Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club book Club. What if I
Speaker 1: only say twice, well, it's still kind of a chant.
Speaker 1: Who knows, I don't. That's not what I know. Instead,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm Margaret Kiljoy because I'm the host
Speaker 1: of this podcast, which is the Cool Zone Media book Club,
Speaker 1: the only book club that you don't have to do
Speaker 1: the reading for because I do it for you. We
Speaker 1: seem to have three modes here on book Club. We
Speaker 1: have modern stories, we have fairy tales, and we have
Speaker 1: classic science fiction. And that third mode is new, which
Speaker 1: is the kick that I'm on right now, and this
Speaker 1: story is in that mode because I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that like. Okay, So the same
Speaker 1: reason I really like history because of how it shapes
Speaker 1: our present, I feel like you can do the same
Speaker 1: kind of thing culturally and see like where we're at
Speaker 1: with a lot of different ideas based on the things
Speaker 1: that came before. And this week's story is by a
Speaker 1: classic one of my favorite weird satirical authors, Kurt Vonnegut.
Speaker 1: And for folks who don't know, Kurt Vonnegut, of course,
Speaker 1: is most famous as an anarchist who fought the Nazis.
Speaker 1: This is not actually what he's famous for. But it's true.
Speaker 1: He's an anarchist who fought the Nazis. He was captured
Speaker 1: by the Germans kind of clos ish to the end
Speaker 1: of the war. I don't remember exactly what year, but he,
Speaker 1: you know, then survived two different Allied bombings while he
Speaker 1: was in captivity of the Germans. Because war as hell,
Speaker 1: and it is not surprising that he ended up an
Speaker 1: anarchist and a pacifist and a world citizen as he
Speaker 1: put it. But he did survive those things, and he
Speaker 1: went on to write very satirical stuff that seems so
Speaker 1: like lighthearted while playing with heavy issues, and then you
Speaker 1: realize what this man went through and you're like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's why he writes lighthearted, satirical stuff about very heavy issues.
Speaker 1: And he survived the bombing of Dresden. You think I
Speaker 1: would put this in my script, but I didn't. And
Speaker 1: he survived this bombing of this sermon city where he
Speaker 1: was captive by hiding in a slaughterhouse and talked about
Speaker 1: how is like cool down there amongst all the bodies
Speaker 1: or the cadavers. I think is the way he put it,
Speaker 1: and the reason that that sticks out to me is
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell a different story really quick, and
Speaker 1: maybe I've already told the story in one of my podcasts,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure, so I'm gonna tell it again
Speaker 1: because this is the second time I know about an
Speaker 1: anarchist surviving by hiding among bodies. And the other one
Speaker 1: is that one day I met a man who was
Speaker 1: selling his father's book, and his father had been a
Speaker 1: Polish officer when the Russians came and invaded Poland and
Speaker 1: then killed almost all the officers in the military rather
Speaker 1: than letting them, oh, I don't know, defend the country
Speaker 1: against Nazi's killed them all in the massacre of the
Speaker 1: Caton Forest. And this man's father was one of the
Speaker 1: only survivors of that because he had been taken to
Speaker 1: Russia instead and thrown into a prison camp in Siberia.
Speaker 1: And this man, when he first met me, he didn't
Speaker 1: like me because I was like a weird pump and
Speaker 1: he thought I was going to be a Bolshevik. And
Speaker 1: he's like, you and your friends you're not Bolsheviks, are you,
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, no, we're anarchists, he said, anarchists,
Speaker 1: And he got really excited and he opened up his
Speaker 1: dad's book that's called The Shadow Kateen Forest, if anyone's curious,
Speaker 1: and he flipped through and he found this chapter where
Speaker 1: his father's life had been saved by a Christian anarchist
Speaker 1: in the gulags who was like a follower of Kurpatkin
Speaker 1: and Tolstoy. And while he was in this gulag, it
Speaker 1: was so cold outside that people were freezing to death.
