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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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

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Speaker 2: You're a weekly podcast about puppets. I'm your host, Margaret Kilroy,

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Speaker 2: and this week I have a guest, and my guest

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Speaker 2: is Jamie Loftus.

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Speaker 3: Hi.

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Speaker 2: I should explain who you are. You're Wait, you do

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Speaker 2: so many things. Sixteenth minute of fame is the easiest

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Speaker 2: one to say because you are also a podcast host

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Speaker 2: on the same network as me, which is true. Sixteenth

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Speaker 2: minute of fame.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's stick with that. Yeah, sixteen fame.

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Speaker 2: Only thing you've done. We also have a producer named

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Speaker 2: Sophie Hi.

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Speaker 3: Sophie him Magpie Hi, Jamie Hi, Sophie.

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Speaker 2: And we have an audio engineer named Eva Hi Eva

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Speaker 2: Hi Eva.

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Speaker 3: I like that you looked up like you're like where

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Speaker 3: Eva lives, if it even lives in heaven? He is

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Speaker 3: up there.

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Speaker 2: Well, I have another monitor that has the recording progress.

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Speaker 2: So when I look at the recording, which is what

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Speaker 2: Eva will be looking at, that is.

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Speaker 3: There he is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that rocks.

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Speaker 1: I like Jamie's version better.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, like I look up to heaven.

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Speaker 3: We're my editor's right.

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Speaker 2: Wait, but that's dark because he's very much alive. That's yeah.

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Speaker 3: We don't need to talk about Eva's mortality.

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Speaker 2: No, but someday. But that's as true. That's true Eva.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry to break this too. At one point, all

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Speaker 2: podcast editors must.

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Speaker 3: It's the new All dogs go to heaven. All podcast

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Speaker 3: editors good, also good to heaven.

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Speaker 2: Despite many of them doing terrible things to the world

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Speaker 2: by creating podcasts.

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Speaker 3: It's true. Actually, yeah, you might be stuck in purgatory.

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Speaker 3: You're doing a thoroughly neutral act.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, hosts go to hell. I'm sorry to say easy.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you don't even need to think about it.

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Speaker 2: Really, No, I think that's the basis of most Christianity.

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Speaker 2: Actually is, podcast hosts go to help. I'm really well

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Speaker 2: versed in the Jamie Loftus. You occasionally perform, Yes, as

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Speaker 2: a performer. What are your opinions about puppets?

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Speaker 3: Ooh, okay. I like puppetry a lot. I guess I'm

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Speaker 3: pro puppet. I'm not pro unnecessary puppet. I think that

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Speaker 3: there's like nothing more insecure and unpleasant to me than

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Speaker 3: someone using a puppet on stage simply because they are

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Speaker 3: too nervous to be themselves on stage. I like when

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Speaker 3: someone uses a puppet that is additive to the act.

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Speaker 2: That makes sense.

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Speaker 3: It's a very thorough answer, but I think that it

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Speaker 3: describes how I feel.

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Speaker 2: Okay, what about eighteen foot tall puppets? Yes, all right,

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Speaker 2: Well then you might like today's episode.

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Speaker 3: Well, oh, are you going to talk about the Broadway

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Speaker 3: production of Shrek?

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Speaker 2: Well, I did first see this in New York City.

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Speaker 1: Two and a half minutes.

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Speaker 3: Well they have the dragon that are little shop. Oh

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Speaker 3: my god, I'm thrilled.

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Speaker 2: So for the past few months, I've been doing this

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Speaker 2: thing where all of the podcast episodes have been related

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Speaker 2: in one way or another, and I've been trying to

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Speaker 2: tell this story of the alter globalization movement, which was

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Speaker 2: the movement of movements that came together at the turn

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Speaker 2: of the twentieth century. The big famous thing that happened

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Speaker 2: is the Battle of Seattle in nineteen ninety nine, where

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Speaker 2: they shut down the World Trade Organization, And you know,

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Speaker 2: it's the battle against neoliberalism. We've talked about neoliberalism. We've

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Speaker 2: talked about the Zapatistas in Chiapas, we've talked about the

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Speaker 2: rise of the Black Bloc in Germany, and we've talked

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Speaker 2: about the Battle of Seattle in nineteen ninety nine. But

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Speaker 2: along the way, I talked about how giant puppets were

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Speaker 2: ubiquitous in the alter globalization movement. Really oh yeah, that

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Speaker 2: you could not walk down the street without tripping over

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Speaker 2: a puppet three times taller than you.

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Speaker 3: Fascinating.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were all very dramatic puppets. They are

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Speaker 2: like weeping women that are like held up by three puppeteers,

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Speaker 2: like as they like.

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Speaker 3: That makes sense because I feel like theater kids generally

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Speaker 3: have a tendency to join their resistance.

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Speaker 2: That's true.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's part of why the resistance can get so.

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Speaker 2: Loud, that's true. The same way that like marching bands

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Speaker 2: was like only a couple things as you can do

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Speaker 2: as an adult who really liked marching band, and the

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Speaker 2: primary one is Joined Protests. That is like the main outlet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I said Ice Protests at a hotel a couple

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Speaker 3: of weeks ago, and yeah, there was a very enthusiastic

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Speaker 3: pop up brass section that they're like, I haven't taken

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Speaker 3: this out in years. Let's go like just oh, it

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Speaker 3: was nasty business, but it was great.

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Speaker 2: If you are listening and you are a band camp kid,

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Speaker 2: you should find a marching band and go join Ice protests,

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Speaker 2: and they absolutely change the tenor of what happening in

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Speaker 2: the street without diminishing the radicalness of it, instead encouraging.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. It's a very festive and effective way

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Speaker 3: to join a protest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Although it can be if you get pepper

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Speaker 2: spray and arrested. At least there's good images as they

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Speaker 2: like pepper spray the tuba or whatever.

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Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, you will be held up as an

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Speaker 3: example of like they came for the tuba player.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I say nothing. Yeah, And one of the

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Speaker 2: things that happened is that they came for the giant puppets. Actually, ah,

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Speaker 2: but I am excited to tell this story about Giant

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Speaker 2: Puppets for a bunch of reasons, not the least of

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Speaker 2: which is that it ties together a lot of the

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Speaker 2: themes of the show. But also I don't get a

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Speaker 2: lot of chances to tell a pretty simple love story

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Speaker 2: on this show. And I can tie the rise of

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Speaker 2: Giant Puppets to a hippie couple who one of them

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Speaker 2: is still alive and the other person isn't, but like

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Speaker 2: who spent decades and decades together making.

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Speaker 3: Things, making pits, making puppets. That's wait, fat, what is

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Speaker 3: your history puppets? I be curious enough.

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Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of history of puppets, although

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Speaker 2: I will say after I finished the script, I ran

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Speaker 2: around my house telling everyone who's visiting and being like,

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry everyone, I'm quitting everything I do to just

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Speaker 2: make giant puppets.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: We just make giant puppets at the land. That's that's

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Speaker 2: what we do now.

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Speaker 3: I thought you were talking about like puppets is a

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Speaker 3: part of stand up, which just sends you right to

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Speaker 3: like Jeff Dunham's story, and it's like get them out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: No, these are like dramatic feeder, like serious theater puppetry.

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Speaker 3: One of my college internships was at a puppet theater,

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Speaker 3: and like, though I don't know, I did it mainly

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Speaker 3: because I had a crush on the puppeteer that lived

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Speaker 3: on the top floor of the puppet theater.

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Speaker 2: Uh huh, the well adjusted person that you're about to describe.

