Stuff You Should Know - Berenice

Episode Date: October 27, 2011

It's Halloween again, and this year Chuck and Josh are ringing in the holiday with a special reading of the short story "Berenice," by Edgar Allan Poe. Tune in to catch Stuff You Should Know's Poe-rific Halloween episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. That makes this Stuff You Should Know. I wonder what that sounds like to people who listen to it at double speed.

Might sound like your normal voice. Right, yeah. You know that was my impression of somebody. I'm going to go with Vincent Price. No, Edgar Oliver. It was a great Edgar Oliver, terrible Vincent Price. Who's Edgar Oliver? Edgar Oliver. He's a storyteller on the moth. Oh, really? Yeah, and he sounds exactly like that. You got to check his stuff out. He's awesome.

Is he a horror? Is he like anything wrong with him? Well, yeah. I mean, he talks like that, but other than that, he's an awesome dude. So that was my Edgar Oliver. It's pretty good. You go back and listen. Now you'll be like, wow. So I was doing an Edgar Oliver, Chuck, because in T minus like four days, yeah, it's going to be Halloween. One of our favorite days. And mind-blowingly enough, if you're listening to this on Halloween, it's today. Yeah. Yeah, that works.

And last year we did something unusual. So this year we're doing it again, which makes it the usual. Yeah. But it was popular. People liked it. We read a great short story last year. Yeah, people actually called for it again and said, oh, you're going to do it this year? I think some people might not have liked it, but just skip it then. Yeah, we were like, does that mean we don't have to study? Okay, let's do that one.

Exactly. Yeah, there's one in the can that's guaranteed going to be at least okay. Yes. So this year, Mr. Charles W. Chuck Bryant selected the story. And it is by someone you may or may not have heard of. He's a somewhat, you know, well-known writer. His name is Edgar Allen Poe. And he died in Baltimore, I believe, in the 1840s.

Sure. Here's one of the great, first great American writers of the 19th century. Slash drug addicts. Big-time drug addict. And I think that comes through a lot in this. Yeah. But we've selected a short story. Chuck selected a short story. Actually, I gave you a selection. You made the final choice.

Yeah, but you led me to it. I gave you the crazy image. You were like, which one of these would you like? And then you basically put this one in my hand. No, actually, I was leaning toward the crazy dwarf that kills the king. Oh, what are we reading this one for? Because this one's creepy.

Okay, all right. I agree. Well, do you want to tell them the name of this one? It's called Baranice. And give you a slight setup just so you know what's going on. Okay. There's a woman called Baranice and a man. And they are cousins and they are married and things go a little weird in the story.

Listen, is that enough? We're weirder than cousins being married. Yeah, I don't want to give anything away, but I just want you, you know, it's it's it's old English. It's just not old English, but it's older than it's old American. Yeah. So before we lose any more listeners, let's get to it. You want to cue the spooky music?

Yeah, but we should also point out that at the end of this episode, we have a very special guest. So let's not say who, although if you listen on Tuesday, you know. But if you aren't into the reading, just go ahead and skip forward to the special guest and you'll get some delight there. Right. And if you do that, we apologize in advance. Either way.

All right. So now let's cue the spooky music. I'm OK. That's that's the tone. Let's dim the lights. OK. And we now present to you Edgar Allan Poe's baronese. My Josh, there's a little quote at the beginning in Latin and in English.

I'll read the English. My companion said to me, if I would visit the grave of my friend, I might somewhat alleviate my worries. Reasonable advice. Here we go. Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multi form. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that

arch as distinct to yet as intimately blended overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow. How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as an ethics, evil is a consequence of good. So in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin and the ecstasies which might have been. Nice.

