147 - Patmos Public Library with Josh from TWOAPW - librarypunk

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay: Who's this little lobster guy that's on your microphone? (00:00):
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Josh: This is my little friend. (00:03):
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Jay: Okay. (00:04):
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Josh: He hangs out on the streams that I do because I stream a couple times a week. (00:05):
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Jay: Okay. (00:10):
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Josh: His name is White Santa. The reason that he's named White Santa is that I made (00:10):
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Josh: the mistake of asking chat to name him when we were in the middle of a discussion about Megyn Kelly. (00:15):
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Josh: And they said, name him White Santa. And the name stuck very quickly. (00:20):
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Jay: All right. (00:25):
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Josh: But it's also, I mean, he's just a cute little guy. He's just a little guy. (00:25):
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Josh: I love him. You can't be talking like that, White Santa. You can't be talking like that. (00:29):
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Jay: White Santa. That's exactly right. (00:32):
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Josh: And that's me at most times. You'd be surprised at how racist this kid is. It's really bad. (00:34):
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Josh: Yeah, it's traditional scrunch now, but I think I was early. (00:40):
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Josh: I think I might still have the first little tier thingy that they give you. (00:45):
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Josh: Oh, like from Trash Future way back in the day? Yeah. (00:49):
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Josh: Yeah, yeah. It's funny now because there's actually nobody even on the stream (00:53):
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Josh: anymore who is part of Trash Future. because now November's not really on it anymore. (00:57):
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Josh: Mm-hmm. Me and Jay are big fans of Worst of All Possible Worlds. Oh, hell yeah. (01:02):
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Jay: He quizzes me on factoids. (01:07):
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Josh: From the show. Okay. You did the, what was it, the Sweetie Todd episode? (01:10):
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Josh: Oh, yeah. That was a good one. (01:16):
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Jay: Because Tinder Subject, we did one as well. (01:17):
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Josh: Oh, cool. (01:19):
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Jay: Yeah. So I was like, do you remember on the Worst of All Possible Worlds when they were. (01:20):
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Josh: Mentioning during that presentation? I'm like, no. Let's make sure that my soundboard's working. (01:23):
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Josh: Mmm! So good and tasty! (01:29):
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Josh: There we go. (01:32):
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Jay: One day I will kill him over the soundboard, but maybe not today. (01:33):
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Jay: It is good. See, you've encouraged me. (01:37):
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Josh: Someone who appreciates my soundboard, and I'm going to be using a little crazy. (01:40):
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Josh: I mean, I would be a hypocrite if I were to discourage people from using a soundboard, (01:43):
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Josh: given how our show operates. (01:47):
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Josh: Like, every so often, I'll just be chilling, and Brian will hit me with a hee-whot, (01:50):
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Josh: and then that's just, you know. (01:54):
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Jay: I need to get that one. (01:56):
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Josh: Behold, the atheist's nightmare. (01:57):
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Jay: Yeah, all three of us grew up. Some flavor of like evangelical or other weirdo Christian. (02:00):
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Josh: So where are y'all from? (02:07):
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Jay: I'm from Southern Illinois. So right in the Bible belt originally. (02:08):
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Jay: Yep. Yep. I'm from Florida. (02:12):
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Josh: So I grew up Southern Baptist. The, uh, okay. The fun ones to split off for the good reasons. (02:14):
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Sadie: I'm in Western Washington, Seattle area. And I was raised Mormon. (02:20):
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Josh: Oh, hell yeah. (02:24):
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Jay: Okay, cool. (02:26):
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Josh: My entire exposure to Mormonism is basically through my friends who live in Utah. (02:27):
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Jay: I used to live in Salt Lake City, yeah. (02:32):
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Josh: Okay, yeah. As well as, of course, the classic movie musical, Saturday's Warrior. (02:34):
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Sadie: Oh my god. (02:40):
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Josh: Have you seen Saturday's Warrior? (02:41):
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Sadie: My dad used to watch it every Saturday. (02:42):
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Josh: Yes! (02:45):
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Josh: This is great. We're learning new Sadie lore. These are they on Saturday. (02:48):
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Josh: That is such a bad musical and so many of the songs are so good. (02:52):
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Josh: Like, better than they have any right to be. (02:57):
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Josh: Alright, we'll get started. Cool. Thank you. (03:00):
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Jay: Oops. (03:16):
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Jay: Fade out too soon. I switched the soundboards so I had more of my stuff. (03:19):
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Jay: And I didn't realize I was going to shut the sound off. (03:26):
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Jay: Leave it. (03:31):
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Sadie: Technical difficulties. (03:34):
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Jay: All right. I'm Justin. I'm a free agent. My pronouns are he and they. I'm Sadie. (03:35):
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Sadie: I work IT at a public library. And my pronouns are they, them. (03:41):
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Jay: I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. (03:44):
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Josh: Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes. Hello. My name's Josh. (03:50):
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Josh: I am the son and grandson of librarians, though I am not a librarian myself. I use he, him pronouns. (03:54):
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Josh: Nailed it. Yes. (04:03):
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Jay: You did it. You get a gold star. (04:04):
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Josh: Thank you for your support. That's right, boys. (04:07):
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Jay: Mondo cool. Oh, no. He's going to be on what this is. i'm really excited. (04:10):
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Josh: I'm getting the feeling i've made a terrible terrible mistake. (04:16):
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Jay: Yes no no this is good people love this nice i'm the podcast favorite, (04:19):
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Jay: sure okay well we are going to talk about the patmos public library but, (04:29):
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Jay: and move to another state uh so yeah that's that's what's happening there uh shit's bad if. (05:13):
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Sadie: You live in iowa write to your representatives immediately by. (05:19):
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Jay: Gun you can do that. (05:23):
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Josh: In iowa haven't. (05:26):
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Jay: Said it in 10 episodes or so so we're back to form i don't have a job i can't (05:27):
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Jay: get yelled at for getting my Twitter deleted at work. True story. (05:32):
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Jay: Somehow. It's true. I don't talk about anything I do on social media at work, (05:37):
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Jay: but I must have mentioned it once, (05:41):
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Jay: And it's like the library director quit. And I was like, you're going to have to be more specific. (05:58):
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Josh: A lot more specific than that. Yeah. (06:03):
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Jay: You got to really narrow it down there, buddy. (06:05):
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Josh: No, this was kind of the OG, like, (06:07):
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Josh: banned library controversy because of the way that they had the millage, (06:11):
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Josh: they failed to pass the millage renewal, that ended up shutting down the library, (06:15):
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Josh: and this was one of the first ones that made the news in a national way, (06:19):
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Josh: especially because it's a connection to the book Genderqueer and all that sort of thing. (06:23):
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Jay: Yeah, I have had a Google alert running for a while now. And so I just, (06:27):
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Jay: Massachusetts who looks at my Texas ID and goes, oh, Texas. (06:55):
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Jay: That was the news. (07:01):
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Josh: Is that the typical voice that people normally make when you talk about Texas? They go, Texas. Yeah. (07:05):
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Jay: Or every time I'm like, my boyfriend lives in Texas, they're like, oh, and I'm like, yeah. (07:09):
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Jay: They really do. They have like such a visceral reaction. (07:15):
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Jay: Like I go to the weed store and I show my ID to get into the weed store and (07:18):
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Jay: they're like, oh, the scanner's not working. It must be because it's a Texas ID. (07:22):
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Jay: Or we remember we were at the we were at the Sam Adams Brewery and it said, (07:26):
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Jay: who's traveled the furthest to be here tonight? And I won. Yeah. (07:30):
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Jay: Because he's like, unfortunately, it has to go to the guy. (07:33):
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Josh: I'm not Greg Abbott. Get off my dick. So I don't know what Texas did to you, (07:38):
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Josh: but it is worse to the people who live there. Is it? Do you recommend? (07:42):
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Josh: Not if you're trans, no. Okay. What about just like in general, (07:46):
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Josh: like if you're not trans or? (07:50):
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Josh: I live in a very interesting part of Texas, so I live right on the border. (07:52):
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Josh: And so it's very culturally distinct from the rest of Texas. (07:55):
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Josh: Texas is basically like three or four states. So I would say like. (07:59):
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Josh: Until recently. And then the moment they started paying attention, they started winning. (08:36):
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Josh: So... Well, that's definitely a commonality between I think Texas and the great (08:41):
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Josh: state of Michigan, which Michigan is... (08:45):
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Josh: Really three states in one, maybe four if you can, like the thumb is also sort of its own thing. (08:48):
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Josh: But yeah, you've got West Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and then everything from (08:54):
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Josh: like the tip of the mitten up through the UP. (08:58):
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Josh: For all intents and purposes, those are basically three different states that (09:00):
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Josh: all happen to share a government. Yeah. (09:04):
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Josh: Many such cases. I mean, I grew up in Florida, so I'm used to like big crazy (09:06):
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Josh: states. So it's, you know, Miami's its own thing. Tampa's, (09:09):
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Josh: like my heart's beating at 10 seconds after conception and Jesus loves you. (09:22):
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Josh: And you start seeing those. He loves you a lot. I love the ones that are just (09:27):
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Josh: like, remember Jesus? I'm like, I too remember Jesus. (09:30):
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Jay: Whatever happened to that guy? Where'd he go? (09:34):
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Sadie: Long time no see. He hasn't dropped an album in a while. (09:38):
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Josh: Main stage at the Grammy Awards. Folks, he's back. You might remember him. (09:42):
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Josh: He's our Lord and Savior, best known for dying on the cross roughly 1,980 years ago. (09:47):
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Josh: Folks, give it up. Give it up for Jesus Christ back here on the track. (09:53):
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Josh: Rome thought they had him beat. I'm turning my chair around. I'm turning my. (10:01):
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Jay: Hat and my chair around. I'm straddling the chair and I'm saying, guys, you know who else. (10:06):
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Josh: Gets knocked down and he gets up again? You're never going to keep him down. Jumbawamba, yeah. (10:10):
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Josh: You know, I guess I should just sort of clear a few things up top here, too. (10:16):
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Josh: You know, I'm excited to be on here to talk about library shit, (10:20):
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Josh: because even though, as I said, I am not a librarian myself, (10:24):
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Josh: it has always been something that's been a part of my upbringing. (10:28):
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Josh: You know, my mom is a children's librarian. I grew up reading books. (10:31):
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Josh: I grew up going to the library. (10:35):
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Josh: Some of my best friends, because I was a weird little, you know, (10:37):
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Josh: shrimpy kid, some of my best friends were the librarians at my local public (10:40):
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Josh: library. So this sort of thing really matters to me. (10:44):
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Josh: And so with the story of the Jamestown Library specifically, (10:47):
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Josh: it's one of those things that runs up against both my sort of cultural, I guess, milieu, (10:51):
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Josh: what I grew up with, as well as the political landscape that I care about a (10:58):
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Josh: great deal that I also talk about a fair bit on my own podcast. (11:03):
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Josh: And so I'm excited to kind of get into it and talk a little bit about this sort (11:06):
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Josh: of individual case study in a library in a small conservative community and (11:10):
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Josh: why I think it matters, not just as an individual example, (11:16):