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Speaker 3: Good old Brad. But you know, while I did not

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Speaker 3: get Brad's attention, I did learn puppet folks are good vibes.

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Speaker 2: I have tended to think. So my own history puppets

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Speaker 2: is that I went to a lot of these protests,

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Speaker 2: and I was a little bit busy being like, oh,

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Speaker 2: we got to accomplish the following things while wearing all black.

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Speaker 2: But I loved the theater that was happening kind of

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Speaker 2: everywhere around. And then also, well, I went to a

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Speaker 2: radical puppet show before I became politically radical in New

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Speaker 2: York City. I went to a show put on by

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Speaker 2: Today's Guests. No, you're the guests. I was like, us, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I actually a billion of time machine. I went to

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Speaker 2: a show put on by Bread and Puppet. Have either

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Speaker 2: of you all ever heard of Bread and Puppet? No, nope,

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to tell you about Bread and puppett.

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Speaker 3: This is great.

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Speaker 2: The shortest version is that a bunch of hippies on

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Speaker 2: the Lower East Side of Manhattan, especially this particular couple,

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Speaker 2: got together and made giant puppets and did street theater

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Speaker 2: and did community theater in the late sixties, and they

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Speaker 2: had radical politics interwoven throughout the entire thing. And then

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Speaker 2: they moved to Vermont and then they became cool hippies,

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Speaker 2: and their theater troupe still performs all over the world,

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Speaker 2: and they've inspired so much radical theater that it's kind

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Speaker 2: of hard to track.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: I did a while trying to track their influence, and

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Speaker 2: I'm like, oh no, they just was this well spring

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Speaker 2: of political theater done with giant puppets. So the simplest

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Speaker 2: version is the thing I just related. But I want

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Speaker 2: to do the version that goes back fifty years and

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Speaker 2: starts with someone's grandparents. Incredible because these people come from

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Speaker 2: a lineage.

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Speaker 3: Are they puppet Nepo?

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Speaker 2: No, they're radical NEPO. I can accept that, but spread

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Speaker 2: across a bunch of countries, but in complicated ways.

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Speaker 3: Cool.

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Speaker 2: One of the founders of Bread and Puppet is the

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Speaker 2: woman who Okay, this is going to be the big reveal.

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Speaker 2: The big shocking thing is that when people talk about

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Speaker 2: Bread and Puppet, they mostly talk about the guy who

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Speaker 2: runs it ugh. And you will be absolutely flabbergasted to

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Speaker 2: realize that his wife, who is not necessarily equal part

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Speaker 2: of all the creative things, but made the entire thing

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Speaker 2: happen through labor. That somehow it's hard to imagine labor

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Speaker 2: being invisible. Ye absolutely, but I think that that sometimes happens.

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Speaker 3: Are you saying a woman did everything and no one

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Speaker 3: cared what, what what?

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Speaker 2: And I will caveat that even though the man I'll

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Speaker 2: describe it a little bit, is always centered in the

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Speaker 2: conversations around Bread and Puppet. I don't believe he wrote

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Speaker 2: his wife Elka.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, story that's always frustrating to encounter. And I always

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Speaker 3: appreciate when in a dynamic like that, you know, the

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Speaker 3: man's like, hey, appreciate the positive feedback. But Elsa's a

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Speaker 3: bender the whole time, Like I don't know, it's hard.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and like it's kind of funny because I

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Speaker 2: realized after writing a script that a bunch of people

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Speaker 2: I know have like worked with Bread and Puppett, and

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Speaker 2: I just I am working off of written sources primarily,

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Speaker 2: so I don't know as much about people's personalities and

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Speaker 2: how they interacted besides like what I been able to

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Speaker 2: glean from interviews and things like that. But I want

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Speaker 2: to talk about Elka and start with her because I

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Speaker 2: actually think her background is more interesting. No offense, the

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Speaker 2: man who might actually be listening to this because he's

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Speaker 2: still alive, Alco.

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Speaker 3: She's listening in podcast Heaven that we made up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah that is, yes, absolutely, podcast even is the subjects

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Speaker 2: of POC No wait, most podcasts are about bad things anyway.

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Speaker 3: Well your podcast subjects go to podcast heaven.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I'll go to heaven. So Elka Lee Scott

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Speaker 2: Schumann is a third generation leftist. Her grandparents co wrote,

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Speaker 2: or rather her grandfather and his grandfather's wife, and then

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Speaker 2: she gets left out of the story.

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Speaker 3: Well, family tradition, it doesn't happen elsewhere.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they co wrote one of the core books that

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Speaker 2: inspired the back to the Land movement of the sixties

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Speaker 2: and early seventies. WHOA, So this is her grandparents or

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Speaker 2: her grandfather and her grandfather's second wife wrote this. Okay,

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Speaker 2: but we're actually gonna start with her grandfather. There's a

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Speaker 2: man named Scott Nearing who is a regionally major player

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Speaker 2: in leftist politics. Like he has a Wikipedia page in

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Speaker 2: Elka doesn't, right, okay, and this is her grandfather. Throughout

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Speaker 2: the early twentieth century, he was like one of those

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Speaker 2: names that would be known at the time that doesn't

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Speaker 2: really get passed on, or at least I hadn't ever

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Speaker 2: run across it before. He's a kind of classic American

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Speaker 2: radical guy from this period. He's born in the eighteen

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Speaker 2: eighties in Pennsylvania. He is rich as shit. His grandfather

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Speaker 2: ran the coal company in town. But Scott as in

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Speaker 2: the nineteenth century became a vegetarian, pacifist, socialist, feminist. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so if you're gonna be richish shit, you might as

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Speaker 2: well do some of that, you know, may.

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Speaker 3: As well do it as ethically as you're able to.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He first rose to prominence when he was let

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Speaker 2: go from the university he taught in in nineteen fifteen

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Speaker 2: for being too rattle.

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Speaker 3: Was it the vegetarianism?

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Speaker 2: I am constantly surprised by the like deep history of

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Speaker 2: like I say, this is a vegan, the kind of

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Speaker 2: annoying vegans. It have always been part of leftist politics. Yes,

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Speaker 2: that part never gets like focused on necessarily, right, He's

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Speaker 2: like mostly known as a socialist and a hippie back

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Speaker 2: to the lander, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, I do like the concept of that somehow being

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Speaker 3: the last straw.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So they finally let him go because they're like,

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Speaker 2: you're not gonna eat the fucking eggs because they said vegetarian,

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Speaker 2: but he is, actually I believe it is vegan.

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Speaker 3: Are you serious?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 3: And I should be ashamed that I'm eating my egg Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally. He's like, I didn't say that, And

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Speaker 2: they're like so you think I should hate myself.

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Speaker 3: I didn't say that.

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Speaker 2: I just don't want to eat it, Like, oh, you

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Speaker 2: fucking vegan. I didn't say anything. I don't know. Maybe

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Speaker 2: there's a dick about it. I don't actually know.

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Speaker 3: Could be a professor projection though, Like, you think you're

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Speaker 3: so much fucking better than me, don't you. That's like

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Speaker 3: my uncle's attitude towards veganism. You're just like, no, they

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Speaker 3: don't leave them alone. They don't think about it.

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Speaker 2: I want to eat a messy doug. It's fine, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I don't care at all. I wouldn't be able to

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Speaker 2: get up in the morning if I like.

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Speaker 3: Them A thousand uncles on your chest, like, and.

