Bittersweet Infamy - 136 Merry Mitchmas

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Josie Margaret Mitchell, Taylor Mitchell Basso, and guest host Mitchell Charles Collins ring in Mitchmas, a made-up holiday celebrating people named Mitchell, by exchanging infamous stories—including a compendium of psychic pets, the surprising history of Christmas tree tinsel, and how a song that came to its writer in a nightmare became Natalie Imbruglia's 1997 smash hit "Torn."

Taylor here. We hope you enjoy the special that we've pulled together debuting Mitch Miss, our made-up holiday celebrating people named Mitchell. Just to let you know, a supersized video version of this episode is available for free over at our coffee account, K-O-5Fi.com slash bittersweet infamy. The video version is more than 90 minutes longer and features Josie, Mitchell, and I sharing extra stories, enjoying some Christmas Cracker riddles, putting on a chapeau fashion show with our brand new French boyfriend hats, and you can even meet Josie and Mitchell's new cat, Princess Stanley Popcorn. As we mark the end of 2025, we're extremely grateful for our paid coffee supporters. If you want to become a subscriber in 2026, for three bucks a month, you'll gain

access to exclusives like The Bitter Sweet Film Club, where we watch and discuss infamous films. Most recently, we watched the Shannon Doherty TV movie thriller Almost Dead. That conversation was a lot of fun, and we hope you have fun listening along at K-O-Fi-Fi.com slash bittersweet infamy. We'll be back in January with the romantic comedy working girl at the suggestion of our beloved subscriber Terry, and we'll be back in January to debut season six of the main podcast. That, of course, remains free for all. Happy holidays, merry mitchmiss, and on with the show. Welcome to Bitter Sweet Influence. I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on and in me.

The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet. Christmas may not have come yet, but it's over. The institution, the holiday of Christmas, it's passe, it's tired. It's just not Mitchmiss. It's not.

It's not. Listeners, welcome, and merry Mitchmiss. How are you, Mitchell? I'm feeling really Mitchy today. I'm feeling pretty Mitch. I feel the Mitch is in the air, you know? I got 99 problems and a Mitch is one because we're here to celebrate Mitchmas are made-up holiday celebrating people named Mitchell. Josephine Margaret Mitchell, how are you?

I'm good. It's a very, very happy Mitch-Miss and the spirit is within me, truly. Mitchell Charles Collins, how are you? I'm great. You'll never believe. just happened to me right before we started recording. I was about to put my headphones on, and then I saw a boy walk outside the door.

And I opened up the door, and I said, You, boy, what day is it? And then he said, it's Mitchmiss, sir. I was like, go get me a podcast mic. The biggest podcast mic you can find. Is that big podcast mite still hanging in the butcher shop window? Tis sir, I don't know why it's there. It's not a goose.

Well, go and fetch it for me. Have two shillings. And then you whip them out into the snow, even though it's Houston. How's the weather in Houston in December? It's hot. It's hot today. It's, uh, the weather, the temp is going up. It's in the 80s. Taylor Mitchell.

How are you? How are you? On this Mishmas day. I am good. I have completed my annual Mitchmiss tradition of watching the mid-century crime drama, Mitchell. Oh, great. Mitchell. The crime film is simply entitled Mitchell. Don't ask me what it's about, please. I've been told about. my whole life to watch this based on like mystery science theater, I think. There's so many people that have come up to me that aren't even like movie buffs, but they're like,

Mitchell and they do that and then like they tell me to watch it. I've never seen it. Let's watch it as a Mitch miss pick for our next year in Film Club. Next, but we don't do really Mitch Miss during. We don't, because Film Club takes a little break during the season. Well, when we come back.

Oh yeah, when we come back. I should say to all of our listeners, including those who are watching the video version of this episode, which you can see for free, accessible to all, is a Mitchmas gift. On coffee.com, K-O-HifinFi.com slash Bittersweet Infamy, you can see exclusive content and we'll flag that to you as it comes during the show. You can see our beautiful faces. We've decorated a little bit.

There's like a plush tree in the background with Josie. And a large spider. A spider. The traditional Mish Mish Mip. It is the Mishm spider, after all. Who could forget? Mitchell the spider. Yeah.

He delivered all the gifts because Santa was busy with Christmas. and only Mitchell the spider noticed that everyone had forgotten Mishmiss. So he ran after Santa in his... Roller skates. Eight ice skates. Eight skates. Eight skates. Eight skates.

Eight skates. Eight skates. And delivered all of the Mitchmas gifts to all of the good children named Mitchell. And everybody knows the famous song, the Eight Skates of Christmas, which is the Mishmists. Eighth skates of Mitchmiss. One of the classic Mitchmiss songs. One of the many classic Mitchmiss songs. There's a lot of great, great Mishmiss songs.

And you can. learn all of them over with us at the video version of this podcast. Just our little thank you for being such devoted listeners slash we didn't want to make the mixtape this year. It's actually really labor intensive. We just did a bunch of eclipse work for the road trip. With that having been said, we're really excited to celebrate this made-up holiday of people named Mitchell, all three of us randomly having the same name. And we decided that we would make that the centerpiece of our formerly our Christmas episode, this year our Mitchmiss episode, and that we would exchange gifts. We would do a little bit of a gift exchange for Mitchmiss. So each of us has brought a story

to share with one other person in the room. We did a little fake name draw. We've got a story for one other person in the room and there's no theme other than, well, what would this person enjoy hearing to wrap up season five of Bitter Sweet Infamy, which technically already ended, but we have our little island of the Mitchmiss special. Mitchmiss Island. Island of Mitchmiss toys. Ah. The island of Mitch Fit toys. Mitch Fit, thank you.

All my favorite Mitch Fit toys got together. I really like laid that. I threw that up and you did an Aleoup and dunked it. Thank you. No, absolutely. Mitchmiss is about teamwork. It is. And friendship.

Unity. Mitch miss means friendship. Weed. Mitch miss means friendship. Weed. Look at that Mitchmas spirit you got. That Mitchmas spirit overflow with. And on that note, do we have?

have any further business before we dive into our Mitchmiss fables? Have we met quorum? I mean, the Mitchmiss quorum? Yeah. Are we here? He's the recorder this year. Who's taking minutes? I can hate taking the minutes.

All right. It's not me. The worst part of Mitchmiss. It's true. The Mitchmiss minute. The worst part of Mitchmiss is following Robert's Rules of Order. For Mitchmiss, as is tradition, it is now time for the Mitchmiss gift exchange. but we don't give physical gifts.

Not here. We give stories. It's true. Stories. For the listeners, we've prepared three stories, but they're not Christmas themed or particularly holiday themed, or they might be. I don't know, because Josie and Mitchell have each prepared their own stories. I can tell you that mine's not particularly Christmas or holiday themed.

But it is something that I thought that my dear friend Mitchell might enjoy. I'm so excited. Mitchell Collins. Yeah, which much. I should be clear on Mitch. Yeah, exactly. I'm very excited. Was Shannon Mitchell Doherty?

Mitchell? I thought that Mitchell Collins might like what I had brought. It's something that I've had on my mind for a long time, because it originally came to my attention during the taping of one of our season four episodes, number 106, the Party Bus Omnibus, that there was a karmic wrong in the world that needed writing. So first thing that I want to disclose to our listeners who may not have listened to number 106, the Party Bus Omnibus, which is genuinely an excellent episode. One of my favorite episodes, certainly is season four.

Josie gave me a great, wonderful birthday surprise to celebrate what was at the time my upcoming birthday and gave me a bunch of party themed stories. It was really, really a lot of fun. I like that one a lot. That one's fun, yeah. I like that one a lot, too. but what I didn't like was to hear Mitchell Collins about the thing that had been done to you, my dear friend. So first thing that I want to foreground here is that you are a scholar and a journalist of international political affairs.

That is true. Thank you for reminding everyone. And you. What was your focus, I guess, when it came to like foreign powers that you might blog about? You are you referring to when Kevin and me told each other that we're going to assign each other blogs to do? And he assigned me not just North Korea, but the particular nationalistic ideology of Korean Juche. And I made a blog about it that I kept that alive for like six months and then I've never touched it again. Six months is honestly really impressive. And to be clear, what were your background and qualifications that made you an appropriate person to speak at length about Juche?

