Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare w/Libby Unger

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1. Hello. My

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name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great

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Books podcast, episode number 118

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with our book today. Well, it’s not really a book. It’s our play

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today that continues, our

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journey through the works of Shakespeare

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in August. Now, you know,

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Shakespeare being Shakespeare, most folks reading

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Shakespeare in high school struggle

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with Shakespeare’s plays, and we’ve mentioned this previously on other podcasts,

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struggle because of the language, struggle because of the themes. But

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Shakespeare’s ideas are eternal and are almost

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universal, and they sit, along with the

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Bible, along with, Greek and Roman myths,

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at the basis of Western civilization. They are indeed,

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I would say, one of the building blocks of western

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civilization. And there is no greater

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a play, or maybe no more famous a

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play, than the one we are going to read today.

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This play, mixes,

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fairies. It mixes dream imagery. It mixes

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symbolism, but it also mixes good

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jokes, and it mixes, sort of slapsticky

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humor with higher

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ideals. And it sets as a template or it stands as a

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template for the furtherance of

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entertainment, in a well,

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and and not only entertainment, but also cultural transmission of

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knowledge, for individuals from generation to generation.

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Just like all of Shakespeare’s plays, they’ll still be performing this

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one long after we are all gone.

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Today we are going to look at,

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well, what do you do with a newly captured

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Amazon? How do you get people to fall in love

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and get married? And what happens when

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you, well, when you fall asleep or chance, to

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dream? Today, we are going to read

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream by, of course,

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William Shakespeare. And we are joined today on

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the podcast by our, I guess,

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I could say semi regular guest cohost now. Well,

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there we go. Semi regular. Libby Unger. How are you doing,

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Libby? I’m terrific. Great to see you, Hassan.

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Awesome. Coming off of our last episode that we did

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together where, you know, we looked at,

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we looked at some really, really hard stuff, right, with, with

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totalitarianism and with language. Then we’re gonna move to the

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movie something lighter with with this

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way, something not as not as heavy. And so,

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we’re hoping to, pull some critical analysis out of this. And

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of course, you know, we’re going to read it in the hopefully in the original,

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not hopefully in the original language. And and the version that I have, and you

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can get this online, is the Folger,

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the Folger sorry not Folger Folger Shakespeare Library

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version. Oh it is the same version that Libby has right there there you

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go of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Now one of the interesting things about this

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particular play, and I would of course recommend this to

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anyone reading or trying to consume Shakespeare,

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is you can get an audio version of this as well

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on Audible. And so, I would recommend both

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reading and listening to A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

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in concert with each other. This will help you as a reader

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understand what’s actually going on in the play and understand characters and it’ll feel more

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cinematic. And this play does indeed feel cinematic when you

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read it. But I want to open up with act 1, scene

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1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by

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William Shakespeare. Enter Theseus, Hippolyta,

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and Phylo straight with others. Theseus. Now fair

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Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on a pace. 4 happy days bring in

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another moon. But, oh me thinks, how slow this moon wanes.

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She lingers my desires like a step dame or a dowager, long withering

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out a young man’s revenue. Hippolyta. 4 days will

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quickly steep themselves in night. 4 nights will quickly dream away the time. And then

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the moon, like to a silver bow, new bent in heaven, shall

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behold the night of our solemnities. Theseus. Go,

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Phylo, straight. Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Awake the pert and

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nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The

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pale companion is not for our palm. Philostrain, of

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course, exits. Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, and I

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won thy love during doing the injuries. But I will

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wed thee in another key with palm, with triumph, and with

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reveling. Enter Aegias and his daughter Hermaia

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and Lysander and Demetrius. Aegias, happy B

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Theseus, our renowned duke. Theseus, thanks, good Aegias.

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What’s the news with thee? Aegias, full of vexation come I with

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complaint against my child, my daughter Hamia. Stand forth,

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Demetrius, my noble lord. This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand

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forth Lysander and be my and my gracious duke. This man

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hath bewitched the bosom of my child. Thou, thou,

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Alexander, thou hast given her runs and interchange love tokens with my

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child. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung with

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feigning voice versus of feigning love and stolen the impression of

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her fantasy with bracelets of thy hair, rings, gods,

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conceits, knacks, trifles, nose gaze, sweet meets,

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messengers of strong, prevailment, and unheartened youth. With cunning hast thou

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filched my daughter’s heart, turned her obedience, which is due to

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me to stubborn harshness. And my gracious

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duke be it so she will not hear before your grace consent to Mary was

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Demetrius. I beg the ancient privilege of Athens as she

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is mine. I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this

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gentleman or to her death according to our law immediately provided in

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that case. Theseus, what say you,

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Hermaiah? Be advised fair may to you your father should be as a

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god, one that composed your beauties, yea, and one

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to whom you are, but as form and wax by him

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and printed and within his power to leave the figure or disfigure it.

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Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

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I’m gonna pause right there because that sort

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of sets up the ideas that begin

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to really drive A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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where Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is planning the festivities of his

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upcoming wedding to the newly captured Amazon Hippolyta.

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And Aegis arrives with his daughter Hermaia and her 2 suitors,

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Lysander, the man she wants to marry, and Demetrius, the man her father wants her

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to marry. Aegis demands that Theseus enforce Athenian

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law upon Hermaia and execute her if she refuses to marry

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Demetrius. Now this

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is an interesting dynamic that is being set up right at the beginning

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of Shakespeare’s play here because it

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is a it is a well, it is a

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16th century dynamic. That’s number 1. Number 2, it’s a

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dynamic that reads that may ring a little bit false to us, considering

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that we live in the 21st century and we live in

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a world where women can choose who they marry.

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We can even have women run for president, in our country.

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And so the challenges that are immediately

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beset that immediately beset us or set before us

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in wrapping our arms around this play are

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challenges partially of culture, but also partially of the

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passage of about 500 years in between the

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writing of this play and, of course, the

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times in which we live now.

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All of this is very interesting because we are in August in an election year

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in the United States of America and a woman is running for president on a

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major, presidential platform ticket.

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And, and so issues or maybe not

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issues, but the concerns

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and the, challenges that women face

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are ones that we have consumed ourselves within our culture,

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I would say over the last 50 or 60 years,

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with increasing urgency and increasing pitch.

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Now I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, and that’s not what

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we’re going to discuss here today. But my question for Libby, just to open up

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the door here is, first off, what did you think

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of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when you read it? What’s your initial

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impression of the story of the play? And

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then, this first act that sort of sets up this dichotomy between the

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father and the daughter and this challenge of power,

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what do you think about that between as it’s framed up between men and

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women?

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Well, first of all, I loved I loved the play.

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I actually remember it fondly from grade school.

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We did we did 3 Shakespeare plays, and I don’t remember if it was

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1 a year, from or to 5th grade,

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but Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, and finally, A Midsummer

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Night’s Dream. And I was I think I was

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Puck, or maybe I wanted to be Puck. You know, it was way too

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long ago, but I love the Puck character and how, like,

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mischievous he was. But just the, you know, the

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silliness of bottom name you know, the

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ass, you know, named bottom. Mhmm.

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But but it was a it was fun, and

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you kick this podcast off with reference to some

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of our prior conversations with which, you know,

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The Road to Serfdom and King King Lear, and

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we we’ve had some heavy,

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conversations that seem very relevant.

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You know, they rhyme with our time. Mhmm.

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But, I it was just delightful to read something light.

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Mhmm. But, also, your final question was about the father and

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daughter dynamics. I mean, you know, the the

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culture, let’s not be let’s be unburdened by

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what has been. You know?

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I can think of right now. It’s like, dad, I

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don’t wanna do what you want me to do. Let’s be unburdened by what

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has been. And so there’s

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always gonna be, you know, that fight or the

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tension between, like, parent and child and

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father and daughter, especially, you know,

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500 plus years ago. Now I obviously say something that

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it’s probably blasphemous by many, but

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I’ve all I’ve I’ve seen marriage

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predominantly being an economic occurring for economic

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reasons. And for many, for many generations

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and cycles, it was. Mhmm. I

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do, as I get older, see that it’s about much more than that.

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But, you know, there was a necessity

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around preserving and carrying forward, you know, familial,

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safety that comes with, you know, economics and prosperity.

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Mhmm. But the crime

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for not doing what one’s father says and death?

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Holy cow. That’s a little extreme.

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You’ve, but, you know, it just goes to show how

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we evolve over time from a societal perspective.

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Mhmm. I’m of a big believer that we’re always moving up and to the

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right Mhmm. Meaning that we’re always progressing towards

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thriving, a civilization that’s, you know, thriving

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across all classes and genders and type.

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But, you know, that tension between, you

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know, the current generation and the previous generation is

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timeless. It just manifests differently, and the consequences

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were a bit more extreme back then. But if you think about it

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being an economic relationship, you know, and

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you choose to marry someone other than who

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I’m supportive of Mhmm. You

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you don’t trust them with your prosperity. That could be the end

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of a family and a line. Mhmm. So

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can I maybe rationalize it, you know, for a

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different time? Perhaps. Do I support it? Oh, but

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yeah. Well, it seems as though and and this is one of the

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challenges with Shakespeare. Right? So

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he’s pulling from previous

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references to myths and previous myths even that people

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of his time would have known. So,

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pulling from the, the

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western medieval slash

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getting into the renaissance understanding of,

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Greek and Roman myth. Right? What is an Amazon? What does that word

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even mean? Right? What is who is Demetrius,

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who was Hermia, who is Lysander?

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What do these mean? Because everything has a double meaning in Shakespeare or sometimes even

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a triple meaning. We talked about this even with even with,

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when we talked about, not Macbeth, but, Angler.

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Right? These double and triple meanings,

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you know, and and the character of Theseus from Greek mythology and sort of what

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everybody would have known what those meant. And this is this is the hot house

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of Shakespeare. This is by Shakespeare. This is why people in modern times struggle with

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reading Shakespeare sometimes because those references to those things

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everybody would have known in the 15th century. Or sorry. No. It’s

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16th century. Would have just known. We don’t know those references

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anymore. They’ve dropped out of our culture. Right? And it’s not that

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we don’t know who the Greek and Roman gods were. It’s the depth of

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that knowledge just isn’t and isn’t there, and the depth of that connection isn’t

239
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there. So Shakespeare’s writing or writing A

240
00:15:13,779 –> 00:15:16,759
Midsummer Night’s Dream is a light poetic

241
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comedy. I believe, an early critic

242
00:15:22,295 –> 00:15:25,735
of of, of Shakespeare’s play in

243
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the, in the 17th century.

244
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Samuel Pepis found the play to be quote unquote the

245
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most insipid ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life,

246
00:15:36,250 –> 00:15:40,010
quote, even though he did admit that it had,

247
00:15:40,010 –> 00:15:43,610
quote, some good dancing, some handsome women, which was all to my pleasure.

248
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Okay. This is

249
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this is because it was a piece of popular entertainment. It wasn’t meant

250
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to be sort of like Hamlet where it’s a really a

251
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sort of a cultural commentary on power or even Macbeth.

252
00:15:58,565 –> 00:16:01,990
Right? Or even Richard the third where he’s doing historical, you know,

253
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his historical genre. Here he’s doing comedy. And so comedy is supposed to

254
00:16:05,830 –> 00:16:09,610
be light. It’s supposed to have references. It’s supposed to have double entendres.

255
00:16:09,750 –> 00:16:13,190
It’s supposed to have all these different kinds of meanings. We lose all of

256
00:16:13,190 –> 00:16:16,470
that. I forget it later because he just lost the references. They just dropped out

257
00:16:16,470 –> 00:16:19,185
of our culture. And so we do, we hear

258
00:16:21,485 –> 00:16:25,085
we we take the raw thing, right, that raw relationship

259
00:16:25,085 –> 00:16:28,605
between a father and a daughter or that raw fact of a

260
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decision, and we pull that forward because that resonates across

261
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time. But the other context around that, we sort of struggle

262
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with.

263
00:16:39,820 –> 00:16:43,200
Which? You talked about marriage being a

264
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contractual act. I believe it was CS Lewis

265
00:16:46,815 –> 00:16:50,655
who, infamously said or might have been GK Chesterton. This

266
00:16:50,655 –> 00:16:53,695
is one of those theologians, writing in the,

267
00:16:54,335 –> 00:16:57,475
writing in the 20th century said that, you know,

268
00:16:59,135 –> 00:17:02,870
everything was fine. I might be paraphrasing this poorly. Everything was fine with

269
00:17:02,870 –> 00:17:06,390
marriage until love entered into entered into the fray. Like,

270
00:17:06,390 –> 00:17:09,369
the 9th century. Completely. Right? Yeah.

271
00:17:11,030 –> 00:17:14,410
You know, everything was working out working out really well.

272
00:17:15,904 –> 00:17:19,664
But marriage as a economic arrangement, we still don’t even really

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00:17:19,664 –> 00:17:23,505
like to talk about that in our culture. Even in even

274
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in modern times. I mean, yeah, we live in an era

275
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where and the

276
00:17:30,809 –> 00:17:34,110
myth of the 50% divorce rate is truly a myth. Like, if people

277
00:17:34,570 –> 00:17:38,110
or not, I shouldn’t say myth. You can question that number. Right?

278
00:17:38,570 –> 00:17:42,250
Is there a 50% divorce rate among people who are of a certain economic

279
00:17:42,250 –> 00:17:45,765
strata and who don’t have ideals that bind them together,

280
00:17:45,985 –> 00:17:49,825
for sure. Absolutely. They go beyond love, absolutely. Divorce rate’s above

281
00:17:49,825 –> 00:17:53,345
50%. But when people have ideals that bind them together, in

282
00:17:53,345 –> 00:17:57,025
particular religion, or are or have

283
00:17:57,025 –> 00:18:00,450
some other external commitment that binds them together that’s not

284
00:18:00,450 –> 00:18:03,590
material. Divorce rates are not 50%.

285
00:18:04,050 –> 00:18:07,430
Divorce rates are way the hell lower than that. It’s more like 10%,

286
00:18:08,130 –> 00:18:11,730
15%. It’s way down. But we don’t talk

287
00:18:11,730 –> 00:18:14,745
about the stuff that binds people together in marriage.

288
00:18:15,865 –> 00:18:18,585
And this play is a little bit about that. Talk a little bit about that

289
00:18:18,585 –> 00:18:21,865
if you if you wanna grab grasp onto some of that. Because they they are

290
00:18:21,865 –> 00:18:24,125
trying to bind each other together. They’re trying to get married.

291
00:18:25,865 –> 00:18:29,485
And it’s not just and and there’s 5 interlocking sort of sort of

292
00:18:29,760 –> 00:18:32,900
ideas going on here. We’re gonna be talking to you. Yeah.

293
00:18:34,080 –> 00:18:37,540
There’s so many different themes, or

294
00:18:38,240 –> 00:18:41,840
plots and subplots that all, you know, come into

295
00:18:41,840 –> 00:18:44,340
play with with that.

296
00:18:46,465 –> 00:18:49,845
Well and even and even when EGS is talking about,

297
00:18:51,105 –> 00:18:53,765
how Lysander has sort of,

298
00:18:54,784 –> 00:18:58,405
interchanged love tokens with his child. Right?

299
00:18:59,105 –> 00:19:02,950
You know, he says, thou hast by moonlight at her window

300
00:19:02,950 –> 00:19:06,390
sung, right, with feigning voice versus feigning of

301
00:19:06,390 –> 00:19:10,150
love that stolen the impression of her fantasy with, and then this is

302
00:19:10,150 –> 00:19:13,930
objects that he brought to his to his daughter. Right? Bracelets of your hair,

303
00:19:14,155 –> 00:19:17,934
rings, gods, conceits, all of that. Knacks, trifles,

304
00:19:17,995 –> 00:19:21,835
nosegates. Nosegates were flowers. Sweetmeats, by

305
00:19:21,835 –> 00:19:24,075
the way. If you don’t know what sweetmeats are, go look them up. I’m not

306
00:19:24,075 –> 00:19:26,895
gonna tell you on the podcast. Just go. I don’t wanna ruin the surprise.

307
00:19:28,049 –> 00:19:31,590
Message is a strong prevailment.

308
00:19:32,289 –> 00:19:35,730
And that’s how he he sums it up. The father, messengers of strong

309
00:19:35,730 –> 00:19:39,090
prevailment and unhardened youth. Look. I have 2

310
00:19:39,090 –> 00:19:42,895
daughters. If some dude sniffing around

311
00:19:43,595 –> 00:19:46,575
doing all that, I’m going to have an opinion.

312
00:19:47,435 –> 00:19:51,055
Mhmm. I just I just I I am.

313
00:19:51,115 –> 00:19:54,575
And my daughter one of my daughters is 19. The other one is 14.

314
00:19:55,370 –> 00:19:58,750
I’m gonna have an opinion if the 19 year old has a boyfriend’s living around.

315
00:19:59,370 –> 00:20:01,150
I’m going to have an opinion about that kid.

316
00:20:02,970 –> 00:20:06,650
Now back in the day, my opinion would have probably held

317
00:20:06,650 –> 00:20:10,205
more weight than it does currently. Right. But my opinion

318
00:20:10,265 –> 00:20:13,945
still does hold weight. And so

319
00:20:13,945 –> 00:20:17,405
there’s there’s these kinds of dynamics that are happening here

320
00:20:17,705 –> 00:20:21,490
where Shakespeare is setting the setting the the table for

321
00:20:21,490 –> 00:20:24,950
what will happen later on. But I kinda derailed you on that whole, like,

322
00:20:25,090 –> 00:20:28,309
marriage is a multiple layered thing sort of a little Yeah. No.

323
00:20:30,050 –> 00:20:33,090
No. It’s okay. And we can talk about courtship too. I think we’re I think

324
00:20:33,090 –> 00:20:36,345
we’re I think we’re I go with more of this is the,

325
00:20:37,625 –> 00:20:41,225
the whole play is about kind of balancing the

326
00:20:41,225 –> 00:20:43,725
rational and the irrational Yeah.

327
00:20:44,905 –> 00:20:48,664
Or, you know, the dream state with the, you know, grounded

328
00:20:48,664 –> 00:20:52,190
present state. Mhmm. And, you

329
00:20:53,610 –> 00:20:57,129
know, the at an extreme, you can be

330
00:20:57,129 –> 00:21:00,809
told to love something, and you’ll you’ll love the next

331
00:21:00,809 –> 00:21:04,424
thing that you’ll see. You know? So I I

332
00:21:04,424 –> 00:21:06,524
bring that forth to modern day.

333
00:21:08,825 –> 00:21:12,265
You know, and I can’t help but bring it forth to modern day when we’re

334
00:21:12,265 –> 00:21:16,044
told you know, you you’re told over and over again

335
00:21:16,770 –> 00:21:19,730
what right should be Mhmm.