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Speaker 2: So they kick him out and people rise up to

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Speaker 2: defend him, and like you can't kick him out, and

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Speaker 2: soon enough he joins the Socialist Party and then the

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Speaker 2: Communist Party. He traveled around, including to the USSR, but

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Speaker 2: he was like, actually, I don't think I like the

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Speaker 2: USSR very much. In the nineteen twenties, and in nineteen

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Speaker 2: thirty they kicked him out of the Communist Party for

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Speaker 2: he like wrote some article but he didn't follow the

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Speaker 2: party line. And they were the Communist party, so they

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Speaker 2: kicked him out. He took his hefty inheritance and he

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Speaker 2: bought a big old farm and he got really into

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Speaker 2: hopesteading and vegan organic gardening. And this isn't the like

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Speaker 2: early thirties and twenties, I think nice. He and his

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Speaker 2: second wife, Helling Nearing, liked to pretend that they were

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Speaker 2: self sufficient with their farm, but it was actually just

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Speaker 2: their hairds that paid for it.

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Speaker 3: Wow, this is a tradwife model.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I actually do think this kind of

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Speaker 2: like belaze a lot of the lies in the back

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Speaker 2: of the Land movement. I say, this is someone who

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Speaker 2: intentionally moved out to the country. But these folks with

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Speaker 2: a bunch of inheritances wrote a book together called Living

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Speaker 2: the Good Life, How to Live simply and sanely in

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Speaker 2: a troubled world.

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Speaker 3: Okay, they're like influencers. Yeah, They're like Barnes and Noble influencers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because once the back of the Land movement gets big,

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Speaker 2: hippies start making kind of a pilgrimage to their homestead

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Speaker 2: to like learn from them and stuff. So I feel

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Speaker 2: like they like influencer tradwife culture. They're stealing that from socialists.

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Speaker 3: That's what I have to say, one of their many crimes. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 3: they're only crime, You're right, right, No, no, no otherwise.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, everything else, that's fine. So this is granddad. Scott

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Speaker 2: Nearing had a son. I'm going to trace all these motherfuckers.

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Speaker 2: Scott Nearing had a son named John Scott, who actually

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Speaker 2: I think was originally a Nearing, but he didn't like

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Speaker 2: his dad. By the end of his life, we changed

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Speaker 2: his name to his dad's first name. Yeah, I know,

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Speaker 2: it's weird. I it couldn't.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know you could do that.

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Speaker 2: All right, do whatever you want with names. Well, not sure,

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Speaker 2: probably now now.

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Speaker 3: But it's nice to remember.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, John Scott is a second generation radical. His father

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Speaker 2: was like, actually, the USSR isn't so great, But John

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Speaker 2: Scott's like, no, they're doing the revolution. So he dropped

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Speaker 2: out of college to move to the USSR in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirties.

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Speaker 3: Okay, okay, how'd it go?

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Speaker 2: Well, it actually wasn't great to be a communist in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties Russia. It actually turns out.

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Speaker 3: I thought I was going to turn out different for him.

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Speaker 2: That's yeah, he survives, Okay, although it becomes a dick

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Speaker 2: but we'll talk about that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So he's eager to help build the glorious Bolshevik Revolution,

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Speaker 2: and he gets a job as I think he's doing

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Speaker 2: some like engineering stuff, but he's also a steel worker

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Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day. And he

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Speaker 2: marries a Russian woman named Maria Ivanova and they have

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Speaker 2: two kids, including Elka, who was born in the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 2: As we've talked about extensively on the show, the most

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Speaker 2: ideologically communists were among Stalin's main enemies. Stalin got paranoid

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Speaker 2: about the internationalists, all the people who'd moved to the

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Speaker 2: USSR to be steel workers and shit, he was like,

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Speaker 2: those are the enemy inside. All the people who were

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Speaker 2: like I love the USSR so much, I'm lieving America

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Speaker 2: to go there. He's like, that's the real fucking enemy.

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Speaker 3: Get rid of them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So John Scott and a bunch of other people

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Speaker 2: lost their jobs. Their family moved to Moscow and he

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Speaker 2: got work as a journalist, and he did not keep

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Speaker 2: his mouth shut, and he wrote a piece critical of

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Speaker 2: Stalin and the family had to flee the country and

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Speaker 2: their ship left port just hours before the Nazis betrayed

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Speaker 2: their alliance with Stalin and invaded the USSR.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's Elka's childhood, right.

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Speaker 3: Honestly, it's like whatever coping mechanism you need, Alka, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: giant puppets, yea, right, no worries.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So she's only a few years old, she's already

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Speaker 2: had to flee both Stalin and Hitler. And the family

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Speaker 2: makes its way to America, first to a farm in

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Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and with like family friends, and then at Greenwich

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Speaker 2: Village in New York City. And she grows up speaking

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Speaker 2: both Russian and German, and home and young Alka grows

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Speaker 2: up obsessed with the arts and social justice and leftist politics.

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Speaker 2: As a teenager, she would go work as a social

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Speaker 2: worker in low income neighborhoods. And she decided to do

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Speaker 2: her junior year college abroad in Munich, West Germany. And

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Speaker 2: the problem is that West Germany, of course was capitalist,

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Speaker 2: and so therefore they had ads just like us, unlike

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Speaker 2: glorious Russia, where you just get murdered instead.

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Speaker 3: Wow, what an incredible, incredible.

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Speaker 2: I should have been hired to do the Cold War.

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Speaker 2: I'm always saying that there are people who basically whatever anyway,

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Speaker 2: So here's the advertisers that support this podcast, and we're back.

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Speaker 2: So she goes to West Germany to Munich. This is

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Speaker 2: nineteen to fifty five, and she meets the man who

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Speaker 2: is usually presented as the main character of the Bread

364
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Speaker 2: and Puppet story, and he is the creative head of it,

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Speaker 2: a German Bohemian man. When I say Bohemia, I don't whatever.

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Speaker 2: I mean what people think, not that he's from Bohemia,

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Speaker 2: which is nearby.

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Speaker 3: We're talking about, Like he's wearing kind of silly pants.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a proto hippie.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And she meets this man, Peter Schumann, and she meets

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Speaker 2: him I think in the hospital. I've read a couple

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Speaker 2: different of their meetcutes, and I don't entirely understand why

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Speaker 2: she's in the hospital, but I know why he's in

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Speaker 2: the hospital. He is in the hospital because he had

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Speaker 2: been out trying to recruit people for his experimental dance

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Speaker 2: troop ooh, and he needed to do that by riding

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Speaker 2: a bicycle.

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Speaker 1: I want to be in an experimental dance troupe.

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Speaker 2: And he got into a bike accident and almost died.

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Speaker 3: You think you do Experimental dance troup TV has probably

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Speaker 3: the same energy of like an experimental comedy group. If

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Speaker 3: it's anything similar, everyone's fucking each other and no one

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Speaker 3: speaks five years from now. Also, it's like improv sort of,

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Speaker 3: but a little bit cooler, a little better, and dancing

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Speaker 3: as much. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very anti improv.

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Speaker 2: Fair enough, Well, I probably would have wanted to join

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Speaker 2: his dance troupe. That would have been fun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, especially because it's like I'm imagining, everyone's in their twenties.

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Speaker 3: It's just a bunch of hot twenty something's dancing around.

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Speaker 3: Hell yeah, who.

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Speaker 2: All survived World War Two as children in Germany?

