Bonus Episode: Ephemeral's Alex Williams

That's what's going on here. Jeez. Thanks. Right before we got going, we were sitting around talking about Riddick movies for how long, I don't know. It was a while. I was mostly listening because I hadn't seen the movie in question, or any of the Riddeck movies. No, you're here for a reason today, Alex, to tell us about it. Oh uh, because of Ephemeral. I have a podcast called Ephemeral.

It's really good, folks, Yes it is. It's it's very very exciting podcast because it's it's really unlike any podcast I've listened to before, um in terms of its subject matter, but also in terms of just like the high production qualities that you bring to it. Oh, thank you. You guys did a very nice time when you did. You did the trailer, you put the trailer out in your feed I think when it first came out, and you did very nice endorsement then too about the audio quality,

which I thought was very sweet, So thank you. Yeah, yeah, I mean that the outer quality is wonderful. But but more but more important though, is the topic of dealing with these ephemeral bits of media. Can you just you know, speak to everybody who might not be familiar with the show, they haven't checked it out, or maybe they didn't catch

the trailer drop. What are we talking about when we're talking about the way that um Sarah Wasserman is the Material Culture Studies uh A professor of Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware. The way that she sort of differentiates what ephemera from other kinds of you know, disposable things, junk trash, is that if Emira takes some kind of curation, someone has to do some active saving for it to to continue to exist, something like Winnebago Man.

Are familiar with Winnebago Man, of course, Well, I listened to your episode where you deal with Winnebego Man. Yeah, he's the guy who is there outtakes of him trying to record a TV commercial for Winnebagos. Is it a dealership or a new model or something. I think it's

a dealer's ship. It's like the eighties VHS. The guy's name is Jack Rebney and he's just getting so frustrated on this day's shoes, complaining about how hot it is, and he's just swearing continuously, just f this s than everything. And uh, I guess he really piste off the crew because they cut together this video of him, you know, all of the worst moments, I guess in this sort of compilation. Now, this is way twenty years before plus

twenty six maybe years before YouTube. Uh, and this compilation video survived all this time, you know, just you know, would just get you know, Oh you you might like this thing, so I dubb it for you on VHS. Robert might like it, so you dubb it for him on VHS. It even aired on public television. This is show cold. I guess was bleeped. I don't know. I haven't been able to find the copy of it that aired. I mean maybe that's the version that we have on

YouTube now. Um there's a show called The Show with No Name out of in Austin, Texas that aired just weird clips like things that are someone on savory sometimes like James James Brown being arrested. Things like that when James Brown he was doing a talk show and he was uh he drugs or something. He seemed to be in an altered state. Things like that that you know, we're all there's tons and tons of him on YouTube now. I think we've we've talked before about everything is terrible?

Is is a show on you What's it's a YouTube channel and it goes beyond YouTube. But they do a lot of this where it's it's clips from films and like old like like weird Christian VHS tapes and either the kind of stuff that would just otherwise just be completely we just fall through the cracks of history. But you know, they keep it alive so that weekend, you know, find pleasure in it and laugh at it. Why is it that instructional training videos makes such fertile like ephemeral media.

You know, I'm just making a supposition, but I think maybe because they're made sort of for such a narrow audience and often with such little money. Uh, I can just go onto archive dot org. There's or there's a great site called the A V Geeks that just curate that kind of stuff, old industrials and educational films and p s A S. I can just get lost on

the rabbit hole of that stuff. It's so so bad and so good well because I guess like if you no skill goes into it, or like just a very small amount of skill like that in and of itself can be amusing. But then you have an instructional video like the famous shake Hands with Danger, which has fantastic and just almost the borderline offensive. Um, you know, graphic special effects for industrial injuries taking place, and you know it's out of keeping with the very amateur aspects of

the rest of the production. Oh, it's like the the old high school chemistry lab safety videos that everybody loves so much, which just would they had the special effects for like shoving the broken glass speaker into your hand. And so I think, yeah, all of that in at

least this particular definition. It's like those things all would very easily because they you know, maybe because of the narrow audience or because of maybe a bunch of different reasons would not stand the test of time unless someone only because somebody said, hey, this is different, this is

this is for some reason worth saving. Right, Yeah, Well that's interesting to think about, Like what are the evolutionary traits in media that allow certain pieces of media to survive whereas most other pieces of ephemeral media from their time fade away. It seems like a very strong, uh criterion of selection is like ironic comedic value. But it can't.

But it can't be just that, right, There are other things that cause a piece of you know, what you would have thought would be ephemeral media to get saved, right, I mean, like what are There's some things I know you've talked about where you you uh you talked about like old home recordings that aren't particularly funny or anything. They just have a kind of soothing sonic quality to them that you can't stop listening to. Am I right

about that? Sometimes they certainly are funny, But yeah, I mean I have really um, the very first couple of minutes of the pilot episode of this that I pitched it with, and that is the first epis just called pilot in the in the feed. Uh is it's about a hundred and sixteen seconds. I think of just a family recording that we don't know any of the people. And there's an Uncle Jack and there's a little girl named Gail, and uh does it talk about shoes? Do

you remember that show Uncle Jack your shoes? There's a little boy named Brian and there it's it's it's it's so unique because there, I mean, it was an actual moment in time, right, it was an actual people gather around a living room or a kitchen or something, not