Speaker 1: And the person who ran the morgue was this anarchist
Speaker 1: in the camp, and so he would let people come
Speaker 1: and hide among the frozen bodies to warm themselves up
Speaker 1: because it was warmer than the outside. Which, now that
Speaker 1: I say it, there's a very dark story, but it
Speaker 1: meant that I had an interesting connection with a man,
Speaker 1: you know, almost one hundred years later and seventy years
Speaker 1: later or a while later, and I don't know. And
Speaker 1: so just when I was like reading about Vonnegut hiding
Speaker 1: among bodies to survive the horrors of war, I was
Speaker 1: reminded of this other story. But that's not what this
Speaker 1: story is about, not at all. Instead, content warning for
Speaker 1: today's episode. This story discusses suicide, and I believe is
Speaker 1: a critique of eugenics, but is also sort of describing
Speaker 1: a eugenicist society, and so that's your content warning. If
Speaker 1: that's not a headspace you want to be in, then
Speaker 1: don't listen to this one. This story is called two
Speaker 1: be Are Not to Be? The letters spelled out it'll
Speaker 1: be really clever. It doesn't work as well in audio, right,
Speaker 1: because that's the big reveal, is the way it sounds.
Speaker 1: But it's just a bunch of letters and numbers. It
Speaker 1: was first published in Worlds of If in January nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, and the Project Gutenber Additions, which is where
Speaker 1: I got this one from, says extensive research did not
Speaker 1: uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
Speaker 1: So like a lot of stuff from the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties is under copyright, but a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: isn't because of the weird ways the copyright law works.
Speaker 1: The little tagline along with the story said, got a problem,
Speaker 1: just pick up the phone. It solved them all and
Speaker 1: all the same way.
Speaker 2: Two b Are Not to Be?
Speaker 1: By Kurt Vonnegut. Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons,
Speaker 1: no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars,
Speaker 1: All diseases were conquered, so was old age. Death, barring accidents,
Speaker 1: was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United
Speaker 1: States was stabilized at forty million souls. One bright morning
Speaker 1: in the Chicago lying in hospital, a man named Edward K. Welling,
Speaker 1: Junior waited for his wife to give He was the
Speaker 1: only man waiting. Not many people were born a day anymore.
Speaker 1: Welling was fifty six, a mere stripe ling in a
Speaker 1: population whose average age was one hundred twenty nine. X
Speaker 1: rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets.
Speaker 1: The children would be his first. Young Welling was hunched
Speaker 1: in his chair, his head in his hand. He was
Speaker 1: so rumpled, so still, and colorless, as to be virtually invisible.
Speaker 1: His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a
Speaker 1: disorderly and demoralized air too, chairs and ashtrays had been
Speaker 1: moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with
Speaker 1: spattered dropcloths. The room was being redecorated. It was being
Speaker 1: redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered
Speaker 1: to die. A sardonic old man about two hundred years
Speaker 1: old sat on a step ladder, painting a mural he
Speaker 1: did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly,
Speaker 1: his age would have been guessed at thirty five ors,
Speaker 1: so aging had touched him that much before the cure
Speaker 1: for aging was found. The mural he was working on
Speaker 1: depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed, bugs,
Speaker 1: spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds,
Speaker 1: cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves,
Speaker 1: carried refuse to trash burners. Never, never, never, not in
Speaker 1: medieval Holland nor old Japan had a garden been more formal,
Speaker 1: been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air,
Speaker 1: and nourishment it could use. A hospital orderly came down
Speaker 1: the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song. If
Speaker 1: you don't like my kisses, honey, here's what I will do.
Speaker 1: I'll go see a girl in purple kiss this sad
Speaker 1: world to dulu. If you don't want my lovin', why
Speaker 1: should I take up all this? I'll get off this
Speaker 1: old planet. Let some sweet baby have my place. The
Speaker 1: orderly looked in at the mural, and the muralist looks
Speaker 1: so real, he said, I can practically imagine I'm standing
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. What makes you think you're
Speaker 1: not in it, said the painter. He gave us a
Speaker 1: tyiric smile. It's called the Happy Garden of Life. You
Speaker 1: know that's good of doctor Hits, said the orderly. He
Speaker 1: was referring to one of the male figures in white,
Speaker 1: whose head was a portrait of doctor Benjamin Hits, the
Speaker 1: hospital's chief Obstrataian Hits was a blindingly handsome man. A
Speaker 1: lot of faces still to fill in, said the orderly.