Oh, I would say so little and so much in the opposite direction, being a white American man living in the 21st century, I'd say like I was the worst person to speak on this topic, given the history of that region and why they are so totalitarian, I think, is mostly due to the failings of white Americans and the evils of white Americans. And so I think if anyone should read a blog about it, it should not be by a person like me. And yet I did it. You know what? And I learned a lot. I'm thankful I did. I learned so much about it. And maybe some other people out there learned a little bit too. I don't know. Or got misguided by my poor research. What are we, Josie and I, if not white people presenting our research on subjects, we know nothing about us. We can't judge you. Amen, Mitchell. We need like a little greeting. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch me.

Mitch me with that. Mitch me with that. Mitch me. And for the listeners at home thinking, well, Kevin and Mitchell were doing reciprocal blogs here, right? They were giving each other topics to do. What topic did Mitchell give to Kevin? During that episode, the Party Bus Omnibus, I had the same question, so we literally just called Mitchell into the room to ask. You called me into the room and I had just taken a 20 milligram edible. I remember it was really something. It was really something.

It was great. So if you want to hear what Mitchell sounds like zoinked on an edival, here's a clip. Taylor? Hey, when Kevin gave you the assignment to do your juche blog, what was the assignment that you gave him in return? I'm so glad you asked. First of all, happy early birthday. Thank you. It's really kind. So he assigned me that, and I assigned him psychic pets. Oh, that's right.

Pets with psychic abilities, psychic animals. Interesting. Why that? I wanted to know. I wanted to learn more. Cool. Thank you. You can go. Anything else?

That's okay, thank. No, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. No, Mitchell, I like your friend Kevin. We hung out a bit at your wedding. Yeah. Nice person.

When you told me that Kevin had not followed through on his end and done the psychic pet blog, I could have killed him. I was fucking furious to hear that. That offended me. Thank you. on your behalf. You were so chill about it. Probably now that I know because of that 20 milligram edible that you too. That's why. It boiled my blood. Thank you for that. I feel validated by you saying that. You know what? My blood unboiled. I have

righted this wrong, this cosmic wrong that was done to you, Mitchell. Thank you, Mitch. Because I thought this is a, this is a, this is a young man, a young Mitch who deserves a real friend. I thought. Thank you. And so I, I picked up the ball that Kevin dropped and I have prepared a little dossier for you on psychic pets as your Mitchman's gift. Woo boy. I'm so excited, Taylor. Oh, I'm getting all warm and fuzzy and Mitchie in here. Okay.

So I've got to say, having just excoriated Kevin for his... We love Kevin over here, by the way. Huge fans of Kevin. Honorary Mitchell. Some of us. We haven't voted on it yet. I was going to say, do we have quorum on that way? No.

Having done the research now on this subject, I understand maybe why Kevin was dissuaded from it. There's actually not a lot here. It's hard research to do. I even found a book by an author named Michael Streeter called Psychic Pets. It's got a longer name that I'll kind of shout out later on. But it tends to be a lot more about things that I consider like spooky and impressive powers that animals have that I do not consider to be psyched.

For example. There's a big chapter on like dogs who find their way back home after being left behind. To me, that's not psychic. That's like... Oh, word bound. Yeah, that's just like you can smell and good trackers. You know what I mean? That's not psychic.

Immediately, I can tell that the right bitch is telling me this story right now, because I agree completely. Like, whenever, like, animals, for instance, can, like, sense that someone's going to die, that's great. But, like, I don't think that's psychic. I think that's like an... You know... Also, not on my list.

Yeah, also, another thing that I specifically excluded, I'm like, oh, no, we're just admitting some sort of weird pheromone that cats can smell because we're about to kick it or something. Yeah, they have senses that we don't have. because we're not them. Well put. Mitch me with that. Mitch me with that.

The book Psychic Pets gets a lot into like stories like the one that I covered back in episode 101 of Hachiko or Greyfriars Bobby that are sort of these like very loyal pets that will like stay by either the grave or a site frequented by

the master to whom they are loyal. That is literally, you're just filling up a book, Michael Streeter. There's nothing to say those dogs can tell what card I'm holding up that they can't see. You know what I mean? Oh yeah.

Notice that it's Michael and not Mitchell. There's distinction. We would have written this book a lot differently, Mitchell. That's why I married her. I was going to say, we didn't even talk about your brief fancy of changing your name to Mitchell, Mitchell. What ended up dissuading you in the end? Well, I am not dissuaded my zine that I just made. Shout out to my zine, everybody. If you live in Houston.

He's going to bust your ass so hard because Rui always jokes about you two making zines. Well, he should stop joking and start reading, okay? Yeah, true and, true. The end of my zine, I sign it as Mitchell-Mitchell. And it's not like a legal thing I've changed my name to. But it's a cute little bit. It's your pen name? Yeah, it's a pen name.

But we've also come to the realization that why should he change his last name to Mitchell? When he could change his last name to Josie. Right. That's a new thing we're on. Wow. Mitchell Josie and Joezy. Yeah. Mitchell Josie. Yeah.

That's fucking crazy. Yeah. Mitchell Josie. That's so high concept. Oh, yeah. You're going to get a lot of haters, but I support it. Thank you. It would be good.

It'd be great. I think so good. They'll be ready for it in 50 years. They'll be ready for it in 50 years. Yeah, exactly. We'll be dead. But other things that I did not factor into, the thing is I didn't factor in homing abilities.

I didn't factor in disease detection. I didn't factor in precognizance of earthquakes. Okay. This is a big thing. Yeah. Around the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, there was a big talk of, well, a lot of the animals, like, kind of moved inland when that was happening. Did they sense something extra sensory?

They probably feel vibrations differently or, like, they have, you know. Yeah. I don't think psychic. No psychic on that. But that begs the question, which I know you hate. Sorry, Taylor, Pictal Basso. It asks the question. It asks the question. How do you define psychic?

Thank you for saying this. So the way that I broke it down, because I just needed some sort of parameter to investigate that wouldn't take me forever, that I could probably hopefully find an example or two of each, was I broke it down into four categories of what I consider to be roughly the four different types of psychic. I'm sure there are other psychics to the, like, I can tell where your lost keys are.

I didn't really do any of those because, again, to me, dogs, for example, are just really good trackers. It's, you can't really tell what's going on there. I broke it down into four categories. Clairvoyance, which I wrote as ability to divine the future. So can you reasonably predict in a way that is obviously a prediction what is going to happen and does it come true? Okay.

Second category is telepathy. That is the ability to communicate with the mind. Not using other cues. Gotcha. The third one is mediumship. This is ability to communicate with the dead. This is a different kind of psychic. Yeah.

And then last I chose to investigate telekinesis, the ability to move objects with the mind. Oh. Amazing. So these are the four types of psychic pets that I looked into. Let's see what we've got. Let's see what we've got. Let's see. We will start with clairvoyance.

Did either of you ever hear back around the late aughts, like 2008 to 2010, did either of you ever hear about Paul the octopus who could predict the winners of the World Cup matches? No, that's great. That's fantastic. Didn't make it down here. World Cup. Okay. We're talking World Cup soccer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

FIFA, FIFA. Paul was quite the hot commodity back in the day, quite the hot calamari, if you like. Is that squid? Is that octopus? I don't know. Pig anus, really Wow You've never heard that claim?

What? No, get into it Fried calamari is just like The anus of a pig, yeah Oh, okay, Tichu wrong Does that like a martita line? Who said that to you?

Yeah, I don't know It's like what's in your hot dog Probably all the parts of Probably buttholes? Yeah But I always thought of Kalamari Was like a delicacy or something, no? Or is it just what you do with the loose ends?

That one I couldn't answer for you. I mean, I like Calamari, like a fried calamari appetizer. And if you told me, like, if you just renamed it, like, pig butthole, I'd say like another pig butthole for me, please. That's the Mitchmas spirit. Thank you. Thank you. Paul wasn't technically a pet, but he was in captivity at an aquarium. To me, that is pet. You're an animal in captivity who sees a lot of visitors in a day. Effectively, you're a pet, though. You can never truly domesticate an octopus. I think they're, like, too smart. You hear a lot of sassy octopus. Post stories, you know, Octopi fucking with their handlers.

But Paul lived at Sea Life in Oberhaus in Germany where the entertainment director Daniel Thay noticed something different about Paul. Quote, there was something about the way he looked at our visitors when they came close to the tank. It was so unusual. So we tried to find out what his special talents were. I'm not sure where they got as far as testing like non-clairvoyance talents of his. Did they see how his like script was?