from a movie or anything. No, no, no, it's just a it's it's it was a real to real that this um, this collector named Bob Purse, who just for you know, his own personal interest and to share them with other people, goes to giant antique sales and you know, a femork also all kinds and buys anything that's like unlabeled or is you know, has an interesting description on it,

or it's just interesting. And someone looks old real to real tape specifically other things too acetates Home record at seventy eight of all kinds of odds and ends, but specifically real and really to tape is what he's zeroed in on um and so this real, real tape probably from the sixties, AH, thought to be recorded around when that Illinois I guess, or yeah, when Neck Illinois I think is right because it's because of I guess of

where he bought it. Ah. That's this yes, specific moment where the uncle Jack has brought over his tape recorder to this family and the kids are going trying to get kids to say there, you know, say words on it, you know, tell them about the school that goes to and the friends they have, and the little girls shy at first, but then she opens up a little bit and then the little kid, Brian, they're trying to get him to kind of say some of his first words,

but he, of course won't because kids never do when you try to put the microphone in their face and now perform and starts shooting on the tape recorder. And it's just a little tiny tape that's not all that different than lots of other, you know, tapes, but it is like this one family, it's this real moment that we just have of Ye. I think I think part of the appeal of that that cliff is just how how how honest it feels like you just there's no doubting that this is a you know, an echo from

from the past, from this actual family moment. And and then at the same time it is it is kind of haunting, like in a good way, like that that kind of like you know, nostalgic haunting feeling that we get when we listen to something that is either an an actual fragment of media history or if something or if we have something like say, you know, instantly think of the music say Boards of Canada, that that are able to channel that level of sonic nostalgia and have

the same effect on us. It's this isolated bubble of unself conscious joy that is infectious because it doesn't feel like a performance, which is funny because I guess it is a performance. I mean, the very thing is that they had the tape recorder running, But it doesn't feel like the kind of performance were used to, the kind of like a professional performance. We were not the intended audience, yeah, you know it was the family was the intended audience.

And uh and and here it has escaped it. It's kind of like a voyager probe, right, like leaving the solar system and being picked up by some other force. There's certainly magic and it I mean and I hear

that in all kinds. I mean, the the last episode that we did of the season's the ten parts seasons all out now, uh, the last episodes called taped over, and we play family recordings from my family, my wife's family, my best friends family and uh our producer and producer and an ephemeral uh Matt Frederick who you know from stuff I don't want you to know and other things. UM,

really fascinating take. He has a his grandfather recorded his mom, Matt's mom and and Matt's uncle on a dick to belt in which is incredibly early to have a home recording from because recording technology was just mostly in professional settings, you know, until really the sixties, when real to reel became much you know, cheaper, and people could afford to get them in their homes. Um, and it's the same, it's it's uh, that's grandfather trying to get first words

from his mom. And mom of course like doesn't want to play along because she's a baby and she's not gonna perform just because you put a microphone in front of her, starts crying, starts batting, the microphone around. I this last weekend, I was with my my nieces and nephews from Phoenix. They were over here and I was visiting with them, and I had this old tape recorder from the eighties and I was showing them how to

use it. And instantly there, you know, I can sometimes not get them to look away from a screen, you know, and they just they have a different childhood than we had. But instantly, yes, they say, you know something in the tape recorder, the shots they don't want to perform. I let them hit the buttons, rewind it back. See the tape has been hit play and they hear themselves say you know, hi, I'm Brooks Savit or whatever. And they're mesmerized and they don't want to they don't want to

put it down. You know. It's like, you have to be careful this, this is an old thing from the eighties. You have to you have to give it a little bit of a more grace than you know, maybe your iPad that's, you know, got this fancy case on it. But I I think that there is I think there is real magic and something like that. And so I don't know if it's intrinsic in the analog media itself, or if I'm just nostalgic for it, or if it's some kind of combination of those things. But there is

there's something there that cuts across. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Now, you had a pre existing interest in all of this, of course, I wonder is there is there a particular piece of of of ephemera that kind of you know, inspired you to put together the show? And then is there an example of a piece of a femor that you discovered in putting the show together that really struck a chord with you? Lots um?

But that that first tape that show Uncle Jack your shoes, those hundred and sixteen seconds were there what the show

is built around? The whole show? Uh? You know, our producer Tristan McNeil and I were at a bar after work one day pitching ideas back and forth because we knew we wanted to do something, and Uh, I was like, well, I know this this tape in this collector Bob purse, and there's something there and so it was kind of trying to put my finger on that I might still be working on that part of it, and then your other question is something you discovered like some bit of

a him or that emerged that that that you it was new to you during the production of the series. It's been so much new to me. Um. One of the most interesting UH has been learning about the Dumont Television network, so at the very beginning of television when it kind of gets out of his experimental phase and goes commercial, which is basically like right at the end

of World War two. Um, there's four networks, just for four networks and you know that get little affiliates all over the country and three them are still around ABC, NBC, CBS, and the fourth was Dumont, and Dumont was just maybe a little bit more low budget. It was kind of punk rock and just wacky stuff. I mean, early TV was really wacky because it was all live and they were shows and stuff. There were some puppet shows. Yeah, they were you know, figuring out a lot of the things.

