Wonderful! - Wonderful! 126: The Goop Threshold

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Griffin's favorite social gaming! Rachel's favorite food preserver! Griffin's favorite temporary fortress! Rachel's favorite reassuring poet!Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya  MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful? It is still that. Okay. We're not doing Rose Buddies again. We haven't changed the format again. It would be, at this point, frankly, babe, pretty irresponsible for us to change formats once again.

And this is a podcast where we talk about good things going on in the world. I think this is probably the first recording we've done in a very long time where we both have big Tammy Taylor sized glasses of white wine just at the go at the ready. You haven't done this yet. You haven't. You've not sort of recorded a podcast since it popped off. No, not post pandemic. I've done a couple now and it's a it's a it's a strange vibe. It's a it's a this show.

I think we try to focus on the good things that are happening. Yes. And that is not to say that there aren't good things happening, but I worry that there's a notch on the meter, right? Uh-huh. And that notch reads goop. And I'm really cautious about this podcast

hitting the goop threshold. Yeah, we have danced close to it for sure. Yeah, we've danced with the goop in the pale moonlight. But it feels like the more sort of serious things get and the more actual like genuine suffering is happening out there where I talk about how good pistachios are. Ooh, that goop line of coming.

I don't really know how to fix that. I don't really know how to walk that. We also have to be sensitive to the fact that some of the things we talk about are more difficult to access now than they were before. Of course. Yes. So we will try and be conscious of that and try and do our best to kind of be sensitive, I think. This podcast for, okay i'll speak personally like this podcast is um is one that i never really stress out about making um and that's not to say that like you know making taz and move bim bam and besties is like a miserable experience or anything like that but like i'm a i'm a genuinely like anxious person and uh my anxiety about the world. It's hard to sort of keep that separated from the stuff that I make.

And so with my bim bam and Taz and, and, and everything else I do, like, it's really hard for me to completely put that aside while I am making the thing. But because of the nature of this show and because of the person I make it with,

uh, that is not true for, for, for this podcast. And so like, for me, it is, um,

it is, it is still, it is still very, very good to be making this show. Like that hasn't changed. Like I'm anxious about the world pretty much all the time, uh, pandemic or no.

And so I don't, I don't think we should necessarily change what we're doing too much but just know that we're you know we're thinking about those who are having an incredibly hard time with this um much much harder than us and uh i don't i don't i think we can still talk about things that are good because i think there's also a lot of people who want to hear that yes i think that's true we just got to watch that goop mark, don't we? If we are trending towards the goop mark, please do not sleep on telling us we're going to do our best, though.

Yeah, there's a difference between saying, I like lemons and lemons will save you. And just make sure that we are. I guess that's a good point. A lot of people have been asking us how we're doing. I've been doing some streaming and a lot of people have been like asking us like how we're how we're doing. I've been doing some streaming and like a lot of the comments are like asking how Rachel and Henry and I are doing and we're doing very well. Thank you for your concern. We're healthy. We're safe.

I think a sort of story that we will never sort of forget being on, on that while everything else was happening and sort of how it, it hit us in the surrealness of that experience. But as far as I can tell, like I haven't heard any reports of anybody getting sick on, as of this recording, as of this recording where, you know, we're a couple of weeks out.

We have been basically in complete quarantine aside from like one or two grocery trips for like 10 or 11 days now um and we're all doing we're all doing very well um we're trying to sort of like a lot of you like put together a rhythm put together like a a semblance of normalcy to this to the best of our abilities yeah um and you know we're only a couple days into that i would say but we thank you for your concern we are doing fine there are lots of other people who need that concern more than us at this moment small wonders small wonders i mean i actually wanted to give a shout out to somebody who doesn't listen to the podcast. And that is Sarah, who is watching Henry for us while we both work our jobs.

Yes. We desperately needed a child care solution. And we found a wonderful woman that is helping us out every day. And it has made this whole thing a lot more manageable. It is a very nice, it is a very part-time arrangement, which again, I know a lot of people don't have access to, so we are lucky in that sense.