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Josh: but also as one emblematic form of a battle that is happening all over the country. (11:20):
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Josh: Yeah. And why don't you go ahead and tell us your back, you know, (11:26):
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Josh: a little bit of background about Ottawa County? Sure. (11:28):
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Josh: Well, so this library that we're going to be talking about today is called the (11:31):
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Josh: Patmos Public Library. Just want to clear that up. That's the pronunciation. (11:34):
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Josh: I've heard a lot of different pronunciations. They are all incorrect. (11:37):
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Josh: The correct pronunciation for this thing is Patmos. (11:41):
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Josh: And it is located in a county called Ottawa, the county of Ottawa in the state of Michigan. (11:43):
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Josh: And basically, that county was settled by these ultra conservative Dutch Protestants (11:49):
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Josh: beginning in the mid 1800s. And so the whole reason it's called Ottawa County (11:55):
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Josh: is that those, of course, are the people who were displaced. (12:01):
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Josh: There are still some Ottawa people who live in and around the area. (12:04):
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Josh: But yeah, that was the land that got expropriated. Those were the people who (12:08):
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Josh: it was expropriated from. (12:11):
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Josh: And Ottawa County is, I would say, really the beating heart of Republican politics today. (12:13):
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Josh: In West Michigan. When it comes to your standard issue, Republican freak, right? (12:19):
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Josh: They probably, if they're in Michigan, they're probably either from that area (12:25):
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Josh: or they are connected to people who are. (12:30):
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Josh: That is where the power center is. It's the DeVos political machine, (12:34):
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Josh: Betsy DeVos. She came up out of there. She cut her teeth there. (12:38):
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Josh: She's probably the best known example of the type of guy who emerges from Ottawa County. (12:41):
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Jay: So we can like solidly blame the Dutch for this is what you're saying. (12:47):
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Josh: Hundo P, yes. I mean, it is pretty much the entire communities that settled (12:50):
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Josh: there originally were all these ultra hardcore Dutch Protestants who wanted (12:56):
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Josh: to set up their own basically ethnic enclave in Michigan and successfully did so. (13:01):
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Josh: And so the politics of the area are all drawn along those lines. (13:07):
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Josh: Ottawa County went 59% Trump in the most recent election, but Jamestown specifically, (13:11):
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Josh: which is the township that we're going to be talking about today, (13:18):
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Josh: it is basically a subdivision of that county. (13:21):
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Josh: They're called townships in Michigan if they're unincorporated land and not (13:24):
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Josh: like an actual city proper. Jamestown is in the southeast corner of Ottawa County, (13:27):
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Josh: and the township went 75% Trump in the last election. (13:31):
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Josh: And if you look back at the past few elections, that's pretty much been the (13:36):
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Josh: margin, is around a 50% margin. So it should give you a good sense of kind of what this place is. (13:40):
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Josh: Up yours, woke moralists. We'll see who cancels who. You're goddamn right, Jordan. (13:46):
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Josh: They did say that. Available for kissing practice. (13:52):
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Jay: On a portable Nintendo. though. Justin, how many fucking... (13:54):
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Jay: Kermit fuckhead sound drops you have do not play them all that i asked for a count, (14:00):
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Jay: i i think that's just us too okay i have to start. (14:08):
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Sadie: Supervising the soundboard. (14:13):
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Jay: It's like i'm cutting you off if we had a dedicated soundboard person i'd be (14:16):
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Jay: okay with that just someone just to come in and hit the ham horn every once (14:20):
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Jay: in a while just justin stop we keep on track, (14:23):
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Jay: I've barely been using the soundboard. I don't know why you're complaining now. (14:30):
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Jay: So you have a little thing here about cultural conservatism. (14:36):
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Josh: In Michigan and how it's a little different from other parts of the county. (14:40):
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Josh: Yeah. I mean, it's worth noting that there are some commonalities about cultural (14:43):
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Josh: conservatism, no matter where you are. (14:49):
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Josh: The fear of the outside world is kind of the big thing. (14:51):
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Josh: And that's the whole reason that these people settled down in michigan in (14:54):
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Josh: the first place was they wanted a place where they could be cloistered from the (14:57):
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Josh: pernicious influence of the other people in the netherlands (15:00):
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Josh: who were becoming i guess too liberal or whatever um but (15:03):
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Josh: but but there's also a really strong tradition of i wouldn't call it intellectual (15:07):
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Josh: curiosity exactly but it's this idea that like we need to have records of everything (15:13):
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Josh: those records need to be well maintained and people need to be able to have (15:18):
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Josh: access to those records. (15:22):
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Josh: Which, again, I just chalk up to kind of being Dutch. (15:24):
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Josh: Like, that's a big piece of what it is to be Dutch. (15:26):
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Josh: But that's the one thing about all of this that makes it a little bit different. (15:29):
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Josh: And that's why, you know, it's like, well, why... (15:33):
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Josh: Why is there this really strong tradition of like really good public libraries (15:36):
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Josh: in these very conservative parts of the state? (15:41):
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Josh: And in West Michigan in particular, the answer is, well, because they're Dutch, genuinely. (15:45):
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Josh: And this is also where I should note that I grew up in Kent County, (15:50):
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Josh: which is the next county over from Ottawa. (15:53):
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Josh: And I actually spent much of my childhood in Ottawa County, specifically along (15:55):
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Josh: the lake there, Lake Michigan. (16:00):
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Josh: And this is the part where I reveal that the Patmos Library, (16:02):
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Josh: the reason I can pronounce Patmos so well, is that it is the name of my great (16:05):
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Josh: uncle, Marv, who endowed the township with $1 million to build a new library back in the year 2000. (16:09):
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Josh: So, I know. So when I heard that, you know, this was happening not just near (16:16):
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Josh: my hometown, because I grew up in Grand Rapids, but also was specifically affecting. (16:24):
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Josh: It would be an exaggeration would say like my family's legacy. (16:29):
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Josh: But it is something that is directly personally connected to me because a little (16:33):
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Josh: bit about Marv, basically his whole deal was he never got past the eighth grade, (16:38):
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Josh: but he was able to learn a lot by reading. (16:42):
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Josh: And so he was like, well, other people should be able to do that too. (16:44):
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Josh: And that's why he endowed the library. (16:47):
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Josh: Yeah. Many such cases. I wonder also if, because I did see in the various news, like local news. (16:48):
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Josh: History of the university that they put out, but they had to take that out. (17:42):
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Josh: But the historians who wrote it left it in a footnote because historians are really funny like that. (17:48):
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Josh: In the case of the Jamestown Township Library specifically, it was just built (17:52):
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Josh: as a standard issue public library in 1965. (17:57):
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Josh: So it's been a public library for its entire existence. (18:00):
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Josh: The donation was basically just so they could build a bigger building. Yeah. (18:04):
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Josh: To the point of like, I guess, the cultural homogeneity or lack thereof, (18:07):
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Josh: it is fair to say that that part of Michigan is almost exclusively white and (18:13):
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Josh: specifically ethnically Dutch. (18:18):
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Josh: When you get into the bigger cities, specifically Grand Rapids, (18:20):
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Josh: there's a fair more diversity. (18:24):
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Josh: But I would say that historically, these are communities that were extremely homogeneous. (18:25):
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Josh: Yeah. And I think a lot of people take that for granted when they look at the (18:32):
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Josh: history of their area and go, well, it didn't. (18:35):
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Jay: Really happen here. It's like, yeah, there's reasons. So the initial complaints (18:37):
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Jay: about this, about Patmos was over genderqueer. This, (18:41):
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Jay: was removed from the shelves and put behind the counter and since they had went (18:51):
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Jay: ahead and capitulated opponents formed a group the jamestown conservatives who (18:56):
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Jay: suggested the library was grooming. (19:01):
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Josh: Was real big it was it was the new gritty and everyone was hitting it and they (19:04):
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Josh: were saying yeah and so they said let's let's vote against the millage and. (19:09):
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Jay: These come up in the book ban news as often so (19:39):
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Jay: i figured i'd go ahead and mention those this also reminds me like (19:43):
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Jay: this is like so retro almost like this (19:46):
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Jay: reminds me of in john waters or john waters this (19:49):
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Jay: sort of like stand-up lecture this filthy world that (19:52):
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Jay: he gives he talks about when he was younger all the dirty books he wanted to (19:55):
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Jay: read were always behind the counter and they said sea librarian in order to (19:59):
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Jay: read them and he would go steal those books and like gone are the halcyon days (20:03):
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Jay: where you could find the naughty books in the sea librarian section like this (20:07):
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Jay: just feels so retro it's so stupid. (20:11):
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Josh: I think it's also worth noting in terms of like the millage itself that because (20:15):
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Josh: Jamestown is a township and not a city, taxes are very low there. (20:20):
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Josh: And the millage itself is not a meaningful tax. (20:24):
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Josh: You know, we're talking about like two hundred thousand dollars ish split across (20:28):
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Josh: maybe ten thousand people. (20:33):
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Josh: But it's it's not not anything. And this is a hardcore anti-tax kind of area. (20:34):
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Josh: So I think that does play into it as well. Yeah. (20:42):
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Josh: And I mean, speaking of old school, when I was going through a lot of local stories, I saw like, (20:44):
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Josh: to, what is the site? Bridge, Michigan, bridgemi.com. (20:52):
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Josh: Bridge is a really, really good publication for like local progressive news. (20:57):
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Josh: Yeah. It's a lot of their articles go into way more depth than you expect they're. (21:00):
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Jay: There were too many books written by Jewish people was one of the complaints. (21:31):
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Jay: I mean, we're hitting classics. (21:35):
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Jay: And so it was a really nice roundup of like some of the complaints that people were coming in. And the, (21:38):
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Jay: I need to show up and vote no and put a giant sign in my yard that says. (22:03):
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Josh: Hang on, let me get the exact word. I've got it right here. (22:09):
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Jay: It's a great sign. (22:12):
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Josh: 50% millage increase. And that's all caps in red to groom. (22:13):
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Josh: Groom that's also all caps and it's much larger font our kids vote lowercase vote no on library, (22:18):
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Josh: exactly vote no on library is very funny to me it has the feeling of look at (22:28):
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Josh: banner michael from arrested development you. (22:34):
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Jay: Know you've got a winning campaign when you're like vote no on da library. (22:38):
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Josh: On library. (22:43):
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Jay: On library. There's no like, and this is like, okay, so to everyone who makes (22:44):
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Jay: goofy little protest signs so that you'll get on like Instagram or whatever (22:50):
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Jay: when you go to a march, stop that shit. (22:54):