336
00:21:20,450 –> 00:21:24,210
By all different institutions. And so then you

337
00:21:24,210 –> 00:21:27,570
see what right is and bad is without

338
00:21:27,570 –> 00:21:30,470
questioning what is right and

339
00:21:31,815 –> 00:21:34,554
bad. Yeah. So when I think of, you know,

340
00:21:36,695 –> 00:21:40,455
you’re in the forest and, you know, and, you know, the sleeping

341
00:21:40,695 –> 00:21:43,914
yeah. The sleeping woman is, has the flowers

342
00:21:45,570 –> 00:21:49,169
dappled all over her, and the first person she looks at, she falls in love

343
00:21:49,169 –> 00:21:52,549
with. And, you know, regardless of the fact that he’s a pompous

344
00:21:53,250 –> 00:21:56,929
literally a pompous ASS, you know, it’s a

345
00:21:56,929 –> 00:22:00,405
actor with a donkey head. You know, it like, it it

346
00:22:00,485 –> 00:22:04,325
it’s this deeper meaning around, you know, we’re told to

347
00:22:04,325 –> 00:22:07,705
love what we see next Mhmm. Without questioning

348
00:22:08,645 –> 00:22:12,405
it. Mhmm. You know? And I’m probably putting more depth

349
00:22:12,405 –> 00:22:14,490
into this play and meaning, but it is really interesting. You know? What you know,

350
00:22:14,490 –> 00:22:18,228
do we really love what we think You know, what you know, do we really

351
00:22:18,228 –> 00:22:20,080
love what we think we’re seeing? You you know, to the yeah. At the beginning

352
00:22:20,080 –> 00:22:22,080
with your her Maya loving Lysander. You know, I

353
00:22:28,305 –> 00:22:30,965
I is that love or lust?

354
00:22:32,145 –> 00:22:35,665
Is it real? You know, we saw Romeo and Juliet, kind

355
00:22:35,665 –> 00:22:39,505
of kind of these same themes around, you know, love

356
00:22:39,505 –> 00:22:43,285
and willing to die for your love. But, you know, what

357
00:22:44,040 –> 00:22:47,720
is just lust of of youth? I

358
00:22:47,720 –> 00:22:50,780
mean, being told what you should love

359
00:22:51,480 –> 00:22:55,260
versus, like, something that’s gonna be grounding

360
00:22:55,400 –> 00:22:59,005
and, you you know, your way that makes

361
00:22:59,005 –> 00:23:02,845
sense on a rational basis through the rest of your

362
00:23:02,845 –> 00:23:06,385
life. And since on a rational basis doesn’t need mean money.

363
00:23:06,685 –> 00:23:10,125
It could mean that you have similar values. It could mean that you have similar

364
00:23:10,125 –> 00:23:12,860
values around children, around how to have a Yeah.

365
00:23:13,596 –> 00:23:16,569
I would agree.

366
00:23:18,541 –> 00:23:21,514
And subjective being

367
00:23:22,250 –> 00:23:26,040
with dreams. Right. Right.

368
00:23:26,040 –> 00:23:29,715
Which Yeah. I would agree with that. Objective being with dreams. Thank you.

369
00:23:29,715 –> 00:23:32,434
Right. Which we’re gonna talk about here in a little bit. I wanna talk about

370
00:23:32,434 –> 00:23:35,955
the faith. Yeah. The the well, I’m gonna talk about the fairies. I wanna go

371
00:23:35,955 –> 00:23:39,690
to Oberon and Titania and

372
00:23:39,690 –> 00:23:43,529
the fairies and and and the the the the pygmies and the and

373
00:23:43,529 –> 00:23:46,169
the ass and puck and all of yeah. I wanna I wanna get into all

374
00:23:46,169 –> 00:23:46,570
of this.

375
00:23:50,490 –> 00:23:54,225
So courtship. Okay. Last question. So courtship here. That’s

376
00:23:54,225 –> 00:23:57,924
also a key theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

377
00:23:59,905 –> 00:24:03,045
So you can court somebody either

378
00:24:03,505 –> 00:24:07,345
by, you know, knocking them out and

379
00:24:07,345 –> 00:24:10,519
making them love you, which apparently

380
00:24:10,980 –> 00:24:14,740
is I mean Extreme. Well, you know, these days, we

381
00:24:14,740 –> 00:24:18,440
would call it slipping or making, and we would say that’s not, appropriate,

382
00:24:18,580 –> 00:24:20,360
and we’re going to send you to jail.

383
00:24:22,445 –> 00:24:24,865
Back in the day, apparently, however,

384
00:24:27,085 –> 00:24:30,685
you know, the use of the use of flour juice, like, that was that was

385
00:24:30,685 –> 00:24:34,365
kind of that was kind of fine. Like, nobody nobody really really objected to that

386
00:24:34,365 –> 00:24:37,780
apparently. And it is there there is an

387
00:24:37,780 –> 00:24:41,400
idea in here that is floating through

388
00:24:41,700 –> 00:24:45,300
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And we again, one of those things we don’t talk

389
00:24:45,300 –> 00:24:49,140
about, that courtship the act of courtship itself at

390
00:24:49,140 –> 00:24:52,635
a psychological level is a

391
00:24:52,635 –> 00:24:56,235
drug that that that converts, like you

392
00:24:56,235 –> 00:24:59,914
said, lust to to to love. Right? But there’s

393
00:24:59,914 –> 00:25:03,610
also a sub idea in here that

394
00:25:03,610 –> 00:25:07,149
if you can’t do the courtship

395
00:25:07,370 –> 00:25:10,970
thing well, well, you know, we’ve kind of got these

396
00:25:10,970 –> 00:25:14,490
other it’s kind of got these other things we can kind of give

397
00:25:14,490 –> 00:25:18,294
you. And that just goes to prove an assertion that

398
00:25:18,294 –> 00:25:21,914
I’ve made even to my kids, as they have grown up that,

399
00:25:22,775 –> 00:25:26,534
you know, drugs have existed. And my my 7 year old was asking me about

400
00:25:26,534 –> 00:25:30,150
this the other day. Drugs have existed for I me. This is

401
00:25:30,150 –> 00:25:33,670
what human beings do. We find things that make us feel good, and we put

402
00:25:33,670 –> 00:25:37,350
them in our bodies. And some of them have terrible actually, most all of

403
00:25:37,350 –> 00:25:41,190
them have terrible damage. And if we

404
00:25:41,270 –> 00:25:44,875
and particularly if you misuse them, or don’t use them in the in the correct

405
00:25:44,875 –> 00:25:48,715
way. And I think that’s an a sub idea, a second

406
00:25:48,715 –> 00:25:52,395
order idea that’s sort of running through this play that I

407
00:25:52,395 –> 00:25:55,995
think people of that time watching it would have would

408
00:25:55,995 –> 00:25:59,780
have connected into immediately. And it’s kind of interesting to me.

409
00:25:59,780 –> 00:26:03,540
I know Midsummer Night’s Dream has been adapted in many different sorts of sorts of

410
00:26:03,540 –> 00:26:07,320
ways, but I don’t know how heavily,

411
00:26:08,180 –> 00:26:11,715
in adaptation, that

412
00:26:11,715 –> 00:26:15,335
has been referenced or even,

413
00:26:15,875 –> 00:26:18,855
sort of leaned on. I know that

414
00:26:19,395 –> 00:26:22,055
there’s a, oh, gosh.

415
00:26:23,090 –> 00:26:26,850
There’s a UK production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s like set in

416
00:26:26,850 –> 00:26:30,690
an alternative future. That was, that was shot a

417
00:26:30,690 –> 00:26:34,130
few years ago. And I know that variations of this

418
00:26:34,130 –> 00:26:37,350
story, most recently in 2016 on BBC 1,

419
00:26:38,294 –> 00:26:42,054
have done, like, TV and film adaptations of this. I’ve never

420
00:26:42,135 –> 00:26:45,575
I got to admit, I’ve never seen a TV adaptation of the

421
00:26:45,575 –> 00:26:48,794
midsummer night’s dream, nor have I ever seen any of the film once, which is

422
00:26:48,934 –> 00:26:52,340
sort of a blind spot in my, like, like, reality.

423
00:26:52,720 –> 00:26:56,559
And so I don’t know how much, you know, reference I’ve seen

424
00:26:56,559 –> 00:27:00,320
cartoon versions, and we’ll talk about cartoons here in a minute. I’ve seen cartoon versions

425
00:27:00,320 –> 00:27:03,860
of this, but I’ve never seen a live action version of of it. So,

426
00:27:05,395 –> 00:27:08,115
I don’t know. I think Shakespeare would lean in on something here that’s also another

427
00:27:08,115 –> 00:27:11,815
human universal. It’s that idea of courtship as a drug.

428
00:27:11,875 –> 00:27:15,475
You know? Because you know how good you feel when, like, somebody who you really

429
00:27:15,475 –> 00:27:19,190
like and someone who really likes you is, like, chasing you around

430
00:27:19,190 –> 00:27:21,210
the block. Everybody knows how good that feels.

431
00:27:23,670 –> 00:27:27,510
Yeah. I mean, love is I I just wrote down. Love is a

432
00:27:27,510 –> 00:27:29,850
dangerous drug when sought

433
00:27:31,095 –> 00:27:34,615
in its extreme. Mhmm. So when you think yeah.

434
00:27:34,615 –> 00:27:38,375
When love at is the end state or

435
00:27:38,375 –> 00:27:41,895
what you’re what you’re articulating as love, which is just

436
00:27:41,895 –> 00:27:45,035
oxytocin, you know, when sought in the extreme,

437
00:27:46,720 –> 00:27:50,400
can be dangerous. And that’s when we see infidelity and, you know, and all

438
00:27:50,400 –> 00:27:53,860
those kind of, things come through or unhealthy

439
00:27:54,880 –> 00:27:58,575
relationships when when the when you’re the

440
00:27:58,575 –> 00:28:02,255
one you’re you’re you’re seeking is no longer interested in

441
00:28:02,255 –> 00:28:06,015
you. Right? Mhmm. So that’s that’s an inch

442
00:28:06,174 –> 00:28:09,775
that’s an interesting concept around it being a a

443
00:28:09,775 –> 00:28:13,560
drug, and kind of why you need to

444
00:28:13,560 –> 00:28:16,060
balance, you know, balance it with other

445
00:28:17,880 –> 00:28:20,460
balance the oxytocin lust thing,

446
00:28:21,800 –> 00:28:25,645
you know, with the other values that really matter Right. In,

447
00:28:25,645 –> 00:28:28,865
you know, in life, you know, that have long sustained

448
00:28:30,045 –> 00:28:33,825
positive impact on your life versus just momentarily

449
00:28:35,645 –> 00:28:39,245
momentarily pops. Momentarily pops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

450
00:28:39,245 –> 00:28:42,980
Alright. Okay. Let’s talk about sleep and

451
00:28:42,980 –> 00:28:45,780
trickery because the we we we’ve referenced this a couple of times. Let’s talk about

452
00:28:45,780 –> 00:28:49,220
the we we talked about the drugs piece, but I wanna talk about

453
00:28:49,220 –> 00:28:52,980
these, let’s talk about these fairies. So I

454
00:28:52,980 –> 00:28:56,679
wanna skip here, a little bit. I’m gonna go to act 2,

455
00:28:57,914 –> 00:29:01,215
scene 1, and I’m gonna move

456
00:29:01,755 –> 00:29:04,815
through this, a little bit quickly. And,

457
00:29:05,515 –> 00:29:08,495
there’s so, you know, there’s there’s there’s

458
00:29:09,210 –> 00:29:12,970
there’s interlocking ideas in A Midsummer Night’s Dream because

459
00:29:12,970 –> 00:29:16,809
it’s not just enough to sort of do a play. It

460
00:29:16,809 –> 00:29:20,350
wasn’t enough for Shakespeare. Write a play

461
00:29:20,809 –> 00:29:23,855
that was merely about,

462
00:29:24,635 –> 00:29:28,155
courtship and romance and marriage. He’d already kinda done that with,

463
00:29:28,475 –> 00:29:31,775
with Romeo and Juliet, which was a tragedy.

464
00:29:32,155 –> 00:29:35,770
And so so he

465
00:29:35,770 –> 00:29:39,370
was he was looking to do something different here with comedy. And and

466
00:29:39,370 –> 00:29:42,970
the challenge, of course, of a writer, which is also something that we talk about

467
00:29:42,970 –> 00:29:46,590
on this podcast, the critical challenge of writing is how do you

468
00:29:46,865 –> 00:29:50,245
how do you introduce, a new element,

469
00:29:51,425 –> 00:29:54,885
to a piece of writing without it being jarring for the audience?

470
00:29:55,505 –> 00:29:57,765
And so he decided he was going to introduce,

471
00:29:58,945 –> 00:30:02,530
fairies and specifically, Oberon and

472
00:30:02,530 –> 00:30:05,350
Titania, king and queen of the fairies.

473
00:30:06,049 –> 00:30:09,270
So we’re gonna look at act 2 scene

474
00:30:09,890 –> 00:30:13,409
1. We’re gonna read through through, sort of some

475
00:30:13,409 –> 00:30:15,250
dialogue here around

476
00:30:18,605 –> 00:30:22,145
well, around how do you make somebody fall in love? All right,

477
00:30:22,765 –> 00:30:26,125
Robin, I’m sorry, act 2 scene 1 of A

478
00:30:26,125 –> 00:30:29,580
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Enter a fairy at one

479
00:30:29,580 –> 00:30:33,420
door and Robin Goodfellow at another. Robin, how

480
00:30:33,420 –> 00:30:37,100
now, spirit, wither wander you? Fairy, over hill over

481
00:30:37,100 –> 00:30:40,460
dale, through bush through briar, over park over pail, through flood through

482
00:30:40,460 –> 00:30:44,245
fire. I do wander everywhere, swifter than the moon’s sphere. And

483
00:30:44,245 –> 00:30:47,865
I serve the fairy queen to do her orbs upon the green. The cowslips

484
00:30:47,924 –> 00:30:51,385
tall her pensioners be in their gold coats spots you see.

485
00:30:51,845 –> 00:30:55,684
These be those be rubies fairy favors in those

486
00:30:55,684 –> 00:30:59,429
freckles live their savors. I must go seek

487
00:30:59,429 –> 00:31:02,809
some dewdrops here and hang up her on every cowl slip’s ear.

488
00:31:03,030 –> 00:31:06,789
Farewell, thou love of spirits. I’ll be gone. Our queen and all her

489
00:31:06,789 –> 00:31:10,549
elves come here and on. Robin, the king doth keep his

490
00:31:10,549 –> 00:31:14,075
rebels here tonight. Take heed the queen. Go not within his

491
00:31:14,075 –> 00:31:17,675
sight. For Oberon, his passing fell in wrath because that

492
00:31:17,675 –> 00:31:21,435
she, as her attendant, hath a lovely boy stolen

493
00:31:21,435 –> 00:31:24,735
from an Indian king. She never had so sweet a changeling.

494
00:31:25,115 –> 00:31:28,799
And jealous Oberon would have the child, knight of his train to

495
00:31:28,799 –> 00:31:32,240
trace the forest’s wild. But she, for force, withholds the loved

496
00:31:32,240 –> 00:31:36,000
boy, crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy. And

497
00:31:36,000 –> 00:31:39,775
now they never meet in grove or green by fountain clear or

498
00:31:39,775 –> 00:31:43,455
spangled starlight sheen, but they do square that all their elves

499
00:31:43,455 –> 00:31:46,755
for fear creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

500
00:31:48,495 –> 00:31:52,110
Very. Either I mistake your shape and making quiet or else you are

501
00:31:52,270 –> 00:31:55,870
that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow. Are

502
00:31:55,870 –> 00:31:59,710
not you he that frights the maidens of the villagerie, skim milk and

503
00:31:59,710 –> 00:32:03,490
sometimes labor in the queered, and bootless make the breathless huswife

504
00:32:03,630 –> 00:32:07,225
churn, and sometime make the drink to bear no barm, mislead

505
00:32:07,225 –> 00:32:10,605
night wanderers laughing at their harm. Those that hobgoblin

506
00:32:10,904 –> 00:32:14,585
call you and sweet talk. You do their work and they shall have

507
00:32:14,585 –> 00:32:18,424
good luck. Are you not he? Robin, thou speakest

508
00:32:18,424 –> 00:32:22,150
to write. I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest you over

509
00:32:22,150 –> 00:32:25,590
on and make him smile when I affect and being fed horse

510
00:32:25,590 –> 00:32:29,350
beguiled, neighing in likeness of a filly foal. And sometimes I

511
00:32:29,350 –> 00:32:32,790
lurk I in a gossip’s bowl in very likeness of a roast

512
00:32:32,790 –> 00:32:36,285
crab. And when she drinks against her lips, I bob and on her

513
00:32:36,365 –> 00:32:39,885
withered doo lap or the ale. The wisest aunt telling the

514
00:32:39,885 –> 00:32:43,585
saddest tale. Sometimes her 3 foot stool mistakeeth me,

515
00:32:43,965 –> 00:32:47,645
then slip by from her bum, down topple she, and Taylor

516
00:32:47,645 –> 00:32:51,480
cries and falls into a cough. And then the whole choir hold their hips

517
00:32:51,480 –> 00:32:55,320
and laugh and waxen in their mirth and knees and swear and merry our

518
00:32:55,320 –> 00:32:58,760
hour was never wasted there. My room fairy, here comes

519
00:32:58,760 –> 00:33:02,520
Oberon. Fairy, and hear my mistress. Would that

520
00:33:02,520 –> 00:33:06,245
he gone. Enter Oberon, king of the fairies, at one door

521
00:33:06,245 –> 00:33:09,925
with his train, and Titania, the queen at another with

522
00:33:09,925 –> 00:33:13,385
hers. Or Titania, not Titania. Titania,

523
00:33:13,605 –> 00:33:17,365
the queen and another with hers. Oberon. Ill met

524
00:33:17,365 –> 00:33:21,110
by moonlight, proud Titania. Titania. What? Jealous Oberon?

525
00:33:21,170 –> 00:33:24,310
Fairy Skip Hintz. I have forsworn his bed and company.

526
00:33:24,690 –> 00:33:27,990
Oberon. Tarry rash woman. Am not I, thy lord.

527
00:33:28,690 –> 00:33:32,465
Titania. Then I must be thy lady, but I know when thou

528
00:33:32,465 –> 00:33:35,905
hast stolen away from fairy land and in the shape of corn sat all day

529
00:33:35,905 –> 00:33:39,205
playing on pipes of corn, inversing love to amorous Phylida.

530
00:33:39,745 –> 00:33:43,425
Why art thou here? Come from the farthest steep of India, but

531
00:33:43,425 –> 00:33:47,040
that forsooth the bouncing Amazon, your buskinned mistress, and

532
00:33:47,040 –> 00:33:50,800
your warrior love, to Theseus must be wedded, and you come to give

533
00:33:50,800 –> 00:33:53,060
her their bed joy and prosperity?