Did they see, you know. piano playing. I was going to say, can he carry a tune, you know, whatever. Yeah, open jars and other things. Well, that's kind of where we end up with the way that we figure out his clairvoyant abilities. Natural next step when you're thinking, okay, how, you know, does Octopus Scott talent? We see if he can predict which matches the German soccer team will win in the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament. The way that it worked is basically they would put a plastic box in a,

his tank with a muscle or an oyster inside, two boxes, two plastic cubes, each with like the logo of a team on it. Okay. So you got, you know what I mean? Let's say you've got Germany with the German flag over here and Italy with the Italian flag over here. And then whichever box he goes into and eats the seafood, naturally, that is the prediction that he has divined psychically.

Of course. He's obviously thinking about the World Cup when he's doing it and he's choosing. He ends up getting, I think, like, four out of their six wins, correct. The other two predictions, presumably, taking place on a day when Paul was overtired, hangary, you know, the 5G was blocked, you know, something interfered with the signal. The fact that he only got four out of six, right, which is like, it's a decent hit rate, but it's also like, you know, it's a C plus or whatever. Yeah, it's not perfect.

That didn't dissuade them from perhaps testing, you know, maybe this is the type of thing that needs to be developed. Perhaps he's still coming into his psychic powers, right? Right. On to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he builds on his success seven out of seven correct predictions of Germany's performance.

Oh my God. And a correct final prediction of Spain's victory. Wow. Whoa. That's something. Wow. Paul. Maybe he's psychic.

Maybe he's a psychic octopus. I think that's what I'm thinking right now. Like a gig octopus. This attracted criticism from both skeptics and believers in the supernatural. Academics like Chris Budd, University of Bath, David Spiegelhalter, Cambridge University, both professors, said Paul had gotten lucky the way that you might if you flipped a coin over and over and continuously got heads. Yeah. Okay. Everybody's a hater.

Let your haters be your waiters at the Aquarium of Success, Eric Adams. Exactly. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejahs. Excuse me? Criticised the human hands that enabled Paul as being emblematic of Western decay and decadence. Of course he would. Quote, Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to be human perfection,

basing themselves in the love of all sacred values. Wow. Those are some strong words about a psychic octopus. Unfortunately, Paul died October 26, 2010, at 2.5 years, typical for his species, having notched 12 correct predictions out of 14 in his psychic career, a success rate of 85.7%. That's a B, solid. He was commemorated with a Google Doodle featuring him enjoying World Cup festivities from heaven where all octopi go.

Oh, RIP, Paul. Do you consider that to be a psychic octopus? Okay, my first reaction is like, maybe just kind of got lucky, you know? But then at the same time, my follow-up reaction, which comes very quickly on the heels of that, is, you know, why the fuck not? The world's a big, crazy place. Why not? Why not Santa? Why not at Miracle and 34th Street?

Why not today? Why not Chris Gringle? Okay, yeah, enough of this. I don't think that octopus was psychic. Here's why. Okay, here's why. I think that if this were legitimately a psychic octopus, you shouldn't need to place food in the containers. Oh.

My thing I was going to say that I've thought about a little more is that it's not that I feel so strongly that Paul is not psychic, but that it's the type of psychickness that I'm not particularly very interested in. Like people predicting what sports team is going to win. Back to the future to Grey Sports Almanac psychic. What stocks do I invest in? But yeah, I agree with you. Your take on Paul, I think I have to agree. I don't know if that follows the Mishma's spirit, but I understand. I understand.

In your head, the Mitchmas spirit is just like say yes to everything. There's a component of that in it. But then shut every once in a while just totally shut something down. I think that's the Mishmiss spirit. Mitcheliff, you want an animal that makes you maybe feel more individually seen. You could go to Jedberg in Scotland near the border. Gateway to Scotland, it's called apparently. Oh, great.

Where you could visit Billy. He's a six-year-old goat. And with the help of his owner and handler, Sue Zacharias, he can prophesize the future using special animal tarot cards. This is what I was hoping to hear about, this kind of thing right now. Animal tarot cards, wow. Well, they're not, I mean, that makes it sound more impressive than it is. I think that they're just tarot cards where...

Laminated? Yeah, probably laminated, goat mouth resistant. Yeah. Like, she's like, I took out the bummer cards so that you don't feel bad that my goat told you that you're right. is going to cheat on you kind of thing. Oh, stop it! Mitch me with that.

Okay, I see. I see. According to the mirror who profiled Handler and Goat in 2023, Sue's grandmother had the gift, capital T, capital G, and would read tea leaves for warwives in Suffolk in 1940s, and passed on a legacy of fortune-telling. Now Sue, who lives in Scotland, works with Billy to continue the family tradition. Billy was given to her by a friend when her pre-year-old. previous goat, Boots, who also told Fortunes, died.

Aw. RIP Boots the House. Sue asks customers to stroke Billy until they feel grounded, quotes. Then Billy will choose a card for them with his mouth. Notably, Billy has predicted that Prince William and Prince Harry will not reconcile their feud. This was 2023. I love this. I love this so much.

Because that's, it's the mirror, right? Of course, they're just going to start asking, like, is Kate Middoden going to have another baby? You know, it's just shit like that. This is the kind of stuff I want to hear from animal psychics. Royal Bossom. Yes. No, honestly, and I'm thankful to be, like, hearing this right now. Thank you.

You can find Billy on Facebook at the page. Billy Bowler Psychic Goat and Goat is all caps. So he's a goat, but he's like the goat, you know? Greatest of all time. Yeah, yeah. His most recent post celebrated Billy's appearance on the cover of Pick Me Up magazine, alongside stories like we were married at a funeral and karaoke sex attack. Amazing.

Which I don't mean to make light of a sex attack, but funny thing to put next to the psychic goat, what do you think about Billy, the psychic goat? I fully believe Billy, 100%. No doubt in Billy. What makes you feel that way? Because it's a type of psychic that I enjoy the most. And Billy just, I like the sound of Billy. Sounds trustworthy.

Billy good. But I like this thing that is sometimes there's a certain type of prophecy, unlike in sports, where a very boring and measurable outcome does not take place ever. Like, the boring thing about sports to me is that one team will, in fact, win or lose, and there will be a score at the end of the day. But you want a meteor. I want this marriage will last. This marriage will fail.

These things are hard things to measure. And over the- You're liking a binary, though, there. No, not a binary. Life is not in a binary. It's very easy to measure if you give a goat two signs to look between. And it's will this marriage last yes or no. Now we're just back in Paul the Octopus territory.

I'm again, think that this is not a real psychic animal. Okay, okay, that's fine. And here's my reasons. Number one, the grandmother was a fortune teller, and then she's a fortune teller, and then she's had two fortune-telling goats. To me, this is a skill in a process that's being taught, you could say, okay, maybe psychic skills are being taught.

But then when we look at the actual things that the goat is doing, in the context of, is Harry's marriage going to last? Then it's picking a binary option, yes or no. That's how they do it. You can see they have little signs. Okay. It's like this is clearly what the mirror has done, right? This woman clearly has her own like fortune-telling practice

that is like within her that she's using her goat as like a tool slash a gimmick to do. But it's very stroke the goat until you feel ground. Okay. That's good. Okay. You're making me feel sad. Have a goat choose a tarot card. That's as good as any other way to choose a tarot card. That's okay. Have the tarot card interpreted. Well, that's going to be the woman doing that, not the goat, because goats can't talk. So it's just, it's just like a gimmicked tarot reading, right? Which is I'm, I'm all for tarot readings as tools in the same way that sitting down with a goat and stroking it until you feel grounded is probably a pretty calming and positive tool. Yeah.

But I don't necessarily know that I believe in their divination capabilities. And I think it's sussy that this woman has had multiple psychic goats. Josie, over to you for the last words. I convinced Mitchell I could hear it. He sounded sad. Yeah, you did convince me. I am of the firm belief that goats have those weird eyes, the pupils that are like... Because that lets them see the future.

Yeah. And therefore, Billy the goat is totally psychic. Just goats. Are you trying to say that all goats are psychic? No, no, no, they have the capability. They, it's their, if they so choose to mind that. Yeah. Unlike dogs and octopi, I'm convinced all goats go to hell.

I've met some mean goats. Do you want to live deliciously? Oh, yeah. Would thou like to live demitiously? Dmitiously. Oh, stop it, you'll stop it. Don't bitch me with that. Telepathy, telepathic animals.

