99% Invisible - 315- Everything is Alive

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

Louis is a can of generic cola. He’s been on the shelf a long while, so he’s had some time to think. Go2 is a store brand. "People call it a knockoff," says Louis. "I've been called the best of the worst. Bottom-shelf. We can describe it as bottom-shelf. I'm at peace with that." Everything is Alive is an unscripted interview show with host Ian Chillag in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. In each episode, a different thing tells us its life story -- and everything it says is true. Subscribe to Everything is Alive on Apple Podcasts and RadioPublic

This is 99% Indusible. I'm Roman Mars. Ian Chilogue is a radio producer. You might recognize his name from the end credits of the NPR quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, or as the co-host of the Now Defunct Podcast, How to Do Everything, which I just loved. It's such a good show.

He has a new podcast out right now, launching this week, and it's delightfully weird. Well, the show is called Everything is Alive, and it's delightfully weird. Well, the show is called Everything is Alive and it's an interview show in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. So, I talked to things. So what made you want to do a show like this?

Well, a couple things. One, I think it's just like, I would just sort of think this way. Like, you know, I'd it's just like, I would just sort of think this way, like I'd, you know, I'd get up from a chair and think about what a terrible job the chair had and like, and like how the chair must feel about being sad on all the time. And then also like, I think producing for so long, you're always trying to get to like the primary source, you know? So long, you're always trying to get to the primary source.

And you're always looking for experts. I thought it would be really fun if you're putting together a piece about rainbows or whatever. And rather than talk to the physicist who understands rainbows, if you could actually talk to the rainbow. So that's kind of the idea. I know that listeners to 99% of us will are fully capable of accepting that even the most mundane objects are infused with great meaning and can say something about us as humans, but you may not be prepared for that object to actually talk. So I ask Ian for a primer on how to

listen to everything is alive. You know, if I was talking to a candle, say, like a bedroom candle, like it's not every candle, it's not speaking for every candle. It is one candle that is set on one nightstand forever and like been blown out by one person forever and has a relationship with that person, but they're kind of aware of their object communities, like it knows more about candles than we do. It also has very distinct lifetime of experiences. But the things that it says are all factual. I think I was surprised by that when I first heard the episodes that I've, the samples that I've heard.

Yeah. They know things. They know real things about their world. For the most part, they're the inanimate object version of the person at the party who like always has an anecdote for everything. They're very aware of history and of stories of what they are. So even though the situation is quite absurd on the face, when you hear a fact, it's a true fact. Yeah, there is so much about the kind of personal life of the object that you know, you know,

you know, isn't exactly real. But when I'm telling a story about something real, I don't cite it. You know, I don't tell you where I heard it. And so we're just letting the objects behave in the same way. And so there's probably, you know, there's gonna be some mystery.

And hopefully people will Google and figure out if things are real or not. This is everything is alive, hosted by Ian Toulog. Well, let's just start, Settelain, have you introduced yourself for us? My name is Lewis and I am a can of go-to cola. That's a store brand. Go-to, K-O-2. Cola.

So it's similar to Coca-Cola. Similar. People call it a knockoff. I've been called the best of the worst. You know, if you wanted to get my honest opinion, I believe in a blind taste test. Your average person wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and a can of regular Coca-Cola,

but yeah, bottom shelf. We can describe it comfortably as bottom shelf. I'm at peace with that. Literally on the- Most of the time, yeah. Okay. Well, there's a lot I want to talk to you about today. Do you need any water or anything? No, no, no. I'm completely self-contained. I want to ask you about your time before you ended up in the fridge. Yeah. You're in now. So you, um, you, I take it where you were in a supermarket? Yep. And where were you?

I was in a safe way. I was bought at a case. So there were 24 of us. We were all purchased together and actually, uh, our next residence was a bowling alley for a 12 yearold birthday party. I saw most of the rest of my case drunk at that party. I was not drunk. I was saved for later and brought home and put into a refrigerator and then forgotten about for a few months placed in the back of the fridge. Sure.

I froze in the fridge. I was in the very back and the temperature got very cold. I didn't freeze all the way through, but I had a frozen couple of weeks. You were slushy inside? I was slushy inside. I had a brief adventure when they realized I was still in the fridge and they took me out for a road trip. I got to sit in the front seat cup holder, you know. And I took a little fun road trip down to Florida and then back again and they never got around to drinking me on that trip and they put me back on the fridge and that's where I've been ever since. It sounds like you were almost chosen so many times. What does it feel like when you're, say, at this birthday party and you're waiting for your moment?