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Jay: Make concrete demands and they're not even doing it right because they don't (22:57):
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Jay: have the like number of the proposition or whatever. (23:00):
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Jay: You got to give people specifics. Vote no on number eight. Boom. (23:04):
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Jay: Solid. Too many words. (23:07):
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Josh: Anytime you see anything about a library anywhere, you need to vote against it. That's the rule. (23:10):
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Jay: Yeah. So, yeah, we've talked about millage votes before in the past and some (23:17):
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Jay: of the contentious fights that tend to accompany, (23:21):
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Jay: threaten to torpedo it and... (23:30):
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Jay: Yeah, so you get a lot of that. Now, (23:33):
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Jay: Josh, do you have any ideas if book bans or challenges, like I'm assuming they (23:36):
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Jay: happened at this library before, but do you know, like, was it different kinds (23:41):
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Jay: of books or coming from different people before then? (23:46):
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Jay: Like, usually challenges happen at schools, but I don't know if you knew. (23:49):
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Josh: I don't know specifically in this case. (23:52):
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Josh: I do know that there are this this came off the back of a lot of other action (23:56):
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Josh: going on nationally, particularly like right after the acute period of the pandemic. (24:02):
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Josh: There was that period of time where the schools were still not open and it was (24:07):
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Josh: like, open the schools that that agitation ended up being a very effective form (24:12):
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Josh: of organizing for the reactionary. Right. (24:18):
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Josh: Obviously, moms for liberty groups like that. (24:20):
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Josh: And this particular situation, I don't know if it was spearheaded by moms for (24:24):
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Josh: liberty, but it was groups like that that were providing a lot of the ammunition (24:30):
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Josh: in terms of going out there. (24:35):
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Josh: And making the message. They were definitely getting assistance from that sort (24:37):
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Josh: of grassroots, quote unquote, but really astroturfing type organizations. (24:42):
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Josh: Yeah, highly astroturfed. If you look at the rhetoric that was being used, (24:47):
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Josh: it all aligns with the Moms for Liberty playbook. But like I said, I don't know. (24:51):
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Josh: I can take a look and see if there's actually an explicit connection there. (24:56):
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Josh: But if you look at the videos of the people at the town halls and shit, (24:59):
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Josh: it's all the same talking points. (25:03):
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Josh: Yeah, we did an episode on Moms (25:05):
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Josh: for Liberty, and I really dived into their connections. And essentially. (25:07):
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Josh: Up his campaign filings and couldn't spend his money? (25:16):
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Josh: So that's where a lot of this money went, was to funding other groups like Moms (25:19):
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Josh: for Liberty, and they have a project called Moms for Libraries. This also. (25:23):
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Jay: Brave Books, which I believe is, (25:29):
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Jay: What's the left behind guy? Oh, what is his fucking name? (25:32):
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Josh: The guy who wrote it? (25:36):
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Jay: Or Kirk Cameron? Kirk Cameron. (25:37):
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Josh: Friend of our show. Friend of the worst of all possible worlds. (25:41):
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Jay: Kirk Cameron. I love the left behind movies. They're so bad. (25:44):
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Jay: He was involved in that and then there was some other stuff that all kind of (25:49):
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Jay: came together into this kind of ball of anti-library stuff. Were you showing us Arthur? (25:54):
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Jay: Yeah, look how cute he's been. being on my body pillow. He's sitting like a little guy. (26:01):
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Josh: There's a cat over on the pillow. This is an audio-only medium, (26:07):
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Josh: but we're looking at a very cute cat. (26:11):
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Jay: Yeah, as library punk heads know King Arthur and how cute he is. (26:12):
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Jay: Yeah, so that's a lot of where Moms for Liberty comes from. I did a real deep dive. (26:17):
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Jay: For like talking points and placards. That's their membership because it's free to be a member. (26:43):
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Jay: So and they also say they make all their money from T-shirt sales. (26:49):
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Josh: Which is impossible. It's not too much money. Worth noting also that we on our (26:52):
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Josh: show talked about a few years ago now a show called or documentary rather documentary (26:59):
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Josh: and heavy air quotes called Whose Children Are They? (27:04):
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Josh: And this was one of many examples of propaganda that is intended to make people (27:07):
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Josh: agitated against teachers, (27:16):
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Josh: but in a way where they think they actually like love their teachers. (27:19):
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Josh: So much of this actually ends up being anti-union propaganda, (27:23):
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Josh: though, at the end of the day, which is really interesting. (27:26):
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Josh: The culture war side of things is tied right in with a strong, (27:28):
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Josh: strong distaste for the power of the public sector. (27:32):
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Josh: And a fair bit of this culture war is just really craven politicking, (27:35):
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Josh: where reactionary conservative operatives are finding ways to put in a wedge (27:40):
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Josh: around fears of things like gender and sexuality to drive a campaign to de-unionize schools. (27:47):
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Josh: And expel, of course, librarians and stuff like that, which I'm sure you all know very much about. (27:53):
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Josh: I'm just pointing it up for the sake of making the connection that this is as (27:58):
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Josh: much an anti-labor thing as it is an anti-culture thing. (28:03):
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Jay: Because like most of the time when people say that they love their libraries (28:07):
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Jay: and everything, oh, we love the library. The library is great. (28:10):
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Jay: They don't give a shit about the people who work there. (28:13):
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Jay: It is so often, especially this is true in academic libraries a lot, (28:16):
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Jay: when some entitled faculty member learns that you're getting rid of their special (28:21):
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Jay: journal that is their baby that they've been published in twice, (28:26):
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Jay: but nobody else has ever. (28:29):
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Jay: And you tell them like, well, we can't afford it in the budget because the state won't give us more. (28:32):
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Jay: We can't get more money and these get more expensive. And they're like, (28:37):
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Jay: well, then why do we need you? (28:40):
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Jay: Yeah. What do you do? We have Google. like like (28:41):
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Jay: so like in academic libraries some faculty would (28:45):
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Jay: rather just have their journal subscriptions than have people (28:48):
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Jay: working there this is why this is an anti little free library podcast by the (28:51):
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Jay: way because those things obfuscate what libraries actually are and that libraries (28:55):
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Jay: are about labor and not about fucking books thank you for coming to my ted talk (28:59):
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Jay: plus it's a company and you have to register with it and they just call the (29:03):
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Jay: cops on black people who use them yeah well Well. (29:06):
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Sadie: And that's why these political signs like vote no on library also just work, right? (29:09):
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Sadie: Is because it's library as an entity and not library workers, right? (29:16):
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Sadie: But on the flip side, one of the library systems I used to work at, (29:22):
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Sadie: when we went out for a levy for the first time in like a decade or more, (29:27):
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Sadie: they actually really pushed the library worker angle. (29:31):
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Sadie: Like these are the things that the people who work at your library, (29:36):
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Sadie: who live in your community are going to get like raises and all of this stuff. And it worked. (29:40):
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Sadie: So, yeah, it's like an interesting thing to see like, oh, yeah, (29:44):
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Sadie: vote no on library. What library? What vote? (29:48):
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Sadie: You know, the entity that is the public library. I love the entity. (29:51):
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Sadie: You know, that's the public library. And then it takes a lot of effort to get (29:56):
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Sadie: people to, yeah, see the actual workers who are running the library. (29:59):
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Sadie: And that it's prevalent in public libraries. (30:03):
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Jay: Too so now people think all (30:06):
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Jay: librarians are either like us (30:09):
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Jay: right where we're a bunch of like (30:12):
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Jay: leftist troublemakers or they view them as like quirky progressives (30:15):
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Jay: who wear lots of cardigans and all that like they're that usually people that's (30:19):
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Jay: who a librarian is to people love a cardigan i do love a cardigan i've been (30:24):
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Jay: cardigan pilled but like not all librarians are quote progressive right it's (30:29):
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Jay: like how you get nurses who are very anti-science and everything, right? (30:33):
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Jay: So like in this area, where at Patmos, did I say it right? Patmos? You did. (30:38):
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Josh: Patmos. (30:43):
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Jay: Oh yeah, Patmos. (30:44):
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Josh: The T is almost silent. (30:45):
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Jay: Patmos. Yeah, it's like, you know, like Benton is where I grew up. (30:47):
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Josh: Benton Harbor, yeah. (30:51):
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Jay: Yeah, yeah. That's where I grew up. So yeah, just swallow it. (30:52):
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Jay: But yeah, are the librarians at Patmos... (30:55):
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Jay: Where do they fall on this? Like the actual library workers who are receiving (30:58):
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Jay: these challenges and have to deal with them. (31:02):
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Jay: Like, are they like, yeah, we agree. These books are bad. (31:03):
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Jay: Or are they like not? (31:07):
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Josh: So they're cut from what I can tell. They sort of fall into the space where (31:10):
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Josh: they're not really they're not radical lefties, but they're also not like reactionary freaks. (31:17):
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Josh: Right. These are just people who care about helping kids read at the end. (31:23):
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Josh: Which is which is i think that's that's to (31:26):
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Josh: me the common thing about like most librarians genuinely (31:29):
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Josh: it's that it's just like yeah we want to help people get (31:32):
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Josh: the resources that they want like that's the point of being a librarian and (31:35):
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Josh: i know that it wore very very heavily on the people who were involved with this (31:39):
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Josh: library to just have all of this ideological vitriol thrown at them because (31:44):
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Josh: these are not like deeply ideological people beyond just having a commitment to literacy Yeah. (31:50):
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Josh: So library director Amber McLean resigned, I think prior to the vote, in the. (31:55):
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Jay: She'd been harassed online and accused of indoctrinating children. (32:02):
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Jay: And then interim director Matthew Lawrence resigned later. So their interim (32:05):
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Jay: also left. I've also been accused of those things. (32:09):
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Jay: I from I from what I was reading many people who were speaking up in favor of. (32:14):
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Josh: Leftist agenda is running the law in accordance with the way it's supposed to be run. (33:01):
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Josh: Well, and something that I should note about Amber McClain as well is that she is a gay woman. (33:06):
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Josh: Which, again, in the eyes of these people will make you a radical, (33:12):
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Josh: radical ideologue just by virtue of your identity. (33:16):
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Jay: She's not the groomer because of the books. She's the groomer because she's gay. (33:20):
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Josh: Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. So the deck was kind of stacked against her from the beginning. (33:24):
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Jay: Yeah, no, I saw a couple of news articles about like trans, (33:28):
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Jay: the very few trans library directors that there have been out there who have (33:32):
