109: I’m Obsessed with Female Madness

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Direct from the Broski Nation headquarters in Los Angeles, California, this is the Broski Report with your host, Brittany Broski. Well, in a merry month of May, from me home I started living as a tomb, nearly broken, had a saluted father, dear. Kiss me, darling, mother, drank a pint of beer, my grief, and here's your mother, then off to reap the corn, leave where I was born. Guys. Oh my god! Guys, it's official! I have a yeast infection. It's official. I do have a yeast infection. And I just got back from Ireland. Air. From air. Isn't that how you say it? E-I-R-E? E-I-R-E. Pronunciation. In English. It is said as I-R-A. I-R-A. British for once you know. I-R-A. And now you know. Oh, I'm so sorry. I-R-A. Guys, I just got back from I-R-A. And let me tell you something. Like, actually, lock in. Because what a trip. This was. So if you don't know, I did Reading and Leeds. I performed. I say performed in heavy quotations. Reading and Leeds because what the fuck was that? That wasn't a performance. That was a Broski Nation meetup. That's all that was. At Reading and Leeds, I was on the AUC stage. And in Reading, Max Balegne had hosted Love Him Down, Love Him to Death. And what a time we had in the South. And then went up to Leeds. What a time. We had up north with Charlie Malo. And it's kind of, you know, that North versus South England shit is. That's intense. You guys really fucking hate each other. Like, for real. That's your brother. There's not many of y'all. Actually, there are. There's a lot of fucking. There's a difference between English people and British people. Okay? Now, that's a lot of fucking English people. But at the same time, tiny ass island. Very tiny island in the grand scheme of things. I had a time at Reading and Leeds. God, Chapel ate down. Hosier ate down. Always does. Hosier gave a fantastic, beautiful speech about Palestine, which I think the BBC had censored. What's up there? Obviously, we know what's up there. But that was nuts. We watched it happen in real time. And I remember thinking, is this going to air? And something happened where they knew it was coming and they censored it. Or I don't think they censored his whole set, but it's fucking tea regardless. But yeah, during his shows, all these super just. I love him to death. He has these infographics and this imagery on the screen behind him of Lockheed Martin share prices and all the fucking billions, trillions of dollars that these companies make and how they funded genocide and all this. It's just like, I never get tired of watching him. I've seen his set before at other festivals, and then I've seen him on tour. Hasn't changed that much, but he does kind of switch up what he says a little bit depending on the city that he's in. And so Reading and Leeds, wow. Amazing. I just, I couldn't love him more. Then after Reading and Leeds, which by the way, British festivals, what the fuck are y'all on? Like British teenagers, like camping, freaking your shit. Something's in the water. I don't, y'all are built different. I don't know. There is a drinking culture in the United States of America, but it doesn't even touch British and Australian drinking culture and Irish. Fuck. Y'all got golden silver livers. Y'all got fucking titanium livers. I don't know how you do it. I'm serious. Shit. Everybody there was 16. I was like, what am I doing here? What am I doing here? I'm working. Okay. I'm working. I'm actually clocked in on a job. Had a damn blast. Okay. So after the UK, I headed over to Ireland with my girls. Yeah, with my girls, Paige and Elizabeth and y'all. Hosier has this interview with Zane Lowe for Unreal Unearthed where he says, when talking about Ireland, he says, there is a meadow in County Wicklow where he's from, but he says, I swear to God, it hums. And I had that in my mind as I was like cruising around Ireland. Cause we did Dublin to Galway, like flew into Dubway, drove to Galway, did Galway for three days, drove to the Cliffs of Moher and then across the island horizontally to back to Dublin to be there for like five days. And man, I really don't know. Paige, Elizabeth and I were talking about this the entire time. There is a whimsy in that fucking country that I don't think I've been able to put my finger on until now. Because previously, I mean, I went to Ireland last year. I did a show at Vicar Street and it was obviously the most fun I've ever had, but my trip there was very short and I just hit the kind of tourist spots in Dublin, the ones that I could, and then we left. And I had a great time, but it just felt really condensed. This time we had more time to explore, to just like sit at pubs and just talk. We played card games, whatever, met friends of friends. And it was, it was a time, I swear to God, there is something in that. Like there's a reason there's so much folklore and so many myths and just legends and like just magic. I don't know. It's, it seems choogy to say it, but it is a magical place. Galway was, was beautiful. It was, it was a time very, I kept seeing, y'all know I have this psychosis with swans. Why are there swans all over fucking Ireland? It's like the only fucking boat bird there. Only fucking