August 29, 2025 • 16 mins
Queerness and Catholicism Collide in Bill Hulseman’s Debut Essay CollectionSix to carry the casket and one to say the mass invites readers to examine identity, belonging, and faithA soul-baring essay collection that challenges what it means to inherit identity—and what it means to let it go. Part memoir, part meditation, this striking book offers a nuanced and heartfelt exploration of queerness, Catholicism, pop culture, family, and personal transformation. In an interview, he can talk about: The youngest of ten children in a devout Catholic family, why Bill grew up feeling like “an ornament” in his own householdAs a gay man who went on to teach religion in Catholic schools, the tension between belonging and invisibilityHow we're not "stuck with the identity we inherit," and how “the challenge—and the gift—is deciding what to keep and what to let go.”Hulseman’s voice will resonate with readers of memoirists like David Sedaris, Garrard Conley, or Alexander Chee. His essays offer comfort and challenge in equal measure for anyone who has ever wrestled with inherited identity, struggled with faith, or questioned the role of tradition in their modern life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hid a good morning, wasn't Phil.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing today, Bill?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm doing well. How are you ero?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Fantastic looking forward to sharing a conversation with you today
because there's so much that needs to be talked about
in the way of keeping a conversation going in a
world where everybody just wants to step back and say
I'm out of here.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
The title of it all, how did you come up
with the title?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thanks to carry the casket and wanted to say? The
mass is a phrase that my mom would say a lot.
It's taken from an essay about my mom that originated
in the toast for her eightieth birthday, and at her
birthday party, I was nominated by my sisters to give
the toast, and instead of telling stories about Mom or
telling of her accomplishments, I decided to share her greatest hits,
(00:48):
the phrases that she was famous for in our family,
and she when she was asked, you know, oh my gosh,
you have ten children and people would be in shock,
you know, she'd say things like, oh, well they're from
my husband's first marriage. Well, she was her husband's first marriage.
But when they found out that she had seven sons.
Frequently people would be like seven sons, Oh my gosh,
(01:10):
And she said, well, God gave me seven sons for
a reason, six to carry the casket and one to
say the mask. So the first six it was clear
they weren't going to seminary. So I heard that message
loud and clear. I was supposed to be the one
who was I was going to be the priest in
the family. I'm the closest that you got.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
What did you feel in your heart to go to
the seminary? Because I mean that that's something that you're
called to do, and it's louder than anything on the planet.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, I never felt a call. I never experienced a
call to ministry. I went to Divinity School for my
passion for understanding religion and religious culture, and ritual in particular.
I'm fascinated by how, in different contexts, different cultures, different
religious traditions, how we used ritual as a tool to
(01:58):
shape culture and build build communities, and shape relationships. So
I was drawn to the study of religion for that
not necessarily, not necessarily responding to a call to ministry.
So I did work as a campus minister for several
years in a Little Catholic High School, and I loved it.
I loved the work. But it was because I loved
(02:19):
the work and I loved teaching and I loved building community,
not because I felt, you know, a call to ordained ministry.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well, putting this book together is part of that building
up of the community, because I mean, this is a
book of essays. This is the kind of stuff that
I really like diving into because I'm introduced to so
many different things.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
That was the goal, it was, you know, I never
actually started out to write a book. Instead, I started
writing short essays to share a weekly newsletter, really just
to give me space to process what was going on
in my life and what was going on in the world.
I had lost both of my parents and one of
my sisters over the course of a year and a half,
and I was burned out at work, and I took
(03:03):
time off and I needed some way to reset, some
way to process everything that was going on. So I
took time off to be well. I started writing, and
then the world shutdown and twenty twenty happened, and so
I wasn't just exploring how did I land here? How
did I land in this place of burnout and vulnerability.
(03:25):
How did we all land here, how did we all
get to this point? And what are the choices that
we can make to move forward? And so I started
exploring identity in short, pithy essays, not intending to do
a big study or not trying to write a manifesto,
but really just making space to explore and understand how
(03:46):
I got here and what I want to take with
me to keep moving forward. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, speaking of identity, is it something that we inherit?
