Wonderful! - Wonderful! 285: A Sad Jerry Seinfeld

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Rachel's favorite precise poet! Griffin's favorite club banger with the drop!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaWorld Central Kitchen: https://wck.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 McElroy. And this is wonderful. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. We do that at the end. Yeah. Are we done? Well, no, it's just like, you know, for even giving us a chance, even if you stop listening right now, thank you for the time you've shared with us. Wow. Even if

it's just a few seconds. That's what my whole thing now is sort of gratitude. I like that. Like, you know how on Thanksgiving, I bring it every year with just like, all my gratitude and I tell everybody how much they mean to me. We all join hands. We join hands around the ham trough and the potato bucket and we join hands and I just really lay it on. I'm thinking maybe I do that throughout the year. Okay. So that it's not quite so overwhelming for everyone because it is pretty intense when i come at you

like you know i sing a little song about thing thank you for being a friend i guess is kind of the way that that went if i spread it out it won't be quite as overwhelming so thank you for listening i won't thank you at the end of the episode though that's right what's that do for you if you make it to the end who gives a shit we already got your money that you please did you pay to download it oh how you shouldn't have done that you are being scammed yeah we know that there are some people on the street that are bootlegging our podcast i hate that and charging you for it and i want you to know you don't have to pay those people. No. I got a copy of the new episode of Wonderful and Avengers Endgame. Hey, do you have any small wonders? Yes.

Okay. My small wonder is that when one of us cooks for the other one, we have developed a ritual of making sure to very specifically thank that person for cooking oh right and the other day uh griffin cooked and i very consciously as i was eating it was like this is very good remember to tell griffin this is good and i forgot right before we went to sleep griffin was like you didn't thank me and i, my God. Now, that story does make me sound like a monster. If only. But I feel like people have to have the context of literally any time any of us have ever cooked for each other. It was less a, hey, you should thank me.

And more of our perfect 13 year streak has been broken. No, and I appreciated that because we never made that a rule but it kind of was a rule and i have definitely mentioned it to you before oh for sure for sure i've been like what did you think of that though yeah was that okay would you like it what i love is that we cook a lot of the same stuff like yeah for me it's like uh golden curry uh or i've been doing a lot of the like momofuku noodles with uh pork uh sweet chili uh sort of stuff uh we and you do a lot of like pizza uh pasta jambalaya like we have a handful of and so like i probably you know your pizza is fucking baller you've made it so many times and have honed it to the point where it goes down smooth every single time i know my curry is choice because

it comes out of a little bot it's not that hard to to to make it good so we don't really need the feedback but it's it's a nice little affirmation yeah um yeah man boy i do love that curry though i love that curry for lunch more than i like lunch leftovers and i think i do day day of i think it gets spicier i like that what's your small wonder um i've been building this little uh paper craft model like i i saw this ad a million times on facebook for like a little uh like series of dioramas that you put in your book shelf, like on your book collection. So it looks like it just kind of goes into the bookshelf. I got one that's like a little cherry blossom scene. And then it comes on like eight giant sheets of cardboard punch out things. And I've been over the course of like the last like four

months, I've been slowly chipping away at it but i've gotten back into it again it's very relaxing to punch a bunch of cardboard pieces out of things and then glue them together and snap them you got like little tweezers that come with it right uh those are my own tweezers uh i find that it scratches i there is a i don't know how to like summarize summarize or encapsulate this like interest of mine. It is the same way that I like to put Lego sets together. And I think the same way that I like to like take electronics apart and like mod controllers and gaming hardware and stuff like that. It scratches that same itch of just like, I'm going to follow instructions to make something neat.

I find that this is tickling that same fancy I've never gotten into the world of like models um yeah you don't paint little guys I don't paint little guys the painting doesn't I'm so I I have no like uh like expertise in that at all but I feel very like I I am not intimidated at all by a giant instruction booklet and a bag with a billion things yeah i like chipping away at stuff like that and and then having this finished product that i can feel very satisfied by yeah even though most of the more ambitious lego builds we've done end up just sort of collecting dust on our what we affectionately call the lego table in our living room. You go first this week.