And some of the things that got figured out on Dumont are are you know, translate to today. I mean, they were the first network to do daytime television because radio. Those are the three companies were all radio companies. ABC, NBC, CBS. All radio companies had big daytime radio soap operas and they didn't really want to cut into that business that

had been paying their bills for a long time. But Dumont was the first network that went into that daytime broadcast because like, we don't have any income coming in there, and we're ready to take our color patterns down off the screen and put something on. And so, you know, they had a show called Okay Mother, a show for moms, you know, you know, certainly couched in the gender attitudes

of the time. UM that was you know, pretty similar to something that you would see like the Today's Show or something now live studio audience playing you know, games, giving away prizes, bringing on guests and sort of just

light goofy energy to it. Um. So, you know, to to wrap up the two months, I meant, they were on the there for just a decade, something like twenty thousand broadcasts or hours of broadcast and I think three d or so individual episodes have survived, mostly held by like individual collectors like maybe someone who's you know relative worked at Dumont, or you know, the National Archives, uh, the Museum of televi and of Radio maybe has a

few of them, and most of it's just gone. It's just gone because it was there was no there real there was no recording then, and it wasn't even meant to last forever. The only way that they could record it was doing something making a kinescope, which is you take a film camera and you film the screen that's

playing the television. And the only reason they would do that is so they could take that film, candle this film cans and send it to you know, their California affiliate or something that wasn't connected to the Coaxio cable. And even those they wouldn't really save because there was no reruns back then, right, there was no intention to

reuse that. So it's just that active curation someone saying, you know, either by choice or by accident, hey, I'm gonna hold onto this that we get to see any of it, and kind of dip our toes into that that moment of history. Well you also get a sense, I mean, no wonder if you'd think, like, did the creators not even think of it really as a an artistic product, I mean something that they would want to be remembered. It was something more like to fill time.

I think there's a mix, and I think, yeah, I think that's one of the inherent things in television. Probably

there's certainly were um artists and very creative people. I mean Jackie Gleeson got his break on Dumont for instance, a fascinating shows that they did, a show that was all it was called The Plain Clothes Men and all told from the perspective of a detective like from his eyes, yeah, town live single camera shot, yeah, and you see his hands and it's you know, zoom in on a bullet hole on the wall, or hold a piece of paper and take a magnifying glass and pull out of single

line what and that's all lives. They'd have to stage all of that out in advance so that they could know where to go and win. Well, it was all live to a point, so almost all of it was live, but then they would play out sometimes they would the way to a sequence that actually what edited. It was an early example of putting editing on television because editing wasn't a thing on early television. But yeah, primarily that show was all told live. And there's one episode left

and it doesn't circulate. It's in the uh Museum of Television radio. I'm hoping to make my way up there at some point and see it. I've just seen a little clip of it. You know. I think back just on the television from like my childhood and especially junior high. You know where you're you're videotaping a lot of television,

and I remember like painstakingly removing commercials. Uh. And then other times just you know, you were you were recording a movie you have, you went to bed or something, so you just let the commercials, you know, take place, and inevitably, I think like taped over and or loss or destroyed all those tapes and and and now I would I would love to just be able to like sit down and watch say an episode of Mystery Science Theater three thousand from the nineties with all the commercials,

just so I could experience that again. Uh, the bumpers on stuff like the Sci Fi Channel, you know, it's like that's those little details are are some of the things you grow the most most doubt and nostalgic for. You know, I watched the first time I ever watched Star Trek. The Next Generation was my My dad was a is and I think I inherit a lot of this from him a archivist, you know, tape at all,

label at all. Yeah, you know, uh, and he still has a closet full of VHS types that are just sort of degrading there because I mean, uh, the the experience you describe with like cutting out the commercials is something that I don't think you're younger listeners probably will relate to it all because it's just such a it's

such a relic of the past. But that was an important thing then, because it was this feeling like not only am I taping uh the like the television edited version of Aliens, but but I am going to preserve it forever, and so the cut has to be flawless. Wait, so did you think do you do the thing where you stopped recording while it was recording when the commercial

came on? You thought, positive, recording while the commercial was on and then unposit When I remember, I was so proud of myself that I had put together on one tape. So since it was on one tape, it must have been in the terrible low quality extended play mode on the tapes. But I got the entire Star Wars trilogy with all the commercials removed from from one time when it aired on T N T or something like that, and uh and I was like, this is that I have done such good work here and I wore that

tape out. Oh God, that that's another thing, just the wearing out of the tape, like the quality. One of my favorite films still one of my favorite films, but one of my favorite films growing up was was Jim Hinson's Labyrinth and our copy we watched it so many times that it it was like damaged and we had to get repaired. I I didn't even know how that was the thing, but we took the tape, somebody repaired it,

and it just sound warped forever. But now when I watched like a Labyrinth off of streaming service or something, or off of DVD, it's just not the same because it's not warped and weird. Like the audio quality I grew used to uh so in in the effemeray that you've looked at in the show, like how much is the decay and how much is it about the the errors in the quality? Oh? I mean yeah, I'm an audio I'm an audio file. I'm a total audio gig. I mean specifically for like low five stuff, I've always

