Summer Reading 2019

summer kind of goes until December or so. Yeah, and plus, well, you know, summer is is in the mind and the heart, you know. But we've also kind of been thinking of it as the death of Summer episode. It's the episode

that celebrates the passing it's awake for summer. And so if you're if you have if you don't know what we're talking about here, this has been a longstanding tradition of Stuff to Blow Your Mind is to do an episode in which the hosts and sometimes guests will just bring up a few different books that they have read in the past year that they enjoyed, that they found insightful, that they recommend, or just want to you know, celebrate in some fashion. Yeah, and oh and you mentioned guests,

We've got a special treat for you today. We're bringing back a blast from the past, a former host of Stuff to blow your mind as a as a guest for the end of this episode. But before we get to that, Joe and I are just going to discuss a few books that that we picked out, books that we enjoyed this year. Uh. And it can be kind of difficult at times that I think we've discussed this before, because generally, if we read a really good book, it is generally going to fall into one or two categories.

Either it's something we're reading for work, for as part of our podcast research, so of course we're going to discuss it on the show. Or we end up just talking and bending about back and forth on some episode about it right, Or it's just something where we don't start reading it for the show, but then there's just something in there we learned, something that is just so irresistible that it has to become an episode. So it

can be hard to come up with like fresh picks. So, what's a really good book I read this year that I didn't already talk about on one episode or another. But but we've got a few today that's right, Robert, did you want to go first today? Sure? Yeah, you know, I'll just say in Passing, you know that obviously I read a you know, a number of books that I

really love this year. But everyone I think has heard me talk about, you know, I think I talked about Broke's Brain, Reflections on the Romance of Science by Carl Sagan, classic that I I read this year. Uh, And of course we talked a lot about How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen. I've discussed on the show how much I've been enjoyed reading the writings of Terence McKenna

as well. But one book that I don't think I've discussed on the show, or at least if it's come up, it's only come up in Passing, is uh probably the best one of the best pieces of fiction I read this year, and it is Mongrels by Steven Graham Jones.

From Stephen Graham Jones. I think we mentioned him on last year's Summer Reading episode because we didn't go in full detail, but when I was just talking about what I was reading at the time, I think I mentioned After the People Lights Have Gone Off, which is a short story collection by Steven Graham Jones, which is fantastic. I am really into this author, and I'm actually currently in the middle of another book by him, a novel called Demon Theory, which maybe I'll talk about in a

minute after you talk about Mongrels. Oh, absolutely so. Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author who who writes in a number of different genres. But I read this particular book, Mongrels, on a trip out to Arizona earlier in the year. In fact, I actually picked it up in the gift shop of the Haired Museum of American Indian Art. Uh. They're in Arizona, which is a

wonderful museum, by the way. But the gift shop is also great and includes a lot of First Nation authors in various genres, including like science fiction, young adult, and of course horror. Because Mongrels. Uh, it is a lot of things. But it is also a werewolf book, and and I'll go I'll certainly easily go as far to say that it is the best piece of werewolf fiction I've ever read. I can't think if I've ever read a werewolf novel. Wait a minute, you read that like

werewolf spy book, didn't you know? I just looked at it a beach house. It was like, c I a werewolf or something. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Like when I try to think of like really great werewolf fiction or even great werewolf movies, there kind of feeling far between. Like the werewolf is a wonderful concept, but it's not always utilized well in uh in a narrative form. But Mongrels does a fantastic job with with the werewolf

uh in in in several different ways. So just approaching it from just a monster geek kind of standpoint, Jones takes the the existing like you know, motif of the werewolf and sort of the you know, some of the existing key points of the werewolf mythos and uh and and not only like, not only does he utilize those well in the book, but he he creates a few new wrinkles in the mythology that that manages to just make everything feel more real about the werewolf, and he

brings it more life without this, you know, without totally recreating it, without like you know, totally just you know, creating something new that we call a can't therapy. Uh. He pairs it a lot with like themes about family, though doesn't he yeah, because this is this is ultimately a coming of age story. It is um it is is about this young boy whose whose family moves around there under like the fringes of society, and it is

um it is. It is I can't remember if it is implied merely implied or or or or you know, obviously stated that the family are are are our Native American or Native American you know, descended, but but I believe that is the case. So you know, you get the you know, the sense that his family is you know, existing on on on the the edges of everything and just barely scrape by, and they are plagued by uh lecanthropy,

like where the werewolf blood runs in their family. And the this boy at the very beginning, he's just he's trying to figure it all out, like figure out the like we all are at at a young age, trying to figure out this wider world of adulthood and family. And I'm trying to figure out where he fits into it. And he's told, you know, you you might not be you know, I might might not have the werewolf blood

in you. Uh, you know, you might have this normal life but you but you also very very may very well be one of us, and so a lot of the book is about him struggling with that, like what does he want to be? And who is he? And um and gosh. Stephen Graham Jones just does a tremendous job in this, Like it's it's just a beautiful book to read, the way he uses this metaphor, and at times, even at times you're like, oh, man, this is a

great werewolf book. But other times you almost forget that it it is a monster novel because it's it's it's more about about this young boy and about the like family identity and uh and and and and how he's figuring out his life and then it's uh, it's written very elegantly, laid out very elegantly because each chapter is pretty much a short story unto itself, so that the

structure is great. Like you, it's one of these books where you finish a chapter and if that were the end of the novel, uh, you would you would feel pretty satisfied. So it's it's one of the more like just structurally complete books that I've read in a long time. Like there's no fat on it either, though it's not like, oh, well, the short story just feels kind of, you know, a little extra, but this this chapter is a little extra. Uh.

And and you know it's just filling in the gaps. No, it's just it's it's it's all meat, just like a werewolf would like. Yeah, I've thought for a long time now if Stephen Graham Jones is a horror write not just a horror writer. He's written in I don't know, works that span different genres, but a lot of what he seems to be known best for is his horror fiction.

Um uh. He seems to me like somebody who is at the same time very creative and thoughtful and willing to get experimental, but exact at the same time refreshingly free of writerly pretensions. Some of the comments I've heard and read about like his writing process and work and all that seems kind of I don't know it, just

like not precious about it. And I think somehow that attitude comes through, and at least what I've heard what I've read of his as a kind of freedom that crackles through the prose, like in this he he's a very thoughtful writer, but at the same time has some kind of distance from what he's doing that just allows him to to spin a yarn with a kind of with degrees of freedom that I don't often feel in

other authors. Yeah, there's and I'm probably not describing it well, but there's there's there's something about this book where it does not feel like deliberate in a in a writer's sense, or or at least it's so good that I don't I don't think about like the writing process when I'm reading it. Uh, you know, it's just I remember when when I was going it was chapter to chapter, it was it was it was one of these book where

you just couldn't put it down. And I also ended up when I was thinking about it, I was thinking, you know, just totally about the characters and and and they're and and wondering maybe even worrying like what was going to happen to them? And it I think it's been a long time since I've really had that experience with the books. So you know, really I really have to give this one, you know, top marks for sure. Yeah.

And another thing about Stephen Graham Jones that I've noticed it and it comes through if you just read one of his collections of short stories, like After the People lights have gone off, is that he can write it at very different levels. Like some of the horror. It's all horror stories pretty much in this book, or at

least kind of strange, at least weird stories. Most of them are you would think of his horror, but some are like thoughtful I don't know what that sounds pretentious, but what people would probably call literary horror kind of reserved, prose, contemplative, uh, eerie, rather than than splatter horror. But then some of them

are just splatter horror. Like some of it is like low brow, almost gross out horror, and and he's great at that too, right, Yeah, in this book, there's I would recommend this book for people who are maybe even not horror fans, Like I don't want anyone to be turned off by the werewolf aspect of it, because it's not it's not really blood and guts, you know. Uh, though it does have a few there are a few details in it that that do make your skin crawl.

