August 7, 2019 • 56 mins
Former Stuff to Blow Your Mind producer and host of the podcast Ephemeral drops in for a chat about the media of yesteryear and related topics. Listen in and learn more at www.ephemeral.show
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick. And boy, we got a treat for
you today. We are joined by our friend and our
former producer on this very show, Alex Williams. Say Hi, Alex,
(00:26):
reformed producer. What's going on? Man? Oh, you know, just
hanging out? What's what's up with you? Well? You know
we're we're just having a bonus episode in your honor.
That's what's going on here. Jeez. Thanks. Right before we
got going, we were sitting around talking about Riddick movies
for how long, I don't know. It was a while.
I was mostly listening because I hadn't seen the movie
(00:47):
in question, or any of the Riddeck movies. No, you're
here for a reason today, Alex, to tell us about it.
Oh uh, because of Ephemeral. I have a podcast called Ephemeral.
It's really good, folks, Yes it is. It's it's very
very exciting podcast because it's it's really unlike any podcast
I've listened to before, um in terms of its subject matter,
(01:08):
but also in terms of just like the high production
qualities that you bring to it. Oh, thank you. You
guys did a very nice time when you did. You
did the trailer, you put the trailer out in your
feed I think when it first came out, and you
did very nice endorsement then too about the audio quality,
which I thought was very sweet, So thank you. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that the outer quality is wonderful. But but
(01:28):
more but more important though, is the topic of dealing
with these ephemeral bits of media. Can you just you know,
speak to everybody who might not be familiar with the show,
they haven't checked it out, or maybe they didn't catch
the trailer drop. What are we talking about when we're
talking about the way that um Sarah Wasserman is the
Material Culture Studies uh A professor of Material Culture Studies
(01:52):
at the University of Delaware. The way that she sort
of differentiates what ephemera from other kinds of you know,
disposable things, junk trash, is that if Emira takes some
kind of curation, someone has to do some active saving
for it to to continue to exist, something like Winnebago Man.
(02:14):
Are familiar with Winnebago Man, of course, Well, I listened
to your episode where you deal with Winnebego Man. Yeah,
he's the guy who is there outtakes of him trying
to record a TV commercial for Winnebagos. Is it a
dealership or a new model or something. I think it's
a dealer's ship. It's like the eighties VHS. The guy's
name is Jack Rebney and he's just getting so frustrated
(02:37):
on this day's shoes, complaining about how hot it is,
and he's just swearing continuously, just f this s than everything.
And uh, I guess he really piste off the crew
because they cut together this video of him, you know,
all of the worst moments, I guess in this sort
of compilation. Now, this is way twenty years before plus
(03:00):
twenty six maybe years before YouTube. Uh, and this compilation
video survived all this time, you know, just you know,
would just get you know, Oh you you might like
this thing, so I dubb it for you on VHS.
Robert might like it, so you dubb it for him
on VHS. It even aired on public television. This is
show cold. I guess was bleeped. I don't know. I
(03:22):
haven't been able to find the copy of it that aired.
I mean maybe that's the version that we have on
YouTube now. Um there's a show called The Show with
No Name out of in Austin, Texas that aired just
weird clips like things that are someone on savory sometimes
like James James Brown being arrested. Things like that when
James Brown he was doing a talk show and he
(03:43):
was uh he drugs or something. He seemed to be
in an altered state. Things like that that you know,
we're all there's tons and tons of him on YouTube now.
I think we've we've talked before about everything is terrible?
Is is a show on you What's it's a YouTube
channel and it goes beyond YouTube. But they do a
lot of this where it's it's clips from films and
(04:07):
like old like like weird Christian VHS tapes and either
the kind of stuff that would just otherwise just be
completely we just fall through the cracks of history. But
you know, they keep it alive so that weekend, you know,
find pleasure in it and laugh at it. Why is
it that instructional training videos makes such fertile like ephemeral media.
(04:32):
You know, I'm just making a supposition, but I think
maybe because they're made sort of for such a narrow
audience and often with such little money. Uh, I can
just go onto archive dot org. There's or there's a
great site called the A V Geeks that just curate
that kind of stuff, old industrials and educational films and
p s A S. I can just get lost on
(04:54):
the rabbit hole of that stuff. It's so so bad
and so good well because I guess like if you
no skill goes into it, or like just a very
small amount of skill like that in and of itself
can be amusing. But then you have an instructional video
like the famous shake Hands with Danger, which has fantastic
and just almost the borderline offensive. Um, you know, graphic
(05:18):
special effects for industrial injuries taking place, and you know
it's out of keeping with the very amateur aspects of
the rest of the production. Oh, it's like the the
old high school chemistry lab safety videos that everybody loves
so much, which just would they had the special effects
for like shoving the broken glass speaker into your hand.
And so I think, yeah, all of that in at
(05:40):
least this particular definition. It's like those things all would
very easily because they you know, maybe because of the
narrow audience or because of maybe a bunch of different
reasons would not stand the test of time unless someone
only because somebody said, hey, this is different, this is
(06:00):
this is for some reason worth saving. Right, Yeah, Well
that's interesting to think about, Like what are the evolutionary
traits in media that allow certain pieces of media to
survive whereas most other pieces of ephemeral media from their
time fade away. It seems like a very strong, uh
criterion of selection is like ironic comedic value. But it can't.
(06:24):
But it can't be just that, right, There are other
things that cause a piece of you know, what you
would have thought would be ephemeral media to get saved, right,
I mean, like what are There's some things I know
you've talked about where you you uh you talked about
like old home recordings that aren't particularly funny or anything.
They just have a kind of soothing sonic quality to
them that you can't stop listening to. Am I right
(06:45):
about that? Sometimes they certainly are funny, But yeah, I
mean I have really um, the very first couple of
minutes of the pilot episode of this that I pitched
it with, and that is the first epis just called
pilot in the in the feed. Uh is it's about
a hundred and sixteen seconds. I think of just a
(07:06):
family recording that we don't know any of the people.
And there's an Uncle Jack and there's a little girl
named Gail, and uh does it talk about shoes? Do
you remember that show Uncle Jack your shoes? There's a
little boy named Brian and there it's it's it's it's
so unique because there, I mean, it was an actual
moment in time, right, it was an actual people gather
around a living room or a kitchen or something, not
(07:26):
from a movie or anything. No, no, no, it's just
a it's it's it was a real to real that
this um, this collector named Bob Purse, who just for
you know, his own personal interest and to share them
with other people, goes to giant antique sales and you know,
a femork also all kinds and buys anything that's like
unlabeled or is you know, has an interesting description on it,
(07:50):
or it's just interesting. And someone looks old real to
real tape specifically other things too acetates Home record at
seventy eight of all kinds of odds and ends, but
specifically real and really to tape is what he's zeroed
in on um and so this real, real tape probably
from the sixties, AH, thought to be recorded around when
(08:12):
that Illinois I guess, or yeah, when Neck Illinois I
think is right because it's because of I guess of
where he bought it. Ah. That's this yes, specific moment
where the uncle Jack has brought over his tape recorder
to this family and the kids are going trying to
get kids to say there, you know, say words on it,
you know, tell them about the school that goes to
(08:33):
and the friends they have, and the little girls shy
at first, but then she opens up a little bit
and then the little kid, Brian, they're trying to get
him to kind of say some of his first words,
but he, of course won't because kids never do when
you try to put the microphone in their face and
now perform and starts shooting on the tape recorder. And
it's just a little tiny tape that's not all that
different than lots of other, you know, tapes, but it
(08:55):
is like this one family, it's this real moment that
we just have of Ye. I think I think part
of the appeal of that that cliff is just how
how how honest it feels like you just there's no
doubting that this is a you know, an echo from
from the past, from this actual family moment. And and
then at the same time it is it is kind
(09:15):
of haunting, like in a good way, like that that
kind of like you know, nostalgic haunting feeling that we
get when we listen to something that is either an
an actual fragment of media history or if something or
if we have something like say, you know, instantly think
of the music say Boards of Canada, that that are
able to channel that level of sonic nostalgia and have
(09:39):
the same effect on us. It's this isolated bubble of
unself conscious joy that is infectious because it doesn't feel
like a performance, which is funny because I guess it
is a performance. I mean, the very thing is that
they had the tape recorder running, But it doesn't feel
like the kind of performance were used to, the kind
of like a professional performance. We were not the intended audience, yeah,
(10:01):
you know it was the family was the intended audience.
And uh and and here it has escaped it. It's
kind of like a voyager probe, right, like leaving the
solar system and being picked up by some other force.
There's certainly magic and it I mean and I hear
that in all kinds. I mean, the the last episode
that we did of the season's the ten parts seasons
(10:21):
all out now, uh, the last episodes called taped over,
and we play family recordings from my family, my wife's family,
my best friends family and uh our producer and producer
and an ephemeral uh Matt Frederick who you know from
stuff I don't want you to know and other things. UM,
really fascinating take. He has a his grandfather recorded his mom,
(10:46):
Matt's mom and and Matt's uncle on a dick to
belt in which is incredibly early to have a home
recording from because recording technology was just mostly in professional settings,
you know, until really the sixties, when real to reel
became much you know, cheaper, and people could afford to
(11:07):
get them in their homes. Um, and it's the same,
it's it's uh, that's grandfather trying to get first words
from his mom. And mom of course like doesn't want
to play along because she's a baby and she's not
gonna perform just because you put a microphone in front
of her, starts crying, starts batting, the microphone around. I
this last weekend, I was with my my nieces and
(11:30):
nephews from Phoenix. They were over here and I was
visiting with them, and I had this old tape recorder
from the eighties and I was showing them how to
use it. And instantly there, you know, I can sometimes
not get them to look away from a screen, you know,
and they just they have a different childhood than we had.
But instantly, yes, they say, you know something in the
(11:51):
tape recorder, the shots they don't want to perform. I
let them hit the buttons, rewind it back. See the
tape has been hit play and they hear themselves say
you know, hi, I'm Brooks Savit or whatever. And they're
mesmerized and they don't want to they don't want to
put it down. You know. It's like, you have to
be careful this, this is an old thing from the eighties.
You have to you have to give it a little
bit of a more grace than you know, maybe your
(12:13):
iPad that's, you know, got this fancy case on it.
But I I think that there is I think there
is real magic and something like that. And so I
don't know if it's intrinsic in the analog media itself,
or if I'm just nostalgic for it, or if it's
some kind of combination of those things. But there is
(12:35):
there's something there that cuts across. I guess that's what
I'm trying to say. Now, you had a pre existing
interest in all of this, of course, I wonder is
there is there a particular piece of of of ephemera
that kind of you know, inspired you to put together
the show? And then is there an example of a
piece of a femor that you discovered in putting the
show together that really struck a chord with you? Lots um?
(13:01):
But that that first tape that show Uncle Jack your shoes,
those hundred and sixteen seconds were there what the show
is built around? The whole show? Uh? You know, our
producer Tristan McNeil and I were at a bar after
work one day pitching ideas back and forth because we
knew we wanted to do something, and Uh, I was like, well,
I know this this tape in this collector Bob purse,
and there's something there and so it was kind of
(13:22):
trying to put my finger on that I might still
be working on that part of it, and then your
other question is something you discovered like some bit of
a him or that emerged that that that you it
was new to you during the production of the series.
