librarypunk - 067 - American Animals

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Movie time! We're watching the 2018 heist film American Animals, based on the real theft of rare books from Transylvania University's special collections. We talk about libraries and the carceral state, the worth of library workers versus special collections, and birds.   Media Mentioned https://www.vulture.com/2018/06/the-real-life-heist-caper-behind-american-animals.html https://www.audubon.org/news/in-american-animals-audubons-art-source-obsession-greed-and-infamy https://www.transy.edu/1780/2020/09/transylvania-special-collections-librarian-retires-after-26-years-of-connecting-researchers-with-historical-treasures/

What is a V-Tuber? Okay, so it's a person who is like a YouTuber, but they never show their face. They're like an anime persona, and they talk in like weeb speak, which is, I don't know how cool that is, but whatever. Isn't it like a virtual, like, they have like little like virtual like personas that do, yeah, like virtual reality kind of thing? You are a 3D rig, so it hooks up to your camera. it tracks your motion and some of them are better than others. So it tracks like your reactions and stuff. And they've gotten like really, really cool with it.

So like if you do a certain gesture, it'll do like an animation. You know, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, like one that's really funny right now is like one that I've been watching just because she does reactions to funny videos. And I'm just like, I want to turn my brain off. But she like turns her head to the side and it just gives like a little ghost coming out of her mouth like an anime.

It's just like, uh. And just like, that's funny. Nice. But I think all of the men who do this are mask presenting people, I think what they do is they pitch shift just a little bit to sound a little bit more like what I'm doing right now. Like a little deeper. They sound real. They sound a little more. Wait. It sounds like a trans guy who hasn't learned whether resonate his voice yet.

And so it was talking really the back of his throat to overcompensate. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think a lot of the femme ones also pitch their voice upwards because they want to sound like Neko Chan. Ooh-woo. Well, I think part of it is like... Anime girlfriend. They have like 50,000 viewers per stream. Like, they, stalkers are a real concern, so I don't hold this against them.

No. But yeah, this is my new pitch for, for voice mod because they just had this voice enhancer thing. And the noise reduction is so good. Like I had my ceiling fan just going like clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. Couldn't hear it until I speak into the mic. And then you can only hear the clunks because it has to pick up my voice. The introduction is that good. All right.

Get hyped, everybody. We got a new theme. Welcome to Library Punk. I'm Justin. I'm Skalkan Library. And my pronouns are he and him. I'm Sadie. I work IT in a public library and my pronouns are they them.

Hello, I'm Jay. I'm a music library director. and my pronouns are he-him. And we don't have a guest, but we do have a new theme song. It was done by Audrey from Radio Free Toteback. Fucking whips. Thank you. Thank you, Audrey.

And maybe we'll have new art by the time this comes up. Who knows? It's super cute. It's so good. I'm so excited. Yeah. Jay, you started off with the ALA stuff. Maybe I'll keep some of that in, but...

It's banned books week. It's all garbage. You want to take it from the top of the band Books Week debacle. Yeah, just in case, like, it doesn't make sense when we were. I have not been on Twitter at all, like, for two weeks. Me either. Apprised me from the top, my dude. So, ALA were some clowns about banned Books Week more than usual.

Well, at least they didn't do the, like, accidentally Islamophobic thing that they did a couple years ago. I don't know if y'all remember that, where they had the person holding. the thing up to their face and it made it look like a hijab or a knickab or whichever one that is. Yeah. So it wasn't, is that one the burqa? Okay. It wasn't that levels of like clowning around. But and so the challenge is actually still a thing, I think. They just took the tweet down because people were clowning on them too hard. So basically what they have is this like they did like a hashtag asking banned books or something like that

where you like recorded a video and you had to hashtag it of course because it was a challenge. It was like a giveaway of like a time where you faced censorship or stood up against depression or something. So this is the part that I saw. Yeah.

Yeah. So they did that. And it was like a chance to win a book by an author. Right. And people clowned on them real hard to the point where they deleted it is basically. And, you know, standard banned books week discourse. Is it banned books week? Yes.

Oh, okay. That's why they were doing that. Instead of actually, like, you know, helping libraries and library workers where, like, literally, I think it was three major libraries this week had to close because of bomb threats. Probably more, I think. Yeah. One of them was in, um, was in Salt Lake. County. Yeah, no, like, at least three, like, major libraries this week alone had to, like, close for a day at various days because they received, like, bomb threats and stuff. But no, ALA's like, lull, enter a cute challenge. Hashtag asking band books, man. Book giveaway, whatever.

Book giveaway, buy a journal where you could read all the band books. I saw it when it happened and I was just like, okay, whatever. Like, I, it's, it. cares. This is just like a day that ends with why with ALA's social media stuff. Well, they haven't been, they haven't been clowning for a while, like to the degree that they normally do. They've been kind of quiet over there in ALA land. Well, when you say clowning, you mean like being like aggressive about things, but they've just been like saying stuff that no one wants them to say. Like, they never stop that. I guess I just like don't hear like the degree to which the do something and then we all get mad about it. I haven't seen a lot of that recently.

I guess there's not been like the discourse hasn't been galloping, you know? I guess so. I mean, it's just bad books week the week we're recording this. Lord help us all. We should have had Emily on this week. Why didn't we plan? Or just wait or just held on to it until this week. Yeah.