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Speaker 3: Again, whatever you guys need, whatever you need, gess it out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they fall in love Elka and Peter, and Elka

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Speaker 2: takes a year off of school. This is my favorite part,

397
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Speaker 2: just because I identify with this so hard to go

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Speaker 2: hitchhike around Germany bringing her loot with her, and the

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Speaker 2: two of them bringing woodcuts to sell. Wow, they're both

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Speaker 2: woodcut artists.

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Speaker 3: You are of them? Yes?

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Speaker 2: I love that there's a lineage that I can point

403
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 2: to of Google's a word that no one knows what means.

404
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,919
Speaker 2: But people traveling around with instruments and whatever shit they

405
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Speaker 2: can sell.

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Speaker 3: All that rocks her lut.

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Speaker 2: I know she does a lot of the music stuff

408
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Speaker 2: for all of the things that go through. She's obsessed

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Speaker 2: with music and do just like really amazing stuff awesome. Peter,

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Speaker 2: for his part, was born in Germany and he started

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Speaker 2: making bread. Bread and Puppet is actually just as famous

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Speaker 2: for giving out bread. And I forgot to say that

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Speaker 2: part in the short version they give out a rye

414
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Speaker 2: sour dough loaf that is pretty that rocks. Yeah, hippies

415
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 2: were into some like crunchy bread. You know sure.

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Speaker 3: I just anytime that like us is involved in the production,

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Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I'm in.

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Speaker 2: They didn't coin that. I'm sure people have been doing

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Speaker 2: that forever, but that is like their thing is like

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Speaker 2: bread and Puppet, you get both.

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Speaker 3: That's brilliant because I do feel like, you know, whether

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Speaker 3: you're into the performance or not, I will be thirty

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Speaker 3: percent more amenable to what's happening in front of me,

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Speaker 3: at least if you give me a snack.

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Speaker 2: See this actually makes sense because there's this way of

426
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Speaker 2: when you run into a problem with your book and

427
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 2: you don't know what the plot should do, and you're

428
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:29,400
Speaker 2: like writing a book and you don't know what plot

429
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 2: should do. There's a tried and true method that I

430
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Speaker 2: learned from a webcomic and I don't remember the author

431
00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 2: of the webcomic, and I'm deeply sorry. Where you go

432
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Speaker 2: and you find a friend and you give them snacks

433
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Speaker 2: and then you explain the plot of your book. The

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Speaker 2: friend does not react. The friend just eats the snacks,

435
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 2: and you work through on all the problems while talking

436
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Speaker 2: to them, and they get snacks.

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Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, that does work.

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00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, the very effective method.

439
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Speaker 3: There is no resentment sewn between the two of you.

440
00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:01,560
Speaker 3: You've both forgotten something. Yeah, exactly, because what his friendship

441
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 3: if not a beautiful, complicated transaction of feelings.

442
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:09,280
Speaker 2: So he starts making bread with his mother when he's

443
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 2: six in Germany, and sourdough rye bread was the common

444
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,160
Speaker 2: people's food of Germany at this time, and Germany wasn't

445
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 2: doing real well throughout the twenties thirties forties, and I

446
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 2: don't actually know when they turned it around, but twenties

447
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,360
Speaker 2: thirties forties not a good time to be in Germany.

448
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 2: So his whole life until now, basically, yeah, sourdough rye

449
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:32,920
Speaker 2: is his thing. And when his family is ten, they

450
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 2: live in a part of Germany that the Allies are

451
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 2: bombing and the Russian tanks are invading and it's not

452
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 2: safe to live there, and they become internally displaced refugees.

453
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 2: And so they moved to a small village in Germany

454
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,680
Speaker 2: near Denmark. And he can only bring one bag with him,

455
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 2: so he brought a bag full of puppets.

456
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:53,679
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hope he brought a sourdough starter.

457
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 2: Well, his mom has that.

458
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a mommy back thing. Wow, that's really wow.

459
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 3: This is like a Pixar.

460
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 2: Movie, I know, although there's going to be a remarkably

461
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:05,919
Speaker 2: non Pixar actually an old school Disney move in one

462
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 2: a second.

463
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:07,200
Speaker 3: Nice.

464
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 2: So they're internally displaced and they're dirt poor, and they're

465
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 2: like all the other refugees. They're living off of gleaning

466
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 2: the field for like little bits of whatever they can get,

467
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 2: and they make sourdough rye bread and spread elderberry and

468
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:21,360
Speaker 2: rose hip jam on it because that's what they can

469
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,440
Speaker 2: pick by the side of the road, or elderberry's and

470
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,199
Speaker 2: rose hips. It also means so he's German. This is

471
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,920
Speaker 2: World War two, his first public performance. There's some dots

472
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 2: people don't connect when they tell this story, and I'm

473
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 2: just gonna connect the dots because I'm rude. I actually

474
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 2: like this man. But his first public performance as a

475
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 2: puppeteer was when he was eleven, and he is a

476
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 2: refugee and he goes and puts on a puppet show

477
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 2: for the German soldiers in town.

478
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 3: Was this show about Magpie?

479
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 2: I don't actually know what it was about, but it's

480
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 2: for Nazis? He went his first public performance was.

481
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 3: For not was for Nazi Okay, yeah, unless.

482
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: There's a small chance the war had ended by that point.

483
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 2: But it's nineteen forty five, Like there's a small chance that.

484
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 3: But anyway, look, Peter, there's still time to set the

485
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 3: record straight. Yeah yeah, Or did you not perform for

486
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:08,360
Speaker 3: Nazis at age ten?

487
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 2: Yeah? Because this does not in any way influence this

488
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 2: man's politics, like at all.

489
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 3: If anything, you performed for Nazis under duress, But we

490
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 3: would like the record string. Yeah, this is a silly connection.

491
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 3: But did you see the Del Toro animated interpretation of

492
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 3: Pinocchio that came out a few years.

493
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 2: I haven't, which is funny because I really like Del Toro.

494
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 3: It's terrific. It's very characteristically, it's very very intense. But

495
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 3: in that I believe that Pinocchio performs for Mussolini. WHOA

496
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 3: I mean think if I'm remembering correctly.

497
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 2: Anyone who's listening who's mad at an eleven year old for

498
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 2: doing this has not thought this through. No, It's like,

499
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 2: here's like, no one's actually upset.

500
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 3: I'm saying, if the Peter performing for Nazis at age ten,

501
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:01,400
Speaker 3: allegations are true, Pinocchio did it. Pinocchio performed from right.

502
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 3: It's true there were kids.

503
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 2: And for a glow up. The most recent interview I've

504
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 2: read with this man is from a couple months ago,

505
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five, and he is ninety one years old,

506
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: screaming about how important Palestine is. Incredible, Like God, yeah,

507
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 2: So Alka and Peter together now, and the pair of

508
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 2: them are bumbing around Germany for a while, and Elka

509
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 2: goes back home to the States after a year, finishes

510
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 2: college and then goes right back to Germany to be

511
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 2: with Peter. And I think that's sweet. I like that

512
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,360
Speaker 2: she like had to figure out some stuff for herself,

513
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 2: and also like I guess, just so mad about how

514
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,479
Speaker 2: this narrative could easily just be told on Peter about

515
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 2: but it's like largely them figuring things out together and

516
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,719
Speaker 2: not deemphasizing Elka's agency like all throughout it.

517
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 3: So I feel like that's a classic indicator of a

518
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 3: healthy relationship. It's like, Yeah, she doesn't drop her entire

519
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 3: life right now, Like she goes to, yeah, do whatever

520
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 3: she used to do.

