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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff your

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Speaker 2: weekly reminder that I have a podcast and my name

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Speaker 2: is Margaret kildoy and I also, in addition to having

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Speaker 2: a podcast, have a guest whose name is Jamie loncas Hi.

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Speaker 3: Hi, you left me on a cliffhanger on Monday.

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Speaker 2: I know I left you on a cliffhanger, and it's

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Speaker 2: going to take a while to get you to the cliffhanger.

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Speaker 2: I promised the audience that the most tragic part of

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Speaker 2: this story is going to be related to a hot dog,

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Speaker 2: and it is true.

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Speaker 3: I have a feeling that that's going to be something

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Speaker 3: people can say about my life when it ends.

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Speaker 2: The tragedy is that your dms are just full of

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Speaker 2: hot dog memes that have been for.

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Speaker 3: Have been for five years.

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Speaker 4: Hey, thought of you?

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Speaker 3: Have you seen this one? Sorry?

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Speaker 2: I felt very bad. I sent you a hot dog

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Speaker 2: thing the other day.

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Speaker 3: To your credit, you said me stuff that I usually

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Speaker 3: have not seen before.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, Eddie goes a kid selling hot dog on

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Speaker 2: the Expressway because the protest had taken it over.

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Speaker 3: Oh. That is one of the best parts of LA

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Speaker 3: protests is that there are always danger dogs on hand

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Speaker 3: and everyone is always so wonderful to whoever selling the

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Speaker 3: danger dogs.

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Speaker 2: It's just yeah, we must protect the danger dog sellers

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Speaker 2: at all costs.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: We also have a producer named Sophie.

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Speaker 1: Hi, Sophie straight from the Ashes of podcast.

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Speaker 4: Hell no, I'm kidding.

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Speaker 2: We should just do a podcast. Hell like, that's the

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Speaker 2: Halloween reverse episodes. It's just being like weird podcast bros.

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Speaker 4: So if you just rose out of a floor, that was amazing.

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Speaker 2: I know it's not a visual medium, so y'all didn't

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Speaker 2: get to see that. But the flame effect that's not

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Speaker 2: a zoom background. Your house is actually on fire.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like magical flames that don't harm dogs or

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Speaker 1: my furniture.

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Speaker 3: So it's just like, looks cool. You have the little

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Speaker 3: dog with the coffee cup. That's how I feel most days.

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Speaker 3: Actually everything's my Do you think that the artist who

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Speaker 3: drew the dog with the coffee cup? Well, actually, I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna guess.

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Speaker 2: No what to say? Are you going to do an

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Speaker 2: episode about this?

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Speaker 5: Yeah? I was.

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Speaker 3: I guess I'm asking this like this is something I

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Speaker 3: should find out, and I feel like, I know you're.

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Speaker 1: Kind of the person that I would go to for

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Speaker 1: that information.

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Speaker 2: But what are you gonna ask.

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Speaker 3: Do you think that they are, you know, well compensated

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Speaker 3: for having created that art? And how do you think

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Speaker 3: they feel about it? I know that the image is

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Speaker 3: just like replicated in to infinity, but I wonder how

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Speaker 3: they feel about it because I'm sure that it's been

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Speaker 3: like fucked with via AI on the scary side, but

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Speaker 3: also been illegally reproduced for positive reasons on the other right.

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Speaker 3: I would just be curious to know how they feel.

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Speaker 2: I agree, And if you, dear listener, think that'd be

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Speaker 2: a kind of cool podcast idea. What if you went

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Speaker 2: around and you found people who are behind some of

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Speaker 2: the most viral hits on social media and the Internet,

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Speaker 2: And I would love to hear someone ask them questions

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Speaker 2: and then think deeply about these things, not just surface level.

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Speaker 2: But what does this say about Oh I can't do

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Speaker 2: your tagline? What does it say about the internet and ourselves?

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Speaker 2: And if you like that idea, Jamie, do you know

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Speaker 2: anything about where they can listen to that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I guess I did kind of open up by

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Speaker 3: quietly plugging my own show by accident. What do we

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Speaker 3: think about this, folks? I? Yeah, you should listen to

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Speaker 3: sixteenth minute. I wish I could answer that question specifically

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Speaker 3: for you, but now I'm like, I'm writing it down.

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Speaker 3: It's a question I would like to answer on that show.

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Speaker 3: It's by an artist named Casey Green. All right, Casey,

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Speaker 3: let's see what you're all about. All right, Well, I

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Speaker 3: feel great already great. I feel like I haven't had

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Speaker 3: a functioning idea from my brain in weeks.

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Speaker 2: That was thrilling, amazing. My favorite version of it is

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Speaker 2: the one where the dog is looking in the house

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Speaker 2: that's on fire and says, so I have a book

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Speaker 2: coming out.

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Speaker 5: Yes, that is how I feel all the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: it's been hard to even like focus on my substock

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Speaker 5: because I like, I just like don't want to be

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Speaker 5: a like hot topic, like hot, take what's happening right now?

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Speaker 2: Person? You know, but so much is happening right now

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Speaker 2: that I also am not trying to be like.

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Speaker 3: You don't want to avoid it. I hear like it's tricky. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think about that a lot, where it is just

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Speaker 3: like whatever makes people built for that? I lack with

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Speaker 3: regards to like the quick like I must have my

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Speaker 3: finger on the pulse. Yeah, it's like I need to

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Speaker 3: be reactive in my life in that way.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes I need time to process. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: And the hotter the take, the less likely it is

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Speaker 2: to be true. And like, it's still necessary for people

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Speaker 2: to see things that are happening and tell people on

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Speaker 2: a pine about it. But it is like I want

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Speaker 2: to be a cold take machine as much as possible.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to be like guys, this take has

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Speaker 3: been marinating, yeah for weeks. Get ready for a well

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Speaker 3: soaked take.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 3: Fascism is bad.

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Speaker 1: Like, before we jump to the script, I just want

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Speaker 1: to say very adorable is that Normally Anderson sleeps through podcasting,

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Speaker 1: but because her Auntie Jamie, she can hear you. She's awake,

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Speaker 1: she's been a week the time, and just keeps looking around, like,

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Speaker 1: what are you?

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Speaker 3: I love to haunt her. She's in the box, Anderson,

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Speaker 3: She's in the scary box. She's in the scary box.

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Speaker 2: Podcast pets are an important part of podcasting.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my very reactive dog will sleep quietly at my

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Speaker 2: feet as I record on podcasts.

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Speaker 3: What is podcasting if there is not a mammal asleep

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Speaker 3: on your feet?

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Speaker 2: Like, that's maybe what keeps you from a follow We're

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Speaker 2: just so much better than all the podcasters. We talked

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Speaker 2: shit on everyone else's garbage. We're great.

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Speaker 3: If Joe Rogan had three cats in the room, I

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Speaker 3: think he would be very different.

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Speaker 2: That's actually probably true.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just an experiment. Just put a bunch of

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Speaker 3: puppies in the room and see what happened.

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Speaker 2: So, speaking of experimental the ideas, we are on part

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Speaker 2: two of A two parts. Oh wait, I didn't finish

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Speaker 2: all the introduction stuff. We also have an audio engineer

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Speaker 2: who is named Eva hi Eva hi Eva, and our

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Speaker 2: theme music was written for usd by on Woman and

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Speaker 2: part two two parter about bread and Puppet, one of

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Speaker 2: the more interesting theater things that has a long lineage

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Speaker 2: and has had all kinds of impacts that is also interesting.

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Speaker 2: I probably already said interesting, And that's one of those

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Speaker 2: words that when I was in like fourth grade, my

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Speaker 2: teacher was like, you can't use words like that. You

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Speaker 2: can't describe things as good or interesting. You actually have

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Speaker 2: to use adjectives that I mean things. Who's laughing now.

