Over on Candy Chat Chicago, Ronnie Raviv joined hosts Leah Jones and Jocelyn Geboy to talk about medical diagnoses, Finland, the Ice Hotel, the last Bears game of the post-season, all while eating a lot of Finnish candy.

Candy that we sample during the episode. Photos on Threads

Suffeli Puffi
Marianne
Dumle Winter Mix
Jaffa
Karl Fazer Blueberry Truffle
Karl Fazer Salty Toffee Crunch
Salted Caramel Fudge
Ollo All Sorts
Susu Snacks
Tutti Frutti Winter Mix
Tyrkisk Peper
Fazer Glogikulaat
Lapland's blueberry candy

Vestibular Schwannoma or Acoustic Neuroma information

Mayo Clinic

Dr. Ricky Wong

Ronnie and Leah's guide to Lapland

Time-lapse drive to Sweden:

Housing between Kittila/Levy and Muonio

Villa Borealis (where we stayed)
- https://www.villaborealis.com
Lapland Dream Villas (3adjacent cabins, different owner, same operator)
- https://www.laplanddream.fi

Appropriate clothing

Our property owner had a warehouse that she took us to for boots, coats, gloves, snowpants, etc
Ice hotel provided coveralls, gloves, boots, balaclava
- Base layer of cotton is a no-no in a cold room at Icehotel so make sure you at least have something synthetic or wool for top and bottom

Places we ate in Finland

Swiss cafe Muonio
Takka at Olos resort
Panoramic restaurant at Levi resort via gondola
Levi Pizza
Salteriat (schnitzel)

Finland activities and vendors

Aurora Chase with Arctic Frontiers http://www.arcticfrontier.fi/
- Phenomenal. Would’ve booked a second night if needed
- Base camp was on a frozen lake with a hut with a fire, warm juice and brownies
Dogsled http://www.maglelin.fi/
- What a delightful afternoon! Ronnie drove a sled himself and I was a passenger on the guide's sled. Once she saw my cane, she made arrangements for me to sit and take 200 photos.
- Family owned and operated. She offers different distances based on the weather and party size.
Arcandia Adventure Park
- What a fun, silly night!
- We did ramen with the shamen for dinner. Hot pot cooking with reindeer meat, filet, ramen, fresh veg
- A la cart sausages and snacks looked good
- Hot chocolate with mint liqueur was delicious
- We threw spears, axes, archery, and did an astrology chart
- This is hilly terrain with snow packed paths. We saw people slip and fall, but kept our footing.
- Of course it’s a tourist trap! Take your best ren faire or Comic-Con attitude and have fun
- https://www.arcandia.fi/
Reindeer safari https://www.getyourguide.com/sirkka-l139331/levi-reindeer-experience-with-sled-ride-t418396/?ranking_uuid=3248de96-0922-420f-af99-54f05c66decf
- Warm drinks in a hut with a fire for fascinating reindeer facts after short sleigh ride and feeding reindeer

Ice hotel in Sweden

https://www.icehotel.com/

What we did

Ice Dinner
Slept cold in 365 art suite
Aurora photography with Scandinavian Sami Photoadventures
- Www.scandanavianphtotoadventures.com.
Ice sculpture class

Ice Hotel suggestions

Look at the calendar for when the winter exhibit opens. We went a week before. Fun vibe with all the artists and builders on campus, but we didn’t get to see the annual build
Skip the ice dinner and eat a la carts
Use their gear! It’s really good
Make it two nights - one warm, one cold - and enjoy a slower visit

Overall thoughts

We went Nov 30 to December 6
2 hours of daylight stretched into 4-5 hours with dawn and dusk
Went before peak season of total darkness, so more cost effective
We didn’t do any Christmas or Santa stuff

A few notes on traveling fat and mobility-impaired

IceHotel had gear in sizes too big for me!
The icehotel sleeping bag was snug and a little claustrophobic, but it zipped
The property manager had coats big enough for me (actually a little too big)
WinterRent coat was my fave, but their 6x pants didn't fit. Their boots were also the best I borrowed for me.
The Snow Country snow pants I bought on clearance last year were perfect https://www.snowcountryouterwear.com/
Smart Wool base layers in largest size fit great
Darn Tough socks were tight on calf, but worked good enough
Every restaurant has comfortable seating for me
The wheelchair plane access in Kittila was an elevator on a truck. If you are unsteady on your feet, get wheelchair services in the airports and save your energy for dogsledding.
Bring your own towel. No towel in Finland wrapped around my body.

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It's time for our annual Best of Call In show where past guests and listeners send in voice memos of some of their favorite things from 2025. This year's episode includes a 30 minute interlude with Rabbi Michael Zedek to talk about his newest book!

Rabbi Michael Zedek

People are Like...

Taking Miracles Seriously

TedX The Four Beautifuls

Korman Siblings

Hosts of Friday Night Movie Podcast

Producers of The Floaters

Koln 75
F1 in the theater
Stranger Things
Avatar Fire & Ash
Adult Children

Pam Rose

Severance
Traitors
Stranger Things on Broadway
Damiano David (music)
Weapons
Sinners
The Naked Gun
Dinosaur improv
Ben Schwartz & Friends
Taskmaster
Celebrity Boyfriend - James Acaster
Would I Lie to You
Off Menu Podcast

Abbas Jaffary

Mini ITX gaming computer
Geometry Wars
Ball Pit
Switch 2
Metroid Prime Beyond
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Itality - indigenous vegan food
Work team
Students
Tilted Access Press
Canned Podcast
HDTGM
Hello from the Magic Tavern
Arcane - Netflix
Resisting ICE

Steve Higgins

20th anniversary of teaching at Lewis & Clark
15 years of Ink & Drink comics
Katharos - Steve’s own comic
Assorted Crisis Events (comic short stories)
Severance
Pluribus
KPop Demon Hunter
Maybe Happy Ending

Andy

Minecraft in person
Birdwatching
Going to the beach
Anime conventions
Cosplay photo shoots
Making and wearing cosplay
BINGO Resolutions
Punch Card Resolutions

Jasmine Davila

Heated Rivalry
Fandom & community

Ezra Butler - independent researcher

Jute Backerei in Berlin

Jesse Dukes - host of Upper Middle Brow

Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Sweet Thursday - Steinbeck
Exhalation: Stories Ted Chang
Robot Stories - Isaac Asimov
Salt-water fishing
Wet Legs - Moisturizer

Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram at @FindingFavsPod and leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, GoodPods or Spotify. Got a question or want to suggest a guest? email Leah at FindingFavoritesPodcast@gmail.com

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Max Klau, an author, musician and social change agent, joined Leah in October to talk about his new book, a new album and making art in dangerous times. Max and Leah met through New Politics Academy and his book Developing Servant Leaders at Scale dives into his tried and true methods for self-discovery.

Follow Max online

Developing Servant Leaders at Scale by Max Klau: https://bookshop.org/p/books/developing-servant-leaders-at-scale-how-to-do-it-and-why-it-matters-max-klau/a9fe513c6a63c3ca?ean=9781837081653

Max's website: https://www.maxklau.com/

Max's LinkedIn for workshop info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-klau-0319a11/

The Max Klau Band: https://www.maxklau.com/music

MentionsNew Politics Academy: https://www.newpoliticsacademy.org/

James Talarico: https://jamestalarico.com/

Kansas Leadership Center: https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/

Inner Development Goals: https://innerdevelopmentgoals.org/

Stutz: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21819228/

Jessi Bender on Finding Favorites: https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/jesi-bender-victorian-utica/

I Fight Dragons: https://ifightdragons.com/

Tour:Smart by Martin Atkins: https://martinatkins.bigcartel.com/product/tour-smart-digital-book

Moshav: https://www.moshavband.com/

Bob Schneider: https://www.bobschneider.com/

Michael Shelley: https://michaelshelley.net/

WFMU: https://wfmu.org/

Finding Favorites is (once again) edited and mixed by Rob Abrazado. Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram at @FindingFavsPod and leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, GoodPods or Spotify. Got a question or want to suggest a guest? email Leah at FindingFavoritesPodcast@gmail.com

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Ry Jones, an open source community architect and Leah's older brother, loves sending postcards when he travels. We dig into his postcard habits and he also shares the different ways that he supports the war effort in Ukraine through Car for Ukraine and Help99.

Follow Ry online

Github
LinkedIn

Support Ukraine

https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/50forua-washington-battalion
Help99
EnGin (English ESL volunteering)

Postcrossing

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Suzanne Reisman is one of Leah's friends from MySpace and they sat down to talk about her viral sensation - the New York City History of Garbage and Rats walking tour! Coming soon to a newspaper or TV near you! She's been featured in Time Out NYC, the NY Post, Nebraska and Australian radio shows, and even made it to newspapers in Europe and Chinatown. We dig deep on how (and why) she created the walking tour before talking about her favorite moment of the day.

Follow Suzanne online

GANYC Suzanne Reisman
TripAdvisor booking link
Off Beaten Subway Track Attractions

suzanne@offbeatwalkingtours.com

Show notes

Ghost of Aaron Burr: https://associationofparanormalstudy.com/2019/03/01/the-world-was-wide-enough-the-multiple-hauntings-of-aaron-burr/
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/this-garbage-and-rats-walking-tour-explores-the-grossand-engrossinghistory-of-nyc-051425
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/strolling-through-roger-eberts-perfect-london-walk
Rats by Robert Sullivan
https://sharsheret.org/
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2023/04/mayor-adams-anoints-kathleen-corradi-nyc-s-first-ever-rat-czar
https://nypost.com/2025/06/25/lifestyle/rat-whisperer-offers-tours-of-nycs-rodent-hotspots-theyre-sort-of-little-monsters-but-also-sort-of-cute/
https://avagardnerplay.com/
Comphy sheets (now owned by Coop sheets)
Brooklinen
https://www.coco-mat.com/usa/en/sleep/mattresses
Big Fig
Thuma

Shoe Recommendations

https://www.stegmannusa.com/collections/womens-shoes
https://www.topoathletic.com/women/womens-shoes/activity/Recovery

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Author/artist Jesi Bender joined Leah to talk about her novel Child of Light, available from Whiskey Tit press, and Victorian houses in Utica, New York.

Note from Leah: In this episode, I boldly say that there are no Victorian houses in Chicago, because they all burnt down in the Chicago fire. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Follow Jesi Bender online

https://www.jesibender.com/
https://www.jesibender.com/child-of-light.html

Show Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fountain-elms-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica,_New_York
https://oneidacountyhistory.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_House_(Georgetown,_New_York)
https://abandonedonline.net/location/spirit-house/
https://www.hamilton.edu/offices/lits/special-collections/college-archives
https://www.uticaod.com/picture-gallery/news/history/2025/01/18/photo-gallery-look-back-at-the-history-of-genesee-street-in-utica/77743355007/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica_Psychiatric_Center
https://inmatesofwillard.com/2012/09/08/1880-the-utica-crib/
Of course there are Victorian Homes in Chicago. I had amnesia.
https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il/victorian-style_att/
https://fortunerestoration.com/services/residential-painting/painted-ladies/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_Beverly_Randolph
https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/npiyzq/did_the_hbo_show_influence_this_long_overdue/
https://www.cureddocumentary.com/

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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To kick off the month of Elul and High Holy Day preparations, Leah sat down with Sarah Osborne, founder of A Mitzvah to Eat, to talk about how her organizations supports Jews who are unable to fast on days like Yom Kippur. We also talk about leadership, our mutual friend Evonne, and tongue drums.

Order your A Mitzvah to Eat care package by September 12, 2025 to receive before Yom Kippur.

A Mitzvah to Eat

https://fnd.us/a-mitzvah-to-eat-care-packages

https://www.amitzvahtoeat.org/

https://www.amitzvahtoeat.org/about

https://www.amitzvahtoeat.org/yom-kippur-1

Show Notes

https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/evonne-marzouk-writing/

Tongue drum: https://www.balmyworld.com/products/sound-healing?

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/ceremonies/

https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08712-2.html?

https://slate.com/culture/2025/08/long-story-short-netflix-show-pandemic-covid-grief.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33247080/

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Shai Korman, one of the Friday Night Movie podcast hosts, is on the road with a movie he produced with his sisters. He took a break in between festivals to talk about The Floaters, film festivals and Weird Al.

Follow Shai online

Shai Korman: https://www.instagram.com/pancake4table/
Friday Night Movie Podcast: https://fridaynightmoviepod.podbean.com/
Floaters the Movie: https://floatersmovie.com/

Show Links

Weird Al tour: https://www.weirdal.com/tour/
Weird Al Behind the Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36CtQCvc7e8
Taskmaster Season 19: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRWvNQVqAeWKt7kCUfEMdJi40m7H58CJd
Tires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tires_(TV_series)
Bentonville Film Festival: https://bentonvillefilm.org/
Floaters IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31145438/
And Mrs. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6614198/
Don’t Tell Larry https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16311236/
Bird in Hand https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36298555/
Espina https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17016098/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
Adult Children https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17424166/
Lemonade Blessing https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32432676/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
Cotton Candy Bubble Gum https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28305079/
Magic Hour https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32134256/?
Sabbath Queen https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32145808/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
Malka https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32778054/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
Frankenbabes from Beyond the Grave https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36364856/?

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Israel-based educator and writer Sharna Marcus joined Leah on Friday, June 20th, to share the story of how she was able to get to Indiana from Israel during the active war with Iran. Spoiler alert: a cargo ship was involved.

We talk about her work as a Middle East history educator, the damage done by the "weapons of mass destruction" lies told by the Bush administration, finding Jewish identity and community, and more.

Follow Sharna online

https://x.com/MsSMarcus
https://www.instagram.com/sharnaranee/

Note from Leah: The podcast is just on a break while I recover from gallbladder surgery in march, moving in late April, and figuring out a whole new apartment. We recorded this episode before the US got involved directly in the war and I'm releasing it a few days after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel started.

In case it does not "go without saying" I deeply desire all of the hostages should be returned home immediately, that humanitarian aid needs to flow into the Gaza strip, and that I desire peace and safety for all people living in and around Israel. I don't know how we get there.

A few other links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/first-islamic-public-hospital
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wo2TLlMhiw
https://www.youtube.com/@crashcourse/search?query=israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
https://rebooting.com/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-one-un-leaders-mistaken-timeline-caused-confusion-about-gaza-childrens-starvation-risk
https://stories.bringthemhomenow.net/
https://zionistutopia.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcast

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Author Lee Upton joined Leah to talk about her newest book Wrongful, available for pre-order now for May 1 delivery, and about how she became a bunny person.

PSA: Bunnies are exotic pets and not responsible Easter presents. Stick to chocolate and toy bunnies today!

Where was the podcast? Leah had emergency gall bladder surgery which meant hitting eject from her life for about a month. So happy to be back on the mic and to welcome back engineer-extraordinaire Rob Abrazado.

Keep up with Lee onlineWrongful is available for pre-order now and releases May 1, 2025: https://www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/wrongful/

Lee's website: https://www.leeupton.com/

Show Notes
Sagging Meniscus Press: https://www.saggingmeniscus.com/

Tabitha, Get Up: https://bookshop.org/p/books/tabitha-get-up-lee-upton/21257767

Kate Racculia: https://www.kateracculia.com/

Agatha Christie: https://www.agathachristie.com/

The Withers (coming in 2026 from Regal House Publishing): https://regalhousepublishing.com/forthcoming-publications/

Book & Puppet Co.: https://www.bookandpuppet.com/

Ghostlit: https://bookshop.org/p/books/ghostlit-poems/121f3a980b2b881e

On the Rocks: https://www.theodoraziolkowski.com/books

Asterism: https://asterismbooks.com/

I Am a Bunny: https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-am-a-bunny-ole-risom/8547916

Michael Sowa: https://michaelsowa-art.de/

Esterhazy: The Rabbit Prince: https://www.amazon.com/Esterhazy-Rabbit-Prince-Irene-Dische/dp/0152009213
Instant Relief Therapy: https://www.wikiart.org/en/michael-sowa/instant-relief-therapy

Bunny by Mona Awad: https://bookshop.org/p/books/bunny-mona-awad/12087549

Alice in Wonderland: https://bookshop.org/p/books/alice-in-wonderland-illustrated-lewis-carroll/7841425

Rabbit, Run (the first book in John Updike's Rabbit series): https://bookshop.org/p/books/rabbit-run-john-updike/11076364

The Velveteen Rabbit: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-velveteen-rabbit-margery-williams-bianco/19005883

Donnie Darko: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/

Harvey: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/

Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery (the first book of the Bunnicula series): https://bookshop.org/p/books/bunnicula-a-rabbit-tale-of-mystery-deborah-howe/286233

Bunnicula (TV series): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5444412/

Watership Down: https://bookshop.org/p/books/watership-down-richard-adams/286191

The House Rabbit Society: https://houserabbit.org/

POP Cats: https://popcats.co/

Finding Favorites is edited and mixed by Rob Abrazado. Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram at @FindingFavsPod and leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, GoodPods or Spotify. Got a question or want to suggest a guest? email Leah at FindingFavoritesPodcast@gmail.com

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Detroit-based Brandon Klein sat down with Leah to talk about his love of interviewing - AKA non-fiction storytelling. Brandon has been a meditation coach, lived "van life" in the national parks, and is the creator and host of Humanize the Human Eyes.

Keep up with Brandon on YouTube and Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/@brandonmklein/videos

https://www.instagram.com/brand0nklein/

Show Notes

https://www.descript.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanseisen/
https://goodnightoscar.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_gGwOlIb9k
https://blackwing602.com/collections/pencils
https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/lucas-balisong-knives/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression

Fact check: It was Jack Paar and not Dick Cavett that hosted Oscar Levant, sorry for so confidently talking about the wrong late night host.

Second fact check: Rob Abrazado will return to editing the podcast on the next episode. The last few weeks have been rough in the Jones house, but I recently closed on a condo sale and have returned to the land of the living.

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Christine Marie Eberle returns to Finding Favorites to discuss her new book and the pilgrimage that inspired her to write it. Her new book Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home is available now.

We have an in depth conversation about the logistics, prayer and intentions of going on this pilgrimage in the fall of 2022.

Christine-Marie-Eberle.com

Finding God Along the Way

Show Notes

The Way on IMDB
Camino del Santiago (the other pilgrimage in Spain)
Camino Ignacio
Ignatian Volunteer Corps
Ignatius of Loyola

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Every year, we start by looking back at 2024. We asked friends and past guests to send in voice memos highlighting their favorite things of 2024. In this episode you'll hear from

Shai Korman – Friday Night Movie Podcast
Jesse Dukes – Upper Middle Brow
Liz Nord
Laura and Annie – BFF Sticker Club
Chris Bagg – Upper Middle Brow
Pam Mandel – Canned
Mike Maddaloni
Amy Guth – Canned
Rocco Cataldo - Some stuff from Rocco
Jason Mathes
Steve Higgins
Rabbi Michael Zedek

Leah's recommendations for the year include

Live comedy performances

Jackie Kashian
Laurie Kilmartin
Kyle Kinane
Paul Scheer book launch with Adam Pally
Dinosaur Improv at the Den
Michelle Collins at City Winery

Live theater

Illinoise at Chicago Shakes
Some Like it Hot
Death Becomes Her
Great Comet at Writer’s Theater
An Enemy of the People
Here There Are Blueberries

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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It's a crossover episode of Finding Favorites and Upper Middle Brow - Leah Jones, Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg are talking about robot friends and enemies. We start with M3GAN and go on a winding conversation from there.

Subscribe to Upper Middle Brow and rate them 5 stars: https://uppermiddlebrow.com/

Recommendations from this show:

Ted Chiang’s Exhalation
Alien: Romulus
Duncan Jones Moon

Honorable Mentions:

Robocop
The Terminator/Terminator 2
Short Circuit
M3gan
Robot Visions
Doctor Who

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Curtis Smith, author of Deaf Heaven (available May 2025) and The Lost and The Blind, is a professor who loves 70s Hollywood. Leah and Curt talk about his new book, favorite movies and directors. Build your own 70s To Watch list from this episode.

Leah is still collecting voice memos for the best of 2024 episode slated for January 12th. There's still time to send in a 1-5 minute clip highlighting some of the things you found and loved in 2024.

Follow Curtis online

Short stories collections: https://www.press53.com/curtis-smith
Curtis on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/contributors/curtis-smith-4ddf66b4-7838-4c5b-a813-010b2772f1a7
Deaf Heaven: https://bookshop.org/p/books/deaf-heaven-curtis-smith/22029558?ean=9781960018786
The Magpie's Return: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-magpie-s-return-curtis-smith/17051877?ean=9781947041615
The Lost and the Blind: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lost-and-the-blind-curtis-smith/19735398?ean=9781955062619

Show Notes

Jen Michalski: https://bookshop.org/contributors/jen-michalski
JMWW: https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/
Ben Tanzer: https://www.tanzerben.com/
This Podcast Will Change Your Life: https://tbwcylinc.libsyn.com/
Flannery O'Conner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannery_O%27Connor
The Graduate: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061722/
The Twilight Zone: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052520/
Vivian Maier: https://www.vivianmaier.com/
Mary Ellen Mark: https://www.maryellenmark.com/
The Center for Creative Leadership: https://www.ccl.org/
Running Wild Press: https://runningwildpublishing.com/
To Sir, with Love: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062376/
The Godfather: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/
The Conversation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/
Dog Day Afternoon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072890/
Nashville: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073440/
Robert Altman: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000265/
McCabe & Mrs. Miller: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067411/
The Long Goodbye: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070334/
Francis Ford Coppola: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000338/
Apocalypse Now: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/
Martin Scorsese: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000217/
Mean Streets: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070379/
Taxi Driver: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/
Raging Bull: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081398/
Brian De Palma: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000361/
Blow Out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082085/
Sisters: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070698/
Terrence Malick: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000517/
Days of Heaven: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077405/
Badlands: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069762/
The Candidate: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068334/
Robert Redford: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000602/
The Parallax View: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071970/
Warren Beatty: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000886/
John Cassavetes: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001023/
A Woman Under the Influence: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072417/
Regal Unlimited: https://www.regmovies.com/unlimited
The Substance: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17526714/
Demi Moore: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000193/
The Exorcist: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/
Gene Hackman: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000432/
Dustin Hoffman: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000163/
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/
Three Days of the Condor: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/
Shampoo: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073692/
Reds: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/
Faye Dunaway: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001159/
Robert De Niro: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000134/
Al Pacino: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000199/
Woody Allen: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000095/
John Travolta: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000237/
Urban Cowboy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081696/
Tree of Life: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/
Gosford Park: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280707/
The Player: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105151/
Megalopolis: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10128846/
2001: A Space Odyssey: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/
Lawrence of Arabia: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/
RRR: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8178634/
The Jungle Book: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061852/
Bonnie and Clyde: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061418/
Bette Midler: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000541/
Ruthless People: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091877/
Poltergeist: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084516/
The Wizard of Oz: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/
"The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama)
Goodfellas: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/

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Jeph Wilkinson, host of Big Campaign Podcast, loves table top role playing games (AKA TTRPGs) and joined Leah to talk about how he found Dungeons & Dragon, the joy of running TTRPGs campaigns with friends, and storytelling. Jeph is an independent podcaster!

Follow Jeph online

The World of Big Campaign Stories: https://www.bigcampaign.com/
Big Campaign Podcast Linktree: https://linktr.ee/big_campaign_stories
Big Campaign Podcast on X: https://x.com/BigCampaignPod
Big Campaign Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/big_campaign_podcast

Show Notes

Upper Middlebrow: https://uppermiddlebrow.com/
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: https://bookshop.org/p/books/snow-crash-neal-stephenson/7327954?ean=9780553380958
Dungeons & Dragons: https://dndstore.wizards.com/
Dune by Frank Herbert: https://bookshop.org/p/books/dune-frank-herbert/7502701?ean=9780441172719
Vampire: the Masquerade: https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/world-of-darkness/discover-world-of-darkness/vampire-the-masquerade
The Golden Bachelorette: https://abc.com/show/4175a1c6-1594-4c90-9895-02008e6f0550
Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka: https://zubrowka-vodka.com/
Epic Level Handbook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Level_Handbook
Finding Favorites "Chris Bagg loves Table Top Roleplaying Games": https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/chris-bagg-dnd-ttrpg/
Newcomers: https://headgum.com/newcomers
Pathfinder: https://paizo.com/pathfinder
Wizards of the Coast: https://company.wizards.com/
High and Mighty: https://headgum.com/high-and-mighty
Magic: The Gathering: https://magic.wizards.com/
Clash of Krits: https://linktr.ee/clashofkrits
Rainbow Dice Club: https://linktr.ee/rainbowdiceclub
How Did This Get Made?: https://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/
Doughboys: https://headgum.com/doughboys
Armchair Expert: https://armchairexpertpod.com/

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Rabbi Michael Zedek, the rabbi emeritus of Emanuel Congregation in Chicago, joined Leah for a very fun and meandering conversation about lots of his favorite things. His book, Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality, is going into a second printing and he's available for all of your events - Jewish or not, in person or virtual, to discuss the book.

As a congregant of 20 years, Leah used the podcast to get the full stories of how Rabbi Zedek became a rabbi (where are you Elijah from Syracuse?), how he met his wife Karen, and how he came to Emanuel after retiring from the pulpit once already.

Keep up with Rabbi Zedek online

Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality

RabbiMichaelZedek.com

Show Notes

"The Day I Read a Book" by Jimmy Durante: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PweWTvZVKk
I and Thou by Martin Buber: https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-and-thou-martin-buber/52758?ean=9780684717258
Emanuel Congregation: https://www.emanuelcong.org/
Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis (PARR): https://www.parrabbis.org/
National Association of Retired Reform Rabbis (NAORRR): https://naorrr.com/
Religion on the Line website: https://religionontheline.com/
Religion on the Line podcast: https://sites.libsyn.com/414662
High and Mighty with John Gabrus: https://headgum.com/high-and-mighty
When Harry Met Sally...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Harry_Met_Sally…
The Godfather: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather
Casablanca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)
Ein Gedi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_Gedi
Ibex and shofar
Rovos Rail: https://rovos.com/
Young Presidents' Organization: https://www.ypo.org/
Helen Suzman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Suzman
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies: https://www.schusterman.org/
Brown Lighthouse Tel Aviv: https://brownhotels.com/lighthouse
Abraham Joshua Heschel: https://bookshop.org/contributors/abraham-joshua-heschel-9a2a2d93-0aa6-43c8-b4df-b0b18533fce5
Hebrew Union College (HUC): https://huc.edu/
Interfaith Park: https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/interfaith-park

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Ashlie, host of Advice from The Cheerbrarian, LOVES books and loves to prescribe books to friends, listeners and strangers based on a few questions. We talk about breaking up with your phone, the benefits of parallel reading multiple books at the same time, and book discovery.

Keep up with Ashlie online

Advice from the Cheerbrarian: https://open.spotify.com/show/77y9HmJHzKhZZ8wyspnCqb
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ardaigle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheerbrarian/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@cheerbrarian
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cheerbrarian
Advice from the Cheerbrarian website: https://www.cheerbrarian.com/
Unrequired Reading: https://www.cheerbrarian.com/unrequired-reading

Show Notes

Star Trek: The Next Generation: https://www.startrek.com/series/star-trek-the-next-generation
Advice from the Cheerbrarian - "Your Brain is a Dirty Dirty Liar (Your Brain Part 1)": https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ardaigle/episodes/Your-Brain-is-a-Dirty-Dirty-Liar-Your-Brain---Part-1-e2gle2k
My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
Advice from the Cheerbrarian - "YOU'RE REJECTED. Now what?": https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ardaigle/episodes/YOURE-REJECTED--Now-what-e2if0cq
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Gallup
Advice from the Cheerbrarian - "The Power of Yes (Part 1)": https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ardaigle/episodes/The-Power-of-Yes-Part-1---Say-Yes-to-Being-the-Best-at-Being-the-Worst-e2pm271
Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder: https://littlehousebooks.com/
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery:
The Cat Who... series by Lilian Jackson Braun: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?11710
Stuart Little by E.B. White
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1984 by George Orwell
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Beartown by Fredrik Backman:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Power of Fun by Catherine Price
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris
10% Happier by Dan Harris
How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price
The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman: https://www.goodreads.com/series/299267-thursday-murder-club
Murder, She Wrote on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder,_She_Wrote
Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French: https://www.goodreads.com/series/51639-dublin-murder-squad
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: https://www.nbc.com/law-and-order-special-victims-unit
In the Woods by Tana French: https://bookshop.org/p/books/in-the-woods-tana-french/11716028?ean=9780143113492
Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde: https://www.goodreads.com/series/43680-thursday-next
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Yes Please by Amy Poehler
The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays by Casey Rose Wilson
Joyful Recollections of Traumaby Paul Scheer
Finding Favorites - "Paul Scheer loves the L.A. Clippers": https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/paul-scheer-hdtgm-la-clippers/
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Craft Sequence series by Max Gladstone: https://www.goodreads.com/series/91029-craft-sequence
Finding Favorites bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/FindingFavoritesPodcast
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Infinite Jestby David Foster Wallace
Good Morning America Book Club: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/bookclub
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim:
Advice from the Cheerbrarian - "Cheerbrarian Presents - Author Angie Kim": https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ardaigle/episodes/Cheerbrarian-Presents---Author-Angie-Kim-e2jbg6p
Reese's Book Club: https://reesesbookclub.com/
Advice from the Cheerbrarian - "Six Tips to (try to) Read More Books": https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ardaigle/episodes/Six-Tips-to-try-to-Read-More-Books-e2jto9s

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Nancy House-Bluhm, author of Whispers for Terra and The Nickel Loop, loves clear communication. The midwesterner spent 25 years in Colorado before returning to Michigan. She talks with Leah about communication skills, trains and The Artist's Way.

Keep up with Nancy online

Whispers for Terra
The Nickel Loop
Nancy's website
Nancy's email
Instagram @jnbpine
Nancy on Facebook
Tik Tok @nancyhouserbluhmauthor

Show Notes

Hotel Denver (now Hotel Maxwell Anderson) in Glenwood Springs, CO: https://maxwellandersonhotel.com/
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum: https://www.durangotrain.com/
Beforeigners: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8332130/
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-dale-carnegie/7496534?ean=9780671027032
Brené Brown: https://brenebrown.com/
Phatic communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-artist-s-way-30th-anniversary-edition-julia-cameron/6665657?ean=9780143129257
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard: https://bookshop.org/p/books/finding-the-mother-tree-discovering-the-wisdom-of-the-forest-suzanne-simard/17806466?ean=9780525565994
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Orphans' Project: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/projects/orphans
Finding Favorites episode "Author Joan Schweighardt loves serendipity": https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/joan-schweighardt-serendipity/

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Elana Silber is the CEO of Sharsheret, the Jewish breast and ovarian cancer organization that Leah supports, and totally obsessed with Orangetheory. Nothing interrupts her daily workouts and she might get you Orange-curious by the end of the episode. Elana has dedicated her career to supporting people with breast and ovarian cancers through her work at Sharsheret. We talk a lot about what you should be doing to understand your breast cancer risks and specifically about how this organization helps people in the US and Israel.

Host Leah Jones was honored by Sharsheret in May 2024. Here is her speech.

Leah will be giving a d'var torah at Emanuel Congregation on October 25, 2024 for Pink Shabbat at 6:30pm

Keep up with Elana and Sharsheret

Sharsheret
Sharsheret toll-free phone number: 866-474-2774
Sharsheret on Instagram
Sharsheret on Facebook

Show Notes

Orangetheory Fitness

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Theresa Goodrich, aka The Local Tourist, has always loved to write. After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she decided not to let anything stop her from writing fiction and she has written FIVE mysteries featuring travel writer Alex Paige. Theresa is one of the first people I met on Twitter and this was a great chance to catch up with each other.

Since it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, both new episodes will feature interviews with a heavy focus on breast cancer. Please, shedule your mammogram, colonoscopy, and dermatology screenings. Early detection really does save lives.

Keep up with Theresa online

Theresa's Books: https://theresasbooks.com/
Peril on the Peninsula (free e-book): https://theresasbooks.com/products/peril-on-the-peninsula
The Local Tourist: https://thelocaltourist.com/

Show Notes

The Two Lane Gems series: https://twolanegems.com/
Living Landmarks of Chicago: https://livinglandmarksofchicago.com/
Planning Your Perfect Road Trip: https://theresasbooks.com/products/planning-your-perfect-road-trip
Show Me Shipshewana: https://theresasbooks.com/products/show-me-shipshewana
Midwest Road Trip Adventures: https://theresasbooks.com/products/midwest-road-trip-adventures
Midwest State Park Adventures: https://theresasbooks.com/products/midwest-state-park-adventures
Alex Paige travel mystery series: https://theresasbooks.com/products/alex-paige-travel-mysteries-bundle
Keith Lee on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@keith_lee125
G.P. Gottlieb: https://www.gpgottlieb.com/
"Kathy Giorgio loves Writing": https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/kathie-giorgio-loves-writing/
NaNoWriMo: https://nanowrimo.org/
St. Clare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_of_Assisi
The Enneagram: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
CliftonStrengths: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253676/how-cliftonstrengths-works.aspx
Amy Güth: https://www.amyguth.com/
Rovos Rail: https://rovos.com/
De Beers: https://www.debeers.com/en-us/home
The Rhodes Scholarship: https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholarships/the-rhodes-scholarship/
Book Brush: https://bookbrush.com/

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Summer hiatus is over with a banger of an episode! Abbas Jaffary, a mathematician and roller derby referee, joined Leah to talk about The Chicago Knockouts Roller Derby League and his love of math. Leah and Abbas also share a love of How Did This Get Made, the podcast that brings all people together.

Follow Abbas online

Mathematics for Misfits: https://linktr.ee/mathematicsformisfits

Accessible Mathematics:https://www.accessiblemath.info/

Chicago Knockouts and Chicago Knockouts on Tik Tok.

Show Notes

How Did This Get Made?: https://hdtgm.com/
Live Lit: https://bookriot.com/what-is-live-lit-and-how-can-i-read-it/
Dinosaur: https://www.paulscheer.com/dinosaur
Rock 'N' America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_%27N%27_America
Chicago Shred Union on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chicagoshred/
Chicago Outfit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chicagooutfit/
The Crimson Vixen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_thecrimsonvixen_/
SteMartaen: https://stemartaen.com/
Plant-Based Skate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantbasedskate/
The Village of Homewood: https://www.village.homewood.il.us/
RollerCon: https://rollercon.com/
Improv Olympic (IO): https://ioimprov.com/
CFA Institute: https://www.cfainstitute.org/
College of DuPage: https://www.cod.edu/
Hyperspace by Michio Kaku: https://bookshop.org/p/books/hyperspace-a-scientific-odyssey-through-parallel-universes-time-warps-and-the-10th-dimens-ion-michio-kaku/8648999?ean=9780385477055
University of Illinois Chicago (UIC): https://www.uic.edu/
Georg Cantor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
The p-adic numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-adic_number
P-adic Numbers: An Introduction by Fernando Q. Gouvêa: https://bookshop.org/p/books/p-adic-numbers-an-introduction-fernando-q-gouvea/14521230?ean=9783030472948
P-adic Numbers, p-adic Analysis, and Zeta-Functions by Neal Koblitz: https://bookshop.org/p/books/p-adic-numbers-p-adic-analysis-and-zeta-functions-neal-koblitz/8668219?ean=9780387960173
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center: https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/
Dr. Louis H. Kauffman: https://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/
Edward Witten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten
Qiskit: https://www.ibm.com/quantum/qiskit
PsiQuantum: https://www.psiquantum.com/
MathJax: https://www.mathjax.org/
MathML: https://www.w3.org/Math/

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Chuck Gay, a musician, writer and actor, joins Leah to introduce her to Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. Chuck can be seen in Elvis of the Yukon (as Elvis) written by guest Pam Mandel and produced by Amy Guth.

Keep up with Chuck online

Instagram @charlespgay
Facebook @chuckgaymusic
ChuckGayMusic.com

Show Notes

Elvis of the Yukon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30797208/
Buck Owens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Owens
The Buckaroos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buckaroos
Hee Haw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hee_Haw
Carnegie Hall Concert: https://open.spotify.com/album/37k1QgDqGNemtteDpQ2jcU
Don Rich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Rich
Buck Owens and Don Rich singing "Tiger by the Tail": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u63NdYPMxrw
Dwight Yoakam: https://www.dwightyoakam.com/
"Streets of Bakersfield" performed by Dwight Yoakam with Buck Owens: https://open.spotify.com/track/7bKqtOF02nEDUImWZqq5nH
Bumbershoot music festival: https://bumbershoot.com/
Buck Owens performs "The Streets of Laredo" live at Carnegie Hall (1966): https://open.spotify.com/track/0MjHswdGtDI1msQ49fWDYa
John Prine: https://www.johnprine.com/
"I've got a Tiger by the Tail": https://open.spotify.com/track/464fUpkgSEPH1onUGoW8Kt
"Love's Gonna Live Here": https://open.spotify.com/track/722NCABmmKoHNQaX2VHoX3
"Together Again": https://open.spotify.com/track/5uGMzzZW2XxHvSziwt9T3y
"Cryin' Time": https://open.spotify.com/track/4UCCm4l4YTTeEYuaAzUdOs
"Second Fiddle": https://open.spotify.com/track/3JO1cq3Ex5DbfQSnMf7Y3i
An episode of The Buck Owens Ranch Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCy-9z6BXJc
Buck Owens' Crystal Palace: https://www.buckowens.com/
Blackwing pencils: https://blackwing602.com/
Isernio's chicken breakfast sausage: https://isernio.com/product/chicken-breakfast/
Philadelphia jalapeño cream cheese: https://www.kraftheinz.com/philadelphia/products/00021000007325-spicy-jalapeno-cream-cheese-spread
Frank's RedHot hot sauce: https://www.franksredhot.com/en-us/products/franks-redhot-original-cayenne-pepper-sauce
Le Creuset cast-iron skillet: https://www.lecreuset.com/signature-skillet-10-1-4-in-chambray/20182026434001.html
Heinz Simply ketchup: https://www.heinz.com/products/00013000626095-simply-tomato-ketchup-with-no-artificial-sweeteners
Durango Bagel on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dgo_bagel/
Dave's Way: A New Approach to Old-Fashioned Success: https://www.amazon.com/Daves-Way-Approach-Old-Fashioned-1991-09-01/dp/B019TLFO7Y

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Author Darrin Doyle returns to celebrate a new book and his love of horror movies.

Keep up with Darrin online

Darrin's website: https://www.darrindoyle.com/
Darrin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDarrinDoyle
Darrin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darrindoylewriter/
Let Gravity Seize the Dead pre-order: https://regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/let-gravity-seize-the-dead/

Show Notes

Intergenerational trauma: https://dictionary.apa.org/intergenerational-trauma
Wilderness State Park: https://www2.dnr.state.mi.us/ParksandTrails/Details.aspx?id=509&type=SPRK
Bird by Noy Holland: https://bookshop.org/p/books/bird-noy-holland/17314873?ean=9781619028272
Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy: https://bookshop.org/p/books/outer-dark-cormac-mccarthy/6724632?ean=9780679728733
The Beast in Aisle 34 by Darrin Doyle: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-beast-in-aisle-34-darrin-doyle/15921939?ean=9781948954570

Horror Movies to watch

Get Out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/
Abigail: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27489557/
I Saw the TV Glow: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15574270/
Rosemary's Baby: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067992/
Dark Night of the Scarecrow: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082235/
Prom Night: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081383/
Children of the Corn: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087050/
The Evil Dead: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083907/
Fangoria magazine: https://www.fangoria.com/
American Werewolf in London: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082010/
It (1990): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099864/
The Thing: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
Friday the 13th: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/
Maniac (1980): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081114/
Pieces: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082748/
Sleepaway Camp: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086320/
Tourist Trap: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080040/
The Burning: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082118/
Sam Raimi: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000600/
John Landis: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000484/
David Cronenberg: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000343/
Tobe Hooper: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001361/
Roman Polanski: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000591/
Evil Dead II: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092991/
Blank Check with Griffin & David podcast: https://www.blankcheckpod.com/
Spider-Man: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145487/
Darkman: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099365/
Boy Kills World: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13923084/
Regal Unlimited: https://www.regmovies.com/unlimited
Drag Me to Hell: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/
Ari Aster: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4170048/
Hereditary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7784604/
Midsommar: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8772262/
Jordan Peele: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1443502/
Oz Perkins: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0674020/
The Witch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4263482/
The Lighthouse: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7984734/
Nosferatu (2024): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5040012/
The Strangers: Chapter 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22050754/
The Strangers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482606/
The Strangers: Prey at Night: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285009/
Renny Harlin: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001317/
Cutthroat Island: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112760/
The Innkeepers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1594562/
The Autopsy of Jane Doe: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3289956/
Under the Skin: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441395/
The Zone of Interest: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7160372/
Civil War: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17279496/
Alex Garland: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0307497/
Ex Machina: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/
Annihilation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798920/
The Northman: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11138512/
Robert Eggers: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3211470/
Dead Alive: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103873/
Peter Jackson: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001392/
Bad Taste: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092610/
The Frighteners: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116365/
Five Nights at Freddy's: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4589218/
Beau Is Afraid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13521006/
Jennifer Kent: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0448768/
The Babadook: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321549/
Stranger Things: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/
The Coffee Table (2022): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21874760/
In a Violent Nature: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30321146/
Creep (2014): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2428170/
The Blackening: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11703244/
Scream: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Ringu: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868/

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Author and film maker Pam Mandel is here to convince us all to add an ebike to our garage for local errands and more freedom of movement. Her debut short film Elvis of the Yukon debuted in New York and has just been selected for the Seattle Film Festival.

We will be visiting with her collaborators throughout the summer as we celebrate road trips.

Keep up with Pam Mandel online

Pam’s Links

Nerd's Eye View website and blog: https://www.nerdseyeview.com/
@nerdseyeview on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nerdseyeview
@nerdseyeview on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdseyeview

Show Notes

Amy Guth: https://www.amyguth.com/
The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-same-river-twice-a-memoir-of-dirtbag-backpackers-bomb-shelters-and-bad-travel-pam-mandel/14361463?ean=9781510760059
Potenza Productions: https://www.potenza-productions.com/
Elvis of the Yukon IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30797208/
Moustache Bikes: https://moustachebikes.com/us/en/
Jamelle Bouie: https://jamellebouie.net/
Divvy Bikes: https://divvybikes.com/
Citi Bike: https://citibikenyc.com/
Dandelion Bikes: https://www.dandelion.bike/
Gazelle Bikes: https://www.gazellebikes.com/en-us

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Monica Reida, a Chicago-based artist and writer, loves coffee. Like... LOVES coffee. Affogato, espresso, drip coffee, percolated coffee, different roasts, decaf and so much more.

Keep up with Monica online

Monica's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monicareida/
Monica's portfolio: https://monicareida.myportfolio.com/
Monica's blog, Notes from a Sentient Cabbage: https://sentientcabbage2.wordpress.com/

Show Notes

Murdoch Mysteries
"Terrence Gant loves Prog Rock and Twitter" on Finding Favorites
"Scott Smith loves Mission Impossible movies" on Finding Favorites
Dollop Coffee
Espresso Royale
Colectivo
Hudson's Bay
Bodum
Red Brazil model French press:
Aeropress
Pumpkin orange Escali Primo
Fellow Prismo AeroPress attachment
Hario V60 Cermaic Pour Over Coffee Set
Hario V60 "LoveDrip" Paper Filters: https://www.hario-usa.com/products/v60-lovedrip-paper-filter-02
Oxo Conical Burr Coffee Grinder: https://www.oxo.com/conical-burr-coffee-grinder.html
Fellow Stagg EKG: https://fellowproducts.com/products/stagg-ekg-electric-pour-over-kettle
Bialetti Moka Express: https://www.bialetti.com/ee_en/moka-express.html
La Marzoco Linea Mini: https://home.lamarzoccousa.com/product/linea-mini/
Some Origami Drippers (via Dark Matter Coffee): https://www.darkmattercoffee.com/products/origami-pour-over
NadaMoo! dairy-free ice cream: https://nadamoo.com/
Dark Matter Coffee: https://www.darkmattercoffee.com/
Discourse Coffee Workshop: https://www.discourse.coffee/
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams: https://jenis.com/
Wonderstate Coffee Icebreaker blend: https://wonderstate.com/collections/icebreaker
BOSS Coffee: https://www.bosscoffeeusa.com/
Yakuza: Like a Dragon: https://likeadragon.sega.com/
Intelligentsia Coffee: https://www.intelligentsia.com/
L' Cafecito Jumping Bean: https://www.facebook.com/pinklinedamen
Metropolis Coffee Company: https://www.metropoliscoffee.com/
The Daly Bagel: https://thedalybagel.com/
Go Get Em Tiger: https://gget.com/
Stone Creek Coffee: https://www.stonecreekcoffee.com/
Joe Coffee Company: https://joecoffeecompany.com/
Black & White Coffee Roasters: https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/
Big Shoulders Coffee: https://www.bigshoulderscoffee.com/
Perkolater: https://perkolatorcoffee.com/
Nguyen Coffee Supply: https://nguyencoffeesupply.com/
James Hoffmann's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann
(the "Makita Coffee Machine" episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xOEIpbxM4w)
Welcome to Night Vale: https://www.welcometonightvale.com/
Ember Mug: https://ember.com/products/ember-mug-2
Sprudge: https://sprudge.com/
(the cat shirt: https://sprudge.myshopify.com/collections/sprudge-tees/products/black-aeropress-cat-tee)
Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co.
The New Rules of Coffee: A Modern Guide for Everyone
But First, Coffee: A Guide to Brewing from the Kitchen to the Bar

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We are one week out from Passover seders, so what better time to revisit Caroline's advice about preparing for the Spring holiday?

New Haggadah alert - The Promise of Liberty by Stuart Halpern & Jacob Kupietzky

Where are you leaving? Egypt
Where are you going? Jerusalem
What are you carrying? The bread of freedom

Pesach (Passover) starts on Monday night and Caroline Musin Berkowitz joined Leah to talk about how she gets organized for the holiday. We talk about recipes, family traditions, finding the right haggadah, additions to the seder plate, and how to give gift to your future self with a good spreadsheet.

Follow Caroline on Instagram and Twitter Keep up with Hashtag Daf Yomi on Instagram

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Bread Machine Challah II
Chicken Marbella
Matzah Toffee
CRC Pesach Guide 2022
A Slob Comes Clean
Fly Lady
Graphic Novel Haggadah
Matza Pajamas
Caroline's Legendary Passover Spreadsheet
Haggadot.com Sunflower addition

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Scott Smith, aka Our Man In Chicago, returns to Finding Favorites to talk about the Mission Impossible movies - why he loves them, how he watches them and where to start with the series. Scott first joined Leah to talk about The West Wing.

Keep up with Scott online

Our Man in Chicago
Instagram @ourmaninchicago
The Frunchroom
Facebook @thefrunchroom

Show Notes

Regal Unlimited
The Mission: Impossible film series on Wikipedia
Get Smart on Wikipedia
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies on Wikipedia
Music Box Films: Music Box Films

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

Want to sponsor an episode or run ads on Finding Favorites? Email Leah

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Blaise Miller, an actor/director/writer based in LA, joined Leah to talk about his new web series "Hi, Blaise Miller" and his love of sweatpants. "Hi, Blaise Miller" is a six episode series exploring life for actors in Hollywood today - the world of self tapes and self doubt. The series is distributed by Crafty and new episodes are available every Friday.

Leah and Blaise have been friends for 20 years and are celebrating their birthday on March 23 - so we're celebrating with an early drop!

Follow Blaise online

Hi, Blaise Miller on YouTube
Crafty Short Films
2Blazes.com
@2blazes on Tik Tok

Show Notes

The Vacationeers on YouTube
It's a Disaster on Peacock
Chicago's Pizza
Smashburger.com
DMK
Au Cheval
Auntie Anne's
Wetzel's Pretzels
Fat Chris
Chubbies Shorts
Home Run Inn
https://www.vons.com/
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Author Joyce Miller joins Leah to talk about her new book Joe Harris, The Moon, her love of greyhounds and her love of dancing with dogs.

Keep up with Joyce online

Look! You're Dancing: A Memoir of Dogs, Dance and Devotion
Joe Harris, The Moon
JoyceAMiller.com
Follow Joyce on Instagram @joyceamillerwriter

Show Notes

Joe Harris
Greyhounds "rooing"
Greyhounds Reach the Beach
The Grapehound Wine Tour
Greyhound zoomies

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Alabama based author Bradley Sides joined Leah to talk about his new collection Crocodile Tears Didn't Cause the Flood and his favorite band, The National.

Keep up with Bradley online

Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood
Bradley Sides on Facebook
Bradley's website: Bradley-Sides.com

Show Notes

Those Fantastic Lives by Bradley Sides
LeVar Burton Reads
Calhoun Community College
Common Read
U.S. Space & Rocket Center
One City, One Book
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Alabama Center for the Arts
Gabriel García Márquez
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon:
Karen Russell
Kelly Link
Rocket City Reading Fest at the Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, AL
Finding Favorites on bookshop.org
The National
Alligator
Homecoming 2023
"Secret Meeting": https://thenational.bandcamp.com/track/secret-meeting
"The Geese of Beverly Road": https://thenational.bandcamp.com/track/the-geese-of-beverly-road
"Mr. November": https://thenational.bandcamp.com/track/mr-november
Trouble Will Find Me: https://thenational.bandcamp.com/album/trouble-will-find-me
"Sea of Love": https://thenational.bandcamp.com/track/sea-of-love
A Conversation Between Matt Berninger and David Letterman
Cherry Tree, The National fan club: https://www.americanmary.com/cherry-tree
Soundtrack to Garden State: https://open.spotify.com/album/24mCiOTIF5Ob1uwluRFERv
Patti Smith: https://www.pattismith.net
Bartees Strange: https://www.barteesstrange.com/
"Paul Scheer loves the L.A. Clippers": https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/paul-scheer-hdtgm-la-clippers/
Tyler Childers: https://tylerchildersmusic.com/
"Universal Sound": https://soundcloud.com/tylerchilders/universal-sound
"Universal Sound" art print on Soundwaves: https://soundwavesartfoundation.com/products/tyler-childers-universal-sound-originals
Fleet Foxes: https://www.fleetfoxes.co/
Shore: https://fleetfoxes.bandcamp.com/album/shore
My Morning Jacket: https://www.mymorningjacket.com/
Jason Isbell: https://www.jasonisbell.com/
Brandi Carlile: https://www.brandicarlile.com/
Weezer: https://weezer.com/
Soundwaves Art Foundation: https://soundwavesartfoundation.com/
Sewanee: https://new.sewanee.edu/
The Caverns: https://www.thecaverns.com/
Cave Jam: https://www.thecaverns.com/featured/cavejam
Watchhouse: https://watchhouseband.com/
S-Town: https://stownpodcast.org/
How Did This Get Made?: https://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/
Doughboys: https://headgum.com/doughboys
High and Mighty: https://headgum.com/high-and-mighty
Nicole Byer: https://www.nicolebyerwastaken.com/
Rovos Rail: https://rovos.com/
Nailed It!: https://www.netflixreality.com/shows/nailed-it/
The String Cheese Incident: https://www.stringcheeseincident.com/
Red Rocks Amphitheatre: https://www.redrocksonline.com/
Jay Pritzker Pavilion: https://www.jaypritzkerpavilion.com/
The Pavilion at Ravinia: https://www.ravinia.org/Pavilion

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Ben Tanzer, a Chicago-based author and consultant, joined Leah to celebrate the launch of his new novel The Missing (pre-order on Bookshop.org for March 21, 2024 delivery) and his love of the book The Basketball Diaries. This conversation is a trip down memory lane, because Leah and Ben have been friends for 15+ years.

We briefly discuss the suicide of a mutual colleague.

Follow Ben online

The Missing release date March 21, 2024
The Missing book tour
Ben Tanzer on Bookshop
This Podcast Will Change Your Life
TanzerBen.com
twitter @BenTanzer
Instagram @tanzerben/
Facebook @BenTanzer

Show Notes

Amy Güth
Jen Michalski on Finding Favorites
The Missing on Kirkus Reviews
This American Life: This American Life
Exile in Bookville: Exile in Bookville
Lee Matthew Goldberg: Lee Matthew Goldberg
The Book Cellar: Book Cellar
Finding Favorites bookshop.org shop: Finding Favorites bookshop page
Michael Keren: Michael Keren
When Words Count: When Words Count Retreat
Elizabeth Splaine: Elizabeth Splaine
The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll
Adam Lawrence
Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty
John Edgar Wideman
Hendrick’s Gin: https://www.hendricksgin.com/
Bombay Sapphire: https://www.bombaysapphire.com/us/en/
Tanqueray: https://www.tanqueray.com/en-us
Death’s Door: https://www.dancinggoat.com/deaths-door-gin
Empress Gin: https://empressgin.com/
Alan Heathcock:https://alanheathcock.com/
Matilda: https://www.matilda-babyatlas.com/
David Masciotra: https://davidmasciotra.com/
Sunday Salon: https://sundaysalon-chicago.com/
P&T Knitwear: https://www.ptknitwear.com/
A Novel Idea: https://anovelideaphilly.com/
Village Well: https://villagewell.com/
Eric Spitznagel: https://www.ericspitznagel.com/
Megan Stielstra: https://www.meganstielstra.com/

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Paul Scheer, an LA-based actor, writer, comedian, and podcaster, grew up in New York Knicks territory, but now loves the L.A. Clippers. He joined Leah to talk about his memoir Joyful Recollections of Trauma (available for pre-order now, shipping on May 21, 2024), picking the right sports team for your family, and the inherent drama of NBA basketball.

Keep up with Paul Scheer online

How Did This Get Made
Unspooled
The Friendzone on Twitch
Follow Paul Scheer on Substack
Pre-order Joyful Recollections of Trauma (and Paul will send you a postcard)
@paulscheer on Instagram

(Are you impressed by how calm, cool and collected I've been so far? Paul is one of the hosts of my favorite podcast and he's on MY podcast and that is very cool and I am not collected. I'm so uncollected, that I'm releasing this episode a week early! After the show notes, I'll link to a few episodes that include some links to related episodes of Finding Favorites).

Show Notes

“Hook” by Blues Traveler
Hamilton Tour
Miguel Cervantes on Saying Good-Bye to Hamilton After 2,013 Performances
The Book of Mormon Tour
The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers by Mick Minas and Jim Lynam
30 for 30: 30 for 30 on ESPN

HDTGM adjacent episodes of Finding Favorites

Kevin Alves loves Letterkenny and Pirates - solid 20 minute tangent about the Halloween HDTGM in Chicago that I wore a 6 foot vinyl banner movie poster as a costume
Pam Rose loves Jason Mantzoukas, HDTGM and very bad movies (Pam is a second opinion super star and friend from the HDTGM fan community)
Poet Dan O'Brien loves British comedies (Dan is Jessica St. Claire's husband, fair warning - lots of cancer talk between the two of us)
Matt Zoller Seitz and The Deadwood Bible
Kevin T Porter loves Bruce Springsteen - Kevin's podcast Gilmore Guys was how I got to HDTGM

Support Finding Favorites by shopping for books by guests or recommended by guests on Bookshop.

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Author Esther Goldenberg visits Finding Favorites to share her loves of pour painting and drumming (djembe, not snare). She's also celebrating the publication of her first novel The Scrolls of Deborah. The Scrolls of Deborah is available for pre-order and will ship on February 20, 2024.

EstherGoldenberg.com

Follow Esther on Facebook and Instagram

Show Notes

Storahtelling
This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide to Mind, Body, and Soul by Geneen Roth
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Cyanotype (blue sun printing)
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford
Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess:
Nowhere Bookshop, Jenny Lawson’s book store
Kulu Sadira in Durango, Colorado
Leah's Shabbat Shirah d'var torah based on Esther's comments about Miriam

A few days after I published Kathie Giorgio's interview, her beloved husband Michael was hit by a car while walking to the bus and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I've been following along on Facebook and am praying for Michael's full and complete recovery.

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Kathie Giorgio, a Wisconsin-based writer and founder of The All Writers Workshop, joined Leah to talk about her lifelong love of writing and her genre-agnostic publishing career. Kathie published her first short story as a teenager, her first book at 50, and will publish her 14th book in 2024.

Content Warning: Kathie and Leah are both breast cancer survivors and discuss the illness, as well as bullying, death by suicide, and political violence throughout the episode.

UPDATE: Shortly after this episode was published, Kathie's husband suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was hit by a driver in a minivan while walking to the bus. Go Fund Me available here.

Keep up with Kathie online

KathieGiorgio.org
Facebook @KathieGiorgioAuthor
Twitter @kathiegiorgio
Instagram: Instagram @kathiegio1
Don’t Let Me Keep You due for release October 3rd.
Today's Moment of Happiness Despite the News: A Year of Spontaneous Essays
Find Kathie on Bookshop.org

Show Notes

Hope Always Rises
All Writers’ Workplace & Workshop, LLC
Maria Bamford’s memoir Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
This Week's Moment of Happiness Despite the News, the blog the preceded the book
Poet Kelly Cherry
Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books
Brian Mazzaferri/I Fight Dragons
The E Myth Revisited
Oddities & Endings
Chicago Jewish Book Festival

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Some of your favorite guests are back for the Best of 2023 Call-In Show! Leah asked guests and friends to send in a voice memo with their favorite discoveries of 2023. It's important to find moments of joy during difficult times and that's what each of our callers found!

Best of 2023 Show Notes

Carolyn Musin Berkowitz

Snack hack!

Monica Reida

Prince Freya
The Gilded Age on HBO
Marked Safe Podcast
Coaster radio

Cameron McKenzie

An introduction to Mezcal
Paloma cocktail recipe
Blindness by Jose Saragamo
Roanoke, VA

Vanessa Ricci-Thode

Monarch butterflies
Redwoods
Dogs
Doctor Who 60th Specials
World Running Down by Al Hess
The Murderbot Diaries

Shai Korman, Friday Night Movie podcast

Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy 3

Jesse Dukes, Upper Middle Brow

Catch a Fire by timothy white
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Thea Lux

The Wheel - https://www.thealux.com/wheel

Amy Guth

If you can’t fix it, feature it
https://amyguth.substack.com/

Rocco Cotaldo

Adventure, seeing the country
https://rocco.substack.com/

Jo McCawley

Saltburn
Mitski
Sufjan Stephens

Pam Rose

Surface on Apple TV
Loki
Squidgame The Challenge
Peacock - The Traders (US, UK, Australia)
Taylor Swift Eras Tour
Tate McRae
HDTGM
Films To Be Buried With - Brett Goldstein
Barbie
Oppenheimer

Phil Mottaz

The Hives https://www.thehives.com/
Women’s Soccer https://www.angelcity.com/

Chris Bagg

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
Upper Middlebrow episode 1 about Forever War

Steve Higgins

Hadestown
Barbie
Doctor Who 60th Anniversary

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Chuck Zagorski was declared the King of Christmas by his family and joined Leah to talk about his favorite holiday. Chuck listens to Christmas music all year, but limits his seven trees and 100+ nutcrackers to a window between November 1 and Three Kings Day.

Email a 1-5 minute audio clip to Leah by December 25th to be included in the Best of 2023 show! What did you love in 2023? email your clip to findingfavoritespodcast@gmail.com

Get news on new Christmas songs from Chuck on Facebook.

November 1: First Official Day of Christmas Music

Show Links

Add to Cart
The Deep Dive
Funko Pops
Polish Christmas Mushroom Soup

Some of the music we cover

Dee's Rock N Roll Christmas Tale
A Very Special Christmas (all of the albums)
Doris Day
Frank Sinatra
Kelly Clarkson
Mariah Carey
Winter Wonderland by Eurythmics
Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams

Finding Favorites is edited and mixed by Rob Abrazado. Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram at @FindingFavsPod and leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, GoodPods or Spotify.

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Emily Drake, host of the podcast Who's Missing, loves a cozy game. Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Cozy Cafe and more! We talk about parallel play, building relationships and so much more.

Email a 1-5 minute audio clip to Leah by December 25th to be included in the Best of 2023 show! What did you love in 2023? email your clip to findingfavoritespodcast@gmail.com

Follow Emily online

Instagram @emdrake
Who's Missing Podcast

Show Links

Stardew Valley
Cozy Grove
Animal Crossing
Triple Match 3D
Merge Mansion
Get Played episode "Now That's What I Call Video Game Music: Cozy Edition"
Finding Favorites episode "Keidra Chaney loves #KPopDollstagram"
The Deep Dive
Doughboys
How Did This Get Made
Greens, Beans, Potatoes, Tomatoes
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Finding Favorites is edited and mixed by Rob Abrazado. Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram at @FindingFavsPod and leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, GoodPods or Spotify.

Thank you to Chris and Jesse at Upper Middlebrow for the shoutout!

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It's a thanksgiving interlude with a few updates of what Leah's been up to and the trailer for season 2 of Upper Middlebrow Podcast.

Stand Up Comedy

Nicole Byer
Kyle Kinane
Samantha Bee

Broadway Stuff

Beetlejuice
What a Wonderful World
Here We Are
The Lehman Trilogy
Company

Podcast Stuff

How Did This Get Made live shows
Welcome to Rob Abrazado
Upper Middlebrow trailer
Send your "Best of 2023" audio clip to findingfavoritespodcast@gmail.com

Bring Them Home: Stories of hostages from October 7

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Evonne Marzouk returned to the podcast to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of her debut novel The Prophetess. We talk about the process of finding an audience, her lifelong love of writing, and processing difficult times through writing.

We talk about donations for pre-orders, but her publisher has extended the donations through the end of the war, G-d willing, soon.

Donations are being made to Leket.

Keep up with Evonne online: Substack

Evonne on Substack
Instagram @heroinewhisperer
Facebook @HeroineWhisperer
Order The Prophetess in paperback
EvonneMarzouk.com
Uplifting People and Planet: Eighteen Essential Jewish Lessons on the Environment

Special thank you to Rob Abrazado who joined the Finding Favorites team as an editor and sound mixer.

Uplifting People and Planet: Eighteen Essential Jewish Lessons on the Environment

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Pensylvania-based author and professor Holly M. Wendt joined Leah to talk about their love of all things cycling - from professional races to riding long distances, Holly loves all things two-wheeled. Their debut novel Heading North will be available on November 8th and you can order it today.

HollyMWendt.com
Instagram @hmwendt
Twitter @hmwendt
Heading North

Show Notes

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash
End Papers
The Art of Fielding
The Cactus League
The Desert Sky Before Us
Indian Horse
Tour de Fleece
Seagull Century
Bike Rally (Toronto to Montreal)
Wild Horses
Sepp Kuss (Durango, Colorado)
Domestique
Tim Declercq
Farm to Fork

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Bee Vargas, AKA the reigning Ms. Illinois, loves power lifting and joined Leah to talk about her journey to embracing her larger body in and out of the gym. Whether its rooftop yoga, crushing dead lifts or representing Illinois at the national level, Bee is a delight.

Follow Bee online

https://www.instagram.com/thatbeeword/

https://www.instagram.com/allbodiesaregymbodies/

https://www.tiktok.com/@thatbeeword

Show Notes

https://www.swipefatpodcast.com/

https://www.instagram.com/well_rounded.wellness/

https://blog.nasm.org/powerlifting-for-women

https://lipsticklifters.com/articles/female-powerlifters/

https://www.socalpowerlifting.net/post/how-do-powerlifting-meets-work

https://www.northamericabeautypageant.com/divisions/

https://www.thewrpf.com/

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Donate to American Friends of Magen David Adom

Jerusalem-based tour guide Joel Haber joined Leah to talk about Shabbat Stews ahead of the release of his ebook Chulent & Hamin: The Ultimate Jewish Comfort Food. There is so much more to Chulent than beans and meat!

Follow Joel on Instagram and his blog Taste of Jew.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show links

The Red Lady
Free Shabbat Stew Cookbook by Joel Haber
Machne Yehuda market
Gil Marks obituary
Ishtabach in Jerusalem
Shamburak
Birateinu
Beermiscuous in Chicago
Cardoon
Come for Cholent
Come for Cholent Again

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Taylore Nicholl and Michael Lester, a pair of independent filmmakers from Texas, joined Leah to talk about their love of film, making films, and dream projects.

Follow the pair online

Support Taylore and Michael on Patreon
Carry On (Taylore's first movie)
@taylorenicholl on Instagram
What We Become
Tik Tok @mediocre_michael

Show Notes

Duo of Greenville filmmakers
Jackass
The Disney Vault
Ira Glass, The Gap
Danny McBride on Armchair Expert
Perks of Being a Wallflower
Little Miss Sunshine
500 Days of Summer
Garden State
Lost in Translation
Away We Go
Leah Jones - Piper Cub pilot
Hello, My Baby
Pretty Like Me

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Jesse Dukes, co-host of Upper Middlebrow, returns to Finding Favorites to wrestle with Jimmy Buffett's legacy. We talk about internal rhymes, lifestyle brands, and songs with more meaning on the tenth listen than on the first.

Keep up with Jesse online

Upper Middlebrow Podcast
JesseDukes.com

Show Notes

Neuromancer
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Space Between Worlds
Jimmy Buffet - Songs you don’t know by heart
JimmyBuffett.com
MBMBAM and Jimmy Buffett
Escape to Margaritaville
Red Headed Stranger
Internal rhyme
Best rhymes in Hamilton
The melancholy of margaritaville
Eater review of Margaritaville in NYC
NY Times Jimmy Buffett does not live the Jimmy Buffett lifestyle
Steve O interview
Delaney Buffett
Go Cubs Go
Cowboy in the Jungle

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Josh Mohr, Seattle-based author of Model Citizen, joined Leah to discuss his new novel Farsickness which he wrote this summer and is illustrated by his daughter Ava. We talk about teachers that change your life, collaborating with your children, making art during the pandemic, and grappling with PTSD.

Buy a copy of Farsickness today

Silly Gooses with Josh Mohr and Ava Mohr at Valencia 826 (look for more workshops this year)

(complete show notes coming soon)

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Ronnie Raviv joined Leah to try and figure out if he has any favorite things. We talk about cocktails, cocktail bars, books, TV, great meals and our friendship origin story. For someone who claims to have no favorite things, there was no lacking in conversation.

Like my beloved Zouks, Ronnie is not on twitter.

Show Notes

Second City Conservatory
Quipfire Improv
Sally Albright
Chicken Pot Pie origin story
Mexican Mule
Journeyman White Whiskey
Jasper Fforde
OCD TLV
Taizu
Fantastic TLV
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Blind Barber
Duck Duck Goat
Aviary
Rosemary
Tango Sur
Bar Roma
Frasca
Monte Verde
Dear Margaret
Yom Tov Deli (Tel Aviv)
Harry's Epic Israel Food Tours

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Poet and playwright Dan O'Brien joined Leah this week to discuss his three books coming out this fall, before diving into the world of British comedies of the last 10-20 years. (We start talking about comedies at 35 minutes, but first 30 minutes is a lot of cancer talk.... schedule your mammograms and colonoscopies, friends).

Follow Dan online

Instagram @bydanobrien
DanOBrien.org

Buy or pre-order Dan's books

Our Cancers
True Story: A trilogy
Survivor’s Notebook
From Scarsdale

Show Notes

The Deep Dive podcast
Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy
Colon Cancer screening info
Mammogram guidelines
Scanxiety
Story Studio Chicago
Menopause: A Comic Treatment
Lucy Shair Foundation
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
Toast of London
Alan Partridge
The IT Crowd
Steve Coogan
Matt Berry
The Fast Show
That Mitchell & Webb Look
The Peter Serafinowicz Show
Armstrong & Miller
Harry and Paul's
The Mighty Boosh
Bob Mortimer Would I lie to you compilation
Tim Key
Green Wing
Party Animals
Midsommer Murders

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts or Good Pods

Send questions, comments or guest pitches (pitch yourself and YOUR favorite thing) to findingfavoritespodcast [at] gmail.com

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Bindy Bitterman, a Chicago-based author, published her first book Skiddly Diddly Skat at the age of 90 and joined Leah at the inaugural Chicago Jewish Book Fest for a storytime and live podcast interview. We talk about limericks, the Catskills, art collections and saying yes to all adventures.

Keep up with Bindy online

Show Notes
Society of the Fifth Line
Nautical Embroidery
Bindy on PBS
Jewish valentines?
Maquette
Elsa Wachs

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Rachel Duggan, a Milwaukee-based illustrator, loves butts, foxes, and pretty rocks. We sat down to talk about her book All Butts are Good Butts, how she became the wedding butt illustrator and how much she loves finding things in her natural environment.

Follow Rachel online

RADIllustrates.com
Instagram @radillustrates
Tik Tok @radillustrates
All Butts are Good Butts

Show Notes

Lion's Tooth bookstore
What is fool's gold?
Finding Beach Glass in Milwaukee
Dune Stinkhorn
Bob's Burger episode about fungus
Picture Mushroom app
Merlin birdsong app

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Canadian author Vanessa Ricci-Thode has turned her front yard into an official Monarch butterfly waystation and joined Leah Jones to talk about her love of the migrating butterfly. We talk about the very long commute from Mexico to Canada, simple steps to conservation and their second love of gigantic trees.

Vanessa's new book True Flame (Book 2 of the Fireborn series) is available now and books 3 and 4 will be published in the next year.

Vanessa Ricci-Thode's website
Instagram @vriccithode
Blue Sky @vriccithode.bsky.social
True Flame
Dragon Whisperer
Get Vaness's books in Canada

Show Notes

Journey North

Monarch Watch

time lapse of a Monarch butterfly transformation

Bee balm

Climbing Giant Sequoia

National Geographic

General Sherman

Good Company Chicago

Upper Middle Brow

Chicago Jewish Book Fest 2023

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Chad Hancock, host of Wackadoo! A Bluey Podcast for Grown-ups, joined Leah to introduce her to the new blue dog popular with kids and parents alike. Chad shares how he and his family started watching family, why it's an important piece of children's media and some of his favorite episodes. We also compare notes on hosting food podcasts, Chicago vs. San Francisco, and puppets on stage.

Follow Chad online

Wackadoo: A Bluey Podcast for Grown-Ups
You Tried Dat
Instagram @napoleon_puli

Show Notes

Coldest Winter Mark Twain?
Bluey.tv
Maple Poffertjes at Trader Joe's
Caillou
Bluey Tour
How to play jinx
Sleepytime
Keepy Uppy
Grandad

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Author and MFA student Allison Stalberg joins host Leah Jones to talk about niche, independent RPG games, obscure TV and movies from the 80s, the impact of Tumblr and her current writing projects.

Follow Allison online

Twitter @stalbergwrites
Tik Tok @stalbergwrites
Sor Anime on Tumblr

Show Notes

The Candle Wench (page 43)
Wander
Faerie Tale Theatre
YouTube Playlist of Faerie Tale Theater
The Polar Bear King
Alphonse Mucha
The Last Unicorn
Ib
Chicory Game
Get Played podcast
Disco Elysium
Story of Seasons
Selkies

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Dana Kaye, a Chicago-based book publicist, loves the creative outlet of stand-up comedy. She also loves a good memoir, so first we compare notes on audio memoirs we've been listening to before diving into how she uses open mics and stand-up comedy as a creative writing outlet.

Follow Dana Kaye online

https://kayepublicity.com/
Instagram @danakaye23

Show Notes

You could make this place beautiful by Maggie Smith
Educated: A Memoir
The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson
I'm Glad My Mom Died
https://www.chirpbooks.com/
Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the unmaking of America
Mike Nichols: A Life
Not my father's son by Alan Cumming
Ali Wong: Dear Girls
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
The Last Black Unicorn
Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
I'm judging you: the do better manual by Luvvie Ajayi
Not Funny by Jena Friedman
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Take a Shot Open Mic
Second City Brunch
Instagram @chicago.openmics

Please rate and review five stars on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods today to help more people join in the Finding Favorites fun.

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Stacey Agdern, author of B'nai Mitzvah Mistake, joined Leah to talk about the intersection of writing romance, being joyfully Jewish, and her love of hockey. In her fourth romance novel with Jewish characters, Stacey brings together professional hockey and Jewish traditions.

Follow Stacey online

StaceyAgdern.com
Facebook
Twitter @nystacey
Instagram @sagdern
Tule Publishing: B'nai Mitzvah Mistake
Bookshop B'nai Mitzvah Mistake
Going All In on Bookshop (Vegas night)
Chippy Chicks on Youtube

Show Notes

Twice a Quinceñera
Paul Scheer & Hockey Romance
Love's Sweet Arrow
Linda Cohn - Chance of a lifetime
EBUG
Zamboni driver as ebug
Shane Mcanally
Joe Buchanan
Bo Burnham Spider
The Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Zach Hymen jersey in Hebrew
Zach Hyman speaks up about antisemitism
Zach Hyman is going viral over pride night interview

Leah performed at Miss Spoken this week. The month's theme was Fangirls Forever, so it was time to share Five Rules for being a fan of HDTGM

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Christina Meyer, a musician and practicing physican, joined Leah to talk about her love of NKOTB. We talk NKOTB Cruises, Joey's solo shows, fandom friends and getting ready for BlockCon happening this weekend in Chicago. (In fact, both Christina and Jen - who was on the podcast to talk NKOTB in 2021 - were both at BlockCon this weekend!)

Follow Christina online

DrMetalMusic.com

Instagram @nikkinanametal

Twitter @nikkinana

Show Notes
NKOTB Cruise
BlockCon 2023
The Block album
Remember Betty
NKOTB Funko Pops

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Laura and Annie are childhood best friends who both became mental health professionals. During peak COVID lockdown, they created the BFF Sticker Club. It's an online community for adults who love stickers, so we are talking all about stickers and stickies!