I do. What do you got for me? Other than a tasty little vitamin water zero. Can I have some of that? Sure. Hell yeah. Chuck it. It's very heavy.

I don't want to throw it. This is real deal vitamin water. I guess we don't live, we can't get that super water zero because we don't live in Texas anymore. No. And if you go through Costco, you know, they don't have a Kirkland vitamin water or do they i don't think who knows man damn can i add another small wonder and just say kirkland prepared dinners god dang y'all they got heroes they got fucking uh tacos they got what was the other one that we got that was oh it was um stir fry lo mein oh my god Stir Fry, Lo Mein. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's all so good.

That's it. A little ad for Kirkland. Do you want my thing this week? So badly, yeah. It's a trip to the poetry corner. Hey, all right. Chicka, chicka, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

Chicka, chicka, chicka. I like that. It's a new one. New way. New direction. So this is a poet I actually found just this week. I think I've mentioned on the show before that when I was a college student and a recent graduate, I worked at a literary magazine called the Missouri Review.

It's really like top quality literary magazine. It was like a really incredible opportunity to have access to that. And so I still like follow their social media accounts. And they had a poet of the week. And I really liked that poem. And so I started looking into the poet. And that is who I'm talking about this week. The poet is Louisa Marajan.

Oh, cool. She is originally from Ukraine and holds a PhD in poetry from the University of Houston. Her family immigrated from Ukraine to Kansas when she was a kid. The Ukraine of America.

I kept looking at interviews to try and figure out what that story was, like why Kansas, and at what age, but I couldn't track that down anywhere. But she just talks about kind of the experience of being an immigrant and how you have to kind of build this identity in this language that maybe wasn't your first language.

in this language that maybe wasn't your first language. She gave this interview with the Brazos bookstore in Houston and said that there's a whole generation of people like me who came over when they were old enough that they're never going to quite fit in here, but they were also young enough that they're not going to go back and still be solidly in that identity either, which I thought was like a really kind of precise way to talk about that experience.

But her poetry is very funny and very precise. She was giving an interview, actually it's just the one I just referenced with the Brazos bookstore, and she talked about how when she started writing, she thought she was going an interview, actually, it's just the one I just referenced with the Brazos bookstore. And she talked about how when she started writing, she thought she was going to do just kind of funny poems. And she went to Texas State for her MFA in poetry. And so she turned in all these poems that she thought was funny to her writing mentor. And her mentor said, well, these poems are actually

incredibly sad. She said it took someone else to read the poems and say these poems are incredibly sad for me to really see how much the humor was operating as a vehicle for sadness. I loved, oh, wow, that hits good. And then she said, like a sad Jerry Seinfeld. Which is probably redundant, because I have a feeling that Jerry Seinfeld. Which is probably redundant because I have a feeling that Jerry Seinfeld. Oh, there's a deep sadness there for sure. So I wanted to read two of her poems. First, the one that was featured in the Missouri Review this week called Poem for the Women Who Help You Go to the Bathroom Hours After You've Given Birth.

Holy shit. For me, just that line alone, I was like, well, I like this poem. That's such a wild little crystallized thing. She said, so the other great thing about the Missouri Review, at least in their digital version, they will have the author just write a couple sentences about what the poem is for them, which is really helpful for anybody that reads poetry. A lot of times you're like, I like this poem. I don't know if I'm really getting it. Yeah. And so she said about this poem, if you've ever given birth, then you know the nurses who help you get out of bed carry you in more ways than just physical.

