July 7, 2025 • 19 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: author of The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, the recent Everything is Tuberculosis, and more, John Green!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. This one
is in honor of our guest today, the wonderful writer
and YouTuber John Green. John's last name, as you might
have noticed, is a color green. Of course, he's not
the only notable Green. There's also actor Seth Green, singer
Al Green. But there are also a whole bunch of
(00:21):
notable people who are green tinted. So they're not named green,
but their names are synonyms for shades of green or
types of green. For instance, you got Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oil,
Olive a shade of green. You got Kate Moss, the
venerable supermodel, whose last name is a shade of green,
Moss Green. So today's mini puzzle is, can you come
(00:44):
up with some famous people whose names are shades of green?
Could be their first name, could be their last name.
I'll give you a hint to one famous green tinted person,
which is an actress in several Hitchcock movies, who became
a Princess of Monaco, and more puzzling goodness after the break,
(01:09):
Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the Puzzler Podcast. The Bathing
Machine at your Victorian Seaside Puzzle Resort. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I am here with Chief puzzle Officer
Greg Pliska. Greg. Before the break, we asked listeners to
come up with notable people with green tinted names. Anyone
occur to you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Your example is Grace Kelly, of course, Kelly Green exactly.
I thought of Harry.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Lyme, who is Wow played by Orson Wells in the
Third bab Man and Forrest Whitaker and Forrest gum Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Look at that he came through. He came through. I
had to look up Harry line, but that is the
only line I could find. There's also Army Army Green,
Army Hammer. But enough said about him. But in the meantime,
we have an actual Green with us. And what a
green he is. I have been a huge fan for
(02:07):
a long time. He wrote the novel The Fault in
Our Stars. He's a YouTuber, a podcaster. He has a
new nonfiction bestseller called Tuberculosis Is Everything. Welcome, John Green,
So good to be with you. Ah, we are delighted.
We have so much to talk about and puzzle about.
First of all, though I believe it's fair to say
(02:27):
that you are a word puzzle fan, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
No, I do wordle every day. I do spelling be
every day. I do various other word puzzles. Like a
lot of writers, I know, I'm fascinated by language on
its own. You know, I don't need language to mean
anything for me to get a big kick out of it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Me too. And actually, one of the things I love
is that you're a fan of anagrams, and you were
the first one who taught me that Britney Spears can
be rearranged into Presbyterian.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
That's absolutely right, Presbyterians PLURALI believe plural.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yes, you're right, not Britney Spears.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah, but I have to say I was taught that
I did not naturally discover that. I have not spent
hours anagramming Britney Spears's name, But I am fascinated by anagrams.
I wrote about them a lot in my book and
Amplendants of Catherine's. It was great fun to have an
excuse to write anagrams. And the most fun part of
writing that book for me was that I dedicated it
to my wife, Sarah Eurist Green, with a twelve line poem,
(03:26):
each line of which was an anagram of her name.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was amazing. Yeah, using rare hurts.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I remember, yeah, look at that now.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And by the way, you said something lovely about anagrams,
the loveliest thing I've ever seen. I don't know if
you remember it. I can nudge your memory if you will.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean, I haven't read that book in twenty years, AJ,
so please nudge my memory.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
All right, here comes the nudge you taught. You said,
we tend to think of language as an immovable object,
but the anagram's remind us language can be twisted and molded,
it's not static, and that it shapes our memories. Our
memories are also malleable, which is super important.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, I know. That's something that I try to write
about a lot. Actually, is that we think of memory
as being this infallible tool that we have as humans,
but in fact, every time we recall something, we're recalling
it a new exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You also wrote an amazing new book, Tuberculosis is Everything,
which does have puzzle elements, and it's a very serious puzzle.
How do we solve the puzzle of tuberculosis, which remains
the deadliest disease on planet Earth, even though we have
a cure, which is outrageous.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It is crazy, It is crazy. It is wild. The
book is actually called Everything is Tuberculosis. You've inverted it,
You've anagrammed it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Oh, thank you for that kind way to frame it.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
But no worries on that front. It's both called it
could equally be called Tuberculosis is Everything, because my wife
always says that for me, everything is about tuberculosis, and
tuberculosis is about everything. So I could have titled it
either way. But you know, tuberculosis is a curable disease.
