0:00

This is the BBC. This

0:03

podcast is supported by advertising

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outside the UK.

0:30

Hello, welcome to Shortcuts. I'm Josie Long and today's

0:32

episode is a trip into desire.

0:58

And I found it really hard to reckon with the fact

1:00

that I do understand that

1:02

to eliminate desire is to eliminate

1:04

suffering, but I also feel quite deeply

1:06

that to have desires and

1:09

to suffer a small amount is

1:11

kind of pleasurable. So I'm sorry

1:13

because I do not believe that I am an

1:16

enlightened human being.

1:22

I want you to close your eyes, unless

1:25

you're driving or operating heavy machinery,

1:28

and think about what it

1:30

is you most desire. What

1:36

is it that you think about night and day?

1:40

When you close your eyes to go to sleep at night, when

1:43

you open them again in the morning, what

1:46

comes to you? Is

1:51

it to be somewhere else, somewhere

1:54

calm and beautiful and warm?

1:58

Is it to be leading a different life?

3:30

Then

4:00

I know what your desires are. You would like

4:02

sweets and chocolates at all

4:05

kinds at all opportunities and

4:07

you would like to play a game

4:09

on my phone. I understand.

4:11

These things human beings

4:13

are powerless to resist.

4:29

Some objects have desires. A lock

4:34

wants a key. A hot

4:37

pan yearns for an egg. And

4:42

a glove? A glove

4:44

needs a second glove. A

4:47

lone glove will howl out to its twin.

4:51

This I know from experience.

4:54

When I was seven years old I was taken to

4:57

a restaurant in my native Dublin. It

4:59

was an American-style diner where

5:02

the food came in boxes and was accompanied

5:04

by a free toy which changed

5:07

every week or two. There are presently 40,000

5:10

of these diners in operation around the world. I

5:13

won't utter this establishment's name, lest

5:15

a child hears me and demands to be brought

5:18

there. I have a child of my own

5:20

now and in my house I only ever

5:22

refer to this place as the

5:25

American Cafe. Can

5:29

you answer some questions for me? Yes. Is

5:32

there anything that you want right now?

5:34

Nice lolly. What

5:37

do I want? Do you know what I want? No.

5:40

What do you think I want? Fried

5:43

eggs. I do love fried

5:45

eggs. It

5:49

was odd that I went to the American Cafe. There

5:51

wasn't one near my house. I think my aunt must have brought me.

5:54

My grandmother who I lived with, she didn't

5:56

own a car. She also had little

5:58

to no interest in dining. neither fine

6:00

dining nor American style. I

6:03

remember her being disgusted with me in my teenage

6:05

years for coming home smelling of garlic.

6:08

She went, You've been eating garlic! No,

6:11

I said, I had some pizza but there was no

6:14

garlic. Was there

6:16

garlic in the sauce? My

6:18

jaw dropped. How could I have been so

6:20

careless? I would be more careful

6:23

of strong flavours going forward. She

6:25

took

6:25

the pelvis, it doesn't matter because I wouldn't have pelvis.

6:28

No, but at that time they were

6:30

the in-tings. There's my nan there, going

6:32

on about the pelmets again. Pelmet which goes

6:34

across the top of the carpet, you know, it wouldn't

6:37

have pelmet. And there was teenage me

6:39

pretending to know what pelmets are. My

6:41

nan adopted her four kids

6:43

shortly before her husband died.

6:46

Thirty years later she took me in as an infant,

6:49

but my mother passed away. In

6:54

my food box I got a large

6:56

white glove. The type of

6:58

glove a cartoon mouse might wear. For

7:01

an actual mouse it would have made a very cosy

7:03

four bedroom burrow. I

7:05

loved it. It made my hand look

7:07

really big. But

7:10

something wasn't right. I

7:12

mean the glove was right, it was literally a right

7:14

glove. But that lone

7:17

right glove didn't feel right. Rightfully

7:20

it felt wronged. It

7:22

told me that somewhere out there was a left glove.

7:25

Left alone. Left behind.

7:28

Left waiting.

