February 25, 2021 • 60 mins
A story from the Azqueltán, Jalisco in Mexico!
Read it as it was published in the The Journal of American Folklore in 1912 here: The Bird of the Sweet Song
The book Maggie is reading is called How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny O'Dell. Buy it from your local bookstore.
Read more about the fight for the rights of the indigenous people of Azqueltán.
Follow us for sporadic posting on Instagram and Twitter. Email us your secrets at folklorica@strawhutmedia.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Read it as it was published in the The Journal of American Folklore in 1912 here: The Bird of the Sweet Song
The book Maggie is reading is called How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny O'Dell. Buy it from your local bookstore.
Read more about the fight for the rights of the indigenous people of Azqueltán.
Follow us for sporadic posting on Instagram and Twitter. Email us your secrets at folklorica@strawhutmedia.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media. I really believe that in the larger sense,
not only today, but at all times, you only find
yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility.
(00:21):
I think filmmaker Guillermo del Toro shays this in an
interview with The Avy Club in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Glorica, Hello, and welcome to Folklorica, the podcast about folk
tales from around the world. I'm your host, Clayton Stucker.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I am your other host, Maggie Bowles. And it
is currently a Sunday early evening for us right now.
I don't know what time it is for you listening,
because who knows?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It is four twenty seven pm.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh yep, and Galifornia, same time zone in Los Angeles
as in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, Sacramento. It's also the same time as Portland and Seattle,
San Diego, San Diego, Tijuana.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Hmm yeah, Tijuana. Also speaking of Tijuana, Oh yeah, speaking
of Tijuana. That's a great segue. M hm uh, well
are we ready to segue though?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
It's in there if you want to chop it up
and use it later. Speaking of Tijuanna, speaking.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Of Tijuana, speaking being bom bom, bom bom, and then.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It reminds me of like a news report from the.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Sixties, the sixties or the nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, okay, the nineties.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Were you watching news reports in the sixties, I.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Was gotta stay current with the times. The Cuban missile crisis,
JFK assassination, the Moon launch. I was there. Where were
you when JFK was shot?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's a really good question. And when I was a kid,
my dad used to do this thing where he would
like ask me, uh, like, if I remembered something that
happened last week, and then he would be like, what
about last year? What about the year before that? And
then he would try to get me to go back
to before I was born, to remember the things that
(02:24):
happened before I was born. I was always like, I
don't know. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't have that information.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I don't have that information. But I think he was
really like, I think it was half a bit and
half him legitimately thinking like, she's a kid, maybe she
actually does have some real knowledge about you know the
other side.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Mm hmmm, she's fresh off the tap. You know.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Also, because I've heard those stories about little kids who
remember things from past lives, Like there's that one little
boy who was like a fighter pilot in World War
two or something like that.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Wow, mm hmm, I don't know that one. He did
you have any of those?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
No, of course not.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was a very rational, composed five year old girl.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was very frustrated that I couldn't go back far
enough because it seemed like it would be very valuable.
But no, I didn't have any kind of memories. Let
me see, I could just google this really fast, you know,
like a little boy pilot reincarnated. Our son is a
World War two pilot come back to life. Wow, you
didn't hear the story.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Huh when did this happen?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
This was in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I was really busy that year, you do. So? He
said he was a World War two pilot that had
died in World War two.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Oh yeah, so like he started having he had a
he had like vivid nightmares when he was screaming plane
on fire, airplane crash when he was two years old
and freaking out. And then he started like having these
like just like recounting these like weird stories about being
a pilot. And then they like went and found the
story a story that like coincided with the weird Shitty
(04:07):
was saying, you belave in reincarnation.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I'm open to it just because it seems very odd
to me that of all existence in the universe, from
the point of the universe beginning, which we have no
idea how or why truly to get you know, average
eighty years as a conscientious person, like this is your
(04:33):
only time that you're conscious in this way, it makes
me think that reincarnation is possible. Like we all get up,
we get a repeat, you know, there's just so much time,
and an average human life is so small.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You're used to hear your second chances.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I see, Truly, that's so revealing.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
This can't be the only shot we get. I've been
around the block a few times, and trust me, there's
always a second chance.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, there's no unhappy endings. Everything works out for everybody,
even if it's not this life. You get a better
one next time. But I'm open to it. What about you?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I like the idea of reincarnation. When I was a
little kid, a shaman told me I had an old soul.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Okay, you spoke to a shaman, I sure did. Where
was this shaman.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
My mom used to take me to weird stuff all
the time when I was a kid, because she used
to sell a realm of therapy that was like her business.
And we went to something and I remember I was
like probably nine years old, and I met this shaman.
You gave me a feather. You told me that I
still have the feather, that I was an old soul.
And then later that night we watched some people do
(05:52):
like fire dancing wow, and uh, you know when they
like blow the stuff, the like alcohol out of their mouth,
like do the fire stuff fire breathers, fire breathers, thank you,
And the alcohol got in my eyeball.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
In the show they did it into a child's eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It was horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I was like, no, sir, you spit in my eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It burned.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That is so funny. I just love bad things happening
to children.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It was really painful.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, I mean, I'm fine, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
They just had to I mean, you had to be
evacuated obviously from this.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Oh no, no, no, I did exactly what you think
I did, which is that I just bit my tongue
and cried quietly in a group of people.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Just standing there being the composed child that can't remember. Previously,
I tried not.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
To let anybody does what have you been up to recently?
It's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I've been up to actually something you and I briefly
talked about, which is trying to find comfort in doing
nothing and maybe ridding myself of any anxiety or guilt
about doing nothing. Which no, I'm you reaching out and
(07:30):
sharing the story with me that you did. I was like,
same page, same exact page, that's exactly what I wanted
to read right then? Was this sort of well you
can describe it. Actually, it's a book that you're reading.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It's kind of like self help meets like political manifesto.
You know, I just read a really dumb self help
book previously, so I was like on the hunt for
a new self help book that would leave me feeling
a little bit more or like engaged.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Maybe yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
It's called how to Do Nothing Resisting the Attention Economy,
written by Jenny O'Dell.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well. I think that it's it's often like self help
is usually like it's its own genre where it's a
lot about like I mean, in my experience, it seems
like it's a lot about like looking inward, but there
are all these outside elements, you know that play a
part and why we get pulled out of ourselves and
why we get distracted by things. And it seemed like
this book built a bridge in a cool way between
(08:34):
looking inside and also what's pulling you away from you
and also like.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It points out the fact that the algorithms on Facebook
and Instagram are specifically designed to like suck you in
and make you feel a certain way so that you
don't want to put your phone down. Yeah, attention is currency.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
And like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You're not like a weak piece of shit because you
scroll your Instagram for like, because you get lost on
social media or something. You know, Like, that's not an
indication of you are failing as a person. It's an
indication of like a really well designed product. Like it's
(09:14):
specifically designed to make you get lost and to make
you like do these things. You know. So I'm trying
to learn how to be on my phone less because
I do like social media as a tool. I feel
more connected to people when I'm on it than when
I'm off of it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah yeah, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Also don't know how to use it responsibly.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You are, you are mirroring how I feel I actually
got rid of all of my social media after all.
Off right, now, I'm off off. I deleted, I deactivated
all my accounts, and I deleted all the apps from
my phone, so I have no access to them. I mean,
obviously it's not hard to regain access. I've done this
(09:59):
a thousand and times where I leave but then I
always come back. But yeah, I just realized that so
much of my time was being spent. And I'm sure
it's not uncommon, but obviously, being trapped at home, you're
looking outward. You want attention, you want to socialize, you
want to see what everyone else is doing, but you're
(10:19):
only getting a very polished version of what I felt
like was a one sided friendship. Obviously, people are just
posting to post. They're not doing it for me, you know,
They're not reaching out to me.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And likewise, I post things specifically for you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, that's very thoughtful and I always like them. But
I just felt like I wasn't It wasn't a healthy relationship,
you know, And I think I always take a break
from it because I feel that, and then I miss
it and I miss my friends, and I miss cataloging
my adventures in life, and then I go back, and
then suddenly I get sucked in again and it starts
(10:57):
to feel very unhealthy. So I met that point again
where I've removed it all, I've stepped away.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I watched how long have you been off?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I want to say, it's been two weeks. Okay, I
think I did it, like maybe a week before you
sent me the short story? Okay, when was that like
a week ago? No idea, no concept of time. But
I replaced that because obviously it's still kind of hard
(11:27):
not to want to be on your phone. I mean
I even got rid of read it read it was
my real time suck, and I really felt like I
was just constantly looking at news stuff, especially because of
like the election and the raid on the Capitol and
what's going to happen on the twentieth. It's so exhausting,
and I'm like, if I didn't know about this and
I was just in my house, would I have a
(11:48):
better day?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And yes, of course, because you know, yeah, But also
like I think an important thing is like if you
didn't know about that and you were just in your house,
would anything have been different?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And in the world, Yeah, exactly, that's true.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Probably not yeah, you know, so like not only like
are you having a better day, but also like most
of the time what we're doing is just feeling overwhelmed
and not like because there's like it there's an argument
for like you got to stay informed because you have
to stay like an active participant in your government and
in your society, and if you don't, that's when like
bad things happen, is when people start to you know,
(12:24):
step back too much. But like you have to be
able to take a break. And that's one of the
cool things about this book is that she's like, you know,
taking being able to like unplug or like do nothing
is not like it's not like a path to become
like a political or like exactly like a passenger in
(12:47):
your life. It's actually just like a way to be
able to do it more effectively, because if you can
never turn off, you can never recharge, and you'll never
have the energy to do anything worthwhile if you're constantly
just like running to keep up with like the craziness
of just being alive.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Exactly. It just felt like such it's like a job
that no one was hiring me for. Like I'm just
I'm I'm not helping anything you know, I mean obviously,
like I try to participate and promote my my views
and my message and in my way, and I donate
when I, you know, to organizations I support, you know,
I try to do my part. I'm not a guy
(13:28):
who needs to be glued to it though. I don't
need to be like on the hot like okay, when
they're going to release what's going on with, you know,
with this thing, or how the Senate responded to this
or that, what's the house going to do? You know,
Like I'm not on the floor. I don't need to
be there twenty four hours a day. So I do
one check every day. At the end of the day,
I go and I see what happened today politically, and
I keep it to like five ten minutes and then
(13:49):
I'm out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
What kind of whiskey are you drinking?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Just the classic? We drink four roses bourbon.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Oh, I like four roses whiskey.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
They have a really good price on it at the
neighborhood liquor store, so it's like the it's like cheaper
than anything else. It's like forty bucks for or forty
three bucks for a giant bottle, or like twenty two
for a regular size bottle.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Dang, that's pretty good. We get the one point seventy
five liter for like forty bucks.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When I go, I get the one point seventy five leader.