It's been so much new to me. Um. One of
the most interesting UH has been learning about the Dumont
Television network, so at the very beginning of television when
(13:45):
it kind of gets out of his experimental phase and
goes commercial, which is basically like right at the end
of World War two. Um, there's four networks, just for
four networks and you know that get little affiliates all
over the country and three them are still around ABC, NBC, CBS,
and the fourth was Dumont, and Dumont was just maybe
(14:06):
a little bit more low budget. It was kind of
punk rock and just wacky stuff. I mean, early TV
was really wacky because it was all live and they
were shows and stuff. There were some puppet shows. Yeah,
they were you know, figuring out a lot of the things.
And some of the things that got figured out on
Dumont are are you know, translate to today. I mean,
(14:28):
they were the first network to do daytime television because radio.
Those are the three companies were all radio companies. ABC, NBC, CBS.
All radio companies had big daytime radio soap operas and
they didn't really want to cut into that business that
had been paying their bills for a long time. But
Dumont was the first network that went into that daytime
(14:49):
broadcast because like, we don't have any income coming in there,
and we're ready to take our color patterns down off
the screen and put something on. And so, you know,
they had a show called Okay Mother, a show for moms,
you know, you know, certainly couched in the gender attitudes
of the time. UM that was you know, pretty similar
(15:12):
to something that you would see like the Today's Show
or something now live studio audience playing you know, games,
giving away prizes, bringing on guests and sort of just
light goofy energy to it. Um. So, you know, to
to wrap up the two months, I meant, they were
(15:33):
on the there for just a decade, something like twenty
thousand broadcasts or hours of broadcast and I think three
d or so individual episodes have survived, mostly held by
like individual collectors like maybe someone who's you know relative
worked at Dumont, or you know, the National Archives, uh,
(15:59):
the Museum of televi and of Radio maybe has a
few of them, and most of it's just gone. It's
just gone because it was there was no there real
there was no recording then, and it wasn't even meant
to last forever. The only way that they could record
it was doing something making a kinescope, which is you
take a film camera and you film the screen that's
(16:20):
playing the television. And the only reason they would do
that is so they could take that film, candle this
film cans and send it to you know, their California
affiliate or something that wasn't connected to the Coaxio cable.
And even those they wouldn't really save because there was
no reruns back then, right, there was no intention to
reuse that. So it's just that active curation someone saying,
(16:41):
you know, either by choice or by accident, hey, I'm
gonna hold onto this that we get to see any
of it, and kind of dip our toes into that
that moment of history. Well you also get a sense,
I mean, no wonder if you'd think, like, did the
creators not even think of it really as a an
artistic product, I mean something that they would want to
be remembered. It was something more like to fill time.
(17:04):
I think there's a mix, and I think, yeah, I
think that's one of the inherent things in television. Probably
there's certainly were um artists and very creative people. I
mean Jackie Gleeson got his break on Dumont for instance,
a fascinating shows that they did, a show that was
all it was called The Plain Clothes Men and all
(17:27):
told from the perspective of a detective like from his eyes, yeah,
town live single camera shot, yeah, and you see his
hands and it's you know, zoom in on a bullet
hole on the wall, or hold a piece of paper
and take a magnifying glass and pull out of single
line what and that's all lives. They'd have to stage
(17:50):
all of that out in advance so that they could
know where to go and win. Well, it was all
live to a point, so almost all of it was live,
but then they would play out sometimes they would the
way to a sequence that actually what edited. It was
an early example of putting editing on television because editing
wasn't a thing on early television. But yeah, primarily that
show was all told live. And there's one episode left
(18:11):
and it doesn't circulate. It's in the uh Museum of
Television radio. I'm hoping to make my way up there
at some point and see it. I've just seen a
little clip of it. You know. I think back just
on the television from like my childhood and especially junior high.
You know where you're you're videotaping a lot of television,
and I remember like painstakingly removing commercials. Uh. And then
(18:34):
other times just you know, you were you were recording
a movie you have, you went to bed or something,
so you just let the commercials, you know, take place,
and inevitably, I think like taped over and or loss
or destroyed all those tapes and and and now I
would I would love to just be able to like
sit down and watch say an episode of Mystery Science
Theater three thousand from the nineties with all the commercials,
(18:57):
just so I could experience that again. Uh, the bumpers
on stuff like the Sci Fi Channel, you know, it's
like that's those little details are are some of the
things you grow the most most doubt and nostalgic for.
You know, I watched the first time I ever watched
Star Trek. The Next Generation was my My dad was
a is and I think I inherit a lot of
this from him a archivist, you know, tape at all,
(19:21):
label at all. Yeah, you know, uh, and he still
has a closet full of VHS types that are just
sort of degrading there because I mean, uh, the the
experience you describe with like cutting out the commercials is
something that I don't think you're younger listeners probably will
relate to it all because it's just such a it's
such a relic of the past. But that was an
(19:42):
important thing then, because it was this feeling like not
only am I taping uh the like the television edited
version of Aliens, but but I am going to preserve
it forever, and so the cut has to be flawless. Wait,
so did you think do you do the thing where
you stopped recording while it was recording when the commercial
(20:02):
came on? You thought, positive, recording while the commercial was
on and then unposit When I remember, I was so
proud of myself that I had put together on one tape.
So since it was on one tape, it must have
been in the terrible low quality extended play mode on
the tapes. But I got the entire Star Wars trilogy
with all the commercials removed from from one time when
(20:24):
it aired on T N T or something like that,
and uh and I was like, this is that I
have done such good work here and I wore that
tape out. Oh God, that that's another thing, just the
wearing out of the tape, like the quality. One of
my favorite films still one of my favorite films, but
one of my favorite films growing up was was Jim
Hinson's Labyrinth and our copy we watched it so many
(20:46):
times that it it was like damaged and we had
to get repaired. I I didn't even know how that
was the thing, but we took the tape, somebody repaired it,
and it just sound warped forever. But now when I
watched like a Labyrinth off of streaming service or something,
or off of DVD, it's just not the same because
it's not warped and weird. Like the audio quality I
(21:07):
grew used to uh so in in the effemeray that
you've looked at in the show, like how much is
the decay and how much is it about the the
errors in the quality? Oh? I mean yeah, I'm an
audio I'm an audio file. I'm a total audio gig.
I mean specifically for like low five stuff, I've always
collected old toy tape recorders and stuff like that. So yeah,
(21:30):
the artifacts, that stuff is a gold mine for a
sound designer. I mean, just if you can find cracks
and records and skips and things and warps and sounds
dumping and leaping, and I love all that stuff. This
comes back to something that we've talked about on the
show a good bit before, like when we talk about say,
(21:51):
historical sites of interest, you know, like an ancient temple
or something like that that is deteriorating due to the
elements or all that, Like, um, should you restore things
like that? Or or if you know, the modern world
has come to know an ancient temple in its partially
deteriorated and dilapidated state, should you just allow it to
(22:13):
continue deteriorating or should you try to freeze it as
it was at a certain point in time and say, Okay,
all the deterioration up to this point will allow, but
deterioration after that we want to prevent or I can't
remember if we I said allowing to deteriorate or restoring,
but it seems like in any case, you're no matter
(22:34):
which choice you make, you're like exerting your will on
on on on the form it takes. And the same
thing happens with media totally. Like I mean, media changes
over time, It collects artifacts, it collects changes, it collects glitches. Um,
and I wonder, well, one thing I wonder I guess
is are we losing that quality in the digital world.
(22:55):
M hmm, it's sorry, terrible tangent. There's just no, there's
just a lot there, uh, losing in the digital world.
I mean the safe answer is yes, because we're losing
most things in the well No, I just mean, like
(23:16):
I mean, obviously there's like a huge thing where like, um,
there there's so much great ephemeira from the ancient world.
You know that like a huge part of how we
know about the past is from like capturing bits of
ephemera and interesting things, like you know, when you get
a copy of an ancient manuscript that's a thousand years old,
you might not even know what the original text in
(23:38):
the manuscript was because it's got things written in the
margins on it, and you don't know if that's supposed
to be part of the text that was the Perpendicularly
over the other talents, we have an older episode of
stuffable in mind about that, yeah, and and so like
and and they didn't realize at the time that, like,
you know, whatever mong in, you know, Prague or wherever it. Like,
(24:03):
I didn't know that his copy of this thing would
be the only copy, would be the only one that
future generations have, and so like they wouldn't be able
to tell if the notes in the margins were supposed
to be part of the text or his own thoughts
about the text or whatever. And uh, and like you
never know, really, you never know if like the copy
that you're holding of something is going to end up
(24:25):
being the copy of reference for future generations, or if
it's just going to fade and be destroyed like most
other things are. The digital world that seems kind of
different because like copies are made at scale, perfectly all
over the place, And I wonder if we're kind of
losing some of that magic because of it. I mean,
it's it's it's twofold at least, right. Uh, there is
(24:49):
a way in which something physical analog is much more concrete.
I mean, you can the lifespan of it. You can say,
oh my, I can see the yellowing pages of this book,
but I can still flip through them, as opposed to
like if a zero in a one get flipped in
the binary code, that thing's gone. Uh you know, if
(25:12):
it's uploaded in some cloud service that gets hacked, it's gone. Uh.
So there's a way in which analog things I hate
to say permanent, because I don't think anything is permanent, particularly,
I think everything has transience at a different scale. Yeah,
that's that's how you start feeling if you look at
(25:34):
it too much, at least me. Um. But there's a
way that that material thing feels a lot like it
has more launchevy to me than the digital thing, which
is maybe contrary to the way that uh, you know,
I saw it before that it's easiest to see it.
I mean, I'll tell you one of the one of
the great things about more and more things being digitized,
(25:57):
because not everything is digitized, far from it, right, Uh,
But like this show where we do I don't know,
I've never counted, but like a hundred and fifty cues
an episode of different sound bites and pieces of weird
old movies and little audio clips and all things small
over the place would not it would be next to impossible,
(26:17):
were very very difficult in um an analog time where
I'm like, I have wax cylinders in there, all kinds
of all kinds of media that you know, imagine the
library that we'd have to have here in the I
heard offices for us to pull something like this off,
but I can you know, it can just be you know,
a dude sitting at his desk going archive dot org
(26:39):
and uh, you know various other places. So I mean,
I think that's pretty amazing. I'd love to, you know.
I was just when we're saying, oh, the monk didn't
know that this would be the one copy. I was thinking,
what if Joe's perfect copy of the Star Wars trilogy
was the one copy that we had then? No, I
think about that kind of thing sometimes, but I mean
I think that would be unlikely. Now there's so many
(27:00):
digital copies and they're all over the place. But yeah,
your copy to YouTube, Okay, I mean maybe doing you know,
because well you know, another great example to go to
go even to Star Wars is And this combines with
the thing you were talking about, like a femeral TV
broadcast when you watch the Star Wars Holiday special. I
assume you've seen it. I have, Yeah, I have thanks,
(27:20):
Thanks Dad. The Star Wars Holiday Special is that you know,
Star Wars is the biggest movie in the world, and
you know it's the biggest media sensation ever. And then
they're like, well, let's do a TV special. But the
TV special is just phoned in and you almost get
the sense that it's well, not the animated The animated
(27:40):
short that introduced a Bubba fet to the world is fabulous,
like this French animation style. You're right about that, but
I mean, like the main part of it, like the
actors are staring at the floor, they're just waiting for
any basically a Star Wars theme variety show exactly. Uh.