We've ever seen the movie, Jaws. Yeah. So you know the story that Robert Shaw tells to Roy Scheider and the other guy. Anyway, you know the story about the USS Indianapolis where he's in the water and the sharks are coming and he's waiting to be picked off and he's waiting and having that long dark night and one by one is seeing his friends go. That's kind of what it was like for me. It was terrifying. And on the one hand I was very angry at human beings for being in this position to consume us. And then on the other hand I was also very angry how come you didn't want to consume us. And then on the other hand, I was also very angry how come you didn't want to consume me?

Yeah. When you think about being consumed by a human, do you think about the human that you want to be in? If and when I'm finally consumed, I hope I'm consumed by someone who enjoys it. But I like to imagine that if you're drunk immediately, that instead of being a painful process, there's the sort of first moment of relief the can is cracked open. All of this internal fizzing that I have going on finally has somewhere to go. that I have going on finally has somewhere to go. Just sort of drown down from your external can and you have that last moment where you're fulfilling your purpose and beginning to blend in with this human being

and you become part of their story. Truthfully, here's how I expect to go, assuming that I am consumed. I'm expecting it's going to happen in the middle of the night, where I'm not waiting for it and someone's going to open the fridge and pull me out, and that'll be that. It would be nice to be poured into a nice big pint glass, you know. Frosty mug would be a pretty good way to go. Happy pleasant, you know. I doubt that's going to happen though. They don't reserve Frosty Mugs for go to coales. That's just another one of those facts of life. How did you see Joss? Oh, the human being who lives in my house was watching Joss. They took me out of the fridge and kept me on the table.

I thought this is it. This is my big moment. Kind of part of me. There was the Robert Jossine where he's telling the story of the Indianapolis. And I was thinking, boy, this is just too perfect. This would be amazing. It was reaching for me. He was going to go for me,

and then at the last minute, another human being came into the house and scolded him on not drinking soft drinks, so I put me back on the fridge. Wow. Yeah, I would have been perfect, huh? Yeah. You know, I should ask you,

there's a lot of talk right now about the health effects of soft drinks. People tend to think of them as very unhealthy. So, Naring, do you feel unhealthy? Do I feel unhealthy? It's hard to say it because I think if you were feeling the way I feel, you would feel unhealthy. Right. But I feel like me. I can't say that that means I feel, you would feel unhealthy. Right. But I feel like me.

I can't say that that means I feel good. But to go back to your question, unhealthy drinks are not like a new thing by any means. Have you ever heard of Rady Thor? Rady Thor? Rady Thor? All right, so back in the 20s, there was an energy drink with Radyum called Rady Thor, okay?

And the idea was it was just radioactive material in water. They claimed radithor gave you energy and cured a bunch of things. They also implied that radithor increased male virility. Radithor also killed, you know, people. So people would just drink radioactive material dissolved in water. Mm-hmm. I'm just looking it up here. There's actually, there's an eBay ad. There's a bottle of radiotheraic for sale. Oh, come on now.

Currently, $659. You gotta be kidding me. It says here, this certified radioactive water was advertised as a, quote, cure for the living dead and, quote, perpetual sunshine. It goes on. One guy who used it, Evan Biers, died from radiation poisoning and they had to bury him in a lead-lined coffin. Yeah, and that's what you get when you drink radioactive material.

So they made a beverage, which not only killed a man, but his dead body would have had they not taken precautions killed all life around him. Yes, presumably his dead body is still radiating the poisons that he drank from radii thor. In fact, the the ad goes on. They exhumed him for study in 1965 and his remains were still quite radioactive. Yep. It then mentions that the developer of Radithor was not an actual medical doctor. Yeah, that sounds about right to me too. Also, the bottle is in very good condition.

So there's your original power drink for you. That says to me more about human beings than it does about soft drinks, to be perfectly honest. Our willingness, our eagerness to find something to... Your chronic search for potency. Yeah, that's my evaluation of humanity. Chronic search for potency. Hello. Hey, I'm calling for Jeff.

Yep. Hey, Jeff, you're the man behind the bygone times vintage, right? Haha, yeah. I'm guilty. I notice one of your eBay listings. So you put up the Rady Thor? Rady Thor? Yeah.

Yeah. Is that for real? Oh, yeah, what happened was I was at a flea market and I found a set of about 20 25 of these things Okay, it was like a shipping crate or something and So yeah, I have sold a few of those. Now, and is it a reproduction or is it an original bottle? No, these are original. Yeah, original. Did you check them with a Geiger counter?

