Sexy Poems, Silly Accents, & Savvy Feedback: A Listener Mail Call!

we are performing this Friday. Yeah, I'm very excited about that. We're actually doing kind of a tiny, eighty bitty version of this show on stage. That's right, first time, which is so cool. Yes, the show is called Solved for X. It's for the Atlanta Science Festival. Our friend Ray Pendergrass hosts it, and she just brings in a bunch of different talented performers to get up on stage and do

their thing for five to seven minutes somehow related to science. Right, And it doesn't have to be educational right necessarily, And it's start won't be because one of the games is someone has to do their pH d dissertation as an interpretive dance. Yeah, and then someone else who has no idea what they're talking about, has to translate everything like improvisationally. Yeah, so you we'll get it completely wrong. Yeah, it's gonna be hilarious. Um so yeah, if you're in the Atlanta area,

come check that out. It'll be tonight if you're listening to this episode as it drops. True. Yeah, but it'll be fun. It'll be at a brewery and we'll be talking about Ida and Jupe who had sex in an MRI machine. If you guys listen to that episode, that's such a good episode. I can't wait too. I mean, we only get to do like a seven minute version of it, but I think I got a lot of good info. But yeah, but that's sort of rapid fire pace. I think will only add to the insanity of that episode. Yeah,

very true, very cool. So I can't wait for that. It's cauld be so fun to be on stage and do a little bit of ridiculous romance from our regular from our I guess our og home before before our worldwide live tour, which I think we're still waiting on y'all to flood iHeartRadio with emails about it. But once they hit five million emails, I'm telling you they're gonna do I'm going to do it, so get on it.

That's your job, everybody, bring us to your town. Right. Well, I think it's time that we just get to it, because again, we've got a bunch of emails and messages and everything from y'all that we want to read today. Because you send so many wonderful things in we often don't have time to read them in the episodes. We figured, hey, we'll just dedicate one episode to what we're hearing from you, and we've got some of your own stories and poems.

We've got a couple of little corrections from stories we've told in the past, some brand new, pretty interesting info, and some of y'all actually just expounded on stories that we already told. So some really cool stuff coming at you for this one. Yes, I cannot wait. You get into it. Let's go. Hey the French, come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking,

romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type of version at all, and abstract cons a dot, a concrete wall. But if they're just don't wet the second clinch. Ridiculous Roles, a production of iHeartRadio. Our first email was sent from Amanda n December second. She writes, Hello Eli and Diana, and happy birthday Eli. Ah, thank you. I mean it's nice to hear her happy birthday.

A few months later. Still, I know, right, and it has since been my birthday, So I will just assume that she also wanted to wish me. Yeah, we'll go ahead and plug that in. She just didn't know what it was yet she had written this. She continues, I just have to say I love the podcast and the both of you so much. You guys are one of the few podcasts that I have to listen to as soon as the episode drops. Fantastic. Thank you, that's amazing,

She says. I just listened to The Emperorswen Song Part two episode and had to tell you about this Chinese drama that you might be interested it in if you like Asian dramas. It is called Rebel Princess. You can find it on Prime and Raccutin Viki, which is Rakuten Viki is a new one for me. Do you know what that? Yeah, I looked it up. It is. It's an American streaming service that does a lot of Asian programming.

Oh okay, I think I've heard of you know what, Now that you say that, I feel like i've heard some animes. Yeah, yeah, Rackettence, that makes sense. Not sponsors haven't tried him, No, but you know, if they want a sponsor, happy to tell you how great they are. Amanda continues that Rebel Princess is centered on an unexpected romance and a world full of war, backstabbing, plays for power, and drama. Of course, I don't know if this is based on any particular true story or legend, but it

is a really good show. I haven't finished watching it yet. They're like sixty some episodes. I think. The main character is a princess. Her uncle is the Emperor, and she's in love with one of his sons, but political plays and other schemes prevent them from running away together. She's married off to an up and coming war general and they spectively fall in true love. And I don't want

to give anything else away. It is very similar to the story of Emperor's One Song right now, Okay, so Amanda says, if we'd like the Emperor's Song story, we might check out this show, which I did find is adapted from a novel. Okay, um, yeah, but not not a true story. No novel is called Emperor's Conquest by may U Je. Definitely read that. Yeah, that sounds like something.

It sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, and it really does sound like one of our very far reaching Chinese dramas that we've done, where you're like, all right, here's eighty names. Well, and you can see how these fictional narratives, you know, find their their complex. Drama's an inspiration because, as we've seen, the history is real. It's very it's right there. Yeah, it's right there. Well, thank you Amanda for setting that in. Yes, that was awesome, Hope.

I don't know if we have a sixty episode show in our future. Now it sounds like a good, good choice. We'll give it a shout. Maybe our next podcast will just do a rewatch of Rebel Princess. I love report back. It's very niche, but whatever. H Okay. Our next email is from Sea Joy lies and By and it was sent December fifth. She's kind of filling in some of the gaps on those Emperors Went Song episodes as well.

She said she just finished listening to them and writes, I'm sure, you're getting plenty of emails explaining the legend of the Cowherd and the weaver made, so I apologize for adding to the glut. Well, guess what, Guess what. Nope, this is the only one. And I'm really glad you said it, because I would love to have been flooded with information on that. But yours is all we needed

and all we got. Unfortunately, it's all we needed. She says that it is a common theme in Chinese and Japanese poetry, which I love so much that I've studied Chinese and Japanese in order to translate it. Cool and come to think of it, it was the Song of Everlasting Saw that first got me interested in Chinese poetry when I read some lines from it quoted in the

Tale of Genji. And that's a double episode alert because of course Song of ever Lasting Sorrow is the Emperor Juen Song and Yang Guifa story that we told on this and also the Tale of Genji. Yeah, which was like one of the very first novels ever written, ever written, written by Murasaki Shikibu. We mentioned the festival of the Cowherd and the weavermaid in the Juen Song episode because he and young Gui Fee would meet up every seventh night of the seventh lunar month to pledge their eternal

love together. And they said they would be together in all future lives. You know, whether or not they were coming back as birds or plants, or books or or noodles, whatever, they were gonna be together. Twine tangle together. But we didn't get a chance to dig deeper into that story. And so see joy lys and be sent in this she said. According to the legend, the star Vega is a goddess called the weaver Maid. On the other side

of the milky Way. That the actual strip of the milky way that we can see in the side which in Chinese is called the River of Heaven, is a god called the Cowherd, and that's the star Altaire. Now in the story, the god and the goddess fell in love and got married, but they spent so much time together that the weaver maid neglected her duties or weaving, and so her father, the King of Heaven, banished the husband and wife to opposite sides of the River of Heaven.

So he's like, you two are spending too much time together. I'm separating you. It reminds me of Valentina in the second season of White Lotus with the two. Concierge is the front. She's like, you two are flirting too much. You get onto the beach club? Yeah, so mad, right, she told the cowherd you're working the pool now. Yeah. The email goes on that these two are only able to meet one night a year, and that's the seventh night of the seventh Month, which became a holiday celebrating love.

According to one version of the legend, magpies fly up to make a bridge over the River of Heaven for the lovers to cross and see joy. Leisenby says that this version of the legend is one of the reasons that they got a magpie tattoo. Oh cool. Yeah, we have a friend named Lauren Palata Stemberg who is an artist and she loves magpies because she uses them a lot in her art. Yes, so that just made me

think of her. She's awesome. Oh yeah, incredible. So the email goes on that in Japan, this holiday is called the Tanabata Festival, which is celebrated by writing wishes on slips of paper and hanging them from bamboo branches and hopes that they'll be granted by Arahime, which is the Japanese name for the weaver mate. So there you go, that's cool. Yeah, I'd love to have that story filled in.