Ryan likes to still buy the small bottles even though
we're always gonna drink it. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I thought you were gonna say Ryan buys the dollar
shot size. He just buys hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I mean it feels like that, you know, because I'm
like Brian, we're gonna drink it all. Why not like
save the the environmental impact of one bottle versus two,
and like the two or three dollars we save, you know,
save two or three dollars and an.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Entire bottle and save a trip.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He thinks we drink it faster if we buy the
big one.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, I mean he's not always wrong. Sometimes that is
the case. I feel that way about when we buy
the big Like we have the handle of Tito's right now.
Nicole loves her vodka. I got the handle of this
Hallisco Repisado tequila that I love. But this is I mean,
it's again, it's thirty bucks for the handle, and it's
so good, Like that was to handle.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The big guy or the little guy.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, the big one, big guy. Yeah, because it usually
has a handle on it.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Oh, is that why they call it that?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I mean some some like obviously my tequila doesn't have
a handle, does have a handle, but that's why they
call it the handle.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I've never put two and two together in that way.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
But speaking of tequila.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Speaking of Hallisco Reposado tequila from Camarina Tequila, which is
very good.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
The story that we're reading today was collect did in
a small town in Jalisco, Mexico.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So Jalisco is the state, and then in a town
in the state of Alisco in the country of Mexico
is where our story was collected, not necessarily originated.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But that's what's interesting, is like, Okay, so the the
small town or pueblo as they as I keep seeing,
you know, it's called the pueblo because it's a very
very small town, as in like right now, there are
I think three hundred and fifty two people living there. Wow,
according to a website that I found.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But did you say as.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Queltana asweltana, as queltan a sweltan aquel that's my Spanish accent.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
It is in Jalisco, Jalisco where I you know, as
a classic American, I don't really understand geography of my
own country or countries nearby or anywhere. Jalisco is in
the center basically of Mexico on the Pacific coast, I see.
(17:16):
And it's also where you said tequila is from. And
mariachi music.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Oh I love mariachi music.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Me too, me too, Actually I do. And actually, if
you look at a map where where this place is,
it's like in this very cute little circle of the
Bolagos River. It's like the river makes like a cute
little loopti and then they built a little town right
in there. And what do you also know what Asquotan
(17:50):
means What it translates to in the indigenous language. It
means land of many ants.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Like ants and uncles are like ants, the insect.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
The insect.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Oh my god. Yes, that seems like a place you
wouldn't want to build a home.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I imagine it's unpleasant there.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
That's yeah, that's interesting because there's where Nicole is born,
not born, but where she grew up is Roseville, California.
And a very common problem that a lot of people experienced.
There is a problem with ants, and it was basically
that Roseville was founded on a giant ant hill and
it's very unpleasant. Have you ever been to Mexico.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I've been to Mexico City.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And just outside of Mexico City. Have you been to Mexico?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I've been. I've been a few times.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I've been to drove over or you flew both.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I celebrated a birthday in Tijuana, I turned twenty one
and en Sonata nice. And then I've also been to
Perto Vayarta. I think a couple of times, but maybe
just once. I can't remember. Good time, it was a
great time. Port of Art is like just a resort town,
but I did go into the city for a little bit.
(19:11):
Shout out to Frogs for all of us tourists who've
been to a Frogs or to a Papa San Beer.
It's just a little like chain restaurant bar thing that
tourists constantly go to.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I was thinking that it was a shout out to
actual frog in.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Which case, you know what shout out to.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I would have been on board with. Yeah, shout out
to frogs everywhere.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Shout out to all the frogs. I'm more of a
frog guy than I am a toad guy. I will
say that.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Love toads, Love toads, love frogs.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
All cute, Yeah, all cute. And then I've also been
to Sayulita, which is near Puerto bart It's like a
little surfer town. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So you've been to Mexico quite a few times.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, I really love Mexico.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So more about this story.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Did you say what the story is? Uh?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I didn't. I don't think. It's called the Bird of
the Sweet.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Song, Bird of the Sweet Song, and.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It was collected by this guy, Jay Alden Mason.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Jay Alden Mason.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
He lived from eighteen eighty five to nineteen sixty seven.
Born and raised in Philly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Shout out to Philly.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Shout out to Philly. He was a very well known.
I mean he ended up being a very well known
like ethnographer, anthropologist dude m h and a've bit of
an archaeologist too, right, A big a big archaeologist actually.
And these stories he collected four stories from Asqualdan when
(20:46):
he was young. So this was this the publication where
this is from was in nineteen twelve, in the late
summer of nineteen twelve. He collected the stories in January
of that year. It was his first job out of
grad school after he got his doctorate, and they sent
him down to Mexico and his plan was to build
(21:09):
a grammar system for the language of the tipe Juana people,
who are the people who live at askwaldd.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Oh I see Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So it's an indigenous group of people, and recently they've
been in the news a lot because I guess they've
been fighting for their rights to the land for a while.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But he went down there to try to get a
sense of the language and write a grammar for it
and ended up hearing these folk stories. So he wrote
them down and he noticed that they weren't indigenous folk stories,
but they were European folk stories, kind of told with
a local flare. So this story actually that I chose,
(21:55):
I chose because I thought it was kind of fun
and weird. But it's actually supposedly a variant of a
European story, like a mix of a couple of stories,
one of which is called the Golden Bird and another
one of which is similar to one that we've read
in the past, which is.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
The water Life.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
How cool. Wow, would come full circle in a way.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
In some ways.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, that's pretty wild. Wow. Okay, So the Catalonian story
that we read, would that have come before this one?
And this one was inspired by basically the game of
Telephone basically from catalan and it made its way there. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Well,
I'm really excited to read this now. I that's so
(22:44):
cool and that's interesting. So they're currently dealing with the
land ownership.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, so I guess they've I guess they've like pretty
consistently fought over the land, even though I think like
the Spanish government and like the seventeen hundred's grand to
them the rights to the land, and I was like,
this is yours, but groups have like consistently tried to
common and strong arm them out of it because I
guess it's like really good ag land, probably because it's
(23:10):
in a little river area.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah wow.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And so it's like I guess, like most recently it
was like a group of cattle ranchers with ties to
the Mexican like drug cartels came in and started like
beating people up and killing people and trying to steal.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Wrong arm them out of steal the land. Wow, that's
so interesting and how wild because it perfectly ties into
the little research that I did. I tried to find,
you know, things regarding Mexico around that time. And I mean,
I'm pretty new to this bit of history, very cursory
(23:50):
understanding of it. But when this book came out, it
came out nineteen twelve, is that right? So I looked
up what was kind of going on in the country
at that time, and that was two years into the
Mexican Revolution, and so doing a bit of research. It's
interesting because a lot of what went down with the
Mexican Revolution was peasant farmers fighting for their right to
(24:15):
own their own land. It lasted for approximately ten years,
so nineteen ten to nineteen twenty. The president at the time,
Porphyrio Diaz, the country's longest serving president, who was made
famous by his victory over the invading French army at
the Battle of Puebla, which we celebrate now as Cinco
de Mayo, seized power in eighteen seventy six after trying
(24:37):
and failing to be elected democratically, so he was in
control of the government from eighteen seventy six until nineteen eleven,
and I mean he under his reign, foreign capital flooded
the country and extensive infrastructure modernization took place. However, land
and power were concentrated and controlled by the elite, and
elections were more often than not little more than a
(24:58):
farce to appease you know Whoever, not surprisingly, Diaz was
aggressively disliked by lower class population, but after an economic
turned downturn in nineteen oh seven, the middle class and
even the upper class, who are now obviously being affected
by this economic downturn, it's like you only care when
it bothers. You started to turn on Diaz. I mean,
(25:21):
it reads like something out of Game of Thrones. It's
so crazy, like how many people were taken out of
power and how many people were betrayed to take the
throne basically, and then you know, you'd put one person
in there and then they'd have somebody like help them,
but then that person would betray them and then have
them executed. And it's really quite crazy. And that's I mean,
that's how we get to know, like people like Emiliano Zapata,
(25:44):
who's pretty famous in Mexican history, Pancho villa pistas. Yeah,
there's apautistas, I mean fighting literally fighting peasant peasants, fighting
for to control their land from hacienda workers who had
taken it from them. And so it's so interesting that,
i mean, we're at the one hundred year mark now
basically of when it quote unquote ended. Obviously the fighting
(26:07):
continued for like another ten years after nineteen twenty, but
to still be dealing with the same problems today, it's
just so frustrating and so absurd. And obviously there's you
see so many similarities between that sort of economy where
the lower class has like no right, no rights to
even what we're dealing with in America, where it's just
(26:29):
this the top one percent, all these you know, trigger
words we all like to use, but it's it's so
apparent how long stuff like that's been going on, and
how many cultures have fought and died trying to change things.
So I'm really I'm really surprised that, i mean, the
poor people of that town who are still dealing with that,
and now with the drug cartels, it's like a whole
(26:50):
other element you have to deal It's like a whole
other body of government that's in there now, which is
so crazy. Yeah, man, but that just gives us a
framework of what was going on at the time that
these stories were collected.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, it's really wild to me that he was down
there doing this in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, and the number of factions that I mean, that's
why it went on so long, is that there were
like seriously like twelve different groups all fighting to get
their political views to the top. Basically some would join together,
some would betray one another, and then obviously you have
like the US is constantly interfering. Like the guy who
(27:33):
overthrew that president that had been the longest standing president.
His name was Francisco Madero, who was a pro democracy
advocate born from a wealthy landowners and industrious challenged Diaz
president Diez in nineteen ten, but Diaz had him jailed,
and because he realized he was gaining momentum, Madero runs
(27:57):
up to Texas. He starts he starts like a crying
out to all the other Mexicans like please, we need
to start a revolution, we need this to stop, and
he actually ends up getting control in nineteen eleven his
general because other like anti revolutionaries start to come after him.
He has his general try and go and get rid
of these anti revolutionaries. But the general ends up taking
(28:18):
the side of the anti revolutionaries and jailing and executing Madero.
General Victoriano Huerta, I mean, he's the one who turned
on Madero and actually had him execute it. But the
US helped Huerta do that because they felt that the
Mexican Revolution was affecting their How did they phrase it,
(28:41):
It's like American commerce.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I'm sure it was, man. That is the story. That's
true in like so many parts of the world where
it's like a country is having a civil war and
then the US comes in and is like, we're gonna
back this guy, and we're just gonna end this aurument
right here.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
What helps our interests the most will pick aside in
something that I mean is really about a country's civil
discourse and its own rights. But America sees an opportunity.