Yeah, yeah, let's hear this one. I was really excited to do this research because it involved reading the work of a person who I was kind of weirdly already familiar with by reputation, which is an English scholar of the paranormal named Rupert Sheldrake. Oh. A Harry Potter character? It sounds like a fictional. It does sound like a fictional name. It does. And I almost like, I didn't think he was fictional, but I thought he was a lot maybe old time year than he was based on some of the things that he is.

studying and measuring. And basically the way that his theory of morphic fields works is that there's just this collective unconsciousness that we are all permanently tapped into that is, I guess, generated by our shared psychic ability and which if we could tap into it, we would be able to communicate psychically or we are able to communicate psychically. Okay. If only, we could tap in. Only we could tap in.

The idea of animal telepathy is that. there are animals that are very capable of tapping in. And the way that this animal telepathy tends to be measured is specifically, does my animal know when their owner is about to call on the phone, or do they know when their owner is about to arrive home from work? Oh. Interesting. I'm sorry to bring such a skeptic energy to this. No, it's okay. I have to say, I was really disappointed by the, I thought we were going to have some, like, Mitsy is capable of, like, knocking two times.

This is what I want. You know what I mean? Yeah. I wanted, I was hoping that we would hear some kind of, like, a transcription animal where, like, maybe it's a hoax, but we've got, like, this person who, like, types out the thoughts of Mitchie, you know what I mean? Yeah. You get a lot more like this.

When the telephone rings in the household of a noted professor at the University of California at Berkeley, his wife knows when her husband is on the other end of the line because whiskins, their silver tabby cat, rushes to the telephone and pause at the receiver. Many times he succeeds in taking off the hook and makes appreciative meows that are clearly audible to my husband at the other ends, she says. If someone else telephones, whiskins takes no notice. Okay. It feels like the first thing you talked about, like when you gave your caveats about like, well, this is not including this. It's not including like, it feels like one of those.

It's just an example of that. Yep. Yeah. I agree. It feels like the Mitzkins could be just reacting to like the whiskins. Whiskins, I'm so sorry, is reacting to, like, the behavior of her on the phone and, like, how she is different. Or anything of the sort. Yeah.

Or notices that, like, maybe the wife is expecting a call. Honestly, another thing that I didn't include was animals with, like, really cool abilities other than psychic ability. But it becomes relevant here because there's this story in the 1930s. I learned this from Nancy Drew's secretly old clock. There's a story of a, quote-unquote, psychic horse in the 1930s who, it's not a psychic course story. who could do math. Mouth horse. And the idea was that you'd ask him like, what's four plus three?

And then he would clip-clop seven times, then he'd stop. But it comes to pass that the reason that he would stop very likely is because he was just noticing subtle cues of the people once he reached the right answer. And then, of course, once he reaches the right answer, he gets rewarded. He gets a treat. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Like three-year-olds do it all the time. Yeah.

It was just a horse who's good at cold reading at that point, basically. Yeah. Which is cool. Oh, very cool, very cool, very intelligent animals horses, right? J.T. The Terrier and his owner, Pam, you can find a video that, uh, that Rupert Sheldrake has made about this, because again, this guy's, like, still alive. He's, like, in his 80s, but he's, he's still out there doing his thing. The way that they measured whether J.T. the terrier was actually psychic in terms of his ability to know when his owner Pam was coming

home, even if he was, like, not expecting her. Pam sets off at random times before she leaves home communicated by means of a pager. J.T. sits by the window around the time Pam decides to return, even though no one told him. So, like, she'll go to the pub for three hours, you know, whatever it is, chill with whoever's doing this study, and then come back. Quoting Rupert, Shel Drake, the odds against this being a chance effect

were more than 100,000 to one. The evidence indicates that J.T. was reacting to Pam's intention to come home, even when she was many miles away. Telepathy seems the only hypothesis that can account for the facts. I like the cut of Rupert's jib, I have to say. Whatever people might say about his work, I like what he's up to. This is fun. I think it's shit.

Okay. Tell us more. Do you have any of these that you believe? No. Tell us more, Taylor. If you must know, no. Tell us more. I think that there's so much of this that is explainable by coincidence, human influence. I hear your points.

I think the truth is still out there. Third category, animal mediums. An animal stares at an empty corner. Is it because there is a ghost there? Absolutely. I held a cat last night at this Christmas party and the cat was just like looking beyond me like over me and I'm just like, fuck, there's a ghost. At your nana. And then the cat tried to like pad pot my face and I was just like okay. So you're like fuck I'm dying. Yeah. Yeah. That's the death cat thing, right? Yeah. Avocado. It was avocado. That was the name of the cat. Oh, that's cute. Oh, do you guys have a cat now by the way? What's up? Yeah. Princess Stanley popcorn. She's not in the house right now, but she usually lives in the house because it got cold, but now it's hot, and she's enjoying the sun. She's sunbathing out on the porch.

Princess Stanley popcorn. If you give her another last name that starts with us, then her initials are psal. That's great. I leave that there for you. Thank you. Catherine Pettit, British Columbia-based animal communicator, says horses are the best at connecting with ghosts. Okay. because they are herd animals, strong bonds, strong emotions.

Animals like cats or dogs are also more open to spiritual connection than humans, who have been, she argues, socially conditioned to disbelieve. So people like me. She says, we're all sentient beings and we're all souls in a body on earth at this moment. We can feel that connection if we're open to it. That's so sweet. That's the Mishma's spirit right there. There you go.

One of the many facets. Sure. One of the multifaceted diamond that unites a special. That and hard skepticism that will accept nothing. Yeah, that and just and being unflinchingly critical of what you encounter. I confess that I think part of my interest in psychic pets is I thirst for a little bit of magic in life, you know, a little bit of the unexplained. I am pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect you that you would so much tackle the subject of psychic pets from the perspective of someone who clearly wants it to be true.

I really do. I think that's endearing. I want it to be true. I want to know the truth. and I want pets to have magical psychic abilities. Psychic abilities. We couldn't possibly, I think it's important for me to not be able to understand it, to have it be some force that is beyond our understanding.

And I was also looking at communication the other way, because I thought like there's the idea of can pets communicate with people who are dead. I also want to look at can dead pets communicate with us? Dead pets. I didn't think of the dead pets. Tell you the story of Lori Kroo. She's a civil servant from Edmonton, Alberta, and her golden retriever cookie passed away in 1998.

I'm so sorry. RIP. She decided that she wanted to take photographs of the urns surrounded by flowers, and the flowers were ones that she'd gotten from friends. Like, you know, a little way to commemorate cookie. And that night, cookie appeared to Lori in a dream. And she said, question mark, that she did not want to be remembered as a pile of ashes in an urn,

but as a living, vibrant animal. Some weeks later, Lori has her mom take the film to the developer, because these are the days where you had to take your film to the developer. And it turns out that not all the photos came through. There was a photo of Cookie taken just before her final trip to the vet. That came out just fine. But those photographs of Cookie's ashes, they didn't develop. It's maybe not the way that Cookie wanted to be remembered. Says Lori, somehow, I don't know how.

I think Cookie managed to do something to those photographs. It wasn't spooky. I just found it very moving. She was a very special dog. That's nice. That's really nice. Reverse spirit photography. Instead of appearing on the film, nothing appears on the film. I like that. Cookie. And very in line with the idea that, like, ghosts and other supernatural creatures can have paranormal effects on, like, film and it's developing specifically, which I feel is, like, a classic

vampire thing and a classic, like, um, Coddingly Ferrys. There's a final destination that has... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm reading a book that Josie recommended you right now called The Antidote by Karen Russell, and it has that in spades, and it's so cool. And I'm a sucker for it, just like I am in this dog story. And last but not least, telekinesis,

the ability to move things psychically with your mind. So this was by far the most difficult for me to find information on that I could not find any information. People are apparently far less interested than I am in the ability of pets. to move things with their minds. However, I thought that for this section, we could maybe have a little live experiment.

Oh, my God. Because Batman's right there. He's right here. He's been listening the whole time. Yeah. What do you think would be the best way to figure out if Batman is able to psychically move objects with his mind? We'll need an object.

We need an object in Vancouver in your space. And he's going to move it with his mind from Houston, Texas, where we are. So. Okay. One Two Three Yeah your dog's not psychic

I don't think so Not yet That's okay That's okay Not all dogs are psychic That's what I was gonna say All dogs go to heaven Not all dogs are psychic

And maybe one thing To pull from this is that Whether your pet is psychic or not They're worthy of your love And your devotion That's beautiful Also your curtain just moved What?

You did it? No Taylor Are you ready for your Little Mix-Mischmus bejeweled gift. I was so focused on giving. I forgot that Mitch Miss is also about receiving.

