Dear Hank & John - 207: The Still Escalators of Doom

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Why are unmoving escalators so disconcerting? What do I do about the plant that died while I was house sitting? What should I tell people who think I'm moving to the worst place in the world? Should I tell my mom you're still alive? What condiment would your body dispense? How does iambic pentameter work? How do we know when we're deriving too much from art? How do I make friends in junior high? How do I talk my brother out of aspiring to be a YouTube star? John Green and Hank Green give advice! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Goers up for the thing of a dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers, Hanky and Johnny Green, answer your questions, give you a devious advice to bring you all the week's news for both Mars and A.C. Wimolden. Wow. It's a huge mistake. I was distressing.

It's a huge mistake. John. Honestly, stressing is the news from A.C, Wimbledon, but distressing. Hank, what's your dad joke for me this week? So I don't know if you know, but one upon a time, an ancient Greek playwright walked into a tailor and he held up his pants and he said, I need you to mend this pair of pants and he hands up the pants to the tailor, the tailor looks at the pants and he looks back up at the playwright and he asks,

you rippadies? He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like be in my genre, right? Like, I was kind of cagling from the beginning because it's in my world. It's in a world I know and love. But I did not see that one coming. I was trying to pun off of like Aristophanes,

Sophocles, but he rippinies. That's so good, Hank. It's also got, you know, it's also got injured pants in it, which is a topic of conversation sometimes on this podcast. Yeah. No, it's a, that was a complete win for me. I work on similar Greek playwright based comedy in the future.

Well, I would not have tweeted this week. So let's move on directly into the questions from our listeners. You can't tell me you wouldn't have tweeted this week. It's just, it's just a great week to not be on Twitter, but then they all are. So we're going to go straight to questions from our listeners. This first question comes from Bill who writes, dear John and Hank, why do I find it so unsettling

to walk on escalators when they aren't moving? That is when they are in stairs mode. But I find them perfectly fine when they are moving. Long pass, do, Bill. Oh, that's too bad. mode, but I find them perfectly fine when they are moving long pass do bill. Oh, that's too bad. I'm sorry to hear about that bill rear situation being due. I don't like that there are some stairs in an escalator stair mode staircase that are different heights.

All stairs should be the same height and those early stairs and those later stairs that are really low, really throwing off and feel dangerous to me. So that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that I've been made aware of the fact that this escalator is broken. And if it's broken, that means all manner of things might go wrong with it, with me, with life. Like if one thing is not as it should be, it's very hard for me not to assume

that the world is about to collapse and civilization. Right. It's just the first thing. Exactly. And we'll all look back on it and be like, well, everything was fine until that escalator went into stairs mode. It's like when John notices that his hat is too tight and he starts thinking it may have been suffolites or something. It's just the first sign. I have this sometimes when internet things go wrong. Earlier this year, YouTube was down for like eight hours

and I was like, well, one, YouTube might not ever come back. Like it's more likely right now than it has been ever before. So, like, if YouTube never comes back, then this is a disaster. But, too, what if this is just a sign that, like, things are falling apart? And, like, two days from now, it won't be YouTube that's down. It'll be, like, the grocery store and the gas stations. Yeah. Like, immediately going from, like, this doesn't seem like a thing that should be able to break

in my head. This has always been here. It's like when there's an earthquake, I'm like the ground shouldn't move. That's its main thing is that it doesn't move. And then it does one day and you're like, everything's out the window. I can trust nothing anymore.

Right. And an escalator's main job is to move. And so if it stops moving, we are more likely to be in or near a crisis than we were five seconds ago. There are some escalators, and I've seen this because I've spent a lot of time in convention centers that start up when you get close to them if they're in like after hours mode, so that they save energy, or they go extra slow, like they sort of like have a slow mode. And then when you approach them, they start to speed up.

That is also very unsettling. When you're like, okay, this is fine when a door automatically opens for me. I'm fine with that. But the escalator like noticing my approach and being like, I am now going to escalate more rapidly. I feel very sentient. Yeah, that is weird.

I mean, it's probably energy efficient. Yeah, but it's weird. I look forward to the day I have to explain to my descendants that we did a bunch of things that weren't energy efficient because not doing them just felt kind of weird. It's going to creep me out. I don't know. It's just kind of creep me out. We've got another question.