It's been curable since the nineteen fifties, and yet it
remains our deadliest infection, and that conundrum, how do we
(05:08):
get to a world where we, for the first time
in human history, are living in a world where our
deadliest infection is also a curable one. It celebrates what's
good about humanity, which is that we are incredibly good
at developing innovations to fight disease, and also what's terrible
about humanity, which is that we don't always do a
good job of distributing those cures to the places where
(05:28):
they're most needed. So I wanted to write about that.
I also wanted to have a good time, though, you know,
Horace said that poetry should delight and instruct So I
also wanted to have some delight in there writing about
the way that we used to romanticize tuberculosis, all the
things that tuberculosis gave us, from the cowboy hat to
the Adirondack chair. So I hope that the book can
be both and rather than either of or.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It is indeed delightful and just for people who haven't
read it, break that down. You tell how for tuberculosis
gave us the cowboy hat.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah. So there was this hat maker in New Jersey
named John B. Stetson who was withing his life until
he got tuberculosis and was told, like so many other
people were, that he had to go west to try
to save his health. He went west. He ended up
in Missouri, and he was one of the very lucky
few who recover spontaneously from tuberculosis for reasons we still
don't fully understand. Some people just get better on their own.
(06:22):
And he got better, and as he got better, he
noticed that the hats out west kind of sucked. They
had straw hats brought up from folks in Mexico and
Texas that didn't do particularly well in the rain. They
had coonskin caps that were literally bug infested, and so
John B. Stetson went ahead and invented the Stetson hat.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
All right, thank you, mister Stetson, And you are able
to connect tuberculosis too, every like New Mexico Archduke Fransford
Nand's assassination Tim Burton's cartoon style. Since this is a
podcast about puzzles, can I give you a topic and
see if you can connect it spontaneously to tuberculosis? Is
(06:58):
that fair?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
To do our best? But no promises?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
All right, no problem. Well what about someone I mentioned
in the introduction, Kate Moss, the super Mile?
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Oh, I mean absolutely, there's no question. Kate Moss was
sort of in the vanguard the revanguarding of the heroin
chic it was called, but before that it was called
consumptive chic. This idea that very frail, small human bodies
were desirable or attractive was a huge part of the
(07:28):
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century beauty standards, because consumption
was heavily romanticized, and it was seen as a disease
that made you beautiful. And part of how it made
you beautiful was by giving you rosy cheeks, and so
people would wear rouge on their cheeks, and part of
it was by giving you very wide eyes, so people
would apply belladonna to their eyelids. And part of it
was that it shrunk your body, It consumed your body,
(07:49):
and so this very small bodies became romanticized, and in
some ways we still live with those beauty standards.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That is so bizarre and so baz our trying to
look like you have a deadly disease. It's like that's
a goal.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
It's very weird. But if you think about it, a
lot of our beauty standards are very weird from the outside,
somewhat arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, well done, you did it, you passed the test.
Now I think it's a good time to get to
the actual puzzle, which is in honor of your book.
Everything is tuberculosis, not tuberculosis is everything. And we have
a puzzle about the word everything. It's called nothing to everything.
We have phrases that normally contain the word nothing, but
(08:34):
I want you to change them to phrases that contain
instead the word everything, because I feel you're more of
an everything person than a nothing person.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Oh that's nicey to say, Well I feel it strongly.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So instead of much ado about nothing, the new phrase
would be much doe about everything. So and I would
give you a clue, Like for that, I would give
you a clue. This is a Shakespeare play about a
kerfluffle curfluffle kerfuffle, one of those involving all topics under
the sun. So a Shakespeare play about everything has much
ado about everything. So that's the premise.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
I'm excited. I also I love the idea of much
ado about everything. That describes my relationship to anxiety.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is more accurate.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Can be anxious about any possible subject.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I can. It's one of my.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Guests, like connecting the tuberculosis. All right, this is a
Judy Bloom young adult book about the most popular kid
in elementary school.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Okay, so we've got reckle juice, We've got wait oh yeah,
you got it right, Yeah, Tales of a fourth grade everything.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You got it correctly, well done. And I know that
you are a fan. You met Judy Bloom once, if I.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I have met Judy Bloom a few times, and she
is just the loveliest person in real life that you
can imagine. One of my all time favorite Judy Bloom
quotes is that we were with a bunch of ya
authors who were being very you know, flattering and talking
about how much Judy Bloom meant to them, and you know,
of course, she means a lot to all of us.