In particular, he has his whole business about how like a werewolf has to be very careful about what they wear. Um because like imagine, for instance, if you're wearing spandex and you grow out into a werewolf, where we'll form this large dog like body covered in hair. Like the spandex is not going to rip away and be left on the ground. It's going to remain. It's gonna stretch out, and the hair of the wolf is going to poke through it. And then what happens when that hair recedes

back into the body. Um, it's catastrophe. Uh and uh and and he describes it in in detail in the book. It's it's it's grizzly. It's the reason that I believe they always wear like blue Jane cutoffs in the book, because it's something that will tear away and you don't have to worry about it, like, you know, potentially killing you later. Wow. I'm in the middle of reading another novel by Stephen Graham Jones. Now I mentioned this other earlier novel. I think it's from like two thousand six

or so. It's called Demon Theory, which is one of the strangest books I've ever read. I still, you know, I'm like a hundred pages in and I'm still not quite sure exactly what's going on. But so far it seems to be a novelization of a nonexistent b horror film with scholarly footnotes. But it's it's getting a little bit weirder as it goes on, and it's it's striking me as a very exploratory, experimental kind of novel. I'm

really excited to see where it goes from here. Kind of shades of House of Leaves, yes, yes, sort of yeah, but yeah, I would just say in general, Stephen Graham Jones really interesting author. If you like horror at all, or even if you don't like horror, worth given a worth given a try, absolutely, and Mongrels is available just all over the place. You can get an audio book form as well. Well, well, Joe, what are what's your pick?

Then your first pick for this summer reading episode? Well, okay, so I think you were mainly focusing on fiction this year. I think our guest is mainly going to focus on fiction, So I'm doing doing a few nonfiction books, so though, I mean, of course, I will give a quick acknowledgment of like I'd say, probably the best fiction book I read this year was the Name of the Row is by Umberto. Yeah, it's a classic, and it's it's a classic for a reason. That is a fantastic novel, I

mean just so rich, so good. I read it with a with like a companion glossary that you let me borrow this, like this whole other book that's like a key to all of this story. Yeah too, because like Umberto Echo was a genuine medievalist, and so a lot of the like the historical setting of the novel is rich with real details from from actual history and uh, and so the key to the Name of the Rose,

I would I would recommend doing it that way. If you read the Name of the Rose, get that book and have it alongside with you when you read it. Right though at the same time, I would I don't want to scare anyone away from the Name of the Rose, because I feel like comperto Eco does a really good job with, you know, the contextual usage of these different references. So they'll be they'll be passages in other languages, there'll be references to historical figures or or you know, works

of literature, various manuscripts or what have you. And he's pretty good about like grounding and within the context of the stories, you don't have to necessarily know what those things are. But on the other hand, it's that extra level of appreciation to be able to look it up in say the key to the name of the rose and and see exactly what it was referring to. Right, You don't have to speak Latin to recognize the Latin

or vulgar Italian phrase for the black magic of Jesus Christ. Okay. So, uh So I'm gonna talk about some nonfiction books this year. Uh And this year, you know what, I'm not going to read all the junk that comes after the colon and a nonfiction book title. I wish publishers would stop insisting on all that stuff after the colon and just let the book have a regular title, Okay, And I'm gonna enforce that rule myself. So the first one I want to talk about today, it was a really interesting

and important book. Uh. Is called a Cracking Creation and came out in twenty seventeen by Jennifer DOWDNA and Samuel Sternberg and at Base. This is a book about the Crisper Cassinine gene editing technology and the current spate of

gene editing technologies. Uh. This is an unusual and really interesting kind of book because it's a book about a revolutionary moment in science and technology, written right in the middle of that revolutionary moment, not really looking back, but like, you know, what this book is about is still going on right now, and written by one of the leading scientists who brought about this revolution. In this case, that would be Jennifer DOWDNA, who is one of the main

figures in discovering the Crisper cast nine gene editing potential. So, Jennifer down is a biochemist at you see, Berkeley. Previously

she had worked in research on RNA and ribisims. But over the past decade she and colleagues both in her Berkeley lab and UH at a few other institutions, including work by Emmanuel Sharpentier and other colleagues around the world, they discovered the potential of the bacterial Crisper CASS nine machinery to change what's possible in gene editing, to make gene editing a much more plausible economical proposition in many

more scenarios than previous gene insertion technologies. And so in this book there there are a few different sections Down and Sternberg. Oh, and Sternberg is one of her colleagues as well as I think a student who had originally worked under her. But they write about the discovery in a few different ways. So there's like a scientific background section where they explain the genetics and the microbiology that

underlies the discovery of the Crisper cast nine system. They explain how it works, they tell thet biographical story of the research efforts that made the discovery. But then a lot of the book is them talking firsthand about trying to grapple with the real world implications of this powerful technology and trying to get the rest of the world to slow down and consider the ethical issues with gene editing before they say run off and start editing human

germ lines. And of course, when you edit the human germ line, like the embryos or like the spurm ur egg cells, you make changes that don't just change one person, but will make changes that can be passed on to all future generations that come after that person. And so they've been trying to say, hey, wait, we should think out the ethical issues that that come along with this level of gene editing technology before we just go hog

wild and apply it everywhere. And it's really interesting hearing dowbt On Sternberg wrestle with the the ethical pros and cons in real time. Like she talks about how at first she was just like, well, you know, I think we've got to have a moratorium right now on germline a thing, because you know, we we we haven't thought

through all the ethical considerations yet. But then she talks about meeting with the families of people who suffered from you know, horrible or deadly genetic diseases that said, no, you know, like, if we've got the power to do something that could have that could have saved my loved one, or that could potentially save people like them in the future, yes, of course you should do that now. And so there

are these powerful forces pulling in both directions. There's this strong resistance and fear about what this this technology could mean if it's applied to loosely or too quickly without thinking about all of the consequences. But then there's also this powerful interest on the part of people who are like that this is life and death for me and

for people like me. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those moral dilemmas where like you to say, let's just have all of it, let's just let's just go at it and just you know, see where the cards fall, like that's that's irresponsible. But then the other hand is to just say we're we're not gonna we're just gonna shut an entire line of research here. We're not going to we're not going to investigate this technology any further when there's so much that could be could be gained

from it. Yeah, gene editing, I think, is another example of something perhaps like sort of like nuclear technology, sort of like artificial intelligence. We have technological power before we

understand exactly how that technological power can be used. And part of the problem is that with all these technologies, actually with nuclear with artificial intelligence, with gene editing, now, especially because of Crisper CAST nine, the the they are reaching a point of um dispersal basically where you can't just say, well, only the people in this one ivory tower can make the decision about whether to use these

technologies or not. Because one of the things that the Crisper has brought along is that, you know, now gene editing is becoming so easy that you know, she talks about how with the right tools and the right know, how a high school student could do gene editing. I mean,

that's literally the world we are entering now. And that's like a terrifying power because you know, she talks about how well, okay, so it's one thing to talk about, uh, the precise types of gene editing made possible by Crisper cast nine to say, knockout a gene that causes a double recessive genetic disease that is debilitating or fatal and saving lives that way versus On the other hand, this could be used in so many ways that people haven't

even thought of yet. There's the idea of editing genes to create designer pets, like the micro pig created in China. Um, you know, where you can just alter a gene that controls how growth hormone is dealt within the body, and that one alteration suddenly creates an adult pig that's like the size of a small dog. And so okay, well maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but you could just keep going like that. She imagines that what's to stop people from trying to create dragons out of living organisms

and all that? Not necessarily like, oh, we should be worried about the threat posed by the dragons, but like, is it ethical to be intentionally altering nature? This way. Then again, on the other hand, you've you've got the issue of like, well, we already do sort of alternature but in much clumsier way. Yes, again, as we we often point out, look to the pug. That's the example.

But I guess the idea is that the pug took considerably long or to produce, and you're talking about potentially creating a pug um, you know, not over the course of of generations and generations, but within like a single generation create a dragon pug. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's a really really thorny issue, and it's one that we can't just stick our heads in the sand and like pretend like, Okay, that sounds scary. I don't want

to think about because the future is coming. We have to figure out how we're going to encounter it, how we're going to deal with it morally, to how we're going to uh, you know, arrange our laws to deal with it. Yes, you can't escape this issue by not thinking about it, because other people, whether they're things king about it or not, are doing it. I mean, the capability is there now, um, and so there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. So I'm sorry I

used a cliche like that. Uh, there's no putting all the what would be not a cliche, there's no stuffing all of the listeria containing salad back in the bag. We are we are in the gene editing era. Now we're in the earliest days of it. But are we're going to become more and more powerful and our abilities at gene editing, we're going to become more and more uh dispersed to more people, so you know, people can just make decisions on their own about what to do.