And it's great fun to watch now for all these
(28:01):
great ephemeral qualities and to see the old commercials and
all that. But that's one of the great things. Like
even the version you get through riff tracks is it
can it retains the commercials, that's part. And but they
have to specify which one because like there weren't many
recordings of it available. They never officially distributed it, Like
you know, Lucasfilm wasn't like here come by the Star
(28:22):
Wars Holiday Special. You had to get it from a
copy made from some version that somebody taped off of
TV and like Minnesota or somewhere, and uh and I
think there were a few versions in circulation, but I
don't know if those people thought that like their version
they were taping off of TV with the local commercials
they were seeing, would be like the would be the
(28:44):
version that ends up being you know, on riff tracks
that you know, decades later people all around the world
would be watching and laughing at I was gonna say
that with Star Trek the Next Generation, the way that
I first saw it was all taped from Michigan television,
whatever Michigan station it was running on, and every ad
break they had the newscast, the local Detroit newscast every time,
(29:08):
so I would you know, hear whatever was going on
in Detroit in the eighties every time they would cut
to commercial. So I guess, yeah, I I've definitely developed
a love for that early on. That's in the Star
Wars Holiday special to where they've got the throws like
teasing the later local news things. What do they keep saying,
like fighting the frizzies at eleven. I don't remember that part.
(29:28):
This is a thing about like bad hair days or
something they're gonna have an expert. Come on, well, you know,
let's let's bring it back to h to ephemeral. Though
you have a you have brought a clip with us. Uh.
It's almost like this is the Tonight show and you're
our guest, and so would you like to set up
this clip for our listeners? Sure? So. This is um
Professor of English and Material Culture Studies at the University
(29:50):
of Delaware. I introduced her earlier, Sarah Wasserman. She's basically
I think of her as the ephemer teacher. She's writing
a book called The Death of Things. It's all about
a phemera. You know, I don't. I don't want to
oversimplify her thesis, but the idea of it is that
telling stories about if ema and telling stories that involve
if phemera does more than just showing you a phemera.
(30:12):
It helps fill in the gaps and do more work
to transport you back to that place or time or
whatever thing that you know is lost now. So she
in her book, I think she writes about like They're
Great Gatsby. She references that in here and uh and
a book like El Doctors, World's Fair Books, that piece
(30:33):
of fiction specifically, she's writing about fiction coming from an
English perspective. Um, how works of fiction can use if
ema and intertwine them into their stories. Uh two, help
transport you in time and space. Yeah, I think that's
enough of a setup. Let's listen, Phemera. I think are
(30:59):
especially moving because they seem to have their own life cycle.
They're made, they're born, they enter circulation, they live, and
then they die. We think of things. We think of
matter as being the opposite of mortal. We think of
it as being enduring. We think of it as being
stable and inert. And ephemia have this kind of time scale,
this temporal dimension that makes them seem mortal like us.
(31:24):
I think that's part of the reason that authors find
them meaningful. They can become proxy stand ins for humans
or nations or communities. To make that more concrete, take
an example, New York World's Fair was actually built on
the Valley of Ashes, as Fitzgerald calls it. In the
(31:44):
Great Gatsby five million dollar one land, they transform what
is basically a dump into this bright, shining, gleaming future
city and everyone goes, I mean really everyone in a
way that we can't comprehend today. Everyone goes from Barana,
come Countment, visiting by every mode of travel, every means
(32:05):
of transportation. They arrived to view the marvels of the
greatest ex position in history. You go and you say, oh,
this is the world of tomorrow, this is the world
as it could be. There are all kinds of problems
with the vision that gets staged. I mean racial problems,
nationalistic problems, colonial issues, all sorts of things, but in
that particular instance, people knew that it wouldn't be there.
(32:29):
The fair was a temporary installation, like a carnival set
up in Queens. It was open for two seasons from
April to October, and closed permanently as most of the
participating countries sank into another World war. That experience, knowing
that it's going to be gone feels exhilarating but melancholic
(32:51):
for a lot of people, and so the souvenir craze,
you know, the souvenir boom is huge around that fair
because people want to take something with them so that
when the air is gone, when they're no longer there,
but also the buildings are gone, they have something to
remember it by. The Paris here and the trialon were
the two iconic buildings and they get sort of put
(33:12):
on everything rises above all else, and the circling helocline
that leads even the Paris. There's exhibits. Democracy is the
pathway to the future. One of my favorite super years
is after you came out of Futurama, which was General
Motors Vision and sort of model city of the future,
you would get a little button that says I have
seen the future. Sensational is the Futurama that projects you
(33:36):
into nineteen six the Highways and a Rizon show. You
know that you have this item, this object that's going
to commemorate this event. It almost feels like it's shoring
up against that feeling of mortality. Susan Stewart talks about
the souvenir as an object that you need when an
event is no longer repeatable. So if you go to
(33:58):
your arian and Grande con or, you want the ticket
stuff because you're probably not going to go to another
Ariana Grande show where you're certainly not going to go
to the one in Philadelphia, and so you need an
object because it's not repeatable. Many ephemera are doing that work.
There are kind of saying I was there, I saw
this thing. It's gone now, but I save it, and
(34:20):
that allows me to project myself into the future, to
project myself into the past, to stave off that encounter
with death that might be implicitly happening. Listen to the
(34:48):
rest of this episode and the full first season of
Ephemeral Now. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,
wherever you listen to podcasts, and learn more at Ephemeral
dot Show. All right, well, wow, this is fresh on
(35:27):
everybody's mind. Can you just just tell listeners where they
can find if if fhemeral and uh and also what
the homepages It's Ephemeral dot Show. If you don't spell ephemeral,
just google it. It's easy to find. I had someone
write me a review that was five stars, but the
told me they could not spell it their heady google it.
But I appreciated that. I appreciate that they did that
(35:48):
extra work. But it's not it's not too hard, you know,
to to to find and you know, it's on all
the social media things. Podcasts available anywhere. You can do
it on the I Heart radio app or Apple or
Stitcher or what everything. If you go to the website,
there's like, you know, some images and some links and
a little bit more information, but yeah, easy to find.
All the episodes are out now and uh and our
(36:10):
our future episodes planned. You have some ideas kicking around,
I'm just gonna go ahead and say, yes, we're in
work works on the second season right now, so we're
technically off season right now. We've already released one bonus episode,
which is the full length interview with our lovely producer
Matt Frederick about that old family recording, and lots lots
of other things in between now and then and second
(36:32):
season and hopefully not all that long. It took us
about eighteen months to do the first season, but we
had a lot to figure out and there was a
lot of other stuff going on. So hopefully not quite
that long, but it could be, well, I hope not.
It's it's a really fantastic show. What I've heard of
it I absolutely adore and I can't wait to finish listening. Well,
thank you, Joe. Yeah, I mean it's really it's it's
a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of
(36:54):
podcasts out there. I mean, I mean, I mean, honestly,
I mean, there's there's it's there's a disturbing world we're
living in, and there are a lot of shows that that,
by necessity and sometimes very bravely deal with the disturbing
aspects of of our reality. Uh, but did your show
has a you know, it's it's such a more comforting
(37:14):
feel to it, you know, I can I feel like
I'm I'm settling into like a nice warm glass of
milk when I listened to That's not all rainbows. I
mean there's some there's some darker aspects of human history
and there too, Yeah, but hopefully yeah there. You know,
it's you can listen to it with your kids. I mean,
it's like it's not it's not you know, dirty or anything.
(37:36):
I listened to the first episode with my son in
the car and uh, and he was digging it to
you know, because he can. He's identifying with all this
is a family. I'm listening to a family. Uh, you know,
talk about shoes. That Shoes tape is definitely a hot
cup of tea. It's a good one, man. I love
that one. Yeah. Before we close things out or even
consider closing things out, though, let's talk about William Castle
(37:59):
because because Joe, we're talking about this a little before
the podcast. But Joe and I did an episode about
the Tingler Love the Tangler and yeah, and and so
I'm just happy to have somebody in here who is
a fan of the film. My parents instilled in me
a real love for just creature feature B movies. Uh
and you know, specifically like the work of the Wonderful
(38:22):
Ed Wood, but all kinds of other things and the
original Mystery Science three thousands or Mr. Science Theater three
thousand and all things like that. So, yeah, Tangler, what
Vincent Price, Yeah you have Vincent Price? Uh? Directed by
William Castle and just a yeah, just a really wonderful,
wonderful film in its own right, you know, I mean,
(38:43):
just has such a weird premise and then the gimmick,
the William Castle gimmick of the vibrating uh uh theater
seats I would have loved to have. I don't think
i've you know, short of something like three D I
don't know that I've ever really been to him movie
a theatrical release that had a gimmick as part of it. Ye, Pokemon,
(39:04):
they gave away cards. I went into the Pokemon movie
when that came out. There's certainly some giveaway things that
I went to specifically as a kid, you know, But
that's not like something where you know, there's a a
four D element or you know, some sort of thing
that happened in the theater. Yeah, I don't think I've
ever gotten to experience that with a theatrical release. What
(39:26):
was it that the Scream films postulated was that the
new gimmick in movie theaters would be releasing an actual
murderer into the movie theater. It's a horror movie. Well,
I mean, there's so many things we could have done
with different films, Like take Titanic. They could have missed
the audience with salt water during the final scenes, like
nice cold saltwater. That would have been interesting. Now I
(39:46):
have seen Rocky Horror here in Atlanta at the Plaza,
and they do you know, they're saying, yeah, there's there's
a lot of fun shenanigans that take place, and that's
pretty great. I mean, that's that in it. I have
I love Rocky are and for a number of reasons,
and and I'm I'm perfectly happy to watch it again
and again just straight up without any theatrical shenanigans. But
(40:06):
like that is kind of like the pre mystery Science
Theater three thousand, riffing tradition right there, and uh and
it continues to be like this, this cool kind of
this is kind of like counterculture experience for the movie
going experience that people can partake of, especially like younger
of people. So yeah, I'm glad that Atlanta as a
(40:29):
place where one can still find that. I do think
folks like William Castle, Yeah, I think he was aware
of the sort of you know, the crowd that he
was going for the sort of work he was doing.
But also, you know, I feel exuberants from him and
some of the in in the way that he works,
you know, like we're we are pushing a medium forward,
(40:52):
like we're trying weird things, you know, and in the effort,
in the effort of like you know, driving ticket sales. Right. Well,
one thing I will say about The Tingler is that
it is um it is not a dull movie. I mean,
it is fun and full of energy. I mean, he
was somebody who remembered that movies are supposed to be fun.
(41:12):
There are a lot of people making movies that. I mean, obviously,
not all movies are supposed to be fun. Some movies
are very serious, so they ask challenging questions and all that.
But I see trails all the time for movies that
just do not look fun and exactly like you know,
monster movies. Generally, monster movies are supposed to be fun.
Uh And and he remembered that. I think he was
aware of that, even you know, even schlocky or directors
(41:35):
Roger Corman, I think was aware that monster movies are
supposed to be fun primarily. Uh. So, you know, he
could make Attack of the Crab Monsters and it's like
sixty two minutes long or whatever, and it's kind of
a brisk pace and it's got some googly eyed creatures
and it doesn't get bogged down and uh, you know,
you know, bad depressing, bad feelings like so many horror
(41:57):
movies do these days. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm
I'm seriously being turned off horror. I think I'm it's
like every I keep seeing trailers for things and I'm
just like that just doesn't Maybe it's just me, but
what about Mandy Mandy? Mandy? I enjoyed even though it's
a revenge film, and revenge films aren't really my my
my like my go to franchise, but it was so funny.