I mean, obviously a lot of countries have done this,
but you see America doing it a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah. It's wild. Yeah, it's wild in the Middle East too, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Crazy man, But an emotional and emotional historical context for
you know, I think I think it's a good tip
of the hat to what was going on at the time,
and and and an awareness for us as human beings
to just be, you know, to see what kind of
where power should be. You know, it should be with
(29:49):
the people. And and sadly it's it's always a struggle
to get that.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I agree. And with all that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Under a belt, do you want to take a little break?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Do you think that it's time to take a break.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And then come down. Let's all get the tension out
of our bodies from hearing the atrocities committed against people.
Let's take a little break, will unwind a bit when
we come.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Back, and then we'll we'll hear a story about it.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
A little tonal shift, but a welcome one.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
All right, Well, we'll be We'll be back in a moment.
Stay with us. The bird of the sweet song. Once
there was an old man who was blind, and the
(30:49):
sorcerers whom he consulted told him that the only thing
which would cure his blindness was a certain sweet voiced bird.
So his son started out to find the bird. Soon
he came to a rancho where he found a dead
man who had no one to bury him. Feeling reverence
for the dead, he sought a man to attend the corpse,
(31:09):
and then sent for a priest to bury him. The
priest inquired of the messenger whether he came on his
own business or for another, remarking that it were better
if the other should himself come to present his requests. Nevertheless,
he went, and the corpse was buried with responses. Then
the boy went on his way.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So just.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Quickly, boy starts on a journey, sees a dead body,
and its like, wait a second, I should bury this.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I mean, that's already that's an eventful day and he's
only just begun. Yeah, straight up, this is the beginning
of a mystery.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
You ever come across like a dead animal all the
time somewhere? Like I saw a dead hawk the other day,
and I thought to myself, like, hawks are so like
regal and important. Should I do something about this? Should
I bury this hawk? You know I didn't, obviously, but
maybe if I had, things would be different.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, you could have changed the course of human history
had you just buried that damn hawk. Now Here we
are stuck in this time. Thanks a lot, Maggie.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Soon afterwards he met in the road the spirit of
the dead man, to whom he had given the charity
of burial. It had assumed the form of a fox,
who asked him where he was going and why. He
replied that he was going to the country of the
moors to fetch the bird of the sweet Song. Then
the fox told him that it was very near, and
(32:43):
that he would give him a horse to assist him.
The fox knew whether the horse was given pasture or not.
He further advised him that if he should find the
moors with their eyes open, it was a sign that
they were sleeping, But if their eyes were closed, then
he should know that they were white awake. But the
fox warned him that he must not carry away any
(33:05):
of the beautiful maidens, which he would find in the
house of the moors. Soon the boy arrived at the
castle of the Moors and entered there. He found the
moors with their eyes open, and by this he knew
that they were sleeping. Many birds were there in beautiful cages,
but he passed these by and took a plain common cage,
(33:27):
in which was a homely bird, for he knew that
this was the bird of the sweet song.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
He uh Indiana Jones did remember in Indiana Jones in
the Last Crusade, they have him choose which goblet happened
to be the holy Grail that had held the blood
of Christ. And so the guy who's like having the
Nazis help him, he comes in and he's like, he
chooses the most glamorous, decorated goblet because he thinks. He's like, oh,
(33:54):
it's the fanciest one. And then the old guy who's
like a knight of the Grail, he's like, five hundred
years old.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
You have chosen poorly, hmmm.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And then Indiana picks the humble, little little goblet. He's like,
because you know, Jesus was a carpenter. He wasn't like
a big wealthy guy. This this little unassuming so I
like where this kid's head's at.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Likewise, he seized one of the beautiful maidens, contrary to
the fox's orders, mounted a wooden horse which he found there,
and flew through the window. Then the moors awakened and
pursued them, and soon overtook them. They carried the boy
and the maiden back to their castle and imprisoned them there.
(34:44):
Soon the fox reappeared to him and said, you did
not do as I instructed you. He then told him
that the maiden was in the garden and would speak
to no one, and that the bird refused to sing,
but that he had gone for some charcoal and begged
permission of the Morse to give her two pieces. Then
she at once began to talk, the bird to sing
(35:07):
and the horse to nay. Soon. I don't really understand
what just happened there, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So the all that so the fox, So the mors
captured them.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, well because the kid, the guy, the boy didn't
follow the directions. He was supposed to get the bird,
but instead he saw a girl and he was like,
I also want a girl, but that was the lady.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, don't grab the girls.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Jumped on a wooden horse and flew through the window,
which is also weird.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Call it a quick getaway, not a smart getaway.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Very fast, very quick get away. I don't understand how
the wooden horse flew him through the window. But that's okay.
But then the fox gives the girl some charcoal, and
then suddenly she's okay. Everybody's okay. K again, what does
that mean? I have no idea, Like, do you think
(36:09):
at the time when he was hearing the story and
writing it down. Do you think he was like, that
doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
He's like, but I gotta stay true, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, he just wrote it down and was like, didn't
ask like it. It's like it seems like such a
non sequitur, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, Yeah, he's just he's like, that's just what they said.
I take no claim to to why or what it means.
I wish we could call him.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I wish we could too. Soon afterward, the boy again
seized the maiden, and the bird mounted the horse and
flew away. Again. The fox reappeared, warning them not to
cross the river with the bargemen, for should they attempt
to do so, they would never reach the other shore.
But disregarding the warning, they kept on until they came
(36:57):
to the river, where they met the bargemen. They said
that they did not have room for all to cross
at once, but that they would first cross with the maiden,
the bird, and the horse, and later return for the boy.
The girl, bird, and horse were safely landed on the
other shore, and the bargemen returned for the boy. But
when they reached the middle of the river, the boat
(37:17):
was upset. You know what that reminds me of is
that like math logic problem where like you have a chicken,
some grain, and a fox.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
M I know it as goat, cabbage and wolf or
something like that. Yeah, but similar exactly. It's like how
do you get everything across safely?
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, it reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I was just thinking that too. Do you know what
was yours? And then what's the answer?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I forget what the answer is?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
See, yours is chicken grain in fox.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, So like the chicken will eat the grain and
the fox will eat the chicken, and you can only
put two. Oh wait, so then you just put the
the fox and the grain, you send them across, you
stay with the chicken. Oh no, but you can only
do one at a time, right, Is that what they're
(38:12):
rule something like that?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But because basically if you send one across, you're leaving
two things behind.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
So you'd have to do the grain first, No, because
then I mean, whenever you'd send the chicken.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
You gotta do the chicken first, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And then what the fox last? Oh?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Oh, I know what it is. It's that you take
the chicken across first, and then you come back, you
get the feed, you go across, you take the chicken back.
Then you bring the fox across, leave them there, you
come back, you get the chicken for the last runt one.
So you just you got to take the chicken with
you for a ride, even though you don't leave them there.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
That's what it is. Yeah, something's got to make two trips.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well, that's why figured out. We figured it out. But
that's why the boat was upset. They didn't do that.
The boat has emotions. I like that. It's not that
the boat was struggling, you know, or sinking or whatever.
It's the boat was very upset.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
It was I mean like upset, like an upset. It
like like upturned, it tipped over. Yeah, yeah, I see
it when they brought I mean, I'm sure it was
also upset.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
But the boat was upset.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
The boat was upset.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
The boat was upset.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
The boat was being a little bit.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I don't want to shut up. Boat, take me and
my friends across.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Now. It happened that there was a sebino tree in
the middle of the river, and the boy held tightly
to this. Then suddenly the fox appeared on the river
bank and told him to hold tight until he made
a rope, So he began to pull the hairs out
of his tail and twisted them to form a rope.
(40:01):
When it was long enough, he threw it out to
the boy and told him to tie it about his
waist so that he might pull him ashore. Reaching the shore,
the boy went sadly home, leaving the Bird of the
Sweet Song, the maiden and the horse on the other
side of the river. When the blind father heard that
his son had lost the Bird of the Sweet Song,
(40:21):
he again went to the sorcerers, who told him that
the sole remedy now for his blindness was to bathe
in the sea every afternoon. So, first of all, I'm
mistrustful of these sorcerers because they said, first the only
way to cure the only way to cure your blindness
is to get this fancy bird, And then when they
(40:42):
lose the bird, they're like, okay, actually, the only way
to do it now is to go bathe in the
sea every day. Like that would have been a cooler plan. A.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I know, yeah, why wouldn't you try that first?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
It seems like an easier plan. A.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I feel like that's probably what the boy said. He's like,
I could have done that. That should have been the
first thing I did. Why did I go and do
all sort this stuff? Now I have to have all
this and I have to stand in the ocean every day,
which is nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, just go bathe in the sea every afternoon. That's easy.
That sounds nice.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
It does sound nice, unless unless it's long beach.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's true when you're getting like hepatitis every time you go.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I can't tell you how many times I doing my
runs and my walks down on the beach would nearly
trip and fall onto dead animals all the time. I
mean I almost fell on every single one. It's very
strange for a lot of people to see. I would
(41:44):
have hold of ceremony. But one time I did. I
wasn't paying attention. I was walking along the beach and
this was closer to like Belmont Shore area, and I
almost tripped and fell on a dead seal, an entire
dead seal. I didn't. I was like kind of like
looking at my phone and looking down and just kind
of like lost in my music or whatever I was
listening to. And I looked up just in time to
(42:06):
see this. I mean huge, they're they're they're huge. It
was like person sized dead animal just laying there and
I tripped and fell trying not to step on it.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Oh my god. Yeah, a seal in Long Beach. That
that seal was far away from home. I wonder if
that's why he died. I think it's not that far.
Seal Beach.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Seal Beach, Yes, far.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Away from home. I just oh my, I saw seals
and Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No me, neither, well except for a dead one. Actually.
You know, if you do the little fairy tour they
do around the port, you'll see seals out on the
I mean pretty far out where they show you, like
the Queen Mary and then where the submarine the Black
Widow used to be or whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
I've never done that, but I should have.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
I still could you still can? I don't. I'm maybe not.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, I guess not currently. No, probably, But.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
When that lockdown is lifted, the first thing I'm gonna
do is go ferry around Long Beach.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Look at the seals from far away.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Yeah, Seal Beach, huh h.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
The first day that he went there, an ugly worm
appeared and told him that if he would give him
one of his three daughters, he would cure his infirmity. Returning,
he told his daughters of this, and they agreed that
if the worm would cure their father, one of them
would go with the worm. So the next afternoon, the
old man took his eldest daughter, but when she saw
(43:39):
the worm, she was horrified and said that she would
never go with such an ugly creature. The next afternoon,
when the blind father went to bathe, he took his
second daughter, but she likewise refused to go when she
saw the ugliness of the worm. Now only the youngest remained,
but she said that she would gladly do anything if
(44:02):
only her father might be cured, so she went with him.