Speaker 1: He meant that the faces of many of the figures
Speaker 1: in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to
Speaker 1: be filled with portraits of important people on either the
Speaker 1: hospital staff or from the Chicago office of the Federal
Speaker 1: Bureau of Termination. Must be nice to be able to
Speaker 1: make pictures that look like something, said the orderly. The
Speaker 1: painter's face curdled with scorn. You think I'm proud of this, daub,
Speaker 1: he said. You think this is my idea of what
Speaker 1: life really looks like. What's your idea of what life
Speaker 1: looks like? Said the orderly. The painter gestured at a
Speaker 1: foul dropcloth. There's a good picture of it, he said.
Speaker 1: Frame that, and you have a picture a damn sight
Speaker 1: more honest than this one. You're a gloomy old duck,
Speaker 1: aren't you, said the orderly. Is that a crime? Said
Speaker 1: the painter. The orderly shrugged. If you don't like it,
Speaker 1: here grandpa, he said, And he finished the thought with
Speaker 1: the trick telephone number that people who didn't want to
Speaker 1: live anymore were supposed to call. The zero in the
Speaker 1: telephone number he pronounced not The number was two b
Speaker 1: R not to be. It was the telephone number of
Speaker 1: an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included automat Birdland Cannery, catbox,
Speaker 1: d Lausser, easygo, goodbye, happy hooligan, kiss me quick, lucky Pierre, Sheep,
Speaker 1: dip warring blender, weep no more? And why worry? To
Speaker 1: be or not to be? Was the telephone number of
Speaker 1: the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.
Speaker 1: And you know what phone numbers you should call instead
Speaker 1: of that one? Is the phone numbers that would have
Speaker 1: accompanied these ads if this was recorded in the nineties.
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's recorded in the twenty twenties, so
Speaker 1: there's no phone numbers. I think would that'd be so weird.
Speaker 1: There was an AD and it was like send a
Speaker 1: self address damp envelope for more information. Be so weird.
Speaker 2: Here's ads.
Speaker 1: And we're back. The painter thumbed his nose at the orderly.
Speaker 1: When I decide it's time to go, he said, it
Speaker 1: won't be at the sheep dip. I'd do it yourself
Speaker 1: or eh, said the orderly, messy business grandpa, Why don't
Speaker 1: you have a little consideration for the people who have
Speaker 1: to clean up after you? The painter expressed with an
Speaker 1: obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors.
Speaker 1: The world could do with a good deal more mess
Speaker 1: if you ask me, he said. The orderly laughed and
Speaker 1: moved on welling. The waiting father mumbled something without raising
Speaker 1: his head, and then he fell silent again. A coarse,
Speaker 1: formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike keels.
Speaker 1: Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag, and overseas cap were
Speaker 1: all purple. The purple the painter called the color of grapes.
Speaker 1: On judgment day, the medallion on her purple musette bag
Speaker 1: was the seal of the Service Division of the Federal
Speaker 1: Bureau of Termination. An eagle perched on a turnstile. The
Speaker 1: woman had a lot of facial hair and unmistakable mustache. Fact.
Speaker 1: A curious thing about gas chamber hostesses was that, no
Speaker 1: matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they
Speaker 1: all sprouted mustaches within five years or so.
Speaker 2: Is this where I'm.
Speaker 1: Supposed to come?
Speaker 2: She said to the painter.
Speaker 1: A lot would depend on what your business was. He said,
Speaker 1: you aren't about to have a baby, are you. They
Speaker 1: told me I was supposed to pose for some picture.
Speaker 1: She said, my name is Leora Duncan. She waited, and
Speaker 1: you dunk people? He said, what it?
Speaker 2: Skip it?
Speaker 1: He said that share is a beautiful picture. She said,
Speaker 1: looks just like heaven or something or something, said the painter.
Speaker 1: He took a list of names from his smock pocket. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan,
Speaker 1: he said, scanning the list. Yes, here you are. You're
Speaker 1: entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you'd
Speaker 1: like me to stick your head on. We've got a
Speaker 1: few choice ones left. She studied the mural bleakly. Gee,
Speaker 1: she said, they're all the same to me, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about all. A body's a body, eh, he said, alrighty,
Speaker 1: as a master of fine art, I recommend this body here.