7:30

As Alfred Lord Tennyson might have said

7:32

in this situation, it is better

7:34

to have had two gloves and last one

7:36

than to never have had two gloves

7:39

at all. My

7:41

glove begged me to find it a companion. Now

7:44

when I wore it I felt like I looked like

7:46

I'd been stung by a cartoon bee. Have

7:49

you ever wanted anything that you

7:52

know was kind of a ridiculous

7:54

thing to want, but you wanted it anyway? Yeah?

7:59

I'd had

8:03

quite a lot of sugar already

8:05

but I would still want to die slowly.

8:08

You had quite a lot of sugar today? No. Not

8:11

really.

8:13

On Sunday, a week later, I

8:16

realised the left glove would now be available.

8:19

It probably had been a week. Today

8:21

was my one and only chance to complete

8:23

the set. I

8:26

asked my nan to bring me to the American cafe. She,

8:29

quite rightly, said no. The

8:32

nearest one was the far side of the Long Mile

8:34

Road, which for a child and a pensioner

8:37

was a serious trek. Plus,

8:39

we'd already had our dinner. I

8:42

cried. I knew

8:44

it was an utterly unreasonable thing to ask

8:46

for, but I needed that glove.

8:50

And, unbelievably, she relented.

8:53

We put on our coats and set out. While

8:58

I sobbed with relief, we walked hand

9:00

in hand all the way down St Peter's

9:02

Road, crossed the formidable

9:04

Walkenstown roundabout, and then

9:06

over the horizon to the Long Mile

9:09

Road. My

9:12

food box arrived, white fingers

9:14

bursting out. I tore it

9:16

free and beheld the fruit

9:19

of our Odyssey. It

9:22

wasn't the right one. Well,

9:24

it was the right one, but

9:27

it was also the wrong one. You

9:30

know what I mean? I

9:33

didn't tell her. I thanked her. I

9:36

ate my chips. I ate

9:39

my feelings. Neither

9:42

of which were any good. I

9:45

remember seeing Michael Jackson on the television that night. He

9:49

was wearing a single rhinestone-encrusted glove. I

9:52

could only imagine his frustration at losing the other one.

9:55

And yet there he was, carrying

9:57

on. Can I tell you a story?

10:00

yeah

10:01

so when I was a little kid stop

10:05

touching the microphone I recounted the story to her and

10:08

I cried and then she brought me to

10:10

the American cafe and I got my second glove

10:14

but it was the same as the first glove

10:16

it was they were both right-handed gloves what

10:19

do you think of that? And are you left-handed? No

10:21

I'm right-handed I'm left-handed.

10:24

You're left-handed? Yeah. Yeah but

10:27

just being left-handed does that mean you only need a left-handed glove?

10:31

No.

10:32

And you also need a right-handed

10:34

glove. Yeah that's what I thought.

10:38

I'm ashamed of how much I wanted that

10:40

glove I went thinking about

10:42

how I pressed my Nan for such a stupid

10:44

thing I mean the glove didn't

10:46

even have the right number of fingers for me

10:49

or most humans for that matter in fact

10:51

I've looked this up it wasn't even the right number

10:53

of fingers for a mouse

10:56

it was so kind of her she was

10:59

very very kind

11:03

you can't always find what you're missing

11:06

some things are just gone and

11:09

can't be replaced

11:12

but that is not the case with gloves

11:15

and that is why I'm building a website

11:17

for lost gloves to be able to post

11:19

up a photograph of your remaining glove or check

11:22

the catalog for one that matches yours when

11:25

two people decide their gloves match they'll

11:27

enter a bout of rock-paper-scissors and the victor

11:29

will go away with the completed set it'll

11:32

be up at www.gloves.com

11:35

unless that's already been taken by something else and

11:37

if you've got that left mouse glove well come

11:40

at me my dear friend

11:52

you

11:58

that was made for us by the comedian and filmmaker

12:00

Conner et al and features the voice of

12:02

their daughters.