And we should start to come up with a coherent ethical framework for what we think about what is right and what is not right to do in gene editing. And I think we have not solved these problems yet. We don't know what the right thing is yet. Yeah.

I I attended a panel at the World Science Festival a few years back where some of the leading UH experts in this in this field, we're talking about kind of kind of basically the same issue, like what like, how are we gonna going to to handle this, How are we going to uh you know properly, how are we going to try to you know, keep our wisdom at a level to where we're not completely outpaced by

our power. And I guess in you know, in some ways it's it's like other things like one can certainly look to pharmaceuticals and drugs and in various other technologies that are you know that either have been have you been highly legislated from the beginning, or or you know, laws come in place and uh and bodies are established

to deal with them early on. But but in in other ways it does seem unlike anything that we've really had to deal with before, Like it's far more specific in um in changing who we are potentially yeah, and changing other organisms sometimes without realizing like what the full ramifications are that of that are because we mentioned the pug earlier and the fact that the course humans have

have always been changing their environment. But like that his sure you can look to the many catastrophic things we have done in interacting with our environment. I mean, another great example would be I think we've talked about this on at some point in the show before, but Crisper enabled gene drive technologies where you can drive certain genes

into wild populations of organisms. One of the most common examples that has been floated here would be driving genes into mosquitoes to either like white mosquitoes out by making them sterile or creating like an all female population or all male I don't remember which one, but so you could do that, or trying to drive a gene into mosquitoes that makes them resistant to the malaria parasite, which okay, So on one hand it sounds like, yeah, malaria, you know,

mosquito boarn illnesses kill millions of people every year. You of course you've got like an ethical responsibility to do that. But have we fully thought about all the consequences. I mean, there are a lot. There might be consequences that we have not envisioned yet, and then there might be ways that we're not properly appreciating the ethics of the consequences

that we do know how to predict. Right, and then whereas you know, if such a decision, say with mosquito, just to simplify things, like if the decision we're coming from just a purely from from you know, a public health standpoint, like the mosquito is one thing, but coming from a conservation standpoint, the mosquito is potentially another, Like you know, fact factoring in that a mosquito is also

food for for various species. It is a pollinator. Uh, you know, it has a definite, widespread role in the environment, and one has to be careful not to jeopardize that

because if it changes, if it moves, everything moves. But it's also not hard to imagine, just based on what we've already talked about, like about the idea of deploying certain types of tailored gene drives as weapons of mass environmental destruction, like if you were a terrorist and you just want, you know, something like that, or back in the in the more human in health domain, there are serious questions about like, Okay, so it's less controversial when

you just want to talk about single point gene mutations

to cure a genetic disease or something. But what if people more generally start thinking, there are a few ways I would like to improve my genome, you know, or maybe you can't improve your genome as an adult, but to improve the genome of my child and improve in quotation marks, you know, right, yeah, I mean, because we get down to the like the basic imperfection of of the species, you know, like we are we are not perfect beings that you know, we're drawn out of Holy

butter or something, you know. I mean, we're uh, you know, we're we're a creature that evolved into this state and they're there are various design issues with say, the way we walk and you know, among other things. So like if you start, if you start trying to fix everything that is wrong, like where where do you what do you stop? Yes? And what counts is wrong? I mean, it would just be a It would come down to individual preferences and what medical science allows us to do.

And it's going to be more and more all the time. So this is I think an incredibly important, incredibly thorny issue that I think we're not ready for, and we need to be doing more to try to get ready to deal with this anyway. But but this is a great place to start with that. And the book again is called A Krack in Creation by Jennifer DOWDNU and Samuel Sternberg. Excellent. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, I think, and when we come back, we're going to

roll through some additional bits of summer reading recommendation. Thank you, all right, we're back, all right, Robert, So I think you had a recommendation coming up next, right, Yeah, So every year, at least recently, I've been trying to include some sort of children's book because since I have now a seven year old, a lot of the reading that I do, uh is bedtime stories, you know, and you know,

we've we've probably celebrate reading in our household. But a lot of the books that are you know, some of the books that I read or you know, maybe not that great or they're forgettable, or they're fine for a seven year old, but they don't have much of an impact on an adult reader. But I have a particular

book here that I picked up. I don't even know how it came into our house, possibly via a lending library and then possibly like I may have purchased it or you know, obtained it from a library because it's a former library copy. I one of these where like the you know, the scanning bar has been sharpied out

and so forth. But it is a book titled First Painter by Katherine Laski with paintings by Rocko Babiera, and it's from two thousand and it is a book, a children's book, beautifully illustrated children's book about Neolithic people and Neolithic art um and it's UH for stars, I just want to read just a section of it, to give you just a glimpse, just a taste of of of its uh, of its of its poetry. Quote the moon of the Singing Grass has come and gone three times,

and still there is no rain. Babies have been born and grown into little walkers and never seen rain. My name is miss Who. I have lived for ten moons of the Singing Grass, and now I am beginning to forget the rain. It's sound, it's shape, and how the water clouds gather like herds of Willie Mammoth's in the east. My people are hungry, they are starving. First the grass died,

then the animals. Now us. So that that's the just the first page from the book, and it is the story of Mischu, of this Uh, this young girl in this neolithic dribe, whose whose people are are plagued by famine, and she is she realizes that she has to do what what women in her family have done for generations before her. She has to set out to a sacred cave and she has to, through the creation of art, call back the reins and bring rain and food back

to her people. And it's uh, it's it's beautifully written, beautifully illustrated and written. It really gets into this uh. You know, it gets to some of the questions indeed, you know, larger questions I guess, like what is art and you know, what what role does it play and in the human experience, but also just like the mystery of neolithic painting and uh and some of the theories

regarding it. Like it's one of these books that at the end of the author, you know, has a bibliography where she cites, uh, you know, about a dozen different sources where you know she really researched, you know, the the Shamans of prehistory for example, or you know, archaeology of early Man, and there there's an insightful afterward about

her process here. So it's it's one of these books that I highly recommend for anybody who has a you know, a young reader in their household, or even if you don't, if you just if you're just excited by a topic like this, it's worth picking up. Katherine Lasky also, by the way, you're not familiar with her, she's she's a very well known children's author. She wrote The Guardians of the hul book series. She also wrote The Night Journey, which is about a Jewish family's escape from Russian pogroms

of the early twentieth century. And she also wrote True North about the underground railroad. She's extremely prolific, uh and uh. And so this book is it's still out there. You should be able to pick up a copy or at least pick up a used copy of it somewhere. Check it out of your library. But I highly recommend it touches on some of the topics we've discussed on the show before as well. Yeah, I was just flipping through it earlier before we started, and some of the illustrations

are very beautiful. There's like there's one where somebody's looking up through a crack in a cave at somebody standing above looking in. Yeah, that the sort of the the whole plot line where she's she has to descend into the cave and it's this you know, dangerous dark place and has to find this this place where people in her tribe have gone to create the art that you know that has this this magical power. So that's the children's selection of fourth for today's episode. Oh what have

you got for us? Next? Joe? Al right, next is back to another nonfiction book. This one is a book by the British science writer Philip Ball published in ten called Beyond Weird Again. I'm not going to read what comes after the colon. The title is Beyond Weird. Now. We've talked about some of Philip Ball's work on the show before. He's written a lot about physics and chemistry. Robert. I think we read a good article by him published in Chemistry World about the supposed chemistry of the tomb

of Chin Chi Huong, the first Chinese import. But this book, Beyond Weird is a book about quantum mechanics. And you may think you know, I've read about quantum mechanics before. It was very surprising at first, but I know all this stuff now. If you're feeling like that, I think you should reconsider and give this book a shot. I'm pretty sure this is the best book on quantum physics