BFF Sticker Club
Instagram @thebffstickerclub
Etsy for thebffstickerclub

Show Notes

Camp GUCI
Camp BFF (Sold out for 2023)
St. Elmo's steakhouse in Indianapolis
Everything Smells
Social Distancing All Stars
Paper Treat Shop

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Phil Gomes joins Leah this week to reminisce about the early days of blogging and his dedication to the Brazilian spirit cachaca. Phil is the CCMO of Bloq and is currently based in Rio de Janeiro with his family.

Follow Phil online

PhilGomes.com
Twitter @philgomes
Substack

Show Notes

Instagram Cachacagora
Cachacagora.com
Werneck Cachaca apprenticeship
Wikipedia
Bagaceira
September 13
Rabo de Gala
LeBlon
Novo Fogo
Jequitiba wood

Please rate and review Finding Favorites on Apple Podcast or your podcast app of choice. Email Leah at findingfavoritespodcast [@] gmail.com

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Phillip Mottaz, author of The Psychic Barber mystery series, is on Finding Favorites to talk about CCIW colleges (Go Knox! Go Millikin!), early aughts Chicago improv and The Ramones.

Follow Phillip on Twitter and check his website for updates

The Murderous Haircut of the Mayor of Bel Air: A Psychic Barber Mystery
The Homicidal Hairstyle of the Viral Video Vixen (Book #2): A Psychic Barber Mystery
Definition of a cozy mystery
Rita Mae Brown
Lillian Jackson Braun
GP Gottlieb: Whipped & Sipped
Ramones of the Day podcast
Alphabeatical podcast
The Ramones and CBGB
Rock and Roll High School
Why the Ramones Matter
Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone
Phil's 70s into Ramones playlist
Rocket to Russia
Ramones Live

Thank you to Jesse and Chris at Upper Middlebrow for the kind shout out this week. Please remember to rate and review Finding Favorites.

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Author Nicole Zelniker (she/they) joined Leah to talk about Broadway shows, writing and their love of cats. (Cats the animal, not Cats the musical, but maybe also Cats the musical). Nicole is the EIC of Knee Brace Press and her latest book, Until We Fall, available wherever books are sold.

Follow Nicole online

Tik Tok @nicolewritesbooks
Twitter @nicolezelniker
Instagram @nicolezelniker
NicoleZelniker.com/
Kneebrace Press
TheNasiona.com
Mixed
Last Dance
Letters I'll Never Send

Show Notes

Wicked
Six
Hamilton
Moulin Rouge
Rent: 25th anniversary tour
Sweeney Todd
Natasha & Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
Hadestown
Aladdin
Sim Kern & the Trans Rights Read-a-thon
Fibromyalgia
Peachy by Camri Kohler
Survivor's Notebook: Poems by Dan O'Brien
The Spoon Theory

Finding Favorites on Bookshop

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Chris Bagg, co-host of Upper Middlebrow, joins Finding Favorites to talk about Dungeons & Dragons and the greater universe of table top role playing games. He shares how he started playing D&D, what he plays now and a brief explanation of why 50,000 D&D players and creators cancelled their memberships.

Keep up with Chris online

Twitter @chrisbagg
Instagram @christopherbagg
ChrisBagg.com/
Listen to Upper Middlebrow podcast

Show Notes

One Shot Podcast
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
Freedom TM by Daniel Suarez
Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook
The Arrest
Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus try DND with Brennan Lee Mulligan
Critical Role
HASBRO and Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast reporting by Linda Codega
Forged in the Dark
Eclipse Phase
Lancer
Paranoia
Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America

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Laurel Snyder, an Atlanta-based author, joined Leah to talk about the music and marriage of Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. From Jason's early career in the Drive By Truckers to current collaborations with his wife Amanda Shires, their music was the soundtrack to Laurel's pandemic life.

Laurel's new book The Witch of Woodland is available for pre-order now and is a perfect gift for tweens preparing to prepare for their b'nai mitzvah.

Keep up with Laurel on LaurelSnyder.com

Show Notes

Little Shop of Stories (order signed books)
https://18doors.org/
JasonIsbell.com
AmandaShiresMusic.com
Tiny Desk Concert
The Nashville Sound
Amanda Shires Youtube
Jason Isbell Instagram
Amanda Shires Instagram
Hope the High Road
Elephant
Something More than Free
Jeff Tweedy and Ezra Klein
The Triggering Town

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Abby Stewart, a Bay Area author, loves artists journals and queso. She joined Leah fresh from AWP in Seattle to talk about her new novel Foundations, writing and publishing during lockdown, and her love of diaries and journals written by artists. We also talk about the best ways to improve Velveeta queso dip.

Keep up with Abby online

HelloAbigailStewart.com
Twitter @abby_writes
Instagram @abby_cake
Whiskey Tit
The Drowned Woman
Foundations

Show Notes

AWP
Sunset Magazine
Piper Cub Forum: Leah Jones
Leah Jones (piper cub)
The Folded Clock
Daybook: The Journal of an Artist
Anne Truitt
Self Portrait by Celia Paul
No 91/92
Jenny Lawson
Diary of a Provincial lady
The Forbidden Notebook
My Faraway One (selected letters from Georgia O'Keefe)
What are hatch green chiles?
Queso Blanco with roasted corn
15 Veggies to mix into your queso

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Leah was sick with COVID this week, which meant no energy for new interviews. However, mountains of Candy Chat Chicago epsiodes were in the hopper waiting to be edited and it happens to be Jocelyn's birthday. So happy birthday Jocelyn, here is a crossover episode of Candy Chat Chicago!

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Jesse Dukes, co-host of the podcast Upper Middlebrow, loves the Richard Lester movies from 1973 and 1974: The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. We also talk about the Neal Stephenson deep dive on Upper Middlebrow.

Follow Jesse online

@CuriousDukes

UpperMiddlebrow.com

Show Notes

Blank Check Podcast
Strange Days
The Hunt for Red October
M3gan
Klara and the Sun
Her
Curious City
Three Musketeers
The Four Musketeers
Sword Stuff with Sean Ellis
Pirates of the Caribbean

After 3 years of successful pandemic mitigation, COVID has come home to roost. This episode is brought to you by Paxlovid, Advil and five pounds of cough drops

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Cameron MacKenzie returns to talk about places that feel like home that aren't home and we try to find the thread that connects Kamakura in Japan, The Nation in Washington DC, The Presidio and Washington Square Park in San Francisco, and Fergies Bar in Philadelphia.

CameronMacKenzie.org
Facebook
River Weather stories

Show Notes

The Nation in DC
Reddit thread - do you remember Nation Night Club?
That 90s Show - Rave
Trainspotting Soundtracks
Trainspotting on Blank Check with Griffin and David
Kamakura, Japan
Guide to Kamakura
Storytelling Traditions in Japan
How to deal with Culture Shock
Fergie's in Philly
Fergie's events
Live in the Presidio
Washington Square
Tony Niks
Durango Diner
Why Smells Trigger Such Vivid Memories

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Marty Beckerman, an LA-based author, comedian and new dad, is on the podcast this week to celebrate the launch of his new book The Time Meowchine: A Talking Cat’s Y2K Quest to Save the World and talk about the 90s. The 1990s, that is. We talk about how he started going to the gym as a joke and accidentally got swole, legally being able to tell dad jokes, and the 1990s.

Keep up with Marty online and buy his books!

MartyBeckerman.com

MartyBeckerman.com/#books

The Time Meowchine: A Talking Cat’s Y2K Quest to Save the World

Show Links

What is a borg?
High and Mighty: Being Fat with Mike Mitchell
90s Con
9/11
Alternative Histories
Iraq War
Weapons of mass destruction
Man in the High Castle
Gore vs Bush debate, 2000

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Lyndsey Little, creator of OniGirl comic, joined Leah to talk about her love of monsters, the monster boarding school where her comic is set, and the best foods for nostalgia day!

Support Lyndsey's kickstarter to bring glorious color to OniGirl

Follow Lyndsey on Instagram and Tik Tok

Show Notes

Stories to Dismember podcast
Most Oreo Oreo
Godzilla Movie Monster Evolution
Biblically Accurate Angels
Rivkah Reyes on Friday Night Movie Podcast
Beauty and the Beast
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Frankenstein
The Blackcoat's Daughter

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Shai Korman, co-host of the Friday Night Movie Podcast, is back and we are talking about music movie moments. Opening and closing credits, soundtracks, movies about bands and more.

https://www.frinightmovie.com/

Signal Awards for Excellence
What Does It Eat
Bandcamp Fridays for 2023
The Wrong Cat Died
https://www.monkees.com/
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-rem-song-inspired-by-the-monkees/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commitments_(film)
That Thing You Do
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098635/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8580274/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14402316/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8178634/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mrr3UNALww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1p2_sSRRUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cyzCReoNgU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wMesI8aiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqJ3iGBdOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uHTZhTuVh4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEbrKPBoyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Xi3ioasik
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120836/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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Author Chelsea Stickle picked up embroidery as a hobby to channel her rage and has been poking fabric with sharp needles ever since. You can order her newest chapbook Everything's Changing from Thirty West Publishing House - it is a collection of surreal micro-fiction and flash fiction rooted in the chaos of the last few years.

Follow Chelsea online

ChelseaStickle.com
Twitter @Chelsea_Stickle
Everything's Changing
AITA for falling apart at a dinner party
Show notes
Sashiko
Etsy @GrandmaBeWildin
Crochet a tiny fox
Cross stitch fabric
Morton Salt Spill in Chicago (2014)
Blackwork Embroidery
ADHD symptoms in women
Bias about ADHD leaves many women with a late diagnosis

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Michael Shelly, a music maker and WFMU DJ, joined Leah to talk about a few of his favorite things including the music of NRQB (New Rhythm and Blues Quartet), the classic comic strip Nancy, and eating good food on the road. We also chat about WFMU and how Michael met They Might Be Giants, which lead him to one show at Millikin in the 90s.

Keep up with Michael

Twitter @wfmumichael
WFMU Archives
WFMU
Juniper - She Steals Candy

Show Notes

Chirp Radio Chicago
NRBQ
NRBQ Wikipedia
Nick Lowe
Nancy
Ernie Bushmiller
Twitter accout of classic Nancy
RoadFood.com
Roadfood the book
Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago
Galatoires in NOLA
Zahav in Philly
Gallaghers New York Steak House
The Flat Five (Chicago musicians)

Roadfood, 10th Edition: An Eater's Guide to More Than 1,000 of the Best Local Hot Spots and Hidden Gems Across America (Roadfood: The Coast-To-Coast Guide to the Best Barbecue Join)

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Author, podcaster and journalist Dan Kois joined Leah to kick-off the new year to explore the classic children's book Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton. Dan's first novel Vintage Contemporaries is available on January 17, 2023 and can be pre-ordered now from Bookshop.org.

Follow Dan on Twitter and check his website for updates about the launch events for Vintage Contemporaries.

Parents, you need Narcan

Show Notes

SandraBoynton.com
Sandra Boynton's official YouTube
Mars Cheese Castle
BikeAid
Tina Brown
Chucks from Northshore Care
Aden and Anais muslin swaddles
Llama Llama Red Pajama by ANNA DEWDNEY

Bonus Best of 2022

Patty Morrissey
Day Breaker
The Lost Connections

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Friends and guests of Finding Favorites are back to tell us about their favorite things from 2022. This is a clip show with SO many great recomendations, most of which are in the show notes below. This includes clips from How Did This Get Made (Leah asking a question at the Stone Cold live show in LA) and Doughboys (Burger King 6 with Jon Gabrus and Adam Pally)

Leah Intro 1 - best movies of 2022

Steroid Saturdays
Everything, Everywhere, All at once
RRR
4DX theaters

Liz Nord

Pennyworth on HBO Max

Steve Higgins

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Strange Loop (Broadway)
Eight Billion Genies (Comic book)

Mark Smithivas

Only Murders in the Building, Hulu
Wakanda Forever

Leah intro 2: The return of Live Shows with Friends

Boston for a cancelled Doughboys show
How Did This Get Made in LA with Esther and Susan
Return to Boston for Doughboys and introducing Ronnie to the Doughboys in Milwaukee
How Did This Get Made in Chicago with Jocelyn over halloween
LetterKenny live with Amy Guth and Kevin Alves
Hadestown with Rob
Going to Weird Al with Shai Korman’s family in DC

Esther Kustanowitz, The Bagel Report

The Ringer-Verse Podcast

Shai Korman, The Friday Night Movie Podcast

Weird Al at the Kennedy Center

Pam Rose

Stranger Things, Hulu
Severance, Apple TV
Tehran, Apple TV
Pachinko, Apple TV
Kelsea Ballerini
Tate McRae
Mimi Webb
Taylor Swift
Love after Lockup, TV

Rob Schulte

Dark Web Comic Books
His dog Elvis
Bug Con (Bugmane event)
Doin’ it with Mike Sacks (Podcast)

How Did This Get Made clip: Leah is the person in the audience. Episode is Stone Cold, recorded live at Largo

Leah Intro 3: Cancer Stuff

Finishing chemo, radiation and immunotherapy
Celebrated with my trip to Boston after chemo and a trip to LA after Radiation
Got a sparkly caftan for my radiation gong
Three trips to the Mayo clinic
Returning to Israel
COVID Bivalent Booster, Flu Shot and the Pneumonia vaccine

Cameron MacKenzie

Premier League Football

Jason Mathes

Inside Job on Netflix
Gravity Falls on Disney

Carolyn

Uno
Go Fish
Taco Cat Go Cheese Pizza
Scrabble Slam
SET
Sleeping Queens
SkipBo
Monopoly Deal
Yahtzee
Yam Slam
Trouble
Phase 10

Monica Reida

Pentament (Xbox, PC video game)
Crimes of the Future (movie)

Leah Intro 4

101 Places to Party Before You Die
Jackass Forever
Mike Nichols, A Life by Mark Harris
Art by Phineas Jones aka Octophant

Lyndsey Little

Doughscord
Stories to Dismember Podcast
Love on Netflix
Doughboys Podcast

Doughboys clip from Burger King 6 with guests Adam Pally and Jon Gabrus. Leah created the drop that Mitch plays towards the end of the clip.

Robert Persinger

Boston
Milwaukee
Great people

Keidra Cheney

Southside on HBO Max
Bunny instagram
Red Door Shelter

Jocelyn Geboy

Candy Chat Chicago
101 Places to Party Before You Die
Avett Brothers
The Diffs
Firepits
How Did This Get Made
Jo

Wash your hands, wear your mask, get your booster and keep enjoying your favorite things.

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New York-based filmmaker Liz Nord joined Leah to run down a list of documentaries for watching during winter break. Liz also talked to Leah about how she became a documentary filmmaker and obsessed with the art form.

Follow Liz online to find out when her documentary is streaming.

https://www.liznord.com/
Instagram @LizFilm

Show Notes

Music Box Theatre Chicago
Trembling Before G-d
Supersize Me
Street Level TV
Closed Captions at Sundance Now
Short of the Week
Omeleto
Op Docs
Albert and David Maysles
The Truffle Hunters
The Eagle Huntress
No Film School interview about The Eagle Huntress
The Mole Agent
Bad Axe (shortlisted for Oscars)
https://www.almaharel.com/film/bombaybeach
I Am Not Your Negro
Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Summer of Soul

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah.

Wash your hands, wear your mask, get your booster and keep enjoying your favorite thing.

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Terry Gant, Chicago-based comic bookstore owner, joined Leah to talk about hospital husbands, Twitter and Prog Rock. He prescribes the musical journey for someone new to Prog Rock and ready to get a feel for symphonic Swedish death metal.

See Terry speaking at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Monday, December 19th, 2022, at the event Spiritual Awakenings.

Shop at Third Coast Comics online or in person.

Show Notes

Dream Theater
King's X
Galactic Cowboys
The Pineapple Thief
Nightwish
Riverside
Dark Tranquillity
Kamelot

Send in your best of 2022 voice memos to leahj77[@]gmail.com by December 30 to be included in the New Year's episode about the best of 2022!

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Jen Michalski returns with a new short fiction collection (available for pre-order now) and how she found Outsiders by S.E. Hinton for the first time. We talk about S.E. Hinton's YA ouvre, the movies she inspired and the Outsider House Museum in Oklahoma.

Keep up with Jen Michalski online

http://jenmichalski.com/
https://twitter.com/MichalskiJen
https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/jmwwjournal
Pre-order The Company of Strangers

Show Notes

Whoopi Goldberg Original Broadway Show Recording
Jackie and Laurie Show
The We Came to the End
Why middle grades still love The Outsiders
Rob Lowe on Armchair Expert (lots of Outsider talk)
Bright Lights, Big City
SEHinton.com/books
S.E. Hinton and the YA Debate (The New Yorker)
The Enduring Spell of ‘The Outsiders’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Why The Outsiders still matters 50 years later (Rolling Stone)
Alternate titles proposed for S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders. (slate.com)
Exclusive interview with S.E. Hinton - The Outsiders Fan Club (weebly.com)
The Outsider House
Wall of Voodoo
Betta Fish
Honoring teens sexual reality - Judy Blume
Debs Foundation
Poe House in Baltimore
https://www.hemingwayhome.com/our-cats
https://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/
Our Cancers Dan O'brien
Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris

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Kevin Alves, a Chicago-based podcaster, performer and producer, joined Leah to talk about the Canadian shows Letterkenny with Shoresy before a deep dive into pirates.

Kevin also turns the table and gets Leah to tell the whole story of how Jason Mantzoukas recommended Finding Favorites to everyone at the Chicago Theater on erev Halloween.

Follow Kevin and Big Talk Podcasts online.

BigTalkChicago.com
Instagram Big Talk Podcasts

Show Notes

Squirmles
Letterkenny
Shoresy
Scooby-Doo! really did have a thing for pirates
Goonies
PirateSurgeon.com/
Pirate movie locations
Doughboys: Pirates Dinner Adventure
Treasure Island Pirate Battles in Vegas
Sterling Festival
The Pirates book series!
History of punch
Pirate health insurance

The Treachery of Leeks tote bag is now available, if you like niche fandom tote bags.

The West Wing Weekly Podcast
Fronds with Benefits: Jason Mantzoukas on Home Cooking
HDTGM
All of Hrishi Hirway's links

View Details

Two guests for one topic - Monica Reida returns and John Morrison joins for the first time to talk with Leah about their shared love of Twitter. We talk about weird Twitter, Colonel Tribune Tweet-ups, Black Lives Matter, romance and so much more. As of today, Twitter still exists.

Part 1: Monica Reida

Elf Yourself
David Carr
Magic the Gathering
Gapersblock
Jewish Jerk of the Wrestling World
Television Without Pity
Abbott Elementary
Severance
Arcane
Twitter @monica_reida
Pillowfort
Mastodon @SentientCabbage@eldritch.cafe

Part 2: John Morrison (aka Local Celebrity)

Twitter is Ruling SXSW
Flickr Chicago Tweetups
ChicagoNow is Chicago history
Matt Ryd
Jess Godwin
Lindsay Ellis
Best Day on the Internet
Spiderman Turn Off the Dark
Twitter @spideyonbway
Subism.com/links

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Jasmine Davila is back and she's ready to talk about things to do inside during winter in Chicago. We talk about special movie events at the Music Box, jousting in the suburbs and vaginal steams at Korean spas.

Follow Jasmine online

https://twitter.com/jasmined
https://www.instagram.com/jasmined/

Show Notes

Music Box Theatre
the Logan Theatre
Medieval Times
Medieval Times union efforts
Namit Cafe
King Spa
Aire
Interview with director of RRR
RRR

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Long Island-based author and humorist Matthew David Brozik is on Finding Favorites to talk about his favorite things - potato chips, sleeping and super heroes. More specifically, the last ten minutes of the 1992 movie Glengarry, Glen Ross. We also talk about REM, XTC and TMBG... and TLC.

Matthew's new book Odder Space is available on Amazon in print and digital (though he'd really rather you choose the print copy). Odder Space is a humorous upper middle grade sci-fi novel with awe-inspiring spaceships, belligerent aliens, phlazer battles, pseudoscientific gobbledygook, and an artificial intelligence with a serious morale problem... but also spunk, heart, and some important life lessons. Mostly it’s just a lot of fun.

Keep up with Matthew at IMDB.name

Show Links

Introduction to Finding Favorites for fans of Jason Mantzoukas
@HrishiHirway
HDTGM Podcast
Helix Mattress
Thuma bed frame
Comphy Sheets
Big Fig Mattress
Middle Grade vs Young Adult
18 Wheels on a Big Rig
18 Wheels in Roman Numerals
Glengarry, Glen Ross
David Mamet
The Usual Suspects
XTC
TLC
R U Talking REM to Me (podcast)

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Chicago-based author Eden Robins is celebrating the launch of her debut novel this week and came on Finding Favorites to discuss her favorite book - The Neverending Story. When Franny Stands Up will be available on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 and is available for pre-order.

Follow Eden Robins online @edenrobins on Twitter and MonkeyThumbs.com

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

53:00 We enter Spoiler Country

59:15 Exit Spoiler Country

Early 2 Bed
Tuesday Funk
Anne K Yoder
Robbie Q Telfer
Hardback Folio edition of The Neverending Story?
All editions of The Neverending Story on Amazon
Neverending Story IMDB
Save Bell Bowl Prarie
Good Night, Oscar
Why birds do what they do

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Chicago-based poet Benjamin Niespodziany, aka Neon Pajamas, joined Leah to talk about Surreal art including TV, movies, books and paintings. On the fly he designed a four-week community class on surreal appreciation that I think we would all enjoy taking. (Please run it on Zoom, Benjamin!)

His debut collection NO FARTHER THAN THE END OF THE STREET is available through Okay Donkey and already showing up in mailboxes around the country.

Follow Benjamin online everywhere as Neon Pajamas.

NeonPajamas.com
Twitter @neonpajamas

Show Notes

Surreal films: Borgman, Holy Motors, The Truman Show
Surreal TV: Atlanta, Maniac, Perpetual Grace LTD
Surreal books: Zachary Schomburg, GennaRose Nethercott, CAConrad
Surreal artists: Leonora Carrington, Wenyi Geng, Rhea, Raysa Fontana
Smino
Farther vs Further
Affect vs Effect
Fewer vs Less
The Truman Show
James and the Giant Peach
Edward Scissorhands
Jasper Fforde
EDtv
The_Real_World_(TV_series)
Big_Brother_(franchise)
Survivor (franchise)
The_Truman_Show
WandaVision
House_of_Leaves
Lobster
The Patriot
The Act of Killing

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While host Leah Jones was visiting Israel, she met with long-time Facebook friend Plia Kettner to talk about Plia's lobbying to open the skies of Israel during Corona, her love of Kfar Saba, and her love of cats.

Plia collaborated with other citizens with partners or family abroad who were stuck abroad during Corona and is now part of an international team who shares information on how to organize around the theme "Love is not Tourism."

Plia Chetner on Facebook
Burial Alternatives in Kfar Saba
Qalqilya
Kfar Saba
Supreme Court case
We Want to Meet Each Other
Love Is Not Tourism
Feral cats in Israel
Lion in the Living Room
Kfar Saba and Ranana love animals

The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World

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Jerusalem-based tour guide Joel Haber joined Leah to talk about Shabbat Stews ahead of the release of his ebook Chulent & Hamin: The Ultimate Jewish Comfort Food. There is so much more to Chulent than beans and meat!

Follow Joel on Instagram and his blog Taste of Jew.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show links

The Red Lady
Free Shabbat Stew Cookbook by Joel Haber
Machne Yehuda market
Gil Marks obituary
Ishtabach in Jerusalem
Shamburak
Birateinu
Beermiscuous in Chicago
Cardoon
Come for Cholent
Come for Cholent Again

View Details

Leah is going on hiatus until October, until then please enjoy the archives of Finding Favorites and pitch yourself as an interview when she returns this fall.

View Details

Veronica Arreola is back to talk about the 50th anniversary of Title IX and how 37 words changed modern life for girls in the USA. We also talk about pay equity, Brittney Griner and the Chicago Sky.

Follow Veronica on Twitter and Instagram and all around the internet.

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Show Notes
Chairman’s Championship WNBA
Brittney Griner
Pay equity in US professional soccer
Quarterback Princess starring Holly Hunter
Three Prong Test of Title IX
Yellowjackets
@shereebekker twitter thread that Leah misquotes
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/sports/title-ix-anniversary-womens-sports.html
Candace Parker panel about Title IX

View Details

Bill Tilley, co-host of Bill and Robs: An Excellent Adventure and social media lead for Greatest Generation, joined Leah to talk about the interesting buildings he's lived and worked in, before diving into his search for his next favorite thing.

Find Bill online

Bill and Robs Podcast
Greatest Generation
@BillTilley1973 on Twitter
Bill Tilley Cards

Show Links

Stadium Residence Hall at The Ohio State
Stephen J Cannell
Robert B Parker
Hollywood Babbleon
Star Trek Las Vegas
Friends of DeSoto
Trancers
Adam West: Lookwell Pilot

View Details

Matt Zoller Seitz, an author, filmmaker and TV critic, loves the acclaimed David Milch HBO drama - Deadwood. Together with 130 contributers, Matt recently published The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, which includes critical essays on every episode, original illustrations, a complete account of David Milch's life and so much more. He also shares some of the backstory of how Shopify stole the thunder and celebration of pub week by trapping his team in a Kafkaesque puzzle.

Follow Matt on Twitter and buy The Deadwood Bible on MZS.press

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Leah's Caringbridge has full updates.

Show Notes

Reviews about Shopify (look at the 1 star reviews)
ACLU: asset forfeiture abuse
Ecwid
Without a Net
Dayton Callie
Hooplehead
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
My Darling Clementine
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Lynching of George Ward
Hill Street Blues
Regina Corrado
Nichole Beattie
Shotgun Stories
Neal Stephenson
Kubrick on Disney

Draft Transcript Follows

----more----

Deadwood 0:00 I am a sinner who does not expect forgiveness. But I am not a government official.

Announcer 0:05 Welcome to the Findings Favorites Podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:08 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. It is the earliest hours of Sunday, July 17. I finished today's interview around 7pm and heated up my fried rice from last night and got right back to watching Deadwood. This week, I am talking with author, journalist, filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz about his book, The Deadwood Bible. I got in touch with Matt, because my friend James Zeigenfus, who you know from the episode about tracking personal data. He is a huge fan of Deadwood and had a copy of The Deadwood Bible and sent me Matt's Twitter handle and nudged me in his direction.

Leah Jones 1:10 And so, and Matt was kind enough to send me a copy of The Deadwood Bible ahead of time, so I would know what I was talking to him about, which is rare for as many authors as I talk to, I don't often get a copy of their book, pre publication, or before the interview. And so I decided I would watch the pilot of Deadwood and read the chapter from the book on the opening pi lot before we talk today. And then we had this amazing conversation that probably... Matt is very easy to talk to, and I would sit around and talk to him about Deadwood a lot more than just the hour and a half or so we talked tonight. After we finished after we hung up, I watched three more episodes of Deadwood. And I got to the fourth episode, which he references and no spoilers. There are spoilers, obviously, in this podcast. The show is almost 20 years old. But he was very kind not to spoil episode four of season one for me.

Leah Jones 2:22 I sat down I watched three episodes back to back, got to Episode Four and have to agree with him that it is the closing scenes the closing minutes of episode for season one of Deadwood are some of the most incredible dramatic filmmaking on TV that I've ever seen. Thank you for not spoiling it for me, Matt, and thanks for giving me something new to watch over the rest of the summer.

Leah Jones 2:50 In my world, if you're new to this podcast, a year ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. June 24 was my anniversary, my Cancer -ersary. And I've been on edge waiting for the first mammogram, the first mammogram, post chemo and everything was yesterday. Well, Friday, and I got the all clear. I go back in six months for my next mammogram and ultrasound. But at this point, I feel like for the first time in a year, I have been told that there's I am free of breast cancer. So I'm very relieved for that. And you know, Matt and I did not talk about it. But I know from reading his bio that his second wife passed away from breast cancer within the last couple years and so it's a it's a hell of a disease. Please get keep getting your mammograms. It was so many got canceled during COVID. If you're frustrated by the backup or the delays, early detection can help save lives. I am grateful to have found the cancer early. It doesn't mean my journey is over. I am still being evaluated for multiple sclerosis. have a bone biopsy this week and I talked to my neurologist and then next week or in a couple of weeks. I'm heading up to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion just because I have so much spicy arthritis going on in my body. I went out and bought a fuck cancer cake at Mariano's and dug a fork into it tonight to celebrate finally hearing the words that at the moment I am cancer free and I'm grateful for that. So for me I think the I don't know if the five year clock started when I had surgery in September or if it starts today but I I think July 15 will be a date that I mark for awhile, in addition to June 24, which is the day I was diagnosed.

Leah Jones 5:10 So, all of that said, this conversation with Matt, I think is a delight he needs a butterfly wing of, of, of a nudge to get going on Deadwood. And so sit back. This is a great conversation. He is truly a fan and an expert and a critic. I think I I am looking forward to watching the full series, three seasons and a movie, which is a little bit more manageable than the 15 seasons of Murdoch Mysteries that I'm also working on. of TV shows I've picked up from this podcast, the Deadwood Bible is available through the MCZ.press website. I will include that link in the show notes. .

Leah Jones 6:05 With that said, wear your mask, wash your hands, get your booster, get your mammogram and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones 6:27 Hello, and welcome to finding favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things without using an algorithm. And I am very excited. Today I am talking with Matt Zoller Seitz. He is a journalist, a filmmaker, and a publisher. A voice into the wind about why not to use Shopify, and the creator and primary author of The Deadwood Bibl: A Lie Agreed Upon. Matt, how are you doing this afternoon?

Matt Zoller Seitz 7:06 I'm doing very well. Thank you for having me on the show.

Leah Jones 7:09 I'm so happy you're here today. We're talking to each other because my friend James, huge fan of Deadwood, huge fan of your writing. And he backed the Kickstarter that helped fund this book. And you had said a couple of weeks ago that you were looking for podcasts to talk on. And he texted me the link and he said, "Please, pretty, please see if you can get him on." Thank you to James Ziegenfus for the introduction. It seems like the launch has not gone as smoothly as planned because of Shopify.

Matt Zoller Seitz 7:51 Oh, That's putting it mildly. Yeah, well, yeah, they're the E commerce platform that the bookstore used to use. And it's kind of a long epic story. But essentially, you know, what they do is, and we've never been a victim of this before is they would contrive these reasons why they were holding your funds and not depositing them in the bank, like when people pay you for books, right. And this happened, they stopped depositing money that was collected immediately after 5500 Deadwood books arrived at the store that we ship out. And it was a real serious problem. Because you know, as any small business owner will tell you, it's like, the money that you need in order to fulfill things is coming, at least, you know, in part from the commerce of what is happening at that moment.

Leah Jones 8:41 Right.

Matt Zoller Seitz 8:41 You know, so we were in a situation where basically, we were paying money for postage to ship things out, but no more additional money was coming in from the store. And we were looking at, like how many weeks to go until we have zero balance and we are dipping into a personal checking account was a nightmare. And Shopify was we they made us feel like characters in a Kafka novel. We didn't know what we'd done wrong, and they wouldn't tell us and they were saying we're doing a we're doing a it was a formal it was something like a routine review of your account or something. It was like okay, but then it went on for a few days. And then they said that there were some concerns about whether or not we were authorized to sell trademarked merchandise, and we don't sell trademark merchandise, right? So books, we sell books and as and as the the example that they gave was a section of books we had on Star Wars, we have all we had all of these, you know, we're rebuilding them at the new store, which is MCZ.press, but we had, you know, a couple of dozen different sections that were very carefully curated, you know, very specific and one of them was Star Wars and you know, we had one on Deadwood, Mad Men, kaiju films, gangster stuff like that, you know Hollywood crime, disability, you name it. I guess there's a problem with the Star Wars section.

Matt Zoller Seitz 10:05 But there's a thing called the First Sale Doctrine which states that any published material, once you bought it from the people who originated it, they don't have any claim on it anymore. You can resell it, you can give it away, you can give it to the library, you can throw it out whatever you want to do, you can make a sculpture. And and so that this trademark thing actually legally did not apply to us. So we were completely mystified. And we had to jump through some paperwork hoops, we had to give them proof that we were authorized to resell things, and I have that certificate from the state of Ohio. And, you know, I won't give you every detail of it, because we'd be here for a week. It was right, crazy. I mean, what they were doing. And, and but the worst part of it was, they wouldn't actually tell us exactly what we could do to make things better. It was like they kept moving the goalposts, like where are you holding our funds? Because one of our financial partners is concerned about trade selling a trademark merchandise, we don't sell trademark merchandise. Okay, Are you authorized to resell things? Yes. Here's the paperwork. You know, our I can't remember what else they said there were like seven or eight different things. And every single one of them was either erroneous or didn't apply to us. And we started doing some research.

Matt Zoller Seitz 11:17 What we discovered was, they're all over the country. There are Shopify merchants who have had this happen to them. I didn't know this, and since I went public with our story, we have been contacted by all of these Shopify merchants who have reached out to us through the store address, some of them talked to me through Twitter, and told their stories of woe. And basically what Shopify was doing is it was a scam. They were they would, once you had a certain amount of money in your account, they would contrive some reason why they were quite concerned that you had violated the terms of service, they wouldn't tell you exactly what part of the terms of service you'd violated, they wouldn't connect you with a department that could tell you and give you more information. So you could correct whatever the problem was. And then they would give you 48 hours to do some ridiculous thing. Like, two or three different occasions, they asked us for records proving that we had purchased certain books. And they didn't say which books we have, we have almost 1000 books, right? We've been in existence for three years. And also many of these books. Some of them we buy from regular publishers, some of them we buy from independent press, and some of them, I get them at thrift shops, I get them at garage sales, people send them to me, you know, some of them are my books. And and it's like hard enough to produce, you know, a week's worth of sales receipts for a lot of merchandise. But three years worth, that was all we could think to do, because they wouldn't tell us if there was a particular book or books that they believed we weren't authorized to sell, which is crazy again, you can, if you're a bookseller, you can sell books, there's no brain and body that you apply to it's like you either you're authorized with a merchant, you're registered with the state and save any pay sales tax, or you aren't, and we're and we're legal. So it was very, very strange. And And honestly, this is the worst part.

Matt Zoller Seitz 13:16 I am as as one of my old journalism professors said, "semi famous". I'm not a big celebrity. I'm not the sort of person who recognized walking down the street. But I'm just enough of a name that when I raised a stink, they backed off. And Shopify is such a big company that there were three different times when I had to raise a stink because one department didn't know that I had, you know, blown up their spot on Twitter. And it had gone viral and embarrassed them and that experts on copyright law and retail, were answering them and saying, You guys, this is ridiculous. They haven't done anything wrong released the fun. So eventually, what we had to do was, you know, they threatened us with the shutdown a third time. Yeah, I know, it was it was, again, this went on for, you know, nearly a month and the third time and it was once again, it was a different department. And they said, If you don't give us a this, that and the other thing in 48 hours, we're shutting you down, and when they shut you down, they can keep the funds. They're not obligated to return the funds. See, that's what I think the scan is, right? That's because they can say, well, they violated the terms of service and the terms of service service say that if you violate the terms of service, we can shut you down, and you don't have any recourse and we get to keep whatever funds when you're an account. We're not obligated to deposit them. That's a pretty neat trick, right? Yeah.

Leah Jones 14:37 That's like when the police do asset.... forfeiture of assets.

Matt Zoller Seitz 14:44 That's exactly what it is. Yeah, we suspect that illegal activity has been going on so we're taking your house or your car, right? That's very much that's very similar to what the logic that they were arguing, and, and again, like I keep bringing up Kafka and I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, but it really I really did feel Have a character in his fiction, because we were being accused of a crime, but they wouldn't tell us what the crime was or who was accusing us of it. Right. And so we left. And eventually what we did was store, the executive director of MCs press, which encompasses the store and the publishing imprint Judith Carter. She basically weaved together it was, you know, she's really brilliant about this kind of stuff. But she just said, Well, according to what I'm reading here, we can just refund all of the money that they've been holding. And that way at least, they can't take it from us. So it's like the equivalent of you have a bag of cash. If you were a cash business, and somebody takes it from you and says, I'm holding this until further notice. Basically, what we did was we set the bag on fire. Yeah, everybody had ordered a book after June after July 15, I'm sorry, June 15. We just refunded their money. And we took a loss on that because Shopify, they get approved, they get every transaction they get, they get a fee, and they get a percentage. And that's not refundable.

Leah Jones 16:02 So they got to coming and going, the fees.

Matt Zoller Seitz 16:04 We got to come in and going, but we thought it was better than we couldn't we couldn't sleep at night, if we knew that Shopify had robbed us in this way. So that was what we did. And then we started the new platform over at a Ecwid, which is linked to a bank, they're linked directly to a bank, they're partners with PNC. And it's much more transparent. It's much more, it's quicker. There's not all these hidden, like transactions and fees and things that decrease your your profitability, and it's just much, much easier to work with. And I wish we'd been on it the whole time, honestly. And still, like, it's heartbreaking, because I'm, you know, I just recently got a letter from somebody who's short or store, they're holding twice as much money as they were holding from us. And there's no end in sight. And they and I said, you know, tell your story online? And I'll amplify it. Yeah, you know, because this has got to stop and like, I'm happy to, you know, be the face of people who are complaining about this company. You know, like, I don't have that much clout, but whatever, I have a happy user, because this is absurd. This is people's livelihoods here, right? Anyway, it's, it's, but it's just, you know, we're not quite out of the woods yet. There's still like it was a major hit, it was a major disruption in the distribution of the book. And it was a major financial hit that we took, we're gonna overcome it, I'm confident. And everybody who pre ordered a book at the old store is going to receive their book, we've we've been, you know, contacting them, letting them know that they're in the system. Some of them have not been easy to reach what we were finding them one by one, and just letting them know, if you bought a book you're getting, it's gonna take a while, because of all the stuff that's been thrown at us, but you're getting your book. So yeah, it shouldn't be this difficult.

Leah Jones 17:50 Do you feel like you've had a moment to celebrate the release of the Deadwood Bible?

Matt Zoller Seitz 17:57 Not really. Um, but I will say that people have been receiving the book we've shipped out, oh, God, I don't know, certainly, of the of the, of the 5000 copies that we had printed. I think we got about 2000 out there by now and vary in various forms, like, pre orders from the old Shopify store, Kickstarter, people and people associated with the making of the book. We interviewed 130 people for this book, who were associated with the show in some way, or with David Milch. And each one of them gets a book, you know, because they gave so generously, time and in some case, they gave up, they gave material, they get manuscripts, they gave research they gave, you know, you know, there are some people who I did like eight hours of interviews with, you know, like Robin Weigert and Kim Dickens and Dayton Callie and Ian McShane, and there's probably another six to 10 people where I did I did eight hours with each of them if I did a minute, Jim Beaver, W Earl Brown. And then there were other people like and the Milch the entire Milch family was just, you know, actively assisting and making this thing possible.

Matt Zoller Seitz 19:07 Rita Milch, David's wife, she wrote a an unpublished memoir about her marriage to David gave me permission to use pieces of that, and I have big fat chunks of that in there, which is, to me, that's one of my favorite parts of the book, because I always compare it to the point the point in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta is narrating and then all of a sudden, Karen takes over. And you get to see a different percent like to see the perspective of this trouble, brilliant, hard charging, he's almost like an HBO hero like an antihero, David. And then suddenly to see him the way that his wife sees him, it's a completely different perspective for

Leah Jones 19:45 sure to see him through like that the eyes of his partner of someone who loved him. I'm sure it's a completely different story.

Matt Zoller Seitz 19:54 And also you know, the another great thing about Rita, is Rita is a documentary filmmaker and read it. Rita tells it like is. When David's final weeks on NYPD Blue. And, you know, he ran that thing, like, you know, whatever the opposite of a well-oiled machine was, that's how David ran that show. Okay. He was notorious for rewriting things at the last minute and throwing the production into an uproar. And, and people just knew that this was the way he worked and, and people loved him, because what he would do is he would watch a scene in rehearsal, and the actors would do something that inspired him. And he would say, give me an hour, and I'm gonna go rewrite this scene, and then he would go rewrite it. But if you do that enough times, the entire episode is behind schedule, and then you get to the end of the season. And it's really a nightmare, because it's like, it's

Leah Jones 20:45 your budget is, yeah, dwindling and patience.

Matt Zoller Seitz 20:49 And people's patience are right, we love you want to murder you, right. And that's what it was like. And Rita did this wonderful documentary called Without a Net. And that was, I said, I can't even believe that you did this. And that it was it was released in the form that it was released in and she said that when she showed it to David, the light of the movie ended in the lights came up and he turned he turned to his wife and said, "that wasn't a movie that was an intervention."

Matt Zoller Seitz 21:22 I tell that story, just by way of saying that, like Rita Milch, Elizabeth and Lydia Milch, his daughters. And many, many of David's friends and colleagues, they all brought that same attitude. So like, this is not like most books about a genius that you've read, who's still alive. People talk shit about David, people talk about David's foibles, they talk about, they talk about how much they love him and how brilliant he is, and what great contributions he made to television, but they also talked about how self destructive he was, and how destructive he was and how irritating he could be. And you know, I have a quote in there from Dayton Callie where Dayton Dayton is like, he's like the fool to David's King Lear. He says things. He's always been the guy who says things to David that if anybody else talked to David the way David Kelly talks to David, their character would be dragged by a horse the next day.

Matt Zoller Seitz 22:12 Dayton it seemed to me special dispensation to talk to Dave and and that was Dayton said, "You know, when I met him, we said, most of these people, David hired them, and that's how they know David, and he said, David and I were junkies." A whole different dynamic and and Dayton said, he described one of my favorite quotes in the book is he said, "David is this is the stupidest intelligent man I ever met." And I sympathize. I get that. I mean, and I mean, that in sense of, I get that a lot myself, like, you know, how can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time? That's been a recurring refrain in my life. And that's probably why I feel such an affinity for David Milch. In his work, yeah. You know, I'm empathetic. And I feel like, you know, He speaks to me in a way that almost no other television writer does.

Leah Jones 23:27 So I have to admit that David Miltch is someone that I know of, because he is... My Hollywood crush is Jason Mantzoukas

Matt Zoller Seitz 23:39 That's a good one to have. He's a charming guy.

Leah Jones 23:42 He's charming, and he loves David Milch. And he loves Deadwood. And he talks about them both regularly on podcasts. And so most of what I know about Deadwood other than the episode I watched last night, I know from his descriptions on podcasts about Deadwood. I just wanted to get that out of the way. So you know, like where I'm coming from.

Matt Zoller Seitz 24:05 It's totally fine. I don't expect you to have read that book. It's 512 pages.

Leah Jones 24:12 Right? But okay, so I want to ask you this question. And then we're gonna do some time travel... Cowboy [Leah's cat walked across keyboard]. You've got to get out of the way!

Matt Zoller Seitz 24:21 I wish people can see this because it's like, you know, this cat is walking back and forth through your through in front of your camera, and it reminds me of like, in Jaws when the shark passes in front of the camera, and that's like, the dark blue of the shark. That's what it's like.

Leah Jones 24:38 In the book page 11.

Matt Zoller Seitz 24:40 Yes.

Leah Jones 24:41 Do not skip this page. Hoopleheads. What is the Hoople head?

Matt Zoller Seitz 24:46 Oh, Hooplehead is what they call the people who came to Deadwood, basically prospectors. Okay, like, oh, like, like, just the, you know, the folks who came there with like, 12 cents in their pocket, hoping the pan for coal can strike it rich. . Yeah, that's that's that's it and it's the probably the lowest level of society that you can be and it's kind of a point of pride to be a Hoople, head and their nerves on the show who they were who Hoopleheads when they came to Deadwood, and then they they made something of themselves, they made their fortune or there was success in some way. But they still think of themselves as Hoopleheads and anybody knew them before they succeeded. They there's, there's still a Hooplehead that that person. Now there's people I went to college with, who were three years behind me, and I thought of them as being really young. And now I'm 54. And they're 50. They're 51 and freshmen. Right, exactly. It's like, it's Freddie little Freddie. That's like little Fred and his daughter just graduated from college. Right.

Leah Jones 25:47 So I was I couldn't figure out was it is was it a name that you have for people that follow your writing? Or was it from the book or like the show? So thank you.

Matt Zoller Seitz 25:58 It's just a Deadwood thing. I mean, and I address people in the updates, updates that I did for Kickstarter. I always began them Dear Hooplehead, right. And, you know, just part of the vernacular of the show.

Leah Jones 26:10 One of my friends was like, I said, Oh, I'm watching the Deadwood season one episode one tonight, and he came back with like, you fucking cocksucker Don't worry, you'll understand it later. And I was like,

Matt Zoller Seitz 26:24 Well, yeah, the profranity on the show Cody Henderson. There's a lot of contributors to the book besides me. And one of them is Cody Henderson, who's a critic for Rogerebert.com. The Boston Globe, Vulture, a lot of other places, and Cody wrote a piece about the language of Deadwood called "Truth and Decency need not be at odds", which is a quote from the newspaper publisher, aw, American character on the show. And it's about the use of profanity and various kinds of slurs on the show and how they're sort of integrated into this richly formal Victorian language and the language of the show has often been described as Shakespearean. I have some actual Shakespearean actors who were in the cast who addressed that and they basically said that's not really accurate. I mean, only in the sense that it doesn't sound the way that our language sounds okay. And and it sort of seems kind of backwards and twisty and turny and everything but it Shakespearean in that way like like the subject and the verb may not be where you would normally expect them to be in working to find them. But other than that, it's kind of this made up vernacular that David Milch and his and his other writers came up with where there were certain characters on the show who curse and some don't. Right and and the people like on the Garrett, who's in New York socialite, she doesn't really she almost never uses profanity in the one time that she does, she's almost charmingly inept at it, is how do you put it "shit or get off the chamber pot?" And she's and she looks rather like saucy like, she can't believe she's using such filthy, right? And then there are other people for whom like every other word is fucking cocksucker and motherfucker. And the and I should say that the profanity is not period accurate.

Matt Zoller Seitz 28:09 And David. David and his writers kind of wavered on a you can tell that they're extremely frustrated with people who would say, Well, is this show historically accurate? And it's like not really. It's accurate in the sense that it's true to the physical conditions of how people lived in a mining camp in the 1870s. But the history is not really accurate. I mean, it's sort of accurate, but they have like Wild Bill Hickok is in town and he becomes friends with Seth Bullock, who was laid off of Deadwood. And in real life, they were never in town at the same time. And the fact that Bullock is believed to have arrived in town somewhere around four days to a week after after Hickok was killed. And instead they have them there at the same time and they develop a friendship and Bullock is very sad when Hickok is killed, and it's wonderful and, you know, so things like that. And like the character on the garret, the character that I just mentioned, she's not based on anybody real but Al Swearengen, the saloon keeper who's played by Ian McShane, is based on a real person and a lot of the other characters on the show are based on real people including calamity chain, okay, and, and some of them are fairly close to the real person like the Al Swearengen character in real life. He was not, in my opinion, as interesting as the one on the show, he was more of a straight up criminal, a gangster businessman criminal, he didn't have poetry in his soul the way that Al has on the show. Sure. And, you know, in the way that like Don Draper is probably 10 times more interesting than real advertising man from that time would have been absolutely poetic license and but then on the other hand, Calamity Jane is by by the agreement of a lot of historians probably closer to the real Calamity Jane than any other fictional version. We've seen that right down to the alcoholism and the and the same sex attraction. You know, sometimes people get a little confused when I say this because I don't mean things literally, I'm kind of going for more of just a point of comparison. But I describe Deadwood as being science fiction. And when I use the word science fiction, I don't mean there's spaceships and lasers, and they're going to other planets and stuff. I just mean it's like, it creates its own world and and the show takes place in this town. They call it a camp. And 99% of the action on the show occurs within the borders of this place. It's like our dirt and welders our town. Right, I call it Sam Peckinpah is our town.

Matt Zoller Seitz 30:44 And, and there are other movies that do this, like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the Robert Altman film, which is a big influence on Deadwood. And John Ford's My Darling Clementine, and Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, they all have a touch of this, those are town westerns. They really commit to the idea that this is like a big outdoor theater space. And the people are like actors on a stage. And sometimes they're inside of a building. And sometimes they're out on the street. And sometimes they're talking and sometimes they're beating each other up or shooting each other. But it's always theater. And it feels a bit like theater. Yeah, and and there's a supernatural or religious or theological undercurrent to the show where it's difficult to describe unless you really immerse yourself in it, but it feels like the town is alive, it feels like the town is alive in the way that like the planet insularis is alive, or the monolith in 2001. Or the force in Star Wars. It's like, here's energy in this town. Sometimes very good things happen. And sometimes very, very bad things very dark, evil things happen. And it seems to be linked to the energies of the of the people in the town, and what they're doing. And it seems like when evil is gaining the upper hand, it's gaining more power and oppressing people more because it's drawing on that energy, and it's monopolizing that energy and something has to happen to break that and return the energy to the side of good and it's not a Manichaean it's not like people are either good or bad. Like everybody on the show is a mix. Right? And some people are purely good. Like I think Doc Cochran, Who's the doctor of the town and played by Brad Dorf. He's a purely good character. I mean, he's, you know, he's an alcoholic and suffering PTSD from the Civil War. But he's an honest, ethical person, and he never refused his medical treatment to anybody for any reason. But other characters are a bit more complex. And sometimes they'll do things that you think are really quite moving and beautiful, and kind of the sort of things you think a person ought to do. And then they'll turn around to do something that's supremely self interested. And it's kind of shocking, how quickly they learn, you know, and there's a plot in the second season where there's a murderer, there's somebody in town who's a murderer, and the people who are running the town know that this person is a murderer, but they don't immediately move to punish him for his crimes because he's connected to a very wealthy person who could describe it. And and boy, does that resonate today. Yeah. You know that story? Yeah. And and that's and also power relationships are something that the show is very much into. And Milch Milt started out. He was a Yale literature professor when he was hired to write a spec script for Hill Street Blues. And the script was brilliant. And it went on to win several Emmys and, and a Humanitas prize, the very first row.

Matt Zoller Seitz 33:51 And it was about a, it was called Trial by Theory. And the plot of it was that the Hillstreet precinct house, a suspect is brought in who raped a nun? And he's black men. And they know he did it. He's guilty of the crime. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that he's guilty. But they can't, they can't. There's something there's some reason why they can't nail him on the crime. Like there's I can't remember exactly what it is. It's a it's a legal technicality. But it's something that you can't, you can't just go around it, you have to obey it. And the solution the police chief comes to at the end as he goes to him and a mob of these, these Catholics, these white ethnic Catholics have surrounded the precinct house because they want to kill this black man is none. And he tells them, he tells the guy, I'm going to let you go and you're free to go and you can leave right now and you can walk out and if he does, he'll be killed. The mob will tear him apart, right? And the guy signs a confession so he forced him to sign the confession he completely violated his oats as a as an officer of the law and the constant tution and it's not the kind of cop show where they presented as like, Good for him. Right? Like the end of it is he goes to confession and the last shot is the police chief going to confession and sitting in the confession booth and the last line in the episode is, Bless me father for I have sinned. Wow. That's the and that's the sort of the mentality that David Meltzer always brought to his writing. Yeah, he was fascinated by you know, he worked on Hill Street Blues, he and his friend Jeffrey Lewis became the executive producers of the show after Steven bochco, the creator left, they ran it for the last two seasons. And, and then he went on to, to co create an executive producer will be the primary writer on NYPD Blue, which is even even bigger success. And he worked on a number of other cop shows in the interim. And he went distinguished David Milch, from almost every other person who ever made a handsome living writing cop shows is David Mills doesn't like cops. He doesn't like cops, he doesn't trust cops. He thinks that people often become cops for bad reasons. And and and he sympathizes with the people that get arrested. His sympathies almost always are with the people who get arrested or who are kind of being forced through the system. And with the people who don't and he always sides with the powerless over the powerful and that's one of the things that I've loved about David as writer and as person, you know, it not only in informs his writing about power relationships in society, not just the police, but you know, in finance and banking, in the law, in government services, real estate, you name it, he's always very, very aware of like power differentials and and how the law what's the phrase, there are certain, you know, there are certain people that the law enjoins but doesn't protect and other people that the law protects, but does not enjoy. You know, and and that's and he believes that this is just a fact of life. And he presents it in a very frank way and a lot of his writing where you come away going, you're really mad, and how unfairly the characters are treated, you know? And Deadwood kind of expanded that vision outward, and it's in the first you what you watch the pilot. Yep. So the river scene is very similar to that history episode that Yeah,

Leah Jones 37:16 yeah. And I was certain that Well, I guess I didn't want to believe that that first that the hanging when he was like, I'll help you fall. Yeah. I wanted to believe somehow that his partner coming through and with the carriage, like it was a fake hanging, and everybody was in on it. And then then the guy was like, after the mob dispersed was going to escape. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, that is not what happened. So I misread that. Because the, it's interesting, the last lynching in my hometown is exactly what you've described on the Hill Street Blues episode. Really? Yeah. Our history teacher in junior high made sure that we understood that lynchings were not so far out of our history. I'm from Indiana, right. And it was some it was a young black man accused of a sexual assault, or maybe just walking down the street with a white woman. arrested, a mob came to the jail, and they did let him out.

Matt Zoller Seitz 38:27 as you know, huge, huge stage for the Klan. I grew up in Georgia.

Leah Jones 38:33 Yeah. Well, we, so he was led out he was lynched. And then he was burned. [Oh, my God.] And our history teacher in junior high told us a story about just he was just trying to make sure we understood that when we talked about the Civil War, we weren't talking ancient history. And then he told us a story of having maybe 10 years prior told the story of that lynching and class. And the next day a kid showed up with the guy's a bone, like a family souvenir from that lynching. Oh my god. Yeah, Indiana and the Klan and lynchings is not ancient history.

Matt Zoller Seitz 39:20 No, certainly not. Certainly not. Um, so that there's a lot of that kind of thing on Deadwood. Yeah. It's almost a treated for dark comedy. Almost sometimes. It's so absurd. Like there's a there's a scene in season two, where this alcoholic white prospector who has found out that the territorial government is has come up with this completely arbitrary reason to invalidate everyone's gold claims. And turn around and you know, sell it to a banking magnate. I mean, a mining magnate, and this guy he drunkenly read is the statement until he finally withheld from others understands it. And he's enraged and he tries to kill the commissioner, the commissioner who insisted that this notice be posted. And when he fails to kill the commissioner because the sheriff intervenes and stops him that and the mob that he's leading, they spot a black man a block and a half away, and they just decide to lynch him instead. Right. And it's like, it's almost like, it's almost like Blazing Saddles. Except it's not funny, right? That's That's how like random and arbitrary the violence is, and, and the violence on Deadwood is really, really harsh. And with almost really, there's only one exception in the entire run of the show. It's like when violence is inflicted, usually people don't see it coming, or they are powerless to halt the violence. If they do see it coming. And, and it's completely one sided. It's like people have guns and other people don't, or somebody has a, somebody has a club and the other person's on armed, somebody gets hit from behind. A guy starts beating up someone else for almost no reason at all. And the other person has maybe never been in a fight in their life. And they can't even defend themselves. It's very realistic, like the way that they portray it. And they often and again, that power differential comes into play. There's a scene in the third season where the sheriff goes to confront George Hurst who is you know, the guy who's trying to buy up all the gold claims and Deadwood. And this is a very, very bad person. And he wants to basically put, as he says, Put him on notice and say, You're, you're breaking laws, you're killing people who want to eat workers who want to unionize, you're terrorizing the population, and it has to stop. I'm gonna put you in jail. And this guy makes some insinuating remarks about him and the widow Garrett, who I've mentioned. And he is this guy has a lethal temper. The sheriff does Bullock. But he can't strike George Hearst because George Hearst is not only the richest man in town, but one of the richest men in the United States. So he, he fumes and seeds and bears his teeth. And then he goes downstairs and pulls the hotel clerk out from behind his desk and beats him up. Yeah, guy hasn't done anything to him. And he actually says to him as he's being beaten. He says, What have I done to give offense? Yeah. And the answer is nothing. It's just he has no, he's somebody who can be beaten. And there's no fear that, you know, what are they going to do? Call the cops? It's the sheriff who's getting the shot. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Leah Jones 42:33 Matt, I want to do a little time traveling with you. Yeah. You say in the introduction, and now this is because my friend James told me to read he like was like, there's not a spoiler you can read this part. Because your notes no spoilers ahead. Warning is so severe. But you said that it was your first wife who turned you on to Deadwood? Yes. That she would she was watching season one late at night while she was feeding your your first son. Your oldest child?

Matt Zoller Seitz 43:04 Yeah, my Yeah, I use my it's a long story. Let's say one of my sons.

Leah Jones 43:09 Okay. Yeah. And so how did you know did she was she recording it on the VCR and then watching it at night? Like at what point did she during waking hours, say hey, man, you gotta watch a show.

Matt Zoller Seitz 43:26 Well, she can't she I knew she was watching it. And it was a thing where this was the spring of 2004. And I, you know, I was working at the star ledger as a television critic. And I was working as a film critic in New York Press. And I was also in post production on the feature film. And it was in the sound editing and color correction phase. So I was keeping my show watching to a minimum, I was watching the things that I was assigned to watch. And I was not watching things that I wasn't assigned to watch. I wasn't assigned Deadwood. But I knew you know, I love David Milch. And I intended to get around to it eventually. But what happened was, I watched the first couple episodes. And I thought this is this is really interesting. The language is very dense. The plot is very complicated. And I don't have the mental or emotional bandwidth for a show like this right now. Like no disrespect at all, but it was just like, I can't handle this. I'm going to revisit this a few months down the road. And then one morning at breakfast, Jen comes over to me. I'm standing by the coffeemaker and she says I have two very important things to tell you. And I said, What are they? And she said, Deadwood might be the greatest drama in the history of American television. And I said, Okay, all right. And you said your son's first word is going to be cocksucker. And, and I got to tell that to David Milch. And he laughed and then he said, I'm pleased as punch about the first thing and not so much about the second. And for the record, his first word was was was Daddy it wasn't the other one. But yeah, but that was Eugen was a film major with me at SMU, and our relationship revolved around art, movies and music and, and television and literature and poetry and all that stuff. You know, that is kind of not considered very cool in the United States anymore, unfortunately. Uh, but yeah, and I, you know, loved her very much and Mr. Terribly, and she certainly turned me on to a lot of great things. And one of them was dead wood. And I became a great great fan of dead wood and I and and I wrote many articles about it. And I, it just became one of those things that I wouldn't shut up about. There's certain things that people if you know me, you know that what I'm obsessed with. And one of those things is Deadwood, and then always has been ever since it was on the air and I was devastated when it was canceled. And I'm pleased to say that this book I can say with confidence that we finally untangled why Deadwood was canceled. Okay, there have been different versions of what happened that were somewhat at odds with each other over the years, and we did some detective work me and Jeremy Fassler, who was my my co writer on the biography section of the book, Jeremy's a, in addition to being a great organizer of material and a transcriber, and researcher, just an all around like x executor, I would say, he's also a journalist, and he's got a great nose for, you know, putting together the pieces of a story so that you can see the whole thing laid out and, and we figured it out. We can we even have a date. We have the date when that happened, which was May 5 2006. And it was the afternoon it was a Friday. Wow, you know, who was in the room and we know who was on the phone.

Leah Jones 46:43 Amazing. Yeah,

Matt Zoller Seitz 46:44 I mean, then none of that, you know, that doesn't exactly mend anybody's broken heart if they've missed the show, but at least you know now. Yeah.

Leah Jones 46:51 Well, then it did. Come back for the the movie, which I heard about a lot on every pop culture podcast that I listened to.

Matt Zoller Seitz 47:01 Yeah, that was pretty miraculous that they got it done. And there's a chapter in the book about that as well. And of course, that was David Meltzer had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, when he began working on that, and he had to have helped to complete it. His wife, his daughters, Regina Corrado, who started out as a writer on the show, and Nicole Beatty, who also started out as a writer on the show helped nic pizzolatto, who created crew detective came in for a few weeks, but it was really a lot of the heavy lifting was done by Regina, and Nicole. And their names will be familiar to television fans because Regina Corrado was one of the people who ran Sons of Anarchy, okay, for a number of years and and, and that was a show that they used a lot of Deadwood people on that show. Some were regular, some are guest stars. Yeah. And Nicole Beatty, basically, you know, she supervised Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. Wow. So she went on to and it's kind of funny, like, I didn't put all the pieces together. But until we started working on this book, but Deadwood may have died prematurely. But boy did it have an impact, like you look at like you can see echoes of Deadwood and all these other shows. Not just obvious ones like that AMC series Hell on Wheels wanted very badly to be Deadwood. And it was quite an interesting show. Like it wasn't on dead Woods level. I don't believe anything has been but it was it was like a 70s hippie pot Western. And they had music and slow motion and stuff. You know, I thought it was kind of cool. And it was like the kind of Western like Dennis Hopper would have made, you know? Yeah. But also, you know, Sons of Anarchy is they it was described as Hamlet on bikes and like they it's really like basically it's like a bunch of outlaws and instead of riding horses, they're riding motorcycles. Yeah. And the town that they're in charming, you know, it probably has the higher body count and they route in the 80s. And it's kind of like the world beyond that town kind of doesn't really exist. Yeah. So it's got that going for it. And then you know, and then of course justified, you know, which Timothy Olyphant went on to and the main character on that show is basically like Seth Bullock, except he's funny. He has a sense of self awareness. And he's troubled and he's got a short temper, and he's got all these other issues that Bullock had, but, but he's a different character. And he's a bit more like the kind of character that telefon is comfortable playing, you know, and then the they treat Kentucky on that show as kind of like a gigantic Deadwood and they go into the history of the region. And the plotting is very complicated. I mean, to the point where some people abandon the show, because they just, they couldn't keep track of everything that was going on and but one of the things I loved about that show and all these other shows is there's a sense of history like they established like not only who is an important territory at that moment, but who their parents were and you meet the parents and then they talk about their parents and they talk about what was happening in the region like 100 years ago. There's feuds, like on Deadwood, there's family feuds, like like moonshiners shooting each other kind of that had that started in the Civil War and have continued up to the present day. And as you know, I mean, you know, as well as I do, yeah, that's still a

Leah Jones 50:19 thing. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Matt Zoller Seitz 50:22 You know, this part of the country like, you know, that the whole Midwest like people don't, I don't think people understand that the Midwest is just as Mylan as the South. Right? You know, I mean, there's civil war started here. And like, this is like I'm calling I'm talking to you from Cincinnati. You're in Indiana, but it's like, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri. And then you know, Kentucky where I suppose the south begins, you could say in southern Ohio is where it really starts. Yeah. You know, yeah,

Leah Jones 50:49 I mean, it's weird. So I'm in I live in Chicago. Now. That was my break away from Indiana. But I was the sixth generation born in my hometown. And my oldest nephew was a seventh generation. But since then, our generation has all left, Indiana. And so my, my, my nibbling is are all growing up in different places. But yeah, I mean, it was we had a family farm. And when my grandma when it was time to sell the land, my grandpa did genealogy and figured out exactly who got what land and yeah, my the story is my dad has about city council meetings and votes and things going back generations and the graduates people hold against families for generations.

Matt Zoller Seitz 51:37 Yes. It is. It really is. There was a wonderful movie called shotgun stories that came out about, I guess it was about eight years ago, something like that. Oh, my God, it was more than that 15 years ago. But it was wonderful. And it was about basically it was about one of those feuds but it was taking place in the present. And they got people like, you know, a guy coming over and trying to shoot somebody at a gas station because of the of the family they belong to.

Leah Jones 52:08 Yeah, yeah. People assume it doesn't happen. In the Midwest. It just happens nicer, more passive. Like, there's, I don't know, passive aggression is still aggression, you know?

Matt Zoller Seitz 52:21 Well, yeah, it certainly is. We're very tribal. Still, people. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I love Martin Scorsese's film so much, because I think he's, I always say Martin Scorsese is the greatest political filmmaker that this country has ever produced. And they don't think of him as being political, because he doesn't tell stories about Democrats and Republicans, but like, he talks about every one of his movies is to some extent about how society is organized and, and what the rules are, and who decides them and who gets to keep who gets to break them and who, and who has to obey them. Right. And, and, you know, you're either in the tribe or you're out. And a lot of his characters, his main characters are people who've got one foot in and one foot out of the tribe. And if they step too far out of the tribe, eventually the tribe turns on. Mm hmm. And you see that and you know, you see it in everything from his gangster films to like silence, or, you know, his religious pictures like silence, The Last Temptation of Christ condoned. And even something like the aviator, which is about Howard Hughes. And, and Deadwood is very, very aware of that as well. And you see these tribal allegiances, whether it's by like, you know, people, they identify with multiple tribes simultaneously, like all the miners feel like they're part of the tribe. But then within that there's, you know, there's native born people. And then there's these Cornish miners that the first brought over because they work for less. And then there's Chinese, in Deadwood. But then in the second season, they introduced a character who is who comes from San Francisco and is an assimilated urban Chinese man. And he holds the immigrants who still speak with accents and were accused in contempt. It looks down on them. And you know, it's like it's so it's almost like there's this. It's like, there's the Venn diagrams, while most of the tribal affiliations in the end, you get to see the areas of overlap. It's very, very sophisticated in that way, in a way that a lot of TV shows are.

Leah Jones 54:18 Yeah, I thought it was. You know, like, I'm Jewish. And so it was interesting to me, how his partner who is opening the hardware store with is signaling to the very religious man who watches their tent the first night, like, Yes, I'm not here to talk about Jesus. Like that's, that's not how I roll. And the ways that he like very subtly asserts himself as not a Christian but like, not a Jew, you need to worry about,

Matt Zoller Seitz 54:49 right and also, he's trying not to be he doesn't want to alienate him or seem like he's combative, right? But at the same time, it's like this is a guy who is aware that this is a Christian kind Country. And that's the dominant faith and he's made peace with that fact. There's another there's a great moment where that character saw Star after Hickok has killed Seth bill and this is an assault star was born in Austria. He's a Jewish man born in Austria in the 1840s. And, and Seth is depressed and angry and, and beside himself with rage at the at the injustice of Hickok being murdered. That's just being murdered, but being assassinated and by this worthless little lump of a human being, right, a guy who's not to fit to carry his boots, right. And he and they have a trial. And this is all I'm not spoiling anything. This is history. This is actually what happened is is they they let him go. They let him go. And he eventually was tried again. But but in Deadwood, he was not found guilty. He was allowed to leave. And Seth is furious about that. And he says to solstar something to the effect of I can't even believe that they allowed this to happen. It's all very quietly he's not an I told you so but he just says I can. Yeah, it's like, well, yeah, he's a Jewish man born in the 1840s in Austria, that was that is what he would say, yeah. I can.

Leah Jones 56:31 I can't, I can't haven't decided yet if I'm diving into Deadwood or not. Because I was like, Ooh, it's like it is obviously very violent. But it's not gory at the level of rights. I do watch the boys. Yeah. And although season three, I can't like I'm like, Alright, I'm, I think I'm out. It's gotten too gory. To to visually. Yeah, their budget went up. The it was gory and season one. And but they left a little to the imagination. And they're leaving nothing to the imagination now and that's too stressful for me at the moment.

Matt Zoller Seitz 57:13 I also think there's different ways of I think there's different kinds of graphic violence. Like I think that like the kind like I love horror movies, and I have no problem watching a horror movie where like, there's bizarre invasive surgery and somebody gets their head cut off and blood is gushing and gallons on the floor like vampire movies particularly tend to have gallons and gallons of blood and you know, that kind of stuff doesn't bug me but then I was watching this movie one time. I can't remember. Which one? Oh, I think it might have been that movie with John Krasinski directed the one about

Leah Jones 57:52 Silent the

Matt Zoller Seitz 57:55 I can't believe I'm blanking on the title. It's very fun to write. Yes, yes. Well, anyway, to place quiet place. A quiet place. Thank you very much. Yes. So the main, the heroine is walking down the stairs and she steps on a nail. Ah, I know. See, that was, too. And I was I couldn't I the second that I saw her foot go anywhere near the nail. I turned away from the screen. You know, I've watched David Cronenberg movies where people's heads actually explode. And I'm like, Cool. He's stepping on the nail. I can't I can't deal with it.

Leah Jones 58:28 No, because you've done it or you've come close.

Matt Zoller Seitz 58:31 Well, and Yeah, true. But it's also Yes. Realistic. You know, it's funny. My mother one time when I was in high school, I, we you know, back in the days of the video store. Sometimes I would watch, we'd watch movies that she had chosen. And sometimes we watch movies that me and my brother had chosen and one time we rented Commando, which I thought we would all enjoy. And my mom loved action movies, she loved Raiders Lost Ark, he there was a scene and there was somebody who was being tortured, and she stopped watching. And, and I said, What, what's going on? Why can't you Why'd you stop watching the movie? And she said, I don't like torture, I can't watch it. And she said, and I also don't like movies like this, where they're killing 400 people and everybody's going to machine gun and stuff. And I said, but I said, but we but you've watched Apocalypse Now, probably five times. That was one of my mother's favorite movies Apocalypse Now. So that's incredibly violent. I said, That's incredibly violent movie. And she said, I don't think she said I don't think of that movie is violent. And I said, really? And she said no. And I said, What about the godfather? And she said, I don't think of that as being violent. I was like, What about taxi driver? And she's like, not really. And I'm like, I think those movies are very violent. She said, I don't think of those movies as violent. I think of those movies as being real. Hmm, that always stuck with me. And I've always carried that around with me the idea that like there's some kind of graphic violence, it's not real. It's like throwing paint at a wall or something right? And as long as Movie is clear that that's the kind of violence that it is, it doesn't really hurt you. Like, that's why I've been a that's why I'm a huge fan of Hannibal and I don't really like a lot of serial killer movies, but I love them. And the reason I love Hannibal is there's something about the tone of it that says, This is a dream. This is a nightmare. And none of this is real. None of this is supposed to be taken literally. It's no different than going to an art gallery and looking at a painting on a wall. Yeah, it's not gonna hurt you. It's just images. Yeah. And emotionally, it's very involving, like, there's the emotional violence on that show is what affects me that when they find like a room full of human legs, like arranged in a pyramid, like it's the Whitney Biennial or something, right? That doesn't bother me, but like when, but when Hannibal is psychologically manipulating one of the patients in his care, that's upsetting to me, right? He's cooking a dude's liver and I'm fine with it. But if he's like, he's manipulating somebody's mind. I'm like, I can't watch this. thing. It's because that could that's something I can see happening to me. And I guess that's why it's upsetting.

Leah Jones 1:01:04 One of the key things I try to avoid in literature and in movies is like strangulation and suffocating. And the author who wrote Snow Crash, and krypton Nomicon, whose name is out of my brain right now.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:01:28 These things happen.

Leah Jones 1:01:29 He I spent a year where I just did like a deep dive and read just like went through all of his books. And he almost always has someone almost drown. Or there's like a some sort of obstacle course to solve the major problem, but it's you have to swim through a mineshaft and there's these air tunnels, and it's, he always has something where someone is suffocating. And to the point where I think something traumatic happened to him as a kid, and he's just working it out in his stories, because it's like clockwork and every book he writes.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:02:05 Yeah, I can't I can't do the two things that I have a real problem with, or any kind of sexual assault and child abuse. Yep. Even mild time, like, I mean, miles the wrong word. If any kind of abuse is horrible to the person. It's not like it's a contest, but I mean, like, I'm not just talking about like, I'm beating you and locking you in the basement for three weeks, kind of, I just mean like when, like in The Lion King, when scar kills Mufasa and tells Simba that he it's his fault. Uh huh. When it's clearly not, right. This he tells his little boy, you're responsible for your father's death. That really upset me. Like, that's emotional and psychological abuse of the child. Right? Yeah. And he's freighted with guilt all the way into adulthood. stuff. I'm reminded of a Stanley Kubrick did an interview one time, I think it was late 60s, early 70s. No, it was when Clockwork Orange came out. So it would have been the 70s. But he said, The interviewer is asking him about the violence in his movies. And he said, he said, I don't. He said, You know, he said, Isn't a traumatizing for the audience. And he said, Well, you know, I guess it is, but then he said, I'm never gonna get anywhere near Walt Disney. Like, if you want to talk about who traumatized. Walt Disney has traumatized, more more viewers than I could have been traumatized. If I did nothing else for the rest of my life. And he said, and he traumatized kids. Yeah. And he's like, so who which of us is really the person dealing in trauma? Mm hmm. Good question.

Leah Jones 1:03:49 That's true. You know, so many dead parents, and children.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:03:55 Totally. Oh, my daughter was little. I meant she asked me like a wet tell him to she wanted me to tell her about my grandfather. And I said, Oh, he's a wonderful man. And he was a wonderful man. And unfortunately, he's no longer with us. And she said, Oh, did he die? And I said, Yes, he died quite a long time before you were born. And there was a pause. And then she said, I did a bad guy killing. And I said no. And I realized that her steady diet of Disney films had convinced her that that was how parents died that they were killed by bad guys. Yeah. You know, and I had to explain to her, it's like the vast majority of deaths are quite ordinary. Yeah. You know, usually old age or some kind of disease or something. It's not like you're getting murdered on a parapet while a lightning storm is happening. It's pretty rare.