(10:21):
She's part of the reason why we have a job,
let alone, having raised us through her amazing books. And
so we were, you know, prattling on and on about
how great Judy Bloom was, and finally she said, I'm
tired of being an icon.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Well I did also read that she kissed you on
the cheek. I don't want to get I don't want
you to kiss.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
You, just kiss me on the cheek, which was a delight.
I have to say, all.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, I've got another one for you. This everything phrase
is uttered when Michael Jordan's basketball shot hits the rim,
hits the backboard, the floor of the post, but does
not go in.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Everything. Wait mm hmm, I think I have it. You've
got everything part everything but net.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
That's it, everything but net. How about a phrase in
which this everything phrase is about a place where there's pepper, pollen, dust,
all sorts of other substances in that area. Dander hm hmm.
It's something that pepper might make you.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Do, might make you sneeze.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's it. You got word. Now take the other word
that you know is in it.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Everything sneezes.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Oh, that's interest.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It's like a phrase that has nothing to do with
what he's talking about. It's a phrase and nothing meaning.
That's that's something it does important, not something trivial.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
That's right in the phrase itself.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Oh everything everything, I've got it, I got it, I
got it, I got it. Everything to sneeze at.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
That's it, everything to sneeze at. Yes, I went literal
with that one, mostly because I wanted to talk about
Pepper and your thoughts on doctor Pepper.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I am a huge enthusiast for doctor Pepper. I write
about it in my book The Anthropisine Reviewed because I
love it that much. I wrote an entire essay about
doctor Pepper, the history of incredible history of doctor Pepper.
What I love so much about doctor Pepper. And thank
you so much for asking this question, because you've engaged
the only passion, perhaps in my life, deeper than my
passion for tuberculosis. Doctor Pepper does not have a real
(12:40):
world analog. It's not like sprite with that lemon lime taste.
It's not like mountain dew that's citrusy. It's not like
a cola that distensibly tastes like cola, nuts and vanilla.
It is a taste that was created from the mind
of a chemist, doctor Charles Alderton, who wanted to create
a flavor that humans would love. It is literally an
engineered for our taste buds, and that is what makes
(13:02):
it so magical to me. It is not from the
real world. It is from the artificial world. I once
had a meeting with doctor Pepper and they were like,
will you make some tiktoks about us? And I was like, no,
that's boring. But what I do. What I would like
to do is give you marketing advice. And my marketing
advice is to lean into the radical artificiality of your
flavor profile. And it was a very short call.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I love it. Yes, no natural flavors, all artificial, all artificial. Well,
I remember reading somewhere that when the King of England
first saw I think it was Saint Paul's cathedral, he said, oh,
it's so artificial, but he vented as a compliment because
it's all about artifice, and like, can you believe what
he did?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I'm going to add agent I'm also a huge flamed
Doctor Pepper. John favorite soft drink easily. And I particularly
love that it has no period.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Love.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
He has no period after doctor Oh without the period.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Right, it's Dr Pepper love it. It is spelled without
the period, which is a curious trademark choice. There have
been periods at various times in Doctor Pepper's history, but
for the last like sixty years, it's been all no
period after the doctor Oh.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Interesting, Well, I remember reading I think it was the
Wall Street Journal used to have a period at the
end of their masthead, and then they stopped and they
saved like a million dollars an ink traveling. Apocryphal, but
that was the truth, all right. Last one for you, drawn,
last one is this is this everything phrase is a
line from a speech that FDR gave when he was
(14:33):
feeling super pessimistic.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
We have everything to fear, but fear itself.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Exactly, we have everything to fear. Don't fear fear, but
everything else. And well done, you've got them all.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Again as a great phrase for my anxiety. Everything to fear,
including fear itself.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
You have two new catchphrases yourself. Well, before we go,
I have one quick. I was gonna do the phrase
thanks for nothing and make it thanks for everything, because
I do want to tell a quick story that demonstrates
scientifically what a mensch John Green is. Are you ready?
