WEBVTT - Part Two: Bread And Puppet: The Dawn of Giant Protest Puppets 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.280 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:06.520 Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff your 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.080 weekly reminder that I have a podcast and my name 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.399 is Margaret kildoy and I also, in addition to having 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:16.280 a podcast, have a guest whose name is Jamie loncas Hi. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.400 Hi, you left me on a cliffhanger on Monday. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.560 I know I left you on a cliffhanger, and it's 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:24.480 going to take a while to get you to the cliffhanger. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.760 I promised the audience that the most tragic part of 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.000 this story is going to be related to a hot dog, 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:31.280 and it is true. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.640 I have a feeling that that's going to be something 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.440 people can say about my life when it ends. 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.479 The tragedy is that your dms are just full of 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:41.919 hot dog memes that have been for. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:43.720 Have been for five years. 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:45.400 Hey, thought of you? 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.840 Have you seen this one? Sorry? 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:51.920 I felt very bad. I sent you a hot dog 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:52.920 thing the other day. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.600 To your credit, you said me stuff that I usually 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:56.880 have not seen before. 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.440 Okay, Yeah, Eddie goes a kid selling hot dog on 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.680 the Expressway because the protest had taken it over. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.399 Oh. That is one of the best parts of LA 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.679 protests is that there are always danger dogs on hand 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.600 and everyone is always so wonderful to whoever selling the 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:14.240 danger dogs. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.160 It's just yeah, we must protect the danger dog sellers 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:17.920 at all costs. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:18.600 Absolutely. 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:21.959 We also have a producer named Sophie. 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.760 Hi, Sophie straight from the Ashes of podcast. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:27.199 Hell no, I'm kidding. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.600 We should just do a podcast. Hell like, that's the 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.440 Halloween reverse episodes. It's just being like weird podcast bros. 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.119 So if you just rose out of a floor, that was amazing. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.200 I know it's not a visual medium, so y'all didn't 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.840 get to see that. But the flame effect that's not 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.080 a zoom background. Your house is actually on fire. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.720 Yeah, they're like magical flames that don't harm dogs or 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:52.440 my furniture. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.000 So it's just like, looks cool. You have the little 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.760 dog with the coffee cup. That's how I feel most days. 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:02.520 Actually everything's my Do you think that the artist who 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.120 drew the dog with the coffee cup? Well, actually, I'm 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:06.920 gonna guess. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.320 No what to say? Are you going to do an 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:09.000 episode about this? 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:09.840 Yeah? I was. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:11.720 I guess I'm asking this like this is something I 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.239 should find out, and I feel like, I know you're. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.200 Kind of the person that I would go to for 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:17.440 that information. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.200 But what are you gonna ask. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.040 Do you think that they are, you know, well compensated 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:24.840 for having created that art? And how do you think 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.600 they feel about it? I know that the image is 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.920 just like replicated in to infinity, but I wonder how 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.200 they feel about it because I'm sure that it's been 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.360 like fucked with via AI on the scary side, but 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.919 also been illegally reproduced for positive reasons on the other right. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.680 I would just be curious to know how they feel. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.160 I agree, And if you, dear listener, think that'd be 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.480 a kind of cool podcast idea. What if you went 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:50.639 around and you found people who are behind some of 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.880 the most viral hits on social media and the Internet, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.760 And I would love to hear someone ask them questions 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.280 and then think deeply about these things, not just surface level. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.520 But what does this say about Oh I can't do 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.200 your tagline? What does it say about the internet and ourselves? 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.960 And if you like that idea, Jamie, do you know 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.560 anything about where they can listen to that? 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.720 Yeah? I guess I did kind of open up by 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.720 quietly plugging my own show by accident. What do we 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.400 think about this, folks? I? Yeah, you should listen to 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.639 sixteenth minute. I wish I could answer that question specifically 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.160 for you, but now I'm like, I'm writing it down. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.200 It's a question I would like to answer on that show. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.200 It's by an artist named Casey Green. All right, Casey, 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.520 let's see what you're all about. All right, Well, I 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.760 feel great already great. I feel like I haven't had 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.120 a functioning idea from my brain in weeks. 