Suggestible - One Wild and Precious Life

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

Suggestible things to watch, read and listen to. Hosted by James Clement @mrsundaymovies and Claire Tonti @clairetonti.Check out Claire’s brand new weekly newsletter – tontsnewsletterThis week’s Suggestibles:FiskThe Dry (film)The Dry (book)Poetry is Not a LuxuryMighty Ducks: Game ChangersAnd finally this picture of you…Send your recommendations to [e-mail], we’d love to hear them.You can also follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook @suggestiblepod and join our ‘Planet Broadcasting Great Mates OFFICIAL’ Facebook Group. So many things. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Uber Teen Accounts, an Uber account for your teen with enhanced safety features. Your teen can request a ride with top-rated drivers, and you can track every trip on the live map in the Uber app. Uber Teen Accounts, invite your teen to join your Uber account today. Available in select locations. See app for details. Happy Easter, happy, happy Easter. Happy Easter, happy, happy Easter. We hope you had happy Easter. I don't know. That's how Dick Van Dyke says happy Easter. Happy Easter. Happy, happy Easter. We hope you had happy Easter. I don't know. That's how Dick Van Dyke says happy Easter.

Easter. If he was talking about Easter in Mary Poppins because he's not British. I know. Now, this is interesting to me but probably not to anyone else. Oh, but feel free to share it then. We live in Australia and, mate, it's autumn. It's one of my favourite seasons of the year. It's my favourite season in Melbourne and it's also Easter, which is strange because it's autumn. It's one of my favourite seasons of the year. It's my favourite season in Melbourne.

And it's also Easter, which is strange because it's the celebration of new life coming into spring except that we're going into the depths of winter. Winter is coming. Oh, yeah. I remember Game of Thrones 100 years ago. Remember that old reference? Correct. Anyway, I just thought if you lived somewhere else

and that's not your experience, that's our experience. I never even associated it in my entire life with new life and spring until you just said it just then. Why do you think? It just never occurred to me. Why do you think? There's like eggs and baby chicks and tiny bunnies. Because that's not when shit is born either.

That's like not true. No, but that spring. Things are born all year round. All right. No, in the natural order of things, spring is the time when there is new growth and new life and baby chicks and baby lambs and everything. That is what happens during the year. Have you not noticed at the farm around the corner in spring,

that's when they have all the baby lambs and baby goats and things. I've been to a battery hen farm and they have little chickens there all year round. Yeah, I know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about in like the natural order of things, James. Anyway. That's where we're at. What's this show about though? Where are we at with that?

What do you mean? Oh, yes. Hello. What is this? All right. We've had a lot of Easter egg sugar. I'm not going to lie. It's true.

So we're a little high. And also crashed. Yeah, bad. It's very hard to keep control. My brain is just like screaming at me. It is. So let's just get on with the show. If you have just started, this is just a podcast.

We recommend you things. My name is Claire. James is here also. We are married, and we've watched and read and looked at some stuff. We certainly have. And we have it for you. Do you want to go first, or would you want me to go first? Why don't you go first, Claire?

All right, excellent. Things as it's autumn, and that means new life. And now, I got an email suggesting that potentially we should have done a trigger warning after the ghost train fire episode last week. I want to apologize to anyone who was spooky spooked because it probably should have had a trigger warning. It wasn't spooky. It was more just generally real horrific thing that happened.

It was a real story. Anyway, it was fascinating but also terrifying. So, I promise this, for me, episode is going to be fun. Oh, let me check mine. No more spooky spookisons. Yeah, mine's not mine actually. Maybe it's a trick but maybe I've got some not so spooky things. So relax, sit back and enjoy the show.

I don't know why I said that. Anyway. Sorry, you just said relax. Can you just. I just had to yawn. It's so annoying. Okay, I have a bone to pick with you. All right, here we go.

I have a bone. This with you. All right, here we go. I have a bone. This is the perfect place and for it. I enjoy talking about the seasons changing. I get really into it. You do a lot. I feel like autumn is like the season where like, and this is very gendered, women especially go crazy for autumn. Do they?

We bloody love it. We love the shit out of it. We bloody love it. We love the shit out of it. We love the colours. We love the light. We love the, like, hot drinks and the, like, just all the delicious, like, spiced pumpkin things and just cinnamony buns at Easter. We just everything. We love it.

We love it. The crisp, cool nights with, like, you can have, like, a trans-seasonal lovely cardi. Oh, the joy. Is that a cardigan? A light scarf. A cardigan you can remove the sleeves off in case it gets hot because it's autumn?

No, it's just like a lighter cardigan because it's like crisp and cool and the air smells of like. It was like 31 on Saturday. Delightful wood smoke. I was like, what is going on? Yeah, I know. 31 degrees Celsius. Climate change?

Yeah, that's probably it. Anyway, and my bone is that I feel like you don't appreciate it when I talk about the seasons. Listen to me, Claire. The seasons can do whatever they want. We have an understanding where the seasons doesn't talk about me and I don't talk about them, all right? The seasons isn't a fan of the work that I do.

And look, to be fair, I'm probably more a fan of the seasons. But it's, you know, we have a mutual understanding. The seasons loves you. I think you just ignore them for a long time. And if you had your way, you would live in a fan of the seasons. But it's, you know, we have a mutual understanding. I think the seasons loves you. I think you just ignore them for a long time. And if you had your way, you would live in a climate-controlled room. Yes, I would. I tell you this, though, because I didn't realise, we have central heating now, which I've never had.