But it also means that like we are having to figure out how to do our jobs in essentially like half the time that we use to do them. But that's really nice. I'm surprised. I thought you were going to talk

about Animal Crossing. Well, I feel like that's your domain. For me to step in as like a carpetbagger and say, I've got a great your domain. For me to step in as like a carpetbagger and say, I've got a great new thing I want to tell my listeners about. And that's this game that I play. It's not one of my topics.

One of my topics is kind of adjacent to it. But we're going to be doing this week's Besties. It's all about Animal Crossing. And we'll be talking about it then. It is unlike, I'm not even talking about the game now. I have not experienced anything quite like the. It's a buzz. The cultural sort of phenomenon.

The extremely localized, extremely time specific cultural phenomenon of every time I turn on my switch, there is no joke, 20 people playing this game all at the same time. And that is like. You have a lot more friends than I do. And that it's everyone. Like I turn turn on my switch nobody's playing anything else all 20 people are all playing animal crossing and um i am playing too by the way rachel's playing too she's got a nice little nice little island going maybe i'll dip in on the next stream that we do um and i've never seen anything like it like halo destiny like any big game that has ever come out that has like a bunch of online stuff like i have never seen this level of like saturation of people just kind of needing to be in that space for a while yeah and that is it is uh as a person

who loves games and as a person who like loves this game franchise in in particular and is using it as a sort of like escape uh it is like breathtaking to see that it's indescribable but i'm going to talk at length about that game tomorrow morning so i should save a lot of my most erudite thoughts for then you want to spin this bad boy up? Yeah. Am I going first? I've already forgotten. No, I am going first this week. Okay. According to wonderful.fyi. Please spin this up then. It is a transition that is kind of seamless because my first thing that I want to talk

about, both my things this week are sort of a reflection of where I'm at as being in quarantine for almost two weeks now and having a little kiddo at home during that time, my first thing is online video games. Uh, so Animal Crossing New Horizons, I have been playing online and it is really neat and fun to just kind of like see who's got their gates open. That's how it works in Animal Crossing. If you want to play with other people, you just open up your gates. And then if anybody wants to, then you just dip on in. I've done that. I've played with people who i haven't necessarily even like met or hung out with in real life and to be fair you did share your code on facebook yeah but i i did not sort of

a widely broadcast that yeah uh and it is neat because even though like some of these people that i've been playing with like i have not talked to or don't like often talk to, uh, we are all kind of doing the same thing for the same reason. And so it is, it is somewhat charming to be like, Hey, in this moment,

I just met you and this is crazy, but do you need these oranges? Because I noticed that you have pairs and I would love some of those, but like it puts you on the same level and it is a like full-blown rainbow connection yeah the game allows you to like give little gifts to other players and so it's like a really nice gesture and and when i play with my friends and like being able to chat in there like that has actually tangibly sort of helped me out you know socially speaking since we have been uh in in isolation here and honestly like that has been true about online games before

any of this happened like um in my like most introverted days uh online games have always been like a very valuable resource for me to like scratch a certain social itch um and i think that i think that throughout most of my life like i am a person who kind of craves social interaction in a way but i am so like anxious about going out and getting it like i am so anxious about putting in the effort to go out and uh arrange said social interaction and so i think online games have sort of like helped me get around that um i remember like i think the first one i really got into was everquest which was like this original online rpg that i played with my brother's older friends and i thought i was so cool because i was hanging out with my cool older brother's cool friends only they were like wizards and shit and uh like

that was that was big for me i played a lot did you ever play the sims i don't know if we've talked yeah i did there was an online version called the sims online never did that that's probably good because it got pretty um it got a little nasty in there i have to imagine it got a little raunchy got a little raunchy got a little rambunctious let's just say the woohoo was uh just woohooing off the walls if you know what i'm saying uh but like i was super into i had my own little cafe and i was like so into having like my own little cafe uh and in that like i mostly played with like you know internet strangers and that is like i guess one way of scratching the itch but then like halo 2 on xbox i was playing with my friends