Because I mean I came from a family of eight,
and I'll tell you what. I was always Terry's little brother,
Terry's little brothers. I don't want to be little brother.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think that's true in any family, you know, the
big families, little families. I approach identity like this. I
think identity is a tool for understanding ourselves and for
navigating the world. And you know, we have lots of
different identities, and we're given an identity. You know, of course,
we inherit an identity from our family, from the world
(04:24):
that we're that we landed, you know, the place that
we land in. I don't think we all recognize how
much agency we have in shaping our own identity. You know,
you can, you can be perfectly happy with the identity
that is given to you. But oftentimes if you are
on the margins in some way, if you're neurodivergent, if
(04:44):
you're queer, if you're you know, if you're different from
whatever the template is that for the identity that you
are handed, or you grow up and you know, you
feel like the world doesn't it made for you. But
when you start to take agency, when you take the
rain and decide like no, no, no, I don't have
to perpetuate that practice, or no, I don't have to
(05:05):
repeat that, I don't have to carry that with me
moving forward. That can be really empowering and that can
be really freeing, and I think that's good for everybody
around to be able to explore and let your identities grow.
But that's also apparently a really scary thing because I
think right now we're in a we're facing a time
of tribalism, right We're all like resorting to different camps,
(05:27):
and it's like you have to check all the boxes,
you know, for all your identities have to align for
us to be able to be on a side together.
That just isn't a passive piece for me. That can't be.
That can't be what is going to get us into
the future. You know, I don't think tribes. I think
that complexity of identities is worth embracing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Please do not move. There's more with Bill Hulsslman coming
up next. The name of the book is six to
carry the Casket, one to say the Mass. We're back
with Bill Husslman speaking of that, exploring one of the
things that's been happening over the past let's say twelve months,
maybe a little bit longer than that. Are these these
these famous people, these creative people that are stepping out
(06:09):
seeing Okay, I'm not a lesbian, I am not a
gay male, I am queer. All of a sudden, it's like,
well wait a second. And then and so let's for
those that don't know, what is it? What?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
What is that big movement to suddenly shift to that tribe?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
As you would say, I think, you know, queer as
an identity is an interesting, uh, it's an interesting evolution.
And you know, I think sometimes people in the queer
community refer to the alphabet mafia, you know, because you know,
it started as the g l the gays and the lesbians,
and then it became the GLB gay, Lesbian, bisexual, and
then it became LGB, recognizing the displacement of women, so
(06:44):
putting lesbians first. And then it took too long for
the LGBs to embrace the T and recognize that the
transfenter folks share similar kinds of repression, but they have
distinct identities from from us. It's a different experience. And
so I think what we've what we've come to recognize
is the letters keep expanding. You know, you see lgbt
(07:06):
Q I A plus plus plus. What does I think
trying to to show is we share a common a
common experience of exclusion and discrimination based only on our
sexual and gender identities. And so that's what we have
in common. And so the you know, and it's hard
(07:26):
to say lgbt Q I, al oh my god. So
on the one hand, using using queer is inclusive. It
kind of it's just it's you can go to I'm queer, Oh,
well what kind of queer? Well I'm gay. You know.
It's like, oh, I'm white, Oh what kind of white?
I'm Irish and German. You know, So it's it's that
kind of inclusive. It's it's aiming for a kind of
radical inclusivity that we don't experience elves for in the world.
(07:50):
On the other hand, queer was a real pejorative, and
there are a lot of people who don't want to
use it because it was so harmful, because it was
hurled at the as kids, as teenagers, as as a
slur and as a way to demean and degrade. A
lot of people have reclaimed that, and that's I approach
it that way as well, in the sense of, you know,
(08:12):
I don't want to let the word keep hurting me,
and I want to instead chew it up and sit
it out and use it, you know. Okay, well this
is how you see me. I don't think that's a
bad thing. I'm not embarrassed for that. I'm not ashamed
of that. So I'm happy to wear the moniker queer.
