Wonderful! - Wonderful! 196: That's Stinkin' Thinkin'

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Rachel's favorite mystical poet! Griffin's favorite pit-freeing fashion!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaSupport AAPI communities and those affected by anti-Asian violence: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/stop-aapi-hateSupport the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://aapifund.org/ 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. And this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Yay! This is Griffin McElroy and Rachel McElroy from Wonderful. Our podcast that we do as lovers. Our podcast is called Wonderful that we do as lovers.

And now you're in it too. You're listening to it. And this is Wonderful. It's a show we talk about things that we like, things that are good, things we're into. And I'm glad to be here. And I'm glad to have the listener here in our home make yourself comfortable we have a bunch of pistachios right now we do and we've had them for a long time so you the listener you're in our home first of all take your freaking

shoes off yeah please like we're not those like we're not i don't want to be that guy yeah like you can put your feet on our coffee table but you can't wear shoes but don't wear and and that's sort of we should have a like a plaque hanging over the door that says that you can put your feet on the coffee table just don't wear shoes the little guy with a straw hat leaning against the wall and he's like shrugging he's like shrugging. He's like shrugging. And maybe he's got like a marijuana cigarette in his hand. And he looks super cool.

He looks super cool. Yeah. That's sort of the vibe. We're not cops. We're not. This is the vibe we go for here and please eat the pistachios. They're so old.

And water, I mean the water's always free. You can have some water. Enjoy some water and pistachios. This is wonderful. It's a podcast we do together. Do you have any small wonders? You know, this is not going to be popular.

Okay. But lately I have been watching movies piecemeal, you know, because I have a few minutes here and there. Okay, interesting. And there's something that is obviously wrong about that that there is not in the intent of the filmmaker obviously but there's something kind of fun about just being like i'll watch seven minutes of this movie that is fun i do that from time to time i'll toss on it's not on my phone it is it is on an actual

television screen so that's an advantage. But yeah, I'll have a little bit of time. I'll be eating a quick lunch, or I know I have to go through my emails, and so I'll just put a movie on, and it is kind of a thrill. I do the same thing. For lunch, I've been watching the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix, which is based on, of course, R.L. Stine's, I would say, far scarier,

far more adult horror book series. And I've been chipping away at it over the course of a few weeks now, just doing one sandwich at a time, working my way through these scary R.L. Stine movies. That's my small wonder. These movies are buck wild. Very gory. Very gruesome.

You watch them and you're like, it's the Goosebumps, man. And then you watch it and somebody's head gets pushed through a bread slicer. And you're like, damn, R.L. Stine. Is it for a teen audience?

It is in the way that Scream was for a teen audience. It's very clever. It's these three connected movies, and each one is sort of a pastiche on Scream, and then there's a Friday the 13th one, and then they go back in time to the 17th century for a Crucible-style horror story.

They're very enjoyable flicks if you like gruesome horror stuff which i which i do um you go first this week i do i do break me off a piece of that rachel bar and that's the new way i'm gonna introduce this segment conjure is kind of a gross image uh what what do you mean like you're suggesting that i break you off a piece of that rachel bar yeah i don't mean like i guess i could give you some fingernail clippings relatively easy like i don't already have enough what's your what are you talking about this week uh it is a return to the poetry corner oh man let me let me dust off this stool for you dust off and there's some cobwebs oh that's a spider web i've been bitten by a big

spider wait is there a difference between a spider and a cobweb honey i've asked this question so many times because i use i'm on record i feel, on some podcast talking about how I thought cobwebs were just made out of dust that like sticks together. But it is just abandoned spiderwebs, I think, that get dirty. I mean, a cobweb conjures like a more, you know, oh, like it's been sitting bare kind of image, you know? I see, yeah. Whereas a spiderweb could pop up anytime, anywhere.

But a cobweb suggests like, oh, this is- This is a mummy's crypt. This is an uninhabited building. Right, yeah. But yeah, no, I think they're the same thing. Yeah, I think so too. All right, I'm glad we figured we sleuthed that one out. It's just like a web of corn cobs.