This was the first poem I wrote after giving birth to my third child when writing anything at all felt impossible and miraculous, which I thought was like, oh, yes. That's really good. Yes, completely. The poem itself, like not like graphic or like, you graphic or very specific. Actually, it's kind of a beautiful little poem. Again, poem for the women who help you go to the bathroom hours after you've given birth. Everyone thought that the bird who fell out of the sky was dead from exhaustion. She could no longer do the thing that she was born to do.

she could no longer do the thing that she was born to do it's like that except minutes before the fall when the wind made her empty body weightless that's it that's it that's really good it's incredible i i think especially to write a poem about that experience is so intimidating. Like this idea that you have to say something original or specific or, you know, like contribute something to this narrative, you know, like, like, do I need to sit down and read every poem a woman has written about giving birth? You know, like there's just there's a lot in front of you. And then she just like takes this kind of experience and distills it so wonderfully. That's really good. I like that a lot in front of you and then she just like takes this kind of experience and distills it so wonderfully really good i like that a lot so i read this other interview with her where she talks about writing prose and she says especially you know she wanted to write about experiences growing up different in the midwest uh and, quote, I always felt like there was too much that needed to be put down on the paper when you're writing that you have too much you need to account for and

explain. Poetry always felt very freeing because there's room for revelation of yourself. But there's also room for silence. And sometimes I need that silence. To me, there's something very freeing about the form that works for me, which I thought was like a really good way to talk about what has always appealed to me about poetry versus fiction. And I never really could communicate at first. I was like, well, poems are shorter and I like that.

But I feel like the way she describes it of just like you don't have to connect every thought in a logical way. You know, you can create kind of an experience that leaves space for like both you and the reader. But like, you know, still communicates what you want to communicate. The other poem I wanted to read is from Guernica Magazine, just came out in 2022. It's called In the Field of the Dead. I have brought the wrong kind of sandwiches. And yes, I know this poem is supposed to bring us there,

by river or through a series of ivory clouds. My grandfather on a bench surrounded by lilies. But I have brought a turkey sandwich, mustard, tomato slices, lettuce, when I should have brought b turkey sandwich mustard tomato slices lettuce when i should have brought bologna thick cut wonder bread wrapped in a saved paper towel one that has been cared for used to dry hands tea spills something that holds memory the sandwich isn't even important it is the paper towel that will live forever my grandfather surrounded by new Isn't that lovely?

That's really, really good. I don't know if this is an experience everybody had, but did you grow up in a family where either your parents or your relatives saved paper towels? No. Like would use a paper towel to like clean part of the sink and if there was still a functional paper towel left, leave it on the counter. No, that's very gross.

No, we didn't do that. We used rags. We used a lot of rags. Okay, so that's a little similar. But I would never wipe the sink with a paper towel and then wrap a sandwich in it. It's fucking gnarly. I feel like, and this was true when I i particularly when i went over to my mom's parents house this idea of like you save everything like you have a drawer full of plastic silverware

that you got from various restaurants you know like you save every like you mentioned like every country crock container right uh and just this like save paper towel was so gross way grosser than any of that stuff yeah for sure uh so so that's uh louisa meridian she has a book out came out um university of nebraska press it's called american radiance uh and i do not own this book but i am planning to purchase this book because i have enjoyed everything that I read by her. That was great. Those were two club bangers. Thank you. Can I steal you away?

Yes. Hey, Sydney, you're a physician and the co-host of Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine, right? That's true, Justin. Is it true that our medical history podcast is just as good as a visit to your primary care physician? No, Justin, that is absolutely not true. However, our podcast is funny and interesting and a great way to learn about the medical misdeeds of the past, as well as some current not-so-legit health care fads.

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just as good as going to the doctor. No, no, no. Still not just as good as going to the doctor, but pretty good. It's up there. Hi, I'm Ketchup. And I'm Socks. And I'm Ball Bearings.

And I'm Pigeons. And I'm Water Towers. And I'm Cardboard. Surprise! We're actually humans. Humans making a podcast about those kinds of topics. Because those are real episode topics on the podcast, Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. That's a podcast where we take ordinary seeming things like ketchup and socks and cardboard and bring you the little known history and science and stories that make those things secretly incredibly fascinating. Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. The title of the podcast.