board. That's what I'm about to say. Only fucking board. I kept seeing swans and I, and Paige and I have the same thing where we see swans and we're like, what the fuck? It's a fucking message. And so we kept seeing them and I was like, I think honestly, I'm choosing to believe that this is a message that we should be here. That's what I'm choosing to believe. I don't know. If swans are just native to that region, I don't give a fuck. Kept seeing swans. I think I'm supposed to be here. We did Galway. We did a whiskey tour of a few pubs in Galway. We did O'Connell's. Shout out O'Connell's in Galway. That place is a fucking maze. First of all, got lost. And second of all, what a vibe. Met up with my friend, Emily. Shout out Emily. Galway girl. What else did we do in Ireland? Oh my God. We saw in Galway, we did a traditional dancing and, or I guess, yeah. A traditional dancing moment where at O'Connell's, we had Ronan. Shout out Ronan. I don't know his last name. He came and danced for us. He did a little jig for us. Oh my God. I got my fucking life. And then another young gentleman, I cannot remember his name. He played the, the way he described it is Irish bagpipes, but there is a name for it. And it's very different than the Scottish bagpipes that you blow into. This is like the elbow is doing all the work. It was so beautiful. And it was unlike, well, it was similar to Scottish bagpipes, but it's very different in the sense of there's a constant, the way that he lifts up one of the, the things, one of the things. And then the thing that he's playing actually does have a reed. It's crazy. So I don't know. It's called a Eland pipe. Now what beautiful person submitted that pronunciation to Wikipedia Eland pipes, also known as union pipes, sometimes called Irish pipes, the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms literally pipes of the elbow from their method of inflation. There is no historical record of the name or use of the term Eland pipes before the 20th century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck Grattan Flood, a guy. He was a noted Irish author, composer, musicologist, and historian. Shout out. Anyway, we went to O'Connell's and there were two different types of songs that he would play. One is called a, I think it is called a jig and one was called something. Oh, fuck. Hold on. Maybe, maybe it says it on here. A real is one. Okay. Not Sean knows. It was a real. And I think one was a jig. Basically one was more emotional and sad. And the other one was like more upbeat. And it also, they were varying depending on the time signature. Like I would watch them talk to each other, the dancer and the bagpipe player. And he would say, do you have one in six, eight? Do you have one in three, four? Do you have one in four, four or whatever? And it was like, wow, they speak that. He would know what variations of the movements of the foot or the combinations of the the moves to do depending on the time signature obviously like they study this and they know this but for me i was like what the fuck it was beautiful bro it was beautiful i was having my oh i was having a time we did that and that hits by the way off the whiskey i don't even like whiskey and i was gulping that shit down sucking it down with a damn straw we did that and then we did a on the whiskey tour learned a lot we had such incredible tour guides one of our tour guides names was um danny another tour guide's name was colleen she was in dublin and our other tour guide's name was it'll come back to me and i'm and i'm gonna say it okay i'll say it later they were all fantastic very very kind very informative and they they sat down and actually you know they were all very kind very informative and they they sat down and actually like talked you know what i mean like of course tour guides uh they'll answer questions or whatever but this was i have very specific questions and i wanted to make the best use of their time and there are such sensitive issues in ireland because this has never been like uh you know i'm making fun or i'm taking the piss or i'm like trying to make light out of something that's obviously very still it's very much still uh an active issue in ireland when you talk about like a unified ireland or when you talk about how recent british rule was when you talk about the troubles when you talk about belfast when you talk about any of these things it's like i want to be very sensitive and intelligent in the way that i ask these questions and sometimes i let that get in the you know and so we actually sat down with our tour guide in one of the churches in galway and we talked about it and it was one of the most enlightening beautiful conversations i've ever had and it's moments like that where i'm in a foreign country albeit an english-speaking foreign country but again that's has an asterisk by it as well because why is that right why is it english-speaking a magnifying glass comes upon my american education and while i like to think of myself as a smart person as a worldly person as a culturally curious person who's always learning and who's always you know trying to understand things that i wasn't taught well or at all initially it's it's an embarrassing thing especially as like a former gifted