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Speaker 3: Teachers calling it like twenty five cent words. Uh yeah,

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Speaker 3: that was what my sixth grade teacher would say. He

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Speaker 3: was cool he played opera for us and let us

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Speaker 3: read the hobbit.

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Speaker 2: So, oh that is cool, Yeah, he us prettymple. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So they start Bread and Puppet on the Lower East Side.

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Speaker 2: They name it in nineteen sixty three. It's a thing

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Speaker 2: that they've been doing a little bit together for years already.

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Speaker 2: And it was Elka who provided most of the political

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Speaker 2: underpinning for the project. Like it's an entertainment like artsy

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Speaker 2: kind of avant garde a little bit, but also sort

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Speaker 2: of medieval like theater troupe doing puppets and you know,

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Speaker 2: trying to make this very beautiful stuff. Elka, as best

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Speaker 2: as I am able to understand, was the more political

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Speaker 2: of the pair, okay, And she essentially radicalized her husband,

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Speaker 2: who was a bit more just on the art side

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Speaker 2: of things. Elka did more of the administrative behind the

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Speaker 2: scene work, including introducing the initial political spark, which is

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Speaker 2: what made it stand out. So she doesn't matter anyway.

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Speaker 3: Uh God, that's just like magna. Do you feel that

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Speaker 3: in your gut? Like I just she radicalized him. Interesting? Interesting, okay.

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Speaker 2: And this spark that radicalized her was influenced by her grandfather.

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Speaker 2: The back to the Land socialist, feminist vegetarian guy. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and not her ex Bolshevik father. Her father drifted further

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Speaker 2: and further to the right after fleeing the Soviet Union,

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Speaker 2: which is a pretty common thing. You flee the Soviet

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Speaker 2: Union and you start loving right wing American capitalism. I

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Speaker 2: think that both the US and the USSR can take

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Speaker 2: the blame for that one.

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Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

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Speaker 2: And he ended up I think friends with like Nixon

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Speaker 2: and shit, oh, like he was like influentially right wing.

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Speaker 2: I think. Okay, her grandfather never forgave her father, like

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Speaker 2: his own son, for turning right wing and did not

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Speaker 2: go to his own son's funeral.

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Speaker 3: See, people talk about principle, and that is always such

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Speaker 3: a diabolical thing to witness when the form of rebellion

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Speaker 3: you're offered is going right wing like that, it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: defying your artist parent by being like, well, I'm going to.

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Speaker 4: Become a criminal defense lawyer and.

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Speaker 3: You're like, I guess, like yeah, sure, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then like this is the guy who moved to

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Speaker 2: the USSR to be like, I'm going to be a

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Speaker 2: steel worker for Stalin and bring the worldwide revolution.

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Speaker 4: No follow through, no commitment, yeah, right.

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Speaker 2: So Alka took after her grandfather and looked up to

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Speaker 2: her grandfather, and it was her own politics influenced by

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Speaker 2: her grandfathers that infuse bread and puppett Although Peter in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight he's going to say very shockingly and

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Speaker 2: clearly inconsistently, he says different things about politics in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty eight and twenty twenty five, which are the two

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Speaker 2: time periods that I've read about his politics most directly. Hey,

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Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight he's very like, our work isn't

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Speaker 2: about ideology, it's this protest theater. In twenty twenty five

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Speaker 2: he is like, there is no world left because Gaza

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Speaker 2: is being destroyed. And I am a communist and I'm

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Speaker 2: obsessed with Peter Kropowkin, you know, like.

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Speaker 3: I adore when someone becomes more radical as they which

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Speaker 3: I feel like that is what a gift.

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Speaker 2: No, totally, I think he's like, oh, we don't have

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Speaker 2: an ideology. He's still actively doing direct action protests against

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Speaker 2: the Vietnam War by giant puppets, which we'll get me.

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Speaker 3: So I also think about this as a wild sixteenth

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Speaker 3: minute connection.

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Speaker 2: But no, I like these wild connections absolutely.

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Speaker 3: When I talked to Taizon day who did Chocolate Rain, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: which is like a very political song. For the first

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Speaker 3: like ten years that he did interviews about it, he

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Speaker 3: really avoided talking about the politics of like really what

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Speaker 3: he was like, just listen to it and see what

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Speaker 3: you think, and like gave kind of like obfuscating answers,

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Speaker 3: and then I think at some point was like, fuck it, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's obviously.

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Speaker 4: A political song, like yeah.

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Speaker 3: And was willing to but I think it started from

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Speaker 3: whatever the political climate at the time, but also a

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Speaker 3: like resentment of like being asked to spell out what

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Speaker 3: he felt was very obvious. You're like, oh, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: is Chocolate Rain a political song? Like a baby born

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Speaker 3: will die before the sin? I don't know, is that

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Speaker 3: a chargelaar to you?

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Speaker 2: Like, what's funny is that I don't know whether I

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Speaker 2: actually listened to the entire song before, Like I knew it, right,

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Speaker 2: but so I was like, I don't have no idea

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Speaker 2: whether it was political, and then yeah, listening to those

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Speaker 2: episodes very direct one of the clearest articulations of like

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Speaker 2: kind of like where progressive slash radical politics are kind

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Speaker 2: of at about a lot of issues are just like

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Speaker 2: wad out really intelligent, like really fucking well.

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Speaker 3: It's so wild that everyone and it was everyone in

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Speaker 3: like two thousand and six who missed that, Like it

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Speaker 3: was very much a skill error on the part of

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Speaker 3: the general public. But I'm curious they were doing direct

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Speaker 3: action yea. Were the shows themselves political?

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Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I actually think that this is kind of

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Speaker 2: a like, hey, I'm not like into ideology, okay, and

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Speaker 2: also like a little bit of a defense of like

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Speaker 2: I really do care about this as art, you know. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'll talk about with some of those plays where okay,

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Speaker 2: they have this theater now and their friends are helping

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Speaker 2: them pay rent on the space to run it in

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Speaker 2: Elka started doing her own children's theater as well, and

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Speaker 2: she would do art music just as much as her

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Speaker 2: husband and.

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Speaker 3: But forget about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but no she did. Yeah. No, it's funny because

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Speaker 2: she like, throughout the whole thing, she's also gonna be

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Speaker 2: running her own theater. But they're running this theater on

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Speaker 2: a shoe string budget and always have the couple and

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Speaker 2: their three kids. At that point, they're gonna end up

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Speaker 2: with five all live in a railroad apartment with a

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Speaker 2: bathtub in the kitchen, and it shares a toilet with

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Speaker 2: all the other apartments, and they are absolutely radical. Through Elka,

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Speaker 2: they are involved in some of the earliest protests against

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Speaker 2: the US involvement in Vietnam. By nineteen sixty five and

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six, they were regularly putting on shows that

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Speaker 2: talked about the issues that people were facing, like to

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Speaker 2: quote Bread Andpuppet dot orgs write up about it, rents, rats,

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Speaker 2: police and other problems of the neighborhood. They're talking about

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Speaker 2: the issues that people are facing, you know. Yeah, And

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Speaker 2: they would lead processions of puppets to the streets protests

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Speaker 2: of the Vietnam War. And there are some photos of

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Speaker 2: this era where it's just like people wearing black robes

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Speaker 2: with like kind of surreal stylized paper mache skull masks

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Speaker 2: and it's fairly arresting. I really, okay. I like puppetry

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Speaker 2: and like costume because it hits the uncanny valley and

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Speaker 2: makes me feel like the world isn't real.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I like when puppets are used for well, not

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Speaker 3: scary reasons like Chucky, but like when they're used to

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Speaker 3: make you feel unsettled and like, yeah, I love that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And masks are like it's funny because it's a kid.