I think that obviously, the astrological significance is that that's when those stars are closest together, believe, so that's where this story came from. I love I love them. People just look up at the sky, you know, at a time when they're holding not much to do, okay, and like after three years they're like, you know, every seven months, these stars are pretty close together. I wonder if there's

a story there. I know, right, people are great for real, and so much like Greek mythology is about stars and stuff, and sometimes you look at constellations and you're like, yeah, we're really tripping out if you saw a guy with a bow, because this is like seven stars. Me, what am I doing all night and all day? Nothing? I had nothing? You know what a sweet spot in history. And I mean like, obviously it's probably very difficult to live back then, but the idea of like okay, we've

got buildings and stuff. We're not sleeping outside anymore, but we're not you know, there's no internet right, we're not hustle culture ain't started yet, not so much. We get a lot of time to just kind of chill and think and look at the sky and come up with crazy wacky stories about it, right, I mean, take me back, just make me not a peasant. Right. Yeah, and if we could throw air conditioning in there, that'd be great.

Oh my god, thank you so much for sending this in. Yeah, are really cool to get this story now we know now we all know, right, that's really great. We almost brought this Tonabata festival up when we first started talking about the Penis Festival in Japan in that last episode. It was going to be about a bunch of different festivals, but of course the Penis Festival ended up taking up the bulk of the time, the bulk of the time, I write, So we didn't get to it. But I'm

glad that now we have a chance to. Yeah, totally, and like all the more reason to go to Japan. Now there's two festivals I want to see. Oh my god, I bet there's more, Oh my god, plenty. Okay. Our next email is from Ian Normoyle, sent February first, and he writes, Hello, Eli and Diana, Big fan of the show. It always keeps my long commute fun and interesting. I'm more or less obsessed with history and the sometimes strange relationships that can shape it, and I'm glad to have

found something to feed that. Thank you. That's exactly what this I'm writing specifically though, about the two episodes you guys made on Jeopardy, as my family has a bit of a romance related to Jeopardy as well. I'm related to two competitors on Jeopardy myself, my mother's cousin, Jeff Hopps,

and his wife, Larissa Kelly. Jeff had the misfortune of going up against Ken Jennings in two thousand and four, but Larissa had a long run in two thousand and eight and is the second highest earning woman in Jeopardy's history. But nice job, Larrissa. Okay girl, that's a That's a pretty good little asterisk by someone's name in my opinion.

Ian goes on to say their romance wasn't particularly ridiculous, but the Jeopardy episodes made me fondly remember some of my own family stories in history, and for that I have to thank you all the best, Ian Normoyle. Ian, I gotta ask you doesn't it make you feel smarter being connected to people who are on Jeopardy Because I've got I think I said this in the last episode,

but my my fifth grade teacher was on Jeopardy. My first girlfriend went on Jeopardy long after we were we were adults at this point we've lost contact, and then um a couple other friends as well. Actually, I've had one friend from high school and another guy I knew in college. I'll go on Jeopardy, and yeah, it's a bragging point for me. I've never been on Jeopardy, but I do know several people, not very well who I'm smart enough for people who go on Jeopardy to want

to hang out with me. Basically, wow, not bad. I mean, I can't say that I don't know anybody well, but you married me, so like a third degree Jeopardy contestant, a guy that people who are smart enough to be on Jeopardy would definitely hang out with, at least when he was like ten years old. Ten you said fifth high school in college? Fifth? Where did you get fifth grade? My fifth grade teacher? Oh wow? Whatever? High school girlfriend, college high school friend, and college friend. Well, I'm the

lady that guy married congratulations. I'm Jeopardy adjacent. Now see people like Ian and us. We're doing okay. We didn't actually have to get on the show, right, but we get to brag about it anyway. Right, Pretty sweet spot, Pretty sweet. Well, speaking of Jeopardy, I guess we're going to take a commercial break. Jeopardy has commercial breaks. Great transition, Eli, what is a great transition? That's that's correct. You win the daily double for five million dollars. Stick around, We're

gonna be right back. Welcome back to the show. All right. So our next email comes from Louise. This was sent in February. She says, Hey, they're friends. Like the theme song. Hey, that's in the theme song. Love it. Everyone should greet people like that. True and sing it too, I mean you know, yeah, and then sing the whole song and tell all your friends and uncles Nancy list with the show. Louise says that she's just been listening to the Agnes

of Dunbar episode. Yes, this is great stuff, she says, love that story, the Agnes of Dunbar. If you haven't heard that, one Scottish lady defends the castle all by herself, incredible, amazing taunts the shit out of the English right, so much fun, hilarious. That was one where I like, I found the story and I was like, this one has