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Jay: been resigning because of like either of their own volition or because the library (33:35):
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Jay: board was like, you should probably resign like. (33:41):
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Josh: Well in this particular case the reason she resigned and this is just an article (33:44):
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Josh: from the michigan advance uh apparently somebody came into the library in march (33:48):
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Josh: of 2022 and said she was looking for the person she called quote that pedophile librarian and. (33:54):
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Jay: And that's when all your library workers pull an i am spartacus and they all (34:01):
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Jay: start doing that is what you do in that situation yeah it also mentioned how (34:07):
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Jay: like the at the time of the the millage, (34:12):
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Jay: Bible and Ayn Rand on it. And it's like, you know, it's a conservative town (34:20):
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Jay: library. Like, I don't know what they're really upset about. (34:23):
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Jay: So the initial vote, voters rejected. (34:27):
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Josh: For a millage ballot effort for three months from then, from what I understand. (34:40):
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Josh: I'm trying to make sure that I'm not getting it wrong. No, that's correct. (34:45):
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Josh: So that was on the ballot at the same time as the general election in 2022. (34:48):
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Josh: So, yeah, standard November ballot. (34:54):
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Josh: That's the same ballot that all of the congressional shit was on. Okay. (34:56):
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Josh: So, yeah, many people who said (35:00):
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Josh: they voted to defund the library said they didn't believe it would close. (35:02):
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Josh: They just wanted to send a message. I remember that. I remember that. (35:06):
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Josh: That was the thing that drove me up the wall was like, what did you think would happen? (35:08):
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Jay: Just surprise Pikachu. you like yep. (35:15):
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Sadie: Real yeah leopards eating face party going on there brexit energy so yeah i (35:17):
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Sadie: mean obviously people got a little stir crazy and coven decided to to organize. (35:27):
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Jay: Michigan library association which pointed out you know There was basically (35:39):
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Jay: about five challenged books in total out of 90 books. (35:43):
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Jay: It's less than 0.01% of libraries collection. And. (35:46):
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Josh: Were giving donations to a GoFundMe from all across the world. (35:53):
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Josh: So this made the news. Something that I also wanted to note about this is that (35:57):
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Josh: it's pretty remarkable, (36:03):
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Josh: actually, that they were able to get this campaign together because generally (36:04):
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Josh: speaking, when it comes to these campaigns in favor of book bannings, (36:08):
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Josh: it's a very small handful of people, a very, very small handful of people. (36:13):
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Josh: I'm sure y'all have talked about this before the people who are lodging these (36:17):
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Josh: complaints it's literally like 10 people. (36:21):
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Jay: And sometimes they aren't even from right their (36:23):
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Jay: district like part of like the whole moms for libraries monster (36:26):
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Jay: liberty like campaign is like these like literally boiler plate like (36:29):
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Jay: templates of like here's the email you send here's what (36:32):
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Jay: you do find every public library you can so (36:35):
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Jay: some libraries now to sort of weaponize like (36:38):
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Jay: whole like hole up against these have started of putting (36:41):
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Jay: like rules around like who can submit book challenges if a book is challenged (36:44):
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Jay: and we decide to keep it you can't submit another challenge to it you have to (36:50):
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Jay: provide your library card number (36:55):
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Jay: like all of this stuff because of this astroturfing that's happening and. (36:57):
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Josh: I mean i i saw a talk that maya kobabe gave actually the author of genderqueer (37:02):
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Josh: talking about this stuff. (37:07):
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Jay: Uh and. (37:10):
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Josh: And And that was a little bit after the whole thing had had come and gone. (37:11):
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Josh: But I think it was before they successfully refunded the library. (37:15):
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Josh: Yeah, it was. It was right after the initial defunding, I think. (37:18):
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Josh: Well, maybe not that exact talk, but I know that that was in the news soon after (37:21):
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Josh: was authors were were standing up for this particular library. It was, you know, (37:25):
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Josh: director quit, you know, I've, I've also seen footage of like library board (37:33):
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Josh: meetings where, you know, the, the library director will give a speech right (37:37):
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Josh: before they're about to have a vote on. (37:42):
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Jay: Apart because they happen way more often than you think. And the local news (37:54):
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Jay: is kind of always a little surprised. (37:59):
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Jay: It kind of always has a, oh, it's come to Grand Rapids. Oh, it's, (38:01):
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Jay: someone I was following on Blue Sky and they just suddenly went like full Canadian nationalist. (38:21):
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Jay: And I was like, that's not the right reaction to this. Just do an infinite jest (38:25):
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Jay: and become a wheelchair Quebecois terrorist is all I got to say. (38:28):
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Jay: We're in the infinite jest timeline now. It's just going to get crazy. (38:32):
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Josh: This is the year of the Depends adult undergarment. Yes. (38:36):
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Jay: Exactly. Thank you. someone understands my annoying infinite Jess jokes. Always encourage him. (38:39):
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Jay: No, so like with them being surprised that like, oh, it worked like so much. (38:47):
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Jay: So like all of us growing up in churches, we know that this has been the game plan for decades. (38:53):
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Jay: Like in a very material political way, we are not surprised by this because (38:59):
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Jay: we went to church and heard this shit when we were kids. (39:04):
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Jay: Like nothing has changed. It's just becoming true (39:07):
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Jay: now but i feel like most people who are (39:11):
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Jay: voting on this who maybe aren't in those like evangelical hotbeds (39:14):
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Jay: or whatever like so much of it is just aesthetic (39:18):
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Jay: to them they don't think through the materialism of it or if they do it's not (39:22):
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Jay: going to affect them so that when it does happen it starts affecting them they (39:27):
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Jay: just like don't know how to process that because uh aaron sorkin should be put (39:31):
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Jay: in the hag for the west wing because everyone thinks that that's how politics works right uh aaron. (39:36):
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Josh: Aaron sorkin aaron sorkin should be put in the hag for the news. (39:41):
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Jay: Uh actually aaron. (39:44):
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Josh: Sorkin should be put in the hag for the west wing and then executed for the newsroom but. (39:46):
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Jay: That's neither. (39:50):
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Josh: Here nor there i yeah exactly i think that when it comes to the evangelical (39:52):
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Josh: approach to all of this the other thing that is worth noting is that the evangelical the (39:57):
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Josh: standard ish kind of evangelical way of seeing the world cannot understand what (40:03):
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Josh: it would be like to live life outside of the loving arms of the church. (40:09):
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Jay: Right. (40:14):
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Josh: Um, (40:15):
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Josh: And so this is the thing that a lot of people have difficulty understanding, I find, (40:15):
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Josh: is they'll be like, wait, but why can't they just be okay with other people (40:20):
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Josh: living their lives the way that they want to live them and then keep their very (40:25):
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Josh: doctrinaire prescriptive worldview sequestered to their own lives? (40:30):
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Josh: And the answer is they don't think that that boundary exists. (40:35):
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Josh: Genuinely, it is not something that conceptually makes sense to them. (40:40):
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Jay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the politicization of evangelicals was, again, a reaction to Act. (40:44):
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Jay: I mean, evangelicals have always kind of been certain types of voting blocs, (40:51):
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Jay: not always in bad ways, but particularly post-civil rights era. Again. (40:56):
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Josh: Like 90 million year old woman because this is Florida and a church. (41:09):
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Josh: So, you know, this woman's like 10 years older than God. (41:12):
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Josh: And she was like we need to take our country back and i was like okay where (41:14):
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Josh: to go like we're still in we're still in pasco county florida like we're we (41:18):
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Josh: are the pasco county once in a while gets in the news for like spying on kids. (41:24):
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Jay: Politicization is people don't really understand that this has all been well (41:39):
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Jay: organized and this has always been the plan. (41:43):
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Jay: Go get on your library board, go to the meetings, vote and shit, (41:45):
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Jay: bank public opinions, harass people with their cars after. (41:48):
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Jay: Get shit done. Yeah, we did have people on not that long ago with Right Dad (41:54):
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Jay: talking about the particular library. (41:59):
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Jay: But that was particularly more worker-focused. That was, you know, (42:04):
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Jay: they were really trying to discipline their workforce. (42:10):
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Jay: So the second vote went. (42:12):
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Josh: And total turnout was 5,400. So it was a higher turnout. (42:20):
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Josh: Which makes sense, because it was a congressional election year in the general election in November. (42:25):
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Josh: So, yeah. So the third vote, much lower turnout because it's not a congressional (42:31):
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Josh: election year. So the vote is. (42:35):
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Jay: Put stickers on the cover pages of controversial books. (42:44):
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Jay: This is shit we talked about in like cataloging (42:49):
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Jay: 101 the labeling of books and (42:53):
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Jay: is it good or not and usually the ethics questions that (42:56):
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Jay: we would get are for a creationism book how do you classify that do you put (42:59):
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Jay: that in the non-fiction section or in the fiction section like do you go by (43:06):
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Jay: what it claims to be or what you believe it to be or for like memoirs that are (43:11):
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Jay: then revealed to be a total piece of crap. (43:17):
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Jay: Fabricated. What do you do with those? (43:20):
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Jay: Labeling books like this is incredibly antithetical to library and ethics as (43:23):
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Jay: they currently stand because they're making a judgment call about. (43:32):
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Jay: Book like there's a difference between like a (43:36):
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Jay: librarian and or a publisher being like (43:40):
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Jay: here's the age appropriateness for this book (43:43):
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Jay: because this is very common with like as i'm sure your (43:46):
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Jay: mom knows like grade school level there's like (43:48):
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Jay: age five to whatever this to whatever because it's often like reading (43:51):
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Jay: levels right right and that's important to (43:54):
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Jay: know especially if you're a parent you need to be able to go in the catalog and (43:57):
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Jay: filter it for just that age group because your (44:00):
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Jay: kid doesn't know this word yet right so like that (44:03):
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Jay: that's fine that's not like a controversial type of (44:06):
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Jay: labeling and like libraries have explicit materials (44:09):
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Jay: like romance novels are a thing that (44:13):
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Jay: are in libraries and they're just in (44:16):
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Jay: a specific section like kind of a lot of libraries are going (44:19):
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Jay: towards the more like genre model like bookstores are sometimes (44:22):
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Jay: whether it's like oh here's the fiction but here's like the mystery and thriller (44:25):
undefined