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Speaker 2: You're like, oh, people put on funny masks and every

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Speaker 2: now and then, I'm just like, someone walking around with

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Speaker 2: a bird mask is terrifying. You're just like, there's a

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Speaker 2: bird over there, you know, but it's shaped like a person.

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Speaker 3: Why does the bird have such meaty legs? I love it.

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Speaker 3: Animatronics are essentially puppetry, Yeah, totally. I love animatronic history

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Speaker 3: because you're like, Wow, this art for children that has

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Speaker 3: consistently scared children, and that's the history of puppet. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: they're kind of puppets and clowns unequivocally all kind of scary.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but also classics. Okay, See the reason I'm so

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Speaker 2: interested in this, I've been talking for a while about

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Speaker 2: this is completely unrelated to we're talking at actually's not

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Speaker 2: you know what I'm going to say. This is related

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Speaker 2: to Breton puppet and surrealism and like or not surrealism,

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Speaker 2: but the concept of making the world feel surreal. I've

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Speaker 2: been thinking about how like, I have a really mixed

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Speaker 2: feeling about horror as a genre, like my own engagement

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Speaker 2: of watching it, and I like things that make me

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Speaker 2: feel like there's a world beneath this world and that like,

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Speaker 2: things are different, we can feel and act in really

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Speaker 2: different ways, and the easiest way to access that is

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Speaker 2: through terror and like death and you know, horrible things

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Speaker 2: and rot and whatever, you know. And I've always been like,

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Speaker 2: but where are the other genres that give me that feeling?

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Speaker 2: And actually puppetry, animatronics like dark crystal, like yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: the things that are unsettling in that you are like

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Speaker 2: going to just feel differently and to tie it back

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Speaker 2: into the script, these protests, these people walking down the

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Speaker 2: street protesting a war like solemnly as skull people walking

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Speaker 2: down the street would actually get bystanders to stop what

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Speaker 2: they were doing and look and engage with the protest

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Speaker 2: marching by in the way that they don't if it's

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Speaker 2: just an anemic chant and one badly played drum dragged them.

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Speaker 2: I have sent so many hours of my life in protests.

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Speaker 2: Dong dung du. Yeah, I have been the bad drummer

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Speaker 2: at protesting.

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Speaker 3: Look, we need the bucket drum. We need it. It's

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Speaker 3: got its place in history. I don't know that I've

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Speaker 3: seen it recently, but it is arresting, and it's arresting

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Speaker 3: in a way that I can't think of in a

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Speaker 3: way that like a pithy signe is just not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can look and because the pithy sign

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Speaker 2: I don't hate one, and it makes people really excited

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Speaker 2: to go. They're like, I've got the best sign, and

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Speaker 2: so then they actually go out right yes, but yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's something about like, no, I want people to notice

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Speaker 2: this thing, and like we'll talk about a little bit later.

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Speaker 2: Peter actually has really beautiful things to say about puppetry

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Speaker 2: and about like this way of like accessing this like

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Speaker 2: beauty and this way of creating this like really solemn environment.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes you know, well, anyway, okay.

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Speaker 3: I also love that like how puppets are. I would

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Speaker 3: imagine if they're like on the scale you're describing, like

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Speaker 3: they're designed to interact with their environment and they're designed

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Speaker 3: to move in a way that I don't know. I

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Speaker 3: agree with you on the signs, but sometimes you're just

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Speaker 3: like if kamala one, we'd all be at brunch right now.

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Speaker 3: Well I don't know about that, but I'm not so

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Speaker 3: sure about that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well what can you do?

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Speaker 2: People like, well, actually you probably should have been protesting.

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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, we would.

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Speaker 3: Probably be out here if Kamalawa, But all good, glad to.

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Speaker 4: Have you here totally.

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Speaker 2: And that is the thing. It's like, it is probably

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Speaker 2: better to let people do things that you think are

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Speaker 2: kind of cringey rather than make people feel the long

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Speaker 2: welcome at protesting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah exactly, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So nineteen sixty seven, Bread and Puppett participates in

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Speaker 2: Angry Arts Week and the angry Freaks of the Lower

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Speaker 2: East Side were pissed about the Vietnam War. And I'm

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Speaker 2: going to paraphrase my own episode, I'm gonna self plagiarize

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Speaker 2: again real quick. Wow, Oh no, I can't do the

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Speaker 2: same transition twice. Even though it's around AD time, you're

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Speaker 2: all gonna have to wait for the ad. Sorry, dear listener,

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Speaker 2: it's not yet. You just know it's just weak.

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Speaker 1: Plagiarize your own self plagiarizing ad transition just.

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Speaker 2: Oh amazing. Well, you know who doesn't self plagiarize unless

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Speaker 2: it is certain things but not other things. It's the

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Speaker 2: products and services that support this show. And we're back.

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Speaker 2: So flyers went up all over town calling for the

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Speaker 2: Angry Arts Week and they started having meetings regularly. This

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Speaker 2: group called Black Mask that I mentioned earlier, though, like

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Speaker 2: artsy surrealists, people who probably did the first Black bloc.

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Speaker 2: They show up. There's also a group of quote quasi

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Speaker 2: Marxist street theater called the Pageant Players, and I want

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Speaker 2: to learn more about them one day. But the life

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Speaker 2: is finite and Bred and Poppett are there, and none

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Speaker 2: of the famous established art people would go to these meetings,

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Speaker 2: just these like working artists, the sort of scrappy scene,

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Speaker 2: and everyone at the meeting is like art should mean something,

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Speaker 2: Art should direct people towards motion, towards action, towards unfucking

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Speaker 2: the world. This was a radical viewpoint within the arts

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Speaker 2: scene at the time. The avant garde was really into

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Speaker 2: the idea of art for art's sake, that any the

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Speaker 2: idea that any art would have a purpose, even if

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Speaker 2: that purpose was to arouse like pornography, was not true

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Speaker 2: art with a capital T and a capital A.

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Speaker 3: Okay.

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Speaker 2: And I went to art school for a little bit,

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Speaker 2: and I would always get in trouble in sculpture class

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Speaker 2: because I wanted to make functional objects like what they were,

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Speaker 2: like the famous expansion and contraction. So I made like

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Speaker 2: a lace parasol, and I like it. Built the whole

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Speaker 2: thing out of wire myself from like scratch I mean

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Speaker 2: I bought the lace, I didn't hand tap the lace,

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Speaker 2: and I didn't get a good grade on it because

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Speaker 2: I like it wasn't an art piece.

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Speaker 1: Oh did you not fit in an art school that

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Speaker 1: it's so magpie so magfie.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's also dog shit too. That just like setting

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Speaker 3: the boundary that art cannot be functional, that's absurd. But like,

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Speaker 3: by by that standard, like a chef cannot be called

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Speaker 3: an artist, Like what the fuck do you mean a design?

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Speaker 5: Like?

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Speaker 2: And I bet you that, like a chef would only

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Speaker 2: be considered an artist if they made like deconstructed food

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Speaker 2: that has no calories in it, you know, like right,

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Speaker 2: and like god forbid, someone want a burrito? Like I

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Speaker 2: like fancy food too. But yeah, this idea that you

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Speaker 2: can't do art unless you're completely abstracted from the world,

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Speaker 2: no oat.

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Speaker 3: Right, right, Yeah, like you can't. No, I can't get

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Speaker 3: into my feelings on art school and art. But that's bullshit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Angry Art Week people called bullshit on it.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that they did. On January twenty third,

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, Angry Artists went to a high mass

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Speaker 2: at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The Archbishop of New York was

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Speaker 2: this guy named Francis Spelman who was like all in

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Speaker 2: on the war. He was like, fak, yeah, Vietnam War.