And, oh, my God, it's an absolute game-changer. And I just realised I was just cold for, like, 35 years. Because my family had, like, growing're like one heater in like the room where the tv is and then every other room in the house is just freezing and that was just how i live my life so yeah i would live in a climate i love it it comes up through the floor it takes like a minute to warm up and you're like oh i, I can walk around in my bloody jocks, mate, and I'm loving it. It's so bad for the environment.

It's so bad, yeah. But you only have to put on for a little bit and then you turn it off and it keeps the heat. That's true, actually. That is true. Anyway, what are you recommending? Seasons. All right, excellent.

Yes, the seasons. We are the seasons. No, I'm recommending a comedy show, a comedy comedy show called Fisk. Okay. Have you heard of the comedian Kitty Flanagan? I've heard of Wilson Fisk, the Daredevil villain. Oh, well, there you go. Well, no, it's Kitty Flanagan.

You love Kitty Flanagan. I do love Kitty Flanagan. She's bloody hilarious. I've been watching Kitty Flanagan since the early 90s with Full Frontal. She's so frigging funny. It's been amazing for decades. She's so good. She's an Australian comedian.

If you haven't heard of her, go do yourself a favour and YouTube her. She's just bloody brilliant. Anyway, this is her first comedy show. She's been doing comedy for so long. She's so good in like so many things. Everything. And she's great on panel shows as well. She could host her own show and just be brilliant at it. And she's a brilliant actor. Anyway, this is her first kind of show where she's kind of written and produced it and all that stuff with the ABC. And she stars as Helen Tudor Fisk, a corporate contract lawyer forced to take a job at a shabby suburban law firm specialising in wills

and probate. What is probate? I don't know. Me neither. But it sounds will-related. Actually, I'm coming up on 40. I might need to get my probate checked. I'll check your probate for you, mate.

No, thank you. I'm good. I'm rather a medical professional, Claire. Fair enough. I'm an – yeah, fair enough. What are you going to say? You're an educator? Yeah.

Get out of here with that shit. I know. Teachers think they know everything. Teachers know a little bit about everything. Teachers need to know a little bit about everything but don't know a lot about a specific thing. And I know that because I work with teachers and I was a teacher. All right. I'm going to badmouth teachers all day.

No, let's not go back into the education debate we had last week. I bloody love teachers. Teachers are wonderful. If you're a teacher, you're a bloody saint. Yeah, no, genuinely. And it's a bloody hard job and so important. And well done you. I'll make you a spiced cinnamon latte.

For all you teachers out there, if you ever see Claire, hit her up in the street. Yeah, do it. I bloody love you. Anyway, as well as the incomparable key cast in this law firm, in this show starring Kitty Flanagan, the cast includes Julia Zamiro, who's really awesome, and she plays kind of like an office manager that was a lawyer but then has done something mysterious

we haven't heard yet and has been relegated to the office manager as like doing all the secretarial stuff. And it's very funny because she's like a Taipei personality. She reminds me of myself and she goes around and because she can't control everything else in the office and she's very like, you know, into all the organisation, she just gets really obsessed with like the fridge and things working. Anyway, she's very funny.

Martin Sheargold's in it too. Aaron Chen is really great. These are all Australian comedians. Oh, yeah, these are great names. John Gadden, Glenn Butcher. And there's just so many other like Australian comedians and actors who play little cameo roles including Glenn Robbins, Alison White, Deborah Lawrence, Denise Scott who's one of my faves.

She's so funny. Denise Scott is great, yeah. She's so good. Remember we saw her at a comedy show and she just had her handbag. Would she be in her late 50s? She'd be 60s. Probably 60s, yeah. She brought in her handbag and a little list of like her jokes

and she just read them out and it was the funniest thing. She was just so hilarious. 65. Yeah, there we go. Sam Pang is in it as well and Dave O'Neill. Yeah, it's really funny and kind of odd. It's odd and a bit like the pace of it is really interesting because Kitty Flanagan plays it very deadpan.

She wears these like massive khaki suits and is kind of like just a really odd duck but just really herself. And, you know, it walks that line of like she is really odd and initially you don't really like her because she's very abrupt and like puts everybody off but you start to really warm to her because you realise she has a heart underneath it all, even though she's like it would almost be said that she's on the spectrum in a way, like she's very, doesn't always get social cues and anyway,

but she's very funny and it's just, yeah, it's fun. It's a really fun show. Is it all up there on the ABCI view? At the moment, no. They're releasing it once every week. Wow, I bet if people had a VPN service, even if they're overseas, they could check out the show. They could.

Fisk, yeah, I would recommend it. I'm really enjoying it. I do need to watch that and I will. Maybe I'll watch it. I'll binge it once it's all out. Yeah, yeah, that would be a good idea actually. My favourite bits are actually the very end in the credits. They always have like an extra little absurd thing that happens.

Is it kind of like, is it a bit like what's that called, that show with Rob Sitch and Luke McGregor and Celia Pakola? Rosehaven? No, no, the other one. The one about corporate government and stuff. Oh, Utopia. Utopia. Utopia is brilliant and Rosehaven is also brilliant.