I have not. I don't know. I just assumed they wouldn't have any. There's no content in them obviously. But I haven't, no, I didn't, I didn't check up on the guy who got your count. I don't, I suspected that since I was from the 1920s, it would be done gone. I think maybe it wouldn't be gone. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they wouldn't, I don't know, maybe they would, I don't know. Can I put them under a black light or something? I hope it's still active, I would.

Huh. That raises the interesting questions, sir. Did you know much about Radithor when you you know when you know no yeah no I got on the fortunately now we have the internet so google was quite helpful it's a really an interesting story i don't know if you've taken the time to uh... to look into it but it's nice meeting yeah well i just i just heard about it it's uh... crazy that we we human i know i like the story about the guy who uh... I just heard about it. It's crazy that we humans don't. I know. I like the story about the guy who died from it, and then they dug him up in the 60s and has led

blind coffin. He was still radioactive. That's why I feel like you should maybe get checked out. You are here. I think I will. Yeah. I think I will now that you said that, because I didn't really think that the glass

would hold any of that, but I guess it's possible. You know, radiation you don't want to mess around with, I guess, when it comes down to the wall. No, I hear you. Hey, I have to, I'm driving and I don't want to, I'm getting onto a video of road now so I need to unfortunately hang up on you. Got it, yeah, be safe. Okay, bye. Lewis, one quick thing I want to ask you about, I have in my life occasionally dropped a can of soda. No, yeah.

Has that ever happened to you? Oh, it's an awful experience. You feel, I mean, obviously very shaken. There's a rush, I guess, of a human being in terms would be like a rush of adrenaline. And for a while, you're feeling just very, very hyper after the shakeup. And then you start to sort of resettle back to a neutral state, but you have this awful kind of nauseous, sick-y, sleepy feeling after the fact. And you feel kind of dumb, you know, the shakeup kind of like

rattles you a little bit, and it takes a little bit of time for your intelligence to kind of come back to you It's an awful experience. Hey, I imagine too, like we often, after that happens, we will tap on what would be your head. Don't, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't. Don't. There's no reason to do it. It doesn't do anything to the carbonation. All it does is annoy us in a very sensitive moment. Yeah, don't do that. You're listening to everything is alive on 99% of this book. So, Lewis, this might be awkward to talk about, but I feel like there's a hierarchy

to sodas, at least in terms of how humans think about them. At the top, there's, you know, Coke and Pepsi, and then there's seven up and Sprite, and then there's these, you know, like your sunkissed and great soda, Fanta, that are kind of at the bottom. I wonder if that, does that hierarchy, does it mean the same thing to you? Well, let me tell you something about Fanta. I mean, sure, here in the U.S.,

it's not the most sophisticated soft drink, but overseas, it's huge, like Japan, huge. Fanta. Fanta. In Thailand, it's all over the U.S., it's not the most sophisticated soft drink, but overseas, it's huge, like Japan, huge. Fanta. Fanta. In Thailand, it's all over the place. If you walk down the street there, you'll see half open bottles of Fanta everywhere. Stradberry Fanta in particular, everywhere, just hanging out.

Just like sitting on the street. Yeah, just on the street. Because humans there use Stradberry Fanta as an offering to ghosts. So they leave it out on the street because they're giving it to ghosts. Yes, friendly ghosts according to local costume, love, sweet red soda. So if you leave it out, it attracts them

and they hang out around your house and protect you from, you know, I guess whatever one friendly ghost might come around. Who I guess don't love sweet red soda. Right. Do you know what it is about strawberry fanta in particular? Because of the color. So there's a theory that it's because they can't do

blood offerings anymore. And so strawberry fanta, which is another, you know, red viscous liquid, would be the next best thing. Strawberry fanta among the sodas available to us looks the most like blood. Yeah, which I personally don't see. Okay, but you know, it's a Thailand thing. We humans, we think a lot about, you know, spirits or at least, you know,

what might happen to us after we die? Do you as a cola? Do you think about that the afterlife? Yeah. Oh, yeah. How do you not think about it all the time? Yeah. Oh yeah. How do you not think about it all the time? Yeah. Because I'm reaching that age myself, or I'm probably not going to be around that much longer.

You are, I mean, you are recyclable. Yeah. Which opens up a whole other conversation. You know, my body, my can will almost certainly be repurposed. And then that leads me to, you know, ask questions of like, well, have I already been repurposed? I don't know. You could have been any number of sodas or anything else.