i was playing with like the jocks at my high school who like used to be my friends in middle school and now we had like caught up with each other on the other side of the nerd bridge of just like hey we don't we don't really like fuck with each other anymore because our lives have gone a different path but like master chief is still both our best friends and so now we can still party and pretend like we've got it like our friendship never sort of trailed off uh and like uh world of warcraft obviously was like a big a big one for me like i met people on that game just because of how much i played it for how long that like I actually was like emailing with them I think I'm still on an email chain that hasn't obviously had a new email in like seven or eight

years like with these people that I met in in that game the first year I started playing it uh and then destiny is like another online shooter that like I still play with my buddies back home um and I keep in touch like with certain people just through that game. Uh, so like, I think, you know, I love games in general and I love the idea of playing games with my friends and using that as like a way of being social with people. Yeah. And this, this week in particular playing animal crossing and a few other online games, some, some, some final fantasy 14.

I know there's some wonderful fans out there who are into that one um it is it makes me feel like on some sort of base level like less lonely like it makes me feel like i i think there's different levels of social interaction and then there's there's the like deep intimate social interaction that you get from like having a really deep conversation with a really good friend and then there's just like the kind of social interaction of just like seeing a character move across the screen and knowing that it's a real person pushing a button on a controller to make them do that it's faint it's like a ghost of a of an interaction but like even that at times is soothing to me uh and so that's the thing that I'm like, just really kind of, kind of grateful for this week.

Yeah, no, it's, it's been, it's been cool to be a part of that. You know, typically when Griffin is, is on some kind of cultural game,

you know, wavelength, I am not. And so it's been kind of fun to be in it, you know, and Griffin's like two days ahead of me, maybe. Yeah. You are not far behind me and so a lot

of times he'll be like hey did you see this thing and i'll be like wait now i have it's like fun to kind of like check in with you on games which is something we've never had before it's true uh but like also justin and travis are both yeah into it like i don't think they've ever really played an animal crossing before like everybody's playing this game y'all yeah um have you been over to justin's i've not no i have not visited i'm curious because i remember you telling me his previous game was not particularly um uh finessed i think that's probably fair to say um what is your first thing my first thing is clarence birdseye the third clarence birdseye the third yes the name sounds familiar i may just be thinking of clarence carter

which is not you may also be thinking of birdseye foods clarence birdseye kind of perfected the art of making frozen food oh okay this is also i imagine influenced by the the fortnight that we have been living through yes yeah uh frozen food was something that was a big part of my childhood continues to be um you know when both individuals in a relationship work full time uh and you're kind of coming up for air at the end of the day, frozen food is like kind of the nice option. And Birdseye made it so that it actually tastes pretty good. Which is not something that used to be true. It's gotten good.

It's gotten so much better than it was when I was like, I don't even feel, I love cooking for you and I love like having a nice home cooked meal and it's so tasty and good, but like it's gotten to the point where I don't even feel that guilty anymore about having like a big Stouffer's or we do a lot of meals that you can like you know pair with rice for example oh yeah you know and so then you have kind of like a fresher element and then the frozen piece and it just kind of the rice is like don't worry about it guys they're with me we're all fresh here right uh okay so clarence bird's eye kind of an interesting guy

so he is the sixth of nine children uh which was not too uncommon this is you know early 20th century people were fucking me from childhood he was obsessed with science and also taxidermy. Huh, I guess. Which, if you think about it, yeah, right? Oh, man, I've never thought about it that way. He apparently taught himself taxidermy through a correspondence course. And then at age 11, he started advertising his own courses on the subject. Okay.

Like, he really got into it and then kind of became an expert at a young age and started teaching others the art. That's something. So he went to Amherst College and became kind of really into insects in particular and started collecting them and his classmates all started calling him Bugs. There is a biographer named Mark Kurlansky who has wrote it extensively on Birdseye and he said that Bugs became Bob

and then apparently after college he never went by Clarence again. He just went by Bob. Bob? Mm-hmm. How did they get from Bugs to Bob? Well, you know how it is with nicknames.