Don't fucking tell me when to edit. I wouldn't dare, Justin. We're doing a movie episode because I'm pretty burnt out and I did not want to do an episode. And I was like, we've got to do a movie episode. And then Jay gave us a very good movie, actually. And I have a lot of questions about are all documentaries like this now? Like, are they just all like the guy from my own private Idaho and the guy from, I just recognize these people, but I don't entirely know their names. Evan Peters, the guy who plays Lipgap, is from like American Horror Story.

Is that where I know him from? He was in a Marvel movie too. He looks him up. He's a, who's the fast one? Quicksilf? The Flash. Oh, yeah, Quicksilver. Yeah, yeah.

He's Quicksilver. Okay. He is, isn't he? Yeah, and then our main, main guy, that's Barry Coogan or fuck you say his name. And he was, he's been in a lot of like A-24 films. Like he was in Kling of a Sacred Deer, which is great. People should watch it. He was in Green Knight.

And they took, they got, oh, he was also in Dunkirk. But Marvel got my boy. And he was in Eternals. I was like, no, why they took my, look at how they massacred my boy. Like, because I love him. He's such a good actor. He's like Irish. Have I ever told you guys how when we get bored,

my wife will do like this movie challenge where it was like how I'll like give them an actor and they have to get from that actor to a Marvel movie in as few jumps as possible. Oh, so it's like, you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever. Yeah. And it just keeps getting easier and easier. So we just stopped because it was like if you could get to Robert Downey Jr. Or like like literally everybody. Yeah, he wasn't Kingo, but who is the only name I know, because that's the one people were clowning on it on Twitter was like the name Kingo.

But yeah, that's very Coogan. And I don't remember, I don't recognize the other two guys. Udo Kier was one of the, was the fence. Okay, we should say what the movie was. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's just actually go into what the movie is. Yeah.

Yeah. You want to do this or should I? No, you should. Right. So the movie is American Animals. which came out in 2018. It premiered its Sundance, I believe. And then fucking movie pass picked it up and distributed it.

Like, you know, the swan song of Movie Pass was like releasing this incredible movie, weirdly. And the director is, what was his fucking name? Bart Leighton. And if the other, you know, film hose and the audience who like, documentaries might recognize him as the documentarian who did The Imposter. So Bart Leighton is not a drama fiction film director. He's a documentarian by trait. And the imposter, it's also very good. And it's about this family whose son went missing. And this like, and they aren't French. But this random French guy, not the right age or even like the right ethnicity, shows up. And

is like, surprise, I'm your long lost son. And they just go with it, which is the plot of Titan also kind of. Wait, wait. Was this? It won a BAFTA. Was this the one with the dude from Downton Abbey? Or was that a totally different movie where he's in person? No, this is, no, the imposter is a straight at documentary.

Oh, okay. Okay. Never mind. It's not like a recreation or a docufic. Like, no, it's just a documentary. And it won like a BAFTA. It's an incredible documentary. It's really good. I highly recommend it. And so this film, which is a fictional film, is, but with documentary elements in it, is by a filmmaker who primarily does documentaries.

Okay, that was my question is, is this like a documentary, a docu drama, a fictional documentary? Like where, I didn't understand where reality began and where the movie, the documentary like ended. So I think that's the point because one of the reasons I love this documentary movie film thing so much is because how it plays with like memory and subjectivity. And I feel like, I mean, and this is true with any retelling of anything, but people's memories of stuff are going to contradict each other. They might even contradict their own retellings of it years on. and by blending a sort of fictionalized, you know, this is based on a true story type of fiction film, but actually not only having like talking head interviews in it, but like literally there are scenes in this where the actual person and the actor are in the scene together talking to each other. I thought that was wild.

When I was in the movie theater and that scene happened, I was like, oh, oh this is oh this is gonna be good because that's a very like iranian new wave kind of thing this kind of docu drama docu fiction has precedent but it's an iranian film primarily um in the iran new wave which iran new wave is great um but because the like state censorship in iran has always been pretty deep tough. It's like been pretty hard. A lot of filmmakers in Iran were like starting to question what does it even mean to make a film and what does it mean to be a film and what is truth and what is depicting reality and all of this stuff. So they started playing around with it a lot. And then so you get these

films that sort of very much blur and question that line between what is documentary, what is real life and what is a film. I actually, the one I'm most familiar with, and I have the criteria in addition of it, is called Close Up, at least the English translation, where it's about this actual dude who committed fraud

by pretending to be the Iranian director, Makmobov, and cast a film and everything, and got caught and got sent to prison and stuff. He committed, like, identity fraud and stuff. And so they made, like, a dramatized retelling of it, but starring all of the actual people, like, they didn't get actors to portray the people. They just got themselves, but it wasn't a documentary. They filmed it as an actual film,

like his actual, like, you know, dramatized retelling, but just with the actual people. So it wasn't like talking head, this is what happened type of documentary. That's wild. It's so good. It's structured like a documentary, or it's structured like a movie? Closeup is structured. and filmed and written like a movie, like a fiction film about something that actually happened, but it stars the actual people it's about as actors. Yeah, that happened with Adi Murphy, like Adi Murphy. Oh, in like the Dolomite film? Adi Murphy was a medal honor recipient.

Oh, I think he said Eddie Murphy. When he was in World War II, Eddie Murphy won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his services. and then he played himself in movies about him as like 50s propaganda. So, yeah, Audie Murphy plays like himself as an 18-year-old as like a 30-year-old, but he's playing himself in these movies about like what got him the Medal of Honor. Yeah. There's also this just regular documentary that doesn't quite do this, but it does a little bit, where it's an actual documentary film.