No, it's not really about systems and government. No, I mean like that vibe though. Yeah, it's slightly like that. Yeah, I would say maybe a little bit more absurd in a way. Absurd, you say? Absurd. Okay, cool. It's much more centred around Fisk as a character,

like her life kind of being a train wreck and falling apart a bit. Like the show Rake. Correct. Yeah, it's a bit like that but she's not like a high-flying, sexy, caught smoking kind of spoken kind of lawyer, whatever you do with Coke, I don't really know. But, you know, no, she's not like that. Did you say caught smoking kind of smoking kind of lawyer, whatever you do with coke, I don't really know. But you know, no, she's not like that. Did you say caught smoking? I was trying to say coke snorting, but it came out as coke smoking.

Which I think you actually said caught smoking, but that's fine too. Well, yeah, smoking those damn cigarettes. No one should be smoking those. I agree. It's not good for your health, mate. They should just increase the price of people will fall forced to quit, which is actually what's happening. I actually watched a movie of which recently I finished the book for, for The Dry, which is something you have talked about before the book. And I wanted to wait to talk about it until I got a chance to see the movie.

So it's a murder mystery situation in a small country town, maybe even Victoria. I don't know where. There's a big drought. There's been a drought for like a year, and the town is dying from this horrible, horrible drought. The movie stars Eric Banner and is directed by Robert Connolly, but the book is by Jane Harper.

And I just kind of wanted to see, because I know you seeing the movie didn't love the movie after reading the book, and I felt the same way, but I wanted to see whether I thought, I think the movie stands up on its own, but there's a lot of detail that obviously isn't fleshed out. I think you get a better sense of the community in the book because this guy has to go back to, for those who don't know, Eric Banner, let's just call him Eric Banner.

He goes back to the town he grew up in, which he was forced to leave because of a horrible tragedy because his friend grew up, seemingly has a trigger warning because it's an awful, it's a fictional story, but it's an awful thing. He murders his family and then shoots himself and then it's kind of, and he's part of the federal police but he's kind of, he looks at numbers and books and stuff. Yeah, so he's not.

Well, I thought this episode was going to be a big warm hug. Turns out. It's not real though. It's not. It's a fake story but the route is real. However, I have already talked about the dry before. Yes. And, you know, farmers often do struggle with mental health

and all these things. They're not uncommon because you are out there on your own. It's awful. It's terrible. Or it can be. But yeah, I think if you hadn't read the book, I think if you're not going to read the book, I think the movie is worth watching because I think it's very well cast and it hits all the beats, you know what I mean?

And there's a lot of dialogue lifted directly from the book because the book in itself is really great. Like I really enjoyed the book. a lot of dialogue lifted directly from the book because the book in itself is really great like i really enjoyed the book but i can't say that i was in as enthralled as i as i would would want to be in this movie but it's very well made it's like it's a good looking movie there's excellent performances it all kind of it fits together really well but there was just something about it that sometimes i'll read a read a book and then watch the movie and i'll you know i'll be like no i feel like that captured like the essence of it.

But I don't know, I feel like maybe it adhered too close but then missed out on some key things which I found kind of integral to the book. Did you feel the same way? Yeah, I just thought it was a real boring movie. Yeah, right, okay. I didn't think it was boring. I wasn't bored.

Yeah, it's interesting. Maybe because I knew the ending. That was definitely a factor. Yeah, because my brother and sister watched it knew the ending. That was definitely a factor. Yeah, because my brother and sister watched it and they didn't know anything about it. They hadn't read the book and they didn't know the story. So they were really quite grouped by it and really sitting on the edge of their seat to the end to find out what happened.

Yeah. But because I already knew what was coming, I just found it incredibly dull because there was a lot of just Eric Banner in gloomy situations staring into the distance or like changing his shirt. He does do a lot of change. And there's also like he gets it. Like it fleshes out the relationship with like an old love interest in it more in the book. Also because when you've got Eric Banner like standing in a dry creek bed

like having a flashback or having like just doing a serious face, in the book you get like a flood of emotions and memories and he thinks about a thing with his dad or whatever or his friends and it's just not the same unfortunately. Yeah, and that's what I think what I've realised when I was watching it is why The Drive was great other than the fact that I think it's just a well-paced kind of murder mystery. It's a good murder mystery, yeah.

Yeah, it's well-paced. Whichever way you of murder mystery. It's a good murder mystery, yeah. Yeah, it's well-paced. Whichever way you look at it, it's a good murder mystery, yeah. And I think Jane Harper, when she wrote, and I've said this before on the show, we've already had this discussion, but that she structured it, she wrote it like in an hour a day after work. Yeah. And before she'd like, you know, get out of her work gear,

she'd just sit down and write for an hour. And she used that kind of like cliffhanger at the end of each chapter to get you moving along to the next one. The Da Vinci Code. Yeah, correct. The style of writing. And the way she writes about the Australian landscape is so beautiful. And so that in the film was gorgeous and the cinematography was really amazing. But it was just boring to me.

I just felt like it was slow. And there was the dialogue in Jane Harper's book is so beautifully drawn. Yeah, you're right. And the thought, a lot of it is his own reflections and the jumping in and out of time and his thoughts about childhood to now. And there is that because you get flashbacks and all that and all those things happen.

