March 16, 2025 • 44 mins
We do a deep dive into Neil Gaiman's take on Norse Mythology. Why I love this book, why I can't put it down. *I understand there is a black cloud over Neil Gaiman right now. If you skip this episode, I'll comepletely understand.
Support the Podcast Give us a 5 Star review as well as share it with your friends or enemies.
Instagram: @buddhistafpodcast
https://linktr.ee/nc1781
Support my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@randomfactsofboredom
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-buddhist-af-podcast--6119082/support.
Support the Podcast Give us a 5 Star review as well as share it with your friends or enemies.
Instagram: @buddhistafpodcast
https://linktr.ee/nc1781
Support my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@randomfactsofboredom
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-buddhist-af-podcast--6119082/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
So some of you have pointed out that I say
a lot during my show, and well, I have brain damage,
So yeah, how does that feel to be teasing someone
with brain damage? I'm just playing basically, I guess the
best way to put it is, well, English is my
(00:25):
second language. Not a sound excuse either, I barely speak loud,
but basically, I do have several or had several concussions,
and sometimes it's hard to form words, especially when you
are doing a recording like this, where dead air kind
(00:45):
of turns people off. I guess it's the best way
to put it. And so I say, to give my
brain a break. And it's not something that I do
on purpose, obviously. I guess memory is my memory is
behind a wall and is my chisel. That's probably the
(01:07):
best way to put it, right, I think that sounds good.
So last time when I or last episode where I
did where I talked about the Granite State, my state,
my hometown, my home state of New Hampshire. It went
a little long. It went a lot longer than I
thought it would because I really do like this state.
I really do like New Hampshire, and so I talked
(01:30):
a lot about it. I think it was almost an
hour and I got dry mouth, so you guys might
have heard it. I was also very tired we were
recording me. I was recording pretty late. I think it
was almost like midnight by the time I got done recording,
and I had a full day of work, played with
Alex and made dinner for the family because I am
(01:50):
the chef of the family and so I am now
drinking tea. So this will probably be a good thing
to do, especially with this episode, because this episode is
another book Club, and you guys like the book Club,
especially the Spirit catches You and you fall down. A
lot of people are actually listening to that, and I
appreciate it. It's a very good book. I still think about
(02:15):
that book to this day because it was one of
the It was one of the hardest things to read.
Because again I liked the book, and I said that
I would probably never read it again, even though it
is a very good book, but it hit a little
close to home. I mean, I have a lot of
(02:35):
family members with special needs, and so yeah, there's there's
usually a lot of superstition behind that, and yes, we
do ignore some medical advice. So I'm just gonna leave
it at that. But because I am doing a book
club today. I'm gonna speak like this. No, no, I
(02:56):
don't think I can speak like that, but I will
be drinking tea, So every now and then you will
hear me taking a t break and maybe you hear
some slurping. Maybe I hit the pause, but I don't know,
and we'll just wing it. But today is probably going
to be a controversial episode because it it is Norse Mythology,
(03:19):
and I love this book, Norse Mythologies. It is written
by Neo Gamon, and at the time of this recording,
Neo Gamon doesn't really have a good reputation right now.
So I'm going to judge the book on the book
itself and not not the personal life of Neo Gaman.
(03:44):
I'm trying to be as politically as correct as possible
because I don't look up to the man. Obviously, I
do like his work, so it is a little tough.
I guess the best way to put it is, you know,
I still listen to Michael Jackson songs, all right, despite
what anybody says. I don't think he did anything. But
(04:07):
there are people out there who don't like him, and
so I just want to put it out there. I
still listen to Michael Jackson songs. I don't know Neil
Gaiman personally. I've never looked up to him that much.
So I do like his writing. I love Norse Mythology,
I love American gods, and I love The Sandman. So
(04:30):
today we're going to talk about Norse Mythology and how
it the book itself, how it is very streamlined, so
very easy to read, and it is one of those
books where, since it's telling stories, you kind of want
to read. It's kind of one of the things we're saying,
(04:52):
all right, I'll read one more before bed, and then
you end up reading like two or three more, you know.
So it's one of those books. It's very easy to read,
very hard to put down. And so yeah, so today
we are going to talk about that Session sixty one
the Buddhist af Book Club Norse Mythologies by Neil Gaiman.
(05:13):
So again I don't know anything with the man personally, professionally,
great book, great storyteller, great author, and if you're following
along again Norse Mythology. The strong points of Norse Mythology
is that Gaman's storytelling shines through with clear, engaging prose
(05:35):
maintains the essence of the original tales while making them accessible.
It is it's if you read the old not the old.
But if you read the original sagas, which I actually
had to borrow from the Dairy library, it's a lot
of books, it is. I had, well, I didn't even
(05:55):
finish the whole saga. Actually I took out two books
and I'm I'm sure it's longer than that because I
never even got to Ragnarok, and so definitely longer than that.
And from what I gathered, the English translation is a
lot different than the than the Norwegian, and it's escaping
(06:17):
my mind right now. I know Norway is originally where
this came from. And the gramatic German translation, so yeah,
it's The pacing of the actual book itself is excellent.
The structure, the breziling of the myths in a logical sequence,
so it kind of tries to put it as chronological
(06:39):
as possible, but again it does kind of flip back
and forth. So if you are if you're watching a
show and you got some pretty heavy dramatic stuff and
then the next episode is like a filler episode where
it has nothing to do with the story, that's kind
of what he does here, but he still makes the
(07:01):
filler worth reading. If you can put it that way.
There you go again. But it does have really really
good character development, especially for Loki and for Thor, for
these people who just grew up watching the Marvel movies,
(07:21):
and that's how you know the Norse characters, or if
you're playing video games, if you're playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla,
or if you're playing God of War and you are
used to those characters, those takes of Norse mythologies, then
it does develop those characters pretty well. Like you start
(07:43):
off with, hey, here's Loki and here's Thor, and then
it goes all right, Loki is a trickster. Yes, Loki
does get the gods into trouble and they hate him
for it, but then they also love him or the
fact that he does get them out of trouble. So
(08:04):
it's one of the things where he is an antagonist
and a protagonist at the same time. And Thor, if
you're used to goofy Thor from the movies, he's not
nothing like that. He's essentially a killing machine in the
sagas and that's all he does. He defends the as
(08:27):
guardians which are who they are the acier and he
does have qualities of what you see in the MCU
where he does do comedy. He does have humor, but
he does in a way where he takes himself very seriously,
and the others around him are the ones that actually
(08:48):
see that. He takes himself so seriously that it's almost comedic.
Gamon also does rich world building that brings the Norse
realms to life. He does explain all all of the realms.
I don't know them or memorize them off the top
of my head. It's as Gard obviously, the where the
gods live, Neffhelheim, which I believe is hell, Jodenheim is
(09:17):
where the ice giants live, and Felheim is where the
light elves live. Yeah, it's all over the place. But
he does talk about those realms in a very rich,
beautiful way in that he does describe them very well,
(09:40):
not as descriptive as Tom Clancy. I don't understand how
anyone can go through a Tom Clancy book cover to cover.
I tried it once. I read a Rainbow six book
one time, and he spent about twenty or so pages.
