mode rather than the

53:08

more playful, voice over

53:10

narration that he can do sometimes that's

53:12

often parodied. And for the last half

53:14

hour or so of the movie, there's almost no

53:16

narration at all. There's just this sense

53:18

of of and silence as we're witnessing

53:20

these incredible and really

53:22

beautiful explosions and eruptions

53:24

of magma. It's called the

53:26

fire within, not to be confused

53:28

with fire of love, sara doses take on the

53:30

same material. And whether or not you even know what

53:32

I'm talking about when I

53:34

talk about the married volcanologist documentary wars of twenty

53:36

twenty two, I recommend that you go to

53:38

Amazon and and stream the Herzog because it's just it's

53:40

really a fantastic documentary. Yeah.

53:43

I'm very excited to see that great

53:45

great endorsement. Julia, what do you

53:47

have? I would like

53:49

to endorse the third season of never have I ever,

53:51

which I believe I've praised before. I think we may have talked about it's

53:53

first season. But I just went back and

53:56

watched it's

53:58

third season, which came out earlier this year or sorry, last

54:02

year. And it's such a

54:04

good show Like, I do

54:06

feel sometimes that we take for

54:08

granted or I at

54:10

least take for granted

54:12

just the variety of stuff getting made.

54:14

And it's just kind of a classic

54:16

teen show. It's a high

54:18

school show. It's a,

54:20

you know, comedy, comedy,

54:22

it's got crushes, it's got friends,

54:24

it's got foibles, it's got academic

54:27

competition and burgeoning sexuality,

54:29

and the first season was really about grief in a

54:31

pretty beautiful and profound

54:34

way, but it's an

54:36

incredibly smart and sweet show

54:38

about growing up. But

54:40

the people it follows are, you

54:42

know, really diverse assortment of folks in

54:44

the San Fernando Valley. And I

54:47

just love it. It's really worth your time and

54:50

attention. It's it's

54:52

a sweet little

54:55

morsel, but it's really worth your time. Love

54:57

it. Okay. Well, I'm so late to every

55:00

party I exist, like, way

55:02

downstream of

55:05

culture, I suppose, is a function of

55:08

like, like, temperament or age, whatever it

55:10

is. As a

55:11

culture podcast host should. Steve? I know. Like,

55:13

like, leave the vanguard to others. It's it's it's it's overbooked.

55:15

But so two things. One thing

55:17

that I'm I'm,

55:20

like, so comically laid on and I'll say virtually nothing about it. I'm finally

55:22

watching Better Call Saul binge it while I was locked

55:24

down with COVID. I'm now at the end only of

55:27

season two and It is not doing what I thought

55:29

it was gonna do based on the pilot and based on just the idea that it's

55:31

a prequel to breaking bad. It is such a

55:34

distinct show

55:37

And super quickly, I thought I was on the cutting edge

55:39

of this one. I'm not. Colafesena,

55:42

the New Yorker wrote a really good piece a

55:44

couple years ago about this guy,

55:46

Sam Gendel. Ge NDEL is ALA jazz

55:48

young l a jazz guy with ADGAF

55:51

attitude towards even the music that he makes

55:53

in a weird

55:56

way. But it is listen to the record. I I mean, in terms

55:58

of putting on music, like and this is

56:00

I mean, I actually think this is what Sam Gendel is

56:02

going for, so it's not an insult.

56:06

Like, does it want a reverential, you know, jazz,

56:08

like, oh, I'm listening to jazz now

56:10

attitude. I mean, I think you can put it on and

56:12

ignore it. Like, let it be on the end.

56:14

It has this

56:16

sort of trippy, weird, ambient sound

56:18

that the album is called blue, blue, all one

56:20

word, blue blue, the word

56:22

blue twice but formed

56:24

into one word is just an

56:26

amazing record. I I

56:28

love it. It's so unfamiliar

56:31

and the witching. Check

56:43

this record out. I really mean it. Julia,

56:53

thank you

56:56

so much. This is fun.

56:58

Thank

56:59

you. Dana as

56:59

always a total pleasure. It was a joy. You'll

57:01

find links to

57:02

some of the things we talk about today at our Showpage

57:06

dot slate dot com slash culture fest. You can email us at culture fest

57:08

dot slate dot com. Our

57:10

introductory music is by the wonderful

57:12

composer Nicholas

57:14

Fortel. Our production assistant is Jessica Baldorama. Our

57:16

producer is Cameron Drews for Dana Stevens,

57:19

Julia Turner, and chat out

57:21

Carl Wilson for his

57:24

cameo. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see

57:26

you very soon.

57:28

I hope.

57:47

You know that feeling

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there are so many shows, but there's nothing to

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