(42:19):
It was such a goofy movie. Yeah, and beautiful. I
mean I love the I love Panos's style and the cinematography,
love the music, and well, yeah, ultimately I love that
almost as much as I love Beyond the Black Rainbow,
which is I pulled up as one of my favorites
or something like stranger things like that's a monster movie,
that's or monster idea. I'm sure a movie. Yeah, but
(42:41):
but it's also exceedingly fun. Yeah, And I think that's
one of the the appeals of the It movie that
came out the addiction of the first half of Stephen
King's novel is that, yes, it was terrifying. You had
all these terrifying penny Wise moments, and penny Wise was
fabulously brought to it to life. But yet it found
ways to have have fun with the children in in
(43:05):
in the in the in the in the movie, like
those characters were brought alive in such a you know,
a believable way. There was a Spielbergie and emotionality to it. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Is the Child's Play thing out yet? Yeah, because that's
just that's a tenpole one for me. Like I watched
Child's Play over. I think probably on TV, like the
(43:28):
TV edited broadcast, but I definitely saw all of those
movies all the way, at least up to Bride of
that's the one with Jennifer at Tilly. Did Brad Durro
keep doing the voice? I don't think he's in the
new one, but he was in like all the others.
That would be My main thing is if Brad Dorrith's
not in it, then what what's the point it's But
it's the same folks that did the ITA, Yeah, the reboot? Okay,
(43:51):
well then then I believe maybe I should give it
a shot. I don't know. It's one of the like
where I not all that in many things like reboots,
I feel compelled to see like I have to. But
for whatever reason, Child's plays one of those just like
yeah whatever, Like I guess maybe because the first one
wasn't like that amazing. Maybe it was that it's been
a while so it's got the mom from Seventh Heaven
(44:12):
on it. I think you're not wrong. The only thing
that I feel also compelled to say about The Tingler
before we wrap it up is a vincnent Price's ability
to say ludicrous short lines with just poise and just
really sell it, you know. Well, no, that's one of
(44:33):
the best things about The Tingler actually, is the frequency
with which characters say the words the Tingler, and so
Vincent Price is just constantly saying things like, what do
we know about the Tingler? And they're they're counting off
their knowledge. They're like, we've discovered that there is a
Tingler inside everyone. God. Yeah. One of the things that
(44:54):
amazes me is that it just hasn't It hasn't been remade,
and I've never read any discussion of anyone even adding
to remake it or rebooted or what have you, despite
the fact that the William Castle film immediately preceding it,
The House on Haunted Hill, was of course remade, and
I thought it really fun, uh Haunted House movie. And
then the film immediately after it, Thirteen Ghosts, was also
(45:18):
made into a film, which was maybe a little less solid. Yeah.
I think I saw the movie theater as well, and
it was it was fun, you know, it was a
fun monster movie. Really think that might have suffered from
that sort of early MTV music video vibe too, But
it's been a long time since they saw it. I
remember Roger Ebert's review of the Thirteen Ghosts remake. Just commenting,
(45:40):
he says opened with like, this is certainly one of
the loudest films I've ever seen. Yeah, I think it
had that. It had some jarring cinematography and it for sure,
but it also had f Murray Abraham, so it all
bounces out. Um Man. I could see a remake of
The Tingler that could go either way. You could get
it in the hand to somebody who's a real lover,
(46:01):
who's got the joy and all that. It could also
be a joyless c G I slog with computer animated worms.
But I think if you like leaned into the more
psychedelic aspects of the piece, I think you could make
it work. Because, as we discussed in in our episode,
like it is allegedly the earliest mention of L S
D in a major motion picture. Uh and and I
(46:23):
think that they're there are aspects of its really whackadoodle
plot that that are that are reflected by that. Who
could you recast for the Vincent Price role? Who? Um?
What about Jeremy Irons? Richard Jenkins? Yeah, yeah, he's great
(46:44):
and everything. Yeah, Yeah, Jenkins is solid. Um Ian McKellen
he's probably too old at this death. I know he's done.
I know, but this could be coming back, bringing it
back around, you know, I I have. I'm a little
bit tired of Johnny Depp. You know what he's great
(47:05):
in is Edwood. Yes, he is fantastic in them. That
was Johnny Depp and Tim Burton both in their in
their period where they were just unstoppable. I thank something
around that. What happened to those guys? I don't think
I could watch a Tim Burton movie now. But like
Edwood is one of the best movies ever made. I
love it. It's it's I don't I don't know. I
(47:27):
don't know why. That sort of seems to be the
story you see over and over in media and more
specifically in Hollywood. But yeah, those they do seem to
have passed their prime. But I don't know. I mean,
how old is Johnny Depp? He's like in his forties way,
But but then again we're asking the questions like how
could somebody lose their you know, creative zeal and or
(47:48):
their actual soul in Hollywood. Hollywood is known for consuming
these two quantities, sometimes they like at rapid speed, right
from the very beginning to right from the very beginning
of Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, Edwood never lost it. No, that's
not true, Edwards, not true. He did kind of lose
it and like he drank himself to death. Yeah, there's
there's that great like Bride of the Bride of the energy,
(48:11):
Bright of the Monster has slashed Bright of the atom,
right of the changed a couple of times, I think exactly.
But that movie's got just fantastic. It's a rush, you know,
it's got Lobo and it's got you know, the whipping
and oh, it's a great great Bill Legos see and
uh and even you know playing nine Bill Leghos. He
(48:32):
wasn't really in it, but it was his last film.
Well he's in a couple of shots, I guess. Yeah,
for one shot. Maybe it's it's a few. I just
rewatched the whole movie, and it is it's a few.
It's maybe three. But that's still got great energy. I
think later on it would went on to he started
making kind of like, yeah, there's a there's a sort
of connection between um. One of the reasons that Tim
(48:55):
Burton cited for wanting to do the Edward Edward movie
was his relationship with Vincent Price because you know he's
a big fan of Vincent Myra Scissor Hands as a kid.
And uh, and then Vincent Price ended up working on
like his first short, I think, and they worked together twice.
I believe that a similar to the way. Similarly the
(49:16):
relationship that ed Wood had with Belle LECOSI, what's so,
what's the next one? What's the next one? That continuum,
that's how you get to play Vincent Price. In The
Young Filmmaker befriends tom Atkins. He's that like the elder
statesman of Horror. Uh, tom Atkins gets a late career revival. Oh,
(49:38):
maybe tom Atkins can play the the Vincent Price role
in the Tingler remain he's more rough and tumble when
he's not Vincent Price type. But you could recast the
character could become more of a kind of like cores
drinking kind of scientists, more of a roused dour in
Rowsed Dour. It was a dowry and roused dowry in
(50:02):
Hero Yes, Yeah, that would okay if it's yeah, I'm
on board for that. As long as it gets remade,
I'm on board. I hope that they vibrate the seats
in the theaters. Oh yes, I hope that makes it
come back. I want to see more gimmicks like that
in the theater. I feel like they need to do it,
that they want me to show up and go through
all the whole rigmarole to come in and see the film.
Why else would you? Yeah, well, we will have giant
(50:24):
flat screens at home and everything on demand. Then again,
I wonder maybe what we need are more intermissions or
those specialized intermissions like William Castle used one of these
where you're supposed to take an intermission right before the
climax of the film to decide if you've got what
it takes and if you don't, you can go and
get a refund and leave. Or there was a werewolf film,
the Werewolf Break. Yeah, we had the Werewolf Break where
(50:46):
you had to decide who is the werewolf. We're gonna
have a werewolf break so the entire audience can collectively
discuss it and place bets on who's going to be
the werewolf? Like, maybe we just need more of that.
What movie was that? I think I watched it on
your suggestion. It has a great cast in it. Um
is it the one that takes place at like the
mansion where all the people gather on like an island
(51:07):
or something. Yeah, is the name Charles Gray, isn't it?
Who would go into play Minecroft Homes and play Blowfield. Oh?
And also a young what's his name that played Dumbledore
was in it. Richard Harris. No, not Richard here, the
other one in the main Dumbledore Michael Gambon. That's what
(51:28):
I'm thinking. Yeah, I believe he's in it as well.
We got a really far afield, didn't we know. I
mean that's some pretty ephemeral stuff that you're talking about.
Their human life it is, man. Yeah, No, I mean
that's that's a That's one of the things I think
that makes it so special. I mean, you know, uh,
there's a great Matt puts it really really really nicely
(51:50):
in that interview talking about you pull that tape recorder
at the closet and you put the tape in and
you hit play on it, and you hear the to
the tape cassette starts spinning, and you hear a voice
from the grave come, you know, and say hello to you.
We just found in my family, we just found a
tape recording of my my dad's dad passed away. When
(52:11):
I was nine months old. I had never heard his
voice until, uh, my aunt Jennifer found this tape forward
the last for the season finale of the Ephemeral episode.
She found it like two days before the episode came
out and we cut it in and I had never
heard my grandfather's voice before that starts. I was just
like high folks, a ghost out of nowhere. So, I mean, yeah,
(52:31):
the the fact that you know, these whatever they are
tape cassettes, who are you know, weird old industrial films
or all kinds of effemora you know, get saved for
one reason another, Uh, it's I think it's about as
close as you can get to real time travel. Yeah.
Are people sending you yet? Yes? Yeah, yeah. What's the
(52:56):
best thing you've gotten? What's the best thing I've got?
You know? Someone just wrote to me and told me
that their parents both worked for the Dumont Network and
that um at least one of them was hired by
Alan B. Dumont, the founder of the company himself. So
that was pretty cool. But I mean, it's all good.
I like it all. A lot of people have told
me amazing stories about you know, family tapes of theirs,
(53:18):
who are you know, a firmer that was significant in
their family. And I think the broader cultural stuff I
think is is always good and is easy to make
into big episodes. But I'm really fascinated by the sort
of individual stories that people that are like, yeah, I
made these kind of like goofy fake shows on tape cassette,
like with my brother when I was a kid. Um.
(53:40):
You know, the stuff that's not professionally made, the stuff
that's a little harder to get through and could maybe use,
you know, some kind of editor to get through and
and and help you know, bring it to life a
little bit. That's that's the stuff that I get really
really excited about. Okay, so it looks like we gotta
wrap up there, but Alex, thanks so much for joining
(54:02):
us today. We are so excited about Ephemeral. What I've
heard of it is so good and I mean that
from the bottom of my heart. And I'm so excited
for all you listeners out there to go subscribe to
Ephemeral wherever you get your podcasts. And what else should
they do is that it? Yeah, I mean, that's that's enough.
I mean, you know, if if you feel so inclined
(54:23):
writing one of those little reviews giving it some stars.
That stuff actually really does make a big difference on
our end. Are you know the powers A B see
things like that and and like that and say, hey,
maybe you should do more of these. So if you
feel so inclined, I've heard that they're good to binge.
Uh I don't you know? You can benjam or not benjam.
(54:45):
You can listen to them out of order. You could
really do whatever you want. The trailer, I will say,
makes kind of an eleventh episode. It's about eight minutes long,
but it is sort of a stands on its own
as an episode two. So uh yeah, they're all there.
I would recommend playing these episodes on a speaker and
recording them with a microphone into an eight track player
and then leaving those tapes out in the world for
(55:07):
people to find. We had some crazy ideas about different
ways to do, like oh, we can make a self
destructing tape of the demo and send it to an
executive or something that sounds safe and sending a bomb. Okay,
got all right? Well, yeah, definitely check it out. And
in the meantime, if you want to check out other
episodes of stuff to blow your mind, heading over Stuff
(55:27):
to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship,
that's what we'll find them all. And indeed, if you
want to help out this show as well, if you
want to help out Invention, the other show that Joe
and I put together, just make sure that you rate
interview those shows wherever and whenever you have the opportunity
to do so. Huge thanks to our producers Seth Nicholas
Johnson and Maya Cole. If you would like to get
in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode
(55:49):
or any other suggest topic for the future, just to
say hello, you can email us at contact that's Stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
(56:10):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick. And boy, we got a treat for
you today. We are joined by our friend and our
former producer on this very show, Alex Williams. Say Hi, Alex,
(00:26):
reformed producer. What's going on? Man? Oh, you know, just
hanging out? What's what's up with you? Well? You know
we're we're just having a bonus episode in your honor.