It comes from Lindsay who asks, dear Hank and John, help. I'm currently house sitting looking after a dog, three cats and tons of plants. I've been house sitting for a week, and the couple comes back late tonight, but I found a plant that I didn't know existed outside that for obvious reasons I have not been watering. This plant is almost dead. What do I do? Not a low-hand Lindsay. You've killed a plant.

Oh, yeah, you remove the plant from wherever it is. And then you throw it into the vast wilderness behind your house. Of course, there's a vast wilderness there. I think it's in a very important detail. Were you told that this plant exists? Because if you are, they walk you around to their 700 different plants. Look, you kept both the dog and the cats alive. Yeah, that is the central requirement of a house sitter. Outside plants, are they for you? Were you told about, if you were told about the outside plant, then you owe an apology if not,

then it's just like, oh, well, I didn't know that the outside plant existed. How would I have? Do what you think I go outside, I'm Lindsey. You know what you were getting into. I'm an indoor house sitter. I'm sitting in the house. I'm not sitting in the yard sitter. You know what you were getting into. I'm an indoor house sitter. I'm sitting at house. I'm not sitting at the,

I'm not a yard sitter. That's what you say. You say, I'm sorry, but you didn't hire a yard sitter. And if you wanted to hire one, that cost extra. Yeah, absolutely. I kept your pets alive. You're welcome. Give me my, what is the going rate for a house sitter? I'm not asking purely out of idle curiosity. House sitting is so cool. It's such a cool thing. You just go get to live in somebody else's house for a little while. I wrote a bunch of looking for Alaska while I was house sitting for someone.

And it was wonderful to just be in different environments. It is weirdly stimulating. And also, it feels a little transgressive, I think, to just be in someone else's space in a kind of fun way. All right, this next version comes from Amiko, who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm very happy. Oh, that's always good to hear. Yeah, I just got a job at the Omaha Zoo doing cool research.

I'm excited to move to Omaha and start this job. But most people I know are very confused as to why I would ever move to Omaha. Whenever I tell people I'm excited to move to Omaha and start this job. But most people I know are very confused as to why I would ever move to Omaha. Whenever I tell people I'm moving there, they react negatively and ask why I would move to the middle of nowhere. I looked it up. I like the idea that Amiko didn't visit,

but did go to Google Maps. I was like, look, that's a city. Yeah, I looked it up and Omaha's a pretty big city. But still, everyone acts like I'm moving to the worst place Imagina bull. What should I say to these people who react so negatively? Have either of you ever been to Omaha? All hail snack man, Amiko. Thank you. Thanks very much. Who is snack man? I'm snack man. Hank. I'm Right. Snack man. Snack man. I got a deep cut. I have been to Omaha. Omaha is great. There's so much there. There's the world's largest ball of stamps is in Omaha. It is a very large ball of stamps.

I saw it with my eyes and even I, a veteran of the world's largest balls, was astonished by the size of the world's largest ball of stamps. I am googling it right now. I want to see it. It's pretty big. It's big. Amiko, as you are aware, there is also a zoo. You're gonna be there every day, so that might get old. That when I looked it up, that was the number two attraction in Omaha.

So the zoo? Yeah, you're good, you're going. Like, you've got it. Where's number one, the world's largest ball of stamps? Number one is the old market, which I know nothing about. Here, the brick paves streets are trotted on by horse-drawn carriages for tourism. And lined with popular sites like the Jocelyn Art Museum

and Omaha Children's Museum. That's not the amazing. Yeah, I think I was gonna say there is a good art museum in Omaha. I believe Malcolm X's childhood home is in Omaha. Oh, but look, Amiko, places are ultimately made out of people. And you will go there and because you're working at the zoo, you'll be surrounded by people who are doing interesting stuff that's similar to the stuff that you're passionate about.

And you'll make friends and you'll develop deep relationships. And you will find yourself in five or ten years if you stay. And you don't have to stay. But if you stay, I suspect you'll find yourself in a few years being a huge civic booster of Omaha, the way that I am of Indianapolis or the way that Hank is of Mizzula. Yeah. I lived in New York. I lived in Chicago.