collected old toy tape recorders and stuff like that. So yeah, the artifacts, that stuff is a gold mine for a sound designer. I mean, just if you can find cracks and records and skips and things and warps and sounds

dumping and leaping, and I love all that stuff. This comes back to something that we've talked about on the show a good bit before, like when we talk about say, historical sites of interest, you know, like an ancient temple or something like that that is deteriorating due to the elements or all that, Like, um, should you restore things

like that? Or or if you know, the modern world has come to know an ancient temple in its partially deteriorated and dilapidated state, should you just allow it to continue deteriorating or should you try to freeze it as it was at a certain point in time and say, Okay, all the deterioration up to this point will allow, but deterioration after that we want to prevent or I can't remember if we I said allowing to deteriorate or restoring, but it seems like in any case, you're no matter

which choice you make, you're like exerting your will on on on on the form it takes. And the same thing happens with media totally. Like I mean, media changes over time, It collects artifacts, it collects changes, it collects glitches. Um, and I wonder, well, one thing I wonder I guess is are we losing that quality in the digital world. M hmm, it's sorry, terrible tangent. There's just no, there's just a lot there, uh, losing in the digital world.

I mean the safe answer is yes, because we're losing most things in the well No, I just mean, like I mean, obviously there's like a huge thing where like, um, there there's so much great ephemeira from the ancient world.

You know that like a huge part of how we know about the past is from like capturing bits of ephemera and interesting things, like you know, when you get a copy of an ancient manuscript that's a thousand years old, you might not even know what the original text in the manuscript was because it's got things written in the margins on it, and you don't know if that's supposed to be part of the text that was the Perpendicularly over the other talents, we have an older episode of

stuffable in mind about that, yeah, and and so like and and they didn't realize at the time that, like, you know, whatever mong in, you know, Prague or wherever it. Like, I didn't know that his copy of this thing would be the only copy, would be the only one that future generations have, and so like they wouldn't be able to tell if the notes in the margins were supposed to be part of the text or his own thoughts

about the text or whatever. And uh, and like you never know, really, you never know if like the copy that you're holding of something is going to end up being the copy of reference for future generations, or if it's just going to fade and be destroyed like most other things are. The digital world that seems kind of different because like copies are made at scale, perfectly all over the place, And I wonder if we're kind of losing some of that magic because of it. I mean,

it's it's it's twofold at least, right. Uh, there is a way in which something physical analog is much more concrete. I mean, you can the lifespan of it. You can say, oh my, I can see the yellowing pages of this book, but I can still flip through them, as opposed to like if a zero in a one get flipped in the binary code, that thing's gone. Uh you know, if

it's uploaded in some cloud service that gets hacked, it's gone. Uh. So there's a way in which analog things I hate to say permanent, because I don't think anything is permanent, particularly, I think everything has transience at a different scale. Yeah, that's that's how you start feeling if you look at

it too much, at least me. Um. But there's a way that that material thing feels a lot like it has more launchevy to me than the digital thing, which is maybe contrary to the way that uh, you know, I saw it before that it's easiest to see it.

I mean, I'll tell you one of the one of the great things about more and more things being digitized, because not everything is digitized, far from it, right, Uh, But like this show where we do I don't know, I've never counted, but like a hundred and fifty cues an episode of different sound bites and pieces of weird old movies and little audio clips and all things small over the place would not it would be next to impossible, were very very difficult in um an analog time where

I'm like, I have wax cylinders in there, all kinds of all kinds of media that you know, imagine the library that we'd have to have here in the I heard offices for us to pull something like this off, but I can you know, it can just be you know, a dude sitting at his desk going archive dot org and uh, you know various other places. So I mean, I think that's pretty amazing. I'd love to, you know. I was just when we're saying, oh, the monk didn't

know that this would be the one copy. I was thinking, what if Joe's perfect copy of the Star Wars trilogy was the one copy that we had then? No, I think about that kind of thing sometimes, but I mean I think that would be unlikely. Now there's so many

digital copies and they're all over the place. But yeah, your copy to YouTube, Okay, I mean maybe doing you know, because well you know, another great example to go to go even to Star Wars is And this combines with the thing you were talking about, like a femeral TV broadcast when you watch the Star Wars Holiday special. I assume you've seen it. I have, Yeah, I have thanks, Thanks Dad. The Star Wars Holiday Special is that you know, Star Wars is the biggest movie in the world, and

you know it's the biggest media sensation ever. And then they're like, well, let's do a TV special. But the TV special is just phoned in and you almost get the sense that it's well, not the animated The animated short that introduced a Bubba fet to the world is fabulous, like this French animation style. You're right about that, but I mean, like the main part of it, like the actors are staring at the floor, they're just waiting for

any basically a Star Wars theme variety show exactly. Uh. And it's great fun to watch now for all these great ephemeral qualities and to see the old commercials and all that. But that's one of the great things. Like even the version you get through riff tracks is it can it retains the commercials, that's part. And but they have to specify which one because like there weren't many

recordings of it available. They never officially distributed it, Like you know, Lucasfilm wasn't like here come by the Star