It's not one like this where it's like, is this documentary? Is this a dramatized retelling? But it's called The Act of Killing by the documentary in Joshua Oppenheimer, which God bless him for having that last name. And it's about the Indonesian like genocide mass killings in like 1965 and 1966 where they like met one of the guys who was like kind of responsible for a lot of the killings. And they made like little dramatized little movies with him about it. Like they did like a like kind of like recreations, but where he would then play himself.

And like they made like they put like feel like, oh, we're going to be like a neo-noir section of it and whatnot where it's like they just like met this guy. And they were like, oh. And so this like blending of like. And Herzog, you know, Van Herzegg. the king, the goat, grace to ever do it. His whole thing about documentaries is, instead of being a fly on the wall,

we are like the wasp that stings or something. Like, you're not supposed to blend into the background when you make a documentary because an objective truth doesn't exist. It just doesn't. And so, like, stirring things up and Herodog does this thing called

like hyper-reality. or something where it's like by sort of pushing the limits of the quote unquote like natural of like oh you're just going to film someone like telling you about something he like in grizzly man there are scenes where he made them redo it like dozens of times until it got to be this like robotic weird like vibe and reaction of it and then that's the take he would use so like herzog is also very big about like kind of of doing straightforward regular documentaries, but the way that he makes them is him. He knows that just by his own presence of what he chooses to film and how he chooses to edit and all that, that is subjective. And so how do you play with that to show something? What are you going to say, Sadie? Oh, I was going to say, maybe we should back up and actually discuss the premise of the film real quick. And why we're talking about this instead of me. Why we're talking about it? Yeah. Yeah. We'll just start with the regina.

cap, I think, at a certain point. You know, that was all to say, Justin, there is no line of, like, is this a documentary? Is this a fictional film? The point, I think, is that it's blurring those lines and that is part of the story that it's telling, which is about an actual theft, heist, quote that happened. Assault. Yeah, assault. Yeah.

At Transylvania University in Kentucky, which, hilariously, they called, transi like in real life the website's even trancy.edu that's like one letter away from being a slur like I want to go to

Transy University we'll see who cancels who I went Jordan Peterson to teach at Transy university these like college students some of which did not go to to Transy but one did

it was like an art student or something stole slash attempted to steal some rare books, including some Audubon prints, from their library special collections. Two large Autobons, a misprinted edition of Darwin's Origin of Species. Which is where the title comes from. And Fortis Sanitatis, which I had to look up. Yeah, and the Autobons were like the most expensive...

Oh, by far. books in like any library special collections. In the world. They're the most expensive books in the world. Yeah. And those are at this random university in Kentucky. This is my whole problem with this whole premise is like anyone who knew anything about like stealing books would know you wouldn't steal these books because they're all accounted for. Yeah, all the audubons.

All the audubons, all of these versions of Darwin, maybe the Hortis sent. Sanitatis, I couldn't tell how many versions there are out there. But I mean, like, they have to go appraise it at one point. And the praiser would immediately be like, this is stolen. Yeah, there's a list, you know. Yeah. Also, University of Illinois has a lot of audubons. And my job as a graduate student, while also working at the reference desk, was to, quote,

flip the bird every week because they had, like, the real autobonds back in the special collections. But then they had, like, prints in a big case, like, that's in the movie. And it was my job every week to change. the bird out on a schedule. And we had like the flamingo that they show in the film. So I got to quote flip the bird every week with the Audubons. It was fun. And so then they're going to like steal these and then sell them and make a shitload of money.

And they botch the heist. Like hell. Well, they drop the Audubons, but they get the Darwin. Well, let's back up. Let's back up a little bit. Because these are two guys, two guys. and they want to, they're just sick of this town, man.

Just think of this, it's 2004. Being white is so hard. This is very Midwest emo. And it's very much like this fucking town. There's like a scene where like there's a shopping cart on fire. And they're like, I'm just waiting for something to happen, man. I don't know what it'll be. You know, something's going to come along.

Like where a lot of the talking head interviews at the beginner, like, they're just good old boys. That was weird. Yeah. I loved to the professor. The professor was fun. He was definitely fucking in on it. That's my theory.

This motherfucker knew from the beginning what they were doing. And he's just like, no, man, they were great. I don't know what you're asking about. The thing that I loved was just like, it literally came because the one student there observed that the only guard on the, the only guard on the. these incredibly expensive books was just one librarian in a locked room. Yeah. And that was their entire like impetus of like, we're going to do this book heist.

We're going to steal the most expensive book in the world. Which why didn't that book have more security is actually what I'm curious about, which, you know, I want to go into like the carceral state and special collections here in a bit. But like, why did that book not have like lasers around it? going to come back to you. That's why. Because everyone knows it's yours. And it just goes to show how very unsuriously they took their own plan because they didn't actually like, at least in the film part of it, didn't seem to actually do that much research into like beyond how much does this book cost. Like they didn't know what the word provenance was when they showed up at the

collectors. Right. So like they, it wasn't real to them. It felt. like that is also just like something that amazes me about this whole story is that they kind of for the most part a little bit got away with it for a while they didn't really start getting caught until they went to go get it appraised i'm surprised they got that far because quite honestly if if if your two volumes of audubon get hijacked and someone gets assaulted how big is the community of people it's 2004 people who got email People got AOL instant messenger. I mean, email is what they traced them back with was based on the emails that they sent.