Oh, bless your heart. Yeah. Bless your heart. So I have the special joy of year-round I get to tell you a story. Yeah, I guess this is really no different for you. No, no, no. I say that to explain that my story

is specifically a Christmas-themed situation. Just to give us a little. You know, a little Mischmus, a Mischmus spirit, you know, believe everything. And a little Christmas analytics. Be skeptical of everything. Yes, exactly, exactly. And I also know that, Taylor, you are a fan of some, like, vintage decor in your, in your apartment. Absolutely.

Okay, good. Yes, yes. A little kind of like 70s. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very good, very good. Like mid-century modern. Oh.

Oh, fuck. You just like barp at your mouth a little bit there, too? No, no, it's getting good. It's just getting good now. Okay. Right, listeners? You still have us? Just getting good.

Don't leave. It's getting good. Do you, when your tree is up, do you decorate with tinsel? No, I don't. Because it is kind of a vintagey vibe, the like little silver strands. It's vintagey, but to me, there's an ellip. elegance to Christmas decor that probably because I learned my sensibilities to Christmas decor from my mother and she was an attinsal person. And I think for the same reason that I am that it's like, it's a little gosh, you know, in that mid-century way, but like Jello Salad is a little gosh.

Yeah. Like I've never really interacted with much tensile. Me neither. It's old school. I mean either. Not in real life. I kind of, yeah, I know it from like the songs and from like movies, but not at all actually in real life at all. Yeah. And to be fair, for our listeners, our indoor reviewers, Tencil, I don't have any, because for just what I was describing, it's not very common much in modern households. But it's like those silvery strands that you're meant to hang on the Christmas tree or hang in different areas. It's like metallic fur for your tree. Yes, metallic fur for your tree. A fir tree of sorts.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. specifically modern tinsel, as we would know it today, if we were to have it in the room and around us, it would be made from plastic. It would be made actually from PVC, polyvinyl chloride, the essence of Christmas, if you will, PVC. It's very mid-century and that it's very, like, plastic and wasteful, and you imagine that like 10 million gallons of oil have been expended to make this, well, our planet is on fire and we are dying, we are dying, we are dying, and they're making tinsel. Interesting you should say fire because one of the things about modern tensile is that it is fireproof unlike some earlier versions.

Good. No, no, we were just spraying it with kerosene before we handed it to our children back then, for sure. That's very true. When tensile in the mid-century was at its height and it's most popular, and you see it in like 1950s, like photographs of the tree and the lighting's bad and everyone's hair is wild. That tensile, pre-1972, was in all likelihood, made of lead. Straight up, just strands of lead available for children to take and eat, small pets to take and eat. And ingest a healthy Christmas dose of lead poisoning. So, terrifying. Terrifying. Yeah, really horrible.

But where does this word tensil even come from? This is such a funny pick. You're a funny guy, so... I know, I don't know. I appreciate it. Thank you. Continue. The old French word estincele, which means sparkle. And I'm sure there's a better French way to say that. In the 16th century, tensile, it was the word that referred to any type of thin silver or gold thread. So the idea is that it was spun gold or spun silver that would.

be woven into fabrics. And because it was gold, because it was silver, it was very expensive and only the very wealthy were able to wear such fabrics. In 1553, Mary the first of England, had a veil at her coronation that was made of tinsel. It had this silver and gold thread all throughout it. So that gives you a sense of like, it's kings and queens who are wearing it. It's not Joe next door kind of vibe. Right, right. In the early 1600s. is when Tenzel started to be manufactured in Nuremberg, Germany. Big Christmas capital, Germany. When I think of Nuremberg, I think Christmas.

Oh, man, that's right. At that time, it was extruded silver and gold to make a little bit thicker threads, but they were used specifically at that time, not just in fabrics and for the wealthy, but for the wealthy at Christmas time. to decorate Christmas sculptures and Christmas trees, which was starting to become a tradition from the pagan tradition. Tinsel had the express purpose of catching candlelight. The idea is that it was supposed to be very reflective.

Any light in these, yeah, in these low light pre-electricity days, anything that could reflect the light was like, ooh, super cool, super shiny, super trendy. And it, again, was only. Only for the wealthy, though, because it was made of silver and gold. Nothing changes. Until the 20th century, when we could start mass producing tensile. Hell yes.

For the masses. The assembly line. Yes, here we go. Then everything got better. Uh-huh. Everything got way better. Because now you can make tensile out of cheaper metals, including aluminum and copper. And these materials, unlike especially silver, didn't tart.

over time. So you could put them in the storage bin, put it in the attic, get it out, and decorate again and again and again with the same aluminum or the same copper tensile that you had. And kind of we're in the era of the fake tree too in the mid-century race. You can literally just shove that entire bitch into the closet and take it out next to your blow off the dust. Well, we're not quite to the mid-century because it was World War I where copper was in high demand. And so we had to do, you know, family holdback. Nobody can get sugar. Nobody can get, you know, anything else. So we're... Bonds, though. Bonds, though. Buy war bonds. We can get bonds. We can get the bonds. So copper was not as readily available anymore. And so they switched from

copper and aluminum to lead. Handy, handy, handy dandy. Handy dandy lead. And the lead pencil, I was watching some videos of it, it's actually quite heavy because it's like, lead is a heavy material. It's a heavy metal. But fun fact, a thousand pounds of lead, same as a thousand pounds of feathers. That's true. Don't let them fool you. Never let them fool you. Some different productions of the lead tensile were called Lameda. And you can still find it on Etsy if you type in Lameda or lead tensile. You can still buy the old stuff. It is made with lead. It is... That feels like it should be regulated. I know, right? Lameda is a Latin word with the meaning tiny blade, which is kind of fun to think about. Decorating your Christmas tree

with tiny little blades. This was in the mid-century when lead tensile was like all over the place. And there was a very, very well-known producer in South Philadelphia called Bright Star manufacturing that made the bulk of the lead tensile in the U.S. And according to author Susan Wagner, the author of the book Handcrafted Christmas, about the holiday's history, she says of lead-based tensile, quote, you had to put it on the tree one strand at a time. It didn't tarnish and it would hang down heavy. And you'd have that dripping, glittering, icicle effect.

According to a local newspaper in Spokane, Washington, there are a few remembrances of lead tensile. Galen Wood said, if you grabbed a handful and squeezed, it became a metal ball and left gray all over your hand. Florence Young remembers carefully draping it over the cardboard when it came time to take down all the decorations. You would have to one by one, put it away. And it would be like, fun. You can't leave a little bench in the cardboard, yeah. And Bruce Ayu remembers that if you placed a piece over electrical train rails, it would short the circuit and cause the train to reverse direction.

My God. Yes. Fab. Yeah. Classic prank. But better days. Classic prank. Better days.

Christmas trees are too woke now. So true. That's the problem. When we were kids, we drank out of the fire hose and we derail. trains with Christmas decorations. Yeah, and it was great, and everyone loved it. And as the people flew out of the train windows, they said, good prank, junior. Good prank, buddy.

Kids will be kids. Yeah, crack. I wonder, though, I wonder if our good man, Bruce was talking about, like, the toy trains. The models, the models. Okay. No, I prefer it. I've, veto. Okay.

I'm using my Mitch-Miss Vito, my Mitch-Miss Golden Vito. You got it. You got it. Folks also remember lovingly about lead tensile, the lead poisoning. that accompanied it. You know, funny enough, I hadn't even considered that, but like, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. It is mainly an issue when ingested, which, you know, the average folks probably wouldn't be ingesting lead tensile,

but certainly small children in the household, pets. I mean, B-Man would totally take down a lead, lead tinsel Christmas tree. Oh, yeah. One big bite. One big bite. Chalk, charm up. In the late 60s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started to notice there were some issues with lead on Christmas trees and decided that I think we need to start phasing this out. Yeah, fair enough.

According to Malcolm Mack Jensen, the director at the time of the FDA's Bureau of Product Safety, he said, it's gone. We have assurances that not one ounce will be sold this year. The Christmas before this, this was 1971, the agency was accused of agreeing secretly with several lead tinsel manufacturers not to publicize an understanding that production would stop on January 1st, 19702. Yes. Malcolm Mack Jensen, the director, he denies that wholeheartedly. And he says, quote, there was never any effort to hide it. The decision was made internally not to publicize. it because we feared that many people preferring the lead variety would stockpile it.