I know a lot of people who live in Los Angeles and I understand the allure of those cities and I understand why people kind of roll their eyes when you talk about living in Indianapolis or Omaha or Mizzou or whatever, but from where I'm sitting, it's great. It's really good. Yeah. So just lean into it. Yeah. And I think that there are always going to be those cities that have like they're in the popular culture enough that like everybody understands their persona like we get what DC is and we get what Chicago is, we get what Boston is. But we don't have enough space in our minds

for all of the cities that actually exist. So we put all of the other cities into the same category of like Middle America blah. But they're not Middle America blah. They're all different from each other. They're all cool. They're all interesting. And they all have many different pieces to them.

There are lots of different parts of all of these cities, and if you're from one of those other cities that I mentioned, those big ones, you know that Los Angeles is not one town, Boston is not one town. There are lots of neighborhoods that have very distinct characters and feels, and that's also true of Mizzoula,

and it's true of Indianapolis and Omaha. We just don't have this. I mean, it's not that true of Indianapolis, but I know what you're trying to say. Sure it is. You got neighborhoods. We, yes, we have neighborhoods and they have identities to an extent. I mean, I do get what people mean when they say that they don't want to leave New York

because you can get amazing pizza at four o'clock in the morning. It's just that at my age, I don't need amazing pizza at four o'clock in the morning. It's just that at my age, I don't need amazing pizza at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, and Omaha is on the map for all the touring bands. They go there. Yeah, they go there. Oh, I feel like Omaha, because of its geographical location, is really good for touring because it's halfway

between one place and another. I feel like you and I have played Omaha a few times precisely because we were like, well, we're staying the night in Omaha. It was on the way to somewhere else. But always good chose there. All right, this next question comes from Tomar who writes, dear Jonathan Hank, I just mentioned this podcast to my mom and her response was, oh, they're still alive.

Oh gosh. What should I tell her? Well, you could tell her, yeah. Hank, we're young men, we're not. Hank, you've got to, yes. Before you go on, I have to tell you, Tomar's incredible, incredible name specific sign off. Okay. Maybe the best name specific sign off

in the history of this podcast. Hope we get comma, Tomar's by 2028. Wow! Wow. Even John likes that one. Hope we get comma, Tomars by 2028. Wow! Wow! Wow! Even John likes that one. Who doesn't hope we get Tomars by? Yeah, I mean, I hope we get Tomars in 2029, but I like your name specific sign off tomorrow.

And I like your mom, even though she thought we were dead. Yeah, I mean, like people, just for clarity, people are still alive even after they stop being famous. That's an important thing to note. So we're on the other side of the hill. As we have said, several times in the podcast, does not mean we're dead people, just means that we're people living more normal lives.

Yeah, it's good here on the other side of the hill. And it's good partly because not as many people are thinking about whether you're alive. Right, exactly. And it's good partly because not as many people are thinking about whether you're alive. Right, exactly. Yeah, we have a really difficult time being aware that a lack of public consciousness is not the same thing as a lack of life.

Yeah, I mean, I have this problem all the time. I was looking at Google Map Street View the other day, and there's all the people around, like walking around in the town I was looking at Google Map Street View of. And I had to thought like, the other day and there's all the people around, like walking around in the town. I was looking at Google Map Street view of and I had the thought like every one of those people at that moment that that picture was taken, we're all having a thought, each of them,

thinking thought, and then I was like, oh no, I'm stuck, everybody's thinking thoughts all the time. Jessica from high school is somewhere right now thinking a thought and so is everybody else from high school. All of those people who haven't thought about in, you know, 20 years, all of them thinking things, doing things, having lives. It's just too much. Yeah, it's definitely overwhelming. I have that feeling often on the New York City subway, like I look around and I think, oh my god, all of these people have consciousness. And they're

all thinking thoughts that are at least as complex as my thoughts, and possibly much more complex. And I can't access the interior of any of their minds, and I am stuck inside this single prison of myself, and I wonder if Hank Green is still alive. Yeah, I mean, there's always a chance, John. And I was going to say in response to this, that we're young men and that we're, we're not even halfway through,

but we are kinda halfway through. I may be halfway through. I'm not yet, probably. But we both might be. Yeah, I mean, for all I know, I'm in the fourth quarter. I don't think that I'm in the first quarter. Like the chances I'm in the fourth quarter are much, much higher than the chances I'm in the first quarter.