Yeah, but it just a lot, but they still left a lot. I just felt like they could have edited another 20, 30 minutes out of it and it would have been a better movie. Yeah, but it just a lot, but they still left a lot. I just felt like they could have edited another 20, 30 minutes out of it and it would have been a better movie. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I just. Did we need to see Eric Banner walking moodily again? I don't know.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the book as well, not enjoy because it's quite grim, was the real focus on the country town and how it's falling apart and how like a lot of the farming's being bought up by like corporations and people are leaving like it's it's a it's just a barren wasteland the school is underfunded do you know what i mean like and all these are not like there's no life in this town and like shops are dying and all of these there's like this like this just undercurrent of like simmering like resentment and that you just, I didn't feel like the movie fully captured. The movie was more kind of like it's hot.

And I think, do you know what I mean? No, you're absolutely right. You've actually nailed that because I think that's why it was such a big book. Yeah. Because it wrote about the experience of people living in country towns where that exact thing is happening, where the effects of climate change are being felt in this huge way where people's livelihoods are disappearing under their feet

and the world that they used to know isn't existing in the same way anymore and there's kind of generational difficulties with that because, you know, their father and their father's father might have worked the land and now what do they do when their farms, they're in huge amounts of debt and there's foreclosures and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I totally agree. And you're on your own. Like nobody's coming to help you.

You're so dependent on the weather, you know what I mean, and people coming into the town. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think she really nailed that experience of living remotely. I think The Lost Man, another one of her novels, does that really well too. I haven't read that one yet. I did read the follow-up to this which I quite liked. Yeah, Force of Nature.

Force of Nature which I didn't like as much but I still really enjoyed. The Lost Man is a separate story but still set in a really isolated Australian community. Yeah, okay. And it's even more isolated than The Dry. Yeah. And I think she does a really good job of kind of drawing out how the difficulties of living in a really,

really harsh environment where you're really, really just beholden to, yeah, the weather. And I didn't even really think about this at the time, but we for like a year, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that long, we lived in a very remote, barren, desolate, depressing, very small. There was lots of beautiful spots around it, but it was pretty difficult. It was pretty fucking grim.

All right. Anyway, anyway. Yeah, and I don't know. I just there was something about the book that I think the movie didn't quite capture. But I also I think I'll always now wonder, I think the movie still works. I think I just knew too much going into it. I think it's still a good movie.

Yeah, because at the end of the day, I get the essence of it, right? Yeah. A murder mystery works because you don't know what the ending is and you're waiting to find out and you're trying to figure out. That's not the only reason why the book is good though. No, not at all. That's what I think is the difference. Yeah, totally.

But there is an element that is spoilt when you know the ending to watch it as a film. But still, you know, amazing to see an Australian writer then have a big movie like that with Eric Banner and everything. It was really great. And Jane Harper's apparently a really great person too. Oh, really? Cool.

We should get her on the show. Hey, why wasn't your movie as good as the book? I liked the book more. I think that's, well, tell us about that. Correct. Anywho, James, it's an ad time. It's time for an ad. Oh, thank God.

Here it is. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. So a few decades ago, private citizens used to be largely that, private. Good. What's changed? What?

The internet. Oh. Think about everything you've browsed, searched for, private. Good. What's changed? What? The internet. Think about everything you've browsed, searched for, watched or tweeted. Now imagine all of that data being crawled through, collected and aggregated by third parties into a permanent public record, your record. I don't like it. No, I don't either. Having your private life exposed for others to see was once something only celebrities worried about.

But in an era where everyone is online, everyone is a public figure. Everybody's a celebrity. Everybody. To keep my data private when I go online, I turn to our pals at ExpressVPN. I also turn to them. Both of us turn at the same time we look at them. We rotate towards them. And we go hello.

Like sunflowers towards the sun. That's a great way to put it. Thanks, James. Thank you. Did you know there are hundreds of data brokers out there whose sole business it is to buy and sell your data? Yes. The worst part is they don't have to tell you who they're selling it to or get your

consent. One of these data points is your IP address. Data harvesters use your IP to uniquely identify you and your location. But with ExpressVPN, my connection gets rerouted through an encrypted server and my IP address is masked. Every time I turn on ExpressVPN, I'm given a random IP address shared by other ExpressVPN customers. That makes it more difficult for third parties to identify me and harvest my data. And the best part is how easy ExpressVPN is to use. No matter what device you're on, phone, laptop, or smart TV, all you have to do is tap one button to get protected.

So if, like me, you believe that your data is your business, James. I believe that to this day. You should believe it. It's real. Secure yourself with the number one rated VPN on the market. Visit expressvpn.com slash suggestible and get three extra months for free. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash suggestible. Go to expressvpn.com slash suggestible to learn more.

Please look. Check it out. Help support the show. Thank you so much. And that out. Help support the show. Woo. Thank you so much. And that's the end of the air break. But there'll be more show after this right now. Hi, I'm Jessie Cruikshank from the number one comedy podcast, Phone a Friend, which

I strongly advise you listen to. You know what else I suggest you look into? Becoming a host on Airbnb. Did you like that segue? Thank you. I recently started putting my guest house on Airbnb when I'm out of town and I didn't realize how easy it would be until I did it. If you have a spare room, you could Airbnb it or your whole place could be an Airbnb. It's a

great way to make a little extra money by doing not a lot, which frankly is my mantra in 2024. To learn more, go to Airbnb.ca slash host. or go to airbnb.ca slash host. So can I go into my next thing now? I would love to hear what you're going to say next, Claire. It's like the season's changing and I'm like, oh, I'm so excited because I love the way the seasons shift and the colours in the sky. Well, you're really going to hate my next recommendation then. Oh, is it a poem about the sky?