Leah Jones 1:04:44 Yeah. So I wanted to thank you thinking about when you this is again, time traveling back to your first watching of Deadwood. And then we'll, we'll wrap up soon. So you said you were working you're finishing your feature film And Jen told you this is amazing. When did you make time for season one? When did you let it? When did you say like, Okay, I have the emotional capacity to engage with this show. Well, I started

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:05:15 watching it immediately based on what she said, Okay. You know, I thought like, with such an extraordinary recommendation for somebody whose taste I thought was impeccable, I thought it would be foolish of me not to begin watching this immediately. So I watch, I was up to episode two. And then I watched episode three, and then I watch episode four. And at the end of episode four, which I won't, I mean, I won't give it away for anybody who hasn't watched the frame of it. But basically, there's a sequence At the end of episode four. That's one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. And that was the point where I said, I That's it, I'm gonna watch this, this is it, I don't care where it's going, I don't care how long it's on, I'm going to watch every episode of this thing. I just had one of those moments. And I thought I, I thought that it was a show that spoke to me, it just spoke to my, the way I see the world. It's hard to describe unless you've seen it, but it's a very hard show to hard show. People who have been through a lot of difficulty will appreciate how unflinching it is about that stuff. And also the it's not a grim show, despite the violence, the exploitation and all the other stuff. It's very beautiful. And I feel like it looks at people with loving eyes, if that makes sense. Like it's compassion. It even feels compassion sometimes for the evil characters, because it's, it's sort of like the show, you know, so it's one of the things that interests me about it is David Milch is Jewish, but he is really into the New Testament and Jesus and the disciples and, and he came to it through AAA, but also just as a sort of a poet and literary scholar and a philosopher. He kind of is of this mindset where he wants people to live in a quote, unquote, Christian way, but not in the scary, you know, let's buy 500 guns kind of way. A lot of people practice Christianity in this country. It's much more of the granola crunching hippie, you know, the beatific Jesus, who would give you everything he had, rather than see you suffer. Christianity, right?

Leah Jones 1:07:22 Well, I think there's also a Jewish understanding of Christianity. That is, so I converted in my 20s. So I came to Judaism as an adult, and grew up secular Christian. But I think there's a Jewish approach to Christianity, which is like if I, if you say you're a Christian, and I expect you to engage with your text, and engage the world, in in a Christian way, which is the way that I engage the world in a Jewish way. Like, that would be a beautiful way to be in the world. Yep. So I get that. Was he sober when he wrote Deadwood?

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:08:06 Yes, yes. And we get into that in the in the book. In fact, David was primarily at, you know, for most of his adult life, he was addicted to pills. But he also did other things. He did methadone throughout his 20s. And I believe well into his 30s, if it was available, and probably other things if they were available. And he did. He started, he started doing heroin when he was in his teens. And we just did whatever I mean, you name it. He probably did it. Yeah. He also went through a period where he's an alcoholic, and that was what led him to his first into rehab. And he had to go through rehab many times before it took that's a common story. That's yeah. And, and, but he came out of it. It was a 1999 was when he went into rehab, and it finally took and he came out in 2000 was the last year he was on NYPD Blue. And by 2003, he was shooting dead woods. So this was a guy who was about three and a half years sober.

Leah Jones 1:09:08 Interesting. And

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:09:12 it's there's many sections of the book that talk about this, but David was a person who believed in giving people second chances. And his he often would hire people who had drug and alcohol problems, who were just out of rehab needed to go into rehab. And Nicole Beatty actually tells a story about how she was falling off the wagon. She was doing pills again. She'd relapse when she started riding on Deadwood and David. He knew what was going on. He was like you're you're using and she was ashamed of herself and rather than fire her or anything. He just said, Look, I know what you're going through. You can beat this kind of what can I do to help you you know your job is not in any trouble. But let's keep an eye on each other and just know that like, I know what's going on. I know what you're going through. And, and, you know, we're going to be in this together. And he did that for a lot of people, he paid for a lot of people's rehab. We got people into rehab. Ted man who was a writer on the show, who was one of the most important writers on the show was a drug and alcohol addict when we hired him. And he got sober about eight months after David hired. Wow. And there's a lot of people that and often, you know, David would do a thing where if he was looking to fill a position, there were many, many times where if he if he wanted to, you know, hire somebody to be a writer or an actor, or whoever, if he had a choice between, let's say, five people who were of approximately equal talent, he would invariably hire the person whose life was a shambles. Almost every time without fail, he would hire that person. It was like the person who was like, you take one look at him and go, This person is brilliant, but obviously they're a drinker. Yeah, hire them. And he would tell them, Look, I know that you're I can tell that you're having some troubles right now. But you know, I think you're incredible. And I believe in you, and we get you into rehab and can get you you know, Can you can you talk to your sponsor, whatever you would need to say like, I mean, I don't even know what to say about that. Except, like, Isn't that how a person is supposed to behave? Right? In the world? Yeah. Like what you're saying he's not a perfect person by any stretch. He was a he could be egotistical. He could be an asshole. He could make people's lives a living hell but in his heart, he really wanted the best for everybody and he really wanted their lives better and so

Leah Jones 1:11:38 that is, I have long joked so there's a COA, right? adult children of alcoholics is a program I long joke that there needs to be ACO a adult children of alcoholics anonymous. Yeah, um, so knowing that he was probably having like, meetings on set and, and like it, like this little detail makes me so much more interested in watching it. Like, knowing that the it's not someone who is it's not a showrunner and writer who is actively drinking, who's writing these scenes that I didn't feel like it was, it was not glorifying drinking, but it was it, it is now kind of interesting to me to think about watching it. I mean, also, like, probably the whiskey was safer than the water. Like, there's that.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:12:39 And also, you know, there's everybody, there's people who are doing, you know, opium, you know, Alan McGarrett, you know, does love them. And they're and you know, people are, there's a lot of, and David was a gambling addict. And you know, I was, that's one other thing we point out in the book is David did get free of drugs and alcohol, but he never stopped gambling, and it was gambling that eventually destroyed his fortune. So there was never a point in David's adult life when he wasn't an addict of some kind, right? He managed to conquer the ones that were getting in the way of his art. Right. But the other one boy, did it come back around and nail it, you know? So it's, it is tragic in that way, but But you know, you could also see the story is, you know, I, David melts was a gambler. I use that phrase in the book a couple of different times. And what is one thing that every gambler has in common? There's a certain point when you're lochranza, right. David's luck ran out after a certain point, but you got to make Deadwood and Deadwood is a beautiful, beautiful show. And it's filled with broken people who are not defined by their brokenness. Yeah. And they're drug addicts a lot. There's a lot of people who are victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse in childhood and sometimes as adults. I mean, there's I don't believe there's ever been a major dramatic series that has that many characters who have that in common in their biography. Yeah. And it crosses class lines, like the richest woman in town and, and one of the poorest bond over that. Yeah. Right. And, and it's something that's very, very commonplace in Bullock, the sheriff who's, you know, his lethal temper comes from having been savagely beaten by his father when he was a boy. Yeah, and taught like this very constricting, emotionally constipated way of being a man. You know. And, you know, that whole idea that like, anger, women are supposedly so emotional, it's like they've been taught, you know, we've been taught as a society that anger is not an emotion. Right? Right. And it's like men get to be they get to express their anger by destroying things fighting each other, generally being antisocial. And that's just called letting off steam. Right? You know, and the show gets into that and now, but it just wants people to be happy, you know, and it's very sad when they're not and it doesn't judge them when they get in their own way. And which happens a lot on the show. And say something about the way that the show ended feels appropriate to me. You know, Deadwood is filled with lives that are cut, tragically and unexpectedly short. So, you know, it seems fitting that Deadwood would have experienced that sort of ending itself as a show.

Leah Jones 1:15:13 Because when they did what turned out to be the series finale, they didn't know they were canceled, right?

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:15:20 No, no. Well, David subsequently said that he knew but it's impossible given the timeline, there's no way. Yeah. And in fact, the book, he did an officially licensed book with HBO. That came out in November 2006, or, like, almost six months after the show was canceled. And you can tell from reading this book, which is called Stories from the black stories from the Black Hills. It's obvious to anybody who knows how to read a book, that this book was made by people who thought the show was coming back. And the only note that is discordant as at the very end, there's a statement from David about, you know, readers of this book now know that the show's not coming back. However, HBO has told us there's going to be two movies to finish the story, which never happened.

Leah Jones 1:16:06 Right. And,

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:16:09 you know, it got shot out of the saddle, you know, I mean, last to glamorous a death, it's more like it was drunk, and it fell into one of the open holes in the thoroughfare and hit its head died. I mean, that was the kind of death that Deadwood Deadwood It wasn't even a spectacular cancellation. It just sort of was like a bunch of people were at loggerheads and their egos were too big and nobody wanted to back down. And eventually, everyone just decided that there was no way to unring this bell. It was like you didn't even have the satisfaction of like an injustice and an outrage. Yeah. Which is also very real. Yeah, you know, it goes back to like my daughter saying that a bad guy kill your grandpa. It's like, no, that's usually not how it goes. Yeah.

Leah Jones 1:16:59 Yeah. Well, man, this has been I feel like I keep talking to you for hours. But I want to respect your time. And also go and watch the second episode. Cool. Thanks very much. It was great talking to you. It's good to talk to you. Where can people buy the deadwood Bible?

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:17:18 Only one place? And that's the store which is MZ s dot press. Wonderful. Yes.

Leah Jones 1:17:25 Okay, much. And do you want people to follow you online?

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:17:29 Yes, it's mad at Matt Zoller Seitz on Twitter. That's the best best place to find me. And I tweet about you know, more than Deadwood movies and television generally, but also just sort of life, you know, life in the suburbs. And, and what I'm working on and what I'd like to work on and my dogs and things like that, that kind of stuff. So you know, it's a mix, but but that's where you can find me and I'm very proud of the book and I hope people will read it and and I hope people will watch the show. I would love nothing better than for there to be kind of a renaissance with the discovery.

Leah Jones 1:18:03 I mean, it's a stunning book The they're you know, so the back part are you know, people have gotten so accustomed to just recap podcasts and recap not essays and on suede or in on Vanity Fair, right? Like you'll read the next day after a show comes out your read the reviews of it. But these are like critical recaps critical readings of every episode. And done in inverse every, like, it's numbered their number number just like a Bible. Yeah, yeah. Which is such a wonderful detail. You've got things that you've written newly you've you've sounds like people scrape the archives of the Internet to help get some things that you had written. contemporaneously with the show. You have interviews, you have the pieces from the the unpublished memoir, his wife wrote, like, this is an incredible, I think calling it the deadwood Bible. Once you have the book in hand and see how many people how deeply footnoted, how beautiful it is. And just how wonderful it feels like this cover is feels so good in your hands. It's so soft and so nice.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:19:28 That's wonderful to hear.

Leah Jones 1:19:30 So, I am I am sort of offered to give it to my Pilates teachers husband earlier today, but I don't think she'll remember. Because he has a huge fan.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:19:44 Let's hope they don't read. They don't listen to this podcast, right.

Leah Jones 1:19:48 Yeah. So Matt, thank you so much for spending time with me today. And have a wonderful Saturday evening.

Matt Zoller Seitz 1:19:55 Thank you so much.

Announcer 1:19:58 Thank you for listening. To finding favorites with Leah Jones please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five star review on iTunes now go out and enjoy your favorite things

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Carolyn, a seminary graduate and chaplain, joined Leah to talk about one of her desert island movies - the 1998 animated, movie-musical from Dreamworks: Prince of Egypt. Starring Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, and Ofra Haza, the film covers the Exodus story by focusing on the brotherly relationship between Moses and Ramses.

We talk about how she first found the movie, the pop songs on the soundtrack, and the ideal food for a double-header movie marathon with Jesus Christ Super Star. Carolyn also answers all of Leah's questions about seminary.

Follow Carolyn on Twitter.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Links
StumbleUpon
Blogography Shampoo
Anastasia
Prince of Egypt
The Ten Commandments
Jesus Christ Superstar
Val Kilmer Documentary
Deliver Us
When You Believe, multi-language

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Jessica, our intrepid traveling friend, is back with more stories from the road. Since we last talked to Jessica about her 18-month global trip, she has gone on a road trip to Charleston, Savannah and Ashville, then went on a trip abroad to Jordan, Scotland and ended in Londong for the Queen's Jubilee.

We talk about lessons from group tours, exactly what canyoning is and navigating "work from anywhere" without an oven.

Follow Jess on Instagram to keep up with her summer trip to the Rocky Mountains.

Show Links

Hiking tours in Jordan
Canyoning in Jordan
Heat Stroke treatment
Platinum Jubilee
Highlands
Great British Bake-Off
God Save the Queen
Outlander

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Anna Tarkov, podcaster and activist, joined Leah to talk answer the question - why did everyone get into F1 Racing all of the sudden? We go deep on Anna's personal history with sports as an immigrant, Drive to Survive documentaries, and finally spending weekends watching the 20 drivers of F1 racing.

Follow and Listen to Anna on Racing Incident Podcast and on Twitter

Show Links

Rise and Fall of Windy Citizen
Drive to Survive on Netflix
Formula One Driving Experience
Formula1.com
Indy Car
Bernie Ecclestone
2022 Rules
Reddit - what is a spec series
$100M Fine
Lewis Hamilton
The Hamilton Commission
Race: Bubba Wallace

More links and notes coming soon!

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Writer and comedian Tim Barnes loves behind the scenes documentaries and featurettes that flourished during Peak DVD. We talk about Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Episode 1, and wonder where the good footage has gone.

We also talked about Tim's newest project: Maurice on Mars - an animated short that is being released weekly by Comedy Central on YouTube. Maurice on Mars follows the struggles of Maurice Robinson, a 20-something artist who snuck onto a utopian Martian colony only to realize it’s repeating the same old Earth problems.

Follow Tim on Twitter, Instagram and on his website.

Show links

Regis Philban and Mike Schur
Maurice on Mars
The Martian Chronicles
The Other Foot
Uche Oma
Dwayne Kennedy
The Beginning
Newcomers Podcast
Ahmed Best
From Puppets to Pixels
Blank Check: Spiderman 2 with Chris Gethard
Wonder Showzen
Dick Gregory

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No guest this week, just the story of how Spidey was the best cat for host Leah Jones for the last 20.5 years. Let's round up to 21 years, shall we?

We'll be back next week with a full episode.

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Rob Schulte, a senior podcast producer, loves the art and comedy of making recap podcasts. We talk about his journey from Star Trek and war movie recaps on Max Fun to his current work on Parks & Recollection with Rob Lowe and Alan Yang. Rob shares his dream podcast co-host (calling David Hasselhoff, calling David Hasselhoff), what it's like to ask Ron Howard to fix his microphone, and we share our journeys to the Doughboys fandom.

Keep up with Rob on Twitch, Twitter and Instagram

Find more at RobKSchulte.com

Rob's current podcasts and projects

Parks & Recollection and Literally with Rob Lowe
Vanderpump Robs
Passing on the Right audiobook

Other podcasts we talked about

The Greatest Discovery
Friendly Fire
West Wing Weekly
Gilmore Guys
The TV Show Show
Vanderpump Robs
Dead Eyes
Bill and Robs: an excellent adventure (coming soon)
XOXO, Gossip Kings
Doughboys
Your Kickstarter Sucks
How Did This Get Made

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

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Humorist Mike Sacks loves the movie Over the Edge and had the unique privilege of writing an oral history that led to a DVD re-release with commentary tracks. We discussed the 1979 movie that featured first-time actor Matt Dillon, the DC culture that created Kavanaugh and teen culture in the 70s and 80s.

Follow Mike Sacks on Twitter, his website or just send him an email. (No, really)
Welcome to Woodmont College
Passing on the Right audiobook
Passing on the Right print
I am Super Pumped!!! Let's Do This Shit e-book

Show Links

Over the Edge IMDB
Over the Edge Oral History, Vice
Over the Edge DVD DVD
All Summer in a Day movie
Heavy Metal Parking Lot Heavy Metal Parking Lot
A description of Cruising the 'Bash and being goth in Terre Haute
Cruising Rockville Pike
Breaking Away
Steve Martin and Terre Haute

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Author Christine Marie Eberle joined Leah to discuss her new book Finding God Abiding and how she has built her personal practice of prayer. We dive into the Ignatian traditions, volunteer fire departments, and the Leah shares some ideas from Jewish prayer.

Follow Christine online and pre-order a signed book from her neighborhood bookstore.

https://christine-marie-eberle.com/
Goodreads
Instagram
Facebook

Show Notes

The Jewish prayer that never lets me down
Three ways to pray Ignatian
Ignatian Year
Cause of SIDS discovered

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Playwright and journalist Victor Wishna loves a lot of things, but agreed to sit down and talk about "Weird Al" Yankovic this week. We also talk about how Leah's Facebook post about getting a Torah from Iowa to Paraguay inspired him to write a two act play - Tree of Life - which is now competing in the Jewish Plays Project.

Follow Victor Wishna on twitter and vote for Tree of Life.

Show Links

Missouri and Kansas history
Torah scroll makes its way from Iowa to Paraguay
Tree of Life play
Weird Al.com
Weird Al setlist from 1996 at the Filmore Theater
Weird Al in Glen Ellyn
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
Has Weird Al been to Israel?
Weird Al and Lin Manuel
Behind the Music - Weird Al
The Compleat Al

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James Ziegenfus loves riding his bike, baseball, music, travel and ice cream and he's kept a meticulous spreadsheet of data on many of his favorites things. On this episode, Leah and James dive into the decades of data that James has kept about baseball games, live concerts, plane travel and his physical music collection. He shares tips on how to keep quantitative data, using apps to supplement his notes and his new notebook on international ice cream recommendations.

You can follow James on Twitter and Instagram

Bands we talked about

Wren
I Fight Dragon
Wilco
The Fold
Beach House
My Morning Jacket
Orville Peck
The National

Links

Primavera Sound festival
Menards Candy Aisle
Everything Steven Soderbergh watched and read in 2021
Setlist.fm
FlightRadar24
SeatGuru
Six Flags over Texas
Tableau

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Author, attorney and costume designer - Angelique Pesce love of reading is at the center of everything we talk about on this episode. Her first novel, American Pastime, is available for pre-order and ships on June 7, 2022.

Follow Angelique on Twitter, Facebook, and IMDB

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Cost of standing vs sitting in Rome
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Perfume Story by Patrick Suskind
Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann
Edward Scissorhands
Finnegans Wake (the book with creative language)

About American Pastime

Adam is a writer having a conversation with God at a baseball stadium in the Bronx. God chooses Adam because his stream of consciousness since childhood has been heavy on commentary about American life connected to love. God narrates on Adam’s baseball field of life.

Rounding first, second, third, and then heading for home, we watch Adam’s life: past, present, and future unfold. God is always in on things as he sees and hears everything, but now they sit side-by-side at a baseball game ear-to-ear, no longer separated by space. Their conversation is heavy on capitalism, culture, violence, religion, art, science, and hope. The art of conversation is in danger of being lost, but now more than ever we need to use our American pastimes to bring it back, ear-to-ear, device-to-device, and ask “What is love?” And, even further reaching, “If you knew how your life affected humankind, what would you do differently?”

Slow down and think about the world and love yourself enough to change it. Will Adam find love as life stands in the way?

transcript follows

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Angelique 0:00 Hi, my name is Angelique Pesci, and my favorite thing is reading.

Announcer 0:05 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:18 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we get recommendations without using an algorithm. This morning, I am joined by author Angelique Pesci. Her book, "American Pastime," is coming out on June 7th, 2022. You can pre-order it now; it will be available this summer. And her next book is already in the works, as well. Angelique, how are you doing this morning?

Angelique 0:47 I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be talking to you today about these novels and "American Pastime," in particular.

Leah Jones 0:57 I'm so happy to have you here and to get to know you. Where are you based these days?

Angelique 1:05 Right now, I'm up in Connecticut, by Stamford, which is nice. I'm a born and raised New Yorker, though. So, I've lived in New York my whole life. I've been up in Connecticut now, for a couple of years, which has been really good for my writing, believe it or not.

Leah Jones 1:24 Oh, I'm sure. Without the competition of all that New York has to offer.

Angelique 1:28 Yep, exactly. New York is a great place. But there's so much to do, even if you're just going out to get a snack. And Connecticut is incredibly pastoral. So I'm by a little river called the Five Mile River that has a little brook that goes all the way from Northern Connecticut all the way down into the Rye area. It goes into the Atlantic Ocean eventually and empties out somewhere in Rye. And then, a little waterfall and this little walking bridge. There's really no better place to write.

Leah Jones 2:00 That sounds beautiful.

Angelique 2:02 It is. It's really, really, really nice. Although writing in New York was great; I'd wear my headphones, and I'd have my laptop and I would just tune it out. But I would definitely always write in a coffee shop. And there's no better coffee shops in the world than New York -- maybe in Rome.

Leah Jones 2:22 That's fair. But in Rome, you have to pay the extra cost of -- I went once, I went truly for 24 hours -- if I remember correctly, there's a difference between the sit-down price and the standing price in Rome.

Angelique 2:38 Yes, that's very true. I forgot about that, that's really funny. There are differences like that, that I completely forget.

Leah Jones 2:47 If you're getting -- if you're going to a wine bar before dinner, or if you're having a coffee, it's like, "Well, are you going to sit? Are you going to stand?" It's not to-go; it's like sitting and standing.

Angelique 3:02 I wonder what Americans would say if we tried to do something like that here?

Leah Jones 3:08 I don't think it would go well.

Angelique 3:12 Probably not.

Leah Jones 3:15 But if it came with paying a living wage to the waiters, oh, that's kind of it -- you're paying an extra fee to sit, because you're going to need the waiters. You're going to need waitstaff.That is my assumption. You're not just paying rent on the table.

Angelique 3:34 Correct? Correct. Makes sense.

Leah Jones 3:40 We were chatting a little bit before I hit record. "American Pastime" is a novel. Why don't you tell me a little bit about it?

Angelique 3:54 Sure. The main protagonist in "American Pastime" is a writer, he's also a builder. He decides one day, while sitting at a baseball game, at Yankee Stadium, to reflect on his life. Because he sees the players rounding the bases, and reminds him of his own childhood and when he was a baseball player as a kid. As they're rounding the bases, it uses the analogy of life is a game, and the bases of life are first, second, third base, before you get home and pass on into the nether regions of our next existence. So he goes through flashbacks in the novel of his childhood, then his adulthood.

Angelique 4:41 Ultimately, he projects, because he's only in his 30s, late 30s. So, he projects into his future and imagines his senior years and what that might be like. During this plotline --there's arcs, like any story has built into it; act one, two and three -- during those various acts in the book, he's joined by an omniscient being who he calls God, who decides to personify and sit with him at the game and have a talk about life. About American life, about American culture, about COVID, about high school shootings, about politics, about what we're going to build in our future. And all of that reflection allows for him to go through his life change, before it's too late. So if you had to live your life all over again, how would you live? If you had that crystal ball to see what your finale would look like, would it be the same? The book really does internalize all of those questions for its audience. It kind of gives you a couple of exercises as well, about how to handle those issues when you have to make huge life-sweeping decisions.

Angelique 6:03 As Americans, we have huge, sweeping decisions to make all of the time. Whether to work remotely; whether to become an artist; whether to be a corporate employee only; whether to be a farmer; whether to live a more sustainable life. These are the questions that we're faced with, and those questions persist even through tragedies like COVID, and how we stick together after September 11. All of these overriding issues that make your own tiny speck of dust that you are, seems so infinitesimal, small, but you're so important in the larger scheme of things, as part of a team. So, we're back to the analogy of sports, and you're all a part of a world team. And so the book really does get the reader to think that way.

Leah Jones 6:54 What was the first kernel, as you started down the path of writing this book, as you headed to the ballpark of this manuscript? Are you a life-long baseball fan, or did you have kind of an epiphany at a park? How did this analogy and setting come to you?

Angelique 7:17 I'm an athlete. I'm an avid athlete. I've had a lot of friends over the years who've talked about baseball, and the innings in baseball, and how it's not like basketball or anything else. For a game that technically doesn't have to end -- there's no time clock in the game. So that became a mantra in my mind. I don't play baseball; I did play softball. I was really good at running bases. I was terrible at hitting the ball. Terrible, just terrible.

Angelique 8:17 And hitting the ball is what gets you to the bases.

Angelique 8:02 I can't tell you how many I had to punt, you know? After the sixth ball, they would just let me punt and run. But I was really good at guarding my bases, and I was really good -- back then, you're allowed to steal bases; you're not allowed to do that anymore. But I would help my middle school win games that way. Because of my bad batting, I had to make up for it with my strong legs. But I was a really good runner. So, I was better at soccer.

Angelique 8:32 But this was the right vehicle, because I really did need something that went through the stages of life. That was sport. I really wanted that team-oriented, hard work ethic, and reflect them to come through in the story. And then the stages of baseball -- first, second, third base, and home, we use it all the time. We even use it as kids growing up. We were among the first base of my life, and so the analogy just seemed really appropriate for the athlete and me.

Leah Jones 9:12 Oh, that's great. And you mentioned COVID -- was this a COVID, primarily COVID writing project for you?

Angelique 9:24 This novel started being written well before COVID. It was originally a screenplay that was being produced and it was picking up some tread, and then I decided to expand the plotline, because there were a lot of issues with regard to American culture and life. I studied theology, ethics, law, and art. So I wanted a vehicle that permitted me to be able to write a story about American pop culture, and about the game of life, and about having great conversations with each other. I decided to turn this book into a novel, and I'm so glad that I did. This novel started in 2019, well before COVID. Because it handled a lot of issues like gender bias or racism, the history that we've inherited and oddities, transgender, issues that students and adults really need your support -- a loving, kind scientific community, it hit all of these issues. Even our great tragedies like September 11, that what does it mean to be in the legislature during a time like that?

Angelique 11:01 How does the politic help improve the country? How do you help improve the ethics of our leaders by being involved in our American culture? How important are our conversations with one another, when spreading that kind of support that adults need, young adults need, seniors -- they need support in the later stages of their life, as well. So the book really hones in on that. So when COVID came up, it got added in an edit, briefly about what that kind of communication tool gives you. Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. These are our communication tools, they shouldn't alienate us, we shouldn't get made fun of for looking at our device, we should see that there's a human on the other side of those devices.

Angelique 11:57 And our ethics should persist through that. I teach mass media law, ethics, and mass media communications law. And our legislatures are constantly dealing with bullying on the internet. Then there's the high school shooting, and the mass shootings on the high school campuses and our kids need support. They need to know that we don't envision a future where their school is the next war zone. We're going to build a future that's going to protect them, we're going to build a future that's going to thrive, and we pull together -- COVID is an amazing example of that. We pulled together through that. We definitely have a healthy economy, and we care a lot about our economy. But we were all willing to use the devices that are talked about in my book, to make a safer place for ourselves. We put humanity first and worked remotely.

Angelique 12:57 It's so important that as I was writing that book in 2019, and then had it slated for publication -- that was in 2000, I think '20 or '21, and they held it back. It was amazing to see what I was talking about with regard to using the internet more appropriately, to not bully each other over it, or use it as a means of distancing ourselves from humanity, but getting into the electronics as a way of communication, conversation -- increasing it. And then lo and behold, everything that I said came to pass. Everybody was really connected, thanks to the internet highway, and being able to see the devices as our way of staying close to humanity. And it's necessary -- we're gonna go to the next century, and the inventions that we build and make, and how we learn to have communication and humanity when those changes come, is of high importance. And that's really what the team effort is, with the game of life and the game of baseball, how we go through all of those bases together as a country.

Leah Jones 14:07 Wonderful. You've mentioned working remotely a couple of times. Did you have to take your classes, your media law, mass media and communications classes online, as well?

Angelique 14:34 I would've had to, but I went into sabbatical, right before COVID, because we were working in conjunction with a law school. So I had to discuss whether or not I was going to take sabbatical -- this was at Manhattan College, one of the greatest colleges. Also, why the book is set at Yankee Stadium, because I was a volunteer at Highbridge Community Center. I worked in the Highbridge community a long time as a former NYU and former Manhattan College graduate. So they're being pro-Yankees. The stadium's right down the block, so it's a huge part of my personal history.

Angelique 15:17 But yes, I've been on sabbatical. And I wrote two children's books, I have another book called "Yemen Love Story" coming out, which is about falling in love under the burqa; it's gonna be so interesting to see how the audience feels about life and communication from under an entire garment, where you can only use your words, to build that rapport and that relationship. While a law student -- I was a St. John's University School of Law graduate -- I summered there at the United Nations division for the Advancement of Women while I was a student there, and I was in the war crimes unit. So, I decided to get this other idea for this book about a woman falling in love under the burqa based on my work down there, and I've been teetering with that and writing that here and there for the last couple of years. It's finally coming together. So that's really exciting, too.

Angelique 16:28 But to answer your question, because of writing and work, and I have a law firm, and I'm a costume designer, and I'm a mom, which is the most important job that I have in the whole world. I did take sabbatical, but I'm sure I'll go back probably in a year. I miss it. A lot of my lecture material ended up in "American Pastime," too.

Leah Jones 16:54 Oh, really?

Angelique 16:56 All of the communication ethics, issues and concerns, and how we talk to one another and treat each other -- that all ended up in the Eastern Western philosophies of how we handle each other in humanity. A lot of good lectures ended up in the book.

Leah Jones 17:12 That's neat. That's such a great device of being able to turn what you've been lecturing on and what you've been teaching people into -- like one, people don't have to get into law school to hear what you have to say -- but what a great way to translate those lectures into something for the masses. That's outstanding; I look forward to reading it. Now, you mentioned that you're a costume designer, and you have quite -- I mean, already, we've heard of the things that you do in your life and quite a varied life. But one of the favorite things you suggested we talk about, is science fiction. Specifically, we were going to start with "Dune," because you do costume and -- Jacqueline, her last name escapes me -- the costume team, the costume designer, got incredible recognition. But you are a lover of science fiction.

Angelique 18:27 I am. I think I like science fiction, and "Dune," in particular. I was amazed this year and thrilled that a sci-fi feature was being so honored at the Oscars, and I know "CODA" won best picture and I still have to see it. I heard a lot of great things, I actually have co-workers who worked on "CODA," in the production department. I'm really proud of that. But "Dune," I thought did such a splendid job, and I like sci-fi for the same reason that I am always forward and foreseeable and negligence-oriented thinking. I'm always wondering, "What are the improvements we can make? What's wrong in our way of functioning, that we can improve?" I like to make things that are wrong, right. Things that are right function better -- because I organized wardrobe all of the time as a designer -- I have that in my background; my grandmother owned a bridal salon, and was a designer herself. So, I grew up really organized. And my dad, he owned a pastry shop, and that takes a lot of organization.

Angelique 19:36 Yeah, so I grew up around two incredible -- an incredible matriarch and patriarch that always was organizing the day. It's a lot like King Richard. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it's so great. And in it he asks his kids, "What did you write in your daily planner to organize your day?" And I was like, "Bravo, that's the right way to be as a parent." So, I like sci-fi a lot because you have all of this creative freedom; there's no parameter. You can suggest really great inventions -- like "10,000 Leagues Under the Sea" suggested the submarine. And I think sci-fi is a great vehicle to do that. And then there's -- Ruth Carter is an incredible costume designer, and she got to show different ideas and cultures and textures and ethics in Black Panther.

Angelique 19:36 In our country, in American comics, and I think it's important to have that growth when you do period pieces as a designer or you're in the period piece genre, instead of sci-fi -You have all of the history to speak to, so it's really very strict like law, it's a very strict place to me. So I love sci-fi for that reason and "Dune" was great. I think that the directorm Villenueve, he did an incredible job.

Leah Jones 21:13 When you think about watching science fiction through your life, was there a first movie or first science fiction book that really stands out to you as starting down the path of this genre?

Angelique 21:26 I pick the "Time Machine" by Wells. Thing that I loved as a kid, I remember I think it was Guna [Gulniece] was her name. The main actress in it, who was educating the time traveler about all the Morlocks being underground, and how their society looked ideal, but under the surface, something was going on. I found that to be fascinating. I thought the physics of it was fascinating. I thought that the morality play within the novel was fascinating, and it really opened me up as a reader and a writer.

Leah Jones 22:08 Is there a science fiction book that you've read that hasn't been made into a movie, that gets Angelique Pesci thinking, "If I could, I would adapt this, if I could be the director or the costume designer?" Is there a book that's kind of on your dream list?

Angelique 22:27 That's a good question. I would have said "Wonder Woman," as far as an action science fiction piece, but that got made over the last four years. I know there was the TV show while I was a kid, but that was the one I waited forever to see finally made. And I was a literary major, too. I was a double major, I have an English literary major, so your question is really good. Other than that actually coming to fruition, I believe that for me, it probably comes through my English major. There's a film called -- a there's a book called "Perfume" that I have often -- it's not sci-fi, though. It's a little sci-fi.

Angelique 23:25 It is set in the past, but he has attributes or qualities that are like a science fiction. Because he smells people's oils -- he smells with perfume on them, is what he says. But he's a very dark, dark character. That's kind of Jekyll/Hyde kind of stuff. But it's something over the years that I as a book reader, who read that book, it's something that I would like to have seen do in a modern or futuristic context. Not so much in the past, but his attributes are really quite something.

Leah Jones 24:04 I've never read that book, I'll look at it. I'll link to these in the show notes so that people can find things and be able to read them. Where along the path -- because you're a lawyer and author, you've studied so many things --where along the path, did costume design get folded in?

Angelique 24:28 Good question. I was a managing attorney of a New York City law firm. The law firm owner, his name is David Scheinfeld. He was an incredible Harvard law graduate. He had this law firm in midtown Manhattan for 40 years when I arrived. It was federal law, immigration practice, and also state and federal litigation, and entertainment and some real estate and some criminal. So, it was almost general practice. But it had a lot of different areas of law that it focused on, but it was heavy into litigation. So I had been promoted to managing attorney after five years at the law firm, and then we wound down the practice, because the owner had passed on. And he was a rabbi, as well as a lawyer.

Angelique 25:26 He actually went to Harvard Law School with Clive Davis. So he's the most incredible boss I could have ever had, and I miss him dearly. It still exists; the sons took over and decided to parcel the law firm out, based on my suggestion, out to two large Manhattan law firms, and I ended up going to London for a little soul searching. I was so exhausted, I was so burnt out, and I was so tired. I just decided to see how to tap in to becoming either my own law firm owner, my own film producer, because I had produced or I had production, coordinated a film and worked for a production company, back in 2000 to 2001. I had kind of wanted to go back to that, because I did some assisting and second unit producing to a producer. And I learned a lot about filmmaking.

Angelique 26:37 I wanted to use my law degree for that purpose. So all of a sudden, when I'm back from London, and I start working for a production company making a film. I start out as an assistant to the production coordinator thinking that that's really a good way for me to use my law degree and my film and my education background. All of a sudden, I walk up one day to the head producer, and I say, "Can I just work in the wardrobe department on this one instead, because I'm just so tired of paperwork."

Angelique 27:18 I grew up in the Bridal Salon with my grandmother, and the costume designer kept coming in on the film and asking me for help with getting products from Ann Taylor or getting products from Dick's Sporting Goods. I ended up out of the office in the stores, pulling the garments for him. We became so close that I said, "I could really use like a new career, a change of pace." So I can always produce, I'm my own producer in that regard. And I have a documentary I'm producing right now called the "God Doc," being directed by Olenka Denysenko , who just directed an episode on "New Amsterdam," she's a really talented director. So, I'm really happy that she signed on.

Angelique 28:07 I just decided to go back to the other side of my family, my grandmother's side of the family and just enjoy the hard work that comes with clothes, and clothes are so much hard work -- but, they're not paper, they're on people. And so I just wanted -- and I love writing, so I love paper. But I think that I needed to free my mind a little, dive into something I did as a child. I sewed as a child, I beaded as a child, I sketched as a child, I helped my grandma design clothes as a child. I missed her and she was getting on in years -- this was right before she passed away. And I kind of have this feeling that I felt her with me more every second while that transition was going on, I was missing her already. And so I think what happened was all that hard, hard work at the law firm before it was sold. And then that soul searching in London and then coming back to New York and diving into the career of film, I really did honor that as a producer, you should be able to do all of the departments.

Angelique 29:15 I have so much respect for production designers, lighting departments, screenwriters, costume designers, that I decided to just kind of -- and cinematographer -- that I decided to jump into something where I had a familial background in it, and then I never stopped. So as much as I produce and as much as I write, I also costume design, have my own law firm. It's really worked out and it's because of my grandma, that that happened and it always gives me that extra step and creativity. That takes us to llike a sculpture like and that's really special because as much as I can write a script or produce a document. This is such a humane area, and department in filmmaking that it came really naturally to me thanks to her and her name was Benera, Venus Vanessa Rica. I continue in her in her footsteps to keep that part of our family tree alive.

Leah Jones 30:23 It's beautiful. How do you balance? You do so much, how are you --

Angelique 30:38 -- talking to nice people like you? You give me balance.

Leah Jones 30:48 Do you have some , do things come in waves? It's your life like, "This quarter is more about costumes, and this quarter is more about law?" Or is it sort of juggling the costume design and the law firm and the family and the writing all at the same time?

Angelique 31:12 Well, the good news is, I'm a project person. So, the law firm is something that has been open for a while now. And there's a partner that I have who runs it. I usually handle stuff as it arises, but the bulk of my day is spent as a legal consultant, helping law firms and agencies where they need aid and help. I have the law practice run with a partner. And then the film is -- I guess it does all happen at the same time.

Angelique 31:59 I definitely have the law slated, every day from like, 7am to 4pm. I have from 4pm to like nine or 10. I have costume work, I just designed a play and they do tech runs in the evening. So there's no work to be done during the day on those projects. And sometimes my partner will let me go, and I won't have a consulting client, and then I won't have as much work to be performed during a workday, so I can do a job. Films are typically slated during the day, a work day. So it depends on who's hiring me and where I am and why I'm there.

Leah Jones 32:50 Yeah, that's great. It sounds like you've found a lot of flexibility in the people that you're working with -- the people that you've chosen to make your businesses with?

Angelique 33:02 Yeah, it's been good. It's been this way since 2009, so I can't really complain. But a long time now.

Leah Jones 33:15 And now that you're in Connecticut, do you have to go in to New York for film work and plays? Are things shooting locally?

Angelique 33:26 There are things shooting locally. I am a member of the Guild, and a lot of people when they hire designers, believe it or not, designers don't necessarily go to set. It depends on what kind of designer you are. I've been around a really long time, so most of the directors like to work with me before they shoot at all, and before they've even cast. They like to have evening meetings, sketches, photographs of ideas, mood boards, and then you send that off to them, then they cast, and you do your fittings, like at a hotel once the cast flies in. And so that usually takes-- I have shoppers -- you hire your shopper, and then all of your visual ideas. It's almost like being a writer, right? So, all of your visual ideas are sent to your shopper.

Angelique 34:21 Then you have a supervisor who goes to set for you. They pack and they put the truck together and everything is pre-selected by the director. And it's a budget-savvy department so you make sure you're within your budget boundaries, you're not over budget. Then, you have all of the actors and the garments on set working and everything slated in advance, like get a library all the books are slated and coded. The looks are coded in advance. So, the designer does not have to go to set, although you can. You can be working while it's shooting. It depends on --r ight now, I tend only to take projects where I don't necessarily have to go to the set. And I can hire the shopper and the supervisor and a set costumer, and they'll do that work. They'll just send me everything via email, text, telephone, Zoom, and stuff like that. Then there's some some projects that are just handled differently, and I'm on set the whole time. It depends. So I've done both. I just costume designed a piece called "King of Queens" out in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the whole thing was done remotely. And then an assistant took all of the costumes to set.

Leah Jones 35:50 I'm curious, is that something that -- pre-COVID, were you allowed to work remotely as a costume designer in that way?

Angelique 36:04 Yes, technically all productions are our shot are organized from what's called a production office. The production office is a new rental, usually, it's not something that's already in existence. You start up the corporation that shooting the film and rents an office for a specific period of time, four months, three months, whatever it is, in the pre-production, sometimes it's a year or two years, it's on the feature that you're shooting. But the less bodies in there, the better until the actors arrive. So you can have the clothes shop for and sent there, and you could still be sourcing and contacting distributors, designers, or just drawing and coloring and sketching your ideas out and discussing them by meeting. Once the people arrive, then you really go to the office, and start to show them the fitting photos and meet the actors and try on the clothes and decide what works and what doesn't work.

Leah Jones 37:18 Oh, that's so interesting.

Angelique 37:20 It's fun. It's a fun thing. It's a lot like writing books. It is a lot like that, too. Very creative. It's a very creative party part of work.

Leah Jones 37:31 Now, we went pretty far away from science fiction, which is fine. This has all been so fascinating. Because how movies get made, how shows get made, is so opaque to people who aren't in the industry. But I'm gonna take us back to "Dune." Did you see it? Did you watch it -- on TV or `did you go into the theater to see it?

Angelique 38:10 I went to a bowtie cinema to see it on the big screen. Yeah, it was phenomenal. But I did get a screener, because I'm in the Union, too.When it's a big, big, big production, I typically like to dip into the theater. I took my sons as well, I thought it was going to be a fairly unique film to watch, and they liked it a lot.

Leah Jones 38:36 It was one of the first movies I saw back and I actually went and saw it in the theater twice. Because I hadn't read the book, I hadn't seen the David Lynch version of it. I enjoyed it much more the second time because I finally understood the story a little bit more, I had read more about it, and I could take it in at a different level.

Angelique 39:06 And the production design, the whole schematic of the spice and the agriculture in this piece, to have the background be yards and yards and yards of the sand and the dunes was so breathtaking. Such a grand accomplishment to make that look interesting for two and a half hours. So much footage of sand that the designers and the actors and the cinematographer and the score, which I believe was done by Hans Zimmer, was incredible.

Leah Jones 39:54 I think he also won the Oscar for Best Score.

Angelique 39:58 Yes, he did.

Leah Jones 40:01 Did you have a favorite -- when you watch movies, do costumes stand out to you? Was there some a character that you thought was your favorite or an environment the way they were dressed that really caught your attention?

Angelique 40:24 I really liked Colleen Atwood's work over the years. I liked Edward Scissorhands. When I was in high school or college, I forget. I remember that being so creative and so fascinating to me. That's one of those movies, that's fantasy/sci- fi, but more period than one would expect, right? I like those very large productions, "Gangs of New York," "Phenomenal," where everything is built head-to-toe and really gets your creative eye to to be fed. For me, there's movies where the fabrics and the textures and the designs, they just don't stop. Baz Luhrmann -- I know his costume and production designer. "Romeo and Juliet," "Moulin Rouge," both of them. Whether they're set in contemporary times, or in the past, or kind of a collage of all of those things, it makes sense to me. It's how I do things, too. So for me, I know they're the best designers. But they're inspiring designers.

Leah Jones 41:42 Yeah, I think "Great Gatsby" is a great, it's such a good example. Because it's a period piece, but it's it's elevated. It's not true to the period, it's definitely inspired by the '20s. But then it is kind of the musica, elevated version of that cranked up, dialed up to 11

Angelique 42:08 Yes, absolutely. There's a creative, internal space that is projected externally in the screenplay in the piece itself on film. You'd have to speak to the filmmaker directly, not just me as an audience and craft person, but I see a lot of an extra element added to the pieces of work that go to the externalization of what the characters are going through. I think that's what gives you that extra element of fantasy, and takes you out of it being a decade or period piece, and allows for that collage of music and cinematography, and over-the-top fashions that exaggerate w`hat the film is actually about, or the period that film is actually told from. I talk about "Gatsby," and I talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald in "American Pastime." The whole American society and the whole different wealth classes and what the periods go through internally and externally and how that affects the country. It's fully written into "American Pastime," the novel, as well. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a poignant author, and I think that Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director, did an amazing job capturing a piece of iconic American history in that film.

Leah Jones 43:55 I think I'm due for a re-watch. I saw it in the theater; it was so beautiful. It was so beautiful, it was such an immersive -- I remember it being just an immersive experience because it was the way it was -- the camera direction, Some of the party scenes, the single shots -- I don't know the words for it, but where they they're taking you down and in and through. I remember it being very immersive and very high energy.

Angelique 44:30 Well, it could be a dolly shot or it could be a crane shot, I'm not sure. But there's a lot of devices that they use for those sweeping emotive, evocative entrances and exits in and out of those lush parties. And the champagne fountain overflowing and the absolute opulent luxury of it all and then juxtaposed against the dirt road that runs through town with the billboard with the glasses on the film, everybody? It's an incredible American tale.

Leah Jones 45:08 It really is. Angelique, is there anything about science fiction, costume design, "American Pastime," or writing that I haven't gotten to ask you about that if we hung up, you would be so bummed I didn't ask you?

Angelique 45:29 No, not at all. It's been a pleasure. Your questions, you made me feel complete, really, that I've had the opportunity to write a piece about American culture, American pop culture, American families, American art, sports life and conversation, you really hit all of the points of the book on that.

Leah Jones 45:56 I look forward to to reading it. Like I said, it feels like it could either be a whole encyclopedia -- I'm excited to see how you've distilled it into a novel that is not 5,000 pages long.

Angelique 46:12 I appreciate that. I can't wait for you to read it. And I want you to privately write me at my email address and give me your reviews. I hope that in words, in the textile that we have, thanks to trees on our page and the ink on the page, I hope in that language, textile, it gives us a little bit of what Annie Liebowitz gives us with her photography. We tried very hard to use language and language arts and to be creative about it. Not as creative as let's say author who plays with language a lot, whose name escapes me right now. His novels are written in a vernacular that's almost brand new, and made up. So not in his shadow, but more in the vein of our ability to use language to communicate, so that we can get along and create a better future of peace by using our words and our textile on the page and our computers in a way that really brings our teamwork together and being a part of a nation together.

Angelique 47:40 With what's going on in the Ukraine and Russia, I think that this book has a lot of peacekeeping studies and a lot of peace-minded negotiations and diplomacy ideas and using them properly and not blaming each other and supporting all of those scientific parts of being 99.9% exactly the same in the world, in our DNA composition. What is different, our .01 differences, is just aesthetics, like a dress, nothing else. It's no got value, except self-expression. I think that's a good thing, to see each other that way is a good thing. So I hope you liked the book. Leah. I hope everybody likes the book. Any questions while you're reading, you're more than welcome to email me, and ask. I hope that I'll see you again and that this is not the only time that we have a podcast together.

Leah Jones 48:38 Can people -- are you on social media? Do you want people to follow you online?

Angelique 48:43 I'm on Twitter. My Facebook page is public. So you can also find me on that. I'm on LinkedIn right now. I'm sure I'll get more -- I was on TikTok. I don't know what happened -- I had the funniest videos of me on TikTok and my kids and -- my account got, I don't know what happened. It just disappeared on me one day.

Leah Jones 49:05 I accidentally logged out on my TikTok. In order to set a new password, I then created like five more TikTok accounts and I was like, "What is happening? I just want to log into the one I have!" truly accidentally created I get -- alerts in my email like you know, "Leah Jones 32525, we think you'll like these videos" and I'm like that account was an accident. I love TikTok -- I hate how much I love it.

Angelique 49:44 It's the funniest, I'm a big fan.

Leah Jones 49:48 But yeah, I have absolutely accidentally created, it seems so easy to lose accounts. Great, thank you.

Announcer 49:57 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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This week author and retired teacher Anita K. Newman sat down with Leah to talk about her new children's book Clark the Colorblind Chameleon, illustrated by Asha Hossein. We also talk about her love of teaching kids through music, taking voice lessons as a lifelong learner, and finding time to get two additional degrees while teaching!

Clark the Colorblind Chameleon will be published on May 24, 2022.

View Details

Where are you leaving? Egypt Where are you going? Jerusalem What are you carrying? The bread of freedom

Pesach (Passover) starts on Friday night and Caroline Musin Berkowitz joined Leah to talk about how she gets organized for the holiday. We talk about recipes, family traditions, finding the right haggadah, additions to the seder plate, and how to give gift to your future self with a good spreadsheet.

Follow Caroline on Instagram and Twitter Keep up with Hashtag Daf Yomi on Instagram

Bread Machine Challah II
Chicken Marbella
Matzah Toffee
CRC Pesach Guide 2022
A Slob Comes Clean
Fly Lady
Graphic Novel Haggadah
Matza Pajamas
Caroline's Legendary Passover Spreadsheet
Haggadot.com Sunflower addition

View Details

Deborah Greenhut, author of The Hoarder's Wife, joined Leah on Finding Favorites to discuss her debut novel, baking challah, and the music of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro.

Deborah's debut novel is available on April 5, 2022, in print and digital.

DeborahGreenhut.com
The Hoarder's Wife
Woodhall Press
Children's travel books by Deborah
Gentle Art Swedish Death Cleaning
The Settlement Cookbook
Joni Mitchell's mysterious illness
Laura Nyro
Gershwin Plays Gershwin

Transcript follows

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deborah 0:00 My name is Deborah Greenhut, and my favorite thing is stories that repair reality.

Announcer 0:07 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:20 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. It is April already -- Sunday, April 3rd. I was missing last week, Iwas missing in action. Luckily, Shai Korman from "Friday Night Movie" podcast, interviewed his neighbor, Katie Jones, about reality TV. And we snuck that one in; hopefully, you have had a chance to listen to that very fun conversation. It is heavy on '90s/early aughts nostalgia for reality TV and I'm grateful as always for Shai when Shai steps in.

Leah Jones 1:03 Last weekend, I went to L.A. and took my computer and took my microphone and went to see a show -- went to see "How Did This Get Made" live at Largo, and told very few people I was coming. Which was good, because mostly I hung out with my friend Esther and napped, slept, napped some more. Then went to Largo, and called it a day -- called it a weekend, went to the airport. But I never had a moment to pull up my computer and edit the podcast. I interviewed author Deborah Greenhut, the night before I went to L.A.; and so, let's be honest, there was never a chance i was gonna get done. I am continuing my healing journey; I finished radiation two or three weeks ago, and I'm getting my energy back. I still sometimes take naps that are -- I'm just out cold. I'll sleep for a full day, or I will sit down, and then wake up hours later. So, I'm still recovering from radiation and treatment. But I've started physical therapy. I'm working on reconditioning my body, my core muscles, my knees, just trying to get stronger, so that I can do things like walk to the train. My goal is that by May Ist, I am commuting on the train again. Right now, I just can't imagine taking the risk that I wouldn't be able to get a seat on the train, or even walking to the station right now.

Leah Jones 2:57 This week, I've got author Deborah Greenhut. Her first novel comes out on Tuesday, so, it is publication week for her. It's called "The Hoarder's Wife." So if you ordered it today, you'd have it for the week of publication. And we have a really lovely conversation -- wide-ranging -- about her book, about baking challah, Joni Mitchell, jazz music -- we really cover the gambit. Deborah was a really lovely person to have a conversation with. And without further ado, I'm going to let you listen. Enjoy this episode with Deborah Greenhut. Get your boosters, wear your mask, and wash your hands and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones 4:00 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. This week, it's officially spring. And it is with that. chilly and rainy in Chicago. And I am pleased to have with me today Deborah Greenhut. Deborah is an author -- she's not a first-time author, but she is a first-time novelist. Her novel, "The Hoarder's Wife," is coming out April 5th; right around the corner. People can pre-order now, and have it delivered on publication date. Deborah, how are you doing today?

deborah 4:46 I'm very well, thank you. It's nice to be here.

Leah Jones 4:50 Thank you and I like to imagine where people are. Where are you sitting tonight; where are you based?

deborah 5:00 I'm based in New Jersey, about the center of the state. So we call it "the gut." Not near the shore, not near the mountains -- we do have some -- and just right in the middle there.

Leah Jones 5:17 Because New Jersey's near the Poconos? Are those the mount -- or the Catskills, or both?

deborah 5:23 Some of New Jersey is near the Poconos, yes?

Leah Jones 5:28 Are those the mountains you're near?

deborah 5:30 No, I'm actually not near anything, really. I'm not too far from driving to the shore. Actually, it's not too far from anywhere in New Jersey to go, you could drive the whole state in a day easily. It's not that big a deal to drive. But I am in the center near Rutgers University, I guess would be the best way to position it. 'Exit nine', the way we like to say in New Jersey, on the Turnpike, and my town actually has a sign that says, "The center of New Jersey - Welcome to the center of New Jersey."

Leah Jones 6:04 I do find that there's -- I'm Midwestern, grew up in Indiana. I live in Illinois now, but spent three years in Colorado, and have definitely learned that what isconsidered driving distance or close? The further west you go, the longer that distance gets. So in Chicago, people have houses in Michigan that are three to five hours away. And that's like a reasonable to go for a weekend. But it seems like the further east you go, the distances get shorter of what is a comfortable, quick trip.

deborah 6:48 A lot of people don't like to drive into northern or central Vermont, because it's over five hours to get there. So four hours is about the limit for most people.

Leah Jones 6:59 I love how those sorts of things change for people; I think it's so interesting. Especially when I got to Colorado, and came with my Midwestern sensibilities, and then I found out if I was only willing to drive three hours, I wasn't going to get anywhere. Denver was eight hours away from me, Albuquerque was four hours, Phoenix was eight hours, Vegas was eight hours. So I really had to extend what was worth driving for.

deborah 7:34 Absolutely. I had a job where I was on the road all the time. And so every night, I was putting four or five hundred miles on the car, because this company had no mercy. So I know what that feels like, where it's so rural and deserted. You think you've been driving for 10 or 12 hours, because they're not much to look at, not much changes and no lights. It's strange how your perception of distance really changes based on the landscape.

Leah Jones 8:04 Yeah, it's so true. I'm curious, tell me a little bit about your novel and how it came to be.

deborah 8:14 Okay, well, it's "The Hoarders Wife." And it's about a woman who has left a 35-year marriage and what is going to happen. And the reason I wrote it is because I did indeed leave a 35-year marriage to a hoarder. So it's not a memoir, but I felt I wanted to look at well, the big question that people always asked me during that time, when I would complain about the situation was, "Why do you stay?" And I never had a completely satisfactory answer to that question I could come up with -- well, the children, well, this will that. I knew I loved my husband, but I knew it was becoming very difficult. So I wanted to look at a character in that same situation.

Leah Jones 9:02 Wow. And how long after your divorce did you start working on the book?

deborah 9:12 Well, I think I started working on the book probably about 30, 25 years ago. Always making notes and thinking about it, but I didn't think I would ever actually write it or publish it. Unfortunately -- well, we were divorced in 2012 -- unfortunately, in 2016, my husband chose to take his own life. And that opened the door for me that probably wouldn't have existed as far as actually writing the book.

Leah Jones 9:44 Because he died by suicide, he wasn't there to read the book or add his comments to it. Yes, yeah.

deborah 9:54 Yes. Yes.

Leah Jones 10:00 When did -- one of the things I've really enjoyed talking to writers about -- is when in this pandemic, where did the pandemic hit in your writing process for this novel? Had you sketchee the whole book out pre-pandemic, or did the pandemic give you really a chance to sit down and write? Kind of what was the timeline once you really put pen to paper?

deborah 10:27 I had mostly finished the memoir that I thought I was going to write before the pandemic. So the pandemic was the opportunity to go back and say, "Well, I'm not sure I want this to be a memoir, as much as I want to address the question." So there were certain liberties I got from making it a memoir that made it more literary and made the story make that kind of sense that I enjoyed. So during the pandemic, I really spent the time revising to make it a novel.

Leah Jones 11:02 People love to ask novelists, "Is it based on real life?" So the question that the clear answer for you is, yes. Did you go chapter by chapter, and you there were certain times where you were like, "I wish I had done XYZ," and you were able to give your character that freedom to do things you hadn't been able to do in your own life? Or was it the ability to go further or bigger, with different scenes?

deborah 11:38 Well, that was an interesting process. Because when I wrote the memoir, it needed to start at a certain place. Then when I started revising, I realized, "No, that's not the right beginning for this." And it took me a long time to come up with a narrative frame for it, because what I wanted to do in the novel was to base it on the few days following the husband's death, and structure it according to what happened with the family on each of those days.

deborah 12:11 While the character, whose name is Grace Berg, was re-reading a journal that she had written during the 35 years she had been married, which she had been forced to leave behind. So it was discovered on the table by a policeman because they had to go through the house after this happened. Each night, -- during the day, she was working with her kids to try to sort out how they were going to do this funeral, which got complicated. And each night, she would go home and read. And at some point, she was skimming, so not reading the whole thing, but just reviewing her entire life and reflecting on it. So that's the narrative frame that I came up with, which I wouldn't have done with a memoir, it would have been a long, straight story.

Leah Jones 13:06 That's also a framework that gives you -- the items in the house can have have memories attached to them, or the rooms in the house and the journal. So that's a really that's a really interesting framework.

deborah 13:21 Thank you. It was enjoyable to do it, then I think the first question I had about the revision were, "How am I going to make this into a novel?" Once I started looking at it as a journal, it wasn't my story anymore, which seems like a paradox at first. But it wasn't the memoir that I was writing anymore, it was a literary work that I had to create different characters for. It gave me some liberties about who the characters were, which I wouldn't have had in the memoir, so it was kind of very freeing, finally. The memoir was very painful, but the novel was almost like a puzzle to figure out.

Leah Jones 14:00 Wow. And what are some of your launch plans?

deborah 14:06 Well, COVID has interfered every time I've tried to set up a launch. So I'm having a series of readings among groups that I know and have worked with nearby, so we're doing some Zoom and some in-person. I live in a retirement community, and I'm doing a reading there on Monday night. Then I belong to a group of independent scholars who are also writers, and I'll be doing a reading there in about a week, just a day before the actual publication. So beyond that, I'm not planning yet. I'm thinking, but it's been very difficult to get all my friends together to try to do something in this. I've seen a few Zoom launches and I'm not entirely satisfied with that reading online. It's not, for me, the same kind of experience. Maybe delayed launch party anyway.

Leah Jones 15:08 Did they push the pub date out, too?

deborah 15:12 Well, originally it was going to be October and then I hit some snags in the writing, so we decided to postpone it till April. Actually, I would say, my publisher, Woodhall, was very on top of things, because as those supply-chain shortages started to come up, they went ahead and printed, so the book is available already. And I think they've started to ship it. So iif you order it, you should be able to get it, which is nice. So there shouldn't be any delays from that.

Leah Jones 15:46 Oh, that's good. Yeah, that hit us at work. We were just trying to order -- I work in in marketing at a financial services company -- we were just trying to order like the navy blue backs to our, when we bind a presentation. And our paper guy was like, "You can either order this much and get it now, or I don't know when." There we go. There went Cowboy as promised.

deborah 16:21 That was rough for a lot of different kinds of things. Parts and not just paper, but everything.

Leah Jones 16:30 Yeah, I was happy with my choice to buy -- I bought a used car in August of 2020. And that seemed like it was the right time to do that, as well. And then I was also looking so in addition to the novel, you also have a series of children's books. Were those -- I don't want to make assumptions that you are a grandparent, but they were kind of -- did you write those for kids in your life? How did those come to be?

deborah 17:06 Well, it started out being for my grandchildren at the time I had -- I had three at that point. I have three, and they were allaround. No, I'm sorry, I take that back. There were two; another one has since come along. But I I knew I would put them up on Kindle, but they were my first test readers. So it was in a way for them, and I hoped that they would enjoy, and I wasn't so worried about whether they would sell or not. That wasn't the important thing. What actually happened was after I was divorced, I figured my dream of being a writer probably wasn't going to come about because I had to work and I wasn't able to find any time with all that driving to to make that work out.

deborah 17:54 So I thought photography would be a good thing for me. And I do enjoy that, and I do find it very therapeutic. Then, I discovered a watercolor app because I'm not a visual artist, as a painter or anything like that. And I discovered a watercolor app, and that was just so enchanting. And the kids that I showed the books to were all enjoying them so much. So it was a nice combination of things that I like to do. And of course, there's they're a little bit shorter than the type of writing I do as an adult. They were doable.

Leah Jones 18:28 For example, the "Bonjour, Paris" book. So these are photographs that you took in Paris, and then you used the watercolor app to change them into illustrations?

deborah 18:40 Yes, I did.

Leah Jones 18:41 Oh, that's wonderful.

deborah 18:43 It was a lovely trip. I was actually taking a course in doing travel videos, which happened to me in Paris, which was a very nice coincidence. So I had lots of advice about how to take the pictures and that. Unfortunately, during the same time, I was developing cataracts, and I noticed a lot of my photos were more blurry than I thought they were when I was looking through the lens. So, watercolor is actually a great forgiveness thing because it prefers the blurry photo, you actually get more interesting effects from that. It was a funny discovery, but it actually worked well for me.

Leah Jones 19:28 Great, and those are available on Kindle. They're also they're on Amazon, "The Hoarder's Wife" comes out April 5th.

Leah Jones 19:45 So when I ask people to think about what they want to talk about, you said something in your reply that I've never seen before. And so I wanted to talk about it, which is that you wrote, We can talk about why collections of things terrify me." Now that we've talked a little bit about your book, I feel like I might have an idea of the answer. But tell me more about why -- why do did collections terrify you?

deborah 20:19 Well, it does have a lot to do with hoarding. Let's see, where to start? Well, there were many examples of hoarding, not to the extent that my husband became a hoarder, but in my own family. Before I met my husband, my mother, for example, saved every single scrap of paper in my dad's 50 year medical practice.

Leah Jones 20:46 Oh, my goodness.

deborah 20:48 And that was not all she saved. When I opened the attic door, as I was the one who had to clean out the house after my parents passed away, and when I opened the attic door, there were 200 brown shopping bags in the attic. And I thanked her, but I thought, "This is the strangest thing. Did she do this to help me or was she just saving those bags?"

Leah Jones 21:15 So 200 bags empty waiting for you to fill and carry things out with.

deborah 21:20 Exactly. Which was was a little strange to me. But I knew I also had just a ton of paper and, and possessions. They saved everything, my parents. I don't know if my dad actually had anything besides a closet full of clothes and a dresser. I don't think there was anything in the house that was really his, but my mother collected reproductions of antiques, my mother collected antiques, she collected just about everything that she coveted. She had come from a family where she didn't have any money, was very poor. So I suspect some of it was that these things, she said her things always comforted her. Which is a thing I think that many hoarders say.

Leah Jones 22:05 Had she been alive for during the Great Depression?

deborah 22:08 Yes. She was also -- I don't know if you want this long story, but her mother died giving birth to her. And she was unfortunately given away to another family. Because her father had three older children, and he didn't think he could manage. Now, the other family was quite good to her. And she was an only child, very generous, but then her foster father passed away when she was 10. And that was not a good thing for the family -- they lost everything at that point. So my mother grew up taking care of her mother.

deborah 22:46 So the sense of deprivation, my mother sold flowers on a street corner. And this just boggles my mind when I think about it, because that's not the woman I remember from my childhood. Not that she seemed fabulously wealthy or anything like that, but she just didn't seem like the insecure person who was coming out of that situation. And yet, underneath it all she was. So, there was there was that example. I was thinking about -- also, my mother's brother, whom she did reconnect with her siblings later on and developed a relationship with them. But my mother's brother was in World War Two -- was a part of the liberating force. And I believe it was Dachau, he went there. And the first person he met, there was a woman lying on the ground, trying to offer him some water, I believe. And this woman named Paula became his wife.

Leah Jones 23:47 Wow.

deborah 23:48 So he brought her back, but she never -- I only have sketchy details, but she never recovered from the experience. Never. And at the end of her life, and this was spoken about in very hushed tones, so I pieced together some information. She would always save papers and things and no one could convince her to throw them out. But she would take the little pieces of paper and stuff them into any possible opening to the outside world. So she had shut down the house as much as she could. And I guess in the last few weeks of her life, my uncle was afraid to go out because he was afraid she would finally seal it, and he wouldn't be able to get back in. So this was a story from when I was fairly young, that I knew about hoarding. So it was rolling around in the back of my consciousness. I'm forgetting your original question. Specifically, but those are two places where it came up early for me.

Leah Jones 24:49 Yeah. Well, it was being terrified of collections.

deborah 24:53 Oh, yes. Yeah. So after I cleaned up my parents' house, and it was more than -- they had a lot of properties, so there was more than one house to clean out. I became so repulsed by collections of things that I just wanted to throw out everything I had and be free of that. And unfortunately, my husband had escalated his own hoarding at that point; it was around the same time that he began to hoard furiously. And so every time I would try to take, even before that, if I tried to put something out in the trash, he would bring it back in. And we just fought about this continuously, and neither of us really understood what was happening or why it was happening.

deborah 25:40 He eventually learned he had ADHD, and I understood that there was a connection there. But we could never get it addressed so that something could change. So I don't like being around a lot, having a lot of things around me anymore. It` seems to create some anxiety for me that the walls are gonna cave in, because our walls literally fell in some in some places. I want to know, there's light and air. Behind me some windows, I have big windows where I live now and nothing sitting in front of them anymore.

Leah Jones 26:17 Wow. That makes sense to me, that it makes a complete, I totally understand that reaction of wanting, especially after having to help clean multiple spaces and houses of people that you love dearly, some of the closest people in your life, that I also think there's some of not wanting to then put that on someone else.

deborah 26:43 Exactly. I told my husband, I could not do that to my children. And he just didn't go along with that. He wanted his things around him.

Leah Jones 26:54 My mom calls it, I believe it's "Swedish death cleaning." She's like, It's not Kon Mari hat I'm doing, it's Swedish death cleaning. It's getting the house ready for you kids, so that it's easier for you."

deborah 27:17 That is a great kindness, I think, when a parent can think about that far in advance for a child.

Leah Jones 27:25 What are the things to save? What are the things that we'll want that my nephews will want to take onto into their houses? And what are the things that can find new lives today? All those questions.

deborah 27:44 Someone told me when I was in the thick of cleaning out that people always think that their things are more valuable than they actually are. And they think they're saving something a real treasure for their kids. And there's certain things that are keepsakes, and certainly you want to pass those along. But basically, I've discovered your kids don't want your stuff.

Leah Jones 28:12 It's true. The thing I'm looking for right now is -- somewhere in Chicago, I know that someone's kid doesn't want their heavy, o,ak 1980s, early-90s dining room table with a lot of leaves in it, but that gets pretty small. That's the dining room table I'm hoping that somebody's kid my age doesn't want that I can find.

deborah 28:40 You may get lucky.

Leah Jones 28:43 That's I keep going on line looking for dining room tables. And I'm like, "But where are the dining room tables that we grew up with that could get -- really you take all the leaves out, they get really small. But then you can have a big dinner but they don't -- " I currently have a conference room table for my dining room table. And it's just too big.

deborah 29:04 It's nice to be able to fold that up, I get that.

Leah Jones 29:08 During two years of not being able to have people over for dinner, having a giant dining room table became more and more ridiculous.

deborah 29:16 Or you didn't spread out all your projects on the table.

Leah Jones 29:20 It is covered in candy. I have a second podcast about candy called "Candy Chat Chicago," and my dining room table is covered in candy. Just bowls -- I can't bake anymore because all of my the bowls I would use for mixing dough are currently full of candy. Thank you for elaborating on that.

Leah Jones 29:58 What is something that you think would be fun to dive into? I think any one of these would be great to dive into. But what is something that you would have fun talking about this evening?

deborah 30:11 Well, maybe since we're talking about food, we'll start with challah. So good, so delicious. When I was a little girl, I always loved it, of course, but someone else was always baking it and my mother was a good cook, but she never learned how to bake bread. She had a lot of "I Love Lucy" moments with yeast. So she gave it up. And when I got married, I wanted to learn to do it, I really love the idea of a Shabbat dinner and trying to preserve at least some of those customs in our house.

deborah 30:50 My mother-in-law was a great baker, and she did bake challah. And she would always say to me, "One day, I'm going to show you how to do it." This was the first few months of our marriage, and I could never get her pin her down to make that happen. And I noticed that when she gave me other recipes, she would leave something out, so I'd have to figure it out. Which you know, is just an apocryphal story in many families. But one day -- I had gotten a lot of cookbooks, when I got married, they gave me a cookbook shower. And I finally had a chance to look through them.

deborah 31:28 And all of a sudden, I found this cookbook called "The Settlement Cookbook," which is all German-Jewish cooking. And it was from the settlement house where many immigrants learned to do their things. And I think my mother-in-law actually went there to learn how to become a chef and a caterer. But that aside, I found the cookbook and I'm looking through it and all of the cakes seem to be like the ones that she made. Those seem to be the recipes, and I started trying them, and I was able to do it. My father-in -aw made the greatest sin of all of course, and told me that my pancake was better than his wife's pancake. Which started a war.

Leah Jones 32:10 One, because you finally were able to make it using all of the ingredients, instead of all but one ingredient probably helped.

deborah 32:19 Exactly, exactly. That was great. I didn't want to gloat, but it was kind of a vindication -- "Now I know what's wrong. It's not me, it's the recipe." And then one day, I got really brave and I decided to make a challah. It was Jewish New Year, and I said, "I'm doing it this year." And I had visions with my mother and stuff spilling -- yeast going all over the place -- but I did it. And it was the most transformative cooking experience I've ever had. While I was kneading the dough and watching it become what it was supposed to become, I just thought, "If everyone would bake bread, there couldn't be any war in the world, because this is the most whole fulfilling thing I have ever done. "

deborah 33:07 I didn't have any children yet, but I felt the dough and the consistency of it and having it on your hands and then it the way it morphed and changed into the dough it was supposed to be. From then on, making the challah every year was a real treat for me. I haven't made any in a few years, but I made a point of doing it and my kids loved it and helped me with the poppy seeds, and it was such a lovely thing to have in my life. So those memories and the bread itself is one of my favorite things.

Leah Jones 33:45 When I converted to Judaism, I got really obsessed with the idea of making challah. Did any of my girlfriends make challah? No. They were like, "Leah, we don't bake it ourselves, we go to a bakery." People were really like, "No, we don't, of course we don't make it." So nobody really had many tips for me. And I had this really basic book about like making a Jewish home, and it's still the recipe I use to this day. But the first time, first couple of weeks I made challah, I under-kneaded it. I didn't know -- I had never made bread from scratch before; we had a breadmaker machine growing up.

Leah Jones 34:36 So I sort of got it to where it was sticky. And I was like, "I guess I mixed it!" That makes a huge, I mean the bowl would be -- like a foot above the bowl rising because there was no -- I hadn't like made any gluten in it, I hadn't activated the proteins, so it would make the huge loaves of challah -- that were delicious, but single living alone, and it was good for French toast, but I was like, "How much -- how are you supposed to make two loaves of this every week?" when I did this huge bread. And then one week, I tried it with wheat flour, and that was a disaster because I didn't understand that wheat flour and white flour are actually very different. So I made like the dense-est challah I'd ever made in my life.

Leah Jones 35:38 Finally, I got a tip from our rabbi's wife, both of blessed memory, Lotte Schaalman who came from Austria when she was in her late teens, so she escaped the war. She and her husband Rabbi Schaalman, lived to be like 100 and 101 and died within days of each other, a few years ago. When she would take the women, when there would be like a camp weekend or something, she was teaching or baking challah -- not just women but with the people of the synagogue who wanted to bake challah -- she said that, "The dough is the right consistency when it feels like a breast. When it feels like a woman's breast, it is the right consistency and that's when you can let it rise." Which I wasn't kneading it to that point. It was just a sticky -- I don't even know what I was making.

Leah Jones 36:47 But I love making challah, I love baking and I guess because I didn't grow up Jewish or grow up seeing people bake challah for Rosh Hashanah, how I make my round challah -- this is a very Chicago answer to making around challah for Rosh Hashanah -- is I have a deep dish pizza pan and I make two braids. And I put it in this deep dish pizza pan so I end up with a large pizza-sized wreath of challah for Rosh Hashanah.

deborah 37:22 That's lovely. Wow, I never thought about it. But that tactile memory's coming back, but that's exactly right.

Leah Jones 37:30 It keeps her memory alive for me. She was just a spitfire who was sent to live with family in Danville, Illinois, from Austria. After she was there for a while, they were like, "Well, we're not gonna get her married off here. We've heard [maybe she was from Germany], but we've heard some single rabbinical students are at HUC [Hebrew Union College] in Cincinnati. So, we'll send her to Cincinnati because there are some single rabbinical students there, and maybe she can marry one of them. And Rabbi Schaalman picked the short straw and got to go on a date with her. And then the day he graduated seminary, he sent out wedding invitations and did not fully have her on board with getting married. But then they were married for 65 years, and truly, deeply in love with each other. So, it was quite the love story.

deborah 38:36 And that's a beautiful story.

Leah Jones 38:39 Did you ever stray from the traditional challah recipe -- you mentioned poppy seeds, you do raisins or chocolate chips? Are you pretty much a poppy seed challah?

deborah 38:54 I don't mind eating the others, but in my own cooking, I'm a purist about it. So, traditional. How about you, what's your favorite?

Leah Jones 39:06 I like poppy seeds and I'll do raisins for Rosh Hashanah. But I feel like I've never mastered kneading the raisins in. I feel like they make the surface break a little bit more.

deborah 39:25 Yeah, probably create some cracks.

Leah Jones 39:31 So I'll certainly do that. But I've never done a Nutella, I've never added dye to it. I'm not very fancy with my challah.

deborah 39:44 I'm always afraid there's gonna be a glob of something like peanut butter or Nutella or something like that. I don't want that taste when I when I eat it. I want the texture to be bread.