So I think when people start using that, it opens
(08:33):
the door to a broader to a broader conversation instead
of just here's my pigeonhole and that's where I'm gonna stay.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
See, And that's exactly what I was talking about in
the very beginning, that you are going to create conversation
and you're going to be opening up parts because there
are too many people hiding right now and we need
people like yourself to step through. So basically, you are
bringing your teacher hood forward.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Well, thank you, wank you.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Now to examine this. What are you I mean? Because
I'm one of those I d frank, And what I
mean by that is is that something will come to
me and then I start breaking down, break it down,
break it down, break it down. I feel the same
thing inside your pages as well. How long does it
take you to really start breaking stuff down to have
to find a better path?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, I think it depends on the challenge, and it
depends on the issue. You know, there's some things that
I've been chewing on for thirty years and so it's
I'm still not there. And then there are other things
that I have an experience and it feels so clear
and so lucid because I have vocabulary for it, because
I'm ready for it, because I can process it. So
(09:35):
the essays in this book, you know, some of them
I kept coming back to over and over again for
you know, several years, and either expanding or revising or
pulling back or trying to tack in a different direction
because I was I was grappling with pieces of my identity,
pieces of what was going on in the world, And
(09:58):
those were some of the essays came out really fast.
Some of them, you know, came out in a quick response,
almost like it was just, you know, in one breath,
it all just kind of came out. Others it takes
a long time. I don't think that's something that we
can rush, you know. I think we can look for help,
we can look for guidance, we can look to the
signs of the times around us to help navigate and understand.
(10:21):
But in terms of my own comprehension and my own
ability to make sense and make meaning of an experience,
that's different for everybody. So it's I'm frustrated when people
are like, how do you not understand this yet, Like, well,
I don't share your brain, so of course I'm not
going to understand it at your pace. So please give
(10:43):
me some grace, and I'll give you grace too. And
wouldn't it feel a lot nicer world if we gave
each other enough space to just move at our own paces.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
You know, I love the way that you use the
word identity because I call it personality. I always tell
people I have multiple personalities and then I give them
all a different name, and I almost feel like Russell
Crowe in that movie Beautiful Mind, where he's walking by
himself and to the right, he's seen all these other
personalities that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He is mm hmmm hmm. I think, yeah, it's an
interesting one. There's another parallel. I mean, I think that's
been tapped into a lot of different like TV shows especially,
you know when you have a TV shows where you
have characters that compliment each other really perfectly, really beautifully,
like The Golden Girls, like Sex and the City, right,
(11:26):
you've got. I heard an interview with Sarah Jessona Parker
one time talking about Carrie, her her character and Sex
and the City, and she thought, you know, at one level,
there aren't four distinct characters that there are. You know, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha,
and Charlotte are all different aspects of Carrie, and it's
her negotiating these different desires, these different instincts, these different
(11:48):
identities that were handed to her. So I think, you
know that we see examples that. You know, sometimes I
think we think it's too heavy, it's too cerebral, it's
too extract, but we play with ideas like this all
the time and pop culture. And one of the reasons
I like taking pop culture seriously, not to you know,
drain the fun out of it, but to but to
recognize that we're putting this stuff on television not just
(12:11):
for passive entertainment, but it's ways to process, like, Hey,
how do we get through the world, Like what are
the different personality? It's one of the different identities that
we can tap into to be able to respond to
this experience for that experience.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Did I just understand you right when? Because it almost
feels like you just told me that that. Let's say,
my wife, she is an extension to my personality. The
people that I work with, they are an extension. Because
I surround myself with people that are part of my identity.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I think, well, I don't know if the people I
don't think we can claim other people necessarily as a
piece of our identity. But what they can do is
hold a mirror up that nobody else can hold up. Right.
You know, See, your wife has only only she can
see you from her perspective, and so only she could
hold up that particular mirror and to be able to
see herself. So it's you know, whereas in a fictional
(13:02):
setting you can imagine like, oh, you've got these characters
that are really just course of a single persona or
a single mindset. But in real life, I wouldn't want
to always put other people into you know, I don't
want to project that onto other people and claim them as, oh,
you're just an extension of my personality. Like that sounds
mildly insane. I'm a little narcissistic. But I think they
(13:26):
can hold a mirror up, you know. It's my husband
can hold a mirror up that he can I can
see myself through his eyes in a way that I
can't see myself through anybody else's. And I think that's
that's unique, that's complex, and it's fun. Well, my relationships
are fun with different kinds of relationships with different kinds
of people.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Coming from a family of ten, me coming of eight,
if someone were to sit down and have us all
talk about our parents, we wouldn't all see the same story.