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Speaker 2: Even the Pope was actually like a chill the fuck

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Speaker 2: out about that man. Piece is actually better. It's like

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Speaker 2: overall better idea.

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Speaker 3: No no, no, yeah, that's not what govild want.

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Speaker 2: And so the Archbishop of New York declared quote total

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Speaker 2: victory in Vietnam. Oh so the Angry Artist disrupted mass

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Speaker 2: unfurling posters in the aisle in the middle of it

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Speaker 2: of a named Vietnamese kid with the words Thou Shalt

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Speaker 2: Not Kill and Vietnam written on it. Real subtle stuff.

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Speaker 2: You know. Cops were on them immediately. The cops have

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Speaker 2: been tipped off and the Angry Artist got dragged off

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Speaker 2: to jail, to the tombs. But they only spend a

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Speaker 2: night or so in jail before they're bailed out. Most

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Speaker 2: of the Angry Arts Week was less action oriented and

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Speaker 2: more like specific theater and street theater and stuff. About

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Speaker 2: five hundred artists participated in total. There's a bunch of

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Speaker 2: poetry readings, there's collective murals. There's film screenings, mostly at NYU.

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Speaker 2: There was a bunch of cool things they did, Like

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Speaker 2: they drove a flatbed truck around with people doing performances

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Speaker 2: on the back around the street. They would pass out

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Speaker 2: leaflets and poetry. Yeah, like I like the idea of

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Speaker 2: like the float is like plays.

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Speaker 3: Yeah that rocks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and bread and puppet's contribution. They did a performance

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Speaker 2: that was a play, but it was just a physician

433
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Speaker 2: lecturing a med school class about what napalm does to

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Speaker 2: the human body and how to treat it. But then

435
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Speaker 2: just like goes on a tirade for hours about all

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Speaker 2: the statistics of how fucked up the war was and

437
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:07,239
Speaker 2: all the killing and all the sexual violence and all

438
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:07,920
Speaker 2: the costs of war.

439
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:09,679
Speaker 3: Would the puppets say it?

440
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 2: I don't know how puppety this one was. This might

441
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:14,239
Speaker 2: have been a cost anyway. I actually don't know one

442
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 2: or the other. It could have been all puppets.

443
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 3: I was like, I would love if that were a

444
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 3: puppet piece.

445
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:21,199
Speaker 2: I would go to a thirty minute of that. I

446
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,240
Speaker 2: would not go to an hour's long of that.

447
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 3: Personally, Yeah, no, the bit would wear thin after a while.

448
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:28,879
Speaker 3: But conceptually that rocks.

449
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 2: Oh, unless you did it where like you know, it's

450
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 2: actually sort of all intermission like you can come and go,

451
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:37,439
Speaker 2: you know, like you're like, oh, I'm gonna go back up.

452
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:39,919
Speaker 2: They're still doing the thing, and it'll create this atmosphere

453
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,359
Speaker 2: of like it's the ever present background. It's the like

454
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:44,560
Speaker 2: casualties of war, rather than like you have to sit

455
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 2: there and listen to this and they're mad.

456
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:48,439
Speaker 3: And then it becomes a durational piece.

457
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so anyway, I could not tell you how

458
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 2: they handled that. But Bred and puppett is part of

459
00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:00,200
Speaker 2: the movement, and our theater starts growing in popularity. They're

460
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 2: onto something. By nineteen sixty nine, they're touring around Europe

461
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 2: bringing their five kids with them. But New York City

462
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:09,199
Speaker 2: is changing fast. A lot of reputable people who but

463
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,360
Speaker 2: this is me avoiding saying things that I couldn't say

464
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,679
Speaker 2: are totally proven and known in record. There's a lot

465
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 2: of reputable people who believe that the US government manufactured

466
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 2: the drug crisis and promoted drug trade in inner cities

467
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 2: in order to break the power of the Black panthers

468
00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 2: and like black radicalism in general. That seems fairly likely

469
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,200
Speaker 2: to me, But I haven't examined this in depth myself.

470
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen such writings. Yeah, I'm inclined to believe it. Yeah,

471
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 3: like it seems perfectly plausible. Yeah, but I can say

472
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 3: that drugs and crime are getting more common in New

473
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 3: York City and people that have been poor forever but

474
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 3: now that they are poor and also in danger from

475
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 3: the drug war. And I want to be clear that

476
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:47,639
Speaker 3: the drug war is a big part of that or

477
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 3: the main part of it.

478
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 2: It's just harder there. And this is also what tore

479
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 2: part up against the wall motherfuckers around the same time. Basically,

480
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 2: Elka and Peter and their kids, they're like also kind

481
00:23:58,640 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 2: of hippies at heart, and they spend a lot of

482
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,359
Speaker 2: time in Vermont and their kids and the volunteers at

483
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 2: this theater and all of them. They keep getting mugged

484
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 2: all the time. Oh, and they're like kids are getting

485
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 2: held up for their lunch money on the way to

486
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 2: school sometimes.

487
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 3: Oh God.

488
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,959
Speaker 2: And they're like, let's go back to Vermont. And they

489
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 2: take an artist residency at Goddard College in Vermont in

490
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy and they're doing Bread and Puppet where Peter's

491
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 2: mostly running again. I don't know entirely divisional labor. I

492
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 2: just keep hearing that she does all the behind the

493
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 2: scenes work, but she's also sets up the Dancing Bear

494
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 2: Theater for kids and would go around and perform at

495
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 2: schools in the area.

496
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 3: I love that.

497
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

498
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 3: Sorry, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier,

499
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 3: but I did google Bernie Sanders Bread and Puppet, and.

500
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 2: Of course he's got some stuff to say.

501
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders on State at the Bread and Puppet Circus

502
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four.

503
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, like no, that makes absolute sense. Yeah,

504
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 2: really good. I mean Vermont probably friends with Ben and Jerry's, Yeah, exactly.

505
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 3: I'm like these Vermont I mean they call themselves free,

506
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 3: these Vermont I love them.

507
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 4: Yeah.

508
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,679
Speaker 2: And since most of their volunteers didn't come with them

509
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 2: when they moved to Vermont, they rebuild the organization up

510
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: all over again with folks from the area. Elko was

511
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 2: always interested in music and starts getting into sacred harp

512
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: choral music, which my friends have told me is like

513
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:18,679
Speaker 2: really amazing and I need to get really into and

514
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,239
Speaker 2: I have not yet, so I don't know as much

515
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 2: about it yet. But it's like shape notes singing, and

516
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 2: it's this early nineteenth century folk tradition, and Bread and

517
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 2: Puppet helped the revival.

518
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 4: Of that wow.

519
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 3: Okay.

520
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy five, they moved further north to Elka's

521
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 2: family's land. I have been upstate Vermont. They rebuild yet again.

522
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 2: Elko works the homestead and builds it up as a farm.

523
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 2: They have sheep and apples and all these things, and

524
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 2: the kids are now also puppeteers. Elka continued to run

525
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 2: her own puppeteering as well, I believe, doing children's theater specifically,

526
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 2: and CounterPunch says that she said that it was the

527
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,640
Speaker 2: opposite of Bread and Puppet. That to quote her, we

528
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 2: were always on time and clean.

529
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 3: Okay, sounds defensive, Okay.

530
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 2: Well it's like compared to Bread and Puppet, right.

531
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look as someone who's been late and dirty many times, Yeah,

532
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 3: let them cook.

533
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,439
Speaker 2: Bread and Puppet became slowly less popular in Europe, and

534
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: they started touring Latin America more. But they started moving

535
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 2: their focus to their next big thing, which was called

536
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 2: Our Domestic Resurrection Circus, which is a free two day

537
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 2: festival every year of giant puppets out in the woods

538
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 2: or out in the fields.

539
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 3: Lovely.