534
00:33:54,400 –> 00:33:57,860
Oberon. How canst thou, thus for shame, Titania,

535
00:33:58,240 –> 00:34:01,620
glance at my credit with Hippolyta, knowing that I,

536
00:34:01,795 –> 00:34:05,475
knowing I know thy love to Theseus, didst thou not lead

537
00:34:05,475 –> 00:34:08,835
him through the glimmering night from Paragonu, whom he

538
00:34:08,835 –> 00:34:12,435
ravished, and make him with fair Augeleus break his faith with

539
00:34:12,435 –> 00:34:16,280
Adriaan and Anteopa? Natania, these are forgeries

540
00:34:16,280 –> 00:34:19,960
of jealousy. And never since the middle summer spring met we on hill and

541
00:34:19,960 –> 00:34:23,719
dale or forest or me by paved fountain or by rushy brook or in the

542
00:34:23,719 –> 00:34:27,400
beached margant of the sea to dance our ringlets to the whistling

543
00:34:27,400 –> 00:34:31,245
wind. But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the

544
00:34:31,245 –> 00:34:34,764
winds, piping to us in vain and is in revenge, have sucked up from the

545
00:34:34,764 –> 00:34:38,284
sea contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, hath every pelting

546
00:34:38,284 –> 00:34:41,264
river made so proud that they have overborne their continents.

547
00:34:42,440 –> 00:34:45,960
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain. The plowman lost his

548
00:34:45,960 –> 00:34:49,480
sweat, and the green corn hath rotted. Ears youth attained a

549
00:34:49,480 –> 00:34:53,080
beard. The fold stands empty in the drowned field and crowds are

550
00:34:53,080 –> 00:34:56,924
fatted with murrain flock. The 9 men’s morse is filled with mud, and the

551
00:34:56,924 –> 00:34:59,904
quaint mazes in the wanton green for lack of tread are undistinguishable.

552
00:35:00,684 –> 00:35:04,525
Human mortals want their winter here. No night is now with him

553
00:35:04,525 –> 00:35:08,065
or Carol blessed. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

554
00:35:08,125 –> 00:35:11,720
pale in her anger, washes all the air that romantic

555
00:35:11,780 –> 00:35:15,460
diseases do abound. As thorough this distemperature we see the seasons

556
00:35:15,460 –> 00:35:19,060
alter, hoary headed frost, swollen fresh lap of the crimson

557
00:35:19,060 –> 00:35:22,820
rose, and old hymns, then an icy crown, an odorous chaplet

558
00:35:22,820 –> 00:35:26,119
of sweet summer buds, is, as in mockery, set.

559
00:35:26,565 –> 00:35:30,405
Spring this summer, the chilling autumn, angry winter, change their

560
00:35:30,405 –> 00:35:33,785
wanted liveries, and the amazed world by their increase

561
00:35:34,325 –> 00:35:38,085
now knows not which is which. And the same progeny of

562
00:35:38,085 –> 00:35:40,825
evils comes from our debate, from our dissension.

563
00:35:41,850 –> 00:35:45,070
We are their parents and original.

564
00:35:54,105 –> 00:35:57,165
Titania has become unburdened by what has been.

565
00:36:06,830 –> 00:36:10,510
It’s so hard to resist. It’s it’s just it’s just right

566
00:36:10,510 –> 00:36:12,850
there. It’s it’s so right there.

567
00:36:17,310 –> 00:36:21,135
So let’s see. In act 2, scene 1,

568
00:36:21,135 –> 00:36:24,115
what do we got here? What are we working with? So,

569
00:36:26,815 –> 00:36:30,515
sort of a subplot, right, in A Bidsummer Night’s Dream between,

570
00:36:31,055 –> 00:36:33,875
between these two fairies, the king and queen of fairies,

571
00:36:34,869 –> 00:36:38,330
orally over the possession of, as was stated at the beginning

572
00:36:38,790 –> 00:36:42,010
of act, of scene 1, a young Indian boy.

573
00:36:43,510 –> 00:36:47,030
Oberon of course orders Puck, in this scene

574
00:36:47,030 –> 00:36:50,765
later on to obtain a special flower that makes people fall in

575
00:36:50,765 –> 00:36:54,444
love with the next creature they see. Now

576
00:36:54,444 –> 00:36:58,204
Oberon wants to use this, of course, to make Titania fall in love with

577
00:36:58,204 –> 00:37:01,905
the beast and use her infatuation to get the Indian boy away from her.

578
00:37:02,349 –> 00:37:05,950
Demetrius, of course, comes in to the play at this

579
00:37:05,950 –> 00:37:09,470
point, pursued by Helena. And then when Robin

580
00:37:09,470 –> 00:37:13,150
returns Oberon, who sympathizes with Helena’s love, orders him to

581
00:37:13,150 –> 00:37:16,655
find the Athenian man, Demetrius, and apply some of the flower’s

582
00:37:16,655 –> 00:37:18,435
magic nectar to his eyes.

583
00:37:20,095 –> 00:37:23,395
Magic nectar, sleeping, dreams, memory,

584
00:37:23,455 –> 00:37:26,995
trickery. Mostly trickery is what’s on display

585
00:37:27,215 –> 00:37:30,900
here. And of course we see this in the character of

586
00:37:30,900 –> 00:37:34,440
Robin Goodfellow, a puckish fellow such as it were,

587
00:37:34,740 –> 00:37:38,579
who is the one who obtains the

588
00:37:38,579 –> 00:37:42,420
special flower, right, and delivers it. Because as he stated

589
00:37:42,420 –> 00:37:45,944
when he was speaking to the fairy, right at the beginning of,

590
00:37:46,424 –> 00:37:48,285
act 2 scene 1,

591
00:37:50,664 –> 00:37:54,365
he is the one who is the merry wanderer

592
00:37:54,424 –> 00:37:58,025
of the night. He jests over on and makes

593
00:37:58,025 –> 00:38:01,820
him smile. He’s the

594
00:38:01,820 –> 00:38:05,340
one who lurks, in a gossip’s bowl,

595
00:38:05,340 –> 00:38:08,380
right, and causes her to to,

596
00:38:09,020 –> 00:38:12,734
to, spill her ale. Right? And, of

597
00:38:12,734 –> 00:38:15,795
course, to spill information from her lips.

598
00:38:17,375 –> 00:38:21,214
You know, he’s the one who, when the wisest aunt is telling

599
00:38:21,214 –> 00:38:24,894
the saddest tale, is mistaken for a 3 foot stool and

600
00:38:24,894 –> 00:38:28,619
then causes her to fall down, which, by the way, everybody was watching this play

601
00:38:28,619 –> 00:38:32,460
live back in the, back in 16th

602
00:38:32,460 –> 00:38:35,420
century would have laughed when they when they would have seen this because they would

603
00:38:35,420 –> 00:38:39,180
have gotten the reference immediately. And then, so

604
00:38:39,180 –> 00:38:42,605
so he’s a he’s a he’s a court jester,

605
00:38:42,745 –> 00:38:45,725
such as it were. He’s a he’s a comedian.

606
00:38:47,065 –> 00:38:50,285
He’s weaving humor into

607
00:38:51,065 –> 00:38:54,905
his approach to the world, but he’s also a

608
00:38:54,905 –> 00:38:58,710
servant of the king, which is something else that we that we don’t

609
00:38:58,710 –> 00:39:02,170
talk about too much. And so let’s kick off with that. So

610
00:39:03,670 –> 00:39:07,110
comedy. Right? Like, we talked a little bit on this podcast, in particular,

611
00:39:07,110 –> 00:39:10,875
Libby, a little bit about comedy. And I’m a

612
00:39:10,875 –> 00:39:14,715
big fan of folks like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock and Jerry

613
00:39:14,715 –> 00:39:18,255
Seinfeld, and I’m a big fan of stand up comedy in general,

614
00:39:18,395 –> 00:39:22,095
Marc Maron, because I think stand up comedy is really hard.

615
00:39:22,155 –> 00:39:25,770
But I also think it’s a form of trickery. It’s

616
00:39:26,390 –> 00:39:30,230
it’s it’s taking something that we know is either

617
00:39:30,230 –> 00:39:33,850
tragic or heroic or dramatic and and

618
00:39:33,990 –> 00:39:37,770
finding the funny twist in it. I I remember infamously

619
00:39:37,910 –> 00:39:41,675
that Steve the comedian Steve Harvey back in the day, was

620
00:39:41,675 –> 00:39:45,515
being interviewed. And the interviewer asked him, you know, how does he come

621
00:39:45,515 –> 00:39:49,195
up with his jokes? And Steve said, you have to understand, every

622
00:39:49,195 –> 00:39:52,975
single time a tragedy happens, every comedian on the planet

623
00:39:53,670 –> 00:39:57,050
already has the joke. We just can’t say it.

624
00:39:59,670 –> 00:40:02,730
Yeah. And humor

625
00:40:03,910 –> 00:40:07,675
is a means of trickery. Humor is

626
00:40:07,675 –> 00:40:11,115
a means of getting across an

627
00:40:11,115 –> 00:40:14,795
idea, in a in a

628
00:40:14,795 –> 00:40:18,335
package that people will laugh and immediately

629
00:40:18,795 –> 00:40:22,430
accept. So, Olivia, I know you like you said you like the role of Puck

630
00:40:22,430 –> 00:40:25,790
and you like Puck there. What do what do you like about Puck? How is

631
00:40:25,790 –> 00:40:27,970
Puck a court jester? And,

632
00:40:29,390 –> 00:40:33,170
here’s a leadership question for you. Do leaders need a court jester?

633
00:40:37,375 –> 00:40:41,135
Yes. Yes. Yes.

634
00:40:41,135 –> 00:40:43,875
Leaders need court gestures. They need the truth tellers.

635
00:40:47,880 –> 00:40:50,220
It you know, and that’s what comedians are.

636
00:40:51,480 –> 00:40:55,240
Yeah. That’s what, the gestures are. They’re the truth

637
00:40:55,240 –> 00:40:58,920
tellers, and

638
00:40:58,920 –> 00:41:02,519
they aren’t always the most popular, you

639
00:41:02,519 –> 00:41:06,015
know, when you you turn they turn the light

640
00:41:06,015 –> 00:41:08,915
on that which does not want the light turned on them.

641
00:41:10,015 –> 00:41:13,475
But when I think about

642
00:41:13,855 –> 00:41:17,615
what they’re doing, you know, is they’re essentially knocking you out of your

643
00:41:17,615 –> 00:41:21,020
thought process and your thought patterns. And so they’re forcing you to

644
00:41:21,020 –> 00:41:24,620
think differently, about what you’re

645
00:41:24,620 –> 00:41:28,380
observing than you currently are. And by

646
00:41:28,380 –> 00:41:31,820
breaking that thought pattern, you know, and especially, like, in

647
00:41:31,820 –> 00:41:35,415
tragedies, You know, you can have people who are on that hamster

648
00:41:35,474 –> 00:41:39,234
wheel of, pain and victimology and,

649
00:41:39,234 –> 00:41:42,675
you know, and sadness. And just that moment of

650
00:41:42,675 –> 00:41:45,575
light can break you out of that to laugh

651
00:41:46,195 –> 00:41:50,010
and, you know, it is over

652
00:41:50,250 –> 00:41:53,770
it’s overset in its tripe, but, you know, but light is

653
00:41:53,770 –> 00:41:54,890
what, you know

654
00:41:57,290 –> 00:42:00,670
well, light is what makes the, you know, the roaches

655
00:42:00,810 –> 00:42:04,510
scatter, but it does actually make the darkness go away.

656
00:42:04,944 –> 00:42:08,405
Mhmm. And, but what I like about

657
00:42:08,545 –> 00:42:11,845
Puck, you know, is he’s he’s not necessarily

658
00:42:12,145 –> 00:42:14,325
light. Mhmm. But the mischievousness,

659
00:42:16,224 –> 00:42:19,850
the playfulness, that’s and bringing in the fun and

660
00:42:19,850 –> 00:42:23,550
levity into moments. That’s what, you know,

661
00:42:23,850 –> 00:42:27,530
that’s what helps keep us all lighter is

662
00:42:27,530 –> 00:42:31,130
bringing, like, levity into moments, you know, and not taking life

663
00:42:31,130 –> 00:42:34,855
so seriously. I I

664
00:42:34,855 –> 00:42:38,694
often say that life is too short to take seriously, and the older I

665
00:42:38,694 –> 00:42:42,454
get, the more I mean that. You know? Like, life

666
00:42:42,454 –> 00:42:46,075
will go on. Have some fun. So a good little trickery.

667
00:42:46,214 –> 00:42:49,680
But Well, there’s also a little bit

668
00:42:49,680 –> 00:42:53,120
of is it interesting you mentioned he’s

669
00:42:53,120 –> 00:42:56,900
he’s thought of as being funny, but he’s actually mischievous.

670
00:42:57,120 –> 00:43:00,575
Right? The the Puck character, or the character of

671
00:43:00,575 –> 00:43:02,595
Puck, Robin Goodfellow.

672
00:43:05,494 –> 00:43:05,994
The

673
00:43:09,134 –> 00:43:12,960
one of the the the things that’s interesting. So the the comedian, Bill Burr,

674
00:43:12,960 –> 00:43:16,640
was actually being interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld on a comedian that’s in cars getting

675
00:43:16,640 –> 00:43:20,080
coffee, right, one time. And and this this stuff sticks out to

676
00:43:20,080 –> 00:43:23,599
me. Bill Burr goes he says to to Bill he says

677
00:43:23,599 –> 00:43:27,325
to Jerry, You’re actually

678
00:43:27,325 –> 00:43:31,165
very angry. But, like, you hide it because

679
00:43:31,165 –> 00:43:33,645
you have, like, this lilt that goes up in your voice at the end of

680
00:43:33,645 –> 00:43:37,405
every joke. And so people forget how angry you actually are and

681
00:43:37,405 –> 00:43:40,810
you’re irritated about everything. But I hear it.

682
00:43:40,810 –> 00:43:44,569
Ew. Right. I hear it. But you, like, you hide it

683
00:43:44,569 –> 00:43:48,410
so well. And Jerry goes, oh, no. Yeah. You’re exactly you’re completely correct. I’m

684
00:43:48,410 –> 00:43:52,170
angry about everything all the time. And then he of course, he

685
00:43:52,170 –> 00:43:55,605
laughs, and then Bill laughs. And Bill’s like, you made an entire career off of

686
00:43:55,605 –> 00:43:59,145
people not understanding that you’re actually irritable about all of this.

687
00:43:59,445 –> 00:44:02,025
And this is this is the the cut underneath

688
00:44:02,965 –> 00:44:06,725
Right? Because it’s not just the joke on

689
00:44:06,725 –> 00:44:10,140
top. It’s the the negative things

690
00:44:10,140 –> 00:44:13,980
underneath. So you got a little bit of this with, with with folks like,

691
00:44:14,060 –> 00:44:17,900
what’s his name? Oh, gosh.

692
00:44:17,900 –> 00:44:21,705
Daniel Convenience back in the eighties. Bill Hicks.

693
00:44:21,705 –> 00:44:25,545
Yes. So Bill Hicks. Right? Bill Hicks, Mark Marron, those kinds of guys

694
00:44:25,545 –> 00:44:28,365
where like, I watched Mark Marron come out one time.

695
00:44:29,225 –> 00:44:32,985
But you know he’s angry. Oh, yeah. Oh, but oh, please. Oh,

696
00:44:32,985 –> 00:44:36,340
please. Yes. He’s give me a break. Break. And he comes out with this pile

697
00:44:36,340 –> 00:44:39,860
of, like, notebook papers and just puts them down and he just

698
00:44:39,860 –> 00:44:42,740
starts talking. And, you know, and,

699
00:44:43,540 –> 00:44:46,360
so there’s how does how does the jokester

700
00:44:48,340 –> 00:44:51,265
and I don’t want to pull it apart because it’s it’s comedy and it’s gossamer

701
00:44:51,265 –> 00:44:55,105
and all that. I don’t want to pull it too much apart. But is it

702
00:44:55,105 –> 00:44:58,405
okay to be angry? Not okay.

703
00:44:58,865 –> 00:45:02,540
Is it if you’re the court jester and you’re

704
00:45:02,540 –> 00:45:06,260
supposed to be pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, I’m mixing

705
00:45:06,260 –> 00:45:09,900
a bunch of metaphors here. Yeah. Is it okay to be angry about

706
00:45:09,900 –> 00:45:13,660
that? Is that fine? No. That is actually

707
00:45:13,660 –> 00:45:16,645
kinda laughing at the truth. Right? Like, that’s what

708
00:45:17,505 –> 00:45:21,105
I think is is so important is, you know, is that sometimes we wake up

709
00:45:21,105 –> 00:45:24,945
to our own truths. Right? And, yes, I’m I’m angry,

710
00:45:24,945 –> 00:45:28,545
but I don’t wanna be, or, like, I wanna bring levity to it. Like, I

711
00:45:28,545 –> 00:45:31,910
wanna find the humor in that which I’m, like, getting

712
00:45:31,970 –> 00:45:35,569
irritated about. And that’s what Seinfeld is always doing

713
00:45:35,569 –> 00:45:39,010
is, yeah, he gets irritated, but he’s finding levity in it.

714
00:45:39,010 –> 00:45:42,770
Right. I actually thought you were gonna bring up Bill Burr and Bill

715
00:45:42,770 –> 00:45:46,155
Maher. Oh, well yeah. I knew. That

716
00:45:46,475 –> 00:45:50,235
was the best. Like, Bill Burr was going after Bill Maher

717
00:45:50,235 –> 00:45:53,935
for his haughty elite intellectualism. And it was

718
00:45:54,155 –> 00:45:57,835
awesome. Right? Like, because, you know, Bill

719
00:45:57,835 –> 00:46:01,570
was Mar was not apologizing, and he thought, you

720
00:46:01,570 –> 00:46:05,410
know, he wasn’t finding any levity at all in his intellectualism. He’s

721
00:46:05,410 –> 00:46:09,250
like, I actually am superior to you. It was the

722
00:46:09,250 –> 00:46:12,515
most it was the most uncomfortable. So the what we’re referencing It was. If you

723
00:46:12,515 –> 00:46:15,235
go back and listen to, oh gosh. I don’t know. It’s been released in the

724
00:46:15,235 –> 00:46:18,115
last 2 or 3 months. You can go find it on the Internet. Yeah. Bill

725
00:46:18,115 –> 00:46:19,895
Maher’s episode of Club Random where he interviewed Bill Burr.

726
00:46:23,420 –> 00:46:27,200
And you’re right. I was listening to this while I was mowing my front lawn,

727
00:46:27,580 –> 00:46:31,260
and I was like, oh my god. He didn’t give him

728
00:46:31,260 –> 00:46:34,460
any room to breathe at all. And I don’t think

729
00:46:34,620 –> 00:46:38,380
None. None. And I don’t think Bill Maher’s ever been dealt with like

730
00:46:38,380 –> 00:46:42,135
that before. It was and it was kind of and but where’s Bill gonna

731
00:46:42,135 –> 00:46:44,535
go? It’s his own shell. Like, are you gonna walk off your own shell? Like,

732
00:46:44,535 –> 00:46:48,375
what are you gonna do? So you’re stuck there getting pushed

733
00:46:48,375 –> 00:46:51,035
into a corner by a guy who

734
00:46:52,240 –> 00:46:55,360
is not giving you any daylight. It kind of reminded me a little bit and,

735
00:46:55,360 –> 00:46:58,880
again, every episode, I have to bring this up. It kind of reminded

736
00:46:58,880 –> 00:47:02,560
me of rolling with a really good jujitsu practitioner where you’re just

737
00:47:02,560 –> 00:47:05,760
trying stuff and it’s just not working, and you’re like, what the hell? I can’t

738
00:47:05,760 –> 00:47:07,620
figure out this Rubik’s cube. Yeah. Yeah.

