Oh oh oh Hello and welcome to another Material Concerns episode of Material Girls. I'm Hannah McGregor. And I'm Marcel Kosman. And if we sound a little more buttoned up than usual, that's because we have Coach here producing us in this off-week episode. So naturally, that means no fucking around, Hannah. Yeah, actually, that's not true because, coach, if you believe it. Drumroll, please.
is on mic. That's right, folks. Coach is allowed to speak on our material concerns episodes now. And when Coach is on mic, she also tends to fuck around. Woo! She's not just allowed, Hannah. Rather. Encouraged. Coach, say something. Start fucking around, please. Hi. So fun.
I'm blushing to be here. Oh, I killed Marcel. No. We can't say anything funny because Marcel has a cough and when she laughs, she coughs more. That's right. And so this is going to be one of those serious episodes. I say that like it's a joke. joke like we never do a serious episode and then I'm like anyway let's talk about the long-term implications of the trade war like what am I doing
our normally whimsical podcast. You all know how like budgeting, like we were just talking about budgeting is so horrible and like impossible. But if listeners, anytime Marcel has a cough, anytime we're like, Marcel has a cough. put 10 bucks away. Put 10 bucks into your savings account. Because I'm like, I think every time you're in Mike, you're like, I'm so sorry.
I'm a little flummy today. I'm so sorry. I'm really sick. I'm so sorry. I've got another horrible virus from my beautiful child. Oh, just the one? Only the one gives you the viruses? As far as I can tell. Elliot has the immune system of a superhero. She could still be bringing things home and giving them to you. You know what? She's a carrier for sure. She's patient zero. Yeah, that's right. Good point. Good point, Hannah. But she's not the one who's like...
spitting into your mouth. That's true. She has not coughed directly into my mouth in about six years. So it's probably Cohen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's gross. Okay. Coach, tell us what the plan is other than our new drinking game. This is where on, Mike, we get to announce that we're going weekly, everyone. Oh, my God. We're going weekly. We're going weekly. Oh, that's amazing. Guess if we've ever gone weekly before. No.
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, we've always been Fortnite-ly. Yes, famously Fortnite-ly, which plays a Fortnite-ly podcast. And then Material Girls has been... fortnightly slash bimonthly, depending on how you want to talk about it. Semi-weekly, I've also heard. Semi-weekly.
That means every Tuesday an episode is going to come out. And we're going to stick to our cadence that we've been doing, which is a regular format episode with Hannah and Marcel. And then on the off week, which is to say the following week. There'll be a material concerns episode and then we'll go back to regular format, the material concerns and so on and so forth. The difference is I'm now allowed to speak.
Encouraged even. Encouraged even. As long as you're here to fuck around, Coach. I am totally here to fuck around. I'm so happy to be here to fuck around. The other thing is that our material concerns episodes are going to look a little different than they have. Going back to our monthly bonus Q&A episodes.
that were beloved back in the Witch Please days, those episodes will be paywalled on Patreon. And that's where you listeners can submit questions specific to the episode that's just come out or episodes that have just come out. Perk will be available at all paid tiers. That means for as little as $5 a month, you can get those bonus Q&A episodes. But then these material concerns episodes are going to be a grab baggy thing.
You can submit questions that are specific to the episode that just came out. Or you can submit random questions. They don't have to be on topic. That's right. They can be evergreen. I mean, have we ever been on topic? No. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. In the material concerns episodes, no. In regular format, you're so on top. We're usually pretty good. So why would we ask something of the listeners that we cannot model ourselves, you know? Right, right.
Yeah, Off Topic is encouraged. And those will be for our mailbag episodes. But then these Material Concerns episodes are going to be segmented because we love a segment. Love segments. a few different kind of like a grab bag of segments that we've brainstormed as a team and then also with our Patreon supporters. So it's going to be a melange.
If you will. A mélange. I will. A mélange. And it's also going to be en français. Yeah. Oui. Tu le ton. Bien sûr. C'est seulement maintenant. C'est seulement une podcast française. Okay, you guys, I need you to understand that every time you make me laugh, it triggers my cough. And we're simply not going to get through this episode. Unless you stop being so funny. No. Stop it. Death first. Well...