Jay: and here's the romance or whatever within fiction (44:28):
undefined

Jay: that's also fine and not controversial this (44:31):
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Jay: is controversial because you're making (44:35):
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Jay: a judgment call about it but also where does this stop right (44:38):
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Jay: this is one reason i have an issue with the harmful language statements that (44:41):
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Jay: libraries do i know they're coming from a good place and some of them are done (44:45):
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Jay: very well but who gets to decide what causes harm and to whom and who are they (44:50):
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Jay: making that decision for. (44:57):
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Josh: I completely agree. And this is something that I mean, just for reference here, (44:58):
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Josh: my world is the world of theater. (45:04):
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Josh: That's that's what I do outside of my podcast. I make shows. I do theater. And I, (45:05):
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Josh: It's it's a similar kind of situation where I'm like, if a playwright wants (45:09):
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Josh: to say, hey, as a heads up, my play contains this, that and the other thing you should be aware. (45:13):
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Josh: Obviously, that's fine. I'm not I, you know, I think it should be that way. (45:21):
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Josh: I think that there are accessibility questions about like if I'm directing a (45:25):
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Josh: production and it contains some flashing or like loud noises or whatever. (45:30):
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Josh: I want people to be aware of that. That's something that it's not, (45:34):
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Josh: it's not like an ideological thing. It's just a, hey, you should know. (45:38):
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Josh: And if this is too much for you, then it's probably a good thing that you're not seeing it, you know? (45:42):
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Josh: But then there's the other side of it, which is at what point do these content (45:48):
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Josh: advisories or whatever just become a further way of cleaving acceptable information (45:53):
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Josh: from unacceptable information? (46:00):
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Jay: Yes. (46:02):
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Josh: And that's something that scares me. And I think it happens a lot in theater (46:02):
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Josh: too, actually. I think that there are a lot of shows now. There is a tendency as well in theater. (46:05):
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Josh: We love how liberal theater is. Oh, God. (46:11):
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Josh: This idea of, well, we need to protect people's sensibilities, (46:15):
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Josh: but there are times at which that's probably not the approach that you want (46:20):
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Josh: to take. There are times where it's good to be confrontational. (46:24):
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Josh: There are times where I think it's important to surprise people and catch them off guard. (46:28):
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Josh: And there's a way that you can do that where you're taking care of your audience, (46:32):
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Josh: of course, taking care of your readers. (46:36):
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Josh: And all of the books that have been targeted for banning, I think, (46:38):
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Josh: do that very effectively. But... (46:42):
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Josh: Yeah. At what point are you becoming the arbiter of what is and is not acceptable content? (46:44):
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Jay: I'm actually going to be going on Friend of the Pod, Here Be Media slash The (46:50):
undefined

Jay: Left Page next month to talk about the opera Don Giovanni and stagings of it (46:54):
undefined

Jay: like in a post-MeToo world because so much opera is trying to do the reparative thing. (47:00):
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Jay: And some has done it very well, like Boston Lyric Opera just did a really good (47:06):
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Jay: production of Madama Butterfly. (47:10):
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Josh: Oh, interesting. (47:13):
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Jay: Um, that like took a couple of years of doing like focus group testing with (47:13):
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Jay: like local Japanese American, like advocacy groups. (47:18):
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Josh: Oh yeah. (47:21):
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Jay: Boston. (47:22):
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Josh: And you need serious dramaturgy to be able to pull something like that off too. (47:22):
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Josh: You need a dedicated dramaturgy, you need dedicated creatives. (47:25):
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Josh: Like that takes a lot of work. (47:28):
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Jay: And then they said it in internment camps. (47:30):
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Josh: Okay. (47:32):
undefined

Jay: And said like that, that's how they changed the setting and everything. (47:33):
undefined