that I've read. A lot of writings on quantum physics sort of acknowledge the apparent weirdness in the disconnect between the uncertain, probabilistic world of quantum mechanics and the solid, factual world that we seem to observe at our macroscopic scale, and then they just sort of wave the hand and move on right, Like it's very weird. Isn't that very weird and interesting? Now let's get on with other stuff. But beyond weird. Instead, basically it just gazes straight into

this apparent weirdness. It looks into the core of the black hole. Uh not literally, it's not about black holes. But I mean, I mean, you know, it's just like it's like staring into the sun. It's kind of unbearable, but it's fascinating for that reason. Tries to grapple with

the supposed weirdness directly. It of course deals with a lot of common misconceptions about quantum mechanics that there's a whole section of like it's not exactly right to say that X is why about quantum mechanics And I'm like, oh, you have said that um and but but the the way he explains, uh, why these mis misconceptions are perpetuated

is very interesting. It also deals with the war between the rival interpretations of of the theory of quantum mechanics, which could mostly be thought of as ways of attempting to resolve the apparent weirdness of quantum reality um. But he looks at it with a kind of clarity and focus that makes the book in my in my view, totally unique and worthwhile I haven't read anything like this before. It's really challenging, really truly mind bending, and I already

want to read it again. What do you feel how would you recommend this to the just sort of the average reader. Do you feel like someone needs to already be somewhat versed in quantum mechanics, Did they have read like should they be like a regular reader of quantum mechanics related topics in science journalism? No, And I'd say it's at the intermediate level. You know, it's not it's not a book that's going to be super approachable to like kids or people who don't know anything about physics.

And but at the same time, it's not you know, it doesn't require you to be a scientist obviously. It's written for a popular audience, you know, So it's one of those middle world books. It doesn't assume you have any kind of specialized knowledge. It explains everything to you, but it also is dealing with, you know, the most complex subject matter in the world, probably literally so, so it's not as approachable as some other books, but it

is a really, really Uh. I mean, it's a book that captures the attention because it drives home the fact like if you have read books about quantum physics before, you felt the weirdness back then, and then you're like you got used to it, and you're like, Okay, you know, I know all this stuff now. I don't know which interpretation is correct, but you know, I'm basically familiar with the weirdness. It doesn't bother me anymore. This will make

it bother you again. That's a great thing. Like it really really gazes directly into the source of of how strange this feels to us, and it uh, it forces you to deal with it, and you know, it points out the fact that like this is what reality is. I mean, quantum physics is one of the best theories in all of science. It's totally predictive. We use it for all kinds of stuff. It's not like you can

just pretend it doesn't exist and move on. I mean, is telling something about telling us something fundamental about reality. But what it's telling us, of course, is still up for debate or how we should interpret what it's telling us. And you've got to grapple with it if you want to understand what you think reality is, just as a

kind of teaser. A lot of the definitions that the ball ends up dealing with then and maybe seeming to favor somewhat in the book are definitions of reality where that that say, the most fundamental aspects of reality or maybe not are maybe not facts and things, but probability and information. Interesting. So do you foresee any future episodes of stuff about your mind related to this content? Oh? Possibly? Yeah? I mean um quantum physics is funny because I was

trying to think about how to put this. It's like it's something that it's hard to do episodes about without a visual aid, because you really need a visual aid in order to correctly conjure the inappropriate misleading metaph wars that you will ultimately use to try to explain the concept. I mean, you know, like explanations of quantum mechanics often fail at multiple levels at the same time, and some of those failures you just sort of must be resigned

to them. Is it kind of you have to Is it kind of like you have to have like an incorrect version of what it is before you can like refine that version. Like it's sort of I mean, yeah, part of the problem is that, like quantum, quantum reality is dealing with phenomenon that we have no analogies for whatsoever. And so when you try to create an analogy to illustrate it, you inherently bring along a lot of baggage

that is misleading. So you've got a few choices, like you can try to picture it, which might give you a sense of security because you're like, Okay, now I'm trying to picture it, but now you've introduced a lot of stuff that's sort of leading you off in the wrong direction and causing you to partially misunderstand it. So you can just back off and say, well, let's just not even try to picture it. Let's just look at them path and say, literally, what does it say? But

then it doesn't feel like it's real. It doesn't feel like it makes sense in the It's not gonna work that way for everybody. Like certain mathematical minds are going to maybe you know, take that approach a lot more easier than the rest of us. Uh, And it just hammers home the fact that, like the quantum world is real, it's maybe more real than the macroscopic world that we're used to. Uh. Maybe A good way to think about it is our ability to picture things in the macroscopic

world is the illusion. It's an illusion that is our best way of dealing with quantum reality as it presents at the scale of our bodies. But it doesn't really tell us what reality is. It's just sort of our best approximation. Well, speaking of approximations of reality, um m my, my next pick is another work of fiction, but it

is a short work of fiction. Uh So, if anyone out there is like, I don't have time to read an entire novel or you know, a lengthy book, well, the good news is that this is a short story.

It is by Peter Watts, who we've mentioned on the show before, and the short story is titled A Word for Heathens and it's collected in the short story collection from Watt's titled Beyond the Rift, which which is itself a very cool little collection of tales, including it includes his version of John Carpenter's The Thing retold from the point of view of the thing which, in and of itself, yes things to us, Yeah, And then that in and in and of itself is a is a wonderful bit

of like biologically contemplative science fiction that I think it's is certainly must read for anyone who is, you know, a fan of of the thing h and also you know, is inquisitive about you know, the nature of like an alien consciousness, like what would that be? What would the

mind of the thing be? Like? Um, But this particular story from that election A word for Heathens is about an electro magnetism obsessed the ocracy that invokes the spiritual experience of God via like god helmets and other technology. But they also use electromagnetic technology for like trains and stuff,

and I consider like the holy power of their empire. Yeah, so it's like it's Persinger's God helmet, but a crusade for that religion, right, and then the Heathen religion that they are so opposed to and or like fighting tooth and Nail is is a society that uses psychedelic mushrooms to invoke a spiritual sensation of of God or the divine. But I think you could just look at that as

any like a version of natural religion. It's like the technological religion has a crusade against the natural religion because the natural religion is outside the true church, which is a technological uh infrastructure. Yeah, so it's um, yeah, it's it's a wonderful set up. And then it's just such a stunning and complete short story. Like it's one of these these these rare short stories where I read it and it leaves me wanting more, but knowing I probably

shouldn't have more. Like it's like the perfect dessert, you know, where you're just like, I'm completely satisfied. Uh, you know, part of me would would would want the part of and part of me does want like the expanded novelization

of this this world from Watts. But on the other hand, like the short story accomplishes everything, and I don't want to give away the there's some twists and turns in there because you basically, you know, fall into the perspective of one of the crusaders and then you know, some things happen, uh that that causes his his perception of things to to to to switch around. But it's it's

it's a wonderful, wonderful little short story. It would make for an amazing episode of say Black Mirror, if they ever wanted to do something that was a little more like, uh, broader and more fantastic. I think it could it could we could certainly fit into that world. Just a fair warning on that. Like much of Peter watts work, I uh, I do recall it being fairly disturbing. So yeah, it's

it's it's disturbing. It's for adults, So it's for adults. Yeah, I mean, it's not as disturbing as some other things he's written. But but but it's but yeah, but I do want to say it's it's extremely good. If you're looking for a really thought provoking short story, this one is worth checking out. Absolutely agree. Yeah, alright, and Joe, I believe you have one more selection before we uh summon our guests. Well, I just want because I think last year we sort of started a tradition of also

just talking about what we're reading now. So I already mentioned the Stephen Graham Jones novel that I'm reading, which is very weird and engrossing in its own right. But I'm also reading another nonfiction book right now, which was I think I think I started reading this because of a recommendation from a listener a while back, but it's been a while so I'm not positive about that. But this one is called The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum,

published in two thousand eighteen. Um not quite finished with it, but I thought I should mention it because it is

absolutely disgusting in a profound way. So it's a historical account of the campaign for the earliest comprehensive food and drug purity laws in the United States, and it centered around a major figure in this process, which was the American chemist Harvey Washington Wiley, who was one of the most important researchers and crusaders from the late eighteen hundreds through the early nineteen hundreds in this world of food purity and food additives, and in this period in the