Yeah, but even that, I mean, like, if you go up and say, like, I want the provenance on this, they're going to, like, look at the stamps inside of it because someone's fucking stamped any of these books. Not for, like, that library, but, like, this is from the private collection of Eurstice von Hostas. And it's like, oh, okay, we know where that one was. It was at the University of Transylvania. Yeah. I worked in the special collections. I illicitly learned the pass code to get into the special collections as a graduate student. I knew that all of the most valuable books were in a small room that was not locked called the vault. It's always called the vault.

And I could have taken easily at any day, I could have taken $20, $30,000 worth of untraceable books. easily. Like, why didn't you just get a job in special collections? Instead of the shitty grocery store. And just, like, slip something into your bag. It's so easy. The people who always get caught in these things are, like, people who are like, I'm going to heist. I'm going to go in. I'm going to, like, have a lined jacket and shit like that. Any graduate assistant could walk in and just be like, oh, this is, you know, this is an illuminated manuscript of Joseph.

this, okay, fine, that's worth like $5,000. No one could ever trace it. Well, that's why I'm like, they didn't actually, like, it wasn't actually real to them. And like, that goes into the whole white privilege, like middle class shit too. And like the movie does go into that. But yeah, it's just. Which I'm glad that it touches on that. Yeah, me too.

And yeah, that was just the thing that got me is they were just so clearly swallowing their own bullshit when there's just so many easier ways to do exactly what they are doing. Like, not only are, like, these books incredibly expensive and rare, they're huge. It took two of them to carry it out, like, to, like, fucking run across the library because they didn't know their exit path, correct? Like, it was a wild. If our listeners have never seen an Audubon or an Audubon print before, they're like as big as your couch.

Yeah. Yeah. They're huge. They're huge. They're very heavy. I've had to carry them. Yeah, like one of the quotes that I pulled that I thought was funny that they say in the film, or there aren't exactly books that teach you how to steal art. And they say that to show that they were watching heist films, like the old school.

Is it? Oh, God, it's one of the old, like, Kubrick films. I think that's like black and white that's about a heist or gamble or something. But they say even in real life that they watch. watched a lot of heist films. And they even do the whole reservoir dogs, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Pink, yada, yada, yada. I don't want to be Mr. Pink. You know what Mr. Pink is all about.

Mr. Pink is gay. I got to do my rowing machine. Fucking, like, social network, fucking... He was always an entrepreneur. I hated every fucking person in this documentary. Except for the insane guy who probably... orchestrated all of this and might have lied to all of them about ever going to Amsterdam, about ever meeting the mark.

Yeah. He's the only person I like. He's the only person I like. Everyone else, you're an idiot. You know, this guy was crazy. You all screwed up. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Like, this is like your crazy friend that buys you weed. Like, you don't, you don't listen to that person on matters that could, like, send you to jail, you know. The thing that got me was him sitting down at a library computer and literally typing like how to, like, how to plan a heist? And I'm just like, Jesus fucking Christ. I was like, put Tor on these computers. Right?

Like, it's early 2000. Well, he could be researching. And yeah. And like there's all of that like, you know, intellectual freedom shit to go with it too. but like, I mean, intellectual freedom is the readers of this happens. Oh, but just, it's just the irony of that. Like, you're in a library, using a library computer to figure out how to

heist a library book. I mean, I assume that was creative license. I assume so, too, but it was still a nice touch, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a good touch. I like how they all got into, like, fights the night after the heist, where they're all like, I can't handle it, man.

I'm going to get into a fight with these frack guys. I'm going to crash my car into someone else. I'm going to steal a hungry man, frozen dinner. I thought that was how they were going to get caught, was they were all going to turn themselves in. But no, they'd go to the auditor and they get caught. It was just such white boy bullshit. The entire time I'm watching this movie, I'm like,

I knew these kids in high school. I didn't go to, like, college. But, like, you know, it's like, I knew these boys in high school who would have thought that they were this cool and would have gotten away with this, and it would be actually easy. and like any poor kid can tell you that if you're going to lie, you've got to really commit. Like if you're going to, if you're going to go in, you're going to go in hard and you're going to go in fast.

And they did not do that at all. The thing is there's so many other stories of like stealing from special collections where a smash and grab does work. Like they're like, we can't do it at night. There's no way to get in. But like the guy who stole like feathers, the guy who stole like feathers, the guy who stole like feathers because he had an obsession with making rare lures. He just, like, bought a hammer, smashed in, grabbed these... He didn't grab the extinct erred corpses.

He got the ones that he knew he could sell because of the rare feathers, grabbed them. They didn't fucking figure it out for months because no one checked to see if anyone would steal those. And he made these lures out of them and sold them for like thousands of thousands of dollars. because, like, of course, if you steal a dodo skin, everyone's going to know, oh, that's the dodo skin. That was at the Smithsonian. But he just bought, you know, he just got the feathers. And he's like, oh, you know, I just, I got a skin, luckily, you know, from a collector.

And that's how I made these lures. That's what they should have done. They should have gone for the Darwin. They should have gone for the Josephus. They should have gone for illuminated manuscripts. They should have just gone small game and got a job. Again, one librarian. That wouldn't have been cool, though.

Yeah, I guess. I like the whole kind of like fight club aspect to this, where they're all like, was it just the other guy, talent? I don't remember any of their names. Was it just crazy guy telling me how things went? Or was it really me? And I'm like, man, you must have had a great lawyer. But like, I mean, they even do the like talk to each other in the bathtub thing that I think was in fight club,

but was also definitely in the talented Mr. Ripley. Well, I mean in the sense that like the actual people, they're like, oh. Yeah, I know. But like playing off of that kind of like vibe. Yeah. Yeah, I did like how it ended when they were like, oh yeah, nobody actually really knows if he talks to a Mark in Amsterdam and how it like pretty much ends with Lipka. I think it was being like, you'll just have to take my word.