Oh, that's definitely true, John. It's been a while since this podcast about death was about death, but here we are. John, do you wanna talk about something else? Very much so. This question comes from Maria, who asks to your Hank and John, if someone invented a device which used the stuff

from inside your body to create and dispense any known condiment. Can't be a fictional condiment, which condiment would you choose and where on your body would you install this device? Salutations, Mario, John. His gold leaf is the PS here, Hank. Cut, what's the PS? Oh, I see the PS.

It says you are restricted from monetizing this gift Hank well Mario knows better than I know myself that feels great. I mean mine would be ketchup Because you want to catch a finger? I would definitely would not pick my finger. It's one of the dirtiest parts of the human body I would pick like the inside of my forearm about halfway up. Oh God, oh, it's perfect. Well, I already have birthmarks there. So I don't even think it would be that much of a problem really to have an added little mark

that ketchup could come out of. That is the ketchup port. Yeah, the ketchup port. I like how Mario just in the question assumes that we want this. Which condiment would you choose? Yeah, I mean, it is free ketchup. So, I mean, I would say it's hard to turn down free ketchup,

but then again, if you want free ketchup, you can just go to any fast food restaurant. True. I think that ketchup is my most used condiment, and if I can't monetize this, if I can't become a saffron farm, then I have to go with the condiment that I most often use, which is almost definitely ketchup.

I put it on everything, I love it. Maybe crystal hot sauce, but that feels like it would burn. Yeah, and also you just don't use this much hot sauce when you use hot sauce. So it's not about volume, it's about frequency of use. For me, it is partly about volume because I think a big part of the charm of this hypothetical situation would be

like going to my friends and being like, hey, you need some ketchup. You need that. 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 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 and fight him over for nachos, nacho cheese. Oh, poor arms. Watch out for the cheese. Nacho cheese. It's nacho cheese a condiment. It's not cheese, so maybe it is a condiment. Wait, what about whipped cream?

Because then I'd just be like, baaaah. Oh, god. All right, we got him move on. I'm getting really really pissed. Chocolate sauce. Okay, chocolate sauce. That's not a bad idea.

All right, this description comes from Bonnie, who writes, dear John and Hank, how does I am big pentameter work? I know it's like beats and syllables. I know that I know that pent means five, but how does it actually work? The more I search, the more it doesn't make sense. What's so special about this specific configuration of sound that make people go, ah, that William Shakespeare, what a genius,

sincerely, Bonnie. Hank, do you know what I am with pentameterist? Because I successfully got a bench with a degree in English without really knowing what it was. Yeah. I know what I am with pentameter is. It's like, where you go, da da da da da da da. Well, that was for.

Yeah. Yeah. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da there. Yeah. And as for why it sounds good, we don't really know. Yeah. When I did just the four, it sounded like not quite good.

Yeah. When I did five, it was like, ah, that's better. Why? Ah. It may be partly because we've gotten used to this rhythm. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Or it may be that there's something inherent to that rhythm that sounds good to the brain.

There was this movement to create an English meter, the way that some other languages had a sort of rhythm to them, or had a certain poetic structure that was their central way of communicating things. And the duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, is what we came up with. I like Iambic pentameter. I like it best when it gets it like messed with a little, like a lot of time Shakespeare will actually use 11 syllables. And I don't know, that always, that always gives me like

a certain little shiver in a weird, but sort of pleasant way. The dot, the dot, the dot, the dot. Almost like Emily Dickinson's slant rhyme, you know? Like there's something about when it's not perfect that feels both more human and a little, I don't know, exciting. Well, I think, yeah, a lot of times those give you, put you on the edge a little bit, they create attention and then you resolve that attention. That's like a songwriting 101.

That's all that's like that. That's also jokewriting 101, right? You create a setup about a Greek playwright and then the person listening to the joke is going through all the Greek playwrights, trying to find and then boom, you're settled, it's euribidious and it's still at delight. So glad I finally found it with the adjoke you liked. Oh, God, we'll never get back to these heights ever again.

Man, I'm glad that I've decided not to monetize my gift of nacho cheese arms. To go back to the previous question, I just think it would be terrible to be like, I am just now a cheese factory. It's what's best for humanity. I've decided that in a lot of different ways. Or, I mean, I'm not totally convinced

that all of your commercial interests focus on maximizing human benefit to be honest with you. All of my personal, yeah. Yeah, like I would point to a few of your business ideas over the years as being not like purely focused on the reduction of human suffering. Well, let's just leave that one behind and go to our new segment.