Well, I have it scripted that, you know, the impulse will be at this moment to jump into our first segment, but I actually need to temperature take to feel comfortable in social situations. So how are you guys doing? What's up? The sun is out in Vancouver and I am a simple creature. So when the sun comes out and the little crocuses, it's crocus season in Vancouver right now. That's awesome. Every single crocus is a personal favorite.
Oh my gosh, I just had a merch idea. It's a crocus and it says, welcome back, bitch. Doesn't that feel like, right? That's how I feel. Like I'm like, they're coming back. I'm also back. Like I'm like, oh, my personality. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. The sun comes out and I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. I like things. What? Yeah.
One of the things that I really love about Edmonton is that there's so much sky here. She stays coming out. Yeah, she comes out pretty quick and she stays out. So like the dark months are rough for sure. It's cold. It's dark. But that cold dark is brief. And I appreciate that very much. The class that I teach from six to nine, now when I walk into that classroom at six o'clock, the sun is still out.
And I, I am a fan. I'm a big fan of that. And by the end of the semester, the sun will be out at the end of class too. That is nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I love that. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. How are you? I'm good. Apparently it's a beautiful day out. I have not been out yet, but I can kind of feel it. I can kind of tell based on my windows. I'm getting some nice natural light.
I love being able to tell the sun is out based on your windows. Based on just looking outside. Sort of the informational windows. Context clues. Coach, very good at detective work. Thank you. I'm a close reader. But yeah, I'm good. I mean, I'm really in my knitting era, so I don't feel like doing anything. I've found that my desire for labor is at an all-time low because I'm really enjoying leisure.
And that's a little new for me, and it's a bit of a problem. Listen, you just got to marry rich. I haven't done that, but somebody can. Based on our conversations prior to this episode beginning, you did in fact marry rich. I mean, no. Not rich enough. Not rich enough. Not...
Not rich in the sense of I can be a kept woman. I would do so well as a kept woman. I know there are so many people who are like, I would just go bananas. Go bananas, yeah. I don't know if you guys have seen the movie The Devil's Advocate. But like one of the through lines is that Charlize Theron's character, it like she starts to go a little goofy because she's so bored at home doing nothing because her husband is so rich. And me, I'd thrive. Wouldn't be you.
I don't care if they can hear me. I don't care! I don't like it here, Kevin. I would thrive. Anyway, sorry. Sorry to interrupt. There's enough to do. Yeah, not me. I would invent feminism. I feel like, well, I got to get the fuck out of here. Yeah, I'm sure I would go a little mad. If you give me a knitting project and I'm like, actually, I don't need a job because I have my work. I have to make this sock.
That's actually great. And then if you listen to an audiobook while you're doing it, you're actually self-improving. Yes, which, you know, I'm obsessed with. Yeah. Unironically. I feel sad. I feel sad that that's the truth. You're not wrong.
It's capitalism that's wrong. That's true. You should just be able to knit a blanket. That's right. Thank you. That's useful. It is. Thank you. Arguably more useful than a lot of the jobs out there. I agree. Not this one, though. This job is useful. It has utility. Speaking of, I feel like it's time for our next, not our next, our first segment. Oh my gosh. Okay, what is it? Let's do it. Okay. Blame the former college athlete in me. And this will be one of many times I'll mention that.
But I love when things are timed. And when we were thinking about this segment, which we're calling, I believe, okay, hear me out. I figured we needed a constraint because when given the opportunity to talk about things that we or you like, we tend to go on for a while. I keep using we, but again, famously, not usually on mic, so you guys. But I can do it. I can talk forever about a thing I like.
this episode, we simply don't have time. So how it's going to work is like this. We'll each have 60 seconds to pitch the others on anything we recommend. I'm talking TV shows, pens, snacks, people, people. Yeah, you could pitch us, Trevor. I would never. For 60 seconds. He's not for everyone's taste. I'm going to keep time, and we're each going to go, and then we can discuss. We'll start with Hannah, and I'll tell you when to go, okay? I'm ready. Three, two, one. Okay, hear me out.
Big water bottles. I know that this is a thing that a lot of people like to make fun of right now, right? The Stanley Cup craze. Like, why are all the girlies walking around with their enormous water bottles? Why does your water bottle need to be that big? That's an unreasonably large water bottle. Okay, one of the biggest successes of contemporary human civilization is... drinkable tap water. This is huge. It is enormous. We figured out a way to give people in urban centers.
unlimited access to fresh clean drinkable water that's incredible so people are like oh why is everybody so obsessed with staying hydrated we literally haven't been able to be hydrated for the majority of human history We've all been like dry. We've all like, we've all like been shriveled up. And now we have this opportunity to just drink as much water as humanly possible. And actually it's a really good idea.
beautifully done. Look at that water bottle. Wow. Okay, great. Big water bottles. Marcelle, are you ready? Okay. Okay. Three, two, one. Okay. Hear me out.