That's what's going on here. Jeez. Thanks. Right before we
got going, we were sitting around talking about Riddick movies
for how long, I don't know. It was a while.
I was mostly listening because I hadn't seen the movie
(00:47):
in question, or any of the Riddeck movies. No, you're
here for a reason today, Alex, to tell us about it.
Oh uh, because of Ephemeral. I have a podcast called Ephemeral.
It's really good, folks, Yes it is. It's it's very
very exciting podcast because it's it's really unlike any podcast
I've listened to before, um in terms of its subject matter,
(01:08):
but also in terms of just like the high production
qualities that you bring to it. Oh, thank you. You
guys did a very nice time when you did. You
did the trailer, you put the trailer out in your
feed I think when it first came out, and you
did very nice endorsement then too about the audio quality,
which I thought was very sweet, So thank you. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that the outer quality is wonderful. But but
(01:28):
more but more important though, is the topic of dealing
with these ephemeral bits of media. Can you just you know,
speak to everybody who might not be familiar with the show,
they haven't checked it out, or maybe they didn't catch
the trailer drop. What are we talking about when we're
talking about the way that um Sarah Wasserman is the
Material Culture Studies uh A professor of Material Culture Studies
(01:52):
at the University of Delaware. The way that she sort
of differentiates what ephemera from other kinds of you know,
disposable things, junk trash, is that if Emira takes some
kind of curation, someone has to do some active saving
for it to to continue to exist, something like Winnebago Man.
(02:14):
Are familiar with Winnebago Man, of course, Well, I listened
to your episode where you deal with Winnebego Man. Yeah,
he's the guy who is there outtakes of him trying
to record a TV commercial for Winnebagos. Is it a
dealership or a new model or something. I think it's
a dealer's ship. It's like the eighties VHS. The guy's
name is Jack Rebney and he's just getting so frustrated
(02:37):
on this day's shoes, complaining about how hot it is,
and he's just swearing continuously, just f this s than everything.
And uh, I guess he really piste off the crew
because they cut together this video of him, you know,
all of the worst moments, I guess in this sort
of compilation. Now, this is way twenty years before plus
(03:00):
twenty six maybe years before YouTube. Uh, and this compilation
video survived all this time, you know, just you know,
would just get you know, Oh you you might like
this thing, so I dubb it for you on VHS.
Robert might like it, so you dubb it for him
on VHS. It even aired on public television. This is
show cold. I guess was bleeped. I don't know. I
(03:22):
haven't been able to find the copy of it that aired.
I mean maybe that's the version that we have on
YouTube now. Um there's a show called The Show with
No Name out of in Austin, Texas that aired just
weird clips like things that are someone on savory sometimes
like James James Brown being arrested. Things like that when
James Brown he was doing a talk show and he
(03:43):
was uh he drugs or something. He seemed to be
in an altered state. Things like that that you know,
we're all there's tons and tons of him on YouTube now.
I think we've we've talked before about everything is terrible?
Is is a show on you What's it's a YouTube
channel and it goes beyond YouTube. But they do a
lot of this where it's it's clips from films and
(04:07):
like old like like weird Christian VHS tapes and either
the kind of stuff that would just otherwise just be
completely we just fall through the cracks of history. But
you know, they keep it alive so that weekend, you know,
find pleasure in it and laugh at it. Why is
it that instructional training videos makes such fertile like ephemeral media.
(04:32):
You know, I'm just making a supposition, but I think
maybe because they're made sort of for such a narrow
audience and often with such little money. Uh, I can
just go onto archive dot org. There's or there's a
great site called the A V Geeks that just curate
that kind of stuff, old industrials and educational films and
p s A S. I can just get lost on
(04:54):
the rabbit hole of that stuff. It's so so bad
and so good well because I guess like if you
no skill goes into it, or like just a very
small amount of skill like that in and of itself
can be amusing. But then you have an instructional video
like the famous shake Hands with Danger, which has fantastic
and just almost the borderline offensive. Um, you know, graphic
(05:18):
special effects for industrial injuries taking place, and you know
it's out of keeping with the very amateur aspects of
the rest of the production. Oh, it's like the the
old high school chemistry lab safety videos that everybody loves
so much, which just would they had the special effects
for like shoving the broken glass speaker into your hand.
And so I think, yeah, all of that in at
(05:40):
least this particular definition. It's like those things all would
very easily because they you know, maybe because of the
narrow audience or because of maybe a bunch of different
reasons would not stand the test of time unless someone
only because somebody said, hey, this is different, this is
(06:00):
this is for some reason worth saving. Right, Yeah, Well
that's interesting to think about, Like what are the evolutionary
traits in media that allow certain pieces of media to
survive whereas most other pieces of ephemeral media from their
time fade away. It seems like a very strong, uh
criterion of selection is like ironic comedic value. But it can't.
(06:24):
But it can't be just that, right, There are other
things that cause a piece of you know, what you
would have thought would be ephemeral media to get saved, right,
I mean, like what are There's some things I know
you've talked about where you you uh you talked about
like old home recordings that aren't particularly funny or anything.
They just have a kind of soothing sonic quality to
them that you can't stop listening to. Am I right
(06:45):
about that? Sometimes they certainly are funny, But yeah, I
mean I have really um, the very first couple of
minutes of the pilot episode of this that I pitched
it with, and that is the first epis just called
pilot in the in the feed. Uh is it's about
a hundred and sixteen seconds. I think of just a
(07:06):
family recording that we don't know any of the people.
And there's an Uncle Jack and there's a little girl
named Gail, and uh does it talk about shoes? Do
you remember that show Uncle Jack your shoes? There's a
little boy named Brian and there it's it's it's it's
so unique because there, I mean, it was an actual
moment in time, right, it was an actual people gather
around a living room or a kitchen or something, not
(07:26):
from a movie or anything. No, no, no, it's just
a it's it's it was a real to real that
this um, this collector named Bob Purse, who just for
you know, his own personal interest and to share them
with other people, goes to giant antique sales and you know,
a femork also all kinds and buys anything that's like
unlabeled or is you know, has an interesting description on it,
(07:50):
or it's just interesting. And someone looks old real to
real tape specifically other things too acetates Home record at
seventy eight of all kinds of odds and ends, but
specifically real and really to tape is what he's zeroed
in on um and so this real, real tape probably
from the sixties, AH, thought to be recorded around when
(08:12):
that Illinois I guess, or yeah, when Neck Illinois I
think is right because it's because of I guess of
where he bought it. Ah. That's this yes, specific moment
where the uncle Jack has brought over his tape recorder
to this family and the kids are going trying to
get kids to say there, you know, say words on it,
you know, tell them about the school that goes to
(08:33):
and the friends they have, and the little girls shy
at first, but then she opens up a little bit
and then the little kid, Brian, they're trying to get
him to kind of say some of his first words,
but he, of course won't because kids never do when
you try to put the microphone in their face and
now perform and starts shooting on the tape recorder. And
it's just a little tiny tape that's not all that
different than lots of other, you know, tapes, but it
(08:55):
is like this one family, it's this real moment that
we just have of Ye. I think I think part
of the appeal of that that cliff is just how
how how honest it feels like you just there's no
doubting that this is a you know, an echo from
from the past, from this actual family moment. And and
then at the same time it is it is kind
(09:15):
of haunting, like in a good way, like that that
kind of like you know, nostalgic haunting feeling that we
get when we listen to something that is either an
an actual fragment of media history or if something or
if we have something like say, you know, instantly think
of the music say Boards of Canada, that that are
able to channel that level of sonic nostalgia and have
(09:39):
the same effect on us. It's this isolated bubble of
unself conscious joy that is infectious because it doesn't feel
like a performance, which is funny because I guess it
is a performance. I mean, the very thing is that
they had the tape recorder running, But it doesn't feel
like the kind of performance were used to, the kind
of like a professional performance. We were not the intended audience, yeah,
(10:01):
you know it was the family was the intended audience.
And uh and and here it has escaped it. It's
kind of like a voyager probe, right, like leaving the
solar system and being picked up by some other force.
There's certainly magic and it I mean and I hear
that in all kinds. I mean, the the last episode
that we did of the season's the ten parts seasons
(10:21):
all out now, uh, the last episodes called taped over,
and we play family recordings from my family, my wife's family,
my best friends family and uh our producer and producer
and an ephemeral uh Matt Frederick who you know from
stuff I don't want you to know and other things. UM,
really fascinating take. He has a his grandfather recorded his mom,
(10:46):
Matt's mom and and Matt's uncle on a dick to
belt in which is incredibly early to have a home
recording from because recording technology was just mostly in professional settings,
you know, until really the sixties, when real to reel
became much you know, cheaper, and people could afford to
(11:07):
get them in their homes. Um, and it's the same,
it's it's uh, that's grandfather trying to get first words
from his mom. And mom of course like doesn't want
to play along because she's a baby and she's not
gonna perform just because you put a microphone in front
of her, starts crying, starts batting, the microphone around. I
this last weekend, I was with my my nieces and
(11:30):
nephews from Phoenix. They were over here and I was
visiting with them, and I had this old tape recorder
from the eighties and I was showing them how to
use it. And instantly there, you know, I can sometimes
not get them to look away from a screen, you know,
and they just they have a different childhood than we had.
But instantly, yes, they say, you know something in the
(11:51):
tape recorder, the shots they don't want to perform. I
let them hit the buttons, rewind it back. See the
tape has been hit play and they hear themselves say
you know, hi, I'm Brooks Savit or whatever. And they're
mesmerized and they don't want to they don't want to
put it down. You know. It's like, you have to
be careful this, this is an old thing from the eighties.
You have to you have to give it a little
bit of a more grace than you know, maybe your
(12:13):
iPad that's, you know, got this fancy case on it.
But I I think that there is I think there
is real magic and something like that. And so I
don't know if it's intrinsic in the analog media itself,
or if I'm just nostalgic for it, or if it's
some kind of combination of those things. But there is
(12:35):
there's something there that cuts across. I guess that's what
I'm trying to say. Now, you had a pre existing
interest in all of this, of course, I wonder is
there is there a particular piece of of of ephemera
that kind of you know, inspired you to put together
the show? And then is there an example of a
piece of a femor that you discovered in putting the
show together that really struck a chord with you? Lots um?
(13:01):
But that that first tape that show Uncle Jack your shoes,
those hundred and sixteen seconds were there what the show
is built around? The whole show? Uh? You know, our
producer Tristan McNeil and I were at a bar after
work one day pitching ideas back and forth because we
knew we wanted to do something, and Uh, I was like, well,
I know this this tape in this collector Bob purse,
and there's something there and so it was kind of
(13:22):
trying to put my finger on that I might still
be working on that part of it, and then your
other question is something you discovered like some bit of
a him or that emerged that that that you it
was new to you during the production of the series.
It's been so much new to me. Um. One of
the most interesting UH has been learning about the Dumont
Television network, so at the very beginning of television when
(13:45):
it kind of gets out of his experimental phase and
goes commercial, which is basically like right at the end
of World War two. Um, there's four networks, just for
four networks and you know that get little affiliates all
over the country and three them are still around ABC, NBC, CBS,
and the fourth was Dumont, and Dumont was just maybe
(14:06):
a little bit more low budget. It was kind of
punk rock and just wacky stuff. I mean, early TV
was really wacky because it was all live and they
were shows and stuff. There were some puppet shows. Yeah,
they were you know, figuring out a lot of the things.