God, when we put our heads together, there's nothing we can't solve. No mysteries that can get by these two sleuths. So the poet I am talking about is Anne Carson. Don't know. So she's been around for a while in the game for several years, but not as long as you might think. So she's 71, but she didn't get her first collection published until she was in her 40s. I feel like that has been the case with a lot of the poets that you have discussed on your show. Yeah, I mean, because being a poet is not,

I mean, it's not a particularly sustainable lifestyle. Sure. So a lot of people turn to it later in their career, perhaps, when they have already established themselves somewhat, and now potentially have the luxury of pursuing poetry. Yeah mean i've got a 401k going that is just sort of my poetry finish line once i get that to a sustainable enough point i can stop this podcast shit yeah no that's what you said to our financial planners they were like all right now so is this for a vacation rental right no no no this is because i want to do poetry but i don't want to have to work anymore and they're like all right break you know break me off a bit of the piece of that griffin bar and i and i'm like the rain comes down in in africa bless it and it's gonna take me a lot to give it and they're like is that toto and yeah and then i

have already i've run out of the building embarrassed uh-huh tell me about this you're like no toto's a, Toto's a dog. That's a dog. What you've just said is ridiculous. Anne Carson, Canadian poet, also a translator, essayist, and professor. She has won a number of awards, including Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships. Whoa. And a lot of books, a lot of different styles of books. She's a little

difficult to classify and also a little difficult to summarize because she has done a number of different types of things. The way I became familiar with her was in graduate school, I kept hearing about this verse novel she had called Autobiography of Red, a novel in verse that came out in 1998, which is like, I mean, it's poems, but it's like telling a story. Since she's like a classics person,

she has a lot of connection to like mythology. Okay. A lot of like interest in in greek and and so a lot of her work is is like that which is not particularly my interest um but she is she's like a real character like i really reading interviews with her in preparation for today was really fun because she she just says the most incredible things just like off the cuff. So there was an interview with The Guardian in 2016 when her book Float came out. And in the interview, they asked her, your work extends our idea of poetry. Do you have a personal definition of what poetry is? And she said, if prose is is a house poetry is a man on fire running

quite fast through it huh i like that if a if a if prose is like a fiction if like a novel is a house then poetry is like this like urgent you you know, just like breeze through it. I don't understand that, but that's kind of the idea. Like that doesn't make any sense to me, but that's like, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess this was something that I was trying to get at.

Like when I was in college, I had this interest in poetry, but I was kind of scared of and intimidated by it. And then I just, I really liked the conciseness of it. And I liked this idea that you could take a whole novel and that you could potentially turn it into a poem, just choosing like the most exact words and moments that were absolutely essential. But I couldn't like get at that in a way that felt like I wasn't just saying like, isn't it nice to read something short?

And so I like her her idea of just like, you know, it may not be a house, but like there's there's a tremendous amount of like energy and drama in a poem in like a short amount of time. Sure. So just to kind of speak more to her like unusual approach. So in 2016, this interview was in reference to Float. And it was a transparent slipcase containing 22 chapbooks to be read on shuffle. They were mostly original performance pieces

composed and performed individually and often with other people. So they're designed to not be read in any particular order and not for many like visually or conceptually like it's just all these different pieces that she

kind of invites the reader to like pick and choose where they read. That's fine. Yeah yeah she's just like she's just a really inventive person she was working for a while on like a like an opera um she had for a while she had an interest in boxing um i mean we all have that face i'm just now entering into my boxing phase. In 2001, she published something called The Beauty of a Husband, a fictional essay in 29 Tangos,

which was a verse novel, kind of like autobiography in red, of red. So yeah, so she's just like real experimental, really kind of testing the idea of what poetry is. She also doesn't really identify as a poet as much, potentially because she came to it later in life.

She just was somebody that always had interest in like creating and being artistic. And poetry was just kind of the way that she channeled that. I was hesitant to bring her because some of the interviews she seems a little insufferable but i like to think of her more as mystical so for example i was looking at this interview from the pen review and they asked her how do you begin a poem and she said other way around it begins me i mean that's sort of but know what? I'm so wicked into that answer because the question itself is kind of a wild one. I know. I feel like you ask a question like that because you want an answer that is exactly that.

Yeah. Yeah, so they asked her, like, in your poetry, you've explored the life and writings of Emily Bronte. Was Bronte's work meaningful to you when you were young? And she said, no, not until I was 40. And my work was meaningful to Emily Bronte. Was Bronte's work meaningful to you when you were young? And she said, no, not until I was 40. And my work was meaningful to Emily Bronte. Just to flip it one more time. They asked her, if you had another life, would you be a poet again? And she said, I don't believe I've been a poet in this one. I made things. Some of them now and again inserted themselves into poetic form. Why? I don't know. What a riddle master. What a sphinx.