739
00:47:09,494 –> 00:47:13,335
Yeah. What I loved about it, though, is a few weeks later, because

740
00:47:13,335 –> 00:47:17,095
as you said, it was really uncomfortable. I was watching it going, oh, boy. Where

741
00:47:17,095 –> 00:47:20,790
is this one go? Oh, boy. This is

742
00:47:20,790 –> 00:47:24,630
rough because Burr is not letting up, but he’s brought

743
00:47:24,630 –> 00:47:28,170
on, and he’s having fun with it. Yeah. But later,

744
00:47:28,550 –> 00:47:32,390
Mars said, I was just playing with it, and I’ve called BS

745
00:47:32,390 –> 00:47:35,995
on that. In the moment, I don’t think he was playing with

746
00:47:35,995 –> 00:47:39,755
it, but later, I think he actually saw, like, I was

747
00:47:39,755 –> 00:47:43,595
wearing no clothes. Right? Like Right. He could step away

748
00:47:43,595 –> 00:47:47,220
from it later and see, like, oh, actually, Burr he has

749
00:47:47,220 –> 00:47:50,119
probably a few points. I’m not gonna admit to which ones,

750
00:47:50,740 –> 00:47:54,040
but I was rolling with it. And that’s why

751
00:47:54,580 –> 00:47:58,420
like, you may not be what comedy will good comedy will do. Like,

752
00:47:58,420 –> 00:48:02,224
you like, often will laugh. Mhmm. We don’t always know why.

753
00:48:02,444 –> 00:48:06,285
Right. But, you know, at like, the discomfort and, you know, and, you know,

754
00:48:06,285 –> 00:48:09,964
and those, awful things that are said right after you know, those funny

755
00:48:09,964 –> 00:48:13,645
things that are maybe very bleak when you say them, but

756
00:48:13,645 –> 00:48:17,440
they’re they make you think after a sad moment. Right.

757
00:48:18,619 –> 00:48:22,140
It makes you think. And so bringing it

758
00:48:22,140 –> 00:48:25,359
back to, like, Oberon and and

759
00:48:25,820 –> 00:48:29,465
Titania, like, maybe he didn’t want her to

760
00:48:29,465 –> 00:48:33,225
love the beast so he could control, yeah, the Indian boy.

761
00:48:33,225 –> 00:48:37,065
Maybe he just wanted to be loved again. Well You know? And that’s what

762
00:48:37,065 –> 00:48:40,685
happens. Well, in Titania. So let’s

763
00:48:40,910 –> 00:48:44,350
let’s not let Titania off the hook a little bit. She’s

764
00:48:44,350 –> 00:48:47,330
like, listen. You’re just jealous.

765
00:48:49,390 –> 00:48:52,430
I’m a do what I want. I can’t be told. I’m a do what I

766
00:48:52,430 –> 00:48:56,275
want. And I I when I when

767
00:48:56,275 –> 00:48:59,875
I read to Tanya’s character. I’m

768
00:48:59,875 –> 00:49:02,855
reminded of the line from,

769
00:49:04,115 –> 00:49:07,795
the Billy Joel song. She’s

770
00:49:07,795 –> 00:49:11,450
always a woman. Right? Okay. She can’t be convicted.

771
00:49:11,830 –> 00:49:13,290
She’s earned her degree.

772
00:49:16,710 –> 00:49:19,590
So, like, that we we don’t

773
00:49:20,630 –> 00:49:24,285
we struggle in our western culture currently, and I

774
00:49:24,285 –> 00:49:28,125
think probably we always have. But I think the

775
00:49:28,125 –> 00:49:31,885
struggle was less in previous times than it is now.

776
00:49:31,885 –> 00:49:35,724
Your optionality. Right. Exactly. Well, as you increase your optionality,

777
00:49:35,724 –> 00:49:39,420
the struggle increases. Right? But we

778
00:49:39,420 –> 00:49:43,099
don’t we don’t we are not comfortable talking about

779
00:49:43,099 –> 00:49:46,859
women’s egos. We’re just not. We’re not comfortable talking

780
00:49:46,859 –> 00:49:50,619
about that. Because it’s always the men. The women and Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

781
00:49:50,619 –> 00:49:54,275
Yeah. I’m not saying that, like men. Well,

782
00:49:54,275 –> 00:49:58,035
I’m not saying that, like, that that that men are as clean and pure

783
00:49:58,035 –> 00:50:01,414
as the wind driven snow. Give me a break. Let’s be real here.

784
00:50:01,714 –> 00:50:05,350
Neither neither is. We’re both human. Right. We’re both humans.

785
00:50:05,810 –> 00:50:09,490
And how that ego is going to we talk a

786
00:50:09,490 –> 00:50:12,950
lot I’ll draw a parallel here. We will talk a lot about

787
00:50:13,570 –> 00:50:17,315
the problem or the challenge that it is a problem of men and violence, Like,

788
00:50:17,315 –> 00:50:20,675
how men manifest anger through violence. That is a problem for

789
00:50:20,675 –> 00:50:24,515
sure. Partially, it has to do with how men are in culture,

790
00:50:24,515 –> 00:50:28,355
but also partially, it has to do with testosterone and biological factors and

791
00:50:28,355 –> 00:50:31,715
a whole bunch of other things. Right? I I’ve raised 2

792
00:50:31,715 –> 00:50:35,350
sons. Trust me. And I’ve raised 2

793
00:50:35,350 –> 00:50:39,030
daughters. Trust me. Men and women are biologically different, in case the Olympic Committee is

794
00:50:39,030 –> 00:50:42,570
paying attention. Just just want to point that out.

795
00:50:43,270 –> 00:50:47,110
Okay. So men will manifest anger through we

796
00:50:47,110 –> 00:50:49,395
will talk about that all day. All day.

797
00:50:52,015 –> 00:50:53,715
But we will not address

798
00:50:55,535 –> 00:50:59,215
how women manifest their egos, particularly in

799
00:50:59,215 –> 00:51:02,590
leadership positions, and sort of where that winds up

800
00:51:02,590 –> 00:51:05,730
bad because we’re caught in this current

801
00:51:06,110 –> 00:51:08,130
moment of,

802
00:51:10,270 –> 00:51:13,890
well, to paraphrase her again, go back to the Billy Joel. Right?

803
00:51:14,030 –> 00:51:17,805
She can’t be convicted. She can’t. You’re done. You

804
00:51:17,805 –> 00:51:21,425
can’t say anything. You just gotta let her go. Well,

805
00:51:22,045 –> 00:51:25,485
maybe I’d be okay with that if she weren’t in a position of

806
00:51:25,485 –> 00:51:29,230
power. We’re just letting her go could have

807
00:51:29,230 –> 00:51:32,990
some back Very Right. Deleterious consequences for

808
00:51:32,990 –> 00:51:36,690
me. Yeah. You know? Exactly. I don’t wanna have her mouth

809
00:51:37,070 –> 00:51:40,430
writing a check that I have to cash with my

810
00:51:40,430 –> 00:51:42,704
actions. Exactly.

811
00:51:43,964 –> 00:51:46,944
Yep. That’s a great way to put it. That’s where we are.

812
00:51:48,365 –> 00:51:51,645
And so Titania has got an ego. You know? She wants to

813
00:51:52,204 –> 00:51:55,405
and and, of course, she wants to manipulate over on a little bit, which which

814
00:51:55,405 –> 00:51:58,340
we’re we’re we’re we’re seeing that sort of dynamic tension as well.

815
00:51:59,360 –> 00:52:02,880
And, overall, wants to manipulate her, and that’s that’s the manipulation that’s

816
00:52:02,880 –> 00:52:06,640
happening between both of them. Again, just as

817
00:52:06,640 –> 00:52:10,355
in a love relationship or in a marriage, I’m

818
00:52:10,355 –> 00:52:13,895
not saying manipulation happens in marriage, although we would be fools.

819
00:52:14,275 –> 00:52:17,734
We still believe that it does not make in any relationship.

820
00:52:18,755 –> 00:52:22,454
You know? I mean, politics is everywhere.

821
00:52:22,914 –> 00:52:26,500
You know? Right. Poli not politics

822
00:52:26,560 –> 00:52:30,340
as in, like, governmental politics, but we’re always positioning

823
00:52:30,560 –> 00:52:34,320
and influencing. Mhmm. You know? And, you know, and whether it

824
00:52:34,320 –> 00:52:37,965
be with your sibling, whether it be with your child, whether it be with your,

825
00:52:38,205 –> 00:52:41,805
you know, your wife or your husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, like, you’re

826
00:52:41,805 –> 00:52:45,645
always positioning and posturing. Mhmm. It’s just about what is

827
00:52:45,645 –> 00:52:49,485
the intent Mhmm. And what is that what is the

828
00:52:49,485 –> 00:52:53,325
outcome. You know, the stronger relationships are when we you know, is

829
00:52:53,325 –> 00:52:56,510
when, you know, we understand our impulses,

830
00:52:57,130 –> 00:53:00,650
but we don’t act on them because some of our limbic

831
00:53:00,650 –> 00:53:04,350
brain impulses are limbic brain driven

832
00:53:04,730 –> 00:53:08,445
and about status and control and ego. Right. But

833
00:53:08,445 –> 00:53:12,125
once we understand that, then we don’t give into it, and we can, you

834
00:53:12,125 –> 00:53:15,725
know, have a healthier discussion and relationship. Well, what happened what

835
00:53:15,725 –> 00:53:19,405
happened to the idea of us overcoming our ego? Like, there seems to be

836
00:53:19,405 –> 00:53:23,150
absolutely no talk of that. That’s a it’s a really good

837
00:53:23,150 –> 00:53:26,450
question. I think there’s a role for ego, but I think,

838
00:53:28,990 –> 00:53:32,829
it me it’s just tempered. You know? Narcissism is all

839
00:53:32,829 –> 00:53:36,369
about ego. Right? Oh, yeah. Narcissism is all about

840
00:53:36,845 –> 00:53:40,145
being seen and validated no mat or what.

841
00:53:40,444 –> 00:53:44,285
Right. Because I’m, you know, because I’m worthy and I’m better you know,

842
00:53:44,285 –> 00:53:46,704
all all of those things. But Yeah.

843
00:53:48,365 –> 00:53:50,845
Yeah. Overcoming ego, I don’t know

844
00:53:52,550 –> 00:53:56,150
I could play I could play devil’s advocate that we don’t wanna overcome it

845
00:53:56,150 –> 00:53:59,990
because then it’s the reverse just passivity and

846
00:53:59,990 –> 00:54:03,369
not having positions and not wanting to, you know, debate

847
00:54:03,510 –> 00:54:07,275
or counter or come to the you know, have critical

848
00:54:07,415 –> 00:54:10,855
conversations that help us come to a good solution. You know,

849
00:54:10,855 –> 00:54:13,835
what this is probably gonna be heretical,

850
00:54:14,615 –> 00:54:18,155
but I’ve seen in too many marriages and in too many relationships

851
00:54:18,375 –> 00:54:21,275
where it’s a lot easier for the man to just

852
00:54:22,510 –> 00:54:26,190
not say anything than to deal with the

853
00:54:26,190 –> 00:54:30,029
woman who’s controlling the housing relation

854
00:54:30,269 –> 00:54:33,869
yeah, the household relationship. Mhmm. And, you

855
00:54:33,869 –> 00:54:37,685
know, you’d be like I hope you still let me

856
00:54:37,765 –> 00:54:41,525
I’ve observed. I don’t want I don’t wanna debate that either. Right. It

857
00:54:41,525 –> 00:54:45,285
is a lot easier not to, but the maybe aren’t so great.

858
00:54:45,285 –> 00:54:49,045
Right? Like, you know, as you said, the consequence of that is

859
00:54:49,045 –> 00:54:52,859
I don’t have I don’t I don’t there’s no checks that she’s making me

860
00:54:52,859 –> 00:54:56,480
write, you know, figuratively as a result of some of that.

861
00:54:56,700 –> 00:55:00,299
Right. Well, I think also it’s so let me let me say this. I I

862
00:55:00,299 –> 00:55:03,520
do think there is a lot of in marriages. I’ll be I mean,

863
00:55:03,995 –> 00:55:07,035
I’m married. I’ve I’ve hang around other married people. I spend a lot of my

864
00:55:07,035 –> 00:55:09,855
time hanging around other married people. I see a lot of other people’s marriages.

865
00:55:14,395 –> 00:55:18,180
There’s a time to advance, and there’s a time to retreat. It’s it’s a

866
00:55:18,180 –> 00:55:22,020
dance right now. If you’re always retreating, that’s

867
00:55:22,020 –> 00:55:25,780
a problem. If you’re always advancing, that’s also a

868
00:55:25,780 –> 00:55:29,460
problem. The the the challenge is

869
00:55:29,460 –> 00:55:32,885
figuring out here’s the biggest challenge, at least in in

870
00:55:33,985 –> 00:55:37,525
in my marriage and in other people’s marriages that I’ve seen. The biggest challenge

871
00:55:37,585 –> 00:55:41,265
is because is it the biggest challenge is figuring out where the

872
00:55:41,265 –> 00:55:45,090
advance and where the retreat is, where the boundaries are on that.

873
00:55:45,650 –> 00:55:49,410
Right? So Yeah. I act I actually think this is yeah. There’s a bigger

874
00:55:49,410 –> 00:55:52,950
cultural thing here is that we’ve had the you know, it it’s not feminism

875
00:55:53,730 –> 00:55:57,410
in a, in the marriage. It’s more what you’re

876
00:55:57,410 –> 00:56:01,194
talking about in leadership in business and in leadership in politics in the

877
00:56:01,194 –> 00:56:04,555
country Yeah. Is that we’ve gotten to a place where

878
00:56:04,555 –> 00:56:08,395
everyone’s retreated Right. To allow that

879
00:56:08,395 –> 00:56:12,075
voice to be, you know, to allow the

880
00:56:12,075 –> 00:56:15,674
feminine voice to be dominant. Mhmm. And it’s

881
00:56:15,674 –> 00:56:18,820
now causing a lot of problems

882
00:56:19,060 –> 00:56:21,960
Problems. Yep. That could be lives and livelihood

883
00:56:22,420 –> 00:56:25,720
because, you know, we haven’t counterbalanced

884
00:56:26,420 –> 00:56:29,960
it with more masculine yeah, necessary

885
00:56:30,100 –> 00:56:33,785
masculine voices and tones. And that’s the balance

886
00:56:33,785 –> 00:56:37,165
between, like, ego and empathy, are those the right

887
00:56:37,385 –> 00:56:40,525
things to care? But we do need the balance

888
00:56:41,145 –> 00:56:43,405
for the ecosystem and for

889
00:56:44,950 –> 00:56:48,170
society to survive. And so what yeah. The

890
00:56:48,630 –> 00:56:51,770
so, anyway No. I think you’re right. Here

891
00:56:52,470 –> 00:56:56,010
was over indexing on ego, right, and not being challenged.

892
00:56:56,630 –> 00:56:59,915
And over on, you know, challenges are in a mischievous

893
00:57:00,135 –> 00:57:03,975
way. Right? Right. Exactly. Right. And he’s not going to go at her Yeah. And

894
00:57:03,975 –> 00:57:07,275
it brings back but it brings back order. Right.

895
00:57:07,975 –> 00:57:11,790
Right. Exactly. That’s it. Find their love again. Right? Yes.

896
00:57:11,790 –> 00:57:15,550
That’s it. Right. No. No. I think that’s no. I think that’s that’s so in

897
00:57:15,550 –> 00:57:18,930
a Midsummer Night’s Dream, that there’s there’s

898
00:57:19,790 –> 00:57:23,295
love brings chaos. Right? Because it’s a strong emotion.

899
00:57:23,535 –> 00:57:27,214
Right? Or we can even say, let’s just let’s frame it. Let’s frame it in

900
00:57:27,214 –> 00:57:31,055
monotone. Lust brings chaos because it’s a strong feeling. It’s a strong

901
00:57:31,055 –> 00:57:34,895
emotion. Lust and love bring chaos. Okay. So how do you and this

902
00:57:34,895 –> 00:57:38,335
is the problem maybe that Shakespeare is seeking to solve with A Midsummer Night’s

903
00:57:38,335 –> 00:57:41,960
Dream. How do you counterbalance that? What are

904
00:57:41,960 –> 00:57:44,380
the forces that pull that back? And,

905
00:57:45,720 –> 00:57:46,220
look,

906
00:57:49,320 –> 00:57:53,125
civilization is the price we pay for having

907
00:57:53,125 –> 00:57:55,785
a little bit of a reduction in our in our appetites.

908
00:58:00,085 –> 00:58:03,845
And if we don’t have I mean, this is what I I’ll sometimes send this

909
00:58:03,845 –> 00:58:07,559
to my kids. I’ll say, listen. Particularly, if I’m having a conversation with another

910
00:58:07,559 –> 00:58:11,240
adult that they’re bored by, particularly when they were younger, angry, and they’d be

911
00:58:11,240 –> 00:58:14,200
upset, and they’d be like, whatever. And they’d throw a fit or whatever, and then

912
00:58:14,200 –> 00:58:16,839
I’d correct them, and then they’d be all mad or whatever. And I keep running

913
00:58:16,839 –> 00:58:19,935
and having the conversation with the adult. And then when I’m done with the conversation

914
00:58:19,935 –> 00:58:23,695
with the adult, then we can, you know, leave the venue. Right? And the

915
00:58:23,695 –> 00:58:27,055
other adult, of course, looks at me. Usually, that

916
00:58:27,055 –> 00:58:30,815
situation looks me and go and kind of is appreciative of the fact,

917
00:58:30,815 –> 00:58:34,500
and you can see it behind their eyes, that I’m just gonna keep the adult

918
00:58:34,500 –> 00:58:38,180
interaction going Yeah. And finish it when we get to our

919
00:58:38,180 –> 00:58:42,020
natural conclusion. And then they right. Because there’s an order for things.

920
00:58:42,020 –> 00:58:45,300
Right? That’s bringing order to chaos. Right? But then I’ll tell turn around and tell

921
00:58:45,300 –> 00:58:48,995
my kids. I always tell them with feedback. And my oldest daughter in particular

922
00:58:48,995 –> 00:58:52,675
will tell you this. I’m building a civilization here. That’s why I’m

923
00:58:52,675 –> 00:58:56,435
having the conversation. This is called civilization building. That’s what you

924
00:58:56,435 –> 00:59:00,115
need to be participating in, and I’m role modeling this for you

925
00:59:00,115 –> 00:59:03,359
right now in this particular interaction. Now

926
00:59:04,060 –> 00:59:06,400
my kids don’t buy that until they’re in their twenties.

927
00:59:07,579 –> 00:59:11,119
Right. But that’s okay. Are probably, like, thirties.