Yeah, you just have to take my word on it, I guess. And it's like, that's the whole fucking movie. Right there. See, part of me is like, he's fucking crazy enough that of course he flew to Amsterdam. And like, part of me is like, yeah, of like, like, not that I want to believe it. But part of me is like, oh, no, he's probably, he probably did it. Like, he's probably that much of an idiot where he flew to Amsterdam and like met with crazy people. Maybe, yeah.

Not that it would have worked, but. That whole scene was so vague that it makes me wonder sort of like. did he just go to Amsterdam, not meet in, because there's sort of this really long scene where he's just really high, and he's going around the Red Light District. And I think maybe the filmmakers have a little bit of information they can't tell us,

and just assumed that's how he spent all his time in Amsterdam, and then came back. That's what I think, because I worked with historians who have had to redact things from works and have left the footnotes in. And so you have to sometimes read between the lines. So I think maybe documentaries do that too. That's what I'd like to believe.

Yeah. But yeah. So when they actually do commit the heist, they're going to do it by dressing up as old dudes and doing like stage makeup and stuff, which they actually do go to. They like, actually think it's very clever that they like time it like around like when they're having exams. I think that's stupid. Really? Because old people show up in the summer. No, no, I'm not talking about the fact that they're old.

I'm talking about the timing of it. Okay, got you. That's their habit that they're in exams. I thought that was like, oh, they're like, bro, we all got exams that day. And he's like, exactly. And they're like, ah. But yeah, the old people thing. I love in the review, it says that they look like they're in a Beastie Boys music video.

But they actually go to the library and this is, I thought, was the funniest fucking in the history of the world. Surprise, there's a board, like, there's a meeting in the special collections where there's four librarians in there now. They're having, like, a board meeting or something. A cheese board meeting. I worked in special collections. We just bring food in there and just hang out.

That's why there's four, there's never, like, four people sitting in the conference room list. There's, like, food. It's a cheeseboard meeting. Yeah, yeah. So, I loved that touch where it's like, fuck. There's librarians in there having a meeting. God damn it.

And so they ditch it. And then Lipka, like, I see, I don't know. Because, like, you had to have a meeting to be able to go into the special collections anyway. So I'm assuming that they had made the meeting appointment. Why would they be able to make the meeting if there's going to, like, the appointment, if there was going to be like a cheeseboard meeting in the special collections? It doesn't matter because, like, you're expecting one person to come in. it doesn't stop you from having a meeting.

Like, we would have people in there for like three days, and it's like, we still got to have our meetings. Okay. I've ever worked in special collections, so not like any in any formal capacity. But then he does end up making meetings, so they go back the next day. Sands looking like old dudes. And one of them has to stay outside because he's a student there, right?

And they're not dressed as old guys. One of them is a getaway car driver. And so it's, you know, Evan Peters, American Horror. Horror Story guy is going to go up and take care of the librarian and then call our little Econ University of Kentucky major person to then come up and get the books after he's taking care of the librarian, which Evan Peters is a dick and doesn't do that and calls them up before they take care of the librarian. And their little like stun pin doesn't do shit.

And then they like, you know, tie her up and all this stuff. This was like watching a horror movie when I saw it in the theater. Like I remember being in grad school and them telling us like if there's going to be a good on-campus shooter or something where we're situated in this building, we're going to be like the first to get got. You know, like that kind of stuff. And like when you learn of like the actual occupational hazard of being a librarian in certain settings like in a university. And like I've not worked in special collections. but, and I don't think I was transitioning yet. I may have, I don't know, but just like, you know,

vaguely like hearing about hypothetical violence against people in your profession versus actually seeing it was a little like, and especially just like, that, the actress who plays BJ Gooch was in hereditary, by the way. If you've seen hereditary, if you're watching this being like, who is she? She was the, like, friend of the dead grandma and hereditary who also ended up being, like, a hail payment witch. But, like, she's great in this.

And, like, how they have her, like, continuing to be like, why are you doing this? This is hurting me. Like, they keep her vocal during that entire scene. And it was just, like, freaking me out the first time I watched this. And then the fact that like the boys the entire time, it's freaking them out too. And they keep apologizing to her. And I don't know if that's actually how that went down. And then they keep like showing how the actual people when they like do the talking heads with the four boys,

which they're like in the 30s now. Like they're all out of prison now. They each got like seven years, I think. They all seem very like it fucked them up. Like they seem very remorseful about at least. least that aspect. I think they think that everything else was them being stupid, but that is the aspect where they hurt this person that seemed to fuck them all up. Lipka straight up starts like crying almost in one of his little talking head interviews when he talks about it, which again,

I don't know how much we trust crocodile tears or anything, but they still, you know, get away with it and stuff. I was reading, so BJ, her name's Betty J. Dean Gouge and she goes by BJ Gouge apparently. She retired like a year or two ago, like very recently. And she had been approached and they all had been approached like multiple times to do a documentary about this or do movies about this or whatnot. And she just like never wanted to talk about it. She kind of just wanted to move past it, which I like don't blame her.

Like one, like having that stolen under your watch, like I would just feel guilty even though I knew it would not have been my fault. I would just be like, oh, no, but I was the one, you know, but also just like how humiliating and traumatizing the experience that must be. So I don't blame her. But apparently just the way that this filmmaker was going to approach telling this story, not only was it the first time that any of the four guys were like, oh, okay, this is a person that we feel like is not going to be like, oh, yeah, cool, heist film.