The next afternoon when he went to bathe, then the
ugly worm appeared and asked her if she were willing
to go with him. Turning to her father, she asked
him to give her his blessing. Then from the sea
there came a great wave which carried the maiden and
the worm out to sea with it.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Oh my god, yeah, oh my god. Nothing nothing worked
out at all.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I'm pretty sure that the guy got a site back.
I guess like the worm took the maiden.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh okay, I thought it took everyone. I thought it
was just like and then a great sea came and
took the father, the maiden and the worm, and everyone.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Was I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
But okay, so the father got a site back.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
I'm pretty sure the father gets a site back to
give her his blessing.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's so pretty weird though.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, I see, I see what happened. Okay, so she
gets the blessing from the dad. The dad says yeah,
and then she goes out. She leaves with the worm.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Stories like this always make me think of like the
actual experience of being a child hearing like an adult
tell you the story, you know. And I always wonder like,
if I were a kid and I heard the story,
would I be like what or would I just be like, oh, okay,
good night, you know, Like I don't I don't know
(46:04):
how I would respond to it. As as as a.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Child, I imagine you would question it. I'm just picturing
that child, that tiny Maggie who's got oil in her eyes,
with her hands in her pockets, just grinning and bearing
it and just being like adults, don't freak out, keep together.
She's a very composed child, nude. So no, you would
(46:29):
definitely question him like it's wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
hold on, let's back up. Mom.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, also, it's weird that the that he doesn't specify,
like okay, like a wave came and took the worm
and the daughter and also the man could see again.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, it's all kind of like everything kind of happens
so quickly that we're not even able to appreciate the whole,
the celebratory side of things that he did.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Get his verst sacrifice, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah, it's just like dad got a side back. She
went with the worm, bah blah bah bah bye.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Well no, but we don't even know if he got
a site back, like we assume he did, but it
doesn't say he did.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, I guess we're just left to assume that if
she goes with the worm, dad gets his side back
since she went with the worm, but it just ends
so we don't even Yeah, you don't even hear like
it worked. It's like there's a part of me that's
just like, she leaves with the worm, and the Dad's like,
uh shit, still can't see.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
It's so well because I feel like if he couldn't
see at the end of it, then we'd be like
and the man still couldn't see, and he cursed the
heavens for them stealing his you.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Know, like exactly there should be something.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
She had more information.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's the same thing in that
charcoal thing, where it's just like so much going on
so quickly that there's no time to like ask a question.
He then told him that the maiden was in the
garden and would speak to no one, and that the
bird refused to sing, but that he had gone for
some charcoal and begged permission of the moors to give
her two pieces. Then she at once began to talk,
the bird to sing and the horse to nay. It's like, oh,
(48:02):
everything unravels, okay, like what well, also.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Just the fact that like, you know, he tries to
get this his like you know, his spoils home, and
then he can't get to the other side of the river.
And so that's the end of the bird. Even though
this story is called the Bird of the Sweet Song,
like the Bird of the Sweet Songs just got left
to live a life with a weird wood horse and
a maiden. They like now live like in a weird
(48:26):
commune on the other side of the river. Yeah, and
now we're onto Plan B, which is a weird worm,
like a horny worm.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
A horny worm. So I think it actually was Long
Beach with this worm. Yeah, yeah, I'm assuming it's a
translation thing. I would I wish that I understood Spanish,
that I could and and find and find a Spanish
version of this story.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Well, I guess it's not even Spanish though. It's like
it's the language, the indigenous language, which is Tipe.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Oh that's right, that's right, because it's the native people
who settled there that he collected this from.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, that's right, and he was he was, I mean,
he was studying their language. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, I mean, all we can do is chalk it
up to a translation thing because there's just not enough
context for us to really unravel the mysteries. It's like
this happened, This happened, This happened. They said this wasn't
going to happen, but then guess what eight other things
did happen.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
But it is supposed to be, you know, it is
like a sort of retelling of a couple of stories
that we know from European folklore. But just like and
I wonder if like even though there's like all these
confusing aspects of it, Like is the moral still there?
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yeah, I'm trying to compare it a little bit to
what I remember about the Water of Life and see
if we can't find the similarities there. I mean the
differences is that in the Water of Life it was
just the brothers and the sister wanting to build a
beautiful home. But then they also wanted to bring people
(50:05):
in to see it, and then some but it was
just like a recommendation like well, if you really want
to bring people in. It was like an old man
or something. He's like, you got to go get the
water and the bird and the blah blah blah. So
I mean goal seeking or like you know, going out
and finding a treasure to bring it back to do something.
I mean, we see that all the time in folks stories.
I mean, the moral for me feels pretty simplified. In
(50:28):
my mind. It's like try your best.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
I feel like there's something in there about like the
debt a child owes to their parents.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Ooh, that's good. That's really good.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
You know, because the sun and it's like the different
debts that you have as a son versus a daughter.
So as a son, Like, your debt is going to
be repaid by like going out and doing something. Yeah,
as a daughter, your debt's going to be repaid by
just like being given away as like a prize.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
We're all born with a debt in a way to
our parents because they gave us life, right.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, and yours. There's also like a hierarchy among the kids.
The older sister and the second older sister, the middle
sister both had the uh, you know, the freedom to
be like, now, that's a weird worm.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
So that's a weird worm. There's some worms out there
I'm into, Okay, Like, don't think it's a worm. I'm
not a wormist. It is this, this dude, specifically, this.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Specific worm is real, real weird. And I know I
said I would help you, dad, but looking at this
weird worm, I I can't do it. I'd rather be blind.
You don't understand your blind.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Can't see dad. Your blindness right now is a gift.
This dude is hard to look at.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
This is a fucking weird worm.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
This is a weird.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
What is he gonna do to me?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You know? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (51:48):
And this poor maiden got swept away to be married
to a worm for the rest of your life and
probably eternity, because once you get married to a weird
like you know, supernatural worm in the ocean, it's not
like you're just you're like you're like, okay, we'll just
have to endure like sixty years of this until I die.
It's probably like you're swept away into eternal life and
now you're just like gonna live for millennia with the worm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's how magic works. It's
it's forever.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
It's that's what they think.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Wow, what do you think made the worm weird?
Speaker 1 (52:22):
I have been thinking about it. Uh, I've been trying
to think of you know, the size of the word.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Okay, okay, what do you think he's like five five,
one hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
In my mind, he's like like like the size of
a of a large dog.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Okay, okay, you're thinking like a like a Saint Bernard
or or are you thinking like Great.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Dane more like a Saint Bernard in g.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
See, so a little a little chunky, he's.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Round, he's like, you know, he's rolled around, and he's
got a head that sticks out like so and he's
looking and he's probably got like weird like beady eye
and sharp teeth and like a tongue, like a forked
tongue or something that like licks.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, that sounds like a scary worm.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
I so, so they say, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
But if he was a weird worm, he's got like
a soul patch and a fedora little worm. And it's
like you guys in De Ska Yet or Big Band,
that guy's weird.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Oh gross. Now would you have would you have drawn
the connection between this story and the Water of Life
if we had not set it out right before reading?
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Oh no, you know, because like we like, like I
pointed out it, it's like it's got a lot of
the same kind of journey the adventure tropes of other
stories who've come across. So I don't think my brain
would have connected. I mean, the fact that there's a
bird in that sort of like go out and collect
these treasures and bring them back. Maybe I would have.
But like you said, even though it's like the bird
(54:15):
is gone halfway through this story, yeah, exactly, the titular
character of the story isn't even around.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Was that a joke? Because tit is.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
A kind of it was, and I but then I
got I tried to emphasize it in a way, but
it just made me sound slightly waspy or English, so
then I had to roll up.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It sounded like a like a specific.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Character titular a bad.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
Put my finger?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Can you do it? David Attenborough?
Speaker 4 (54:49):
The titular bird is watching what he's eating because his
figure is out of control.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
If David Attenborough worked for People magazine or something.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, yeah, David Addenburrow's internship at us.
Speaker 4 (55:08):
She looks to be coming undone. Her life isn't trembles,
and yet she walks the runway anyway.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
David Attenborough is ruthless.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
He's fucking brutal.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So what do you think to put a little cap
on the moral side? Is it just a combination of
you know, do your best and and help out your
your parents or or you a death.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Is it that you'll always get a second chance?
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Whoa, whoa, Now I'm on it, Now I'm with it.
So basically, the worm was a reincarnated person. It was
a weird guy and now is a weird worm.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wonder
to me. The main theme of the story is the
day you owe your parents.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah, I'm with that. I feel like that's probably because
that's the there's no other reason that the anybody would
would participate to help the father. It's like your moral obligation,
your obligation to your parents too.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Also like he's just blind, Like it's not like he's
like gonna die.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, he's not terminal, you know. No.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
And the fact that like you go through the whole
hierarchy of the kids, you go through the son to
the eldest daughter, to the middle daughter, to the youngest daughter,
like the whole power hierarchy, to the least powerful person
in the entire family, and then literally her life is
worth his vision.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
And it's kind of a it's like a goldiebear or
a Goldiebear, Goldie Goldilocks thing. Yeah, you gotta find the
one that's just rights the next one. I agree with
the first one, and then that's it.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Wow gold Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
So he was willing to give up his any of
his kids to get his site back, and then ultimately
did give his bo and she had to ask, like
his permission to do this thing for him? Do I
have your blessing father to marry this creepy little dude,
(57:35):
and it's weird worm And he said, yeah, so I
can see.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Yes, although I guess, like, you know, if you're the
breadwinner for your family, sight would be you know, the
same as your ability to work and live.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Right, Yeah, that's true. But it seems like all the
kids are pretty pretty able bodied.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
True, like they can make exactly.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
It must have been the dad was the actual owner
of the land or something, and they're his little Hittel
property babies.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, I think that's a good, good bit.
Speaker 4 (58:23):
It was in that moment that they realized they've done it.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
Any any final closing remarks you want to make or do?
Should we pass this aw and over to the to
the listeners, let us know, to let us know what
they think happened.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, let's pass it to the listeners. Tired of the spotlight,
but but yeah, let us know what you thought about
this story. If you have any insight, maybe you're more
familiar with some other iteration of it and you have
some inside scoop on what the moral lesson is here,
(58:57):
or maybe you're as lost as we are. Either way,
let us know. Reach out twists.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Yeah, let us know via Instagram. We've got Instagram. We're
at at Folklorica dot pod. We're on the Twitter at
Folklorica Pod Folklorica Pod, and you can also email us
at Folklorica at strawhatmedia dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
And we genuinely love receiving emails and messages from you guys.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Yeah, it's been really exciting. It's been a real bright.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Spot, truly. It's so nice to feel like we have
a you know, a community to communicate with. It's nice.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Godspeed everybody, so long, Peter saying goodbye Glorica, and now
for your moment of Zennyrd Skynyrd.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
If I stay with you, girl, things just couldn't be
the same
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Because I'm as free as a bird now, and this
bird you cannot Chay Joe, and the birds you cannot change,
(01:00:38):
and this bird you cannot chang
Straw Hut Media. I really believe that in the larger sense,
not only today, but at all times, you only find
yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility.