Leah Jones 39:56 Yeah, I haven't made it in a few years, in part because my social circle has gotten just a lot of allergies and a number of people who can't do gluten. And I am not a skilled enough baker to do gluten-free challah. I'm afraid it would be very bad and then we'd end up with nothing. What are some of your other -- when you think about -- were there other Jewish traditions that you tried to bring into your house or other holidays?

deborah 40:46 Our children had very conventional Orthodox, almost Orthodox, very high conservative bar mitzvahs. For the first, 13, 14 years of their lives, we did go to the conservative Temple. It was actually a Sephardic temple, we're not, we're Ashkenazi, but when we went there, there was actually an Ashkenazi rabbi who had to sign an oath he wouldn't change any of the rituals. And I don't know how it happened that he was assigned there, but he was, and he was very forgiving of children. So while they separated men and women, it was not even a solid barrier. We're all on one floor in an assembly hall where the sanctuary would open up into this multi-purpose room. And the women would be mostly in the multi-purpose room.

deborah 41:41 But there was lots of going back and forth, because the barrier really didn't keep anybody out, or in, anyway. It started off being a little forgiving and lackadaisical about some of the rules. But then we got an extremely religious rabbi, and he was the one who was responsible for bar mitzvahing my children, and it was a pretty stringent requirement. And we didn't know at that point where to go, we didn't want to shift to -- there were mostly Reform temples otherwise, and we didn't want to go to a super-orthodox one, even if it was Ashkenazi, so we stayed there.

deborah 42:21 It was hard on the kids, I think. They were good about it, but there were so many rules, and the greater hypocrisy of religious observance became very apparent. They would go religiously, I'm gonna put that in quotes, "religiously," to their Hebrew lessons and show up and so on. And there was a president of the congregation who had promised an award to the person who did that. And my kids always were the ones who did it, and they never got the award that was supposed to happen. There's supposed to be a baseball tickets, Yankees tickets, one year, and these things never happened. So my kids got a little distorted view of some of these things, and I'm not sure why they offered a reward when the reward probably should have been the feelings themselves, the spiritual feelings that we develop. We didn't even know why they started a reward thing; it just seemed like something you're supposed to do.

deborah 43:24 My husband and I were both very good doobies most of our earlier lives, anyway. We never got rewarded for learning our own Hebrew lessons. But I actually I did not have a bat mitzvah, because my parents, my grandfather founded an orthodox congregation in Yonkers, New York, where I'm from, and my mother and father secured Hebrew lessons for me with a tutor. And when I was 13, my mother said, "Well, when are we going to start learning her Haftorah?" And the Hebrew teacher looked shocked, and he said, "Girls don't have a bat mitzvah. Orthodox people don't do that." That's not true anymore, but it was true at the time, and my mother was heartbroken. I was flabbergasted because I was being prepared; I was looking forward to it, and so I didn't do it. I might do it; I guess it at 84, men are allowed to be re-bar mitzvah-ed or something. I don't know if I'll wait that long, but I might actually do it at some point.

Leah Jones 44:27 It's such a wonderful experience, because we had -- so I converted in my late 20s. And so I became bat mitzvah when I was 30, was first time I read from Torah. And a few years prior, we had done a number of group bat mitzvahs at my synagogue for women who had been denied the experience. Sometimes they would do it all on their own. My friend Shifra had her own when she was maybe turning 60, she did one. So it's never too late to read from Torah and Haftorah for the first time, publicly. And, it's so meaningful.

deborah 45:18 My temple has it -- I've seen a few women go through and a couple of relatives -- they've decided to do it. And my temple actually has a program for that, so, I'm thinking.

Leah Jones 45:32 I had invitations printed, almost as if I was 13. They were pink and purple, and they folded up. And they were Hebrew on this side and English on this side. I mean, I was 30. I'm 45, now, I've still never been married. But at 30 I like really felt it, so I was like, "There's going to be these nice paper invitations, and this is just going to be the biggest party, and there was a really nice fish platter for the Kiddush. Friends had the party at their house; it was just super fun.

deborah 46:09 Very meaningful. Did you get lot of fountain pens, though? I have to ask.

Leah Jones 46:14 No, I did just get a fountain pen, though. This year, I interviewed -- I've got a really nice episode about fountain pens. I told my sister to listen to the episode and that I wanted a beginner fountain pen. So I got one this year.

deborah 46:35 I'm sorry, I interrupted you, you were saying how meaningful it was to you; tat's an important thing to say.

Leah Jones 46:41 It was very meaningful. I really appreciated being able to give honors during the service and ask the people at your synagogue that are -- for me, it was a lot of our stalwart elders who I didn't know, but who were there every Shabbat -- and asking them to open the Ark or light the candles and do different blessings and to be able to say thank you for supporting this congregation and making a community for me to come into when I converted. So, that was really meaningful to me. And it was a great opportunity to share what Shabbat was like with my family who's not Jewish.

deborah 47:33 That is lovely. And being part of a community is most of what this is about.

Leah Jones 47:43 I wrapped -- well, now a year ago -- I was president of my synagogue for two years for the first two years of the pandemic, which was a hard time to be a president of a synagogue. I don't suggest it.

deborah 47:57 I don't think I would take the job.

Leah Jones 48:00 Don't do it! [laughter] All right, now I'm curious -- you have for music Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro. I know some Joni Mitchell probably more than I think -- I feel like she's an artist that if I were really to dive in, I'd be like, "Oh, I do know that song. I know that song." But I can't -- suddenly, I have amnesia, and I can't think of a single Joni Mitchell song. Tell me a little bit about Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro and how you heard them for the first time and what they mean to you as as musicians.

deborah 48:54 Okay, I think both of them I heard for the first time in high school. That would be in the mid-to-late 60s, let's say before 1969, and before that. At that point, Laura Nyro's voice was just something out of the blue. Just a powerful, powerful soprano. And the lyrics were stories, which is the same I could say of Joni Mitchell. So in my head -- those melancholy times of high school, where nothing is working out right, these two women sang something to me -- more so Laura Nyro at first, I would say, because she started off, you probably know, "Wedding Bell Blues" or "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession," maybe. I guess Joni Mitchell might be more familiar.

deborah 49:50 She started more in the folk singer realm like Judy Collins and a few other women singers, but at certain point her voice was very interesting. She also used 12-string guitar, so her guitar tunings were unlike anyone else; no one else was that sophisticated a player. And eventually she became a jazz composer and jazz musician, as well. But I think the period that sticks with me, it was a couple of years after that, when I was in college, the so-called "Blue" album, not-so-called, it was the "Blue" album, came out. The narrative in that album, it captured -- you know the song, "Woodstock," I would imagine, which is also one of hers.

deborah 50:40 This story of a woman with a man who never quite responds to the image in her heart of what she wants to have in a lover, but she must be with him. That encapsulated everything about college years, and those times. I'm 70, so we're thinking about the era of free-love and hippies. And the idea of wandering through life with someone and not tying it down. Now she had a song, "my old man is a singer in the park/we don't need a piece of paper from the City Hall keeping us tried and true/my old man singing away the blues." And that was the ideal a lot of people were striving for -- that we didn't need any paper, we were independent. And it wasn't just the lyric, though the story that she was telling, but the way the music emulated all the feelings that she was expressing. She just had the capacity to weave her voice around these words in ways that no one else really was doing at the time.

deborah 51:48 It was a very creative time in music. I feel the stories and lyrics were a lot more powerful than we have now, except in some cases. Another song I think about is "A Case of You." Even though there was a certain free-love magnet at the time, and people were very attracted to that idea that you didn't need any any legal ties and so on. There was a sort of fight back to be independent at the same time, which I think you probably also saw in the women's movement at the time, and some other developments. But she had one song that "I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet." Just that sense of equality, which never quite came about.

deborah 52:49 So beautifully idealistic, and in a lot of her music, that we could stand up to each other and still be with each other. That's something -- that was my fantasy that that's the way it was supposed to be. So, that would be more about Joni Mitchell. But Laura Nyro was really tragic, she died too young of cancer. A lot of other people covered her songs and made them more mainstream than she ever could. Her voice was unique, and a lot of people didn't like it. I had some friends who were male, who used to call her "screaming lady," whenever girls put her on the -- I was gonna say, the record player. I have to say record player. But when her voice would come out, lot of 'em would just run out of the room, so it's only girls listening to her. It was hauntingly beautiful, her voice.

deborah 53:50 Three Dog Night did "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession" and a whole different kind of orchestration to it. That was the one that became popular, and the Fifth Dimension sang a lot of her songs. "Soul Picnic" and "Wedding Bell Blues" were a couple. So these two singers and a number of others, but I think these two, really carried me in terms of the the mental journey I was taking at the same time. They're a little bit older than I was, but not much. And their independence was so admirable to me. Little did I know the terrible things that both of them were going through at times, but they also had just mystical, magnificent lives. As far as I was concerned, traveling the world as singers, I thought that was quite romantic and aspirational.

Leah Jones 54:45 It certainly seems that way, especially when you're in college, and you see the singers, the artists that you love and they're traveling -- even more so, pre-social media, when the stories you were getting about them were exactly the stories they wanted you to hear. It was their music and drips of information about their personal lives. But it wasn't so much that we know now, that you were able to fill in the story in a different way based on their music.

deborah 55:24 And they were really troubadours -- they were bringing back news from other places. You got some of your information about what it was like to backpack in Europe from singers who went there before we all started to do it. Not that I did it, but my friends started to do it. I took graduate school over the backpack to Europe trip. So that's my mistake. Not my mistake, but two roads diverged.

Leah Jones 55:52 Were you ever able to see either of them perform live?

deborah 55:56 I saw Joni Mitchell and I did not get to see Laura Nyro, and I so wanted to do that.

Leah Jones 56:04 Joni has -- she's still performing, right? A little bit?

deborah 56:08 No, she's had some sort of -- Judy Collins still performs, occasionally. Although, she went through a terrible crisis with her voice; it's not as powerful as it once was. I think as we get older, the range is going to collapse a little bit, too. But she does still sing. And, Joni Mitchell has had, they were very guarded about what it was exactly, but sort of mental incident, brain incident. So, I'm not sure if she had a stroke. So I apologize to anyone who's listening who might be upset that I'm trying to talk about this, but --

Leah Jones 56:48 -- I will, I'll find an article, and I'll add it to the show notes, so don't worry.

deborah 56:56 So she doesn't perform, they did honor her at the Kennedy Center recently. And she was there and she's able to speak. I think for a while, she wasn't even able to speak. So sounded like a stroke, but I'm not sure. I can't say that I follow it all as much as I used to. Too many distractions on Facebook. But I will never forget that album, I must have worn it down to threads from playing it over and over and over, in the same day over and over and over. It was such a set of anthems for that time period.

Leah Jones 57:42 There's really something special when you find an album that provides the anthems of a chapter of your life.

deborah 57:52 Yes, yes. Do you have one?

Leah Jones 57:58 Natasha Bedingfield has an album called "Unwritten" that I listened to a lot when I was kind of late '20s, and doing a lot of writing. That is one that if I ever need to get into the zone, and just crank out some words like Natasha Battenfeld, that really works for me. And then Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill," which is a very, very Gen X answer, but it's such a great angsty college album.

deborah 58:35 Yeah, I love that one, too.

Leah Jones 58:37 So good.

deborah 58:38 Very, very good. Yeah.

Leah Jones 58:42 But now, I don't listen to as much music as I used to. And much more likely to have a podcast on, especially since the first lockdown. Because I was spending so much time alone that I really came to rely on podcasts to provide company like the presence of other people, other voices, human voices. So I walk around with my phone playing a podcast, had my phone shoved in my bra. And pretend like there were people in my house.

deborah 59:21 I walk about four or five miles a day now, and I devote half of it to listening to podcasts and the other half to listening to music. And I have a pretty eclectic collection of things in my head that I like to listen to, so I never run out. But it's more jazz than anything else at this point. I guess because the lyrics are on other songs are not as appealing.

Leah Jones 59:46 What are some of the jazz musicians that you'll walk to?

deborah 59:52 Well, I think I mentioned Miles Davis and that's actually my writing music. There's a song called "So What" But on his "Kind of Blue" album, and it's one of the most exquisite uses of instruments to sound like conversation that I've ever heard. It always gets me thinking in terms of what I'm going to put on the page. If I were scoring or if I were writing lyrics for that song, which is the story of whatever I'm working on now, what would it sound like? And that rhythm of it, which is very syncopated, gets me off of whatever writer's block I came into the room with. So, I often do that.

deborah 1:00:38 I guess I do listen to a lot of anthologies of Paris kind of music, so things like"La Vie en Rose" will keep me going walking for a long time, even though it's not a very bouncy song that keeps you walking, I can just keep going when I hear it. Let's see, in terms of jazz, I'm trying to think. This morning, I didn't listen to any music, which is not usual, so my mind is going blank. But I like Diana Krall and I enjoy -- sorry, sorry, now I can't think of any jazz, I'm thinking -- Norah Jones.

Leah Jones 1:01:21 Amnesia, it happens. I was in high school I was in, basically in a band I was allowed to be in, so I was in marching band. I was in concert band, I was in jazz band. And I went through a few years where I thought good music didn't have words, so I listened to classical and jazz instrumentals constantly. And so Take Five will always stop me in my tracks, no matter what I'm doing. Gustav Holtz, "The Planets,' which is not jazz. But if "The Planets" ever somehow comes on, that's a symphony that really, really works for me. And then I think it's "Take the A Train" -- trains in New York, as they start heading off out of the station, have the first two notes of "Take the A Train." I don't live in New York, but it's something that anytime I go there, "I'm not on an A train, but it still sounds like like the first two notes of it."It's a very hard thing to explain to people that I'm walking like, "Just listen to the what it sounds like when the wheels scrape the track, it's these two notes." I'm ready to go back to New York.

deborah 1:02:56 Yeah, I miss it. I haven't been for two years, which is so unlike me. I grew up just north of the city; I could walk to the Bronx from my house. And I can't believe I didn't go, but I just couldn't.

Leah Jones 1:03:10 Well, Manhattan in particular, was so scary during the pandemic. I mean, we're still in the pandemic, but in the pre-vaccine days of the pandemic.

deborah 1:03:23 Once Broadway shut down. Yes, that was the end of life for me. I got my brain cell back on the jazz question. My dad was a pretty talented piano player, and he made sure I got lessons and I was actually trained to be a concert pianist. Which was never going to succeed -- my hands are too small. So, my repertoire was not going to be very big, and I knew that from a pretty early age, but I did study and I enjoyed it. Although my teacher was really fierce -- too fierce for a child, I think -- but later on, I appreciate it.

deborah 1:04:11 The reason I brought up both my dad and the piano teacher is that we had an electrified player piano in our basement. And the Aeolian company, was the company that used to make the piano rolls. And my dad, the one thing he did collect. was Aeolian piano rolls, and he only wanted originals. Because in many cases, the ones he liked to collect were George Gershwin, and Gershwin himself had done the fingering on the piano for the master cut of those piano rolls. And, my father would sit in the basement -- he didn't take off a lot of time, but sometimes in whatever spare time he had, he would go downstairs and I would see him and his hands would be moving with George Gershwin's finger, in his head over the music and he'd be singing, and it was the most peaceful really that I ever saw him as a physician and very driven person. But, this was how he relaxed. So Gershwin is always rolling around in my head, and I often listen to Gershwin while I'm walking or Cole Porter -- same kind of reason.

Leah Jones 1:05:25 Wow. I never thought much about how player pianos got their movement.

deborah 1:05:34 Yeah, somebody had to play it into a master cylinder, and then they cut all the rolls from that. So it was George Gershwin, who did "Rhapsody in Blue." My dad feeling through the piano somehow. And Gershwin's mother, I think, was a friend of my grandmother's, and they used to play cards together. So, my dad didn't know him because he died before my dad was born, or when he was a little, little boy. But the grave of Gershwin is actually in the same cemetery where my parents were buried. My father would go to visit the grave; it's in the middle of this sort of nondescript place, but people are still leaving flowers and mementos --like, he's Marilyn Monroe -- on the Gershwin mausoleum. It's so remarkable and I remember he just hero-worshipped George Gershwin. That was one of his favorite people.

Leah Jones 1:06:42 Well, Deborah, is there anything about your book, about making challah, about music -- I know that we could go on talking all evening -- that we haven't mentioned that if we hung up, you would regret not talking about?

deborah 1:07:00 I guess a little about the book. I wrote it because I know that a lot of people get stuck, and think that they can't retrieve a life or make a life for themselves when they have spent so long trying to make sure the other person was okay. And I didn't think I was going to be okay, I didn't think I could leave. I wrote it to show both in word and deed, that if you can recover some of your old creativity, whatever it was, that brought you to the place where you married this person, or decided to live with this person -- that's still in there, the things that that you loved and the things that you could do. And it's a good starting place for making the motion out, because it is very difficult to leave once the interdependence becomes as as profound as it was for me. So I wanted to tell that story for lots of literary reasons, and I've always been a writer. I also wanted, I hope it will help people to see that it's possible to have have a life anyway.

Leah Jones 1:08:23 Beautiful, beautiful. Well, I look forward to reading it and to your publication date, April 5th, people can pre-order now. Are you active on social media? Do you want people to follow you on the internet?

deborah 1:08:39 Sure. I have a Facebook page. I have an author page now, too, so that's probably the better place to go. The other things might not be interesting to everybody else. I have a website, DeborahGreenhut.com. And let's see, a LinkedIn page. So I look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to correspond.

Leah Jones 1:09:01 Great. Well, congratulations. And thank you for joining me tonight.

deborah 1:09:07 It was a really pleasure. Thank you so very much for inviting me to this interview. Thank you.

Announcer 1:09:13 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living & Dying Series)

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Shai Korman, host of Friday Night Movie Podcast, joins the Finding Favorites team this week as guest host. He's talking to Katie Jones about her love of Reality TV.

Show notes will be updated with links ASAP.

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Host Leah Jones is the guest this week - talking about all of her favorite podcasts, TV shows, movies and other random stuff that kept her comfortable during primary cancer treatment. She rang the gong after her final radiation treatment on March 18, 2022, so this is a recap of just some of the stuff that she liked since her diagnosis.

Podcasts

Doughboys
HDTGM
Arm Cherries
Everything Nicole Byer - WWYDM, Best Friends, Newcomers
High mighty, Dork Forest
Blank Check with Griffin and David
Friday Night Movie Podcast and the Korman trio
The Bagel Report
Jackie and Laurie Show
Deep Dive - Jessica St Claire
My own podcasts - Candy Chat Chicago, Finding Favorites and guesting on podcasts

Love is BLind season 2
The Circle season 2 (or was it 3?)
Chocolate School
Ghosts (CBS and BBC)
Murdoch Mysteries
Grand Crew
Minx - very excited

Movies

Steroid Saturdays - brunch, movie
Action - big budget movies
Dune x 2
Spiderman Homecoming
Jackass x 2
The King’s Man
Fast 9

Apps

Tik Tok
Match 3 games with generous infinite lives
Caring Bridge

Anticipating trips

The return (and rescheduled) live shows
Kyle Kinane at Thalia Hall
Hadestown and Frozen
Lyric Opera
HDTGM in LA
Doughboys in Boston, Chicago
Letter Kenny Live
Israel in July
Recommending Wallys on 1-55 in Pontiac

Random Cancer recommendations

Ice socks and ice mittens for neuropathy
A medical recliner for recovering from major surgery
Rock that Treatment gift boxes
Israeli Gift Box
A great dress - Fringe and Co
Grubhub, Amazon gift cards
Single serving food deliveries
Aquaphor
Cozy clothes - sunday sleeper pants from old navy
Being as private or public as you want
Making silly swag for my helpers
Accepting help (wheelchairs, garbage, meals)

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Steve Higgins, an award-winning English professor at Lewis and Clark and your favorite poetry professor on Tik Tok, has loved The Nightmare Before Christmas for 30 years. We talk about merchandise, music and lessons for aliens in the Tim Burton classic.

Follow Steve on Twitter and Tik Tok where he does one minute poetry lessons.

Links

Peacemaker
Righteous Gemstones
Ghosts - CBS and BBC
Beforeigners
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Corpse Bride
Burger King Watches
Original Trailer
Sally's Song
How to light hanukkah candles
Donate to HIAS or JDC

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California-based author Jayne Martin's favorite place is Paris, France, and we settled in to talk about the bread, the Eiffel Tower and people watching. Jayne's newest book, The Daddy Chronicles, is available for pre-order and will launch on March 15, 2022.

Follow Jayne Martin online and pre-order The Daddy Chronicles

The Daddy Chronicles: Memoir of a fatherless daughter
Jayne Martin's website
Facebook
Twitter @Jayne_Martin
Instagram @jayne.martin.writer

Show Notes

Jennifer Weiner advice for writers
Tik Tok Horse Rescue
Meg Pokrass (flash fiction retreats)
Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris
Alelie filming locations
Picasso Museum in Paris
MBMBAM Amelie bit
Paris Pet Cemetary
Health benefits of cobblestone streets
Revolution and throwing cobblestones
Immaculate Conception in Italy
Kingston Trio sings MTA (Boston Song)

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Esther Kustanowitz, co-host of The Bagel Report, is back with another one of her favorite things - finding Jewish moments in pop culture! We talk about what representation meant to her as a kid and how it has changed over the last 15 years as Jewish moments on TV increase.

How TV has embraced dybbuks, golems and other Jewish lore Twitter: @estherk @thebagelreport @tvgonejewy IG: @estherkustanowitz @TBRthepod FB: The Bagel Report TVGoneJewy The Bagel Report podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts Show Links

Limmud
Elevator episode was Facts of Life, not Different Strokes!
Milky Way LA
Stars of David
The Wonder Years revamped Bar Mitzvah
Better Things on FX
Part one of Esther K's interview on Friday Night Movie Podcast
Friday Night Movie Podcast part 2
The Bagel Report
History of confirmation in the Reform movement

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Author Sarah M Anderson, who also writes as Maggie Chase and Sally Sultzman, joined Leah this week to share the story of how she became a prolific published author. With well over 40 romance books available, Sarah shares recommendations for all types of romance genres, YA romance and cozy mysteries.

Follow Sarah online

SarahMAnderson.com/
Twitter @sarahmanderson1
Twitter @SallySultzman
SallySultzman.com/
Maggie Chase on Amazon (very spicy)

Show Links

Most popular baby names of 1976
Bunnicula
GP Gottlieb (cozy mysteries with recipes)
The Cat Who Series
Jamie Loftus, Lolita Podcast
Harlequin

Romance Authors

https://www.crystalwrote.com/
https://www.oliviawaite.com/
https://oliviadade.com/
https://kjcharleswriter.com/
https://catsebastian.com/
https://www.meganframpton.com/
https://www.emeryleebooks.com/meet-cute-diary
https://www.byleahjohnson.com/
https://karenbooth.net/
https://twitter.com/_AdeleBuck
https://www.tashalharrison.com/ wrote the Say Yes duet
https://www.mandacollins.com/

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Jess, a Wisconsin-based world-traveler, loves... well, she loves travel! In this episode, Jessica shares her story of how two week vacations turned into a three month trip and set the stage for her to travel abroad for one year and eight months. COVID may have brought her back to the States early, but it hasn't dampened her desire to share how to make long trips work.

Follow Jessica, aka @bayjb, on Instagram

Show Links

The Professional Hobo
How much does it cost to travel around the world?
Budget travel around the world
Trail Wallet

Countries and locations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bund
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

No intro this week, because Leah is in Boston celebrating the end of chemotherapy and enjoying a break before radiation starts.

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Adal Rifai, a legendary Chicago-based podcaster, loves Chicago restaurants and joined guest host Shai Korman to give recommendations. Adal is Chunt on Hello from the Magic Tavern, hosts Hey Riddle Riddle and Siblings Peculiar. Shai is joining us from the Friday Night Movie Podcast.

Follow Adal Rifai online

Hello from the Magic Tavern
Instagram @adalrifai
Twitter @adalrifai

Chicago Food Tour

Percolator
June Bug
Galit
Au cheval burger
Community on Milwaukee
Chicago Diner
Taste Of Lebanon
JP Grazianos
Alinia
Girl and the Goat

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Updates on Leah's CaringBridge

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Erika Valenciana, a Chicago-based filmmaker, loves making her own clothes. She joins guest host Amy Güth to talk about documentary films, sewing and more. Catch up with Erika in Mexico City in March for the premier of her documentary La Mitad del Mundo!

Follow Erika on Instagram and online with Diverse Voices in Docs, Stowe Story Labs. Erika and Magdelena Hernandez "La Mitad del Mundo" documentary film is going to premiere at Lit Luz in March

Amy is the host of Unconventional with Amy Güth and Crain's Daily Gist. She also produces cultural events at 5959 in Chicago. Follow Amy on Instagram for yoga writing prompts and subscribe to her weekly email newsletter.

Show Notes * "Brewer" and "Birder By The Lake" are both not yet available online, both are in-progress * Anu Rana, producer of "Brewer" film * Mitch Wenkus, cinematographer of "Birder by the Lake" film * Professor Valerie Frizzle, PhD * Threadbare * TV Host wears same suit * Barack Obama wore the same tuxedo for 8 years, nobody noticed * Successful people wear the same clothes every day

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Scott “ToyGuru” Neitlich knows and loves toys. If you look around your house, you might have some that he helped bring into the world. Guest host Shai Korman sat down with Scott to learn more about his career, philosophy and why he loves Arbor Day so much.

Shai brings over the Friday Night Movie Podcast signature game Buy, Rent, Meh for some tough choices.

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Follow Shai AKA @pancake4table on Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to Friday Night Movie Podcast

Keep up with Scott "ToyGuru" Neitlich on YouTube, Twitter and Spector Creative

Show Notes

Interview with Scott about Masters of the Universe
Staction Figures and Masters of the Universe
Star Wars: The Power of the Force 1985 Toy Line
Star Wars Vintage Collection
New HeMan on Netflix
He-Man Wikipedia

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Updates on Leah's CaringBridge

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Vicki Güth is an avid gardener who loves growing her own food. She's also guest host Amy Güth's mother. This week they got on the phone to talk in depth about gardening and more.

Show Notes

Quarterboards.com
Quarterboards and More on Etsy
Quarterboards for a Cause
Master Gardeners at the Chattanooga Zoo
Food, Inc documentary
What to plant with marigolds (companion planting)
Roses Love Garlic and Carrots Love Tomatoes
Dr. Earth natural garden products
Wild Ones Native Plants org
Crabtree Farms

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To close out 2021, I asked friends to send me voice memos about their favorite things in 2021. This clip show is made up of those voice memos covering all things personal, pop culture and professional. You've met most of the guests before and everyone is bringing a new favorite thing or an exciting update to their episode!

Act 1

Shai and Lily from Friday Night Movie Podcast (Cats, Cereal)
Monica Reida (Murdoch Mysteries)
Steve Higgins (Doctor Who)
Max Pacheco (The most complete Disney library)

Act 2

Terry Gant, Third Coast Comics (League of Superheroes)
Ry Jones
Rachel
Rocco Cataldo, Potenza Productions
Veronica Arreola, Femist Agenda (Women's Sports)
Amy Guth, Daily Gist

Act 3

Scott Smith, host of Frunchroom (The West Wing)
Jocelyn Geboy, cohost of Candy Chat Chicago (Avett Brothers, Candy)
Keidra C, The Learned FanGirl (KPopDollstagram)
Dave Coustan (trumpet)
Ezra Butler, artist (Andy Warhol)

Recommended stuff

Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll
Dopesick
Ghostbusters Afterlife
Succession
AEW Wrestling
Maid
Working Moms
I'm Sorry
The Other Two
Owl House, Disney+
Couer de Pirate album
Formula 1 Racing
Magic the Gathering
Olde Style - Dmitry Samarov
The Radical King - MLK
Family Properties
8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Encanto
Taylor Swift
Sarah Dodge - bread in Atlanta
Buying season tickets to see Women's Sports

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Updates on Leah's CaringBridge

Family Properties (10th Anniversary Edition): Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America

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Rachel Swanson, a Chicago-based creativity coach and yoga instructor, takes us with her on her journey from "weird yoga" to trauma-informed yoga certification. We talk about post-partum depression, Kundalini yoga, body neutrality, and creative classrooms.

This is a special Christmas Eve release (because you have a long drive ahead or a chill day without any new podcasts).

Follow Rachel on Twitter and Instagram

Show Notes

Rachel Swanson Coaching
Kundalini yoga
Vinyasa yoga
Trauma informed yoga
“Whatever is accessible in your body today”
@tiffanycroww on Tik Tok
Abuse in kundalini yoga
Feetup
Jessamyn Stanley
Virgie Tovar

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Updates on Leah's CaringBridge

Rachel 0:00 Hello, my name is Rachel Swanson. And my favorite thing is doing embodied yoga practice.

Announcer 0:08 Welcome to the Finding Favorites Podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:20 Welcome to Finding Favorites. This is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. Tonight, it's a late night. It's not late, it's just dark like it's super late. It is 8:30 on a Monday and I'm like it's midnight, we're cozy. I'm here tonight with Rachel Swanson. She's a creativity coach, she works on Creative Technology Solutions. She works with schools and businesses to develop high impact uses of technology and helps people be more creative, efficient, meaningful work. She does one-on-one coaching, creativity jams, visual storytelling. We were introduced by my friend Amy Guth, which means that Rachel is a good person from the get-go. Rachel, how are you doing tonight?

Transcripts continue

----more----

Rachel 1:15 I am doing so well. I also am feeling the cold, dark, November weather, but I'm doing very well.

Leah Jones 1:26 Yeah, I think -- did it snow today? Did snow for you, today?

Rachel 1:30 I think it did.

Leah Jones 1:32 I looked outside briefly and I was like, "Do I need to clean my glasses? Or is it snow?"

Rachel 1:39 Yeah, it was a sad moment for me, but I'm adjusting slowly.

Leah Jones 1:44 How was your fall then? Do you get into spooky season, are you a Halloween person?

Rachel 1:50 So , I am a Halloween person, now. As a child, we weren't allowed to celebrate Halloween. So I'm making up for lost time by just going full-on for Halloween -- matching costumes for my family, really getting into all of the spookiness, the witchiness, you know, just the full pendulum swing from my upbringing.

Leah Jones 2:15 What were your matching costumes this year?

Rachel 2:16 This year, my two sons were Mario and Luigi, and my partner and I were the two sides of a Switch controller.

Leah Jones 2:25 Oh my gosh, that's so clever.

Rachel 2:30 We wanted to give the illusion that we were in control, even though that's rarely the rarely the case.

Leah Jones 2:36 How old are your boys?

Rachel 2:36 They're eight and two ... almost three.

Leah Jones 2:42 Very fun ages. All I know is that we both know Amy, how do you know Amy?

Rachel 2:50 So Amy and I met because we were doing yoga teacher training together. And I saw her in the room and she has such dynamic, wonderful energy. And I was like, "I need to know that woman." And we became friends over the course of our six months or so of weekend trainings. And, I was not wrong, she's one of my favorites, for sure.

Leah Jones 3:16 Yeah, she is. She's a blast. We met doing comedy many years ago. Many, many years ago, we went to the same open mics.

Rachel 3:26 I could see that. Yeah, that sounds like Amy.

Leah Jones 3:29 And then we ran into each other at synagogue a few years later, and I was like, "Wait, don't I know you from the Tequila Roadhouse?"

Rachel 3:35 [laughter] I wish that could be how everyone knows me.

Leah Jones 3:44 Just from the Tequila Roadhouse, it was a wild, little bar in Old Town a million years ago. And do you teach yoga?

Rachel 4:03 Yes, occasionally, but I really took the yoga class, because I wanted to become better at doing yoga. And I like to understand how things work. And I just loved yoga, which is exactly what I was planning to talk about tonight. So it's the perfect segue. But I decided that I wanted to stretch myself and get certified to be able to teach.

Leah Jones 4:29 Interesting. Well, we'll just jump right into it. And if we circle back on other chit chat, it's great.

Leah Jones 4:44 One of the things I like to know, are people's origin stories. So when did you take your first yoga class or when did it like cross your radar as something you might want to do?

Rachel 4:57 So the honest truth is that I hated yoga for a really long time. took a couple of yoga classes at various studios, and it felt like a sort of thing that I should like, kind of like eating healthy. And you know, like doing the right thing. It also felt like something that was for other people, and not for me. As a child, I enjoyed doing some physical activity, I danced in jazz dance classes. And as I got older, I wasn't really into organized sports, I didn't really like working out that much. And it was kind of a revelation that I could enjoy moving my body in any kind of way, because that just generally hadn't been a positive experience for me. PE class was the bane of my existence. I took it as an independent study in high school. And that meant that I just basically had to write about PE and pretend that I was doing the workouts. Yeah, so it's pretty great.

Leah Jones 6:02 [laughter] Like, I designed a special workout for myself called laun -- do stair stepping --which looks a lot like doing the laundry.

Rachel 6:14 I probably walked like, you know, a mile today, maybe?

Leah Jones 6:21 I hear you on that. I think probably the first time I went to yoga, it was kind of the equivalent of like brussel sprouts or broccoli? Like, yeah, I know, stretching is good. But it's such an intimidating activity.

Rachel 6:45 Yes. So, I am in a body that is not small. And that's always been the case, but especially as I've gotten older and had children, it also feels like yoga has been inaccessible for fat bodies. So I just stayed away from it, because every yoga teacher, I would go to was very skinny, and could bend her leg, you know, around her head several times. And I have a stomach. So when I fold forward, it doesn't fold the same way. Sitting on my knees is different, everything feels different in a fat body. And when you're only getting instructions from someone whose body is very different from yours, it can feel incredibly intimidating.

Leah Jones 7:32 Yeah. And someone who's only ever been in a thin body -- is really hard to take instruction from them.

Rachel 7:42 Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Leah Jones 7:46 So did you find a teacher who was heavier? At what moment did you say -- what was the a-ha or the crescendo, maybe it wasn't a moment -- where you found yourself in a class that made it accessible to you and your body, or gave you the vision that it could become accessible to you?

Rachel 8:12 So I had my first son, and I had had postpartum depression. And yeah, after having my first son, and it was really hard for me to reconnect to my body after that experience. And then, I'd had several medical issues that meant that I had a whole year of surgeries. And so it really was hard for -- even more so then, when you're in pain, and it's chronic pain, the dissociation from your body is easy to do. For me, I just lived in my head, because it was too painful to live in my body. And I was in the recovery process, and one of my friends invited me to go to a yoga class with her. I was like, "Girl, I just don't want to." If I'm going to work out, it was like things that would be like weight lifting weights or something that made me feel powerful and strong.

Rachel 9:21 And you know, she's like, "Look, it's really weird yoga, I can't even really explain it to you, but I think you'll enjoy it, you should just come." And this is the like the true testament of my care for this friend, that I showed up to really weird yoga. She didn't remember the name of it. Eventually, I did find out that it was called Kundalini yoga, and that was kind of irrelevant the night that I went. So I went to this class, the teacher, her name was Karampal Kaur and I still take classes with her, she's wonderful.

Rachel 9:21 And the class is a little bit different from a traditional like Vinyasa yoga class, because Vinyasa you're moving from pose to pose, it's very much about a flow. Kundalini is about creating energy and working that energy up your spine. And so, there's bursts of intensity, and then you have times of rest, and just sitting and meditating. So I did this class, and it was totally weird. And also, it was a revelation. I remember thinking to myself, "How come no one's ever taught me how to pray with my body before?"

Leah Jones 10:40 Yeah, oooh, that's beautiful.

Rachel 10:42 It was just powerful, and I felt -- people talk about embodied living and embodied experiences -- I felt like I had moved from my head into my body. Like I was like sinking into my body again, after years of disconnection. It was such a powerful experience for me.

Leah Jones 11:06 Wow. And just that first class was that powerful?

Rachel 11:10 Just that first class was that powerful. And after the class, the teacher came up, and I was like, "What's going on? Like, I don't really understand what this yoga is." We did some chanting, that felt super weird. And I wasn't sure how I felt about that. And the teacher was so kind, and made everything accessible and talked through everything we had done, and kind of explained the science about it. Which I'm a pretty cerebral person, as we've already established, and so that was really helpful to me. Invited us to come back, and at the end of class, every class, you sit and drink a cup of hot yogi tea. And so I did -- which, that too, is kind of goes against all of my warning bells, which is like "Ding, ding ding -- new people, weird people? I don't know?" But I did it, I did it.

Leah Jones 12:04 You had your tea, you chanted.

Rachel 12:06 All the things, that I would definitely have side-eyed if somebody else had told me about it. And from there, I kept going, I went about once a week, for a really long time. Because it just felt so amazing in my body, and it was this totally different embodied experience.

Leah Jones 12:33 And was that teacher pretty good about making adjustments for people with different bodies?

Rachel 12:40 Yes, so she's really wonderful because she is incredibly accommodating of all sorts of body experiences, and is a trauma-informed practitioner. And so, she's even aware of how different poses might be difficult for survivors of sexual abuse, or how different poses would be challenging for people of different kinds of bodies. One of the things that she would consistently say in class ,and still does, is "Whatever is accessible in your body today." And I love that phrase, because yeah, it's every day is different. Some days, I can do some poses, and some days, I can't, because sometimes things are accessible on my body, and sometimes they aren't. And it's a it's a fluid thing. It's not like, "if you can't do that," which is how things had been phrased before, " Like, you're gonna sit like this. If you can't do that, maybe try this," is a very different conversation.

Leah Jones 13:41 Go to the corner, do Child's Pose, and wait until you can rejoin the class .... Yeah, I think I've been to that.

Rachel 13:55 I think I've been only that yoga class prior to this experience. Where it was just like, "inhale, exhale," and I was like, getting angrier and angrier, the longer the class is going. Like, I'm supposed to be feeling some sort of inner peace, and mostly, I'm just feeling inner resentment and anger.

Leah Jones 14:13 Yeah, not great, not great. Yeah, we have something that we say at my synagogue for certain prayers, where it's like "Rise in body or spirit." You know, like as you're able. And I think it's really important to help people learn to honor what their bodies can do on a particular day. And that days look may look different.

Rachel 14:38 And they do, and what is accessible in a body is always different. And there's also a conversation about -- she'll say, "If this isn't accessible to you today, just visualize yourself doing the pose, and you'll still get the benefits of the pose." And that's powerful, too and it's true. When you look at the science of it, our brains are so powerful and can create bodily experiences for us, even if we're not moving our body, so it checks out from a scientific standpoint. And it's also making the whole class so much more accessible.

Leah Jones 15:18 Right? I mean, now that you say it, it makes sense to me because I, the only team sport I did -- I did two team sports, I guess in high school, like I was on the swim team for one year, and then I was in marching band, which I consider a team sport -- we were always in the locker room, visualizing our races. Always, "You're on the starting block, how does it feel, you hear the buzzer, you hit the water, you go in smooth, you take your first stroke." And so, in that one year of competitive swimming, we always visualized the race and winning the race, before we got in the water. But, I've never heard anyone in an exercise class, say, visualize yourself doing this. And that really speaks to me, that's really interesting.

Rachel 16:16 It is. And visualization is such a powerful tool, it's something I use in my coaching work too, because if we can imagine it, then we can start to create it and put it into our reality.

Leah Jones 16:38 When for you -- did it go, so you're studying Kundalini with her? Did you branch out and try other teachers? Or what does exploring yoga start to look like for you?

Rachel 16:53 I did, I branched out, I tried other teachers and tried other classes. And then, I also tried other kinds of yoga. So it wasn't just this class, or this kind of yoga. And the permission I had to be able to do the Kundalini Yoga, gave me the confidence to do other things. So, I think there was a shift happening in me, at the same time that this was going on, from "I'm not the kind of person who can do yoga, I'm not the kind of -- my body is not the kind of body that can do this." And I think for me, my story also included a lot of limiting thoughts of -- "I will be able to accomplish business success, when I lose 50 pounds. I will be able to have another baby, when I lose 50 pounds. I will be able to do whatever thing it is, I'm going to be able to do all of that at some future date, magical future date when my body is acceptable and good and right."

Rachel 18:01 And I started to have this shift in me, which is, "Why am I waiting to start my life? Why am I living a life that's halfway there, for some distant point that is not even guaranteed to me?" And when I started going to the yoga class, I started embodying my body. I had this awakening in my body of, "My body is good. My body is good. My body has done incredible things. My body has survived incredible things. I can stop waiting, I can stop waiting to start my life, and I can just live my life." So, that opened up all kinds of things. Because when you stop waiting for permission from some external force, and you're just like I'm going to just go and do the things that I want to do, and other people can feel however they want about a fat person walking around in yoga clothes doing yoga, --that's their deal. That's not my deal. And it really has changed everything in my life.

Leah Jones 19:17 Yeah, I have found -- a few years ago, I was preparing for a hysterectomy, and so I went to Pilates for like six months before the surgery. Because I was like, "I know I need stronger core, a stronger core will help the surgery." And then I was like, "Oh my gosh, even though I'm tall and fat, and in a big body, I have Pilates." I went to this amazing studio where they were -- I wrote them before I went and I was like, "No weight loss talk, no body, no summer body, no bikini body talk -- this is the body I have, and like body neutrality, or I'm not coming in. I'm not motivated by being yelled at."

Leah Jones 20:08 And they were phenomenal. It was mind, body, maybe it was Mind, Body, Spirit. And they've since closed shop and now there's a new Pilates studio a couple blocks away from me, but everyone there trained with the woman I had been seeing. And so, now I'm currently being treated for breast cancer, and they've been doing research to figure out how to make a safe Pilates practice for me, that'll help with like, lymphatic drainage. How can I keep my body strong, like go through this, but that's not about, like pink ribbons, warrior stuff, because that's not the experience I'm here for. So, it's so important to find the teachers that can make the space for our bodies, and then to get comfortable taking the space our bodies take, you know, like not to be made small anymore.

Rachel 21:05 Yes. That you have permission to take up space. And when I was like, "I have permission to exist in a body that weighs 260 pounds, I do. I have permission to exist in that body, and to live the life I want to live in that body, and to be loved in this body and to be whole in this body, and not need to be constantly shrinking myself." And what happened, for me, anyway, is then it bleeds out into other areas of your life. Where for me, it was like, "Oh, well, I'm going to take up more space at my job. And I'm going to take up more space in my relationships with other people. Because I have permission to be big and bold and confident and loud, and take up space."

Leah Jones 21:56 Yep. Did your coaching business come after yoga?

Rachel 22:01 The coaching business came after yoga, yes. I, I think what's also been powerful is that the coaching business -- so that was always something that I had thought about doing. I started as a public school teacher in Chicago Public Schools and went on to do coaching in schools for other people. And, I had this desire to work for myself, have my own business, be an entrepreneur, be my own boss. And it was scary to let go of some of the ties to the security that comes with a job that pays you every two weeks, no matter what.

Leah Jones 22:50 Direct deposit is a beautiful thing.

Rachel 22:56 Yes, and necessary. And a lot of times, like, you know, thinking about health things and wanting health insurance, and as someone who's had her fair share of health issues, that's a non-negotiable for me, things like that. So, what happened is over time, I started to take little steps to build a client base while working another job. And people started -- so it turns out that when you bring your light and confidence and bigness and boldness into the world, people are like, "Hey, what's going on for you? Talk to me, I want to know what juice are you drinking? Like, I want to drink the juice, too."

Rachel 23:37 And I'm like, "Yeah, it's this crazy thing where I just gave myself permission to show up to live my life. That's all it is. You don't have to pay money for it. Nobody, you know, I stopped waiting for someone else's approval." And so I started building that on the side. And then it was probably four or five years and then eventually had enough business that I quit my day job and my side hustle became my day job.

Leah Jones 24:11 So exciting. And where in that did you did you go to the yogurt -- yogurt training -- see, yoga training? When did you learn how to make your own yoga ?s

Rachel 24:25 I will say, though, isn't yogurt the kind of thing that you would think yoga people eat?

Leah Jones 24:31 Yes, of course they do.

Rachel 24:35 Like yogurt commercials are just yoga people. I don't like yogurt, either, for the record. I won't eat it. Okay, so then I think it was -- it was before the pandemic -- so it would have been in 2019 that we started. And my teacher, Karampal had been saying that they were going to have the yoga teacher training at the studio. And immediately it was like, "I want to do that." And I thought that teacher training was going to be, maybe I'll have to quit my job. I don't know. But I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do this teacher training.

Rachel 25:18 And also, I still, I was signing up to do the class, it was on weekends, one weekend, a month for six months. And as I was signing up -- you apply -- and I was like, "They're not going to accept me because I'm too fat." Like, I was sure of it. I was so certain that -- everything was cool, it's cool to go to the studio -- but there's still that like, limiting voice. So the teacher would just call everybody just to check in and be like, "Hey, you applied and let's talk," and she was like, "Hey, Rach, you applied. Talk to me about your interests." I'm like, "I've really been wanting to -- " She's just like, "Great! Okay, so here's the payment ..." but there's no talk, no talk about my body. This is not an issue for anyone, but for me. So I was like, "Oh, okay." So we started doing the yoga teacher training and got through almost all of it, and then we had the lovely global pandemic.

Leah Jones 26:24 I remember the pandemic, like it was still ongoing and part of our lives forever and ever. Did you find that the the training helped you with the cerebral side of it? Did it get real, like technical anatomy stuff? What did you learn in teacher training?

Rachel 26:49 Yes, it helped a lot with the cerebral side of the classes in understanding the science behind the poses, understanding the history of the yoga, understanding the anatomy, and the different the different systems of anatomy, which is really involved when you're talking about yoga. Also understanding some of the logistics if we were wanting to teach, and what we had to consider, in having a class of people and how we could create classes that were safe for all bodies, and all cultures, and all experiences of people that might be coming to our class.

Leah Jones 27:32 So was this everything from liability insurance and finances through to what the words that come out of your mouth?

Rachel 27:45 It kind of was. And there were some like lifestyle stuff that I was like, "I'm not doing that." People would. I come from a Fundamentalist background as a child, and I am really wary of fundamentalism, and all of its many forms that it shows up in in life. And so I was like, "I am not trading one kind of fundamentalism for another. So you keep your yogic lifestyle to yourself, and I'm just here for the extracurriculars." [laughter]

Leah Jones 28:21 Amazing.

Rachel 28:22 I mean, but I appreciated knowing about it.

Leah Jones 28:29 Can we talk about what are some of the things you do to make yoga work for your body?

Rachel 28:35 Definitely. So I am, I am a big proponent of using props at any point. So, whether that's straps to make a post more accessible, or blocks ... there was one class where a woman actually brought me a block in the middle, which I was like, "Should I be offended? I don't know if I'm offended." But it was actually just really nice, because I clearly couldn't do the pose. And she was getting a block for herself, and she just grabbed one for me too. And, it was really sweet. And blocks to make the pose -- to make the angles work out, because so much of yoga is about angles and having the right angles. And I realize I don't have to be in a lot of pain in the poses. The poses can become much more accessible if I'm willing to use some of those props and the tools that are there for that very reason. It also was helpful to me to realize that there were ways in which -- there are poses that I could do that people in smaller bodies didn't have access to, there were poses that --

Leah Jones 29:46 -- ha-HA! Like what, like what can we do? What do we get to do that the little people can't do?

Rachel 29:56 [laughter] I'm amazed at the number of people that really -- their hips are really tight, and so when they get into just an easy pose, you know, with your legs kind of crossed, a lot of people's legs kind of go or their their knees go up really high, and they use blocks to prop and support their knees, because that's an uncomfortable position for them. And I can cross my legs all day, every day. So I was like, great.

Leah Jones 30:22 Yeah, I can, I can still do crisscross applesauce or, or butterfly pose, right? It's such a nice stretch. I mean, my legs go to sleep. I can't do it all day, because I do get those tingly legs. But I can get into them.

Rachel 30:41 I also have found that there's, for me, I have a little bit of -- if someone else isn't doing a pose, like if I'm in class, and a skinny person isn't doing a pose, it's like, oh, they must be going through something that they're just breathing or it's whatever. And in my mind, if a fat person is in class and not doing a pose, it's cause they're incapable of doing that pose, or they're lazy, or there's some sort of whatever it is, that is stigma there.

Rachel 31:11 And so, I remember, I had been doing yoga for a long time. And I would just work so hard in the classes, because you know, I was representing every fat person everywhere, right doing yoga? And there was this one class, I just really wasn't feeling it. And I sat, I just sat down at one of the poses, an easy pose. And I was like, "I have permission to not do, too. I don't have to prove anything." And that was an experience that came after several years of doing yoga. Where I gave myself permission to actually be responsive to what was happening in my body instead of, again, that external message and the external voices of how I felt like I should be.

Leah Jones 31:58 The idea that if you slowed down, then all fat people are lazy.

Rachel 32:03 Exactly.

Leah Jones 32:04 Yeah, yeah. I feel that -- I feel that when I'm, like buying groceries or eating food in public, I'm like, "Oh, do people want to see a fat woman eat a hamburger?". You know, like, what does this say about about us, to everyone?

Rachel 32:20 It's just proving someone's point. I'm like, I'll just eat the hamburger at home. I'll eat a salad while I'm out in public. Yeah, that's bullshit. But it's in my head.

Leah Jones 32:29 Total bullshit. Yeah, it's some of that stuff to get that you have to overcome. We can't all be women laughing with salads.

Rachel 32:39 Yeah. You know, what are those salads saying that's so funny?

Leah Jones 32:44 Nothing. It's the waiter who dropped off the salad that said something funny. Tried to take it away from them before they were done -- no, this is my public salad."

Rachel 32:54 Wish someone would. [laughter]

Leah Jones 33:05 What did pandemic yoga look like for you? So were you like a studio person who then had to create a home practice, or did you always have a home practice?

Rachel 33:15 I was a studio person that had to create a home practice. Some of the home practice, I would practice some at home. And also, that was not my preferred, it still isn't my preferred way to practice. And I went into that moment of like, "It's probably -- you're probably better if you do yoga in the morning, first thing." You know, I have, again, fake stories that I create in my head. And without fail, my child, my son, who's almost three now, but at the time was maybe about one [year old] -- I would get up, I would start my yoga, I'd be like in some sort of meditational bliss. That's kind of a lie. But you know, I'd be trying to get in the meditational bliss, and my son would wake up. I'd be like, "See, it just isn't meant to be, this isn't supposed to happen." [laughter]

Rachel 34:08 So, early pandemic, I actually had like a major mental health breakdown. And I was freaking out because of the pandemic. I am someone who deals with anxiety, anyway. You know, see also: postpartum. And so at that point, I was having a really hard time calming my body down. And so it was helpful to have some of these yoga tools. And also, I went and got on Zoloft. And I think that's a really important thing to talk about, which is that I think that people, everyone should have access to all of the tools available to them to be healthy. And for me, that's yoga and essential oils and you know, crystals and cards and all the things and Zoloft and the Western medical system. I think for me, it all works together.

Leah Jones 35:05 Yeah, put it all together. I also, well, it was after my breast cancer diagnosis -- I was trying to get an ADHD diagnosis this summer and got breast cancer instead .

Rachel 35:21 I'm so sorry.

Leah Jones 35:22 Yeah. And the psychiatrist I had lined up to try and work on the ADHD stuff. He was like, "Well, let's start with the Lexapro -- treat depression and anxiety -- let's start working on that, let's get you through this, like acute -- you are in an acute crisis, right now, you've just been diagnosed with with cancer..." And he had like, agreed with my oncologist and my oncologist, what he would say is that the level I'm at -- stage one --is not a healthcare crisis; he was like, "But it's a mental health crisis. It's an emotional crisis." So you've got to, like, find ways to work on that. And so Lexapro has been phenomenal for me. And I don't know how it took me so long to get a prescription, you know?

Rachel 36:20 Yes, I do. Because I once I started going on my SSRI, I was just like, yeah, "What was the deal?! Why did this take so long?" You know, I love the stories I created about why, no, no, that's just if you know, it's an emergency. Now, and it turns out, you don't have to live with just a general low level of anxiety, depression all the time.

Leah Jones 36:41 Mm hmm. Yeah. No, yeah. Nice. It's nice.

Leah Jones 36:54 So did you ever find a way -- like an afternoon home practice, or you just were like, give me my mask, get me back in the studio. That's where I gotta be.

Rachel 37:04 So I did, I found a home practice. The yoga studio that I go to had virtual classes, they they switched to virtual. And, it took a while in early pandemic to get to a point where it wasn't like me kind of weeping between Zoom calls. I was still working my DOB job at the time and trying to parent, two children who were doing -- one who was just a baby and one who was in virtual school. And then it was just like, kid pass off -- I think back about that time, and with, it's just kind of like, I'd rather not think back. Better for us if we just kind of like let that part of our life go. I had a lot of nachos and watched all the way through Parks and Rec. So that was my yoga practice for a couple months and then, I got back itno it.

Leah Jones 38:02 I've ordered a lot of pizza. I watched a lot of Glimore Girls, I'm right there with ya.

Rachel 38:07 I also watched Gilmore Girls. So, yep, I hear ya. So, once we got into a little bit more of a rhythm, I would take the space and time to come downstairs to my office. I have space, I got it all set up the way I wanted. And then I can do my yoga practice. And so it's not just yoga, I actually have found that I love doing all kinds of workout experiences. I go by the motto of "Do what feels good." And so some days I just want to walk, and some days, I got a FeetUp Trainer. So a lot of days, I like to do my upside down headstands in my FeetUp Trainer.

Leah Jones 38:52 Oh, wait, is that that little -- it kind of looks like a Squatty Potty, [laughter] but it's to help you do like headstands? Yes. I see it on TikTok, I see it on TikTok all the time.

Rachel 39:05 It's exactly that. And I got my FeetUp Trainer to do my headstands, which was another thing that I was like, "Oh, I'll never be able to do a headstand ... Nope, that's a limiting thought -- I don't buy it." I'll get the tool and the prop to help with that.

Rachel 39:19 And I love it. I love going upside down. It gets me out of my head, puts all -- so if I'm in the middle of something that's bothering me, and I'm getting a little over, like my wheels are spinning and I can't stop spinning, I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna go do a headstand." And that's what I do. And I just get upside down and it kind of brings me back to a center space.

Leah Jones 39:42 So, is it -- because what it does, based on what I've seen (on Twitter and TikTok) -- it's getting the weight off of your head and hands and it's putting it on your shoulders? Is that why it's helpful?

Rachel 39:55 Yes, exactly. So it has a hole - it has a cushion that you put your head into -- into the like Squatty Potty, the middle of the Squatty Potty. And so your shoulders are where your weight is resting. And since you've got -- it's strong -- I use the FeetUP version which is made in Germany and it can hold up to 1,000 pounds, so I'm not worried that it's gonna crash on me. So, you kind of jump up your feet into a crouched position and then you can put your feet up. And I could do it after only one or two -- like I think I tried once, and the second time I could get my feet up. It was amazing and so empowering.

Leah Jones 40:45 Wow, cool. That's so cool. Yeah, I've seen that and I've seen there's there's also some wonderful like fat yoga instructors on TikTok.

Rachel 40:56 Yes, I follow Jessamine Stanley who I love and a lot of other general people talking about embodied living, like Sonia Renee Taylor who wrote "The Body is Not an Apology." That book was really influential to me. Virgie Tovar is amazing and talks, her book, "You Have a Right to Be Fat," or "You Have the Right to Remain Fat," maybe about 100 pages and so worth reading. And so my whole Instagram feed is really a lot of body positive images and just a lot of fat people on my feed. Because I wanted the pictures that I have in front of my face to be people who look like me or who make it okay for me to be in the body I'm in.

Leah Jones 41:54 Yeah, I felt more when I was on Tumblr. On Tumblr, I really curated like fat fashion, a feed of like, really diverse bodies and, and makers and creators. Maybe like eight years ago on Tumblr, I will say like -- in a post Universal Standard world, there's more clothing options now. And so even I'm getting fed better -- I'm not getting fed ads for like minimizing clothing. I'm getting fashion with fat models and in diverse bodies. And so that feels pretty good, too.

Rachel 42:41 It's great. I am really happy. There's been a shift even in the last five years, I would say, and it's much more of a conversation. You know, the show Shrill on Hulu. -- there were times when I cried just because it was like, "Oh, somebody is experiencing something similar to my experience, and they're talking about on television." And she's not just like the sidekick friend. So that was really, really empowering, too.

Rachel 43:17 I do follow body positive yoga instructors. And more and more companies are intentionally choosing instructors who aren't just the standard, very thin kind of yoga instructor -- which I love, and one of my when I was thinking about doing yoga, or when I was thinking about doing coaching, and I was in therapy, and I said to my therapist, "Who's gonna want to get coached by me? Like, they're gonna be like, 'Oh, she can't even get her own life together, because she's fat', you know?" And my therapist is like, no, you live fully in your body, and people want to be able to do that. And you are going to, there's plenty of people who don't want to be coached by someone who is in a totally different body shape and size than them. And they're looking for a coach who looks more like you and it was an empowering thing to hear that as well.

Leah Jones 43:17 Yeah, I think that's really true. I think that's really true. And when I looked for my new Pilates instructor to take one-on-one from -- I did look at all of them and I was like, "Who has -- who's the heaviest teacher?" You know, I want to study with like a heavier woman, I want to study with like an older woman, I want someone who's maybe like had an injury in their life and has come back from it, or has had a surgery. Like I have a I have a Peloton, but it's a very nice dryer rack for my towel. Very expensive. The nicest one I've ever bought.

Leah Jones 45:00 It's the highest quality model of dryer rack.

Leah Jones 45:13 Yes. Because I love riding my bike out in the world and I do really enjoy the Peloton, but I need -- I have to be really careful in the instructors I pick there, to pick ones that don't talk about beach bodies and don't talk about weight loss and don't talk about food restriction. So, I have to be careful picking my instructors. And then I just like, signed up for a challenge. And then after like, I don't know, seven days I had failed the challenge -- the self-selected challenge -- which was just to ride a bike most of March. Everyday get on your bike. It was a Facebook group with like internet friends. And by like March 10, I had failed and there was no way I was going to finish and win the month and I was like well, I guess I'll try riding again in April. It's some of those are the limiting thoughts are "Well, well, I guess just try again in a month." I do have a hard time with like picking myself up and like just literally getting back on the bike.

Rachel 46:34 And I can only do it on Mondays, because if I didn't do it -- I'm gonna wait till next week.

Leah Jones 46:41 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Week is blown. It's Tuesday morning. I'll try that habit next week.

Rachel 46:50 Well, I think that goes back to this idea of, there's this arrival point that that I'm waiting for. Mm hmm. And then I will be worthy or valuable, or whatever it is. Versus I'm gonna just do this because it feels good in my body today, and I'm never gonna have to do it again if I don't want to. That's a TOTALLY different brain space to take up. And I'm not always in that brain space. I feel better when I am.

Leah Jones 47:21 Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. And so you went through the training? Do you ever teach? Or is it just that it's improved your practice and it improves -- I imagine it has informed your professional coaching. But I'm curious if -- do you ever, are you ever in front of the Zoom or in front of the studio?

Rachel 47:50 Yes, and. I do teach and I have taught several classes and mostly via Zoom. And I had a Sunday afternoon class going for a while. Because my partner was like, "Look, if you're gonna keep taking these yoga trainer classes, I need you to actually train -- they're expensive. So, it's great that you know these things, but let's like do something with it ..."

Leah Jones 48:23 Can we even out the bookkeeping on training?

Rachel 48:27 I mean, I think right now we're at like a several thousand dollar expenditure in classes and I've maybe like netted, I don't know, 50 bucks on teaching classes. But you know, that's an income source.

Leah Jones 48:39 It is income. Yes. Yes.

Rachel 48:43 So, I do really enjoy teaching in the class. But, within the Kundalini Yoga community, there has been a lot going on, because the man who started Kundalini Yoga, has -- it's come forward that he just was abusive and sexually abusive to his students. And in an effort to be thoughtful about victims of the whole community, which I'm coming into quite late to and not quite particularly involved in, I took a pause for a little while on teaching the class so that I didn't perpetuate harm to anyone who had been harmed by the experience.

Leah Jones 49:33 That makes sense. It was, now that you say it, it rings a bell. I do remember seeing that, that he that -- the I hate when people say he got "MeToo"ed. No, he was held accountable for his actions after a lot of abuse.

Rachel 49:55 And I think that there's going to be a way forward for the yoga, too, because I think good can come from less than perfect vessels. And also, as someone who is not a victim of the abuse, I don't know that I'm the one who gets to decide when that timetable happens. And so I'm putting a pause, I do still practice the yoga for myself. And also, I want to be respectful of the way that it may be traumatic or harmful to other people.

Leah Jones 50:27 You're so thoughtful in your practice and how you talk about yourself and your body and the community. And if people don't -- if people aren't saying that to you, you are incredibly thoughtful in your expression about all of this. It's really been wonderful to get to talk to you tonight.

Rachel 50:47 Thank you, Leah. That means a lot to me.

Leah Jones 50:50 So if people wanted to work with you creative coaching, find you online find you on TikTok. What sorts of folks are you looking to work with? Or do you want to be found by?

Rachel 51:05 Well, I love I do a variety of things. And so I have a couple of different ways that people connect. One is through one-on-one coaching, which is the most accessible to the most people. And in that way, I especially love working with people who are in transition moments of their life and looking to make changes. And in that setting, then I work with people to set goals for three -- we work in three month chunks of time -- let's set a goal for this time, let's let's figure out where we want to be three months from now. And let me help you get there. And that's been powerful to see the way that having a goal, having a path and having agency is what they say gives hope. And it's been really powerful to work with people in that way, and with a real eye toward what makes people come alive as they engage with their creative energy and what they imagine is possible. So that's the first thing.

Rachel 52:10 And then I work with schools, and my passion with schools is my belief is that every child deserves to learn in a creative environment. And so I work with teachers and principals to look at their curriculum to look at their learning opportunities and think about -- How do we make these experiences for students even more powerful? And for me, it's an equity and justice issue, and it's something I think about a lot and that every child, in every neighborhood, in every school, deserves to come to school and have their creative rights met in in their learning. And so I love working with with people in that way.

Rachel 52:52 And then I also have a card deck that I made with my friends called the Create Brave card deck. And it's available for pre-order, we just we got our Kickstarter funded and so they'll be available in the next couple months. And it's really cool. So, I designed the art for these. And every card has a different word on it, and the one that I'm looking at right now says: Teach -- I support others, I share my knowledge and skills. And so the cards themselves are kind of artistic and you can put them in front of your workplace. And then there's a guidebook that gives you prompts of how to live a more creative and brave life related to whatever card you pull for the day.

Leah Jones 53:41 Wow, Create Brave.

Rachel 53:45 And so that all those things are on my website, www.rachelswansoncoaching.com.

Leah Jones 53:51 Great and should people are you a Twitter, Instagram person, or they should go to your website?

Rachel 53:57 I'm on Instagram is @rachelswansoncoach, and I'm on Twitter as @RachelDSwanson. And I do Tweet and post on Instagram. And if you're a teacher, I have a Facebook group called Techno Coach that is all for people who are coaches and education working, especially around technology.

Leah Jones 54:17 Yeah. Great. Well, Rachel, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much. For folks who don't know, you can follow me at ChicagoLeah on Twitter and TikTok @ChiLeah on Instagram. Finding favorites podcast is @findingfavespod on Twitter and Instagram. And please like, subscribe, leave a review on Apple podcasts, because all the podcasts say that's important. So I have to believe it's true. [laughter]

Rachel 54:49 I do because they told me to, so ...

Leah Jones 54:52 Yeah, I should spend some quality time actually like go through my podcast list and leave reviews for people.

Rachel 54:58 I try. I want people when they click on my name, to just see a bunch of five star reviews. Of all my favorite things.

Leah Jones 55:05 Oh my god, I love it. I love it.

Rachel 55:08 Yes. So including your podcast.

Leah Jones 55:11 Thank you.

Announcer 55:13 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Leah Jones 55:28 Hello and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we were I forget what the podcast is about.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

View Details

Cameron MacKenzie, a Virginia-based professor and author, loves to use dream interpretation to teach his students how to understand poetry. We talked about Freudian and Jungian interpretation, Joseph interpretating the Pharaoh's dreams, and Black Elk Speaks. Cameron's new book River Weather: Stories is now available through Alternating Current Press.

Keep up with Cameron MacKenzie on Facebook and on his website

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Links

Kevin T. Porter's Sorkin supercuts: First, Second and Third.
Alice Munro (Nobel Prize winning author)
The Red Book by Carl Jung
Freud Dream Interpretation
Irma's Injection
Black Elk Speaks

Transcript follows

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Leah Jones 0:00 So the last thing I need from you before we stop recording is to record the bumper -- where you just say, "Hi, my name is blank. And my favorite thing is blank, but you fill in the blanks."

Announcer 0:13 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:25 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones, and this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. It is Saturday the 18th, this podcast will be going out both on time and a week late. As you already heard from the intro, we're missing our usual bumper. This week, I have Cameron Mackenzie on -- he's an author. His new book, "River Weather: Stories," launched a couple of weeks ago, and this episode was meant to coincide with his book release. Unfortunately, I switched from using Zoom as my recording software to something called Riverside, and our audio was filled with problems.

Leah Jones 1:19 We had this amazing conversation, and random phrases -- random two to six second bits of his side of the interview got doubled and tripled. But nothing on my interview got doubled. So editing this interview was very difficult. And now that I'm six weeks into chemotherapy, I just simply have less time and energy for doing complicated mental tasks. So this episode had to sit for a week while I thought about literally how to do the math of making this work. So I believe I've pulled it together as best as I can, this episode with author Cameron Mackenzie.

Leah Jones 2:09 In my personal life updates, like I said, this week marked the halfway point of my chemotherapy. If you're new to the podcast, this summer, I was diagnosed with breast cancer; all known breast cancer's out of my body after a successful surgery and lymph node biopsy, but I'm doing chemotherapy. So, I'm halfway through my treatment of Taxol which means -- losing my hair, my taste buds are kind of getting hollowed out in a weird way. The circle of what is bland is increasing for me, and that is very strange. I did go back today to Pilates. I take one-on-one lessons, or training, at a studio down the road from here, and I love Pilates. It's one of the exercises I found as an adult that I love the most. I love the stretches of it, and I love the small, concentrated movements that really engage your core muscles and your hip flexors. So I have some kind of euphoria from doing Pilates again.

Leah Jones 3:32 I actually had expected to be totally exhausted, and I'm not, so that feels really good. In this cancer treatment that I'm in, you know the chemo's just the first 12 weeks of the treatment. I have a year of antibody treatment. So once the chemo ends, and I do radiation, at some point I get a CPAP machine, so I'll get some better sleep. It's really been a lot of just showing up for appointments. I have had people say they're really impressed by my attitude in this. I just have a very much -- I show up for the meetings, I stay hydrated, I put Aquaphor in my nose before I go to bed, so I don't get bloody noses, because the Taxol really dries you out.

Leah Jones 4:36 I just heard today that maybe Claritin helps every day because it helps with inflammation that Taxol starts. I'm starting to get my chemo farts under control -- I don't remember I've been on the podcast since I talked about that. But a friend in The Doughscord last night said, "Well, chemo is essentially like exfoliating your GI tract." It's really messing with my gut flora. I'm really trying to take it easier on dairy, because chemo farting has turned me into Beavis and Butthead -- both of them. I am disgusting. And I'm talking about it because nobody does. How is it that nobody talks about ...?

Leah Jones 5:25 Cancer man, it's so dumb. It's like the most generic diagnosis. I think that's the other thing I've learned -- that to say you have a breast cancer diagnosis, is to say practically nothing. It's like in a movie, when somebody walks up to the counter, "Hey, bartender, I'll have a beer." What does that mean? When I say I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it doesn't tell you anything. It doesn't tell you what type of cell it started in, the genetic makeup of it, do I have BRCA, is it triple negative, triple positive? In my case, it's positive, negative, positive. There's just like, all this stuff. And breast cancer I realize it's just generic, and you have to get more and more specific of finding the people with similar diagnoses and treatment plans, to get advice that is useful. So, that's been kind of wild.

Leah Jones 6:26 My thank you pins came in that I got to give to people that say, "Today's hospital husband." You know, it is a problem with our society that the assumption is any man who would accompany me to the hospital is my husband. And, that any woman that goes with me to the hospital, she does not become my wife. But I had these really lovely enamel pins made for friends that say, ,"Today's hospital husband," on one side -- on the public side -- with a little hashtag -- #fuckcancer on the back. To say thank you to friends and family who are bringing me meals, and keeping me company, and helping me clean the litter box, and fill the ice trays, and go to the store. And as I get into the second half of chemo, I'm saying yes to a lot more help. Which has been very hard for me to do.

Leah Jones 7:20 You know, I'm a very independent, stubborn, stoic Aries, and to accept all the help that has been given to me and accept the love that has been shown to me, is very hard to do. But, I'm very grateful for the friends teaching me this lesson in this time of my life. In January -- right now, the plan -- I've got one more episode banked, and one more interview that I need to reschedule. And then in January, I've asked my friends, Shai Korman, from "Friday Night Movie" podcast and Amy Guth from "Crain's Daily" to take over hosting in January while I finish chemotherapy. I will add these intros to the episodes, but they're both fans of the show, they know the format of the interview, they kind of have access to different people, and they know how to record and edit.

Leah Jones 8:17 So, in January, Amy and Shai are going to take on guest hosting for me, which I'm very grateful. And then my plan is to come back in February. Hopefully, with some recordings from my -- we'll see what Omicron does. But the carrot at the end of the stick for me, the carrot at the end of chemotherapy, are going to three Doughboys live shows. One in Chicago, one at Foxwoods casino, and one in Boston. Right now, all entertainment in New York is getting shut down, so I'm not feeling great that in late January, early February, we'll have live shows and that I'll be getting on an airplane. But if we do, I'll be at the Doughboys con in Foxwoods casino, and I'm going to be like Podcaster from the new "Ghostbusters" movie, and I'm going to take my little Zoom recorder on the floor of the casino, and find my fellow Doughmies, and we're gonna talk about why we love the Doughboys, live from Foxwoods.

Leah Jones 9:23 So, hopefully, I'll come back in February, but grateful in advance for Shai and Amy agreeing to take on a few episodes for me. So without further ado, today's episode with is Cameron Mackenzie. His favorite thing is dreams and dream interpretation. And please get boosted -- get that third vaccine if you're immunocompromised, get the vaccine if you haven't yet. Wear your mask, wash your hands, and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones 10:10 Hello and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. Tonight, I am joined by Cameron Mackenzie. Cameron is an author and educator based in Virginia. His new book, a series of stories called "River Weather" is coming out this winter, you can pre-order it now. We'll talk a lot more about it. Cameron, how are you doing this evening?

Cameron 10:41 I'm doing good, Leah, it's really nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Leah Jones 10:45 Is it winter yet, where you are in Virginia?

Cameron 10:48 It has become winter. We had sort of a false winter, got some cold, and then it got warm again. Normally, it doesn't get this cold for another month or so. But, I like the cold. I 'm hopinpg this sticks.

Leah Jones 11:03 Friday was our first little flurry. I'm in Chicago.

Cameron 11:07 Probably colder there.

Leah Jones 11:09 Yeah, I think so. I was downtown, and I was looking at Lake Michigan like, "Oh, what a beautiful view, the colors are really nice today." Then I looked out 10 minutes later, and I was, "Uhh ..I can no longer see the lake. It has disappeared."

Cameron 11:30 And that was the end of fall.

Leah Jones 11:32 That was the end of fall. So I was reading your bio, and it's very brief, but you talk about that you were born in Virginia. And you've worked as a dry cleaner, a doorman, a house painter, farmhand; you've lived in Santa Barbara, London, Tokyo. And now you're back in Virginia again. You mentioned that you're a teacher. What brought you back to Virginia?

Cameron 12:03 Oh, gosh, the price of buying a house in the Bay Area in California. I was living out there -- loved the Bay Area, loved everything about Northern California, but just got to the point -- I wasn't working at Google or Facebook. And I didn't have Google and Facebook money, and family in Virginia. I'd be back here for the holidays, and I would start to look at, you know, the price of homes on Zillow, and laugh and laugh. And then, slowly said, "Maybe, that's actually a really good idea," until it became a great idea. But I'm really happy that I moved -- Northern California is not necessarily what it was when I moved there 10 years ago, and there's a lot of really interesting stuff happening in this part of Virginia right now.

Leah Jones 13:00 What part of Virginia are you in -- are you like, close to D.C? Are you further -- I don't know Virginia well.

Cameron 13:11 So, I grew up outside of D.C. in northern Virginia. In Ashburn, Virginia, which was a place you know, when I first started college, I would tell people, "I'm from Ashburn," and they had no idea where that was. And now, so many people know -- what was really just an intersection 20 years ago, is now a monstrous development that just keeps growing and growing. I'm not living in Northern Virginia now. I live in southwest Virginia, I live in Roanoke, Virginia, which is a hip, little mountain town. It's a lot of fun. Great biking, great hiking. It's sort of a an undiscovered jewel, so far. We don't want to tell too many people about it.

Leah Jones 13:54 Well, I think people think about Roanoke, and then they get spooked. Right? Isn't that where the first colony was? Was supposed to be? The first landing? Isn't that a piece of trivia is lodged in my brain?

Cameron 14:10 And a good piece of trivia, it is. I guess they wrote "Roanoke" on a tree. So that happened at the mouth of the river, or has a lot more to do with the river. So the Roanoke River starts up here in the mountains, and then runs all the way, and that's where that colony was.

Leah Jones 14:33 So you're at a different side of the river, then.

Cameron 14:35 The original name of this town was Big Lake --

Leah Jones 14:37 -- Up River.

Cameron 14:38 -- because there was a big salt lake. And when it became sort of a railroad hub, and they wanted to sound more fancy, they changed the name to Roanoke.

Leah Jones 14:49 Yeah, I was just telling a story that my dad had told me, that isn't true, but that I love about my hometown, that I think is just a Larry Jones original. I'm from Terre Haute, Indiana, which in French means "high land." We're on the high side of the river. But he was teasing me once and telling me originally, it was Tar Hut, because you would stop there and you would put tar in your wagon, to ford the river. But then, they had to class it up -- again, the railroads are coming through, and you can't be Tar Hut. And so they became Terre Haute. But considering across the river, there's a Toad Hop, and it's still called Toad Hop, it's possible.