No, it's not about the sky. It is a poem though. And if you say poetry, I'll punch you in the noggin. I wasn't going to, but now I'm thinking it. So I want everybody to know that I'm not going to say it. I'm thinking that the entire time. All right. All right.

All right. So it's actually an Instagram account and I got recommended it by a beautiful listener. Now, I do not know your name because you messaged me over some form of social media and I've looked and I couldn't find who recommended it to me. Oh, man, I hate that. I know. I'm so sorry.

I really trawled through. Maybe message in again. Yes. And then we'll know. Email suggest report at gmail.com. I'll let everyone know it was you. Or send it the last way you did again. Yes. And then we'll like. Email suggestreported at gmail.com. I'll let everyone know it was you. Or send it the last way you did it. Correct.

Exactly. But anyway. Because that will prove then if the person is the same person because they'll have to send to the same account. All right. Okay. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, this all seems very complicated.

Let's just get on to the recommendation. So it's an Instagram account called Poetry is Not a Luxury and it's just bloody great. So it's really, really, it's just poems, really, just beautifully drawn, lovely poems that I love. And what I like about it too, because one of the reasons I love poetry is that it's short and you can kind of get a lovely snapshot of writing without having to kind of sit there for a long time

trawling through. And also poetry captures like an essence of something in a very short amount of time, like a feeling that you might have rather than or an emotion or an event. Or a smell. Or a smell. Well, genuinely, or a smell. Yeah, I'm agreeing with you. Yes, exactly,

in a way that, you know, you can get that from a novel, obviously, but it's a lot longer form. So I just bloody love poetry. And I wanted to share you the one that they did today. Let's do it. Because it is from Mary Oliver, who is one of my favourite poets. Let's all listen to various poetries. Just this one poetry. You are so. I'm jazzing everybody up. All right. Get ready, everyone.

All right. And in five, four. Stop. Now you're going to make me feel. Three. Are you going to make me feel weird? Two and a half. Can you just let me be? Two and a quarter. Three. Are you going to make me feel weird? Two and a half. Can you just let me be?

Two and a quarter. God, all right, you're going to hate this poem, but I'm reading it for other people. No, I like it. I'm not thinking that thing I said I was thinking. Fine. Anyway, this is by Mary Oliver from Twelve Moons, Little Brown, written in 1979.

Sleeping in the forest, I thought the earth remembered me. She took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars. But my thoughts, and they floated, light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

My goodness. Shut up. It's breathtaking. You're the worst. I enjoyed the poem, Claire. No, you don't. You don't. Anyway.

It's like a night or something. It's just I think it's really beautiful and there's just something about it I just was really drawn to, which I'm always drawn to Mary Oliver's poetry because she writes a lot about the experience of being in nature and connectedness with the living world. And I think there is something really grounding about that and that her writing because she was also a really free thinker and just an all-around incredibly sort of strong and interesting person

but also someone that wrote about how life, oh, this is going to sound really corny. So you're going to laugh at me. Let's do it. No, I'm not going to laugh. You are going to laugh. I'm going to agree with you, whatever you say, because that's what it's all about.

What is happening? Who even are you? I don't even know who you are anymore. Just she wrote that sentence, you know, what will you do with your one wild and precious life? And I think that she wasn't someone that necessarily valued the hustle and bustle and that we always have to be busy and doing something and out there constantly.

Yeah. You know, that actually there is joy in just being, you know, just letting yourself be in the world and feeling that understanding that you are a human creature and an animal just like other animals. Just like big dogs sniffing around us. Yeah, I know. It's like, what is on my legs? It's Ollie.

And I think that sometimes in the way that our lives move, we don't do that and we kind of don't actually live in our bodies. We live in our heads too much. And so it means we're disconnected from ourselves and from nature and for what we really are. And I think that's really in the end really unhealthy and can make us really depressed and really sad. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I do.

Yeah, you were always banging on to me about connecting with the earth and nature and putting my head in a pile of soil or whatever you're up to. No, but I just think a lot of people walk around not conscious of the fact that we're creatures living on a living planet and that there's only really one of us here and what we do to ourselves, we do to the earth, we do to each other. And we need the planet, we need nature, and it's so good for us to be able to be still in it.

And I think we're just so often so busy barrelling on ahead, trying to get as much done as we can. Anyway, and that's kind of, I've really butchered the essence of Mary Oliver, but that is one of her many perspectives on life. Yeah. And I just, yeah, why can't we all just be nude swimming in streams, you know, plotting. It's too cold.

Plotting daisies and, you know, staring up at the stars. Sleeping in the forest. Because those things always turn into a weird sex cult, Claire. That's why. That's why. Because there's always one guy, and it is a guy, who ruins it for everybody. Well, all I'm saying is I think that, and obviously it's a luxury

to be able to do that, to slow down and stop. But it also is free, you know. And I think, yeah, there's just more to life than like constantly looking at content as we make more content. But, you know. I don't think there is. I think you should watch as much stuff as you can. Right.

Disney Plus. But I just think that means we're all just trying to escape from things. Yeah. People aren't escaping from nature. People are trying to escape from the grim realities of the society that we all live in. That's what it is. And that's my point because if you notice,

if you become conscious of what's actually around us and outside, life is so magic. Some people don't have the time to do things like this though. It's like getting up in the morning and looking at the sky and you're like skin is embellished. Maybe sleep in. Morning light is just so incredibly beautiful and often we can miss it and if you miss that stuff, you miss, I think, the point of it all, you know? I guess.