and talented student i say that in quotations where you're told that you're special for your whole life and then you go out in the world and you realize oh not sitting down and having those kinds of conversations are really really impactful and it was i just learned a lot you know about the troubles and about what the long-lasting effects of something like the man-made famine in ireland in the 1840s like how just none of it is by accident none of it is is all of it is puppeteered and the evils of something like colonialism and colonization is of course we know it's evil but it really remember a few weeks ago when i talked about the british colonization of india and how that only ended in 1947 like just raping the land and the culture and pillaging and taking and just bleeding a stone with no regard for the the native people and their culture and their okay i know y'all know this but to be there firsthand and to see these monuments and to see the names and to see you know the easter rebellion that was or the easter rising that was 1916 like the troubles is an issue that is still it's not gone from like the living generations so this isn't ancient history it's in fact current history and i just really you know i went into this trip with the with a mindfulness of i've learned so much about ireland and i'm very curious about the history of the nation and the people and the divides between the people and how sensitive things are like north northern ireland versus ireland and what are the public sentiments what's the consensus on the potential in the near future of a unified ireland is that something that you know people in the north of ireland want there are fault lines between the catholic and the protestant communities in the north of ireland like belfast is just such a i'd love to go there next time next time i go to ireland we're going to do belfast and cork waterford maybe i just have such a deep-rooted interest and admiration for the resilience of a people and you know when you talk about kneecap and when you talk about and obviously this is kind of tied to it is inherently tied to palestine and there is a reason why the irish people are so heavily empathetic towards the palestinian people is because this is not new it's not new we know genocide when we see it we know occupation when we see it we know denial of aid and resources when we see it so you know it just that was also heavy on my mind of course it's always heavy on my mind but in ireland it was just at the forefront very much at the forefront and it's it's such a beautiful display of solidarity seeing palestinian flags everywhere everywhere versus here you know and and then you're talking about reading and leads on the bbc and censoring the palestinian flag and when people say free palestine and all these things it's like it's just watching it happen in real time it's it's so while we were there um i went to electric picnic which is a stradbley and uh kneecap performed that shit was nuts kneecap performed and uh one of the biggest crowds i've ever seen by the way nuts and what kneecap is doing showing up to by the way when i landed in london we drove by the fucking magistrate's court that mocar was being tried at or was having his hearing at like as i drove by i saw on instagram that morning that he had showed up and you know there was a big protest outside and whatever all the palestinian flags and irish flags and whatever and i was like damn that's crazy then we drove by it and there was traffic it was nuts and i was in the car with some friends and they were like what is all that i was like it's fucking it's mocar it's mocar he's in there watching that happen and the context of that being he requested an irish translator he can speak english he requested an irish translator and they were unable to find him one statement in and of itself the buzz around kneecap is not the story but the buzz around kneecap is palestine that is all they're bringing attention to but in doing so they're highlighting all these other you know just like yeah throw that shit in there as well what do you mean you can't find an irish translator wonder why that is there's so many things that like i'm taking from this uk and ireland trip that's just like i don't know i'm always fucking faking aren't i i'm always fucking up but yeah so we went to dublin we had a ball of a time if you're ever in dublin please do the viking splash tour i'm putting that shit on the map i know it's like a local thing if you ever go to any city that has a splash boat tour which is a duck boat tour which is duck boats from world war ii like from the 40s are boats that drive on land and then it's a floating device like the up into it and then it floats the most fun i've ever had the guy who gives that tour it's like a rotating list of people by the way i'm sweating like a hog this is in my front room the podcast room is in the front room of my house it is i promise 88 degrees in here because the sun is i'm just like my back is wet and i can't focus on anything they have a rotating i guess group of tour guides who will give this tour and they are so dry so witty so so funny i'm bricked up the whole time it was so much fun i did it last time i was there i did it again and i'll do it again next