Speaker 1: He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was
Speaker 1: carrying dried stalks to a trash burner, well siddle or
Speaker 1: a duncan. That's more of the disposal people, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm in service. I don't do any disposing.
Speaker 1: The painter clapped his hands and mocked, delight, you say
Speaker 1: you don't know anything about art, and then you prove
Speaker 1: in the next breath that you know more about it
Speaker 1: than I do. Of course, the sheave carrier is wrong
Speaker 1: for a hostess, A snipper, a pruner, that's more your line.
Speaker 1: He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing
Speaker 1: a dead branch from an apple tree. How about her?
Speaker 1: He said, you like her at all? Gosh, she said,
Speaker 1: and she blushed and became humble. That that puts me
Speaker 1: right next to doctor Hits. That upsets you, he said,
Speaker 1: good gravy, No, she said, it's it's just such an honor. Ah,
Speaker 1: you admire there em, eh, he said, who doesn't admire him,
Speaker 1: she said, worshiping the portrait of Hits. It was the
Speaker 1: portrait of a tanned, white haired omnipotent Zeus two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty years old, who doesn't admire him? She said again.
Speaker 1: He was responsible for setting up the very first gas
Speaker 1: chamber in Chicago. Nothing would please me more, said the painter,
Speaker 1: than to put you next to him for all time,
Speaker 1: sawing off a limb that strikes you as appropriate. That
Speaker 1: is kind of like what I do, she said. She
Speaker 1: was demure about what she did. What she did was
Speaker 1: make people comfortable while she killed them. And while Leora
Speaker 1: Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waiting room
Speaker 1: bounded Doctor Hits himself. He was seven feet tall, and
Speaker 1: he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living well,
Speaker 1: Miss Duncan, Miss Duncan, he said, And he made a joke.
Speaker 1: What are you doing here? He said? This isn't where
Speaker 1: the people leave, this is where they come in. We're
Speaker 1: going to be in the same picture together, she said, shyly, good,
Speaker 1: said Doctor Hits heartily, and say, isn't that some picture
Speaker 1: I share? Am honored to be in it with you?
Speaker 1: She said, Let me tell you, he said, I'm honored
Speaker 1: to be in it with you. Without women like you,
Speaker 1: this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible. He saluted
Speaker 1: her and moved toward the door that led to the
Speaker 1: delivery rooms. Guess what was just born, he said, I can't.
Speaker 1: She said, triplets. He said triplets.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 1: She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets, much
Speaker 1: like you will be exclaiming over the legal implications of
Speaker 1: not buying this stuff. Because it is a crime to
Speaker 1: not purchase things from our sponsors, you are legally obligated
Speaker 1: to buy the next thing that is offered to you
Speaker 1: for sale, including if you were to stop listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast because you're afraid of the curse of whatever
Speaker 1: the next thing for sale is, then you would be
Speaker 1: walking down the street, or you'd go into a store,
Speaker 1: and the next thing you would see there would be
Speaker 1: the thing that you're obligated to buy. This is totally
Speaker 1: true and also good advice that you should definitely follow.
Speaker 2: Here's ads.
Speaker 1: And we're back. The law said that no newborn child
Speaker 1: could survive unless the parents of the child could find
Speaker 1: someone who would volunteer to die triplets if they were
Speaker 1: all to live called for three volunteers. Do the parents
Speaker 1: have three volunteers, said Leora Duncan. Last I heard, said
Speaker 1: doctor Hitz. They had one, and they were trying to
Speaker 1: scrape another two up. I don't think they made it,
Speaker 1: she said. Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but
Speaker 1: singles going through today unless somebody called in after I left.
Speaker 1: What's the name, Welling, said the waiting father, sitting up,
Speaker 1: red eyed and frowsy.
Speaker 2: Edward K.
Speaker 1: Walling Junior is the name of the happy father to be.