I know that when it comes to things like lip balms and nail clippers, people are going to say that you only need one of those things. And that's just not true. I am a huge advocate for having multiple lip balms and multiple little... nail clippers not only in one in every room but also one in every jacket pocket and the reason why is because you never know where you're going to be when your lips are dry
And you never know where you're going to be when you snag a fingernail and need help removing it without actually hurting yourself in the process. This is like brand new to me. I had never experienced having multiple pairs of nail clippers.
multiple, I don't know if pairs is the right word, multiple sets of nail clippers until I got into a long-term relationship with somebody who's really neurotic about not touching his fingernails except for with a tool. But I have made the switch and now I have multiple. sets of nail clippers and they are like a lifesaver. Good job. Incredible. Well done. Really well articulated. All right, coach, are you ready? Yeah. Three, two, one.
Go. Okay, hear me out. You should all get nieces. So I have a niece. I have my first niece. And I really can't recommend it enough. Like go find somebody to relate to like a sibling and then have them have a baby because I love her so much. This is a new experience and it's, I understand now, you know how people show photos.
of like their dogs and I'm kind of like, okay, cute, but it's just your dog. That's how I now feel about the cat, not the cat, the niece. I was thinking about you with your cats. Okay. With my niece, I'm just like, I'm like nothing, like, like nothing matters except for like.
hopefully one day getting to hold her. She's in the NICU right now and she's so freaking cute. And I get pictures of her every day. And I just think like, I'm like, this is all that matters. Like I'm now, just speaking of like being a kept woman or whatever, I'm like, I can dive into like trad wife-dom. moments because okay anyway so you should get something that you care about um more than yourself time
What a range. What a range. You should get something you care about more than yourself is actually so powerful. I know that kids are not for everybody. I know that some people really struggle. to spend time with kids. Some people have chosen not to have kids because they don't like kids. I mean, one, I'm on record for...
Thinking that that's actually an unreasonable stance. Because I'm pretty sure we sort of largely on the left agreed that we don't choose whole categories of people and disavow them. So we don't do that. But also, kids rule. And getting to have kids in your life who love you and are excited to spend time with you is like...
The best. It's so cool. Yeah. It's so cool. To be clear, this baby does not care about me yet. At all. Yeah, but she will. But that's what's cool is I'm like, oh my gosh, something I love that cares not at all, like does not know me at all. And like truly does it. And I still love it. That's cool. That's radicalizing. And such is the appeal of cats, right? Like they will eat your face.
No, see, it's different because the cats are aware of you. This baby isn't even aware of me. No, that's true. The cat thing is like, I don't know. I worry for people. I worry for you guys. I do. I worry for cat lovers.
Okay, the next okay, hear me out is going to be about cats. Or are you worried about the brain virus that we have? Well, the brain worms for sure. But more than that, like the comfortability with being like, yeah, it's hurtful to me, but I love it anyway. I'm like, I don't know. You're like, yeah.
yeah, it scratched me, but I still love it. And I'm like, I don't know, guys. Yeah, no, we'll talk in another episode about sort of the beauty of interspecies relation. That I'm okay with. Yeah. I'm not saying, I'm saying cat specifically. The good news is that in part two of this, there is a creature report where you two will get to talk about your cats. Thank goodness. But that's not now. That was okay. You're me out. So we had nice. We had big water bottle. He had lip balm.
I know that this isn't the point of okay, hear me out, but I have to take issue, Hannah, with your on the left, we don't disavow whole groups of people. I disagree. We all know that all cops are bastards. Yeah, that's true. That is true. And I think we can all. comfortably disavow the mega community of Republicans. Yeah. Sorry. We don't disavow people for age. They're like innate identities. We disavow people for things they choose. That's right. That's right. Yes.
Okay, hear me out, folks. If you liked it, let us know. Yeah, we're actively soliciting feedback on all of these segments. So you tell us which ones are fun. Okay, fantastic. Now we're on to consumer retorts. Consumer retorts. I'm so excited about this one. Okay, so this is a new segment called Consumer Retorts. Marcel, do you remember when I believe this first came to you? Okay.