I kid you not. He spent about twenty pages describing
(10:04):
ding Chavez's gun, from the shine, from the nicks on
the handle to the oil he uses. He's very descriptive,
and I think he has such thick books because he's
just trying to fill as much words as possible. Like
(10:25):
when I write the scripts for these show, I do
about two thousand words and then I edit them down
because two thousand words is a lot. So I think
Tom Clancy just lets it go. He just adds as
much as he can. And I think he does it
(10:46):
as a joke. Well, he doesn't do it as joking Moore,
He's kind of dead. But I think he does it
as in an in book joke where he's like, man,
I wonder how long they read before they go all right,
it's a black gun. It's a black handgun that is
nine millimeter bullets in it. And yeah, people think Tom
clans is a genius. Yes, he does good world building,
(11:08):
but he could have just it could have been a
three hundred page book chopped down to maybe two hundred
or so pages, so just a little, just a little
side book club note there. He does do seamless integration
of multiple myth cycles into a cohesive narrative talking about gaming,
(11:30):
talking about Norse mythologies, the skillful balance of humor and
drama through the stories. Yeah, he bounces back and forth,
Like I told you, if you get a really heavy
dramatic story, he then bounces it to a lighter, lighter story,
And so it doesn't really it's not going oh heavy, heavy, heavy,
(11:52):
Oh my god, I can't read this anymore. So depressing.
He does like clean the palette a little bit. There
are clear portrayal of complex relationships between gods, giants, and
other beings. That's the one thing I like about the
the books and the video games, and not so much
in the movies. The the movies kind of make Thor goofy. Obviously,
(12:17):
Thor was cool in in one and two and Avengers,
and I think, sorry, I'm trying to think here. I
think in a way they kind of lost him after
a bit because in Love and Thunder just they just
made him a baffling buffoon. Unfortunately, Three was just perfect.
(12:42):
He was serious and he had some some comedy chops
to him. He did have some humor in there, but
he had also just lost his brother, who finally, you know,
said that you are my brother. We're in this together.
And then he he loses him, and then he has
(13:04):
the grief, and most people grieve. I definitely do by comedy,
and so I kind of get that part. But Love
and Thunder, where he's just a complete idiot, is just awful.
And so I'm going to talk about more of the
difference between the books and the movies and what I
(13:27):
actually wish they showed more in both the games and
the movies compared to the books. Babbling, Okay, he has
masterful handling above the epic and the intimate moments in
the tales. So there are huge fight scenes obviously in
(13:48):
during Ragnarok. At the end of the book, epic fights.
Everyone is fighting, people are dying left and right, Gods
are dying, And he writes it really well in that
you can actually picture what's going on. You can actually
picture the fights, you can hear the weapons and the
(14:09):
thunder and all that, and so he does depict that
very very well. But then he also slows it down
to like what the mortals are feeling at the same
time and some of the stories there, and so it's
big and grand, and then also shrinks down to a
(14:29):
very intimate one on one type of speech. And I
like that. Another thing that I wish the movies did
more was show off the giants more like Norse mythologies
has giants, powerful giants. Some giants are more powerful than
the Asier, which are the as Guardians. We'll talk about
(14:52):
the Acier and the Vanyar later on as we get
more deeper into this. Some of the liberties that Gaman
does take on t break. Sorry. Some of the liberties
and traditions that he does take is that he does
stay largely faithful to the source material. He does take
(15:14):
some creative liberties. So he modernizes the dialogue so it's
not so much Kenneth browna Shakespearean talk Old English. I
guess the best way to do to talk say that
is that you know, you're translating from the Norway, the
(15:35):
Norwegian and the dramatic, and then you make it into
Old English, and then you modernize it, and then it
just gets lost somewhere. So he just takes that skip,
skims through, modernizes it and so you do understand and
follow it a lot better. He streamlines the complex narrative
threads for better readability. He adds more emotional depth to characters.
(15:59):
There are characters who do get put to the side
that does that. He does shine light on like if
you look at the you look at the need of poets,
where the gods created man, the smartest man ever, to
(16:23):
the point that he knew how he was going to
be killed and why he was going to be killed.
That story kind of gets glossed over in the original sagas,
and he digs more game in himself, digs more into
that and brings about why the gods need this person.
(16:43):
He smooths out some of the inconsistencies from different source materials. Again,
it's it's hard to to really understand everything. Most of
the sagas are word of mouth, and so obviously somebody
sitting around the campfirell a story, and then another person
tells the story, and like like I'm doing right now,
(17:05):
I'm doing a book report on the story that I
just read written by another person. So some of that
gets lost. And so that's why I really recommend that
you guys read this book. It's a fantastic book. I
can't say enough about it. He also adds descriptive details
to enhance scene settings and atmosphere. Just like I said before,
(17:28):
he really can build a room that you can get
lost in and so if he's talking about a throne room,
he can actually you know, talk about arches and certain
colors of the windows, and so you can actually feel
as if you were standing in the middle of that room.
(17:48):
Recommended reading order. So this is what I was talking about,
where it kind of goes heavy heavy light, heavy heavy light.
So what you want to do is kind of move
away from those fillers and then get back to it,
kind of like a main quest and a side quest
when you're playing video games. So for those new to
Norse mythology, here are the suggested reading sequence. To get
(18:13):
the most out of the book. You start with the
players game. It's instruction into the major gods and beings.
Then you move to creation myth but before the beginning
and the after you follow the chronological sequences of the
tales leading to Ragnarok. Finally conclude with Ragnarok that prophesies
(18:36):
the end of the gods and the worlds detail the
final battle between the gods and giants. It also showcases
the death of major gods, including odin thor Loki spoiler alert,
and then describes the world's destruction and eventual rebirth, kind
of like a reset or reboot, you know, presents the
(18:57):
survival of Boulder and a few other gods who will
populate the new world. Balder is a very important character.
He's actually a very important character in the games, the
books and as well. So I didn't understand why. I
believe the gods are are public domain, so I don't
(19:21):
understand why the MCU doesn't introduce more more as guardians.
You have Loki, you have Thor, you have Odin, Freya,
and you have Hella, who is kind of an algamation
of of Loki's daughter in the books. But then you
(19:46):
have Balder, you have who else do you have? There? Oh?
I am very lost right now? You have Frey, you
have which is Freya's brother, and so you can probably
do an entire show on just the the as Guardians
(20:07):
themselves instead of doing god knows what they're doing right
now what the MCU is doing. But Daredevil's pretty good
from what I hear. I haven't watched it yet, anyways.
Bouncing back, notable stories highlighted Meat of Poets, which is
what I told you about. Where's the complex tale of
(20:27):
Odin's cunning and determination where he makes a man who
is the smartest man in the world and these I
believe they're either giants or their troths. I think they're dwarves.
Dwarves are actually giant in the in that world. They
(20:49):
kill him, they kill the man, they mix his blood
with mead, and that the blood gives them the knowledge
of of the world essentially, and Odin wants it back.