(15:18):
It's like a minute long and you can interrupt with
your own point of view. But I wrote a book
a few years ago where I tried to thank a
thousand people who had anything to do with my morning
cup of coffee. And there was a high school girl
in California who read my book and decided to do
her own project about gratitude. So she decided to write
(15:39):
letters to everyone who had anything to do with her
favorite book, The Fault in Our Stars. So she wrote
thank you notes to the cover designer, the folks who
made the paper, and of course the author John Green. Now,
as you know, John has millions of fans, so it
was a little hard to know if the thank you
note ever got to him. But since I know John
a little bit, I forwarded her thank you note to John,
(16:02):
and a couple of weeks later, John wrote this girl
a thank you note to her thank you note, and
she called me when she got it, and she was
so excited she was literally shaking, like physically shaking. And
John's note was not just like hey, thanks, it was
three pages long, super thoughtful. It was all about how
(16:24):
this girl's note inspired John to thank some of the
people in his life, including his publicist who's on the
call right now, his editor. So many people work on
a book, and while the author gets most of the credit,
books benefit so much from collaboration. I'll give you one
example of what I mean. In the first draft of
The Fault in Our Stars, the book ended with Hazel
(16:44):
and Van Houghton teaming up to try to kill a
drug dealer. I wish I was kidding, but this is
really the ending that I wrote. My editor Julie was like, well,
this is a lovely little book until, for no particular reason,
two of the characters decide to commit murder. So thank
you John for that note, for that thought, for that letter.
(17:07):
Are we ever going to see the version with that
alternate ending?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Absolutely not. That is just for me and Julie. It
was such a bad ending, but it speaks to how
hard it is to end a book and how much
you do depend upon collaborators and cooperation, just as this
show depends upon producers and editors and folks working to
publicize it and share it. Like everything that we make,
(17:33):
that feels like the work of one person is inevitably
a collaboration. Even if you are the only person participating
in the publishing process, it's still a collaboration because you're
still working with every book you've ever read and every
story you've ever been told. And so we live in
this deep web of community, which is what I love
so much about your book about thanking people.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Oh well, thank you for thanking me. And also, folks
pick up his new book, which is amazing. Everything is
Tuberculosis because also it's all about how we can all
work together to eradicate this. It really will stir you
to action. Luckily, John is coming back tomorrow to puzzle.
(18:13):
I have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This everything phrase is what Oscar Wilde said when he
arrived in America but was feeling kind of stupid. That's
what he told customs when he arrived in America, but
he wasn't feeling all that smart. The answer to that
(18:34):
next time. And we've got John Green coming back. And
in the meantime, you should check out our Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers, because we got original puzzles. There more puzzling.
So we'll meet you here tomorrow. For even yet more
puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you Puzzling
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. This one
is in honor of our guest today, the wonderful writer
and YouTuber John Green. John's last name, as you might
have noticed, is a color green. Of course, he's not
the only notable Green. There's also actor Seth Green, singer
Al Green. But there are also a whole bunch of
(00:21):
notable people who are green tinted. So they're not named green,
but their names are synonyms for shades of green or
types of green. For instance, you got Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oil,
Olive a shade of green. You got Kate Moss, the
venerable supermodel, whose last name is a shade of green,
Moss Green. So today's mini puzzle is, can you come
(00:44):
up with some famous people whose names are shades of green?
Could be their first name, could be their last name.
I'll give you a hint to one famous green tinted person,
which is an actress in several Hitchcock movies, who became
a Princess of Monaco, and more puzzling goodness after the break,
(01:09):
Hello puzzlers, Welcome back to the Puzzler Podcast. The Bathing
Machine at your Victorian Seaside Puzzle Resort. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I am here with Chief puzzle Officer
Greg Pliska. Greg. Before the break, we asked listeners to
come up with notable people with green tinted names. Anyone
occur to you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Your example is Grace Kelly, of course, Kelly Green exactly.
I thought of Harry.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Lyme, who is Wow played by Orson Wells in the
Third bab Man and Forrest Whitaker and Forrest gum Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Look at that he came through. He came through. I
had to look up Harry line, but that is the
only line I could find. There's also Army Army Green,
Army Hammer. But enough said about him. But in the meantime,
we have an actual Green with us. And what a
green he is. I have been a huge fan for
(02:07):
a long time. He wrote the novel The Fault in
Our Stars. He's a YouTuber, a podcaster. He has a
new nonfiction bestseller called Tuberculosis Is Everything. Welcome, John Green,
So good to be with you. Ah, we are delighted.
We have so much to talk about and puzzle about.