Fortunately, my memory is in shambles, but fortunately Coach has receipts. So I'm just going to dive into these receipts if that's okay. So I recently reached out to our Patreon tier Slack channel. the Board of Trustees, aka the Faculty Club, to ask for some advice about a group chat platform that my extended family group chat could move to because we want to get away from Meta.
And one of our beloved faculty members slash board of trustees, Jan, chimed in to let us know about a couple of options, letting us know that one of those options was not a serious product. Not serious product. And that framing of something is not a serious product like revolutionized my understanding of how to evaluate. products. And so as we were sort of brainstorming things for this new grab bag episode, I messaged our team Slack channel and I said,
that I had this idea where maybe we could have a segment where we talk about something that the internet has been advertising to us and that we caved and bought, and then we could evaluate it. And the only two options are that it's either... a serious product or it's not a serious product. And that is how we wound up here. And we got a shout out Jan, Brenda and Jack and Anne for bringing us to this incredible framework.
So good. So I guess we're going to talk about a thing that we bought either because somebody recommended it or because an algorithm told us that we needed it. That's right. And then we're going to give our reviews. i.e. is this a serious product or is this not a serious product that's right yeah yeah marzel do you have one
I'm prepared for this segment for the next two years. I am such a fucking sucker. It's a little bit embarrassing. Incredible. Okay, so I'll go first. I'm going to tell you about... Pretty litter. Pretty litter is a product that the Instagram algorithm, Instagram knows I have a cat, and it has gone hard to advertise pretty litter to me. And I was not interested for a very long time because...
In terms of internet purchases, it was a little bit higher than my normal threshold. If it's like $10 or $15, I'll give it a go. Like a monthly subscription for like $90. That seems a lot. This has also been advertised to me a lot, but on podcasts. Oh, interesting. My understanding is it changes colors depending on your cat's health and diseases.
Yeah. So I did buy it. The reason I ended up going for it is because a friend also recommended it to me. A friend uses it and said that it was worth the money. So I started using it. And I will tell you that in my experience... So far, when it turns blue, it's because you really need to change the litter. Can I give you a key? I have it right here, in fact. Blue is empty the litter, you dirtbag. No, no, no, no.
Blue is like alkaline, like the alkalinity is very high, but that can also be if it's just reached a saturation point, right? So with Pretty Litter, you only scoop the poop. the crystals absorb the urine. And so it's supposed to decrease the amount of work involved. So here's what I will say.
This was the first of three different crystal litters that I have tried. Wow. And it is because it's expensive. I was like, oh, a cheaper option. Oh, an even cheaper option. I've tried the two cheaper options. No. No good? No good. No good. No, you got to fork out. You got to fork out. So Pretty Litter, it absorbs the smell very well. And so far, I have not observed any blood. It does turn red if there's blood in the cat's urine. I have not observed any blood yet.
Oh my God. So that's gross. I know. Listen, cats won't tell you shit. So you really need to, you got to find ways. You know? You sort of got to read the piss leaves. Yeah. You got to read the pea leaves, if you will. I guess that's a better wordplay. Piss leaves feels right, though. So it is a subscription. You get to set how often. So I get three bags delivered to my door, which I appreciate. I like that. It absorbs smell very well, which I like.
And it is not very dusty. So when I pour the crystals in, it doesn't like big, big cloud of who knows what you're breathing into your lungs. How much does it get flung around? from the box. Al's a real flinger. Yeah. It would fling as much as a clay or a wheat.
base, whatever, walnut, whatever, whatever hippie litter I used to use. I think mine's corn base. Oh, corn. Yeah, exactly. It definitely tracks for sure. Like I only wear slippers now in the room because the crystals are also invisible. So I can't. You can't really see them as much. So that's a downside. I don't think that it lasts as long as they claim it lasts. Like I have one cat and they say that one bag will last an entire month. Absolutely not.
I will do a full litter change after about three weeks, and that seems to be working okay. What would you call pretty litter? I would call this a serious product. Serious product. Wow. You heard it here. Yeah. Coach, do you want to go next? Okay, I'm going to tell you about Orange Theory, which anyone who I've spoken to since January 15th has heard me talk about in a way that is...