Cameron 15:35 Yeah, I read something about this, doing research for another book that I have yet to write -- I sort of hit a wall with it. But if you follow the migration of the Scotch-Irish down, they came in through Philadelphia, so many of them came down through the Shenandoah Valley. And you can tell where they've been, based on the names of things. It's just very sort of plain, flat, sometimes vaguely obscene, place names. And you can follow their progress through North America based on it.

Leah Jones 16:16 Yeah, that makes sense -- to me. Is this your second book?

Cameron 16:22 Actually my third. I wrote a book of scholarship inbetween the novel and this one.

Leah Jones 16:31 That was the one about -- there was a poetry one, right?

Cameron 16:34 The first book was a novel about the Mexican Revolution. And then I wrote -- gosh, how would I describe this? It's a book of scholarship, pretty much about modernist poetry and about how a lot of those same ideas are still being talked about by contemporary philosophers. So, this would be the -- the story collection, that'd be my third.

Leah Jones 16:59 And for "River Weather," I've found it really interesting talking to authors, as -- we're not out of COVID, but we're sort of in the thaw, of the pandemic, maybe? How much of "River Stories" for you was pre-COVID writing, how much was COVID editing? Where does COVID fall in the creation of this book for you?

Cameron 17:26 Most of the stories in the book I started shortly after I found out that my novel was gonna be published. And what that gave me, was a big boost of confidence that I wasn't a crazy person sitting in a room alone for hours every day. And I was able to -- loosen up -- I'd published stories before then, they're very, very tight. I think they're very sort of mannered. And I was able to loosen up a lot, once I really just had more confidence in my own writing, that I could do this sort of thing.

Cameron 18:02 And so the stories, I think, got better. They got longer, they got more complicated, perhaps more sophisticated. And so they came out, you know, I went through a phase I think of writing long stories. And then, I think I sort of got burned out by long stories. And I started writing flash fiction. Probably a lot of the COVID stuff, during COVID, I was writing mostly flash fiction, and I think there's maybe four or five of those pieces in there. But that's been a lot of the COVID writing -- the flash stuff. The editing, probably, has been through COVID. Especially when I'm putting the book out there to see who's interested, the editing process starts to become ongoing. And then I have to stop myself and I say, "No, this story's done. Leave the story alone. It's gonna be okay."

Leah Jones 18:56 Right, at some point, the words have to stay on the page.

Cameron 19:00 Yes, somebody has to decide the story's done. I'm the only that can do that.

Leah Jones 19:08 Is flash fiction is it defined by a word count, or by the amount of time it takes to write it? That feels like a dumb question, now that I've said it out loud?

Cameron 19:20 I only give myself 30 seconds. [laughter] Well, I started reading very short things. And I started liking them. And I started to think about doing them. I think the difference between flash fiction and micro fiction and short shorts and you know, all these sorts of different names people want to give it, and even what it is it's supposed to do. Some people believe that it should do everything a story does, it should just do it on a page instead of 20 pages.

Cameron 19:55 I don't necessarily think it has to do that at all. Some people would call, you know, a piece of flash fiction, poetry and not fiction. All of these labels get -- they're sort of beside the point. Some of the stuff I write, it sounds more like a story, and some of the stuff I write sounds more impressionistic. For me, it's all sort of part of the same practice. So it's a question of length. When I'm thinking about a traditional American short story, I think it has to do five or six particular things. And maybe one of the fun things for me about the flash fiction is I'm able to leave those idea of what a story is behind?

Leah Jones 20:40 Is it asking you to step into the classroom too much to ask you what your five or six things that define a story are? Or are you secretly a chemistry teacher?

Cameron 20:50 Actually, I think a lot of the stories in this book came out -- and it's sort of one of the reasons why I stopped writing these long stories. There was almost a question of once I figured out how I wanted to do it, then I began to lose interest in the form. But I would say that when I look at a story, what I was trying to do with the stories, they have to begin in a particular way. I like to begin long stories sort of in the middle of something; I want to drop the reader right in to a scene of action, and then try to wrap that up with first couple pages, then drop down-- I hate exposition. I hate exposition with a white, hot burning passion.

Cameron 21:35 And I never want to write it, I often have to go back. But when I'm first writing a story, I'll try to lay down as much as I can, as quickly as I can, and sketch out different parts. So, I despised exposition until I started to read Alice Munro seriously. And once I -- of course, she's a genius in everything she does -- but once I saw how she could make exposition exciting and interesting, and just have so much texture to it. I said, "Oh! Well, that's how you do it." And that really helped me approach exposition with something other than dread. I think probably my more successful stories are the ones where I'm enjoying the exposition, as opposed to just trying to get through it as quickly as possible.

Leah Jones 22:32 I think it makes sense that ultimately, a story would be more successful if you enjoyed writing all the parts of it.

Cameron 22:39 Yes, right? No part should be torture. I like stories to move really quickly. I don't want to -- the lyrical parts of the story, I try to have, I love to write lyrically, I used to simply just do that, and then I realized no one knew what I was talking about. You have to have some sort of structure, you can't just begin. Again, that question of structure takes me back to -- what is the story doing? Why are we talking about a storm cloud, for instance. We have to earn that storm cloud, you know what I mean? So, to try to get to those pieces, which are, to my mind, almost sort of pauses in the story. That there has to be a lot of movement towards it, and then a lot of movement from it.

Cameron 23:33 The question of movement, for me, is so often a question of dialogue, which I do love to write, I could write dialogue all day long, it's not difficult. Exposition, incredibly difficult. Dialogue, not difficult at all. I love writing dialogue. It often goes on too long, I have to go back and then you know, cut half of it off, which is, you know, sad. But just keep the best parts. Dialogue into and then dialogue out of, and then it's just a question of what else goes into a story? Exposition, description, dialogue, lyrical passages. And really, it starts to become a question of -- and I think I learned this writing the novel, I learned so much just about how to write. The question of pacing is really, maybe top two most important things for me. When are we going too fast, when are we going too slow, when do we need to speed up? When do we need to pause after what just happened, and what kind of pause are we going to have? I don't know if that got too in the weeds.

Leah Jones 24:42 It's not too in the weeds. It's not too in the weeds. Do you ever take your love of dialogue to playwriting, or or screenwriting, or you so far short story, flash fiction, novel focus?

Cameron 24:58 I haven't tried it. I think about it, but I read screenplays and say, "Oh, that's interesting." I guess the screenplays that I have read; I can't think of necessarily names off top my head, but they seem so bare bones, when I look at them on the page, and they're built to do that. I would have a strong inclination to start, you know, coloring in things that I might not need to color in.

Leah Jones 25:27 Right -- that you want to do the direction.

Cameron 25:29 Absolutely, absolutely. And the idea of just just doing a third of the story. A skeleton of a plot, with people talking. I'm like, "What is this? What form is this?" And, it's a form that people are very successful at. [laughter] But one I might have to work a little harder had to really nail that.

Leah Jones 25:53 in the podcast, West Wing Weekly, which was the podcast that got me into listening to podcasts, at all. They used to talk about the way that Aaron Sorkin gets exposition in, is he -- they nicknamed it a "Tell a Donna." And if you ever watched the West Wing --

Cameron 26:13 -- I love it, love, love, love.

Leah Jones 26:15 Okay. So when they're walking down the hallway explaining something to Donna, that was exposition, and that was a "Tell a Donna," and that was Aaron Sorkin like trying to like explain the legislature, or where the where the politics are at, or the details would be a walk and talk with Donna and a "Tell a Donna."

Cameron 26:34 When I was -- I totally get that -- finishing up grad school. And I was just in my house all day long trying to write a dissertation, I would constantly play either the West Wing, or Deadwood -- not many people remember Deadwood. The writing in Deadwood was just so gorgeous. The way that exposition got done in Deadwood, was they would give it to the number one character who was Al Swearengen. And he was, by far, the most dynamic actor. He was usually shouting at someone while he was drinking whiskey. So, you would miss it often, but based on the Byzantine nature of that show, it's kind of beside the point. But if you go back, it was there.

Cameron 27:24 The tough thing about the West Wing, for sure. And I think listening to so much Aaron Sorkin dialogue from simply going through all the West Wing seasons as many times as I did, really sort of soaked into my lizard brain as to how dialogue should be written. And sometimes I find myself, "Where does that come from? Oh, I got that from Sorkin. Maybe I should, you know, de-Sorkinize that a little bit." But he's an absolute -- I love the setups where -- usually, you got the President behind the desk, right? And you have somebody who thinks they're smart, but they're not smart, and they come in. And then they have this conversation where the President just breaks down the person who thinks they're smart. And then, you have a secretary wander in and out, and it's just wonderful. It's the same setup in "The Social Network," when when one of the characters goes to visit the president of Harvard. It's a West Wing scene -- the president's behind the desk, secretary walks in and it's great. Yeah, very Sorkin.

Leah Jones 28:30 There's a couple supercut videos that Kevin T. Porter made, that are have like Sorkinisms of his favorite names, and phrases, and things that have come up in like "Sports Night," "West Wing," "American President," the things that he reuses and recycles and plot points and stuff. But, I don't know, if you got a tool box, and it works well for you, it's okay to keep using them, I think.

Cameron 29:00 Like, why does every character need to give their resume? He loves that. When I watch something written by Sorkin now, Sorkin feels like family to me, and I'm willing to find his faults just endearing.

Leah Jones 29:20 Yeah, I think him and Amy Sherman-Palladino, those writers for whom there's no improvising on set, every word is on the screen. And they're so careful with the words they choose, and every word is important, and they just want their actors to say. the. words. "I wrote them for a reason, say the words I gave you." It's one of the things I enjoyed about that podcast "West Wing Weekly, " was hearing Josh Molina talk about -- because he's been in so many Sorkin projects --and talk about what it's like to be kind of one of his actors. Like in the mix of his different projects.

Cameron 30:03 I imagine that might be -- I don't know if demanding is the right word? I'm reminded of -- I heard an interview with David Mamet, and he was saying something very similar. He's of course, very careful about his words, and he can be a bit of a -- I don't know, grump? Is that the right word to use to describe David Mamet? Like, actors are getting in the way of his script, seems to be his attitude.

Leah Jones 30:27 But you do need them, in order to have the words meet the audience.

Cameron 30:32 It's supposed to be a collaborative process.

Leah Jones 30:34 Yeah, a little collaboration, right. So are you going to be able to have any sort of in-person launch event? A local kickoff in Roanoke? What's your plan for the book release?

Cameron 30:46 I'm planning stuff. I'm going to be doing a reading in Philly, at a grad school in Philly. have a lot of friends still up there that I know, that's gonna be a lot of fun. That's gonna be the day after the book comes out, that's gonna be on December 8th. It's not quite my book launch, because I'm reading with other very accomplished writers, so it's not like my show. That's kind of the coming out party, and that's gonna be live, and I'm very excited. I hosted reading series here in Roanoke, which was so much fun to do, to get local writers out. And a lot of young people doing it for their first time, and their friends are there to see them. I tried to bring in faculty from the Universities surrounding, prospective writers that achieved a good amount and to watch them, you know, mix and talk. It's a community event, communal event. And I want to start back up. But again, I don't know quite yet what safeguards to put in place, and you know how to bring it up. And, by the same token, what's the appetite for that?

Leah Jones 32:02 You'll be in Philly -- go up to Philly. And see you in the Equinox reading series.

Cameron 32:07 Yes, it's going to be at Fergie's Pub, which is a great spot.

Leah Jones 32:14 Well, good luck, I will release this as as close to your launch date as possible.

Leah Jones 32:29 We're not here just to talk about your book, although the book is the reason we've met; I'm so pleased. We're also here to talk about one of your favorite things. So what are we here to talk about this evening?

Cameron 32:41 Dreams. I loved talking about -- I taught a class on dreams, I did. It was funny because I would have to explain, usually in the first class, that I am not here to discuss and analyze and interpret every student's dreams. Because I think that's why they mostly signed up. And, many, many would express profound disappointment to me over the course of the semester that I was not there to analyze their dreams. But for me, the ties between dreaming -- first off, and how just the mind works, but also the creative process and the interpretive process. They're so intimately tied together, it might even be how the interpretive process began. We dream, animals dream -- things dream -- conscious things dream. There are debates now, can we do A.I. without dreaming? What would that look like? Would they have dreams, anyway? That'sd just stuff that, you know, current neurobiologists sort of batting around.

Leah Jones 33:59 Like that as we build A.I. systems, are we building systems that will dream? Woof.

Cameron 34:04 Is it natural feedback from the process? And maybe it is. Or, if dreams don't happen, then are they considered really conscious? I don't know. Everybody dreams, everybody dreams. And everyone's dreams are so suggestive, and sometimes beautiful, and sometimes horrifying, and sometimes intriguing. And we remember them -- dreams that we had 20 years ago, we remember.I can't remember if it was Nietzsche or Freud. Who said that we're all an artist when we dream. And in that way, we're all sort of in this process of crafting and creating. For the sake of what? That's another sort of question to sort of lay on top.

Cameron 34:04 When did dreams for you go from something you have at night, to something you have at night and you're paying special attention to? When does it actually go from like a passive to active interest?

Cameron 35:22 I think -- I can glean your meaning. My brain, for the longest time, was split between the academic and the creative. And I had a ton of interest in the academic-- I got a PhD in literature. And in the course of my studies, I was really drawn to psychoanalytic criticism. And once you start to dig around in that, the question of dreams is in the forefront. The process of analysis by which -- you know, we're talking about Freud here, but we could go further back -- the process of analysis that comes around dreams, mirrors, I think, to a large degree, the process of analysis that was already in place to work through, say, biblical texts.

Cameron 36:11 It's began to guide really the process of critical reading through the 20th century. So I had to study these dreams, you know, they're given in sort of the classic texts, and then, study the process by which "meaning" was gleaned from these dreams. And once I started to do that, it started to affect my own dreaming. I think that the mind is is very plastic, it is suggestible. When I would read one particular theorist, I would start having dreams that would match up with the theories of that theorist. Then I'd read another theorist who would have dramatically different interpretations, and I started having dreams that would match those things.

Leah Jones 36:59 Right out of college, I worked at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. And one of the group therapies offered by the college was Dream Therapy. And I was a hall director, so Student Affairs staff. I get to campus, and everybody's like, "First thing you got to do -- sign up for Dream Therapy." And that was where I got introduced to the personal interpretation, this is when I got out of out of the group, what your students were looking for -- which is you explain a dream, and then you say -- we were in like a Jungian framework. But I absolutely still have dreams that we discussed in that, that I still think about. I think about a lot of things, but that's one from that time where I think about how I had this incredible disconnect between my work and my public face and who I was, and it really came out in that one image. But I did it for two years, and I and I found it really helpful, a really great way to get to know people, but also just helpful.

Cameron 38:18 Yeah, I think there's a -- this is not something that, let's say, analysts argue about necessarily, I don't think, but it's definitely something that scientists are -- really worthwhile questions to whether or not is something that ... sometimes the point is moot. And you believe the dream means something, that's the most important thing is your belief in the meaning of the dream. For instance, scientists like Hobson will point out that the difference between the waking mind and dreaming mind is that different systems in the brain are shut or, you know, amplified or turned down.

Cameron 39:07 So when you are dreaming, your motor skills are very low, and your emotion is very high. And your logic is very low. So the things that are running through your mind, while all those systems are doing something different -- why did I look at, I don't know, a colander and cry? What does the colander mean? And crossed your mind when you had this spike of emotion. I think there's some truth in that, but I also think -- but to say that there are no messages in dreams, I think is sort of a willful ignorance. On the other side, of rational logical processes I can, to some might find that frightening. Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to just dismiss them altogether.

Leah Jones 40:03 So when you set up your syllabus for your class on dreams -- which was not Dream Therapy, and not dream interpretation -- what were the sorts of things that you walked your students through? Are you starting with like, Joseph? And are you starting with biblical texts and coming through, and looking at it that way? Or are you saying, "Start a dream journal and turn it into literature?"

Cameron 40:34 Sometimes I did that. I would start with Joseph, and we talked about his interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, and what that made Joseph in relationship to God. Because for so long, dreams are messages -- they are -- but they're messages from what, from whence? All the way up through, and certainly, even today, God is the one talking to you through your dream. And if we can understand the dream, we can understand God. We can understand what God wants from us, we can understand what God is trying to tell us, and we can even have a closer relationship to God, because the dream is where he speaks.

Cameron 41:16 And then that changes as God becomes increasingly less important, certainly in European culture. By the time we get to Freud, God is not outside, God is inside -- this is the unconscious that speaking to us. But, in both cases, the dream is the conveyor of truth. Either God has the truth, and he's telling us through the dream, or the unconscious has the truth of what we want, and who we are, and it communicates that to us through the dream. The interesting Freudian spin is that there is something in you that knows who you are more than you do, and you need to let that speak, or try to understand. Really, it's just an internalization of the divinity that was that would be running, pulling the strings of the dream through time immemorial.

Cameron 42:09 The interesting thing about Jung -- and I have gone through tons of million texts to try to find something condensed where he explains how a dream works, because I really want to teach Jung. I think so much of what we understand about the creativity is such as is gleaned from from Jungian ideas. I think Jung holds a lot more cache now, certainly, than Freud does, for a lot of different reasons. But the thing that drew -- the thing that fascinated me about Jung, was The Red Book. Have you ever heard about The Red Book?

Leah Jones 42:47 It rings a bell, but I can't remember what it is.

Cameron 42:54 It was a personal journal of his. It was published finally, when I started teaching this dream class, probably in like 2011. And Jung had a mental breakdown, really, because of good Dr. Freud, who threw him out of the psychoanalytic establishment because they had a big debate about whether or not sexuality was the key to -- Freud said, "Yes," Jung said, "No," Freud said, "I'm so sorry, you have to leave." So Jung was sort of cast out and had really no prospects anymore. He couldn't practice psychoanalysis, because that was a Freudian thing. And that, and combined with a lot of other things, led to this mental breakdown that went on for years.

Cameron 43:39 And what he started doing, was he started --because he was having visions, and hearing voices and all these sorts of things -- so he started to record them. And he recorded them in this huge book -- it's probably two or three feet wide. And so he started drawing everything he was seeing, and writing down almost in a sort of cartoon fashion, the things they were saying. And he was first doing it -- he had no plan as to what it was, he just needed to get these things out. But as as it continued, it began to form a narrative. And he began to realize, that it was a sort of classical quest narrative. And through the course of composing this book, he sort of wrote himself back to sanity.

Cameron 44:33 What he believed had happened, was that his breakdown had accesssed this overstory, this sort of uber-story that was at the center -- not just of his consciousness -- because I don't think he believed that this was his unconscious doing something to him -- he believed that there was something much greater. Which is why, all of the iconographic figures that he was coming up with and they were speaking, or rather, were speaking to him, have ancilliaries to a very rich history of folklore. But they finally published it in 2011. It was kept on his estate under lock and key. You can buy one now -- they're several hundred dollars. But, they're gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

Leah Jones 45:23 I just did a Google image search for it, just to get a hint of it. Because I was doing, I was in the stream group in '99 to 2001. So, this book wasn't available. I also think it would be really interesting to hear people who did Jungian dream interpretation, or worked from his framework, before this was published, and how that has changed. I wonder if I can get a hold of Colin, who ran our group?

Cameron 45:58 It feeds into the notion of -- because Jung wasn't necessarily writing his dreams, he was writing his delusions, right? But the question of what is psychosis like? Is it like dreaming while you're awake? That's one gloss that's been put on it. I don't know if that's still necessarily that holds value or not. But it sort of goes back to a bigger question, which is, one of our perception. What is our perception doing, what is it for? I can't remember what book it was, maybe "The Four Agreements," something like that. There was one line out of it, that jumped out at me, which was that you're not asleep when you're dreaming; you're conscious when you're dreaming, it's just a different kind of consciousness.

Cameron 46:56 And to follow, let's say, what Hobson says that might be, to some degree, the truth -- insofar as your systems of perception are doing different things in this phase versus another phase? But what are these systems of perceptions for? That's to say that when we're awake, we're seeing what's true, and what's accurate. And that's not the case at all. The reason we perceive things is so we can move through reality and not die, right? But I was thinking that like in a dream -- you don't have to worry about that. You can die in a dream, and you can come back in a dream. You can do more in a dream. Maybe that's what dreams are for -- maybe it's an unfettered expression of something that we might call consciousness.

Leah Jones 47:52 It's been a while since I've really thought about dreams so much. It's so interesting. And because that framework I was given was just -- you would ask yourself -- essentially, that Jungian interpretation was -- everything in the dream is you. And if your dad is in your dream, if your teacher is in your dream, how did they make you feel? What was the emotion? And what in your waking life carries that emotion for you? And that was sort of like, on one foot, how we would do it. It was, "Okay, everything you interacted with was you -- but look at -- what are the emotions that you can carve out of it? Where have you felt that emotion recently in your waking life? And what is it that you're trying to work through there?" Because it was within the context of therapy -- so, it wasn't in the context of literature or universal consciousness -- it was very --everybody was like, 18 to 23 years old. You're still very self-centered in a universal conscious sort of way.

Cameron 49:10 Yeah, I was in therapy where I was talking to a therapist, he was Jungian-based, I think, at some point he told me he was. I had a dream where -- I had a series of dreams, they were beginning to be annoying -- where I kept seeing this person from my past in these dreams. And it was an ex-girlfriend, and I didn't want to talk to her, but she kept showing up in the dream. He said this fascinating thing he said, and it you know, coming out of Jung, it makes a ton of sense. He said, "She is your feminine manifestation of yourself, which is why she's there." And that hit me really hard. This is one of the things about analysis; it's almost like the question of whether or not it's right or wrong is beside the point. The point is, does it resonate? And if it resonates, yes. And, if it doesn't resonate, no. Unless, it really doesn't resonate -- at that point, that's a yes. [laughter]

Leah Jones 50:21 Keep going -- just come back right around the circle to yes. And it's called denial and trying to --

Cameron 50:34 You would dismiss my interpretation, because that's part of your psychic makeup -- the therapist is always on the right side. But what he said resonated, and I was like, "What do I do?" And he said, "Next time you see her, go up and tell her that you're sorry." I was like, "Okay, okay."

Leah Jones 50:54 Wait -- in the dream, or in real life?

Cameron 50:56 In the dream. And I did. And I went up to her, and she was talking to a group of friends and I remember, I tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around, and I said, "I'm sorry," and she just turned back around. And I was like, "Okay, I guess that worked." And then, you know, the dream went on, or whatever, and then I stopped dreaming about it. For six months. [laughter] But what I will say that when she did come back - she's gone now, God bless her -- when she did come back, the valence was a lot less. The intensity was much lower. It was just a character, it had been disconnected from what it had been.

Leah Jones 51:51 What are other exercises you have your students do or that you do when you're diving in? Okay, let me rewrite this question. Do you have a dream practice?

Cameron 52:07 I don't -- easy answer is no. What I do think, and where the dream class went, was we would begin to look at poetry, and to try to understand -- and it certainly doesn't work, you know, for all poetry -- but to try to understand poems, in the same way that we would try to understand dreams. In the same way, to try to understand -- where's the emotion here, and what word encapsulates it? And how did we get here? And assume that nothing in the poem is avmistake, assume that everything in the poem is working towards the incitement of an emotion.

Cameron 52:59 Where's the poem calm? Where does it peak, and how does it end? Various dream interpretations will have very strong feelings as to why a dream ends and how a dream ends. Can we use those ideas to understand a poem? And then from that, we can start to build out towards literature more generally. Poems are great, they're short. If you just give them to students, and don't tell them what it "means," let them -- so often, they come up with things much better than what maybe I would walk in with. But poems are also they're drawing from classical literature, they're making allusions to things that are outside and that can you know, begin to pull on Jungian theses. I don't know if you ever read "Black Elk Speaks?" Did you ever read that book?

Leah Jones 54:06 No.

Cameron 54:08 Black Elk was -- he had been at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Leah Jones 54:19 Oh, we definitely -- this book was in my house growing up. I've seen this cover 100 times.

Cameron 54:27 It's a beautiful book, it's an nterview with him, I believe it's in first person. Of him talking about the history of the nation, and when the settlers came out and things like this. But because he's a shaman, there's a lot about his visions. And one of his visions, is this monsterous vision. And they move to the north, and they do a thing; and they move to the west, and they do a thing; and they move to the south, and they do a thing; and then they move to the northwest, and do another thing. And it's this massive rotating thing. And I would read it and read it, and I'm like, "What the hell is he doing?"

Cameron 54:44 Went back into Jung, and when Jung talks about a mandala, and how the dream is a process of making this mandala figure, then I could look at -- this is, this is a mandala that he's making. This is the vision, the vision is an object. And one of the funny things -- I just sort of thought of this -- this is Freud's first classic dream, "The dream of Irma's Injection," it's called. In which, there's this woman that won't speak to him properly, and all these things.

Leah Jones 55:38 Is to cure himself, perhaps, and not her? Fix his attitude towards her?

Cameron 55:46 Yeah, well, this is Freud, now -- his attitude is fine.

Leah Jones 55:49 No, he's perfect. My bad, my bad.

Cameron 55:51 Yeah, of course. The critiques of this -- people have been critiquing this stream for 100 years, and they're endlessly fascinating. But one of the best ones I ever read was to analyze the structure of the dream. And Freud has a vision, right at the end of the dream, of a chemical compound that is central to the meaning of the dream, a he sees the chemical sort of laid out before him. This guy did analysis of the dream, and he said, "If you look at the structure of the dream, as to, if you understand the characters in the dream, as elements in the compound, they're forming the same pattern." Which is same sort of thing. The dream is presenting almost a physical object. For the sake of what? I don't know. Because again, what knows that object? Where does the dream come from? What's speaking to you?

Leah Jones 56:57 So, you found just a thin vein of -- I can't think of what the word is. So, my sarcasm just drops flat. I'm just like out of my brain. By applying dream analysis and these different frameworks to literature, I think that's a really powerful way to turn it over. In my synagogue, one of the things my rabbi will say when he's giving a sermon, is he'll say, "Devar Acher" -- another interpretation. We turn things over, we turn things over. So I think it gives you this really interesting way of -- you know, cause I was a chemistry undergrad, I wound up in marketing. Somehow, I skirted major literature courses as an adult, and I consider myself a reader. And I have books of poetry, and I still find poetry kind of inaccessible. But I do think putting a dream analysis framework on it makes it immediately more accessible to me.

Cameron 58:26 Yeah, the one of the definitions that I've read of poetry, one that sticks with me -- I don't think there's a way to define poetry -- but one of the definitions is what a poem does is, it is able to manipulate syntax in such a way that it delays the logical part of the brain from processing what the poem is saying. But, the more -- or rather, less rational processes, when you read it are being activated, so that you get the emotion of the message before you understand what the message is.

Cameron 59:06 And sometimes, you never understand what the message is. You can work on a poem to unlock it, and to be like, "Oh, that's what it's saying". And there's poetry that works that way -- I think of John Ashbery, for instance -- I think you get more out of the analysis than you do of the poem -- but he wants the poem to do that, and that's fine. That's a school, and a style. But for me, logical thinking about it, and just allow my emotions to read the poem. In the topic of the day, the dream works, because it feels like something. If you went if you went to sleep, and just had like messages, like emails? Could you imagine how terrible that would be? And you wouldn't want to go to sleep, there'd be no mystery, there'd be no interest, right?

Leah Jones 59:58 Ugh, miserable. A miserable night. [laughter]

Cameron 1:00:02 I think as I have begun to have done really more creative writing in the last 10 years, the thing that's fascinated me about dreams and because I'm doing my creative writing, this is what my mind does now when I sleep, is that it starts to, "Instead of this, what if this happened? Why don't we try it this way? But why don't we try it this way?" And I find that when I'm writing or editing, I'm doing it well, when I'm not thinking about it. When I'm just playing, when my brain is doing something else, and it's operating on "Maybe this, maybe that? Does this feel good? Does that feel good?"

Cameron 1:00:47 And the question of whether or not it feels good, I think is intimately tied to dreaming. What's gonna make the dream go? What's gonna make the dream more interesting? What if I said this? What if I went here? Now, there's a fine line for me when I'm dreaming. Where if I try to do something, the dream falls apart. The dream feels intentional. The dream, the magic goes out of the dream, and it's just me.

Leah Jones 1:01:12 If you try to take too much control?

Cameron 1:01:15 Yeah, yeah. And that's less interesting. But, I think the notion of play, that can happen within a dream, I think is directly relatable to what's happening when writing's going wekk. A lot of times, if a scene's really working, it feels like a daydream. It feels like a scene that I'm not consciously controlling. But one that's sort of moving through me in a way that I think would would probably be relatable to something.

Leah Jones 1:01:55 Do you want people to be able to find you on the internet?

Cameron 1:02:00 I do. Best place to find me probably is -- I talk about the writing on Facebook, which is, I believe, Cameron.Mackenzie.7.

Leah Jones 1:02:12 All right, I will make sure to do that.

Cameron 1:02:16 Please do. I have a website, which is cameronmackenzie.org. And that's where you can find the books and buy the books and read the reviews and short stories, as well. I think some of them are linked up there -- the ones that they published. But, it's also where I update the events. I will be book signing in Roanoke, in January, and then there's another reading outside of D.C. All that stuff is on cameronmackenzie.org.

Leah Jones 1:02:48 Great, and "River Stories" is available on December 7th.

Cameron 1:02:52 "River Weather."

Leah Jones 1:02:53 "River Weather." What did I? I just completely skipped a word. "River Weather" is available on December 7th. And, you'll celebrate with a live event in Philly, which people should come out to.

Cameron 1:03:11 Please do, I'm looking forward to it.

Leah Jones 1:03:13 This has been great. Thank you so much for joining me.

Cameron 1:03:17 Leah, this has been great. I've really enjoyed it.

Announcer 1:03:19 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now, go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

View Details

Hailey Dezort, a Chicago-based book publicist, is here to share her love of fountain pens. We talk about stationary stores, pen conventions, pen after dark sessions, and where to get special inks. We also chat about her newfound love of comic books!

Follow Hailey on Youtube and Instagram: Chi Comic Girl YouTube, Chi Comic Girl Instagram and Ephemeral Lines on Instagram

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Links

Pilsen Community Books
Open Books
Chicago Green Theater Alliance
Kaweco Classic Sport
Chicago Pen Show
Mont Blanc Marilyn Monroe Muses
DC Pen Show 2018 Recap (to get a feel for pen shows)
Cosmo Air Light notebook
Midori
Atlas Stationers in Chicago
Pelikan Souveran M405
Platinum Preppy
Egyptomania - Mont Blanc
Norsemen
Fountain Pen Hospital in NYC
Lamy Safari Fountain Pens
Goulet Pens

Hailey 0:00 Hi, my name is Hailey. And my favorite thing is fountain pens.

Announcer 0:05 Welcome to the finding favorites Podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:17 Hello and welcome to Finding Favorites. It is late on Sunday, December 5 11pm. The eighth and final night of Hanukkah, and I spent the almost the entire day sleeping. Not entirely true. got up this morning had a wonderful breakfast with my friend Jonathan, who was in town, dropped him off at the airport, came back and then sat down for a few minutes and slept for four hours. Why you ask? Well, let's see. Friday I started my second round of chemo. So as I've learned a round of chemo was three weeks. So I'm four weeks and now to my 12 weeks of chemo. Started my second round. So second round of four rounds. A lot of math a lot of fractions with chemo.

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS PAGE BREAK

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Leah Jones 1:10 Last night, a dear group of friends Ezra, Sarah Beth, Amy, Jonathan, Mike, Rocco all helped host the annual latke party, my annual Hanukkah party that I've been doing, I don't know 10 or 15 years, not 15. Not quite 15. But I've been having this party on the Saturday night of Hanukkah for over a decade. It's one of my most favorite traditions. It's like an open house. I cook latkes all night.

Leah Jones 1:40 And in January of this year, I send out magnetic I ordered magnetic "save the dates" and started sending them out so we'd all have something to look forward to. And then I got diagnosed with breast cancer and I was so sad that like I had jinxed myself by sending out invitations too early for this party. was so sad. And my friends were just like absolutely not the party's not canceled. And Ezra who is my upstairs neighbor, hosted like did Amy and Sarah Beth and Rocco cooked all day, my neighbor Mike made cocktails. We had two fire pits in the backyard. So we had fire, smores, magic fire, glow sticks. You know if there's something we've learned during COVID It's that we can socialize outdoors a lot more of the year than we ever have. So a double firepit backyard party in December is pretty rockin. I wore my new fancy dress from fringe and CO a "Tik Tokmade me buy it" dress. I shaved my head this week, my hair started to fall out. And I got to talk to a lot of people last night. But while I'm physically still feeling pretty good. I had a really had a hard time like just talking to people last night finding the words I describe my brain as being like peppermint. What I meant was Swiss cheese. So I came inside to change my clothes before the party was over and kind of fell asleep. My recliner. And then I slept all day to day, and thus the late edit and late release. I'm going to update the show notes tomorrow.

Leah Jones 3:38 I have so many great notes for this episode with Hailey talking about fountain pens. But what I'm going to do is just get this posted the audio posted tonight, and all the links up tomorrow. So I'm talking to Hailey DeZort. She's a book publicist here in Chicago, we talked about fountain pens, we talked about comic books, and you are going to have a new hobby to try at the end of this conversation with Hailey. So wear masks, wash your hands, get that booster shot if you're eligible. Well, I think we're all eligible now. Kids are getting their shots, their vaccines. grownups are getting their boosters. It's good. And I'll just keep marching through this chemo stuff. Thank you to everyone who has helped me again with meals with chores, the organizing with visits I really feel well taken care of by all my hospital husbands regardless of gender and regardless of whether or not you actually have gone with me to the hospital. So keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones 5:02 Hello, and welcome to finding favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones in this as the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things, and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. Today, it is a Gloomy Sunday morning in Chicago. And so I am really thrilled to be to be able to have a nice conversation, bring some sunshine inside. I'm talking with Haiey DeZort resort. Hailey is a marketing and events coordinator in the books industry. And also is here in gloomy Chicago today. Hailey, how are you doing?

Unknown Speaker 5:38 I'm doing great. I mean, what a way to perk up a Sunday because it's just raining all day. So I'm happy to be here.

Leah Jones 5:46 I am, too. I otherwise, I would have just I'm pretty sure slept until the sunset.

Hailey 5:53 Truly. I woke up and was like, wait, what time is it? Where am I? Cuz it was still dark? And like 10am?

Leah Jones 6:02 Yeah. Yeah, it's a real. It's a weird one. But there's still I live across the street from one of my park. And there's still baseball happening. So those poor kids and parents.

Unknown Speaker 6:16 The commitment is great to see. But I would not be one. Yeah. Like I like the warm.

Leah Jones 6:24 Yeah. So Hailey, you're in books. i This fall, I've been talking to a lot of authors. How did you find yourself doing? Working in the books industry and doing marketing and event coordination?

Hailey 6:39 Yeah, so it started out as a really, like, young desire to be in the industry. I was in high school and loved reading. And it was a passion of mine. But I was never a writer, and also just like a really terrible editor. Like I struggle with grammar, sometimes, games, like, you know, editing people's papers. And I was thinking about what else I could do in order to work adjacent to books, like how do I who is who are these people that bring a book into the world beside an author. And so after lots of Googling, I realized that there's a whole publishing industry. And I took a marketing course, in high school that I loved. And my teacher was super sweet and told me I was good at and kind of from there, it just sparked that journey for me to just really push myself to do that I just be a total tunnel vision and then was like, I am going to do this thing. Oh. And then I'm here.

Leah Jones 7:44 That's amazing. I definitely did not know that book. Marketing was the thing in high school.

Hailey 7:51 Yeah, I don't think most people unless you're in the industry, honestly, I don't think people actually even think about it as adults. If you're a reader even Right.

Leah Jones 8:00 Right. Like, how did this book get into my house? Oh, I don't know. I bought it. I watched I went to my local bookstore, and I bought it. Yeah, I was talking to someone recently about, you know, in high school, the professions, at least that I knew about, like teachers, nursing lawyers, you know, you know, what you see on TV and what your parents do and what your parents, your friend's parents do. And other than that, like, those are your possible futures.

Hailey 8:31 Exactly. And I think it's really, like you're saying the things that are on TV. So there's since then been some TV shows like, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of younger, it has Hilary Duff. Yeah. And it's, she works in the publishing industry, but they're both editors. And so it really becomes like, there's, you can be an author, or you can be an editor. And everyone assumes, like, I think outside of the book industry, that if you're working in it, that you just you want to write a book, and I definitely have no desire to do that. But I love so much finding readers for the books that we're working on and finding that perfect match. Because when someone really loves a book and connects with it, it's just such a great feeling to know that you had like a hand in that and you see it and you're like, yes,

Leah Jones 9:14 yeah. So are all the books behind you. Books that you have worked with, or there are some of them are your personal collection, and some of them are your authors.

Hailey 9:24 So most of the ones that you see behind me are my personal collection, and then I have a bookshelf that is a little bit out of the frame right now. That is all of the books that I have worked on. And so they accumulate very quickly though, I will say I slowly start to run out of room and have to kind of go through everything I own and you know, donate some things to better homes. But yeah, I own a lot of books for anyone listening. I have probably over I want to say like 300 books in my office library situation, right?

Leah Jones 9:59 Yeah. Just in one room, and I remember oh my gosh, it was probably 15 years ago. I don't remember her name but the her blog was called Book slut.

Hailey 10:11 She was very new to the blog.

Leah Jones 10:15 Yeah. And she had a I got invited to a party at her house so that's awful. I'm like I don't remember her name but I was in her house. And she had you know, every line wild with bookshelves but then also like just stacks of books. It was like out of like an illustrator. It felt like you were in a children's book are just because it was like stacks and stacks you could imagine like a Tony, Tony, Tony Apollo. Like it was almost like a Strega Nona of books situation.

Hailey 10:48 I love it. I try so hard not to have books on the floor. I'm one of those people who in in theory, I really like things to look like not cluttered and really clean and almost minimalistic and yet, I love books. And so we hit that. So I'm always either trying to do like a spring cleaning, or buying more bookshelves that that make it just look nicer because books on the floor though, aesthetically, can look really cute on ice on like Instagram and other people's homes. And I love it for them. For me. I'm distressed. I'm like I need to clean.

Leah Jones 11:23 Right? Well, also, God forbid you have a flood. The books on the floor have no chance.

Hailey 11:30 Yes, I could not. Oh, my heart thinking about that.

Leah Jones 11:34 Yeah. So Haley, did you have any? You know, it's a gloomy fall Sunday. But did you get to have any nice fall adventures?

Hailey 11:47 Yeah, I had. Well, yesterday, I went for a walk in Andersonville. And then I also went down to Pilsen. So in Chicago, totally opposite neighbor. Oh. But I started the morning sitting at a coffee shop journaling and reading which I haven't been to a coffee shop in forever to just sit and do that. So it felt like such a treat. And then my boyfriend and I went to Pilsen and explored some bookstore site and grabbed a cocktail and some food at if anyone who's listening in Chicago, try out Pilsen yards. It is so delicious. I was first time there and I was blown away.

Leah Jones 12:28 What are the what are the bookstores in Pilsen?

Hailey 12:31 So Pilsen community books is there. And they're really great. They're owned by two people that I really adore. Katherine Solheim, and Mandy medley, they do a lot of work to bring in, kind of like political titles that just like really informed people like the movements that are happening. Yeah. And they're just really involved in community organizing, but they also just have such a great selection of fiction and poetry, and also Spanish language. Books for the community as well, because they're based in Pilsen, which is right at least Spanish speaking. And then open books, which is a nonprofit organization has two locations and one of them is in Pilsen. Okay. We like a huge warehouse of just used books, which is really wonderful to walk through. So those are the two down there that are just really lovely. And Pilsen is really gorgeous like the when you walk in it's these floor to ceiling wood, bookshelves, and it's like everything you kind of want a bookstore to look like. So ascetically cozy and great.

Leah Jones 13:50 Yeah. Oh, that sounds like a lovely way to spend an hour a day.

Hailey 13:56 Yeah. I really enjoyed it. The sun was finally out and so took advantage of it.

Leah Jones 14:01 Yeah, like I was telling you, my nephew and I went to the Chicago green theater Alliance, which is like all the Chicago theaters that are, I guess, trying to make it possible to, you know, reuse, reduce recycle. They had an E waste drop off, but they had a costume and clothing swap at the Children's Theater in Chicago, and it was just you know, like when you're there's contemporary clothes, but then you pick up something and it's like Northwestern Pirates of Penzance. Charles Jones's pants so like some of the clothes had like the the love that theater, the production the artist's name or the actor's name in it. There was I took one sign of a box that said, it was like getting out of the business novelty costumes and wigs and I was like, I love it. I love it. I want to know everything about this person,

Hailey 14:58 right? There's this story behind that that's so fun. You're digging through it and like it's more than just these costumes. You're getting some kind of mysteries. No, I, that's such a awesome adventure in its own.

Leah Jones 15:12 Yeah. Or you'd hit a pile of, oh, it's a dozen green skirts. You know, it's five jackets with white jackets with red pockets. So you would also get a sense of like, how big the chorus was, or I don't know, I thought it was really interesting.

Hailey 15:31 That's so awesome. I wonder how they accumulated everything, especially like the going out of business? Or was it just donations or Yaks? I've never heard of this before. So I think that's really cool.

Leah Jones 15:45 Yeah, some of it came in wardrobe boxes. And some of it a woman arrived when we arrived in an SUV and she was, it seemed like the person in her social group helping collect clothes for various causes. A friend was moving out of town. They collected for refugees, and then didn't need all the clothes they had collected. And she had, like 12 or more bags of clothes and blankets and pillows. So when her stuff got there, they just put a giant, they were like, This pile is sorting and it was just a pile of garbage bags that people started going through. Somebody's got a whole comforter set.

Hailey 16:32 That's wonderful. Good. Yeah, yeah.

Leah Jones 16:35 But there's also I don't know, like tailored really high quality clothes, really silly costumes. There was a hat section. That I was like, Oh, do I need a viking hat? I'd know Leah you don't? You don't need a Viking The answer

Hailey 16:53 is actually yes. Yeah. Go back.

Leah Jones 16:54 We'll see. But it was it was really nice to have like the windows open and drive through the city on a sunny day. I really enjoyed that.

Hailey 17:06 Yeah, I hope we get more of those before winter comes.

Leah Jones 17:12 Yeah, I'm fine with the cooler temps but this I'm gonna need some sunshine. mixin

Hailey 17:18 Yes. 100% Give me more fall moments

Leah Jones 17:35 so Hayley, you are someone with a lot of favorite things? Yes. What are we going to talk about today?

Hailey 17:42 We are going to talk about my fountain pen collection.

Leah Jones 17:48 Now, it looked like you had earlier before we started recording, like you had pulled it in front of you. And did you unroll it?

Hailey 17:56 Yeah. So just unrolled one one. Little cases that I have. This is a like a pen roll. And then I have several it houses. Six. Let me pull these out. So you could just see the variety. There is like a purple celluloid. This one is called an ester Brock. It this one is like one of it's a fountain pen, but when you push it it pops out. Kind of like a I don't want I don't know why I'm gonna get

Leah Jones 18:36 clicky pen. It's a clicky pen, a very fancy clicky pen. It's like it's silver. It's a lavender, shiny lavender. And kind of looks like a James Bond weapon.

Hailey 18:49 Yes. And it's called a pilot decimo Okay, then. This one here is an aurora veneer. It's limited to 888 in the world, and they're made in Italy. And then this one is really fun. It's a Mont Blanc, Marilyn Monroe. And the pen shape is meant to look like a high heel like the bow. It

Leah Jones 19:17 looks like a stiletto. Yeah.

Hailey 19:19 It has a little pearl on the clip. And then on the nib is what has an engraving of Marilyn Monroe on it. Wow. And it has her signature and engraved on the bottom finial is what they call like the bottom of the pen and little diamonds engraved for the song that she sings. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. So those are just some of the

Leah Jones 19:56 that's just a quick glance. Yeah. So let's Go back to the beginning. How did you? When did you either receive your first fountain pen? Or did they come on your radar and you're like, Oh, I've got to get one.

Hailey 20:14 So I've always been really into stationery and I was that kid, which I feel like this is a lot of how and pen collectors origin stories, where you're that kid that loves school supplies shopping so much. And I loved like buying different patterns and color coding my notes and doing those things. I just loved the experience. And so I've always really enjoyed stationery and I there in Andersonville, there used to be the stationery shop called Martha Mae. And it was one of the most beautiful stories I've ever walked into just like design wise, right. And she had these cool Aiko sports, which are these little pocket pens that are really cute. Um, and I opened it up, and it was a fountain pen. And I was just really intrigued by that, right. And so I tried writing with it. And it was just a really fun experience. And one of the cool aspects of a fountain pen is that you can change out the ink. So it can be different colors. And then there was an array of inks like purples and greens. And so I bought that. And for the longest time I was just writing with with that, but like anything else that I slowly get into I like dive really hard into like research. And so I started just Googling on the internet that there were like all of these other pen brands, and there was all of these different fountain pens. And then I discovered that there are pen shows. Oh, I know. There are full conventions for sellers and buyers to come where they showcase tons of pens. Oh, so I and so this

Leah Jones 22:11 was then a pre COVID discovery for you.

Hailey 22:15 Yeah, so I got into fountain pens around 2018

Leah Jones 22:21 Because I thought Martha May was a pencil shop that she have a lot of pencils to.

Hailey 22:28 She did. Okay. Yeah, she had pencils as well. She had it was a lot of art stuff. It was okay file and pens. It was pencils, it was paints, and watercolors and things of that sort. So okay, there was a lot there. And I just gravitated I saw these little quick Oh, sports and then was in love. And I decided I wanted to go to the Chicago pen show. Sure. And I was super nervous because I was like no idea what to expect. And I just kind of assumed that there would be like all of these like, I don't know, old like gruff men with their like fountain pens. And it was such a wonderful experience. And I also I started listening to other podcasts that were about fountain pen. So I was learning more.

Hailey 23:19 So there's this podcast called the Pen Addict. And that I just learned a lot through Yeah. And I went to the fountain pen show, and there was people of all ages, which was really, really cool. But people who just had so much more information about fountain pens and how they write, and I was so delighted, there was all these fancy inks with like, glitter or they cheated. And they had like different. They called Chroma shaders, where when you put it down on paper, it's like a blue, and then a pink and then a purple, it gives off different hues. Um, and what was so funny to me, but in a really great way. They have pen show after after dark, where everyone just goes to a bar, and like, opens up these pen cases. And then everyone just like, hangs out and drinks and like writes with each other's pens. And there's like people who have like, collections of like 100 or more, and they have like really rare, really expensive, like, pens that are worth 1000s of dollars and you're just like, I can't believe I'm touching a pen that's like $5,000 in my hand and the community was really great. And after that I kind of like then spiraled and I bought like a couple more fountain pens and it just like became a whole thing.

Leah Jones 24:38 Oh, so I'm, I kind of want to pause slightly. When you pulled out one of the pens you said and this is the Phil filial finial. finial. finial? Yeah, maybe walk us through the basics of a fountain pen. I feel like most it's such a cliche gift. Like I received one when I graduated from grad school, and I maybe addressed a few envelopes with it, but I like I didn't know like, I don't know how to make one part of my day, but like, what are the parts of a fountain pen?

Hailey 25:14 Yeah. So for the fountain pen, you have the cap. And then on a cap, the top part usually, or not, usually sometimes there is an emblem. So for this like Mont Blanc, there's a little month long star. It's a top, a top finial. And then same with the bottom. It's like the absolutely kind of end of like, the pen barrel and the cap. Okay. So typically they'll be those are what you would call like finials. There is the the pen itself, which is like the barrel. And then it has the nib, which is the like, where you're writing what what you're writing with, right. And underneath the nib is a feeder, which is usually kind of like black, I think ebonite material that feeds the ink into the nib,

Leah Jones 26:13 okay, and it usually has like horizontal cuts in it, right?

Hailey 26:17 Yeah, horizontal lines right under the nib. And then, depending on what kind of fountain pen you have this one, if I unscrew it, the pen barrel and screw it from the nib there, you can put a little cartridge okay. Or there are cartridge converters that look like a little almost suction on it, and it sucks up the ink for maybe a bottle from a bottle of ink if you have a Yeah, and then you can connect it to the nib and then put the hand barrel back on and so what's really fun about that aspect is that you can try all sorts of different inks and right with also like different colors like for me that's like such a fun aspect is personalizing the writing experience. And that in some, some pens, I'll show you another one have a piston filler, boom.

Hailey 27:20 So I have another Mont Blanc. It's called that Egyptomania has little hieroglyphs on the side of it for mop Blonk. And then it has a scarab on the nib, because it is like a celebration of the discovery of tooten common and so they came up with this whole line. But basically with this, in order to fill it, you would put the nib in a bottle of ink, and you would twist the top of it, and it would come up. And then you would twist it back down. And then the ink would be suctioned in from the nib section. And so that's some of the sometimes more expensive fountain pens will have that kind of filling system. Okay, so what's interesting with fountain pens is that there's really different designs and the ways that they look but then even how they kind of function themselves as a cartridge only converter, filler piston filler. And so that's what makes it really cool when you can geek out about like, Oh, I really like this filling system, or I like how this works. Right.

Leah Jones 28:34 Thank you, that helps. I know it's going to help all the other questions coming. So we go back to the Chicago pen convention, and you're at Pens after Dark.

Hailey 28:47 Yes.

Leah Jones 28:49 And how many fountain pens did you walk away with from that convention?

Hailey 28:57 I think like four. Yeah, I had four fountain pens. And one I had actually, people would trade fountain pens like "Oh, I really want that" and so someone had traded.

Hailey 29:07 My first. So I have a Pilot Decimo which is like the clicky pen. And what I started to learn with fountain pens. So, with the nib, there are different widths, you can get a fine nib, a medium nib, a broad nib, an italic. And that shifts kind of how you write with it. If you like inks that you like seeing like really what pens and being a little bit softer. Maybe you go with like a wider nib like a medium or broad but if you like really fine writing and you like really thin points, you would do maybe a fine or an extra fine and so that was like something that I was like testing out all these pens like okay, they like to write with what suits my handwriting style, right? Um, but then I also didn't realize that Certain nibs are made with different materials.

Hailey 30:03 So the Pilot Decimo is actually made with 14 karat gold. Okay, so with that it makes the material is like softer and balanced here. So it makes the writing experience really smooth and really like easy on the hands. Yeah. A steel nib is has a little bit more stiffness to it. Which, depending on the brand, like it would still be a really smooth writing experience. But it's not going to have that kind of bounce. So it just feels different in the hand. And that's like something I just had no idea about until feature Hey, this is like what this pen is. Someone treated me I forget what, like I gave them but they they gave me a Pilot Decimo and that was my first experience with a 14 karat gold nib. It was like this is magic. The way that it feels. It feels like butter in your hand. Yeah, just super smooth on the paper.

Leah Jones 31:03 Yeah. And do you just write on notebook paper? Do you just write on paper? What type of paper do you use when you use a fountain pen.

Hailey 31:12 So there are a lot of different notebook brands that are fountain pen friendly. Tomoya River is like a huge one within the fountain pen community. But it is really it has like a thin paper. But a reason why a lot of people really like it is because it shows off the properties of ink. So if you're a person that's like I like all these colors of ink or glitters or shimmer. That is a really fun one.

Hailey 31:39 I currently use Misubis Cosmo AirLite folios. They just write really smoothly with the pens, I think they show off the ink properties really well. And there's this thing with fountain pen ink because you're laying down like lots of like, like colorful inks. This thing that can people can experience it's called ghosting. So when you put so much ink on the paper that it exceeds through just almost like if you're painting watercolor on paper, you could see it come through with Cosmo AirLite, you don't really get ghosting. Okay, so it makes it when I'm journaling really easy for me to like write and then, you know, turn the page and then continue writing with all of my various colored inks. Yeah, and it's not distracting.

Hailey 32:28 But I would say there's also majority of paper, which is really great. And these are like cheap options as well. They're not that you're don't necessarily have to spend like a lot of money to get paper in order for it to work for you. Yeah. But there's a lot of websites like pen shops and storefronts that have a variety of fountain pen friendly paper. So in Chicago, there's a place called Atlas Stationers that has like all of these notebooks downtown. When I was first diving into fountain pens, there's a website called Goulet Pens, and they have a YouTube channel where they basically walk you through like fountain pen 101, like this whole series of videos, and the people who record the videos are so funny and just really great to watch. In general, it's not, it doesn't feel really dry and boring. So that's also a good place to start for people who maybe have like more questions or want to get into it and are curious.

Leah Jones 33:30 So it sounds like fountain pens are part of your daily life.

Hailey 33:37 Yes, yeah. I you know, I work from home full time and I work always on the computer. And so one of the aspects to that is just feeling fatigue from being on the computer or having screen time. And so a way for me to decompress is to journal I read a lot. So I like keeping keeping reading journals. And I find that when I type notes on the computer, I like never go back to them. I never like sit there and like look over. Even for work I have like a work notebook that I can't have my notes in. And so so much gets lost when I actually just dump it onto my computer if it's mostly only for me if it's like notes for me to remember. And so with me writing notes for work or creating strategies or doing a reading journal, or even just a personal journal of my thoughts every day having that experience be so fun, and like picking up like oh, I want to write with this pen today just makes the experience more fun and gives it a little bit more flair. Yeah. And brings a lot of enjoyment. Yeah,

Leah Jones 35:06 So some of the pens, you've shown me have inqua inkwells, and they have ink in them. Do you store that? Do you? You're like, I'm going to write with the Marilyn Monroe pen today because she's got purple ink and I'm in a purple mood. Or do you say like, I want this pen? And then you swap out the color? Or like, how do you? What goes into deciding what pen or you're in the mood for?

Hailey 35:33 Yeah, so I tend to match my inks with my pens, so that I like the the pair like so it comes kind of as like, a package deal. Yeah, for the most part where I'm like, Oh, I have this really lovely purple, and by Aurora Optima, which is like a purple, like lilac color, the pen itself. And then I, I'll be like, Okay, I want to I want to write with that. And sometimes I in my journals, typically, once you start going down the following pen, and like the notebooks, Yeah, cuz people do the whole like stationery. So I have like stickers and washi tapes. Yeah, I decorate my journals. And then if I'm using certain colors, I'll pick the pen that has the color.

Hailey 36:20 But there's other pens, where you just end up gravitating towards for a period of time, because they're really nice to write with, you're like I'm really enjoying writing with this one. And so oftentimes, that's how it'll happen. I have a Pelican, which is an M, they have different numbers to designate the size. And it's called a Pelican M 405. And it is a white barrel, and I have this like glittery blue pink ink in it. Oh, and the ink is called Mystic Mountain. They always have these really fun names that kind of give a story to it, which I think when objects have stories behind it, it's easier to form an emotional attachment. Yeah, to kind of identify with it in a certain way. And so that's something that I love the writing experience of that pad, but I absolutely love how that ink looks. So I'm constantly writing with it. And picking it up just because I want glitter on my pages. Yeah.

Leah Jones 37:27 Are fountain pens like, use it or lose it? Like, do you have to write with them regularly? Do you store them with ink in them? Or do they need to be dry? Like what's the proper? I guess maintenance or maintenance? Yes, that's the word.

Hailey 37:44 Yeah, so I typically store them horizontal in these in my little pen cases. And I do store them with ink. Like they have ink in them. I have probably like 20 fountain pens inked up right now. I just can't use 20 fountain pens every single day. And for the most part, I tried to rotate through them. But like I said, I have favorites that I gravitate to more frequently. They recommend, you know, for fountain pen maintenance to clean your pens regularly, I will say there's been like months where I'm like, Oh, I forgot about that pen. And it takes a little bit of time to clean, but you're not going to necessarily destroy your pen. I mean, if you leave it in there for five years, maybe and then never touch it and pick it up then right I think there can be some, some, some consequences to that.

Hailey 38:37 But it also depends on the ink manufacturer, their inks that, in general, like are maybe a little bit better for your pens, and some there's like a pen that I had in head dried out the ink dried out. And it looks like it had a little bit of crud on it. I cleaned it, it was totally fine. It didn't do anything to my fountain pen. So they're they're pretty easy to maintain. I think the cleaning process can be a little either for some people tedious or for other people therapeutic like I love sitting, seeing putting on Netflix on my laptop and just like cleaning my fountain pens like that. Also the like every step of the way. It kind of feels like a process of decompressing or relaxing to me.

Leah Jones 39:28 Oh, that sounds really kind of lovely. Have you been able to go back to... You said 2018. So you had there were a couple years in there where you could have done more in person. fountain pen events. Were you able to get to any more or was that like the big event and you're waiting for the post? COVID return?

Hailey 39:57 Yeah, so 2019 I was in Europe, which is not a bad place to be when the Chicago Pen show happens. And then 2020, we all went through COVID. And so this year, the Chicago pen show did happen. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to, to go, we had had plans. And I also, I, I have spent my allowance on pens this year. So I was also just thinking about that.

Leah Jones 40:25 Right? That's right,

Hailey 40:28 You go to that show, and you're just enabled by everyone around you to continue to buy more. And so I'm looking toward going next year, but I have people in Chicago, who are part of the fountain pen community, we do little meetups, we'll go to Atlas Stationers together, and we'll hang out. I'm also on a slack channel that has about I think, maybe 1800 people around the world. Yeah. And it is specifically a fountain pen, community Slack channel. And so there's, like, I'm, I'm on it. And I like messaging with people, or there's like all of these threads where people are talking about like fountain pens, and people will post like their new pen days when they get a pen in the mail.

Hailey 41:15 So it's, it's a really lovely community, everyone is super nice. And they also have a pen pal, Slack channel. So you can put your address in and there it's, I could be a better pen pal than I have been this past year. But during COVID, that was like such a really beautiful way to connect with people. I was writing to maybe like, I don't know, like seven or eight people like from Germany to Switzerland to Chicago, New York, like I was connecting with all of these different people, and a time where I felt really isolated. And to go down to your mailbox and see this really beautiful letter and someone you know, talking to you is a different way than just like that instant gratification of like texting someone. So that was a really wonderful aspects that came out of the community and kind of this fountain pen collecting was the connection and other kind of forms during COVID. Yeah.

Leah Jones 42:19 Oh, that sounds really lovely.

Hailey 42:22 Yeah, it was, it was it was really great. And people, some of them are artists, some of them are photographers I've received art that they've done. They're like, Oh, they painted like a little image and like one of their letters or I've received like, photos that they've taken. And it's, it's a really cool way to just get to know someone a way that I think is not often used anymore. Like people are not writing letters or snail mail. Super. All

Leah Jones 42:52 right. Are there inks? Or fountain pens that you're like, Oh, I wouldn't. They're not my people. You know, like, our dear fountain pens? Do people just have like, a wide array of pens and and they're generally nice. Are there any pens that are red flags?

Hailey 43:15 Yeah, I don't think that there's any pens that are red. It's crazy. Well, everyone clicks really differently. So there are people who are very loyal to brand so there are people who love Mont Blanc as only click that and then there are people who are, you know, are like I can't spend more than, you know, $50 $60 Maybe 100 is their top so then any of the foam pens they have are within that range, which there's some really amazing fountains that are really cheap. Like the Kaweco Sport. My first fountain pen is like $26 which for pen is expensive in general

Leah Jones 43:52 But for fountain pen is not

Hailey 43:54 Yes. Or a Pilot Preppy. I recently purchased one. It's $7. It's amazing to write with. I was like freaking out over it. I have very expensive pens. I was like, I love this. This is a great experience. And so it really can run the gamut. I kind of collect anything that aesthetically a pleat like pleases me. Yeah. And I feel like I if a fountain pen has a story behind it. I really love that I am the fountain pen, the Mont Blanc, Egyptomania. I wanted to be. I wanted to be an Egyptologist when I was seven. Yeah. And I was really obsessed with like, you know, Egypt and the pyramids and archaeology. And I watched all of the Nat Geo documentaries and went to the Field Museum. And so when that pen came on to market, I was like, I need it because it just for me. It's an nostalgia thing of reminder of like some of my first I think like obsessions

Hailey 45:00 Honestly, yeah, I was really curious about. So that's kind of how, and there's certain brands that I love, where I'm like, Okay, I've written with this pen, I love it so much. And now they come out with another that looks super pretty. Like I also want that one, right. So you kind of just get to see what brands you like to write with. And then kind of exterior exploring that kind of stuff. Like I've, I've bought a lot of pens, and I've sold a lot of pens in the process of my collection class, okay, because of just trying to figure out oh, I really like this or Oh, I, I like it, but not enough to keep it because they're these other things that I enjoy more. Yeah.

Leah Jones 45:42 What are other pens that you have with strong stories attached to them?

Hailey 45:49 Um, so I would say the Aurora, Venus or veneer, that this was like my first really expensive. And so it's like this beautiful pink. But it was modeled after, like the Greek goddess Venus. Mm hmm. And, for me, I just have always loved like mythology and folklore. And so just even having the name attached to that, and there being some kind of story behind it. Right? How beautiful it was. That one, just like is really special to me, for that reason. Then, another one that kind of follows. The line of mythology is I have a pen from this company called Genesis. Ooh, it has an it's called the Norse mythology pen. And so it has all of these Norse like images, like mythological images engraved on the cap and the body.

Leah Jones 47:03 But the body is like transparent. And it's covered in runes, yeah.

Hailey 47:08 Yep. And then the cap is like a kind of white and then even on the section that you hold the pen, it has these engravings. And so for that, A, I just love how it looks. And then, you know, there's those kind of, for me really fun moments where I'm like, I'm reading a book about mythology. And so now I'm gonna write with my pet, you know, with your kind of moment. Yeah, yeah. So those kinds of moments where it's creating a whole experience for me that I find I get enjoyment out

Leah Jones 47:41 of, yeah. And do you have a cause that Norse pen?is big?

Hailey 47:52 It is big.

Leah Jones 47:55 As you've collected and realize what you like? Are there pens that are either like just too big or too? Like, how does it? How do you do have you zeroed in on a right size pen, like what feels good to write with?

Hailey 48:09 Yeah, I have smaller hands. So that pen is unusual for me because it is so thick, and is a thicker body. And even the the section where I hold it, it's thicker. That one feels comfortable to me, I think writing for super long periods, I would switch it out. Because what feels most comfortable is actually thinner, and smaller pens, so sometimes can be really, really, really long. And for me, depending on the weight of the material, it makes my hand or my wrist tired. So like lightweight, thin. And more compact fountain pen. So for example, there's a brand called the I'd mentioned earlier Peliken, and they have all of these different sizes and M 200. and M like 400 600 800. And when you go up, it actually increases in size. And there are some pens that they make that are eight hundreds that are really beautiful. Like I looked at them, I really wanted one of them. And I tried in my hand. It's just too big for me. And so this pen that I'm showing you is called the M 200. Peliken Ruby. Yeah. And it's pretty small. Yeah. And pretty compact. And what can also change the size of pen is it can be what they call posted. If you put the cap on the back, I don't post there are people who always do, I don't. And so when I hold it, it's pretty again small in my hand and feels light to hold.

Leah Jones 49:53 Yeah. So why don't you post?

Hailey 49:57 mostly because it comes down to the size. For me, so if when I post I feel like it's a little bit too top heavy and then it it's uncomfortable for me to write things that are a little bit lightweight. Because when writing with fountain pens, you should be able to kind of lightly right like not dig your hand in and feel like you need to put a lot of pressure. So it's actually really it's it's really good on like your hand and on your wrist. And I also sometimes experienced carpal tunnel syndrome. Yeah. And kind of having that like lightness and being able to write kind of almost like gliding over pages with the fountain pens. Yeah, it's really nice for my my hand at my wrist. Yeah. Oh.

Leah Jones 50:54 And how about the world of inks? away? Now, when you like when you give yourself your annual budget for fountain pens, is there a hardware and inquire you know, like, is there an ink budget and a pin budget? Or is that all in and you divide up? Like, it seems you see also an ink collector to me

Hailey 51:20 100% Also, I should have an ink and a pen budget. I don't know what those are. They don't have fun. I just try not to buy too much. Um, yeah, so I have, oh, I don't know, maybe like 30 bottles of ink or more, maybe a closer to 50 Honestly, at this point, there are all of these brands that are coming out with you know, I have a purple ink that has a silver shimmer, or I have a purple ink that is a slightly different hue that has pink undertones, but then also has like, you know, a gold shimmer. And so when you start going down the rabbit hole of wow, you see really beautiful just colors. It's like seeing different paints. Or, you know, as a kid, you have like the the primary colors, colored pencils, and then you have the 60 pack. And then you have the 100 pack. And you're like I want the 100 Maybe, maybe you don't but I did I want the 100 pack. I want all of the different colors and hues to write or draw with different and do different things. And so, yeah, I have a lot of eggs. I have like a little cart with inks. And then I have some of them on display as well. I tend to lean towards things with shimmer inks with that are purple pinks and light blues. Mm hmm. I really love a good pink I think I have like five or six different shades of pink. Which, you know, for me, I'm like, oh, but this is a little bit more orangey or this has like gold glitter or this is you know, more of like a mov and they also have names to them.

Hailey 53:15 So sometimes it's again, the story behind an ink that you're gravitating towards. You use it you're thinking of it. Um, I have a ink that is called pumpkin cake. Ooh has a little pumpkin cake drawing on it. That's so cute. It's from Monteverde. And when I haven't, and one of my pens because it's Halloween season was festive to me. It's like a dark brown with an orangey undertone and I love it, but I what I love it as much if it wasn't called pumpkin cake and didn't have this story. I'm not sure like, I love it, like how it looks. I really love the color. But the story adds so much for me and I've talked to other people who collect like fountain pens and they there's people who have extraordinary ink collections. And I think that tends to be a reoccurring theme is that when there's this kind of story behind it. It makes it a little bit more intriguing to us and more enjoyable.

Leah Jones 54:19 What are so you said that was it was Mont Alban Munsell Monteverde. Monteverde? Yeah. What are some other ink brands that you do you have particular brands that you really like? Or, or is it more like, Ooh, that's a new pink shimmer. And you don't care who the brand is, but you need the color.

Hailey 54:45 So, I have a few ink brands they so sailor is one of them. They have these really beautiful in clients and they have a lot of inks that are called Chroma shaders, which means they showcase more than One color. So it'll be purple, pink, and then maybe like a kind of blue hue to it. So depending on the paper you use, you can see all of those properties of the income through, which is really beautiful. I also use some fountain pens to paint, like why you do watercolor painting. And so what is really fun is to use fountain pen ink, especially when they have these different properties. Yeah, I wouldn't quite get unless I was just way more masterful at like, you know, mixing my colors. Yeah.

Hailey 55:34 But so Sailor is, I believe, based in Japan. And then there are two. There is Tono and Lims, which is a little bit difficult to buy in the US. They are only distributed through this site called sugary inks. And they are made in Korea, the inks. And then color verse, which is a super fun brands. They are made in South Korea. And majority of their main lions are actually inspired by constellations or planets, they have a whole space theme. And so all of the names that they use are taken from space. And they recently partnered with a distributor, I think luxury brands still who's based in the US and they decided to do a UA a USA 50 states line. And so they came out with these little bottles where they're doing you know, like from Cali is like this, like very beautiful light lavender color. Or they did CHi Town. Yeah, they actually named that Chi Town instead of Chicago, right, which I love. And it's based off of kind of like the, the bean and the starry night and so has this. It's like a purple ish black with like silver glitter. So it kind of mimics a night sky. Yeah,

Leah Jones 57:03 reflecting in the Bean. That is amazing. That's so cool.

Hailey 57:08 It's really fun when you kind of get into those aspects. So those are, I would say my top three favorite brands, especially because they will do kind of more glittery for chroma shading inks. There are some brands that do like a glitter ink. But glitter isn't fine enough, it'll get clogged and stasher. A I've never ever had an issue with any of these inks performing well in my patents. So I would say that they're my favorite for that reason, too.

Leah Jones 57:43 Do you have a pen? That's when I've talked to people that are super into bands, they have these chaser songs, these songs that they want to hear live? Do you have a fountain pen that like a list of pens that you really would either want to like get to try at a convention? Or that are goals to own someday?

Hailey 58:08 Yeah, so I think like in any collecting, there's like those grills, right that people really either want that or it's too expensive. And so maybe just to handle. For me, one of my grills I would just love to see in person is a mop block, inspired by Catherine the Great from Russia. And it is this really beautiful gold pen that has like these, like really ornate designs that have and it has like a kind of Burgundy undertones. And it's it's just really it's kind of obnoxious. It's designed, it's really really ornate, but it's really beautiful. So that's a pen that would be really cool to own but it's it's literally like maybe almost $4,000 That's like a lot like i i Do I have expensive pens, I will say that. But to spend that much money feels like I'm not there yet. Yeah, I don't know if I will ever be there. Right. Um, if I could see what in person and hold it that would be really cool. Or there are there's a pen brand that a lot of people in the community really like it is a more expensive, and it's called nicaya. And they have oftentimes a certain kind of lacquer called Arushi which is handmade and in order to, I believe make or to have Arushi on your pen. It's like a very painstaking process. It's all done by hand and it's a true talent and skill to do it and it's not a lot of people have that skill and it's it's oftentimes based in think Nikaya is based in I think Japan And so that's something where it's like the patent is also a piece of art. And I heard that they write really well, I've never handled one. And so that's it's something where I would love to know how it writes because they are really pretty. And maybe one day, I could own one. But with something like that, at that price point, I personally would only buy it if I've ever handled one before, right? There's kind of pens where I'm like, Oh, I am intrigued. Maybe I could get one. But I want to know what that feels like in my hand before I invest money. That's a little bit more significant. So I would say that those are my two pens that inukai is even a grail for me. I'm just so curious. Because yeah, love it, or even the texture of Arushi like I, I've heard about, but I have never experienced myself. So yeah,

Leah Jones 1:00:55 yeah, that makes sense to me that you would want to be able to hold one and see, is it too heavy? Is it too scratchy on your skin? To be like a nice writing experience? Because you don't want to? I'm sure there are collectors who buy them for display, and aren't also right, you know, using it in their day to day, but if you're if you're going to use pens in your day to day you want pens that fit in your life.

Hailey 1:01:25 Yeah, and, you know, do you like plastic? Do you like, you know, maybe silver? Or like, do you like copper Do you like, right? Like, there's all these materials that pens are made with or cellulose or resin. So it, it really is fun to try things out. In that sense. You're like, Oh, I really like how this feels in my hand. And the cool aspect of writing with fountain pens, it's such a sensory experience experience with like, the touch, and then how it how it writes and how that feels. So

Leah Jones 1:01:57 yeah. Wow. Um, is there anything about fountain pen? I mean, there's a lot, but is there anything that fountain pens, I haven't asked you about? That if we hung up, you would be so sad.

Hailey 1:02:11 Um, so I think one of the things is just kind of where to start. You know, if you're interested in getting into foam pens, I think if you try to take everything in, it can be a little overwhelming. And maybe if you see pens that are a little bit more expensive and like is this butter, should I start higher price I definitely recommend for beginning to try some of the like lower priced pens. Especially if you can't go to a shop that is selling fountain pens, there's a couple of shops around the United States that do that do focus on fountain pens, there's the Fountain Pen Hospital in New York City, Atlas in Chicago, Vanness Pens in Arkansas, you have SECA in New York.

Hailey 1:03:02 So there's a few but if you're kind of like in a place where you can't ride my I think KAWACO sports are pocket pens, so they are a little bit smaller. And those are really fun. Let Lommy is a brands that also has like a Lommy. Safari I think is like maybe $20. And they have different like nib variation. So fine, medium broad. So you can try those out without you know breaking the bank. And with those, you can also switch out ink. So if you wanted to try out different things, you can also do that. There's really cool websites like Google a pens or Vanasse that offer ink samples, because maybe you're like I don't want to spend $15 or $20 on a 50 milliliter bottle of ink really like that's a lot of ink. You can get little samples for like two or $3 of all of these different colors. And then you can see, Oh, I like how this looks. I don't like how that actually looks in person. So I would just recommend starting small and then figuring out what feels good to you and your hands and and don't be afraid to explore. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of where I would say for like beginners who are wanting to jump in.

Leah Jones 1:04:18 I have to say that the pilot decimo that you talked about is one that I'm like, Ooh, maybe that's what I should try.

Hailey 1:04:26 Yes, it is. Also just like such a good patents. Yeah, like a workhorse to like I use it pretty consistently through like work. And I love that it's clickable. So it's just like it's, you know, pull it out quick to use. And for the price point it's on the like medium side, depending on where you're at and you're collecting. It's not horribly priced and for what you're getting like a 14 karat gold nib oftentimes when being put in a pen, jacks up the price A ton. But with that pen, you can actually get it for really like a reasonable I think it's like 150. Yep, for for that for again, what you're getting is just like way better than like the actual cost of it.

Leah Jones 1:05:15 Yeah, I'm on Goulet Pen right now looking at it. Yeah,

Hailey 1:05:20 they have cute colors.

Leah Jones 1:05:22 Yeah, I mean, I think part of it for me is I was obsessed in high school and college and into my 20s with the Pilot Pen that was that you could see that

Hailey 1:05:37 was a demonstrator like you could see through it,

Leah Jones 1:05:39 you could see it. And it was just like, really inky, in a like, really delightful way. And if you could, if you could use one, like, use all the ink in it, it felt like very responsible. Yeah, it was like using all the chapstick. Now. So pilot, for me is is a brand that I have loved my whole life. So that's I also I think, why the pilot decimo seems like well, this is a this is a pen brand that I've always trusted and enjoy using. So

Hailey 1:06:11 I love that you should check out Atlas where you can try them out in person because they have the decimos a thinner version of the Pilot Vanishing Point. Okay, the vanishing point is a little bit thicker. So again, depending on what you what writing experience you'd like, and what kinda girth of a pen. Yeah, I would say that that's a place since you're based in Chicago, you could check out and then they're really great. The people there. It's family owned. They've owned it for many, many decades. And they're just so sweet. And they'll let you take out even the most expensive pen and try it out at their store. They're not those people who are like, Oh, no, you can try it out. They're like, Oh, yes, Here, try it out. Without any expectation to for you to buy it like then i i hate going into places where like, I just want to see it because I can't afford it.