It's time for a million dollar idea. It's time for a million dollar idea. This person on the internet says they got a million dollar ideas from Aaron. Aaron says, my million dollar idea, and this is legitimate. I like this idea for Target when you're shopping online to go store pickup, to have the option to add a cold bottle of soda or water at checkout for your drive-up order,

shopping online and driving to the store it really makes you parched. That would actually earn Target a million dollars if they did that. It might. I think it's closer to a $300,000 idea, but I think it's a good idea. And it also dovetails nicely

with my incredibly strong desire to have a deeper brand relationship with Target, because right now, my relationship with Target mostly goes one way, specifically me going to Target. And I'd really like for that brand relationship to be more of a two-way street where Target, for instance, gives me Target stuff. 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 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 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 end table by the way, Hank, I should mention that I get all my cars at Target.

Yeah, absolutely. Really great place to get cars. You just walk around and you look for one with a door open and then you just get in that way. But I do it the grease two way where I go to Target and I buy lots of parts. And then I learn over the course of a single semester how to build an entire car with a screwdriver. Hank and I just rewatched Greece 2, which is a movie that we both love to so, so much when we were children. And I haven't seen it since I was a child. And speaking of cars, what a

car wreck of a film. I mean, it makes no disaster. It is a beautiful disaster. Yeah. There's a lot of candidates for stupidest part of Greece too, but maybe the stupidest part is that in a single montage, the main character learns how to build a motorcycle from scratch and the challenge, the thing that's hard for him, is not building the motorcycle, but learning how to ride it.

He keeps falling as he tries to learn how to ride it, but building that motorcycle, but learning how to ride it. He keeps falling as he tries to learn how to ride it, but building that motorcycle, easy, peasy, lemon, squeezy. Also, he's just in a park and the cops are like, no big, go ahead and rip up the park with your brand new motorcycle you built from scratch. That's fine. And then, I mean, a week after learning

how to ride a motorcycle, he is able to somehow take the motorcycle and jump over police cars and other vehicles. He goes from being someone who knows nothing about driving motorcycles to being evil, con evil within the space of no more than a month, while also riding a lot of papers for people who have reps to protect. Oh, God, there's so much rep protection in Greece too.

It must have been, and I don't know this for sure, but it must have been that in the 1980s, there was a great focus on the idea of one having a reputation. Oh, like that isn't the thing anymore. I guess I still do have a rep to protect. We all have our reps to protect, John. I hope it doesn't come out that Maxwell Caulfield

has been writing my vlog with his videos all this time. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I'm sure that's what Maxwell Caulfield is up to, the man who played Michael Carrington in Grease 2, a fact that John now has in his head, ha ha ha ha. And if you want to listen to that, Grease 2 comment here, you can't, unless you supported us in the project for awesome.

So thank you to everybody who did that. Oh, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the project for awesome. So thank you to everybody who did that. Oh, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the project for awesome, the project for awesome, coming up in just like four short months. No, yes. It feels very soon to me, but I guess that's a while from now. This podcast is also brought to you by Nacho Cheese Arms. Go get them installed at your nearest target.

They're doing that now. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Euripides. Euripides. And this podcast is brought to you by the idea of I am. We created a word that's a very hard word to say that means a particular kind of accented to accented word thing. I don't know what I can't explain it. That was great, Hank. That was solid. It's a metrical foot, John. Yeah.

It's a metrical foot. Hank, we got out of the question. This one's from V and A, who writes, dear John and Hank, an abstract painter at one of the community colleges. I went to this interview about the color choice in a particular painting. And when asked about his color choice, he responded, I used red because it was on sale at Home Depot. With everyone trying to derive meaning from work and to vents around them, how do you know that the meaning you derive is enough or too much, especially when we're extrapolating into the nature of humanity and not just the colors in a painting, painting and panicking, the NA? Oh boy, you seem to have made this hard for me to answer. I do think that just because the painter chose red because it was on sale at Home Depot

doesn't mean that there was nothing to the red in the painting. Like if blue had been on sale, the painting wouldn't have been the same, but blue would have been a different painting. Yeah. There is a lot of emphasis placed on what a painter or an author or whatever intended as the meaning of their work. And I think a lot of that emphasis is misplaced. Like to me, you're not doing too much looking if you find a deep meaning to something that wasn't intended by the creator. Like it is not relevant to me whether Shakespeare knew how good Hamlet was, right? Like it's still good.