And so that's what that story is all about. Master
Builder demonstrates the god's pride and look, he's clever if
(21:12):
dubious problem solving. And that's the one where it introduces
how Thor got his hammer Munior, how Odin gets his
staff goon Meir. And there is also an armband that
(21:33):
Odin receives droop near which I probably pronounced that wround,
but he puts it on his arm and it just
drops gold coins. Who doesn't want that, Like it's just
an armband, it just drops money. Another one where the
story is Thor's journey to the Land of Giants. This
(21:54):
is where Thor has two cross dress as Freya and
he has to get his hammer back. Thor loses his
hammer a lot and it gets stolen a lot. So
if you guys are coming up only on the MCU
or only the Worthy, he can lift his hammer. No
(22:17):
Thor loses and gets his hammer back. Several times he
loses the hammer. People have stolen the hammer. It is
not an unlifable object like it is in the in
the books or in the movies. I'm sorry the death
of Balder. So the death of Balder brings about the
(22:40):
the winter that signals the coming of Ragnarok. The only
thing is Balder doesn't die spoiler alert. And so yeah,
Balder survives at the end of Ragnarok, and he's one
of the gods that helps to repopulate the world. The
critical reception of the book, The book received widespread acclaim
(23:05):
from both critics and readers, Eye myself in one of them,
not a critic but a reader. Praise for his accessibility
to newcomers, Appreciated by scholars for its respectful treatment of
source material, Recognized for maintaining the original tales, humor and darkness.
And so what's missing? What's missing from Gaiman's version that
(23:30):
should be in it, that is in the original sagas,
Some elements that didn't make it into the book, Lesser
known myths and variants, probably people you didn't even know about.
Detailed exploration of Nordic cosmology doesn't really explain the by
frost too much, and the star, the star charts and
(23:53):
all that stuff, but again, things you can gloss over
and would probably not enjoy as much. Some of the
more obscure gods and creatures deep dive into religious practices
and cultural contexts. Well, we all know that back when
the Sagas were told and written, people worshiped different things.
(24:18):
It wasn't just one god. Obviously, these guys are all
gods that we're learning about, and so they each one
of them got their own shrine, each one of them.
You know, people practiced sacrifices and all that to these gods,
and so Gayman doesn't really talk about that because it's
(24:40):
something you already know. Detailed family trees and relationships between gods. Yeah,
it's kind of like Greek mythology. Odin is father to
many many gods. He is an Asier and Freya is
(25:02):
a van Ear. They're two different, two different gods, one
more warring, one more peaceful, but kind of like, don't
mess with me because I am pretty dangerous sort of thing.
So the Vanyar are the ones who are just hey,
we like people, people are cool. We don't mess with you.
You don't mess with us. Everything is all good, and
the ace heer warring like I war lords. There you go,
(25:29):
that's a good place to put in. That's the best
way to put it. And so they had a civil
war and they were pretty much deadlocked. I mean, they're gods.
They can't die, at least not yet. So in order
for them to have peace, Freya Mary's odin and they
(25:50):
be get balder and then the family tree goes from there,
it gets nuts. So he kinda he talks about here
and there, but then glosses over the rest because it's
not too important. I mean, you have the Internet connections
to other Indo European mythological systems. Yeah, because the Romans
(26:17):
and the Greeks believed in the same gods, but they
had different names sort of thing, regional variations in how
these stories were told across different Norse cultures, specific rituals
and ceremonies associated with each deity. I went back to
talking about the deep dives into religious practices, archaeological evidence
(26:39):
related to North religious practices. Okay, don't glossing over it,
and the complex poetic forms use and original Norse literature.
It's it's theatrical. A lot of it is you're, again,
if you're telling a story to someone who is sitting
(27:00):
by a campfire, you want it to be loud, you
want it to be big, and so when you tell
a story like that, you kind of want to over
do it, and so sometimes it gets to the point
where it's unbelievable. Yes, I'm talking about gods and giants
and dwarves and elves and all that, but he kind
(27:21):
of shrinks it down to a more palatable type of story.
T Brick gods, books versus movies versus video games. Notable
differences between Gamin's portrayal and popular movie versions. Book Thor
(27:43):
is more rough around the edges than Chris Hemsworth's Polish hero. Obviously,
book Thor is more not tall. He's kind of a powerlifter,
is the best way to put it. He's got a belly,
he doesn't have a six pack. He's got a red
(28:05):
he's got red hair, long beard, and even though he's
kind of round, he is all powerful. He like I said,
he is a machine of war. And so, just like
Achilles was in the Iliad, the Achilles in the movie
(28:28):
cried no, No, No. Achilles in the book does not cry.
Achilles in the book is just a death machine, and
that's what Thor is in the books. Olden is darker
and more morally ambiguous in the book than he is
in the movies. In the movies, he's a great dad.
I mean, yes, he kind of pitted his sons against
(28:51):
each other where he could just told him that, hey,
you're adopted and you know you are the rightful king.
But he still loved them both as his sons, whereas
Odin them in the book not so much. Loki is
less sympathetic than Tom Hidlston's charming interpretation the gods are
(29:14):
more primal and less humanized than their MCU counterparts. Representations
and video games often blend MCU and book versions, with
games like God of War offering a unique interpretation. Video
game Thor tends to be portrayed as a more antagonistic
and attimidating than either book or MCU versions. Game Odin,
(29:38):
especially in God of War, appears more villainous and overtly
manipulative compared to Gaman's more nuanced portrayal of a complex,
wisdom seeking figure. Games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla incorporate more
historical Norse elements alongside mythological ones. Netflix Ragnarok off a
(30:00):
modern teen drama interpretation of Norse gods. I've never seen that.
I just saw that it was on Netflix one day,
so I kind of just glimpsed over the description and
I'm like, all right, this is for people who want
to get into anime and don't want to get too
deep into anime, so I just put that on there.
(30:22):
It influence. Influence extends to animated shows like Valhalla adapting
Norse Smith for younger audiences. Yeah, Norse mythologies is getting
a rebirth. I guess it's the best way to put it.
You remember years back when Pirates of the Caribbean came out,
(30:44):
the Curse of the Black Pearl and Jack Sparrow became
this huge movie icon, and so everybody got into Pirates,
and so the show Black Sales came out, and obviously
Pirates talks like a Pirate Day, and the Pirates of
(31:04):
the Caribbean movies exploded, and you know, SQL after SQL
after SQL, and even Assassin's Creed got into it with
Assassin's Creed for Black Flag and which was a great game.
By the way, I heard, there's a remaster coming and
I would definitely get that again. So that's what's happening
(31:26):
right now, is people are getting into Norse mythologies. You
see people having Norse tattoos, you see the the muner
necklaces around people's necks. So it's definitely having a resurgence
right now, and I think this book does have something
to do with that, as well as the MCU movies
(31:47):
and Assassin's Creed, Valhalla and especially the The God of
War bringing everything back, bringing Norse mythologies to the masses.
Cultural impact of this book, the book has influenced modern
interpretations of Norse mythologies in several ways. It inspired new
(32:08):
adaptations in various medias like I was talking about, you know,
video games, anime, cartoons, TV shows, vikings for that matter.