United States. According to Blum, you know, there was a very little reason to believe that if you bought a packaged food product or drug product, that it would actually consist entirely or even mostly, or even at all of the food or drug that was identified on the label. Like whatever it did contain might have undergone maybe no, maybe very little testing for safety. According to Bloom, there's

this whole thing about milk. She talks so like, if you bought milk in the late eighteen hundreds, you might be very likely to get bacterially contaminated milk. Thinned out with unclean water colored like so the thinning it out to stretch the milk further would give it a gross color, might look gray. So then it would get colored with

chalk or something else to get rid of the weird color. Uh. And then to simulate cream floating on top, which happens with natural milk, you might get pure a calf brains in there. And then because there's no refrigeration to keep the milk fresh, it might have preservatives like formaldehyde or borax um and so. And also at the time there were just these problems with like candies and other color enhanced foods containing dies a lot of diyes at the time,

or cold tar dies. But then also there would be candy diyes made of arsenic or lead compounds that would just sometimes kill children. Um. The parts about spices in this book are hilarious, as like pepper might have a significant or even majority constituency of floor sweepings and ground up bits of charred rope. Coffee to coffee might be what was it? I think maybe it's like charred sawdust

with all these additives. I mean, people were selling things as food that was not food and was in many cases not safe, and in a lot of cases there just weren't comprehensive regulations that would prevent UH sellers from doing that. And so so far in this book, one thing I would say is that, uh, one thing that I kind of wish is different is I wish it dealt more with like modern scientific evaluations of additives of

the period. So we get like a lot of fascinating stories about like crazy, crazy sounding preservatives and things like formaldehyde and milk which people called himbalmed milk. Um, but so far not a lot of sense of exactly like how dangerous exactly these types of additives would have been at the concentrations they were used by like modern food safety experts, and not done yet. Maybe something like that

is coming up later on. But um. But even without the context of like modern scientific analysis, it is a fascinating and disgusting historical tale. And it's interesting reading about the parallels to modern times because it's it's very familiar the way that the food and drug manufacturers back then fought against regulation, you know, saying that these attempts to regulate their products were unconscionable, unacceptable attacks on liberty in the free market. You know, this has given me a

wonderful idea. So in the past, on Thanksgiving, we've tried to do American Thanksgiving, we do a dangerous Foods episode, and we've kind of in the I think all the episodes in the past, we've mainly focused on like naturally occurring food stuffs, be it like a fish or you know, or some sort of you know, fun our floor, you know that that we consume and the dangers of consuming those things or that may have incorrectly been perceived to

be dangerous. Yes, so but maybe we should this this is where we get another dangerous foods episode, or at least one more where we talk about we we focus on industrial food products of the past. So maybe maybe look for that this Thanksgiving from stuff to blow your mind. All right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna introduce our guest. Thank thank Okay, we're back. It's time to jump in with our interview with our guests, which we

actually recorded before the episode. So if anything sounds out of order like we've gone through a time warp, we we did. Yes, but this is going to be Christian Sayer, former co host Stuff to Blow your Mind, current host of the super Context podcast. We called him up, we said, hey, we'd love to have you back on the show, uh, to discuss summer reading, just like the old days. And he said yes, and so we're gonna summon him onto

the show right now. What's going on, Christian? Hi, I am talking to you all the way from Portland, Oregon, and you are currently in Atlanta, Georgia. Technology is cool. Huh. Yeah. So before we got on Mike here, Christian was telling us about how he's recording from a murder basement. Yeah. Yeah, I moved into a house in northeast Portland and the basement is a lot like Buffalo Bill's house in Silence

of the Lambs. You just go downstairs and then there's just endless hallways and eventually instead of coming to a pit in the floor, uh, there's my podcast studio. Well it looks like a pretty cozy pit to me. Yeah, it's it's it's wonderful down here. I'm making it work. I found a hobo spider down here the other day. That's my only concern. Oh, were those the ones with the huge legs? Yeah, they're really big. Uh. And it seems debatable whether they're poisonous or not. I don't think

they wouldn't kill you or anything. It's not like a brown rec loose, but I don't want to get bitten by one. Fair enough, alright, So it seems like you are going to share some book recommendations for Death of the Summer along alongside ours today. Yeah, this is the late summer reading. It happens every year we say we're going to do summer reading and then pushing it later and later Death of Summer, yea, the death Rattle of Summer.

There here are some books, okay, Yeah, I mean I'm always reading, as you dudes know, and I had to whittle it down to three things. I used to do this when I was on the show with you guys. I used to try to make it be one nonfiction book, one fiction book, and then I would always throw a graphic novel in there for good Matcher. Well, that's a

fair shake. I don't think we're going to do it exactly that way today, but but yeah, that that that helps us cover the range, especially since I don't think either you or I are doing graphic novels this year. I know I read like one one good graphic novel. But you've sent it to me. Yeah, that's right, and when I was done, I sent it to you. So yeah, it's this graphic novel called Dull Margaret and it is written by the actor Jim Broadbent. Oh, the art is by an artist named Dix d i X and it's

published by Fantagraphics. I believe um, But yeah, I'm fascinated by just the idea of a Jim Broadbent written graphic novel. One of my favorite Jim Broadbent bits is in a Hot Fuzz when he's running away and he makes the lion roar. Jim Broadbent is so good. I think you were actually telling me about this. Robert she said, I had no idea he'd make a great actor, but uh, of course he makes a great actor, would make a

great writer of graphic novels as well. But he he's one of my favorite actors because he's like a human version of the Chamberlin's skex Is from the Dark Crystal. You know, his his entire face is that sound. But he probably shouldn't diverge too much. But are you guys watching the Netflix prequel? I haven't started yet. We're gonna family um, oh, Simon Pegg, Yeah, I heard he's sort of a standout. He's he's the Chamberlain new Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I believe that the previous actor died many years ago. But does he do the the the high pitched oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely. It's it's a highly prominent Um. Yeah, I recommend it. It's good so far. I'm only a couple of episodes into it. But we're not here to talk about television, guys. We're here to talk about books. So I'll tell you about the graphic novel that I selected that I've been reading this summer. It's called Schangra Law and it is a science fiction graphic novel uh

from Europe. It is published by Ankara Editions, and it's written, drawn and colored by Matteo Bablei or maybe it's mattau Bable I can't really pronounce. Great. Yeah, I believe it's like the French version of that um and it came out in s And this is the most stuff to blow your mind book I've read this summer, so I

definitely wanted to share it with you guys. Um, First of all, the art, this guy's art is insane, like he is this meticulous Draftsman, if you look up images from it, you'll see that he does these impeccable backgrounds that are all in really well detailed perspective because the whole thing takes place on a space station that's orbiting Earth and its way in the future, and uh so you just get these wonderful long shots of people walking

down these like endless corridors on this massive space station. I'm looking up some art from it right now. So is the space station Does it kind of have some traditional architecture style, Like it doesn't look like a space ship but more like, I don't know, old buildings in the sky. Yeah. Inside, it's designed to be like an ecosystem for the human race. So the plot of the book, while the premise of the book is that there is

no longer inhabitable space on the planet Earth. People can't live up there anymore, so they've all moved to this space station and yeah, everything it's it's very kind of like Blade Runner inside, like the architecture and what they

have for technology. But it is a pretty heavy criticism of our current modern technology in that the culture on the space station is all run by this big corporation that owns the space station, and they are also the corporation that makes like all the phones and gadgets and stuff that the people have to distract themselves with on board the ship. Uh. In the main plot is about this I guess astronaut is the best term for him.