Just kind of like a mystical person that seems very confident and very like solid in what she's trying to do. You know, you'll read a lot of interviews with poets in particular where they're just like, oh, I don't know. Because, you know, like nobody views poetry as like a practical life choice, you know? And there's always this kind of defensiveness and like, I don't know. Cause you know, like nobody views poetry as like a practical life choice, you know? And there's always this kind of defensiveness and like, I don't know. She's just very much just like,

I don't know. This is what I did. I guess that makes me a poet. You can't say a phrase like poem. The poem begins me uncomfortably half confident. If you're going to bust out some shit like that, like you have to be fully like all in on it. So it was difficult to select a poem to read because as I mentioned, she does a lot of like long form, you know, novelesque poetry.

But I found a poem that was, I thought, short enough to read called Apostle Town. Okay. After your death, it was windy every day. Every day every day opposed us like a wall we went shouting sideways at one another along the road it was useless the spaces between us got hard they are empty spaces and yet they are solid and black and grievous as gaps between the teeth of an old woman you knew years ago when she was beautiful the nerves pouring around in her like palace fire all right yeah yeah she's just very mysterious it's like the kind of person or if after a reading she like disappeared while exiting the stage, you would be like, yeah, that's right. That's right. Where's my wallet? What the fuck? I always try and focus on these like really emotionally resonant, like accessible poems for Poetry Corner, but every once in a while I like to dip my toe in something a little, a little challenging. Just to kind of suggest like one that like,'s something for everybody yeah uh and two like it's

really easy to live your life without encountering poems every day and i think sometimes the instinct when you live like that is to just only approach stuff that is very welcoming but i feel like ann carson is worth the time yeah you know like like dip in, like kind of fade in and out. I feel like sometimes you read something and you're like, I missed that and I missed that. But I like several times to read a poem for just at the end when they say, beautiful the nerves pouring around her like palace fire.

Like that for me, that made the poem worth it. All of it's worth it. Even though it gives you a headache trying to solve her mini puzzles i bet her and stevie nicks would get along oh man so many scarves can i steal you away yeah Can I read you a couple of flum-plum-bombs? Please do. Okay. Well, this one is for Squirrel, and it's from Goose.

Isn't that wild? We got animals doing these things now. We've got such reach, Griffin. People, pay attention. Animals are writing these things now. Goose says, Squirrel, this sounds like I'm speaking in like Natasha and Boris. Of course it does.

Squirrel, you're the best girlfriend a goose could ask for. Whether it's going on vacation to Harry Potter world, snuggling up to listen to my favorite podcasts, or watching every animal show known to man, there's no one else I'd rather be with. So, I mean, they are watching animal shows have you thought about what animal i would be yeah okay but i it's not i'm not gonna say it i haven't thought about that for you you haven't thought about that for me there's a right answer

let's say each other's answer oh i don't know what it is though let's let's say each other's answer on the count of three. Okay. Okay. One. One. Two. Two. Three. Three. A very. I was going to say like a very regal like elk.

Oh. Yeah. Like some sort of ungulate, but like a beautiful, majestic one. You know what I mean? i love when you use three syllable words thanks i'm not sure if i said that one right do you want to do this next one yes this message is for eric it is from kelsey these two aren't animals are they we don't know they might be like you know like how you say that oh man that guy's an animal and money still spends that's true unless it's like a bunch of acorns and bones that's animal money yeah like dark little dogs dogs like bones but bones are like

okay fine okay fine this message is for eric it is from kelsey dear eric happy anniversary nine years together one year married and a lifetime to go. Getting married in our living room last year was pretty cool, but I am excited that we get to finally have the wedding we have been planning for so long. Thanks for being my best friend. Love, Kelsey. Double wedding. You're getting married to a married.

You're married, double married. Hold on, wait, I'll get there. Double, double wedding. When you married so nice, you gotta have it twice. I like that. Thanks. It's not anything yet, but I'll keep workshopping it. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on Bullseye, David Byrne on the talking heads, easing back into live performance and the magic of doo-wop. You don't get it very much, people doing dibbity-dip-dip, whoa, whoa, mama-nama-nama-nama. You don't get a lot of that.

Listen to Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hey, podcast fan. We'd like to get a better idea of who you are and what you care about. Thank you. Plus, if you finish it, you'll get a 10% discount on merch at the MaxFun store. MaxFun shows have always relied on support from our members and always will. This survey will help keep the few ads we do run interesting and relevant to you. That's MaximumFun.org slash ad survey. A-D-S-U-R-V-E-Y. All one word. And thanks for your help. Are you ready?