It sounded like improper English, but that's how we wrote it. And it's not just today, it's two day with a hyphen in between. My baptismal name is Eugius, that of my family I will not mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time honored than my gloomy gray hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries and a many striking particulars in the character of the family mansion, in the frescoes of the chief saloon, in the tapestries of the dormitories, in the chiseling of some buttress in the armory, but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings, in the fashion of the library chamber, and lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the

library's contents, there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief. The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber and with its volumes, of which latter I will say no more. Here died my mother, here and I was born, but it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before, that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it, let us not argue the matter, convince myself I seek not to convince. There is however a remembrance of aerial forms, of spiritual and meaning eyes, of sounds, musical yet sad, a remembrance which will not be excluded, a memory like a shadow,

vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady, and like a shadow too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist. In that chamber I was born, thus awaking from the long night of what seemed but was not non-entity, at once into the very regions of fairyland, into a palace of imagination, into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition. It is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye, that I loitered away my boyhood and books and dissipated my youth and reverie, but it is singular that as the years rolled away and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers,

it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life, wonderful how total and inversion took place in the character of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became in turn not the material of my everyday existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself. So he's getting a little caught up in his own obsessive thoughts, right? He's a bookworm. Okay.

He's bookish. So the real world doesn't even matter to him at this point. So what do you think of the real world? Onward. Baranice and I were cousins and we grew up together in my paternal halls, yet differently we grew, I ill of health and buried in gloom, she agile, graceful and overflowing with energy, hers the ramble on the hillside, mine the studies of the cloister, I living within my own heart, an addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation, she roaming

carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven winged hours, Baranice, I call upon her name, Baranice, from the gray ruins of memory, a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound, ah, vividly is her image before me now, is in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy, oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty, oh, self amid the shrubberies of Arnheim, oh, niad among its fountains, and then, then, all is mystery and terror, a tale which should not be told, disease, a fatal disease, fell like the Samoon upon her frame, and even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and

in a manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person, alas, the destroyer came and went, and the victim, where was she, I knew her not, or knew her no longer, is Baranice. When I first read him saying, Baranice, Baranice, I thought of Kramer going, Pam, Pam, you remember that one? Yeah. All right, so Baranice didn't do it so hard all of a sudden. No, it happened like that too.

Among the numerous train of maladies super-induced by that fatal and primary one which affected the revolution of so horrible, kind, and the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy not infrequently terminating in trance itself, trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was, in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the meantime, my own disease, for I have been told that I should call it by no other appellation, my own disease then grew rapidly upon me and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel in extraordinary form, hourly and momently gaining vigor and at length obtaining

over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive. It is more than probable that I am not understood, but I fear indeed that it is in no matter possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation, not to speak technically, busied and buried themselves in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe. So now he's becoming obsessive about just things, anything, transfixed on things.

But like he can't even get across how obsessed he becomes. Monomania. All right. To muse for long unwearyed hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the topography of a book, to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow, falling a slant upon the tapestry, or upon the door, to lose myself for an entire night and watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire to dream away whole days of the perfume of a flower, to repeat monotonously some common

word until the sound by dint of frequent repetition ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind. Everyone does that. Yeah, it's called Vujadeh. Awesome. To lose all sense of motion, or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence, long and obstinately persevered in, such were a few of the most common, in least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties.

Not indeed altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation. You did good. That was a tough one. Thanks. He sounds like an opium head. You know? He's like, and by the way, I'm high as a kite right now.

I'm staring at a lamp for two days. Yet let me not be misapprehended. This due earnest and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous must not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme condition or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the dreamer enthusiast being interested by an object usually not

frivolous imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing their from until at the conclusion of a daydream often replete with luxury. He finds the incedimentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distemper vision, a refracted and unreal importance, few deductions if any were made, and those few pertenaciously returning in upon the original object as a center. The meditations were never pleasurable, and at the termination of the reverie, the first

cause so far from being out of sight had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest, which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised word with me, as I have said before, the attentive and are with the daydreamer, the speculative. Anything, thoughts? No, he's just going on to say it was really serious stuff. They'd like to really describe things back then. My books at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook.

It will be perceived largely in their imaginative and inconsequential nature of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I will remember, among others, the tristis of the noble Italian, Colius Secundus Curio, the amplitudin beate regni dei. St. Austen's great work, The City of God, and Teryllium di carne Christi, in which the paradoxical sentence, mortus es dei filius credibol es quia ineptimis esse poltis reserec exit. Sertum es quia impossibile est. Occupied my undivided time for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

He's getting hung up on these phrases from the books, like I am. The Latin. Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things, my reason-bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hefistian, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence and the fiercer fury of the waters and the kinds, trembled only the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady in the moral condition of Baranese would afford me many

objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not, in any degree, the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity indeed gave me pain, and taking deeply to the heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fall to ponder frequently and bitterly upon the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass, but these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred under similar circumstances to the ordinary mass of mankind.