(00:21):
I think filmmaker Guillermo del Toro shays this in an
interview with The Avy Club in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Glorica, Hello, and welcome to Folklorica, the podcast about folk
tales from around the world. I'm your host, Clayton Stucker.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I am your other host, Maggie Bowles. And it
is currently a Sunday early evening for us right now.
I don't know what time it is for you listening,
because who knows?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It is four twenty seven pm.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh yep, and Galifornia, same time zone in Los Angeles
as in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, Sacramento. It's also the same time as Portland and Seattle,
San Diego, San Diego, Tijuana.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Hmm yeah, Tijuana. Also speaking of Tijuana, Oh yeah, speaking
of Tijuana. That's a great segue. M hm uh, well
are we ready to segue though?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
It's in there if you want to chop it up
and use it later. Speaking of Tijuanna, speaking.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Of Tijuana, speaking being bom bom, bom bom, and then.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It reminds me of like a news report from the.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Sixties, the sixties or the nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, okay, the nineties.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Were you watching news reports in the sixties, I.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Was gotta stay current with the times. The Cuban missile crisis,
JFK assassination, the Moon launch. I was there. Where were
you when JFK was shot?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's a really good question. And when I was a kid,
my dad used to do this thing where he would
like ask me, uh, like, if I remembered something that
happened last week, and then he would be like, what
about last year? What about the year before that? And
then he would try to get me to go back
to before I was born, to remember the things that
(02:24):
happened before I was born. I was always like, I
don't know. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't have that information.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I don't have that information. But I think he was
really like, I think it was half a bit and
half him legitimately thinking like, she's a kid, maybe she
actually does have some real knowledge about you know the
other side.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Mm hmmm, she's fresh off the tap. You know.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Also, because I've heard those stories about little kids who
remember things from past lives, Like there's that one little
boy who was like a fighter pilot in World War
two or something like that.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Wow, mm hmm, I don't know that one. He did
you have any of those?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
No, of course not.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was a very rational, composed five year old girl.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was very frustrated that I couldn't go back far
enough because it seemed like it would be very valuable.
But no, I didn't have any kind of memories. Let
me see, I could just google this really fast, you know,
like a little boy pilot reincarnated. Our son is a
World War two pilot come back to life. Wow, you
didn't hear the story.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Huh when did this happen?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
This was in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I was really busy that year, you do. So? He
said he was a World War two pilot that had
died in World War two.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Oh yeah, so like he started having he had a
he had like vivid nightmares when he was screaming plane
on fire, airplane crash when he was two years old
and freaking out. And then he started like having these
like just like recounting these like weird stories about being
a pilot. And then they like went and found the
story a story that like coincided with the weird Shitty
(04:07):
was saying, you belave in reincarnation.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I'm open to it just because it seems very odd
to me that of all existence in the universe, from
the point of the universe beginning, which we have no
idea how or why truly to get you know, average
eighty years as a conscientious person, like this is your
(04:33):
only time that you're conscious in this way, it makes
me think that reincarnation is possible. Like we all get up,
we get a repeat, you know, there's just so much time,
and an average human life is so small.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You're used to hear your second chances.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I see, Truly, that's so revealing.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
This can't be the only shot we get. I've been
around the block a few times, and trust me, there's
always a second chance.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, there's no unhappy endings. Everything works out for everybody,
even if it's not this life. You get a better
one next time. But I'm open to it. What about you?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I like the idea of reincarnation. When I was a
little kid, a shaman told me I had an old soul.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Okay, you spoke to a shaman, I sure did. Where
was this shaman.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
My mom used to take me to weird stuff all
the time when I was a kid, because she used
to sell a realm of therapy that was like her business.
And we went to something and I remember I was
like probably nine years old, and I met this shaman.
You gave me a feather. You told me that I
still have the feather, that I was an old soul.
And then later that night we watched some people do
(05:52):
like fire dancing wow, and uh, you know when they
like blow the stuff, the like alcohol out of their mouth,
like do the fire stuff fire breathers, fire breathers, thank you,
And the alcohol got in my eyeball.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
In the show they did it into a child's eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It was horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I was like, no, sir, you spit in my eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It burned.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That is so funny. I just love bad things happening
to children.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It was really painful.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, I mean, I'm fine, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
They just had to I mean, you had to be
evacuated obviously from this.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Oh no, no, no, I did exactly what you think
I did, which is that I just bit my tongue
and cried quietly in a group of people.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Just standing there being the composed child that can't remember. Previously,
I tried not.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
To let anybody does what have you been up to recently?
It's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I've been up to actually something you and I briefly
talked about, which is trying to find comfort in doing
nothing and maybe ridding myself of any anxiety or guilt
about doing nothing. Which no, I'm you reaching out and
(07:30):
sharing the story with me that you did. I was like,
same page, same exact page, that's exactly what I wanted
to read right then? Was this sort of well you
can describe it. Actually, it's a book that you're reading.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It's kind of like self help meets like political manifesto.
You know, I just read a really dumb self help
book previously, so I was like on the hunt for
a new self help book that would leave me feeling
a little bit more or like engaged.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Maybe yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
It's called how to Do Nothing Resisting the Attention Economy,
written by Jenny O'Dell.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well. I think that it's it's often like self help
is usually like it's its own genre where it's a
lot about like I mean, in my experience, it seems
like it's a lot about like looking inward, but there
are all these outside elements, you know that play a
part and why we get pulled out of ourselves and
why we get distracted by things. And it seemed like
this book built a bridge in a cool way between
(08:34):
looking inside and also what's pulling you away from you
and also like.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It points out the fact that the algorithms on Facebook
and Instagram are specifically designed to like suck you in
and make you feel a certain way so that you
don't want to put your phone down. Yeah, attention is currency.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
And like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You're not like a weak piece of shit because you
scroll your Instagram for like, because you get lost on
social media or something. You know, Like, that's not an
indication of you are failing as a person. It's an
indication of like a really well designed product. Like it's
(09:14):
specifically designed to make you get lost and to make
you like do these things. You know. So I'm trying
to learn how to be on my phone less because
I do like social media as a tool. I feel
more connected to people when I'm on it than when
I'm off of it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah yeah, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Also don't know how to use it responsibly.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You are, you are mirroring how I feel I actually
got rid of all of my social media after all.
Off right, now, I'm off off. I deleted, I deactivated
all my accounts, and I deleted all the apps from
my phone, so I have no access to them. I mean,
obviously it's not hard to regain access. I've done this
(09:59):
a thousand and times where I leave but then I
always come back. But yeah, I just realized that so
much of my time was being spent. And I'm sure
it's not uncommon, but obviously, being trapped at home, you're
looking outward. You want attention, you want to socialize, you
want to see what everyone else is doing, but you're
(10:19):
only getting a very polished version of what I felt
like was a one sided friendship. Obviously, people are just
posting to post. They're not doing it for me, you know,
They're not reaching out to me.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And likewise, I post things specifically for you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, that's very thoughtful and I always like them. But
I just felt like I wasn't It wasn't a healthy relationship,
you know, And I think I always take a break
from it because I feel that, and then I miss
it and I miss my friends, and I miss cataloging
my adventures in life, and then I go back, and
then suddenly I get sucked in again and it starts
(10:57):
to feel very unhealthy. So I met that point again
where I've removed it all, I've stepped away.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I watched how long have you been off?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I want to say, it's been two weeks. Okay, I
think I did it, like maybe a week before you
sent me the short story? Okay, when was that like
a week ago? No idea, no concept of time. But
I replaced that because obviously it's still kind of hard
(11:27):
not to want to be on your phone. I mean
I even got rid of read it read it was
my real time suck, and I really felt like I
was just constantly looking at news stuff, especially because of
like the election and the raid on the Capitol and
what's going to happen on the twentieth. It's so exhausting,
and I'm like, if I didn't know about this and
I was just in my house, would I have a
(11:48):
better day?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And yes, of course, because you know, yeah, But also
like I think an important thing is like if you
didn't know about that and you were just in your house,
would anything have been different?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And in the world, Yeah, exactly, that's true.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Probably not yeah, you know, so like not only like
are you having a better day, but also like most
of the time what we're doing is just feeling overwhelmed
and not like because there's like it there's an argument
for like you got to stay informed because you have
to stay like an active participant in your government and
in your society, and if you don't, that's when like
bad things happen, is when people start to you know,
(12:24):
step back too much. But like you have to be
able to take a break. And that's one of the
cool things about this book is that she's like, you know,
taking being able to like unplug or like do nothing
is not like it's not like a path to become
like a political or like exactly like a passenger in
(12:47):
your life. It's actually just like a way to be
able to do it more effectively, because if you can
never turn off, you can never recharge, and you'll never
have the energy to do anything worthwhile if you're constantly
just like running to keep up with like the craziness
of just being alive.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Exactly. It just felt like such it's like a job
that no one was hiring me for. Like I'm just
I'm I'm not helping anything you know, I mean obviously,
like I try to participate and promote my my views
and my message and in my way, and I donate
when I, you know, to organizations I support, you know,
I try to do my part. I'm not a guy
(13:28):
who needs to be glued to it though. I don't
need to be like on the hot like okay, when
they're going to release what's going on with, you know,
with this thing, or how the Senate responded to this
or that, what's the house going to do? You know,
Like I'm not on the floor. I don't need to
be there twenty four hours a day. So I do
one check every day. At the end of the day,
I go and I see what happened today politically, and
I keep it to like five ten minutes and then
(13:49):
I'm out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
What kind of whiskey are you drinking?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Just the classic? We drink four roses bourbon.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Oh, I like four roses whiskey.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
They have a really good price on it at the
neighborhood liquor store, so it's like the it's like cheaper
than anything else. It's like forty bucks for or forty
three bucks for a giant bottle, or like twenty two
for a regular size bottle.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Dang, that's pretty good. We get the one point seventy
five liter for like forty bucks.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When I go, I get the one point seventy five leader.
Ryan likes to still buy the small bottles even though
we're always gonna drink it. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I thought you were gonna say Ryan buys the dollar
shot size. He just buys hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I mean it feels like that, you know, because I'm
like Brian, we're gonna drink it all. Why not like
save the the environmental impact of one bottle versus two,
and like the two or three dollars we save, you know,
save two or three dollars and an.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Entire bottle and save a trip.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He thinks we drink it faster if we buy the
big one.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, I mean he's not always wrong. Sometimes that is
the case. I feel that way about when we buy
the big Like we have the handle of Tito's right now.