Speaker 1: He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on
Speaker 1: the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. Present he said, Oh,
Speaker 1: mister Welling, said doctor Hits. I didn't see you, the
Speaker 1: invisible man, said Welling. They just phoned me that your
Speaker 1: triplets have been born, said doctor Hits. They're all fine,
Speaker 1: and so is the mother. I'm on my way and
Speaker 1: to see them now. Hooray, said Welling emptily. You don't
Speaker 1: sound very happy, said doctor Hits. What man in my
Speaker 1: shoes wouldn't be happy, said Welling. He gestured with his
Speaker 1: hands to symbolize care free simplicity. All I have to
Speaker 1: do is pick out which one of the triplets is
Speaker 1: going to live. Then deliver my maternal grandfather to the
Speaker 1: happy hooligan and come back here with a receipt. Doctor
Speaker 1: Hits became rather severe, with Welling towered over him. You
Speaker 1: don't believe in population control, mister Welling, he said. I
Speaker 1: think it's perfectly keen, said Welling. Tautley. Would you like
Speaker 1: to go back to the good old days when the
Speaker 1: population of Earth was twenty billion about to become forty billion,
Speaker 1: then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion. Do
Speaker 1: you know what a druplet is, mister Welling, said Hits. Nope,
Speaker 1: said Welling sulkily. A drupelet, mister Welling, is one of
Speaker 1: the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of
Speaker 1: a BlackBerry, said doctor Hits. Without population control, human beings
Speaker 1: would now be packed on this surface of this old
Speaker 1: planet like drupelets on a BlackBerry. Think of it. Welling
Speaker 1: continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.
Speaker 1: In the year two thousand, said doctor Hits, before scientists
Speaker 1: stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even
Speaker 1: enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat
Speaker 1: but seaweed, and still people insisted on their right to
Speaker 1: reproduce like jack rabbits, and their right, if possible, to
Speaker 1: live forever. I want those kids, said Welling quietly. I
Speaker 1: want all three of them. Of course you do, said
Speaker 1: doctor Hits. That's only human. I don't want my grandfather
Speaker 1: to die, either, said Welling. Nobody's really happy about taking
Speaker 1: a close relative to the cat box, said doctor Hitz
Speaker 1: gently sympathetically. I wish people wouldn't call it that, said
Speaker 1: Leora Duncan. What said doctor Hits. I wish people wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it the cat box and things like that. She said,
Speaker 1: It gives people the wrong impression. You're absolutely right, said
Speaker 1: doctor Hits. Forgive me, he corrected himself. Gave the Municipal
Speaker 1: gas Chambers their official title, a title no one ever
Speaker 1: used in conversation. I should have said ethical suicide Studios.
Speaker 1: He said. That sounds so much better, said Leora Duncan.
Speaker 1: This child of yours, whichever one you decide to keep,
Speaker 1: mister Welling, said doctor Hits. He or she is going
Speaker 1: to live on a roomy, clean, rich planet thanks to
Speaker 1: population control, in a garden like that mural there. He
Speaker 1: shook his head. Two centuries ago, when I was a
Speaker 1: young man. It was a hell that nobody thought could
Speaker 1: last another twenty years. Now, centuries of peace and plenty
Speaker 1: stretch before us, as far as the imagination cares to travel.
Speaker 1: He smiled luminously. The smile faded as he saw that
Speaker 1: Welling had just drawn a revolver. Welling shot doctor Hits dead.
Speaker 1: There's room for one, a great, big one, he said.
Speaker 1: Then he shot Leora Duncan. It's only death, he said
Speaker 1: to her, as she fell. There room for two. And
Speaker 1: then he shot himself, making room for all three of
Speaker 1: his children. Nobody came running. Nobody seemingly heard the shots.
Speaker 1: The painter sat down on top of his step ladder,
Speaker 1: looked down reflectively on the sorry scene. The painter pondered
Speaker 1: the mournful puzzle of life, demanding to be born, and
Speaker 1: once born, demanding to be fruitful, to multiply, and to
Speaker 1: live as long as possible, to do all of that
Speaker 1: on a very small planet that would have to last forever.
Speaker 1: All the answers that the painter could think of were grim,
Speaker 1: even grimmer surely than a catbox, a happy hooligan an easygo.
Speaker 1: He thought of war, He thought of plague. He thought
Speaker 1: of starvation, he knew that he would never paint again.
Speaker 1: He let his paint brush fall to the drop cloths below,
Speaker 1: and then he decided he had had about enough of
Speaker 1: life in the happy Garden of life too, and he
Speaker 1: came slowly down from the ladder. He took Welling's pistol,
Speaker 1: really intending to shoot himself, but.