Leah Jones 1:07:04 Right. Right. Now you do you did mention, even before we hit record that you recently started a new YouTube channel. Yeah,

Hailey 1:07:17 I got into comics. I am a huge, I think I collect lots of different things, fountain pens, I think that kind of revolve around the same aspect of like reading and papers, materials and whatnot. And in the last year and a half, I got really into comics and come out doing and what I love about any collecting or hobby is that there's oftentimes a community around in, and I didn't have any friends who were into comics, really, on this journey by myself and I was really craving community. And so I was watching a lot of YouTube videos of people talking about comics, and I was like fangirling a little bit like, on it, it would be so cool to talk to that person. So I started an Instagram. And then I started a YouTube. And I have to say the comic community is the nicest group of humans like I've experienced nothing but such warm friendship from tons of people and such support in a very, like short amount of time. I think I started the YouTube channel A month ago, okay, and I've been on four different YouTube channels with other people just wanting to support me and get to know me and just chat about comics. So

Leah Jones 1:08:45 what are your the main storylines or genres or characters that you are collecting?

Hailey 1:08:54 So I read Jonathan Hickman ins House of X, Power of X, which is an X Men storyline and I knew nothing about X Men. And I read it and it was it just packed it has so much depth to it really goes into, you know, people who are feeling oppressed, like how do you rise up? Like, what are those different pathways? What does it like look like to fight back to try to create space for yourself when I want to make that space? It dives into like, who is God? What is God? Wow, like, there's just a lot of threads it deals with like moral responsibility and ethics with technology and the pursuit of like technological advances in AI. And I'm like reading it. I'm like, this is like X Men. And then here are these really powerful panels and writing he's just a fantastic writer. I was really blown away. I was my, my a friend of mine had read it, and we were talking about it. And I was just having these really deep conversations about it. And it kind of sparked this curiosity and Axman and so kind of down that rabbit hole currently. And really, I'm reading a lot of just like Marvel and certain indie titles. Horror horror is having a huge moment in comics right now. Which is perfect for the spooky season. Yes.

Hailey 1:10:35 So, one that I picked up, I have not read, but I've heard nothing but good things. I think it's just so fun to plug is called Stray Dogs. And it's a horror comic. We all have these cute little puppy dogs. And supposedly it's both cute and equally scary. Okay. It's like, beloved by it's like huge sensation. And what's funny to me is like I saw and it almost looks like a kid's comic, but it's not. And then you just have all these like, men who are like, you know, just not who you see pic thing picking up that comic? Like, I love stray dogs and like the covers are really cool for the single issues. They did famous horror films, but with like a dog as they had like a Silence of the Lamb. Uh huh. Cover but like this, like little cute puppy with the like little butterfly?

Leah Jones 1:11:30 Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Hailey 1:11:32 Um, so that was a really like, I picked it up. I'm planning on reading it that this month, but I've it's been reviewed tremendously. And I feel like the premise of it is just so wild. Yeah.

Leah Jones 1:11:52 Do you have a local comic shop that you go to?

Hailey 1:11:56 So I love Alley Cat comics, and Andersonville. They have like you walk through a little alleyway. Yeah. It's like a speakeasy situation you walk by through this alley behind these buildings. And then there's this awesome comic shop. And Dark Tower comics in Chicago as well has like these beautiful murals of superheroes. And I just remember passing by it when I was a little kid and just being in awe of it. I only went in and now occasionally shop.

Leah Jones 1:12:32 They're nice. And where can people find you on YouTube?

Hailey 1:12:38 Yeah, so my youtube name is @ChiComicGirl . And you can find me there. And also the Instagram is also @Chi_Comic_ girl. Yeah. On Instagram.

Leah Jones 1:12:53 Great. Is there anything else you would like to promote?

Hailey 1:12:58 Oh, no, I think you can find me there. I will say if you're really into fountain pens, I don't post as often but me having the little outlets that I have. I have an Instagram called a femoral lines. And it's just beautiful pictures of my fountain

Leah Jones 1:13:23 just ephemeral line. So do we get to see your ink or just your fountain pens,

Hailey 1:13:28 you get to see ink and fountain pen, okay. And if you go to like people I'm following you will find equally just so much like more accounts of people just posting fountain pens and their journal setups and their planner setups and there's a lot of really fun. You know, the internet is a wonderful place sometimes. Yeah. What anything,

Leah Jones 1:13:49 I have occasionally considered doing a bullet journal. And so I I've never committed to it, but I'm familiar with like, that little corner of the Instagram people setting up their bullet journals and in their monthly designs and and I have a couple other friends who are super into fountain pen. So I've had it's come through my feeds before but I'm gonna I'm gonna link to everything that we talked about in the show notes so that people can go down the rabbit hole with you.

Hailey 1:14:22 i If I just enable one person do this. I will feel like this is a success. No, just kidding. It's a great conversation. But I am just here to turn everyone into fountain pen lovers.

Leah Jones 1:14:37 Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Hailey. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm @ChicagoLeah @chileah on Instagram. The podcast is finding at finding faves pod on Twitter and Instagram. And please follow and subscribe. Leave a review on Apple podcasts because all the other podcasts Say it matters so it must matter. So thank you so much, Hailey. This has been wonderful. Thank you.

Announcer 1:15:06 Thank you for listening to finding favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Taylore Nicholl, host of the podcast Extra... Ordinary, loves the podcast Armchair Expert and is here with an introduction to the popular interview show hosted by Dax Shepard. Taylore talks about how she started with an interview with Mae Whitman (one of Dax's co-stars on Parenthood) and eventually found herself in a green room at the Ellen Show with Dax!

We talk about childhood trauma, finding father figures through podcasting, the important research around ACES, and Taylore's love of all things theater, drama and Ben Platt. (Happy birthday, Taylore!)

Show Links

Extra... Ordinary Podcast
@TayloreNicholl on Instagram and Twitter
Armchair Expert: Nadine Burke Harris
The ArmCherry Companion
Arm Cherry Direct and Arm Cherry Direct linktree
Newcomers

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Patty Morrissey, a New York-based coach and master Kon Mari consultant, loves to go thrifting on Long Island. She grew up thrifting and garage sale-ing with her grandparents and still goes to the same shops today. She's also a Kon Mari consulant and coach who knows a thing or two about how to help people find what sparks joy. (In fact, she's in my house helping me organize during the pandemic thaw).

Keep up with Patty on Instagram as @pattymorrissey and @clearcultivate, then head over to her website to learn about Cultivate Club for 2022

Show Links

Wild Chicago
Mac N Cheese Productions
Holiday House
Rosie's Vintage Store
Disney Bound
Fringe Co Caftan

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Mahyar Amouzegar, a New Orleans-based author and academic, joins us this week to talk about reading, writing and Zombie movies. Mahyar shares the story of immigrating to the United States shortly before the revolution in Iran, how he gets to know the characters in his books and what he would do in a Zombie apocalypse.

His newest book The Hubris of an Empty Hand is available on November 18th.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Dawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Shawn of the Dead
The Cured
The Walking Dead
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Daniel Suarez - Daemon and Freedom
Jasper Fforde
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

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Coincidence is neutral, serendipity has a good outcome.

Joan Schweighardt, a New Mexico-based author, joined Leah to talk about her love of serendipity and how allowing serendipity to play out led to her trilogy of novels. The River trilogy is set between the worlds of Hoboken, New Jersey and the jungles of South America during the rubber boom of the the early 1900s, the third book River Aria is now available.

Follow Joan online on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Balloon Fiesta
Colorado Green Chili
Pachamama
Charles Goodyear and rubber vulcanization
The Three Princes of Serendip
Chance and chance alone...
Paterson
Human Library project

“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.”

― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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Alexis P. Morgan, my neighborhood village witch, joined me to talk about how she kept being called to learn magic and sorcery. We talk about the differences between hoodoo and voodoo, her Tarot card collection, and her primary community service - The Juno Jar. The winter Juno Jar is available starting on November 1, 2021, on a sliding scale.

Happy Birthday Alexis!

Thank you to Dave Coustan for editing this week's episode.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

The Sorcerer's Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick by Jason Miller
Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston
Hera's Compassion painted by Christy Tortland

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Darrin Doyle, a Michigan-based author and English professor, loves when he can head into the recording studio with friends or collaborate using Garage Band from home. We talk about his newest novel The Beast in Aisle 34, the bands his been in over the years and what it might be like to record with Pink Floyd.

Follow Darrin Doyle on Twitter and Facebook And bookmark his website.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Central Michigan University
20x2 Chicago
GLACURH Region
King Tammy
King Tammy on BandCamp
Loop D Loop
Daryl and the Beans
Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict
Producing Billie Eilish at home
Kramer at Noise New Jersey

Darrin 0:00 Hello, my name is Darrin Doyle. And my favorite thing is recording music.

Announcer 0:06 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:18 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. It's Sunday, October 24. It's sunny in Chicago. There's the nice sounds of fall ball being played outside of my apartment. Maybe it's rugby. I haven't looked outside yet. This has been a good week, I got back to work started healing up from my oncoplasty. That happened last week. So I'm definitely feeling better, spending more time awake than asleep. So I think that's a good thing, and got good, all good marks from my plastic surgeon so far. This was a nice week without -- it's kind of like my only week without doctor's appointments until the end of January. So I really enjoyed that as well. This week on the podcast, we have author Darrin Doyle. He's a professor, and his new novel is called "The Beast in Aisle 34."

----more----

Leah Jones 1:15 It is available now. We have a really fun conversation about recording studios and we listen to a little Pink Floyd. So if you need to go into your archives and pull out some Pink Floyd records know that we've got a little Pink Floyd chat coming up, not the main focus ... but despite having grown up across the hallway from my brother who loved Pink Floyd and played it through our shared heating vent const antly, he pulls up a song that I didn't know about. Looking to the week ahead, I am trying to get my COVID booster. I'm allowed to get it now. But it's just a little difficult to figure out if I'm supposed to schedule it or do a walk-in or whatever. So I'm working on getting my COVID booster. I got my flu shot last week. And then this week, I get my port put in so that chemo can start in about two weeks, which is a pretty -- taken a long time to get here and so I am happy to finally be at this point. So, enjoy this conversation with Darren Doyle. Thank you to Dave Coustan for editing this week. And wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones 2:45 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. This evening, I am joined by Darrin Doyle. Darrin is an author and professor, he teaches at Central Michigan University. And he's joining us tonight from the great state of Michigan but I don't know where on the mitten he is. Darrin, how are you doing tonight?

Darrin 3:14 I am doing great. Thank you.

Leah Jones 3:16 I mean, it was a big assumption that you are actually in Michigan tonight. So --

Darrin 3:20 Oh no, that's true. Not too much of a stretch. I'm right dead center of the mitten if you hold your right hand. Okay, point to like the absolute center. That's about where I am. Give or take a few miles.

Leah Jones 3:34 That's like a good place for a Central Michigan University.

Darrin 3:37 Exactly. Thus the name. Yeah.

Leah Jones 3:39 Yes. Great. How was your fall? Are your students coming back on campus?

Darrin 3:45 Yeah, everybody's back. Um, you know, almost all the classes are face to face. And, we know, everybody wears masks and yeah, so far knock on wood. It's going well; I'm so happy to have students back in the classroom. I'll tell you that. That's so much better.

Leah Jones 4:05 So now your bio ends with "He knows what skeletons do." Are you a biology professor, or are you a writing professor?

Darrin 4:16 I am a writing professor. Okay. I can tell you where that came from, if you want.

Leah Jones 4:21 Please do. I feel like it's a cultural reference that -- it's revealing that I don't know it.

Darrin 4:27 It's more of an inside joke. I have two sons. And they were pretty young, maybe one of them was about five and the other was like three and my older son or my youngest son said to my older one, "You know everything." And he said, "I don't know everything, I don't know what Japanese things say." And then my my youngest one said, "But you know what skeletons do." [laughter] I don't know what he meant by that. But it was such a great phrase, I had to steal it -- "I know what skeletons do." So, that's the story behind that.

Leah Jones 5:09 That's awesome. Are they grown up enough now to be embarrassed by that story or do they think it's a charming dad story?

Darrin 5:17 Oh, they think it's pretty funny. My youngest used to say pretty wild stuff like that all the time but they're - yeah, they're my oldest just went to college and my youngest is a junior in high school.

Leah Jones 5:32 So they're happy also to be back in real school I bet -- I don't want to say that -- to have returned to in-person classroom.

Darrin 5:40 Right. They are. Yeah, very much so.

Leah Jones 5:43 Did you have any summer adventures?

Darrin 5:50 Let's see, we went to Mexico. That was exciting. It was kind of the thing where we just wanted to get out of town and travel has been so limited. It was the one thing that we could do. And we had intended to take a trip the year before, and that got canceled. And so it was, you know, basically just a very relaxing, kind of resort thing. And we'd never done that before. So it was it was cool. You know, not my favorite kind of vacation. I like to actually travel around the places I go to. We were kind of stuck in that spot. But yeah, it was lovely. So, yeah, how about you?

Leah Jones 6:33 Not a lot of summer adventures. I was starting to plan to go to Mexico next month. So, early this summer, I was planning a trip to Mexico. The Just For Laughs comedy festival was doing a resort takeover. Oh, wow. And Nicole Byer was performing. And so a couple of my girlfriends and I were like, ah my gosh, a Nicole Byer resort takeover? That seems amazing.

Leah Jones 7:05 And then the lineup came out and it was pretty like bro heavy. And we were excited for like a Nicole Byer weekend and not like a Just For Laughs weekend. So we didn't book that and get on my health took a turn. And so I've gotta be in town this this winter for treatment.

Darrin 7:32 Bummer. Well, always next year.

Leah Jones 7:37 And, but I do have -- I am hopeful, I have a trip to Boston planned in early February. Oh, great. So that is, I hope I can travel for that.

Darrin 7:49 Yeah. That's a cool town.

Leah Jones 7:51 Yeah. I've only been once and only for a couple days. So this would be to see one of my favorite comedy podcasts live.

Darrin 7:59 Oh, cool. Yeah, sounds great.

Leah Jones 8:02 Yeah. So, that's what I'm pinning my winter hope on. And if you can hear the rumbling in the background?

Darrin 8:11 Yeah.

Leah Jones 8:12 I've recently started putting cat toys inside of a big box and two cats are in the box playing and it is very funny. Two grown cats, two senior cats.

Darrin 8:24 That's funny.

Leah Jones 8:27 It is a lot of fun. So Darren, you have your this is your fifth or sixth book just came out?

Darrin 8:37 Yes. My sixth book.

Leah Jones 8:38 "The Beast in Aisle 34." Yes. I have not read it yet. Because COVID ruined my reading skills, it really destroyed them. So. I'm not going to pretend that I've read it. But I am obsessed with this cover.

Darrin 8:56 Oh, I'm, I'm happy to hear that. I mean, the inside is pretty good, too. But the cover is really, really terrific.

Leah Jones 9:03 It's a cover that I would be intrigued. . So tell me -- was it an illustrator you knew or someone your publisher introduced you to?

Darrin 9:15 No, it was somebody the publisher found, and we had gone through a number of different versions of the cover. I had a friend of mine working on it; he had done a couple of my covers before. There was a holdover from that with the name tag on the front cover was something we thought would be cool and that was kept from the original design, but the main illustration was the editor's idea at Tortoise books. And he did a great job, and there's some cool -- the yellow really makes it pop and the back cover has a little bit of ominous blood spatter. So I thought it turned out great.

Leah Jones 9:59 So tell me a little bit about what sets this book apart from -- you've got a short story collection. Is this your first full length? No, this is your second novel.

Darrin 10:13 My third, actually.

Leah Jones 10:14 "Teacher's Pet" is also a novel.

Darrin 10:16 Yeah, that's right. So my first two books were novels, and then the next three were short story collections. And this is my first novel in about a decade. And what sets it apart, I think it still has some of the things that I'm interested in. A lot of my stuff has magical realism elements but this one's more in a kind of genre with being a werewolf novel.

Darrin 10:44 But I've always loved werewolf stories, ever since I was a little kid. And I had this idea, bouncing around for years before I actually tried to write it. But it's definitely not strictly horror, it leans toward comedy a lot, too. So it's kind of a dark comedy, horror. And, you know, hopefully, it touches on a lot of real human elements as well, questions of identity. You know, "What am I doing in this life?" and that sort of thing.

Leah Jones 11:17 Yeah, I've been, I've talked to a number of authors recently. And I'm curious, because you're publishing it in this moment in time of the pandemic, I'm not gonna say at the end of because it's not over. But, did you do any of the revisions during COVID? Did COVID impact the final product?

Darrin 11:45 Not really, it actually may have helped me get it done. You know, honestly, I had this other book come out, that was supposed to come out in March 2020. "The Big Baby Crimespree" was a collection. It was supposed to come out in March 2020, but then that got bumped, for obvious reasons, because of the pandemic. But then, it ended up coming out this year. So, what I want to say is, like, last year, you know, there was probably a lot of stuff I would have done to promote that other book that I didn't get to do. And so it kind of freed me up to -- I was close to the end of this one. And I really buckled down and finished it. And then we did edits. The editor really liked it. And so we did revisions up through December last year to get it ready. So it may have actually helped get this one on the way faster.

Leah Jones 12:44 So are you are you doing any, like double duty book nights where you're saying, "Here are my 2021 offerings?"

Darrin 12:55 Yeah, I'm actually gearing up to do my first reading, you know, since February 2020. So, we're doing one on campus, a faculty reading. So yeah, I'll definitely be promoting "The Beast in Aisle 34." But I'll also mention that other one as well, because I would love to, you know, give that one a fair shake, too. So that's coming up in a couple of weeks. I'm very excited about that.

Leah Jones 13:24 I got to do my first, the event is called 20x2. And it's 20 people are each given two minutes to answer the same question.

Darrin 13:37 Oh, interesting.

Leah Jones 13:38 So it's not quite live lit. Because we're not all doing -- some people are doing videos, some people are doing presentations. But that was my first time back on stage in front of a real audience since 2020. And it was, I was just like high as a kite.

Darrin 14:00 There's energy, you can't replicate it online. Online readings are great. And they have a broad reach -- that's a definite advantage. But when it comes to feeding off an audience, you just can't get that from avatars. And, you know, remarks and things like that. It's just not the same. So let's hope it stays.

Leah Jones 14:25 Yeah, I hope we are able, I am hopeful that we are now at a place where we understand the mitigation strategies.

Darrin 14:34 Yeah, that's right.

Leah Jones 14:36 So we can keep doing -- I've got tickets to a musical in November that I would like to be able to go to and "Rent" opened last night in Chicago, like the 25th anniversary tour. And so some friends went last night and I was just like, "Tell me everything! What was it you like to be back in a theater again?"

Darrin 15:01 Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, let's, let's hope.

Leah Jones 15:07 Yeah. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

Darrin 15:14 Not consciously, but maybe unconsciously I did. I certainly valued reading my whole life. And I, the story I've told is that really, I mean, I always liked to read even before this time, but I remember being in seventh grade and being given an opportunity to do some kind of presentation. I can't remember what the assignment was. But it certainly wasn't to read a whole short story aloud to the class. But that's what I did.

Darrin 15:45 I remember, I read to "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. Because I love that story. I don't even know where I saw it first. But you know, the man versus nature kind of story, a guy out, you know, who's kind of egocentric, egotistical, thinks he'll be fine. But it's like sub, you know, 100 degrees below zero. And he's got a dog with him. And he has to basically is trying to get from point A to point B, and he's never named even.

Darrin 16:14 He's just called The Man and -- spoiler alert -- he ends up dying, you know, and so it's really a bleak story, but I loved it. It was so impactful to me, that I read it to the class. And now I see that story; I'm like that was a pretty long story for a seventh grader to read out loud. And so I was really taken; once I got into that, then it was, you know, Edgar Allan Poe and Camus, and Shirley Jackson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a lot of the classics, and stuff like that. And so, I didn't really think I'm going to be a writer, but I just knew that I loved to read and I started to love to write my own stuff, but I just did it for fun. Never really shared it with anybody, but a good friend of mine. That really continued for years and years.

Darrin 17:06 And it wasn't until I went to try to finish up my bachelor's degree when I was 25 years old. And I had taken one creative writing class when I was 18. But after that, I hadn't taken anything. And so I just decided, I'm going to just finish an English degree and take some creative writing. And the teachers told me, "Hey, you could go to grad school, hey, you might get an assistantship." And everything changed after that. And it just gave me -- I just started writing more seriously. And really immersing myself in, you know, the literary world, I guess, for lack of a better word. So that's when I really decided.

Darrin 17:06 Wow, that's great that you had a professor that, like, illuminated that path for you?

Darrin 17:57 Oh, my goodness. I know. I'm sure I've told him before, but it has been a long time. But I now I see that, and I try to tell students; just opening the possibility that they might not even know about and know that they're good at it. Just hearing you're good at something, and that there might be a path for you in that direction, is so important. Yeah, it changed everything for me.

Leah Jones 18:25 And where did you finish up your undergrad?

Darrin 18:27 Oh, that was at Western Michigan University.

Leah Jones 18:31 All these Michigan schools were in my region in college so I have vague memories of --

Darrin 18:38 -- what region do you mean?

Leah Jones 18:40 Great Lakes.

Leah Jones 18:43 I was a housing nerd. So I went to a lot of R.A. [Resident Assistant] conferences and student housing conferences.

Darrin 18:50 Interesting. Yeah. I didn't know there was such a --

Leah Jones 18:53 Yeah, it's okay. So clicker was the Great Lakes area of college and university residence halls. So all these Michigan schools, that you're mentioning are schools that at one time I had like T-shirts or, like traded lapel pins, that sort of stuff.

Darrin 19:14 I see. Interesting. Yeah, I'm from Michigan. I've been here my whole life. I mean, it's kind of just very fluky and lucky that I ended up back here, you know, because I had a lot of jobs after grad school trying to find a permanent job and I really just happened to land a tenure track job in Michigan, which I was really happy about.

Leah Jones 19:38 Yeah, the friends of mine who have pursued academia have gone to live in far flung college towns and that I had never heard of before.

Darrin 19:49 Yeah, that's yeah, that's what happens. You know, you have to take the job so you can get and they're hard especially in the humanities in English. They're hard to find.

Leah Jones 20:02 So, people can get "The Beast in Aisle 34." It's available now, they can get it on Bookshop, which I love to link to bookshop.org because it supports independent bookstores. Is there a Kindle version for folks who are interested in the digital download?

Darrin 20:24 Yep. It's we're Kindle and paperback. And I'd love it if you'd check it out.

Leah Jones 20:30 Great. So one thing that when I was getting my horse of many colors, what you couldn't see that it was sitting next to is one of the things that I collect are translations of "The Stranger" by Camus. Oh. Which I mentioned only because you said "Camus."

Darrin 20:49 Yeah, I love that book.

Leah Jones 20:51 It's kind of a weird collection to get going.

Darrin 20:51 That is. I love awesome little collections. Like I used to collect Joker cards. Yeah, not decks of cards, just the Jokers. I kind of stopped, but I had some pretty weird ones for awhile there.

Leah Jones 21:12 Yeah, this was just - the translation I started with had a forward about how important this modern translation of it was. And I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." It was the first time -- I was 18 -- I hadn't thought about how the translation of a work impacts your understanding of the work. You know, then I tried to find the original English translation.

Leah Jones 21:38 And then as I started to travel more, realized, this is a lightweight souvenir that I can probably find when I travel. So I've picked up I've got a couple of Spanish translations. I've got two copies that I bought in Paris, one in English, and one in French. And then a friend who went to China got me one in Mandarin.

Darrin 22:00 Oh, wow. That is cool. Well, I'll keep my eyes out. And if I see one, I'll pick you up one.

Leah Jones 22:20 So Darrin, we're not just here to talk about jokers and --

Darrin 22:23 -- Camus translations.

Leah Jones 22:28 But also other favorite things. So what are we here to talk about tonight?

Darrin 22:33 Well, I'm glad you asked. Um, I mulled it over. And I have to say the one thing that came out on top for me was recording music. One of my favorite things. Yeah, I played music for - I still do - for many years. So, you know, I've done many, many live performances over the years, in different bands and so on, but I'm specifically talking about recording music.

Leah Jones 23:02 Okay. And are you, is this in-studio recording music, you wrote yourself? Is this a cover band recording? Is this you playing every instrument at a home studio and melding it together? What's your universe of recording?

Darrin 23:20 It's kind of all of the above. I mean, most of the bands that I've been in are primarily originals. But I started out, really the beginning of it, was a friend of mine and I were both starting to play guitar together when we were young teenagers. And we would just record on a boombox. And then you start to think, "How can I get more tracks in here?" Just the guitar and a guy singing live, you know, but then we would record other things on to other tape recorders, and play those with us while we were playing.

Darrin 23:58 So I was very primitive, like multi-tracking. But then I got a 4-track recorder, an analog, you know, which means like, a cassette tape 4-track when I was 15 or 16. And that thing was just amazing. You know, I can't remember how much it was, it was expensive for me at the time, you know, I saved up my paper route money and bought it.

Darrin 24:23 But you could, multitrack, you know, it had four channels, and you could even ping pong, it's called ping ponging -- you could like record on the three tracks and then bounce them all down to the fourth one and then add three more and then bounce those. So you know, over the years, I've done a lot of home recording. Now it's all digital, of course, but I've also been in a number of studios as well. So from, kind of smaller university studios to a few bigger ones, you know, associated with record labels and stuff like that.

Leah Jones 24:57 So when you and your friend were recording as teenagers? Were those covers or were you already dabbling in original music at that time?

Darrin 25:10 Yeah, we were definitely dabbling in original music. Yep. We had songs like "Big Bad Bart," and "Where has Sister PV gone?" There was a teacher at a school named Sister Peter Verona. Sister PV. But it was it was kind of acoustic punk. You know, we listened to a lot of punk rock and, you know, Pink Floyd and the Beatles and things like that. And so definitely, mostly original. I'm not saying they were good, but they were original.

Leah Jones 25:46 Did you also ever get - did you guys play out?

Darrin 25:51 Eventually. We played a show in high school, there was this class that we were taking an after school class called Music Appreciation. Taught by this kind of hip dude, Mr. Lavallee. And he let us have a concert at night in one of the study halls. It had just been me and my friend up to that point. So, we recruited this guy I went to grade school with who played the drums, just for one show, and had a great time. But it wasn't like we were playing out or anything like that. And then a few years went by, and we started doing it more. Freshman year of college found a person who played bass, found a drummer, you know, then we started playing more regularly, mostly in Kalamazoo, but occasionally Grand Rapids other places like that.

Leah Jones 26:49 In what was that band called in case someone's listening who was there?

Darrin 26:53 Yeah, well, I had a high school band, I guess I should say, I kind of skipped the part that I did have, we did put together a band in high school named 42 Gehennah. And we did play a show that was after that high school show I was talking about. Mostly just practice, but we did do a few shows there. And one was that like this bar named Froggies, for an open mic, and I was really scared, but it was cool. And then we went off to college. Then, we started a band called King Tammy and that band lasted in a few different, you know, with a little different lineup changes for like, eight years. And that was the primary thing that I did.

Leah Jones 27:46 And did King Tammy go into a recording studio? Did you home record? What were some of the recording opportunities with that group?

Darrin 27:55 It was a range of them, you know? Originally, we did a couple of studio ones just to record like, three or four songs. But studios always cost more money, of course. So then, I think we found somebody who had some decent recording equipment and we recorded at their house. And that was an album that we called "Criminals Like Cheeseburgers, Too." [laughter]

Darrin 28:28 And that was a lot of fun. And then, we did another one like that. Eventually, we did another one like that called "Steal Wheels." But the Rolling Stones had a album called "Steel Wheels." S-T-E-E-L but ours was S-T-E-A-L -- "Steal Wheels," it was just a joke on that. We were very clever. You can tell already.

Leah Jones 28:53 Oh, yeah.

Darrin 28:56 Yeah, so I'd say it's really hard I if I'd have to add them up. But our first big one was when we drove to Minneapolis, probably 1992 or something like that. It might have been '91. To record at this studio called Amphetamine Reptile. The name of that is AmRep -- AmRep Studios used to be a pretty big indie music label and they had a studio. So we weren't on their label or anything like that. But we you know, we wanted to go outside of the local studios and try something you know, bigger and so that was a very cool experience. It's so fun when you're there, and you have a very precious time of like two days, with just these friends and you sleep in the same room and you hang out all day. And all you have to do is get up and go to this really cool studio, have this awesome equipment around, and just record and have these amazing sounding -- your own music just sounds all professional and stuff like that. I love that.

Leah Jones 30:12 And when you get -- I mean, Minneapolis in the early '90s is Prince, obviously. Now this is I'm gonna mess it up -- are The Replacements fromMinneapolis? They're Scottish. They're from Minneapolis, right?

Darrin 30:27 No, they are, yeah, I think they are. I don't know-- I've never been a huge Replacements fan -- don't hate me for that, everybody. I think they're from there. I want to say they are. I don't think Chicago, but yeah, I think Minneapolis. I think that's a good guess. But well, if we get it wrong, then we'll post a huge apology.

Darrin 30:46 I probably have the internet here, but I'm not gonna look it up.

Leah Jones 30:49 I just did a quick fact check. And they are Minnesota.

Darrin 30:54 Okay. Yeah, I mean, a lot of these cities were real hotbeds of of music, including Kalamazoo. There were just a ton of really interesting bands, a diverse group of musicians. So it's a really vital time. And it was really fun to be a part of. Even before Nirvana broke, it was already happening in a lot of towns. A lot of people might not know about that era, is that happened to be who got huge and a few other ones, too. But, it could have happened anywhere. Could've happened to any place or band, you know?

Leah Jones 31:34 Yeah. I'm trying to -- '91 sort of puts you like, at the beginning, not the beginning, beginning of CDs, but early. So where you were you pressing vinyl? Were you doing CDs? Was it cassette tape? Like what were you doing with your masters?

Darrin 31:57 We did do CDs at that point. They were so new that vinyl, like had kind of gone out of favor. It's back now, you know. Even even like a few years later, we recorded a precedent album on vinyl. But yeah, it was definitely CDs at that time.

Leah Jones 32:18 Yeah. I didn't have a car with a CD player until -- the car I have now. So, I was probably buying tapes longer than necessary.

Darrin 32:30 I think a lot of us were. Yeah, you kind of had to -- like you said, you don't have the players everywhere. And it was still fun to make mixtapes back then, before you could do it all digitally and stuff like that.

Leah Jones 32:45 The only I have a box of cassette tapes, and the only tapes I have at this point are mixtapes that people have made me. And then my CD collection. I have almost every mix CD that I -- the mix CDs and the mix tapes are so special.

Darrin 33:03 Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's kind of a its own little art form. I think it's great.

Leah Jones 33:11 And I don't think a Spotify playlist is --

Darrin 33:15 -- it's not quite the same. When you would make them for each other, whether it's a platonic friend or a romantic interest -- the person you give it to knows that you had to sit there and think and go through stuff, and actually physically in the case of records, find the spot on the record and put it down and wait for the exact moment and hit record. And then hit stop at the right time. So they actually had to sit and experience every song as it happened. And you didn't just plug in titles and bam, you're done. It was actually very hands on, and it made it all the more you know, meaningful to whoever you gave it to. And yeah, it was pretty cool.

Leah Jones 34:03 Yeah, I did make some -- I was going through my box of tapes. And I did start making some Spotify playlists of some of my mixtapes from college. There were mixtapes I made when I was studying abroad, which meant I was making tapes based on only the tapes I had taken with me. And I think I really miss having a time-bound condensed soundtrack of a moment. And that's what like tapes and CDs and mix CDs especially, and mixtapes, gave you is -- this road trip had this music because that's what you put in the car.

Darrin 34:45 That's exactly right. Yeah. Like we lived in Japan for a year and just had the CDs that we brought, you know, you had to really pick and choose what you want to bring. And there are still ones now, I hear them now, and they bring me right back there; they're they're permanently tied to that experience.

Darrin 35:06 But the other recording then is, I think a few years later, we recorded at a studio called Noise New Jersey, which maybe nobody's heard of, but it was another fairly big indie label. And that was another really cool experience. I think we recorded, they told us -- unless they're BSing us -- I think it was true, they had the same soundboard -- which is the big thing with all the you know, all the different tracks and dials -- that they used for Dark Side of the Moon, and that was pretty cool.

Darrin 35:51 And another just really fun experience. It was in New Jersey, right across from from New York City. And the guy who ran it, his name was Kramer (not to be confused with Seinfeld's Kramer). He was a great bass player who played in -- he was in the Butthole Surfers for a little bit and played like with Bongwater. And he played in a band with Penn Jillette from Penn and Teller. So it was just cool to see this person who had all these kinds of connections. And of course, the recording just sounded great, too.

Leah Jones 36:33 Yeah. So and this is all King Tammy. Yeah. And over the years, the shape of the band kind of morphed with who was around What are your primary instruments? Because you do on your website list a lot of instruments.

Darrin 36:48 Yeah, yeah, I tend to just try to play anything that I can get my hands on, but my first instrument was drums. But, I didn't really have a full set right away. So, I was just playing a snare, and I got kind of bored with it. Then, I got a guitar when I was 14. And that's been my primary instrument. But yeah, in that band, it was definitely guitar, but in other - you know, you have side projects to side groups that you're in, like I said, there were a lot of different bands around.

Darrin 37:24 So, there was a lot of cross-pollination. So I played bass, and I still play bass and mandolin and banjo and ukulele and I play drums and piano as well. I've gotten a lot better at those over the years, as well. So I just kind of I tinker. I do do a lot of recording at home, and always have done recording myself, too. Like you said, playing all the instruments, just for fun and that kind of stuff. But in that band, I was definitely guitar and mostly backing vocals.

Leah Jones 38:06 What's one of the most surprising recording sessions you've ever had? Either you didn't know it was going to happen, or you were really surprised by the outcome or someone who dropped in?

Darrin 38:20 Ah, that's a good question. I mean, those Noise New Jersey ones are really special. As far as having access to some sweet stuff, like there were these huge chimes that you could clang on, and we added that to a song. We weren't adding a ton of weird instruments or anything like that, but, for this one song, for a couple songs, I should say -- Kramer, the guy that was -- he wasn't the engineer, the engineer's the guy -- or girl who sits -- woman -- sits there and you know, does the controls and all that stuff.

Darrin 39:02 But, Kramer was the producer, and so he after everything's recorded, mix it and master it. But he volunteered to play piano on a song, and he played this giant organ on a song - this church organ on a song.

Leah Jones 39:23 Ooooh.

Darrin 39:23 Yeah, it sounded really cool -- the same one that we added the chimes to. And also played bass on a song that we weren't even planning to add bass to. Just seeing him excited by the chord progressions and stuff, it was very flattering. And you know, that was really cool and unexpected.

Darrin 39:44 And I guess I would also have to say, King Tammy has been non-existent for a while now. But, I have been playing in a faculty band here at Central [Michigan University] with me and two other two other poets here. And we recorded an album, and I just had a great time. It was in the studios here at Central Michigan, and the guy who engineered it did such an amazing job. And, I think that was surprising -- just his level of detail, attention to detail was so great. And we ended up adding lots of multi-tracking vocals, sounds and stuff like that. That's what I really love, is when you go and you have like, a blueprint of what you want, but then it becomes a collaboration. And just exceeds everything you think it's gonna be.

Leah Jones 40:44 Was that a music professor who was your engineer? Or was it a student? Or just?

Darrin 40:50 Yeah, I was a grad student. Yeah, which was so great. He, he just had such a great year, and even talked about things that I don't remember any other engineers talking about, like balancing out, frequencies, having things with different -- not having everything with the certain low end frequencies versus high end. I mean, that sounds, basically intuitive, but I've never heard anybody talk about that before. And so that was just really neat. And we would come in there, and he would like have other songs, you know, famous songs, and say, like, "What we made it kind of sound like this?" As far as the the atmosphere of it or the tone of it, things like that. And it's so cool when somebody else is bringing ideas to the table like that.

Leah Jones 41:45 instead of just, like punching their timecard and hitting record.

Darrin 41:50 Exactly, exactly. And going like, "Okay, I got the recording now -- go away." He truly seemed to care -- and not only cared, but wanted to contribute. And so that was, it's so important, because, I can record stuff at home and I can record on my GarageBand. But I'm not a music engineer, not trained in that same way. And so, to have that is exactly what I love about it.

Leah Jones 42:26 I went to -- my undergrad was at Millikin University in Illinois, and they had a big Music Business department. That now is headed by Martin Atkins from P.I.L. [Public Image Limited] the drummer from P.I.L.

Darrin 42:43 Yeah, I was gonna say that name is familiar. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's interesting.

Leah Jones 42:47 Yeah. I met him in a previous life. I used to teach social media to rabbis and rockstars. And he was my gateway to musicians, Martin was. And now, he's teaching at my alma mater, and it's really something else to see what people -- you know, it's like sommeliers who can taste everything that's in a wine. You just train one of your senses, to be able to have an ear that is trained in that way. And that you can translate from one thing to another how to apply it? I think it's such an incredible skill.

Darrin 43:37 Absolutely. That's a great analogy. Yeah, that's right. You know, you can be a great musician, but you might not have any kind of concept of that kind of stuff. So, that's where it's terrific to have that input. That's why the Beatles have always been one of my favorite bands. And, you know, but I know the Beatles have been taught to death. But, you can't understate just how important it was when they decided to go only to the studio, they stopped touring, they decided just to be a studio band. And George Martin was this amazing influence on them who just did exactly that -- brought them things they had no idea about. And I'm not super, you know, like, I don't dig into all the history of every song they recorded. But, the ones that I've heard, are just really interestingly experimental, and are just this amazing collaboration that created these pieces.

Leah Jones 44:43 Yeah, I had, um, I had someone on Nick Krefting to talk about the Beatles. And he brought that up - that George, the producer, the engineer, Martin - that like John Lennon could just say, explain it or sing it, like he could explain it, and George could interpret it in a way that seemed magical.

Darrin 45:10 Yes. Yeah, that sounds what I've heard too. Oh, and he would just like, a song like "In My Life," you know [sings] "There are places I remember ..." You know, very straightforward song. It sounds not experimental at all. But, George Martin wrote the piano part, there's a piano solo in that. But it's not just a piano solo, it was recorded at a slower speed, and so when they play it back, it's sped up, and so it sounds like a harpsichord.

Darrin 45:47 I didn't know that for years and years, but then when I heard that was like, yeah, that makes sense. Because it sounds there's something about it, it just sounds a little not like a straightforward piano. These little sly, experimental gestures that I think were his idea. Yeah, he certainly wrote that solo. And I'm not taking anything away from the Beatles, but --

Leah Jones 46:13 They were okay. They had some songs, they did some things ... [laughter]

Darrin 46:17 But you do see what I mean, if they didn't have him as a producer, you could imagine it being a really different band, you know, just not be the same. Stuff like that. It's, and I just I envy that they just all they had to do is show up and be in a studio all the time. They could just mess around, whatever and do whatever they want. And that was always kind of my dream job. You know, but of course, not everybody gets to do that.

Leah Jones 46:51 No, no, some people have to be professors and write.

Darrin 46:55 That's right. Yes, exactly. I'll take it.

Leah Jones 46:59 Yeah. Now, when you travel, are you someone who will go and take a tour -- if you were going to Nashville, would you try and do a tour of a studio? Or do you only go in when you've got recording booked?

Darrin 47:15 Yeah, I think I would only go in if I had it. I mean, I, would just be, you know, chomping at the bit if I actually went in and had to just look at it. I'm not gaga over it unless I can, but if I can sit in -- there's some kind of magic that I feel in places like that, for sure. But, if I can't -- I'd want to sit down and be like, let me just put down a quick track, you know? So, I feel lucky that I've been able to be in some of these top of the line ones as well as just people's basements. And that also has a certain huge charm to it, as well. So, it's so cool nowadays that people like Billy Eilish are recording just in their bedroom. It's amazing to have that technology available.

Leah Jones 48:15 I'm the immediate past president of my synagogue. And one of the things I wound up doing a lot of was recording or video, editing audio. And something I never mastered was like the acapella video or layering -- like this person played guitar, and they sent me the video, or they sent me the sound, and this person did the drums. And these two people did audio. So I'm curious if you did any remote recording sessions over COVID?

Darrin 48:47 Yeah, we've started we started doing that -- I have this side band called Loop de Loop. I've done that for almost as many years as King Tammy had been around, but this one has continued. And in part, it's continued because we have been able to do some remote stuff. And yeah, cuz I was living out of state, out of Michigan, for a number of years. And the other guys would get together and record something and then I could, I could add a piano track.

Darrin 49:30 It's really a friend of mine who handles the high, high end recording stuff, but I can do enough - I have enough experience from when I did those, four-track recordings at home, I know how to multitrack, and GarageBand is pretty simple. I just try to keep it simple. It's great, we've started doing some new stuff recently, and it's just a whole lot of fun because somebody can just record a guitar and a vocal and say add some stuff to this and people add harmony, people add whatever, and you can build a song from a long way away. So that's pretty, pretty cool.

Leah Jones 50:11 Yeah, I have a friend who her performing persona is the Klingon Pop Warrior.

Darrin 50:24 Wow, that's awesome.

Leah Jones 50:27 She translates pop songs -- it is exactly what it sounds like -- Klingon pop songs and she dresses like a Klingon warrior.

Darrin 50:37 Oh my gosh. So she sings pop songs in Klingon ... that is amazing.

Leah Jones 50:44 She was a musical theater person at Milliken, who did improv and eventually made her way around to Klingon. She does her own translations, and her recording, she'll sing the song, and then she'll send it off to the people collaborating, and they'll just build on it in the creative brief of what a Klingon band would sound like?

Darrin 51:16 Oh, that is fantastic.

Leah Jones 51:18 Yeah. And from her was how I learned about I had never considered before that you might record remotely, and not even all have sheet music in front of you.

Darrin 51:30 Yeah, I've never used sheet music in my life. I mean, there's different kinds of musicians out there. And, you know, I'm definitely a play by the ear. I've tried. I've tried to learn it. It's just not in my DNA to learn sheet music. So, just give me the chords and I'll figure something out, or I'll figure out the chords. And, but that sounds amazing on so many levels. The fact that Klingon is a robust enough language that you can do all these colloquial you know, songs. It's crazy.

Leah Jones 52:10 I think she's done now four EPs.

Darrin 52:14 Wow. And those are available?

Leah Jones 52:18 They are, yeah.

Darrin 52:20 What is the name of the act again?

Leah Jones 52:22 Klingon Pop Warrior.

Darrin 52:24 Klingon Pop Warrior. All right, it's pretty cool. It's a Chicago person?

Leah Jones 52:31 She's in Chicago. Yeah. And she travels to Star Trek events. And she's --

Darrin 52:42 -- does she teleport there?

Leah Jones 52:42 She teleports there. She's reached that level of fandom where they gave her the technology that they have withheld from everyone else.

Darrin 52:53 I knew it.

Leah Jones 52:54 Yeah. It turns out the owner's guide for teleportation was in Klingon.

Darrin 53:01 We should have all been studying Klingon.

Leah Jones 53:04 Yeah, the whole time.

Darrin 53:05 The joke's on us.

Leah Jones 53:19 So what is your band with the other professors?

Darrin 53:23 Oh, thanks for asking. Um, we are called Darryl and the Beans. It's kind of a long story, not that long, but it was suggested by a student. It's me and Robert Fanning and Jeffrey Bean. And so his last name has Bean and a lot of people mistakenly call me Darryl. My name is Darrin Doyle. And maybe that confuses people. So, somebody suggested calling us Darryl and the Beans. And so that just makes it even more confusing to people.

Darrin 53:59 But yeah, that that's the name. You know, we're all fairly busy with our teaching jobs. But we try to play at least a few times a year, live, and we did we also did record that album. It's called "Burning the Eagle," and it's out there on Bandcamp. And if anybody wanted to pick up a copy of it, all the proceeds go toward a creative writing award in our English department. So, you know we don't make any money off of this. It's for a good cause.

Darrin 54:33 And yeah, we play a lot of -- it's kind of acoustic based, three part harmonies, more covers, but we do unique versions of cover songs. We do an acoustic metal version of CMU 's alma mater song that you must check out. It sounds very gothic and very cool, grandiose and things like that. And yeah, we played for 1,000 people when we opened up for Jeff Daniels a couple years ago. So, that was probably the biggest show we've ever had, and that was a lot of fun. We played a couple of the summer concert series here in Mount Pleasant. But we're we're really itching to get back and do some live shows. Because it's been a while, and it's a lot of fun.

Leah Jones 55:35 Has there been an all professor Battle of the Bands yet? Are you guys facing off against chemistry or ...

Darrin 55:41 I wish. We're the only ones. We could have and just destroy all the non-existent competition. [laughter] I'm shocked, too, I don't know.But we've got the market on that. But we do some originals as well. You know, I've worked in some couple of Loop deloop songs from that other band, you know, that fit well with this one. So, we're trying to actually expand into doing more originals. But people like to hear the covers, too. So you gotta try to do both.

Leah Jones 56:22 And do your sons ever play with you? Are they into music?

Darrin 56:28 Oh, thanks for asking that. Yeah, they are very into music. They did the School of Rock, and so both of them play drums and keyboards. My one son did tinker with the guitar a little bit, but not that much. And when they were younger, I would play with them. We definitely had, you know, seven or eight songs that we would play in the basement. That was a lot of fun. But we hadn't done that a while.

Darrin 57:07 My oldest son is just, they're both good, but he's a spectacular drummer. And I don't even know how he did it, how he learned it. Because there wasn't like the School of Rock songs are playing like he plays, he plays -- he loves video game music and there is such a huge -- I feel like that's it's a whole genre unto itself. And there's some amazing music that he's played for me. And he plays along with that. And it's just fast and precise and like, bizarre time signatures, and it's very impressive. So, they both continue to do their thing.

Darrin 57:50 You know, he also loves to record music. He'll like program the notes. He does a different kind of recording on like, Froot Loops, I think it's called? Yeah, it's called FL Studio -- Froot Loops. Hmm. And, and it's not so much he doesn't like plug in a microphone and play some drums, he programs -- it's not sampling, it's programming, you know, a violin sound, these particular notes and stuff like that, and he comes up with amazing stuff. And that's a type of recording I don't know anything about, but it's pretty impressive.

Leah Jones 58:35 Wow, that's really cool.

Darrin 58:40 Yeah, I'm happy at least I did enough to, you know, they had guitars and piano and drums in this house their whole lives. And it took them a little while -- for a while there, they they just didn't give a crap. It must have been like this is Dad's thing, and eventually, they came around to it. And they both do it. So, that's pretty cool to see.

Leah Jones 59:02 Yeah. My twin sister just got a drum set and started taking drum lessons from someone we went to school with. And they do it on FaceTime. And her husband plays bass and her sons both have instruments, and so she was trying to figure out -- we played wind instruments in high school, which isn't necessarily a family jam band instrument. So, she wanted to be allowed and take more space, and so she got a drum set for her wedding anniversary, and it's so cool. So, now they're all learning. She takes the lessons and then she teaches her sons the next night.

Darrin 59:50 Yeah, that's very cool. Oh, yeah. It's fun. And you said they FaceTime?

Leah Jones 59:56 Yeah, they do FaceTime for the lesson.

Darrin 59:59 Oh, For the lesson, gotcha. Not like their band doesn't do it in FaceTime. Yeah, I was taking drum lessons there for a little bit too, during COVID, just because I've always wanted to get back and take some lessons just for the hell of it. And yeah, that works, you know, you can actually pull it off with that kind of format.

Leah Jones 1:00:27 I just did an interview with an author who was also a voice teacher. So, she would play the piano over a Zoom lesson, and they kind of all learned the rhythms and the sound delay to make it work. And she said that when she got back to teaching in-person lessons, her brain had reprogrammed and she was constantly half a beat behind her student and they had to stop and restart, so she could she could play the in-person actually playing together rhythm.

Darrin 1:01:03 Wow. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. Cuz there, I was gonna say we've not figured out a way to do it remotely, because there's this weird lag and wow, that's good that you can do it, but that's very interesting.

Leah Jones 1:01:20 Let's say that you were doing a tour of your dream studio with a band from any era, and they would invite you to drop in. Oh, so this can be the Beatles Abbey Road. This can be Prince, this can be those are obviously the bands I know. This could be Nirvana, Sub Pop. What is a band and a studio that you wish you could like, drop in and jam with?

Darrin 1:01:53 You know, obviously, to me, the Beatles are kind of the gold standard. But I would say a close second to me is Pink Floyd. Kind of depending on which era you pick, it would be a very different experience. I don't know if you know much about them. But their early days with Syd Barrett, probably very different than the later days with like "The Wall" album. But the album, "Umma Gumma," that album where it's just really experimental. It's after Syd Barrett. It's before like, "Wish You Were Here" and before "Dark Side of the Moon." One whole side is, you know, basically Roger Waters songs that are totally wacko. And I think that'd be my ideal because that's when they're most free. They're most just do whatever you want, you know, there's no huge expectations.

Darrin 1:03:03 Like even the Beatles, the Beatles had a lot of freedom for a huge band like that. Good grief, they could do whatever they wanted. But, I think the Beatles freed up a lot of people to do even more, and I think Pink Floyd was kind of one of the ones that was able to take advantage of that newfound freedom and just say like, "We'll do whatever the hell we want." I don't know if you've ever heard that song "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict?" That is on "Umma Gumma." But if you ever play this back, look up that title on YouTube, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict," you'll see what I mean. It's pretty wild.

Leah Jones 1:03:57 I'm certain I have heard it.

Darrin 1:04:01 You maybe have, it's really just like voices and chatter and it's not really instruments at all. Just a lot of them on that album are just they're just all over the place and I love that.

Leah Jones 1:04:17 Here -- I'm gonna share my screen, share sound. I want to see if I have this memory hiding anywhere. [starts song]

Darrin 1:04:41 You got to sit through this [sounds of birdsong]

Leah Jones 1:04:43 This is how they get you to pay for the free ...

Darrin 1:04:46 Exactly. Takes a little to get going, you need patience. Okay, you can skip ahead about a minute. It starts to get pretty crazy,

Leah Jones 1:05:55 I take it back. I don't think I have heard this before.

Darrin 1:05:59 Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Leah Jones 1:06:04 If I've heard it before, which is possible, because my brother was a huge Pink Floyd fan, and our heater vents were connected. So I absorbed a lot of Pink Floyd growing up. But I have never heard this in stereo. I wear like, big over the ear headphones, and mostly I just listen to podcasts. Like, I don't listen to things in stereo very often anymore. And that was like, having my eardrums tickled. It was so weird.

Darrin 1:06:36 Yeah, I agree. And that's after they had already done like, you know, "Top of the Pops". And done whatever --

Leah Jones 1:06:47 -- Bandstand --

Darrin 1:06:50 -- yeah, American Bandstand with Syd Barrett. So this is like they're a known quantity at this point. And they come out with this. Yeah, that was just like, I love that kind of freedom. And yeah, you can hate the song, but you can't hate the the joy that they had in making it and just the pushing the envelope, you know?

Leah Jones 1:07:12 Yeah, November 1969.

Darrin 1:07:17 Oh, wow. Yeah. Interesting.

Leah Jones 1:07:21 It's also interesting, the cover of that album, is a repeating picture with each of the members of Pink Floyd and they're sitting in an identical place, but they keep changing. They're, they're like rotating through them in this infinite mirror situation.

Darrin 1:07:42 Right. Yeah. That's a really cool cover. Yeah.

Leah Jones 1:07:46 We'll have to see if my brother will come on and talk about Pink Floyd.

Darrin 1:07:49 Oh, that'd be cool. Let me know. Yeah. Tune in for that, for sure.

Leah Jones 1:07:53 It's not his favorite anymore. But he might be willing to talk about it. Darrin, is there anything about recording that I didn't ask you?

Darrin 1:08:05 No, I don't think so. We've covered a lot.

Leah Jones 1:08:09 What's your home setup? GarageBand, and ...

Darrin 1:08:12 Yeah, I use GarageBand. I have a Snowball mic. And I just I stick it in front of an amp and I'm pretty low-fi still. Yeah, I stick in front of my amp or stick in front of the piano and then go to town. And then hopefully, if I'm sending it to my friend, he can clean it up a bit. So, when I record at home myself, I'm just doing it for fun and doing it for me, so I'm not even that concerned with -- perfection doesn't interest me at all.

Leah Jones 1:08:50 Do you want people to be able to find you on the internet?

Darrin 1:08:53 That would be great. My books and stories, a lot of them can be found on www.darrindoyle.com. And I'm on Twitter, @doyledarrin and I'm on Instagram. I have an author page on Facebook, but truthfully, I don't use it that much. But really, yeah, the website is a good place to find me.

Leah Jones 1:09:31 Great. Well, thank you so much for spending, at least in Chicago, a rainy evening. I don't know if this weather has gotten to you yet.

Darrin 1:09:39 It's been raining for days. It's off and on. It's gloomy, but this makes it all better. It's been really fun to talk to you. I appreciate your questions and your enthusiasm. I'm very impressed you can talk about any subject that gets sprung on you at the last second.

Leah Jones 1:10:00 There's only been a couple that have been really difficult. I find -- because for the most part you're asking someone about what they love. And it is often a subject that people don't give us time to talk about. You get to you get interviewed about your career, you might get asked like what your love story is, but as far as like getting to like really nerd out on like a hobby or an interest. Like, we're just not given space to do that.

Darrin 1:10:35 That's so cool. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Leah Jones 1:10:39 Thank you.

Announcer 1:10:41 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

View Details

Monica Reida, a Wisconsin-based journalist, loves the Murdoch Mysteries. She became a fan of Canadian TV at Michigan State (Go Green, Go White!) when it was included in the residence hall's basic cable package. We talk about copyright laws and intellectual property of podcasts, the Murdoch Mysteries, and Canadian news options.

Keep up with Monica on Twitter, Instagram, Alma and other online publications.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Broadway Shows

Come From Away
Hamilton
Dear Evan Hansen
Fun Home
Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
Falsettos

Everything Else

Gideon the 9th
Monica's legal arguments about podcasts
Taking Ivy Seriously by Matthew David Brozik
Slings and Arrows
In the company of women (episode of Murdoch Mysteries)
The final curtain
Midwest Architecture Journeys
CBC's Rosemary Barton dances on the grave of the far right People's Party
CBC The National on YouTube
Instagram account for "Murdoch Mysteries" costume designer
"Murdoch Mysteries" Instagram account, which usually announces international air dates:

View Details

Trish McDonald, a Florida-based author, has done a lot of research about nutrition and longevity, which she shared with Leah this week. We also talk about her RV-lifestyle, tiny homes, and publishing her first book at the age of 77. Paper Bags is now available in digital and paperback through Woodhall Press

Follow Trish online @TrishMc_Writer on Twitter and @TrishMc305 on Instagram

Paper Bags: After thirty-four years of marriage, Kat McNeil flees to a campground in the Florida Keys where she falls for a ramblin' man who's elusive, unavailable, and secretive. Desperate to understand why he avoids her, she becomes a stalker. This deviant behavior unearths a stunning revelation shaking her to the core. Will she run away from something she doesn't understand, or will she embark on a journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening?

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Work Camping Jobs
Gut Balance Revolution
Kombucha at home and Keifer at home
17 Years for evidence to become accepted as standard care
Line dancing for beginners and seniors
Werewolf of London
Caringbridge for Leah's cancer stuff

The Gut Balance Revolution: Boost Your Metabolism, Restore Your Inner Ecology, and Lose the Weight for Good!

View Details

Elizabeth B. Splaine, a Rhode Island-based author, joins us ahead of her Tuesday, October 5th, release date for her novel Swan Song. We talk about her winding paths to performing opera, publishing four novels, and what it means to get inside someone's head. Her historical novel takes places in Germany during Hitler's reign and tells the story of an opera diva who learns that she is Jewish during the Holocaust as she's swept up in a romance with a man eventually known as William Stuart-Houston (Hitler's nephew).

CW: concentration camp, Holocaust, suicide

Follow Elizabeth B. Splaine on Instagram as @elizbsplaine and Facebook

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Rhode Island Philharmonic School of Music
Rhody Box featuring Swan Song
Brundibár opera
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
Ibram X Kendi
L'esprit de escalier
Online 5959 Event on November 16, 2021

View Details

Mike Keren, an author and clinical psychologist based in the Poconos, loves cooking shows that teach you something and haven't turned cooking into sport. We talk about Julia Child, the Galloping Gourmet and the Canadian show Wall of Chefs. Mike's first memoir will be published on October 5th and we also talk about caretaking, the AIDS epidemic, COVID and family recipes.

Keep up with Mike online on MikeKeren.com, @MikeKeren4 on Twitter

In “Four Funerals, No Marriage: A Memoir”, author Mike Keren is plunged into a caregiving journey when his loving but difficult parents come to visit and both end up hospitalized over the course of one weekend. Keren had only recently left a career as a psychologist to pursue the world of high finance driven by his perceptions of how difficult it was becoming to deliver quality service in the current profit-driven health care environment. He, along with his life-partner, Tom, had been caregiving Tom’s mom who was undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Graphic Medicine
Taking Turns
The Galloping Gourmet
The French Chef (Julia Child)
Jacques Pépin
Top Chef Masters
Wall of Chefs
The Big Family Cooking Showdown with Nadiya Hussain
Mock Chestnut Torte (passover flourless chocolate cake)
Banana Jam
Homecooking Podcast

Transcript Follows

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Mike Keren 0:00 Hi, my name is Mike Keren, and my favorite thing is cooking shows.

Announcer 0:04 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:16 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. It's Sunday, September 26th, pretty late in the day, because I just have been busy and not busy. This afternoon, I had brunch with friends and a Sukkot, it's the middle of the holiday Sukkot, which is a Jewish -- one of our many fall holidays, which involves a lot of nice picnics and Sukkahs, which is a type of outdoor temporary dwelling. Mostly, I've just been getting ready for tomorrow, which is the big day -- tomorrow is my lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy. So, the breast cancer will be scooped out tomorrow. I have a lot of unknowns, about how much they'll need to take. But, I trust my surgeon, I trust the team at Northwestern. I was diagnosed three months ago on June 24th, so, I am very relieved to have arrived here.

Leah Jones 1:25 This week on the podcast, I have author Mike Keren. We're talking about cooking shows and his new memoir that comes out next weekend. You can catch him at The Book Cellar. The book "Four Funerals, No Marriage: A Memoir," comes out on next weekend, October 5th, and he's having an event in Summit, New Jersey. It's a closed event, as you'll hear us talk about, for COVID safety. But on October 7th, 7:00 pm Central Time on Zoom, he is participating in a caregiving panel with the Book Cellar, that is really exciting. Ben Tanzer, who's a publicist and podcaster, is going to be moderating the panel. I will link to the information on his website.

Leah Jones 2:16 Today, I did have to cancel an interview that was supposed to happen today. So hopefully, I will have one for you next weekend. We've had a lot of -- our power has been going in and out -- I don't know if it's in Ravenswood, or if it's in my apartment. But I didn't trust that I would have power for a full hour to be able to record an interview this morning, because last night, the power went out like five times -- it's a little spooky. But, it's not the highest thing on my list of things to deal with. So, I hope that you will enjoy this conversation with Mike. I will report back next week about how the old lumpectomy went. I'll get pathology results at the end of the week. They'll re-stage if they need to. I'm just really grateful for friends and family who have been checking in on me, helping me get ready for all this. Keep enjoying your favorite things, wear your mask, and wash your hands.

Leah Jones 3:35 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. Our fall of author favorites continues. Today, I'm with Mike Keren. He is a clinical psychologist on the East Coast, and his new memoir called, "Four Funerals, No Marriage: A Memoir," will be released on October 5th. Mike, how are you doing this afternoon?

Mike Keren 4:05 I'm doing really well, Leah, thanks for asking.

Leah Jones 4:07 We were talking before I hit record, that you split your time between New Jersey and in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. What are the some of the things you like to do in the Poconos?

Mike Keren 4:20 I love to sit, turn on my fireplace, and watch TV. Walk with my dogs, cook, have friends in, entertain. Not too often, but just enough to keep up the mandatory social connection and stuff.

Leah Jones 4:39 I've been to the Poconos, once. I officiated a wedding at a resort in the Poconos.

Mike Keren 4:46 Which one do you remember?

Leah Jones 4:48 No idea. I think I flew into --

Mike Keren 4:57 -- probably Allentown.

Leah Jones 4:59 Allentown, yeah, and then drove north. It was a stunning venue. My friends had both gone to grad school in Syracuse, New York, and then both Religious Studies majors getting their PhDs, and decided the Poconos was a good middle ground for their wedding. And it was just beautiful. -- it was just stunning.

Mike Keren 5:30 We do have our moments and our places -- it's quite picturesque.

Leah Jones 5:36 So, you've got your new book coming out in just a little over two weeks. Is this your first novel -- it's a memoir. Sorry, is this your first memoir?

Mike Keren 5:45 Yes, it is. It's absolutely my first public creative publication. I write professionally, occasionally, haven't in a long time. Nobody really reads those. Hopefully, more people will read my memoir.

Leah Jones 6:01 How did you come to write it?

Mike Keren 6:04 Bit of a tale. I am always looking to do something. And after my mom died, I felt really freed up to do something outrageous. So, I started doing stand-up comedy. Cause, I live right outside New York. So, I was doing the open mic scene in New York and such and about a year and a half into it, I developed prostate cancer. It kind of curtailed the work I was doing, and challenged me about doing it, but I came through it and I kept doing that. But I was already pushing 50 at the time, and I was doing open mics with 18, 19 and 20-year-olds. Homophobic, racist, sexist, couldn't tolerate anymore. I got tired of having to pay the dues. So, I stopped doing it and sought a new outlet. I started taking writing classes, memoir writing classes. And, I intended to write a book about my experience with prostate cancer, but what poured out was this book about caregiving to my parents and my in-laws. And I'm not sure exactly why that's what came out, rather than the one I was intending. I have started the other one, and hopefully that will be my second memoir. So, that's how "Four Funerals" came about.

Leah Jones 7:24 I also did stand-up comedy in my 20s, when I first moved Chicago, so like 2002, to 2004. And then, when I was 40, I'd had a hysterectomy, I had been laid off from my job. I'd worked in public relations for 15 years, and brand, consumer product marketing. Which really meant if I went on stage, I couldn't -- I quit doing stand-up comedy the first time around, because of all the same things you just said. I stood in an alley for six hours, waiting to audition for Last Comic Standing -- it was the first season of Last Comic Standing. And it was sort of this like, "In the light of day, are these really the people I want to call my colleagues? I've heard the same rape joke 200 times -- you keep perfecting it."

Leah Jones 8:22 People perfecting their homophobic jokes, people perfecting their, like child rape and molestation jokes. And I really was like, "I don't have it in me for these to be my people." Then when I was 40, after I'd been laid off, and I felt like I could -- I wasn't muzzled professionally anymore. Because I came up in public relations and marketing at a time where you couldn't say anything negative about a client, about a client's parent company, about a potential client. So there were just loads of things that I couldn't have public opinions on.

Leah Jones 9:03 Then I went back, and I was like, "Maybe as a woman in my 40s, I actually have more to say now," and it was after the #MeToo movement had kicked off, and I was like, "Maybe it's better." I tried it for a summer, and it was fun to be back on stage. I love the crowd interaction of stand-up comedy. But I just looked around, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, now I am the old person in the room. That's weird." And I felt like I no longer had the goal of becoming super-famous; I just wanted to stretch that muscle. And somehow being in the room of 20-somethings hustling for their Hollywood breakthrough, I was again, "This isn't this isn't the room I want to be in." So I hear you on -- it's fun, but it is a hustle to do open mics.

Mike Keren 10:04 I miss it, I love being on stage, the audience -- my home club was one off of Times Square. They used to push tickets in Times Square, and they didn't care who they who they pushed them on. A lot of times we had audiences that spoke no English, whatsoever. But somehow, they knew when to laugh. They were some of the best audiences. And the other one I loved, was they call "hen parties" or bachelorette parties, because these women would be very drunk, and they would love to interact with the comic, and I like to do a lot of crowd work.

Leah Jones 10:43 That's a blast. So, you move from stand-up comedy to memoir writing. Geri Lynn Baumblatt, in Chicago -- she does a lot of work around caregiving, with the Participatory Medicine Association (*Society of Participatory Medicine), and as an audience for you to market to. I don't know what sort of writing she's doing these days, but she is someone that Ben needs to get your book in the hands of. We'll make that connection.

Mike Keren 11:20 Just a side note -- it's a humorous memoir. I channeled all my humor, some stuff that's much more raw than what I would do on stage, actually. It was a good outlet. I really enjoyed it.

Leah Jones 11:40 Good. What was the timeline from start to finish?

Mike Keren 11:48 I walked into my first class in 2011, probably this week, like the second-to-last week of September, and now, it's coming out the first week of October of 2021, so 10 years.

Leah Jones 12:06 That's so exciting. Is COVID at a level where you're at that you can have an in-person launch of some sort?

Mike Keren 12:21 I am having it whether it's okay or not. I made it very clear to my guests that if they were anxious about COVID, maybe they didn't want to come for that. We also cut back on the number. I had a list of about 175 people to invite; I had to cut that down. In some ways, when I get a, "Thank you, but no, thank you," I'm a little bit relieved, because it means there'll be a little bit more social distancing room. But it's been a challenge because a lot of bookstores are not doing live events. I figured I would do a synagogue circuit, they're not meeting. You can do some virtual stuff, but podcasts have really become the number one way to get the word out.

Leah Jones 13:04 Well, that's exciting. It'll come out in October. Do you feel like -- have you started your prostate cancer -- I guess you thought that's what the first book would be about, so you probably have some essays.

Mike Keren 13:20 I have probably about a third of the first draft written. I found COVID not very adaptive to writing. So I haven't done much of anything in terms of that. Six months ago, I started working the PR angle, building up to the launch and things. I intended to sit down and write. The other thing, being a psychologist, the pandemic has sadly been really good for business. My caseload has more than doubled over the last six, eight months. I don't have a lot of mental space for it, but I have a writing retreat week, planned out shortly after the book comes out. And I'm going to go up to my heaven on earth in Vermont, and hopefully peel out a good part of the rest of that book.

Leah Jones 14:16 Nice. Depending on up to where you've listened to my podcast, was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer.

Mike Keren 14:27 I am aware.

Leah Jones 14:26 So I've been, sometimes I'll do a Zoom call with myself while I'm driving, and hit record and just record whatever it is I'm thinking about that week. And that's my version of taking notes. I think I want to do a comic book memoir. I have an essay, I guess it's an essay, when it's a comic. There's this whole side of comic book making called "graphic medicine." That's the comic books about -- healthcare memoirs and sharing healthcare information.

Leah Jones 15:04 I was in an anthology called "Menopause: A Comic Treatment." And did one about going to Mikvah before my hysterectomy -- mark the transition of having my final, what would be my final, period. So, I've got a great relationship with a woman who, who did the art for it. We've been talking about whatever happens in this breast cancer journey I'm on, about turning that into a bigger graphic memoir.

Leah Jones 15:38 So, I do Zoom calls. Just occasionally, I'll do a Zoom call as I drive to the hospital to record my reaction, because -- also COVID has been, I mean, I started a podcast because I can't write anymore; I just don't have it in me. But I love talking to people, and COVID has been great for talking to people all around the country.

Mike Keren 16:03 That's great. I wasn't aware of that -- the healthcare-specific graphic memoirs.

Leah Jones 16:10

GraphicMedicine is the hashtag on Twitter. There's the woman who edited our book, her Twitter handle is @comicnurse. She did a book about being a nurse in one of the first or the first AIDS ward in Chicago. It's probably behind me somewhere. People do memoirs -- it's a great way to educate people through comics. Graphic medicine is very cool.

Mike Keren 16:51 I'm gonna check it out when we're done.

Leah Jones 16:55 Well, that's exciting that you've got the book coming out. You've got your second book underway. When you go up to Vermont, do you pick a different place to stay every time, or do you have a favorite B&B or a cabin that you go to?

Mike Keren 17:12 There's a writer's retreat up there.

Leah Jones 17:13 Oh, literally a writer's retreat.

Mike Keren 17:15 Literally. It's actually how I know Ben. 2016, about five years ago, I got a message through Facebook inviting me to enter this drawing for a free week at a Vermont writer's retreat. What I didn't know at the time was that it's going to be like, a timeshare sell type of thing almost. They run a contest; the prize is a publication deal, including an agent, and a PR guy and all this kind of stuff.

Mike Keren 17:54 But I went up for the retreat, and just fell in love. It was very productive there. And really liked the idea of the contest. You do a lot of reading with within groups; at night, everybody around the fireplace. I had a sense that I would at least be competitive in that. So I signed up for this contest; it was quite the adventure. I learned a hell of a lot about publishing and book marketing, all that kind of stuff. And I came in second by like two points, which probably heartbreaking because --

Leah Jones 18:32 -- no publication, no publication.

Mike Keren 18:36 But I stayed connected with them and found my publisher through them, and through them also found my PR. So, I try to go up there on a on a regular basis. The guy who runs it, he's brethren also, he's had me up there for his Passover Seder. It's just idyllic. He's trying to sell the place, he has moved to another location. I'm a little bit upset about it. Because I'm one of the few people I didn't complain about how hard it was to get to, because I didn't find it all that hard. But the road it's on is not fully paved, so if it's a wet day, or if it's as they call it up there, "mud season," you could have issues and stuff. Because I had a car, I could always get out. But I love being cut off. I'm still I'd be so productive.

Leah Jones 19:28 So you're literally going to the Vermont writer's retreat.

Mike Keren 19:31 Literally going to a Vermont writer's retreat.

Leah Jones 19:34 Are you gonna road trip it up there?

Mike Keren 19:39 My husband's coming with me, and he -- when I'm writing, he entertain -- well, he's a late sleeper. So I'll get up really early, put three or four hours in before breakfast, and then he'll entertain himself for the afternoon. After lunch, we will generally go pick a town and explore the town or something like that.

Leah Jones 19:58 Gosh, that sounds perfect.

Leah Jones 20:00 Oh, it is. You should come out there with Ben sometime.

Leah Jones 20:04 I'll talk to him about it. Maybe when I get on the other side of this, and I'm ready to turn my Zoom recordings into something. All I know is the title of the book, which is called, "Don't Bring Lasagna." Now I feel bad, because I say this all the time, and eventually I'm going to say it to someone who brought me lasagna, and they're going to feel bad. And then I'm going to feel bad. I'm sure you experienced this as a caregiver -- people bring meals, they want to be helpful. Sometimes, they bring meals that are too big for the people you're actually caring for.

Leah Jones 20:40 So I was living alone, had had a hysterectomy, did not have much of an appetite. And three days in a row, people brought me lasagnas of increasing sizes. And then, I was re-hospitalized. And when I came back out, I had a fridge full of rotting lasagna. So, I'm very sensitive, and now there's this nonprofit started called, "Love Through Lasagna," that's all about helping people make lasagnas to take to people and I'm like, "You are my nemesis."

Mike Keren 21:20 It's a great title. Actually, people weren't feeding me during my caregiving days much. But when I was sitting Shiva, I got three fruit bouquets. My refrigerator -- I couldn't fit one of them in without taking it apart. Wverybody leaves at like 9:30, 10 o'clock, you're exhausted. And we spent that night pulling apart these bouquets because we had to put it all the fruit into bowls. So it was like,"No more bouquets."

Leah Jones 22:00 Right. One is fine, if it arrives early, and people actually eat it. But yeah, three is too many. That's why when I go to Shivas, I am the person who brings toilet paper. Because you've got extra people using your bathroom, and maybe you didn't have time to buy extra TP. I'll bring Ziploc bags, I'll bring aluminum foil, because it's so many people in and out of your house, and they're using your paper goods, and bringing more food, is not generally actually going to be helpful. Now everybody can't bring paper goods, because you need some food at a Shiva, right? But I try to bring those things that you all of a sudden find out whatever you had in the house has been used up on day one.

Mike Keren 22:50 And now, we all have closets full of toilet paper leftover from the pandemic, right?

Leah Jones 23:09 Mike, we're not here just to talk about Shiva and toilet paper. We're here to talk about one of your favorite things. And you said that was cooking shows.

Mike Keren 23:19 That's right, Leah. It does actually come up a bit in the book, because I learned to cook from my mom. It was one of the things that she left me. My mom was a pretty basic cook. She was a good cook, but a basic cook. And I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I was fat, I was bullied, and these shows became my friends. So I grew up on Julia Child, Graham Kerr. The audience, hopefully, they know these names. Well, Julia Child, I think the whole world knows.

Mike Keren 23:51 Graham Kerr had a show called "The Galloping Gourmet." I didn't understand all of it at the time, because he had a lot of sexual innuendos and things like that. But it was part travelogue and part cooking show. Jeff Smith, who later lost his career in a sex scandal, and Jacque Pepin, who was one of Julia Child's students. I still love those shows, and I really learned -- even as a preteen and teenager -- to sort of play with things in the kitchen,vherbs and spices and things like that. It's funny, because I also told you, I had strong opinions about things, and I feel like today's cooking shows have become cooking a sport. Everyting's a competition. And it's not that I don't watch them; I've watched every season of "Top Chef." And nothing happens in my house when there's a new episode of "The Great British Bake Off."But the shows that taught you how to cook, they're so hard to find these days.