First of all, though I believe it's fair to say
(02:27):
that you are a word puzzle fan, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
No, I do wordle every day. I do spelling be
every day. I do various other word puzzles. Like a
lot of writers, I know, I'm fascinated by language on
its own. You know, I don't need language to mean
anything for me to get a big kick out of it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Me too. And actually, one of the things I love
is that you're a fan of anagrams, and you were
the first one who taught me that Britney Spears can
be rearranged into Presbyterian.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
That's absolutely right, Presbyterians PLURALI believe plural.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yes, you're right, not Britney Spears.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah, but I have to say I was taught that
I did not naturally discover that. I have not spent
hours anagramming Britney Spears's name, But I am fascinated by anagrams.
I wrote about them a lot in my book and
Amplendants of Catherine's. It was great fun to have an
excuse to write anagrams. And the most fun part of
writing that book for me was that I dedicated it
to my wife, Sarah Eurist Green, with a twelve line poem,
(03:26):
each line of which was an anagram of her name.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was amazing. Yeah, using rare hurts.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I remember, yeah, look at that now.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And by the way, you said something lovely about anagrams,
the loveliest thing I've ever seen. I don't know if
you remember it. I can nudge your memory if you will.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean, I haven't read that book in twenty years, AJ,
so please nudge my memory.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
All right, here comes the nudge you taught. You said,
we tend to think of language as an immovable object,
but the anagram's remind us language can be twisted and molded,
it's not static, and that it shapes our memories. Our
memories are also malleable, which is super important.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, I know. That's something that I try to write
about a lot. Actually, is that we think of memory
as being this infallible tool that we have as humans,
but in fact, every time we recall something, we're recalling
it a new exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You also wrote an amazing new book, Tuberculosis is Everything,
which does have puzzle elements, and it's a very serious puzzle.
How do we solve the puzzle of tuberculosis, which remains
the deadliest disease on planet Earth, even though we have
a cure, which is outrageous.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It is crazy, It is crazy. It is wild. The
book is actually called Everything is Tuberculosis. You've inverted it,
You've anagrammed it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Oh, thank you for that kind way to frame it.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
But no worries on that front. It's both called it
could equally be called Tuberculosis is Everything, because my wife
always says that for me, everything is about tuberculosis, and
tuberculosis is about everything. So I could have titled it
either way. But you know, tuberculosis is a curable disease.
It's been curable since the nineteen fifties, and yet it
remains our deadliest infection, and that conundrum, how do we
(05:08):
get to a world where we, for the first time
in human history, are living in a world where our
deadliest infection is also a curable one. It celebrates what's
good about humanity, which is that we are incredibly good
at developing innovations to fight disease, and also what's terrible
about humanity, which is that we don't always do a
good job of distributing those cures to the places where
(05:28):
they're most needed. So I wanted to write about that.
I also wanted to have a good time, though, you know,
Horace said that poetry should delight and instruct So I
also wanted to have some delight in there writing about
the way that we used to romanticize tuberculosis, all the
things that tuberculosis gave us, from the cowboy hat to
the Adirondack chair. So I hope that the book can
be both and rather than either of or.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It is indeed delightful and just for people who haven't
read it, break that down. You tell how for tuberculosis
gave us the cowboy hat.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah. So there was this hat maker in New Jersey
named John B. Stetson who was withing his life until
he got tuberculosis and was told, like so many other
people were, that he had to go west to try
to save his health. He went west. He ended up
in Missouri, and he was one of the very lucky
few who recover spontaneously from tuberculosis for reasons we still
don't fully understand. Some people just get better on their own.
(06:22):
And he got better, and as he got better, he
noticed that the hats out west kind of sucked. They
had straw hats brought up from folks in Mexico and
Texas that didn't do particularly well in the rain. They
had coonskin caps that were literally bug infested, and so
John B. Stetson went ahead and invented the Stetson hat.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
All right, thank you, mister Stetson, And you are able
to connect tuberculosis too, every like New Mexico Archduke Fransford
Nand's assassination Tim Burton's cartoon style. Since this is a
podcast about puzzles, can I give you a topic and
see if you can connect it spontaneously to tuberculosis? Is
(06:58):
that fair?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
To do our best? But no promises?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
All right, no problem. Well what about someone I mentioned
in the introduction, Kate Moss, the super Mile?