It's it's exactly what you just said, it's what we
saw through our eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
You know. I'm getting a little bit of that feedback
from my family who has been able to read the
book so far. One brother heard the title, you know,
sixty here at the casket one to say the mass.
That's a phrase that I grew up hearing all the time.
And he said, that's not right. It's sixty periodic casket
one to say the eulogy. Oh I never heard that,
(14:19):
and apparently he never heard my version. So I wonder
if my mom changed her vocabulary, you know, as I
got older, and she gave up on the first six.
So she thought the first six were going to say
the eulogy, but number seven and the seventh, son, maybe
he's actually gonna say the mass for me.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Why aren't you hosting a podcast where you can really
bring this this sense of humor and sense of tremendous
love from your heart to people.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I love talking to people. I love talking and it's
funny to say I'm an introvert. You know, I'm a
social introvert. But I'm an introvert. But I love I
love hearing people tell stories about themselves. I love people
asking questions and wanting to know things you know that
I've never responded to or never been able to talk about.
You know, I just love talking to people. But yeah,
(15:04):
that it was about guests. Actually, uh, you know, My
dream was always at the host an NPR talk show
that I thought, Oh that's you know, that's Terry Gross
and Ira Glass are my mentors. And I've always wanted
to I've always wanted I've always thought that would be
a great direction to aim for. But no, I haven't
gotten there yet. Maybe that'll be my third career. We'll see.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Where can people go to find out more about you, Bill,
because I love where your heart is.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, gosh, thank you, Eron. That's very generous, very kind.
I'm on the internet all the time. Bill Halsman Rituals
on Instagram and Facebook and Bill Holsman dot Com is
my website that has information both about the book six
to Carey Casket, Want to Say the ass and also
about my ritual design work.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Now are you releasing these essays that you were talking
about in the very beginning to where people can go
to a website to get on your list.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Everything's available for pre order and publication is officially July eighth,
so and books for arriving and are ready for order
and ready for folks to consume.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I love it, Man, Please come back to the show
anytime in the future.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Thank you, Erro. I look forward to it.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Will you be brilliant? Okay, thank you friend, Thank you
A good day.
Hello, and good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hid a good morning, wasn't Phil.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing today, Bill?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm doing well. How are you ero?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Fantastic looking forward to sharing a conversation with you today
because there's so much that needs to be talked about
in the way of keeping a conversation going in a
world where everybody just wants to step back and say
I'm out of here.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
The title of it all, how did you come up
with the title?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thanks to carry the casket and wanted to say? The
mass is a phrase that my mom would say a lot.
It's taken from an essay about my mom that originated
in the toast for her eightieth birthday, and at her
birthday party, I was nominated by my sisters to give
the toast, and instead of telling stories about Mom or
telling of her accomplishments, I decided to share her greatest hits,
(00:48):
the phrases that she was famous for in our family,
and she when she was asked, you know, oh my gosh,
you have ten children and people would be in shock,
you know, she'd say things like, oh, well they're from
my husband's first marriage. Well, she was her husband's first marriage.
But when they found out that she had seven sons.
Frequently people would be like seven sons, Oh my gosh,
(01:10):
And she said, well, God gave me seven sons for
a reason, six to carry the casket and one to
say the mask. So the first six it was clear
they weren't going to seminary. So I heard that message
loud and clear. I was supposed to be the one
who was I was going to be the priest in
the family. I'm the closest that you got.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
What did you feel in your heart to go to
the seminary? Because I mean that that's something that you're
called to do, and it's louder than anything on the planet.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, I never felt a call. I never experienced a
call to ministry. I went to Divinity School for my
passion for understanding religion and religious culture, and ritual in particular.