540
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 2: Having their performances outside instead of in tiny storefronts meant

541
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: that they could go big, like eighteen foot tall puppet. Big.

542
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 3: That's Bertie Sanders nineteen ninety four.

543
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 4: I think that's I am.

544
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,160
Speaker 3: It is massive crowd.

545
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: Huge, tens of thousands of people coming to these things.

546
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 3: It's a Springsteen concert at this puppet.

547
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's awesome.

548
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they have a junk band orchestra of amateur

549
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 2: brass musicians. And they ran from I've read one thing

550
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 2: since nineteen seventy four, I read one thing that implied

551
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 2: a couple years earlier. They ran until nineteen ninety eight.

552
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 3: Awesome.

553
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 2: Their first performance was a history of the US from

554
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: its origin up to the Vietnam War. The nineteen seventy

555
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 2: five circus was seven hundred people attending, and by the

556
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 2: end they were bringing about forty thousand people every year.

557
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: Nearby farmers made a lot of their money for the

558
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 2: year by renting land to the campers, and even though

559
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: the event was free, the donations from festival goers was

560
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 2: the main source of income for the whole theater for

561
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: the year. A journalist named Scott strut described the festival

562
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 2: like this, a little bit grateful dead concert with some

563
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 2: undeadlike rules no drugs, no dogs, no alcohol, and a

564
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 2: little bit rainbow gathering and a little bit religious celebration

565
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 2: and a little bit political being.

566
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 3: That's amazing. There's a historic I think it opened in

567
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 3: the forties, but the Bob Baker Marionette Theater and they

568
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 3: do a huge free outdoor summer event cool similar to this,

569
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 3: Like I mean, I don't think we're doing forty thousand,

570
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:20,479
Speaker 3: but like it's yeah, these gigantic public puppet demonstrations that rules.

571
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 3: It's amazing when I hear about stuff like that, and

572
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 3: especially like on the breaded puppet scale, It's like, how

573
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 3: amazing must it have been to get to grow up

574
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 3: with that?

575
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 4: I know, Like that's so special.

576
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 3: I know.

577
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: Actually, one of the people I was talking to between

578
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 2: writing the script and recording it with Someone's like, oh,

579
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 2: my friend grew up in Brett and Puppet and I'm like,

580
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 2: I weekly wish I had more than a week to

581
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 2: do my episodes and that's so cool, and I'm like, yeah,

582
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 2: I would love to know more about what it was

583
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 2: like to grow up in this space. You know. So

584
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: Peter runs the art right people help realize Peter's artistic

585
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 2: vision with puppetry and things like that, but the whole

586
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 2: actual organization of this festival is much more democratic. The

587
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 2: whole thing was organized by committees that would take care

588
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: of the various needs, and so like, the structure that's

589
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 2: really influencing people's lives is more democratic, even if it's like,

590
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: you know, this is my artistic vision. Helped me create it,

591
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 2: which is fine as far as I can tell, you know, sure, yeah,

592
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: and thanks audio engineer. And the committees would get together

593
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 2: and sort out trash pickup and parking and camping. And

594
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: there was too many people to bake bread for everybody,

595
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: even in the ten foot long of it, right.

596
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, forty thousand bread slices.

597
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 2: No, And initially they would do it like kind of

598
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: potluck style when it's like seven hundred people coming right.

599
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 2: In the end, they were like, all right, people can

600
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 2: set up food stands. And that was a bit chaotic.

601
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 2: But it took them into the late nineties to determine

602
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 2: the no drug policy more formally. I think they were

603
00:29:57,240 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: a bit afraid of being authoritarian, being like, oh, you

604
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: can't do drugs or whatever. But basically they were like,

605
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 2: this actually needs to be a family friendly thing. And

606
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: the no drugs thing didn't trickle down to the campgrounds, okay,

607
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 2: And so you have this like it used to be

608
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 2: about the puppets, man, but now it's about the They.

609
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: Basically went corporate. Man. There.

610
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: Now there's like because there's people selling food and tied

611
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 2: ie and hemp clothes and drugs, and there's drum circles

612
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 2: around the clock, and it becomes more of a specific

613
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 2: festival that puppets are part of in the average participant's

614
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: point of view. Like I read one piece from like

615
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 2: a traveling kid in the nineties who was like, oh,

616
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 2: I went to this amazing thing. There was drum circles

617
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 2: and drugs and there's puppets, you know, instead of like

618
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 2: I went to the third Yeah, yeah, exactly, like and

619
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: some people loved this new vibe and some people hated it.

620
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 2: It started getting absorbed into the mainstream subculture of the

621
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 2: late nineties, like counterculture stuff. Newspapers covered it like it

622
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 2: was a sixties nostalgia festival.

623
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 3: I see, Okay, so it was a grateful that kind of.

624
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they didn't necessarily want it to be, or

625
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 2: at least that's the implication I get. And none of

626
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 2: the newspaper stuff would ever include the like anti capitalist

627
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 2: critique that was embedded rather unsubtly into the art itself. Yeah,

628
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 2: it to me reads like they were victims of their

629
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 2: own success. And then a thing I promised you a

630
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: long time ago. After a cliffhanger, you're gonna have to

631
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 2: wait for another cliffhanger because now those ads wow violence,

632
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: all podcasters go to hell. I am lit by red

633
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 2: light as we type this. I'm so used to writing that,

634
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 2: I said as I type this. Anyway, ads, here they are,

635
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 2: and we're back. So in nineteen ninety eight, a forty

636
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 2: one year old logger named Michael Sarahzon, who've been going

637
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 2: to this festival for years, got into a fight with

638
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 2: a guy named Junebug over a hot dog.

639
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 3: Ooh, there's enough to go around, fellas.

640
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 2: Come on, I know Junebug hits Sarazen, and Sarahson died

641
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 2: from internal brain hemorrhagon like internal bleeding in the brain.

642
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 3: Oh my god. And it's not the only hot dog really,

643
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 3: I yeah, I won't. That's another for another day. But

644
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 3: that is sad. It's not the saddest.

645
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 4: Hot dog death.

646
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough.

647
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 3: And that's how we should view dead.

648
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Peter Schumann, the bread and Puppet guy,

649
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 2: is like, you know what, that's it We're done not

650
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: with bread and Puppet, but with the domestic resurrection circus.

651
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 2: And so the nineteen ninety eight when was the last one,

652
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 2: and he was like, this became what it shouldn't be.

653
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 2: And what they've done since is that they spread out

654
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 2: their summer performances so that they're more focused on theater

655
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 2: and less on giant blowout festivals. So you can't just

656
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 2: show up for all of it and camp out for

657
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 2: a weekend. You know, if you want to go see

658
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 2: a piece, you can and it's still beautiful, but it

659
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 2: focuses it back on the art, which honestly.

660
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 3: Did it stay a free festival for everybody? Yeah?

661
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 2: I am under the impression that it continued to be

662
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 2: free the entire time.

663
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 3: As frustrating as it is to have become like you're saying,

664
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 3: a victim of a onestone success. I am very impressed

665
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 3: with how long they were able to keep the project

666
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 3: like to their moral standard, especially coming out of New York.

667
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, I know that they were a

668
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 3: part of a very political revolutionary group of artists, but

669
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 3: like people are trying to capitalize on your shit in

670
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 3: New York, but they moved to from I just think

671
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 3: it's very very at ruple that they that they were

672
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 3: such holdouts at Rocks.

673
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to talk now about the way that

674
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 2: they handled capitalism and art in a very very principled way,

675
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 2: literally a more principled way than I do it, frankly.