It's the 20th century, man. Earliest 20th century. People just say whatever. Because everyone talked like this, see? In the 20s, you know whatever uh does everyone talk like this see in the 20s you know everyone talking like this i've been coming over here browns it could you could see that so bugs could sound like bob yeah we could talk like this in the 1920s see come here bros come here bro yeah i see you looking at them uh looking at some of them frozen peas there, boo.

You know? It's good. It's really good. And they're doing a little Charleston dance. Get over here, boobs. I'm transported right now. Yeah, it's like the Great Gatsby. Just so you know, at home, Griffin is shaking one finger. It's the worst of times.

It's the worst of times. It's really adding. Hey, boobs. Adding to the accuracy of the impression. Morning, Carolina. Get over here, boobs. Charleston with me. This is getting worse the longer it goes. Adding to the accuracy of the impression. This is getting worse the longer it goes. Yeah.

So Birdseye went to Amherst College and then was hired by the U.S. Agriculture Department to survey animals in the West. He also worked with an entomologist and captured several hundred small mammals from which the etymologist removed ticks for research. And then he in turn isolated the cause of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. That's a little connection to Griffin McElroy. That's true. I had them. I had that particular mountainous fever. After the ticks, he went to Canada

and spent a lot of time researching food preservation by fast freezing. And this is because he was with the Inuit people learning how to ice fish. And he discovered that in those really cold temperatures, he would get the fish out of the water. They would freeze almost immediately. And then when they thawed, still tasted fresh. Huh, interesting. freeze almost immediately and then when they thawed still tasted fresh huh interesting so previously uh frozen food would happen kind of slowly which would really compromise the quality of it um freezing occurred slow enough that ice crystals would start to form and that would damage

the tissue structure of the protein. So you know how like when you get something out and it has that freezer burn on it and then it like never tastes as good? Yeah. That usually happens because it's lost that like flash frozen process. Yes, okay.

And the fast freezing is what like keeps it from getting like mushy and dry when it is thawed. Okay. I never thought of that being particularly difficult to achieve. It's smaller ice crystals. So slower freezing, larger ice crystals, which are more detrimental. Faster freezing, smaller ice crystals, less, you know, detriment to the product. Okay.

Okay. So he, 1922, establishes this company to do this, to freeze the fish. And then two years later, his company went bankrupt because nobody was interested in it. People didn't have fridges. They didn't really understand the value or really need it at that time. Then comes World War II. Oh, man. There's a shortage of tin because of the war uh and then

also women were working more frequently and spending less time cooking right and frozen foods was a real appealing option so now it's like you know if you kind of follow that progression like bird's eye really was ahead of the game in a big way i would love a super cut of rachel's segments and the points at which she has said and then came world war ii i feel like it happens a lot you'll be talking about you know the can opener and you'll be like yeah and people weren't really interested in the can opener and then came the big one airplanes yeah we love them now i think it's then came world war ii what i appreciate i mean i appreciate birdseye's persistence you know of like really kind of hunkering down and continuing to pursue this because he knew that it was a good idea yeah um but also like he creates this

innovation that becomes very very relevant um in a time of great challenge to the country. So it's kind of, it's like an optimistic way to think about how these kind of big, challenging moments in history can kind of lend themselves to greater innovation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe we'll get some sort of frozen food innovation as a new, maybe the hungry man dinner will step it up or something to fill in the gap for us. I'm very thankful to Clarence. We've had a lot of meals at Clarence's expense as of late. And I couldn't have done it. I couldn't have frozen the food that good, could I have? I know.

I know. I could have frozen it pretty good. I think we can all agree. Right? Like you get it kind of cold, and then you get it a little bit colder, and then maybe it's a little bit colder, and then it doesn't taste good.