12:11

Often when we finally do achieve

12:14

a desired aim or get

12:16

the thing that we were longing for, the

12:19

reality of it isn't quite live up to

12:21

our expectations. For example,

12:24

if you're wishing desperately to visit somewhere, 80

12:27

or 90% of the pleasure of that, the

12:29

joy of that, the engagement of that, actually

12:32

lies in the desiring, in

12:34

the planning, the anticipation. And

12:38

so, trying to appreciate that,

12:41

without sounding too trite, the journey

12:43

is also part of the destination. Not

12:46

to put too much stress on

12:48

that thing at the end and more, the

12:50

fact that it's exciting and a joy to

12:52

plan things, build things, desire

12:55

things, aim for things. I

12:58

think I have desires that I don't want to fulfil

13:01

or that I know fulfilling will bring them into

13:03

the real world and reality is

13:05

by nature everyday flawed and

13:08

just an experience.

13:19

You spoke a few times about

13:23

a landscape that you

13:25

visit. Would you

13:27

like me to talk about that landscape? Yeah,

13:29

Robbie, how would you describe it in your

13:33

world? Is that a one thing? No.

13:35

Yes, yep, hello.

13:37

The

13:40

place that I revisit and

13:43

have repeatedly as is is not at all like that. It's more

13:46

of a feeling

13:48

of coming home, knowing somewhere

13:50

really well.

13:55

Yep, every time. It's always a house

13:58

on the hill

13:58

with the ocean along the way. It

14:05

always begins with the view of the

14:08

mountain peaks in the distance

14:11

and I can see it in its totality. I

14:14

always start my journey on foot.

14:17

I'll be walking up onto the land, I can

14:19

see the trees, I can hear the

14:21

sound and I suddenly remember

14:24

that I have this really beautiful

14:26

place and I kind of walked over a fence and realised,

14:28

oh my god, my place

14:31

is near here. And I just

14:33

get so excited, this rush comes

14:35

through me and I run up the hill and

14:38

just over the house. It's

14:42

just a matter of walking around in the woods and

14:44

come on it. Yeah, from the front. If

14:49

I did see them, the

14:51

mountains, I'd

14:53

know them, instantly. The

14:57

mountains, the land, I don't

15:00

know, they're just, they're gone. They're

15:04

closing these mountains. Now

15:06

we can't get in them.

15:11

I was walking through the house, these beautiful

15:13

spaces going upstairs and it was

15:15

like my home. And this

15:17

incredible happiness came

15:19

over me. It's

15:24

very rocky and there's snow, winding

15:28

paths and it's wild. It's uninhabited,

15:30

there's never any people there. And

15:34

you can look to your right,

15:36

that's where that old path

15:38

starts, that old footpath and it goes

15:40

on to Bradley Mountain. Now

15:42

where did that footpath go? Beyond

15:44

Bradley Mountain or what would it be? I

15:47

don't think I'd do much there. I sort of just wander

15:49

around feeling good, looking

15:52

at the view and feeling at home somehow.

15:54

Yeah.

15:59

Where did you get a sense that you were

16:02

going to the same place?

16:06

You couldn't get down that mountain. They'd place

16:08

you that deep and look straight down in there. And

16:12

have the cabins been recent or...? Oh

16:15

no, not recent. They're weird. I've

16:19

been going to this place for

16:22

at least 30 years.

16:24

It's just one of those reoccurring numbers

16:27

that

16:28

doesn't seem to shake. The

16:32

mountain broke and there's

16:34

places that are wide enough for

16:36

a car to go down in. It's

16:39

so deep in there, the crack is so deep,

16:41

that the steam comes up out.

16:47

What would happen to you? There's

16:50

the mines. Okay, you can go on this way. You

16:53

can go on this way and then here. And

16:56

you can go to Bradley Mountain.

17:00

I can hear my feet clenching

17:02

on the snow. I can touch

17:05

rocks, climb rocks.

17:08

The children would manage to get there. I

17:10

don't know how. I remember wading

17:12

through that snow.

17:15

But I'm never cold.

17:20

Okay, I just came from

17:22

my family. How did you

17:24

know?

17:25

I've got such a big view.

17:28

My eyes are not used to having

17:30

such a big view.

17:34

And Grandma used to step out

17:37

on the porch and look upon the mouth. In

17:39

the summertime, she'd say, It's

17:43

going to rain. The valleys of land

17:45

trees are turning to the land. I'm

17:53

not striving for anything, so I'm not walking

17:55

to any particular place. I just

17:58

am there. It

18:01

represents that reprieve

18:03

from the world in wanting

18:05

for nothing, you know, the harsh or cold

18:08

or thirsty or hungry.