I'm fascinated by how, in different contexts, different cultures, different
religious traditions, how we used ritual as a tool to
(01:58):
shape culture and build build communities, and shape relationships. So
I was drawn to the study of religion for that
not necessarily, not necessarily responding to a call to ministry.
So I did work as a campus minister for several
years in a Little Catholic High School, and I loved it.
I loved the work. But it was because I loved
(02:19):
the work and I loved teaching and I loved building community,
not because I felt, you know, a call to ordained ministry.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well, putting this book together is part of that building
up of the community, because I mean, this is a
book of essays. This is the kind of stuff that
I really like diving into because I'm introduced to so
many different things.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
That was the goal, it was, you know, I never
actually started out to write a book. Instead, I started
writing short essays to share a weekly newsletter, really just
to give me space to process what was going on
in my life and what was going on in the world.
I had lost both of my parents and one of
my sisters over the course of a year and a half,
and I was burned out at work, and I took
(03:03):
time off and I needed some way to reset, some
way to process everything that was going on. So I
took time off to be well. I started writing, and
then the world shutdown and twenty twenty happened, and so
I wasn't just exploring how did I land here? How
did I land in this place of burnout and vulnerability.
(03:25):
How did we all land here, how did we all
get to this point? And what are the choices that
we can make to move forward? And so I started
exploring identity in short, pithy essays, not intending to do
a big study or not trying to write a manifesto,
but really just making space to explore and understand how
(03:46):
I got here and what I want to take with
me to keep moving forward. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, speaking of identity, is it something that we inherit?
Because I mean I came from a family of eight,
and I'll tell you what. I was always Terry's little brother,
Terry's little brothers. I don't want to be little brother.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think that's true in any family, you know, the
big families, little families. I approach identity like this. I
think identity is a tool for understanding ourselves and for
navigating the world. And you know, we have lots of
different identities, and we're given an identity. You know, of course,
we inherit an identity from our family, from the world
(04:24):
that we're that we landed, you know, the place that
we land in. I don't think we all recognize how
much agency we have in shaping our own identity. You know,
you can, you can be perfectly happy with the identity
that is given to you. But oftentimes if you are
on the margins in some way, if you're neurodivergent, if
(04:44):
you're queer, if you're you know, if you're different from
whatever the template is that for the identity that you
are handed, or you grow up and you know, you
feel like the world doesn't it made for you. But
when you start to take agency, when you take the
rain and decide like no, no, no, I don't have
to perpetuate that practice, or no, I don't have to
(05:05):
repeat that, I don't have to carry that with me
moving forward. That can be really empowering and that can
be really freeing, and I think that's good for everybody
around to be able to explore and let your identities grow.
But that's also apparently a really scary thing because I
think right now we're in a we're facing a time
of tribalism, right We're all like resorting to different camps,
(05:27):
and it's like you have to check all the boxes,
you know, for all your identities have to align for
us to be able to be on a side together.
That just isn't a passive piece for me. That can't be.
That can't be what is going to get us into
the future. You know, I don't think tribes. I think
that complexity of identities is worth embracing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Please do not move. There's more with Bill Hulsslman coming
up next. The name of the book is six to
carry the Casket, one to say the Mass. We're back
with Bill Husslman speaking of that, exploring one of the
things that's been happening over the past let's say twelve months,
maybe a little bit longer than that. Are these these
these famous people, these creative people that are stepping out
(06:09):
seeing Okay, I'm not a lesbian, I am not a
gay male, I am queer. All of a sudden, it's like,
well wait a second. And then and so let's for
those that don't know, what is it? What?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
What is that big movement to suddenly shift to that tribe?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
As you would say, I think, you know, queer as
an identity is an interesting, uh, it's an interesting evolution.