I could make a sort of like tilapia slurry. But if you get it cold really fast. That's the secret, isn't it? It's ready to go. Can I steal you away? Yes. Yes. Hey, can I read the first jumbotron here that is please please do well this one is for chloe and it's from lauren who says chloe my best friend and my spooky sidekick thank you for

making my life so wonderful i'm so proud of you for landing an awesome new job and being an overall badass i can't wait to cause more mischief go to more horror themed bars and finally watch all of the lord of the rings movies with you i love you so much can i ask you a question about lord of the rings movies you may so i have not watched them as you know yes is there a way like with the harry potter movies just jump in mid mid uh trajectory like jump into the middle of the the two towers yeah no no that would be you really got to start to finish watch every single one yeah you kind of do well here's why because if you jump in the middle of the two towers you'll be like who the fuck's that who's that who's that who's that what are they doing who's that what Who's that? Who's that? What are they doing? Who's that? What are they doing? Why is that tree walking and talking?

Who is that? That eagle is also a wizard. Why is he glowing? Why is he Jesus? So kind of worst idea of all time, grownups too, kind of. No, because these are fantastic movies that are incredibly good.

It's not like they're watching it in the wrong way. Well, okay, you could argue that they're watching it in the wrong way. Can, okay, you could argue that they're watching it in the wrong way. Can you read the second Jumbotron? Yes, this one is for Ian. It is from Kate. Hello, darling. Ian, you're my very favorite person

and the most wonderful part of my life. I love you so much and I'm excited we get to spend our lives together. Let's have pasta for dinner tonight. Always yours, Kate. You know, the schedule's been a little bit weird lately, our recording schedule, so I hope Kate has not just been

sort of preparing big bowls of pasta, just waiting for this episode to drop. Just always got big ol' boxes of rigatoni, elbow macaroni. I mean, pasta keeps really well though, right? So like like it's okay if she did why does so much pasta end with oni macaroni rigatoni fettuccine

you're working on like a tight five i don't think i could get five minutes out of that i just said lasagna i don't think that's i don't think there's. I don't think there's a next joke. Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX. With me in studio to take your calls is the dopest duo on the West Coast, Oliver Wong and Morgan Rhodes. Go ahead, caller. Hey, I'm looking for a music podcast that's insightful and thoughtful, but also helps me discover artists and albums that I've never heard of yeah man sounds like you need to listen to heat rocks every week myself and i'm morgan road and my co-host here oliver wong talk to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives guests like moby open mic eagle talk about albums by prince joni mitchell and so much more yo what's that show called again?

Heat Rocks, deep dives into hot records. Every Thursday on Maximum Fun. Can I tell you about my second thing? Yes. Also influenced by our week this week, I'm going to talk about pillow slash blanket forts. Oh. Yeah.

I was worried this would actually be a dupe. I was worried you were also going to bring this one but um apparently i'm in the clear well we've been doing it quite a bit haven't we to entertain our child we have yeah but i don't have a lot of history with them i guess being an only child maybe it's not as big of a thing yeah i didn't i mean if i created the fort it would just be me sitting in it and then it'd be me taking it down and putting it, you know, like there's not a lot of magic there. Yeah, I guess that's true. We did, I guess most of our fort building

was a sort of communal activity between bros. I feel like it is, having a kid our age, really a kid at most ages, having to be, you know be not able to go anywhere for a very long stretch of time here. We are having to learn how to get better about just constantly having some shit to do. Yeah, so here's the thing with three-year-olds. Their attention span is very short.

their attention span is very short. So the quicker you can execute an activity and the easier it is to take down, the better because most activities last about five minutes. I got Henry this little synth made for kids called Blip Box that I saw an ad for. I was like, that looks so cute. And I bet you Henry would be into it.

And he played with it for about five minutes today and set it aside. And I've reached the point now where I'm like, okay, that's five minutes. Maybe tomorrow we'll get five more minutes be into it. And he played with it for about five minutes today and set it aside. And I've reached the point now where I'm like, okay, that's five minutes. Maybe tomorrow we'll get five more minutes out of it. But if we have 60 of those things, 65 minutes is a lot of the day, his waking moments. And then we are in the clear.