True to its own character, my disorder reveled in less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Baranese and the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity. During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her, and the strange anomaly of my existence feelings with me had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning, among the trellis shadows of the forest at noonday, and in the silence of my library at night, she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen

her, not as a living and breathing Baranese, but as the Baranese of a dream, not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being, not as a thing to admire, but to analyze, not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most obtruse, although desultory speculation. And now, now I shuddered in her presence and grew pale at her approach, yet bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and in an evil moment I spoke to her of marriage. I'm getting oddly Madonna-esque here with my English.

Are you? Yeah. Does she speak strangely? You know, when she married Guy Ritchie, all of a sudden she started talking like Madonna. Oh, yeah, that's right. And not like she was from Queens or whatever she was. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. You gotta remember who you are, you know?

Agreed. And at length, the period of our nuptials was approaching when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year, one of those unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days, which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon, I sat and sat, as I thought, alone in the inner apartment of my library, but uplifting my eyes I saw the baronese stood before me. Was it my own excited imagination, or the misty influence of the atmosphere, or the uncertain twilight of the chamber, or the gray draperies which fell around her figure, that caused in it so vacillating an indistinct and outline?

Or was it all the opium, an absent? He likes to have a lot of different ideas to choose from. Sure. I could not tell. When she spoke no word, I, not for worlds, could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame, a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me, a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul, and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless with my eyes riveted upon her person.

Alas, its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face. The forehead was high and very pale, and singularly placid, and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow, and jarring discordantly in their fantastic character with the reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless and lusterless and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank involuntarily

from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted, and in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed baronistas closed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that having done so I had died. Baronistas in bad shape here. So is the guy. The shutting of the door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber.

But from the disordered chamber of my brain had not, alas, departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth, not a speck on their surface, not a shade on their enamel, not an indenture in their edges. But what that period of her smile had sufficed a brand in upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! The teeth! They were here, and there, and everywhere, invisibly and palpably before me, long, narrow,

and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of my monomania, as I struggled in vain against a strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a frenzied desire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They, they alone, were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole individuality,

became the essence of my mental life. I held them in every light, I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics, I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their confirmation. I amused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them an imagination, a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression." Boy, he's losing it.

Of Madsel Salé has been well said, Kouetou sepa enchant de sentient. And to Bernice, I more seriously believed, Kouetou sepa enchant de sentient. And I believe that translates to something like the ideas. The ideas, all of his ideas were of the teeth, something like that. And he just had to say it in French, didn't he? Well, this isn't that good, so I'm going to make, I'm going to write it in French. I went to a French speaker in the office and they were like, dude, this is really like hard to translate.

So if anyone knows that, please send it. Do you want to read it again? That part? The line? Sure. Kouetou sepa enchant de sentient, Kouetou sepa enchant des idées, des idées. Ah, here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me. Ah, therefore, it was that I coveted them so madly, I felt that their possession could

alone ever restore me to peace in giving me back to reason. So Chuck, what's going on here? Like there's teeth now, he's got teeth and he's focused on the teeth. Well now, the teeth are in her mouth. She is disintegrating physically except for her teeth, which remain perfect. Okay. So now he is hyper-focused and obsessed with her teeth because they're so perfect. I would be hyper-focused.

I'm running out of the room at this point, but you okay. And the evening closed in upon me thus and then the darkness came and tarried and went and the day again dawned and the mists of a second night were now gathering around and still I sat motionless in that solitary room and still I sat buried in meditation and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy as with the most vivid hideous distinctness it floated amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a cry of horror and dismay and thereon too after a pause succeeded the sound of troubled voices intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow

or pain. I arose from my seat and throwing open one of the doors of the library saw standing out on the antechamber a servant maiden all in tears who told me that Baroness was no more. She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning and now at the closing in of the night the grave was ready for its tenant and all the preparations for the burial were completed. So Baroness is dead. Yes. Okay.