Is all because there's a resurgence in Norse mythologies. Trips
to Iceland maybe very likely increase public interest in authentic
(32:30):
Norse mythologies, created a benchmark for accessible mythological retellings. Oh
that was tough, helped distinguish traditional myths from popular media interpretations.
This is what I'm doing right now telling you the
difference between the book versus the movie versus the video games.
T Brick sparked renewed academic interest in studying Norse mythologies,
(32:56):
influence on modern storytelling encourage other authors to approach mythological
retellings with similar respect and accessibility. I am looking forward
to somebody writing Greek mythologies as good as game and
wrote Norse mythologies because I love Greek mythology. Influenced educational
(33:18):
approaches to teaching mythology in schools and universities, led to
increased discussion about the role of mythology in contemporary culture.
Inspired new artistic interpretations in visual arts and music. Completely unrelated.
But in twenty sixteen Mary and I went to Iceland
(33:41):
and God, it's such a beautiful place. By the way,
if you get a chance, definitely go to Iceland. But
the last line where it interprets artistic or inspired new
artistic interpretations, yea. I remember driving Root one in Iceland
(34:05):
and this band comes on and it's Adam Padama and
they're in Icelandic reggae band, like the beats and and
all that are authentic reggae. But then you start hearing
the singing and it's in Icelandic and it just melds
(34:27):
so perfectly that I just couldn't stop listening to this song.
I had to spotify it and it is still to
this day on my gym playlist. So I just wanted
to throw that out there. Final thoughts. Yeah, that was
my deep dive into Norse Mythologies by Neil Gaman. If
(34:48):
you are somebody who's into mythologies, definitely check this book out.
It is a pretty decent sized book, but again it's
one of those things where you just can't put down.
You just gotta keep reading. Like I said, one more,
I am finished with it. Am I going to read
it again? Probably, but not going to not cover to cover.
I'm probably just gonna pick a story and read it.
(35:13):
If you are interested in anything that's Norse mythologies, like
I said, check out check out Ragnaraki. If you are
a teen who's into Norse drama, check out God of
War for either the PS four, PS five or the PC.
I have the PC version because I again I think
(35:34):
I talked about it a couple of weeks ago where
I just like my games on a PC. I like
that I can upgrade my PC and so I don't
have to buy new games for it. Whenever there's a
new release, I can just upgrade my PC. It's ready
to go and it's it's fantastic. I'm probably going to
connect it to my TV when we move, and so
(35:58):
I want to have a dedicated gaming everything. And then
for work, I'm probably just going to use my laptop.
I have a pretty decent laptop. It's an I seven.
It's thirty two gigs a RAM, so I'm probably gonna
be able to use that for at least in another
five years or so. So that's probably gonna be my
workhorse PC. And then the gaming PC, I'm just gonna
(36:18):
upgrade and just use that for gaming. Hey, it's better
than buying an Xbox every three four years a PlayStation
every three years, you know, because there's like, oh, the
PlayStation five, and now you got to get the PlayStation
five Pro. No things, no things. Anyways, back on track,
I really really recommend this book. I hope you like it.
(36:41):
Let me know if you guys have read it, or
if you are going to read it, or if you're
in the middle of reading it, let me know what
you think about it. And I am super tired because
the next next episode, next session is going to be
about the genocide in Cambodia, and I just want to
(37:05):
speak a little bit about that. I'm probably going to
have a hard time going through it because this episode,
this session has been about a year in the making.
I originally was going to do it back to back
with Chasing History the War in Laus, but I wanted
(37:31):
to get some more information on it. I knew a
bare bones amount of information on the genocide in Cambodia,
and so it would probably have been maybe a fifteen
to twenty minute episode, kind of like a gloss over summary.
(37:54):
But because of the personal connections I have to it,
I know a lot of Cambodian people. Best friend back home,
my best man back in New York is Cambodian, and
I live about half an hour away from Lowell, Massachusetts,
which is the second largest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.
(38:17):
So I had an opportunity to go in and definitely
get more information, get more knowledge off of it, and
dig deeper into the genocide because I have a very
personal connection to it. I have resources that I can
(38:40):
reach out to and zoom On. I did some interviews
through zoom. I will say zoom and really thick Asian
accents and sometimes very bad internet connections don't don't mix
(39:00):
very well, and well a lot every actually, everyone I
talked to, everyone I interviewed, asked me not to put names,
not to name names, not to put their names in
the in my report, my my notes. I didn't know why.
(39:22):
I thought that was kind of weird and odd, and
then I I spoke to another woman who kind of
put it the best way possible, and I'll reveal that
next week, Cliffhanger. So yeah, next week's session is going
to be about the genocide in Cambodia, So that will
(39:46):
be a chasing history with the Buddhist af podcast. And
so I appreciate you guys listening, if you are still around,
if you're still hanging out with me, I definitely appreciate it,
and let me know, give more comments. I appreciate the
constructive criticism. I do say um a lot. I don't
(40:06):
think I said it as much this week because it
was just a book report. It wasn't it wasn't really
me trying to remember as much because I already had
anything written down. It's harder when it's personal, when it's
like what I did twenty five years ago, that is hard,
(40:30):
but a lot of core memories because obviously I've made
almost sixty plus episodes, so it gets a little harder,
especially when again you've had ten concussions, when you are tired,
(40:51):
when you are trying to think back that far. But
I'm glad you guys are giving me that constructive criticism.
I appreciate it. I appreciate all sorts of comments, even
if you tell me to go back to China or something.
No one, no one has ever said that to me.
I'm just throwing it out there, but again, appreciate you
(41:13):
guys listening, and I will talk to you next week.
As always, Bob and Young actually hold on. Some people
have asked what that means. I believe I said it
in season one of Chasing Chante Visuk, the original podcast,
what the podcast was originally meant to be, And Bob
(41:34):
and Young means no worries, and it is a it
is a loos phrase. It is something that people live by,
and a lot of Laotians live by that, that motto.
And I've always liked it because Bob and Young no worries,
(41:56):
Hakuna matata or something like that. However you want to
say it, things bad now, but they'll get better. You
just got to hang in there. And so that's why
I say that at the end of every episode, because hey,
I just spilled my guts out to you guys, and
(42:16):
I don't have to hit that published button, but I
want to because it does help people. It does help
people who've, like I've said before, people who have written
or commented and said, hey, I'm Asian. I have felt
(42:37):
these things, and my parents have always been about saving face,
never wanting to lose face. How I have deep depression, anxiety.
I've had thoughts about doing bad things to myself, and
I couldn't come out to my parents and say things
(42:59):
like that because that would make me the black sheet,
that would put a black cloud over my family. And
then people will get talking, because everybody knows the Asian community.
Once it gets out there, it is out there. And
so yeah, like families are in debt, but they have
(43:21):
a brand new BMW because it's all about what you
see on the outside and not what's on the inside.