time i go amen amen amen so much fun dublin is a magical place dublin has so much history i mean that the the that island used to be connected via land bridge to scotland and we're actually going to google this because i might be talking out of my ass there was a land bridge and that's why the the celts celtic celts uh they share so much history land bridge between ireland and scotland ireland was connected to great britain via land bridges during the last glacial maximum and the subsequent period of lower sea levels though the connection was likely a fragmented one across the northern north channel rather than a continuous dry land bridge across the entire irish sea these connections allowed people and animals to cross before rising sea levels eventually submerged these land masses creating these connections allowed people and animals to cross before rising sea levels eventually submerged the Irish Sea. Okay, maybe I just lied. This is from 2004, the Irish Times. A scientist at the University of Ulster. There was never a land bridge between Ireland and Britain. If there was never such a land bridge, how did plants and animals arrive in Ireland in such an ecologically orderly way? Biologists and geologists have found their ideas on this totally at odds. One or more land bridges across the Irish Sea have seemed vital to explain the onward distribution of species from Europe via Britain. I'm reading this like Tucker Carlson. I just realized that. The Irish seafloor has a great trough 100 meters deep running up the center, shallowing only at the northern end. At an important conference on post-glacial colonization in 1983, UCC geographer Robert Devoy thought the most that must be granted was a low, soggy, possibly shifting, and partially discontinuous linkage. Okay, I just remembered I don't care. I care, but not enough to keep reading. Anyway, my trip to Ireland was very magical. I met some very cool people. We had sisterhood. It was filled with sisterhood, dude. I mean, this is your sign if you've been waiting on a sign to book the girls' trip. I'm so serious. Take it out of the group chat. If you have friends that are worth going on a group chat on a girls' trip with, please do it. Life is fleeting. Moments are fleeting. All we have is right now. Wearing my nice coat and great jewelry and lashes to CVS because today is all we have, right? Make a girls' trip, and it doesn't have to be expensive. Fucking drive somewhere. And when you spend an extended amount of time with people, the conversations can get really deep. They can really progress to a level that getting dinner or having a sleepover, it can't always progress to that level. This was just so bonding. I mean, we so bonded in Ireland. What else could you want? It was a dream. So yeah, I got back on Wednesday. I've been feeling like dead ass. I've been feeling depressed. I've been putting off filming the podcast because I'm like, I can't. I'm not in the right space to come back to fucking America where Trump is making the Department of War and sit here and try to be happy. Like, to be very, very transparent. Transparent with you all. I am not feeling like it. I don't fucking feel like it. But it's this question of, I will try because today is all we have. I refuse to let the powers that be win, and I refuse to let the powers that be create a truth. That is not truth. I reject that truth. We live now in a time where truth is subjective, and it is terrifying to me. So I don't know. I'm reflecting on the Ireland trip, and I'm just like, I am so grateful that I have people in my life, and I have the means to have those life-altering experiences of like, the world is so much bigger than me, so much bigger than my circle. It's so much bigger than my wants and my desires, which sounds very, duh, fucking duh. But at the end of the day, this is also something I've had to face and journal about. At the end of the day, I am American. As much as I don't want to be sometimes, as much as it embarrasses me. I've talked about this at length on this podcast before. You know, being American has such a negative connotation. And while I don't think the world views Americans as bad, evil people, I do think that we are the laughingstock. And I do think that when I travel abroad, I almost go out of my way to make sure people don't notice I'm American. Until they speak to me, of course, and they hear my accent. But it's like, why is that? Of course, we know why it is, but I want to be a part of the change that alters that perception. But in order to do that, you have to be honest about the state of what that perception is right now. Like, what are we doing? I don't think the world faults. The American people for what the American leaders, governmental figureheads are doing. But like, fuck, regardless, it's just a deeply uncomfortable reality that every time I go abroad, I'm faced with, you know, like, ah, fuck. And we were joking about, you know, finding an apartment in Dublin, but I also don't want to be a part of the problem of reduced housing. Like, spiked housing, the housing crisis that is everywhere, arguably. So yeah, Ireland, 10 out of 10, would recommend. And taught me a lot about myself, taught me a lot about the troubles, taught me a lot about the history of