Nicole loves her vodka. I got the handle of this
Hallisco Repisado tequila that I love. But this is I mean,
it's again, it's thirty bucks for the handle, and it's
so good, Like that was to handle.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The big guy or the little guy.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, the big one, big guy. Yeah, because it usually
has a handle on it.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Oh, is that why they call it that?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I mean some some like obviously my tequila doesn't have
a handle, does have a handle, but that's why they
call it the handle.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I've never put two and two together in that way.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
But speaking of tequila.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Speaking of Hallisco Reposado tequila from Camarina Tequila, which is
very good.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
The story that we're reading today was collect did in
a small town in Jalisco, Mexico.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So Jalisco is the state, and then in a town
in the state of Alisco in the country of Mexico
is where our story was collected, not necessarily originated.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But that's what's interesting, is like, Okay, so the the
small town or pueblo as they as I keep seeing,
you know, it's called the pueblo because it's a very
very small town, as in like right now, there are
I think three hundred and fifty two people living there. Wow,
according to a website that I found.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But did you say as.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Queltana asweltana, as queltan a sweltan aquel that's my Spanish accent.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
It is in Jalisco, Jalisco where I you know, as
a classic American, I don't really understand geography of my
own country or countries nearby or anywhere. Jalisco is in
the center basically of Mexico on the Pacific coast, I see.
(17:16):
And it's also where you said tequila is from. And
mariachi music.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Oh I love mariachi music.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Me too, me too, Actually I do. And actually, if
you look at a map where where this place is,
it's like in this very cute little circle of the
Bolagos River. It's like the river makes like a cute
little loopti and then they built a little town right
in there. And what do you also know what Asquotan
(17:50):
means What it translates to in the indigenous language. It
means land of many ants.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Like ants and uncles are like ants, the insect.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
The insect.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Oh my god. Yes, that seems like a place you
wouldn't want to build a home.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I imagine it's unpleasant there.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
That's yeah, that's interesting because there's where Nicole is born,
not born, but where she grew up is Roseville, California.
And a very common problem that a lot of people experienced.
There is a problem with ants, and it was basically
that Roseville was founded on a giant ant hill and
it's very unpleasant. Have you ever been to Mexico.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I've been to Mexico City.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And just outside of Mexico City. Have you been to Mexico?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I've been. I've been a few times.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I've been to drove over or you flew both.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I celebrated a birthday in Tijuana, I turned twenty one
and en Sonata nice. And then I've also been to
Perto Vayarta. I think a couple of times, but maybe
just once. I can't remember. Good time, it was a
great time. Port of Art is like just a resort town,
but I did go into the city for a little bit.
(19:11):
Shout out to Frogs for all of us tourists who've
been to a Frogs or to a Papa San Beer.
It's just a little like chain restaurant bar thing that
tourists constantly go to.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I was thinking that it was a shout out to
actual frog in.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Which case, you know what shout out to.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I would have been on board with. Yeah, shout out
to frogs everywhere.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Shout out to all the frogs. I'm more of a
frog guy than I am a toad guy. I will
say that.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Love toads, Love toads, love frogs.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
All cute, Yeah, all cute. And then I've also been
to Sayulita, which is near Puerto bart It's like a
little surfer town. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So you've been to Mexico quite a few times.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, I really love Mexico.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So more about this story.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Did you say what the story is? Uh?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I didn't. I don't think. It's called the Bird of
the Sweet.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Song, Bird of the Sweet Song, and.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It was collected by this guy, Jay Alden Mason.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Jay Alden Mason.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
He lived from eighteen eighty five to nineteen sixty seven.
Born and raised in Philly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Shout out to Philly.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Shout out to Philly. He was a very well known.
I mean he ended up being a very well known
like ethnographer, anthropologist dude m h and a've bit of
an archaeologist too, right, A big a big archaeologist actually.
And these stories he collected four stories from Asqualdan when
(20:46):
he was young. So this was this the publication where
this is from was in nineteen twelve, in the late
summer of nineteen twelve. He collected the stories in January
of that year. It was his first job out of
grad school after he got his doctorate, and they sent
him down to Mexico and his plan was to build
(21:09):
a grammar system for the language of the tipe Juana people,
who are the people who live at askwaldd.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Oh I see Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So it's an indigenous group of people, and recently they've
been in the news a lot because I guess they've
been fighting for their rights to the land for a while.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But he went down there to try to get a
sense of the language and write a grammar for it
and ended up hearing these folk stories. So he wrote
them down and he noticed that they weren't indigenous folk stories,
but they were European folk stories, kind of told with
a local flare. So this story actually that I chose,
(21:55):
I chose because I thought it was kind of fun
and weird. But it's actually supposedly a variant of a
European story, like a mix of a couple of stories,
one of which is called the Golden Bird and another
one of which is similar to one that we've read
in the past, which is.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
The water Life.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
How cool. Wow, would come full circle in a way.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
In some ways.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, that's pretty wild. Wow. Okay, So the Catalonian story
that we read, would that have come before this one?
And this one was inspired by basically the game of
Telephone basically from catalan and it made its way there. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Well,
I'm really excited to read this now. I that's so
(22:44):
cool and that's interesting. So they're currently dealing with the
land ownership.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, so I guess they've I guess they've like pretty
consistently fought over the land, even though I think like
the Spanish government and like the seventeen hundred's grand to
them the rights to the land, and I was like,
this is yours, but groups have like consistently tried to
common and strong arm them out of it because I
guess it's like really good ag land, probably because it's
(23:10):
in a little river area.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah wow.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And so it's like I guess, like most recently it
was like a group of cattle ranchers with ties to
the Mexican like drug cartels came in and started like
beating people up and killing people and trying to steal.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Wrong arm them out of steal the land. Wow, that's
so interesting and how wild because it perfectly ties into
the little research that I did. I tried to find,
you know, things regarding Mexico around that time. And I mean,
I'm pretty new to this bit of history, very cursory
(23:50):
understanding of it. But when this book came out, it
came out nineteen twelve, is that right? So I looked
up what was kind of going on in the country
at that time, and that was two years into the
Mexican Revolution, and so doing a bit of research. It's
interesting because a lot of what went down with the
Mexican Revolution was peasant farmers fighting for their right to
(24:15):
own their own land. It lasted for approximately ten years,
so nineteen ten to nineteen twenty. The president at the time,
Porphyrio Diaz, the country's longest serving president, who was made
famous by his victory over the invading French army at
the Battle of Puebla, which we celebrate now as Cinco
de Mayo, seized power in eighteen seventy six after trying
(24:37):
and failing to be elected democratically, so he was in
control of the government from eighteen seventy six until nineteen eleven,
and I mean he under his reign, foreign capital flooded
the country and extensive infrastructure modernization took place. However, land
and power were concentrated and controlled by the elite, and
elections were more often than not little more than a
(24:58):
farce to appease you know Whoever, not surprisingly, Diaz was
aggressively disliked by lower class population, but after an economic
turned downturn in nineteen oh seven, the middle class and
even the upper class, who are now obviously being affected
by this economic downturn, it's like you only care when
it bothers. You started to turn on Diaz. I mean,
(25:21):
it reads like something out of Game of Thrones. It's
so crazy, like how many people were taken out of
power and how many people were betrayed to take the
throne basically, and then you know, you'd put one person
in there and then they'd have somebody like help them,
but then that person would betray them and then have
them executed. And it's really quite crazy. And that's I mean,
that's how we get to know, like people like Emiliano Zapata,
(25:44):
who's pretty famous in Mexican history, Pancho villa pistas. Yeah,
there's apautistas, I mean fighting literally fighting peasant peasants, fighting
for to control their land from hacienda workers who had
taken it from them. And so it's so interesting that,
i mean, we're at the one hundred year mark now
basically of when it quote unquote ended. Obviously the fighting
(26:07):
continued for like another ten years after nineteen twenty, but
to still be dealing with the same problems today, it's
just so frustrating and so absurd. And obviously there's you
see so many similarities between that sort of economy where
the lower class has like no right, no rights to
even what we're dealing with in America, where it's just
(26:29):
this the top one percent, all these you know, trigger
words we all like to use, but it's it's so
apparent how long stuff like that's been going on, and
how many cultures have fought and died trying to change things.
So I'm really I'm really surprised that, i mean, the
poor people of that town who are still dealing with that,
and now with the drug cartels, it's like a whole
(26:50):
other element you have to deal It's like a whole
other body of government that's in there now, which is
so crazy. Yeah, man, but that just gives us a
framework of what was going on at the time that
these stories were collected.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, it's really wild to me that he was down
there doing this in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, and the number of factions that I mean, that's
why it went on so long, is that there were
like seriously like twelve different groups all fighting to get
their political views to the top. Basically some would join together,
some would betray one another, and then obviously you have
like the US is constantly interfering. Like the guy who
(27:33):
overthrew that president that had been the longest standing president.
His name was Francisco Madero, who was a pro democracy
advocate born from a wealthy landowners and industrious challenged Diaz
president Diez in nineteen ten, but Diaz had him jailed,
and because he realized he was gaining momentum, Madero runs
(27:57):
up to Texas. He starts he starts like a crying
out to all the other Mexicans like please, we need
to start a revolution, we need this to stop, and
he actually ends up getting control in nineteen eleven his
general because other like anti revolutionaries start to come after him.
He has his general try and go and get rid
of these anti revolutionaries. But the general ends up taking
(28:18):
the side of the anti revolutionaries and jailing and executing Madero.
General Victoriano Huerta, I mean, he's the one who turned
on Madero and actually had him execute it. But the
US helped Huerta do that because they felt that the
Mexican Revolution was affecting their How did they phrase it,
(28:41):
It's like American commerce.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I'm sure it was, man. That is the story. That's
true in like so many parts of the world where
it's like a country is having a civil war and
then the US comes in and is like, we're gonna
back this guy, and we're just gonna end this aurument
right here.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
What helps our interests the most will pick aside in
something that I mean is really about a country's civil
discourse and its own rights. But America sees an opportunity.
I mean, obviously a lot of countries have done this,
but you see America doing it a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah. It's wild. Yeah, it's wild in the Middle East too, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Crazy man, But an emotional and emotional historical context for
you know, I think I think it's a good tip
of the hat to what was going on at the time,
and and and an awareness for us as human beings
to just be, you know, to see what kind of
where power should be. You know, it should be with
(29:49):
the people. And and sadly it's it's always a struggle
to get that.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I agree. And with all that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Under a belt, do you want to take a little break?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Do you think that it's time to take a break.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And then come down. Let's all get the tension out
of our bodies from hearing the atrocities committed against people.