Jay: And they, but they like worked with the local community around this. (47:36):
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Jay: And like, I feel like that is actually a very successful example of the like, (47:39):
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Jay: let's do something challenging, but being reparative at the same time. (47:43):
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Jay: Sometimes it's like, oh, let's this thing is harmful and bad. (47:47):
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Jay: Let's girl boss this up because it's misogynistic usually. (47:51):
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Jay: And it completely misses the point that the original was trying to make first (47:55):
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Jay: off. But then it just is somehow worse. (47:58):
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Josh: Or it's just like Two Gentlemen of Verona, but woke. And it's like, (48:01):
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Josh: but we don't need to do that play anymore. It just sucks. (48:04):
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Josh: Sorry, Willie, you blew it with that one. (48:07):
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Jay: Not your best one, Will. (48:10):
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Josh: He was not bringing his best that time around. It was his first play. (48:12):
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Josh: It has a lot of first play problems. And it's deeply, deeply misogynistic. (48:16):
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Josh: But I'm off on a tangent about Shakespeare now. No, I love talking about Shakespeare. (48:20):
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Sadie: Especially when it comes to these content warnings. things like like i think (48:25):
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Sadie: justin said earlier like the bible was also on display right so it's like yeah it's. (48:30):
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Jay: The most challenged book usually. (48:35):
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Sadie: Yeah and it's like they don't even realize that their own bullshit can be targeted (48:36):
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Sadie: for this so it's like of course you know that whole liberal gotcha well the (48:41):
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Sadie: bible contains you know rape and whatever so let's put a content warning on that ha ha and I'm like. (48:46):
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Josh: Thank you, Aaron Sorkin. (48:51):
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Jay: That's some Aaron Sorkin-ass shit right there. (48:54):
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Sadie: It's like, I'm just like, it is not the gotcha that you think. (48:56):
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Sadie: It's actually just playing right into the way that they think about this kind of stuff. (49:01):
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Sadie: So that always irritates me when I see that argument when it comes to content warning. It's like, (49:06):
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Sadie: Show me a thousands-year-old book that doesn't have something incredibly cringy (49:12):
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Sadie: about humanity in it. Go ahead. (49:18):
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Jay: It's like to every—people listening, listen to me right now. (49:20):
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Jay: To every single one of you who, when the executive order around trans people (49:24):
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Jay: went out, and you went, oh, well, technically, it lists conception. (49:29):
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Jay: We're all a fucking zygote. So we're all nothing. We're all women. You owe me $10. (49:33):
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Josh: Dollars just saying (49:39):
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Josh: facts and logic didn't win your way through that one yeah no (49:42):
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Josh: i no it's stupid but i guess this is (49:45):
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Josh: the other side of it though that i that i did want to talk about briefly is (49:48):
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Josh: that at the end of the day a public library does have to comport to the community (49:51):
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Josh: standards of a given community and that's what makes this whole situation so (49:57):
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Josh: difficult like yeah i i opened by talking about the political composition of Jamestown. (50:01):
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Josh: Again, 75% Trump and some of the most annoying Christians you'll ever meet because (50:08):
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Josh: you're going to have to find a way to work within the confines of that society, of that culture. (50:14):
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Josh: And I don't like this solution, but at the same time, I do think that it's better (50:24):
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Josh: than not having a public library. So I don't know how to square of the circle on that one, genuinely. (50:29):
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Josh: Yeah. And I mean, that's, I mean, one of the things which this particular library workers. (50:36):
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Josh: What it is it also invades on the privacy of the reader because anyone can see (51:32):
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Josh: that big yellow sticker on the front of your book and so anyone who goes to (51:36):
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Josh: check out that book can then be bullied can get. (51:40):
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Jay: This this solution is not a solution because all it did was segregate all the (51:59):
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Jay: queer books in the library. (52:02):
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Jay: Would rather have that than not have a library. (52:04):
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Jay: Like, again, I agree with you, Josh, there like it's better to have a library (52:07):
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Jay: because this we can work with. (52:12):
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Jay: Right. Like this is something that can be temporary. (52:15):
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Jay: Right. What if someone just ripped all the stickers off? (52:18):
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Sadie: I was just about to say that. Like, what if that just conveniently filled out and nobody noticed it? (52:20):
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Josh: I guess it depends on how the stickers are affixed. If they're affixed directly (52:26):
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Josh: to the page, that can be difficult to do without tearing out a whole page. (52:29):
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Josh: Another sticker on the sticker? Yeah, no. (52:33):
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Jay: Get your free Palestine stickers out, put them on there. (52:36):
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Josh: I want to be very clear. I'm not saying that this is a good solution. (52:38):
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Sadie: No. (52:41):
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Josh: I'm just thinking, what are the ways then that you can take this and organize around it? (52:42):
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Josh: Because I think that some people are going to see this as an acceptable compromise. (52:48):
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Josh: And then if if you can get them to that point maybe there then is a way to continue (52:52):
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Josh: forward from there but i don't know what that looks like other than yeah being (52:58):
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Josh: like you know these stickers are stupid which which they are you know. (53:03):
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Jay: I mean one thing that they could do and honestly every single library in this (53:06):
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Jay: country should be doing this if they haven't already been doing it or if they're (53:11):
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Jay: doing it to do it more whatever patron data you are holding on to in your integrated library system. (53:15):
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Jay: Which is a lot of it because like, sometimes it's helpful to know who the last (53:22):
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Jay: person who checked out a book was because it didn't get checked in properly. (53:27):
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Jay: You can be like, hey, do you still have this? They go, no, I totally returned (53:31):
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Jay: it. And then you go, okay, and you write it off. (53:36):
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Jay: Like sometimes it's helpful to have that information. But in our current climate, (53:38):
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Jay: you just need to be scrubbing everything all of the time. (53:42):
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Jay: So that even if someone does check out one of these (53:45):
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Jay: like sequestered out pornographic queer (53:48):
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Jay: books or whatever the fuck like then it's also not on their record after they (53:53):
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Jay: return it so that if whomsoever politicians come and ask for that or if there's (53:58):
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Jay: some sort of warrant out for it then it cannot like if you don't have that data (54:03):
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Jay: it can't be given away to hurt people so you should at least also be doing that i. (54:08):
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Josh: Think that's a really good point that when it comes to just sort of our reading (54:12):
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Josh: habits in general that's one of many things that will be subject to increased surveillance. (54:16):
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Jay: And that's how they got kevin spacey in seven no lies but was it. (54:20):
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Josh: How they got kevin spacey in real life. (54:27):
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Jay: That's where i thought you were going with that because i forgot about seven, (54:30):
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Jay: no i bring up seven all the time on this fucking podcast by the way i i did just want to. (54:34):
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Josh: Note as well to the point of like what kind of community jamestown is because (54:38):
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Josh: i mentioned it a little bit earlier, but I went to the Census Bureau website, (54:43):
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Josh: and it's shockingly white, even by standards of a place that's out in the middle of nowhere. (54:46):
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Josh: 88.3% white alone, 2.5% native, which again, those would probably mostly be (54:53):
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Josh: Ottawa people, 4.6% Asian. (54:59):
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Josh: 2.9% two or more races, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino, 0.5% black. (55:02):
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Josh: So it's going to be hard to, I think the angle of we need to have things for (55:09):
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Josh: everybody in our community is true. (55:15):
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Josh: The problem is when you're dealing with as homogenous of a community as this (55:17):
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Josh: is, I think it's very easy for people to take sort of the majoritarian approach (55:22):
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Josh: and be like, well, doesn't represent most of the community, so why should I care? (55:27):
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Josh: And again, that's obviously there are various moral and ethical imperatives for that. (55:31):
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Josh: But it's like, well, how do you I don't I this is the thing that I struggle (55:36):
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Josh: with a lot is when the appeal is always to the will of the majority. (55:40):
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Josh: And in this case, it's a majority in this area that is very much the minority. (55:47):
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Josh: More broadly, you're still able to set up your very small fiefdoms. (55:52):
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Josh: That's why the Dutch Protestants did what they did in coming over from the Netherlands to Michigan. (55:55):
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Josh: And I think that getting information out to everybody is important. (56:00):
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Josh: The problem is that when you have people who will immediately shut down the (56:04):
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Josh: possibility for that unless it's done on their terms, I don't know how you wrestle (56:08):
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Josh: that back. I genuinely don't. (56:13):
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Jay: Unions, rank and file stuff, build power, good collection development policies. (56:15):
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Jay: I don't know. This is why cities don't have public pools. (56:22):
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Josh: I mean, they lost that. (56:25):
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Jay: Public pools disappeared all over the country after integration. (56:27):
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Josh: Have traditionally left libraries alone because of the reverence people have (56:41):
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Josh: for books, a pseudo-religious reference. (56:45):
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Jay: That comes from Christianity. entity. And because of that, they see libraries (56:47):
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Jay: as pseudo-religious organizations. (56:52):
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Josh: Funded and then it will be left alone. And that, you know, that might be a good (57:44):
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Josh: legislative fight to take up in the future. I also think there's something to be said for that. (57:47):
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Josh: I think that there was a very specific cultural flashpoint regarding libraries (57:52):
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Josh: and schools specifically that we're not quite there in the same way as we were a couple years ago, (57:57):
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Josh: which isn't to say that it's not still there. It very much is. (58:04):
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Josh: And I know you all have firsthand experience with that. (58:08):
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Josh: But the like moms for liberty stuff they (58:11):
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Josh: are not ascendant in the way that they were a few years (58:14):
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Josh: ago and there is that there is that thing of (58:17):
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Josh: like the most there's recency bias there (58:20):
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Josh: where it's like the the most recent thing that you remembered is (58:23):
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Josh: the thing that you need to care about and then once the status quo settles down (58:26):
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Josh: sometimes you're able to push back and be like well now that this piece of it (58:30):
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Josh: is settled maybe we don't need the stickers anymore but again i don't know if (58:34):
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Josh: that works i'm just kind of spitballing here books do get worn out and replaced (58:37):
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Josh: so it's quite possible that within a. (58:42):
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Jay: Let's just get rid of the rest of them and if if there's high circulation for (58:55):
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Jay: a couple we'll get new copies (58:59):
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Jay: I also think a lot of this is just like following the like theory of reproductive futurism. (59:00):
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Jay: Like this is when the Lee Edelman who lives in my head starts coming out because (59:07):
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Jay: it's like so much of this is focused on the like hypothetical child capital C trademark, right? (59:11):
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Jay: Of like, okay, these beautiful little white babies that straight couples need to have in the future. (59:17):
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Jay: And while we're pulling our children out of the public schools because they're (59:23):
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Jay: a bunch of commies who show them porn. So that's bad. (59:26):
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Jay: So we do homeschooling, but the public library still exists. (59:29):
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Jay: And to most people out there, when they think of a public library, (59:32):
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Jay: they don't think of adults using it. (59:36):
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Jay: They think of children using the public library. That's what the public library is for. (59:37):
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Jay: Like every time I go to a fucking conference and there's a keynote and it's (59:41):
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Jay: an author talking about how magical their public library was when they were (59:45):
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Jay: a kid and how the children's librarian, no offense to your mom, (59:48):
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Jay: Josh, was like the greatest person who like ever fucking lived. (59:51):
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Jay: I like want to shoot myself because libraries are more than just. (59:54):
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Jay: Wow you want to shoot my mother unbelievable he (59:57):
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Jay: did say that i i said myself but (01:00:01):
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Jay: just god you (01:00:04):
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Jay: are on that i just but it's (01:00:08):
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Jay: just like people people god people have this idea (01:00:11):
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Jay: of public libraries that they are just for children (01:00:14):
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Jay: and so like the child loci (01:00:17):
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Jay: is like at the public library right now (01:00:20):
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Jay: but now it's like moving like well just trans people existing (01:00:23):
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Jay: in public is now (01:00:26):
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Jay: like where the foci is like the transes are getting your kids and so like maybe (01:00:29):
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Jay: it'll move away from libraries in particular but everyone should go read lee (01:00:34):
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Jay: edelman and i feel like that will help get on the fuck them kids like mindset (01:00:39):
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Jay: it helps i love being a hater and just being like Like, (01:00:45):
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Jay: well, I don't care about your stupid, non-existent children who's not alive yet. (01:00:49):
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Josh: That's right. That's right. Speaking of hypothetical children, (01:00:52):
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Josh: though, when we were talking about the accepting of the, (01:00:56):
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Josh: okay, you want to control what your children read. Well, I want my children to read those books. (01:01:04):
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Josh: And the only one who can tell my children what they read is me. (01:01:09):
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Josh: And that's also bad. Children, as soon as they have a library card, should have free reign. (01:01:13):
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Jay: For that of like 10 or 13, I agree. (01:01:23):
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Jay: But fine, I think children, from the moment they can read it, (01:01:27):
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Jay: any book is a kid's book if the kid can read, right? (01:01:30):
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Jay: That's the Mitchedberg joke. They won't understand the dirty jokes. (01:01:33):
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Jay: It's fine. They won't get it. Or if they're upset by them. (01:01:36):
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Josh: They'll put it away. Right. Kids, self-censor. (01:01:39):
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Josh: They're like, I can't be reading about this. It makes me feel weird. I don't like it. (01:01:42):
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Josh: And they're not ready for it. But they know to do that. I think that's a really (01:01:47):
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Josh: important point, actually. (01:01:50):
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Josh: Because I remember reading books when I was younger. (01:01:51):
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Josh: And every once in a while, I'd read one where I'd be like, wow, (01:01:54):
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Josh: that's and this was not particularly like bad or disturbing stuff. (01:01:57):
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Josh: It was just stuff that I wasn't ready for, you know, stuff about, (01:02:00):
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Josh: let's say, puberty, for instance, when I was still, I don't know, (01:02:03):
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Josh: nine or 10, you know, like a little bit too early and being like, (01:02:07):
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Josh: well, this is this is weird for me right now. (01:02:11):
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Josh: I'm going to put it away. But one of the great things about growing up Dutch (01:02:13):
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Josh: Protestant in the great state of Michigan is that rather than accepting that (01:02:18):
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Josh: as, oh, this is a little too early, maybe I can come back to it later, (01:02:22):
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Josh: you develop a lifelong complex of guilt because you feel that you are filthy (01:02:25):
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Josh: and wrong and you think that the thing that you have read has made you dirty. (01:02:29):
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Jay: People underestimate the Protestant guilt. (01:02:34):
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Josh: Yeah, they always do. (01:02:36):
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Jay: It'll fucking get you. (01:02:37):
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Josh: It's a different kind of guilt from Catholic guilt. It's just entirely different. (01:02:38):
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Jay: We can't get out of it. (01:02:42):
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Sadie: Wait, let's not even get into the Mormon guilt here, man. Oh, my fucking God. (01:02:43):
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Josh: It's not dissimilar. Yeah. From what I've heard, mostly around reproduction (01:02:48):
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Josh: is my understanding with the Mormon guilt because it's a fertility cult. (01:02:52):
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Sadie: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Or you could be a kid like me who's like really interested in the Bible. (01:02:56):
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Sadie: And then if you want to read something spicy, you just read the Song of Solomon again and again. (01:03:01):
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Josh: And you're just like, oh, it says breast. Damn. Damn. Your breasts are like what? (01:03:06):
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Josh: Two fawns? come on those those pomegranates i want to grab hold of one of those (01:03:12):
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Josh: pomegranates baby come on put that shit in my mouth never. (01:03:19):
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Sadie: Look at a grocery store produce section of the same again. (01:03:22):
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Josh: You want to put my lover is my breast actually at many times in jewish history (01:03:25):
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Josh: they tried to remove the song of solomon. (01:03:32):
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Jay: Jay's making a face because i'm talking about the bible uh they tried to Remove (01:03:34):
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Jay: it because people would sing the Song of Solomon as a drinking. (01:03:38):
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Josh: Song. Oh, hell yeah. How many y'all are massaging your breasts with myrrh? (01:03:41):
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Jay: If I still had them. Every night. Me with my burr? (01:03:48):
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Josh: I no longer have them. Oh, okay. Well, I guess just your chest more generally. (01:03:52):
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Josh: It's whatever. You just kind of take some burr. You throw it on your chest. You feel better? (01:03:56):
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Jay: I have frankincense. Does that count? (01:04:00):
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Josh: It can. (01:04:02):
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Sadie: It can be gender neutral. (01:04:02):
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Jay: Okay. Is that the frankincense poppers? (01:04:04):
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Josh: No. (01:04:06):
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Jay: You just have frankincense. I just have a frankincense oil roller. (01:04:07):
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Jay: Oh, nice. I love the smell of frankincense. I also have frankincense soap. (01:04:11):
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Josh: But yeah, I mean, I think like, That that's a very just to go back to the previous (01:04:16):
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Josh: point, it's well made that, like, in general, when it comes to framing, (01:04:20):
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Josh: because I think framing is so important, you never, ever, ever want to buy into (01:04:25):
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Josh: the framing of the opposition. (01:04:30):
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Josh: That's it. That's one of the biggest things that we talk about on our show is (01:04:32):
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Josh: the way that media frames up the way that you ought to see an issue. (01:04:35):
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Josh: And oftentimes it does it in a way that isn't explicit or even apparent. (01:04:39):
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Josh: And the moment that it becomes a battle over what should your kids be allowed (01:04:43):
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Josh: to do versus what should my kids be allowed to do? (01:04:48):
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Josh: What are my parental ethics versus your parental ethics? (01:04:51):
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Josh: Then it becomes a culture war thing. Because of course, if you are a liberal (01:04:54):
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Josh: parent, your approach to parenting is going to be different from an evangelical Christian. (01:04:57):
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Josh: That's not going to be a fruitful. You're never going to be able to find any (01:05:03):
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Josh: sort of common ground there because it's impossible to even meet at first principles. (01:05:07):
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Jay: And people just don't understand evangelicals. (01:05:13):
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Josh: No. (01:05:16):
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Jay: They just don't. But it is also like this sort of anti-child way that. (01:05:16):
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Josh: We think about children as well as we think of children as property and as extensions (01:05:21):
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Josh: of their parents and, you know, child liberation. (01:05:25):
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Josh: So eventually in the. (01:05:28):
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Jay: Will be. But I really hope that it's an uneventful vote. (01:06:43):
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Jay: But it does look like they are, you know, they got funds from every library (01:06:47):
undefined