to happen next. Yeah, I just I'm obsessed with it. Well, Louise says, I grew up in Scotland and sadly the school history curriculum didn't cover a lot of Scottish history, so I didn't know about any of her story. Maybe if I'd been closer to the border it might have come up more. I lived in Robert Burns Country previous episode or so, he and more recent local Boy Made Good Alexander Fleming were the main characters in local history. Sure that makes sense, Luss to cover you know, I

was born. I was born in upstate New York, and there was a town near me called Hornell with an h and they had a big sign out front that said home of Bill Pullman. Oh, and I think Bill Pullman lived there, like, you know, for a couple of years as a kid or something. I mean, it's like, was it Julia Roberts is from Smyrna or something and they're like, Julia Robin, I'm like, didn't she leave at five or something? Like she doesn't live here, she don't

claim smyrna. I don't think all of those main characters in local history. Um well, Luise goes on. Anyway, thank you for covering this. It's a fascinating story and great to hear Scottish stories being told. Yes, the accents needs some work though link emoji. Oh dare you l my Juilliard level Scottish accent needs no polishing, She says. Honestly, I've heard worse, but I do hear a bit of

Irish inflection sometimes. I believe that if I have to knitpick, it's the pronunciations that get me signing at the podcast app. But I can't really complain. I pronounced Arkansas like a pirate, saying Kansas for longer than I'd like to admit Kansas. I feel like they should change it. That's a way cool earning, you know. I looked up why it's Arkansas and Kansas and it's a big, long story about mispronouncing

Native American words. So look it up sometime. I'm not going to tell you the whole thing now, but it was. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. Oh that's interesting. That's interesting. We'll do our next podcasts will be sixteen part series on the pronunciation of Arkansas and Kansas. It will be canceled after episode two. Yeah, we'll have to continue on Patreon. It could be the

whole story, Luise goes on. I do feel compelled to point out, though, that Dunbar has the emphasis on the bar. I think we said dunbar. I think I said it at the top of the email Agnes of Dunbar, but it's dunbar agness of Dunbar. And what we've been calling Barwick is actually pronounced brick with an emphasis on the bear and a nice rolled R man That gets me every time. That Wick, that's basically Barrick or whatever, right,

like Warwick Davis. I always called him Warwick Davis, right, and then I was like, oh, you don't pronounce that. Who knew Warick Davis? Louise says in summary and in conclusion, I love the podcast, love the sound effects, love the occasional theme song variations. I've been the listen from the start and I'll be listening for as long as you

keep telling the stories. Ya, and she signs it Slungiva, Louise Slungiva Scottish toast to your health and I've never seen two words pronounced less like they're spelled and sliva. I was like, where's the J and there's no j or ge, there's no v. It's all m h. Look. Look, Scotland's a beautiful with a crazy ass language and I love that they just go for it. Oh, incredible, incredible.

I mean, you know, we're from the south, the American South, and there's a lot of kinds of weird pronunciations here too, I guess, but nothing quite compares yes to the Gaelic languages and the Welsh language, and it comes to what the hell right? How do you learn? Our next message comes from Corn Shaffley on Instagram. They wrote in after the James Barry episode the Doctor James Berry, Yes beautiful episode, they write, Hello, there a remark to the James Barry episode.

You had a long conversation about how it's not possible to determine James Berry's gender, and you mentioned that it's not about genitalia and clothes, but the only way to be sure is to ask a person, which is very cool. I also agree that if they were alive today, they might define themselves differently than back then. There is, however, a respectful way to refer to people whose gender you

can't determine use they them pronounced right. I'm non binary myself and have a lot of non conforming friends, and I've never heard of anyone being offended about that, including trans and sist people who normally go by she or he. Right right, So Yes, actually wrote back to Karin and was like, yes, you're so right now. I think we've even talked about that on the podcast before, but we never did bring it up in that episode, and we were both like face palming, like why didn't we do