Wars Holiday Special. You had to get it from a copy made from some version that somebody taped off of TV and like Minnesota or somewhere, and uh and I think there were a few versions in circulation, but I don't know if those people thought that like their version they were taping off of TV with the local commercials they were seeing, would be like the would be the version that ends up being you know, on riff tracks that you know, decades later people all around the world

would be watching and laughing at I was gonna say that with Star Trek the Next Generation, the way that I first saw it was all taped from Michigan television, whatever Michigan station it was running on, and every ad break they had the newscast, the local Detroit newscast every time, so I would you know, hear whatever was going on in Detroit in the eighties every time they would cut to commercial. So I guess, yeah, I I've definitely developed

a love for that early on. That's in the Star Wars Holiday special to where they've got the throws like teasing the later local news things. What do they keep saying, like fighting the frizzies at eleven. I don't remember that part. This is a thing about like bad hair days or something they're gonna have an expert. Come on, well, you know, let's let's bring it back to h to ephemeral. Though

you have a you have brought a clip with us. Uh. It's almost like this is the Tonight show and you're our guest, and so would you like to set up this clip for our listeners? Sure? So. This is um Professor of English and Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware. I introduced her earlier, Sarah Wasserman. She's basically I think of her as the ephemer teacher. She's writing a book called The Death of Things. It's all about

a phemera. You know, I don't. I don't want to oversimplify her thesis, but the idea of it is that telling stories about if ema and telling stories that involve if phemera does more than just showing you a phemera. It helps fill in the gaps and do more work to transport you back to that place or time or whatever thing that you know is lost now. So she in her book, I think she writes about like They're

Great Gatsby. She references that in here and uh and a book like El Doctors, World's Fair Books, that piece of fiction specifically, she's writing about fiction coming from an English perspective. Um, how works of fiction can use if ema and intertwine them into their stories. Uh two, help transport you in time and space. Yeah, I think that's enough of a setup. Let's listen, Phemera. I think are especially moving because they seem to have their own life cycle.

They're made, they're born, they enter circulation, they live, and then they die. We think of things. We think of matter as being the opposite of mortal. We think of it as being enduring. We think of it as being stable and inert. And ephemia have this kind of time scale, this temporal dimension that makes them seem mortal like us. I think that's part of the reason that authors find them meaningful. They can become proxy stand ins for humans

or nations or communities. To make that more concrete, take an example, New York World's Fair was actually built on the Valley of Ashes, as Fitzgerald calls it. In the Great Gatsby five million dollar one land, they transform what is basically a dump into this bright, shining, gleaming future city and everyone goes, I mean really everyone in a way that we can't comprehend today. Everyone goes from Barana, come Countment, visiting by every mode of travel, every means

of transportation. They arrived to view the marvels of the greatest ex position in history. You go and you say, oh, this is the world of tomorrow, this is the world as it could be. There are all kinds of problems with the vision that gets staged. I mean racial problems, nationalistic problems, colonial issues, all sorts of things, but in that particular instance, people knew that it wouldn't be there. The fair was a temporary installation, like a carnival set

up in Queens. It was open for two seasons from April to October, and closed permanently as most of the

participating countries sank into another World war. That experience, knowing that it's going to be gone feels exhilarating but melancholic for a lot of people, and so the souvenir craze, you know, the souvenir boom is huge around that fair because people want to take something with them so that when the air is gone, when they're no longer there, but also the buildings are gone, they have something to

remember it by. The Paris here and the trialon were the two iconic buildings and they get sort of put on everything rises above all else, and the circling helocline that leads even the Paris. There's exhibits. Democracy is the pathway to the future. One of my favorite super years is after you came out of Futurama, which was General Motors Vision and sort of model city of the future, you would get a little button that says I have seen the future. Sensational is the Futurama that projects you

into nineteen six the Highways and a Rizon show. You know that you have this item, this object that's going to commemorate this event. It almost feels like it's shoring up against that feeling of mortality. Susan Stewart talks about the souvenir as an object that you need when an

event is no longer repeatable. So if you go to your arian and Grande con or, you want the ticket stuff because you're probably not going to go to another Ariana Grande show where you're certainly not going to go to the one in Philadelphia, and so you need an object because it's not repeatable. Many ephemera are doing that work. There are kind of saying I was there, I saw

this thing. It's gone now, but I save it, and that allows me to project myself into the future, to project myself into the past, to stave off that encounter with death that might be implicitly happening. Listen to the rest of this episode and the full first season of Ephemeral Now. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, wherever you listen to podcasts, and learn more at Ephemeral dot Show. All right, well, wow, this is fresh on

everybody's mind. Can you just just tell listeners where they can find if if fhemeral and uh and also what the homepages It's Ephemeral dot Show. If you don't spell ephemeral, just google it. It's easy to find. I had someone write me a review that was five stars, but the told me they could not spell it their heady google it. But I appreciated that. I appreciate that they did that extra work. But it's not it's not too hard, you know, to to to find and you know, it's on all

the social media things. Podcasts available anywhere. You can do it on the I Heart radio app or Apple or Stitcher or what everything. If you go to the website, there's like, you know, some images and some links and a little bit more information, but yeah, easy to find. All the episodes are out now and uh and our our future episodes planned. You have some ideas kicking around, I'm just gonna go ahead and say, yes, we're in work works on the second season right now, so we're

technically off season right now. We've already released one bonus episode, which is the full length interview with our lovely producer Matt Frederick about that old family recording, and lots lots of other things in between now and then and second season and hopefully not all that long. It took us about eighteen months to do the first season, but we had a lot to figure out and there was a lot of other stuff going on. So hopefully not quite that long, but it could be, well, I hope not.