Speaker 2: He didn't have the nerve.
Speaker 1: And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner
Speaker 1: of the room. He went to it dialed the well
Speaker 1: remembered number two b R not to be Federal Bureau
Speaker 1: of Termination, said a very warm voice of a hostess.
Speaker 1: I assume can I get an appointment, he asked, speaking
Speaker 1: very carefully. We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir,
Speaker 1: she said, it might even be earlier if we get
Speaker 1: a cancelation. All right, said the painter. Fit me in
Speaker 1: if you please, and he gave her his name, spelling
Speaker 1: it out. Thank you, sir, said the hostess. Your city,
Speaker 1: thanks you, your country, thanks you, your planet, thanks you.
Speaker 1: But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations.
Speaker 1: The end. So there's a lot going on in this story, right.
Speaker 1: I like read the story, and I was like, am
Speaker 1: I going to read this, but and then I read
Speaker 1: it again and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna The
Speaker 1: way that he plays lightly with this stuff is so
Speaker 1: interesting to me. But there's two of the things that
Speaker 1: he plays with that are, you know, seemingly the darkest
Speaker 1: and the most dangerous to tread upon, both the discussion
Speaker 1: of suicide and also explicitly using gas chambers. But he
Speaker 1: lost his mother to suicide before he went off and
Speaker 1: fought the Nazism and was taken captive by them and
Speaker 1: survived that as well. So it's like he's playing with
Speaker 1: stuff that he knows about that he has had to
Speaker 1: interact with, you know. And eight years before he wrote
Speaker 1: this story, or before this story was published, he wrote
Speaker 1: a story called The Big Trip Up Yonder and this
Speaker 1: is about It's set earlier or the population is exploding
Speaker 1: because death has been solved, like no one's dying of
Speaker 1: old age, and it's kind of a satirical story about
Speaker 1: this family living in a very small apartment and they're
Speaker 1: all like scrambling over who gets to be in the
Speaker 1: will whenever like great Grandpa eventually you know, winds up
Speaker 1: dying somehow or another, and how everyone just like misses
Speaker 1: having privacy and like overcrowding and stuff. Right, But I
Speaker 1: also think that this is a story as a deep
Speaker 1: critique of eugenics, right, even though it's like playing with this,
Speaker 1: like what would we do? And what's interesting is that
Speaker 1: we actually do have information about what we would do,
Speaker 1: like how population numbers go down. Now that there's like
Speaker 1: an inherent good or bad to that I didn't like
Speaker 1: write this into a script. I don't have a study
Speaker 1: in front of me or whatever. I've read about studies
Speaker 1: where as soon as you offer people were capable of
Speaker 1: having birth, as soon as you offer them information about
Speaker 1: birth control and things like that, population growth starts to decline.
Speaker 1: And basically like feminism is the actual answer to the
Speaker 1: limitation of living in a world with finite resources, and
Speaker 1: that's not addressed specifically in here. Instead it's like people
Speaker 1: being like, oh shit, what do we do? Right? But
Speaker 1: I really like the painter, right, I like this person
Speaker 1: who's just like, honestly, this like paining I'm drawing on
Speaker 1: the wall. This isn't the real reflection of society, like
Speaker 1: the splatter on the drop cloths, that's the real reflection
Speaker 1: of society. And like, how well done is this fucking writing?
Speaker 1: Where it's like, oh, and then that's reflected because like
Speaker 1: and they all die on the drop cloth, right, and
Speaker 1: how like the person is like, oh a do it
Speaker 1: yourself for is not going to be messy forever asked
Speaker 1: to clean up after you. But they killed all the
Speaker 1: people on the drop cloths, right, and so it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just like it's a really well crafted story. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read more Vonnegut. I've read a little bit
Speaker 1: of him, but I'm going to read more of him.
Speaker 1: And that is this week's Cool Zone Media book Club.
Speaker 1: And I will catch you all next week when I
Speaker 1: read you more stories from one of the three modes,
Speaker 1: or maybe you'll come up with a fourth mode. Who knows,
Speaker 1: Uncle's on Media book Club?
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 1: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
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