Jay: that they are allowed to distribute for different things. They were talking (01:06:51):
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Jay: about how they were going to use that money. (01:06:54):
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Jay: And this is, you know, I think I have a story in here somewhere of. (01:06:56):
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Josh: That are having, yeah, Alpena Public Library was in Book Riot. (01:07:01):
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Josh: Lapeer Public Library in Michigan was also subject to a lot of this kind of stuff. (01:07:06):
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Jay: Yeah, like how has this been affecting your mom? (01:07:11):
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Josh: Well, that's an interesting question because my mom is not at a public library. (01:07:13):
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Josh: My mom is the librarian at a Christian school. (01:07:18):
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Jay: Oh. (01:07:21):
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Josh: Oh, and, you know, she is doing her best to work within the constraints of that (01:07:21):
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Josh: system, you know, because people are hyper vigilant right now against woke. (01:07:28):
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Josh: Right. And at the end of the day, I think as my mom sees it, (01:07:34):
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Josh: her primary role is just to, you know, instill a love of reading in kids and (01:07:38):
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Josh: give them resources that help them understand their place in this. (01:07:43):
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Josh: But it turns out that any children's literature that even alludes to the idea (01:07:46):
undefined

Josh: of getting along with people is woke now. (01:07:50):
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Josh: And so so it's actually proven quite difficult. (01:07:53):
undefined

Josh: I mean, you can see parallels to this in theater as well. Right. (01:07:57):
undefined

Josh: Where the Kennedy Center, now that it is fully going to be like giving us whatever (01:07:59):
undefined

Josh: the Trump equivalent of Shen Yun is, I'm sure that's going to be really cool. (01:08:05):
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Jay: Just Evita all the time. (01:08:08):
undefined

Josh: Yeah, exactly. The. (01:08:09):
undefined

Josh: At the Kennedy Center, they've been canceling programming for children. (01:08:13):
undefined

Josh: There was something about a shark that wanted to be friends with other fish. (01:08:16):
undefined

Josh: That's woke. Get it out of here. (01:08:20):
undefined

Jay: It's just the movie Shark Tale. (01:08:23):
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Josh: Look, you're telling me. So this is the other thing, I guess, (01:08:25):
undefined

Josh: about framing and rhetoric. (01:08:30):
undefined

Josh: I do think that there are ways that if you can present literature as something (01:08:32):
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Josh: that has the ability to just connect people and tell fun stories, You can get pretty far, (01:08:38):
undefined

Josh: but it's always going to run up against a hard limit when it comes to things (01:08:44):
undefined

Josh: that are explicitly about gender, (01:08:48):
undefined

Josh: about sexuality, about race. (01:08:51):
undefined

Josh: And at that point, within this mindset, this mindset that sees anything about (01:08:54):
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Josh: that even tangentially has to do with an issue as a threat. that causes people (01:09:00):
undefined

Josh: to immediately go into a defensive crouch. (01:09:04):
undefined

Josh: And I don't know that there's any way to reason that. (01:09:06):
undefined

Josh: I think that you can materially obviously bring about change in your community. (01:09:10):
undefined

Josh: There's some power in rhetoric, but at the end of the day, I think some of this (01:09:14):
undefined

Josh: does have to come about through sheer political force. (01:09:18):
undefined

Josh: I was going to say though, I would love to have your mom on the podcast. (01:09:20):
undefined

Josh: I know that would probably be a non-starter, but I wanted to do Yeah, (01:09:23):
undefined

Josh: I'm going to do a church libraries episode, (01:09:28):
undefined

Josh: and I suppose thinking now Christian schools as well, because I would love to (01:09:31):
undefined

Josh: talk about church libraries, modern church libraries. (01:09:35):
undefined

Josh: We jump churches a lot. I don't really understand why. My grandfather was just (01:09:39):
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Josh: very particular about where he wanted to go, and he was one. (01:09:43):
undefined

Josh: Not a common thing. And so wherever he went, he was in a position of leadership (01:09:52):
undefined

Josh: because he was funding that bitch. Sure. (01:09:55):
undefined

Josh: So he was always a deacon at every church we went to immediately because he. (01:09:58):
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Jay: Transported into this world where this narrator was and he wore like a turban (01:10:37):
undefined

Jay: or whatever, and he would tell them Bible stories. (01:10:41):
undefined

Josh: This like creepy strange man would tell you Bible stories. (01:10:44):
undefined

Jay: And then it would switch to the animation for the Bible stories. (01:10:47):
undefined