928
00:59:11,420 –> 00:59:14,560
Thirties. Yeah. It’s it’s fine. Yeah. But that’s okay

929
00:59:14,780 –> 00:59:18,375
because we

930
00:59:18,455 –> 00:59:21,655
if you don’t role model it like like, what we have what we’re role modeling

931
00:59:21,655 –> 00:59:25,095
right now, and I see this in a lot of families. What we’re role

932
00:59:25,095 –> 00:59:28,855
modeling is the adults, the Oberons, and the

933
00:59:28,855 –> 00:59:32,680
Titanias subsuming or retreating themselves to

934
00:59:32,680 –> 00:59:36,440
the kids. And that’s a disorder too. And kids are great.

935
00:59:36,440 –> 00:59:40,200
Kids are wonderful. But quite frankly, kids need to be civilized. They

936
00:59:40,200 –> 00:59:43,905
just they they do. Right? So that they can be around others. Primarily, they can

937
00:59:43,905 –> 00:59:47,505
be around other kids without being sociopaths and narcissistic little

938
00:59:47,505 –> 00:59:51,265
knuckleheads. But also so that eventually they

939
00:59:51,265 –> 00:59:54,865
can grow up to be, adults that can continue to

940
00:59:54,865 –> 00:59:58,540
advance the society, which used to be

941
00:59:58,540 –> 01:00:02,380
something again that we know and that Shakespeare is just dropping into the

942
01:00:02,380 –> 01:00:06,060
play because he knows that this is the thing that we’re doing. You don’t have

943
01:00:06,060 –> 01:00:09,339
to actually say it, but now we’ve reached a point in our culture where we

944
01:00:09,339 –> 01:00:13,065
have to say it out loud and encourage people to do it. And I

945
01:00:13,065 –> 01:00:15,385
find that to be I find that to be fascinating. I find that to be

946
01:00:15,385 –> 01:00:18,984
very interesting. It’s sort of that cultural evolution thing that’s that’s

947
01:00:18,984 –> 01:00:21,165
going on in, in real time.

948
01:00:24,265 –> 01:00:25,645
One other point about Titania’s

949
01:00:27,660 –> 01:00:31,099
speech here in act 2 scene 1 that I find very

950
01:00:31,099 –> 01:00:34,799
interesting. She’s she’s comparing Oberon’s

951
01:00:35,180 –> 01:00:38,780
moods to season, and

952
01:00:38,780 –> 01:00:42,299
to seasonality and to seasonal shifts. So basically she’s saying, you

953
01:00:42,299 –> 01:00:44,825
know, you’re a stubborn moron,

954
01:00:46,405 –> 01:00:49,785
basically, you know, whether it’s spring, summer, winter, or fall.

955
01:00:52,405 –> 01:00:56,130
And and this is this is

956
01:00:56,130 –> 01:00:59,490
very clever of Shakespeare to kind of tie this in because it

957
01:00:59,490 –> 01:01:02,789
grabs this idea that or it reinforces

958
01:01:03,170 –> 01:01:06,690
the idea of seasonality in the play, but it also reinforces the

959
01:01:06,690 –> 01:01:10,309
idea that goes back to, of course, the name of the play, a midsummer

960
01:01:12,065 –> 01:01:15,845
night’s dream. Not a fall, not a winter, not a spring.

961
01:01:15,984 –> 01:01:19,825
And this, of course, would have been one other

962
01:01:19,825 –> 01:01:23,505
area that would have resonated very strongly with his, with

963
01:01:23,505 –> 01:01:26,644
his watchers, with his viewers of this play

964
01:01:27,039 –> 01:01:30,720
because they were, I mean, they were what we would call now

965
01:01:30,720 –> 01:01:34,480
organic farm to table, agricultural, you know,

966
01:01:34,480 –> 01:01:38,000
generations farm to table agricultural lifestyle. No

967
01:01:38,000 –> 01:01:41,645
industrialization, threshing with wooden tools,

968
01:01:42,505 –> 01:01:46,265
eating what they grew and what they could kill. You know, they

969
01:01:46,265 –> 01:01:48,845
they understood something that we’ve lost in our industrialized

970
01:01:49,625 –> 01:01:53,220
modern world. And and now our our service industry

971
01:01:53,220 –> 01:01:56,500
modern world where we don’t even touch our food. It’s just we go to the

972
01:01:56,500 –> 01:02:00,340
grocery store and get it or it’s delivered to us via via DoorDash. You

973
01:02:00,340 –> 01:02:04,100
know? But he understood something that they also

974
01:02:04,100 –> 01:02:07,905
understood as this is sometimes another reference that we or perhaps another reference that we

975
01:02:07,905 –> 01:02:10,785
miss here in, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Okay. Cool.

976
01:02:13,025 –> 01:02:16,565
I wanna turn the corner a little bit. I wanna talk about

977
01:02:17,025 –> 01:02:18,005
cultural transmission

978
01:02:20,990 –> 01:02:23,730
via the most unlikely vehicle of all,

979
01:02:25,790 –> 01:02:29,310
Looney Tunes. Yes. I did say that

980
01:02:29,310 –> 01:02:32,510
correctly. I’ve only talked about Looney Tunes on this podcast for a little while. I

981
01:02:32,510 –> 01:02:36,185
can’t think of a better person to talk about it with then,

982
01:02:36,805 –> 01:02:40,325
then, Libby here. I’m a huge fan of,

983
01:02:40,525 –> 01:02:44,085
of Looney Tunes, and I’m going

984
01:02:44,085 –> 01:02:46,985
to actually sort of put

985
01:02:50,430 –> 01:02:54,110
the weight of that, on,

986
01:02:55,230 –> 01:02:58,770
well, on the remainder of, of act 2

987
01:02:58,910 –> 01:03:02,595
scene 1. So we’re gonna go we’re gonna go back to the

988
01:03:02,595 –> 01:03:06,435
book. We’re back to the play. Back 2, A Midsummer Night’s

989
01:03:06,435 –> 01:03:09,955
Dream, act 2, scene 1. We’re gonna pick up where Oberon

990
01:03:09,955 –> 01:03:12,055
responds to Titania.

991
01:03:13,569 –> 01:03:17,410
So, Oberon, do you amend it then? It lies in you. Why should

992
01:03:17,410 –> 01:03:21,109
Titania cross for Oberon? But I do but beg a little changeling

993
01:03:21,170 –> 01:03:24,930
boy to be my henchman. Titania, set your heart at

994
01:03:24,930 –> 01:03:28,625
rest. The fairyland buys not a child of me. His

995
01:03:28,625 –> 01:03:32,464
mother was not a beveaucherous of my order and in the spiced Indian air by

996
01:03:32,464 –> 01:03:36,305
night full often after she gossiped by my side and sat with me on

997
01:03:36,305 –> 01:03:39,744
Neptune’s yellow sands. Mark them, mark traders on the

998
01:03:39,744 –> 01:03:43,530
flood when we have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow big

999
01:03:43,530 –> 01:03:46,970
bellied with the wanton wind which she with pretty and swimming

1000
01:03:46,970 –> 01:03:50,650
gait following her womb was enriched with my young swire would

1001
01:03:50,650 –> 01:03:54,190
imitate and sail upon the land to fetch me trifles and return again

1002
01:03:54,490 –> 01:03:58,265
as from a voyage rich with merchandise But she being mortal of

1003
01:03:58,265 –> 01:04:02,105
that boy did die and for her sake do I rear up her boy and

1004
01:04:02,105 –> 01:04:04,685
for her sake I will not part with him.

1005
01:04:05,705 –> 01:04:08,765
Oberon, how long within this would intend you stay?

1006
01:04:09,480 –> 01:04:13,000
Titania, perchance slept at Theseus’s wedding day. If you will

1007
01:04:13,000 –> 01:04:16,520
patiently dance in our round and see our moonlight revels, go with

1008
01:04:16,520 –> 01:04:20,220
us. If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

1009
01:04:20,920 –> 01:04:24,060
Oberon, give me that boy and I will go with thee,

1010
01:04:24,385 –> 01:04:27,685
Titania. Not for thy fairy kingdom.

1011
01:04:28,305 –> 01:04:31,525
Fairies away. We shall chide downright if I longer stay.

1012
01:04:32,225 –> 01:04:35,985
Titania and her fairies exit. Oberon, well,

1013
01:04:35,985 –> 01:04:39,800
go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove like torment

1014
01:04:39,800 –> 01:04:43,640
thee for this injury. My gentle puck, come hither. Thou remember

1015
01:04:43,640 –> 01:04:47,160
since once I sat upon a promontory and heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s

1016
01:04:47,160 –> 01:04:50,920
back, uttering such a dulcet and harmonious breath, that the rude sea grew

1017
01:04:50,920 –> 01:04:54,655
civil at her song and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to

1018
01:04:54,655 –> 01:04:58,355
hear the sea maid’s music. Robin, I remember

1019
01:04:58,734 –> 01:05:02,494
Oberon, that very time I saw, but thou couldst not flying between the

1020
01:05:02,494 –> 01:05:06,230
cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took at a

1021
01:05:06,230 –> 01:05:09,990
fair vessel thrown by the vest and loosed his

1022
01:05:09,990 –> 01:05:13,369
love shaft smartly from his bow as it should pierce a 100000

1023
01:05:13,430 –> 01:05:17,270
hearts. But I might see a young cupid’s fiery shaft quenched in the

1024
01:05:17,270 –> 01:05:20,954
chased beams of the watery moon and the imperial fortress passed on in

1025
01:05:20,954 –> 01:05:24,555
maiden meditation fancy free. Yet marked I where the vault of

1026
01:05:24,555 –> 01:05:28,395
Cupid fell. It fell upon a little western flower before milk white

1027
01:05:28,395 –> 01:05:32,175
now purple with love’s wound and maidens call it a love and idleness.

1028
01:05:32,730 –> 01:05:36,410
Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once, the juice of it on

1029
01:05:36,410 –> 01:05:40,250
sleeping eyelids laid will make man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature

1030
01:05:40,250 –> 01:05:43,869
that it sees. Fetch me this herb and be thou here again

1031
01:05:44,090 –> 01:05:46,510
ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

1032
01:05:47,835 –> 01:05:51,615
Robin, I’ll put on a girdle round about the earth in 40 minutes.

1033
01:05:51,994 –> 01:05:55,835
He exits. Oberon, having once this juice I’ll

1034
01:05:55,835 –> 01:05:59,355
watch Titania when she is asleep and drop the liquor of it in her

1035
01:05:59,355 –> 01:06:03,050
eyes. Next thing then she, waking, looks upon, be it

1036
01:06:03,050 –> 01:06:06,810
on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on meddling monkey, or on busy

1037
01:06:06,810 –> 01:06:10,570
ape, she shall pursue it with the soul of love. And ere I

1038
01:06:10,570 –> 01:06:14,415
take this charm off from her by sight as I can take it with another

1039
01:06:14,954 –> 01:06:18,635
I’ll make her render up her page to me. Who comes

1040
01:06:18,635 –> 01:06:22,095
here? I am invisible. I will overhear their conference.

1041
01:06:23,835 –> 01:06:27,674
The Demetrius Center is followed by Helena. I’m gonna leave that there for just a

1042
01:06:27,674 –> 01:06:31,190
moment. When

1043
01:06:31,190 –> 01:06:34,950
you read Shakespeare, you have to

1044
01:06:34,950 –> 01:06:36,250
read it like this.

1045
01:06:40,150 –> 01:06:43,955
Whether it’s Macbeth or Hamlet or The Tempest or

1046
01:06:43,955 –> 01:06:47,395
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you have to meet it in sort

1047
01:06:47,395 –> 01:06:51,175
of a sort of a lilt with a with a low

1048
01:06:51,235 –> 01:06:54,775
and, and even when you hear it performed, it sounds

1049
01:06:54,995 –> 01:06:58,750
like well, it sounds like a John Barrymore performance from back in the

1050
01:06:58,750 –> 01:07:02,589
day or maybe a Gil Good performance or these days because no

1051
01:07:02,589 –> 01:07:06,369
one knows those references. Patrick Stewart, right, or Ian McKellen.

1052
01:07:06,510 –> 01:07:09,869
There you go. I mean imagine Patrick Stewart during Shakespeare, which by the way he

1053
01:07:09,869 –> 01:07:13,690
did, by the way he was a Shakespearean

1054
01:07:13,691 –> 01:07:17,196
actor. So was Kelsey Grammer, he

1055
01:07:17,197 –> 01:07:20,703
of Frasier Crane fame, began his career

1056
01:07:20,703 –> 01:07:24,209
performing Macbeth and Hamlet. And of course

1057
01:07:24,290 –> 01:07:28,050
when they read these lines, they read these words, they put

1058
01:07:28,050 –> 01:07:31,589
on this this vaulted voice.

1059
01:07:33,250 –> 01:07:37,010
And this is how we think about Shakespeare. We even read it in

1060
01:07:37,010 –> 01:07:38,470
the voice in our heads.

1061
01:07:41,385 –> 01:07:45,065
This is weird cultural transmission. I have no idea where it came

1062
01:07:45,065 –> 01:07:48,745
from, that that was the voice or that was the the willk you had to

1063
01:07:48,745 –> 01:07:52,345
put on the words. But it the cultural transmission of this is so

1064
01:07:52,345 –> 01:07:56,030
good that in 1949, there was a

1065
01:07:56,030 –> 01:07:59,870
Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short starring the goofy gophers along

1066
01:07:59,870 –> 01:08:03,470
with an unnamed dog that was based on the stage and

1067
01:08:03,470 –> 01:08:07,170
film actor John Barrymore, Patrick Stewart of his day.

1068
01:08:07,725 –> 01:08:11,345
The title of this cartoon, if you’re looking for it on Warner Brothers Max,

1069
01:08:12,365 –> 01:08:14,705
is a ham in a roll.

1070
01:08:17,965 –> 01:08:21,569
And, the dog is tired of appearing in

1071
01:08:21,569 –> 01:08:25,109
cartoons. It opens up with him tired of appearing in cartoons,

1072
01:08:25,489 –> 01:08:28,550
and he goes home to study the words of Shakespeare.

1073
01:08:29,969 –> 01:08:33,475
And, of course, upon

1074
01:08:33,475 –> 01:08:37,255
arriving back at home, the dog finds that his home has been invaded by,

1075
01:08:37,875 –> 01:08:41,635
the 2 goofy gophers who talk a little bit like

1076
01:08:41,635 –> 01:08:45,314
this, and they talk very politely. And yes, dear, and yes, dear, and yes,

1077
01:08:45,314 –> 01:08:49,149
dear. And so while he’s reading Shakespeare, he’s trying to

1078
01:08:49,149 –> 01:08:52,830
improve himself. There’s various gags that

1079
01:08:52,830 –> 01:08:56,590
occur in this Looney Tunes cartoon, this

1080
01:08:56,590 –> 01:09:00,189
Looney Tunes short, as he reads through A Midsummer Night’s

1081
01:09:00,189 –> 01:09:03,935
Dream, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Richard the third, and, of course,

1082
01:09:03,935 –> 01:09:07,635
Romeo and Juliet. And the gags in the cartoon

1083
01:09:07,774 –> 01:09:11,475
rely on literal interpretations of lines from those

1084
01:09:11,694 –> 01:09:15,429
plays. By the way, the running time of this cartoon,

1085
01:09:15,810 –> 01:09:19,410
6 minutes and 47 seconds. In case some of you are of short attention

1086
01:09:19,410 –> 01:09:23,170
span theater and think that TikTok began all

1087
01:09:23,170 –> 01:09:26,735
of that, it really didn’t. This cartoon

1088
01:09:27,035 –> 01:09:30,475
was directed by Robert McKimson and, of course,

1089
01:09:30,475 –> 01:09:34,015
the the the great voice actor Mel Blanc,

1090
01:09:34,475 –> 01:09:38,255
voice of the dog, the gophers, and, of course, red Hamlet,

1091
01:09:38,719 –> 01:09:42,479
read Julius Caesar, read Richard the Third, and read Romeo and Juliet, all

1092
01:09:42,479 –> 01:09:46,020
with the Shakespearean lilt like John Barrymore,

1093
01:09:48,159 –> 01:09:51,534
by the way. This is the

1094
01:09:51,534 –> 01:09:54,355
brilliance of the cartoon Looney Tunes.

1095
01:09:55,855 –> 01:09:59,215
Cultural transmission of high art via low

1096
01:09:59,215 –> 01:10:03,054
comedy is something that is being goofed on in this

1097
01:10:03,054 –> 01:10:06,770
in this episode, season 14 episode

1098
01:10:06,770 –> 01:10:10,290
number 5, with the dog. And the

1099
01:10:10,290 –> 01:10:14,070
dog himself even looks like John Barrymore,

1100
01:10:15,570 –> 01:10:16,790
which is great.

1101
01:10:22,035 –> 01:10:25,795
Shakespeare was trying to transmit culture as well, and so are we. We

1102
01:10:25,795 –> 01:10:29,635
are in a cultural transmit. We’re always trying to transmit culture. We’re always trying to

1103
01:10:29,635 –> 01:10:32,455
transmit civilization to each other.

1104
01:10:33,580 –> 01:10:37,100
And whether it’s a dog in a looney tune short or a couple of

1105
01:10:37,100 –> 01:10:40,940
gophers, by the way, he winds up at the end

1106
01:10:40,940 –> 01:10:43,840
of the cartoon. The gophers defeat him, of course,

1107
01:10:45,375 –> 01:10:49,074
And the gophers use a horse to kick the dog out of his house,

1108
01:10:49,215 –> 01:10:52,974
after which the dog says, a horse, a horse, my kingdom

1109
01:10:52,974 –> 01:10:56,815
for a horse, and goes back to the studio where he decided he

1110
01:10:56,815 –> 01:10:59,635
was going to go back to being a comedic actor.

1111
01:11:00,620 –> 01:11:04,160
All in 6 minutes, all around the world,

1112
01:11:04,940 –> 01:11:08,540
all 5 Shakespeare plays. Oh, and by the way, a little bit of classical

1113
01:11:08,540 –> 01:11:12,345
music in there as well. And it

1114
01:11:12,345 –> 01:11:15,705
is a cartoon that works so well as a method of cultural

1115
01:11:15,705 –> 01:11:19,545
transmission that my 7 year old who knows

1116
01:11:19,545 –> 01:11:23,385
nothing about Shakespeare at all just got his

1117
01:11:23,385 –> 01:11:26,445
dose of Shakespeare in about 6 minutes.

1118
01:11:28,950 –> 01:11:32,090
I don’t know what your familiarity is with Looney Tunes, Libby.

1119
01:11:32,870 –> 01:11:36,710
I can all have no idea. But I watched a lot of Looney

1120
01:11:36,710 –> 01:11:40,390
Tunes when I was a kid, and that’s actually how I got into,

1121
01:11:40,390 –> 01:11:44,125
like, opera, like Pagliacci. Yes. Oh,

1122
01:11:44,125 –> 01:11:47,745
yeah. From Bugs Bunny. I I got into freaking pagliacci from Bugs Bunny,

1123
01:11:48,364 –> 01:11:52,125
because I was so curious as to what the music was and what the references

1124
01:11:52,125 –> 01:11:54,764
were that I went back and researched it and tried to find it and figured

1125
01:11:54,925 –> 01:11:57,770
this is how I got introduced to high art. One of the ways I got

1126
01:11:57,770 –> 01:12:01,610
introduced to high art was through was through Warner Brothers

1127
01:12:01,610 –> 01:12:04,510
efforts and amusing me for 5 to 6 minutes.