521
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's gonna move to like to help her

522
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 2: with her career or later he's gonna like anyway, we'll

523
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 2: get to that. By nineteen sixty, the pair moved to

524
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 2: the United States together with two kids in tow and

525
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 2: they moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which

526
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 2: at the time was the center of a growing counterculture

527
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 2: and was also coincidentally an affordable place to live. And

528
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 2: so you can kind of get away with being a

529
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 2: weird artist.

530
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

531
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 2: I've actually talked a bit on the show before about

532
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,360
Speaker 2: the theater and arts movement of New York City during

533
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 2: the fifties and sixties, but I'm going to like revisit

534
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 2: some of it because it's of my favorite shit I've

535
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 2: talked about on the show. I did an episode about

536
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 2: an anarchist street gang called Up Against the Wall motherfuckers.

537
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 2: That was in the late sixties, and they were like

538
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 2: friends with all the Black Panthers and all the like

539
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: new left movements or whatever. Yeah, and they came out

540
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 2: of an art group, a like anarchist surrealist art group

541
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 2: called Black Mask. Okay, all right, I want to revisit

542
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 2: some of that episode to set this scene, because to

543
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 2: show that they're part of this vibrant art scene, so

544
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 2: it's not just like, oh, they invented theater on the

545
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: Lower East Side, which they don't claim, you know, right, Okay,

546
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 2: And I also like drawing these really weird big pictures

547
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 2: about how everything works politically and getting all my string together.

548
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 2: By the nineteen forties, leftist politics were dramatically waning across

549
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 2: the West for a few reasons. Prior to the Russian

550
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 2: Revolution in nineteen seventeen, you have the anti authoritarian and

551
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 2: democratic tendencies were more dominant parts of the left. Democratic

552
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 2: socialists and anarchists were a bigger part of it. But

553
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 2: after the authoritarian communist Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War

554
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 2: by exterminating their leftist rivals. Yes, Margaret has opinions about this,

555
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 2: theirs became the ascendant star and Bolshevism was kind of

556
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 2: the thing. So you're in the nineteen twenties, you get

557
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 2: this big burst of energy of people being like, fuck, yoah,

558
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 2: we're going to pull this off, like what happened in Russia,

559
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:42,640
Speaker 2: we can do it here. And then you find people

560
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 2: would go to Russia and be like, oh god.

561
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 3: Uh, never mind, never mind, never mind.

562
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, turn around, yeah, Jase, your mind. As Stalin became

563
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 2: more obviously Stalin, the left started to fracture, as people

564
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 2: of conscience died at his hands or left communist parties.

565
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 2: At the same time, you start getting the first scares

566
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 2: in the US and a real strong propaganda campaign against communism,

567
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 2: and then at the end of the thirties you get

568
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 2: the sort of big last hurrah for social revolution in

569
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 2: the West with the Spanish Civil War nineteen thirty six

570
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine. We've talked about extensively. I think I

571
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 2: made you guess on that episode. Actually, I want to

572
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 2: tell a story about this because I think it's funny. Okay,

573
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 2: I was writing a podcast script at a coffee shop

574
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 2: that my friend was working at, and they got off

575
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 2: work and we're talking about some shit. We're talking about

576
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 2: this and that and I knew a lot of stuff

577
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 2: about a lot of the stuff I've been writing about,

578
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 2: and you know, gave me at some point I was like, oh,

579
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: like the Spanish Revolution. I swear to God, they look

580
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 2: at me in the cafe and go, I don't really

581
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:37,639
Speaker 2: know much about that. Can you explain it to Magpie?

582
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 3: That was your time?

583
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 2: I know, I felt like it was a track naturally, wasp,

584
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 2: where's the cameras, Magpie?

585
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: I like to imagine a podcast microphone just magically appeared

586
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: from the grounding.

587
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 2: Yes, the flames of hell light up behind me.

588
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 3: Well, I know a thing or two of that. Yeah. Wow.

589
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 3: So how long were you at the coffee shop for?

590
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 2: Yeah? Days later? Yeah, longer than it took for the

591
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six nineteen thirty nine thing to happen. It's

592
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: actually happened before I started this show.

593
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 3: Good God, what a war drop that you're like, Well,

594
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 3: actually this podcast came out of a day I held

595
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 3: some what hostage for a sudden.

596
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: The theme song of this show takes over the coffee

597
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: shop speaker system.

598
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 3: An echo from the back.

599
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

600
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 3: Oh that's God. Give Bloomhouse a couple of years. There

601
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 3: will be a movie about a haunted podcast.

602
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: I have seen a horror movie about a podcaster who

603
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 2: goes to go report on a Oh I can't remember

604
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 2: it was actually it was alright. It was a podcaster

605
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 2: goes to the middle of nowhere to go report and

606
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: then it turns out that everything is whatever scary rural people.

607
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: I get really offended when they put the job of

608
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: podcast into film or television, because I'm like, that's wrong.

609
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: If you're not like unshowered and like on the floor

610
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: trying to record a podcast, like that's inaccurate. They have

611
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: them in these.

612
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 3: Like bougie studios like full hair.

613
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, there needs to be pets or

614
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 2: it's not a podcast studio.

615
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: Potentially smelly, like you don't know.

616
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I shower, I swear, I shower, I swear.

617
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 3: Listeners. I would love to see a super cut of

618
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 3: like ways they've been report Like, yeah, because I don't

619
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 3: think the media has been very kind, not that we deserve.

620
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 2: It, but we're not kind to ourselves either.

621
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like we hate ourselves already. That's so kind

622
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 3: of part of the job.

623
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 2: I think, at least being a feminist podcaster is like

624
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: being aware that you're in a field that is like

625
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: not full of good in the world, hate us more

626
00:30:58,840 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 2: we dare you.

627
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: A friend of ours made me watch the pilot of

628
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: And just like that where Carrie Bradshaw is being a

629
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: podcast and it's the worst thing I've ever seen, and

630
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: it made me really sad.

631
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of charming because it reminds me

632
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 3: of like a kid show about a kid who does

633
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 3: the morning announcement. It's treated like that. True, Well, I

634
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 3: hope you have an awesome day and I'll talk to

635
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 3: you next time. Okay, I'm done. Like it's like, I

636
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 3: think it's kind of cute.

637
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: Fair, Okay, sorry, back to the script, back to the sorry, right.

638
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,479
Speaker 2: Get three podcasters in the Oh god, it's true. So

639
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 2: all right, Spanish Civil War happens. I've covered it extensively,

640
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 2: but basically fascist forces took over Spain and the left

641
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 2: kept their shit together long enough to join the partisan

642
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: fight against Nazis in Europe. But honestly, at least the

643
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: anti authoritarian left kind of fell apart after that, and

644
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: you have this very fractured thing. And between the Red

645
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 2: Scare and all this stuff happening, and the fact that

646
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 2: all these commanists and leftists of various stripes that just

647
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 2: died right in large numbers, but actual people involved in

648
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 2: all of those struggles survived. And I love that I

649
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: can draw this through line where like a ton of people,

650
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 2: for example, who fought in the Spanish Civil War made

651
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 2: their way to New York City, and the folks who

652
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 2: kept the flame alive for several decades were some of

653
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 2: the people who were politically engaged but mostly on a

654
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 2: cultural front. Okay, you could draw this narrative differently, but

655
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 2: you can kind of refer to this sort of dead

656
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 2: period of the left between the forties and the sixties.