What abstract painting is trying to do, or at least like I think one of the things it's trying to do in a lot of cases, is to convey ideas, emotions, to convey the deep stuff that we don't have language or direct forms of expression for. And if you find that in a painting, great. And I don't understand like why it's delegitimized by the painter saying that that meaning wasn't intended.

Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, I also think that to some extent, this can be a way of basically saying, it's not for me to decide. That is a creative choice of a creative person. There are some of my favorite songs. I know they have meanings. I know they were intended to have meanings, but the songwriters don't talk about the meaning. And like that meaning is definitely there if you choose to go and find it. Yeah, it's similar to like when Sir Edmund Hillary

was asked why climb Everest? And he said, because it's there. That's not the answer, but it's a way of dealing with the question. And I know that that's something that I've done in my life as a writer. Like I have definitely, at times, dealt with the question rather than like trying

to grapple with it seriously. In part, because I don't want my voice to be privileged in the way that the painter's voice is being privileged in this question. Like, I feel like if I said what I think happens after the end of looking for Alaska or if I, you know, I think people would then like say that it's true. In fact, one of the most shared things about me on Twitter is this lie, this lie that I said what happens after the end of my book, The Fault in Our Stars.

And it has something like a hundred thousand retweets. And it's just, it's completely made up. Like I have never said a word about that. I never would. And it's extremely specific. And all the ways I would never, ever be extremely specific. And then there are all these people replying to it. And they're like, oh, that's so sad.

And I'm like, no, it's just so lie is what it is. Yeah, I've seen that. And I even like when I first read, I was like, it doesn't seem like something John would do. It's gone, I've got to never like, yeah, the only thing I know I'll never talk about is that. God knows I've talked about literally everything else speaking of which, we have another question.

Yes, Ruby, right? Stuart John and Hank, I'm going into junior high school next week. Oh God, Ruby. I'm so excited for you. God be great. God speed. I'm not entirely prepared.

I only have like four friends and I'm nervous that I won't get one shift with any of them. My mom said this would be a good time to branch out and meet new people, but is she crazy? Yes, she's crazy. What is she talking about? I'm an introvert. I don't want to be like the person in the movies who eats lunch in the bathroom,

but I will if I have to. I'll take all advice with gratitude, not a gem, Ruby. Oh, I mean, here's what's probably going to happen. You're probably going to see people who look a roughly like something that seems safe and you are probably going to be able to find those people and be like, hey, I'm Ruby, I'm gonna sit, can I sit here? And they'll see us. I remember the intensity of this though.

Like when you finish getting your food, you're holding your tray, you turn around, you look at the tables and you're like, oh geez, like my stomach is starting to hurt just remember it. Yeah, I mean, if you can find one other person to be the seed of a table with, that's really what all of life is. Yeah, the other thing I would say is whenever in your life, and this goes not just for junior high school,

you are at a table and you are comfortable and you are surrounded by people who you know well and like and trust and you don't have that feeling anymore. When you see someone who clearly does have that feeling, wave them over. Make a place at your table for them. You will in time find your people Ruby. Hopefully you've already found them. Hopefully you're sitting at an awesome lunch table and you will for the rest of middle school and high school

and and onward, you will get there. This next question comes from Trevor who asks, dear Hank and John, I have a nine year old brother who every day talks about how he's going to be a millionaire from making vlogs and video game videos. How do I talk him down from this? Not terribly clever Trevor. Oh, you don't. He's nine. Yeah, that's absolutely the thing. So a thing that I've kind of realized

is that like all of this like opportunity to like try stuff out and like sort of follow in the path of the people whose content you consume or people who you idolize, whether that's sports stars or vloggers, you are learning stuff while you're doing that. And even though that is 99.9% of the time not gonna be the thing that you end up doing,

it provides you with life skills. So actually like doing it and trying to figure it out is way more valuable than like sort of being isolated by it. And like having everybody tell you that it's not going to happen because ultimately playing a sport is fun and you get to like learn how to connect with other people and listen to your coach and be part of a team and learning how to, you know, make a gaming stream is also important skills. You get to learn how to better understand how computers work