These college students got away with it. but that was going to show how stupid they were. And yet they still got away with it, kind of for the most part. But, like, that was bringing in these concepts of thinking about, like, the class issues of, like, why were they doing this? And, you know, talking about, like, that every part of this, like, went wrong and wasn't, quote, glamorizing it or sensationalizing it in any way, although the trailer certainly does. But that also, B.J. Gooch, this was. the first time when the filmmaker like approached her that she felt comfortable enough to actually want to talk publicly about it. She had not wanted to before this. But because of again,

how this filmmaker was approaching this, she felt comfortable and actually wanted to instead of just instead of just going, all right, I guess I will, like made the active decision. And this is why this doesn't feel true crimey and gross to me. It actually, like this was like this woman who this happened to did this with like agency and like an active participant instead of it being like oh well she's just going to have to talk about it

or they're going to talk about it without her or something Sadie is your lights that I just noticed that and it must be my camera because the light in this room is stable I don't know what that was I think Sadie's got a ghost in their in their house

strobe ghost yeah strobe ghost that should be our library punk band name strobe ghost hell yeah spook season baby um but yeah like she wanted to talk about this and they only feature like one talking head interview with her and it's very short and yeah so in an interview and i think it was actually in the thing i found of um her retirement announcement where they talk about it a little bit where she said she found the experience of being in this film and participating it and stuff to be very cathartic actually and that she can talk about it now and she kind of

got it out of her system and she can more move past it but that she got to make the decision of when she did that and like got to trust the filmmaker for it yeah i i really liked that they saved her until all the way to the end because you know you see the perpetrator or you know the guys who who planned this out you know kind of in and out in various ways throughout the film and then at the very end, like, you finally get to hear it from the victim's point of view. And I really like how she summed up how they, she still, to this day, thinks that they didn't actually know what they were doing, or why they were doing it, rather. She was like, I think that they don't even understand why they were doing it. And then, you know, it cuts to them kind of talking about some of the, like,

class privileged stuff. But, you know, I really liked how that was handled. But yeah, I like, I like that she had agency in it because that's like my number one problem with true crime. Yeah, like in the, I believe it's the article from variety talks about the, like, how often these people got approached to have documentaries or films made about this and that they turned them all down until this instance, which I think one speaks to the craft and the perspective of this documentarian. and filmmaker and how he approaches telling these kinds of complicated stories. But yeah, so, oh, sorry. I was going to say, can we talk about how they weren't, like, prosecuted for assaulting her because the stunpin wasn't a dangerous weapon? Yeah, so, like, one of the reasons why I thought it'd be interesting to talk about this film

beyond just this, this, you know, happened. this was involving a library was the types of questions it raises about libraries and the police state. Yep. And not just like, oh, thieving, you know, stealing things with special collections, but just like, you know, I think in the notes, I say screw the audubons. Let's talk about the safety of library workers. Yep. You know, she was, quote, the only security of these things. And yeah, So the way that they think they're going to get her is by stunning her. And that'll just knock her out and it won't hurt her and she'll just be out. And the stunt pin doesn't do shit.

And they still like tie her up and, you know, gag her and all this other stuff. They do not get like in their prosecution. They each get seven years in prison. But they do not get prosecuted for hurting her at all because the stun pin is not classified as a weapon or something like that. So they actually didn't get. prosecuted for harming a human being at all, just for, like, stealing books. Well, and like... Let me see if I can find what I was looking at earlier, but like, I would be interested

in seeing what the actual charges were against them, because I think there's the assault with a dangerous weapon, but then there's also, like, they zip tied her limbs together and duct taped her mouth and dragged her around the floor. And like, there's got to be some sort of assault charge for that alone, right? Like, you can't zip tie somebody and duct tape their mouth and, like, in everyday life and not have the, you know, and if he's reported to the police, there's not going to be like, oh, there's no dangerous weapon involved. Like, there's definitely, like, shit there. So I would be interested in seeing. They were not prosecuted for inflicting physical harm.

Really? That makes me wonder why right-wingers also tend to have, like, lots of. zip ties whenever they go to protests. I imagine maybe there's a legal loophole they expect that they can exploit. Arthur, what do you think? He's not a lawyer. He just wears a tuxedo because he's a party boy. Is that right, Arthur?

He looks very offended. But yeah, like, I think an interesting thing that is relevant to some of the things that we talk about on this podcast, beyond just me going like, look at how this movie portrays truth and reality and information, which is what I'm always so interested in. is like, you know, thinking about like the relationship between library collections and libraries and like the police state and like the carceral state, right? Like, one, they don't actually get persecuted at all for hurting the librarian. Like she goes through this horrifically traumatizing thing and there's no legal repercussions for that. It's just because of the books.

Yeah, yeah. Like she could stand in that room for the rest. of her career and realize that... And look at those fucking audubon. Those books were more valuable than her life. Yep. As decreed by the justice system, I would probably throw up every day. And the way they portrayed her is as a object person. As a saying like, these are our bestest books.

These are the books that are so important. These books make my life have meaning. So I imagine that might play into it too. This also makes me think about, like, and say that's a good point, like, the justice system determined that those books were worth more than her life. And, like, thinking about, like, what is the purpose of special collections, you know? Like, obviously, like, preserve it. Please leave that whole pause in, Justin. Yeah. Don't take.