He's a scientist who the corporation basically hires to try to figure out a way to create a a like alter alternate human race that is better than human and is capable of functioning near the sun, living near the sun, and uh, he finds out that he's kind of a

pawn in this whole game. And the other thing that's really interesting about this world is that there are no animals on board the ship because all the animals died in whatever happened on Earth, so it's assumed to be like climate change disaster and uh, but there are these things called animoids that are human like, they're humanoids, but they have the features of old animals. So there's like dog animoids, cat animoids, I think there's like a fox one um. And they are treated like the lower class

on this space station. So the humans are all kind of placated with their cell phones and then basically they take out all their aggression on these animoids and long story short, like the main character Scott finds out that things aren't the way that he thought they were. Uh, it's just it is in an amazing piece of work. It's just this big, massive story. The artwork is just I mean, I can't imagine how many hours went into drawing this thing. It's gorgeous. I can't recommend it enough.

And it's it's the perfect kind of science fiction in that it's really about today's problems with society told through the lens of this like you know, far reaching sci fi future. And is this a self contained, like single graphic novel? Is this a series? My understanding is itself contained? I have not seen anything about there being more stories

in this. Uh. Sort of what you were talking about reminds me of the satirical role in the the implicit criticism of like capitalism that's in like Total Recall, where you know, Cohagen controls the entire environment on Mars, where you know, like it's a business, but it's through this business is the only way that you can get air that you breathe, and that that's always been an interesting potential I think of science fiction that you and like

by removing people from Earth, you create these scenarios where whatever power, whatever the power structure is, this government or this business or whatever, controls the entire environment in which you can survive, whether that's a colony on another planet that's otherwise uninhabitable or a space station like in this graphic novel um And I feel like it kind of highlights the ways that we sort of have this illusion that like, you know, well, we're we're sort of free

on Earth because like if we don't want to depend on governments and corporations, we could retreat to nature and survive and you know, we could just breathe the air and live off the land. I mean, whether that's actually feasible for a modern person is I guess more debatable, or you know, whether it's feasible like to actually that you could actually escape a society and you know, like

in the developed world. But yeah, but what's a pure form of or more of an impure form of disruption than destroying the environment or taking humanity and moving into a place where there is no sustainable environment for our speech. And we've already partially done that, I mean in multiple ways, we've like sort of destroyed our ability to just like retreat to nature and say no, I opt out. But

like this is taking that to the ultimate extreme. If you're on a space station or if you're on a colony on an uninhabitable planet, you literally can't opt out. It's just your survival is totally dependent on whoever owns whatever this environment is. Yeah, you guys are heading on exactly the heaviest theme in this story. Uh slight spoilers.

This isn't going to like ruin anything for anybody. But the pivot point in the story is when the protagonist finds out that the corporation has been lying to them for at least a century now and that Earth is inhabitable. This is they've been keeping them on the space station so they can keep order and control. This is the same twist. I don't mean to diminish it because this does look great, but it's a solid twist. It's the

exact same twist as Highlander to the Quickening. I mean, of course, it's it's well worth copying in a graphic novel from France. Of course Highland or two would be the inspiration for for the levels of the shield are normal. Yeah, but Basically they find out like, oh, we could have been living on Earth the whole time, and they that makes them even more conscious of how they've been controlled and placated and uh and uh basically, you know, society

starts to unravel from there. Well, that sounds really interesting. I kind of want to check that out. What have you gotten next, Christian? Let's see, I'm going to save the best for last. I my fiction pick for this summer is something that I think some people think of as a classic, but I had never read it before. So I took the time to sit down and read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle nineteen sixty two mystery novel by her. Uh yeah, just last year,

one of the books I recommended. Also, I guess I was hesitant about it be is it's a classic, I assume a lot of people have already read it. But the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I read

that for the first time last year's phenomenal, phenomenal ghost story. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. Um, I read Haunting of Hill House and the Lottery like a lot of people in uh, you know, English classes in high school, and then I think I read a Hunting of Hill House in college, but I never got around to this one, and everybody said to me, oh, that's the best book by her. It's you know, it's heralded as being this real exemplar version of weird fiction. And so I wanted to figure out, you know what,

what it was all about. Why why did everyone celebrate it? And so I finally sat down and read it. And it is a weird little story. It's not what I expected, especially based on reading her other stuff, but it's it's Um, I definitely recommend it. Um. The do you want me to tell you, guys the plot of this book? I haven't read this one. I'n't ready. Okay, I'll try not to go all the way through. I'll just give you

the introductory plot. Um. So, there are these two sisters, Marrakat and Constance, and I believe they live in Vermont, in a small town in Vermont. It's based on the same town that Shirley Jackson was living in at the time that she wrote this. And the backstory is that their entire family was poisoned to death a few years previous to this, uh, and they were the only survivors

as well. As their uncle Julian, and Julian was poisoned but not enough to kill him, so now he's like he's bound to a wheelchair, and he also has some like pretty significant memory problems. But the girls and Julian basically stay in this house all the time, and it's ultimately this exploration of a gore phobia. I think Shirley Jackson was struggling with that at the time, and she felt like an outsider in this small town in Vermont, and so she was trying to process those feelings through

this book. So Constance is a total of groa fo never leaves the house. Julian can't leave the house because he's bound by a wheelchair. So Marrakat, who's the youngest, she's like seventeen years old, she's the only one who ever leaves the grounds of the house. She usually just goes to town and like picks up their groceries and brings them back. And everybody in the town hates the people,

the main characters of the book. They hate them because they're wealthy and because they live in like a big, nice house, but they also hate them because they've never solved the mystery as to who killed the rest of their family with the poison Christian. Have you played the the card game Gloom, because because this this sounds like you could have easily along with the Adams family and other you know, obvious references, could have been the inspiration

for this. Oh no, I haven't played that. I just got a board game called gloom Haven. But I don't know if they're connected or not. I don't. This one has more of aston Edward Gory kind of style to it. But the whole premises that you you build. It's like a kind of a it's not quite a deck building game, I guess, but it's a your building. You're putting this family on the table there, and you just want horrible things to happen to them, and whoever whoever manages to

like kill off their family first wins. But there are all these little details in the cards about all the horrible things that have happened, like the tragic nature of the family and the gothic nature of the family. But but it reminds me a lot of what you're describing here, Like this family could very well be played on the

table and in a game of Gloom. Yeah. Absolutely, it sounds like if it wasn't influenced by by this, then maybe it was influenced by something that Shirley Jackson had influenced because she's so she's such a like strong presence and horror and mystery fiction, I think as a as an influence. Um, and it's yeah, it's it's like the Haunting of Hill House, Joe, and that it's very internal and it's a lot about the thoughts going through the

main characters heads, uh and things. Basically, you know, the conflict point that caused things to change is that a cousin of theirs appears out of nowhere and moves in with them and wants to change things, wants to take advantage of the family fortune, and uh, you can see a running theme here. Then things fall apart. So oh man, that the Haunting of Hill House also has a great like freeloader guy kind of character. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Um.

Haunting of Hillhouse is fascinating. Have you looked into those adaptations of it? No, I've actually been meaning to do a double feature one night to watch the nineteen sixty three film and then watch the nineteen or whenever it was the one with Katherine Zada Jones and Liam Neeson. I think that's the only one I've seen it had Owen Wilson, Yeah, Owen Wilson, Yeah, I've heard it's bad, but I kind of want to see it anyway because I love that like late nineties c g I horror phase.