Leah Jones 24:58 They really are.

Mike Keren 24:59 Maybe Rachael Ray, but you have to be able to deal with her sweetness. I always feel like I'm developing diabetes when I watch her.

Leah Jones 25:09 Yeah, they are so often an impossible task and an artificially short timeline. That's what cooking shows are today.

Mike Keren 25:18 I have to say, I think "Top Chef" answered one of my big complaints when they had "Top Chef Masters," because they said, "Well, no professional chef is going to try to make this meal in that amount of time or set up a restaurant in two days," or whatever it is. But then when they brought out the Masters, and they made them do it, too, I was like, "Well, I guess they might, but it's still unrealistic."

Leah Jones 25:44 Do you have some favorite go-to recipes that you specifically learned from a TV show?

Mike Keren 25:55 Oh. I don't know. cause I don't cook so much from recipes.

Leah Jones 26:06 What about kitchen habits? What are things that you learned maybe from Julia Child or Jacques Pepin.

Mike Keren 26:16 I figured out that they had prep chefs -- all the ingredients were always there. You never really saw them cutting up vegetables and things. But I learned that it really helps to have everything prepped. So I've become much more about prepping so that you're not burning one thing, while you're preparing the other. I try to mimic their presentation; I can make food taste good, but I can't get it on a plate to look like creation and stuff like that. In fact, I was out for Ethiopian food last night, and I was looking at the tray. I was like, "I wish all food could be presented this way. Then I want to worry about what it looks like."

Leah Jones 27:01 I haven't been to Ethiopian in years, but it's just like, four piles of tasty proteins? And then, the bread.

Mike Keren 27:10 I learned my knife skills by watching and paying attention. I think that would be the things I most picked up. It's more the idea, the things you get introduced to. I have a bookshelf full of cookbooks that I can always look in, but you know, learn how to substitute ingredients here, ingredients there. I have a new obsession is called "Wall of Chefs." It's a Canadian show that's on Hulu. It's on their food network channel, Canada. All the big Canadian chefs, some of whom you'd recognize from American TV, as well. They sit up -- it looks like the $10,000 pyramid, almost -- they sit in this pyramid. And each round, four them are the judges, and there's four home chefs.

Mike Keren 28:11 They're not crazy. The first round, you just make what you call your "Showcase Dish." The one that everybody wants when they come to your house for dinner. The second one is the "Chef's Refrigerator." They pick one chef -- the three ingredients they always have -- it's the most challenging because you have to incorporate those ingredients. It's a lot like "Chopped," that round. The final round is -- a chef will present one of their key dishes, but you have to be inspired by that dish to make another dish.

Mike Keren 28:40 They're kind of doable tasks; there is the timeline. The longest round is 40 minutes. And I think it's hard to develop flavor in 40 minutes, but I think the judges are pretty -- I discovered this maybe the very end of the summer. I was off for a week, flipping around channels, and I've just finished the first season, I'm heading into the second season. I don't even know if it's in production anymore.

Leah Jones 29:10 The "Wall of Chefs." I like that idea. There was one with, was it Nadia? That won an early season of Great [British Bake Off]

Mike Keren 29:23 And she has her own show now.

Leah Jones 29:26 She's had two shows since then, I think, and one was a family cooking competition. Maybe the first round might be like a budget dinner? It was people, it was two or three people from the same family coming into cook together. So, there's a budget dinner, and there's maybe a breakfast. There's two challenges in the studio, then there's the home meal, where they cook in their own kitchen and have Nadia over to eat dinner. And then there's a return to studio.

Mike Keren 30:03 I'll have to look for that. I mean, the idea of cooking with my family in the kitchen is horrifying to me. I have two kitchens in two houses. One is big, but it has no counter space. Everybody wants to help, but they make more of a mess and I really have to have to try to keep things together. Then the other one, it's a galley kitchen. And if I have someone else in there with me --

Leah Jones 30:31 -- you can't move!

Mike Keren 30:32 Most definitely. So, I'm pretty much okay if people don't help me cook.

Leah Jones 30:42 Then her second show was much more educated, focused on teaching you the skills of making different meals.

Mike Keren 30:54 That's the other thing I discovered from cooking shows was weighing ingredients, as opposed to cups and teaspoons. I can't tell if it's made a difference, but I have more fun with it. For some reason, spilling it out onto the scale, that's fun.

Leah Jones 31:12 I know that that's the way to go. There's no reason I haven't switched to weighing ingredients other than I'm going to go -- sheer laziness. If I'm going to cook something other than -- I've got one cake that I make for Passover, that's a flourless chocolate cake. It's a faux chestnut torte, and it uses pumpkin as the starch instead of flour. That one I have to really measure, because in baking measurements really matter in a way that they don't matter as much with cooking and roasting. I'm someone who will read a few recipes and try and understand the gist and then go cook. And then when I realize I've made a mistake, ask Twitter what I'm supposed to do next.

Mike Keren 32:16 Is Twitter answering?

Leah Jones 32:19 Yeah, I've been on Twitter for 14 years. So, I've got people there that take pity on my mishaps and will gladly, people will always gladly try and tell you how to fix something on Twitter. When you were watching cooking shows as a kid, did your mom watch with you? Or was that a --

Mike Keren 32:43 Occasionally. My mom went off to work when I was about 10. I'd be home watching my baby brother. I plopped him down with his toys, and I would just sit and watch the cooking shows. Until it's time to cook dinner for the family, and then I'd get on the phone with my mom, and she'd walk me step-by-step through what she wanted me to cook. I always wonder what the people in her office wondered about when they're like, "Okay, now add a cup of breadcrumbs." Her job had nothing to do with food.

Leah Jones 33:17 I suspect she was sitting near other moms having the same phone call.

Mike Keren 33:22 Probably.

Leah Jones 33:27 I did a lot of -- once Sam's Club came to town, and we kind of got into the world of like the frozen, whether it was a frozen meal that you toss in a wok, or toss it in the oven. I did cook a lot of dinners, but they were not recipes. They were frozen to skillet, frozen into a pot of boiling water, frozen into oven. That was my teenage cooking. I think my mom will fact check me on Twitter.

Mike Keren 34:05 She listens to your show?

Leah Jones 34:06 She does, es.

Mike Keren 34:07 Oh, hi, Mom!

Leah Jones 34:09 My whole family listens; they're all very supportive. Have you thought about what -- if you got to produce -- now, you can star in it, host it, you can decide your role. But if you were going to produce a cooking show, what elements do you think go into a good cooking show? Either things that are missing from the classic shows -- you can pick "I like the this from here and this from here and this from here." But what would a Mike Keren produced cooking show be?

Mike Keren 34:52 That's a good question. Well, it would definitely be on the educative side. I think at least for a season, I'd like a step-by-step covering the basis. If you look at cooking school, you have the eight week basics of cooking. How to boil water, how to cut a potato, that kind of thing, that kind of stuff. Maybe build from there; have guest chefs come in to teach people how to make good food that they can make at home. But, have a theme each year -- entertaining or family dinner or just this, that, the other thing. Would be nice if it was in front of a live audience. It'd be nice if you could sit down with some of the audience members to eat it. It was something the "Galloping Gourmet" used to do where they'd bring somebody down from the audience to try the food. I never saw it, but I always wondered what would happen if the person didn't like it.

Leah Jones 35:57 I'm sure there's a reason you didn't see those reactions. [laughter]

Mike Keren 36:06 So, that's a good question, cause I'd not really thought about it before, but I think I'd like to go back to the educating cooking show.

Leah Jones 36:17 Have you listened to the podcast "Home Cooking" with Hrishikesh Hirway and Samin Nosrat?

Mike Keren 36:24 No.

Leah Jones 36:25 She is the chef behind "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat," the documentary on Netflix. Rishi, his podcast is "Song Exploder," which became a Netflix show, and "West Wing Weekly" with Josh Molina. So, when quarantine started in 2020, they did a limited -- it was supposed to be a limited four episode podcast, because that's when we thought lockdown was gonna be a month -- where they were answering people's home cooking questions.

Leah Jones 37:01 Everybody went out and bought beans. But then, a lot of people didn't know how to cook with beans. So, they did one whole episode about beans. They would take caller questions about like, "I've overbought on this staple, and I don't know what to do." Then they would also do kind of recipe investigation -- family, people who had a memory of a recipe they used to make in their family -- and they remember parts of it, or they got the ingredient list from their grandma, and it didn't have the instructions. She would do the research and help people recreate these family recipes.

Mike Keren 37:46 So, that's a great idea.

Leah Jones 37:47 Yeah, and it went on to become at least 20 episodes, if not more -- they kept coming back and doing more episodes -- she could do "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" was such a beautiful documentary. I certainly learned about concepts, and it's a beautiful cookbook, that you're kind of meant to read from start to finish as almost a textbook. I would love to see her have a cooking show that goes through the basics. And like what you were talking about -- knife skills, roasting skills. I did a, I had a CSA last summer I got from one of the local farms. And I found it to be kind of a relentless onslaught of vegetables that I didn't know how to cook. Eventually, I was like, "Roast everything," which is pretty effective, but I wish I could have been more thoughtful in my approach to that onslaught of vegetables.

Mike Keren 38:55 Right before we got on, I was at the farmer's market, and there was a woman who had these spice mixes and things like that, and every single one of them, she gave out a recipe, here's how you might use it. I signed up for her mailing list because she sends out a recipe a week. To use her products and things like that. I have so many stacks of recipes. I don't know if I'll ever get to -- one of the things -- I'm a cookie addict. It doesn't go well with my gastric sleeve because unfortunately, it's like the one food I can eat that doesn't get caught up in there. It doesn't signal me to stop eating.

Mike Keren 39:38 And, my partner's not Jewish, so we do both Hanukkah and Christmas and stuff. So, it's the Christmas cookies. Yeah. And I will start in October buying like the "Good Housekeeping" Christmas cookie issue and "Home and Garden" Christmas cookie edition. By the time I'm ready to start baking, I've got like 50-70 recipes, and I can only bake four or five varieties, right? So it's like, okay, which -- and I buy the ingredients for all of them. That's the bad part, right? Cause I'm only gonna pay four or five of them. Right? So, I've got more different flavorings and types of chips In my pantry. Probably all -- a lot of them -- are out of date at this point. I wanted to think -- there was no way I could ever bake ...

Leah Jones 40:25 Right. What are some of your favorite from years past, of cookies that you've made for Christmas?

Mike Keren 40:32 There's this little log that's got fall spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, and then, it has -- and I'm not a frosted cookie fan -- but this is incredible, it's a brown butter rum frosting. It's a two bite cookie, very easy, because you're basically rolling the snake and, chop chop, chop.

Mike Keren 40:58 But they're delicious. I'll make a double or triple batch because I just love to have those for the holidays. The other -- and I don't make them a lot, because it's really time intensive -- I love rainbow cookies. I'll make my own, but I'll experiment with the jam in them. Most people will use raspberry or apricot, or whatever flavor I can find. People go, "You used the wrong jam!" I'm like, "No, I didn't. I wanted to use something different. Sorry if you're offended, but how often do you get one with banana jam?" Because how often do you see banana jam? I saw it once, and bought a jar, and I've never seen it again. Trying to remember where I found it.

Leah Jones 41:42 I've never heard of banana jam.

Mike Keren 41:42 It's actually good. I made a chocolate thumbprint with that, and then topped with a fudge topping.

Leah Jones 41:51 Oh, that sounds delicious.

Mike Keren 41:52 It was a non-dieter's treat.

Leah Jones 41:58 My sister does the the thumbprint cookie that's essentially peanut butter with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle. It might just be peanut butter and brown sugar, essentially.

Mike Keren 42:10 I'm not allergic to peanuts, but they give me gastric distress. When I was a kid, I vomited after doing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I stay away from --

Leah Jones 42:22 -- not on your list.

Mike Keren 42:23 And it kills my husband, because those are his favorite cookies. I'm, "You can bake them yourself and keep them sealed and another room."

Leah Jones 42:33 It's not part of our agreement.

Mike Keren 42:34 I'ts not part of my repertoire. Any of them that I'll deal with, but peanuts.

Leah Jones 42:50 You said you've gone up to Vermont for Passover. Are you ever in charge of the Passover menu? Oh,

Mike Keren 42:57 Well, we don't go to Vermont, it's usually at my house. I grew up in a family that the Seder consisted of blessing the wine, blessing the matzos, and being forced to say the four questions, and then we ate dinner. Nothing else. So when I took over the Seder a-- as my mom aged and stuff -- I had the biggest house and could fit more people. The nieces and nephews were growing and could participate. So I found a youth-oriented Seder to do with them. You'd wait about an hour before you eat dinner, and then, you have the after part. My mom would set at the table going, "Can't we skip this page? Can't we skip this page?" But I would make all her recipes, and Iwould make a brisket, chicken soup. Actually, I made my own chopped liver and my older brother, the genius, not. He's like, "Wow, this is really good chopped liver, where'd you get it?" I said, "I made it," and he goes, "People can make chopped liver at home?"

Leah Jones 44:02 Yeah, what?

Mike Keren 44:04 Exactly. Then my husband would always go, "You know, your brisket's so much better than your mom's; your soup was better." Yeah, but don't say that. Right? Even if it's true, just don't ever say it. Now when I make my mom's soup recipe, even though I probably don't follow the recipe anymore, I still experience her looking over my shoulder, directing me and stuff like that. It's one of the things I really appreciat.

Leah Jones 44:35 Yeah. That's so lovely.

Mike Keren 44:41 I also have a friend who's a pastry chef, ahe gave me this macaroon recipe and it makes about 1,000. I mean, literally. I had to go out and buy a bigger bowl just to mix it up, and I guess you could cut down ingredients. She always made like fake chocolate chip macaroons. And I'm like, "This is a basic recipe, I can add Nutella to it, I can add chips, I can add this, I could add that. I could dip them in chocolate." So I'll make a variety of them, and they're always a big hit.

Leah Jones 45:19 So, you'll start with her recipe as the base and then -- do you pull out a smaller bowl and do a mix-in and then make a few different varieties from her master?

Mike Keren 45:30 Like with my mom's chicken soup. She'd have all kinds of vegetables in, but she would only use the carrots; the other stuff got thrown away. I started using the other vegetables. Actually, used to use carrots as a thickener; she would push them through a sieve, and use that. I like that, but I started splitting it -- half through the sieve, and the second half would still be carrot chunks. Because I like a chunkier soup.

Mike Keren 46:02 Her brisket, I've tried different ways. In the slow cooker I've done it. She usually did it on top of the stove. I've done it in the oven. In fact, there are a number of people when I go to visit my niece, now she'll make it, she has the recipe. But she'll go, "Uncle Mike, can you bring your brisket with you?" And I'm like, "Okay." Now I'm flying down to North Carolina and doing it, I know they'd love it. Or I'll tell her what to get and I'll make it for --

Leah Jones 46:32 Right -- when you arrive.

Mike Keren 46:36 But it's always grandma's brisket, soup and I try to do that for them. Things like that.

Leah Jones 46:41 That's so nice. We did, because my neighbor upstairs and I do holidays together. So, for Passover this year, we actually wound up doing a pot roast. Just because it was a little bit more manage -- it was just the two of us in person. And pot roast seemed --well, by the time we went shopping, there weren't a lot of briskets left in the two person budget. We went to -- one of the Jewels, one of the grocery stores in Chicago is nicknamed the "Kosher Jewel." Jewel is the brand of grocery store, and it's the one with the kosher butcher in it. Then I go like on Shabbat or on Rosh Hashanah; I go on the day to do my shopping with a little more elbow room. But when you go on like Rosh Hashanah, or the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah to buy your brisket, there's like only massive kosher ones left. So, we wound up doing a pot roast, and that was one where I pulled out "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" to try and get some -- I was like, "What are the key things I need to know about roasting this meat?" I think the most important thing I learned from that cookbook, and from from her, is to bring meat up to room temperature first? Not to put it cold into the oven, but like to let it sit out for a little bit. And that that doesn't have to be scary.

Mike Keren 48:15 My house the scary part of that, is that the dogs might get it. I have a pretty big dog who's a counter surfer. So when I leave it out, I have to put it on top of the refrigerator, or up high enough so he's not gonna get it at it. Because he would smell it, he'd devour it. And he doesn't tolerate meat well, very sensitive stomach. Doesn't stop him from eating anything, but

Leah Jones 48:41 Yeah, my cat Spidey, he's 20, so he's finally -- not finally -- he can't get on the counters anymore. So it's only in the last year that I can even leave a meat on the counter and safely and leave the room, so I understand that challenge for sure. So

Mike Keren 49:00 I used to have a cat and when -- my first, my best kitchen I think ever -- so I equipped it. I'd started using olive oil. It was an ingredient I did not grow up with. I learned to use it and I bought an olive oil pan to keep next to the stove, so I didn't have to keep opening the bottle. And the cat knocked it over. And I had half an inch of olive oil in my kitchen.

Leah Jones 49:25 No --

Mike Keren 49:25 -- and cleaning that up was --

Leah Jones 49:27 -- what a nightmare! --

Mike Keren 49:28 -- was such a project.

Leah Jones 49:32 I once after -- I think it must have been a Seder -- because in my social group, we do holidays together when it's not COVID, I will often have a 25 - 30 person holiday meal, which I love. I think the house takes a deep breath, it expands, it makes room for whoever's coming over. You'll fit, and then the apartment will get smaller when everybody leaves. And I had cooked a big tray, probably of drumsticks, because everybody loves a drumstick, everybody loves a chicken thigh, right?

Leah Jones 50:09 And I was just trying -- and I did like lemon and rosemary and olive oil on a big tray of chicken -- so, what was leftover was olive oil, chicken fat, right in the pan. And all I was trying to do was turn from the stove to the garbage can. And I didn't make it, and I got all that chicken fat and olive oil all over the floor. I was wearing an all-white outfit, and I just went -- like a cartoon-- up in the air, flat on my back, soaked up all the olive oil in my clothes. Then my friend is trying to help me up, but the floor is covered, again, in chicken fat and olive oil. So it was very hilarious getting me off the floor. And I got in the shower with my clothes on. I just went straight to the shower because I was covered in oil. And I was like, "I'll be back, but there's nothing I can do right now, because I am a sponge."

Mike Keren 51:08 I hope the guests waited for you to come back.

Leah Jones 51:10 They did. This was cleaning up after dinner, so at that point, it was just the other people who didn't have kids who had like hung stayed, you know, stuck around.

Mike Keren 51:24 My house in New Jersey? Well, it's now about 115 years old -- when we got it, it was like 85. And we still had a fuse box, and I blew a fuse in the middle of Seder. Gone out; we didn't have any fuses in the house. I was like, "Hold tight. I'm going to run to the store." I had to go to two stores to find fuses, and when I came back, everyone had left.

Leah Jones 51:52 Noooo!

Mike Keren 51:52 It was sort of like at the point where you get into the second part of the Haggadah, the songs and things like that. So they all took their dessert to-go, and when I came back, they were gone. I was like, "I can't believe they did this to me." Ah, one more memorable event. That one and then the one that my husband I had a down and out, drag 'em fight over something. He went upstairs and sulked and didn't join us for the rest of the Seder. Everybody else was like, "Can we eat really fast?"

Leah Jones 52:26 We're feeling the tension of the 10 plagues! We would like to leave now.

Mike Keren 52:30 EXACTLY. I'm surprised that wasn't one of the plagues -- , you know, couple's arguments.

Leah Jones 52:39 I suspect there were some couple arguments in the Exodus.

Mike Keren 52:44 Oh, I bet.

Leah Jones 52:44 Our biggest Christmas mishap -- because I converted to Judaism in my 20s -- so, I've got a lot of good Christmas stories. My grandparents retired to Texas. And my grandfather was a wonderful cook, he made an outstanding gumbo, he was a great cook, and had been a chemist. One winter -- and this is on Texas coast, near Corpus Christi, near Galveston. Humid, hot, humid Texas winter. And, he decided to age the beef on his own that year. And so he left it in the garage, "aging" on top of the freezer. And every time my parents would walk by, they would put the green-tinged beef back in the refrigerator. And every time my grandpa would go outside, he'd put it back on the top of the freezer in the garage. Just letting, it he called it aging, but it was just rotting beef in the garage.

Leah Jones 53:58 And he cooked it and he served it, and we kind of all whispered to each other, "Don't eat the beef; Grandpa has been aging it in the garage. You'll get sick." Maybe you put on your plate, but you didn't eat it. And word got to everyone, but one guest, and it did not go well for her. That was a legendary Christmas in our family, was my parents battle -- like every adult battling my grandpa to try and put the beef back in the refrigerator because you can't age, you don't dry-age beef in a garage in Texas. Too hot.

Mike Keren 54:41 The story reminds me of the old Little Rascals -- the milk went bad, "Don't drink the milk. Why? It's soured." lie. Who needs a - when Grandpa aged it?

Leah Jones 54:50 [laughter] It's fall, are you getting fall weather yet? It looks pretty green behind you still.

Mike Keren 55:10 We still have the leaves on the trees, it's been a little bit cooler. We're still cleaning up a little bit from the hurricane, well, the tropical storm that came here. But we haven't seen 80 in like a week and a half or two weeks. So afternoons are in the 70s, a little bit cooler in the evening. I love this time of year in terms of weather and temperature.

Mike Keren 55:11 What are your what are some of your fall recipes or dishes that are go-tos?

Mike Keren 55:29 I like to use butternut squash, butternut squash lasgna. I won't bring it to your house when you're recuperating. Although, at least it'll be a different lasagna rotting. I'll make soups out of it, carrot soups; I don't cook meat as much anymore, maybe on holidays. I like always to have a quiche around for months. So I'll change what goes in it in the fall. Whatever I can find -- if I go to a farmer's market or something like that. I'm one of those chefs -- I could do one of those farm-to-table restaurants where I'd have the chance to go to a market that has good produce. I'll decide dinner when I'm in the market based on what's available.

Leah Jones 56:48 That's nice.

Mike Keren 56:50 Unfortunately, I don't get to go to the farmer's market as often as I'd like, because by the time I walk the dogs and -- especially in Pennsylvania, where everything's a 45 minute drive to everywhere else -- by the time I get there, it's so picked over. It's not enough for me to want to get up early, sometimes I do. And the other thing I love to mull cider on my stovetop. Get the mulling spices, pre-packaged, usually. Just keep up there for hot cider -- very warming.

Leah Jones 57:30 I usually do have a hot cider option at Rosh Hashanah that people can spike, if they're interested in spiking it. But this year wasn't -- we're still not having people for indoor dinners, yet.

Mike Keren 57:46 I'm from Pennsylvania, we have a screened-in porch. So, until it gets too cool, we serve out there. And that was --

Leah Jones 57:55 -- a lifesaver, I bet.

Mike Keren 57:58 So, once we all got comfortable, had established our pod, we could have dinner on the screened-in porch, or each other's screened-in porches. Although someone in the pod did stuff they didn't tell us about, and gave us all COVID for Christmas, it was the nicest gift I got last year [sarcasm]. Luckily, not a bad case of it, but still scary and incovenient. You were talking about this show where they researched grandma's recipes. I had a friend tell a story about how at his grandmother's funeral, everybody was like, "Oh my god, the recipes," and they were comparing who had which recipe. And he's like, talking to his aunt, and he goes, "Now you have the coleslaw recipe, right?" She goes, "No, I thought you had the recipe." And it's turned out nobody had the coleslaw receipe. And they've never been able to reproduce this. If I was still talking to him, I would tell him about that. So because I don't talk to him anymore, it's a different story.

Leah Jones 59:03 You'll never get his coleslaw recipe. Well, Mike, this has been really such a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Mike Keren 59:10 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Leah Jones 59:14 So, your book; just a couple weeks away. October 5th, it'll be next weekend when this podcast comes out. "Four Funerals, No Marriage: A Memoir" comes into the world -- will it be paperback and digital? What's the publication plan?

Mike Keren 59:32 Paperback and digital. It's actually currently available for pre-sale on Amazon, and all the other platforms where you might buy a book. Because it's out in the catalogs and everything, you could just order it at your local bookstore, if you still have a local bookstore. I'm putting it out there -- if anybody knows a place that somebody can come and read, I'd be happy to do that. I really hope people like it. The publisher's Woodhall Press. If you're, if anybody is interested in that.

Leah Jones 1:00:13 As you've been working up on your PR and your marketing, who is your target audience?

Mike Keren 1:00:21 Everybody -- that's what you're hoping for. Yeah. I think there's a couple of target audiences, the one that a lot of my marketing is targeted -- being a gay man who did caregiving, and that's a really big theme in our community -- that is the gay and lesbian community. But as a PR guy I once talked to, and who would read the book said, "This is the book that you're going to sell to gay people, and then they're going to buy copies of it for the rest of their family." Anybody who is facing caregiving, I think will get a kick out of it, will maybe learn some things about advocating for the patient. And then, other mental health professionals who deal with people who are caregiving. So those are the three targets,

Leah Jones 1:01:20 I imagine that there will be some overlap with -- so, Laurie Kilmartin, is a stand up comic -- she did a book called "Dead People Suck," that was about taking care of her dad at the end of his life. I bought it, she came through town, and I saw her and I bought a copy. And I think my mom still has it. She read it and gave it good reviews. But I think it's really important, especially as -- I'm Gen X, and I think that so many people, especially 40s and 50s are caregiving for their parents while they're raising kids. And caregiving and taking care of our chosen family as people get ill, COVID has really brought home how important it is to have some sort of local network and being able to take care of each other. It's something we're all going to face, which sounds cliche, but I think one of the things that COVID has probably illuminated, is how immediate the need for all of us has to have our network and our plan.

Mike Keren 1:02:48 Being a gay man who actually came out in 1980, learning about that pandemic. I was in college. I do not have any gay friends left from college, they all died. While not good, I stayed safe. I had done the caregiving. Then there's this aspect of when we came out to our families and the reactions that we got, and then when the parents turn to us to take care of them, those feelings get brought up again, in some ways. When I was there with my parents, marriage wasn't legal yet. Thus, the title of the book, "For Funerals, No Marriage." Even though, my partner and I, at that time, my husband now, had been together almost 20 years already, One of the things that I really hope to be able to talk about when I market to mental health professionals, is having those conversations that are really difficult. Your desire for how you want to die, what you want done with your remains, all that sort of stuff. Because I think people remain totally uncomfortable with it. And you know, COVID brought that home to a lot of people. COVID had its own share of caregiving stuff, because caregivers couldn't get in to see their loved ones.

Mike Keren 1:04:18 I was working in a nursing home-based rehab center when the pandemic struck. And spent a year working with post-hospital COVID patients, they've actually taken all the other rehab patients out from the whole facility. Yeah. I was seeing 30-year-olds who had strokes and lost all kinds of functioning. It was really sad and I get really crazy with a lot of the politics around this pandemic. Not sure we can get into that today.

Leah Jones 1:04:50 But do you think we kept it too hidden -- what happened to people? The media talked about the statistics of people who died, but do you think we kept too hidden the stories of people who survived?

Mike Keren 1:05:11 If you go back through my Twitter and my Facebook wall, that's all you'll see. It's not the number of people who died, it's the number of people who are still dealing with it months after having gotten rid of the virus. You have all this, because I think there's gonna be a lot of long-term care issues that come out of this, that we are not prepared for, that we've not done any anticipatory planning for. don't know, you know, in some ways -- sometimes I would leave my job and think, "You know, maybe the ones who died were lucky. Because they don't have to deal with this stuff." Now, that's kind of a worst way to say it. But being a psychologist, I fear brain injury more than anything in the world, so when I would have these patients, I would be, "Please don't let that happen to me."

Mike Keren 1:05:25 I think you're right -- I think if there had been a lot more emphasis on what it was like to be sick, and what the after-results can be, as opposed to how many people would die. Which was a tragedy,not to belittle. But I think people might have gotten more frightened, and been more responsive.

Leah Jones 1:06:32 Because it's part of how the Vietnam War ended was if they put it on TV, and people had to see what was really happening. When it when you're able to keep it at arm's length -- I'm a white privileged person who lives in a city with a high vaccination rate. You know, I had an uncle in his 80s, who died of COVID, but also who had esophageal cancer and prostate cancer and was a widower. And for him, the isolation was killing him. So we went to a diner, and he caught COVID, and a couple weeks later was gone. When they released that one in 500 number, that's such a gross -- in some communities, it was, one in 300, and some communities were so devastated by it, and some through privilege. I'm a knowledge worker, I just stayed home, I just stayed home, stayed alone for a year and a half, and wasn't out in the world. I wasn't a frontline worker, I didn't have to put myself at risk. There's a lot to unpack there for years to come. And a lot of lessons that we didn't internalize or learn from the AIDS epidemic.

Mike Keren 1:08:04 It will be interesting what the literature of COVID is gonna look like. What stories people will choose to record.

Leah Jones 1:08:13 Well, Mike, I'm excited for your book to come out, for people to get their hands on it. And for you to be able to travel, or virtually meet with with groups across the country. What an exciting time

Mike Keren 1:08:17 Thank you. I appreciate it you having me, I appreciate your wish for my success. It really has been fun to sit and chat this afternoon.

Leah Jones 1:08:37 And I'm going to look up "Wall of Chefs." I think that sounds super fun.

Mike Keren 1:08:42 Let me know what you think. And, I'm hoping to come to Chicago. Great. And I made them promise me that we can have dinner at Stephanie Izard's place. Maybe you can join us.

Leah Jones 1:08:54 I would love to.

Mike Keren 1:08:56 And you know, that would be fun.

Leah Jones 1:08:58 Great. Where can people find you online?

Mike Keren 1:09:03 The best place to start is my website. www.mikekeren.com. I'm on Facebook at Mike Keren, author; Twitter @mikekeren4; and Instagram is @mikekeren2021.

Leah Jones 1:09:22 All right. I will link to all of those in the show notes, so that people can can add you in all the places.

Mike Keren 1:09:28 Thank you. I appreciate that.

Announcer 1:09:30 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (Graphic Medicine Book 8)

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Dawn Hogan, also known as DW Hogan, is a Hunstville-based author and publishing her first novel on October 5th. We talk about women's access to healthcare, homes for unwed mothers that were common the United States in the 1950-70s, and her family's love affair with Lego sets.

CW: Leah and Dawn talk about coerced adoption, access to abortion, access to birth control and modern searches for biological parents.

Unbroken Bonds by DW Hogan is available on October 5, 2020, in print and digital.

Follow @DawnHoganAuthor on Instagram and Facebook

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Visit NASA in Huntsville, Alabama
Concerned United Birth Parents
Inside a home for unwed mothers
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe V Wade
The Girls Who Went Away
Birthright Film
LEGO bookshop
LEGO chess set
LEGO Design software
LEGO Friends
LEGO and gendered toys
Debbie Patrick cross-stitch patterns
NANOWRIMO

Transcript follows

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Dawn 0:00 Hi, my name is Dawn Hogan, I'm an author, and my favorite thing is Legos.

Announcer 0:07 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:19 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I am your host, Leah Jones, and this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. This week, we are continuing a fall of meeting with authors and celebrating their book launches. And today, I have Dawn Hogan with me. Dawn's first novel is being released in about a month. So today, you will go and pre-order it, and get ready to receive it in October. Her book is called "Unbroken Bonds," and it traces the life-long consequences of the naive indiscretions which thrust countless young women into ruined lives, the effects of which are still felt today. And it is about the stories of adoption, we will talk more about as we get into it. Dawn, how are you doing tonight?

Dawn 1:14 I'm doing wonderful. How are you, Leah?

Leah Jones 1:16 I'm good. I'm so happy to be talking to you.

Dawn 1:18 Me, too.

Leah Jones 1:20 Now, we're really gonna get into the book at the end. But do you want to fix -- I was reading part of the synopsis off your website, is there anything you'd like to on one foot -- a quick explanation of the book?

Dawn 1:33 It's about four teenage girls that meet in a home for unwed mothers in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1957. And through that experience, they bond into a life-long friendship, which, during that time, they're keeping the secrets of how they know each other, because it was a really shameful thing. As their lives go along, and attitudes change, and times change, and it's not such a shameful thing to be an unwed mother. And eventually, something bad happens, and they have to decide if they're going to keep their secrets or look for the children they were forced to give away.

Leah Jones 2:32 That sounds like a really, I'm excited to to get my hands on it this fall.

Dawn 2:38 Well, it's so much about female friendship, as well. Which, women know that those close female friendships are the best; they are your support group. So it's a lot about female friendship as well.

Leah Jones 3:01 Oh, outstanding. Outstanding. Now, Dawn before I hit record, you said you were a Chicago girl; that you grew up here before you moved. Where in the Chicagoland area did you grow up?

Dawn 3:17 I was born in Chicago, and then when I was about six, my parents moved out to Streamwood. Then when I was 14, we moved back into the city into the Old Irving Park area. So, I went to Schurz high school -- graduated from Schurz. It was pretty cool, being a teenager growing up in the city, because we could get on a bus or train and go anywhere we wanted. Of course, Cub games were a lot cheaper, back then.

Leah Jones 3:57 You could you go without spending your entire year's allowance on one seat.

Dawn 4:03 But, Water Tower Place to go to the movies or Marshall Field's. After I graduated from high school, I got a job at a law firm downtown. So, that was riding the train in my gym shoes, and then putting my heels on when I got to work.

Leah Jones 4:26 Very, very Melanie Griffith "Working Girl."

Dawn 4:30 Well, I was a clerk in a law firm, but that was pretty exciting. I moved away from there when I was about 19, and I haven't lived there since.

Leah Jones 4:46 We lost you!!

Dawn 4:49 Now I'm down in Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama. I've been here since 1987, so I've lived here longer than anywhere I've ever lived.

Leah Jones 5:04 Is Huntsville where Auburn is?

Dawn 5:07 No. Huntsville is the Rocket City. It's where on was. This is Silicon Valley of the South. So, we've got Boeing. We've got NASA. We've got huge tech companies. It has now just reached the biggest city, population wise, in Alabama, this year. So, a lot of good things.

Leah Jones 5:41 What's it like being in a city that's starting to boom, or that's growing like that?

Dawn 5:47 Like I said, I've been here for 30-something years. And it always kind of had a small town feel to it; traffic is a lot worse, but I try not to be out during rush hour, or whatever. And housing prices have gone through the roof. Which is nice for us, when you have a home that you own. It's hard to say, because we've all been in lockdown.

Leah Jones 6:20 Right.

Dawn 6:22 I mean, we've grown during this time, which is phenomenal. But we really haven't been out that much.

Leah Jones 6:32 It is a weird feeling to emerge. I emerge from my apartment sometimes, and I'm like, "Oh, that's new. That's gone." That's a lot of taking stock on what has happened.

Dawn 6:47 Exactly, exactly. And, you know, some of our old mom and pop restaurants didn't make it through. Where we used to love to go on Sunday mornings for breakfast, was just a little mom and pop place. And they didn't make it, and that's so sad. But then, there's new restaurants that have come out during the pandemic, and they seem to be doing well.

Leah Jones 7:14 What are what are some of your favorite places to either get a meal or go out for an evening in Huntsville?

Dawn 7:22 We used to like to go to the movies. Of course, we haven't been to the movies now. Yeah, we've got some good restaurants here. There's a little Mexican place around the corner, El Herredura, and it is privately owned, it's not a chain. Service is good, food is fantastic, margaritas out of this world.

Leah Jones 7:47 Which helps when it's around the corner.

Dawn 7:49 Exactly -- you don't have to go that far!

Leah Jones 7:53 Maybe ... you can walk there.

Dawn 7:56 They started out in one little storefront, and went to -- expanded really quick. And they play music on Friday nights, they have either keyboard or a little band playing, so that's always fun. Barbecue, we've got some good barbecue.

Leah Jones 8:17 Oh, I bet. Does Alabama have its own style? Because I know there's like North Carolina barbecue, there's West Texas barbecue. Does Alabama have a style, or do you guys just enjoy the best of the region?

Dawn 8:31 I think that it's just a Southern barbecue; I think it's probably more of a Memphis barbecue that is down here.

Leah Jones 8:48 Nice. We had for dinner last week, we got -- there's a new, it's called ATX Tacos, so it's Austin tacos, a few blocks away from my apartment -- got some brisket from there last week, and it was so good. Just to have some smoked brisket that somebody else spent hours tending.

Dawn 9:15 Well, our favorite date, my husband and I, during the pandemic, was Saturday mornings going to the farmer's market. That was that was our big date for the week.

Leah Jones 9:32 A romantic morning shopping for fruits and veg.

Dawn 9:36 Well and I absolutely blew his mind one day and just to make the day more fun, we went through the car wash.

Leah Jones 9:44 [laughter] Dawn, you know how to plan a special morning.

Dawn 9:52 I'm telling you, it was a killer date. What can I say?

Leah Jones 9:57 So, how did you and your husband meet?

Dawn 9:59 When I moved down to Huntsville, I was divorced like a year later. He and I met at the same company that we worked at. I was the receptionist, and he was an engineer. He came down for -- I mean, we knew each other. In fact, on Friday nights, a group of us would go out to wherever happy hour was, and there was a band. And we'd gone out several times. But, one day, he came down to meet a customer and he was in a suit.

Leah Jones 10:39 Uh-oh. That was it.

Dawn 10:41 Yep. That was that. So I told him how good he looked in a suit, he said, "We should have lunch one day." And I'm like, "Okay." So, about a week later, when he hadn't asked me out to lunch, I picked up the phone and I said, "Did you want lunch to be totally your idea, or did you want me to remind you, that you said we should have lunch?" [laughter] After that, that was it. And, we've been married 30 years.

Leah Jones 11:10 Oh, congratulations.

Dawn 11:12 Thank you.

Leah Jones 11:14 And I think I saw on your website that for a while, the two of you owned a photography business together?

Dawn 11:20 Yes. We were creative photography, and we shot over 400 weddings together as a husband and wife team.

Leah Jones 11:31 That's a lot of weddings.

Dawn 11:33 Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We shot Hassleblads, medium format, and Nikon. So, we always backed each other up, and it was really fun to do that as a husband and wife team. And it meant a lot to a lot of the brides and grooms that the people that were supporting them--

Leah Jones 11:58 -- had a successful marriage of their own --

Dawn 12:01 -- were husband and wife team, and it was so much more than photography. We would show up and I'd walk into the bride's room and they'd go, "Oh, thank God, you're here. My mother is driving me crazy. The bridesmaids need something to do, and out of my way. We're missing a boutonniere. What are we gonna do?" Well, we're gonna pull a flower out of one of the bridesmaid's bouquets, and we're gonna make a boutonniere. It was so much more than that. And then later, a lot of times, I would go up to the hospital and take their first baby pictures, and then photograph their families, as they -- so, yeah, it was a really neat experience.

Leah Jones 13:00 It's like you get to -- through being a part of their wedding, you become like a surrogate aunt and uncle to the family.

Dawn 13:07 Right. The aunt that takes pictures. It was a lot of fun doing that. It came to the place where digital came in, and everybody with a digital camera thought they were a photographer, right? And it got to the point where people were coming in and going, "Oh, why is your stuff so expensive?" We've done this for 15 years, we know what we're doing, you have a reputation.

Dawn 13:49 At that point, my husband got a job. I managed the studio, and he was an engineer. So, we would work together on the weekends, but I did all the studio work. So he got a job where he was, as he puts it, he went from engineering to sales, and he went to the dark side. So, he had to travel a lot, and it just got to the place where it was not feasible anymore to try to do that. And, when you're not having fun anymore ...

Leah Jones 14:31 Time to move on.

Dawn 14:32 Right. He'd come home and I'm like, "We've got a rehearsal dinner tomorrow night". And he's like "[sigh]." I was like, "Okay, it's time to let it go." And then I got to concentrate on what I really love doing, and that was writing.

Leah Jones 15:01 How long did you work on this book from first idea to maybe to finding -- to getting to your agent.

Dawn 15:16 That book was a long time in coming. It was the second book I wrote, and I put it out there, and I got a drawer full of "Thank you very much, but it's not what we're looking for at this time." And, I put it away. It wasn't until two years ago that I pulled it back out at a writer's retreat. Then I was asked to be in a competition. So, we're talking about -- it was over 10 years.

Leah Jones 15:59 Now I told you, "We'll talk about the book at the end." Apparently, I was lying. We'll talk about it again at the end, how about that? Do you feel like because it is about adoption and sealed adoptions, do you think that 23andme, and ancestry.com has changed people's appetite for talking about these types of family secrets?

Dawn 16:29 Absolutely. The way this book started, was my roommate, when I was divorced, a very good close friend of mine, came to me with her unsealed adoption records from the state of Tennessee. I'm such a geek. I just love research. So, she asked me if I would help her locate her birth mother. And the more I dug into her story, her mother had gone to a home for unwed mothers in Nashville. And the more I dug into it, the more fascinated I was. And then the more appalled I was, because when you're talking about the 1950s, the attitude was so different about unwed mothers.

Dawn 17:32 That was the worst thing a girl could do, was to get pregnant as a teenager or unwed. And it was secret, they would shuttle them off to these homes for unwed mothers, and take away their names. I mean, they changed their names when they went into that home, so that they would have anonymity when they got out. They pressured the girls to put the babies up for adoption, because if they truly cared about their child, they would give it a better life and not subject it to poverty and being called a bastard. The times were so different. I'd heard of homes for unwed mothers, but, I had no clue how bad it actually was. And when I heard the numbers, between 1950 and 1980, 1.5 million girls went through those homes.

Leah Jones 18:42 What? 1.5 million? That is truly shocking to me.

Dawn 18:50 And the majority of them gave the babies up for adoption, and were pressured to do so. Now, I've been in contact with Concerned United Birthparents and Adoptees Connect, and a lot of these different groups. The numbers go as high as 4 million. When you start about gray market and black market babies during that time, the numbers go as high as 4 million. That's a lot of people.

Leah Jones 19:24 Wow. So it's a lot, yeah.

Dawn 19:27 And 19 states right now, still have their adoption records sealed. People, like you said, people are getting around it with 23andMe, and finding their birth parents or birth families, but when I was researching all this, I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to write a book. I've got to take these stories and put them in a fictional format, because that will reach a wide number of people. If it's fiction, I think it will reach more people."

Dawn 20:20 And I took -- I read everything I could get my hands on. Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up little Susie," and [Ann] Fessler's "Girls That Went Away." I was on the internet researching all these different stories from these women. I really did my research, and I wanted my characters to reflect the experiences of these girls and what these homes were like, and, the aftermath.

Leah Jones 20:54 Cause you're just supposed to go back home and just have been away for a year.

Dawn 21:01 I mean, they told them, "You go home and act like nothing ever happened."

Leah Jones 21:06 Just suppress it.

Dawn 21:07 They didn't have counseling.

Leah Jones 21:08 Of course not, no.

Dawn 21:11 The aftermath of that was so many girls got into abusive relationships, because they didn't think they deserved anything better. Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, suicide. Just always feeling like there was something wrong with you. And always afraid that that secret was gonna catch up with them. That's why I wrote the book. I did find my friend's mother, within about a week. I actually found her sister, and talked to her sister, gave her all the information, and she didn't want anything to do with her. So, that was sad. And I think part of writing the book, I used her mother's story, and I changed the narrative.

Leah Jones 22:19 You gave your friend the outcome she wanted. You were like a fairy godmother.

Dawn 22:27 Well, in fiction, I made her a much more caring individual. It's been an interesting ride, especially with everything that's going on. You look at the 1950s and 60s and women didn't have any kind of rights as far as their own bodies went. Birth control was only given to women if you were married. Up until really the 70s, birth control was not accessible if you were a single woman. And, we're facing a lot of weird things, right now.

Dawn 23:16 I just think that we need to remember a time when women were put in a position where they didn't have power over their own bodies, over their own reproduction. And we don't ever want to get to the place where birth control -- and I'm just talking actual, you know, I'm not talking abortion -- I'm talking birth control is hard for women to get right. And it seems like we're kind of spiraling that way right now. It's scary to me.

Leah Jones 23:52 Yeah. It is scary. I saw a movie, maybe three years ago now, it was called "Birthright." And it was a film about women's access to health care. Part of it was about access to abortion, but part of it was about what happens when your county in the adjacent counties only have Catholic health care? And when you can't get a tubal ligation, you can't access the birth control you want, because all of the whole health care system is tied up with the Catholic Church, even if you're not somebody who is Catholic.

Leah Jones 24:39 And that to me, was really eye-opening. Because I live in Chicago, and I happen to have had my hysterectomy at a Catholic church -- at a Catholic hospital. But my doctor did all the paperwork she needed to do to prove that as a single, childless woman, it was still medically necessary. And she protected me from any pushback she might have gotten from that hospital's administration. But that was coming from a place of incredible privilege, with good health insurance, right?

Dawn 25:11 Exactly. If you look at, say, rural, or underserved communities, you take away Planned Parenthood? They do so much more.

Leah Jones 25:28 They do so much.

Dawn 25:30 We're talking cancer screenings, health care, birth control pills, whatever device. prenatal. There is so much that they do that is being rejected, and just blanketed by this one issue. Which, I have four grown children. I've never had an abortion. I've never needed one. But I would not ever take the right away from some other woman who feels that is her option. Or what I say to the pro-life people -- they're not entitled to their opinion. And bravo that you have strong beliefs, but if that's how you feel, don't have an abortion. Don't allow your daughter to have an abortion. But don't tell somebody else what they should do. All right, that's my soapbox.

Leah Jones 26:51 It's an outstanding soapbox. I'm glad that you got on it.

Dawn 26:57 I feel right now, that we don't need to go backwards. There will still be abortions, but they will be back-alley, they will be dangerous, and women will die.

Leah Jones 27:13 I think that there have been -- we just have such short memories for all sorts of things in this country. I think even a lot of women my age, I'm 44. So I've always been in a post-Roe world. So I've always known that it was --

Dawn 27:38 taken for granted!

Leah Jones 27:39 -- taken for granted. The more and more access to health care that people lose. Because women and people that can't have, can't afford -- can't, for whatever reason -- that pregnancy is not part of their life plan. They will do what they can, or more women will be coerced into staying pregnant, giving the baby up for adoption, and what you saw in your research for the book will pick up. Of young women being coerced into keeping a pregnancy, and then giving birth,and still having their life go off-track a bit. You know, it's, it's a really --

Dawn 28:33 -- and I think part of the issue at this point is, you know, I was born in 1960. Even when I was in high school, there were girls that were pregnant that were in the school, and it became more and more accepted. Now, I'm 60 years old, and I am in the place where I don't remember when I didn't have access to birth control, where I didn't have options. It hasn't been in my adult life, that we were in the situation of the 1950s and 60s. And the people coming up and young women today, do not realize the severity of what it was like, and what it can be, because the homes for unwed mothers were so secretive.

Dawn 29:43 The things that happened, there are women that have gone to their graves with the secret. Young women today don't realize there was a stigma involved with all this. They don't remember a time they were denied the right to choose what they do with their own reproductive health. So, I don't want young women today to be blase about it. I want them to be educated. I want them to fight for their rights. So we don't go back to a time when women's rights are decided, arbitrarily, by somebody who doesn't have a uterus, thank you.

Leah Jones 30:40 It's something -- and we also need to teach our young men, that this impacts them, too. That it's not something you walk away from, that it's also their responsibility. And their and their lives are impacted, too.

Dawn 31:01 Speaking of someone who has some boys, you know, we drilled it into them. You know, "You think you love this girl? Oh, my gosh, there's a real fine line between love and hate if she turns up pregnant. And you have to step up, that's a life-changing event for not being responsible". So far, so good, knock on wood. But, I think they get it. I mean, the boys have been around me enough to hear me spouting about it.

Leah Jones 31:48 I'm sure they're like, ?Mom, mom, we know, we know. We get it .. all of our friends get it."

Dawn 31:56 Well, let's hope so. I mean, you have to look at -- in the last 20 years, the rate of teenage pregnancy has gone down.

Leah Jones 32:06 Yeah, it's really plummeted.

Dawn 32:09 And, this is a very positive thing. We don't want to have to see teenage girls having back-alley abortions, because they weren't ready to be mothers, and it was an "oops."

Leah Jones 32:27 In my family we have -- so like three or four years ago, we met a half sister through 23andMe, who my dad didn't know about, she was 52 when we found her, and it has been such a blessing to have her in our life. It's really been a remarkable positive, like the best possible outcome, I think, of one of these 23andMe stories has been what has happened to our family. But we did uncover other stories in our family that -- you know, I have a great aunt who took some stuff to her grave. That as things turned up in the genetic reports that didn't match our paper understanding of the family, she was like, "Welp, we're done talking about that."

Leah Jones 33:23 But I think as people have some of those conversations with their extended family, because every family is got secrets turning up somewhere, I do think that helps people understand. Hopefully, they can learn from their families, and looking at the generations that came before them, to understand what the what the stigma was like. To learn that a beloved aunt would hold a story to her grave.

Dawn 33:53 Right. And I think that, and I hope -- that my book does open up some conversations. Because I was in a clinical setting -- I mean, I've gone there for years and years -- and this lady and I have always exchanged books with each other, always talking about our favorite one we're reading now, and this and that. She knew I was a writer, and I told her, "I've got a contract, I'm publishing this book," and I told her what it was about; I've known her for years. She looked me dead in the eyes, and she said, " Iwent away to home for unwed mothers when I was 15, in Nashville. I've never told anyone."

Leah Jones 34:51 Wow.

Dawn 34:53 When she said that, it was like, "Oh, my God." It gave her the freedom to finally say, "That happened to me."

Leah Jones 35:03 It must have just been a weight lifted, to be able to share that secret.

Dawn 35:09 Well, and since then she's told me some of her experiences. And I was kind of in the last edit of the book, and I put some of the things that she told me.

Leah Jones 35:22 She added some some color.

Dawn 35:24 I added some personal things that she went through into the book. Because at that point, I felt I owed it to her. I mean, she told me this, and she'd never told anyone. I mean, she went home, and her parents never spoke to her about it.

Leah Jones 35:54 So it's like she was abducted by an alien ship for a year. "Oh, you're back. Wonderful to see you. Tommy was in the school play!"

Dawn 36:04 She said, it wasn't until like five years ago -- her mother already passed away -- that her dad actually brought it up and said, "Do you regret giving the baby up?" And she said, "No, I didn't have a choice." I just, I can't imagine going through that, and coming home to my parents, and them never saying a word about it.

Leah Jones 36:37 Right. Because your parents are the people who know what it is to have brought life into the world, and raise someone, and they're the people that know what you have given up.

Dawn 36:50 They should be your soft place to land. To be able to, to cry with them and say, "Oh, my gosh, I gave birth to this child, and I'm never going to see it again." I mean, I can't, I can't even imagine.

Leah Jones 37:09 Well, Dawn, I'm intrigued. I'm sure our listeners are as well. "Unbroken Bonds" -- October 19th Is your publishing date, right?

Dawn 37:09 No, it's October 5th.

Leah Jones 37:11 October 5th! Even better.

Dawn 37:13 October 5th, it comes out. It's on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. And they have Kindle versions as well, for those that like it on their tablet. I think people will really like it for -- the title "Unbroken Bonds," talks about the friendship of these four girls. But, it also talks about the bond of the children that they gave away. That even though they weren't there, they were in their thoughts all the time. And the children always wondered, as well. There's a bond that isn't broken.

Leah Jones 38:21 Well, Dawn, we're also here to talk about your favorite things! It is so clear to me that writing and research and telling stories is one of your favorites. But you also have, over your shoulder, bookshelves that are filled with a cityscape that are all made out of Lego.

Dawn 38:45 Legos. I am a Lego maniac. There is no doubt about it. When my kids were little, we bought Legos for Christmas. There was always a new set coming out. And of course, when they were little, mom had to help them because they're six, and it's a nine and above kit. So, we would work with the Legos together. We were always buying more and more Legos. When my husband got the job where he was traveling a lot, it was like, "All right, Dad's not going to be home this weekend; we're going to have a Lego weekend."

Leah Jones 39:37 Ooooh.

Dawn 39:37 So that meant we set up a big table in the living room, we'd get out all the Legos. We'd build a farm, we'd build a castle, we'd build an empire. Some of these things had elevators ... We'd eat pizza, and we didn't worry about the Legos on the floor, We would just have total Lego weekends. When they came out with these exclusive sets, that was what I wanted for Mother's Day. So, for Mother's Day, I would get one of these, and we would sit down as a family and we'd build Mom's new Lego set. Now these, do not go into the bins. Legos once they are built, they're built. Don't touch.

Leah Jones 40:39 No harvesting.

Dawn 40:41 Nope. Nope. No pieces off of these, these are Mom's. So for years, we've done that where it's been Mother's Day, it's Legos. It was so funny that the year that I got my publishing contract, they came out with a bookstore.

Leah Jones 41:07 Awwww ...

Dawn 41:11 So, I got that one for my birthday!

Leah Jones 41:13 Good. They knew the assignment.

Dawn 41:17 Now when my first granddaughter was born, my daughter lived up in Wisconsin at the time, and I went up there threw her a baby shower. And I made sure that in her bassinette, there was a little Lego kit. So, she was born with Legos in her bassinette. And she is my Lego granddaughter. She and I -- I have a bench here in my office that's kind of a window seat. And right now, it's got a countertop on it, cause they were here in July, and Grammy brings down her Legos, and we just make a big mess and we play --Legos.

Leah Jones 42:08 Oh, that's so fun.

Dawn 42:09 -- while they're here. And it was so funny -- my husband and I had the chance to go to Germany -- it was probably 2006. And we were walking down this thing of shops, and there was a Lego shop, a Lego store. And that was the first one we've ever been in, and my son, Andrew, had wanted the Lego chess set.

Leah Jones 42:15 Ooh, I've never seen that.

Leah Jones 42:20 Yeah, there's the Lego Chess set. And you couldn't get it in the United States. So, we went into this German shop, they did not understand what we were saying. I was like "Chess, king, queen, checkmate." "Oh, checkmate! Okay, Lego set, chess set!" They brought it out, you never saw two Americans go so nuts in a German shop in your life. [laughter] But, we found this Lego set for him in Germany, and brought it home.

Dawn 42:20 Ohhh, you won the souvenir game that trip.

Dawn 43:20 Yeah, we did. He's like, "I can't believe you found it!!" Yeah. I just think they're the best toy ever made. Because you can make anything.

Leah Jones 43:37 Well, and especially with your creative -- I mean, you're a writer, but also with the photography, such a visual eye, your husband's an engineer. Those are two skill sets that I mean, what I love about Lego is other than -- the tactile experience is perfect --the generic Legos, the off-brand Legos are not --

Dawn 44:04 -- No, you don't mix them. Don't mix them.

Leah Jones 44:09 But they're really whatever you can imagine in your head, your only limitation is the number of bricks in the Tupperware, right? In the Rubbermaid bin?

Dawn 44:18 Exactly. Well, not only that, but there is a thing online called "Lego Designer" that you can download.

Leah Jones 44:32 Do you design what you want to make online, and then you export the directions?

Dawn 44:39 You actually can do a thing with directions and send it to Lego, and they will send you the bricks. The one I've got is not connected online, but you can take all the different blocks, change the colors, as far as what you want them to be. My thing is I love building Victorian houses with them. And using the hinges where you can open it up --

Leah Jones 45:09 Ooooh.

Dawn 45:09 -- and see inside, and all that. And, the great thing about doing it online, is you're not going to step on them in the middle of the night.

Leah Jones 45:21 [laughter] How do you have any nightmares from stepping on the bricks when the kids were little?

Dawn 45:32 Yeah, but it was usually my fault. I encouraged the whole Lego thing. My husband, on the other hand, was not that happy when he would step on 'em. But they're the best creative kind of thing as far as -- if you dream it, you can build it. I'm just that kind of a person. I'm totally right-brained, completely right-brained. If I do a project, or if I can see it in my mind, I can make it. And my engineer husband, I'll tell him, "Well, honey, you know, this is what I'm saying." And I'll try to explain it, and he's like, "I can't see it." I'm like, "But, you don't get it. I can see it. I can see it, in my mind. So, just trust me."

Leah Jones 46:37 It's gonna get there.

Leah Jones 46:38 Yeah. He's like, "Okay, I trust you, go." I am completely right-brained. And that's probably why I love Lego so much.

Leah Jones 46:51 So, behind you, it is all buildings, right?

Dawn 46:55 Yes. It's like a --

Leah Jones 46:56 -- like a village -- like a main street?

Dawn 47:01 Yeah, I've got a movie theater, I've got an Emporium, I've got a pet shop. And there's two townhouses that went with the pet shop and the bookstore. Oh, and I have a fire house.

Leah Jones 47:20 Oooh -- that's the red one on the -- over here?

Dawn 47:26 And, the garage door opens up in this little fire engine, it's so cute. Now, I don't have all of them. But if you notice, I could take a board, and put across there, and I could do at least five more. I told my husband that.

Leah Jones 47:47 What did he say?

Dawn 47:49 It's like, "Do you know how much money is sitting on those shelves right now?" I'm like, "Yeah, so?"

Leah Jones 47:58 There are so few people out there who, even three months later, can put their hands on their Mother's Day gifts. You know where yours are!

Dawn 48:11 I do. Woe to anyone who takes a piece off of there. You know, my kids love Legos. And as they've grown up and moved out, they understand that the Legos don't leave the house.

Leah Jones 48:28 They're welcome to start their own collections.

Dawn 48:31 Well, they're welcome to bring their children over here and play.

Leah Jones 48:34 Oh, even better.

Dawn 48:37 Legos stay here for the grandkids. I love my my granddaughters -- "You're my Lego Grammy". "Yeah, you're my Lego granddaughter."

Leah Jones 48:51 That's so sweet. How old is she?

Dawn 48:53 She's eight -- she'll be eight.

Leah Jones 48:55 Such a fun age.

Dawn 48:58 She's gotten to the place where she's really good at being able to follow directions and put it together herself. So, she's at that age where she's finally being able to get a kit. Like, "No, don't touch. I can do it." It's fun to watch her as she's developed because I bought her her own Lego sets. They have the Lego Friends now. And the people are kind of bigger. They're not your standard, squat, little, square Lego guys. It's more designed for girls. I think in the beginning, Legos were generic, and then they started being more for boys. And then they figured out really quick, "Oh, wait! Oh, girls like Legos, too!" So they started incorporating like Lego friends and stuff. And she really likes the Lego Friends. So she's got several kits of those. But yeah, I'm a total Lego geek.

Leah Jones 50:17 What are the what are some buildings or kits that you have on your wish list?

Dawn 50:23 Oooh, there's more Lego exclusives that I haven't gotten, I'm not sure. They've come out with a new police station, I think. And there's other ones that were from the past that if I'm not careful, I won't be able to get. They get too hard to find, and then you can't find them. But I do want to get -- I can't find it -- is the Legos from Big Bang Theory.

Leah Jones 50:54 Oh, of like their apartments?

Dawn 50:56 Yeah, it's Sheldon and Leonard's apartment. And I love Big Bang Theory. Just great writing, so funny. And because I've lived with an engineer, and actually worked in that kind of environment, it's so true, and so funny. And they have a kit for Big Bang, but I haven't been able to find it. And they just came out with with one from Seinfeld.

Leah Jones 51:34 That's smart. The licensing agreements with the networks is, it's smart.

Dawn 51:41 Well, and athey have them for what is -- kids like, that cube game?

Leah Jones 51:48 Minecraft.

Dawn 51:49 Minecraft. They have Minecraft, they've got Harry Potter, Batman. So many of the franchise stuff they brought in to catch the kids, with different movies or whatever that they like. I like the town stuff, cause most of it is kind of the Victorian feel.

Leah Jones 52:22 I guess a Lego kit is is more manageable -- and you can always like have it, pick it up and move it, or keep it in a room without cats, there are some options there.

Dawn 52:36 Well, they're divided usually. And when you're building something, they're divided in compartments of a box where you kind of have them separated out. So yeah, they're movable. What I got into during COVID -- my daughter moved from Wisconsin, down to Indiana. I'm so glad, because it's so much closer. They bought a place and re-did the kitchen. Just ripped it out and re-did the kitchen, and she wanted to do it with sunflowers in her kitchen. So, I did her a counted cross-stitch in sunflowers. Now I hadn't done counted cross-stitch in years. And I remembered why.

Leah Jones 53:24 But you stuck it out.

Dawn 53:26 The thing was, I found that 3x magnification reading glasses and large-eyed needles made this a much funner experience. Cause I had done them years ago, and then I got on doing counted cross-stitch of Victorian houses. And those, I'm not giving away. I went online and found these on Etsy. I don't know if you can see that. So, I started doing them for myself, it's like, you can't go anywhere, so...

Leah Jones 54:21 Oh, that's beautiful.

Dawn 54:21 It's a Debbie Patrick, is the gal who has done the patterns? On eBay. And they're just dimensional, they're so cool.

Leah Jones 54:31 Oh, my goodness, I love that one. So it's a blue house, it's like three stories tall with a witch's -- a widow's peak? A witch's peak?

Dawn 54:40 Yeah, it's in San Francisco. She's taken actual homes and done these patterns of these Victorian houses. I 'd love to have a Victorian house, but they're so expensive and upkeep's ridiculous.

Leah Jones 54:54 The upkeep is intense.

Dawn 54:56 So, I just make my house look like a Victorian house with gingerbread on the front. Keep it simple. I loved doing that kind of stuff during the pandemic, because I'm editing this book, I'm working on getting it out, and when I need to just chill and get away from that for a while, I need something else that my brain can think about.

Leah Jones 55:26 Yeah. And it's -- between the counted cross-stitch and the Legos, it's two hobbies that are not about the screen. You're doing them with their hands, they're very physical, they're tactile. Although I guess maybe your pattern might be on the screen, but it helps, I imagine.

Dawn 55:48 With Etsy, you just print them off, and tape them together, and then go to Hobby Lobby and get your thread in the colors that she recommended. Yeah, I mean, it's just, again, it's kind of little blocks.

Leah Jones 56:08 I'm seeing a theme. So Dawn, your book, "Unbroken Bonds" comes out on October 5th. It'll be listed under D.W. Hogan, which is your book name. It'll be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, print, digital. Any plans of an audio book?

Dawn 56:32 I don't know, I'll have to talk to my publisher about that. We'll see how that goes; I hope so. I think that it's a really touching read about the relationships in one's life. And some not so good, and some very good. And I'm fortunate enough that I'm going to have an in-person book launch.

Leah Jones 57:04 That's so exciting. That's the October 19th I had in my head.

Dawn 57:08 October 19th is my book launch. And I'm doing it at the historical Lowry house here in Huntsville. It's an 1832 house. And I'm doing it with a local bookstore called Snail on the Wall. We're gonna make it nice, we'll have some book readings, we'll do book signings, we'll have '50s music playing, and hors d'oeuvres and sparkling cider. Just make it fun, big celebration.

Leah Jones 57:46 The big celebration that you deserve at the end of -- 17 year career of writing, getting this first one out in the in the world is -- it's such an accomplishment, it truly is.

Dawn 58:01 It really feels big. And the exciting thing is, I got lots more books.

Leah Jones 58:08 Great.

Dawn 58:09 This is the first one, and I don't intend on stopping anytime soon. I love to write, and I for years I did NaNoWriMo. You know what that is --

Leah Jones 58:22 Yes! The National November --

Dawn 58:25 -- Novel Writing Month. Yes. And, the premise is that you write 50,000 words from November 1st until the end of the month. The whole idea is if you do something for 30 days consistently, it makes a habit. It shows you you can do it, and I've done it for years. I've told my family, even when they were younger, "Okay, it's November, I'm writing. There's stuff in the refrigerator, work it out. Unless the house is on fire, or there's copious amounts of blood, leave me alone, I'm writing."

Leah Jones 59:07 "I'll see you on Thanksgiving, but otherwise, I'm writing."

Dawn 59:13 I trained them well, so now that it's come to, "Oh, gosh, Mom's a published author!"' Now, they understand all the times that I'm going, "I'm writing, go away!"

Leah Jones 59:25 Fantastic. The in-person book launch, October 19th, at the historic Lowry house in Huntsville, Alabama. People can see you there, they can find you DWhogan.com. You've got DW Hogan, author, on Facebook, and Dawn Hogan, author, on Instagram as well.

Dawn 59:47 Thank you so much.

Leah Jones 59:48 You're welcome. Thank, you.

Dawn 59:51 Well, this has been fun.

Leah Jones 59:52 This was super fun.

Announcer 59:53 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe, and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now, go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade

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Lee Matthew Goldberg, a New York-based author, is ready to pack his bags and leave the country as soon as it's safe. Lee is a prolific author and his eight book Stalker Stalked will be published on Friday, September 17th. Lee hopes to celebrate publication and finishing his draft of the third book in his YA trilogy with travel, travel and more travel. We talk about early trips abroad, travel itineraries and post-COVID travel dreams.

SPOILER ALERT: We talk about White Lotus in depth and spoil everything about it.

In Stalker Stalked, Lexi Mazur is a depressed, alcoholic, pill-popper whose only joy has become her reality TV shows, often fantasizing that the people on TV are a part of her world. After her boyfriend Steve leaves her, she fixates on the show Socialites and its star Magnolia Artois, following every facet of the girl’s life on social media in the hopes of befriending and becoming more like her.

Keep up with Lee Matthew Goldberg online on his website, Twitter and Instagram.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Pass Over Play
Find Lee's books on Bookshop
Aviva Drescher throws her leg
Barge Lady Cruises
20x2 Chicago
Heathers
The Voyeurs
Michael Mohan
We Summon the Darkness
TPAN Ride for Life
St. Baldrick's
Applied Asthetics

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Jen Michalski, a California-based author, joins us this week to talk about abandoned sanitoriums and state hospitals that can be found east of the Mississippi. Jen has a new novel out through NineStar Press called You'll Be Fine available on Kindle and paperback.

Keep up with Jen online

@MichalskiJen on Twitter and editor of the JMWW weekly digital journal

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Dzanc Books
St. Mary's College (land acknowledgement and slavery history)
Rosewood Center drone tour
Rosewood Center's scandal (adoption to slavery)
WBEZ story about Chicago's Tuberculosis sanitorium
Atlas Obscura Chicago's TB Sanitorium
Kirkbride planned institutions
The Institute (movie)
Danvers State Hospital
Session 9 (movie)
Danvers in pop culture
Housing First public policy Ted Med talk
San Jose abandoned asylum
Funko Hollywood

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Greg Lindberg, co-host of Fresh Questions, Air, shares a Hoosier pride with Leah and loves the ABC TGIF anchor show - Full House. Not to be confused with the reboot, Fuller House. We talk about how Bob Saget got the role of Danny Tanner, the confusing layout of the San Francisco painted lady the family called home, and about working as a corn detassler.

Follow @EmCeeGreg on Twitter

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Show Notes

Indiana Beach
Margo and the Nuclear So & So's
Kurt Vonnegut Library
James Dean and Jim Davis
Full House
Fuller House
The Secret Admirer
The first Danny Tanner
How did Bob Saget get Full House

Leah's breast cancer stuff is on Caring Bridge.

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Kevin Smokler, a San Francisco-based author and filmmaker, loves used vinyl and is here to walk us through how to create a music curriculum at your local record store. You can catch his documentary Vinyl Nation at film festivals across the country or hear the Pointer Sisters wafting out of his windows in the Bay Area.

Follow Kevin, aka @weegee, on Twitter and @smokler Instagram

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)

Show Notes

Kevin Smokler website
Vinyl Nation documentary
Bike Aid
The Vinyl Exam podcast, episode about Headstone & Friends
History of Columbia House
2 Live Crew vs Tipper Gore
Reckless Records
Amoeba Records
Dusty Groove
Rattleback Records
Laurie's Planet of Sound
Tone Vendor

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Jo McCawley, a Chicago-based ad tech rockstar, has been on a journey to love her body and joins Leah to talk about falling in love with her fat body after years of dieting and body shaming. We talk about body positivity, body neutrality, the pervasiveness of shame in our culture - particularly for women.

Trigger warning: Dieting, birth trauma, preeclampsia, medical fatphobia

Follow Jo on Instagram for memes and ice cream recommendations @the_ethical_sloth

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Show Notes

Girls Rock Chicago
Hello, I'm Fat by Lindy West
Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings
Very Fat Very Brave by Nicole Byers
What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
Maintenance Phase podcast
Day Breaker (sober, morning dance parties)
Preeclampsia information
Tall camping stool for walking tours
Fatness, Motherhood and the medical profession
Jennifer Lee (2020) “You will face discrimination”: Fatness, motherhood, and the medical profession, Fat Studies, 9:1, 1-16, DOI: 10.1080/21604851.2019.1595289

Menopause: A Comic Treatment won the Eisner Award for best comic anthology of 2020! Leah has a story included, illustrated by Cathy Leamy, about going to mikvah before her hysterectomy

PORTAL Tall Slacker Chair Folding Tripod Stool for Outdoor Camping Walking Hunting Hiking Fishing Travel, Support 225 lbs

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Nick Krefting, a musician and physics teachers, has loved The Beatles since he was 9 years old. We walk through his introduction to the band, favorite books, favorites albums, documentaries that he taped from TV and how Paul deserves celebration as an artist.

Listen to Nick's music on Spotify or check out his podcast (on hiatus) How Have You Never

Show Notes

The Beatles: A Private View by Robert Freeman
Forest Gump: The Soundtrack
The Compleat Beatles
The Red Album
The Beatles Anthology (TV)
Revolution in the Head by Ian McDonald
Screw it, We're Just Gonna Talk about The Beatles podcast
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (Paul McCartney solo)

Song recommendations

Old Brown Shoe
Here, There, and Everywhere
Baby, You're A Rich Man

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties

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Kristen Carreon, host of HWY to Hell: A Supernatural Podcast, is our guide to the world of Dramione Fan Fiction. What? Stories written about an alternate universe (AU) where Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger fall in love. Whether is enemies to lovers in an office romance or an AU return to Hogwarts for year 8, Kristen tells us where to go for the best stories.

Listen to Kristen on HWY to Hell and follow ETL Echo Audio Books on Instagram @etl.echo.audiobooks

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts (five stars please)

Show Links

Mugglenet.com

San Antonio Puffy Tacos

10 places to get puffy tacos

Isolation by Bex-Chan

Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde

Jason Mantzoukas on Dickinson as a bee

Eisner winner for best anthology of 2020. Menopause: A Comic Treatment

Recommendations

For unrequited love and secret feelings in a co-worker environment, read the Rights and Wrongs Series by lovebitca8 comprised of The Right Thing To Do, All the Wrong Things, and The Auction (dark AU version of the two). Part 1, The Right Thing To Do, can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/25724661?show_comments=true or through the audiobook shared above.

The Right Thing To Do - Chapter 1 - LovesBitca8 - Harry Po...

For a dark Voldemort-wins AU involving slavery and Death Eater Draco, read Manacled by senlinyu: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454174/chapters/33390198

Manacled - Chapter 1 - senlinyu - Harry Potter - J. K. Row...

For a light, hilarious historical rom-com involving a co-worker time travel scenario, read Love and Historical Accidentals by Pacific Rimbaud: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496525/chapters/51233119

Love and Other Historical Accidents - Chapter 1 - PacificR...

For a slow-burn romance that's more focused on deep character study and grief healing, read Measure of a Man by inadaze22: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26523892/chapters/64648648

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Jess Krefting, podcaster (on a break) and BookTok creator, has some books for you to read. We go through her current pile of library books and talk about what's important to her raising a young reader. We also talk about ADHD, hyperfocus on different craft projects, the Doughboys and more.

Follow Jess as @Reading_with_E on Instagram and TikTok or listen to the archives of How Have You Never?!

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts (five stars please)

Books! Books! Books!

Rick Riordin Presents (fantasy chapter books with POC writers and characters)
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Wrinkle In Time Quintet
It Feels Good to be Yourself
Plenty of Hugs
When Aiden became a brother
All About Families
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls
100 Immigrant Women who changed the world
When We Are Kind
Rainbow Boy
Eyes that Kiss in the Corners
A Way with Wild Things
ABCs of Black History
Sugar in Milk

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Beth Villafranca, a Massachusetts-based home healthcare provider, spends her days driving across southeastern Massachusetts and listens to podcasts as she travels from client to client. Today she shares her favorite podcast genre - true crime podcasts that don't exploit the victim's family. We talk about the Doughboys, Weird Al, Hamilton and more.

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts (five stars please)

Show Links

Turks Seafood
Doughboys KFC2 with hosts of True Crime and Cocktails
The Good Place the Podcast
Who Does a Podcast
Hamilcast
Blue Man Group on Jay Leno, 1992
Buckingham Blues by Weird Al
William Pacholski loves The Great Comet

True Crime Podcasts

Serial
To Live and Die in LA
The Piketon Massacre
True Crime and Cocktails
Teachers Pet and Night Driver hosted by Hedley Thomas
Someone Knows Something
This is Criminal
Dirty John

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Jocelyn Geboy, a Chicago-based writer, storyteller and Tik Tok creator, loves getting people talking about candy. She's found that asking people "red vines or twizzlers" can start the group down an hour-long winding road of nostalgia and light conversation. People might get wound up, but they won't get angry or have an existential crisis.

Follow Jocelyn online - she's @smussyolay on Tik Tok, Twitter and Instagram

Show Links

Whozeewhatzit vs Watchamacallit

Licorice Tubes

Reese's Take5

Charleston Chew

The mammogram is included in the Affordable Care Act and should be covered by your health insurance. Go get one.

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Saul Colt, the smartest man in the world and founder of Idea Integration Company, loves cooking videos and hunting collectibles. In this episode we talk about his COVID cooking inspirations and his favorite flea markets and shops for finding nostalgic collectibles. Funko Pops, Pee Wee Playhouse items, custom sneakers or Be@rbricks - Saul wants to see it all.

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Follow @SaulColt on Instagram and Twitter. Listen to his podcast We Now Join the Program Already in Progress.