And I feel like Blanket Forts is a really rich vein. We got like 20 minutes out of it. We got a lot of minutes out of blanket forts. So when I was younger growing up, we did build ourselves quite a few blanket forts. Did you use couch cushions like we did? Couch cushions and blankets. I am not like a purist between, you know,

there's a lot of people arguing about blanket forts, pillow forts, what can you use, what can't you use? Like anything's on the table in my opinion. We had a bunk bed. Me and Travis shared a room and had a bunk bed. And that is like a blanket fort builder's sweetest dream. Because it's just like a lot of structural integrity can be lent to a project by a bunk bed. It is essentially sleepy scaffolding, if you think about it.

Oh, Griffin. TM, TM, TM and so tmtm please don't take that uh there is something very therapeutic about just taking something that you use all the time in your house for one specific thing and then trying to discover like a structural soundness to it like trying to be clever enough to make couch cushions stand up and support a tent or a because you know you get cocky you're like i have an idea i'm gonna put these two couch cushions and i'm gonna put one on top of it to hold it up like a deck of cards and then that falls and just crushes your boy and the boy yells and cries because the couch cushions are on him now and you're like no i flew too close to the sun there was a point when we were doing this activity where griffin had a vision that he really wanted to execute and henry had limited interest but i really wanted to

see it myself and so at a certain point even though henry had moved on i said griffin will you please will you please do this i have to see it yeah you really wanted me to cross the finish line even though the rest of the cars had long since left the track it's like that cake song uh it is i just like i think this goes back to like i think i did a segment on like um when you're younger having like a personal space having like a rec room or like your bedroom to design for yourself is something that is very um enticing i think that there is something to that for the for the blanket fort that is like gets in your bones like gets in your dna and even when you're an adult like building a blanket fort uh i guess it's just nostalgia right like thinking back to the little spaces that you

would make for yourself to like carve out for yourself. Because making these blanket forts made me remember in our rear neighbor's backyard, there was like a weird shared yard between all of our like entire neighborhood's backyards. And in the like very far back of that, there was this huge honeysuckle bush that was essentially like kind of hollowed out. So we took like cardboard boxes like kind of hollowed out so we took uh like cardboard boxes

into like the hollowed out space to like kind of build a a barrier around it to like form a little room in there and me and my like neighbor friends would like go in there to like chill and hang out and play game boy with our little bendable game boy lights and stuff uh and eat snacks and stuff and it just made me think about that and I've not thought about that in 25 years. You know what? You just saying that reminded me of the time. I must have been in elementary school. I went over to my friend Tasha's house

and she lived a few blocks away from like a refrigerator appliance store. Yes. And we got a bunch of refrigerator boxes, brought them back to her house and made this huge refrigerator box fort in her front yard. And then her little brother systematically destroyed it. Isn't that how it fucking goes, man?

Box by box. And I remember realizing at that moment that I was so grateful not to have a sibling. Yeah. Because I just couldn't imagine the cruelty. We had such an incredible fort. Yeah. And it was gone so fast. For what it's worth, I didn't imagine the cruelty. We had such an incredible Ford. Yeah. And it was gone so fast. For what it's worth, I didn't fuck with that.

Like, I was a... You're a team player. I'm a team player. Also, I didn't want my brothers to... My brothers are bigger than me. And that's just like, I respect this sort of evolutionary sort of line of logic there. Just like, they're bigger than me. What am I supposed to do?