And you know, I think sometimes people in the queer
community refer to the alphabet mafia, you know, because you know,
it started as the g l the gays and the lesbians,
and then it became the GLB gay, Lesbian, bisexual, and
then it became LGB, recognizing the displacement of women, so
(06:44):
putting lesbians first. And then it took too long for
the LGBs to embrace the T and recognize that the
transfenter folks share similar kinds of repression, but they have
distinct identities from from us. It's a different experience. And
so I think what we've what we've come to recognize
is the letters keep expanding. You know, you see lgbt
(07:06):
Q I A plus plus plus. What does I think
trying to to show is we share a common a
common experience of exclusion and discrimination based only on our
sexual and gender identities. And so that's what we have
in common. And so the you know, and it's hard
(07:26):
to say lgbt Q I, al oh my god. So
on the one hand, using using queer is inclusive. It
kind of it's just it's you can go to I'm queer, Oh,
well what kind of queer? Well I'm gay. You know.
It's like, oh, I'm white, Oh what kind of white?
I'm Irish and German. You know, So it's it's that
kind of inclusive. It's it's aiming for a kind of
radical inclusivity that we don't experience elves for in the world.
(07:50):
On the other hand, queer was a real pejorative, and
there are a lot of people who don't want to
use it because it was so harmful, because it was
hurled at the as kids, as teenagers, as as a
slur and as a way to demean and degrade. A
lot of people have reclaimed that, and that's I approach
it that way as well, in the sense of, you know,
(08:12):
I don't want to let the word keep hurting me,
and I want to instead chew it up and sit
it out and use it, you know. Okay, well this
is how you see me. I don't think that's a
bad thing. I'm not embarrassed for that. I'm not ashamed
of that. So I'm happy to wear the moniker queer.
So I think when people start using that, it opens
(08:33):
the door to a broader to a broader conversation instead
of just here's my pigeonhole and that's where I'm gonna stay.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
See, And that's exactly what I was talking about in
the very beginning, that you are going to create conversation
and you're going to be opening up parts because there
are too many people hiding right now and we need
people like yourself to step through. So basically, you are
bringing your teacher hood forward.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Well, thank you, wank you.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Now to examine this. What are you I mean? Because
I'm one of those I d frank, And what I
mean by that is is that something will come to
me and then I start breaking down, break it down,
break it down, break it down. I feel the same
thing inside your pages as well. How long does it
take you to really start breaking stuff down to have
to find a better path?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, I think it depends on the challenge, and it
depends on the issue. You know, there's some things that
I've been chewing on for thirty years and so it's
I'm still not there. And then there are other things
that I have an experience and it feels so clear
and so lucid because I have vocabulary for it, because
I'm ready for it, because I can process it. So
(09:35):
the essays in this book, you know, some of them
I kept coming back to over and over again for
you know, several years, and either expanding or revising or
pulling back or trying to tack in a different direction
because I was I was grappling with pieces of my identity,
pieces of what was going on in the world, And
(09:58):
those were some of the essays came out really fast.
Some of them, you know, came out in a quick response,
almost like it was just, you know, in one breath,
it all just kind of came out. Others it takes
a long time. I don't think that's something that we
can rush, you know. I think we can look for help,
we can look for guidance, we can look to the
signs of the times around us to help navigate and understand.
(10:21):
But in terms of my own comprehension and my own
ability to make sense and make meaning of an experience,
that's different for everybody. So it's I'm frustrated when people
are like, how do you not understand this yet, Like, well,
I don't share your brain, so of course I'm not
going to understand it at your pace. So please give
(10:43):
me some grace, and I'll give you grace too. And
wouldn't it feel a lot nicer world if we gave
each other enough space to just move at our own paces.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
You know, I love the way that you use the
word identity because I call it personality. I always tell
people I have multiple personalities and then I give them
all a different name, and I almost feel like Russell
Crowe in that movie Beautiful Mind, where he's walking by
himself and to the right, he's seen all these other
personalities that.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He is mm hmmm hmm. I think, yeah, it's an
interesting one. There's another parallel. I mean, I think that's
been tapped into a lot of different like TV shows especially,
you know when you have a TV shows where you
have characters that compliment each other really perfectly, really beautifully,
like The Golden Girls, like Sex and the City, right,
(11:26):
you've got. I heard an interview with Sarah Jessona Parker
one time talking about Carrie, her her character and Sex
and the City, and she thought, you know, at one level,
there aren't four distinct characters that there are. You know, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha,
and Charlotte are all different aspects of Carrie, and it's
her negotiating these different desires, these different instincts, these different
(11:48):
identities that were handed to her. So I think, you
know that we see examples that. You know, sometimes I
think we think it's too heavy, it's too cerebral, it's
too extract, but we play with ideas like this all
the time and pop culture. And one of the reasons
I like taking pop culture seriously, not to you know,
drain the fun out of it, but to but to
recognize that we're putting this stuff on television not just
(12:11):
for passive entertainment, but it's ways to process, like, Hey,
how do we get through the world, Like what are
the different personality? It's one of the different identities that
we can tap into to be able to respond to
this experience for that experience.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Did I just understand you right when? Because it almost
feels like you just told me that that. Let's say,
my wife, she is an extension to my personality. The
people that I work with, they are an extension. Because
I surround myself with people that are part of my identity.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I think, well, I don't know if the people I
don't think we can claim other people necessarily as a
piece of our identity. But what they can do is
hold a mirror up that nobody else can hold up. Right.