I found myself sitting in the library and again sitting there alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight and I was well aware that since the setting of the sun Baroness had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror. Horror more horrible from being vague and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence written all over with dim and hideous and

unintelligible recollections. I strive to decipher them but in vain while ever in a non like the spirit of a departed sound the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seem to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed. What was it? I asked myself the question aloud and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me. What was it? Alright so he's awoken from a fever dream and he's like something I've done something

here while I slept that ain't good. What was it? On the table beside me burned a lamp and near it lay a little box. I can't be good. It was of no remarkable character and I had seen it frequently before where it was a property of the family physician but how it came there upon my table and why did I shudder in regarding it. These things were in no manner to be accounted for and my eyes at length dropped to the open

pages of a book and to the sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Eben Zayath. My companion said to me if I would visit the grave of my friend I might somewhat alleviate my worries. Why then, as I peruse them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins. There came a light tap at the library door and as pale as the tenet of the tomb, a menial entered upon Tiptoe.

His looks were wild with terror and he spoke to me in a voice, tremulous, husky, and very low. He said he some broken sentences I had heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night, of the gathering together of the household of a search in the direction of the sound and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave, of a disfigured body enshrouded yet still breathing, still palpitating, still alive. He pointed to garments they were muddy and clotted with gore, I spoke not and he took

me gently by the hand. It was indented with the impressive human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes, it was a spade, with a shriek I bounded to the table and grasped the box that lay upon it, but I could not force it open and in my tremor it slipped from my hands and fell heavily and burst into pieces and from it with a rattling sound there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery intermingled with 32 small white and ivory looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.

The end. Wow! That's, I just got a little chill actually and I knew the ending. He liked his teeth. Did he dig her up or was she still alive? I don't know. I was thrown off by the fact that... Those shrieking women?

Yeah, still palpitating as it were, still alive. I think he hallucinated the whole thing and that she did not die and was buried. I think he went into her chamber and removed her teeth while she was alive. Or maybe he, while he was in his little opium dream, buried her alive, then decided, oh yeah, the teeth went back, got him out of her mouth while she's still alive and took him back to the library. I think he needs to lay off the dope is what it comes down to. So happy Halloween.

I hope everybody is appropriately nervous now, right? Yeah. And if you have ideas on royalty free readings that we can do next year. Yeah, we'll bring this up again in August or something like that. Agreed. So stick around. We are not going anywhere just yet. We have a special...

You can almost call us a two parter. The second part is a special guest, right? We're not going to do listener mail or anything. We're going to do this. That's right. Happy Halloween, everybody. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move

or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Chuck Wicks from Love Country. Talk to Chuck, where we bring you what's really happening in the country music family. We also... If you love country, here's the deal.

If you love country music, you can be on the podcast. So if you're a fan of country music, well, you can call in anytime. You'll be like, oh, I want to talk about this. Paul Cogan called in season one, he's like, Chuck, Zolkster, I love your podcast. I mean, Jason Aldean, Jimmy Allen, Carly Pierce, Lauren Elena, so many huge stars have been on Love Country. Talk to Chuck. Season two is going to get even better.

We're going to have the same big, giant, huge stars, but I think it's time to bring some people in the studio right off the street. You love country music? Fine. Come, talk to Chuck. That's how cool we are. I'm just saying it. I'm saying it out loud.

If you're a fan of Love Country, talk to Chuck every Monday and Thursday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So since this is a Halloween episode, and since, as you may remember from Tuesday, John Hodgman has been hanging around the office this week. That's how I'm sleeping in a cubicle. I know. I know.

It's weird. Yeah. I got locked out of my safe room. So Hodgman, how are you doing? I don't get all the chimes. Well, I haven't finished the introduction yet. We're not doing Listener Mail this week because it's special, this is a Halloween episode, and because Hodgman's here, so instead we're going to do stuff with John Hodgman.

That's right. And the reason, well, the reason John's here is because he decided to surprise us and he had a ticket to the show. Yep. We decided to honor that ticket. Yep. Look, I feel bad. I feel a little bad about last week because I came in and interrupted Sarah's letter.

That was weird. And those letters. That was this week. Whatever. We took care of Sarah. Don't worry about her. You know what? I don't pay attention to time anymore.

I'm a deranged millionaire. Okay. I like Sarah. I like the letters she writes. I like all the letters. But I'm a Listener too. You know? That's why I'm here.