why don't we talk about talking about Yeah? Exactly. It's a great it's literally the neutral pronouns, so it's great for when you don't know or you're uncertain how a person would go yeah. Yeah, very easy way to like not be offense right there. Karin goes on to say, Anyway, since I have a pretty freaky love life myself, I really enjoy the show and how you mostly find the right tone and making fun of people's behavior while also being respectful, even if it's something that seemed quite strange

to you. So thanks for that. I don't know how we would do this show otherwise. I mean it's not interesting to be close minded. I think you don't really get to ask questions, you don't get you don't dig deeper, you don't get interested, right, right, And it can't be interesting if you're not interested. A men, just remember what our boy, Walt Whitman said, be curious, not judgmental. Thank you Walt Whitman and Ted lasts. So that's right. Ted

got it from Walt, Yeah, exactly. Isn't it funny though that in a thousand, fifteen hundred years we'll be looking in history books and students will be asked like which came first, Walt Whitman or Ted Lasso? They were close in history, like a couple hundred years apart, both real people. So yeah, we had actually written back to Karin and we're like yes, we were like face palming ourselves about by them, and thank you so much for you know,

sharing that with us. And then we were like, obviously we want the tea, So if you have any freaky stories you want to share, send them in. And Karin responded, I have a lot of stories I wish I had the time to write down, but I want to tell you a tiny one. I went to the sauna with a group of my polyamorous friends, and one of them had another friend with them who was monogamous. And this guy asked some questions and we were all happy to answer until this one came out of his face, So

do you guys all have sex with each other? I love that. It's like, if you're at all sexually adventurous, it must mean you're into anything everything. She's like, not the case, Karin goes on. We looked at each other, surprised and offended, and after a tense pause, one of us went, well I think those two don't, and everyone laughed their asses off. I love that. It's just like, how dare you ask such a question? Well, I mean, yes, I think we kind of do. But hilarious. Oh that's

so good. Thanks for sharing that, Karen's hilarious. We got another Instagram message from Liza Marie Minnelli on December thirtieth. Liza says that in the third Hans Christian Anderson episode, oh my God, we did? How many did we do? I know that was a little HCA. You talked about the tree of knowledge, but it's actually the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Lisa says, I grew up Lutheran and don't remember learning what exactly this is supposed to mean. But I never learned knowledge was a sin.

I took the tree to be like taking the rose colored glasses off and finally seeing good and bad. It's not all naming animals and hanging out naked in a garden. Not much to do with the actual subject to the show.

Just a friendly hey, by the way, love the show. Okay, that's useful because I do remember we were talking about like, oh, it's so weird that any religion that says knowledge is evil is probably not one that I want to be involved in, right, Right, that makes sense to be like, oh, it's not that knowledge is wrong, it's just that it was a tree that gave you, I guess, a sense of morality. Right, It's sort of like or made a

judgment about what was good or bad. I think it sort of perpetuates the existence of evil, then, wouldn't it, because if you it's sort of like you can't have dark without lights, vice versa. Right, So now it becomes these two distinct entities as opposed to sort of this like I see everything in one color and it's all just kind of neutral and fine. But I don't know. I know theologian, and I know that there's been different interpretations.

I've often heard people talk about it being knowledge and Eve was you know, once Eve got woke, you know, they kicked her out of the garden. But I think that's a misinterpretation that has been both you know, just idiots like us talking about it who ain't got no business too, and also people in power kind of manipulating it in that way to give themselves more control, right,

very true. Yeah, I also love that it kind of points out a big problem, which is where we love to take not we you and I, but we as in human beings, love to take a phrase and like chop off half of it should where it means something completely different than the phrase means. Yes, the one that's coming to mind is one bad apple, because we've heard that one a lot. Don't let one bad apple whatever.