Don't worry because there are people listening to this who are loving this. They're like, oh, my God, you are speaking my language. So even though you think you're going, you think like that I'm, you think, I know that you think that I think that I don't like this. You hate this. I don't hate it. I think it's great. Any joy you can get.

It's like the essence of what the world is. It's the essence of you and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is or whatever. Mary Oliver. No, it's like, for instance, anyway. No, tell me. I want to know. For instance, when we did our Easter egg hunt today,

there was a tiny slug on one of the Easter eggs and it was so cute and it had like little eyeball-y things and was looking at me and I was like, mate, you can't eat this Easter egg. It's not for you. And I just like brushed him off and put him on a little leaf and he like squirreled away. We're recording this on Easter, by the way, because we're up. We'll be back by the time this goes up.

Oh, yeah. We're recording this early. Anyway, this is Easter Sunday.'re up. We'll be back by the time this goes up. Oh, yeah. We're recording this early. Anyway, this is Easter Sunday. Yeah, cool. I don't know, stuff like that. Or the other day, Christmas beetles, which I used to love as a kid, are just no longer in existence, which makes me really sad. But I saw a beetle yesterday that was this, like,

incredibly amazing different kind of metallic hues, and it just reminded me of Christmas beetles. And I was like, you're amazing, that's so cool. Yeah, I haven't seen a Christmas beetle in a long time. No, because they're gone because of climate change. Boo. I know. How do we know it's Christmas?

Well, this is exactly the point. Shopping centres tell you, they're going. No, but I just, I don't know, I just think that there is so much that we miss unless we're paying attention out there. And it's just so incredibly intricate and beautiful. And it makes me sad to think that people aren't consciously in their bodies. It's like breathing.

It's doing that deep breathing. I think we can, if you start to deep breathe, which I've made you do before on the pod, like it's biological, you come back into your body. It's the same with exercise. And you come take yourself out of that constant whir of the ego in your mind, just like saying all these things and judging everybody and judging yourself. And then I should be better.

I should be doing this. You should be doing that, that isn't done, why isn't this done, I'm no good or I'm this or that person is that and how could they do this to me and all the vendettas and all the memories and all the things that sort of run our daily lives, this script in our heads. But when you deep breathe and you sit still, you can separate yourself from that enough to watch that all

happen and then be grounded in yourself and calmer and I think a more contented, happy person. My brain is like on fire when I exercise. It's just like, I think about all that stuff, like it doesn't shut off. It's just like, remember that guy? Remember that guy you said that thing to and he said that thing to you? And I'm like, yeah, I do remember that. I don't need that though right now. And it's like, cool. Okay. I remember when you were at school and your pants were too short, they were slightly too short. People could see your socks. I'm like, no, I do remember that. Thank you. This is really, apparently I was known for it. I didn't know for years. My pants were like that.

Why were your little legs so little. Why were they too short? I don't know because they'll probably hand me downs. Yeah. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that I think sometimes having that bit of stillness in our lives and separate from ourselves from that thought pattern is really healthy and it's good for us and it's good for our brains to be able to kind of be conscious of that because it makes us less judgmental and angry and calmer and more empathetic and understanding of where we are. That's my entire personality so I don't want to change anything. I need all those things to make content for YouTube.

But you don't have to change all of that. It's just about understanding that you are not your thoughts and that you can separate from them. It's so that when you get into situations when you fire on all cylinders and are super angry or super whatever it is, upset, you can come from a place of understanding that, you know, you can be separate from it. So you can, not that you can control your emotions necessarily,

but you can control how you then react to them, if that makes sense. It's like that whole analogy of, and this is all, and I'm not an expert in meditation and there are people who know so much more than me, but. No. The worst. I'm like, I'm a an expert in meditation and there are people who know so much more than me. No. The worst. I'm like, I'm a teacher. I know a bit about everything.

Anyway, the idea of when you're sitting in meditation that your thoughts are like leaves on a stream. So you're not blocking them from happening. You're not going to block your, there's no way that we could block James Clement from bloody yelling about the world. Like that's, I mean, it's also a hilarious part of your personality that I really enjoy. But there is something to be said from taking a break from that

and just allowing those thoughts to just pass through, but without having to attach any kind of like, you don't have to follow them down the stream. You can just let them pass. And it all like clouds through the sky. They just kind of come and go. And there's something really valuable about that because I think we do that with our bodies.

We rest them at nighttime. We exercise. We eat well to try and, you know, make our bodies well and healthy and functioning and meditation or that kind of ability to be still in nature or just still in ourselves and separate from our thoughts actually is also really, really good for us and good for stress and kind of all of that stuff that runs through our bodies like the adrenaline and is it the cortisol?

I always get this wrong, cortisol, cortisone, cortisol, I think. Like the hormones and things that run through our bodies when we're highly stressed, if we can do that with that deep breathing and also with that kind of separation from our thoughts, it calms your nervous system, which in turn reduces stress, which in turn can make you just sleep better, make you feel better. Would you say overall health benefits because stress is the number one contributor to heart disease and other things maybe?

Correct, correct. No, exactly. It's not a magic bullet but absolutely it helps. I think it can also make your relationship stronger with the people around you because you're connecting to them from a place of calm and empathy rather than from the ego, which is like this voice that's just constantly yelling at you. If you had a magic bullet, who would you shoot? Okay.