An airplane? I could have been. I actually, when I was younger, I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was, there was a plane crashing. There was an ocean and a beach. And then it was nighttime and it was raining and there was a plane crashing on the beach. And I used to like to think that in a previous existence I was part of an airplane. And this was some sort of memory that had traveled with me. Maybe I was part of like a ventilation

system on board of a 747 or something. You refer to your your can as your body or your body as your can. Is there an equivalency between you know a human's talk about body and soul? Is that I'm sorry? No, no. I'm only sighing because I wish I had the answer to this question. Is there an equivalence? Yes. Yes, the body-mind problem that human beings have been dealing with since the days of day-cart is something all too familiar to us, cans of soda. Am I just a can? Am I soda? What does it mean to be soda? Am I part of the larger ocean of soda out there? Am I just the individuated soda? Am I soda interacting with a can? Am I can being slowly eaten away by the soda inside me? I thought about this a lot. Yeah. I don't have an answer, but it's something I wrestle with all the time. What am I fundamentally?

Once the soda is gone, the can remains, but by by me. I think, yeah, who knows? Who knows? These are the mysteries that permeate every level of existence as far as I know. I have to say, I think about the type of can you are with the pull tab. Mm-hmm. And then I think about other cans in the kitchen, you know, like a soup can.

I don't know if you know any soup can. I know a couple of soup cans. And it occurs to me me you are So lucky Because you think about the way a soup can gets open. Oh, yeah, that the I can't open or to me Seems like a torture device. It is and let me tell you something else too The I thank God every day of my life that I was not born to can't administer any soup I at least have lived a life. I know where I've been, you know? I'm not all of my dreams may have necessarily come true.

I may have taken a couple of bad turns here and there, but at least at the end of the day I've been witness to my own life. These poor bastards are stuck in these soup cans. I talk about hermetically sealed. They lose all sense of time and perspective. When you open a can of soup, when they wake up, they have no idea how much time has passed. They're like astronauts coming out of cryogenic freeze. And they're all spaced out and they're completely disoriented.

They don't know what's going on. And their wake up call is being torn open by these damn can openers. What a nightmare of an existence. Their flesh is literally busted open, only to wake up into a world that they don't know anything about. All the rest of us stay away from the cans of soup. And I'll be honest with you, I feel awful about it. But whenever I try to talk to a can of soup,

they are weird. You've mentioned that you're feeling like you're nearing the end of your life. Oh, yeah. What do you feel old or do you? Oh, yeah. Oh, very much so. I know for a fact, I'm old.

I can look at my expiration date. Okay. And can I ask how close you are? T-minus two weeks to go, my friend. Wow. So what? But you could keep going on after that. I could, it's not recommended, but I could. Does it seem, I mean, I think about this with you,

because I'm sorry if I have this, isn't the right way to put it, but it seems like your purpose is to be consumed by a human. Yeah. And so, you know, we all want to serve our purpose. We all want to be useful. Yeah. And yet, for you, the moment of your use is the moment where you are no more.

And I wonder if that's something you anticipate with optimism or if it feels like, you know, approaching the end? That's a paradox, isn't it? It is, yeah. Well, I guess on the one hand, I do sort of You know approaching the end. It's a paradox isn't it? It is yeah. I guess on the one hand I Do sort of Dread the idea of being consumed. Yeah, you know all beings endeavor to persist in their own being

Spinoza said that I heard about that from a couple coffee But on the other hand I Guess on some level I still about that from a couple of coffee. But on the other hand, I guess on some level I still hope that I will kind of fulfill myself by being consumed. I think that dream is still very much alive. Though if I'm being perfectly honest with you, I do sometimes fear that that moment is past. You know, I do, I do sometimes fear that that moment is passed. I feel weird saying this, but I could drink you.

Right now? Yeah. I mean, I want, I, I, I, I want you, I'm, I am thirsty, but I also, I want this to be a good moment for you. I want you to be red. I don't want you to do it if you're not ready. Well, I'll make a deal with you. I've always said I wanted to go with my eyes wide open. I'm prepared to end it here if you promise me that even if you're disgusted by how I taste, you will finish the camp. I will make you that promise. Is there anything you want to say to the humans you've encountered, the cans you've encountered, the countertops you've known? I think overall I would say life is a gift and a blessing

and I don't believe anything ends, but everything simply transforms into the next thing. I would say if I can be a little bit soft-hearted and sentimental for a moment or two, it's a gift to get to be anything at all. Well, maybe what we'll do in the just in the interest of journalism is I'll drink about half and then we'll check in again. Great. Do you want to talk while I'm drinking you? I don't. No. Okay. No, I want to have the full experience. Okay, but I'll check in with you at the halfway mark. Alright, so I'm picking you up. Give me one second.