You know, See, your wife has only only she can
see you from her perspective, and so only she could
hold up that particular mirror and to be able to
see herself. So it's you know, whereas in a fictional
(13:02):
setting you can imagine like, oh, you've got these characters
that are really just course of a single persona or
a single mindset. But in real life, I wouldn't want
to always put other people into you know, I don't
want to project that onto other people and claim them as, oh,
you're just an extension of my personality. Like that sounds
mildly insane. I'm a little narcissistic. But I think they
(13:26):
can hold a mirror up, you know. It's my husband
can hold a mirror up that he can I can
see myself through his eyes in a way that I
can't see myself through anybody else's. And I think that's
that's unique, that's complex, and it's fun. Well, my relationships
are fun with different kinds of relationships with different kinds
of people.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Coming from a family of ten, me coming of eight,
if someone were to sit down and have us all
talk about our parents, we wouldn't all see the same story.
It's it's exactly what you just said, it's what we
saw through our eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
You know. I'm getting a little bit of that feedback
from my family who has been able to read the
book so far. One brother heard the title, you know,
sixty here at the casket one to say the mass.
That's a phrase that I grew up hearing all the time.
And he said, that's not right. It's sixty periodic casket
one to say the eulogy. Oh I never heard that,
(14:19):
and apparently he never heard my version. So I wonder
if my mom changed her vocabulary, you know, as I
got older, and she gave up on the first six.
So she thought the first six were going to say
the eulogy, but number seven and the seventh, son, maybe
he's actually gonna say the mass for me.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Why aren't you hosting a podcast where you can really
bring this this sense of humor and sense of tremendous
love from your heart to people.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I love talking to people. I love talking and it's
funny to say I'm an introvert. You know, I'm a
social introvert. But I'm an introvert. But I love I
love hearing people tell stories about themselves. I love people
asking questions and wanting to know things you know that
I've never responded to or never been able to talk about.
You know, I just love talking to people. But yeah,
(15:04):
that it was about guests. Actually, uh, you know, My
dream was always at the host an NPR talk show
that I thought, Oh that's you know, that's Terry Gross
and Ira Glass are my mentors. And I've always wanted
to I've always wanted I've always thought that would be
a great direction to aim for. But no, I haven't
gotten there yet. Maybe that'll be my third career. We'll see.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Where can people go to find out more about you, Bill,
because I love where your heart is.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, gosh, thank you, Eron. That's very generous, very kind.
I'm on the internet all the time. Bill Halsman Rituals
on Instagram and Facebook and Bill Holsman dot Com is
my website that has information both about the book six
to Carey Casket, Want to Say the ass and also
about my ritual design work.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Now are you releasing these essays that you were talking
about in the very beginning to where people can go
to a website to get on your list.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Everything's available for pre order and publication is officially July eighth,
so and books for arriving and are ready for order
and ready for folks to consume.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I love it, Man, Please come back to the show
anytime in the future.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Bill.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Thank you, Erro. I look forward to it.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Will you be brilliant? Okay, thank you friend, Thank you
A good day.
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