Let's take a little break, will unwind a bit when
we come.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Back, and then we'll we'll hear a story about it.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
A little tonal shift, but a welcome one.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
All right, Well, we'll be We'll be back in a moment.
Stay with us. The bird of the sweet song. Once
there was an old man who was blind, and the
(30:49):
sorcerers whom he consulted told him that the only thing
which would cure his blindness was a certain sweet voiced bird.
So his son started out to find the bird. Soon
he came to a rancho where he found a dead
man who had no one to bury him. Feeling reverence
for the dead, he sought a man to attend the corpse,
(31:09):
and then sent for a priest to bury him. The
priest inquired of the messenger whether he came on his
own business or for another, remarking that it were better
if the other should himself come to present his requests. Nevertheless,
he went, and the corpse was buried with responses. Then
the boy went on his way.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So just.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Quickly, boy starts on a journey, sees a dead body,
and its like, wait a second, I should bury this.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I mean, that's already that's an eventful day and he's
only just begun. Yeah, straight up, this is the beginning
of a mystery.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
You ever come across like a dead animal all the
time somewhere? Like I saw a dead hawk the other day,
and I thought to myself, like, hawks are so like
regal and important. Should I do something about this? Should
I bury this hawk? You know I didn't, obviously, but
maybe if I had, things would be different.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, you could have changed the course of human history
had you just buried that damn hawk. Now Here we
are stuck in this time. Thanks a lot, Maggie.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Soon afterwards he met in the road the spirit of
the dead man, to whom he had given the charity
of burial. It had assumed the form of a fox,
who asked him where he was going and why. He
replied that he was going to the country of the
moors to fetch the bird of the sweet Song. Then
the fox told him that it was very near, and
(32:43):
that he would give him a horse to assist him.
The fox knew whether the horse was given pasture or not.
He further advised him that if he should find the
moors with their eyes open, it was a sign that
they were sleeping, But if their eyes were closed, then
he should know that they were white awake. But the
fox warned him that he must not carry away any
(33:05):
of the beautiful maidens, which he would find in the
house of the moors. Soon the boy arrived at the
castle of the Moors and entered there. He found the
moors with their eyes open, and by this he knew
that they were sleeping. Many birds were there in beautiful cages,
but he passed these by and took a plain common cage,
(33:27):
in which was a homely bird, for he knew that
this was the bird of the sweet song.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
He uh Indiana Jones did remember in Indiana Jones in
the Last Crusade, they have him choose which goblet happened
to be the holy Grail that had held the blood
of Christ. And so the guy who's like having the
Nazis help him, he comes in and he's like, he
chooses the most glamorous, decorated goblet because he thinks. He's like, oh,
(33:54):
it's the fanciest one. And then the old guy who's
like a knight of the Grail, he's like, five hundred
years old.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
You have chosen poorly, hmmm.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And then Indiana picks the humble, little little goblet. He's like,
because you know, Jesus was a carpenter. He wasn't like
a big wealthy guy. This this little unassuming so I
like where this kid's head's at.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Likewise, he seized one of the beautiful maidens, contrary to
the fox's orders, mounted a wooden horse which he found there,
and flew through the window. Then the moors awakened and
pursued them, and soon overtook them. They carried the boy
and the maiden back to their castle and imprisoned them there.
(34:44):
Soon the fox reappeared to him and said, you did
not do as I instructed you. He then told him
that the maiden was in the garden and would speak
to no one, and that the bird refused to sing,
but that he had gone for some charcoal and begged
permission of the Morse to give her two pieces. Then
she at once began to talk, the bird to sing
(35:07):
and the horse to nay. Soon. I don't really understand
what just happened there, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So the all that so the fox, So the mors
captured them.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, well because the kid, the guy, the boy didn't
follow the directions. He was supposed to get the bird,
but instead he saw a girl and he was like,
I also want a girl, but that was the lady.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, don't grab the girls.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Jumped on a wooden horse and flew through the window,
which is also weird.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Call it a quick getaway, not a smart getaway.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Very fast, very quick get away. I don't understand how
the wooden horse flew him through the window. But that's okay.
But then the fox gives the girl some charcoal, and
then suddenly she's okay. Everybody's okay. K again, what does
that mean? I have no idea, Like, do you think
(36:09):
at the time when he was hearing the story and
writing it down. Do you think he was like, that
doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
He's like, but I gotta stay true, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, he just wrote it down and was like, didn't
ask like it. It's like it seems like such a
non sequitur, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, Yeah, he's just he's like, that's just what they said.
I take no claim to to why or what it means.
I wish we could call him.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I wish we could too. Soon afterward, the boy again
seized the maiden, and the bird mounted the horse and
flew away. Again. The fox reappeared, warning them not to
cross the river with the bargemen, for should they attempt
to do so, they would never reach the other shore.
But disregarding the warning, they kept on until they came
(36:57):
to the river, where they met the bargemen. They said
that they did not have room for all to cross
at once, but that they would first cross with the maiden,
the bird, and the horse, and later return for the boy.
The girl, bird, and horse were safely landed on the
other shore, and the bargemen returned for the boy. But
when they reached the middle of the river, the boat
(37:17):
was upset. You know what that reminds me of is
that like math logic problem where like you have a chicken,
some grain, and a fox.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
M I know it as goat, cabbage and wolf or
something like that. Yeah, but similar exactly. It's like how
do you get everything across safely?
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, it reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I was just thinking that too. Do you know what
was yours? And then what's the answer?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I forget what the answer is?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
See, yours is chicken grain in fox.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, So like the chicken will eat the grain and
the fox will eat the chicken, and you can only
put two. Oh wait, so then you just put the
the fox and the grain, you send them across, you
stay with the chicken. Oh no, but you can only
do one at a time, right, Is that what they're
(38:12):
rule something like that?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But because basically if you send one across, you're leaving
two things behind.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
So you'd have to do the grain first, No, because
then I mean, whenever you'd send the chicken.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
You gotta do the chicken first, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And then what the fox last? Oh?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Oh, I know what it is. It's that you take
the chicken across first, and then you come back, you
get the feed, you go across, you take the chicken back.
Then you bring the fox across, leave them there, you
come back, you get the chicken for the last runt one.
So you just you got to take the chicken with
you for a ride, even though you don't leave them there.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
That's what it is. Yeah, something's got to make two trips.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well, that's why figured out. We figured it out. But
that's why the boat was upset. They didn't do that.
The boat has emotions. I like that. It's not that
the boat was struggling, you know, or sinking or whatever.
It's the boat was very upset.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
It was I mean like upset, like an upset. It
like like upturned, it tipped over. Yeah, yeah, I see
it when they brought I mean, I'm sure it was
also upset.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
But the boat was upset.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
The boat was upset.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
The boat was upset.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
The boat was being a little bit.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I don't want to shut up. Boat, take me and
my friends across.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Now. It happened that there was a sebino tree in
the middle of the river, and the boy held tightly
to this. Then suddenly the fox appeared on the river
bank and told him to hold tight until he made
a rope, So he began to pull the hairs out
of his tail and twisted them to form a rope.
(40:01):
When it was long enough, he threw it out to
the boy and told him to tie it about his
waist so that he might pull him ashore. Reaching the shore,
the boy went sadly home, leaving the Bird of the
Sweet Song, the maiden and the horse on the other
side of the river. When the blind father heard that
his son had lost the Bird of the Sweet Song,
(40:21):
he again went to the sorcerers, who told him that
the sole remedy now for his blindness was to bathe
in the sea every afternoon. So, first of all, I'm
mistrustful of these sorcerers because they said, first the only
way to cure the only way to cure your blindness
is to get this fancy bird, And then when they
(40:42):
lose the bird, they're like, okay, actually, the only way
to do it now is to go bathe in the
sea every day. Like that would have been a cooler plan. A.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I know, yeah, why wouldn't you try that first?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
It seems like an easier plan. A.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I feel like that's probably what the boy said. He's like,
I could have done that. That should have been the
first thing I did. Why did I go and do
all sort this stuff? Now I have to have all
this and I have to stand in the ocean every day,
which is nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, just go bathe in the sea every afternoon. That's easy.
That sounds nice.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
It does sound nice, unless unless it's long beach.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's true when you're getting like hepatitis every time you go.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I can't tell you how many times I doing my
runs and my walks down on the beach would nearly
trip and fall onto dead animals all the time. I
mean I almost fell on every single one. It's very
strange for a lot of people to see. I would
(41:44):
have hold of ceremony. But one time I did. I
wasn't paying attention. I was walking along the beach and
this was closer to like Belmont Shore area, and I
almost tripped and fell on a dead seal, an entire
dead seal. I didn't. I was like kind of like
looking at my phone and looking down and just kind
of like lost in my music or whatever I was
listening to. And I looked up just in time to
(42:06):
see this. I mean huge, they're they're they're huge. It
was like person sized dead animal just laying there and
I tripped and fell trying not to step on it.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Oh my god. Yeah, a seal in Long Beach. That
that seal was far away from home. I wonder if
that's why he died. I think it's not that far.
Seal Beach.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Seal Beach, Yes, far.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Away from home. I just oh my, I saw seals
and Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No me, neither, well except for a dead one. Actually.
You know, if you do the little fairy tour they
do around the port, you'll see seals out on the
I mean pretty far out where they show you, like
the Queen Mary and then where the submarine the Black
Widow used to be or whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
I've never done that, but I should have.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
I still could you still can? I don't. I'm maybe not.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, I guess not currently. No, probably, But.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
When that lockdown is lifted, the first thing I'm gonna
do is go ferry around Long Beach.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Look at the seals from far away.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Yeah, Seal Beach, huh h.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
The first day that he went there, an ugly worm
appeared and told him that if he would give him
one of his three daughters, he would cure his infirmity. Returning,
he told his daughters of this, and they agreed that
if the worm would cure their father, one of them
would go with the worm. So the next afternoon, the
old man took his eldest daughter, but when she saw
(43:39):
the worm, she was horrified and said that she would
never go with such an ugly creature. The next afternoon,
when the blind father went to bathe, he took his
second daughter, but she likewise refused to go when she
saw the ugliness of the worm. Now only the youngest remained,
but she said that she would gladly do anything if
(44:02):
only her father might be cured, so she went with him.
The next afternoon when he went to bathe, then the
ugly worm appeared and asked her if she were willing
to go with him. Turning to her father, she asked
him to give her his blessing. Then from the sea
there came a great wave which carried the maiden and
the worm out to sea with it.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Oh my god, yeah, oh my god. Nothing nothing worked
out at all.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I'm pretty sure that the guy got a site back.