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Oh, I mean absolutely, there's no question. Kate Moss was
sort of in the vanguard the revanguarding of the heroin
chic it was called, but before that it was called
consumptive chic. This idea that very frail, small human bodies
were desirable or attractive was a huge part of the
(07:28):
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century beauty standards, because consumption
was heavily romanticized, and it was seen as a disease
that made you beautiful. And part of how it made
you beautiful was by giving you rosy cheeks, and so
people would wear rouge on their cheeks, and part of
it was by giving you very wide eyes, so people
would apply belladonna to their eyelids. And part of it
was that it shrunk your body, It consumed your body,
(07:49):
and so this very small bodies became romanticized, and in
some ways we still live with those beauty standards.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That is so bizarre and so baz our trying to
look like you have a deadly disease. It's like that's
a goal.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
It's very weird. But if you think about it, a
lot of our beauty standards are very weird from the outside,
somewhat arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, well done, you did it, you passed the test.
Now I think it's a good time to get to
the actual puzzle, which is in honor of your book.
Everything is tuberculosis, not tuberculosis is everything. And we have
a puzzle about the word everything. It's called nothing to everything.
We have phrases that normally contain the word nothing, but
(08:34):
I want you to change them to phrases that contain
instead the word everything, because I feel you're more of
an everything person than a nothing person.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Oh that's nicey to say, Well I feel it strongly.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So instead of much ado about nothing, the new phrase
would be much doe about everything. So and I would
give you a clue, Like for that, I would give
you a clue. This is a Shakespeare play about a
kerfluffle curfluffle kerfuffle, one of those involving all topics under
the sun. So a Shakespeare play about everything has much
ado about everything. So that's the premise.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
I'm excited. I also I love the idea of much
ado about everything. That describes my relationship to anxiety.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is more accurate.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Can be anxious about any possible subject.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I can. It's one of my.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Guests, like connecting the tuberculosis. All right, this is a
Judy Bloom young adult book about the most popular kid
in elementary school.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Okay, so we've got reckle juice, We've got wait oh yeah,
you got it right, Yeah, Tales of a fourth grade everything.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You got it correctly, well done. And I know that
you are a fan. You met Judy Bloom once, if I.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I have met Judy Bloom a few times, and she
is just the loveliest person in real life that you
can imagine. One of my all time favorite Judy Bloom
quotes is that we were with a bunch of ya
authors who were being very you know, flattering and talking
about how much Judy Bloom meant to them, and you know,
of course, she means a lot to all of us.
(10:21):
She's part of the reason why we have a job,
let alone, having raised us through her amazing books. And
so we were, you know, prattling on and on about
how great Judy Bloom was, and finally she said, I'm
tired of being an icon.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Well I did also read that she kissed you on
the cheek. I don't want to get I don't want
you to kiss.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
You, just kiss me on the cheek, which was a delight.
I have to say, all.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, I've got another one for you. This everything phrase
is uttered when Michael Jordan's basketball shot hits the rim,
hits the backboard, the floor of the post, but does
not go in.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Everything. Wait mm hmm, I think I have it. You've
got everything part everything but net.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
That's it, everything but net. How about a phrase in
which this everything phrase is about a place where there's pepper, pollen, dust,
all sorts of other substances in that area. Dander hm hmm.
It's something that pepper might make you.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Do, might make you sneeze.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's it. You got word. Now take the other word
that you know is in it.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Everything sneezes.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Oh, that's interest.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It's like a phrase that has nothing to do with
what he's talking about. It's a phrase and nothing meaning.
That's that's something it does important, not something trivial.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
That's right in the phrase itself.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Oh everything everything, I've got it, I got it, I
got it, I got it. Everything to sneeze at.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
That's it, everything to sneeze at. Yes, I went literal
with that one, mostly because I wanted to talk about
Pepper and your thoughts on doctor Pepper.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I am a huge enthusiast for doctor Pepper. I write
about it in my book The Anthropisine Reviewed because I
love it that much. I wrote an entire essay about
doctor Pepper, the history of incredible history of doctor Pepper.
What I love so much about doctor Pepper. And thank
you so much for asking this question, because you've engaged
the only passion, perhaps in my life, deeper than my
passion for tuberculosis. Doctor Pepper does not have a real
(12:40):
world analog. It's not like sprite with that lemon lime taste.
It's not like mountain dew that's citrusy. It's not like
a cola that distensibly tastes like cola, nuts and vanilla.