657
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 2: And obviously there's a ton of people doing a ton

658
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 2: of work, especially the civil rights type stuff, but like

659
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 2: there is a lull that you can map in terms

660
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 2: of militant leftism or whatever. And the people who kept

661
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: the flame alive, among others, were artists, and they were pacifists,

662
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 2: and they were like religious anarchists, especially Jewish anarchists, and

663
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 2: they were like authors and musicians and play rights and

664
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 2: they just kind of partly because they like weren't threatened,

665
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 2: right because like kind of have some free speech sort of.

666
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the rest here, it's the only kind

667
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 2: of do.

668
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 3: It's funny to think of like periods of time where

669
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 3: making leftist art is not dangerous, but like, also it's

670
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 3: not cool. I don't know.

671
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I was gonna get dangerous again.

672
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's true.

673
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 2: And the oldest experimental theater group in the US is

674
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 2: called the Living Theater in New York City. Yes, and

675
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 2: it was founded in nineteen forty seven by two anarchist pacifists,

676
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 2: Judith Mulane and Julian Beck. And I find them really fascinating.

677
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: And so I'm going to I've never done this before.

678
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 2: I'm just going to quote my own previous episode.

679
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 3: Here oooh okay, because it was the.

680
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: Coolest side years ago, and I think it's the coolest

681
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: side now, partly because it ties into the Adams family.

682
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I'm in.

683
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,719
Speaker 2: Judith Mulane was a German Jewish immigrant. Her parents came

684
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 2: over in nineteen twenty nine when she was three. They

685
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 2: were some of the first people to be like, this

686
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 2: might go bad. We should get the fuck out of here.

687
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 2: Julian Beck was her husband and they were in an

688
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 2: open marriage in the early fifties. He is bisexual or

689
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 2: queer or whatever. I'm not sure what he called himself.

690
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 2: He had his own boyfriend outside the marriage, but the

691
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 2: couple were also sort of in a triad with yet

692
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:19,959
Speaker 2: another guy who was a doc worker who was also

693
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 2: married to someone else. Okay, hot, yeah, long history of polyamorous,

694
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 2: queer anarchist theater people.

695
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, none of this is shocking to me. And they

696
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 3: got into theater.

697
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 2: Yeah wait, they started the oldest experimental theater in the

698
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 2: United States. And in nineteen eighty six. He also played

699
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 2: the villainous preacher in Poltergeist two stop. Oh he died

700
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five, but it came out after if

701
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,320
Speaker 2: Terry died excellent, or he's the Poltergeist in it? Literally

702
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: I don't know.

703
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 3: I mean there the productions are haunted.

704
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was before podcast, so we might be in heaven. Okay.

705
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 2: And then he wrote a ton of books, mostly poetry

706
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 2: and some about theater and judas. I've played Granny in

707
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 2: the Adams Family movies.

708
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 3: No wait, like the original series.

709
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 2: No, in the nineties movies, Oh.

710
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: My god, the Angelica Houston ones.

711
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 2: I don't remember the names of actors, Okay.

712
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 3: Having conversations with you, and because you can tell me

713
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 3: five thousand things I don't know and then I can

714
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 3: teach you a simple fact.

715
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,720
Speaker 2: This is yes, I know the politics of the Granny

716
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 2: of adams family, but I don't know the main characters.

717
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 3: Sports tsha, oh my god, jud yes, Judith Molina.

718
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, I yep. She's been on the Sopranos a

719
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 2: bunch of shit.

720
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was working. She didn't come back for Adam's

721
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 3: family values. She was replaced by Carol Kane.

722
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, so only in the first.

723
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 3: I mean, if you've got to be replaced by someone

724
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,959
Speaker 3: Carol Kane, not bad.

725
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 2: And I kind of can't get over the fact that

726
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 2: the original crone witch of my childhood granny from Adam's

727
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 2: family was played by a polyamorous, anarchist Jew who'd fled

728
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 2: the Nazis at three years old.

729
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 3: What more could you want? That's terrific.

730
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: I know.

731
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 2: At one point the couple got arrested for not paying

732
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: their taxes, and their argument was basically like, what we did

733
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 2: a lot to pay taxes. Government's bad.

734
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 3: Oh sorry for bothering you, got it totally.

735
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: They represented themselves in court, and when they represented themselves

736
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,800
Speaker 2: in court, Jude is dressed up in a Shakespeare costume.

737
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: I don't know how that went. But another time they

738
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 2: got arrested for having indecent exposure because they would have

739
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: plays that involved nudity.

740
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 3: Oh come on, okay, Yeah.

741
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 2: The Living Theater that they formed is still around and

742
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 2: it performs in streets and in prisons, and they try

743
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 2: to undermine authority in both content and form, and I

744
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 2: think they're swell. And I also think that some of

745
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 2: the first organizing meetings I ever went to for the

746
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 2: ultra globalization movement were at the Living Theater before I

747
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 2: knew what that was. Really, I'm not certain that's a

748
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 2: guess because I remember the theater, but I don't. There's

749
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 2: a lot of theaters in New York. Sure, Okay, that

750
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 2: is the end of that self plagiarism. And I brought

751
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 2: them up in a previous episode because.

752
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 3: They sorry, oh that was cool, I'm going to use that.

753
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know who would never do plagiarism. These advertisers,

754
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 2: That's right, none of them would ever.

755
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 3: They are not using AI to write the copy.

756
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:28,760
Speaker 2: Guys.

757
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 3: Come on, no, no, God, you'd be the judge.

758
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 2: And we're back. Okay. So I brought them up in

759
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 2: the previous episode, the Living Theater, because they helped radicalize

760
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 2: bem Maria, who went on to become one of the

761
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 2: founders of one of the more radical and interesting groups

762
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: of the late sixties, the anarchist street gang, mostly white

763
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 2: and Puerto Rican called Up against the Wall Motherfuckers and

764
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 2: if you want to hear about it, I'm just advertising

765
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 2: my own show. You can go back and listen. And

766
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 2: that was part of the culture of New York City

767
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 2: at the time. This theater that was radical. Although they

768
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 2: were pacifist. That actually doesn't make them less radical at all,

769
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 2: but it means that they might not have joined an

770
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 2: Anarchistrea King. But our protagonist of this week, Elka and Peter,

771
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: they're part of a pretty vibrant art scene and they're

772
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,839
Speaker 2: part of yet another proto hippie movement that we've talked

773
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 2: about on the show before, a neo dataist movement called Fluxus.

774
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 2: You randomly heard of this, no, so when I did

775
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 2: a bunch of episodes about the band Crass, the like

776
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: an arcopunk band from the seventies in the UK. They

777
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 2: were also old hippies who were part of this neo

778
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 2: dadaist movement called Fluxus that basically just like did Avant

779
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 2: garde shit like pre hippie avant garde. That's how weird

780
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: can we make our art? And so they're influenced by data,

781
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 2: which we've talked about on the show. Radical anti art

782
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 2: movement from the early twentieth century, and Flexus was also

783
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 2: particularly inspired by this gay anarchist composer named John Cage.

784
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 2: I know, I just keep being like everyone's an anarchists,

785
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 2: This isn't true. Many of our Cage is amazing. Yeah,

786
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 2: John Cage is fucking cool, and he is most famous

787
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 2: for his composition for thirty three sits, where you, dear listener,

788
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 2: could play this you just sit in front of a

789
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 2: piano for four minutes and thirty three seconds and loot required.

790
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right. Yeah, although you did need a piano. Yeah,

791
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,760
Speaker 2: he'd be kind of like faking it to just imagine

792
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: a piano.