British rule. It's funny because it overlaps with, I just started Babel. Babel? What does Babel mean? Babel definition. A confused noise made by a number of voices, a scene of noisy confusion. Early 16th century, from Babel, the Tower of Babel, where, according to the biblical story, God made the builders all speak different languages. Now, why would he do that? Tower of Babel story. All right, this is from AI Overview. Fuck! The story of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11, 1 through 9, describes a time when all humans spoke the same language. The story of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11, 1 through 9, and agreed to build a tower to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves, an act of pride and disobedience. In response, God, to limit human potential and enforce his command to fill the earth, confused their language, forcing them to scatter and abandon the project. This narrative serves as an etiology, explaining the origin of diverse languages and teaches lessons about human pride, the consequences of challenging divine authority, and the importance of humility. The story of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11, 1 through 9, describes a time when all humans spoke the same language, Jack O'Connell? Yeah! I can't meet him. I still can't meet him in person. There's no fucking way. And I know he'd be so nice. He'd be so fucking nice. I can't meet him. No, thank you! No, thank you! I'm gonna act real weird. I'll act real, real weird around Jack O'Connell. Yeah, I'll say some shit I'll regret. There's a scene in SAS Rogue Heroes where he is, okay, so, he plays Patty Main, who is an Irishman who serves in the British. Uh, SAS, which is the. SAS stands for. something aerial. SAS stands for. Special Air Service, that's right. He was a part of the SAS, which was a part of the Army, I'm pretty sure. They collabed with the French, with a French troop, when, uh, they were doing some special op mission. And there's a. There's a scene where everyone from the British Army, from the SAS, is gone, and Patty's left in charge, and he's manic. Like, he is not okay in the brain. He's in charge of this French troop, trying to teach them how the SAS does things, about teamwork, about respecting authority, and when not to respect authority, etc., whatever. And there's this one scene where he makes them build this tower out of wood and metal, and he's firing a gun at them the whole time. Shooting at them! And he says, if you stop working, I will shoot you. Of course, he doesn't shoot them, actually. He doesn't, like, kill any of them, because they're on the same side. But he does that, because he's fucking crazy. And then he ends up getting in a fight with one of them. Anyway, that's what that Tower of Babel story reminded me of. That reminds me of a scene in SAS Rogue Heroes. It all can be traced back to Jack O'Connell in the end. Tower of Babel. Did it really happen? Like, surely if that happened, there should be some remnants of the Tower of Babel, right? The Tower of Babel is not considered a historical event. Okay. But rather a mythological explanation for the diversity of languages and the origins of different cultures. While there's no evidence of a tower of that specific name, the tale may have been inspired by the Etemananki, a massive ziggurat, which is a temple tower, in the ancient city of Babylon, which the Jews exiled there encountered. Which the Jews exiled. in a ruinous state. Bitch, look at that. If that was real, that's nuts. The Tower of Babel. Number nine. The Tower of Babel. The last thing you'd want in your tower is a bunch of Babel. Turns out, might be exactly what you get. Yeah, that's crazy. And why is it so tall? Anyway, Ireland, success. Tower of Babel. What the fuck? Oh, that's what I was going to say. I started reading Babel by R.F. Quink. What the fuck? Why didn't I listen to you guys? when you told me to read it before. You guys have been screaming at me, beating down my door to read that fucking book. And I finally was like, okay, fine, because I'm back on my dark academia shit. And I was like, God, you know, I said this a few episodes ago as well, where the books that I gravitate towards when I'm like, oh, I like this genre. I like this trope. They never match up with the books that are actually my favorite books ever. Like The Secret History by Donna Tartt is my favorite book ever. That's not romantic, see? Not even fucking close. It's not anything I would ever usually read. It's straight up fiction. It's straight up just like fiction. It's nothing special. But wow, that shit changed my life. It had me gripped. And there's something, because you know, when you, when you, when, when, speaking for myself, and I know a lot of you fucking freak weirdos, when I like something, I am completely immersed. When I read something, when I watch something, like when I watch Star Wars, I'm tapped into that like intergalactic, and then I have to watch a bunch of other space-themed whatever. I had just finished The Mandalorian when I watched Blade Runner for the first time. Or I just finished Red Rising, actually, when I watched Blade Runner. And it's like, I like this concept of if you're a fan of Blade Runner, you're a fan of Blade