Show Links

Famoso in Toronto
Canter's Deli
The Griddle Cafe
Claire Saffitz Dessert Person
Sam The Cooking Guy
Frank and Son Show
Bodega in Boston
Big Fun Toy Store in Cleveland
Dave's Quality Meats in NYC
Red Sovine - Teddy Bear and Large Marge
Ecentrik 1
Jollibee Funko Pop

Funko OPP Pop! Ad Icons Jollibee 40th Anniversary Vinyl Figure (LE 4000 Pcs)

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Max Pacheco, amateur Disney historian, Twitch streamer and podcast actor, claims that he has the most obscure Disney digital collection in the world and challenges other Disney collectors to prove him wrong. Leah and Max talk about his hunt for copies of 30 Disney movies from the 70s and 80s that seem lost to time.

Show Links

Sporadic Phantom
Jess Lambert: Every Disney Movie Ever
Max and Jess talk about The Whiz Kid and the Mystery of Riverton

Max is looking for...

The Track of the African Bongo
Trail of Danger
Shadow of Fear
The Secret of Lost Valley
Strange Companions
U.S. Marshalls: Waco and Reinhardt, AKA Line of Duty (UK)
Meet the Munceys
FOUND: The Absent Minded Professor: Trading Places
Just Perfect
FOUND: Spies (1993) On loan from the director of Spies
FOUND: The Barefoot Executive (remake, 1995)
Ladies and the Champ

ETA

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts (five stars please)

Menopause: A Comic Treatment (Eisner nominated)
The Wrong Mans
Kurt Russell is a Disney legend
Blank Check Podcast
Halloween is Grinch Night

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Cinnamon Cooper, a Chicago-based writer and crafter, is known among our friends for being an excellent host. In this episode she talks about how she learned to host dinner parties, soup nights and her epic Halloween bash. She is the author of the Everything Cast Iron Cookbook, which is still in print and an outstanding guide to cooking with cast iron.

Includes a clip from Brandy Agerbeck's episode and a voice memo from Jacqui Cheng

Follow Cinnamon online @cinnachick on Twitter and Instagram and buy her bags at Poise.cc

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Show links

HuffenCooper Halloween 2010 photos and 2012 Photos
The Jiffy Pope
Jacqui and Jenni - the year with two Bjorks
The Card Sharks got Smarter (Ramsin Canon) and me as NasCarmen Miranda
Cinnamon's legendary Tomato Soup recipe
Six Toed cats in Key West
What is Juneteenth?
Hungry Cat Daily
Jewish-ish Podcast

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Dave Coustan, an Atlanta-based podcast producer and marketing strategist, picked up trumpet for the first time at the age of 39... because why not? We talk about what made him start playing trumpet as an adult, a 5-hour lesson in Portland from David Monette, and how he became a podcast producer at I Heart Radio.

Follow Dave, aka @Extraface, on Instagram, Twitter and subscribe to Three Banana Thursday

Folllow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Show Links

Atlanta Local Food Initiative
Hrishikesh Hirway on Inside Voices with Kevin T. Porter
Stuff You Missed in History Class with Tracy Wilson
Stuff You Should Know
Wendy L. Klein, Berklee College of Music (Dave's childhood flute teacher)
Brass Instrument Workshop
Joe Gransden
Monette Trumpets
Dave Monette on Craft In America
Dan Harmon Story Cycle
XOXO Fest in Portland
Dave's 2008 SXSW business card

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Kyle Loder, co-host of A New Low and Who Does a Podcast, has played the tabletop war game Warhammer 40K for most of his life and he is very excited that game stores and tournaments are re-opening this summer. We talk about what's next for his Hamilton podcast (Who Does a Podcast), the life of Warhammer 40K consultants (which he is not), and how to pack for a Warhammer tourney.

Follow rate and review Finding Favories - @findingfavspod on Twitter and Instagram

Listen to Kyle on A New Low, Who Does a Podcast and dig into the archives of Your Parents Basement

Show Links

Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop
Doughboys
Warmachine
Malifaux
Flames of War
Dropzone Commander

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Jasmine Davila, curator of Miss Spoken, is back on Finding Favorites to talk about all things bacon, eggs and pancakes. Yes, with indoor dining returning, we're just talking about brunch. Current favorite orders, closed diners of our 20s, brunch while traveling and brunch that makes for anxious dreams.

Follow @Jasmined on twitter and instagram

Follow @FindingFavsPod on Twitter and Instagram

Brunch spots that are still open

BJ's Market on 87th and Stony Island
SVEA
Durango Diner
Pauline's
Durango Bagel
V&A cafeteria
Sant Ambroues

Closed, but not forgotten

Leo's Lunchroom
Riverside Cafe
Overeasy
Le Sabre

Alverne Ball's author profile on Amazon. He has a new graphic novel out about Black Wall Street that is a timeline read on the 100 anniversary of the massacre in Oklahoma.

Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre

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Robert Persinger, co-host of Gentlemen Overlords and associate producer of Doughboys, introduces us to the world of reaction videos, explains how to listen to a "watch along" recording, and shares some of his favorite content creators in this genre. We also talk about cats, Empress Gin, theme parks and the comfort of a rewatch.

Follow @FindingFavsPod on Instagram and Twitter

Follow Robert (AKA The Drop King) online

Twitter
Gentlemen Overlords
Doughboys

Show Links

Awkward Ashleigh
Alanda Parker
Popcorn in Bed
Brandon Likes Movies
Twins are the new Trend
Robert on Fresh Questions? Air talking about Reaction Videos
Seattle Japanese Garden
Newcomers Rise of Skywalker Watchalong
2001 Space Odyssey at Music Box Theater
Scaredy Cats Horror Show
The Friendship Onion
Podcast the Ride
The Sloppy Boys
Why Won't You Date Me Chicago Live Show with Nick, Mitch and Gabrus
High & Mighty
The Gravitron still exists
Empress Gin
Understanding parasocial relationships
As a bonus, the blog post that ultimately led to this podcast.

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Adam Salzer is a podcaster, Twitch streamer and wrestling announcer based in New Hampshire. We talk about his love of professional wrestling, the difference between staged and fake, and how he got into podcasting and Twitch streaming. He also starts to build his dream league and introduces Leah to some new vocabulary.

Please rate and review Finding Favorites. Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter

Follow Adam Salzer online as The Salzer Effect on Twitter and Twitch

His podcasts are hosted on the Rundown Wrestling Network and include AEW Rundown, Title Subject to Change, Spot of NXT, The NitroMania Podcast

Show Links

LonelyGirl15
It's not K-Fabe, it's kayfabe:
Legendary announcer Rich Palladino
Legendary WOW meme Leeroy Jenkins explained
Finn Bálor
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Freddie Prinze Jr was a WWE writer

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Entreprenuer and author Elisa Camahort Page is here this week to talk about lessons she learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how to deal with problematic creators. We talk about poolside chats at BlogHer 2006 in San Jose, Elisa's book Road Map for Revolutionaries, and the pop culture keeping us company.

Follow Elisa online

@ElisaC on Twitter, The Week-Ish Newsletter, and listen to her on The Op Ed Page

Buy Road Map for Revolutionaries for from an independent bookstore and get excited about local politics

Follow the @findingfavspod on Twitter and Instagram

Show links

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
BlogHer 2006 food blogger round-up post and a brief podcast with Lisa Stone
My Octopus Teacher
Joss Whedon threatened Gal Gadot's career
Abuse on the Justice League set
Joss Whedon's abusive behavior on Buffy
Answering the Call and New Politics Leadership Academy
James Talarico (Texas Rep)

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Michele Weldon, a Chicago-based author and journalist, loves to paint and sketch. She joined me from her art-filled home to talk about the joy she has found in oil painting, pastel sketching and not turning a beloved hobby into a side-hustle.

Follow @FindingFavsPod on Twitter and Instagram

Follow @MicheleWeldon on Twitter

Show Links

Michele Weldon's website
Act Like You're Having a Good Time (and additional books by Michele)
Op Ed Project
En plein air
Continuing studies at School of the Art Institute of Chicago
92Y pastels classes
Jason Diamond writes about Routines

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Last weekend, I got on Zoom with Aaron Gadiel and realized that if I edited fast - you could learn about the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in time to tune in to Jazz Festing in Place on WWOZ.

Aaron Gadiel, creative coach and principal of Gadiel Group, has loved Jazz Fest since he went for the first time in 1997. We talk about how to get a Jazz Fest mentor, what weekend to go, and escaping FOMO in the Crescent City.

Follow @FindingFavsPod on Twitter and Instagram.

Catch up with Aaron Gadiel on LinkedIn

Show Links

HowAhYah Shirts
Fashion of Jazz Fest
Creative Sage Cottage in Union Pier
Acorn Theater in Three Oaks
Jazz Festing in Place on WWOZ
Galactic & Tipitinas
Bruce Springsteen at Jazz Fest

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Caroline Conner, better known as Wine Dine Caroline, is a wine educator based in Leon, France, who loves wine and fantasy books. We dive into how she started her career in the wine trade (spoiler alert - she won the 2009 Varsity Blind Wine Competition between Oxford and Cambridge). Get your Bookshop.org shopping cart ready, because she's got books for you to read.

Learn about wine with Caroline (take her online courses, hire her for a private tasting on Zoom) and start with her Food and Wine Pairing Guide.

Find Caroline on Instagram and YouTube

Follow Finding Favorites on Twitter and Instagram

Show Links

Varsity Blind Wine Challenge and Wikipedia list of winners
Masters of Wine
Damn Fine Bookstore in Leon, France

Books and Authors to Read

Once and Future Witches - Alix E Harrow
Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon
V.E. Schwab
Sabaa Tahir - Ember in the Ashes Trilogy
N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Earth Trilogy
Hugo Awards
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
Normal People - Sally Rooney
Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Robin Hobbs - Realm of the Elderlings
KJ Parker - Engineer Trilogy
Grishaverse - Leigh Barduga

Devices and Desires (Engineer Trilogy Book 1)

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Briana Haas, co-host of the podcast Jobs Blow, loves New York City. No, really, love at first sight, 5th floor Upper East Side walk-up, Balthazar scones, L-O-V-E New York City. We talk about our surprising shared history of stand-up comedy, working together and getting laid off from the same marketing agency, and how she knew that New York was her one and only city.

New! Follow Finding Favorites on Instagram and Twitter

Subscribe to Jobs Blow podcast and follow on Instagram and Twitter.

Show notes

Comic Strip in NYC
Balthazar
Cindy Gallop on Jobs Blow
S.E. Hinton on Twitter
Legendary Talk Magazine launch party and how it was seen 10 years later
Liz Smith obituary
Lizzie Grubman crash

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Jen Kling loves New Kids on the Block. Jen takes me through her teenage crush on Joey and becoming a fan all over again when the band reunited in 2008. Concerts, meet & greets, and cruises - Jen loves all of it and hopes that one of these days she can sit down with Joey for coffee.

Follow Jen on Twitter

Peloton Links

Wilpers Bike Fitting
Peloton Christmas Ad
Ryan Reynold's response Ad

NKOTB Links

NKOTB website
Jay Leno Sixth Sense Parody
NKOTB on Today Show 2008
NKOTB on Kimmel 2010
NKOTB Cruise 2020

Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Jen 0:00 Hi, I'm Jennifer Klang. And I love New Kids on the Block (NKOTB).

Announcer 0:05 Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones 0:16 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites -- it is actually still Saturday, but you'll be hearing this on Sunday. I recorded this episode today, and we'll get it posted before I go to bed because Sunday is vaccine number two day for me. I'll be driving back down to Springfield, Illinois, for my second Pfizer shot. I'd originally thought when I went down to state for the shot, that I would be one and done with Johnson and Johnson. That wasn't the case, and so I am heading back down state for shot number two. I'm very excited, because then everyone in my generation in my family and above will be vaccinated. I feel like it'll be a little bit safer to spend some time together this summer. And I'm very excited for that.

----more----

Leah Jones 1:10 Today's episode is one that I thought was just going to be about '80s and '90s nostalgia, but learned quickly that New Kids on the Block have a really vibrant career. And so I talk with Jen Kling all about New Kids on the Block. She is someone that I got to know when I was freelancing. And I was working for SAP for their CX [customer experience] group -- worked on a couple events in Barcelona and Orlando, and met Jen at those, and when I put the call out for people ready to come and talk about their favorite things or things they love, and she was volunteered by our mutual friend Amy, who you'll remember from the Disney episode.

Leah Jones 1:52 So, this is just really fun. And after talking to Jen, I'm ready to go on a cruise. Can't believe we're at the point in the pandemic where I am thinking cruises sound like a good idea again. I think anything with a lot of people just having fun and loving the same thing, just sounds really good to me right now. So I'll keep this short -- I need to go to bed and rest up for my long drive tomorrow. So wear your mask, wash your hands, stay safe.

Leah Jones 2:37 Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we get recommendations and find out about people's favorite things without using an algorithm. Today, I am joined by Jen Kling. Jen and I met each other for the first time in Barcelona, when I was working on events for SAP. It was called CX Live, and it was one of the nicest convention centers I've ever traveled to. So Jen, how are you doing today?

Jen 3:08 I'm doing good. And Wow, it's so funny to talk about doing live, in-person events ... "In the old days ... "

Leah Jones 3:18 "In the before time ..."

Jen 3:19 "... in the before times when we would travel and see people in person."

Leah Jones 3:24 When we would wear like our business clothes with tennis shoes to walk miles and miles across that convention center. Remember the day when we all got up and the rain was coming through the convention center? It was like a day before?

Jen 3:41 Yes. Oh my goodness, that was crazy -- that was also like we had to -- there was no way -- I think you and I were at the same hotel. There was no way to get to the convention center without walking for a long time outside. Like there wasn't-- even if you did get an Uber for a minute and a half drive, you still had to walk five minutes outside. And so when it was raining, it was not a wonderful experience. But then, you went inside and it was raining. Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. It was quite a week.

Leah Jones 4:20 That was one where I looked at that. And I was like, "Oh, I'm glad I'm just in charge of the speakers and the presentations. That is not a problem I have to solve. But that was so stressful.

Jen 4:33 Yeah. It was good times though. I miss that.

Leah Jones 4:38 I miss in-person events. One of the things I loved about being on the CX team for those two events because I did Barcelona and then the first CX Live and well, probably the last one because it was actually like October 2019, right? And we were in Orlando, and that was just a few short months before COVID started.

Leah Jones 5:02 But, I loved being on a big team working towards a singular goal, getting together in person, making it happen. It was so stressful. But the feeling of pulling that off and getting to do that twice with your team -- I loved. I loved it.

Jen 5:20 Yeah, it's the best. I've been in marketing for a lot of years -- for many, many years. And, I've always been attached to events in one way or another. I was an event planner for a long time, so it was on the logistic side. And now, I mostly just kind of participate from like a speaker and doing sessions and things like that. But, I just absolutely love it. There is something about that very last stretch, when you look around and everything is still a mess. And you've got workers everywhere, and things are still being constructed, and you're looking at the clock and you're going "There's no way this is going to come together."and then it does. And it's the most amazing, most satisfying feeling. I love it.

Leah Jones 6:12 Yeah. And so you have obviously moved online this year.

Jen 6:18 Yes. Yes.

Leah Jones 6:20 How has that been?

Jen 6:24 You know, it's a different experience. Right? It's, you know, in fact, the group I'm with now, SAP Litmos, has their virtual events coming up now ,SAP Litmos. We're doing this virtual five track, 25 sessions, one day event? It's just a different type of experience. You do cameras on with Zoom, and the technology is great now, but it doesn't really replace that in-person interaction and the networking, right? We'll have like a virtual networking lounge and stuff like that, but it's not the same. It works, and thank goodness, we have the technology we have now. I mean, if we were doing this in the 80s, or the 90, you know, I don't know how we would have done it. I mean, we just wouldn't have, right? It's it's just a different experience. But it works, it works. Thank goodness for technology.

Leah Jones 7:21 Having a product where you can quickly call people, you're not looking for their phone number, you're not having to get people -- you know, just having a link to click on. And the chat has made a huge difference. Because even if we just, I don't know, like a month before, we just each had our, our dial-in numbers, even a year and a half ago, how we could have accomplished what we've accomplished.

Jen 7:45 You know, it's funny, because I mean, you know, how SAP is -- we're a global organization, we have people everywhere, and teams are made up from people that are spread across the world. And even that even small team, I'm on -- I have people in, I'm in California, half the team's in California, I have people in Birmingham, Arizona, and Australia. And so we were kind of used to always being on a Zoom call or a Teams call, with people and you know, doing camera on a lot, just because it's nice to be able to see those people.

Jen 8:19 But I will say that now that all of us have been working from home, and there isn't half of us that are together in the office, and the other half of the team, not, I feel like it's in a weird way, brought the whole team closer together.

Leah Jones 8:32 Absolutely.

Jen 8:34 And, you know, we're all in on something together. And, I have mixed feelings about the office now. I want to go back because I miss the people, and our office is nice, and we have free lunch and I miss the Impossible Burgers. But I don't miss the -- my commute wasn't bad, it was a 35 minute commute. And as Bay Area commute goes, it's pretty amazing. But it's kind of nice to not have to have that commute, and not have to put makeup on, and be able to work in my sweatsm or whatever. But, I do miss people. So it's gonna be interesting for us. They're saying, you know, they'll support whatever works for any individual through the end of the year. And they're starting to work on a controlled reopening of the offices, but it'll still be very limited. And for me, since I only have a few members of the team in the office, if we all can't be there on the same day because our desks are too close proximity or whatever. It's kind of like well, then what will the point be in going in? So, so we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes.

Leah Jones 9:37 Yeah, I want to go back if we have -- my perfect vision is Tuesdays and Wednesdays are all-in days. We all go on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So we've got in-person, but we're all there to really mix with each other. And then, if if you want to come in more days than that, great, but I want like a couple days where we where we all try but right, but then that breaks the safety protocols, possibly.

Jen 10:13 Yeah. It'll be interesting. Yeah. We'll see how it goes.

Leah Jones 10:16 Yeah. For us, it's been -- we used to only have one member of our team who was in New York. And we'd get into a meeting, I was like, "Oh, man did somebody call Shannon?" Like, we forgot about her all the time. And, now we've never been closer to her, because we were like, all on the same page. And so we'll have to be really mindful that we don't forget about Shannon when we go back in person, you know?

Jen 10:47 Well, and I don't think you will. Because, you know, it's it's brought this whole new awareness of what it feels like to be remote, because now we've all lived it. And so people who were already remote, we have a more, empathy, if you will, for them. So I think -- you won't forget Shannon, I'm not even going to forget Shannon, you're not gonna forget Shannon. [laughter]

Leah Jones 11:11 Have you in this year at home picked up any hobbies, or any new habits that are exciting, I don't know? Or are boring> Or TV shows.

Jen 11:23 You know, we did a lot of the same thing that everyone was doing. We went through several puzzles, made several loaves of banana bread. Never got into the sourdough starter thing. But I did purchase a Peloton. Yeah, in fact, when at the end of 2019, when there was that whole scuttlebutt about that commercial they had, and then Ryan Reynolds did like his amazing clapback to it, which was, he's like a marketing genius. But, I at the time was telling my husband like, "I want one ... hey, I won't complain if you get me one for Christmas ..." So I was talking about it then.

Jen 12:06 And I wished I really wish I'd done it then, right? Because then by the time I did it, so did everyone else in the country and the delivery times were very long. Yeah, it took two months to get here. But once it got here, I haven't -- almost every day, not every day -- but I love riding. If we were going to do a second podcast of things that I love, Peloton would be that my next topic, but I absolutely love it. All the classes. So I would say that's the biggest habit I picked up.

Leah Jones 12:42 Because I also got one and I got it in November. And I I would say I ride it right now about five days a month. I did a challenge last month, and I after like, five or six days fell off the wagon, because I'm trying to figure out like, how do I make the rides less precious, so I do them? That I don't psych myself out from them. That a five minute ride is okay, getting on the bike is better than not getting on the bike. And I don't know if I've got it in the wrong room, like maybe I do need it in my living room or closer to my desk or like more in my life than in my guest bedroom. What was the thing about Peloton that made you fall in love with it? Was there a teacher? Like, were you a spinner before?

Jen 13:36 Years ago, I used to love doing spin classes. And over like the last couple years, this trend popped up of where it was just cycling classes that were opening up like the Soulcycle. And there was a Flywheel near me, and I loved doing that. So I always liked spinning. And my problem has always been, in general, is finding the time to work out. And I like the idea of having something in my home, so that I can do it whenever. Especially like since I've been working from home, if I have an hour between calls, and I need to sort of clear my mind? I will hop on the bike for 20 minutes and do a ride. So, if I get to the end of the day, my preference is to workout in the morning, but that happens maybe twice a month. But, if I get to the end of the day, and it's 8:30 at night, yeah, I'll hop on the bike because I can -- it's there. And instead of -- I you know, I would never go to the gym at 8:30 at night.

Leah Jones 14:42 No, never.

Jen 14:43 That's not gonna happen. No, it's like the time it takes to get there and everything. So I think for me, it was just a matter of just setting a commitment. I'm also very, you know, there's all the badges that you can get -- and the streak, and that drives me .For example, today, I just finally hit my 60 day streak and got that. It was the longest day streak I think that you can get. Literally I've been -- there was a day this week that I wasn't going to work out. And I said, "Well, I have to, I'm four days away from getting my 60 day streak. I can't start all over again, like I've done so many times." So that drives me, too. I think starting off, short and small. Because when I first got started, I mean, I was at the heaviest I've been in my whole life, and it was hard to move. I jstarted off with like, short 20-minute low-impact classes, just worked my way up. In July, -- so my bike arrived the first week of June. And I think it was mid-to-late July, I discovered the power zone training --

Leah Jones 15:47 Yeah, I see that in my Facebook group.

Jen 15:52 I cannot recommend it enough. So there's a program, there's a collection of power zone training, I only did like the first two or three weeks of it until I got the hang of it. But what's great about it is, it's all about training at your fitness level. And gradually working just above that and each zone has its purpose. So whether it's training at your fitness level, just above, your VO2 max, your blah blah, blah. What I think is so great about that is many of the classes on Peloton, when you're looking at them, you can't tell what the focus is of the class. And so many of them are almost like an all-out every time, and that isn't necessary. For fitness, for whatever, you know, whatever your fitness goals are. So I can't speak highly enough of the power zone training.

Leah Jones 16:50 For the power zone training? Do you need a heart monitor?

Jen 16:54 No, in fact, people often get confused between heart rate zone and the power zone. So, they're completely unrelated. So what you do is you start by taking what they call an FTP test, and fitness threshold profile. You take a 20 minute -- you first do a warm up, you do like a 10 or 15 minute warmup class. And then, you take a 20 minute all-out class.

Jen 17:29 And what's great about it is -- Matt Wilper, he's one of the coaches -- his all-out and my all-out, don't look anything the same, right? So it's all about whatever your all-out means. And that comes back with what your average threshold is, and then gives you this power zone bar at the bottom of your screen that has seven zones. Then what you do, is you go through, you take the classes, and there's actually a website called a group -- it's called power zone pack. Powerzonepack.com. And they have challenges and different things that you could go through. But you take these classes and maybe like, in the beginning, after like eight weeks of consistently doing at least three power zone classes in a week, take your FTP test again, and then you can see your improvement.

Jen 18:19 So I love looking at the stats and the numbers and the data and you know how I've improved and it's great, because you'll start off, you'll just do some short endurance rides. Which -- I've had a friend who tried it, she's like, "It's too easy," but it's you know, it's about training, it's about time and intensity. And so, it's not supposed to be breathtaking every time. So, it's great. For me, it helped me kick off my weight loss. And anytime I start to hit a plateau, I go back and I say I'm drifting off into these fun rides too much, I need to come back into power zone training and focus on that, cause it's a total plateau-buster.

Leah Jones 19:07 Now have you done -- I see a lot of people talk about getting like a fitting from Matt Wilper's team. Have you ever done that?

Jen 19:13 I have! Game changer. I could not believe the adjustments that they made weren't the adjustments that I thought were needed. They even look at how the clips on your shoes are positioned. It's practically a workout, but they'll have you do like some movements beforehand. Like a plank and like, I can't remember the stuff that they'll have you do just to kind of get a sense. So, I have scoliosis, so I'm a little uneven. And so I've got one hip that's higher than the other, all this stuff going on. And so they can see all of that and then they and then they watch you pedal.

Jen 20:00 Like the first 10 minutes, was of him just watching me move, and then have you pedal and they watch your pedaling. And then he just starts with the adjustments. There were so many things -- like he had me move the seat back. And I'm super short, so I thought -- the first thing I did when I set it up, was have the seat all the way forward, cause my legs are short. Nope. He had me move the seat back, all sorts of things. The tilt of the seat was wrong. I mean, just things that I never would have thought of.

Jen 20:30 He had my cleats set differently for each shoe. In my head. I'm thinking, you know, this should be symmetry. But no, because my legs aren't. It was so worth it. I mean, we make this investment already in the bike, might as well make a little bit more investment in making sure you're fit properly. It's totally worth it.

Leah Jones 20:55 Okay. I'll do it.

Leah Jones 20:56 So as a segue, has there been a NKOTB? We're here today to talk about New Kids on the Block. Aka NKOTB. Yes. Has there been is there has there been an artist series of New Kids? There has not, however, one of my absolute favorite coaches, Cody Rigsby, he has a class that he did. It's a 45 minute ride. And the second half of the class he did half New Kids on the Block, half Backstreet Boys. So he would just he went New Kids/Backstreet. And that was amazing. You can search for by artists, and so I one of the very first things I did when I got my bike was searched and bookmarked every class where there was a New Kids on the Block song.

Leah Jones 22:04 I love it.

Jen 22:06 So yeah, but no New Kids artists series yet, but I'm hoping, I'm hoping.

Leah Jones 22:12 Fantastic. So we're here to talk about New Kids on the Block. Let's time travel. How did you discover them?

Jen 22:22 We're gonna go back. We're getting into the DeLorean, is that what the car was?

Leah Jones 22:27 Yes.

Jen 22:27 Yes. We're gonna get in the DeLorean. We're going back to 1989-88? And I was 13-14. And they were the biggest thing since the Beatles. And yeah, I was buying the magazines, and I was buying the cassette tapes, and I was listening to them nonstop, and begging my mom to let me put the posters up in my room.

Leah Jones 22:56 Did she let you?

Jen 22:57 She did only a little bit. She didn't like the like, tape on the wall, because it was a rental, and she was worried that she'd have to paint, that kind of stuff.

Leah Jones 23:08 Right, fair.

Jen 23:10 And so, I was a huge fan. And I had my group of girlfriends -- we were a group of six. And we were all fans.

Leah Jones 23:23 Does that mean you each picked a --?

Jen 23:26 Yep.

Leah Jones 23:27 So two of you had to do double duty.

Jen 23:29 Two of us had double duty -- and it worked out really well because everybody liked a different guy, except for me and my friend Ellen. We were the Joe girls. Okay. And, you know, we fought over him like you wouldn't believe, but it was our life for a little while. And then I remember we went it was December of 1989. I'm in the Bay Area -- grew up in Concord, and they were in Sacramento at the Arco arena, and we got tickets. And you have to keep in mind too, that like, I was 14, I didn't have a job. And my mom was a single mom raising three kids, and money was tight. And so to get tickets to go to a concert was a really big deal.

Jen 24:22 And I think even my friend's parents might have actually got my ticket. And then like, we paid it back or something. But, it was a really big deal.

Leah Jones 24:30 And someone had to go and go to the mall and stand in line at the Ticketmaster booth to get the tickets all together, right? You're not on the phone, "Okay, click now, get this ..."

Jen 24:43 Yeah, it didn't work that way.

Leah Jones 24:45 Somebody had to go get in line. So would make sense that one of the parents would take the hit for that group. [laughter]

Jen 24:51 Yes, absolutely. So, it was so different then, right Oh, my goodness, kids today have no idea. So we all piled into my friend's car. So there was there were two of us that were like 14, two that were 16, or maybe three were 16. And then the oldest sister of my best friend, she was 18. Okay, so we all piled all six of us into a Honda Civic.

Leah Jones 25:19 Yeah, absolutely. It's the 80s.

Jen 25:21 I certainly wasn't in a seatbelt. And we drove through the Sacramento -- totally fogged. And I swear it took us two hours to get there because the fog was so thick she could barely see. But for the New Kids, it was worth it. And we got into the Arco arena. And you know, the seats weren't great. We were like on the very top deck, maybe fifth row from the top, but off to the side of the stage, and screamed and loved every second of it. And I know, like I absolutely know, that when Joey came out and was singing "Please Don't Go, Girl" to our section ... I mean, Elena say it was her, but it was me -- he was looking straight at me.

Leah Jones 26:06 Absolutely, it was.

Jen 26:09 Yeah, it was amazing. It was uch an amazing experience. And then, you know, that was '89. And then I think in '90, maybe late '90-'91, grunge started coming on to the scene. And the music scene was changing. We were growing older, they were growing older, they wanted to do new music, different things. They came out with an album that I think we just weren't ready for. What was I starting to listen to then? . Maybe I was starting to listen to like Depeche Mode by then, or something like that. So, just everything changed. And then they broke up, and they went away. And it was such a short time really, that they were so huge.

Jen 26:52 And then, you know, through the '90s, they all did their own solo stuff. I didn't really think about them much. I think when the first thing --- I'm trying to remember from a timeline standpoint -- Donnie Wahlberg was in Sixth Sense. And I remember going to see that movie in the theater, watching the movie, and then seeing the credits and seeing his name in the credits and like, "What? Who was Donnie Wahlberg in the movie?" Do you know who he was in the movie? No. So have you've seen Sixth Sense, right?

Leah Jones 27:24 No, but I know the twist, because I use the internet.

Jen 27:28 Okay. So spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it --

Leah Jones 27:34 You are allowed to talk about a movie that was spoiled by Jay Leno. You know, billions of years ago.

Jen 27:42 So, Donnie Wahlberg played the patient who shoots Bruce Willis in the beginning of the movie, and then shoots himself. But he lost something like 60 pounds, so he was unrecognizable, he was super skinny -- a really amazing performance for a short time on screen. You know, I can't say it's a small role, because it's pivotal to the premise of the movie, but was really amazing. So that was incredible. Like, "Wait, Donnie is an actor now?"

Jen 28:12 And Jordan was doing solo music. And was on MTV TRL [Total Request Live] all the time and Joey was doing solo music. And he was on MTV TRL all the time. But you didn't have the internet, so it was hard. It wasn't like today, where you just follow them on social media. So it was hard to keep up with what they were doing, and then I'm growing up and trying to live on my own and to get a job and all that stuff. So it was hard to keep track.

Jen 28:42 I remember once I found out, after the fact, that Joey had done a concert at the Concord Pavilion and I literally lived down the street from the Pavilion, and I didn't know he was going to be there. And I when found out after I was devastated, devastated. Because of course, it was before either one of us were married, I could have met him and then we could have gotten married and had millions of children together. I missed my chance.

Leah Jones 29:10 Yeah, but at least Ellen also didn't know.

Jen 29:13 Right, exactly. Well, and when Ellen got married, she got married before I did, so at that point. I said to her at her wedding, "This means that Joe is mine."

Leah Jones 29:23 So, you tricked her, you outlasted.

Jen 29:29 So time went on. And then Joey was on Dancing with the Stars. The premiere season of Dancing with the Stars.

Leah Jones 29:38 WHEN the stars were bigger, right? Were people who you were so excited to see back, who you hadn't followed. And so that is a really exciting announcement -- that a teenage celebrity crush and someone who meant so much to you when your brain was forming, was going to be back on TV.

Jen 30:07 And I should say he had done some TV stuff as well, he was on a TV show called Boston Common, it was about a school or something, he was a teacher for a season and a half, or something. To be on Dancing with the Stars, and then for me to be able to support him, and vote for him, and he made it into the top three. He was so amazing, I remember talking to one of my girlfriends, I was like, "He's so great, he's perfect, he should win!" And she's like, "I don't know, he seems kind of stiff." "Bite your tongue!" It was amazing -- that was the 2000s, mid-2000s, 2006, maybe?

Leah Jones 30:53 Yeah. 2006. He was in Dancing with the Stars. Yeah. And then they did a tour. Did you go to the tour?

Jen 30:59 I did not. And I don't know that Joey participated in that, I'm not sure. But I did not do that. But then, in 2008, there was this teaser on their website, that something was going to come. And then it was announced that they were going to be on the Today Show. And I can't remember the exact sequence of events. But, they released an album, there was a new song that they premiered on the Today Show, they announced they were doing this album, they were gonna do a tour. They performed on the Today Show. And it was like, "Whoa, what's, what's going on here? This is amazing." And you've got like these feelings of like, my favorite band from when I was 14! And so, I wasn't as close to the girls that I grew up with, anymore. They're, you know, everybody scattered, you know, that happens, right?

Leah Jones 32:01 Yeah, yeah.

Jen 32:02 But I had, you know, my new besties. And they were all fans, as well, back in the day, we just didn't know each other. So I was like, "Well, I mean, we gotta to go, right? We gotta go at least like show and see if they still have the Right Stuff." Yeah, sorry. I can't help that. [laughter]

Jen 32:22 And so we did -- we got tickets. And a group of us got together, we had dinner, we talked and we joked a little bit -- like, think they could still do it? Like, can they still do a whole tour? I mean, we're all kind of old now. We weren't, but ... and so you know, it was just kind of a nostalgia thing. We loved the album, we loved the songs. And we went, and again, didn't have amazing seats, we were in the second deck. This is in San Jose at the thing was called the HP Pavilion at the time, now it's a SAP center, ironically. And we were on the second deck, still the same side of the stage that I was on with my one show that I went to when I was a kid. And when Joey came out, and started singing, and it was like, "Oh, my God, I'm 14 all over again." This feeling just came over me -- this rush of adrenaline -- and I was screaming, and I'm screaming, "I love you, Joey!!" We had such an amazing time, and it was such an amazing show. And then afterwards, we were like, -- we need another show.

Jen 33:51 And we'd screwed up because they'd been in Sacramento the night before. So it was like we could have gone to Sacramento last night, there wasn't much left to tour ...

Leah Jones 34:02 But when you bought the tickets, you're like, we're gonna go see these people who are a little bit older than us try and sing and dance. And it might be embarrassing. We might be embarrassed. So we should only go once.

Jen 34:17 I didn't even tell my co-workers what I was doing. This was like a secret. I was at the office and I had to leave the office early. And I remember I changed my clothes -- Iwas more professionally dressed, literally suited up -- and I had to change the jeans and whatnot. And I'm like, "I'm leaving early today. " People were like, "What do you got going on?"

Jen 34:39 "Oh, yeah, I just -- go hang out with some friends just you know, going out for dinner, meeting in San Jose ... bye!!" And I didn't tell anyone, I kept it a secret. It was like, "I can't can't tell anybody. This is embarrassing." And so then yeah, we went to the show, and we were like, "Well, we got to go to another show." So we're looking at what's left of the tour, and we're like, "But we could go to Seattle, it's three days before Thanksgiving. Can we do that? We can do that." So we did, we took a quick road trip to Seattle. And because it was last minute, we didn't have amazing tickets, but it was still that same rush of feeling. And I don't know why I thought that was gonna be it, but it was not it. It was --

Leah Jones 35:23 Okay.

Jen 35:23 --- not it.

Leah Jones 35:24 It was the start of it.

Jen 35:27 It was just the start. of. it.

Leah Jones 35:30 Well, right. It could have been that it was only your group that were like, this was fun. So, you go to Seattle, and then the tour ends a couple weeks later?

Jen 35:43 Tour ended a couple weeks later. I would imagine for them, but group, that they were even like, "Huh, that went probably a little better than we thought it would." And there was so much demand, the fans were loving it.

Leah Jones 36:01 Because now the fans are grown up, have jobs, have budgets, the internet exists, so you can better coordinate going.

Jen 36:10 Yep. Well, and then you also have to think about 2008 -- that was when the economy was in the tank.The finance market had tanked, people's mortgages --

Leah Jones 36:29 -- everybody's underwater.

Jen 36:30 Everybody was underwater. And so it was a stressful time. But, it was also a hopeful time. I think it was just the right timing, because when you talk with different fans, you'll hear people say "They saved my life, because they gave me something to enjoy at some of the most miserable time of times of my life." And you had sort of some people who were maybe going through divorces, maybe they were unemployed. They were taking care of parents now, like so many things going on, that the timing really was perfect. It just kind of happened. I think. I don't think they did it intentionally. I don't think they said "The economy's in the tank, let's make a comeback."

Leah Jones 37:10 You don't think any of their houses were underwater and their first round of NKOTB money was maybe ...

Jen 37:16 I don't think so, actually. Donnie had a great career going. I think Blue Bloods was just getting started at that time, he had just starred in a movie with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

Leah Jones 37:28 Okay, fine, not slacking.

Jen 37:30 Yeah, but I think the all the guys were doing fine. But just the timing happened to work. Actually, there's a lot of interviews about it-- but Donnie will talk about part of what the timing was because he was going through a divorce. And so he started pouring himself into music and writing music. And so I think that kind of spawned the timing. So he needed it, he will actually say he needed it, just differently. Different reasons why others did.

Jen 37:55 So then they were like, let's throw together another tour. And so then they started another tour. I remember they did a performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and it was gonna be in like that little outdoor theater that he has. And it was like in April, and one of my friends and I were like, "Let's road trip. Why not?" And so we took a few days off of work, drove down to L.A., I had a friend who knew someone who worked on the Jimmy Kimmel show, so she helped us get a better spot, not front row, but like third or fourth, and so that was amazing. And then yeah, then the tour kicked off. I think I did, like three shows back-to-back. But what we have discovered with this second tour, was that the New Kids do these meet and greets before the concert. So you buy a ticket, and you have to be quick because they sell out.

Leah Jones 38:55 So fast.

Jen 38:56 Yeah. And we were like, well, we gotta do that -- and so we did.

Leah Jones 39:08 Did you do meet and greets for just one show? You're like, or did you do multiple meet and greets on that tour?

Jen 39:14 So yeah.

Leah Jones 39:17 So I don't publish the video of these interviews. But the face you just made -- I wish I could have a GIF of it. It was tremendous. And suggests to me, maybe you went to more than one meet and greet.

Jen 39:36 Yeah. If you were to ask me --so the New Kids tour, in the beginning it was for a few years every year and then it's been every other year -- so if you were to ask me how many meet and greets I've done, I don't know. I can't count that high.

Leah Jones 39:56 What you're saying is, you are a fast clicker.

Jen 40:02 I am a fast clicker. There are some people who are faster at clicking than I am, but I have a fast clicker. And I have done many meet and greets. Each tour I do at least a few. The meet and greet experience is -- it takes this whole "relationship" with the New Kids to a new level. You get to see them and talk to them, for a fraction of a second it feels like, I mean, it's longer, but you're talking 30 seconds to two minutes -- you're not hanging out with them for an hour. You get a hug from each guy --

Leah Jones 40:45 -- and you pass your phone to someone, right? To get photos of it or --

Jen 40:51 It's highly, it's super organized. So you actually go through and there's a company, there's a photographer, who does the photos. So they can move through, because they probably meet 1,000 to 2,000 fans a night. I mean, it's like super fast. I can't even imagine what the experience is like for them.

Jen 41:13 Because we go in and the fans organize ahead of time. "Okay, we're looking for two Joe girls and a Danny girl," and you get in, and you line up, you find out the order that they're, and then you line up in that order. Okay, you know, Jo, girls, Jordan girls, Donnie girls, and you go that way.

Leah Jones 41:34 So you line up with your competition --

Jen 41:36 -- you line up with your competition, and you walk in and you hug each guy, you say a word, and then you get to the end of the line, and you stop at your guy. And each girl goes on for each person -- there are man fans -- and each person stands on either side of the New Kid. And then they take two pictures super quick, and then you turn and say maybe one or two other words, and then you move on. And then, you you hug the New Kids that you hadn't gotten to in line yet, and then you head out. And so that whole thing is like, two minutes. So I've done several -- usually what people will ask me that I haven't given you an opportunity to ask, but you're probably wondering is, "Well, do they know you by now?"

Leah Jones 42:25 Yeah. How are your chances with Joey, now that you've been that you've paid many times to meet him? Do you like wear the same outfit, so he can start to like, piece it together in his head? Have you slid into his DMs?

Jen 42:43 I can't even tell you like, the funny thing is, and I actually have a girlfriend who jokes because anytime I post, like on Instagram or something, pictures from the past of meet and greets between my hair changes, my weight fluctuation, you know, with sometimes a year or even two years going by before they see you again, I've made it impossible for him to recognize me. I'll go from like, pixie haircut, super-long hair, shoulder-length bob, and having weight fluctuate, you know, 70 pounds or whatever. And so it made it impossible for him to be able to recognize me.

Jen 43:26 But there are people that have, there are some fans who have like a schtick to get recognized, and that has worked for them. And then there are some people that for whatever reason have clicked and have genuinely become friends with the guys. I have not -- I am not smart. I go into these meet and greets, and for a while after I had already done a few, I think in my head I was like, "Oh, Joey and I are best friends now." And so then we would go through, and without fail, the other Joe girl in my meet and greet would be like, "Oh my god, I'm so nervous. This is the first time I'm meeting him." And I'd be like, "Oh, it's no problem. I gotcha." And so we go through and I'd be like, "Hey, Joe. I'm Jen, we've met before, but this is so and so this is her first time ..." and I'd be like, "Okay, you two talk," and I just stand there.

Leah Jones 44:24 You are an outstanding wing-woman. And, that's a terrible way to make him fall in love with you.

Jen 44:31 It really is. So there was that, and then a couple years ago, Joe did like this little -- they always do when they're off tour -- they'll do like some side, solo project. So Joe did these shows that the Hotel Cafe in L.A., and super small venue, very intimate, amazing shows. And he did these meet and greets that were either before or after the show, depending on the time of the show. And maybe, maybe there were 50 people that were doing these meet and greets. Maybe. So, much smaller group, super relaxed, it was with your phone, like you get up there. So, we're standing in line waiting, and one of my friends is with me, and I'm like, "Record it. I want to see -- you know, these things always go so fast, and I want to be able to remember it." So, she records it for me.

Jen 45:30 I get up there, I hand his assistant, or whoever it was, my phone to take the picture. I say something to him, he says something back. I even see in the video -- I see like his face of like, "Oh, I recognize her." And he's like, "Hey, how you doing?" I'm like, oh, whatever I said, and he said something back, and we hug and we take the picture. I take my phone and I look back, I say, "See you next month!" and walk away. And you literally see this look on his face where he's like, "That was it?" The video was like, 13 seconds -- there was there was no rush -- I had one of my best friends, next. She wasn't gonna be all, "Come on, now.' There was no reason for me to rush through. But I did. Yeah. I am not very smart.

Leah Jones 46:20 That is, but what I think is happening in your head is you that is your event marketer brain taking over -- you're thinking through the logistics, you are organizing on behalf of his manager, how this night has to run smoothly, and how he has to behave for everyone to have an optimal experience. And you are modeling the behavior that you wanted to see from the people in front of you.

Jen 46:47 Exactly. And me? Sorry, I don't know if this is that --

Leah Jones 46:53 -- you are allowed to cuss.

Jen 46:57 So yeah, it's, it's amazing. So I would say so this last tour, so right, so they came out in 2008, and they're still touring. Like I said, for the first like, maybe four years, three years. I think they toured every year, and then they started doing every other year. And what I've been trying to do is in the off year that they're not touring, is to make sure that I go on to the New Kids cruise.

Leah Jones 47:33 Please, tell me more.

Jen 47:36 There's a cruise. Yeah.

Leah Jones 47:38 Just so you know, I had a guest on Jen Usellis, who performs as the Klingon Pop Warrior. So, she goes on the Star Trek cruise every year, and performs in Klingon, so you are not the first person to come on who has gone on a fan cruise.

Jen 47:56 I can guarantee that the Star Trek cruise is nothing like the New Kids cruise.

Leah Jones 48:00 Okay -- do the New Kids go on the cruise?

Jen 48:05 Yes. That is the number one question everyone always asks when you bring up the New Kids cruise. Yes. They are on the cruise. And yes, you do see them. Basically, what happens is there are activities during the day and then every night they have something. The first night, usually they do like a game show in the theater and they have to split the they have to split the ship up into two, because the theaters aren't big enough for the whole ship, because no one does that. And so they they do that and then one night's a concert, and some cruises they've done solo things -- like Joe would do a little solo show, Jordan would do a solo show, things like that, Danny, and then every night there's a party on the Lido Deck.

Leah Jones 48:51 Okay ...

Jen 48:52 The party doesn't start until like midnight. Now I'm not old, but I'm in my mid 40s -- I start things at midnight, but for some reason, you find the energy on these cruises to do it. And the party goes until like three in the morning, four in the morning, and the guys come out and there's a different theme every night. Some people get dressed up -- I'm not one of the ones that gets -- I'm all about kind of like simplicity when it comes to abiding by the theme. If I can abide by the theme in just a T-shirt, I will do that, but some people will go all out.

Jen 49:36 On year, they had like your favorite TV character -- so if I was a Star Trek fan like maybe I would actually dress as a Klingon, for example. So, some people will go all out. but I'm like more of a -- if it's something I can get with a T-shirt, I'm good. Because I'm also a very practical person, and pack light.

Leah Jones 49:59 Is this a Caribbean cruise or like a Yucatan?

Jen 50:02 It's usually the Bahamas. There were two years where they did Mexico out of New Orleans. One year, they did out of New York and it went to -- the destination's not even -- it doesn't matter. Like they can go out -- just the middle of the ocean and we'll all be like, "Whatever!" There are some people when you when you when we get to the port, some people don't even get off the ship. They just sleep all day.

Leah Jones 50:32 Yeah, I think if you were dancing on the Lido Deck until three in the morning with the New Kids on the Block ...

Jen 50:40 So it's amazing. And then they do like they do have a meet and greet -- the meet and greet on the ship goes even faster than it does during the tours. And I feel so bad for the guys, because it's such a long day for them. But it's an amazing experience. It's so much fun. You go with your girlfriends, and you just have a blast. You're not like literally having breakfast with Jordan or anything, but you see them wandering about the ship.

Jen 51:06 Yeah. And you know, kind of the code is be cool when you see them. Like, don't rush them. If a crowd starts to form, don't start pushing. And as long as the fans are cool, then the security will be cool. And yeah, they'll take selfies all day long. And, you know, you know, when you get 2,500 women on a ship, it doesn't always stay cool. But yeah, but for the most part it does, especially as we get older.

Leah Jones 51:32 Have you gotten any Joey selfies and in those -- like casual at the breakfast buffet?

Jen 51:39 Oh, yeah. I think for the longest time -- again, based on the other stories I've shared, this won't be surprising -- it was almost as if I was like, "I'm just gonna wait for them to come to me." I wouldn't push my way through. The first few cruises I went on -- zero photos with the New Kids, zero hugs from the New Kids.

Jen 52:09 Because a crowd forms around a New Kid, and I hang out in the back -- as if Joey or Donnie are going to work their way through this crowd to come to me. Which oddly enough, never happened. No. So, I would say over the last few cruises, I got better at not being pushy, but being patient and working my way through and yeah, you know, trying to get pictures. There was one cruise where I managed to get a selfie with each one of the guys, which felt like this amazing accomplishment. And I was able to do so without, you know, having to like, push anybody out of the side or anything crazy like that.

Jen 52:51 But yeah, so it was amazing. I will say the last cruise we went on, 2018, I wouldn't say I came off the ship totally unscathed. I did have a incident coming down the waterslide. I come off the waterslide -- the ship's water, like in the pools and stuf, it's very salty -- but I wasn't prepared for that. When I came down the water slide, I was kind of disoriented. And stepping out of the waterslide, I slipped coming down the steps.

Jen 53:33 All I could imagine was that I was gonna hit my head on --vthere was like this ledge ahead of me. And I thought for sure I was going to hit my head on it, so I had put my arms out in front of me to break my fall, which is a never do. I fractured my elbow, and somehow in the fall, when I fell forward, my legs kicked up behind me and my shins slammed against the edge of the step. So, that hurt. I'm like, "Oh, my elbow, my elbow," and I turn over and I look at my my right leg and my shin. I have a big ol' hole.

Jen 54:13 I'm like,"Oh, my God!" So I put my leg out, and one of the ship workers came over, "Are you okay?" And I'm like, "No, my arm, my arm." And then he sees my leg, and goes, "Oh, my God!" And then my friend comes off the slide and she's like, "Oh, that was fun, that was great. Oh, are you okay?" I'm like, "Oh, my arm!" She's like, oh, and then she looks at my leg and she's like, "Oh, my God!"

Leah Jones 54:42 Oh, no! And then, Joey came out of the crowd and lifted you in his arms --

Jen 54:50 and he saved me! No, that didn't happen. But the worst part about this was -- there's if you've ever been on the cruise, there's a camera that is off the Lido Deck the whole time. So, I later hear from people -- "Oh, are you the one that fell? I was watching that on camera in my cabin." So I'm thinking at first, I fell -- there was like four people in a hot tub nearby -- I'm like, "Not a lot of people saw this." No, like a lot of people saw this.

Jen 55:27 It was such a crazy experience. So then I ended up having to go down to the ship's hospital, which at the very bottom of the of the ship. And which is really a kind of cool experience, cause it's not something you see. And they clean out the wound, they X-ray my elbow, they wrap up my leg. They put my arm in like a splint and a brace or whatever, and fortunately it was the last day of the cruise. And I'm like, "I mean, I can still go to the Lido Deck party tonight, right?"

Leah Jones 56:04 [laughter]

Jen 56:04 The doctor looks at me, he's like, well, "I, don't think you should be standing, you know, you've got a hole in your leg, I don't think you should be standing for like four hours until four in the morning." It's not even standing for four hours, because the party starts at midnight, but we all go out there at like 10 o'clock, because you want to have a decent spot because the guys come out in the crowd and stuff and want to hopefully, see them. So he's like, I don't think you should be -- so I get a pass to sit in the ADA section.

Leah Jones 56:35 Okay, good plan.

Jen 56:37 So, I get to sit the whole time and I'm feeling kind of bad because I don't really feel like it's fair, because I'm generally able bodied, and there are people who have -- lifelong, you know, people who are -- wheelchairs and you know, I feel bad. But I was kind of towards the back. I didn't bring a chair and sit myself right in front of the ADA section -- I'm not that awful. But they happened to move at a section that night to be right in front of like the stage where the guys hang out.

Jen 57:09 So, the previous nights they kind of had them in a not so great spot -- I was looking at the guys' back the whole night. And so I double lucked out that they had happened to move it. But which was good, but they should have had it there the whole time, so it was great. So then Jordan came through, and Jordan, we had the meet and greet that day -and Jordan sees me. I literally put my clothes back on from the meet and greet event, but he sees me and he's like, wait a second, and he looks at my arm, and he's like, "Did that just happen?"

Jen 57:44 And I go, "Yeah, stay off the waterslide." So the question I haven't had the guts to ask them when I went through on all my meet and greets from the tour that followed, was whether or not they happened to see on the Lido Deck camera the girl who fell. Cause that was me! You know, if I ever get my opportunity to have like a 15 minute coffee chat with one of them, I'm totally gonna ask.

Leah Jones 58:11 That's amazing. Yeah, I thought you were gonna say -- so, I've only done one cruise and it was a Disney Cruise. And I don't remember looking to see if there was like a closed caption -- I don't think I ever like bothered turning the TV on. I thought you were gonna say that, like at the end -- cause they take pictures through a cruise and you can buy your book of pictures. I thought you were gonna say that they had like, offered you the photograph of you like falling or bleeding on the deck that the photographer would have like, tagged you in that.

Jen 58:46 How amazing would that have been?

Leah Jones 58:48 It would have been really good, but I also think finding out that you were that everyone saw it as they were sitting in their room hungover, is also pretty wild.

Jen 58:59 Yeah. And and I I think probably on a New Kids cruise more people watch that "channel," because they're waiting to see when the crowd's starting to form, so they know they need to hurry and get out there. It was amazing how many people were walking up to me, "Were you the one? I saw that." I couldn't believe it. The New Kids were supposed to cruise in April of last year.

Leah Jones 59:21 Oh, yeah. Gotta cancel that one.

Jen 59:23 Yeah. And when things first started, I had friends who were like "Cruise ain't happening." and I was like, "It could happen -- hold out hope! This is gonna blow over in a few weeks!" And then when we had the shelter in place. It's like, "Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna stay home for three weeks and then we're gonna go on the cruise!"

Leah Jones 59:44 Yeah. Then we'll be ready. We'll be good. They'll test us all....

Jen 59:51 ... nooooooo. So who knows when when it'll happen again. And then they were supposed to do a show at Fenway last year and they were supposed to tour this yearl So right now, Fenway is on the books for July.

Leah Jones 1:00:10 July of 2021?

Jen 1:00:14 Yeah. And Massachusetts is doing outdoor concerts. But what's unclear is if it will be at full capacity. The problem is, the tickets are already sold. It's a sold-out show. So if they're gonna do 50% capacity gets cancelled. But then you factor in like, there's a lot of people who travel from Europe and like, no one from Europe is getting out of Europe. You know, who knows what they're going to do, but I don't have a very, I'm extremely hopeful, but I don't know.

Leah Jones 1:00:45 So yeah, you have tickets to that Fenway show?

Jen 1:00:47 Of course. And who knows what's gonna happen with the tour, but hopefully 2022? And who knows what meet and greets will look like, when that starts back up. Will that will that be a thing? Will they still hug fans? Will I still do a meet and greet if I can't hug them? I probably will.

Jen 1:01:12 Because now that I'm able to, you know, there's the meet and greet, but it usually comes along with a really good seat as well, and I'd like to be right up front, because my vision's not so good anymore. [laughter] So I'll still do those packages, but we'll see what happens with with that experience.

Leah Jones 1:01:36 One last question. I know we're getting close to time. What's your favorite song?

Jen 1:01:43 Oooh. If I can only pick one ...

Leah Jones 1:01:51 Well, I'll let you go top three.

Jen 1:01:53 Okay, I'm gonna say my favorite old song is, "Please Don't Go, Girl." I have a lot of favorites from their new stuff. There's a song called "Defying Gravity," which they never play on tour. I wish they would. I love that song. It's on one of their newer albums. And I also love "Click, Click, Click," which was on their first album back. It might be because there's so much like sentiment and feeling attached to it from what they were doing when they were performing that song on the tours, and how that was the song that kind of made Donnie want to do the reunion and everything. So there might be you know, something to that. Really that whole first album is amazing.

Leah Jones 1:02:44 What's that new album called?

Jen 1:02:47 Yeah, it's called "The Block."

Leah Jones 1:02:48 "The Block." Oh, New Kids on the Block? Yep, got it.

Jen 1:02:56 Tdhat whole album, I absolutely love. They've done multiple albums since then. I mean, they've they've been back longer --

Leah Jones 1:03:07 -- than they were together.

Jen 1:03:10 Yeah, than they were the first time around. And they've made more music this time around, than they did the first time around. I would say those are my favorites.

Leah Jones 1:03:20 That's so good. I was aware that they had toured again, I don't think I was aware that they were touring as more than a nostalgia band.

Jen 1:03:32 They do they do such a good job with the tours, because they set the setlists, so that it's a mix of the old stuff and the new stuff. We joke, this last tour in 2000 -- was it '18? '19. We would still meet people, they were like, "Oh, this is my first show." And we're like, "Where have you been for the last 11 years?"

Jen 1:04:00 And so there are still people who are rediscovering them for the first time, which is amazing -- , amazing, like how? But also just like yes! I love that people are still continuing to rediscover them. The setlist is always a mix of the new and the old stuff just to make sure that you know the casual fan recognizes ...

Leah Jones 1:04:22 ... feels taken care of. Well, Jen, is there anything about NKOTB that I haven't asked you about, that if we hang up, you'll be sad that you didn't tell me.

Jen 1:04:36 Um, you know, I think what is so awesome about them is the relationship that they have with the fans. You know, they're active on social media, they're active in like side projects and connecting with the fans. Danny Wood does has an organization called Remember Betty, and it's in honor of his mother, who passed away from breast cancer. And he does a ton of fundraising, and the fans have basically organized these different chapters to raise money for breast cancer.

Jen 1:05:15 And they do so much for people who are going through that to just provide things that they can't get elsewhere -- whether it's financial support or other means of support, and it's amazing work that he does and the fan support. But then just everything that they do through social media and the connection they have with the fans -- you know, people talk about, like Taylor Swift and Swifties. And like, Justin Bieber and Beliebers, but it's a much more genuine connection.

Jen 1:05:48 I mean, like I said, there have literally been fans who have become friends with members of the New Kids, and fans who have started working for the New Kids. They truly have a connection. Donnie is like, truly the captain and he will, he remembers people. And he reaches out to people, and he's done things that other artists won't -- don't, necessarily do. You know, somebody needs financial support, or if somebody needs to get to a show and can't afford it, and he hears about it, he'll buy them tickets -- like front row tickets. They just have this amazing relationship with the fans -- that they consider us family and if they hear about a Blockhead -- that's what we're called. I didn't come up with it. But you know, if they hear about a Blockhead, who's passed away or is going through something, they're there for them. And they reach out and they send their best wishes and they mourn. And you don't often see that with with artists and fans.

Jen 1:05:48 Yeah. I think there's something really special too, because they were people's number one band as teenagers -- they were teenage heartthrobs. And, then they got to go away and have their 20s and dcome back, and everybody has gone away, grown up and come back together. That I think there's a level of appreciation and relationship possible with that like sabbatical. Yeah, that is maybe not possible when a band never goes away.

Jen 1:07:33 Yeah, and I would say that the the stages of the fandom -- When I was 14, it was about "Oh, my God, I love Joey McIntyre. I want to be Jennifer McIntyre, when I grow up". And when they reunited, it was "Oh, my God, I'm 14 again. I want to be Jennifer McIntyre, even though I'm married and he's married." And then, it went to the "My goodness, he was my first celebrity crush" and you know, kind of getting nervous in meet and greets to now it's like, "Hey, Joe, what's up?" and joking. And it's not about like, "Oh, I love you, Joey. I want to be Jennifer McIntyre."

Jen 1:08:14 It's not about that anymore. It's just about a connection and an outlet, and having something that's for me, and being able to put everything else aside for a time and enjoy my "me time," my time with my friends, with these guys that provide this great outlet. And that's really what it's about. To me, I think everyone should have that thing.

Leah Jones 1:08:46 Yes.

Jen 1:08:47 That's what I think is so great about your podcast.

Leah Jones 1:08:48 Thank you.

Jen 1:08:49 Everyone should have that thing that they love and are passionate about, and is an outlet that has nothing to do with working with their career or with family or anything that's just about enjoyment and having that release. And so to me, that's what it's all about.

Leah Jones 1:09:11 Fantastic. Well, Jen, this has been a blast. It's so nice to catch up with you.

Jen 1:09:17 Me, too.

Leah Jones 1:09:18 I do wish we were in Barcelona having this conversation,

Jen 1:09:22 Me, too.

Leah Jones 1:09:23 One day. One day, we'll return. So, thank you, and have a wonderful rest of your weekend.

Jen 1:09:31 Thank you, you, too.

Announcer 1:09:33 Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Note: I made a rookie mistake with copyright infringement the first time around and the clips of the Boss I used weren't short enough for fair use according to Apple and YouTube. This is a Bruce-free version of the episode, while still being 100% Bruce.

Kevin T. Porter, host of the Good Christian Fun, Gilmore Guys and Inside Voices, makes podcasts about things he's interested in, but he loves Bruce Springsteen. We talk about how he experienced love at first note watching a PBS pledge drive, the kindness of fellow Bruce fans, and how there is a Bruce for every season. And yes, we also talk about the Jeep commercial.

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Show Links (there are so many)

The mindmap and blog post that I talk about
Kevin on Don't Get Me Started talking about Bruce
Out in the Street - Kevin's love at first sight video
Seeger Sessions playlist
Rolling Stone top 500 - Born to Run is #21
Roy Orbison and Friends playlist
New York Serenade
Open All Night
Jamie Loftus on Andy' Richter's 3 Questions talking about her Lolita Podcast
The Queerness of Bruce Springsteen
Trouble in the Heartland - the concert after Reagan's election

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Pam Rose, an amateur puppeteer in Rhode Island, and I share a love of the podcast How Did This Get Made and improv comedy's favorite bearded fellow, Jason Mantzoukas. Lucky for Pam, she's engaged to Jason, "because of some Greek thing." We know each other through the fandom and spent a couple hours on Zoom talking about HDTGM, the fan group we're in, movie watch parties and the joy in picking a "so bad it's good" bad movie to watch with friends.

Find Pam online: @sockgirlie

The Dating Game on Thursdays with Rob and Paul (Pam is Burger King and Leah is the cat)
Friendzone (Paul Scheer's Twitch channel)
Hanging with Paul Scheer (Discord)
HDTGM Discord
Largo in LA
Greg Sestero (The Room)
What is Happening for Dummies t-shirt
The Baby
The Pit
Pam and Hanson for On Milwaukee
Listen to Sassy

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Seth Yavit, a DC-area therapist and artist, joined me on Finding Favorites to sketch out his path from Second City to becoming an art therapist. Seth and Leah met in writing classes with Kim Clark, founder of The Acorn Theater in Three Oaks Michigan.

Show Links

Seth Yavit Paintings
New York Stories
Interpol
Longwave
Palette 22
The Sacred and the Profane
Learn more about Art Therapy

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Veronica Arreola, a professional feminist and host of the Feminist Agenda, joined me in February to talk about professional women's soccer, pay equity and supporting the things we want to see in the world. We also talk about Wandavision a lot, so jump to 29:00 to skip to the Soccer Talk with Leah and Veronica.

Subscribe to The Feminist Agenda
Follow Veronica on Instagram and Twitter
Las Ganas at UIC
Wandavision Spoilers: Pietro Easter Eggs
Season tickets to the Chicago Red Stars
Women's World Cup Final 1999
Mia Hamm and Michael Jordan
US Soccer HQ
Alex Morgan
Billie Jean King vs Bobby Riggs
Women's Sports Foundation
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - fundraising for Atlanta victims
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - bystander training

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Kristal Milazzo, a designer, writer and improviser based in Dallas, Texas, loves the Mary Tyler Moore universe of TV shows. She traces her love of all things MTM Enterprises to noticing Mimsie the Cat in the closing credits of WKRP and then again on Newhart. We talk about the impact of MTM Enterprises on NBC, comedy tropes and how she portrayed working, child-free women to America.

Find Kristal online

Dallas Comedy Links

Dallas Comedy House shuts down for good
Four Day Weekend
Stomping Ground Comedy Theater

MeowyPoppins is a good way to meet a lot of Jasmine's favorite cats

Follow these pets on Instagram

The Dogist
Simon Sits
Shadow
Millie the Wunder Dog
Haddie the Pirate Dog
Mr. Willis the Cat
Popeye the Foodie

Shout out to Mike Murphy on YouTube. I went looking for an Audition tutorial tonight and his video was very helpful. About 10 seconds in, his voice unlocked some dusty memories. He was the bartender at the restaurant in Durango, Colorado, where I got my cat Spidey.

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Vicki Webb, a senior civil servant in London, has always loved to garden. We talk about gardens in literature, cooking tomatoes in pots and growing fruit trees in London.

Follow Vicki on Instagram From A Hackney Garden

Show Notes

Busy Lizzie flowers
Square Foot Gardening
Positive East (UK HIV Charity)
Wild Persimmons are purple
Persimmon seeds predict the winter
Chelsea Physics Garden
Weapons of Math Destruction
Gilbert Wilson Murals
A Moby Dick illustrated by Gilbert Wilson

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Ezra Butler, a systems architect and artist based in Chicago, loves Andy Warhol for his art, philosophy and the life he lead. We sat down at my kitchen table to talk about all things Warhol and why it was so hard for Ezra to select just one favorite thing to talk about.

Follow Ezra Butler online

@EzraButler on Twitter, Instagram
@EzraButlerArt on Instagram
Atomic Einstein
Ezra Butler Art
Ezra Butler Consulting

Related Links

Lee's Martial Arts Bloomington (for Wednesday classes with Adam)

Ghostwood Farm

Neko Case on 3 Questions with Andy Richter

Neko Case on NPR Tiny Desk Concert

Billie Eilish on Carpool Karaoke

Adaptive ballroom dance with Vital Zinger

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Steve Higgins is an award-winning English professor at Lewis and Clark who loves all things Doctor Who. We had a lovely conversation about how he first found the Doctor on two local PBS stations near St. Louis and rediscovered the Doctor in a clearance bin at a record shop.

Follow Steve on Twitter and Tik Tok where he does one minute poetry lessons.

Related Links

BroaDWcast.org

David Steel: The Power of 3 Podcast

Ink and Drink Comics

Comic Nurse: Taking Turns and Menopause

Pluto TV Classic Doctor Who Station

Party Animals on BBC

Thank you to fellow Millikin alumna Denise Meyerkord for introducing Steve and I for this conversation!

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Jen Myers, a Chicago-based technologist, writer and podcaster, loves the movie-watch-along show Mystery Science Theater 3000. We talk about her earliest fandom to how she's trying to figure out how to take a life size Tom Servo along with her to Comic Cons.

Related Links

Mystery Science Theater 3000 IMDB

Follow Jen on Twitter and check out her website for news about projects.

Quiet Little Horrors podcast

Riff Trax

Shout Factory

The Flophouse Podcast

Thank you to sound engineer Nancy Caddigan who cleans up my zoomy audio!

Stay home, stay safe.

(Fresh file with music instead of dead air breaks, plus 19)

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Jason Diamond is a Brooklyn-based writer who loves the weird American suburb, so much so that he wrote the book on them. The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburb is available today and is Jason's exploration of the art and culture that is born of suburbs.

We talk about so many of his favorite things, starting with a conversation about music and the Chicago live-music scene in the 90s, Romantic Comedies, independent bookstores, and great Chicago meals.

Links!

Follow Jason Diamond on Twitter and Instagram

Join Jason virtually at Volumes Bookstore on September 9th

Buy The Sprawl from an independent bookstore or his first book Searching for John Hughes

Leah's profile in the 2010 Big Jewcy list

Jason drove all around Lake Michigan in November

And the Mother-In-Law sandwich is real

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Scotty Iseri, the host of The Imagine Neighborhood, loves open mic nights (and probably open mic afternoons, too). He learned plenty of life lessons trying to make strangers look up from their laptops and pay attention to him.

Links

The Imagine Neighborhood

The Digits

Scotty Got an Office Job

Emily Heller - writing retreats

Tumblr acquired by Yahoo, David Karp founder

Thea Lux runs a Zoom open mic

Find Leah on other podcasts

Friday Night Movies - Mantzoukas-Fest: Just talking about Jason Mantzoukas for an hour with friends

The Blank Slate with Sam Tanios

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Robert Loerzel was once voted Chicago's best person to follow on Twitter and he still is. He also loves the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and all of the assorted books, comic books, and music associated with it. Robert almost picked David Lynch, so we don't leave him out of the conversation.

Leah recorded an extra-long introduction about the Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, which is available on Play per View until August 20, 2020.

Links

Follow @RobertLoerzel on Twitter and Instagram

Buy his new book Walking Chicago

Buy his first book Alchemy of Bones

2001: A Space Odyssey (the novel) by Arthur C Clarke

How Uptown became an entertainment hub on Curious City

2001: A Space Odyssey. What it means and how it was made, The New Yorker

Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece

Our beloved Music Box Theater

Bonus Links

Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Play Per View available until August 20, 2020

Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece

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Amy Hatch, a content consultant and CEO of her own business, loves all things Disney. The parks, the properties, the cruises and the movies. She takes us through her journey of melting her Gen-X cynicism with the power of Disney.

Links

The Imagineering Story

Disney Fairy Tale Weddings

Follow Amy on Twitter

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In this episode, I flipped the script and interviewed one of my favorites - Andy Slavitt. You can find him on Twitter at @aslavitt or on almost any given news channel on a daily basis. He is a tireless advocate for improving healthcare access in the United States and is currently focused on stopping the public mismanagement of COVID-19.

The episode ends with a pep talk for people planning High Holy Day services at synagogues.

Links

In the Bubble - the podcast he and his son started during the lockdown

Laurie Kilmartin's tweets about her mother's death and a Washington Post article about the same subject

Paul Smith is the co-founder and CTO of Ad Hoc

Northwestern's Health Communication MS program

Get health insurance on the exchange

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William Pacholski, the owner and founder of the Portland Psychic School, talks with me about Dave Malloy's musical Natasha and Pierre and the Great Comet of 1912. The Great Comet ran on Broadway for nearly a year, closing on September 3, 2017, but as you'll hear - it was performed in a variety of venues for a few years as Dave Malloy developed the show.

Additional Links

The One That Got Away videos are all on Vimeo. Here's Eric Himan performing Both Hands as a taste of the show.

The cast recording of The Great Comet is available on Spotify and lots of other places.

The Assassins

Dave Malloy - the artistic genius

Millikin University

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Esther Kustanowitz is an LA based writer and journalist who loves most things Star Wars. Join us as we talk about how she found Star Wars, what she loves about it and her special appreciation for Carrie Fisher. She explains what the Machete Order is and recommends some novels that fill in Princess Leia's life story.

You can subscribe to Esther's podcast The Bagel Report, follow her on Twitter where she is @EstherK, or follow her TV Gone Jewy Facebook page for the latest in Jewish representation on TV.

Related Links

Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray

Newcomers podcast with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus

Bibi's Bakery in LA

Esther's essay on Star Wars and grieving

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi Leia, Princess of Alderaan (Star Wars: Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

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Jill Alexander Essbaum is a poet, author and professor based in Austin, Texas. Her favorite thing is old time radio - specifically thriller radio programs. We talk about Suspense (CBS Radio from 1940 to 1962), how Jill found the first set of CDs that turned her on to Old Time Radio, and just how many hours of recordings she keeps on her iPod.

Her new book of poetry, Would-Land, is available from Cooper Dillon and her first novel, Hausfrau, has been translated into over 20 languages. Chances are good there is a copy available in your preferred language.

Other helpful links from our conversation

RUSC.com

USA Today article which covers Old Time Radio and many online archives

Libri Vox - the home of free public domain audiobooks

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Brad Manilla, AKA DJ Sparklebomb, is a user experience designer and recovering entrepreneur who joined me to talk about how he became a DJ. In this episode, Brad describes his chill summer mix tape Infinity Pool, which I suggest you listen to before diving into our full conversation. Fakin' the Funk is his new mixtape that brings you a lot of underground hip hop that we talk about.

Learn more about Scribble Jam - a hip hop music festival in Cincinnati, Ohio that ran from 1996 to 2009. This video shows the graffiti walls that we talk about.

Follow Brad on Twitter and sign up for his emails for occasional mix tape drops.

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Brandy Agerbeck, who writes on and teaches visual thinking, loves Harold and Maude. In this episode she describes being drawn to the movie because of the distinct graphic design and how it led her to Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Find her classes, books and swag at Loosetooth.com

Recommendations

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders

Straight Up

All of Nicole Byer's podcasts

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

Zardoz

Danny Peary on Cult Movies

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Scott Smith, known to the internet as Our Man In Chicago, is living his best Josh Lyman life as Chief Communications Officer for the Cook County Assessor’s Office. He is a writer and former journalist who produces The Frunchroom - a reading series that features five stories about the South Side of Chicago, often from South Siders, but also from those throughout Chicago who’ve experienced all that this part of the city has to offer.

You can find the Cook County Assessor's Office on Twitter - keep an eye out for quotes from The West Wing.

You can find the podcast that got me into podcasts at The West Wing Weekly.

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Saul Colt is an experiential and word-of-mouth marketer based on Toronto (available for you to hire at The Idea Integration Co) who loved David Letterman. In this conversation, not only does Saul sing praises for the premise of Finding Favorites, he walks us through the bands, movies and comics that he found through David Letterman.

Late Night with David Letterman started on NBC in 1982 and lasted 10 years. He moved from NBC to CBS in 1992 when Leno took over The Tonight Show. He stayed at CBS until his retirement in 2015. You can now find David Letterman on Netflix with a long-form interview show called My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

We talk a bit about Larry Bud Melman, so here's a classic clip of Larry Bud Melman at Port Authority.

And for good measure, here are The Lemonheads singing It's a Shame about Ray instead of Mrs. Robinson.

Follow Saul on social media and subscribe to his podcast: We Now Join The Program Already in Progress

Twitter: @saulcolt

Instagram @saulcolt

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Jason Mathes and I went to college together at Millikin University and probably haven't talked (other than social media) since the day we graduated in 1999, but he's the reason this podcast exists. We have a meandering conversation that stays mostly focused on his love of game shows, his lifelong goal to compete on Jeopardy, and ideas on how to improve any game show concept.

Do you want to calculate inflation when you watch classic game shows? Use the West Egg Inflation Calculator

To watch

Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much
Quiz Show
Pluto TV BUZZR channel

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Jasmine Davila joined me to talk about columnist Laurie Colwin, but mostly we talked about her true pop culture love Tom Hiddleston. Jasmine is a writer, performer and producer in Chicago and the current curator of Miss Spoken.

You can find her online as JasmineD everywhere that fine social media is shared.

Twitter

Instagram

Tumblr

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Terry Gant is the owner of Third Coast Comics and his heart belongs to the Legion of Superheros. In this conversation, Terry takes us from discovering the Legion when he was 11-years-old on the South Side of Chicago and traces the path all the way to opening a comic book store in Rogers Park on the North Side. We also start by talking about how small businesses are surviving the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you need comics, email Terry at terry at thirdcoastcomics.com

Follow the store on Twitter at @3rdCoastComics

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