Trash their shit? No. No. I'll delete Travis's Final Fantasy VII save off the memory card when he's 30 hours in that's one thing but i'm not gonna like blow up his blanket fort that's a whole different kettle of fish um yeah i don't know i just i i i enjoy i have enjoyed building blanket forts this week i have enjoyed doing it because it is also a challenge that is very approachable for me of just like how how big can i make one of these it's like easy to clean up you know it's and if it falls down yeah it's just blankets and pillows and as listeners may remember we do have

that sectional couch so we have a lot of cushions a lot of cushions to work with there are so many opportunities that we haven't even tapped yet a little round for my tastes i wish we had if i could go back to when we chose our the couch we would have in our room i wish we had gone with a more sort of square i would love to have that conversation with the saleswoman yes like um we are planning on building forts ma'am uh just so you know i looked up the biggest uh according to guinness the biggest blanket fort ever built i want to asterisk i want to put an asterisk next to it because i looked it up it's from i guess a media like production company called murder boat productions which like threw this huge rave uh in the biggest blanket fort ever built they were

trying to beat the record in late 2018 the fort was 6736 square feet big whoo quite a big quite a big blanket for it but i watched a video of this like rave and most of it was just like like canvas stretched over like these big metal geodesic domes i don't i i disagree i don't think they had like blankets like hanging from it like hanging down like banners like see there's our blankets give it to us guinness i think that's bs i think everything involved in the process and then i watched like a buzzfeed video that was like here's how to build a badass blanket for it and they use like dowel rods like a bunch of dowel rods and stuff and like dowel rods is like the outer limit of like what i'm willing to consider

it's supposed to be like stuff you already have in your house well they were like you can also use a broomstick but they use dowel rods so like come on y'all come on y'all don't say you can substitute that shit when you're not going to do it yourself buzzfeed and this is the problem with journalism today what's your second thing my second thing is a trip to the poetry corner oh god i've wanted to go so bad uh-huh do you want me to sing my song? Yeah. I just got ASMR. I've never gotten ASMR that bad before. That was fucking wild, babe.

Congratulations. Yeah, I'm going to listen to that to help me go to sleep i'm glad that i really put a lot of thought into it if you're going to be listening to it over and over again this week's poet yes lucille clifton nope ah shoot don't know that one either i'm bringing like 20 21st century poets too like in the hopes well you know i'm all about like the enlightenment like the poetry of the of the dark ages yeah the dark age is known for their poetry well no but that's what makes the stuff that really rose to the top so special uh lucille clifton grew up in new york uh and met her husband through another writer poet named ishmael reed ishmael reed also uh connected lucille clifton to langston hughes okay uh they

were all part of this like drama workshop uh in buffalo new york And so when she shared some of her poetry with Reed, he in turn shared it with Langston Hughes, and then Langston Hughes included it in a collection of poetry that came out in 1966. And that kind of like springboarded her into the community. In 1967, she moved to Maryland. And then in 1969, her first poetry collection, Good Times, came out and was listed by the New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books. That is a good name for a book of any kind, especially come out in 1969. Like, nice, like, so good. She has kind of long been known for her kind of uplifting you know very like humanity focused poetry oh good yeah uh she has also written a lot of children's books

by the way what can you give me one that i might know the name of i cannot okay yeah was not my focus the name actually sounded kind of familiar but i I wanted to try and pull it, but I just cannot. She became, in 1988, the first author to have two books of poetry named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Wow. So in the same year, it was like, oh, hey, both of these books are under consideration. In 2007, when she won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize the judges said one always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton's poems

it is a moral quality that some poets have and some don't so Lucille Clifton wrote a lot of really great kind of easy to access poems but I wanted to pick one that I thought was particularly uplifting that people might enjoy it. This one is called Blessing the Boats. At St. Mary's, may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear. May you kiss the wind, then turn from it, certain that it will love your back. May you

open your eyes to water, water waving forever. And may you in your innocence sail through this to that. That is really good. I like that sail through this to that. I find that kind of really profound of just this kind of like temporary but very present moment that you are in and then going to the next. Yeah. It's applicable to a great many things, I imagine. Mm-hmm. Uh, so in an interview with Antioch Review, Clifton said that she writes because, quote, writing is a way of continuing to hope. Perhaps for me, it is a way of remembering I am not alone. And then when asked how she would like to be remembered, she said, I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa who tried to honor being human. My inclination is to try to

help. Very prolific, wrote a lot of poetry, but as I mentioned, also wrote a lot of children's books. And then I guess just passed away about 10 years ago. But I feel like there's a lot of opportunity to find poets like her that are writing kind of about the human experience in a way that can kind of, I don't know, lend itself to reducing your isolation, you know? And so I wanted to bring that and just kind of, you know, shed some light on a really great poet that maybe a lot of people haven't heard about. Thank you.