Oh my God. Shut the fuck up. You know what, though? Yeah. But you know what, and the mixture of spirits, fuck that, but also. I'm going to hold space for the people hoarding the lead tensile right now. Finally enough, there was a lack of medical verification to declare that lead icicles were a health hazard. But it was widely known enough.

that like we should be cutting down on the lead in our homes. Certainly lead paint was seeing its last few days as well. So kind of in that same, in that same era. Because like people eat the tinsel, they eat the paint. We're hungry. We're hungry people. Around the holidays. It's true. It's true.

The shorter days, darker nights, you get colder. You need to. You need lead. You need to be weighty. Get the lead in. Yeah. You get the lead in. Yeah.

True. So it was 1972 that we saw the end of beautifully dripping lead tensile. The things we lost in the fire, you know. Yeah, so true. And then it ushered in the plastic tensile, the PVC tensile, which is not environmentally sound. That shit just goes into landfills and never disintegrates. It's not poisonous and it doesn't catch fire. So we made a step forward. It's true. Yeah, yeah. Slowly but surely, slowly, but surely. But Taylor, you might be asking yourself, how do we get that beautiful, drippy look to begin with? Why is that a thing?

Are you asking? Josie, I got to say, again, there's a great tradition. If you go back in time and listen to every episode we've ever done, which we highly encourage, I don't think I've ever once been thinking what you asked me. You might be asked me at once in a time. A. Mitchell is wondering out there how we got that beautiful, drippy look to begin with. We'll go that way. Now let me introduce you to the left turn of my story, The Christmas Spider.

The Christmas Spider. Okay. You know what? That's genius, for sure. You're really taking advantage of the visual medium here. There has been a large spider that I've been like gently chiding them. But I thought they were being like hipsters. I thought they were being kitsch, you know what I mean? A spider in the Christmas decor. Ha ha, a little bit of visual irony.

But no. A little Mitchmiss prank on you. It's both where hipsters and isn't the part of the store. The Christmas spider is a tradition out of Western Ukraine and out of different parts of Germany. And it manifests today as Christmas spider decor. In particular, you will see little cobwebs or little like sparkly webs with a small spider as ornaments in a Christmas tree. And some folks will also add like little cobwebs to a tree.

There are other times when there's these really beautiful straw mobiles that have all these kind of geometric pattern that resembles a web. But it's very light because it's made of straw and it hangs and it's supposed to be specific. type of Christmas decor to signify the Christmas spider. The Christmas spider. The Christmas spider. The spider. The spider. In the Ukraine, it's called Pavuchki.

Very cute. Pavushki translates to little spiders. Little spiders. Little spiders. The tale of Pavuchki takes place in the 1800s, and it stars a poor widow. As all good Christmas stories, you know, you pick the most downtrodden. Right, right. It's snowing, we can imagine, because it's winter in Ukraine, my goodness.

But this story actually starts in the summer, in the beautiful wheat fields of Ukraine. Atypical. Atypical. Usually we start in Medias Christmas. Yeah, no, no, no. We got to literally plant the seed. So this widow and her two children, they are very poor. they live in a small hut, a hovel with a dirt floor.

And the children, summer, the warm summertime is there and they're in and out of the house. And one of them somehow drops a pine cone onto the dirt floor of the widow's hovel. And it sprouts roots. It starts to grow and it becomes this little sapling. And the mother sees it and says, oh gosh, we have a tree in the house. We got to clean this up. And the kids are like, no, not. We want to keep the tree.

Let's have a tree in the house. And she's like, you know what? Whatever. Why not? Why not? Why not? I'm busy. I got shit to do.

So we'll let the tree. It's out of the way. Fine. And so over the next few months, the children water the tree, this little pine tree. And it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows until it looks exactly like a Christmas tree. And it is now we are in the wintery snowstorm, the western Ukraine in December. And the children are so happy because they have a Christmas tree this year. They've never had a Christmas tree because it's too much work to go and bring out.

But this tree has grown here. This is where it is meant to be. And they're so happy except for the fact that they have nothing to decorate the Christmas tree with. Uh-oh. There are no bibles. There are no little ornaments. There are no little popsicle stick frames of their first grade little photos where they're like, and mom's like, oh, it's cute.

It's a naked tree. And so as happy as the kids are to have a Christmas tree this year, it's not really the Christmas tree of their dreams because it's not decorated. And the poor widow thinks of, well, maybe if we, a spoon, no, we need the spoon. You know, I just, there's no, sorry kids. I can't spare your home. We need the spoon for food. We can't spare anything. I got you.

So they all go to bed that night. Happy with the tree, but in some ways even sad or just because the tree is bare. And through the night, there is a little spider friend who weaves their little web all over the Christmas tree. Up and down on every little pine needle, there's a beautiful, shimmery little web spindle. And the widow wakes up first Christmas morning to prepare what she can. They don't have much food, but she's going to do what she can. And as she's heating up the water, she looks at the tree and notices that it has this beautiful tinsel-like effect. The morning light is coming through the window and shining through the tree and picking up all these little spider-weiser.

that appear. And she's entranced. And she's just like, wow, that's amazing. Clean your house. Clean your house. I think she has a little bit of that, but she's also like, you know what? In the Mischemus spirit, fuck it. Why not?

Why not? Why not? What about it? The Mischem's spirit, why not? In the mixture of spirit, why not? And so then the kids wake up, and they're just little hooligans. It's Christmas morning. They're like, no.

And they're freaking out because the tree looks amazing. and they go up to the tree, and because they're little snot-nosed punks, they pull at one of the threads, one of the cobwebs, and they say, Mom, this isn't just spider webs. What is this? So the mom comes over, she pulls a cobweb from the tree and notices that it isn't spider-web. It's gold thread. And she takes more from the tree and more from the tree. And of course, because she is...

It's the 1800s. She knows how to, you know, this motherfucker knows how to do anything. So she spindles and shit. She spindles this and creates golden thread. Ah. And the kids are so excited. And they're like, what are we going to do with it, ma? And she's like, you two little motherfuckers, you stay here.

I don't want to hear a peep from you. She goes to the Christmas market, sells her golden thread, and buys the biggest Christmas feast they've ever seen. She buys presents for the kids. roller blades, Nintendo 64, anything, everything they've always wanted. She comes back home and they have the best Christmas day of their entire lives. And the gold cobwebs, the golden cobwebs from the Christmas tree, she's able to take more and more of it.

And they are never in dire straits again. Their poverty is long gone. And from that day forward, it was always good luck to have a spider in your tree because if you do, then he might or she might spin you a web of gold. And so that's why now in the Ukraine, it's customary to have a spider ornament in your tree because it is very good luck. It will bring you prosperity through the whole year. Very interesting. And that is the story of how we wanted this beautiful, drippy look with Tensil. That's so much more interesting than I would have suspected.

Right. Yeah, exactly. It came from spider webs. Even Tinsel, who knew Tinsel had such a rich history? I guess everyone who's listening now they do. Now they all know. Yeah, now we all know that the Christmas spider is very good luck and it's always bad luck to kill a spider at Christmas too. That is the story of lead poisoning, tensile, brought to you by the magical and wonderful Christmas spider. Okay, I'm going to tell you a story now. No, tell me a story. This story is for Josie.

This is a story for Josie. Others might be listening as well. You can listen. Feel free to listen along, Taylor. This is an intimate moment. Taylor, you can listen to. It actually is kind of for Taylor, too. So I was going to say, like, I told this when we were chatting a couple weeks ago that, like,

this is a story I'm telling to Josie this is your gift but you can let Taylor borrow it you know whenever he comes over he can play with it yeah you can play with it yeah um love when you tell me I can play with it yeah sorry mitchell that was sorry sorry you don't own her josie I'll play with it on this beautiful mitchmas day begins with a woman named anne previn even though most people don't know her name none of the events that follow including one very famous part would ever have occurred if Anne had never existed. Let me take you both to New York City, 1991. Oh, whoa. What's top of the charts is George Michael. Julia Roberts is the hot young starlet of the day. Vests as far as the eye can see.

That seas a vest. Oceans a vest. Heather Locklear is Amanda Woodward on Milrose Place. It's all happening. Anne Previn has just graduated from Harvard. She's in her early 20s. She's back living in the city where she grew up. Oh, okay.

And she's unsure of where to go next. She works some odd jobs. She tends bar. She goes out with her friends. She has an acoustic guitar that she writes songs within her spare time. And I don't know this for sure, but I imagine she has a cool black leather jacket that she never takes off. So just picture that. That thing is dirty, stinky.