And some of the things that got figured out on
Dumont are are you know, translate to today. I mean,
(14:28):
they were the first network to do daytime television because radio.
Those are the three companies were all radio companies. ABC, NBC, CBS.
All radio companies had big daytime radio soap operas and
they didn't really want to cut into that business that
had been paying their bills for a long time. But
Dumont was the first network that went into that daytime
(14:49):
broadcast because like, we don't have any income coming in there,
and we're ready to take our color patterns down off
the screen and put something on. And so, you know,
they had a show called Okay Mother, a show for moms,
you know, you know, certainly couched in the gender attitudes
of the time. UM that was you know, pretty similar
(15:12):
to something that you would see like the Today's Show
or something now live studio audience playing you know, games,
giving away prizes, bringing on guests and sort of just
light goofy energy to it. Um. So, you know, to
to wrap up the two months, I meant, they were
(15:33):
on the there for just a decade, something like twenty
thousand broadcasts or hours of broadcast and I think three
d or so individual episodes have survived, mostly held by
like individual collectors like maybe someone who's you know relative
worked at Dumont, or you know, the National Archives, uh,
(15:59):
the Museum of televi and of Radio maybe has a
few of them, and most of it's just gone. It's
just gone because it was there was no there real
there was no recording then, and it wasn't even meant
to last forever. The only way that they could record
it was doing something making a kinescope, which is you
take a film camera and you film the screen that's
(16:20):
playing the television. And the only reason they would do
that is so they could take that film, candle this
film cans and send it to you know, their California
affiliate or something that wasn't connected to the Coaxio cable.
And even those they wouldn't really save because there was
no reruns back then, right, there was no intention to
reuse that. So it's just that active curation someone saying,
(16:41):
you know, either by choice or by accident, hey, I'm
gonna hold onto this that we get to see any
of it, and kind of dip our toes into that
that moment of history. Well you also get a sense,
I mean, no wonder if you'd think, like, did the
creators not even think of it really as a an
artistic product, I mean something that they would want to
be remembered. It was something more like to fill time.
(17:04):
I think there's a mix, and I think, yeah, I
think that's one of the inherent things in television. Probably
there's certainly were um artists and very creative people. I
mean Jackie Gleeson got his break on Dumont for instance,
a fascinating shows that they did, a show that was
all it was called The Plain Clothes Men and all
(17:27):
told from the perspective of a detective like from his eyes, yeah,
town live single camera shot, yeah, and you see his
hands and it's you know, zoom in on a bullet
hole on the wall, or hold a piece of paper
and take a magnifying glass and pull out of single
line what and that's all lives. They'd have to stage
(17:50):
all of that out in advance so that they could
know where to go and win. Well, it was all
live to a point, so almost all of it was live,
but then they would play out sometimes they would the
way to a sequence that actually what edited. It was
an early example of putting editing on television because editing
wasn't a thing on early television. But yeah, primarily that
show was all told live. And there's one episode left
(18:11):
and it doesn't circulate. It's in the uh Museum of
Television radio. I'm hoping to make my way up there
at some point and see it. I've just seen a
little clip of it. You know. I think back just
on the television from like my childhood and especially junior high.
You know where you're you're videotaping a lot of television,
and I remember like painstakingly removing commercials. Uh. And then
(18:34):
other times just you know, you were you were recording
a movie you have, you went to bed or something,
so you just let the commercials, you know, take place,
and inevitably, I think like taped over and or loss
or destroyed all those tapes and and and now I
would I would love to just be able to like
sit down and watch say an episode of Mystery Science
Theater three thousand from the nineties with all the commercials,
(18:57):
just so I could experience that again. Uh, the bumpers
on stuff like the Sci Fi Channel, you know, it's
like that's those little details are are some of the
things you grow the most most doubt and nostalgic for.
You know, I watched the first time I ever watched
Star Trek. The Next Generation was my My dad was
a is and I think I inherit a lot of
this from him a archivist, you know, tape at all,
(19:21):
label at all. Yeah, you know, uh, and he still
has a closet full of VHS types that are just
sort of degrading there because I mean, uh, the the
experience you describe with like cutting out the commercials is
something that I don't think you're younger listeners probably will
relate to it all because it's just such a it's
such a relic of the past. But that was an
(19:42):
important thing then, because it was this feeling like not
only am I taping uh the like the television edited
version of Aliens, but but I am going to preserve
it forever, and so the cut has to be flawless. Wait,
so did you think do you do the thing where
you stopped recording while it was recording when the commercial
(20:02):
came on? You thought, positive, recording while the commercial was
on and then unposit When I remember, I was so
proud of myself that I had put together on one tape.
So since it was on one tape, it must have
been in the terrible low quality extended play mode on
the tapes. But I got the entire Star Wars trilogy
with all the commercials removed from from one time when
(20:24):
it aired on T N T or something like that,
and uh and I was like, this is that I
have done such good work here and I wore that
tape out. Oh God, that that's another thing, just the
wearing out of the tape, like the quality. One of
my favorite films still one of my favorite films, but
one of my favorite films growing up was was Jim
Hinson's Labyrinth and our copy we watched it so many
(20:46):
times that it it was like damaged and we had
to get repaired. I I didn't even know how that
was the thing, but we took the tape, somebody repaired it,
and it just sound warped forever. But now when I
watched like a Labyrinth off of streaming service or something,
or off of DVD, it's just not the same because
it's not warped and weird. Like the audio quality I
(21:07):
grew used to uh so in in the effemeray that
you've looked at in the show, like how much is
the decay and how much is it about the the
errors in the quality? Oh? I mean yeah, I'm an
audio I'm an audio file. I'm a total audio gig.
I mean specifically for like low five stuff, I've always
collected old toy tape recorders and stuff like that. So yeah,
(21:30):
the artifacts, that stuff is a gold mine for a
sound designer. I mean, just if you can find cracks
and records and skips and things and warps and sounds
dumping and leaping, and I love all that stuff. This
comes back to something that we've talked about on the
show a good bit before, like when we talk about say,
(21:51):
historical sites of interest, you know, like an ancient temple
or something like that that is deteriorating due to the
elements or all that, Like, um, should you restore things
like that? Or or if you know, the modern world
has come to know an ancient temple in its partially
deteriorated and dilapidated state, should you just allow it to
(22:13):
continue deteriorating or should you try to freeze it as
it was at a certain point in time and say, Okay,
all the deterioration up to this point will allow, but
deterioration after that we want to prevent or I can't
remember if we I said allowing to deteriorate or restoring,
but it seems like in any case, you're no matter
(22:34):
which choice you make, you're like exerting your will on
on on on the form it takes. And the same
thing happens with media totally. Like I mean, media changes
over time, It collects artifacts, it collects changes, it collects glitches. Um,
and I wonder, well, one thing I wonder I guess
is are we losing that quality in the digital world.
(22:55):
M hmm, it's sorry, terrible tangent. There's just no, there's
just a lot there, uh, losing in the digital world.
I mean the safe answer is yes, because we're losing
most things in the well No, I just mean, like
(23:16):
I mean, obviously there's like a huge thing where like, um,
there there's so much great ephemeira from the ancient world.
You know that like a huge part of how we
know about the past is from like capturing bits of
ephemera and interesting things, like you know, when you get
a copy of an ancient manuscript that's a thousand years old,
you might not even know what the original text in
(23:38):
the manuscript was because it's got things written in the
margins on it, and you don't know if that's supposed
to be part of the text that was the Perpendicularly
over the other talents, we have an older episode of
stuffable in mind about that, yeah, and and so like
and and they didn't realize at the time that, like,
you know, whatever mong in, you know, Prague or wherever it. Like,
(24:03):
I didn't know that his copy of this thing would
be the only copy, would be the only one that
future generations have, and so like they wouldn't be able
to tell if the notes in the margins were supposed
to be part of the text or his own thoughts
about the text or whatever. And uh, and like you
never know, really, you never know if like the copy
that you're holding of something is going to end up
(24:25):
being the copy of reference for future generations, or if
it's just going to fade and be destroyed like most
other things are. The digital world that seems kind of
different because like copies are made at scale, perfectly all
over the place, And I wonder if we're kind of
losing some of that magic because of it. I mean,
it's it's it's twofold at least, right. Uh, there is
(24:49):
a way in which something physical analog is much more concrete.
I mean, you can the lifespan of it. You can say,
oh my, I can see the yellowing pages of this book,
but I can still flip through them, as opposed to
like if a zero in a one get flipped in
the binary code, that thing's gone. Uh you know, if
(25:12):
it's uploaded in some cloud service that gets hacked, it's gone. Uh.
So there's a way in which analog things I hate
to say permanent, because I don't think anything is permanent, particularly,
I think everything has transience at a different scale. Yeah,
that's that's how you start feeling if you look at
(25:34):
it too much, at least me. Um. But there's a
way that that material thing feels a lot like it
has more launchevy to me than the digital thing, which
is maybe contrary to the way that uh, you know,
I saw it before that it's easiest to see it.
I mean, I'll tell you one of the one of
the great things about more and more things being digitized,
(25:57):
because not everything is digitized, far from it, right, Uh,
But like this show where we do I don't know,
I've never counted, but like a hundred and fifty cues
an episode of different sound bites and pieces of weird
old movies and little audio clips and all things small
over the place would not it would be next to impossible,
(26:17):
were very very difficult in um an analog time where
I'm like, I have wax cylinders in there, all kinds
of all kinds of media that you know, imagine the
library that we'd have to have here in the I
heard offices for us to pull something like this off,
but I can you know, it can just be you know,
a dude sitting at his desk going archive dot org
(26:39):
and uh, you know various other places. So I mean,
I think that's pretty amazing. I'd love to, you know.
I was just when we're saying, oh, the monk didn't
know that this would be the one copy. I was thinking,
what if Joe's perfect copy of the Star Wars trilogy
was the one copy that we had then? No, I
think about that kind of thing sometimes, but I mean
I think that would be unlikely. Now there's so many
(27:00):
digital copies and they're all over the place. But yeah,
your copy to YouTube, Okay, I mean maybe doing you know,
because well you know, another great example to go to
go even to Star Wars is And this combines with
the thing you were talking about, like a femeral TV
broadcast when you watch the Star Wars Holiday special. I
assume you've seen it. I have, Yeah, I have thanks,
(27:20):
Thanks Dad. The Star Wars Holiday Special is that you know,
Star Wars is the biggest movie in the world, and
you know it's the biggest media sensation ever. And then
they're like, well, let's do a TV special. But the
TV special is just phoned in and you almost get
the sense that it's well, not the animated The animated
(27:40):
short that introduced a Bubba fet to the world is fabulous,
like this French animation style. You're right about that, but
I mean, like the main part of it, like the
actors are staring at the floor, they're just waiting for
any basically a Star Wars theme variety show exactly. Uh.