18:10

There's something total about

18:12

that experience that none

18:14

of those volatile emotions,

18:17

it's calm actually, an

18:20

internal sense.

18:39

Are We There Yet? was made by the audio producer

18:41

and writer Jay Krantz and

18:43

what you heard is part of a longer commission that Jay

18:45

produced for the excellent Constellations

18:48

podcast. In

18:51

Jay's feature you heard Angeliki

18:53

Andrésipolis, Goss Davis,

18:56

Jay's nieces, Amira and Denita

18:58

and recordings by the folklorist Mary Hufford

19:01

for the Library of Congress. And

19:03

I should say it's very exciting

19:06

that the audio prompt to respond for the making

19:08

of this piece was a field recording

19:10

of Trumpeter swans honking on ice

19:13

that was made over 30 years ago. I

19:16

love that we're remembering those swans long

19:18

after they have left this ad. Over

19:27

the past year, the audio producer

19:29

Phoebe Macindue has been trying

19:32

to explore and find the different

19:34

shades and shapes of desire, how

19:36

different people relate to their own desires.

19:40

How do we figure out what we truly

19:42

want in a world that is so shaped

19:45

by media and societal pressure? How

19:48

do we decode what we think are our desires

19:51

but which may be things that we've been

19:53

conditioned to think that we want? Phoebe

19:56

spent a summer evening in Poland

19:59

speaking with Poppy.

20:00

He's a sex worker living in America.

20:03

This is recorded while the two of them sat next

20:06

to a forest on a warm

20:08

summer evening. On

20:10

one side of them, the woodland, and

20:13

on the other side, a vast

20:15

horizon stretching out.

20:20

With my work, I can channel

20:22

the desire for it into my child, like I

20:25

can trace it back to my childhood.

20:28

Setting up we didn't have any cable,

20:30

just rabbit ears. And

20:32

I had a TV in my room. I

20:35

can see my room laying in the bed,

20:38

mostly seeing these ads on

20:41

TV late at night of these

20:44

phone sex

20:45

girls. Sometimes

20:50

I don't even talk. It's fun

20:52

just to listen. It's cheaper than going

20:54

to bars, and you meet better quality people. Call 5505,

20:58

love. Don't

21:01

be shy. Don't be shy. Don't be shy.

21:07

Classic hot girls lounging

21:10

in their lingerie. Oh, call

21:12

me.

21:14

Maybe some music,

21:15

dark background. You

21:17

know, let me, blah, blah, blah, blah,

21:19

blah.

21:21

I was always so

21:22

taken by them. Maybe

21:26

that's also because I was bisexual

21:29

and didn't know it. I

21:34

don't know if I wanted to be

21:37

with these women or be them.

21:41

Maybe both?

21:44

Very intriguing

21:47

for a young mind. Very

21:50

young, impressionable mind.

21:56

When I was a child, I definitely

21:59

had a very... precocious inner

22:02

eroticism.

22:05

Thinking back on

22:08

a profound memory that involves

22:11

just the pure pleasure of touch. It's

22:15

the beginning of high school

22:18

and I've invited

22:20

a Myspace friend

22:21

over.

22:24

She lived in New York. I

22:27

was living in Massachusetts. Finally

22:29

it was time to meet. She

22:32

took a bus all the way down. My dad picked

22:35

her up.

22:37

I remember very clearly.

22:40

We're laying in my bed. I

22:43

would touch her in one place

22:45

and

22:46

feel her move in another place.

22:50

Stroke her one way

22:53

and she would make a certain kind of noise.

22:59

And I could feel it too.

23:02

It

23:13

was really like something

23:15

incredible. A symphony

23:18

of moans baby. And

23:20

at one

23:24

point my dad yelling

23:26

at us,

23:26

shut up. He

23:30

didn't walk in on that one though, thank God.

23:35

But it was so long ago at this point.

23:39

That's just a just a beautiful memory.