It's it's a really fantastic show. What I've heard of it I absolutely adore and I can't wait to finish listening. Well, thank you, Joe. Yeah, I mean it's really it's it's a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of podcasts out there. I mean, I mean, I mean, honestly, I mean, there's there's it's there's a disturbing world we're living in, and there are a lot of shows that that, by necessity and sometimes very bravely deal with the disturbing

aspects of of our reality. Uh, but did your show has a you know, it's it's such a more comforting feel to it, you know, I can I feel like I'm I'm settling into like a nice warm glass of milk when I listened to That's not all rainbows. I mean there's some there's some darker aspects of human history and there too, Yeah, but hopefully yeah there. You know, it's you can listen to it with your kids. I mean, it's like it's not it's not you know, dirty or anything.

I listened to the first episode with my son in the car and uh, and he was digging it to you know, because he can. He's identifying with all this is a family. I'm listening to a family. Uh, you know, talk about shoes. That Shoes tape is definitely a hot cup of tea. It's a good one, man. I love that one. Yeah. Before we close things out or even consider closing things out, though, let's talk about William Castle because because Joe, we're talking about this a little before

the podcast. But Joe and I did an episode about the Tingler Love the Tangler and yeah, and and so I'm just happy to have somebody in here who is a fan of the film. My parents instilled in me a real love for just creature feature B movies. Uh and you know, specifically like the work of the Wonderful Ed Wood, but all kinds of other things and the original Mystery Science three thousands or Mr. Science Theater three thousand and all things like that. So, yeah, Tangler, what

Vincent Price, Yeah you have Vincent Price? Uh? Directed by William Castle and just a yeah, just a really wonderful, wonderful film in its own right, you know, I mean, just has such a weird premise and then the gimmick, the William Castle gimmick of the vibrating uh uh theater seats I would have loved to have. I don't think i've you know, short of something like three D I don't know that I've ever really been to him movie a theatrical release that had a gimmick as part of it. Ye, Pokemon,

they gave away cards. I went into the Pokemon movie when that came out. There's certainly some giveaway things that I went to specifically as a kid, you know, But that's not like something where you know, there's a a four D element or you know, some sort of thing that happened in the theater. Yeah, I don't think I've ever gotten to experience that with a theatrical release. What was it that the Scream films postulated was that the new gimmick in movie theaters would be releasing an actual

murderer into the movie theater. It's a horror movie. Well, I mean, there's so many things we could have done with different films, Like take Titanic. They could have missed the audience with salt water during the final scenes, like nice cold saltwater. That would have been interesting. Now I have seen Rocky Horror here in Atlanta at the Plaza, and they do you know, they're saying, yeah, there's there's a lot of fun shenanigans that take place, and that's

pretty great. I mean, that's that in it. I have I love Rocky are and for a number of reasons, and and I'm I'm perfectly happy to watch it again

and again just straight up without any theatrical shenanigans. But like that is kind of like the pre mystery Science Theater three thousand, riffing tradition right there, and uh and it continues to be like this, this cool kind of this is kind of like counterculture experience for the movie going experience that people can partake of, especially like younger of people. So yeah, I'm glad that Atlanta as a

place where one can still find that. I do think folks like William Castle, Yeah, I think he was aware of the sort of you know, the crowd that he was going for the sort of work he was doing. But also, you know, I feel exuberants from him and some of the in in the way that he works, you know, like we're we are pushing a medium forward, like we're trying weird things, you know, and in the effort,

in the effort of like you know, driving ticket sales. Right. Well, one thing I will say about The Tingler is that it is um it is not a dull movie. I mean, it is fun and full of energy. I mean, he was somebody who remembered that movies are supposed to be fun. There are a lot of people making movies that. I mean, obviously, not all movies are supposed to be fun. Some movies are very serious, so they ask challenging questions and all that.

But I see trails all the time for movies that just do not look fun and exactly like you know, monster movies. Generally, monster movies are supposed to be fun. Uh And and he remembered that. I think he was aware of that, even you know, even schlocky or directors Roger Corman, I think was aware that monster movies are

supposed to be fun primarily. Uh. So, you know, he could make Attack of the Crab Monsters and it's like sixty two minutes long or whatever, and it's kind of a brisk pace and it's got some googly eyed creatures and it doesn't get bogged down and uh, you know, you know, bad depressing, bad feelings like so many horror movies do these days. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm

I'm seriously being turned off horror. I think I'm it's like every I keep seeing trailers for things and I'm just like that just doesn't Maybe it's just me, but what about Mandy Mandy? Mandy? I enjoyed even though it's a revenge film, and revenge films aren't really my my my like my go to franchise, but it was so funny.