But the phrase is one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, right, So actually one bad apple is the thing you need to be worried, Yeah, exactly, or like a jack of all trades but a master of none. It sounds like it's a bad thing, but the rest of the phrase is but better than master of one. So it's better to be a jack of all trades than a master of one. Good anyway, Oh you think you don't think so well. I'm a jack of all trades and I don't have a competitive skill set in any of them,

so it's sometimes hard to find a job. Yeah, but I could do a little bit just about everything you need. I was for you game nerds out there. I was playing sky Rim when it first came out, and I was having so much fun. And I got to level thirty, and I really and I was somewhere around thirty, late twenties, and I realized that I had every time I leveled up, I put a point into a different skill, and so none of my skills were strong enough to keep me

a lot. I was getting murdered by everything by this point, and I was like, oh my god, this is a metaphor for my life. Our next Instagram message came from Underscore Locks. Hey guys, I love your podcast and it got me through my biggest shock after learning my grandma passed away while studying abroad in dark and snowy Finland. I'm so sorry. That's really sad to hear. Sorry they say there was almost no sunshine for four months, but I listened to every episode and chuckled my way out

of that dark time. Oh that's lovely. But as an art historian, I feel like I have to let you know about what I believe is the correct way to pronounce a name. From your recent episode about Claude Cahoun and Marcel Moore, that was our episode about the avant garde French artists that ended up running an entire resistance campaign on the island of Jersey against the Nazi. We talked about Marcel Duchamp, the artist having an alter ego

named rose Celavie. Well Locke says that that should be pronounced as the famous expression say leave more like blows brilliant. It's spelled se l A v i E. That's right, But of course it's a drag name. That's brilliant great. Great. That's way better than Sellavie or whatever we say. I don't know. It's a good catch, and it's it's one of those things that's like you read something over and over again without hearing it, and you just don't catch these things. Yes, it's so true. I'm so glad you

caught it. Yes, that's such a good little double entendre. Yeah, I love it. And they conclude your episode was an absolute delight and a perfect intro to spring and a more joyous time. Oh good, thank you. I'm so glad that you liked it, and I'm so sorry about your grandma. Yes, I hope you're getting twenty hours of sunshine a day now. I guess is that how it works? Does it go straight to all sunshine? I feel like spring, there's a nice balance there. It probably is. It's like the nicest

time to go to Finland. Yeah, that's when I'd like to go to Finland, yes, or something. Although I always think of dating myself alert, I always think of rescue rangers with Finland because they went to you know, Finland, and it was all fish that lived in little fish bowls. Um, that had a whole society. I'm like, that's what Finland is like. It's mostly fish people. So write and let us know if you're a fish person. I guess, corrections, Garner,

some people in Finland are human. Label all Finnish people as fish people. Um, but notmaid, not mermaid, no no no no, just fish fish like anthropomoric fish. Wow. All right, Yeah, but they still needed to breathe water, so they had like reverse scuba suits where it was like water bowls over their head. If I'm remembering this correctly, why would fish people want to live on land if they had

to breathe? Well, anyway, I'm not going to question. Look, you want to talk to the drug dealers for the rescue rangers writers, and you talk to them, Okay, I feel it has some really good story. Yes, that's really good. Drop too, apparently all right. Next up comes a message from super listener Rachel Vaughan. Yes, she let us know that the Guinness World Record for the longest underwater kiss

was broken this year. We had previously reported in our Guinness Romance stories that Michelle Fucarino and Eliza Latziana kissed underwater for three minutes and twenty four seconds in twenty ten, but Rachel let us know that this year Beth Nelle forty from South Africa and Miles Clotier thirty three from Canada her fiance traveled to the Maldives and they kissed underwater for four minutes and six seconds on February fourth

of twenty twenty three. The couple said that their successful record attempt came after three days of practice, and it's just three days of trying to hold their faces together for four minutes above water, and then can we do it underwater? It's the real question. That's wild. I can't imagine doing any one thing for four minutes. My brain can't stay focused, will not do it. I also love the practice part because, like, imagine you did it one day and you managed to get four minutes. You know

what I mean, you broke the record. You were like, oh, it's practice, So that always seeks to do it again. Ain't that true for every like record setting, Like if you're running, you know, a marathon, and you break your time on a personal run and then you you biff it for the actual competition. You go to the judge and you're like, but I did it yesterday, doesn't count means nothing. Oh wow, that's um cool, that's pretty awesome. Now, how do you breathe? I mean you can't breathe obviously,

so how does it? Well? I guess that's part of the practice is learning how to hold your breath for formative right. And we talked about this in that last episode two about like do you do you breathe to each other? Can you share air that wouldn't last for very long. I don't think. Um, but then you know, I remember reading about the or hearing all these interviews about the Avatar to filming and James Cameron got all those actors like holding their breath for like six minutes

and shit, that's wild. Yeah, what a what a skill. And I'm like, but it's you're animating it. Why do I have to be underwater? Cg in my ass? But it did look good. It looked real good. I can't complain about the results. Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break. We've got a couple more emails to get to and they're both about one of our favorite episodes, John Wilmot, The Poet the Body Poets. Right, so we're gonna take a quick break. We'll come back and wrap up with those.