And it's great fun to watch now for all these
(28:01):
great ephemeral qualities and to see the old commercials and
all that. But that's one of the great things. Like
even the version you get through riff tracks is it
can it retains the commercials, that's part. And but they
have to specify which one because like there weren't many
recordings of it available. They never officially distributed it, Like
you know, Lucasfilm wasn't like here come by the Star
(28:22):
Wars Holiday Special. You had to get it from a
copy made from some version that somebody taped off of
TV and like Minnesota or somewhere, and uh and I
think there were a few versions in circulation, but I
don't know if those people thought that like their version
they were taping off of TV with the local commercials
they were seeing, would be like the would be the
(28:44):
version that ends up being you know, on riff tracks
that you know, decades later people all around the world
would be watching and laughing at I was gonna say
that with Star Trek the Next Generation, the way that
I first saw it was all taped from Michigan television,
whatever Michigan station it was running on, and every ad
break they had the newscast, the local Detroit newscast every time,
(29:08):
so I would you know, hear whatever was going on
in Detroit in the eighties every time they would cut
to commercial. So I guess, yeah, I I've definitely developed
a love for that early on. That's in the Star
Wars Holiday special to where they've got the throws like
teasing the later local news things. What do they keep saying,
like fighting the frizzies at eleven. I don't remember that part.
(29:28):
This is a thing about like bad hair days or
something they're gonna have an expert. Come on, well, you know,
let's let's bring it back to h to ephemeral. Though
you have a you have brought a clip with us. Uh.
It's almost like this is the Tonight show and you're
our guest, and so would you like to set up
this clip for our listeners? Sure? So. This is um
Professor of English and Material Culture Studies at the University
(29:50):
of Delaware. I introduced her earlier, Sarah Wasserman. She's basically
I think of her as the ephemer teacher. She's writing
a book called The Death of Things. It's all about
a phemera. You know, I don't. I don't want to
oversimplify her thesis, but the idea of it is that
telling stories about if ema and telling stories that involve
if phemera does more than just showing you a phemera.
(30:12):
It helps fill in the gaps and do more work
to transport you back to that place or time or
whatever thing that you know is lost now. So she
in her book, I think she writes about like They're
Great Gatsby. She references that in here and uh and
a book like El Doctors, World's Fair Books, that piece
(30:33):
of fiction specifically, she's writing about fiction coming from an
English perspective. Um, how works of fiction can use if
ema and intertwine them into their stories. Uh two, help
transport you in time and space. Yeah, I think that's
enough of a setup. Let's listen, Phemera. I think are
(30:59):
especially moving because they seem to have their own life cycle.
They're made, they're born, they enter circulation, they live, and
then they die. We think of things. We think of
matter as being the opposite of mortal. We think of
it as being enduring. We think of it as being
stable and inert. And ephemia have this kind of time scale,
this temporal dimension that makes them seem mortal like us.
(31:24):
I think that's part of the reason that authors find
them meaningful. They can become proxy stand ins for humans
or nations or communities. To make that more concrete, take
an example, New York World's Fair was actually built on
the Valley of Ashes, as Fitzgerald calls it. In the
(31:44):
Great Gatsby five million dollar one land, they transform what
is basically a dump into this bright, shining, gleaming future
city and everyone goes, I mean really everyone in a
way that we can't comprehend today. Everyone goes from Barana,
come Countment, visiting by every mode of travel, every means
(32:05):
of transportation. They arrived to view the marvels of the
greatest ex position in history. You go and you say, oh,
this is the world of tomorrow, this is the world
as it could be. There are all kinds of problems
with the vision that gets staged. I mean racial problems,
nationalistic problems, colonial issues, all sorts of things, but in
that particular instance, people knew that it wouldn't be there.
(32:29):
The fair was a temporary installation, like a carnival set
up in Queens. It was open for two seasons from
April to October, and closed permanently as most of the
participating countries sank into another World war. That experience, knowing
that it's going to be gone feels exhilarating but melancholic
(32:51):
for a lot of people, and so the souvenir craze,
you know, the souvenir boom is huge around that fair
because people want to take something with them so that
when the air is gone, when they're no longer there,
but also the buildings are gone, they have something to
remember it by. The Paris here and the trialon were
the two iconic buildings and they get sort of put
(33:12):
on everything rises above all else, and the circling helocline
that leads even the Paris. There's exhibits. Democracy is the
pathway to the future. One of my favorite super years
is after you came out of Futurama, which was General
Motors Vision and sort of model city of the future,
you would get a little button that says I have
seen the future. Sensational is the Futurama that projects you
(33:36):
into nineteen six the Highways and a Rizon show. You
know that you have this item, this object that's going
to commemorate this event. It almost feels like it's shoring
up against that feeling of mortality. Susan Stewart talks about
the souvenir as an object that you need when an
event is no longer repeatable. So if you go to
(33:58):
your arian and Grande con or, you want the ticket
stuff because you're probably not going to go to another
Ariana Grande show where you're certainly not going to go
to the one in Philadelphia, and so you need an
object because it's not repeatable. Many ephemera are doing that work.
There are kind of saying I was there, I saw
this thing. It's gone now, but I save it, and
(34:20):
that allows me to project myself into the future, to
project myself into the past, to stave off that encounter
with death that might be implicitly happening. Listen to the
(34:48):
rest of this episode and the full first season of
Ephemeral Now. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,
wherever you listen to podcasts, and learn more at Ephemeral
dot Show. All right, well, wow, this is fresh on
(35:27):
everybody's mind. Can you just just tell listeners where they
can find if if fhemeral and uh and also what
the homepages It's Ephemeral dot Show. If you don't spell ephemeral,
just google it. It's easy to find. I had someone
write me a review that was five stars, but the
told me they could not spell it their heady google it.
But I appreciated that. I appreciate that they did that
(35:48):
extra work. But it's not it's not too hard, you know,
to to to find and you know, it's on all
the social media things. Podcasts available anywhere. You can do
it on the I Heart radio app or Apple or
Stitcher or what everything. If you go to the website,
there's like, you know, some images and some links and
a little bit more information, but yeah, easy to find.
All the episodes are out now and uh and our
(36:10):
our future episodes planned. You have some ideas kicking around,
I'm just gonna go ahead and say, yes, we're in
work works on the second season right now, so we're
technically off season right now. We've already released one bonus episode,
which is the full length interview with our lovely producer
Matt Frederick about that old family recording, and lots lots
of other things in between now and then and second
(36:32):
season and hopefully not all that long. It took us
about eighteen months to do the first season, but we
had a lot to figure out and there was a
lot of other stuff going on. So hopefully not quite
that long, but it could be, well, I hope not.
It's it's a really fantastic show. What I've heard of
it I absolutely adore and I can't wait to finish listening. Well,
thank you, Joe. Yeah, I mean it's really it's it's
a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of
(36:54):
podcasts out there. I mean, I mean, I mean, honestly,
I mean, there's there's it's there's a disturbing world we're
living in, and there are a lot of shows that that,
by necessity and sometimes very bravely deal with the disturbing
aspects of of our reality. Uh, but did your show
has a you know, it's it's such a more comforting
(37:14):
feel to it, you know, I can I feel like
I'm I'm settling into like a nice warm glass of
milk when I listened to That's not all rainbows. I
mean there's some there's some darker aspects of human history
and there too, Yeah, but hopefully yeah there. You know,
it's you can listen to it with your kids. I mean,
it's like it's not it's not you know, dirty or anything.
(37:36):
I listened to the first episode with my son in
the car and uh, and he was digging it to
you know, because he can. He's identifying with all this
is a family. I'm listening to a family. Uh, you know,
talk about shoes. That Shoes tape is definitely a hot
cup of tea. It's a good one, man. I love
that one. Yeah. Before we close things out or even
consider closing things out, though, let's talk about William Castle
(37:59):
because because Joe, we're talking about this a little before
the podcast. But Joe and I did an episode about
the Tingler Love the Tangler and yeah, and and so
I'm just happy to have somebody in here who is
a fan of the film. My parents instilled in me
a real love for just creature feature B movies. Uh
and you know, specifically like the work of the Wonderful
(38:22):
Ed Wood, but all kinds of other things and the
original Mystery Science three thousands or Mr. Science Theater three
thousand and all things like that. So, yeah, Tangler, what
Vincent Price, Yeah you have Vincent Price? Uh? Directed by
William Castle and just a yeah, just a really wonderful,
wonderful film in its own right, you know, I mean,
(38:43):
just has such a weird premise and then the gimmick,
the William Castle gimmick of the vibrating uh uh theater
seats I would have loved to have. I don't think
i've you know, short of something like three D I
don't know that I've ever really been to him movie
a theatrical release that had a gimmick as part of it. Ye, Pokemon,
(39:04):
they gave away cards. I went into the Pokemon movie
when that came out. There's certainly some giveaway things that
I went to specifically as a kid, you know, But
that's not like something where you know, there's a a
four D element or you know, some sort of thing
that happened in the theater. Yeah, I don't think I've
ever gotten to experience that with a theatrical release. What
(39:26):
was it that the Scream films postulated was that the
new gimmick in movie theaters would be releasing an actual
murderer into the movie theater. It's a horror movie. Well,
I mean, there's so many things we could have done
with different films, Like take Titanic. They could have missed
the audience with salt water during the final scenes, like
nice cold saltwater. That would have been interesting. Now I
(39:46):
have seen Rocky Horror here in Atlanta at the Plaza,
and they do you know, they're saying, yeah, there's there's
a lot of fun shenanigans that take place, and that's
pretty great. I mean, that's that in it. I have
I love Rocky are and for a number of reasons,
and and I'm I'm perfectly happy to watch it again
and again just straight up without any theatrical shenanigans. But
(40:06):
like that is kind of like the pre mystery Science
Theater three thousand, riffing tradition right there, and uh and
it continues to be like this, this cool kind of
this is kind of like counterculture experience for the movie
going experience that people can partake of, especially like younger
of people. So yeah, I'm glad that Atlanta as a
(40:29):
place where one can still find that. I do think
folks like William Castle, Yeah, I think he was aware
of the sort of you know, the crowd that he
was going for the sort of work he was doing.
But also, you know, I feel exuberants from him and
some of the in in the way that he works,
you know, like we're we are pushing a medium forward,
(40:52):
like we're trying weird things, you know, and in the effort,
in the effort of like you know, driving ticket sales. Right. Well,
one thing I will say about The Tingler is that
it is um it is not a dull movie. I mean,
it is fun and full of energy. I mean, he
was somebody who remembered that movies are supposed to be fun.
(41:12):
There are a lot of people making movies that. I mean, obviously,
not all movies are supposed to be fun. Some movies
are very serious, so they ask challenging questions and all that.
But I see trails all the time for movies that
just do not look fun and exactly like you know,
monster movies. Generally, monster movies are supposed to be fun.
Uh And and he remembered that. I think he was
aware of that, even you know, even schlocky or directors
(41:35):
Roger Corman, I think was aware that monster movies are
supposed to be fun primarily. Uh. So, you know, he
could make Attack of the Crab Monsters and it's like
sixty two minutes long or whatever, and it's kind of
a brisk pace and it's got some googly eyed creatures
and it doesn't get bogged down and uh, you know,
you know, bad depressing, bad feelings like so many horror
(41:57):
movies do these days. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm
I'm seriously being turned off horror. I think I'm it's
like every I keep seeing trailers for things and I'm
just like that just doesn't Maybe it's just me, but
what about Mandy Mandy? Mandy? I enjoyed even though it's
a revenge film, and revenge films aren't really my my
my like my go to franchise, but it was so funny.