Yeah. And what am I going to have my say? Do you know what I mean? And no one ever comes in to do their Listener Mail in person like you bought a ticket to do so. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I have access.

It's time for me to have my say. Here's my Listener Mail. All right. Nice work, guys. Thank you. Thank you. That's a nice Listener Mail. A Growl and Poe, huh?

Yeah. That was Chucks. Well, that was Poe. No, it's not mine. You say it was Poe-rific. It was Poe-rific. I say it was Poe-rrr. No, I like a Growl and Poe fine.

Well, yeah. You got to like him. You know, guys, I wrote this new book of complete world knowledge called that is all that's coming out. And this is the third book of complete world knowledge. And in my previous books of complete world knowledge, I talked about everything, right? I talked about how to tie all kinds of knots. No, I never did.

For some reason, I think I did. That was so close. I almost said, like, yeah, I talked about hobos. I talked about mole men. I talked about the Presidents of the United States. I talked about the mottos and nicknames of all 51 American states. I talked about history. I talked about the future.

But there was one topic that I never took on before, and that was sports, because I am not a sports fan. See, I found that surprising. Really? Yeah. Well, you and I co-hosted a trivia event at Max Funcon. We did our own little fun trivia where I did some sports questions that you were not privy to humiliate me.

You did some science fiction or movie questions that I, because I'm not into that. You did jock questions to humiliate me, and I did nerd questions to humiliate you. And it went great. It went great. We were both humiliated. That's right. And that is usually the sign of a good night. Yes, it is.

But here's the thing. For this third book, because we are reaching the end of human civilization, December 21, 2012. At 11, 11 a.m. Exactly. And it's time for me to engage in, well, like the dying person, I reach out to that which I previously spurned in life, like religion and sports. So I decided to learn a lot about sports and to write about sports in this new book.

And one of the things I learned, which I didn't know until now, you guys probably know this, that the Baltimore Ravens is named after the Edgar Allen Poe poem, the Raven. Right. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. You didn't know that? No. I didn't know that.

I knew that. And now that makes more sense. I didn't realize why they had Edgar Allen Poe as their mascot. There's some dude dressed up in like 19th century, and he's got one of those big heads on, like a big Edgar Allen Poe head. I was like, why is that? And then I finally got it. Edgar Allen Poe apparently got runously drunk in Baltimore as he did in every East Coast

city for a period of time. They all, for some reason, claim him as their son. Like Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Providence, Providence, and, but only Baltimore had the nerve to name their team after a famous quasi-literary kind of dumb, dumb poem that the French really like. And they have this mascot, which is great. Now I understand why they have that mascot. This dude dressed up as Edgar Allen Poe with a giant Edgar Allen Poe head on top of him

that's filled with brandy. Now it makes sense. And John Cusack, to bring it full circle, is playing Poe in a movie. I know. Which is a little weird. He's only the latest who wanted to play Edgar Allen Poe, of course. Sylvester Stallone was developing an Edgar Allen Poe. Really?

Biopic four years. Four years. You didn't know that? Foreigner was going to do the theme song. They wrote Eye of the Tiger for that movie. That was Survivor. Oh, sorry. Survivor was, feels like the first Poe.

I apologize. Exactly. Survivor. Right. They wrote Eye of the Tiger for the Edgar Allen Poe movie. But when it didn't get made, they used it for Rocky 3 instead. Sports and more sports. Punching is a sport, right?

Pugilism. That is a thinking man's sport. Oh, no. I agree. That's the sweet science. Yeah. That's the, that's the intricate logical art of hurting someone in the face. Exactly.

Wow. Hold on. You're leaving out a big element. You're trying to not get hurt in your own face. Right. That's practically. You're doing two things at once. Yeah.

That's ballet. Right. Do you know what I mean? That's an intricate dance. That's like ultimate fighting. I'm more of a boxing fan. Two half-naked guys down the ground trying to knee each other in the neck. It's acrobatic.

I see you had a boxing match, though, Huntsman. I was in a boxing match. I've seen that. Yes, you were. I was in a fake boxing match. Was that choreographed at stage? It looked a lot like the directors, like you two just go at each other and we'll see what happens.