Welcome back, everybody. So the next message comes from super listener Barbara Banks. Hey, my mother m and she is one of our biggest fans, which is great for me, I know, right, and all you know, if you're an artist out there trying to prove to your parents that your life is worth something, Um, this is this is how you do it. My life is worth something, mother, Now my parents have always been overly supportive of my artistic ambitions. They were like, yeah, who needs financially stable

future whatever, just do follow your heart. And all my friends they were like my parents. They didn't want me to be an artist. They made me go to business school. And I'm like, well, now I have a three bedroom house. Yeah, now I own things under my own name. Now I got my groceries without checking first. Yeah, all right. That's what's so funny because sometimes I'll be like, it's so cool that you're still doing that thing that you love, you know what I mean, And we're both like, I'd

love to own a house now. I don't know if i'd love to own a house now, you know what? Yeah? Yeah,

uh no, But I'm very grateful for all this. And Mom says that after our John Wilmot episode as to the Earl's deathbed confession, which just to fill you in, when the Earl of Rochester died, his mother had hired a Protestant minister to go in and save his soul and have him convert to Christianity on his deathbed, and according to this minister, Gilbert John Wilmot did have a last minute change of heart renouncing his atheism and his

debaucherous ways and requesting to convert to Anglicism. Yes, but we did mention that a lot of scholars are pretty skeptical about this because the only account of this exists from the Protestant minister Gilbert himself in his writings, and the idea being that, of course he would say that because John Wilmot was this like insane libertine, and if you converted him, that's like the greatest feat a minister

could achieve, the MVP Most Valuable Priest. Right Well, Barbara Bank says that if you're an atheist, there's no reason not to lie to keep your mother happy, and if you're a preacher seeking handouts, there's all so no reason not to lie to a mother whose great solace would be her son's purported salvation. So it is possible it's true that Gilbert lied about converting just to make his

mom hay, because he didn't care. He's like, I know what's coming for me anyway, so I could say whatever I want, right, Or that the preacher was like, yeah, lady, he said he converted. He's he knew you'd be so happy, And and they were friends to Gilbert Burnett and John Wilmot, Right, so they could have even hatched the plan between themselves. Yeah. Maybe John's on his deathbed saying, hey, buddy, one last prank on my mom. Tell her I converted. And he

didn't have a chance to tell the punchline. He died before the punchline came out every comedian zone. He's like, May converted all her ducks PDFs. Gilbert's like, I don't know what that means. No, that was a good that That's a very good insight because I know we both were like, Gilbert, you liar, you know whatever, But um, that's a good reason to do to do it is to just make your mom happy. So we did not

think of that. So on my deathbed, after I become a wealthy financier, I will tell the whoever my mother sends in and I'm fine final moments to say, tell her I was happier as an artist. I'm so glad for all of the encouragement. I was gonna say, unlikely for Barbara to send a priest into your death, I don't know. I don't know. She'll send whoever's nearby. You go check on him, William. I'm not going in there all right. Finally, we have an incredible ending for this

listener mail. I'm so happy about this one because Heidi Kay wrote in on March eighth and said, Hey, guys, I've been a listener from the very beginning. I was totally inspired by your episode the Body Poems of John Wilmot. Since I have been recovering from a full hysterectomy, I've been thinking about something Diana said, women like sex and want it just as much as men. Thank you. I

did say that I'm very smart, Heidi says. Since I'm currently unable, I thought I'd try to write a poem for my husband to show him how much I appreciate his patience through it all and also my impatience. Oh yes, and for fun, I've included the poem Enjoy my little contribution to poetry corner. We've so excited. We're hoping Yo would send us your body poems, and Heidi came through. Heidi came through. Be like Heidi. So let's go down the poetry corner and hear Heidi Kay's body poem for