676
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: And at some point around the same time as some

677
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 2: of the early circuses, they turned their old barn into

678
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 2: a bread and puppet museum, holding all kinds of puppets

679
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 2: and masks. And this was such an important place that

680
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 2: Vermont put it on the official state map, the Bread

681
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 2: and Puppet Museum. Elka ran a print shop and sold prints,

682
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 2: and she built an archive of all the ephemera of

683
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 2: the theater. She made sure that the bills got paid.

684
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 2: Elka died in twenty twenty one, and in sort of

685
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 2: an obituary for her, it's written like this quote, she

686
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 2: was the glue that held the whole enterprise together behind

687
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,240
Speaker 2: the scenes of Peter's manic creative energy. And they started

688
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: really developing their ideas together and putting them out there.

689
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,720
Speaker 2: And Peter put it like this in nineteen eighty seven quote,

690
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 2: our glorious civilization glorifies itself with what it calls high art.

691
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 2: Puppeteers have no soul searching trouble in that respect. We

692
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 2: produce what has no ambition to be high art. Low

693
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 2: art is what we make and what we you want,

694
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 2: not the fine arts. The course arts are what we use.

695
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 3: The course arts. That's terrific.

696
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 2: And as someone who's done stand up comedy in a garage,

697
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 2: I feel like you might identify with that a little.

698
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 3: The course is art. I think what they're doing is

699
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 3: far cooler than what we're doing, but I do. I

700
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 3: mean low art rips like and it's also I mean,

701
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 3: any low art is going to be considered high art

702
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 3: in one hundred years because it's just a fucking passage.

703
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, who cares.

704
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, course arts that's gonna stick with me.

705
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that rocks. They would sell these cheap art prints.

706
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 2: That's like, the whole thing is cheap art, and they

707
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: started taking it really seriously, and in nineteen seventy nine

708
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 2: they filled a school bus with tiny paintings on scraps

709
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: of cardboard and shit and would sell them for like

710
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,919
Speaker 2: ten cents to ten bucks. And by nineteen eighty three

711
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 2: they had all cheap Art manifesto and I'm just gonna

712
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 2: read it. It's good manifesto. Okay, just imagine the words

713
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: that I'm slightly louder on as all caps, because this

714
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 2: is absolutely a nineteen eighty of course.

715
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was written in Vermont.

716
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 2: And I think it might have been a letter pressed

717
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 2: the print. Yeah. People have been thinking too long that

718
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 2: art is a privilege of the museums and the rich.

719
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 2: Art is not a business. It does not belong to

720
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 2: banks and fancy investors. Art is food. You can't eat it,

721
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: but it feeds you. Art has to be cheap and

722
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 2: available to everybody. It needs to be everywhere because it

723
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:34,760
Speaker 2: is inside of the world. Art soothes pain, Art wakes

724
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 2: up sleepers. Art fights against war and stupidity. Art sings Hallelujah.

725
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 2: Art is for kitchens. Art is like good bread. Art

726
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 2: is like green trees. Art is like white clouds in

727
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: a blue sky. Art is cheap.

728
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 3: Hurrah ooh, stuck the landing too. I know I haven't

729
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 3: spent a ton of time in Vermont, but I can

730
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 3: see and smell that manifesto, and I mean that in

731
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 3: the best way.

732
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 2: I love that totally. And like, intersexual feminism has offered

733
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 2: some critiques of like everyone should be volunteer and everyone

734
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 2: should be poor, you know, like we've kind of at

735
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 2: some point been like how self sustained are you? Like?

736
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 2: You know, like do we want only people with generational

737
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 2: wealth able to do certain types of things?

738
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 5: Right?

739
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 2: And so there is a like getting down in the gutter.

740
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 2: I actually think part of low art for me, I

741
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 2: think podcasting is a low art honestly in a way

742
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 2: that I like is being like, yeah, but sometimes I

743
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 2: gotta sell it. But they actually they are selling it, right.

744
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 2: They are making these things and selling it and trying

745
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 2: to make enough money to feed themselves and stuff like that.

746
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 3: You know, they're still making a living. I mean they've

747
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 3: got to sustain the project.

748
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're also almost everyone's volunteer their shoe string budget.

749
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 2: They're very like we're back to the landers and like

750
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 2: living off the land and stuff, and you know, it

751
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 2: is like I've read some critiques of Bread and puppett

752
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 2: around this, Okay, some of which I think we're better

753
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 2: written than others, but okay, but I think it's important

754
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 2: that we remember, like, yeah, I really like the cheap

755
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 2: Art Manifesto. Actually it was one of the first political

756
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 2: things I saw is that I got a it's probably

757
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 2: a dollar I bought like a block print of it

758
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,240
Speaker 2: or something. I think when I went to Brand Puppet

759
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 2: when I was like seventeen, I moved to New York

760
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 2: City and someone took me to Bread and Puppet and

761
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 2: it was like kind of weird. I didn't totally understand it,

762
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: but the ours cheap thing was like, that's cool, you know.

763
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 3: That's incredible. Yeah, and then you could afford to take

764
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 3: a little bit of their philosophy with you.

765
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, totally. So giant puppets became an

766
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: essential part of street theater. And I don't know that

767
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 2: this is the true origin of it, but it is the

768
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 2: origin that I have found of it, and they become

769
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 2: part of a street theater in a solemn way. As

770
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,319
Speaker 2: we're talking about earlier, Peter said once quote, puppets are

771
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 2: not cute like muppets. Puppets are effigies and gods and

772
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: meaningful creatures.

773
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Well, there's many ways to look at a puppet, Peter.

774
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 3: I mean, I love that. I mean, I'm a pee

775
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: Wee's playhouse, yeah, man, But I like when a puppet

776
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 3: is a little ugly, Yeah, you know, like a puppet

777
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 3: should be a little bit uly. Okay, so what does

778
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 3: he mean when he says that, is he referring to scale?

779
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 3: What are the puppets look like?

780
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 2: Well, an awful lot of their puppets are like real sad,

781
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 2: giant faced people who are like mourning and like moving

782
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: through the streets, where like one person's holding up this

783
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 2: head with like it'll be like the head is paper mache.

784
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 2: I'm kind of conflating it with like street protest puppets

785
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 2: in general at this point, but like a lot of

786
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 2: their puppets are different. But you know, you have a

787
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 2: giant paper mache head held up by one puppeteer and

788
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 2: that the shoulders will be fabric and then the arms

789
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 2: will be fabric and then there'll be one person on

790
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 2: each side holding hands out.

791
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 3: I'm looking at them now, I know this style. Yeah, yeah,

792
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 3: and it's I mean that's the thing. It's like they

793
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 3: move with the breeze because they're wearing clothes and oh

794
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 3: it's incredible.

795
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they're like often in a crowd marching so

796
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 2: that the hands and stuff are moving the way that

797
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 2: the protester puppeteers have to move and like, yeah, there's

798
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 2: some photos of the circus that I think are worth

799
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 2: looking up. They look pagan as hell in a really

800
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 2: beautiful way. Where's this beautiful open field with some people

801
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 2: watching as these like eighteen foot tall puppets are walking around,

802
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 2: you know, mm hmm, and.

803
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 3: That feels good. I also love like in a big

804
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 3: puppet operation like that, that everyone has to wear a

805
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 3: little matching outfit and it's a little culty, but it's thrilling.

806
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 3: I just love it.

807
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I do think that the swipe at Muppets,

808
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 2: I disagree with you, but that's not you. But with Peter,

809
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 2: oh yeah.

810
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 3: I mean it sounds like he's kind of being a hater.