And this show, this tiny little show, has helped other
people cope with how they felt and how they were
able to express themselves. And so that means a great
(43:42):
deal to me, Alex, I'm here for you, Bud. Like
maybe not physically when you actually listen to this show,
I might not be there physically, spiritually, emotionally, when you
need me, I'm there. I will be there. I've always
(44:06):
said this in my Instagram post when I post you,
when I talk about you chant of visuks. Never walk alone,
and I mean that You're always going to have somebody
to guide you when you need it. Be it me,
(44:28):
be it your mom, your uncles, even though they're not
blood you know your aunts. Again, most of your family
isn't your blood family, but they love you and they
will guide you just as your mom and I will
guide you. So as always, thank you for listening to
the Buddhasta podcast and once again ban bye
So some of you have pointed out that I say
a lot during my show, and well, I have brain damage,
So yeah, how does that feel to be teasing someone
with brain damage? I'm just playing basically, I guess the
best way to put it is, well, English is my
(00:25):
second language. Not a sound excuse either, I barely speak loud,
but basically, I do have several or had several concussions,
and sometimes it's hard to form words, especially when you
are doing a recording like this, where dead air kind
(00:45):
of turns people off. I guess it's the best way
to put it. And so I say, to give my
brain a break. And it's not something that I do
on purpose, obviously. I guess memory is my memory is
behind a wall and is my chisel. That's probably the
(01:07):
best way to put it, right, I think that sounds good.
So last time when I or last episode where I
did where I talked about the Granite State, my state,
my hometown, my home state of New Hampshire. It went
a little long. It went a lot longer than I
thought it would because I really do like this state.
I really do like New Hampshire, and so I talked
(01:30):
a lot about it. I think it was almost an
hour and I got dry mouth, so you guys might
have heard it. I was also very tired we were
recording me. I was recording pretty late. I think it
was almost like midnight by the time I got done recording,
and I had a full day of work, played with
Alex and made dinner for the family because I am
(01:50):
the chef of the family and so I am now
drinking tea. So this will probably be a good thing
to do, especially with this episode, because this episode is
another book Club, and you guys like the book Club,
especially the Spirit catches You and you fall down. A
lot of people are actually listening to that, and I
appreciate it. It's a very good book. I still think about
(02:15):
that book to this day because it was one of
the It was one of the hardest things to read.
Because again I liked the book, and I said that
I would probably never read it again, even though it
is a very good book, but it hit a little
close to home. I mean, I have a lot of
(02:35):
family members with special needs, and so yeah, there's there's
usually a lot of superstition behind that, and yes, we
do ignore some medical advice. So I'm just gonna leave
it at that. But because I am doing a book
club today. I'm gonna speak like this. No, no, I
(02:56):
don't think I can speak like that, but I will
be drinking tea, So every now and then you will
hear me taking a t break and maybe you hear
some slurping. Maybe I hit the pause, but I don't know,
and we'll just wing it. But today is probably going
to be a controversial episode because it it is Norse Mythology,
(03:19):
and I love this book, Norse Mythologies. It is written
by Neo Gamon, and at the time of this recording,
Neo Gamon doesn't really have a good reputation right now.
So I'm going to judge the book on the book
itself and not not the personal life of Neo Gaman.
(03:44):
I'm trying to be as politically as correct as possible
because I don't look up to the man. Obviously, I
do like his work, so it is a little tough.
I guess the best way to put it is, you know,
I still listen to Michael Jackson songs, all right, despite
what anybody says. I don't think he did anything. But
(04:07):
there are people out there who don't like him, and
so I just want to put it out there. I
still listen to Michael Jackson songs. I don't know Neil
Gaiman personally. I've never looked up to him that much.
So I do like his writing. I love Norse Mythology,
I love American gods, and I love The Sandman. So
(04:30):
today we're going to talk about Norse Mythology and how
it the book itself, how it is very streamlined, so
very easy to read, and it is one of those
books where, since it's telling stories, you kind of want
to read. It's kind of one of the things we're saying,
(04:52):
all right, I'll read one more before bed, and then
you end up reading like two or three more, you know.
So it's one of those books. It's very easy to read,
very hard to put down. And so yeah, so today
we are going to talk about that Session sixty one
the Buddhist af Book Club Norse Mythologies by Neil Gaiman.
(05:13):
So again I don't know anything with the man personally, professionally,
great book, great storyteller, great author, and if you're following
along again Norse Mythology. The strong points of Norse Mythology
is that Gaman's storytelling shines through with clear, engaging prose
(05:35):
maintains the essence of the original tales while making them accessible.
It is it's if you read the old not the old.
But if you read the original sagas, which I actually
had to borrow from the Dairy library, it's a lot
of books, it is. I had, well, I didn't even
(05:55):
finish the whole saga. Actually I took out two books
and I'm I'm sure it's longer than that because I
never even got to Ragnarok, and so definitely longer than that.
And from what I gathered, the English translation is a
lot different than the than the Norwegian, and it's escaping
(06:17):
my mind right now. I know Norway is originally where
this came from. And the gramatic German translation, so yeah,
it's The pacing of the actual book itself is excellent.
The structure, the breziling of the myths in a logical sequence,
so it kind of tries to put it as chronological
(06:39):
as possible, but again it does kind of flip back
and forth. So if you are if you're watching a
show and you got some pretty heavy dramatic stuff and
then the next episode is like a filler episode where
it has nothing to do with the story, that's kind
of what he does here, but he still makes the
(07:01):
filler worth reading. If you can put it that way.
There you go again. But it does have really really
good character development, especially for Loki and for Thor, for
these people who just grew up watching the Marvel movies,
(07:21):
and that's how you know the Norse characters, or if
you're playing video games, if you're playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla,
or if you're playing God of War and you are
used to those characters, those takes of Norse mythologies, then
it does develop those characters pretty well. Like you start
(07:43):
off with, hey, here's Loki and here's Thor, and then
it goes all right, Loki is a trickster. Yes, Loki
does get the gods into trouble and they hate him
for it, but then they also love him or the
fact that he does get them out of trouble. So
(08:04):
it's one of the things where he is an antagonist
and a protagonist at the same time. And Thor, if
you're used to goofy Thor from the movies, he's not
nothing like that. He's essentially a killing machine in the
sagas and that's all he does. He defends the as
(08:27):
guardians which are who they are the acier and he
does have qualities of what you see in the MCU
where he does do comedy. He does have humor, but
he does in a way where he takes himself very seriously,
and the others around him are the ones that actually
(08:48):
see that. He takes himself so seriously that it's almost comedic.
Gamon also does rich world building that brings the Norse
realms to life. He does explain all all of the realms.
I don't know them or memorize them off the top
of my head. It's as Gard obviously, the where the
gods live, Neffhelheim, which I believe is hell, Jodenheim is
(09:17):
where the ice giants live, and Felheim is where the
light elves live. Yeah, it's all over the place. But
he does talk about those realms in a very rich,
beautiful way in that he does describe them very well,
(09:40):
not as descriptive as Tom Clancy. I don't understand how
anyone can go through a Tom Clancy book cover to cover.
I tried it once. I read a Rainbow six book
one time, and he spent about twenty or so pages.