1128
01:12:05,930 –> 01:12:09,690
Interesting. Just bang bang bang bang bang bang. And the gags

1129
01:12:09,690 –> 01:12:11,870
go so fast. Yeah.

1130
01:12:13,665 –> 01:12:15,945
I I again, I have no idea what you’re experiencing. What is your experience with

1131
01:12:15,945 –> 01:12:18,465
the ludi tunes? Do you have the experience with the ludi tunes at all? It’s

1132
01:12:18,465 –> 01:12:22,065
on. That’s all, folks. That’s it.

1133
01:12:22,065 –> 01:12:25,690
That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. Yeah. I was actually just looking it up as

1134
01:12:25,690 –> 01:12:29,449
you were speaking about it to look at it. But yeah. No. I

1135
01:12:29,449 –> 01:12:33,050
don’t, I don’t have a lot of memory. My, my

1136
01:12:33,050 –> 01:12:36,349
memory of cartoons on Saturday or Saturday

1137
01:12:36,969 –> 01:12:40,505
entertainment was, like, Bill Cosby. Okay. Yeah. And

1138
01:12:40,505 –> 01:12:42,845
Scott Albert or Scott Albert. Yes.

1139
01:12:43,865 –> 01:12:44,365
Yeah.

1140
01:12:51,510 –> 01:12:54,570
I I’m interested in watching it. I was reading the,

1141
01:12:55,429 –> 01:12:58,650
yeah, the overview. But tell me more. This is fascinating.

1142
01:12:59,030 –> 01:13:02,469
Yeah. So I am Is this Saturday morning cartoons for

1143
01:13:02,469 –> 01:13:05,449
you? Yes. So Okay.

1144
01:13:06,165 –> 01:13:09,465
Yeah. So I was when I watched

1145
01:13:10,565 –> 01:13:12,965
so I watched Looney Tunes at 2 there are 2 different times you could watch

1146
01:13:12,965 –> 01:13:16,025
Looney Tunes. So one time, you could watch Looney Tunes on,

1147
01:13:17,125 –> 01:13:19,465
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday afternoons,

1148
01:13:20,920 –> 01:13:23,980
between, like, 2 and, like,

1149
01:13:25,720 –> 01:13:29,160
4, on the old WB

1150
01:13:29,160 –> 01:13:33,000
network before it turned into, like, the UPN, and then it turned into something

1151
01:13:33,000 –> 01:13:36,785
else, or whatever. But the old WB network. So you

1152
01:13:36,785 –> 01:13:39,844
can watch it then. But then you could also watch it on Saturday. You’re right.

1153
01:13:40,465 –> 01:13:43,364
And I watched it on Saturday on

1154
01:13:44,465 –> 01:13:47,930
like ABC or something when I was living in the states that I was living

1155
01:13:47,930 –> 01:13:50,330
in when I was a kid. I can’t remember what the it doesn’t matter. All

1156
01:13:50,330 –> 01:13:53,950
I know is I would get up like 8, 9 o’clock in the morning,

1157
01:13:54,410 –> 01:13:58,010
click it on, and you could watch Looney Tunes for like an hour. And so

1158
01:13:58,010 –> 01:14:01,335
I’d watch all these cartoons. Right? And I’d watch them in order. Right? Oh, I

1159
01:14:01,335 –> 01:14:04,135
didn’t know it was ordered at the time, but I’d watch all these cartoons. And

1160
01:14:04,135 –> 01:14:07,255
then you watch them repeatedly over and over and over again and that’s sort of

1161
01:14:07,255 –> 01:14:09,755
how it kind of gets into your gets into your system.

1162
01:14:11,015 –> 01:14:14,775
So, you know, when the

1163
01:14:14,775 –> 01:14:18,510
second generation of Looney Tunes cartoons, which came about

1164
01:14:18,510 –> 01:14:22,050
in the seventies. So Looney Tunes was on, gosh, from the thirties

1165
01:14:22,190 –> 01:14:25,950
until the sixties until the late sixties. And at first,

1166
01:14:25,950 –> 01:14:29,630
it was Looney Tunes and then it transitioned into merry melodies, which is a whole

1167
01:14:29,630 –> 01:14:33,355
other different kind of thing. And, of course, there

1168
01:14:33,355 –> 01:14:37,054
are, Looney Tunes cartoons that are racially

1169
01:14:37,435 –> 01:14:40,875
and ethnically insensitive because a lot of them were made during World War

1170
01:14:40,875 –> 01:14:44,554
2. But people were people were a lot more

1171
01:14:44,554 –> 01:14:48,270
direct. Like, there’s even things I see in some of the cartoons now that

1172
01:14:48,270 –> 01:14:51,949
they show that were that are sort of not now, but that were

1173
01:14:51,949 –> 01:14:55,630
made between the thirties and the sixties that you

1174
01:14:55,630 –> 01:14:58,989
couldn’t make the gags they make today. Like, you couldn’t

1175
01:14:58,989 –> 01:15:02,445
have you I’ll give you an example. You couldn’t

1176
01:15:02,445 –> 01:15:05,885
have Bugs Bunny running around with thick lips

1177
01:15:05,885 –> 01:15:09,725
kissing, like, people and then, like, doing sort of the, like,

1178
01:15:09,725 –> 01:15:13,344
African American, like, exaggerated

1179
01:15:13,940 –> 01:15:17,380
sort of caricature, you couldn’t you couldn’t have that as as like a sight gag.

1180
01:15:17,380 –> 01:15:21,219
Right? And it’s a quick sight gag. And the

1181
01:15:21,219 –> 01:15:24,900
way Looney Tunes is structured is there’s an exciting event that occurs literally

1182
01:15:24,900 –> 01:15:28,295
within the first minute. So you get the inciting event, you get the

1183
01:15:28,295 –> 01:15:31,755
introduction. Usually, with Looney Tunes,

1184
01:15:32,054 –> 01:15:35,815
it’ll it’ll tell you what the inciting event is going to be

1185
01:15:35,815 –> 01:15:39,195
in the title. So for instance, for this one, a ham and a roll,

1186
01:15:39,450 –> 01:15:42,670
Like, that works on so many different levels because,

1187
01:15:43,930 –> 01:15:47,610
you know, a ham is an overactor. A roll, r o l e,

1188
01:15:47,610 –> 01:15:51,450
not r o l l. Right? So, you know, you’ve got, like, some you got,

1189
01:15:51,450 –> 01:15:54,410
like, some messing around there. And that’s the the brilliant thing with the guys on

1190
01:15:54,410 –> 01:15:58,085
Looney Tunes, particularly, the ones that were directed

1191
01:15:58,085 –> 01:16:01,225
by, oh, what’s his name? By,

1192
01:16:02,645 –> 01:16:06,405
Robert McKimson. So Robert McKimson directed a whole bunch of

1193
01:16:06,405 –> 01:16:09,940
Looney Tunes. He was born in 1910, and he died in

1194
01:16:09,940 –> 01:16:13,400
1977. And he

1195
01:16:13,699 –> 01:16:16,520
wrote and directed shorts with,

1196
01:16:17,540 –> 01:16:19,480
oh gosh, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck,

1197
01:16:35,180 –> 01:16:38,860
and a brilliant illustrator. And so the animators and the illustrators and the

1198
01:16:38,860 –> 01:16:41,980
directors have all worked together. And if they want to throw a gag in, they

1199
01:16:41,980 –> 01:16:45,660
just would. And so all these guys were highly literate. So, like, they knew everything

1200
01:16:45,660 –> 01:16:49,280
from, like, Shakespeare Yeah. All the way down to, like, vaudeville.

1201
01:16:49,595 –> 01:16:53,355
And so they would put all of this in Looney Tunes, but they’re not gonna

1202
01:16:53,915 –> 01:16:57,675
obviously, because they’re doing it for children, they’re not going to just

1203
01:16:57,675 –> 01:17:01,355
cram everything in all at once. They’re gonna pace it really well. So you’re gonna

1204
01:17:01,355 –> 01:17:05,080
have your inciting incident in the first minute, usually led in by your title

1205
01:17:05,080 –> 01:17:08,680
sequence. Then you’re gonna have your music and your music’s going to run

1206
01:17:08,680 –> 01:17:12,380
through the entire, like, the remaining 5 minutes of the of the cartoon.

1207
01:17:13,000 –> 01:17:16,840
And it’s going to be musical cues. So sometimes the sight gags will

1208
01:17:16,840 –> 01:17:20,625
go off of musical cues, like the Pagliacci one. The sight gags go off

1209
01:17:20,625 –> 01:17:24,304
of the musical cues, but the music also plays in the background while Bugs

1210
01:17:24,304 –> 01:17:27,905
Bunny is also playing the music game in the thing. And so it’s working on,

1211
01:17:27,905 –> 01:17:31,665
like, multiple levels. But you’re sitting there as a kid and all

1212
01:17:31,665 –> 01:17:35,300
you know is your brain is just exploding with, like, sugar cereal.

1213
01:17:35,760 –> 01:17:39,600
Yeah. And you’re watching this. It’s insane. And it’s it’s insane that you

1214
01:17:39,600 –> 01:17:40,659
get to watch this.

1215
01:17:43,679 –> 01:17:47,395
Then in the second minute or the 3rd the second the second minute through the

1216
01:17:47,395 –> 01:17:50,995
3rd minute into the into the 4th minute, you’re going to have your gags. You’re

1217
01:17:50,995 –> 01:17:54,755
going to have your plot. We’re gonna have a bunch of money your daffy duck

1218
01:17:54,755 –> 01:17:58,515
is getting into, like the one of the episodes we watched, one of the

1219
01:17:58,515 –> 01:18:02,170
weekend’s episodes my son and I watched the other day. Oh,

1220
01:18:02,170 –> 01:18:05,449
gosh. I can’t remember what the song was, but it’s, I can’t I don’t remember

1221
01:18:05,449 –> 01:18:08,650
the name of the song is, but, Daffy Duck is avoiding Porky Pig is the

1222
01:18:08,650 –> 01:18:12,409
hunter. And Porky Pig tries to shoot him. And so, of course, he

1223
01:18:12,409 –> 01:18:15,825
turns his butt around, and he’s got a target on his butt with, like, his

1224
01:18:15,825 –> 01:18:19,365
dress that comes up. So, you know, cross dressing Daffy Duck,

1225
01:18:19,825 –> 01:18:20,645
and he’s going,

1226
01:18:23,905 –> 01:18:26,965
and he, like, waves the dress around and, of course, wear a big missus.

1227
01:18:27,360 –> 01:18:31,119
And the bullet goes, like, a whole bunch of different places, and then Davy

1228
01:18:31,119 –> 01:18:34,960
Duck goes from having the bull’s eye on his butt with

1229
01:18:34,960 –> 01:18:38,560
the dress to going back to another site gag. Like,

1230
01:18:38,560 –> 01:18:42,100
literally, it will happen like that. And so it goes so

1231
01:18:42,320 –> 01:18:45,895
fast. And you watch Looney Tunes, you watch the

1232
01:18:45,895 –> 01:18:49,575
setup and the structure of it, and you watch the structure of the

1233
01:18:49,575 –> 01:18:53,335
comedy, and you watch the kind of trickery he they’re they’re pulling

1234
01:18:53,335 –> 01:18:56,875
in particular, like I said, McKimson along with Mel Blanc, and Mel Blanc would suggest,

1235
01:18:57,335 –> 01:19:00,760
would suggest gags because he could do anything verbally,

1236
01:19:01,140 –> 01:19:04,980
and could do anything with sound. And then, of course, you you

1237
01:19:04,980 –> 01:19:07,640
only because you only have, like I said, you only have 6 to 7 minutes.

1238
01:19:08,420 –> 01:19:11,940
So they would do all these verbal layerings, and they come to a conclusion by

1239
01:19:11,940 –> 01:19:15,675
the end, and then it goes, and you’re done. Yeah. And

1240
01:19:15,675 –> 01:19:19,114
you and it’s almost when you’re, like, a 9 year old kid and you’ve never

1241
01:19:19,114 –> 01:19:22,494
seen anything like that before, it’s almost like you’re getting hit by a freight train.

1242
01:19:22,554 –> 01:19:26,395
Yeah. It’s kind of insane. I

1243
01:19:26,395 –> 01:19:29,614
I love loony tunes. It’s That’s so I like fascinating

1244
01:19:29,994 –> 01:19:33,699
history here, and then the

1245
01:19:33,699 –> 01:19:37,060
structure is really interesting too. Well and they did

1246
01:19:37,860 –> 01:19:41,080
I will say Warner Brothers really allowed those animators

1247
01:19:41,780 –> 01:19:45,465
like McKimson and others. Carl Stalling was another one.

1248
01:19:45,784 –> 01:19:49,385
He did all the music. He was he was a genius with the music, but

1249
01:19:49,385 –> 01:19:52,925
they would allow these guys

1250
01:19:53,705 –> 01:19:57,244
to be the anti Walt Disney.

1251
01:19:58,040 –> 01:20:01,800
They were literally, like, on the other side of Disney. So Disney was considered

1252
01:20:01,800 –> 01:20:05,340
to be corporate and cultured,

1253
01:20:05,640 –> 01:20:09,320
and they’re gonna do full length movies. So this was during Looney Looney

1254
01:20:09,320 –> 01:20:11,980
Tunes was really popular during the time when

1255
01:20:13,615 –> 01:20:17,375
Disney was doing Peter Pan and Snow

1256
01:20:17,375 –> 01:20:21,055
White and Bambi and those Cinderella, you

1257
01:20:21,055 –> 01:20:24,895
know, the big sort of classical films that we think of as

1258
01:20:24,895 –> 01:20:28,035
the Disney classics. On the cinematic end,

1259
01:20:29,460 –> 01:20:32,900
Looney Tunes was owning television, and they were owning movie

1260
01:20:32,900 –> 01:20:36,500
shorts. And so you would see and that’s how they started. You would see shorts

1261
01:20:36,500 –> 01:20:39,860
in front of films first. Yeah. But then after that, they

1262
01:20:39,860 –> 01:20:43,665
transitioned to TV because TV was a much better medium for this. Right.

1263
01:20:43,665 –> 01:20:47,425
Because you could just you could do, like, 4 cartoons in a

1264
01:20:47,425 –> 01:20:51,264
row Yeah. In, like, an hour or in 20 minutes. Actually, in 20

1265
01:20:51,264 –> 01:20:54,645
minutes. You can do 4 cartoons in a row, and everybody could get paid.

1266
01:20:55,520 –> 01:20:58,960
So they were the anti Disney. As a matter of fact, almost to the point

1267
01:20:58,960 –> 01:21:02,719
where they would have gags inside of the Looney

1268
01:21:02,719 –> 01:21:06,480
Tunes cartoons that were anti Disney gags,

1269
01:21:06,480 –> 01:21:09,615
and they eventually had to drop those because he was like, you don’t stop this.

1270
01:21:09,695 –> 01:21:13,455
Gonna sue you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because Walt wasn’t

1271
01:21:13,455 –> 01:21:17,215
Walt wasn’t screwing around. But they knew sort of and

1272
01:21:17,215 –> 01:21:20,575
they knew, of course, they knew all the Disney admin animators and all the Disney

1273
01:21:20,575 –> 01:21:24,095
animators do them, and so they would exchange gags. It was a whole it was

1274
01:21:24,095 –> 01:21:27,900
a whole thing. This is fascinating. I had no idea. I thought Looney

1275
01:21:27,900 –> 01:21:31,659
Tunes was, like, part of Disney. No. It was part of the

1276
01:21:31,659 –> 01:21:35,260
it was part of the, what is considered to be the golden age of

1277
01:21:35,260 –> 01:21:38,940
American animation, which, is by by the

1278
01:21:38,940 –> 01:21:42,685
thirties to the seventies in this country, where

1279
01:21:42,945 –> 01:21:44,205
you could

1280
01:21:48,025 –> 01:21:51,465
you could literally build an entire media

1281
01:21:51,465 –> 01:21:55,080
franchise off of cartoons for kids. Because

1282
01:21:55,080 –> 01:21:58,840
there was nothing on TV. Like, this is we and and, of course, we live

1283
01:21:58,840 –> 01:22:02,060
in the backwash of all of this. But

1284
01:22:02,760 –> 01:22:06,520
in in the thirties through the seventies, no one had any clue

1285
01:22:06,520 –> 01:22:10,105
what to do with television. Yeah. Like, okay. You have this bandwidth.

1286
01:22:10,245 –> 01:22:14,005
What do we put on this thing? So shows like, like my mom

1287
01:22:14,005 –> 01:22:17,685
watched because my mom was a classic boomer. All of her generation watched

1288
01:22:17,685 –> 01:22:21,349
Howdy Doody, particularly the older members of her generation. Well, Howdy

1289
01:22:21,349 –> 01:22:25,190
Doody was entirely a creation of some serial

1290
01:22:25,190 –> 01:22:28,869
company. So the serial company came up with

1291
01:22:28,869 –> 01:22:31,130
the show so they could sell cereal.

1292
01:22:34,775 –> 01:22:38,534
Or the Tiffany Network. Right? The reason CBS is called the Tiffany

1293
01:22:38,534 –> 01:22:41,514
Network is because Tiffany Glass

1294
01:22:42,614 –> 01:22:45,435
created CBS to sell more Tiffany Glass.

1295
01:22:47,870 –> 01:22:51,230
It’s sort of an inverse for how we do media today. We don’t do media

1296
01:22:51,230 –> 01:22:54,910
like this today because of the Internet. So no one’s no

1297
01:22:54,910 –> 01:22:58,270
one is confused as to what to do with TikTok. Like, no one no one’s

1298
01:22:58,270 –> 01:23:01,985
confused. They may be putting ridiculous

1299
01:23:02,045 –> 01:23:05,165
stuff on there, but no one’s confused as to what to do once that bandwidth

1300
01:23:05,165 –> 01:23:08,925
opens. Well, back in the day, it was

1301
01:23:08,925 –> 01:23:11,565
different. It was like, okay. What do we do with this bandwidth? So you could

1302
01:23:11,565 –> 01:23:15,360
put on howdy doody. You could put on a man with a puppet and then

1303
01:23:15,360 –> 01:23:18,800
run that next to a bunch of cartoons and then sell some sugary breakfast cereal,

1304
01:23:18,800 –> 01:23:21,380
and now you’re done. And that was all thought of as being kids’ stuff.

1305
01:23:22,640 –> 01:23:26,420
Well, you do have mainstream, like, media

1306
01:23:26,560 –> 01:23:30,285
that’s not wait. 80, 90% funded by

1307
01:23:30,345 –> 01:23:34,185
pharmaceuticals? Right. You do have that. Yes. You do have that.