811
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's being a hater. I actually think

812
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 2: the Muppets are absolutely going to be a subject of

813
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 2: this show one day because I think that they impacted

814
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 2: culture in incredibly positive ways. I will always hold the

815
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 2: Fraggle was like the first anarchist show I ever saw. Yes, Okay,

816
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 2: they convince a king to not be king, and they

817
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 2: like all worship a compost heap and like give from

818
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: each according to ability to need to each according to need,

819
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 2: and sing nice songs. So puppets have a long history

820
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 2: and political theater. And this is where I almost started

821
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 2: this whole episode, and then I was like, no, I'm

822
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 2: going to start where I started. They've been used to

823
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: satirize the powerful a lot. Puppetry has been banned for

824
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 2: decades at a time throughout history. In seventeen ninety three,

825
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 2: they were banned in Saxony, to quote author Carrie magg

826
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 2: quote being itinerant. Puppeteers were regarded with suspicion and accused

827
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: of not only participating in crime, but of perpetuating it

828
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 2: by attracting crowds of poverty stricken individuals to respectable places

829
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 2: of business. My god, Okay, yeah, And basically it's like

830
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,239
Speaker 2: puppets are like sketchy, you know, they're low art. Their

831
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 2: course art right. The bread and puppet model spread, including

832
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 2: to a group called Art and Revolution that we briefly

833
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 2: mentioned in our probably last week's episodes about the World

834
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 2: Trade Organization protests. This was the group Art and Revolution

835
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 2: got together, the group called Direct Action Network that shut

836
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 2: down the World Trade Organization in Seattle, which means that

837
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 2: they dramatically and directly influenced the economic model of the world.

838
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 2: Because the neoliberal agenda, as a consensus of what everyone

839
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: agrees is what should happen to the world broke as

840
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 2: a result of the Alt globalization movement, and the big

841
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 2: first Opening Salvo was a successful shutdown of the meetings

842
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 2: orchestrated by people who are started by people who are

843
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 2: inspired directly by Breton. Puppet and art and revolution started

844
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,240
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six from protests against the Democratic National Convention

845
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,399
Speaker 2: in Chicago. There's so many of these groups that I'm

846
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 2: not going to name the mom I'm just going to

847
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 2: name another one. There's Paper Hand Puppet Intervention out of

848
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 2: North Carolina that made so many puppets for so many

849
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 2: protests of the Alt Globalization era, many of which meant

850
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 2: their just dirduction at the hands of police, Like when

851
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 2: at the Republican National Convention protests in the year two thousand,

852
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,760
Speaker 2: police claiming to look for bombs raided the puppeteer space

853
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 2: and destroyed three hundred puppets.

854
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Okay, that undefeated undefeated with I'm like, oh,

855
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 3: that's a silly one. You just did a silly crime.

856
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 3: That's so fuck now. I'm like hyper focused on, like

857
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:28,680
Speaker 3: we got to get these puppets back on this street.

858
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 2: I know this is thrilling, Like we shouldn't like larp

859
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 2: the anti globalization air again and do the same stuff.

860
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,879
Speaker 2: But there is some stuff around. We talked last week

861
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: about some of the ways that they built coalition and

862
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 2: like actually organized like direct action in ways that felt

863
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 2: very inviting for people to join, and stuff like puppets

864
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 2: and the way of like breaking the spell that the

865
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:55,839
Speaker 2: viewers are witnessing. And there's many puppets will break the spell,

866
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 2: and so will cinder blocks or a truck. But like,

867
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 2: these don't need to be enemies for me each other.

868
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 3: To each their own. Yes, these can cooperate. Yeah, made

869
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,240
Speaker 3: the puppet cast the first cinder block.

870
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Although I will say, and maybe I'm wrong

871
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 2: about this, but the last time I saw giant puppets

872
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 2: is a big part of these protests. I'm going to

873
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 2: claim the era of giant protest puppets came to its

874
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 2: end in the year two thousand and four at the

875
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 2: Republican National Convention in New York City, when a giant

876
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:26,959
Speaker 2: green dragon puppet went up in flames in the streets. No,

877
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 2: I believe that it was set on fire on purpose

878
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 2: as a way of turning it into like a blockade

879
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 2: and a statement. Okay, well, I know someone went to

880
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: jail for it.

881
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 3: Fascinating. Thank you for the political puppet Drauma updates. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

882
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 3: I did not know. This dragon set a flame.

883
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, the green dragon. It was the sound system for

884
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 2: the march, and then all of a sudden, the sound

885
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 2: system was evacuated and the puppet went up in flames.

886
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 2: I think in front of the Convention Center, but I

887
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 2: actually can't remember. I was distracted because the police attacked,

888
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 2: and I was like, I don't want to get arrested,

889
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 2: and I wasn't because I was there. I never did crime.

890
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 3: You couldn't have been arrested because you weren't there.

891
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

892
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 4: Actually, now wait, I'm checking.

893
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 3: This dragon is mass Oh.

894
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 2: I want to look at the picture of it too.

895
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 2: Everyone has to.

896
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 3: Way, cow just got a picture of its head on fire.

897
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 3: Really good.

898
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 2: But puppetry continues, Street theater continues, and Bread and Puppet continues.

899
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 2: Elka died of a stroke in twenty twenty one. As

900
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 2: we mentioned a few days before she died, she was

901
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 2: performing with Bread and Puppet. Because their work is performed outside,

902
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 2: it was more COVID safe than traditional theater, so they

903
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: were able to keep doing performances. Very much of twenty

904
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: and twenty one, and a few days before she died,

905
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 2: she played the International on a recorder, and this has

906
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 2: been one of the main anthems of the left for centuries,

907
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 2: and the opening lines, at least the version that she

908
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 2: was playing. I believe she hand wrote these notes and

909
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: handed it to someone who was singing or something. Arise ye,

910
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 2: prisoners of starvation, A risey, wretched of the earth. For

911
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 2: justice thunders condemnation. A better world is in birth.

912
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 3: Wow.

913
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 2: And she died a few days later with her husband

914
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: and five children next to her. She was buried on

915
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 2: a pine grove on her farm. I honestly can't imagine

916
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 2: a better life. I don't know every I'm sure she

917
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 2: had her shit. I don't know anything about the relationship

918
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 2: besides what's available in these public sources.

919
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 3: But it sounds like she lived a long, full life

920
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 3: making radical art and building community and being loved. That's

921
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 3: really amazing.

922
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I got tiery writing some of this where

923
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 2: I'm just like she ruled, Like she just changed the

924
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 2: fucking world by like sticking with what she believed and

925
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,439
Speaker 2: finding a way that, like brick by brick, you build

926
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 2: a fucking better world.

927
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 3: And I love that she performed through her life too.

928
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 3: I know that not everybody's able to, but I just

929
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 3: love stories like that where it's not a job, it's

930
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 3: like their passion. Yeah, calling and God that souff.

931
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 2: Totally like she was probably in her very late eighties.

932
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 2: She dies, and you know, was playing stuff that ties

933
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:14,959
Speaker 2: into centuries long legacy a few days before. Like Peter

934
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 2: continues to work, and his work in the past few years,

935
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 2: at least since twenty twenty three, has been focused some

936
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 2: on the Russian anarchist Peter Kopak and the sort of

937
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 2: founder of the modern understanding of mutual aid, and specifically

938
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 2: r Peter. Peter Schumann is really excited about talking about

939
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 2: how to compare cooperative life among humans to trees living

940
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: in the forest, but then also kind of ran into

941
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 2: the well. He feels very strongly about Gaza, and so

942
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 2: as soon as the genocide kicked up a notch in

943
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, he moved a lot of his work

944
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 2: to that. Although controversially among some of his collaborators and me,

945
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,399
Speaker 2: his work around Ukraine is mostly critical of the US

946
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 2: and NATO and Ukraine and not the Russian invasion. But okay,

947
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:57,319
Speaker 2: he's ninety one years old.

948
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 3: I don't know, as we're just saying, say, he's sharper

949
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 3: than most ninety one year olds, but yeah.

950
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 2: He's a ninety one year old Communists, I don't know.

951
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, like you're like, I guess we could

952
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 3: try to move his position.