and maybe you're on a team when you're gaming. You get to improve your social skills when you're communicating with whatever audience you might have or be pretending to have. And all that stuff is like, it's stuff you've done. And it's valuable. And it might be valuable in your career as a gamer. It might be valuable in your career

as like a communications expert at a Fortune 500 company. Like it could be a lot of different things. Yeah. Trying to do stuff and exploring one's dreams, I think, is good. And a lot of times it doesn't lead to a ton of professional opportunities, at least directly, but it's still good. All right. Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimmelden, I have to read this one comment from VD. You'll remember, Hank, in a previous episode, we talked about what a good idea it was to have a pants cloning company, a company that takes your favorite pair of pants

and perfectly clones them so that you have an infinite number of your favorite pair of pants. Well, as it happens, VD wrote in to tell us, dear John and Hank, my dad ran a company a decade ago that made highly customized pants in Bangalore. He'd make house calls to customers' houses, take their body measurements and the measurements of their favorite pants, and feed those dimensions

into a licensed software that would generate a computerized pant design, which could then be used to cut cloth and stitch it into a clone of their favorite pants in any material that they chose. Wow. He called his brand verbatim, which is the best possible company name for this idea.

He ran the company for five years before shutting it down in 2014 due to various problems. So there you go. It's a thing. It's already been done. And it doesn't sound like Vigia's dad made a million dollars. It doesn't sound like that, but you never know. If you want to try a pants cloning company, just bear in mind that it's been tried. Hank, it's time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I will

go first. AFC Wimbledon's crowdfunding campaign in which they are raising money to build the new stadium. In this case, they are raising money that are also like shares of the club. So you can like own part of the club. And it's really cool. It's only open to British people and certain Americans, by certain Americans, by the way, I mean me, not most people. You can go to S-E-E-D-R-S.com slash AFC Wimbledon.

If you're British and you can own a piece of AFC Wimbledon. If you're British and you can own a piece of AFC Wimbledon, as if this recording, they are almost all the way to their initial goal of two million pounds, but I know they have greater ambitions than that. It's a really cool thing and it continues the tradition of AFC Wimbledon being owned by its fans. When this week in Mars news, you, we are constantly following the methane mystery of Mars here on Dear Hank and John. And we've got another data point here.

So as previously discussed, it's established that something on Mars is making methane somehow. We just don't know how, and it doesn't make any sense because it's there sometimes and not other times. A potential answer that people are most excited about is that maybe there's some Martian microbe under the surface, but there are potential geological explanations as well. One of those theories is that the wind on Mars

is eroding rocks, and as it does that, it releases methane that's trapped in microscopic bubbles and cracks on the surface. A team of scientists based out of Newcastle University decided to look into this by estimating how much methane is likely to be in Mars rocks using Martian meteorites and analogous rocks on Earth as a reference.

Then they estimated how much erosion Martian wind can actually drive to predict how much methane would be released by Mars rocks. And using those numbers, the team found that to get measurable amounts of methane on Mars, the rocks themselves would have to contain way more methane than they are likely to, as much as the richest hydrocarbon shells on Earth.

Wow. Based on this, the scientists believe that wind erosion is not the culprit behind the seasonal methane spikes that have been measured on Mars, and thus we are, once again, not sure what the heck is going on. So it's possible that this is like an algae bloom, but for Martian microscopic life that

produces methane? Yeah, yeah, something like that. Or like it produces methane year round, but then during certain seasons, the permafrost gets soft enough that some of the methane can like bubble up from to the surface. Yeah. I mean, if it's not rocks, if it's not rocks,

da, da, da, da, we should go check it out now. We should, we should send a non-human mission there as soon as possible. Now, but we are, we are send a non-human mission there as soon as possible. Now, well, we are, we are doing that right now. I know. And I'm excited. I'm excited. And I'll remind you that, according to Elon Musk, we're only nine years away from a private corporation sending human beings to Mars, which is too long. Or maybe it's just the right amount of time? He is known for his accurate timelines. Ha ha ha! Hank, thank you for following me.

Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us your questions at HankAndJohnAtGmail.com. This podcast is a co-production of WNYC Studios and, complexly, it's edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas and Sheridan Gibson. Victoria Bond-Jorno is our head of community and communications. The music you're hearing right now is by the great It's edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohassen, Sheridan Gibson. Victoria Bonjorno is our head of community and communications. The music you're hearing right now

is by the great Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.