But you know what? It's 1991. It doesn't matter. Then Anne meets a guy named Scott. She and Scott hit it off right away and they enjoy an exciting 1991 New York City romance. So go ahead and picture whatever that looks like, the montage of the 1991. Taylor, go. Oh, stockbrokers are just looking into pages.

And the Yankees are, I assume, successful at this point. Who knows? I love what I just heard. That's amazing. Start spreading the news. After dating for a while, one day, Scott looks her in the eyes, and he says the words that every young person who's ever been in love or wanted to be, longs to hear. He said,

let's move to L.A. and start a band. And Anne is like, fuck it, let's go. And that's exactly what they do. In the true mix-mas spirit. Exactly. Why not? Why not? Why not? Anne and Scott find an apartment together in Los Angeles and begin a serious creative and romantic partnership, writing songs together and living together for the first time. Then, very early one morning, just before dawn,

Scott wakes up to see that Anne isn't there in the bed next to him. He walks up out of bed, checks the bathroom, but she isn't there. He walks down the long hallway. And sorry, I'm luxuriating in the size of their, what I'm imagining, how big their apartment is in L.A. in 1992. Yeah, yeah. So just like, I don't know, actually.

Especially as compared to their apartment. Yeah. I'm imagining the hallway is long, so he's walking down. So he's walking down this long hallway. He goes into the living room, and he finds Anne there, sitting in the middle of the floor upright, her guitar laying next to her. Okay. She tells Scott that in the middle of the night, she had a strange nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep because of it.

Scott asks her what happened in the nightmare, and so she tells him. In the beginning of her dream, Anne is riding in a car with a group of people she doesn't know, but they act like they're her best friends, and they talk to her like they've known her forever. They're on their way to a concert to hear a band called Edna Swap. When she gets there and the band starts playing, she looks up on the stage and sees that she, Anne Previn, is the lead singer of the band. She watches herself sing a song as the crowd around her starts booing, louder and louder and louder. Oh, this is a horrible dream.

until her band is forced to leave the stage in disgrace. And then she wakes up. What a shame. Scott asks her, but what did the music sound like? She plays the beginning of a song for Scott, the same song that the band was playing in the dream as they were boot off stage. After hearing her play the song, Scott sits quietly for a while, and then says to her,

We have to be this band, Anne. With you singing this song, we have to be Edna Swap. I can't believe it. Okay. Okay. What a Genesis. Yeah, I know. A dream, a bad dream. Oh, we got to make this bad dream come true. Yeah. Yeah. No, but they won't boo us this time. They'll cheat.

Right. I think that's what it feels like, right? Or is it, but is it the enactment of the booed? Do they want to be booed? Is it the enactment of the dream, right? Maybe it sounds so horrible to him and to her until she plays the song. song and maybe that he's like, well, fuck, I actually kind of like it. Oh, the song's not that. Maybe the, but that maybe it's the internal haters that need to be his waiters at the internal table of success, Eric Adams. Exactly. Even to prove the dream haters wrong, let's be this band. Right. Yeah. Um, so they get together, Scott and Ann with some

friends, Rusty Paul and Carla. The gang. They get the gang together. And they finish writing the words to that song. That song that she heard in her nightmare. they finish it and they write a few more and they make a plan to have a debut concert right there in anne and scott's living room where the project was born the show is intimate and personal a success on their own terms from their own living room to a modestly sized audience they introduce themselves to the world as edna swap and they play all the songs they've written together after the show a man from electra records approaches them and he says i like what i heard tonight come see me wow come see me he says They wake up and it was a dream.

Merry Mishmas. No, no, it's good. After playing only a single house show, Edna Swap has a record deal. Damn. Wow. The people at Elektra Records were blown away by their set and by one song in particular. The dream song. As you might have guessed, as you might be thinking, Taylor.

As you might be thinking, Taylor, the song that caused the record company folks to turn their heads was the one that Anne heard in her nightmare, the song that birthed the band. And one of the conditions of this contract offered from Electra is that they give the record company permission to have one of their other artists an upcoming Danish singer named Liz Sorensen to cover that song. They agree. And they agree, they sign the contract, and Liz Sorensen records a version of their song in Danish.

And almost instantly, her version of their song becomes a hit in Denmark. Edna Swap has still never set foot in a studio, but they're already tasting success. A Danish language cover of their song is making serious waves on Scandinavian radio. That's where you want to be. Yeah.

Y'all want to hear that? You want to hear the Danish version of the song from her dream? Yeah. Please. Please. Y'all have enough? Yeah, never. Like, never.

Like, not once ever, but I get it, yeah. Y'all got it what the song was. Yeah, it's torn. It's torn by Natalie and Bruglia, but not by Natalie and Bruegley. It's by Liz Sorensen covering Edna Swap. Yeah, let's talk about it. How are we feeling now? It's fine.

Now that's the big reveal of my story. Oh, my God. And there's much more to tell, but I just want to see how y'all are feeling right now. Well, we've always known that Torne was a cover. We just didn't know of what. Right. I had no idea of this. Like, it came to me in a dream and then was huge in Denmark.

Let's get comfy, okay. Holy shit. Wow. So this is what I'm telling you guys today. I'm telling you the story of Torne. This is a mixmus miracle. For what it's worth, if you've never listened to an episode where we've mentioned it before, maybe I haven't.

This is my karaoke. song. I think many people's karaoke. Many. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is a hit. It's a great music video. It's a great song. It's always, I once said, it's always torn a clock. I've been brought back from chemically induced stupers from someone singing torn into my name. It's a fantastic song. And also, like, it's a fantastic song. I don't know if you need to describe the music video to the people listening because everyone knows this, but I mean, the music video is so iconic. No, we're millennials, dude. We were

old. People don't know our shit anymore. Natalie and Bruglia looking like really cute and with like, kind of little like 90s haircut, pixie kind of haircut. And she's wearing like a hoodie and maybe some like cargo pants or something. And she's like dancing around her like cool apartment. It's one camera angle of just her like performing into this camera slash rejecting her kind of on-screen boyfriend because it's all fucking fake. Nothing's fine. I'm torn. And then in the end, the fucking apartment just gets taken down around her and shipped out.

And we see that even that wasn't real. None of it was fucking real. Everything is fake. I'm lone and I am shame lying naked on the floor. Exactly. Great song. Killer shit. Killer shit. Killer shit.

The next year after this song is released in Denmark, the popularity of the Danish version of Torn leads to another artist on electric records covering the song. This time, it's a Norwegian singer named Trin Raine. Good name. And this time, she's recording the song in English for the very first time. Wow, the song passed through so many hands. The Trin Raine Norwegian version is a lot like the one we just heard,

but it's in English this time. And it too was a massive success in Europe, climbing the charts, especially in Scandinavia, it was a huge hit. Then in 1995, at Long Last, Edna Swap's debut album is released on Elektra Records, featuring their original version of Torn. The album is a commercial flop, mostly due to the fact that the record company hated it. The leadership at Elektra Records were, quote, shocked to hear a sound that sounded a lot more like an alt-rock grunge band, having expected to hear music that sounded more like acoustic folk pop, which was the sound that they sort of sounded like in their living room house show.

Okay. Yeah. But that was the unplugged version. That was the like acoustic. Well, maybe you shouldn't hire people off their first show. It doesn't give them much time to get their sound congealed. Yeah. To quote Anne Previn, they thought they were buying a red car and we gave them a blue one.

Whoa. That's deep. The label chose. Which one do you take? Exactly. I see how far the rabbit hole goes. The label chose not to promote the album and dropped the best. band.

Rude. The next year, though, Edna Swap signed with Island Records, and they begin opening for bigger alternative acts like No Doubt and Weezer. As they start making a name for themselves in the growing Los Angeles indie rock scene, then make plans for another album. This one will feature yet another cover of Torn, but this time it will be a cover by Edna Swap covering themselves. Yeah, I like that.

It was like they were trying to set the record straight to find some way for their own interpretation of the song to be heard and understood. They record a new, slow down, and grungier version of Torn that they plan to release as the second single off this new record. But then something happens. Before they could release Torn as a single, somebody else beats them to it again. This time, it's an Australian singer named Natalie and Bruglia who had already achieved international notoriety for her role as Beth Brinnan on the Aussie soap opera Neighbors. As we know, Natalie's debut single is not just yet another version of the Edna Swap song. It's a version that is so iconic and so well-known

that it's described as one of the defining songs of its era. I like songs are about how, like, the world sucks. Fuck it, terrible. And this is specifically like, The world sucks, parentheses, love. Yeah, yeah. The world sucks, love hurts. Yeah.