1308
01:23:34,185 –> 01:23:37,705
But that’s, like, the modern equivalent. Right. Well, in This is

1309
01:23:37,705 –> 01:23:41,065
fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in news didn’t really come

1310
01:23:41,065 –> 01:23:44,910
along as a function of TV until or not really. I would

1311
01:23:44,910 –> 01:23:48,530
say come along. Didn’t really kick in as a function of television

1312
01:23:49,390 –> 01:23:52,990
until the fifties and the sixties. So you

1313
01:23:52,990 –> 01:23:56,364
had, what was his name? Oh,

1314
01:23:56,824 –> 01:24:00,665
Brinkley and Hunt. Right? Like, those 2 guys, you know, that

1315
01:24:00,665 –> 01:24:04,505
really sort of kicked off the idea that television could

1316
01:24:04,505 –> 01:24:08,185
be a medium for news as well as a medium for

1317
01:24:08,185 –> 01:24:11,980
kids entertainment, as well as a medium for westerns. Like the heyday of

1318
01:24:11,980 –> 01:24:15,340
westerns in the United States, particularly TV westerns, was the 19

1319
01:24:15,340 –> 01:24:18,860
fifties, and the 19 sixties. And so if you were a kid in the

1320
01:24:18,860 –> 01:24:22,700
fifties, you could watch like Rawhide. Like people

1321
01:24:22,700 –> 01:24:26,455
people forget this. Clint Eastwood, his entire career

1322
01:24:26,515 –> 01:24:30,055
started on Rawhide on television in the 19 fifties.

1323
01:24:33,875 –> 01:24:37,315
With the Spaghetti Western? I thought Spaghetti Westerns were in the

1324
01:24:37,315 –> 01:24:41,000
theaters. Right? Yes. Spaghetti Westerns were in the theaters. Yes. And that was And the

1325
01:24:41,000 –> 01:24:44,840
reason that news wasn’t, that TV wasn’t medium for news

1326
01:24:44,840 –> 01:24:48,520
until fifties sixties was because people didn’t have TV. You

1327
01:24:48,520 –> 01:24:51,880
know, most people didn’t have TVs in their homes, and most of it was through

1328
01:24:51,880 –> 01:24:55,625
radio? Correct. It was it was it was radio Yeah.

1329
01:24:55,784 –> 01:24:59,224
Then print or print and then radio, depending upon which which debit

1330
01:24:59,385 –> 01:25:03,145
which market you were in. But, I mean, you would you would live in

1331
01:25:03,145 –> 01:25:06,920
a media market where you would be able to get, let’s

1332
01:25:06,920 –> 01:25:10,760
say, you had 5 news well, that’s probably extensive. 3

1333
01:25:10,760 –> 01:25:14,600
newspapers, right, in a city, right, like Chicago. You’d have 3

1334
01:25:14,600 –> 01:25:18,440
newspapers printing up news 3 times a day. So you’d have

1335
01:25:18,440 –> 01:25:22,225
a morning edition, a midday edition, and an evening edition. Forgot

1336
01:25:22,225 –> 01:25:26,065
about that. I knew, now that you say that I knew they had morning

1337
01:25:26,065 –> 01:25:27,605
and evening. Yeah.

1338
01:25:29,905 –> 01:25:33,720
How how quickly times change and things change. Like,

1339
01:25:33,720 –> 01:25:37,340
I had some of that in from a high level awareness.

1340
01:25:37,640 –> 01:25:41,480
Mhmm. But it is interesting, like,

1341
01:25:41,480 –> 01:25:44,300
getting into the cultural trans you know, transmission,

1342
01:25:45,640 –> 01:25:49,445
discussion, how quickly the modalities change Oh,

1343
01:25:49,445 –> 01:25:53,065
yeah. Based on the advancements of technology.

1344
01:25:53,605 –> 01:25:56,345
Mhmm. And, yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream,

1345
01:25:57,685 –> 01:26:01,225
you know, was the ability to use comedy

1346
01:26:01,700 –> 01:26:05,400
to share that with chill yeah. It reached all levels. Right.

1347
01:26:05,460 –> 01:26:08,980
Like, children through, through adults, the

1348
01:26:08,980 –> 01:26:12,520
stories, and we all interpret it differently

1349
01:26:12,820 –> 01:26:16,185
and, you know, based on where we are in our own

1350
01:26:16,185 –> 01:26:19,565
evolution, but it’s fun for everyone. Right? Right.

1351
01:26:19,865 –> 01:26:23,625
And I think of that, like Pixar movie is the same thing.

1352
01:26:23,625 –> 01:26:27,465
Like Mhmm. Like, it’s as much fun to go to a

1353
01:26:27,465 –> 01:26:30,449
Pixar movie as an adult as it is as a kid. Right.

1354
01:26:31,309 –> 01:26:34,929
And do you think that the kids are gonna get, like, some of the innuendos,

1355
01:26:35,070 –> 01:26:38,290
but they don’t. They have their whole a whole another level of understanding.

1356
01:26:38,750 –> 01:26:41,409
Right. Yeah. Well, I think

1357
01:26:45,775 –> 01:26:48,894
I was I was thinking the other day. Well, maybe not the other day, but

1358
01:26:48,894 –> 01:26:52,355
I was thinking, I was thinking a while ago that

1359
01:26:53,295 –> 01:26:57,060
it would be a real hoop. This is a

1360
01:26:57,060 –> 01:27:00,420
business idea that anybody can take us to see this podcast, but it would be

1361
01:27:00,420 –> 01:27:04,260
a real hoot to do 5 to

1362
01:27:04,260 –> 01:27:08,100
7 minute long animated shorts that are layered at

1363
01:27:08,100 –> 01:27:11,625
that level that like Looney Tunes was layered at. But I

1364
01:27:11,625 –> 01:27:15,385
don’t know number 1 that you do it. And I don’t

1365
01:27:15,385 –> 01:27:19,085
mean that the talent isn’t there. And I don’t mean that

1366
01:27:19,225 –> 01:27:22,665
the gags aren’t there. And I don’t even mean that the comedy isn’t

1367
01:27:22,665 –> 01:27:26,470
there. I mean, and and

1368
01:27:26,470 –> 01:27:30,070
probably the only place you’d be able to do it would be maybe Netflix

1369
01:27:30,070 –> 01:27:33,530
or Hulu, maybe. But let’s say let’s say Hulu.

1370
01:27:33,910 –> 01:27:37,735
If you do the half hour no. No. No. Sorry. Not a half hour. If

1371
01:27:37,735 –> 01:27:41,415
you did 6 to 7 minute or 5 to 7 minute

1372
01:27:41,415 –> 01:27:44,955
long animated comedic shorts,

1373
01:27:45,335 –> 01:27:49,095
and you banged out, like, a 100 of those in a

1374
01:27:49,095 –> 01:27:51,435
week and distributed them on Hulu

1375
01:27:53,070 –> 01:27:56,590
that were layered at the level that you got the

1376
01:27:56,590 –> 01:27:59,330
layering back in the day of Looney Tunes with

1377
01:28:00,110 –> 01:28:02,290
verbal gags, visual gags,

1378
01:28:03,550 –> 01:28:07,375
wordplay in your window speed

1379
01:28:07,375 –> 01:28:11,215
of animation music. I’m not saying

1380
01:28:11,215 –> 01:28:14,755
the talent doesn’t exist to do that. I believe the country is overflowing

1381
01:28:14,975 –> 01:28:18,790
with people talented enough to do that. I think

1382
01:28:18,790 –> 01:28:22,230
the thing that kills that idea is the

1383
01:28:22,230 –> 01:28:26,070
subject matter that you would have to cover and the way

1384
01:28:26,070 –> 01:28:29,750
you would have to do it. Because too many feelings would get

1385
01:28:29,750 –> 01:28:33,125
triggered. Oh, and and and by the way,

1386
01:28:33,125 –> 01:28:36,565
triggered triggered so fast that they wouldn’t even know they were

1387
01:28:36,565 –> 01:28:40,345
triggered. Yeah. Because it goes up it goes so quickly.

1388
01:28:40,725 –> 01:28:44,400
But the case but case of No. That’s something about it was upsetting. Right. I

1389
01:28:44,400 –> 01:28:47,360
don’t know what upset me, but something and then you have people go you have

1390
01:28:47,360 –> 01:28:49,920
people cut it and put it on the Internet and slow it down and be

1391
01:28:49,920 –> 01:28:53,440
like, that’s where it is. You know? And you know them trying to the

1392
01:28:53,440 –> 01:28:56,500
closest you will get to something that’s this good,

1393
01:28:58,275 –> 01:29:02,114
As good as Looney Tunes, I think, personally, and it’s not for kids,

1394
01:29:02,114 –> 01:29:05,715
which is really too bad, is robot chicken. The whole robot

1395
01:29:05,715 –> 01:29:09,094
chicken show on, on,

1396
01:29:09,715 –> 01:29:13,520
on, Cartoon Network back in the day. I think that’s

1397
01:29:13,520 –> 01:29:17,280
as close as you get. And that was claymation. And the only reason Seth

1398
01:29:17,280 –> 01:29:20,980
Green was Seth Green and his crazy people were able to get away with that

1399
01:29:21,120 –> 01:29:22,580
was because it was claymation.

1400
01:29:24,845 –> 01:29:27,965
But it hit everything. It did. It hit everything with the verbal gags, the sight

1401
01:29:27,965 –> 01:29:31,725
gags, the visual Well, and so I feel. I’m

1402
01:29:31,725 –> 01:29:35,505
not a big I’m not a big animation, you know, person,

1403
01:29:35,565 –> 01:29:39,320
but I see a lot of clips on South Park. Mhmm. Isn’t that

1404
01:29:39,320 –> 01:29:42,380
kind of in the same realm and, you know, as well as,

1405
01:29:43,560 –> 01:29:47,160
I also am not a you know, who’s the other what’s the other one? The

1406
01:29:47,160 –> 01:29:50,760
Simpsons that everyone loves? Oh, the Simpsons family guy. Yeah.

1407
01:29:50,760 –> 01:29:54,175
So I think this I so here’s here’s my honest that’s a great

1408
01:29:54,175 –> 01:29:57,935
question. And my honest feedback on that or my

1409
01:29:57,935 –> 01:30:00,435
honest answer to that is Stimson’s

1410
01:30:02,255 –> 01:30:05,935
the even the Flintstones Yeah. Of the Jetsons back in

1411
01:30:05,935 –> 01:30:07,795
the sixties, and seventies,

1412
01:30:09,830 –> 01:30:13,130
and then Family Guy in the nineties Yeah.

1413
01:30:13,670 –> 01:30:16,650
And then South Park in the late nineties all the way up to now.

1414
01:30:17,750 –> 01:30:21,590
Those 5 cartoons would not exist without

1415
01:30:21,590 –> 01:30:25,315
Looney Tunes. Right. So what they did was

1416
01:30:25,315 –> 01:30:28,614
all 5 of those cartoons, what they did was they took the the

1417
01:30:29,795 –> 01:30:33,155
the concept, the core concepts that were in Looney

1418
01:30:33,155 –> 01:30:36,435
Tunes, and they did exactly what I just did. Like, they pulled it apart and

1419
01:30:36,435 –> 01:30:40,070
they went, okay, I don’t wanna do this in a short context

1420
01:30:40,210 –> 01:30:43,650
because it’s too hard to sell advertising around this. Yeah. Matt

1421
01:30:43,650 –> 01:30:47,429
Groening. Right? This is why he did The Simpsons as a half hour show.

1422
01:30:48,929 –> 01:30:52,630
And I think it’s re it was really to appeal to the advertiser

1423
01:30:52,929 –> 01:30:56,665
television format. But now you see South Park doing

1424
01:30:56,665 –> 01:31:00,345
movies that they’re releasing on Paramount Plus Yeah. While they’re

1425
01:31:00,345 –> 01:31:03,965
calling them movies. Right? But they’re they’re like 90 minute long cartoons

1426
01:31:04,745 –> 01:31:08,560
with gags and everything else. Well, it’s the same concept as Looney

1427
01:31:08,560 –> 01:31:11,780
Tunes, it’s just we’ve expanded the franchise out

1428
01:31:12,080 –> 01:31:15,840
because streaming requires different things than television based

1429
01:31:15,840 –> 01:31:19,680
advertising required. And so the the metrics of who gets paid

1430
01:31:19,680 –> 01:31:23,315
and how for what work have all shifted around. And I think that’s that’s

1431
01:31:23,315 –> 01:31:26,995
the other challenge other than just the other than just

1432
01:31:26,995 –> 01:31:30,835
the the people might get triggered part. The other challenge is how do you

1433
01:31:30,835 –> 01:31:34,515
pay all those people to produce, you know, basically 5 to 7 minutes or

1434
01:31:34,515 –> 01:31:38,290
short content. Yeah. That that’s the piece. And with AI, you might be able

1435
01:31:38,290 –> 01:31:41,990
to do that. You have the different platforms between, like, YouTube,

1436
01:31:42,690 –> 01:31:46,370
YouTube Shorts and TikTok, neither of which I watch, but

1437
01:31:46,370 –> 01:31:49,910
I know a lot of people, do, and they’re really popular.

1438
01:31:51,105 –> 01:31:54,385
So it’s more kind of the economics because I don’t know that it’s as much

1439
01:31:54,385 –> 01:31:57,985
of the triggering now with the Overton window opening as much as it

1440
01:31:57,985 –> 01:32:01,745
has. And you do see, you know,

1441
01:32:01,745 –> 01:32:05,170
like South Park. Right. You know, being out there.

1442
01:32:06,030 –> 01:32:09,870
But interesting. I I love thank you for sharing all this.

1443
01:32:09,870 –> 01:32:13,250
This is really, really fun. I like learning.

1444
01:32:15,230 –> 01:32:18,995
Well, I’m a I’m a sucker for I am. I’m a sucker for a I’m

1445
01:32:18,995 –> 01:32:22,375
a sucker for a gag. I’m a sucker for a well

1446
01:32:22,435 –> 01:32:25,875
designed gag. And I’m even more of a sucker for a

1447
01:32:25,875 –> 01:32:29,635
gag that’s well designed and operates at multiple levels and is gonna get me to

1448
01:32:29,635 –> 01:32:33,250
think a little bit deeper past just the gag itself. So, You

1449
01:32:33,250 –> 01:32:36,929
know? Like, I’ll watch I’ll watch,

1450
01:32:38,449 –> 01:32:41,250
3 stooges, like, all day. I’ll watch that kind of stuff all day. You know?

1451
01:32:41,250 –> 01:32:45,010
Please. And most men watch You know what I mean? Yeah. I

1452
01:32:45,010 –> 01:32:48,135
was gonna say I think that’s more of a I I don’t like to generalize,

1453
01:32:48,135 –> 01:32:50,535
but I do think that’s more of a male thing. Like, is it,

1454
01:32:52,295 –> 01:32:54,855
what’s his I can’t think of his name right now. The guy who was in

1455
01:32:54,855 –> 01:32:58,615
lethal weapon. Oh, Mel Gibson? Mel Gibson. He

1456
01:32:58,615 –> 01:33:02,320
loves, like, the, you know, the 3 the 3 stooges. Yeah. It’s

1457
01:33:02,320 –> 01:33:06,080
it’s it’s dumb whatever, or, you

1458
01:33:06,080 –> 01:33:09,280
know, a fart gag. Right? Like like, the fart gun in,

1459
01:33:09,600 –> 01:33:13,440
Despicable Me. Like, I I I do think that’s funny. Yeah.

1460
01:33:13,440 –> 01:33:16,105
I find that stuff funny. But clever,

1461
01:33:17,045 –> 01:33:20,885
visually clever. And it’s really the visual visual clever thing that I’m

1462
01:33:20,885 –> 01:33:24,645
looking for. Yeah. Visual cleverness. But then you compile it

1463
01:33:24,645 –> 01:33:28,389
into music and gags and the words, the

1464
01:33:28,389 –> 01:33:31,690
writing itself, when it’s working on all of those levels,

1465
01:33:32,550 –> 01:33:36,309
then you’ve got me. I mean, I’m suckered in. I’m I’m in. I’m

1466
01:33:36,309 –> 01:33:39,670
in there. And and if it’s not Yeah. So tell me how that relates back

1467
01:33:39,670 –> 01:33:43,375
to Midsummer Night’s Dream. So here’s how this relates all back to A Midsummer

1468
01:33:43,375 –> 01:33:47,135
Night’s Dream. The

1469
01:33:47,135 –> 01:33:50,975
Midsummer Night’s In Midsummer Night’s Dream, to

1470
01:33:50,975 –> 01:33:54,770
your point. And actually, you raised the point. Shakespeare was trying

1471
01:33:54,770 –> 01:33:57,830
to transmit culture here. And I think cartoons,

1472
01:33:59,570 –> 01:34:03,110
do transmit culture. They are cultural transmission

1473
01:34:05,010 –> 01:34:08,724
tools. Right? Like memes. And this is why also I

1474
01:34:08,724 –> 01:34:12,565
think you probably it’s the third reason why you probably couldn’t get this to

1475
01:34:12,565 –> 01:34:15,605
happen today, a Looney Tunes kind of thing to happen today, because we all live

1476
01:34:15,605 –> 01:34:18,664
in meme culture now. I can I can transmit

1477
01:34:19,045 –> 01:34:22,160
multiple ideas in a meme

1478
01:34:22,460 –> 01:34:26,140
of I don’t know? Pick your fame

1479
01:34:26,300 –> 01:34:30,080
oh, oh, I’ll pick a famous meme here. The the dog in

1480
01:34:30,300 –> 01:34:34,140
the, in the house that’s on fire and he’s drinking in one

1481
01:34:34,140 –> 01:34:37,074
panel, and then the next panel, it’s like everything’s fine. Right? He goes, oh, everything’s

1482
01:34:37,074 –> 01:34:40,434
fine here. Like, you can you can send that meme to

1483
01:34:40,434 –> 01:34:44,114
somebody these days, and it operates at multiple levels Yeah.

1484
01:34:44,275 –> 01:34:47,954
Inside of their experience. And then they can send it to

1485
01:34:47,954 –> 01:34:51,474
somebody else. They can sit Yeah. So now we’re contextualizing, and that’s what Looney Tunes

1486
01:34:51,474 –> 01:34:55,130
did so brilliantly. And that, of course, when A Midsummer Night’s Dream does,

1487
01:34:55,130 –> 01:34:58,590
it contextualizes it for individuals so they can transmit

1488
01:34:59,050 –> 01:35:02,730
it around. Now in the time of Shakespeare, they were

1489
01:35:02,730 –> 01:35:06,495
transmitting those ideas around via purely language because you couldn’t take

1490
01:35:06,495 –> 01:35:10,175
the actors with you and do the visuals. But in our

1491
01:35:10,175 –> 01:35:13,395
time, we can take the visuals, we can take the words.

1492
01:35:14,335 –> 01:35:18,175
It’s gonna be really interesting when memes can add music musical clips

1493
01:35:18,175 –> 01:35:20,675
to memes. That’s going to be really interesting,

1494
01:35:21,740 –> 01:35:25,500
because there’s gonna be musical gags going on people’s phones, like,

1495
01:35:25,500 –> 01:35:27,980
all of the time. And you already started to see this with GIFs a little

1496
01:35:27,980 –> 01:35:31,420
bit, you know, animated GIFs. But when you can put music on top of that

1497
01:35:31,420 –> 01:35:35,065
thing, I’ll forget it. Like, it’s gonna be ridiculous.