I kid you not. He spent about twenty pages describing
(10:04):
ding Chavez's gun, from the shine, from the nicks on
the handle to the oil he uses. He's very descriptive,
and I think he has such thick books because he's
just trying to fill as much words as possible. Like
(10:25):
when I write the scripts for these show, I do
about two thousand words and then I edit them down
because two thousand words is a lot. So I think
Tom Clancy just lets it go. He just adds as
much as he can. And I think he does it
(10:46):
as a joke. Well, he doesn't do it as joking Moore,
He's kind of dead. But I think he does it
as in an in book joke where he's like, man,
I wonder how long they read before they go all right,
it's a black gun. It's a black handgun that is
nine millimeter bullets in it. And yeah, people think Tom
clans is a genius. Yes, he does good world building,
(11:08):
but he could have just it could have been a
three hundred page book chopped down to maybe two hundred
or so pages, so just a little, just a little
side book club note there. He does do seamless integration
of multiple myth cycles into a cohesive narrative talking about gaming,
(11:30):
talking about Norse mythologies, the skillful balance of humor and
drama through the stories. Yeah, he bounces back and forth,
Like I told you, if you get a really heavy
dramatic story, he then bounces it to a lighter, lighter story,
And so it doesn't really it's not going oh heavy, heavy, heavy,
(11:52):
Oh my god, I can't read this anymore. So depressing.
He does like clean the palette a little bit. There
are clear portrayal of complex relationships between gods, giants, and
other beings. That's the one thing I like about the
the books and the video games, and not so much
in the movies. The the movies kind of make Thor goofy. Obviously,
(12:17):
Thor was cool in in one and two and Avengers,
and I think, sorry, I'm trying to think here. I
think in a way they kind of lost him after
a bit because in Love and Thunder just they just
made him a baffling buffoon. Unfortunately, Three was just perfect.
(12:42):
He was serious and he had some some comedy chops
to him. He did have some humor in there, but
he had also just lost his brother, who finally, you know,
said that you are my brother. We're in this together.
And then he he loses him, and then he has
(13:04):
the grief, and most people grieve. I definitely do by comedy,
and so I kind of get that part. But Love
and Thunder, where he's just a complete idiot, is just awful.
And so I'm going to talk about more of the
difference between the books and the movies and what I
(13:27):
actually wish they showed more in both the games and
the movies compared to the books. Babbling, Okay, he has
masterful handling above the epic and the intimate moments in
the tales. So there are huge fight scenes obviously in
(13:48):
during Ragnarok. At the end of the book, epic fights.
Everyone is fighting, people are dying left and right, Gods
are dying, And he writes it really well in that
you can actually picture what's going on. You can actually
picture the fights, you can hear the weapons and the
(14:09):
thunder and all that, and so he does depict that
very very well. But then he also slows it down
to like what the mortals are feeling at the same
time and some of the stories there, and so it's
big and grand, and then also shrinks down to a
(14:29):
very intimate one on one type of speech. And I
like that. Another thing that I wish the movies did
more was show off the giants more like Norse mythologies
has giants, powerful giants. Some giants are more powerful than
the Asier, which are the as Guardians. We'll talk about
(14:52):
the Acier and the Vanyar later on as we get
more deeper into this. Some of the liberties that Gaman
does take on t break. Sorry. Some of the liberties
and traditions that he does take is that he does
stay largely faithful to the source material. He does take
(15:14):
some creative liberties. So he modernizes the dialogue so it's
not so much Kenneth browna Shakespearean talk Old English. I
guess the best way to do to talk say that
is that you know, you're translating from the Norway, the
(15:35):
Norwegian and the dramatic, and then you make it into
Old English, and then you modernize it, and then it
just gets lost somewhere. So he just takes that skip,
skims through, modernizes it and so you do understand and
follow it a lot better. He streamlines the complex narrative
threads for better readability. He adds more emotional depth to characters.
(15:59):
There are characters who do get put to the side
that does that. He does shine light on like if
you look at the you look at the need of poets,
where the gods created man, the smartest man ever, to
(16:23):
the point that he knew how he was going to
be killed and why he was going to be killed.
That story kind of gets glossed over in the original sagas,
and he digs more game in himself, digs more into
that and brings about why the gods need this person.
(16:43):
He smooths out some of the inconsistencies from different source materials. Again,
it's it's hard to to really understand everything. Most of
the sagas are word of mouth, and so obviously somebody
sitting around the campfirell a story, and then another person
tells the story, and like like I'm doing right now,
(17:05):
I'm doing a book report on the story that I
just read written by another person. So some of that
gets lost. And so that's why I really recommend that
you guys read this book. It's a fantastic book. I
can't say enough about it. He also adds descriptive details
to enhance scene settings and atmosphere. Just like I said before,
(17:28):
he really can build a room that you can get
lost in and so if he's talking about a throne room,
he can actually you know, talk about arches and certain
colors of the windows, and so you can actually feel
as if you were standing in the middle of that room.
(17:48):
Recommended reading order. So this is what I was talking about,
where it kind of goes heavy heavy light, heavy heavy light.
So what you want to do is kind of move
away from those fillers and then get back to it,
kind of like a main quest and a side quest
when you're playing video games. So for those new to
Norse mythology, here are the suggested reading sequence. To get
(18:13):
the most out of the book. You start with the
players game. It's instruction into the major gods and beings.
Then you move to creation myth but before the beginning
and the after you follow the chronological sequences of the
tales leading to Ragnarok. Finally conclude with Ragnarok that prophesies
(18:36):
the end of the gods and the worlds detail the
final battle between the gods and giants. It also showcases
the death of major gods, including odin thor Loki spoiler alert,
and then describes the world's destruction and eventual rebirth, kind
of like a reset or reboot, you know, presents the
(18:57):
survival of Boulder and a few other gods who will
populate the new world. Balder is a very important character.
He's actually a very important character in the games, the
books and as well. So I didn't understand why. I
believe the gods are are public domain, so I don't
(19:21):
understand why the MCU doesn't introduce more more as guardians.
You have Loki, you have Thor, you have Odin, Freya,
and you have Hella, who is kind of an algamation
of of Loki's daughter in the books. But then you
(19:46):
have Balder, you have who else do you have? There? Oh?
I am very lost right now? You have Frey, you
have which is Freya's brother, and so you can probably
do an entire show on just the the as Guardians
(20:07):
themselves instead of doing god knows what they're doing right
now what the MCU is doing. But Daredevil's pretty good
from what I hear. I haven't watched it yet, anyways.
Bouncing back, notable stories highlighted Meat of Poets, which is
what I told you about. Where's the complex tale of
(20:27):
Odin's cunning and determination where he makes a man who
is the smartest man in the world and these I
believe they're either giants or their troths. I think they're dwarves.
Dwarves are actually giant in the in that world. They
(20:49):
kill him, they kill the man, they mix his blood
with mead, and that the blood gives them the knowledge
of of the world essentially, and Odin wants it back.