953
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:15,439
Speaker 2: It's not gonna happen. Yeah, and yeah, he's still as

954
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 2: best as I can tell, he's ninety one or so.

955
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 2: Now he spends his time painting bedsheet backdrops for the theater.

956
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 2: Interviews with him are entertaining. They're a little bit raving,

957
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 2: mixing religion and politics and all sorts of things in

958
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 2: a very interesting way. And I feel like I want

959
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 2: to end with some of what he said in a

960
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: recent CounterPunch interview. When someone asked him what do we

961
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 2: do next, he said, quote, my best examples come from

962
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: Gaza and Lebanon, where people from under the rubble are

963
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: declaring that no, we are not giving up. No, my

964
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,959
Speaker 2: family is dead, my grandpa died, my cousins are no more.

965
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 2: We are not giving up. Amazing when people are like,

966
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 2: you know, what do you do? What would you tell

967
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 2: people to do? And he has this quote, immediacy, do

968
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 2: it immediately to not do planning revolutions, to not do

969
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 2: lengthy developments of a new type of engineering of this

970
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,399
Speaker 2: and that, but step right into the streets, step right

971
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 2: into whatever is available, and speak right out in front

972
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 2: of whatever you have out there, Peter, and hearing that

973
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 2: from someone who's like, there's an assumption that like, ah,

974
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 2: a person's older, they'll be like, oh, you know, I

975
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 2: gotta be real careful, do everything slow, He's like, No,

976
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 2: what I have learned through my life is you just

977
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 2: do it. You just see a thing. You go right

978
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 2: out and you see what's happening, and you speak about it,

979
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:37,240
Speaker 2: and you step right into trying to make things better.

980
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 3: And that's what I love about his art forum, and

981
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 3: just about low art conceptually in general, is that it

982
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 3: is often, not always, but like often built to be

983
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,719
Speaker 3: reactive and built to be learnable, and built to be

984
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 3: like I would imagine that, you know, all the puppeteers

985
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 3: that he's worked with over the years did not start

986
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 3: being like I want to be a classically trained puppeteer.

987
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 3: It's like I have something to say, what is the

988
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 3: vessel to say? And like, what a gift to meet

989
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 3: some weirdo who's like puppets can do this and be

990
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 3: like all right, you know, I just that's incredible.

991
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally, And like you know, most puppeteers are

992
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 2: volunteer and stuff and then go off and do things right,

993
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 2: you know, It's like by having it sort of focus

994
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 2: on his artistic vision, it actually kind of also creates

995
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 2: a space where it's like, yeah, you come here and

996
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 2: you learn, and then you go do your artistic vision

997
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 2: also and work with community to make your vision happen.

998
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 2: And like the idea that can still be a community

999
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 2: thing is like, really, it's really interesting to me.

1000
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1001
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I finished writing this, and I'm just like, I've

1002
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,360
Speaker 2: never had any specific desire in my life to make puppets.

1003
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,760
Speaker 2: It has never occurred to me. I love making stuff.

1004
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,320
Speaker 2: I love telling stories. There's a different version of the

1005
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 2: world where I would have come up and just been

1006
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 2: like a street performing puppet tier and you would have

1007
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 2: run away. But I didn't. And now I'm like looking

1008
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 2: at this and I'm like, there.

1009
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,239
Speaker 3: Is a chapter of your life that can and must

1010
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 3: be consumed by puppets. Let's start puppetting, let's start hearing.

1011
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll do it at your comedy shows.

1012
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 3: But like yes, yeah, like, but not in the annoying way. Yeah, totally,

1013
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 3: that's the all. But sometimes it'll be annoying. I just oh,

1014
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 3: that's so exciting. Yeah, that's so exciting. Well, I feel inspired.

1015
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 3: This is great.

1016
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 2: Thanks thanks for coming to possibly the most PUSI episode

1017
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 2: I've done of the show, at least in a long time.

1018
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:30,240
Speaker 3: This is incredible.

1019
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, next week, bread and puppets. I know, I know

1020
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 2: two amazing things I'm gonna start.

1021
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the most important thing that I

1022
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 3: learned is I should start giving out bread at my shows.

1023
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's like something kind of religious about sharing bread,

1024
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, it brings people together. There's a reason

1025
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,879
Speaker 2: that that's been going back thousands of years. You're making

1026
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 2: your share bread.

1027
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been focusing on wine. I should have been

1028
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 3: focusing on bread. You know, comedy shows are focusing on

1029
00:51:57,360 --> 00:51:58,760
Speaker 3: the wrong side of the religious equations.

1030
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 2: Not blood anymore, just body.

1031
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 3: It's all about body.

1032
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:06,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, you got anything you want to plug speed bread?

1033
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 3: Check out Raw Dog The Naked Truth about hot dogs,

1034
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 3: of which bread is a component.

1035
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 2: That's true. I'm so hungry. I haven't even dinner yet. Anyway,

1036
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 2: whatever to do?

1037
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 3: No that's it. Now that I have tempted you with

1038
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 3: the hot Dog conceptually, I release you to the hot

1039
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 3: Dog Wild Wow, and there's a hot dog death that

1040
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 3: changed the course of Bread and Puppets.

1041
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 2: You know, I know. I have a new book out,

1042
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 2: Imagine Me as the Dog in the Burning House. I

1043
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 2: have two new books out, honestly, I have one that

1044
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 2: is the third book in the Daniel Kane series, but

1045
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 2: it's also a standalone called The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice.

1046
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 2: And I write very short books. If your attention span

1047
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: struggles with reading, sometimes people like my books, and that's

1048
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 2: out now through Strangers in Tangled Wilderness. And then I

1049
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 2: also helped write a tabletop role playing game world called

1050
00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 2: Defenders of the Wild where if you want to play

1051
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 2: as animals teaming up to defend their forest against giant

1052
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: monsters that are coming and destroying everything, you can do that.

1053
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 2: It's a tie in with the board game Defenders of

1054
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 2: the Wild. They have the same name. Well, actually think

1055
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 2: the RPG is actually called The Defender's Almanac, And I

1056
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:18,879
Speaker 2: wrote a lot of the world and so those are

1057
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: things you can read if you like. Well, I guess

1058
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 2: my art. I don't know, whatever it doesn't really relate

1059
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 2: to me talking about history.

1060
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 3: It is wild that you haven't done puppeteering yet, because

1061
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 3: you can do everything everything. It's amazing.

1062
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 2: My theory is if something is humanly possible, I'm a human.

1063
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,839
Speaker 2: I think everyone should have this theory and not go

1064
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 2: out and do surgery. Right, but like within reason. Yeah,

1065
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 2: like some things take longer to learn and are higher stakes,

1066
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 2: but puppets aren't high stakes at first.

1067
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. That's the best part about art is if you

1068
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 3: make something bad, usually no one dies.

1069
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, your job as a beginning artist is

1070
00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 2: to fail faster, not to succeed more, but to fail aster.

1071
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:01,640
Speaker 2: That is your job.

1072
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:04,879
Speaker 3: Thanks, felt, you're the coolest. Thank you. We're happy.

1073
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 2: Yes, thanks for coming on.

1074
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 3: This is the best. Let's start a puppet commune.

1075
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 2: We're doing it. And Sophie, you want to be in

1076
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:13,359
Speaker 2: the puppet commune? Yeah? Hell yeah. Now we have someone

1077
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:15,439
Speaker 2: who actually knows it to organize things.

1078
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 3: I actually have an amazing fun mixed puppets.

1079
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:25,759
Speaker 2: Oh amazing, that's cool. Yeah, all right, see y'all next week.

1080
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1081
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

1082
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 1: visit our website goolzonemedia dot com. Check us out on

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Speaker 1: her radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.