Runner. You're in this aesthetic space in your mind. Does this make sense? Do y'all get me? If you're in this aesthetic space in your mind, I want to keep on that track until something else is shiny and distracts me. So like when I read Song of Achilles, I read a bunch of, I was really into Greek mythology, and then I moved on. And by the way, The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan, yeah, we already talked about that. I need to read The Odyssey and the Iliad before, and the, the Aenid, Aenid, Aenid, Aenid, that one. I need to read that one too. Because there's so many, like, of course, I know the general story, but it's actually right here, the Iliad. I need to tap in. And what's under it? Priests, politics, and society in post-famine Ireland. Guys, I'm locked into the shit. And what's under that? Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, which I need, I know I need to read that. I know I need to read it. Oh, another thing. Oh my God, I have so much to talk to you guys about. I went to the Little Museum in Dublin. Shout out. That place was awesome. I really enjoyed it. It was like a short little guided tour. I had a fucking blast. Everyone who works there is fantastic. Broski Nation. And they have one room for, like, the old Ireland, and it's in an old Georgian mansion. One room for the old Ireland, one room for the new Ireland. And by old, they mean, like, you know, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, whatever. And the new is, like, the kind of from the 20s onward, like, the JFK visit through the 70s and the 80s and all the failed rebellions and the uprisings and the Pope visit and whatever. So honestly, it's gagged. The exponential growth that the country of Ireland has had in the last 25 years, I mean, just exploded. And they skipped over almost, like, the growing pains of globalization. Because our tour guide was telling us, like, as recently as the 1980s or 90s, contraception was banned. Because the Catholic Church still had that, like, tight of a grasp on the country and on its people and on its values. So nuts. Anyway, y'all know I loved Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I got to see the Oscar Wilde statue. I love him. James Joyce. Of course, he's one of the most celebrated Irish authors of all time, other than, like, WBA. And Flann O'Brien. And the other one. It's escaping me, but I'm seeing his face in my brain. James Joyce. It was very interesting to see, kind of on the literary side, people really celebrate Joyce. And, like, Joyce-ian is a term. And, like, he's influenced some of my favorite artists, like, Grian Chatton and Fontaines, whatever. Like, a very, very important figure in literary history. However, seeing real Irish people and smart, like, intelligent, university-educated Irish people that I was meeting on this tour around Ireland saying that he is so difficult to read. Ulysses, Dubliners, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, like, all these books are just, fuck. So that makes me feel a little better because I'm like, I've been putting off reading. Even though I know it'll probably change my life. I know I just need to lock in. I have a lot of books like that laying around. Speaking of which, I read Rebecca. Rebecca by Daphne du. Daphne du Maurier? Y'all. This fucking book. So I went to Barnes & Noble, as I do, and I was checking out, I was getting Wuthering Heights, actually. I bought Wuthering Heights because I need, I need to read it before this fuck-ass Jacob Lordy movie comes out. I just. By the way, I saw this theory about Wuthering Heights and the title being in quotations that that means it's going to be not a retelling of the story per se in the traditional sense of, like, an adaptation, but more so story within a story kind of vibes. Like, maybe a woman is fantasizing that she's in the Wuthering Heights narrative. I don't know. I'm excited to watch it regardless. You bet my ass is going to be sat in that fucking. chair for the Jacob Lordy Margot Robbie Wuthering Heights. Thank you. Amen. However, I've never read it, so I wanted to familiarize myself with it because Wuthering Heights is, it's like considered a gothic thriller. Let me swallow for you guys really quick, actually. Sorry, that big fucking ball of spit in the back of my throat. Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights book. Emily Bronte, who was Charlotte Bronte's. Right? Charlotte Bronte's sister. Gothic fiction romance novel, tragedy historical romance. Need to tap into that because Wuthering Heights has consistently been in the zeitgeist. Doesn't Bella and Twilight read fucking Wuthering Heights? Like, published in 1847. This is one that's kind of stood the test of time. Love it. Kind of Jane Eyre core. When was Jane Eyre published? Jane Eyre publication date. 1847. I'm a genius. Bye. Her sister. Jane Eyre also scared the fuck out of me in high school when we had to read it because it's about. Remember, she's got that crazy lady in the attic, like the old wife or something. I need to reread Jane Eyre to be totally honest. Anyway, Wuthering Heights, very excited to lock into that. I read Rebecca. That's what I wanted to talk about. Rebecca was recommended to me by the Barnes & Noble salesperson, the person working the register, because I was checking out with Wuthering Heights. I was like, I'm going to read that book. I'm going to read that book. I'm going to Wuthering Heights. What else did I get? I got some other gothic, because I'm on my gothic shit right now, as you can tell by the set. So I bought Rebecca. She said that it is one of the best novels that never gets talked about. And I was like, well, why is that? And she was like, I really don't know, but it's a sleeper hit. What's the book that was kind of around the time of Dracula, but it's sad? It's a sapphic vampire. Camilla? Carmilla? Camilla vampire. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, published in 1872 by an Irish author. Shout out. It's one of the earliest known works of vampire literature, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years. Every good idea has come from a woman, and a man fucking steals it. Okay. Anyway, Rebecca is about this kind of fantasy. It's not a fantasy. It's a fiction. It's a work of fiction that's based in, I want to say like 1910s, the 19s, 1920s, maybe the 30s. It's never really agreed upon when it is, but it's in a mannerist state in what I'm assuming to be a kind of fantasy. It's a kind of fantasy that's based on a kind of fantasy that's based on a kind of solid 3.5, 3.75, maybe even 3.8, 3.9 out of five. I enjoyed it. I was locked in. I thought it was compelling. I thought it was a thriller. And she does this really interesting storytelling technique where she never gives our first person protagonist a name. We don't know her name. We only know her because she ends up getting married to a gentleman named Mr. De Winter. We only know her as Mrs. De Winter. Now the plot twist is that there was already a Mrs. De Winter, and she tragically passed away. So you enter into the story under this understanding that she is the second wife, and the first wife was very beloved. She was very loved by the staff of the house, by everyone that ever encountered her, by friends of friends. They were kind of infamous in the English socialite scene. Then you kind of come to find out there's more to it, and I won't reveal the crazy twist, because if you want to read it, I do recommend you read Rebecca. But damn, the fact that she's never given a name. Rebecca is the name of the first wife, because the second wife spends the entire fucking book, I'm not joking, from page 40 to page 350, obsessing over the first wife, which I found deeply relatable, to be honest. Like when you're dating someone, and you become obsessed with their ex, and it's like, well, why didn't it work? Is he trying to find her qualities in me? Do I look like her? What similarities, what dissimilarities do we show, exhibit? Like, am I, should I act more like her? Do you want me to be her? It's almost like that Beyonce interlude that I always reference as well, the, I can wear her scalp if you want, like that fucking shit. Her teeth, as confetti. Like, psycho, only a woman could dream that up, you know what I mean? Like, beneath the surface of every woman, I truly believe, is just manic psychosis. Like, there is something, the concept of female madness, I've said this before as well, really, really intrigues me. When I read The Bell Jar, overhyped, okay, I will say that. But a necessary read, I guess. Also a deeply, racist book, for no reason. When I read The Bell Jar, I was like, I get it. I get why this is something that keeps coming up, this concept of, there's something wrong with you. Because you don't fly through life, you don't wade through the warm, lukewarm waters of life with a smile on your face at all times, like a woman should. You know, like, there is this deep-rooted mania that is caused by the downtroddenness of what being a woman is, and the historical, infinite, and never-ending oppression of women's ideas, women's voices, women's feelings, women's bodies. Just everything has been degraded from the beginning of time. And it is impeccable. It's imperative that you recognize that. And if you never have sat in that, of like, this has always been this way. And if that doesn't make you tragically, like, deeply wounded and deeply depressed, you know, like, I went through a phase after I read The Bell Jar where I was like, I can't really put into words what that book made me feel, other than, I felt seen in a way that very few pieces of literature have ever made me feel seen. And it feels very pretentious to say that. I understand. And of course, I'm like, I'm going to watch this back and be like, shut the fuck up, bitch. Shut up. Maybe Jane Eyre is another one where I need to revisit that. I need to reread it because the concept, again, it just, it grips me. And Rebecca was a, a further exploration of this concept I'm talking about of, we know, especially as a woman, it is something bone deep. That is, I am my mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's suffering. You know, like, there is a long line. Men create things to feel sorrow about. Men create wars. Men create pain. What's that fucking line from Fleabag? Women have pain built in. Life giver, birth giver, menopause. All of these things, it is bone deep. And to have these otherworldly, truly whimsical, magical powers and to have been so mistreated by