1498
01:35:36,745 –> 01:35:40,425
And it’s that multiple levels that we’ve layered

1499
01:35:40,425 –> 01:35:43,405
in to our culture how we transmit

1500
01:35:43,785 –> 01:35:47,005
ideas. And it’s become global, which is also awesome.

1501
01:35:47,750 –> 01:35:51,350
And so a meme, or an idea that

1502
01:35:51,350 –> 01:35:55,050
works in a Western context can now work in a global context

1503
01:35:55,110 –> 01:35:58,870
as well. A Midsummer Night’s Dream kicks all of that off. That’s my point

1504
01:35:58,870 –> 01:36:02,324
with bringing up all of this. It kicks all of it off, and Looney Tunes

1505
01:36:03,344 –> 01:36:06,405
and memes all tie into that,

1506
01:36:07,105 –> 01:36:10,165
at a, at a amazing

1507
01:36:10,945 –> 01:36:14,625
layered level. I’m doing it all with, like I

1508
01:36:14,625 –> 01:36:18,219
said, low comedy and wordplay. So

1509
01:36:18,380 –> 01:36:21,120
which, again, I I I appreciate it. Sounds

1510
01:36:22,699 –> 01:36:26,320
good. Appreciate a good meme and a good comedy,

1511
01:36:28,780 –> 01:36:32,565
for sure. Yes. Alright. Back to the book. We’re

1512
01:36:32,644 –> 01:36:36,184
we got around the corner here. We talked to I’ve talked to I’ve rambled coherently

1513
01:36:36,324 –> 01:36:38,905
about the movie twos. We might have to cut some of that.

1514
01:36:40,164 –> 01:36:43,545
No. No. No. Oh, don’t. That’s really it’s really good stuff.

1515
01:36:44,920 –> 01:36:48,140
Back to the play, back to A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

1516
01:36:48,520 –> 01:36:52,060
the Folger Shakespeare Library version

1517
01:36:52,120 –> 01:36:54,460
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

1518
01:36:56,440 –> 01:36:59,515
So let me go to act 3.

1519
01:37:00,135 –> 01:37:03,275
And in act 3, scene 2,

1520
01:37:04,375 –> 01:37:06,315
we’re going to pick up with

1521
01:37:08,295 –> 01:37:12,020
well, with the king of the fairies. We’re going to pick up with Oberon

1522
01:37:12,159 –> 01:37:15,760
and Robin Goodfellow, where Hock or

1523
01:37:15,760 –> 01:37:19,360
Robin Goodfellow, reports to Oberon about Titania and

1524
01:37:19,360 –> 01:37:22,420
Bottom, the guy with the ass on his head.

1525
01:37:23,360 –> 01:37:26,995
And then Demetrius is going to enter, and

1526
01:37:26,995 –> 01:37:29,575
Oberon is going to find out that, well,

1527
01:37:32,115 –> 01:37:35,795
well, fuck screwed up. And so we’re going to

1528
01:37:35,795 –> 01:37:39,475
figure out what happens when, well, when you don’t do what

1529
01:37:39,475 –> 01:37:43,210
you are supposed to do. Alright. Back to the book, back to the

1530
01:37:43,210 –> 01:37:46,570
play, back to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act

1531
01:37:46,570 –> 01:37:50,170
3, scene 2. Enter Oberon, king of the

1532
01:37:50,170 –> 01:37:53,929
fairies. Oberon. I wonder if Titania be awake. Then what was it that next

1533
01:37:53,929 –> 01:37:57,745
came into her eye, which she must dote on in extremity? Enter

1534
01:37:57,745 –> 01:38:01,344
Robin Goodfellow. Here comes my messenger. How now, mad

1535
01:38:01,344 –> 01:38:04,885
spirit? What night rule about this haunted crow? Robin.

1536
01:38:05,265 –> 01:38:08,945
My mistress was a monster is in love, near to her close and concentrated bower

1537
01:38:08,945 –> 01:38:12,705
while she sleeps in her dull and sleeping hour. A crew of matches rude

1538
01:38:12,705 –> 01:38:13,205
mechanicals,

1539
01:38:16,440 –> 01:38:20,200
that work for bread upon Athenian stalls were met together to rehearse a

1540
01:38:20,200 –> 01:38:23,640
play intended for great Theseus’ nuptial day, the

1541
01:38:23,640 –> 01:38:27,160
shallowest skin of that barren sore who Pyramus presented in their

1542
01:38:27,160 –> 01:38:30,945
sport pursuit had seen and entered in a break. When I did

1543
01:38:30,945 –> 01:38:34,725
him at his advantage take, had asked noll, I fixed on his head,

1544
01:38:34,785 –> 01:38:38,485
anon must be answered, and forth my mimic comes,

1545
01:38:38,785 –> 01:38:42,305
when they him spy as wild geese that creeping fowler eye or

1546
01:38:42,305 –> 01:38:46,000
russet patchychos manian sort, rising and clawing at

1547
01:38:46,000 –> 01:38:49,620
the gun’s report, thither themselves and madly sweep the sky,

1548
01:38:49,840 –> 01:38:53,520
let his sight away his fellows fly. And at our stand up

1549
01:38:53,520 –> 01:38:57,280
here, Orinor, when falls, he murder cries, and help for Athens

1550
01:38:57,280 –> 01:39:01,025
calls, Their senses thus weak, lost with their fears thus

1551
01:39:01,025 –> 01:39:04,405
strong, made senseless things begin do them wrong.

1552
01:39:04,785 –> 01:39:08,545
For briars and thorns at their apparel snatch. Some leaves,

1553
01:39:08,545 –> 01:39:12,245
some hats, some yielders, all things catch. I led them on this distracted

1554
01:39:12,305 –> 01:39:16,090
fear and left sweet Paramus translated there. When in that

1555
01:39:16,090 –> 01:39:19,870
moment, so it came to pass, Titania wake and straightaway loved

1556
01:39:20,410 –> 01:39:24,090
an ass. Oberon, this falls

1557
01:39:24,090 –> 01:39:27,765
out better than I could devise. But has thou yet latched the Athena’s

1558
01:39:27,765 –> 01:39:30,905
eyes with the love juice just as I bid thee do?

1559
01:39:31,925 –> 01:39:35,765
Robin, I took him sleeping. That is finished too. And the Athenian woman

1560
01:39:35,765 –> 01:39:39,285
by his side. That, when he waked, a force she

1561
01:39:39,285 –> 01:39:43,060
must be eyed. Enter Demetrius

1562
01:39:43,200 –> 01:39:46,560
and Hermaiah. Hermia, Oberon, stand

1563
01:39:46,560 –> 01:39:50,260
close. This is the same Athenian. Robin, this is the woman,

1564
01:39:50,560 –> 01:39:54,285
but not this the man. Then

1565
01:39:54,285 –> 01:39:57,745
they step aside and then shenanigan.

1566
01:39:59,485 –> 01:40:03,325
Shenanigans. As

1567
01:40:03,325 –> 01:40:06,385
Puck has to undo what he did.

1568
01:40:09,270 –> 01:40:12,410
When we think about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when we think about

1569
01:40:12,710 –> 01:40:16,250
Shakespeare’s writing, and when we think about the power of

1570
01:40:17,030 –> 01:40:20,790
how we can learn from this play as a

1571
01:40:20,790 –> 01:40:24,614
leader, One of the big things that we have to take, I think, or several

1572
01:40:24,614 –> 01:40:28,315
of them, one of the big things we have to take from this play

1573
01:40:29,094 –> 01:40:32,855
is the idea that there are things that are floating around

1574
01:40:32,855 –> 01:40:36,550
that we cannot see, like love and lust. And they are

1575
01:40:36,550 –> 01:40:40,150
powerful motivators for us. We’ve talked about

1576
01:40:40,150 –> 01:40:43,830
motivators, with Libby before and how folks can be motivated

1577
01:40:43,830 –> 01:40:47,670
by anger or motivated by pride. But people can

1578
01:40:47,670 –> 01:40:51,405
also be motivated by love, Love of what

1579
01:40:51,405 –> 01:40:55,244
they are doing, love of a show, like I was just talking about Looney

1580
01:40:55,244 –> 01:40:58,385
Tunes, or even love of another

1581
01:40:58,685 –> 01:41:02,205
person. Love is a many splendored thing, to

1582
01:41:02,205 –> 01:41:05,740
paraphrase again from Shakespeare, and it is a thing that motivates

1583
01:41:05,800 –> 01:41:09,400
us. We also need to fall in love with our

1584
01:41:09,400 –> 01:41:13,160
culture. We need to fall in love with the ways in which our culture

1585
01:41:13,160 –> 01:41:16,780
is transmitted, whether that be through words

1586
01:41:17,240 –> 01:41:20,994
or through visual means. And

1587
01:41:21,534 –> 01:41:24,915
culture is one of the another one of those things that we cannot see.

1588
01:41:25,454 –> 01:41:29,135
Culture is the handmaid of civilization. It walks

1589
01:41:29,135 –> 01:41:32,815
hand in hand. If civilization were male culture would be female and they

1590
01:41:32,815 –> 01:41:36,510
walk hand in hand creating all of us

1591
01:41:36,510 –> 01:41:39,170
and turning us all into, well,

1592
01:41:40,030 –> 01:41:43,470
productive human beings. And then of course for

1593
01:41:43,470 –> 01:41:46,830
leaders the last thing that they could take from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is how

1594
01:41:46,830 –> 01:41:50,614
to love a good gag, how how to actually loosen up and, laugh at

1595
01:41:50,614 –> 01:41:54,135
things because there’s more things that are humorous than there are

1596
01:41:54,135 –> 01:41:57,974
things that are un humorous or that are tragic in

1597
01:41:57,974 –> 01:42:01,195
this world. And even tragedy, by the way, can be turned

1598
01:42:01,620 –> 01:42:05,380
sometimes into comedy. Not to dismiss the depth of the

1599
01:42:05,380 –> 01:42:08,980
tragedy, but actually to elevate people around it so that they can

1600
01:42:08,980 –> 01:42:12,420
overcome it. As I round the corner here with

1601
01:42:12,420 –> 01:42:16,199
Libby, what are your final thoughts on what leaders can grab

1602
01:42:16,775 –> 01:42:19,835
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream? One of your favorite

1603
01:42:20,455 –> 01:42:22,075
Shakespeare plays.

1604
01:42:26,135 –> 01:42:29,755
Actually, it’s all about having Levitti in a, like, Levitti

1605
01:42:30,770 –> 01:42:31,750
in in the workplace.

1606
01:42:34,610 –> 01:42:38,370
I I, you know, I remember working very,

1607
01:42:38,370 –> 01:42:41,730
very late nights. I was, you know, a consultant with the big four for many

1608
01:42:41,730 –> 01:42:45,170
years, and there was nothing funnier than Harvey

1609
01:42:45,170 –> 01:42:46,395
Balls at midnight.

1610
01:42:51,014 –> 01:42:54,074
You know, we all had, you know, boyfriends, girlfriends,

1611
01:42:54,375 –> 01:42:58,054
spouses to go home to, but, like, there was nothing

1612
01:42:58,054 –> 01:43:01,290
more funny at midnight than Harvey Balls.

1613
01:43:01,430 –> 01:43:04,010
Mhmm. And, you know, it’s always about,

1614
01:43:05,910 –> 01:43:09,670
bringing in, you know, mischievousness or fun and not taking

1615
01:43:10,150 –> 01:43:12,185
you know, when you’re in the grind,

1616
01:43:14,565 –> 01:43:17,925
when you have tight deadlines and, you know, and you believe

1617
01:43:17,925 –> 01:43:21,685
passionately about what you’re doing for your client and you want your team

1618
01:43:21,685 –> 01:43:24,905
to be successful, never forget to have

1619
01:43:25,590 –> 01:43:29,350
fun. And you see that, like, with the special ops teams. Those

1620
01:43:29,350 –> 01:43:32,870
guys give each other a hard time every single

1621
01:43:32,870 –> 01:43:36,710
day. It’s constant ribbing and riffing, but that’s

1622
01:43:36,950 –> 01:43:39,690
that releases pressure and tension, and it’s

1623
01:43:40,565 –> 01:43:44,325
fun. Don’t forget the art of fun and stop taking

1624
01:43:44,325 –> 01:43:47,465
things. I think results matter.

1625
01:43:48,885 –> 01:43:52,645
Challenge matters. Like, don’t it’s not about passivity and not

1626
01:43:52,645 –> 01:43:56,120
caring, but it’s about being able to have fun in the in the

1627
01:43:56,120 –> 01:43:59,880
moment. Yeah, in all

1628
01:43:59,880 –> 01:44:03,719
of life. And it’s about what it really is always about love. Right? Always

1629
01:44:03,719 –> 01:44:06,760
about love. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your

1630
01:44:06,760 –> 01:44:10,335
life. I believe that that’s that’s probably one of the

1631
01:44:10,335 –> 01:44:14,175
more overused motivational phrases, in entrepreneurship and

1632
01:44:14,175 –> 01:44:18,015
in leadership, but it is true. The

1633
01:44:18,015 –> 01:44:21,635
challenge is, of course, is in a world of option multiple options,

1634
01:44:21,775 –> 01:44:25,560
high optionality, or not even high optionality,

1635
01:44:25,860 –> 01:44:29,620
a lot of options, a lot of choices. How do you find what you love?

1636
01:44:29,620 –> 01:44:33,060
But once you find that thing, then you stick with it. Right? And you gotta

1637
01:44:33,060 –> 01:44:36,420
have humor with it. You gotta have you gotta enjoy what you’re

1638
01:44:36,420 –> 01:44:39,905
doing. Gotta be able to ramble for, like, 20 minutes about Looney Tunes. Not

1639
01:44:39,905 –> 01:44:42,965
enough not enough people like the the challenge.

1640
01:44:43,345 –> 01:44:46,945
Like, find the love of solving new

1641
01:44:46,945 –> 01:44:50,489
problems and the challenge that goes with that. Yeah. You know?

1642
01:44:50,489 –> 01:44:54,270
And that, to me, is really about love because it’s about helping

1643
01:44:54,650 –> 01:44:58,090
wanting to elevate everyone. You know, rise the ocean. Yeah. If you ink

1644
01:44:58,170 –> 01:45:01,389
yeah. Raise the ocean, all boats will rise.

1645
01:45:01,530 –> 01:45:04,989
Mhmm. You know, falling in love with solving problems.

1646
01:45:05,265 –> 01:45:08,945
Right? Yes. Like, that is fun. It’s hard. That’s why a lot of

1647
01:45:08,945 –> 01:45:12,785
people just sit back and and judge how someone, you know,

1648
01:45:12,785 –> 01:45:16,545
solved a problem rather than do it. It’s just like, yeah. Fuck with

1649
01:45:16,545 –> 01:45:19,860
the challenge. Right. It’s hard as he

1650
01:45:20,719 –> 01:45:24,480
heck. But that’s fun, and too many

1651
01:45:24,480 –> 01:45:28,239
people have, you know, I don’t know what I

1652
01:45:28,239 –> 01:45:31,140
think they think love of work,

1653
01:45:31,715 –> 01:45:34,935
means art or, like, you know, soft

1654
01:45:35,475 –> 01:45:39,235
stuff that’s been intellectualized as, things

1655
01:45:39,235 –> 01:45:42,835
that we should love. But Mhmm. Yeah. But what’s the end

1656
01:45:42,835 –> 01:45:46,550
result and being you know, and and loving that whole process

1657
01:45:46,550 –> 01:45:49,610
and making sure that whole process works for everyone?

1658
01:45:52,309 –> 01:45:55,770
We do there’s so many landmines that we always end up tripping on,

1659
01:45:56,710 –> 01:45:59,864
when you wanna say, you know, to let everyone be,

1660
01:46:00,324 –> 01:46:04,005
make sure something works for everyone. It’s you know, there’s gotta be tough love, and

1661
01:46:04,005 –> 01:46:07,445
there’s gotta be we know what our constraints are, and we can’t be everything to

1662
01:46:07,445 –> 01:46:11,045
everyone. But, you know, doing your darndest to

1663
01:46:11,045 –> 01:46:14,550
create an environment for everyone to thrive based on their

1664
01:46:14,550 –> 01:46:18,330
different, yeah, wants and needs and skills, but, you know,

1665
01:46:18,470 –> 01:46:22,310
providing, you know, being able to make tough decisions that

1666
01:46:22,310 –> 01:46:26,070
may be uncomfortable for folks because you know that long

1667
01:46:26,070 –> 01:46:29,775
term result is what matters and where

1668
01:46:29,855 –> 01:46:32,114
you know, and and we’re heading for.

1669
01:46:33,614 –> 01:46:35,875
But too many too many people

1670
01:46:37,375 –> 01:46:40,974
want the, yeah, want the satisfaction today, and they’re not

1671
01:46:40,974 –> 01:46:44,560
willing to do the hard work. Fall in love

1672
01:46:44,560 –> 01:46:47,380
with the outcomes of hard work.

1673
01:46:48,480 –> 01:46:51,900
Yeah. Yeah. No. I I agree with that. How

1674
01:46:52,480 –> 01:46:56,260
do we bring that back to you miss our ice cream?

1675
01:46:58,645 –> 01:47:02,005
I think we’ll leave it there. I think I think it’s a combination for

1676
01:47:02,005 –> 01:47:05,844
me. It’s, not over index. This is where

1677
01:47:05,844 –> 01:47:09,385
balance always comes in and thinking about how ecosystems require,

1678
01:47:09,980 –> 01:47:13,820
you know, dark and light. Yeah. It requires good

1679
01:47:13,820 –> 01:47:17,199
and bad, seriousness and fun.

1680
01:47:17,580 –> 01:47:21,340
Mhmm. But also objective and

1681
01:47:21,340 –> 01:47:25,185
subjective. That’s subjective. You know, so balancing an objective reality with

1682
01:47:25,505 –> 01:47:28,405
an ephemeral one. You know? Allowing the dreams

1683
01:47:29,265 –> 01:47:33,025
to be, but not over indexing too much on the dream world or over

1684
01:47:33,025 –> 01:47:36,645
indexing too much on reality. On reality. No. Yeah.

1685
01:47:36,705 –> 01:47:39,850
No. Yeah. I agree with that. No. Well,

1686
01:47:40,630 –> 01:47:44,230
well, once again, I would like to thank Libby Younger for coming on the podcast

1687
01:47:44,230 –> 01:47:47,370
today. This is always pleasure as usual.

1688
01:47:48,070 –> 01:47:51,850
And please go check out the older Shakespeare library

1689
01:47:51,910 –> 01:47:55,345
version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, fall in

1690
01:47:55,345 –> 01:47:57,685
love with well, fall in love with Shakespeare.

1691
01:47:59,265 –> 01:48:03,105
It’s a challenge. It is a challenge. And if but if you’re gonna be as

1692
01:48:03,105 –> 01:48:06,705
challenging as you will, you will fall in love with. And with

1693
01:48:06,705 –> 01:48:09,845
that, well, oh, we’re out.