her husband. My true love is brilliant, loving and kind. His soldier is patient stoic and always inclined. Going on twenty five years, under our vows, we've been bound. His soldier has never strayed nor disappointed. I've found, but for that day they took my daughter's first home, and the physician exclaimed, no more shall he roam The flowers in the garden, all full of its nectar, shall stay locked up, be unseen like a specter weeks of octobule, the doors

locked like a church. Many ways to show pleasure I've tried and researched. This hardy soldier is slow to upset. His only wish my pain to offset he has brought unto me treats surely scrumptious, my mind only thinking of that sweet purky rumpus. How when I'm sad and frustrated with the loss of his bucks, he jumps in his carriage and seeks out the star of Bucks, where he promptly orders a tea bay ice to mine hand. It is delivered to make me feel nice. Now the soldier

is creative, I'll give it to him. For him the petals are as sweet as the spell, for he can make the whole garden warble with all of his tricks and talents of oral alas thrice more weeks we shall be made to suffer. For you see, I've been thinking, for who is it rougher? When I think to the day my gates, he will breach his head to my breast. As to God, I do preach no more careful we need be. It's all for the best, for the maker of babies has been put to rest. And this I

have learned whilst I swing on life string. He's no soldier at all. To me, he's a king. Amazing. I love it incredible. First of all, very healthy experience are gone through here, very healthy reaction to a necessary thing. And that's great that y'all are so supportive of each other. I know, what sweet, what a sweet husband you have. Yeah, and I hope that Let's see, that was March eighth, and you said three weeks, so it's coming up on time. Heidi.

We can't wait for your gates to be breached. I know it's gonna be amazing after all your waiting, right, you know it'll be like it'll be like the first time I'll look. The pedals are great, but the stem is looking for action. I guess the stem has a lot to recommended. Oh, I'm so excited that she wrote this. She's so happy. More people should write body poems. It's so fun, right, I'm telling you. Rhyming is so fun. I guess we should write some. Yeah, I guess we should.

We will try to write a body poem about how much we love all of you, yes, and share it with you. Yeah. Well, we'll assume we have your concept we're going to say. I mean, you know, we're not going to say anything. You know, we'll just be talking about the palpitations of our hearts. True, whenever we get a new email, because that's true. It is very exciting, and we get, you know, so multiple times a day our hearts palpitate, and not just for the usual reasons

of too much sodium and not enough exercise. Right, and then we like screaming across the house. We gotta do one. Yeah, got another message. I know, it never stops being exciting, no matter how many thousands and thousands of emails pour in by the hour, it still gets very exciting. No, I mean, we do get a lot. I know we have not had a chance to respond to all of you. We haven't even had a chance to read all of them. Here on the show. We're going to try and do

another one of these soon. Um, so please keep sending him in because we really too love getting him. And when we do read every single one ourselves. We don't have our assistant do it. That's right. We don't have an our assistant can't read that's right. He's a dog. Well, thank you all so much for the beautiful mess. We were so happy to be reading all of these and learning from you and uh expanding our knowledge and being

corrected about pronunciations, which is so important. What did I say in the last episode when we were when I said Australia and France would never allow us back in. I said, the Scots will let us in. Then they can. They can take it. Maybe they know we're wrong, but they laugh at us with us, you know, positively, right, that's true. We do have a couple of Scottish fans and they're like, come visit and I will your couch.

So yeah, if you would like to be a part of our next listener mail episode, or if you just want to reach out and say hi and make our hearts palpitate, um, you can do it. Our email address is ridict Romance at gmail dot com. That's right, or you can always message us on Twitter or Instagram. I'm at Oh great, it's Eli, I'm at Dianamite Boom, and the show itself is at ridic Romance right. Thanks so much again for tuning in. We can't wait to hear

from you more. We can't break to bring you our new episodes next week, so stay tuned and we'll catch it in love you bye, so long. Friends, it's time to go. Thanks for listening to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncle s dance to listen to our show Ridiculous Roll Dance