We're author just, like, crawls behind it with perfect timing. Yeah, like, not to, like, say that, like, special collections has no meeting or that they're bad, but, like, thinking about, like, you know, historical memory and preservation, yes, but then like which universities and special collections have what beyond just like, oh, we're gifting this thing to you? But then like, are those valuable because of the role that they play in our cultural memory and history or because of how much they're worth? I remember when I worked at the University of Utah and like the University of Utah in its special collections actually has a lot of interesting stuff about the history of religion and not just Mormonism, but religion in general. Because I like the Mormonism tie,

it's like, oh, just the study of religion is like a big thing there. And I was told, like, even during my interview when I worked there, that the vault part of the special collections, the things that were in the vault together were worth more than the entire Utah state Capitol building and everything inside of it. That's so wild. And the Utah Capitol buildings made it like marble and has like golden shit on it. And so like, that like framing. I mean, you know, not to sound like a traitor, but like the temple is really cool. Oh, no.

Especially at night. I've been inside a temple before. They can be really cool fucking buildings. Anyway, not to digress. Yeah. Not to digress. But that like the way that we frame special collections sometimes is like not like what role does this thing play in our culture of memory, but how much is this thing worth? Yep.

Oh, it's old and rare. worth a lot of money. And so, like, yeah. So it's like it's, it's like, it's people outside of libraries who are then determining the worth of the things that libraries hold. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I'm not sure if I'm saying that like the way I mean it, but. And it's like, I think I put in the nose as well, it's like in a neoliberal university institution, which is, I feel like we're a lot of special collections are. I don't know how often there's like a special collections. outside of a university. Religious institutions probably have a very big one. My first special collections experience was volunteering at my Catholic University's special collections, and it was just lots and lots of copies of the Vulgate.

I mean, that's a university. That's a university still. A private Catholic university. The Mormons have a rare book library. I know that's a fact. But I mean, like, you know, like outside of like a university or college setting, So I feel like when I hear special collections, I think of at a college, right, of any flavor. And so, like, in a neoliberal university, how did I phrase it in the notes?

Like, what's more important to a special collections to a library, the monetary value or the historical slash cultural value? And in a neoliberal university, is there a difference between those two things? And, like, is something only as, like, historically and culturally important because of how much money it's worth? or something. And like, is that the only reason why you might procure something is like the monetary or like aesthetic value it'll bring upon the university like with these like big purchases? And I think another point that I made in the notes, at least regarding like libraries and like the carceral state, is like especially with like a special collections and like a special collections is where all the old, rare, expensive shit is. Well, maybe not even necessarily

old because of the regular shelves of a bunch of old shit on them too. But they're not quote, rare or worth money or something. So it doesn't matter if they get, you know, stolen or whatnot. But even regardless, it's like any type of library collection, but especially special collection, that's like a boundaryed collection, right? Like a library collects things. Like so those are like of a specific collection that is a border that is being put around objects, both physically and like monetarily and conceptually. Yeah. And borders necessitate policing. And like I know

like one of the things I hear about like when people like places get rid of library fines is that the cost of collecting fines of like hiring collections agencies or doing any sort of like punitive measures costs more like is more than it's worth. And so that's a reason to get rid of fines, which is like, really good in your proposal. It would be like, by the way, this is costing us more to actually get them than we would get back, yada, yada, yada. But like framing it in this sort of like, like our collections and keeping things in our

collections and making the concept of a collection, a collection, like that is a border that has to be policed and sometimes literally. And so like when things are stolen from special collections, it's like, why do we care about getting them back? Is it because of the money? or is it because of like the importance they might play in any historical or cultural memory? I think it's neither actually because what I think about special collections is that they are, they do have rare materials.

They do have unique and local materials that are important to doing like the actual thing that special collections are supposed to be good at, like preserving local history, that sort of thing. But the main reason anyone creates a special collection, and archives is to document the political history of an institution. And that means big donations. So could you repeat everything that you just said for me? I have no idea what I said.

No, the special collections are inherently a political collection because they are not just about what exists for local collections and they're not just historical local collections and they're not just rare collections. the main reason you would create a special collections and archive is to create a political history of the institution itself. And so the real reason that you create these things is to say that this collection, this, particularly this space, this special collection space is the space of John D. Fuxmith. And he is the reason why this university is the university that it is today. And he could have donated nothing. It could be nothing about money.

But I think special collections and archives are particularly developed in order to create, to create a place where you invite rich donors to come to and say, look, this is a place of prestige. Wouldn't you like to be represented here? Why don't you donate all your shit to us before you die? And so, like, it has this pull. Yeah, that aesthetic value as well. It has this political value to it.

Yeah, it's not so much that anything in is worth anything. It's so much that it's like, this is an institution. And that is a political statement. And I think that's what special collections are primarily about. Yeah, this is like, especially with the universities, it's like, I was talking about this when I still worked at UNH because there was the thing of like, oh, they're so proud of being an R1 and the role with the library plays in that, but then they don't actually pay or value the faculty and the other workers who make that,

and that they only care about the prestige and the aesthetics of having these, like, signifiers in the university, but they don't actually care about sustaining those or what they do or what it takes to make that. And so it's like things are in the, so if I'm understanding what you're saying, like, things are in the special collections, not because they care about what the thing is at all,

but only what sort of acclaim and, like, image it gives, the university itself for political, because everything is political, but like, you know, please give us your money reasons. That and it's like, we're putting your garbage in our very, very special room in the hopes that you will give us money. You're a special boy. Basically, yes. And well, I think just how that all ties into like the whole cult of the book and books

being tied to intellectualism and, you know, like. prestige and I'd rather read books on print and not stare at us, you know, that whole like bullshit thing that happens around libraries too. So what do we think about how this film portrays the book as object? Pretty normally I would say. Like do we think it like it's, like I don't feel like it's, I don't know if I feel like it's buying into the like the book is as a physical object. is sacred. Like, it's just like, these are books and they were worth money, but I feel like it's not

like, it doesn't go like, oh, like when it shows you like the auto bonds, right? It just shows you that like this is a stupid heist because like these books are easily identifiable. Yeah. So like I think I actually really respect the film for not necessarily focusing on the books with a capital B so much. Like it rarely spends any time focusing on. on, oh, they're books.