This was in an episode of Boards to Death. Right. With you, you boxed Jason Schwartz. I did. Yeah. And, and I realized then that it is an extremely physically taxing thing to do. I don't, I do not mean to run down boxers in the least because first of all, they will kill me.

Second of all, what they do, they are, they are extremely accomplished athletes. Right. They have a problem with athletes, you understand? Sure. I, I think they're, they're incredibly skilled people whom I wish only not to hurt me. Do you know what I mean? But they are artists in their, in their own way. And I don't even dislike sports per se.

Like there's some sports that I occasionally will watch. I dig a curling match from time to time. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Any sport with a broom, I like. Because it is the presupposition in our culture that everyone must like sports.

And if you do not know what the sports teams are or what they do on the field. Something is wrong with you. Then you are abnormal in some way. And I think that that's a little bit, that, that presumes too much. Well, John, that's the world we live in. But it's changing. Now, Baltimore got the Ravens in what, 1996 or seven or something like that. Yes, sir.

So they named their team after a poem, right? Mm-hmm. Everyone's like, no big deal. Not a big, not a big deal. Who cares, right? This year, we got some baseball, what's the baseball player named as a bat orc wrist? I didn't know that happened. Yeah.

It's on, it's in the news. Oh yeah? Someone will write about it and send it in. Okay. It was, it was this April. It was revealed, the very popular bases ball player named his bat orc wrist. That's after one of the Elven Forged Swords in the Hobbit. Huh, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, right. And then, guess what? Have you noticed this? You notice Nick Mangold, the center for the New York Jets? Yeah. Have you noticed like he's not wearing a helmet anymore? I have not noticed that. It's surprising to me.

He came out in one of the games earlier this year. He was wearing a leather top hat with like goggles on it. Did you notice that? I did not notice that. On the field? On the field. Wow. Yeah.

Why? I don't know. But it's weird. And then, and then another time he came out and he was wearing a pith helmet with a, with a jeweler's lens on it that, and he came out of the, he came out on the field on a, on a, on a, on a Pennyfather bicycle. What is going on? Are you?

A steam powered Pennyfarthing bicycle? Wow. Which? Was it of his own design and manufacture? Yeah. Wow. And then he went on a sports program, a radio program, much like this, this is radio, right? Sure.

Kind of. And, and he was, and he was saying, I'm really glad we won that game. And I think, and they said, well, what do you think, how do you, how do you, to what do you attribute your win, and he said, I just took the lesson of Admiral Ackbar to heart and realized that they were setting a trap. That weird? That is weird. That is very weird.

What do you, what do you think is going on there? I think this is it guys. I think this is, this is happening. Is this the beginning? The beginning of the nerd jock convergence. See it all around us. Wow. I think Nick Mangold may be the one.

Yeah. The person who's going to join these two worlds together. Yeah. He's doing steampunk cosplay. He's quoting Admiral Ackbar. Yeah. He's riding. A penny farthing.

A penny farthing motorcycle. Not just a steam powered penny farthing motorcycle of his own design. And I recently, you know how my, my Zeppelin hubris isn't in ruins. The HZ hubris. The HZ hubris. And I just got an offer on it. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

That weird? I mean, it's still crashed. It's still, I think parts of it are still burning in Central Park. Right now. This happened since Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

I, maybe you heard this person heard the podcast. I don't know what it is. But the offer came in. It's a good offer too. From Man Gold Steampunk Industries. It's got to be the same one. Flash football. Oh, yeah.

See, I think it might be him. Are you selling it to him as is? Well, I'm not putting that thing back together. It's on fire. Okay. I burned my hands. Yes. I hope it works.

Where is it? Over at Chiefs Meadow or? I don't know. Most of the top half of Central Park. I mean, it was big. It was big. Most of the top half. Yeah.

Yeah. I haven't been up there in a while. Good. It crashed and burned probably two years ago. Oh, yeah, it's still burning? Yeah. Wow. I should do something about that.