I'm not proud of, but evidently the shame isn't keeping me from doing it on like the anonymity of the podcast. Like this is Hannah Rehag and I'm talking about Orange Theory. But okay, Orange Theory is a gym. Do you guys have it in Canada? We do. I've been one time. Oh, I can't wait to hear about your experience.
So here's the situation. You get an armband and the armband tracks your data basically while you're working out. Then there's a coach who's leading you through an hour and there are basically three levels of engagement with your workout. base, which is like, I can sustain this for a while. There's push, which means I'm starting to get uncomfortable. And then all out is like, this is the hardest I can go at this exercise.
the coach is leading you through that throughout. So it's high intensity interval training hit. And they're telling you what to do. Marcel, you'd love it. They're telling you what to do for an hour. And it's only ever an hour. Again, it's never longer than that. Sometimes it's 50 minutes. And you're getting data in real time so you can see yourself when you're in the orange zone, which means that your heart rate is working. It's a heart rate primarily, right?
Yeah, they give you other information too, but heart rate is the thing that they're focused on. And exactly, they're like, get yourself to the orange zone, which is when like your heart is working at like 80 something percent. So like it's working hard. And what I'll say about it is that it's... So regimented. What I didn't know is that that's the same class across the country. So like if you're in.
Philadelphia doing a class, you're doing the same class as you are in New York, in Chicago. And that's really fun for me because famously, people I love are all over the world, all over the country. I kept moving around for so long that now I have dear friends in way too many places. So that's really fun. and they really have it down. What they do, they have down. And there's something extremely refreshing to me about the lack of ambiguity about it where it's just like, this is what we do.
If you like it, that's great. If you don't, that's fine. This is the only thing we do. Rather than going to a gym where it's like, you pick what you want. You know what I'm saying? And I got to say, as somebody skeptical of a lot of...
weird health claims yeah the basic premise that like it is good to raise your heart rate and like high intensity interval training is like good because you like raise your heart rate and then you bring it back down and then you raise your heart rate and you bring it back down and that's like unless you have a condition of some sort that makes that not a healthy thing to do which is the case for some folks it's like good it's good to raise your heart rate and like it's also kind of
inclusive in a way because it's you're setting your own limits yeah it's like depending on your fitness level things that will raise your heart rate will be different so like some people are going to run full out and you might like walk really fast and they kind of don't care what you're doing. They care how hard you're working. Yeah, they don't care at all. It's so nice. It's like you're both getting a lot of attention and you're being totally ignored.
you're both like being told what to do and also they're not coming around being like push yourself hard or at least the people the traders it's not that it's very like on your own Anyway, but it was targeted to me. It's targeted everywhere. It's like their promotions are everywhere. You'll see them now. It's like you check out at Target or something. Or somewhere we're not boycotting. And it'll be like, do you want your first orange theory? Whatever. So I was targeted so many times. And then...
As is the case, I know with book recommendations, as you've taught me, Hannah, it took somebody I really knew in real life being like, let's go together. But I mean, I think I was targeted upwards of hundreds of times. Whoa. Yeah, yeah. It's everywhere. You're going to see it now. Oh, yeah. I mean, the only reason I liked it the time that I went, I just couldn't afford it. I was a grad student at the time. I had no money. But I was, again, in grad school, very into moksha yoga for a while. Same.
And part of the pleasure of it was that, like, you know exactly what you're getting. That's right. Not only is every class, Moksha's, like, every class you do exactly the same thing. But, like. Every class you do exactly the same thing at every Moksha studio in the world. So you can go to any city and walk into a Moksha studio and you know exactly what you're getting. And that can be really nice and comforting. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.
Somebody recently, I can't remember who was talking about it, was like, why do kids like small spaces? I can't remember who this was. Like, why do kids like getting into crawl spaces? And the person who they were talking to, and this was like over dinner or something, was like, oh, because they want the world to be small. Like they want to feel like the world is small. And I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. Like, of course. And that's how I feel about it.
Orange Theory being the same, where I'm just like, oh, the world is actually small. It's not endless options for how to move my body. It's just this one option. Sometimes having options taken away from you is so relieving. I agree. On your own terms. On your own terms. On my own terms. Yeah, exactly. Coach, how would you rate Orange Theory as a product? I think y'all already know. Say it with me. Serious product. Serious product. Hannah, this is...