793
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 3: Whenever I think about John Cage, You're like, oh, wouldn't

794
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 3: be so cool to be like nineteen again and just

795
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 3: learn about the existence of four thirty three And I'd

796
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 3: be like, oh my god, Like it's ah, put that

797
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 3: feeling in a bottle.

798
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 2: It's also so beautiful at how it like triggers conservative

799
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 2: art people. Yeah, but also it's like made by one

800
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,280
Speaker 2: of the better composers of the twentieth century.

801
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 3: No, he could also play yeah quite well.

802
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:00,879
Speaker 2: And near the end of his life he would talk

803
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 2: about how he practiced four thirty three every day, what

804
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 2: a good meditation practice.

805
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 3: That's I love that. He uh god, I'm like, what

806
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 3: is our version of that? He somehow managed to take

807
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 3: a meditation and made it part of the work too, Yeah, totally.

808
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 3: It's like, no, he was still working yeah, yeah, ah,

809
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 3: that's incredible.

810
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, recording yoga for content that would be yep, yep.

811
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 2: So Fluxus is basically this art movement that's like how

812
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 2: weird can we get? And it ties into way more

813
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 2: shit than I would have expected, like the fact that

814
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 2: you can talk about an arcopunk, which heavily influenced European

815
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 2: protest culture as well as like a ton of music.

816
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,760
Speaker 2: And it's through Fluxus that you get bread and puppet

817
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 2: and therefore giant puppets, street theater at protests and these

818
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,399
Speaker 2: are like really opposite lineages, but they're not. They come

819
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 2: back together and like literally are at the same protests

820
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 2: with each other, you know, decades later. That's amazing And

821
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 2: I just I fucking love this shit. And so if

822
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 2: you ever have like a street theater person and like

823
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 2: a black block person are giving about tactics on the street,

824
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 2: you can be like, y'all all the same grandparents, Like

825
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 2: ideologically you all come from John Cage.

826
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 3: You four thirty three motherfuckers have to figure this out,

827
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 3: get along.

828
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, that's beautiful.

829
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 3: That's like what makes me I mean, it does happen here,

830
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 3: but it makes me wish that I had lived in

831
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 3: New York at any point where it just seems like

832
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 3: New York and Chicago is just like incredible places to

833
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 3: literally walk into someone that shares your ideology but interprets

834
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 3: it completely differently.

835
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 2: It just ooh yeah, yeah, totally, there's an advantage to cities.

836
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 2: I have to accept this as I like living in

837
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: the woods, but I'm also like, there's a reason that

838
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 2: being around people can make amazing things.

839
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 3: I mean, it's still overrated at the end of the day.

840
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, so Bred and Puppett they move into

841
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: this kind of New York City, this Lower East Side,

842
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 2: Elka and Peter heavily influenced by John Cage and Fluxus

843
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 2: aside a lot of other influences. I just am not

844
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 2: going to track down all of them. But they're not

845
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 2: just into doing avant garde shit. They want to do

846
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 2: more medieval and traditional forms of storytelling as well, and

847
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 2: so there's like kind of a sort of almost like

848
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 2: ritual element to a lot of what they do, and

849
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 2: they're not just an avant garde. And so when they

850
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 2: move there, they fall in with a group that their

851
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 2: own web sites right up calls a commune slash cult,

852
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,760
Speaker 2: the Uranian philant Uranian Philanstery.

853
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 3: Okay, which and what do they mean by that?

854
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 2: Well, I don't really know, because I don't know what

855
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: a philanstery is. Great, but Wikipedia says it's an artist

856
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 2: collective and not a commune slash cult, and they still

857
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 2: have a website, they're still around. But I didn't dive

858
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 2: in any further to that because I was like asking

859
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 2: to be a rabbit hole, and a rabbit hole that.

860
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 3: Sounds like a terrific rabbit hole, and it also sounds

861
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 3: like the kind of thing where like it being confusing

862
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 3: as a part.

863
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 2: Of it, I suspect as much. Yeah, yes, it is

864
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 2: starting to make puppets, and he likes making large puppets.

865
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 2: He told some interviewers that the large puppet thing came

866
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 2: from he saw Sicilian theater performed by working class Italian

867
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 2: mechanics in New York and little Italy okay, which is

868
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 2: another just like cool New York City thing, being like, oh,

869
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 2: these like mechanics came from Italy and they were like, Oh,

870
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 2: we're going to do the Sicilian theater where we make

871
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,959
Speaker 2: ninety pound wood and steel puppets that are like five

872
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 2: feet tall or so, and like they like shake the

873
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 2: feater as they're like moving around. Ah.

874
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 3: Okay, I love it.

875
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 2: And Peter doesn't understand a word of it because like

876
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 2: I don't know if he speaks to any Italian, but

877
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 2: I think he specifically said he couldn't understand like the

878
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:45,359
Speaker 2: Sicilian dialect. Okay, And Peter starts putting on performances, and

879
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 2: I think he's already developed his signature move at this point.

880
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 2: He bakes bread and he brings it to the performance

881
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 2: and he passes it out to everyone to eat sourdough

882
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 2: rye bread.

883
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 3: That's way better than my signature move, which was once

884
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 3: passing my pubes around the audience in a bag and

885
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 3: butt chugging milk, just aspiring performers. You can't overshoot a

886
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 3: hospitable calling card. Yeah, that's my best friend, some harder

887
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 3: cell when you're like, does anyone seem the funnel I

888
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 3: put in my asshole because I go, I would die

889
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,319
Speaker 3: for you. I love you.

890
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 2: So you can just do the midsummer thing and bake

891
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 2: food with your pupes in it.

892
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 3: And then there's like, what was it? It was like

893
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 3: menstrual blood cocktail or whatever to be like, you are

894
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 3: my chosen one.

895
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Like I think that's a fine and totally

896
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 2: ethical thing to do. I don't actually think that. I

897
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 2: get more and more nervous about people taking the things

898
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 2: I say literally. No, I've learned I have a very

899
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: dry sense of humor and my mind that was very

900
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: off anyway. Whatever, So we talked about hippies and bread

901
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 2: a bunch on our episodes, and we did some episodes

902
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 2: about the modern diggers, and I keep calling them hippies

903
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 2: when I'm talking about them, because that is the word

904
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,280
Speaker 2: that communicates the thing that I'm trying to get across.

905
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 2: But in this early scene in the sixties, the more

906
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 2: radical elements of it at least would not have called

907
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 2: themselves hippies. They would have called themselves freaks, and hippies

908
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 2: was coined in the nineteen forties to describe white people

909
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: trying to be blacker than black people as a pejorative,

910
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 2: and the concept of the hippie was more of a

911
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 2: media construction. I don't know what Elkam Peter called themselves.

912
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 2: I believe that that scene would have called themselves freaks. Okay,

913
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 2: I like that better, I know, because I feel like

914
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: that's like still kind of like if you just like

915
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 2: described like the outcast, like funny strange kids, it's like

916
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 2: freaks for every probably like yeah, fuck yeah, you know,

917
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 2: it's like one.

918
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 3: Of the most reclaimable terms there is.

919
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's a little bit more open ended.

920
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 2: Hippie is like pretty specific connotations, you know, Yeah, some

921
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 2: of which there are great hippies absolutely, but freaks you.

922
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 3: Could be doing quite literally anything, Yeah, and fit under

923
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 3: the umbrella, Yeah totally.

924
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 2: Peter's first US show is at Judson Church, which is

925
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 2: a longstanding social justice Baptist church where I've been to

926
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 2: a bunch of events. It's right next to Washington Square Park,

927
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 2: and so they're busy being freaks or bohemians or whatever.