Well, John, let me ask you. I mean, that seems like one of the great divisions in life in the world that's been going on forever is this division between jocks and nerds. It seems like it's a good thing if things come together, is it not? I don't know. I don't know. I think all major sea changes, it's unnerving. Oh, yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think those of us... I'm scared of things, too. I think those of us on the nerd side have been defining ourselves by our marginalization for so long, but it may be hard for us to accept a world where that TV show community did a whole Dungeons & Dragons episode, superhero movies are the only movies that people make now.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think at least 10 people in the United States know who Dr. Who is now. Do you know what I mean? Comic-Con is big, big business. And I think that all of these things that we used to hold as badges and used to comfort ourselves in our marginalization and culture are now being absorbed into the monoculture as a whole, and there is no greater expression of the monoculture than jock culture, which

is the great, leveling, cross-cultural, unifying thing that men and a lot of women talk about unless they're a nerd like me, right? So when that's gone, I think that will bother nerds very much. Oh, yeah. I could see that, but... I don't think the jocks give a hoot at all. No, and jocks tend to get their way as far as society goes, right? Yeah.

If they want something, if Mangle wants to make steampunk mainstream... Hey, I like your steampunk culture. Give me that nerd. All right. Right. They take what they want. It's mine now. Hey, your steampunk Ironman armor that you made yourself, that's mine now.

Drop it off at my locker. Throw a jet's jersey on top of it? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to put that jet's jersey on top of it. It's going to be steampunk Ironman Jets. That's not what... I think Mangle does not talk like that at all. He's a very sweet guy.

I met him. Oh, yeah. That's why... I hope he buys my set. In real life, in real life, Nick Mangold's Twitter avatar is an illustration of him as an Ewok. Really? Yeah.

I've seen it. So you may say that what I'm putting in my book is crazy, but look around you, everybody. It's coming true. Well, John, thank you for coming by with your baffling prediction. You don't have to thank me. It was very easy. I just walked down the hallway from my safe room. Are you going to stay here because the weekend's approaching?

I need someone to kick down the door of my safe room because I fell asleep in that cubicle because I went out and I accidentally armed to the system. So if you have an intern or someone who can go in there, they will be gassed. Oh, no, Jerry. Yeah. She's got a foot of lead. Okay. She can kick it in.

She can also breathe. Yeah, but there are booby traps. There will be gas. There will be darts. There will be snakes. She's fine. She's pretty good. She's great.

There will be a giant rolling boulder. Good. If we get that, then I can get back in there and then I'll be back again. Jerry deals with us on a day-to-day basis. She can handle any boulders or poison darts. You're right. Yeah. Here's to you, Jerry.

We'll send Jerry in. Yeah. I don't see. I don't see Jerry. You guys just making this person up, aren't you? Shut up. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse.

This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty.

Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a giant. What we would call a jack move or being robbed.

They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Chuck Wicks from Love Country. Talk to Chuck, where we bring you what's really happening in the country music family. We also, if you love country, here's the deal, if you love country music, you can be on the podcast. So if you're a fan of country music, well, you can call in any time. You'll be like, oh, I want to talk about this. Hall Cogan called in season one.

He's like, Chuck Volkster, I love your podcast. I mean, Jason Aldean, Jimmy Allen, Karlie Pierce, Lauren Elena, so many huge stars have been on Love Country. Talk to Chuck season two is going to get even better. Going to have the same big, giant, huge stars, but I think it's time to bring some people in the studio right off the street. You love country music? Fine, come talk to Chuck. That's how cool we are. I'm just saying it.

I'm saying it out loud. Listen to new episodes of Love Country. Talk to Chuck every Monday and Thursday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So John's book is That Is All, and it is coming out November 1st, and you can pre-order it right now. Using the internet. Using the internet. And I hope that you will. And a variety of internet sites.

Well, you really just plugged the heck out of that, Chuck. Well, you know, I want the guy to sell a book or two. I'm just happy to be here as a listener, as a deranged millionaire. I'm happy to come in here and take over your listener mail. And as a resident. As a resident of how stuff works. Plaza. Well, for those of you who made it all the way through this podcast, and you're with us right now, I want to say on behalf of myself, Chuck, and Mr. John Hodgman, happy Halloween.

Be safe. Please don't get hit by a car. Dress your children in skeleton costumes and send them out into the street. The end. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo's carved out of a piece of marble. True. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner.

Take a shirt off. I'm Bruce Bozzi. That was George and Julia. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my lunch dates by their first names and voices alone. Listen to Table for Two on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.