Immediately a more embarrassing one because nobody ever recommended this to me in real life. I bought this purely off a targeted Instagram ad. Awesome. The product I will be discussing is called Kitty Curls. Okie dokie. It is a cat toy. Okay. It's not a cat perm. It's not a cat perm. Fuck, I wish it was. Oh, my God. No. Kitty Curls is a cat toy. It is a cardboard object that...
When you receive it, you kind of uncoil it like a slinky. Okay. And then it's got magnets on the ends. Okay. And so you can turn it into a loop. The cardboard slinky loop has a groove in it for a little plastic ball. Oh. So the idea is it's like.
stretchy cardboard so it's got a texture that's satisfying for cats to scratch so it's got sort of that like scratcher function but then it also has the ball in it that moves around on the track so there's a thing to bat at can twist it around and like sort of slinky it around because of the way that it's made it also like has interactivity and like the cat can interact with it what's embarrassing is that the ad that sold me on it
Which I now get fed a lot of these ads because they were like, this fool. Yeah. This fool is going to be sold by this particular concept, which is, you know how your cat sleeps all day? It's actually because they're depressed. Oh, no. And so. You need to make your cat less depressed by buying them an exciting interactive toy. And I was like, my cat is depressed? I thought... I thought he was just a sleepy baby. I thought he was just sleepy. But he's depressed? He's depressed? Okay.
So manipulative. I know, right? And so I purchased this object. It cost $44. It was not cheap. It is, I will say, very well made. It's quite beautiful as an object. One of my nibblings, because I am also established pronies, really enjoyed playing with it when she was visiting a little while ago. So it's got some sort of... textural appeal it does stretch in a very fun way the cats could not be less interested in this thing oh no what a twist
I sprinkled catnip over it. I lay on the floor and batted the ball around with them. It's got nothing on a Q-tip for these guys. They don't recognize it as a toy. They do not acknowledge it as a thing that's for them. They don't interact with it. They're like, that's for depressed cats. Yeah. And actually, our lives are great. So we're going to go back to sleep because that's kind of for us, you know.
ideal, sort of an ideal situation. That's so funny. So it now just sits in the pile of other cat toys that I bought like a fool that the cats are disinterested in. Hannah, I've got to know, is this a serious product? It's not a serious product. It's not a serious product. Not serious product. I'm sorry, it's not a serious product. It's a $44 cardboard tube. And I will never, I will never.
Buy something based on the premise of cat depression again. Good. Well, there you go. So that was worth it. So I learned. Yeah. That is a lesson learned. Never let it be said I don't learn from my mistakes. Yeah. But don't worry, I've got another very silly thing on its way in the mail and I've got really high hopes about this one. Oh my God, I can't wait. I can't wait for the next installment.
Oh, boy. Anyway, that was consumer retorts. Okay. Hannah, will you please introduce this segment to the people? We're calling this segment Apocalypse Toolkit, and... This is based on the widely shared premise that shit's tough right now. That, in fact, we are living through a period that... feels profoundly apocalyptic in the sense of something is coming to an end and something new is beginning and hopefully that something new is eventually going to be a better thing but
man, living through the end times, living through the dying gasp of the capitalist dream is really hard. And we have a lot of conversations about like, okay. what's getting you through? What's the stuff that you are putting in your apocalypse toolkit, both to help you like.
keep spirits up but also I think to sort of help contribute to a movement towards the kind of world that you want to build like because that's what moments of rupture give us an opportunity to do so like in clever girl I wrote a lot about
like Jurassic Park being part of my apocalypse toolkit because it's in part a story that is like rescales the whole idea of like human time and i find that personally very soothing i find the concept of deep time very soothing because it's like humans we've just been around for a sec yeah
Can I ask you, Hannah, to explain a little bit what the concept of the toolkit is? Because I think for folks who are new to this, they're like, well, does that mean I have a copy of the DVD in a bag? So like, what do you mean by toolkit? I personally came across this phrase in Sarah Ahmed's work, particularly her book, Living a Feminist Life.
ends with what she calls a killjoy survival kit. Like it's hard work to just keep being a feminist killjoy all the time. So like, what do you gather around you that like strengthens you and supports you through that work? And Ahmed's... Killjoy's survival kit is like some physical things and some conceptual things, right? So it's like other Killjoys. It's laughter.
but it's also like particular books. And like, those are, you know, physical copies of books, but also the content of the books, right? So it can be physical things. It can be conceptual things. But it is kind of an imagined toolkit that you are amassing for yourself to be like, these are the things that help me keep going. strengthen me to stay with the hard work that I am engaged in of pushing back and imagining otherwise. Wonderful. So Hannah, what's in yours?