You totally missed the point. Would you shoot Hitler through time? You totally missed the point. It's magic. So you can shoot anybody in history. What? You can shoot anybody. You can shoot Hitler as a baby as he's coming out.

No, I'm not having this discussion. Okay. You could shoot anybody. You could shoot Hitler as a baby as he's coming out. No, I'm not having this discussion. Okay. You could shoot Jason Segel. I went into my Mariel of the Zen space and now you're telling me I need to shoot someone. I don't want to shoot anyone. You could shoot Jason Segel from How I Met Your Mother. Why would I shoot him? I don't know.

I don't want to shoot anybody. You could shoot him at the peak of the show so they never make that last bad season. All right, okay, just tell me what you're recommending. Okay. I've given up. I've given up trying to make you a higher version of yourself. And I can't.

Yeah, don't bother. I found the most wonderful thing today when I was at your childhood home and this is it. This is my recommendation. Oh, no. No. Should I post this online, Claire? No, please, no, please don't.

It's a photo of Claire in year seven and my God. No. My God. Please don't. It'll be on the internet forever. Yeah, I wouldn't do that to you. Oh, God. It's so awful.

We went over to my mum's place for Sunday lunch and, oh, James is showing me a video of our little person. She's so beautiful. Anyway, I mean, look, everyone has imperfect photos of them. Yeah, oh, my God. Every photo is mine. But mine is a real doozy. Maybe you can just describe it for people because this is an audio movie. No, I won't do that to you, Clay.

I think you look very nice. You know what's a fun thing to do? Do it with your kids. Do it with your friends. Say, let me get a photo of you. And then you pretend to take a photo. I think you look very nice. You know what's a fun thing to do? Do it with your kids. Do it with your friends. Say, let me get a photo of you. And then you pretend to take a photo. And then you show them a picture of a monkey. And they're like, ah, kids love it.

They're like, oh, my God. I used to do it all the time when I was at school. That's very funny. Because you shouldn't actually take photos of kids. No, you shouldn't. Behind your own. All right. What am I really recommending now?

I've got a real thing. I've been watching, there's been two episodes of The Mighty Ducks Game Changers. Oh, I love The Mighty Ducks. In the spirit of Cobra Kai, this is a sequel. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. This is a sequel slash reboot of the original Mighty Ducks trilogy. It's created by Stephen Brill, Josh Goldsmith, and Kathy Ayuspa. And it has Emilio Estevez, The Breakfast Club Zone,

Young Guns 1 and 2 Zone. Mighty Ducks, that's what I know him for really. It returns as Gordon Bombay as we watch Emilio Estevez slowly morph into Charlie Sheen. My God, he looks like Charlie Sheen now. He even sounds like Charlie Sheen. Not Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, his father. Oh, okay, yes, yes, yes.

He's the president from that show that you like. Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes. He's the president from that show that you like or don't like. Yes, yes, yes. It stars Bradley Noon, Max Simpkins. The West Wing, you mean. What did I say? Barty. Yep.

Yes, I did. What did I say? No, you said the show that you like and I said the West Wing. Yes, that's the one, yeah. So the story picks up in the modern day. So social media, you know what I mean? Modern day, you say. Modern day, like modern family.

So now, you know, the Ducks were this kind of underground team, you know what I mean, and they were these underdogs and it was just a scrappy team of losers or whatever. Now they're like this powerhouse industry. They're like this huge corporation who are like really like, you know, like those sporting clubs that are really like full on with kids and you know what I mean? It's all about the training and if you're not good enough at a certain age and you shouldn't have even bothered, it's not about having fun,

it's about winning and all of those things. I hate that. It's about that, right? So that's what the Ducks have become. They've become what they hate, right? And so a new team is formed, a new ragtag team, independent of the Ducks because the Ducks, they're the bad guys now. They've flipped it.

They've flipped it, Claire. And Gordon Bombay is like, I'm not coaching hockey anymore. I don't want to. Can't I just have bloody one memory from my childhood that isn't destroyed? I will say this is something that you will enjoy, though. The coach of the team is Laurie from Gilmore Girls. Okay, I bloody love her. So there you go. And at this point... You mean Lorelei? Whatever.

Lorelei. Yeah. She's good. She's fast-talking. She's moving. She's always on caffeine. She's having a fun time. She's having a fun time. So, like, you know, they're renting out Gordon Bombay's ice rink, you know what I mean? And he's like, I don't like hockey anymore. I don't do hockey. The Ducks are no good or whatever. Maybe they kick me out

or whatever. So she's running the ragtag team, like, headed up by her son. So, you know, they're terrible but they've got heart. So it's early days. But, look, it's a fun. Isn't that the storyline of Mighty Ducks? Yes, it is literally the story of Mighty Ducks, yes. So it's a reboot in the sense that it's the same thing again. All right.

But it's good. But with Lauren Lai from Gilmore Girls. It's good. I like it. Amazing. I like it. I same thing again. All right. But it's good. But with Lorelei from Gilmore Girls. It's good. I like it. Amazing. I like it. I liked those movies. I even liked three.

Yeah, I bloody loved Mighty Ducks. I also loved Cool Runnings. They exist in the same time period in my head. I have no idea why. They may have came out at a similar time. It's just like an era of film. I bloody loved it. Let's leave the show now, though.