I guess like the worm took the maiden.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh okay, I thought it took everyone. I thought it
was just like and then a great sea came and
took the father, the maiden and the worm, and everyone.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Was I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
But okay, so the father got a site back.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
I'm pretty sure the father gets a site back to
give her his blessing.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's so pretty weird though.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, I see, I see what happened. Okay, so she
gets the blessing from the dad. The dad says yeah,
and then she goes out. She leaves with the worm.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Stories like this always make me think of like the
actual experience of being a child hearing like an adult
tell you the story, you know. And I always wonder like,
if I were a kid and I heard the story,
would I be like what or would I just be like, oh, okay,
good night, you know, Like I don't I don't know
(46:04):
how I would respond to it. As as as a.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Child, I imagine you would question it. I'm just picturing
that child, that tiny Maggie who's got oil in her eyes,
with her hands in her pockets, just grinning and bearing
it and just being like adults, don't freak out, keep together.
She's a very composed child, nude. So no, you would
(46:29):
definitely question him like it's wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
hold on, let's back up. Mom.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, also, it's weird that the that he doesn't specify,
like okay, like a wave came and took the worm
and the daughter and also the man could see again.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, it's all kind of like everything kind of happens
so quickly that we're not even able to appreciate the whole,
the celebratory side of things that he did.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Get his verst sacrifice, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah, it's just like dad got a side back. She
went with the worm, bah blah bah bah bye.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Well no, but we don't even know if he got
a site back, like we assume he did, but it
doesn't say he did.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, I guess we're just left to assume that if
she goes with the worm, dad gets his side back
since she went with the worm, but it just ends
so we don't even Yeah, you don't even hear like
it worked. It's like there's a part of me that's
just like, she leaves with the worm, and the Dad's like,
uh shit, still can't see.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
It's so well because I feel like if he couldn't
see at the end of it, then we'd be like
and the man still couldn't see, and he cursed the
heavens for them stealing his you.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Know, like exactly there should be something.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
She had more information.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's the same thing in that
charcoal thing, where it's just like so much going on
so quickly that there's no time to like ask a question.
He then told him that the maiden was in the
garden and would speak to no one, and that the
bird refused to sing, but that he had gone for
some charcoal and begged permission of the moors to give
her two pieces. Then she at once began to talk,
the bird to sing and the horse to nay. It's like, oh,
(48:02):
everything unravels, okay, like what well, also.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Just the fact that like, you know, he tries to
get this his like you know, his spoils home, and
then he can't get to the other side of the river.
And so that's the end of the bird. Even though
this story is called the Bird of the Sweet Song,
like the Bird of the Sweet Songs just got left
to live a life with a weird wood horse and
a maiden. They like now live like in a weird
(48:26):
commune on the other side of the river. Yeah, and
now we're onto Plan B, which is a weird worm,
like a horny worm.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
A horny worm. So I think it actually was Long
Beach with this worm. Yeah, yeah, I'm assuming it's a
translation thing. I would I wish that I understood Spanish,
that I could and and find and find a Spanish
version of this story.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Well, I guess it's not even Spanish though. It's like
it's the language, the indigenous language, which is Tipe.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Oh that's right, that's right, because it's the native people
who settled there that he collected this from.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, that's right, and he was he was, I mean,
he was studying their language. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, I mean, all we can do is chalk it
up to a translation thing because there's just not enough
context for us to really unravel the mysteries. It's like
this happened, This happened, This happened. They said this wasn't
going to happen, but then guess what eight other things
did happen.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
But it is supposed to be, you know, it is
like a sort of retelling of a couple of stories
that we know from European folklore. But just like and
I wonder if like even though there's like all these
confusing aspects of it, Like is the moral still there?
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yeah, I'm trying to compare it a little bit to
what I remember about the Water of Life and see
if we can't find the similarities there. I mean the
differences is that in the Water of Life it was
just the brothers and the sister wanting to build a
beautiful home. But then they also wanted to bring people
(50:05):
in to see it, and then some but it was
just like a recommendation like well, if you really want
to bring people in. It was like an old man
or something. He's like, you got to go get the
water and the bird and the blah blah blah. So
I mean goal seeking or like you know, going out
and finding a treasure to bring it back to do something.
I mean, we see that all the time in folks stories.
I mean, the moral for me feels pretty simplified. In
(50:28):
my mind. It's like try your best.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
I feel like there's something in there about like the
debt a child owes to their parents.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Ooh, that's good. That's really good.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
You know, because the sun and it's like the different
debts that you have as a son versus a daughter.
So as a son, Like, your debt is going to
be repaid by like going out and doing something. Yeah,
as a daughter, your debt's going to be repaid by
just like being given away as like a prize.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
We're all born with a debt in a way to
our parents because they gave us life, right.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, and yours. There's also like a hierarchy among the kids.
The older sister and the second older sister, the middle
sister both had the uh, you know, the freedom to
be like, now, that's a weird worm.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
So that's a weird worm. There's some worms out there
I'm into, Okay, Like, don't think it's a worm. I'm
not a wormist. It is this, this dude, specifically, this.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Specific worm is real, real weird. And I know I
said I would help you, dad, but looking at this
weird worm, I I can't do it. I'd rather be blind.
You don't understand your blind.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Can't see dad. Your blindness right now is a gift.
This dude is hard to look at.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
This is a fucking weird worm.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
This is a weird.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
What is he gonna do to me?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You know? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (51:48):
And this poor maiden got swept away to be married
to a worm for the rest of your life and
probably eternity, because once you get married to a weird
like you know, supernatural worm in the ocean, it's not
like you're just you're like you're like, okay, we'll just
have to endure like sixty years of this until I die.
It's probably like you're swept away into eternal life and
now you're just like gonna live for millennia with the worm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's how magic works. It's
it's forever.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
It's that's what they think.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Wow, what do you think made the worm weird?
Speaker 1 (52:22):
I have been thinking about it. Uh, I've been trying
to think of you know, the size of the word.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Okay, okay, what do you think he's like five five,
one hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
In my mind, he's like like like the size of
a of a large dog.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Okay, okay, you're thinking like a like a Saint Bernard
or or are you thinking like Great.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Dane more like a Saint Bernard in g.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
See, so a little a little chunky, he's.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Round, he's like, you know, he's rolled around, and he's
got a head that sticks out like so and he's
looking and he's probably got like weird like beady eye
and sharp teeth and like a tongue, like a forked
tongue or something that like licks.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, that sounds like a scary worm.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
I so, so they say, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
But if he was a weird worm, he's got like
a soul patch and a fedora little worm. And it's
like you guys in De Ska Yet or Big Band,
that guy's weird.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Oh gross. Now would you have would you have drawn
the connection between this story and the Water of Life
if we had not set it out right before reading?
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Oh no, you know, because like we like, like I
pointed out it, it's like it's got a lot of
the same kind of journey the adventure tropes of other
stories who've come across. So I don't think my brain
would have connected. I mean, the fact that there's a
bird in that sort of like go out and collect
these treasures and bring them back. Maybe I would have.
But like you said, even though it's like the bird
(54:15):
is gone halfway through this story, yeah, exactly, the titular
character of the story isn't even around.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Was that a joke? Because tit is.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
A kind of it was, and I but then I
got I tried to emphasize it in a way, but
it just made me sound slightly waspy or English, so
then I had to roll up.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It sounded like a like a specific.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Character titular a bad.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
Put my finger?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Can you do it? David Attenborough?
Speaker 4 (54:49):
The titular bird is watching what he's eating because his
figure is out of control.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
If David Attenborough worked for People magazine or something.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, yeah, David Addenburrow's internship at us.
Speaker 4 (55:08):
She looks to be coming undone. Her life isn't trembles,
and yet she walks the runway anyway.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
David Attenborough is ruthless.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
He's fucking brutal.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So what do you think to put a little cap
on the moral side? Is it just a combination of
you know, do your best and and help out your
your parents or or you a death.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Is it that you'll always get a second chance?
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Whoa, whoa, Now I'm on it, Now I'm with it.
So basically, the worm was a reincarnated person. It was
a weird guy and now is a weird worm.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wonder
to me. The main theme of the story is the
day you owe your parents.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah, I'm with that. I feel like that's probably because
that's the there's no other reason that the anybody would
would participate to help the father. It's like your moral obligation,
your obligation to your parents too.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Also like he's just blind, Like it's not like he's
like gonna die.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, he's not terminal, you know. No.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
And the fact that like you go through the whole
hierarchy of the kids, you go through the son to
the eldest daughter, to the middle daughter, to the youngest daughter,
like the whole power hierarchy, to the least powerful person
in the entire family, and then literally her life is
worth his vision.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
And it's kind of a it's like a goldiebear or
a Goldiebear, Goldie Goldilocks thing. Yeah, you gotta find the
one that's just rights the next one. I agree with
the first one, and then that's it.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Wow gold Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
So he was willing to give up his any of
his kids to get his site back, and then ultimately
did give his bo and she had to ask, like
his permission to do this thing for him? Do I
have your blessing father to marry this creepy little dude,
(57:35):
and it's weird worm And he said, yeah, so I
can see.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Yes, although I guess, like, you know, if you're the
breadwinner for your family, sight would be you know, the
same as your ability to work and live.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Right, Yeah, that's true. But it seems like all the
kids are pretty pretty able bodied.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
True, like they can make exactly.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
It must have been the dad was the actual owner
of the land or something, and they're his little Hittel
property babies.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, I think that's a good, good bit.
Speaker 4 (58:23):
It was in that moment that they realized they've done it.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
Any any final closing remarks you want to make or do?
Should we pass this aw and over to the to
the listeners, let us know, to let us know what
they think happened.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, let's pass it to the listeners. Tired of the spotlight,
but but yeah, let us know what you thought about
this story. If you have any insight, maybe you're more
familiar with some other iteration of it and you have
some inside scoop on what the moral lesson is here,
(58:57):
or maybe you're as lost as we are. Either way,
let us know. Reach out twists.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Yeah, let us know via Instagram. We've got Instagram. We're
at at Folklorica dot pod. We're on the Twitter at
Folklorica Pod Folklorica Pod, and you can also email us
at Folklorica at strawhatmedia dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
And we genuinely love receiving emails and messages from you guys.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Yeah, it's been really exciting. It's been a real bright.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Spot, truly. It's so nice to feel like we have
a you know, a community to communicate with. It's nice.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Godspeed everybody, so long, Peter saying goodbye Glorica, and now
for your moment of Zennyrd Skynyrd.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
If I stay with you, girl, things just couldn't be
the same
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Because I'm as free as a bird now, and this
bird you cannot Chay Joe, and the birds you cannot change,
(01:00:38):
and this bird you cannot chang
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