eons, generations, millennia, it's just like across the world. I don't know. There's something that ignites me. There is a pilot light in me that when I read that type of shit, I get overly excited. So Rebecca was an exploration of that for me where I'm, I'm watching her descent into mania, you know, of like, oh my God, if I could just, I could just be a little bit more like her. If I could just, well, she used to do it that way. I'll do it this way. And to watch her slowly erase herself for what, right? Appeasing who? Rebecca's fucking dead, girl. She's dead. Why are you trying to revive her? There were some beautiful lines in this book too of like, Rebecca's been dead for 14 months, but she's never been more alive than in this moment where it's, it's a conversation between her and her housekeeper or her and Mr. De Winter or her and whoever. It's like, I feel her presence in every moment. I feel her presence in every room. I feel her presence in every conversation. She is as much alive as I am right now. I feel her in my own body. Like, it was just gag, gag, gag, gag. And Mr. De Winter, he's like a brain dead fucking whatever. And there's a weird Lolita age gap as well. He's like old enough. He's twice her age, old enough to be her dad. She's barely probably 22, 23. Very intriguing. The story was very intriguing. Had me get gripped to the very end to the point where her writing is so cyclical that when you finish the book, I immediately started it again. I've never done that before because I was like, what? That's how it ends. And then you go back and you read the first two chapters again and you're like, fuck, fuck, she's good. Oh, I get it now. I get it. Wow. So I would really recommend Rebecca if you haven't, if you've never heard of it like me, read it. If any of you have read Carmilla, let me know the vampire novel because I think I'm going to pick it up. It's been on my Goodreads. I think I'm going to pick it up right now. I need to finish Babel. I'm going to read Wuthering Heights and then I'm going to read The Third by Flann O'Brien because I'm on my Irish shit. That book is like a surrealist, uh, Flann O'Brien, uh, third policeman. It's a darkly comic, surreal novel narrated by an unnamed protagonist who becomes involved in a botched murder and robbery leading to a bizarre metaphysical journey onto an afterlife, into an afterlife populated by eccentric characters and illogical theories, all centered around the work of the eccentric philosopher De Selby, which is the opening title track of Hosier's album. The story follows the narrator's entanglement with a strange two-dimensional police station, the mysterious Sergeant Pluck and the clever policeman McCruskeen, as he grapples with themes of identity, reality, and a unique atomic theory of matter. The story begins with the narrator, an amateur academic obsessed with the theories of the world. I need to stand up. I need to stand up. Now, let's talk about songs of the week. I'm kind of back on my Tyler Childers shit. I'm doing Country Squire and I'm doing Play Me a Hank song. I'm also doing Man I Need by Olivia Dean and, you guessed it, C-MAT. When a Good Man Cries by C-MAT, Euro Country, her album dropped by the way, and when she comes to America, yeah, I'm going to the show. And Take a Sexy Picture of Me goes without saying, that's like her most famous one. I also have been loving this song called Just in Love With You by the Deslundes and Cameron Snyder. Love that fucking song. I don't know. I've also been on my Amy Winehouse bullshit, just classic, like, you know, I'm no good. Okay, I do want to say, before I let you guys go, I've got two things. One, a collaboration is coming up that you guys are going to freak the fuck out. You're going to freak out. I'm freaking out. I can't believe it's happening. That's coming out in the next two weeks. Keep your eyes peeled. Another one is I'm going to London in two weeks, so I'm pre-recording a bunch of these, so sorry if I'm in the same fucking hair and outfit and whatever, okay? I'm going to London in two weeks to do an interview with someone that is going to break. It's going to break, broski nation. I feel the need to tell you guys this shit up front so that when it happens, it's not like. I warned you. I warned you. But I can't say it right now because if it doesn't happen, you can't be mad at me, right? And also, I don't want to ruin the surprise. Come on, have a little whimsy. Have a little whimsy, okay? Just know I'll be in London in two weeks and I'm doing something that is in the service of this great nation. And that nation is broski nation. Another thing is I'll be in New York for Fashion Week as well. So, shout out to Christian Siriano. Shout out to Christian Siriano because that bitch really did it. And he's judging Project Runway now or he's the Tim Gunn now. Love that. Love that. What a visionary. Next week, we're going to look into why does the sun bleach things, okay? Well, guys, I love you to death. And if I could recommend one thing for you to try this week, it is a BLT. I've really been back into BLTs. So, go get you a BLT with some salt and vinegar chips, maybe a Diet Dr. Pepper, okay? Love you. Be good. Make good decisions. Be kind to one another. And I'll see you next week. Bye. you