23:42

I hope she's doing all right. That

23:48

sort of planted a bit of a seed

23:51

in me.

23:52

It's like working

23:54

with desire. This whole

23:57

nebulous fear. So,

24:00

I guess the birth of Poppy.

24:02

My

24:05

work name. Poppy,

24:09

for me, she is

24:11

a part of me that's

24:14

based on me and it is close

24:16

to me, but she's not completely

24:18

me.

24:20

She's like the happier side

24:23

of me. She's

24:26

in control. She's happy

24:29

to do many things.

24:32

The first guy, he was an older guy,

24:34

he wanted me to put a bunch

24:36

of makeup on him and to satisfy him

24:38

and make him into a girl. That

24:41

was just down for it all. Afterwards,

24:43

I had a thousand bucks and I was like, this is amazing.

24:45

I want to keep going. And

24:48

here I am now.

24:50

I have found that I am definitely

24:52

a pleaser.

24:55

I

24:57

have the kink for kinks. I desire desire.

25:01

It

25:02

gets a little lonely though because I also

25:04

think desire is

25:06

obfuscated a lot by our own shadows

25:08

because

25:09

we don't know how to really tap into it. And

25:12

it is something, I think, especially that women,

25:15

we push it to the back.

25:17

We have to sometimes do things we don't want to do.

25:20

I know, especially in the US,

25:23

the cost of survival is so

25:25

high that we

25:26

have to focus

25:29

on surviving day to day, not going broke. It's

25:33

the least erotic thing possible

25:35

in need

25:37

for survival. You know, erotic is a choice,

25:39

an emphatic,

25:41

consensual choice.

25:48

And we all are entitled to it.

25:51

We all deserve it.

25:56

Growing up, I was

25:58

not sophisticated. not

26:00

the prettiest, not the most desirable. When

26:04

I discovered older men who

26:06

would want me to kind of problematic, it

26:09

made me feel amazing though. It gave me this sense

26:11

of not only confidence but

26:13

social currency. And

26:17

that was it for

26:17

me. I was

26:19

hooked. And

26:22

it wasn't till I started

26:25

working that I,

26:28

instead of disassociating during

26:30

sex, which I think also a lot of people

26:32

experience.

26:34

And I was struggling with that a lot until I started

26:36

working and then I was able to re-associate

26:40

into Poppy. And

26:46

it's changed the way I, it's changed

26:48

my desires now even. I,

26:51

like my standards are a lot higher. What

26:54

I desire now after having

26:56

been working specially is, um,

27:01

I'm always drawing boobies,

27:02

so maybe that's

27:04

what I'm just desiring a man. A

27:08

nice bosom.

27:16

True connection, you

27:18

know, love and support and trust and

27:22

Poppy, she freed me to

27:25

be completely whole

27:25

and

27:27

who I wanted to be in my personal life. And

27:31

that

27:32

is something special.

27:47

At the beginning of the programme,

27:50

I asked you to close your eyes. I

27:53

did not tell you to open them again. So

27:56

I'm assuming that you'll

27:58

listen to this entire story show with your eyes closed,

28:01

being as you are kind and obliging

28:03

listeners. Now

28:07

is the time finally to open

28:10

your eyes. See

28:12

the world and the future anew. I

28:15

hope it is everything that you

28:17

have always desired. And

28:24

frustratingly, at the beginning

28:26

of this show all I desired was

28:28

for my partner Johnny to bring me a cup of tea.

28:31

I did not express this desire but

28:34

I put it cosmically into the world.

28:36

Listeners, the desire has been

28:38

thwarted. I have received no

28:40

tea.

28:51

Thank you for listening to the podcast The Shortcuts. I really

28:53

hope you enjoyed today's show.

28:54

If you did you can find many more programmes

28:57

to listen to

28:57

and download at bbc.co.uk

29:00

slash radio 4 or on the BBC

29:03

sounds app. And please let

29:05

me recommend again to you there's a new series

29:07

of lights out which if you like the

29:10

short documentaries and shortcuts you'll love

29:12

the longer documentaries in lights out.

29:15

Such a brilliant series full of so many interesting

29:17

and varied perspectives and stories.

29:20

So please enjoy.

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