Okay. Are you ready? Mm-hmm. This I have to say feels delightful. All right, well, I guess cheers to you with you. Here's hoping for the best. I mean you're you are delicious. Thank you. You're very gentle. This is a trippy feeling. I'm not going to lie. All right, my first report. Feeling very spacious inside right now. I feel like I've got room to be. Yeah. But I'm also I'm feeling the warmth of the tummy. A very strange thing. I mean two places at once spacious in my own body, but feeling warm and secure in your own tummy. Wow

All of a sudden I find myself Thinking about my body. I'm thinking about my body and I'm hoping that my body is a good place for you I think so. I don't mind telling you my first impression of the inside of your own tummy. You seem to be taking pretty good care of yourself. Thank you. Yeah. I am seeing some, are you sweating? Sings some, with joy.

All right, I'm going to, I'm going to have a little more. I am seeing some are you sweating seeing some with joy? All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna have a little more you go ahead and finish me off. Okay Are you are you still there? Everything is Alive is produced by Jennifer Mills and Ian Chilock. This episode had reporting from Patrick Wynn and Timothy Dorgonson. In the piece we heard the song Sheets 2 by the band Mountains of their album Coral. Lewis, the can of generic cola, was played by Lewis Cornfeld. Find out more at everythingisalive.com. I'll have a behind the scenes discussion with Ian and a preview of this season of Everything

Is Alive after this. What attracted you to tell the story of Lewis, the generic cola, as the first episode of Everything Is Alive? I think I imagined that a can of generic cola would maybe have a chip on a shoulder. It's always being compared to like the big guy, you know, the Coca-Cola. It's even been made to try and trick people into thinking it's Coca-Cola, but you know, it has its own identity. Maybe that makes it bitter. I mean that in the emotional sense, not in the flavor sense.

But because there's a relationship between generic things and non-generic things, that it would already have some personality that made sense. And the conversations are like the real interviews. Like, we don't script them. We just ask a person to do a little research or like we give them research. And then I interview them and I don't know. And so like things where, you know, where there's a little bit of character already to the thing, I think it's more fun and it's easier for the actor to voice it. I know Lewis is an actor. Is the eBay guy an actor? No. That's a real person. Yeah, that's a real person. Yeah, we called him up, I don't know, there was a number on his Facebook page.

Yeah, he's real. He's okay. I'll tell you that. Good. Because he's a very good character. Yeah. That's amazing. And he's fine, though. Yeah, he's fine.

I did, I started to do a little research about like if glass would actually hold radiation and I actually don't know the answer to that, but he, I can hit for his case, he's fine. Can you tell people what to expect in this season of everything is a lot? We have, I mean, a number of things we're talking to, we're talking to a lamppost named Maeve. There's a bar of soap named Tara. Right now, I'm working on an interview with Jake, who is a mailbox, a mouse trap, who actually, she has to use a pseudonym But she

She's having the Maltstrafe is having a lot of second thoughts about what she's asked to do. She doesn't yeah, she does not want to kill mice She has a lot of other ideas about what she could do instead, given the form she was given, known of which R is good as being a mouse trap. Mouse trap can kind of only mouse trap turns out. That's right. They're all really going to be different and we really want them all to be different things. They're going to be deep thinking objects and they're going to be different things. They're going to be deep thinking objects, and they're going to be superficial objects.

And I think they're going to be unlikable objects. You know? There are certainly objects who don't like me very much. Uh-huh. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- Yeah, I mean, I think our goal is just that it be a diverse community of things, you know, so. Right. Do they not like you on principle or through the action of you interviewing them? It's no, yeah, it's through me interviewing them.

It's fun, you know, like I realize, because I really, I feel the same interviewing a thing as I do interviewing a person. I really do. And sometimes, after the interview, I'll realize there was something I was afraid to ask. And what was wrong with me? Why was I afraid of offending that dust pile? But I was. Is there an ultimate get for you that you're like working your way up towards? There is, yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm trying to take the things very seriously. But I do think if the final episode of this show was an interview with an ice cube played by ice cube. It's a- I- It'll be very satisfied. Everything is alive. It's the latest show from radio toopia from PRX. Get it at everything isalive.com at radiotopia.fm on Apple Podcasts and Radio Public.

99% Invisible is a project of KALW San Francisco and produced on Radio Row in beautiful downtown Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussion about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars in the show at 99PI Orc, or on Instagram, Tumblr, and Reddit too. But our true home on the web is 99PI.org. Thanks.