You're welcome. Hey, do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yeah. Well, our friend at home named Anna says, since working from home, I've been reminded just how wonderful the sound of the mail truck is. The slight rev up and deceleration sounds as they get to each mailbox are distinctive and mean that postcards, letters,

or other goodies will be dropped off. I do like that. It's very good. I mean, it's true for delivery trucks in general and also is now like a heroic anthem of people who are doing like a job that is like virtually unthinkable at this time and are actual heroes.

Can I tell you, I also feel that the other day I heard the sound of a truck coming down the street and raced out to meet it with our trash can and I almost missed can. And I almost missed it. And I was so grateful for that sound. Yes, I guess it is. It is a good, I always hear that. And it always fills me with fear of just like, is it out there? I don't know. And this one, this one's a little uncommon for this segment, but I wanted to read it. Dara says, because I don't know if you saw this email. Dara says, I've been teaching

as an adjunct English and composition instructor for about two years since leaving grad school, though I love teaching. I felt like I could be doing more. Your podcast episode talking about your journey to grant writing and your successes set me in motion. I did an internship for a small nonprofit last summer and then found this amazing school in Detroit who's giving me the perfect opportunity to grow my skills and serve education in a completely new way. Not only have I found grant writing to be exciting, but it turns out I'm really good at it. Oh my gosh, that makes me so happy. I thought it might. Yeah, Tara is a grant writer and only kind of like learned about the profession through your your bit about it. So great. I've had a few people reach out to me because it's not a very well known

profession. And it's kind of mysterious on how you break into it. Yeah. so great. I've had a few people reach out to me because it's not a very well-known profession and it's kind of mysterious on how you break into it. Yeah. But I don't think, you know, you don't have to get a degree or take any particular course. You know,

if you are good at communicating and kind of passionate about an organization's mission, it's something that can be really fulfilling. Yeah. So I'm excited

that other people are discovering it. Yeah, me too. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description uh thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network yeah thank you so much maximum fun uh if you haven't checked out a lot of the shows on the network i would really encourage you to do it um you know i always recommend Stop Podcasting Yourself. You love that show so much. I love it so much.

And it's just like, it is always good to listen to. Yeah, it's a very good pick-me-up show. They're good boys, Rachel. They're very good boys. And yeah, we obviously had to push back the MaxFunDrive. And if you are already a member, we did put up our bonus episode of Rachel talking about Animal Crossing New Leaf.

Yeah. Oh, and if you checked out the McElroy Family YouTube you might have seen Griffin streaming the new Animal Crossing game and I make a little guest appearance on that. Yeah, Rachel does make a guest appearance. I think I'll probably be doing some more tomorrow. The demand is just people really want,

people want to see, people know I got my hand on some coconuts. They want to know where them trees got planted. And so like, I want to see how many turnips you have in that house. None. I, I,

I cashed out today. I'll say I did not have a good number. A gentleman does not kiss and tell, but there was a great profit. I did not. I do not. I'm not there yet. Well,

anyway, this is, this is for very, this is, there's lots of people who are going to be turned off by this actively. So to those people,

thank you for sticking with us. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Stay well. Drink lots of water. Stay inside. Wash your hands. Good for 20 seconds.

I'm not your dad or anything, but I am and have been this whole time. Look inside your hands. Good for 20 seconds. I'm not your dad or anything. But I am and have been this whole time. Look inside your heart. You know it's true. Come on in. Come on. Come on.

Wanna go for a catch? Oh, that's not what they say. Wanna go in for a catch, pal? Come here, sport. Got a ball with your name on it. Got a glove with my name on it. It's time for a catch. Everything we have has our names on it. That's in this household. Everything is labeled. You're my child. money I'm ready. I'm ready.