It is a taste that was created from the mind
of a chemist, doctor Charles Alderton, who wanted to create
a flavor that humans would love. It is literally an
engineered for our taste buds, and that is what makes
(13:02):
it so magical to me. It is not from the
real world. It is from the artificial world. I once
had a meeting with doctor Pepper and they were like,
will you make some tiktoks about us? And I was like, no,
that's boring. But what I do. What I would like
to do is give you marketing advice. And my marketing
advice is to lean into the radical artificiality of your
flavor profile. And it was a very short call.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I love it. Yes, no natural flavors, all artificial, all artificial. Well,
I remember reading somewhere that when the King of England
first saw I think it was Saint Paul's cathedral, he said, oh,
it's so artificial, but he vented as a compliment because
it's all about artifice, and like, can you believe what
he did?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I'm going to add agent I'm also a huge flamed
Doctor Pepper. John favorite soft drink easily. And I particularly
love that it has no period.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Love.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
He has no period after doctor Oh without the period.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Right, it's Dr Pepper love it. It is spelled without
the period, which is a curious trademark choice. There have
been periods at various times in Doctor Pepper's history, but
for the last like sixty years, it's been all no
period after the doctor Oh.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Interesting, Well, I remember reading I think it was the
Wall Street Journal used to have a period at the
end of their masthead, and then they stopped and they
saved like a million dollars an ink traveling. Apocryphal, but
that was the truth, all right. Last one for you, drawn,
last one is this is this everything phrase is a
line from a speech that FDR gave when he was
(14:33):
feeling super pessimistic.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
We have everything to fear, but fear itself.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Exactly, we have everything to fear. Don't fear fear, but
everything else. And well done, you've got them all.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Again as a great phrase for my anxiety. Everything to fear,
including fear itself.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
You have two new catchphrases yourself. Well, before we go,
I have one quick. I was gonna do the phrase
thanks for nothing and make it thanks for everything, because
I do want to tell a quick story that demonstrates
scientifically what a mensch John Green is. Are you ready?
(15:18):
It's like a minute long and you can interrupt with
your own point of view. But I wrote a book
a few years ago where I tried to thank a
thousand people who had anything to do with my morning
cup of coffee. And there was a high school girl
in California who read my book and decided to do
her own project about gratitude. So she decided to write
(15:39):
letters to everyone who had anything to do with her
favorite book, The Fault in Our Stars. So she wrote
thank you notes to the cover designer, the folks who
made the paper, and of course the author John Green. Now,
as you know, John has millions of fans, so it
was a little hard to know if the thank you
note ever got to him. But since I know John
a little bit, I forwarded her thank you note to John,
(16:02):
and a couple of weeks later, John wrote this girl
a thank you note to her thank you note, and
she called me when she got it, and she was
so excited she was literally shaking, like physically shaking. And
John's note was not just like hey, thanks, it was
three pages long, super thoughtful. It was all about how
(16:24):
this girl's note inspired John to thank some of the
people in his life, including his publicist who's on the
call right now, his editor. So many people work on
a book, and while the author gets most of the credit,
books benefit so much from collaboration. I'll give you one
example of what I mean. In the first draft of
The Fault in Our Stars, the book ended with Hazel
(16:44):
and Van Houghton teaming up to try to kill a
drug dealer. I wish I was kidding, but this is
really the ending that I wrote. My editor Julie was like, well,
this is a lovely little book until, for no particular reason,
two of the characters decide to commit murder. So thank
you John for that note, for that thought, for that letter.
(17:07):
Are we ever going to see the version with that
alternate ending?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Absolutely not. That is just for me and Julie. It
was such a bad ending, but it speaks to how
hard it is to end a book and how much
you do depend upon collaborators and cooperation, just as this
show depends upon producers and editors and folks working to
publicize it and share it. Like everything that we make,
(17:33):
that feels like the work of one person is inevitably
a collaboration. Even if you are the only person participating
in the publishing process, it's still a collaboration because you're
still working with every book you've ever read and every
story you've ever been told. And so we live in
this deep web of community, which is what I love
so much about your book about thanking people.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Oh well, thank you for thanking me. And also, folks
pick up his new book, which is amazing. Everything is
Tuberculosis because also it's all about how we can all
work together to eradicate this. It really will stir you
to action. Luckily, John is coming back tomorrow to puzzle.
(18:13):
I have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This everything phrase is what Oscar Wilde said when he
arrived in America but was feeling kind of stupid. That's
what he told customs when he arrived in America, but
he wasn't feeling all that smart. The answer to that
(18:34):
next time. And we've got John Green coming back. And
in the meantime, you should check out our Instagram feed
at Hello Puzzlers, because we got original puzzles. There more puzzling.
So we'll meet you here tomorrow. For even yet more
puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you Puzzling
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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