Like, it doesn't really do that much at all. So I don't know. Yeah, I actually really like that about it. I do like, I like that too because it like, it kind of just shows like, yeah, the perspective of the dumb shit boys who are doing this. Like, literally to them, it was just, it was just capital. And there are some scenes where the bird kind of theme comes into it. But that's part of the reason why I liked that they kept the librarians interview to the end. and why I feel like the scene where they assault her to get the books is so harrowing

because there's not a whole lot of reverence for the books. You don't even fucking see the fucking Darwin. Yeah, you barely see the spines. So it's just like I feel like that's why that scene was just so starkly harrowing because it was really like, Jesus fucking Christ, do you think these books are worth hurting this woman like? this and they're like apologizing to her as they're hurting her they're like well we didn't want to hurt anybody and it's like buddy you're doing it right fucking now and you're committed so you're

going through with it but like that it was just the whole shattering of this construct that they had built up throughout the film of it being a a dumb fuck heist and her like little interview at the end also wasn't focusing on the materials no it was her as a person it was her as a person and like Why did they do this? But it was like her experience of it and not librarian as the person who was taking care of the books capital B. Like seriously, like, Audubon's are really cool. If you got to see them, they are really cool. They're really goofy looking. Audubon would add like three wings to think sometimes. I think he would forget. I would love to see those. The really cool. The flamingo slaps. I love the flamingo. My favorite is the bald eagle. who's like ripping a fish head off and it's like that.

Like it's really hilarious. They're cool books. If you ever get a chance to see an Autobahn, they're nice. But like, you know, they like smash the thing with the Darwin and you don't see the Darwin until he like takes it out of his backpack after he threw up everywhere in the van of like, I got the Darwin. And he doesn't even open it. You don't even get to read what's on the spine.

It just lives like an old like shitty library finding book almost. And then that's all. you ever see of them ever again besides like it hiding under one of their dorm room beds and that's it and that's it so good good good job of it like for not like fetishizing that they stole books from a library that like it focused more on like all of the people involved and not the objects involved and it didn't treat the librarian like an object okay i think we've got more than uh we've done our due diligence. Go watch this documentary.

It's really well done. Yeah. I love the little scene where they're imagining how the heist is going to go and like a little, what is it, a little more conversation whenever the Elvis song is. It's got like cool, like, heist movie editing and they're all suave and shit. Like, I like that scene a lot. But ultimately, they're just throwing a couple of rare books into fucking bed sheets and running out of the building.

Yeah, dropping them in a stairwell. Wells. Yeah. The minds of teenage boys, I swear to God. Yeah, it's really good. And like, if you like Barry Cogan, if you like Evan Peters, they're both excellent in this. And if you like don't like true crime, you'll like this. Because this does not feel like a, quote, true, like it's about a crime that is true that happened. But it doesn't feel like it's in participating in the true crime genre. I don't know if either of you guys. that same vibe i don't know anything about true crime i literally the only crime podcast i listen to is like lie cheat and steel where they're just like do you think it was worth it nah this dude was an asshole like it's just like it's like rogues thieves and bullshitters you know i love that kind of stuff i have a book that's like villains thieves and rogues and it's just like people from the

early modern period who just were like highway men and stuff and it's just like yeah that's fun Nice. Yeah, that's not true crime. True crime is to make you, like, afraid so that you call the police or the Paw Patrol or whatever, and you're just like, oh, please save me, carceral state until it comes for me. Yeah. This movie barely even talks about the carceral state, which I think would be interesting if it had gone into it a little more. But I understand what its focus was, and I think it does its focus well. It doesn't focus on the, like, now let's do a trial and now let's do this. It's like more of a like psychological view of this, which I like. So yeah, go check it out.

It's on like Hulu. If you've got Prime, it's on Prime. It's probably on a million other things. It's on DM, Justin. Movie Pass is coming back. Yeah, go watch this to celebrate movie pass coming back. Dear God. And yeah, I'd be curious to see what other librarians,

especially special collections librarians think of this. BJ Gooch, if for some reason you're listening, I know you're retired now because I read your little retirement news thing on transe.edu. I hope you're doing well and away from all this bullshit

and enjoying whatever money you got out of this movie. If any of our followers, like, no, BJ Gooch, like tell her we hope she's doing well or something. Or if you also were, work at Transi. I'm never going to stop calling it. Do you know how many times during this I've almost

set a slur? Like my accident, like, a lot. It's so cute and funny that it's called Transi. It's like, Transylvania University, but it's in Kentucky and it's almost a slur. It's funny. See, I'm curious like if any of our

listeners, like, no BJ at all. Oh, and I'm supposed to close it out now? Since when? I don't know. Since when? I mean, if you want me, I can just like start talking about the fact that I finished Infinite Jess this week and I'm growing my shoes now. That I won't ever shut it out. Good night.