Hear the back catalog anytime and hear new amazing episodes every Monday at MaximumFun.org. Speaking of club bangers, my thing this week is a song. I should frame this by saying we listen to a lot of like dance music with the boys, largely because like dancing in our living room is sort of one of the few reliable indoor physical activities that we can get them both into. desperation on our part when we realize that particularly young son has not had enough physical activity for the day and still has a just ridiculous amount of energy going into bed. And it is wild. He can be in the middle of like a full blown shit fit. And if we turn on, there's a station called Nectar Radio,

I think that's on Amazon music. If we put that on and just sort of challenge him with a dance, he will immediately snap out of whatever it is he's doing and start doing it. Jesus, he, I'm gonna try, actually, can I play a clip from my phone of the video of him talking about the drop? Yes, so Griffin has taught young son

that when there is a music swell that comes after a long lead up that it is called the drop. And so now he will ask feverishly about the drop. that comes after a long lead-up that it is called The Drop. So now he will ask feverishly about The Drop. About The Drop, about when it's coming. Give me one second to find it because it's so good. He dropped.

He can drop. Mommy, he can drop. Okay. It's really good when he's like, Mommy, here comes the drop. The thing that impresses me is, like, he gets it. Like, he... He knows when the drop comes. Yeah, like, he will recognize that something as, like, dramatic is happening in the music and it is building because he will talk about the drop before like we have acknowledged that that is I Love It by Iconopop and CharlieXCX.

You have heard this song before, statistically speaking. Just in case you are not familiar with it, we will play some of it now. You know this song, right? I had this feeling on a summer day. Oh, yeah. I got this feeling on a summer day when you were gone. I crashed my car into the bridge. I watched I let it burn.

I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs. I crashed my car into the bridge. I don't care. I love it. I don't care. First off, horrifyingly, this song came out 11 years ago. Yeah. Which is way older than I was expecting before I researched it.

You know, when I first heard it, it was on an episode of Girls. Girls. So that's, later on in my notes, I have this, but that is what launched that song into the stratosphere in the States. It was originally just sort of a Swedish pop hit. But once it was on Girls in January 2013, it became like a Billboard top seller. So when this song came out first and was after that episode of Girls, it was everywhere. It was everywhere. It was in every movie trailer, every TV show,

every commercial. It was in a ton of video games i remember playing i think i reviewed two different racing video games that it was on the soundtrack of both of them uh it was just it was all over and that is because it is such a powerful and straightforward bop uh about breaking up with an older dude uh every line is catchy which is good because there's only like eight of them repeated over and over again uh it's just you get these just brain rattling super saw just synth rips when you hear that song start and get that you're like oh fuck yeah it's time to know i'm always excited every time it's an amazing spell that it casts on you uh the vocals that are just sort of half half screamed half sung throughout the course of the song it's just it is a club banger in the literal sense because it got a lot

of club play and still does to this day i imagine it's been a while since i've been out to the club um so iconopop is a swedish electro pop duo uh i'm gonna butcher the names of the people in it it's caroline hilt and i know jawo uh they formed in 2009 they started performing all over um including in london a few times which is where they met uh charlie xcx who at the time was a pretty small-name British singer-songwriter, also performing in kind of like the smaller dance circuit. Charlie XCX is actually the one who wrote I Love It. And she got synced up with Iconopop because they shared a producer, a guy named Patrick

Berger. And they're all from sort of the same generation, the same sort of like age. And they all just resonated with this theme of breaking up with an out of touch older dude. So they took this song that Charlie XCX had written and made it a bit like punkier, a bit sort of harder. And that is how it ended up, how it ended up. It was originally, like Iier, a bit sort of harder. And that is how it ended up, how it ended up.

It was originally, like I said, just released in Sweden in May 2012. It hit number two on the Swedish singles chart, stayed there for a little while, but it didn't really make a splash until it was on Girls. And then pretty much instantly, everyone was like, oh, this song rips. Within like a week, it had hit number seven on the Billboard charts before it had even been released outside of Sweden, which it finally did in June 2013. And people just went apeshit over this song for a very long time. It hit five times platinum, meaning it sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone.