Jay: Like if anyone's gonna know it's gonna be josh that's kind of that's kind of (01:10:50):
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Jay: why i brought it up because. (01:10:54):
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Josh: Um okay so i don't that that (01:10:55):
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Josh: sounds kind of like something which i'm pretty sure is (01:10:58):
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Josh: different which was a vhs series called secret adventures in which there was (01:11:01):
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Josh: a girl who was like a babysitter and then she had two little kids who were in (01:11:06):
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Josh: her charge and then they would imagine what it was like to be like i don't know (01:11:11):
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Josh: fish or whatever and then they would learn a lesson because that would be in the world of animation. (01:11:16):
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Josh: And then the lesson that they learned in the animated world would help them out in real life. (01:11:21):
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Josh: And so in this episode that I'm thinking of, the babysitter was running for (01:11:25):
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Josh: class president at her school, but she was basically telling scurrilous rumors (01:11:30):
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Josh: about her competitor, the other candidate that she was running against. (01:11:35):
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Josh: And then they learned in the world of under the sea that if you tell rumors, (01:11:39):
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Josh: then a shark kills you or something. It always seems to come back. (01:11:45):
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Jay: To sharks for some reason i don't know i don't know. (01:11:47):
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Josh: That shark was not woke that shark was not woke that. (01:11:50):
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Jay: Was not a shark no. (01:11:54):
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Josh: That shark was telling scurrilous rumors. (01:11:55):
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Jay: And ate you yeah i yeah i always wonder you know how. (01:11:59):
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Josh: Library worker podcast, I think. Maybe I can get a universalist to come on, (01:12:25):
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Josh: but they're just going to be hippy-dippy at me, and that's not what I'm looking (01:12:28):
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Josh: for. Yeah, UU is sort of its whole own thing. (01:12:30):
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Jay: I know so many people in Massachusetts who grew up UU, and I'm like, no. (01:12:32):
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Josh: I've had literal nightmares about getting stuck in UU services. (01:12:37):
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Jay: Oh, God. (01:12:41):
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Josh: Like, actual nightmares, where it's just like they're reading some fucking thing (01:12:42):
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Josh: from, I don't know, James Madison being like, and people can work together. (01:12:47):
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Josh: It's like, thanks. Shut up. (01:12:52):
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Jay: It's like when I went out to the Bay Area and it made me feel conservative. (01:12:53):
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Jay: I'm like, this is just too much. (01:12:57):
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Josh: Well, yeah. They're too woke out there is the thing. (01:13:00):
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Jay: They're too woke out there. I need to calm down a little bit. (01:13:03):
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Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Go, go, go. Calm down. Eat some pomegranates. (01:13:05):
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Josh: Rub a little bit of frankincense on you. (01:13:12):
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Jay: Get some myrrh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. (01:13:14):
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Josh: I got a new strap-on harness. (01:13:16):
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Jay: Oh, God. (01:13:19):
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Jay: Do you know this josh. (01:13:22):
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Josh: No i mean i didn't i i didn't know that you got that but thank you for the information i. (01:13:23):
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Jay: Can't wait to have your cock in my mouth. (01:13:28):
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Josh: I'm going to give you. (01:13:31):
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Jay: The blow job of your life blow job such great it's like senator or something. (01:13:32):
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Josh: Reading aloud some like challenged books okay (01:13:38):
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Josh: so that hearing that is always my favorite thing is (01:13:41):
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Josh: when especially when you get like the the like (01:13:45):
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Josh: moms who like break down in tears because there's (01:13:48):
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Josh: a book that has the word cock in it and they can't handle it and (01:13:51):
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Josh: it's just and that's i guess that's the only other thing that i (01:13:54):
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Josh: wanted to say is that the people who end up pushing these sorts of bands forward (01:13:57):
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Josh: the reason that they do it is that they are fundamentally uncomfortable with (01:14:02):
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Josh: something about themselves that that's that's what it comes down and sometimes (01:14:05):
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Josh: it's their gender sometimes it's their sexuality sometimes it's that they've (01:14:09):
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Josh: always wanted to do something or see something but were never able to, (01:14:12):
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Josh: and so they want to make sure that nobody else can have that experience. But (01:14:17):
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Josh: It all fundamentally comes down to this desire to make sure that nobody can (01:14:20):
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Josh: experience the thing that makes them afraid. (01:14:25):
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Jay: Yeah, it's like, I had to learn this, so you have to learn this. (01:14:27):
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Jay: I got married at 18 and didn't get to live my life until I, (01:14:30):
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Jay: That kind of story that happens quite a lot, quite honestly. (01:14:39):
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Jay: Practice saying cock while you're doing the dishes. Just like, come in, that'll help. (01:14:44):
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Josh: So, I don't know. Maybe that's one other practical strategy. (01:14:47):
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Josh: I don't know how practical it is, but just on an interpersonal level, (01:14:50):
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Josh: just like getting it takes a lot of work. (01:14:53):
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Josh: And it's not something that I'm personally equipped to do in my day to day life (01:14:56):
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Josh: because I have too much of too much shit going on in my own life. (01:14:59):
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Josh: But like, see how much of what people are saying is just the first barrier, (01:15:02):
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Josh: the first line of defense. (01:15:06):
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Josh: And then by listening, try to actually get in there and see what's really going (01:15:07):
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Josh: on, because that's going to take that's a lot of work. That's very hard. (01:15:11):
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Josh: It's not for most people. (01:15:15):
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Josh: And like I said, it's definitely not for me. But that's something that you can (01:15:16):
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Josh: do outside of the more material. (01:15:19):
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Josh: It's like organizing stuff. There is research on this. And one of the things that is quite common is, (01:15:21):
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Josh: what's called a worldview defense, which is a person will listen to you until (01:15:39):
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Josh: you say something that directly challenges something they hold unchangeable about themselves. (01:15:42):
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Josh: And the moment that activates, the conversation's kind of over. The good news is. (01:15:47):
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Jay: There's also research that shows that repeated exposure to ideas that are different than them do. (01:15:52):
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Josh: People can change. people change throughout their whole life it's not over till (01:16:05):
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Josh: it's over you know you know what might be a place for people to engage in stuff (01:16:09):
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Josh: like that would be a local library just just just spitballing i'm. (01:16:13):
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Jay: Sure there's a book or two that says cock in there. (01:16:17):
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Josh: Maybe yeah in these unprecedented times i hope so the new testament exactly. (01:16:19):
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Jay: And it says ass and it has incest in there i was in a christian band called (01:16:26):
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Jay: balaam's ass they made it change they made them you were They made him change it to. (01:16:32):
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Josh: Balaam's donkey That sounds No, Balaam's ass is a good name Balaam's donkey is not I know, (01:16:36):
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Josh: That sounds like a Depeche Mode cover band for some reason. It's probably not, (01:16:43):
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Josh: but I would listen to a Depeche Mode cover band called Balaam's Ass. (01:16:47):
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Jay: It was fun. T made it really easy for me to do Depeche Mode at karaoke, (01:16:50):
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Jay: so I think we can make this happen. (01:16:54):
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Josh: It's fun, right? (01:16:56):
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Jay: Yeah. All right. Well, that's everything I had in the notes. (01:16:57):
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Jay: Josh, do you want to tell people where they can find you and what's. (01:17:02):
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Josh: Coming up next for you? Sure. Well, yeah, no, I first of all, (01:17:06):
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Josh: thank y'all so much for having me on. This is something that I've been wanting (01:17:09):
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Josh: to talk about for a long time, but I just wasn't sure where to do it. (01:17:12):
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Josh: So it was like, oh, a library podcast. Perfect. (01:17:15):
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Josh: I co-host a podcast called The Worst of All Possible Worlds. (01:17:18):
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Josh: Every week we talk about a different piece of media and we talk about the narratives (01:17:22):
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Josh: within it, the explicit ones, the implicit ones, and just in general, (01:17:26):
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Josh: how those media narratives shape the world that we live in. (01:17:29):
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Josh: We cover a whole range of stuff where, you know, video games, (01:17:32):
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Josh: movies, TV shows, the theater, pretty much you name it. We've probably covered (01:17:35):
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Josh: something connected to something that you like. (01:17:39):
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Josh: So you can check us out wherever you get your podcasts. (01:17:41):
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Josh: Worstpossible.world is our website. And we also have a Patreon, (01:17:45):
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Josh: patreon.com slash worstofall, where you can get access to our premium episodes (01:17:49):
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Josh: for the very affordable price of $5 a month. (01:17:53):
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Josh: But if you're debating between that $5 and, I don't know, donating $5 to somebody (01:17:56):
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Josh: in your community, please donate it to somebody in your community. (01:18:00):
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Josh: Find a library you can donate it to, you know? Yeah, which reminds me, (01:18:03):
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Josh: this is the first episode since we did the Library Punk one-year fundraiser. (01:18:06):
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Josh: Helps us keep the show running. And it's really made, it's really taken a whole (01:18:25):
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Josh: load off my mind. Yeah, give the good hosts of this show your money. (01:18:29):
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Josh: Do it. If you haven't already done it, do it. Just, I'm going to say it. (01:18:33):
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Josh: Somebody's got to say it. Give them your money. (01:18:37):
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Jay: We never ask for money. We just like give shit away for free. (01:18:39):
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Jay: We have like free stencils and everything. (01:18:42):
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Jay: That's very librarian coded of you yeah yeah we're like fuck the police here's (01:18:44):
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Jay: this for free we're gonna do (01:18:49):
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Jay: consciousness raising you know and so we were like do we do a fundraiser, (01:18:50):
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Jay: it was it was really because violet fox reached out as soon as she heard that i was unemployed. (01:18:56):
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Josh: And said hey do you need a fundraiser running i'll promote it and everything (01:19:01):
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Josh: i said no no let me let me think about it for a little bit and i was like you (01:19:05):
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Josh: know what'd be nice to cover is just the podcast. (01:19:09):
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Jay: Bills for all of that. I was like, let's do this. Let's cover this for the next year. (01:19:12):
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Jay: Over the course of a year, it's really not. It's also not too expensive. (01:19:19):
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Josh: No, but it's more than it should be. (01:19:24):
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Jay: Especially we don't use it to its full extent. We do it so that we don't have (01:19:27):
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Jay: to do the clappy thing. Anyway, thank you, Josh. (01:19:30):
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Josh: So much for coming on. Thank you for having me again. Thank you all. This has been a delight. (01:19:35):
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Jay: And thank your mom. (01:19:39):
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Josh: Okay. (01:19:40):
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Jay: She's out there fighting the good fight. Shouts out to your mom. (01:19:41):
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Josh: Shout outs to Josh's mom. Let's go. Shout outs to my grandma, (01:19:44):
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Josh: my dearly departed grandma. (01:19:48):
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Josh: Also a children's librarian who I just discovered. There are some writings of (01:19:50):
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Josh: hers that are also available at a library that I wasn't aware of. (01:19:54):
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Josh: So I'm going to be getting on that shit soon too. Very exciting. (01:19:58):
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Jay: Hell yeah. Let us know. Keep us updated. (01:20:01):
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Josh: It was her, her, her, her ladies Christian writing club. Ooh. (01:20:03):
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Jay: Ooh. like that must be to be a fly on the wall all right good night. (01:20:08):
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147 - Patmos Public Library with Josh from TWOAPW

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}147 - Patmos Public Library with Josh from TWOAPW