It was such a goofy movie. Yeah, and beautiful. I mean I love the I love Panos's style and the cinematography, love the music, and well, yeah, ultimately I love that almost as much as I love Beyond the Black Rainbow, which is I pulled up as one of my favorites or something like stranger things like that's a monster movie, that's or monster idea. I'm sure a movie. Yeah, but

but it's also exceedingly fun. Yeah, And I think that's one of the the appeals of the It movie that came out the addiction of the first half of Stephen King's novel is that, yes, it was terrifying. You had all these terrifying penny Wise moments, and penny Wise was fabulously brought to it to life. But yet it found ways to have have fun with the children in in in the in the in the in the movie, like those characters were brought alive in such a you know,

a believable way. There was a Spielbergie and emotionality to it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Is the Child's Play thing out yet? Yeah, because that's just that's a tenpole one for me. Like I watched Child's Play over. I think probably on TV, like the TV edited broadcast, but I definitely saw all of those movies all the way, at least up to Bride of that's the one with Jennifer at Tilly. Did Brad Durro keep doing the voice? I don't think he's in the new one, but he was in like all the others.

That would be My main thing is if Brad Dorrith's not in it, then what what's the point it's But it's the same folks that did the ITA, Yeah, the reboot? Okay, well then then I believe maybe I should give it a shot. I don't know. It's one of the like where I not all that in many things like reboots, I feel compelled to see like I have to. But for whatever reason, Child's plays one of those just like yeah whatever, Like I guess maybe because the first one

wasn't like that amazing. Maybe it was that it's been a while so it's got the mom from Seventh Heaven on it. I think you're not wrong. The only thing that I feel also compelled to say about The Tingler before we wrap it up is a vincnent Price's ability to say ludicrous short lines with just poise and just

really sell it, you know. Well, no, that's one of the best things about The Tingler actually, is the frequency with which characters say the words the Tingler, and so Vincent Price is just constantly saying things like, what do we know about the Tingler? And they're they're counting off their knowledge. They're like, we've discovered that there is a

Tingler inside everyone. God. Yeah. One of the things that amazes me is that it just hasn't It hasn't been remade, and I've never read any discussion of anyone even adding to remake it or rebooted or what have you, despite the fact that the William Castle film immediately preceding it, The House on Haunted Hill, was of course remade, and I thought it really fun, uh Haunted House movie. And then the film immediately after it, Thirteen Ghosts, was also

made into a film, which was maybe a little less solid. Yeah. I think I saw the movie theater as well, and it was it was fun, you know, it was a fun monster movie. Really think that might have suffered from that sort of early MTV music video vibe too, But it's been a long time since they saw it. I remember Roger Ebert's review of the Thirteen Ghosts remake. Just commenting, he says opened with like, this is certainly one of the loudest films I've ever seen. Yeah, I think it

had that. It had some jarring cinematography and it for sure, but it also had f Murray Abraham, so it all bounces out. Um Man. I could see a remake of The Tingler that could go either way. You could get it in the hand to somebody who's a real lover, who's got the joy and all that. It could also be a joyless c G I slog with computer animated worms. But I think if you like leaned into the more psychedelic aspects of the piece, I think you could make

it work. Because, as we discussed in in our episode, like it is allegedly the earliest mention of L S D in a major motion picture. Uh and and I think that they're there are aspects of its really whackadoodle plot that that are that are reflected by that. Who could you recast for the Vincent Price role? Who? Um? What about Jeremy Irons? Richard Jenkins? Yeah, yeah, he's great and everything. Yeah, Yeah, Jenkins is solid. Um Ian McKellen he's probably too old at this death. I know he's done.

I know, but this could be coming back, bringing it back around, you know, I I have. I'm a little bit tired of Johnny Depp. You know what he's great in is Edwood. Yes, he is fantastic in them. That was Johnny Depp and Tim Burton both in their in their period where they were just unstoppable. I thank something around that. What happened to those guys? I don't think I could watch a Tim Burton movie now. But like Edwood is one of the best movies ever made. I

love it. It's it's I don't I don't know. I don't know why. That sort of seems to be the story you see over and over in media and more specifically in Hollywood. But yeah, those they do seem to have passed their prime. But I don't know. I mean, how old is Johnny Depp? He's like in his forties way, But but then again we're asking the questions like how could somebody lose their you know, creative zeal and or

their actual soul in Hollywood. Hollywood is known for consuming these two quantities, sometimes they like at rapid speed, right from the very beginning to right from the very beginning of Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, Edwood never lost it. No, that's not true, Edwards, not true. He did kind of lose

it and like he drank himself to death. Yeah, there's there's that great like Bride of the Bride of the energy, Bright of the Monster has slashed Bright of the atom, right of the changed a couple of times, I think exactly. But that movie's got just fantastic. It's a rush, you know, it's got Lobo and it's got you know, the whipping and oh, it's a great great Bill Legos see and uh and even you know playing nine Bill Leghos. He wasn't really in it, but it was his last film.