928
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 2: On the Lower East Side, but Elko wants to go

929
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 2: back to school to work on her masters, and her

930
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 2: master's is in Russian, not just in the Russian language,

931
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 2: but like on Russian. Okay, And so the pair of them,

932
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 2: because he's willing to follow her for her career, pack

933
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 2: up and move to Vermont in nineteen sixty two. And

934
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 2: I think that their grandparents are doing the majority of

935
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 2: the childcare during this period.

936
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha.

937
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 2: Elka starts teaching Russian at the university she's studying at,

938
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 2: and basically like, okay, subtext here it was a little

939
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:42,240
Speaker 2: bit like, hey, you can get a job too, buddy,

940
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 2: maybe with Peter's own or whatever. Anyway, he gets rejected

941
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: for a position teaching dance choreography. They're like, ah, we

942
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: don't actually need that, or we don't need you doing it.

943
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 2: He does some work as extracurricular at the university, teaching puppetry,

944
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 2: but he also just takes the time to start touring

945
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 2: around doing puppet shows around New England. He hooks up

946
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 2: a trailer as a makeshift stage to the back of

947
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 2: the car, which is either a jeep or station wagon.

948
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 2: I've read both, and just like bums around doing this

949
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 2: thing for a while in the sixties early sixties.

950
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 3: Look, I love this, But if the lone guy pulls

951
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 3: up it says, would you like to see my puppet show?

952
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 3: I would say I'm good. I just hope he's scheduling

953
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 3: the shows, I guess.

954
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 2: And not just expecting, like anyone any you could busk

955
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:33,320
Speaker 2: with it, but it would have to be in a

956
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 2: place people were going to be anyway, you know.

957
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, puppet busking is you know, it's a harder cell. Yeah,

958
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:40,879
Speaker 3: it's hard.

959
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, accordion, real good busking instrument.

960
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 3: Yes.

961
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 2: They moved back to New York City in nineteen sixty three,

962
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:50,439
Speaker 2: and the two of them come up with a name

963
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 2: for what will become their life's work, the credit of which,

964
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:55,360
Speaker 2: of course gets given a Peter. I'm not a bitter feminist,

965
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 2: kill joy. I don't know what you're talking about. And the

966
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 2: two of them come up with the name bread and Puppet,

967
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 2: and the idea is both we give you bread and

968
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 2: we have puppets here. But also I assume it's a

969
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 2: reference to the labor slogan of the early nineteen tens

970
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 2: and also suffragette slogan bread and roses. Oh okay, we

971
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 2: need bread, we need to eat, but we need roses too.

972
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: We need beauty as sustenance just as much as we

973
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: need food. And in this case, beauty is just you know,

974
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:22,359
Speaker 2: represented by puppets.

975
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 3: Yeah.

976
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 2: He told a newspaper called Seven Days about this quote.

977
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,319
Speaker 2: We fed bread to the public so that they were

978
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 2: chewing while they were watching the show. We thought they

979
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 2: were a better audience. And I love that. Like, sometimes

980
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 2: the answer is this like very dramatic thing about like

981
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 2: politics and stuff, and somebody's like, no, they pay better

982
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 2: attention if you give them food.

983
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 3: They just like the show better if they're not hungry.

984
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 3: You really, Yeah, Yeah.

985
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: And he wrote a longer piece about this name in

986
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy and I want to quote that for a

987
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 2: long time, the theater arts have been separated from the stomach.

988
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:01,240
Speaker 2: Theater was entertainment. Entertainment was meant for the skin. Bread

989
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 2: was meant for the stomach. The old rights of baking

990
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,280
Speaker 2: and eating and offering bread were forgotten. The bread decayed

991
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 2: and became mush. The breadshell remind you of the sacrament

992
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 2: of eating. We want you to understand that the theater

993
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 2: is not yet an established form, not the place of commerce,

994
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 2: that you think it is where you pay and you

995
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,240
Speaker 2: get something. Theater is different. It is more like bread,

996
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 2: more like a necessity.

997
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 3: That's beautiful.

998
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I think this is where we're going

999
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 2: to leave it. You know, Part one is context. And

1000
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 2: they have now created bread and puppet. Our heroes have

1001
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 2: just named the thing they will spend the next fifty

1002
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 2: years of their lives doing. And in one of my

1003
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 2: favorite love stories I ever got to tell on this show.

1004
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 3: I love that having performed for years and years, it's

1005
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 3: really nice being like, you know, bread is a more

1006
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 3: political act than you know, warm tacats is what I think.

1007
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 3: That's mostly that's the version of bread that I'm familiar

1008
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 3: with with regard to the art uh huh free food.

1009
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 3: It is a warm takata. Does that count kind?

1010
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 2: Does yeah? The various points in my life, the answer is.

1011
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, count yeah, CEUs enough.

1012
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. On Wednesday, we'll talk about them doing all the

1013
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 2: radical stuff they're going to do, and they're also going

1014
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 2: to create a festival that tens of thousands of people

1015
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 2: come to and they're going to influence a ton of

1016
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 2: folks and it's gonna, you know, do the whole beautiful

1017
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 2: change in the world one bit at a time, brick

1018
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 2: by brick thing that we can all aspire to do.

1019
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:35,919
Speaker 3: I love this.

1020
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 2: It's not very dramatic cliffhanger. It's just a like, isn't

1021
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 2: this like kind of wholesome? This is one of the

1022
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 2: moost wholesome episodes I've ever gotten to do.

1023
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 3: I feel great. Yeah, like, this is so lovely. I

1024
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 3: love a lack of a cliffhanger, like and do you

1025
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 3: want to hear about their positive legacy? Tune in Wednesday?

1026
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally anyway, Yeah, you got anything you want to plug?

1027
00:50:59,280 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 2: Here at the end.

1028
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 3: Sixteenth minute right here on Cooles and Media. Produced by

1029
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 3: Sophie Lijaman, who I've heard of her.

1030
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 2: I like everything she does.

1031
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 3: She's just a legend. Yeah, she's a legend in the field.

1032
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 3: She's a credit to humans writ large. She's my best friend.

1033
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:21,879
Speaker 3: I guess I will also plug my book raw Dog

1034
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 3: that just came out on paperback, so get it out

1035
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 3: of the library, which is so cool. By the way, thanks,

1036
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 3: I'm happy that it's available. I feel like it was

1037
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 3: always meant to be in paperback.

1038
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 2: It's a very paperback style book. I listened to the audio,

1039
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 2: but it is a very like as adventure. I mean,

1040
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 2: it's not a pulp adventure novel, but it's a pulp

1041
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 2: adventure novel describing the history of hot dogs and you

1042
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 2: traveling across the country.

1043
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:45,439
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.

1044
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: The most tragic thing that happened in these episodes involves

1045
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 2: a hot dog and you're gonna have to wait till

1046
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 2: Wednesday to.

1047
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 3: Find really well, you have to wait like Tiger totally.

1048
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: I want to plug that. I don't know. Listen to

1049
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,399
Speaker 2: other shows on cool Zone Media. You can also listen

1050
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 2: ad free with cooler Zone Media. And also you can

1051
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 2: go out and directly interfere with wait Nope. You can

1052
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 2: join protests that advocate against ice.

1053
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:19,399
Speaker 3: They're everywhere and if they're not near you, yeah, make

1054
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 3: all right?

1055
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 2: You see you all Winston.

1056
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1057
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,760
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,

1058
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1059
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: on the Ihard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1060
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.