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.160 That was thrilling, amazing. My favorite version of it is 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:46.960 the one where the dog is looking in the house 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.160 that's on fire and says, so I have a book 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:49.640 coming out. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:56.400 Yes, that is how I feel all the time. Yeah, 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.600 it's been hard to even like focus on my substock 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.839 because I like, I just like don't want to be 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.800 a like hot topic, like hot, take what's happening right now? 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.839 Person? You know, but so much is happening right now 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.160 that I also am not trying to be like. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.000 You don't want to avoid it. I hear like it's tricky. Yeah. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:15.920 I think about that a lot, where it is just 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:21.880 like whatever makes people built for that? I lack with 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.039 regards to like the quick like I must have my 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.560 finger on the pulse. Yeah, it's like I need to 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.080 be reactive in my life in that way. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:32.599 Yeah, but I don't know. 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.640 Sometimes I need time to process. I don't know. 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:37.560 And the hotter the take, the less likely it is 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.880 to be true. And like, it's still necessary for people 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.800 to see things that are happening and tell people on 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:43.960 a pine about it. But it is like I want 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.280 to be a cold take machine as much as possible. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:48.520 Yeah, I want to be like guys, this take has 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.560 been marinating, yeah for weeks. Get ready for a well 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:53.359 soaked take. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:54.600 Yeah, exactly. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:56.440 Fascism is bad. 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.240 Like, before we jump to the script, I just want 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:04.159 to say very adorable is that Normally Anderson sleeps through podcasting, 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.480 but because her Auntie Jamie, she can hear you. She's awake, 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.520 she's been a week the time, and just keeps looking around, like, 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:13.520 what are you? 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.320 I love to haunt her. She's in the box, Anderson, 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.440 She's in the scary box. She's in the scary box. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.160 Podcast pets are an important part of podcasting. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:24.880 Yeah, it's true. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.839 Yeah, my very reactive dog will sleep quietly at my 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.880 feet as I record on podcasts. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.520 What is podcasting if there is not a mammal asleep 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:34.119 on your feet? 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.240 Like, that's maybe what keeps you from a follow We're 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.159 just so much better than all the podcasters. We talked 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.360 shit on everyone else's garbage. We're great. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.359 If Joe Rogan had three cats in the room, I 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:47.840 think he would be very different. 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:49.400 That's actually probably true. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.719 Yeah, that's just an experiment. Just put a bunch of 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.080 puppies in the room and see what happened. 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:03.400 So, speaking of experimental the ideas, we are on part 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.720 two of A two parts. Oh wait, I didn't finish 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.719 all the introduction stuff. We also have an audio engineer 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.120 who is named Eva hi Eva hi Eva, and our 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.159 theme music was written for usd by on Woman and 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.200 part two two parter about bread and Puppet, one of 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:23.240 the more interesting theater things that has a long lineage 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.560 and has had all kinds of impacts that is also interesting. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.320 I probably already said interesting, And that's one of those 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:30.719 words that when I was in like fourth grade, my 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.360 teacher was like, you can't use words like that. You 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.479 can't describe things as good or interesting. You actually have 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.320 to use adjectives that I mean things. Who's laughing now. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.479 Teachers calling it like twenty five cent words. Uh yeah, 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:46.599 that was what my sixth grade teacher would say. He 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.640 was cool he played opera for us and let us 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:51.320 read the hobbit. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:57.320 So, oh that is cool, Yeah, he us prettymple. Yeah. 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.239 So they start Bread and Puppet on the Lower East Side. 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.240 They name it in nineteen sixty three. It's a thing 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.799 that they've been doing a little bit together for years already. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.040 And it was Elka who provided most of the political 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.000 underpinning for the project. Like it's an entertainment like artsy 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.080 kind of avant garde a little bit, but also sort 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.240 of medieval like theater troupe doing puppets and you know, 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.360 trying to make this very beautiful stuff. Elka, as best 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:22.920 as I am able to understand, was the more political 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.920 of the pair, okay, And she essentially radicalized her husband, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.120 who was a bit more just on the art side 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.960 of things. Elka did more of the administrative behind the 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.240 scene work, including introducing the initial political spark, which is 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.240 what made it stand out. So she doesn't matter anyway. 