And so that's what that story is all about. Master
Builder demonstrates the god's pride and look, he's clever if
(21:12):
dubious problem solving. And that's the one where it introduces
how Thor got his hammer Munior, how Odin gets his
staff goon Meir. And there is also an armband that
(21:33):
Odin receives droop near which I probably pronounced that wround,
but he puts it on his arm and it just
drops gold coins. Who doesn't want that, Like it's just
an armband, it just drops money. Another one where the
story is Thor's journey to the Land of Giants. This
(21:54):
is where Thor has two cross dress as Freya and
he has to get his hammer back. Thor loses his
hammer a lot and it gets stolen a lot. So
if you guys are coming up only on the MCU
or only the Worthy, he can lift his hammer. No
(22:17):
Thor loses and gets his hammer back. Several times he
loses the hammer. People have stolen the hammer. It is
not an unlifable object like it is in the in
the books or in the movies. I'm sorry the death
of Balder. So the death of Balder brings about the
(22:40):
the winter that signals the coming of Ragnarok. The only
thing is Balder doesn't die spoiler alert. And so yeah,
Balder survives at the end of Ragnarok, and he's one
of the gods that helps to repopulate the world. The
critical reception of the book, The book received widespread acclaim
(23:05):
from both critics and readers, Eye myself in one of them,
not a critic but a reader. Praise for his accessibility
to newcomers, Appreciated by scholars for its respectful treatment of
source material, Recognized for maintaining the original tales, humor and darkness.
And so what's missing? What's missing from Gaiman's version that
(23:30):
should be in it, that is in the original sagas,
Some elements that didn't make it into the book, Lesser
known myths and variants, probably people you didn't even know about.
Detailed exploration of Nordic cosmology doesn't really explain the by
frost too much, and the star, the star charts and
(23:53):
all that stuff, but again, things you can gloss over
and would probably not enjoy as much. Some of the
more obscure gods and creatures deep dive into religious practices
and cultural contexts. Well, we all know that back when
the Sagas were told and written, people worshiped different things.
(24:18):
It wasn't just one god. Obviously, these guys are all
gods that we're learning about, and so they each one
of them got their own shrine, each one of them.
You know, people practiced sacrifices and all that to these gods,
and so Gayman doesn't really talk about that because it's
(24:40):
something you already know. Detailed family trees and relationships between gods. Yeah,
it's kind of like Greek mythology. Odin is father to
many many gods. He is an Asier and Freya is
(25:02):
a van Ear. They're two different, two different gods, one
more warring, one more peaceful, but kind of like, don't
mess with me because I am pretty dangerous sort of thing.
So the Vanyar are the ones who are just hey,
we like people, people are cool. We don't mess with you.
You don't mess with us. Everything is all good, and
the ace heer warring like I war lords. There you go,
(25:29):
that's a good place to put in. That's the best
way to put it. And so they had a civil
war and they were pretty much deadlocked. I mean, they're gods.
They can't die, at least not yet. So in order
for them to have peace, Freya Mary's odin and they
(25:50):
be get balder and then the family tree goes from there,
it gets nuts. So he kinda he talks about here
and there, but then glosses over the rest because it's
not too important. I mean, you have the Internet connections
to other Indo European mythological systems. Yeah, because the Romans
(26:17):
and the Greeks believed in the same gods, but they
had different names sort of thing, regional variations in how
these stories were told across different Norse cultures, specific rituals
and ceremonies associated with each deity. I went back to
talking about the deep dives into religious practices, archaeological evidence
(26:39):
related to North religious practices. Okay, don't glossing over it,
and the complex poetic forms use and original Norse literature.
It's it's theatrical. A lot of it is you're, again,
if you're telling a story to someone who is sitting
(27:00):
by a campfire, you want it to be loud, you
want it to be big, and so when you tell
a story like that, you kind of want to over
do it, and so sometimes it gets to the point
where it's unbelievable. Yes, I'm talking about gods and giants
and dwarves and elves and all that, but he kind
(27:21):
of shrinks it down to a more palatable type of story.
T Brick gods, books versus movies versus video games. Notable
differences between Gamin's portrayal and popular movie versions. Book Thor
(27:43):
is more rough around the edges than Chris Hemsworth's Polish hero. Obviously,
book Thor is more not tall. He's kind of a powerlifter,
is the best way to put it. He's got a belly,
he doesn't have a six pack. He's got a red
(28:05):
he's got red hair, long beard, and even though he's
kind of round, he is all powerful. He like I said,
he is a machine of war. And so, just like
Achilles was in the Iliad, the Achilles in the movie
(28:28):
cried no, No, No. Achilles in the book does not cry.
Achilles in the book is just a death machine, and
that's what Thor is in the books. Olden is darker
and more morally ambiguous in the book than he is
in the movies. In the movies, he's a great dad.
I mean, yes, he kind of pitted his sons against
(28:51):
each other where he could just told him that, hey,
you're adopted and you know you are the rightful king.
But he still loved them both as his sons, whereas
Odin them in the book not so much. Loki is
less sympathetic than Tom Hidlston's charming interpretation the gods are
(29:14):
more primal and less humanized than their MCU counterparts. Representations
and video games often blend MCU and book versions, with
games like God of War offering a unique interpretation. Video
game Thor tends to be portrayed as a more antagonistic
and attimidating than either book or MCU versions. Game Odin,
(29:38):
especially in God of War, appears more villainous and overtly
manipulative compared to Gaman's more nuanced portrayal of a complex,
wisdom seeking figure. Games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla incorporate more
historical Norse elements alongside mythological ones. Netflix Ragnarok off a
(30:00):
modern teen drama interpretation of Norse gods. I've never seen that.
I just saw that it was on Netflix one day,
so I kind of just glimpsed over the description and
I'm like, all right, this is for people who want
to get into anime and don't want to get too
deep into anime, so I just put that on there.
(30:22):
It influence. Influence extends to animated shows like Valhalla adapting
Norse Smith for younger audiences. Yeah, Norse mythologies is getting
a rebirth. I guess it's the best way to put it.
You remember years back when Pirates of the Caribbean came out,
(30:44):
the Curse of the Black Pearl and Jack Sparrow became
this huge movie icon, and so everybody got into Pirates,
and so the show Black Sales came out, and obviously
Pirates talks like a Pirate Day, and the Pirates of
(31:04):
the Caribbean movies exploded, and you know, SQL after SQL
after SQL, and even Assassin's Creed got into it with
Assassin's Creed for Black Flag and which was a great game.
By the way, I heard, there's a remaster coming and
I would definitely get that again. So that's what's happening
(31:26):
right now, is people are getting into Norse mythologies. You
see people having Norse tattoos, you see the the muner
necklaces around people's necks. So it's definitely having a resurgence
right now, and I think this book does have something
to do with that, as well as the MCU movies
(31:47):
and Assassin's Creed, Valhalla and especially the The God of
War bringing everything back, bringing Norse mythologies to the masses.
Cultural impact of this book, the book has influenced modern
interpretations of Norse mythologies in several ways. It inspired new
(32:08):
adaptations in various medias like I was talking about, you know,
video games, anime, cartoons, TV shows, vikings for that matter.
Is all because there's a resurgence in Norse mythologies. Trips
to Iceland maybe very likely increase public interest in authentic
(32:30):
Norse mythologies, created a benchmark for accessible mythological retellings. Oh
that was tough, helped distinguish traditional myths from popular media interpretations.
This is what I'm doing right now telling you the
difference between the book versus the movie versus the video games.