It's so it just does not hold up at all all, Like it's it's not as good as Thirteen Ghosts. That's how bad it is. Well, that's a good point. I actually like Thirteen Ghosts. Um. But I would point out that the trajectory of the adaptations of Haunting of Hillhouse have like sort of weaved into what's great about Shirley Jackson and then weaved out of it. Um. The early one is great because you never see anything. Oh, it's

all done through what's behind the door. The door bulges, you hear scary noises on the other side of the door, but everything's left to your imagination and then you're right Joe. In the nineties version, they just pulled out all the stops with c g I and there's like shape shifting statues and monsters and stuff in this Haunted house. It's ridiculous, but it's like the Mortal Kombat movie level of c g I. Yeah, yeah, exactly, UM, not for lack of trying,

though the performances in it are great. What's her name, Lily Taylor plays the protagonist. Um. And then there's that most recent season of the TV show Haunt, The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. Oh yeah, I haven't watched this, but I've heard it was only loosely based on the novel. Yeah, that's exactly right, So it's not connected to the novel. It has similar themes to the novel, but it's not the same plot at all. But I think you can see in that an attempt to merge the two things together,

the like dreadful terror of the first one. And then there is a little bit of c G I like boo jump scare type stuff in the UM TV series as well. In the version of The Haunting of Hill House, I read there was actually an introduction or a preface or something that's some kind of piece of writing beforehand by Germo del Toro where he talked about his appreciation

for the novel. And I remember it's been a little while now, but I vaguely recalled that he talked about, UM, the way that the house itself is written of like a predator in the natural world, the way that it functions, like a lion on the savannah or something that it tries to isolate and pick off weak members of the group. Yeah, yeah, I remember all that. That's great. Yeah, that's a really smart observation on his part. Um there is there are

adaptations of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. In fact, just last year, I think a film version of it came out and it stars Sebastian stand Tisa Farmisia, Alexandra di Dario, and Crispin Gover Glover plays. Okay, yeah, I have not seen it. I'm hoping that they didn't inject it with as much c g I as went into the nineties hunting Ville House. But yeah, it looks from watching the trailer, it looks very faithful to the book.

Well I gotta read that one too, now, all right, so you have one more pick to share with us. What what do you have and what is the classification on this one? All right? I saved the best for last because I know that this is something that you guys are going to be excited about. Because maybe the listeners aren't aware, but the three of us gentlemen used to sit together in a studio. I think it might be the same studio you're sitting in now and talk to the audience of stuff to blow your mind over

Facebook every Friday. Yes, and this was a couple of years ago. We would uh, we would frame it around trailers for horror movies that we're connected to, the topics that we had, you know, been covering on the show that week, and one that always came up. We all agree that we love this movie. Is They Live, John Carpenters. They Live. So I got this book called They Live.

A Visual and Cultural Awakening and it is. It's this amazing collection put together by Rough Trade Publications, And you can order the book through Mondo, although I think it might be sold out now. They like, I got like a second printing of it. They like every year release a couple of copies of it. Um and it is. It looks like a magazine like it looks like a big, thick like variety magazine type thing, because it's designed to

look like the magazines on newsstand in They Live. So the front of it just says obey and big letters on it um. But inside it is it's a it's a proper book with just a bunch of content in it that's all related to the movie and trying to dissect the movie and better understand it. So Uh. It includes the original short story that the movie is based on, as well as the comic book adaptation that they also based it on, both of which were written by a

guy named Rain Nelson. And then there are articles examining how things work in the movie, like um, gender roles or portrayals of capitalism, and they're written by people like John Grant, Slaboy, Jack Shepherd, Fairy, Roger Luckhurst, and someone named brandalism Um. Some of those may be familiar to Shepherd, Fairies, the guy who made the obey stickers. Uh. Does anybody explain the wrestling match in the middle of the movie. I want to scholarly dissertation on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There is quite a bit of conversation I believe in uh John Grant's piece. I'm not sure which piece it was, but they do talk about that that epic wrestling match. Well, now, to be clear, it is a It is a It is a standard fisticuffs fight that has some wrestling moves incorporated into it. No, I think it is notable for how long it goes on like notable for its length, but but it's it's more like they're just a few spots that are incorporated into the action, you know, clearly

because Roddy Roddy Piper is the star exactly. Y yeah, I mean just like every time you think the fight's over, it starts up again. And that's the quality it has. That's like a wrestling match. And the I think one of the things that stands out about it is that this is the This is an example of a fight in a Western motion pick sure, in which the fight actually tells a story. And you you see much more of that in um in like Hong Kong cinema, it's

in Japanese cinema, etcetera. But in Western cinema, especially in recent decades, it's it's all about just you know, slash cuts and a kind of a feeling of a fight

happening without like the story of the fight. Yes, I agree, I hate most action movies because most action movies are boring because most fighting in movies is photographed in a way that is dramatically totally static, like there there's nothing really at stake other than like, I guess somebody's gonna wine, so in in in to whatever degree the fight and They Live resembles a wrestling match, I think it's I mean, obviously it's part of it is because there are wrestling

moves roddy roddy pipers there, but professional wrestling is a a fictional uh fight, like a physical performance that that should tell a story. So yeah, yeah, except it's it's a fight. Uh So I'm curious that you have what do wee they go into into this, like who who is responsible for that that battle appearing like it does

in the film. So one of the essays in here, I think it might be Craig Oldham's essay, Um, not sure, but one of the essays talks about that fight scene as being this great example of how difficult it is to pull yourself away from ideology and that um, if they Live is showing you what ideology is when you

put on the sunglasses. Then when rowdy roddy Piper goes to Keith David and he says, hey, put on these glasses, and Keith David, no matter what, doesn't want to put those sunglasses on, to the point that he fist fights his friend for ten minutes in an alleyway uh. That Their Their argument is is like, look, this is proof that it's extremely difficult to pull yourself out of, you know, the culture that you live within and see it for

something else. Um. And and that the fight is an example of that that, like the whole thing is Keith David is is fighting against kind of his instinct to he knows there's something else on the other side of the world, but he doesn't want to see what it is. It's interesting the way it portrays it almost like is an issue of like ego or dignity. It's like he you know, he won't stoop to putting the glasses on. Yeah, I mean when we we see that every day. I mean I think to a certain extent we see that

in ourselves too, you know. I mean with this, yeah, this this battle against the you know, the truth. I highly recommend this book because you know, I've I've loved that movie since I was a kid, but this book points out things about it that I never realized even

as an adult, you know. Um. Craig Oldham has this piece in there that is about how poverty in Los Angeles is portrayed in the film and apparently, like the camp that rowdy Roddy Piper lives in was a real homeless camp that was in l A at the time, and they used the actual, um, you know, people who lived there as background actors and they live and apparently shortly after they shot this film, the city of Los

Angeles tore it down. Well, isn't that what happens in the movie that like that basically the people in the homeless camp are just being assaulted by the police and the developers that come through with big machinery and everything to just drive them out. Yeah, exactly. So they point out that what you see in the movie eventually happens in real life to camp. Um. I mean, you know, you can argue about the politics behind it or not, but the fact is is that, yeah, they were removed

from the city. Um. Yeah, I'm only about halfway through it and I'm just finding like every single piece in here is fascinating. Um. I never realized that it was based on a comic and so like a lot of the classic scenes that I remember from the movie are in this comic book that came out, you know, well before the movie was ever made. Um. But Carpenter apparently optioned it, you know, he saw it somewhere and he was like, yeah, I want to make something about that.

But um, yeah, I think like the the overall argument of this big book is like, there's so much going on in John Carpenter movies that is under the surface and isn't over you know, commentary on society, and obviously

they live as one of the real big ones. There's all kinds of archived imagery in here, um from things like the w w E. So you get some perspective on rowdy Roddy Piper in it um, the relationship of uh this film to our current era and talking about Donald Trump and like I don't know if you've seen the imagery that shows Trump, but he's got like the they live alien face stuff like that. Yeah, it's it's

a it's a really interesting book. I mean, I would say, like, even if even if you weren't into the movie, which I can and imagine why you wouldn't be, Uh, there's a lot to learn here. Well. I do feel like it's one of those movies that that some people may have seen when they were younger and they may have been been like, Okay, that bubble gum line is really cool, and you know, maybe they pick up on some of the you know, the thematic power of it. But it's also I think easy to dismiss it if you if

you haven't, you know, given it a more thoughtful viewing. Well, yeah, it's one of those that you go three levels all the way around on right, Like at first you're like, whoa, that movie blew my mind? And then the more sophisticated person says, actually, that's a very simplistic critique of society and the movies. You know, it's kind of it's full

of cliches. You know, wake up sheeple. I mean, uh, but then if you get to the third level, you you you kind of come back all the way around and say there is something kind of insightful and subtle about it. Of course, the counter argument that might be that I feel like I go through all those three levels on terrible films. Oh yeah, films where they're probably