(42:19):
It was such a goofy movie. Yeah, and beautiful. I
mean I love the I love Panos's style and the cinematography,
love the music, and well, yeah, ultimately I love that
almost as much as I love Beyond the Black Rainbow,
which is I pulled up as one of my favorites
or something like stranger things like that's a monster movie,
that's or monster idea. I'm sure a movie. Yeah, but
(42:41):
but it's also exceedingly fun. Yeah, And I think that's
one of the the appeals of the It movie that
came out the addiction of the first half of Stephen
King's novel is that, yes, it was terrifying. You had
all these terrifying penny Wise moments, and penny Wise was
fabulously brought to it to life. But yet it found
ways to have have fun with the children in in
(43:05):
in the in the in the in the movie, like
those characters were brought alive in such a you know,
a believable way. There was a Spielbergie and emotionality to it. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Is the Child's Play thing out yet? Yeah, because that's
just that's a tenpole one for me. Like I watched
Child's Play over. I think probably on TV, like the
(43:28):
TV edited broadcast, but I definitely saw all of those
movies all the way, at least up to Bride of
that's the one with Jennifer at Tilly. Did Brad Durro
keep doing the voice? I don't think he's in the
new one, but he was in like all the others.
That would be My main thing is if Brad Dorrith's
not in it, then what what's the point it's But
it's the same folks that did the ITA, Yeah, the reboot? Okay,
(43:51):
well then then I believe maybe I should give it
a shot. I don't know. It's one of the like
where I not all that in many things like reboots,
I feel compelled to see like I have to. But
for whatever reason, Child's plays one of those just like
yeah whatever, Like I guess maybe because the first one
wasn't like that amazing. Maybe it was that it's been
a while so it's got the mom from Seventh Heaven
(44:12):
on it. I think you're not wrong. The only thing
that I feel also compelled to say about The Tingler
before we wrap it up is a vincnent Price's ability
to say ludicrous short lines with just poise and just
really sell it, you know. Well, no, that's one of
(44:33):
the best things about The Tingler actually, is the frequency
with which characters say the words the Tingler, and so
Vincent Price is just constantly saying things like, what do
we know about the Tingler? And they're they're counting off
their knowledge. They're like, we've discovered that there is a
Tingler inside everyone. God. Yeah. One of the things that
(44:54):
amazes me is that it just hasn't It hasn't been remade,
and I've never read any discussion of anyone even adding
to remake it or rebooted or what have you, despite
the fact that the William Castle film immediately preceding it,
The House on Haunted Hill, was of course remade, and
I thought it really fun, uh Haunted House movie. And
then the film immediately after it, Thirteen Ghosts, was also
(45:18):
made into a film, which was maybe a little less solid. Yeah.
I think I saw the movie theater as well, and
it was it was fun, you know, it was a
fun monster movie. Really think that might have suffered from
that sort of early MTV music video vibe too, But
it's been a long time since they saw it. I
remember Roger Ebert's review of the Thirteen Ghosts remake. Just commenting,
(45:40):
he says opened with like, this is certainly one of
the loudest films I've ever seen. Yeah, I think it
had that. It had some jarring cinematography and it for sure,
but it also had f Murray Abraham, so it all
bounces out. Um Man. I could see a remake of
The Tingler that could go either way. You could get
it in the hand to somebody who's a real lover,
(46:01):
who's got the joy and all that. It could also
be a joyless c G I slog with computer animated worms.
But I think if you like leaned into the more
psychedelic aspects of the piece, I think you could make
it work. Because, as we discussed in in our episode,
like it is allegedly the earliest mention of L S
D in a major motion picture. Uh and and I
(46:23):
think that they're there are aspects of its really whackadoodle
plot that that are that are reflected by that. Who
could you recast for the Vincent Price role? Who? Um?
What about Jeremy Irons? Richard Jenkins? Yeah, yeah, he's great
(46:44):
and everything. Yeah, Yeah, Jenkins is solid. Um Ian McKellen
he's probably too old at this death. I know he's done.
I know, but this could be coming back, bringing it
back around, you know, I I have. I'm a little
bit tired of Johnny Depp. You know what he's great
(47:05):
in is Edwood. Yes, he is fantastic in them. That
was Johnny Depp and Tim Burton both in their in
their period where they were just unstoppable. I thank something
around that. What happened to those guys? I don't think
I could watch a Tim Burton movie now. But like
Edwood is one of the best movies ever made. I
love it. It's it's I don't I don't know. I
(47:27):
don't know why. That sort of seems to be the
story you see over and over in media and more
specifically in Hollywood. But yeah, those they do seem to
have passed their prime. But I don't know. I mean,
how old is Johnny Depp? He's like in his forties way,
But but then again we're asking the questions like how
could somebody lose their you know, creative zeal and or
(47:48):
their actual soul in Hollywood. Hollywood is known for consuming
these two quantities, sometimes they like at rapid speed, right
from the very beginning to right from the very beginning
of Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, Edwood never lost it. No, that's
not true, Edwards, not true. He did kind of lose
it and like he drank himself to death. Yeah, there's
there's that great like Bride of the Bride of the energy,
(48:11):
Bright of the Monster has slashed Bright of the atom,
right of the changed a couple of times, I think exactly.
But that movie's got just fantastic. It's a rush, you know,
it's got Lobo and it's got you know, the whipping
and oh, it's a great great Bill Legos see and
uh and even you know playing nine Bill Leghos. He
(48:32):
wasn't really in it, but it was his last film.
Well he's in a couple of shots, I guess. Yeah,
for one shot. Maybe it's it's a few. I just
rewatched the whole movie, and it is it's a few.
It's maybe three. But that's still got great energy. I
think later on it would went on to he started
making kind of like, yeah, there's a there's a sort
of connection between um. One of the reasons that Tim
(48:55):
Burton cited for wanting to do the Edward Edward movie
was his relationship with Vincent Price because you know he's
a big fan of Vincent Myra Scissor Hands as a kid.
And uh, and then Vincent Price ended up working on
like his first short, I think, and they worked together twice.
I believe that a similar to the way. Similarly the
(49:16):
relationship that ed Wood had with Belle LECOSI, what's so,
what's the next one? What's the next one? That continuum,
that's how you get to play Vincent Price. In The
Young Filmmaker befriends tom Atkins. He's that like the elder
statesman of Horror. Uh, tom Atkins gets a late career revival. Oh,
(49:38):
maybe tom Atkins can play the the Vincent Price role
in the Tingler remain he's more rough and tumble when
he's not Vincent Price type. But you could recast the
character could become more of a kind of like cores
drinking kind of scientists, more of a roused dour in
Rowsed Dour. It was a dowry and roused dowry in
(50:02):
Hero Yes, Yeah, that would okay if it's yeah, I'm
on board for that. As long as it gets remade,
I'm on board. I hope that they vibrate the seats
in the theaters. Oh yes, I hope that makes it
come back. I want to see more gimmicks like that
in the theater. I feel like they need to do it,
that they want me to show up and go through
all the whole rigmarole to come in and see the film.
Why else would you? Yeah, well, we will have giant
(50:24):
flat screens at home and everything on demand. Then again,
I wonder maybe what we need are more intermissions or
those specialized intermissions like William Castle used one of these
where you're supposed to take an intermission right before the
climax of the film to decide if you've got what
it takes and if you don't, you can go and
get a refund and leave. Or there was a werewolf film,
the Werewolf Break. Yeah, we had the Werewolf Break where
(50:46):
you had to decide who is the werewolf. We're gonna
have a werewolf break so the entire audience can collectively
discuss it and place bets on who's going to be
the werewolf? Like, maybe we just need more of that.
What movie was that? I think I watched it on
your suggestion. It has a great cast in it. Um
is it the one that takes place at like the
mansion where all the people gather on like an island
(51:07):
or something. Yeah, is the name Charles Gray, isn't it?
Who would go into play Minecroft Homes and play Blowfield. Oh?
And also a young what's his name that played Dumbledore
was in it. Richard Harris. No, not Richard here, the
other one in the main Dumbledore Michael Gambon. That's what
(51:28):
I'm thinking. Yeah, I believe he's in it as well.
We got a really far afield, didn't we know. I
mean that's some pretty ephemeral stuff that you're talking about.
Their human life it is, man. Yeah, No, I mean
that's that's a That's one of the things I think
that makes it so special. I mean, you know, uh,
there's a great Matt puts it really really really nicely
(51:50):
in that interview talking about you pull that tape recorder
at the closet and you put the tape in and
you hit play on it, and you hear the to
the tape cassette starts spinning, and you hear a voice
from the grave come, you know, and say hello to you.
We just found in my family, we just found a
tape recording of my my dad's dad passed away. When
(52:11):
I was nine months old. I had never heard his
voice until, uh, my aunt Jennifer found this tape forward
the last for the season finale of the Ephemeral episode.
She found it like two days before the episode came
out and we cut it in and I had never
heard my grandfather's voice before that starts. I was just
like high folks, a ghost out of nowhere. So, I mean, yeah,
(52:31):
the the fact that you know, these whatever they are
tape cassettes, who are you know, weird old industrial films
or all kinds of effemora you know, get saved for
one reason another, Uh, it's I think it's about as
close as you can get to real time travel. Yeah.
Are people sending you yet? Yes? Yeah, yeah. What's the
(52:56):
best thing you've gotten? What's the best thing I've got?
You know? Someone just wrote to me and told me
that their parents both worked for the Dumont Network and
that um at least one of them was hired by
Alan B. Dumont, the founder of the company himself. So
that was pretty cool. But I mean, it's all good.
I like it all. A lot of people have told
me amazing stories about you know, family tapes of theirs,
(53:18):
who are you know, a firmer that was significant in
their family. And I think the broader cultural stuff I
think is is always good and is easy to make
into big episodes. But I'm really fascinated by the sort
of individual stories that people that are like, yeah, I
made these kind of like goofy fake shows on tape cassette,
like with my brother when I was a kid. Um.
(53:40):
You know, the stuff that's not professionally made, the stuff
that's a little harder to get through and could maybe use,
you know, some kind of editor to get through and
and and help you know, bring it to life a
little bit. That's that's the stuff that I get really
really excited about. Okay, so it looks like we gotta
wrap up there, but Alex, thanks so much for joining
(54:02):
us today. We are so excited about Ephemeral. What I've
heard of it is so good and I mean that
from the bottom of my heart. And I'm so excited
for all you listeners out there to go subscribe to
Ephemeral wherever you get your podcasts. And what else should
they do is that it? Yeah, I mean, that's that's enough.
I mean, you know, if if you feel so inclined
(54:23):
writing one of those little reviews giving it some stars.
That stuff actually really does make a big difference on
our end. Are you know the powers A B see
things like that and and like that and say, hey,
maybe you should do more of these. So if you
feel so inclined, I've heard that they're good to binge.
Uh I don't you know? You can benjam or not benjam.
(54:45):
You can listen to them out of order. You could
really do whatever you want. The trailer, I will say,
makes kind of an eleventh episode. It's about eight minutes long,
but it is sort of a stands on its own
as an episode two. So uh yeah, they're all there.
I would recommend playing these episodes on a speaker and
recording them with a microphone into an eight track player
and then leaving those tapes out in the world for
(55:07):
people to find. We had some crazy ideas about different
ways to do, like oh, we can make a self
destructing tape of the demo and send it to an
executive or something that sounds safe and sending a bomb. Okay,
got all right? Well, yeah, definitely check it out. And
in the meantime, if you want to check out other
episodes of stuff to blow your mind, heading over Stuff
(55:27):
to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship,
that's what we'll find them all. And indeed, if you
want to help out this show as well, if you
want to help out Invention, the other show that Joe
and I put together, just make sure that you rate
interview those shows wherever and whenever you have the opportunity
to do so. Huge thanks to our producers Seth Nicholas
Johnson and Maya Cole. If you would like to get
in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode
(55:49):
or any other suggest topic for the future, just to
say hello, you can email us at contact that's Stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
(56:10):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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