T Brick sparked renewed academic interest in studying Norse mythologies,
(32:56):
influence on modern storytelling encourage other authors to approach mythological
retellings with similar respect and accessibility. I am looking forward
to somebody writing Greek mythologies as good as game and
wrote Norse mythologies because I love Greek mythology. Influenced educational
(33:18):
approaches to teaching mythology in schools and universities, led to
increased discussion about the role of mythology in contemporary culture.
Inspired new artistic interpretations in visual arts and music. Completely unrelated.
But in twenty sixteen Mary and I went to Iceland
(33:41):
and God, it's such a beautiful place. By the way,
if you get a chance, definitely go to Iceland. But
the last line where it interprets artistic or inspired new
artistic interpretations, yea. I remember driving Root one in Iceland
(34:05):
and this band comes on and it's Adam Padama and
they're in Icelandic reggae band, like the beats and and
all that are authentic reggae. But then you start hearing
the singing and it's in Icelandic and it just melds
(34:27):
so perfectly that I just couldn't stop listening to this song.
I had to spotify it and it is still to
this day on my gym playlist. So I just wanted
to throw that out there. Final thoughts. Yeah, that was
my deep dive into Norse Mythologies by Neil Gaman. If
(34:48):
you are somebody who's into mythologies, definitely check this book out.
It is a pretty decent sized book, but again it's
one of those things where you just can't put down.
You just gotta keep reading. Like I said, one more,
I am finished with it. Am I going to read
it again? Probably, but not going to not cover to cover.
I'm probably just gonna pick a story and read it.
(35:13):
If you are interested in anything that's Norse mythologies, like
I said, check out check out Ragnaraki. If you are
a teen who's into Norse drama, check out God of
War for either the PS four, PS five or the PC.
I have the PC version because I again I think
(35:34):
I talked about it a couple of weeks ago where
I just like my games on a PC. I like
that I can upgrade my PC and so I don't
have to buy new games for it. Whenever there's a
new release, I can just upgrade my PC. It's ready
to go and it's it's fantastic. I'm probably going to
connect it to my TV when we move, and so
(35:58):
I want to have a dedicated gaming everything. And then
for work, I'm probably just going to use my laptop.
I have a pretty decent laptop. It's an I seven.
It's thirty two gigs a RAM, so I'm probably gonna
be able to use that for at least in another
five years or so. So that's probably gonna be my
workhorse PC. And then the gaming PC, I'm just gonna
(36:18):
upgrade and just use that for gaming. Hey, it's better
than buying an Xbox every three four years a PlayStation
every three years, you know, because there's like, oh, the
PlayStation five, and now you got to get the PlayStation
five Pro. No things, no things. Anyways, back on track,
I really really recommend this book. I hope you like it.
(36:41):
Let me know if you guys have read it, or
if you are going to read it, or if you're
in the middle of reading it, let me know what
you think about it. And I am super tired because
the next next episode, next session is going to be
about the genocide in Cambodia, and I just want to
(37:05):
speak a little bit about that. I'm probably going to
have a hard time going through it because this episode,
this session has been about a year in the making.
I originally was going to do it back to back
with Chasing History the War in Laus, but I wanted
(37:31):
to get some more information on it. I knew a
bare bones amount of information on the genocide in Cambodia,
and so it would probably have been maybe a fifteen
to twenty minute episode, kind of like a gloss over summary.
(37:54):
But because of the personal connections I have to it,
I know a lot of Cambodian people. Best friend back home,
my best man back in New York is Cambodian, and
I live about half an hour away from Lowell, Massachusetts,
which is the second largest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.
(38:17):
So I had an opportunity to go in and definitely
get more information, get more knowledge off of it, and
dig deeper into the genocide because I have a very
personal connection to it. I have resources that I can
(38:40):
reach out to and zoom On. I did some interviews
through zoom. I will say zoom and really thick Asian
accents and sometimes very bad internet connections don't don't mix
(39:00):
very well, and well a lot every actually, everyone I
talked to, everyone I interviewed, asked me not to put names,
not to name names, not to put their names in
the in my report, my my notes. I didn't know why.
(39:22):
I thought that was kind of weird and odd, and
then I I spoke to another woman who kind of
put it the best way possible, and I'll reveal that
next week, Cliffhanger. So yeah, next week's session is going
to be about the genocide in Cambodia, So that will
(39:46):
be a chasing history with the Buddhist af podcast. And
so I appreciate you guys listening, if you are still around,
if you're still hanging out with me, I definitely appreciate it,
and let me know, give more comments. I appreciate the
constructive criticism. I do say um a lot. I don't
(40:06):
think I said it as much this week because it
was just a book report. It wasn't it wasn't really
me trying to remember as much because I already had
anything written down. It's harder when it's personal, when it's
like what I did twenty five years ago, that is hard,
(40:30):
but a lot of core memories because obviously I've made
almost sixty plus episodes, so it gets a little harder,
especially when again you've had ten concussions, when you are tired,
(40:51):
when you are trying to think back that far. But
I'm glad you guys are giving me that constructive criticism.
I appreciate it. I appreciate all sorts of comments, even
if you tell me to go back to China or something.
No one, no one has ever said that to me.
I'm just throwing it out there, but again, appreciate you
(41:13):
guys listening, and I will talk to you next week.
As always, Bob and Young actually hold on. Some people
have asked what that means. I believe I said it
in season one of Chasing Chante Visuk, the original podcast,
what the podcast was originally meant to be, And Bob
(41:34):
and Young means no worries, and it is a it
is a loos phrase. It is something that people live by,
and a lot of Laotians live by that, that motto.
And I've always liked it because Bob and Young no worries,
(41:56):
Hakuna matata or something like that. However you want to
say it, things bad now, but they'll get better. You
just got to hang in there. And so that's why
I say that at the end of every episode, because hey,
I just spilled my guts out to you guys, and
(42:16):
I don't have to hit that published button, but I
want to because it does help people. It does help
people who've, like I've said before, people who have written
or commented and said, hey, I'm Asian. I have felt
(42:37):
these things, and my parents have always been about saving face,
never wanting to lose face. How I have deep depression, anxiety.
I've had thoughts about doing bad things to myself, and
I couldn't come out to my parents and say things
(42:59):
like that because that would make me the black sheet,
that would put a black cloud over my family. And
then people will get talking, because everybody knows the Asian community.
Once it gets out there, it is out there. And
so yeah, like families are in debt, but they have
(43:21):
a brand new BMW because it's all about what you
see on the outside and not what's on the inside.
And this show, this tiny little show, has helped other
people cope with how they felt and how they were
able to express themselves. And so that means a great
(43:42):
deal to me, Alex, I'm here for you, Bud. Like
maybe not physically when you actually listen to this show,
I might not be there physically, spiritually, emotionally, when you
need me, I'm there. I will be there. I've always
(44:06):
said this in my Instagram post when I post you,
when I talk about you chant of visuks. Never walk alone,
and I mean that You're always going to have somebody
to guide you when you need it. Be it me,
(44:28):
be it your mom, your uncles, even though they're not
blood you know your aunts. Again, most of your family
isn't your blood family, but they love you and they
will guide you just as your mom and I will
guide you. So as always, thank you for listening to
the Buddhasta podcast and once again ban bye
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.