Wow. It was Iconopop's biggest hit to date. alone. It was Iconopop's biggest hit to date. It also launched the career of Charlie XCX, who was pretty fledgling at the time and since then has gone on to release a bunch of hit albums, has gone on to co-write a ton of huge songs for folks like Selena Gomez, Blondie. She co-wrote Senorita from Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. She's just everywhere. And this, this song was very much her, her,

her launch pad into this like gigantic career. And I just love that. I love that the song is just really straightforward and super powerful. Like you don't have to have a degree in music theory or like a tab on your computer open to a genius annotation to like get it is it is what it says on the tin it's just uh it's just this sort of just maximalist just electro jam yeah and i can't get enough of those i i really have a soft spot for songs that are kind of designed to be shouted with your friends yes when they are played uh and that's definitely that song it also is in

the grand tradition of like breakup power ballads yeah uh that are like uh like since you've been gone by kelly clark just like fucking scream at the top of your lungs like fuck you dude like yeah florence and the machine has some good ones too a lot of those uh for me though this is like this is this is the quintessential this is this is such a good one and i i will never get sick of it and that is a testament to how very very good of a song it is yes i don't have anything else to say about i love it by iconic pop and charlie xcx i just think i just think it's neat it's's good. It's good. It's a great song. So here's

some submissions from our friends at home. Yes, last week we were in a hurry. We forgot to do this. Apologies. We do not plan to make a habit of that. Max Orion says, my wonderful thing is Nimona. I came for Eugene Lee Yang and stayed for the everything about it. As a trans person, this movie came at

a perfect time to remind me that being queer is more joy than sorrow tomorrow i will be watching it for the third time in as many days it is great we i watched the first like maybe 45 minutes of it with henry and it was a little too intense henry doesn't like it in movies when characters get in trouble uh which is not so uncommon for like kids his age he does not does not groove on that uh and this movie starts out with someone being framed for murdering the queen oh gosh so that's that was a little bit of a rough ride we watched some of it but had to bounce off but i was loving the hell out of it yeah it's fun little shapeshifter uh teams up with a framed knight where do you watch it it's on net. Oh, okay.

It's really good. It's really funny and animation's great and the story's great too. I am probably going to go back and finish it myself without our children. Here is another one. This one is from Macy Rose who says, my small wonder is waking up without an alarm.

Nothing beats waking up naturally, feeling fully rested and starting the day on your own time. It's the best shit in the world. I don't do it that often. Yeah, this is me all over. But for me, it's less like exciting as it is just like a muscle memory thing. This happened again this morning where,

and it happened the day before too, where I woke up like approximately three minutes before our son woke up so i like ran downstairs like got everything ready for him to start his day and then he woke up i mean that's kind of incredible too in a different way i like it for i have a hard time ending naps and feeling like I got what I needed out of them. But in those times where you wake up and it's just like there's a minute and a half left on the timer and you feel great. And you're like, I'm not going to let that scary sound happen on my phone. That's a good way to think of it.

It's great. I love that. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for a theme song. Money won't pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great stuff that they have there. And while you're online

surfing the web, go to McElroyMerch.com. We've got some stuff there including a Poetry Corner candle. Yeah. We have some of those on the way here. Oh, good. Because there's some stinky rooms in our house. Uh-huh. Well, and a lot of our candles are like seasonal. Yes. And I don't

need it to smell like christmas right now i wouldn't say no to that i would say we need a little christmas right this very minute candles in the window candles at this spin it i think those are it's a lot of candles if we in that song. I don't know how the rest of that song goes. I don't know how that part of that song goes. So we find ourselves at an impasse. Good night. And good luck.

Good luck. Money won't pay. What can I pay? Money won't pay. What can I pay? Money won't pay. What can I pay? Money won't pay. What can I pay? Money won't pay. What can I pay?

Money won't pay. Hey! Hey!