Well he's in a couple of shots, I guess. Yeah, for one shot. Maybe it's it's a few. I just rewatched the whole movie, and it is it's a few. It's maybe three. But that's still got great energy. I think later on it would went on to he started making kind of like, yeah, there's a there's a sort

of connection between um. One of the reasons that Tim Burton cited for wanting to do the Edward Edward movie was his relationship with Vincent Price because you know he's a big fan of Vincent Myra Scissor Hands as a kid. And uh, and then Vincent Price ended up working on like his first short, I think, and they worked together twice. I believe that a similar to the way. Similarly the relationship that ed Wood had with Belle LECOSI, what's so,

what's the next one? What's the next one? That continuum, that's how you get to play Vincent Price. In The Young Filmmaker befriends tom Atkins. He's that like the elder statesman of Horror. Uh, tom Atkins gets a late career revival. Oh, maybe tom Atkins can play the the Vincent Price role in the Tingler remain he's more rough and tumble when

he's not Vincent Price type. But you could recast the character could become more of a kind of like cores drinking kind of scientists, more of a roused dour in Rowsed Dour. It was a dowry and roused dowry in Hero Yes, Yeah, that would okay if it's yeah, I'm on board for that. As long as it gets remade, I'm on board. I hope that they vibrate the seats in the theaters. Oh yes, I hope that makes it come back. I want to see more gimmicks like that

in the theater. I feel like they need to do it, that they want me to show up and go through all the whole rigmarole to come in and see the film. Why else would you? Yeah, well, we will have giant

flat screens at home and everything on demand. Then again, I wonder maybe what we need are more intermissions or those specialized intermissions like William Castle used one of these where you're supposed to take an intermission right before the climax of the film to decide if you've got what it takes and if you don't, you can go and get a refund and leave. Or there was a werewolf film, the Werewolf Break. Yeah, we had the Werewolf Break where

you had to decide who is the werewolf. We're gonna have a werewolf break so the entire audience can collectively discuss it and place bets on who's going to be the werewolf? Like, maybe we just need more of that. What movie was that? I think I watched it on your suggestion. It has a great cast in it. Um is it the one that takes place at like the mansion where all the people gather on like an island or something. Yeah, is the name Charles Gray, isn't it?

Who would go into play Minecroft Homes and play Blowfield. Oh? And also a young what's his name that played Dumbledore was in it. Richard Harris. No, not Richard here, the other one in the main Dumbledore Michael Gambon. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, I believe he's in it as well. We got a really far afield, didn't we know. I mean that's some pretty ephemeral stuff that you're talking about. Their human life it is, man. Yeah, No, I mean that's that's a That's one of the things I think

that makes it so special. I mean, you know, uh, there's a great Matt puts it really really really nicely in that interview talking about you pull that tape recorder at the closet and you put the tape in and you hit play on it, and you hear the to the tape cassette starts spinning, and you hear a voice from the grave come, you know, and say hello to you. We just found in my family, we just found a tape recording of my my dad's dad passed away. When

I was nine months old. I had never heard his voice until, uh, my aunt Jennifer found this tape forward the last for the season finale of the Ephemeral episode. She found it like two days before the episode came out and we cut it in and I had never heard my grandfather's voice before that starts. I was just

like high folks, a ghost out of nowhere. So, I mean, yeah, the the fact that you know, these whatever they are tape cassettes, who are you know, weird old industrial films or all kinds of effemora you know, get saved for one reason another, Uh, it's I think it's about as close as you can get to real time travel. Yeah. Are people sending you yet? Yes? Yeah, yeah. What's the best thing you've gotten? What's the best thing I've got?

You know? Someone just wrote to me and told me that their parents both worked for the Dumont Network and that um at least one of them was hired by Alan B. Dumont, the founder of the company himself. So that was pretty cool. But I mean, it's all good. I like it all. A lot of people have told me amazing stories about you know, family tapes of theirs, who are you know, a firmer that was significant in their family. And I think the broader cultural stuff I think is is always good and is easy to make

into big episodes. But I'm really fascinated by the sort of individual stories that people that are like, yeah, I made these kind of like goofy fake shows on tape cassette, like with my brother when I was a kid. Um. You know, the stuff that's not professionally made, the stuff that's a little harder to get through and could maybe use, you know, some kind of editor to get through and and and help you know, bring it to life a little bit. That's that's the stuff that I get really

really excited about. Okay, so it looks like we gotta wrap up there, but Alex, thanks so much for joining us today. We are so excited about Ephemeral. What I've heard of it is so good and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And I'm so excited for all you listeners out there to go subscribe to Ephemeral wherever you get your podcasts. And what else should they do is that it? Yeah, I mean, that's that's enough.

I mean, you know, if if you feel so inclined writing one of those little reviews giving it some stars. That stuff actually really does make a big difference on our end. Are you know the powers A B see things like that and and like that and say, hey, maybe you should do more of these. So if you feel so inclined, I've heard that they're good to binge. Uh I don't you know? You can benjam or not benjam. You can listen to them out of order. You could

really do whatever you want. The trailer, I will say, makes kind of an eleventh episode. It's about eight minutes long, but it is sort of a stands on its own as an episode two. So uh yeah, they're all there. I would recommend playing these episodes on a speaker and recording them with a microphone into an eight track player and then leaving those tapes out in the world for

people to find. We had some crazy ideas about different ways to do, like oh, we can make a self destructing tape of the demo and send it to an executive or something that sounds safe and sending a bomb. Okay, got all right? Well, yeah, definitely check it out. And in the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes of stuff to blow your mind, heading over Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship,

that's what we'll find them all. And indeed, if you want to help out this show as well, if you want to help out Invention, the other show that Joe and I put together, just make sure that you rate interview those shows wherever and whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Huge thanks to our producers Seth Nicholas

Johnson and Maya Cole. If you would like to get in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode or any other suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact that's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.