I would like to hear your thing. It's going to be so quick and you're going to laugh at me when I say what it is. Maybe not. Tank tops. Really, all sleeveless shirts. This is a good concept. It's not really a concept. I agree, man. Sleeves are wicked overrated.

I actually realized that we have done a segment on raglan tees or baseball tees. So really I just think that like standard... Are you setting up the new merch? No, I think that yes, but I think that I just don't like standard t-shirt sleeve

length. Long. I want it long or nothing at all. Texas has really made me appreciate a sleeveless tee. I, you know, I think maybe people feel like, you know, the sleeveless tee isn't for everyone. That's exactly how I wanted to start this off is i've just i never considered myself a tank top man because i thought like that's not that's not for me i wasn't confident enough but that's stinking thinking yeah this is the second time

everyone is everyone deserves that everyone deserves that magic everyone deserves it can i ask you stinking thinking is that going to be a new signature Griff McElroy expression? I feel like the McElroys have been saying it to some degree on podcasts for a little bit now. I may not have busted it out in front of you before. I like that we're there now. Yeah, I finally feel comfortable with you. Yeah, I feel like there is this preconception that you have to have like a particular kind of arm or a particular lifestyle to wear the sleeveless tee. And I say nay. Nay, everyone deserves it. Because in Texas, like, let's walk through the argument for a t-shirt.

Okay. It's 98 degrees outside right now, right? Yes. And so you think, I'm not going to wear a long sleeve shirt. That would be too hot. I want more of my arm to be out. So i'm not gonna wear a long sleeve shirt that would be too hot i want more of my arm to be out so i'm gonna wear a t-shirt and to that i would say why stop there keep going like you got halfway there where you're like it's too hot for sleeves so i'm gonna wear some sleeves yeah that sucks and the only thing keeping you from reaching out and finishing the fight and going full measure is just because you think that tank tops aren't for you. Here is the question. This is the ultimate test. Griffin Malcroy, would you ever cut the sleeves off of a shirt and wear it?

No. But that's because I would trust the sort of sartorial expert to do that for me in the same way that I wouldn't sew a garment for myself. I have cut some lounge pants to turn them into lounge shorts. And one time I did a pretty good job of it. And the other time I made what could best be described as turbo chubbies. And the other time I made what could best be described as turbo chubbies. That would give me banned from any social media platform if I did post a picture of myself wearing them there. So I don't think that I would be an expert at it. It's just like it's too hot for long sleeves.

So I got to protect, you know, I'm going to air out my forearm. But like, what about your bicep and your armpit? Yeah. I have thought a lot about why I like you so much in a sleeveless tee and i think a lot of it is it just seems like you're gonna be a fun time guy that day i think that the tank top suggests a certain amount of liberation like i see you and i think like oh it's gonna be a good time with griffin today because you see my you see my pits and you think like if he is like not stressing that yeah then he's not stressing anything because i really do think i mean it could be maybe you're not feeling great about the the attendance of your gun show right about the number of vendors that have showed up to your gun show and so that's why you haven't done it but i really

think it's the stigma of the pit of the pits that you're just like nobody nobody can see these things i wonder if you're consciously pulling back your short sleeve right now i kind of am in an effort i fucking hate these sleeves i want to burn every t-shirt i own yeah maybe i should cut the sleeves off one of these and let everybody know how it goes there are different types of sleeveless shirts right you have the tank top which has a larger head hole and all the holes are sort of reinforced with like a double stitch that's different from a muscle shirt which is basically just a t-shirt that the sleeves done got cut right off yeah okay sometime with a plunging a plunging cut for yeah i remember that being challenging as a little kid because the armholes were always too big yes and i just

felt like like who is this for those are that i'm not ready for that yet i'm just sort of a tank top tank top boy tank tops by the way are named tank suits, which are old like swimsuits, one piece swimsuits from like the 20s. They're called Mayos is the like proper French term, I guess. But they were called tank suits because I guess back in the day, swimming pools were called swimming tanks, which is. Oh. That doesn't work for me. But it's like a one piece, you know, what we would consider to be a very conservative one piece bathing suit, which back then was like, look, can you believe she's wearing that tank suit? Look at the look at those knees.

So so that is where I mean, the tank top kind of resembles the top of the tank suit. And then you have the the ribbed cotton tank top that has a a very offensive name that i think we all were saying unfortunate slang uh but apparently are also called a shirts which i didn't know it's just a way of referring to them without using the very offensive name that we all used for uh that's interesting yeah i would just sort of call that a tank top or a ribbed tank top uh i wore quite a bit of A-shirts, not in a sort of Ryan Atwood fashion, but underneath my Hawaiian and bowling shirts that I wore. Yeah, what was that about? I mean, they are a standard undershirt for...