there isn't really a third level there. But if I if I think about it, and if I created I think to some degree all three of us have that disease. Oh yeah, certainly, I mean I do a whole show about that disease. But there is Yeah, I mean, what were we talking about before we came on air Guardians of Gohole three phases with that film yet Robert Um, Well, like I said, I've I've only seen I've only seen

it once. Uh, but but now I'm kind of interested to check out the books, especially now that my my son's at the point where he could conceivably read him. I mean, he's reading all the Harry Potters so and he loves the animals. Who you know, thirty years from now, it might turn out that Guardians of Gohole was a commentary on capitalist ideology. Wait no, why did we talk about that? Is because somebody who the person who wrote

it wrote something else. Oh yes, so the the So just to clarify for anyone listening, we're recording this interview before we recorded the part that you just previously heard. So Christian wasn't wasn't here? And actually, yeah, I'm referring to a conversation that Joe and I will have in the future, but we have already had on this show. But yeah, referring to stuff to blow your mind without

me messing up time wise, not your fault, man, have. Yeah, the book in question here is the First Painter by Katherine Lasky all right, well, Christian, before we send you on your way, I thought we should take a moment to talk about super context. Okay, yeah, sure. I do a podcast on my own now with my co host Charlie Bennett, who's also based in Atlanta near you guys, and it is we call it a podcast autopsy of media.

Every week we take a look at entertainment kind of like how we are just talking about they live, uh, and we we do a deep dive into the research on it and try to figure out how it informs everyday culture. So we look at things like film, television, prose, music, and comics. Um. Basically, we're trying to apply like a critical thinking lens to the entertainment world. What are some favorite episodes of yours from the past few months that

people should check out? You know, you guys just caught us at the tail end of what we were calling Lovecraft Month. For a long time, we've said we'll never do an episode on HP Lovecraft because Charlie and I both have strong feelings about his uh racism, and so what we decided to do instead to try to understand his influence on pop culture was we did five episodes on things that are all tangentially related to to Lovecraft,

whether their adaptations or not. We did an episode that just came out last week on the podcast Welcome to Night Veil, which was really really insightful. I learned a lot about the podcast industry from reading about those guys. Um. We did one on the video game call of cthulu Dark Corners of the Earth. I don't know if you guys ever played that, Uh that there is a newer one. This one came out in like two thousand five or six. The new Call of Cthula did just come out this year.

I think. We did one on the graphic novel Providence by Alan Moore and Jason Burrows, which is a real deep dive into trying to unpack Lovecraft in his influence on literature. He was from Providence, Rhode Island, right, yes, exactly. Um. And then we did From Beyond, which you guys are well familiar with the Stewart Gordon film. And then the first one we did was about this novel that came out a couple of years ago and is about to be made into an HBO TV series called Lovecraft Country,

and it's by Matt Ruff. Awesome Jordan Peel is producing the HBO series. The premise of Lovecraft Country is that an African American family in the nineteen fifties comes into contact with love crafty and stuff, but because they're so accustomed to prejudice in everyday life already, the dreadful nature of all of Lovecraft's monsters aren't as effective. Interesting. Yeah,

it's a really interesting book. I I was hoping for more from it, I'll be honest, but apparently the TV show all word about the TV shows sounds like they're going to expand things so that it's a lot more interesting. And uh, anything coming up that you're particularly excited about, you can share any hints. We are about to publish an episode probably by the time this comes out, Our episode on John Gardner's On Moral Fiction will be out. Are you guys familiar with John Gardener? John Gardner, the

author of Grendel. Yes, that's exactly who it is. Yeah, I mean, I love Grendel, but I've I've never read any of his other works. So in nineteen seventy nine he published a nonfiction book called On Moral Fiction, and it was this long. Some people call it a rant, some people call it a treatise arguing that modern day fiction is immoral and that all art and fiction has the responsibility to be moral, and including the people who

criticize art and fiction. And Gardner took a lot of big name authors to task in that book, uh, and really just ripped into them about why he thought that their work was bad and why it was bad for modern culture and why it was, you know, slowing down the efforts of fiction in terms of like the human project. Uh. And so we sat down and just analyzed all the arguments around it. We talked about it's publishing, We talked about how he wrote it, when we talked about how

all of these authors responded to it. So people like Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow and Kurt Vonnegut, like all of them he attacked in this book, and essentially it ruined his career. Uh. Within Like he couldn't get good reviews for any of his books after this thing came out. And then he died in like this tragic motorcycle accident and a couple of years later, I remember reading I've read I've read about his death before. A lot of the a lot of the articles point out since you

mentioned Grendel. They point out that they see a lot of parallels between his life and the way he depicts Grendel in that book. So I found it all really interesting. And I've never read Gardner before. Have you read Grendel? I have not. You should definitely read. I really recommend Grendel to to everyone. It's really just pick it up in your hands, and you will find yourself reading it, and then you'll have you will have you find yourself having read it. It's uh, it's just one of those

books that just sucks you in. It's just so so well written. You do you don't even have anyone out there that you might you might be saying, well, I've never read Beyowolf from a familiar you don't. You don't need an Obayo wolf. If you if you know, be a wolf. Uh, you know you maybe you have a you know, a slide advantage. But h it's it's a book that it just stands on its own. But is

that it's it's Bayowolf from the perspective of the monster Grundle. Yeah, and uh, and so it's this monster that lives on the you know, the yeah, the earth rim Romer, the very boundaries of the world. Uh, you know, commenting on the nature of humanity and and and it really builds up Beaowolf. Is this you know, ultimately this just in human kind of monster like Baowolf is the monster of the Grindel. Yeah, well that sounds very John Gardner, I'm

sure it's good. But it's also that's kind of how he saw himself in a relationship to the rest of the world. It's a cautionary tale for sure. All right, well, well let everybody know once more where they can find super Context super context is. Our home base is Patreon, dot com, slash super Context. We have a community of listeners that participate there and that helps fund the show as well. And you can download it wherever you get podcasts.

Were on Apple, Google Play, Spotify. What are the other ones? Guys? Are you still doing those ad reads? But we've we've kept we can't even keep that. It's like it's like naming all of the demons in a in any given a more. You know, you just you just have to conjure them with a symbol and then bind them with candles. Just infernal legion, that's all. You just cover them all general, we're on all of the Infernal Legion find us all of the nine Kings of Hell. Well, thanks so much

for joining us today, Christian, it's been really fun. Thanks for having me. Guys, it was good to talk to you. I hope you're all doing well. And say hello to everybody else at the office. We'll do and and please enjoy the rest of your summer. I think there's what a couple of weeks left, maybe a week left, a couple of hours left. Yeah, I don't know when it officially ends, but here in Portland at September three, so

I don't know what day it is in Atlanta. You guys traveling backwards in time, Well, this episode is definitely coming out after September three, so uh. At any rate, I think we were perhaps recorded it just in time before the summer ended. Yeah, it's perfect. Everybody subscribe to super Context. Come on, all right, So there you have it, another episode of of summer reading. Uh is in the books. Uh, just in time or maybe a little late, depending on

on on on how you view summer. But at any rate, we did it, uh, and we'll try to do it again next year, maybe a little earlier, so maybe in less than a year you'll see another Summer Summer Reading episode about eight months in the meantime, if you would like to check out past Summer Reading episodes, just past episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind in general, you can find us at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. You can also find the podcast uh anywhere you find

your podcasts. Just shout out to the Infernal Legions and they will serve it to you. Um and uh yeah, beyond that, I don't know. If you want to use social media, you can, Um, you know the perils of doing that. Uh you've listened to the show, but um, you know that's that's your choice. That's not that's not ours to make for you. Don't passive aggressively shame them, Robert, No, I mean, I'm I'm I also shaming myself. This is our this is our shame as a as a people.

Uh so we all share in it. But anyway, yes, they're there social media accounts for Stuff to Plow your Mind. To do with them what you will. Um, let's see what else. Uh yeah, But the main thing is if you to support the show, the best thing you can do is, yeah, I don't can mess with social media. Just rate and review the show. Wherever you get it huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producers, Maya

Cole and Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to give us a feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, for just to say hello, you can email us at contact at 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.