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.040 Uh God, that's just like magna. Do you feel that 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:53.520 in your gut? Like I just she radicalized him. Interesting? Interesting, okay. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:59.720 And this spark that radicalized her was influenced by her grandfather. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.760 The back to the Land socialist, feminist vegetarian guy. Yeah, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:09.239 and not her ex Bolshevik father. Her father drifted further 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.000 and further to the right after fleeing the Soviet Union, 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.760 which is a pretty common thing. You flee the Soviet 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.800 Union and you start loving right wing American capitalism. I 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.200 think that both the US and the USSR can take 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:22.080 the blame for that one. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:22.760 Mm hmm. 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.239 And he ended up I think friends with like Nixon 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.160 and shit, oh, like he was like influentially right wing. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:34.560 I think. Okay, her grandfather never forgave her father, like 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:38.000 his own son, for turning right wing and did not 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:39.520 go to his own son's funeral. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:45.040 See, people talk about principle, and that is always such 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.359 a diabolical thing to witness when the form of rebellion 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.640 you're offered is going right wing like that, it's like, yeah, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.640 defying your artist parent by being like, well, I'm going to. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.319 Become a criminal defense lawyer and. 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:06.320 You're like, I guess, like yeah, sure, yeah yeah. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.120 And then like this is the guy who moved to 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.440 the USSR to be like, I'm going to be a 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.320 steel worker for Stalin and bring the worldwide revolution. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.400 No follow through, no commitment, yeah, right. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.320 So Alka took after her grandfather and looked up to 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.120 her grandfather, and it was her own politics influenced by 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.280 her grandfathers that infuse bread and puppett Although Peter in 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.240 nineteen sixty eight he's going to say very shockingly and 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.160 clearly inconsistently, he says different things about politics in nineteen 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.079 sixty eight and twenty twenty five, which are the two 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.040 time periods that I've read about his politics most directly. Hey, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.680 in nineteen sixty eight he's very like, our work isn't 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.640 about ideology, it's this protest theater. In twenty twenty five 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.520 he is like, there is no world left because Gaza 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.040 is being destroyed. And I am a communist and I'm 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.240 obsessed with Peter Kropowkin, you know, like. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.200 I adore when someone becomes more radical as they which 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:01.520 I feel like that is what a gift. 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.920 No, totally, I think he's like, oh, we don't have 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.040 an ideology. He's still actively doing direct action protests against 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.880 the Vietnam War by giant puppets, which we'll get me. 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.400 So I also think about this as a wild sixteenth 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:15.079 minute connection. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.719 But no, I like these wild connections absolutely. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.960 When I talked to Taizon day who did Chocolate Rain, Yeah, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.600 which is like a very political song. For the first 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.000 like ten years that he did interviews about it, he 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.360 really avoided talking about the politics of like really what 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.320 he was like, just listen to it and see what 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.000 you think, and like gave kind of like obfuscating answers, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.000 and then I think at some point was like, fuck it, Yeah, 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:41.200 it's obviously. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.880 A political song, like yeah. 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.720 And was willing to but I think it started from 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.599 whatever the political climate at the time, but also a 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.160 like resentment of like being asked to spell out what 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.200 he felt was very obvious. You're like, oh, I don't know, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.079 is Chocolate Rain a political song? Like a baby born 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.280 will die before the sin? I don't know, is that 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:02.800 a chargelaar to you? 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.559 Like, what's funny is that I don't know whether I 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.400 actually listened to the entire song before, Like I knew it, right, 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:12.720 but so I was like, I don't have no idea 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.640 whether it was political, and then yeah, listening to those 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.280 episodes very direct one of the clearest articulations of like 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.079 kind of like where progressive slash radical politics are kind 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:24.840 of at about a lot of issues are just like 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.600 wad out really intelligent, like really fucking well. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.000 It's so wild that everyone and it was everyone in 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:33.720 like two thousand and six who missed that, Like it 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.040 was very much a skill error on the part of 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.120 the general public. But I'm curious they were doing direct 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.520 action yea. Were the shows themselves political? 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.400 Yes, okay, I actually think that this is kind of 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:50.360 a like, hey, I'm not like into ideology, okay, and 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.400 also like a little bit of a defense of like 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.040 I really do care about this as art, you know. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.200 I'll talk about with some of those plays where okay, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.000 they have this theater now and their friends are helping 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:02.679 them pay rent on the space to run it in 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.280 Elka started doing her own children's theater as well, and 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.000 she would do art music just as much as her 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:08.880 husband and. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:10.160 But forget about that. 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.640 Yeah, but no she did. Yeah. No, it's funny because 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.640 she like, throughout the whole thing, she's also gonna be 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.800 running her own theater. But they're running this theater on 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.800 a shoe string budget and always have the couple and 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.520 their three kids. At that point, they're gonna end up 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.000 with five all live in a railroad apartment with a 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.640 bathtub in the kitchen, and it shares a toilet with 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:34.920 all the other apartments, and they are absolutely radical. Through Elka, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.199 they are involved in some of the earliest protests against 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.280 the US involvement in Vietnam. By nineteen sixty five and 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.760 nineteen sixty six, they were regularly putting on shows that 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.760 talked about the issues that people were facing, like to 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.400 quote Bread Andpuppet dot orgs write up about it, rents, rats, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.000 police and other problems of the neighborhood. They're talking about 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.599 the issues that people are facing, you know. Yeah, And 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.440 they would lead processions of puppets to the streets protests 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.839 of the Vietnam War. And there are some photos of 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.960 this era where it's just like people wearing black robes 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.760 with like kind of surreal stylized paper mache skull masks 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.719 and it's fairly arresting. I really, okay. I like puppetry 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.440 and like costume because it hits the uncanny valley and 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:20.880 makes me feel like the world isn't real. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:26.400 Yes, I like when puppets are used for well, not 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:31.320 scary reasons like Chucky, but like when they're used to 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:36.199 make you feel unsettled and like, yeah, I love that. 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.040 Yeah, And masks are like it's funny because it's a kid. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.200 You're like, oh, people put on funny masks and every 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.760 now and then, I'm just like, someone walking around with 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.160 a bird mask is terrifying. You're just like, there's a 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.559 bird over there, you know, but it's shaped like a person. 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:57.959 Why does the bird have such meaty legs? I love it. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:03.880 Animatronics are essentially puppetry, Yeah, totally. I love animatronic history 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.520 because you're like, Wow, this art for children that has 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:13.640 consistently scared children, and that's the history of puppet. Yeah, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:19.040 they're kind of puppets and clowns unequivocally all kind of scary. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.920 Yeah, but also classics. Okay, See the reason I'm so 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:24.800 interested in this, I've been talking for a while about 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:26.640 this is completely unrelated to we're talking at actually's not 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:28.280 you know what I'm going to say. This is related 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.120 to Breton puppet and surrealism and like or not surrealism, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.600 but the concept of making the world feel surreal. I've 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.760 been thinking about how like, I have a really mixed 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.440 feeling about horror as a genre, like my own engagement 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.960 of watching it, and I like things that make me 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.520 feel like there's a world beneath this world and that like, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.680 things are different, we can feel and act in really 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.120 different ways, and the easiest way to access that is 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:56.960 through terror and like death and you know, horrible things 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.760 and rot and whatever, you know. And I've always been like, 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.880 but where are the other genres that give me that feeling? 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:10.000 And actually puppetry, animatronics like dark crystal, like yeah, yeah, 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.760 the things that are unsettling in that you are like 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.840 going to just feel differently and to tie it back 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.080 into the script, these protests, these people walking down the 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:25.400 street protesting a war like solemnly as skull people walking 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.880 down the street would actually get bystanders to stop what 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.120 they were doing and look and engage with the protest 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.960 marching by in the way that they don't if it's 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:44.360 just an anemic chant and one badly played drum dragged them. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.920 I have sent so many hours of my life in protests. 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.560 Dong dung du. Yeah, I have been the bad drummer 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:53.200 at protesting. 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.880 Look, we need the bucket drum. We need it. It's 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.320 got its place in history. I don't know that I've 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.800 seen it recently, but it is arresting, and it's arresting 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:07.840 in a way that I can't think of in a 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.760 way that like a pithy signe is just not. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.040 Yeah, because you can look and because the pithy sign 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.720 I don't hate one, and it makes people really excited 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:19.560 to go. They're like, I've got the best sign, and 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:21.920 so then they actually go out right yes, but yeah, 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:26.000 there's something about like, no, I want people to notice 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.360 this thing, and like we'll talk about a little bit later. 