Yeah, I mean, I remember back in the day, people used to wear undershirts a lot more, and I never really understood why. I don't either. I don't either. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me maybe if you get hot you could just yeah you can dress down to it yeah well and i guess the look for a while was like the unbuttoned shirt over something oh and that's still that's still popping in a big way i'm not gonna get into the history of tank tops because it's basically the history of every other garment that is popular now is like people were like, it's hot.

Let's wear something different. And then like fucking Marlon Brando wore it in every movie he was in, regardless of the role. And then everybody's like, oh, that's all right. And then in the seventies, people like,

let's wear these things. And in the eighties and nineties, people were like, let's only wear these things. And, but now i feel like it's coming back because i feel like we people are just like me just realizing like it's too fucking hot yeah it's too hot to wear a t-shirt that i don't like yeah when i could just be free to be me and do what i want um so i would encourage you to embrace that and just enjoy how you feel yeah maybe you start see this is actually griffin's introduction was kind of in in the novelty arena sure he got a tank top that like was kind of funny

that was a beach trip it had an american flag design on it and then it said training to be goku and then there's a picture of goku doing push-ups and then underneath it said or at least krillin i don't understand the second part of that joke i know who goku is he's the big strong spiky hair man that does beams yeah but i i don't i'm not entirely sure about mr krillin's body of work but i do understand the conceit of the shirt but i i don't i'm not entirely sure about mr krillin's body of work but i do understand the conceit of the shirt but i wore that and i was like hey this is comfy and i wore it the next day and i was like fuck i like tank tops yeah that's the thing like you know you dip your toe in you say i'm gonna get kind of an ironic thing and you know everyone will be like

and that'll kind of make you feel like you're not really committed and then maybe maybe you spend more time. And maybe it's love. And I got some compliments on a tank top that I was wearing from some friends. And that's enough. Like, that's it. Science sealed delivered. I'm a tank top lover.

That explains your approach with Henry. You were trying to get Henry into tank top life. And he was hesitant about it. And you were like, hey, tell him he looks good. Yeah. And it worked. It did. He was so self-conscious.

He really didn't want to. He's four years old. He's like, I feel like I don't look good in a tank top. I wanted to be like, you're four. You're four years old. You can't feel that way about stuff. Like, you're too young to have. Well, to be fair, he never really clarified why.

Yeah. We don't know if it's like an insecurity. It's the stigma of the pits. Like I'm sure there's kids in his daycare who's like, I don't want to see any pits because they get started so young now

with the cruelty. Hey, thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.

Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows that they have there because you're going to freaking love them all. And collect them all and have a good time listening to them all. Do you want to talk about your live show? Yes, we have a live MBM show, a virtual live show. That's Friday, September 24th at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Sawbones is going to open and tickets are going to go on sale. Well, they're on sale right now.

You can get them for just $10 at bit.ly slash mabimbam virtual. And if you can't make that date, September 24th at 9 p.m. Eastern time, we're going to have video on demand available for two weeks after the show. So come out and join us. It's a super good time. I keep recommending it to people because I'm like, you don't have to go anywhere. You don't. No.

You can watch it when you want. Just watch it, well, on the day of or two weeks within two weeks after let's not go wild there are still rules i think that's it yeah i'm so i don't want to talk anymore will you take us out i've been talking i've recorded like four things today i'm so tired of talking so will you get us will you get us there and i hate to do this yeah like i hate to put this on on you but i just don't want to keep the spice i just taught i've been talking so much and i feel like i'm it's all i do when all i want to do is dance you know what i mean like all i do is talk and talk and i hate it i don't want to talk i just want to dance

but you're still i mean you're still doing a fair amount of talking right now i know but it's just All I do is talk and talk and I hate it. I don't want to talk. I just want to dance. But you're still doing a fair amount of talking right now. I know, but it's just to explain that I don't want to talk anymore. I just want to dance. Oh, he's doing it, guys. You know, a little chair wiggle noise. Make it, but describe it like I'm doing a really good dance. Well, there's arms and legs involved, which is a challenge.

And there's a face, too. He looks like he's having fun, which encourages me to have fun. That's the idea. This is seduction. Money won't pay. Work can all pay. Money won't pay. Work can all pay. I'm not going to do that. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.