Yeah, it's a lot. We've gone over. We've gone too long. I suppose you were talking about leaves or some shit or film. I bloody love it. Let's leave the show now, though. Yeah, it's a lot. We've gone over. We've gone too long. I suppose you were talking about leaves or some shit or breathing. I don't know. Existence, James. We all know about existence. We're all doing it, Claire.

Anyway, if you want to review the show, it really helps, doesn't it? It does. Yeah, it helps us. Or you can go and sit on a rock and write some poetry. I don't mind. No, do this first. So what are you going to do? You've got to open your app.

You've got to be like, what device am I listening to this on? I'm meditating, James. Yeah, and you're like, bang. And then you do this like, Ker-sha-ploo-splat-ploo says, listen, an excellent podcast that tells me all the things that I should watch even though I probably never will. And I like that. I like that attitude because we get a lot of emails where people recommend

this thing and I'm like, I should watch that and then I don't. So that really speaks to me. What have you got, a letter, Claire, or is that it? I do. I certainly do. I have many letters this week. This one I particularly enjoyed. Just wait for it.

It's from Xavier. Hello, James and Claire. What up? I just wanted to write. Okay. Also, the email tagline is the nightmare hellscape of university education. Okay. Just to remind you, I'll take you back in time to last week's episode

where we had a big discussion about university. Hello, James and Claire. I just wanted to write to say that I thought it was really interesting to hear both of you talk about the value of university education. As a future teacher, I've got a lot of anxieties about the future of the education system and it was kind of a cathartic experience to listen to two people hash it out. Thanks for the content, Xavier. of the education system and it was kind of a cathartic experience to listen to two people hash it out.

Thanks for the content, Xavi. P.S. Not that anyone asked, but regarding the debate, I think Claire's right. What? Universities can really help shape someone into well-rounded, critical thinking and civic-minded citizen. I agree, but it's ultimately flawed and I do not like it. Well, you'll also be interested to know we also got an email from Jonathan who said a perspective of a former Ivy League student.

Would you like to hear this? I would very much like this. I think you might find this really interesting. Okay. Hi, Claire and James. I was really interested in your discussion of the prestigious American universities on the pod this week and thought you might be interested in the perspective of someone

who attended Harvard in 2015. I am very interested in that. First of all, a lot of the rot and nepotism that James complained about is absolutely true. I knew it. But that actually applies to a relatively small portion of the student population. I didn't know that.

Most of my peers were just regular people. That being said, I genuinely believe that the education we received wasn't any better than that received at most colleges. I knew it. An important point is that professors are generally hired because they are excellent researchers and not because they are excellent educators. Oh, yeah. Each in my words.

Many of my professors were awful teachers and I learned way more from my peers. I knew it. I bloody knew it. Now, this one I also thought was interesting. One other important nuance that most people don't realise is that financial aid at Ivy League schools and a lot of other prestigious schools is entirely need-based.

That means that tuition for lower and middle-class people like myself is largely subsidised and students generally only leave with significant debt if their families are very well off. Oh. Counterintuitively, even though schools like Harvard cost obscene amounts of money, it's actually at the non-prestigious private institutions that can't afford to give as much aid to their students where people tend to graduate with crippling debt.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, no. So it's not the Harvards. Yeah, yeah, okay. And I'm assuming there's a lot of colleges that don't fall into the really prestigious ones. Yeah. That's really interesting, yeah.

Another caveat is that financial aid is generally reserved for American citizens. So all of the Australians I know from college are actually super rich. Yeah, I'm not surprised by that. I'm not surprised either. The same goes for here because we have colleges but only people from the country or people who are really wealthy seem to go to them. It's true.

Anyway, love you guys. I look forward to listening to Suggestible and James' other successful podcasts every week. Hope you enjoy your Easter. We did. Thanks, Jonathan. We did. Thank you. From upstate New York. That was very interesting.

Those were two very interesting emails. I know. I thought that was a really interesting perspective. So thank you so much for writing in, Jonathan. And if you too would like to share your perspective, you can write in to suggestiblepod at gmail.com. You can send us a voice memo too if you'd like. I always love listening to other people from all over the globe.

And that's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's a show. I love shows. Let's go and lie down for a minute. All right. Thank you as always to Royal Clownings for editing this show.

Yes. And remember, you should get up really early, earlier than you should to look at the sun or whatever. Get up and go, yeah, this is worth it. No, I don't mean having to get up extra early or do anything different in your life. It's not about that. It's just about noticing things.

So I can keep doing the same things that I'm currently doing. Except maybe like noticing the things around you in nature. Just notice what the world's doing out there. It's pretty bloody amazing. Okay. I'll look at it. I'm going to look at it this way. I can see what I come up with.

What about some meditation? No, fuck off. Try that. I tried that out and the guy's like, hey, what's up? And I'm like, no. Get fucked. I didn't like him. All right.

Okay. Well, there's lots of different. One of the mindful ones or whatever. And he's like, you're doing a good job. And I'm like, you don't know that. Also, I'm not doing a good job. I know I'm not. Patronize me.

I might just want to go from the brain down for a bit there i like my brain all right let's go on that final note we've been to just for a pod see you next week goodbye this podcast is part of the planet broadcasting network visit planet broadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want. It's up to you. Hey folks, it's Mark Maron from WTF. I travel all over North America doing stand-up and it's always good to know Airbnb is an option when I'm away from home. But if you're away from home, why not take your own place and Airbnb it?

Airbnb your whole home to make some extra cash. Or if you have a spare room that's not in use, just Airbnb that. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host.