You hurt my feelings, bitch. Now I'm naked on the floor. Look what you did. So, yeah, Natalie and Brugley's iconic cover of Torn. It's just about as much of a success as a song could be ever. But especially in 1998, it's as much of a song. success as a song could be. It had a long run on the radio, of course, and on the charts. It was just, it spent years actually on the charts. But in 1998, which was the big pivotal year

where it was a pop culture sensation, her performance of it was nominated for a Grammy for best female pop vocal, losing to Celine Dion singing, My Heart Will Go On. Well, yeah. Sorry. Tough luck. Tough luck. Tough luck, Natalie. Better like next year. See you 99, sweetheart. Following the massive success of the Natalie and Brugley cover, Edna Swaps fans petitioned the Los Angeles radio station K-Rock to play the two side-by-side for comparison, with voters for the local rock station heavily favoring Edna Swap's version. Yeah, but they would. Yeah, and we all know that the Natalie's version, of course, won out more broadly and popularly. And while happy that the song had become so beloved and very happy that she's receiving royalty checks.

I was going to make sure on that one. She fucking is. I bet the fuck she is. She's like, Vivo. No, this story does not take place. This story does not take place in 2025. It's 1998 and they're getting royalty checks. Yeah, this is good.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So she is not hurting financially, but she still kind of feels frustrated that it was not her version that people know and that no one knows that she's the artist. I got that. She's the artist behind it. No one knows. Until Mitchmas, 2025. Exactly.

As of 1999, the band that was once known as Edna Swap officially disbanded. Oh, the pressure. I get it. After Edna Swap, Anne and Scott formed another band. Jesus, you're such a bitch. I've got compassion. It's called empathy, Taylor. I thought you were being trying.

Yeah, the pressure of being in the swap. That's so brutal. I hear it now, and it wasn't intentional, but I do hear it now. Oh, my God. You didn't mean it that way, though. I never did. No, you never did. You never never did.

I'm sorry. Josie, you're not. After Edna Swap disbanded. After Edna Swap disbanded, Anne and Scott formed another band, the short-lived Antenna. Get it? Antenna. Oh! It's like her name, but yeah.

I liked Edna Swat better. We all did, we all did. They actually signed with Columbia Records as Antenna and produced an album together, but Columbia shelved it after company reorganization, and Antenna subsequently disbanded as well. In 2001, the band Antenna released all of their songs. for free through their website. Today, Anne Previn has a successful music career where she mostly writes and produces for other artists.

She has written and produced songs for Sheenade O'Connor, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, and Hannah Montana. Oh, I see what you did there. Yeah. She co-wrote the original song Listen for the movie musical Dream Girls in 2006. Whoa. Oh, Oscar nominated. And she contributed her songwriting talents to the television miniseries I Love Dick.

Yeah. Really? One of me and Josie's favorites. It's sort of an art world satire. Anyway, it's a good show. I'll leave you with this. An answer to a question, Josie asked many years ago when we were talking on the phone with Taylor while driving

and making plans for a future trip to New Orleans, which we should still do, by the way. Yeah, we got to do that. We should still do. Taylor told us how his go-to party trick was to tell people how torn was actually a cover. And then Josie asks, A cover of what?

Well, a cover of what? You ask a cover of this. What I just had y'all listen to is actually not their original original version. This is their remade. This is their like taking torn back song. I like them both for different reasons. Me too.

Yeah. It's wild that she had this dream that she was playing the song and people were booing her because she never got to sing the song. She never got to like own the song. It was always somebody else's song. So the booing is like, it wasn't that it was a bad song. I don't know. There's something weird, like cosmic about.

I really related to this story because my experience with the music biz and the movie biz was similar, I guess. And of one of the powers that be always see how they can benefit from artists and how they can sort of win. And they're good at it. And they're really good at it. And so, like, Natalie and Brugley is not the villain of this story because she made a great song. No, God, no. No, she's amazing. And, like, her version is really good.

but it's hard to know that like the people that write stuff often just like someone went to their show so they could take a song from them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also like she's doing good. Anne Previn still gets royalty checks. Yeah, that's kind of rare now.

And everyone, the world knows that she wrote the song. You can look it up. Yeah. Oh, well, especially now that you've told the story. Yeah. Thanks to Mitchmas. Yeah. On the bittersweet.

You're welcome, man. Those residual checks are going to look real good this month as I'm sure they do. You know what? At the end of the day, those people booing her and her fucking audience in her dream, I'm sure those residual checks rip away the tears real good that the dream people didn't like her. Yeah, I don't feel like we should feel that sorry for her.

I just think it's a nice story. It makes for an interesting story. Yeah. I love my gift. Yeah, good gift. You love your gifts? I'm glad you liked it. Very good gift. Oh, I love kissing under the spider. After the Christmas spider. Every year, Taylor, we kiss under the spider.

And then we sing songs. through spider. I'm all out of faith. We sing specifically, we sing torn by Edna Swap. We sing torn to the spider. Nice. Well, thank you very much and thank you, Josie for my tinsel story and my spider.

My spider. Spidey, spider. Yeah, thank you for telling me about psychic pets, Taylor. Finally. I'm sorry that you weren't converted into being a believer, but I don't think any of us were. I didn't know that that was part of the assignment. I didn't know that your blog.

Assignment to Kevin. You just said about psychic pets. I didn't know that it was legitimized psychic pets. You delivered on the prompt. You read the assignment. You did it. Yeah. And sorry to all the psychic pets out there who feel hard done by. You can write me and maybe next year I'll be convinced. That's always an opportunity at Mitchmiss to open your mind to the possibility of telekinetic animals. About why not? Yeah. Why not? Why not? Merry Mitchmiss, everybody. Merry Mitchmish miss. One and all. Taylor, Merry Mitchmishmas to you.

Merry Mitchmish miss. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com. Or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account. At k-o-fifin-fi.com forward slash bittersweet infamy. But no pressure. Bittersweet infamy is free, baby.

You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing. Leaving a review, following us on Instagram at Bittersweet Infamy. or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. The sources that I used for my Mischmus 2025 story include, What is Tencil made of? An article written by Carmen Drawl, December 15th, 2014, published in C and E.N. Chemical and Engineering News. I looked at an article from the spokesman review, Spokane, Washington, the slice column, written by Paul. Paul Turner and published December 5th, 2013.

Why do Ukrainians decorate Christmas trees with spider webs and hide a spider? An article from the English version of Noticius financiers. Published December 22nd, 2023. I read an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Don't Lick the Tensel, A Tale of Christmas Tree Decorations and Lead Poisoning Prevention, written by Kari Rahm, published December 203. 21st, 2015. I watched a YouTube video of the Christmas Spider folktale as told by Santa True. The video was entitled Santa True, the Christmas Spider, and it was uploaded to the Santa

True YouTube account on December 15th, 2021. And lastly, I looked at the Wikipedia articles for Christmas Spider and Tenzel. For my story about Torn, I read the article Inside a a nightmare called Edna Swap by Marnie Goldman for Noise magazine. The article Torn Cover Songs Uncovered by Patrick Garvin for Pop Culture Experiment.com. The Los Angeles Times article Edna Swap, busy making other derangements by John Ruse, and an interview with Edna Swap by Christy Crane for the blog in Music We Trust. My sources for this episode included, Spookily Accurate Psychic Goat predicts future, and it's bad news for Prince Harry by John

bet and Sarah Ward for the Mirror April 24th, 2023. The Unexplained Powers of Animals by Rupert Sheldrake for Renaissance Universal Magazine. Can Pets See Ghosts by Madeline Aguilur for the Cut October 30th, 2020. Psychic Pets, True Accounts of Animal Paranormal Powers by Michael Streeter, released January 1st, 2004, and the Wikipedia page for Paul the Octopus. If you want to go over to coffee, that's k-o-fi.com slash bittersweet infamy. you can see the full video version of this episode for free, and you can also become a monthly subscriber and join the Bittersweet Film Club

along with subscribers like Terry, Jonathan, Lizzie D, Erica Joe, Sof, Dylan, and Satchel, we're so incredibly grateful for all your support. Bitter Sweet Infamy is a member of the 604 podcast network. This episode included clips from Brent by Liz Sorensen, torn by Natalie Mbruglia, and of course Torne by Edna Swat. Our interstitial music is by Mitchell Collins,

and the song that you are currently listening to is T Street by Brian Steele. Merry Mitchmas. We will see you in 2026.