Oh, man. Right now, a new entry in my apocalypse toolkit is going to see live music. It's one of those things that, like, I... always enjoy and I don't seek out because I don't know music. super well so like I it's just like I don't know there's like a million things happening all the time in Vancouver how would I possibly know what to go to and so I've just been like leaning on my friends who
know more about music and are paying more attention than me. And just being like, hey, are you going to anything that maybe I could also come to? And that has been... Successful so far in 2025. I have now seen two live musics. I am seeing another live music later this month. It is, I find, profoundly heartening. to spend time in a space with other people who are trying to make art. Yeah. That really like...
reinvigorates my faith in humanity. That's in my apocalypse toolkit right now. This is going and seeing Abby Holiday play guitar so good. So cool. How about you, Coach? What's in your apocalypse toolkit? Just a nod to live music. I didn't go and watch live music because I'm tall for so long. Like it always made me so uncomfortable. And then post lockdown, I've been making an effort to go because I was like, during lockdown, I was like, I can't believe it.
I felt so uncomfortable seeing that. I mean, I would go see that music. But anyway, so I just have also, like I'm wearing, I'm wearing a swag. I'm wearing a shirt from Petey, who if you don't know Petey. He's definitely, I just have to name drop him as being cool, invigorating music.
like the song Lean Into Life. You know what? I'll do that. I'll just say, I'll just name that as a song that's in my toolkit. Well, one of his albums is called Lean Into Life. And then that song, the titular song is... So great. Can I read you a lyric? Of course. Please do. I use his music for teaching improv, for warming up my students ahead of doing vulnerable improv. And it's because his lyrics are so good.
Okay. Yeah, my head is in the gutter. Do we really need to sin to love each other? Another psycho. I'll get fucked up, then recover. I just want to be a better, older brother. My head is in the gutter. It's beginning to feel like I've been training my whole life for nothing, and I've been meaning to tell you something. You got to lean in. to life just a little. I think I'm breaking my own heart. I think I'm making my own self sick at the thought of getting sick.
But like the refrain is like, you got to lean into life a little bit. Like you got to lean into life just a little. It's so good. It's like you got to callous up them hands and get some dirt under them fingertips. It's like he's literally like, yo, it's rough. You got to lean in. And so I'll just say that song, PD the musician is in my toolkit in a big way. I love that. I love that too.
Marcel, what about you? Something that happened when I finished my PhD was I really lost my capacity to read for pleasure. It felt challenging. And so discovering audiobooks was really revolutionary for me. I was like, those aren't for me. I read books on paper. Whenever I... finish an audiobook that I really, really enjoyed or really, really loved, I buy a physical copy because if a time comes when audiobooks are no longer available...
For some reason, I don't know, like maybe the power grid goes down or something. You got your analog backups. I've got the analog backups so that I can read them out loud to others. And so for me, that's an important thing in my toolkit is having analog backups of the books that I love. I love that. Yeah. That's Apocalypse Toolkit. Let us know what's in yours. I'm curious whether people are putting in their toolkit. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, well, we're at time. We're actually past time, which means we have to sign off. And we're going to continue part two over on Patreon. Hannah, will you tell the good people what our other segments are going to be in part two? Yeah, absolutely. We're going to do a make it make sense segment, which you've.
probably already heard um that's the segment where we try to make sense of things in the zeitgeist without doing any actual research absolutely none zero speculative let's call it and then we're gonna do a quick creature report which is is when we give updates on our pets and our brain worms.
Yeah. And then if we have time, I may force Hannah and Marcel to do an improv game with me because I love improv and why the hell not? Why not? Hey, if you're listening and you're like, but wait, I want more. I want to hear those additional segments. I've got good news for you. Just head on over to patreon.com slash oh, which please, where you can become a member for as little as 54.
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Thanks, as always, to Auto Syndicate for the use of their song, Shopping Mall, and to the whole Witch Please Productions team, Gabby Iori, Zoe Mix, Malika Gumpankum, Ruth Ormiston, and our executive producer, and Material Concerns co-host. Hannah Rehack, a.k.a. Coach. Meet me over in part two. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Passionate the shopping mall