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.160 Peter actually has really beautiful things to say about puppetry 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.320 and about like this way of like accessing this like 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.720 beauty and this way of creating this like really solemn environment. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.359 Sometimes you know, well, anyway, okay. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.840 I also love that like how puppets are. I would 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.840 imagine if they're like on the scale you're describing, like 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.600 they're designed to interact with their environment and they're designed 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.480 to move in a way that I don't know. I 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:54.680 agree with you on the signs, but sometimes you're just 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.200 like if kamala one, we'd all be at brunch right now. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.880 Well I don't know about that, but I'm not so 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:01.760 sure about that. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:03.920 Yeah, well what can you do? 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.080 People like, well, actually you probably should have been protesting. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:08.919 I mean, yeah, we would. 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.400 Probably be out here if Kamalawa, But all good, glad to. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:13.720 Have you here totally. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:15.959 And that is the thing. It's like, it is probably 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.760 better to let people do things that you think are 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.200 kind of cringey rather than make people feel the long 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:22.040 welcome at protesting. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:22.960 Yeah exactly, Yeah. 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.320 Yeah. So nineteen sixty seven, Bread and Puppett participates in 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:32.760 Angry Arts Week and the angry Freaks of the Lower 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.720 East Side were pissed about the Vietnam War. And I'm 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.080 going to paraphrase my own episode, I'm gonna self plagiarize 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.480 again real quick. Wow, Oh no, I can't do the 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.640 same transition twice. Even though it's around AD time, you're 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.320 all gonna have to wait for the ad. Sorry, dear listener, 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.120 it's not yet. You just know it's just weak. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.080 Plagiarize your own self plagiarizing ad transition just. 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.959 Oh amazing. Well, you know who doesn't self plagiarize unless 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:03.040 it is certain things but not other things. It's the 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:08.240 products and services that support this show. And we're back. 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.359 So flyers went up all over town calling for the 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.719 Angry Arts Week and they started having meetings regularly. This 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.040 group called Black Mask that I mentioned earlier, though, like 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.959 artsy surrealists, people who probably did the first Black bloc. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.920 They show up. There's also a group of quote quasi 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.400 Marxist street theater called the Pageant Players, and I want 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.320 to learn more about them one day. But the life 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.920 is finite and Bred and Poppett are there, and none 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.680 of the famous established art people would go to these meetings, 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.520 just these like working artists, the sort of scrappy scene, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.679 and everyone at the meeting is like art should mean something, 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.160 Art should direct people towards motion, towards action, towards unfucking 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.120 the world. This was a radical viewpoint within the arts 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.200 scene at the time. The avant garde was really into 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.159 the idea of art for art's sake, that any the 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.919 idea that any art would have a purpose, even if 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.240 that purpose was to arouse like pornography, was not true 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.439 art with a capital T and a capital A. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:07.600 Okay. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:09.399 And I went to art school for a little bit, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.320 and I would always get in trouble in sculpture class 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:16.400 because I wanted to make functional objects like what they were, 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.119 like the famous expansion and contraction. So I made like 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.080 a lace parasol, and I like it. Built the whole 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.840 thing out of wire myself from like scratch I mean 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.840 I bought the lace, I didn't hand tap the lace, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:29.960 and I didn't get a good grade on it because 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:31.639 I like it wasn't an art piece. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.560 Oh did you not fit in an art school that 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.160 it's so magpie so magfie. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.480 Yeah, that's also dog shit too. That just like setting 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:48.919 the boundary that art cannot be functional, that's absurd. But like, 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.440 by by that standard, like a chef cannot be called 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.159 an artist, Like what the fuck do you mean a design? 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:57.479 Like? 0:19:58.359 --> 0:19:59.879 And I bet you that, like a chef would only 0:19:59.920 --> 0:20:02.880 be considered an artist if they made like deconstructed food 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.280 that has no calories in it, you know, like right, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.359 and like god forbid, someone want a burrito? Like I 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.720 like fancy food too. But yeah, this idea that you 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:15.120 can't do art unless you're completely abstracted from the world, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:16.000 no oat. 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.760 Right, right, Yeah, like you can't. No, I can't get 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.040