SPEAKER_00 0:00

Last week on Wonder Pod.

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Okay, other than the gigantic bird covering most of your body, your style hasn't changed.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Some of my first memories are after the surgery while the stitches were still in, and I could not see. Oh wow. What are you gay? And I'd be like, yeah. And then they would scatter.

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Be prepared to sink and feel anything.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

There are no in the kind of song. What's up there?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Jack. We just had your partner Emily on.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Jack, welcome back. Wolf, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

We're here.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Tell me that.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

You're here. I'm here.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Welcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I'm here.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

We just had your partner Emily on, who was an who is an elopement photographer, and now she is your fiance.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

An update since that episode. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

This is like a reality show.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

We were listening to the episode on our way. No way. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:19

Tell us where you were going.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

We went to the beautiful state of Washington, which is a beautiful state.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

I'll say.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

And I think we so the thing is we both love that state. Not enough to like live there, but we both just have like this sentimental, romantic love for the state of Washington. And through Emily's uh elopement business, I think Washington kind of started becoming a little bit drab. Yeah, too much. Too much. Yeah. Last year there was a lot of Washington travel that kind of like diluted the whole like the love for the state. But I think it's a beautiful place.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

It's so lush.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It's so lush. And I I know that she thinks it's a beautiful state as well. Um, and in choosing a place, uh, one of the priorities was for Jasper to come along. Her drug.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

Your dog.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Our dog. Never thought of him as yours, but you're right. Yeah. Our dog. I really wanted him to be there. Uh because I love the guy. We both love the guy. And I knew that like I was like, I want to make an experience that's not just for her, not just for us, but for the family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

We love that. Because that's what that's what it's about. Yeah. You know, it's just you're asking someone to be your family, and it's like, let's have the family that we have. You know, we have this beautiful little family. Let's make sure that all players are present um in the experience.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

That's so sweet.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So you drove to Washington, I'm guessing. Yes. We d we drove up to Leavenworth, where we stayed in a in a beautiful little cabin for a couple days. Um and by day we were exploring around, like hiking around Lake Wenatchee and going into town and doing cute little Leavenworth things, and then also just like enjoying that part of the Cascades. Um which at one point we talked about like moving to, we loved it so much, but have since been like, we're bad people, we want to stay here. But I think that love. Yeah, I think that love is still there uh for that for that area. Uh so we went up there, like I said, by day, loving worth things, hiking around, exploring the cascades by night, going back to our little cabin, playing games, making dinner, having a little fire in the stove, and just kind of like hanging out. Um, and then the main event was maybe not the best planned on my part, uh, but I'm standing, I'm standing front.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

I think it's pretty great. I think you should, I think you should just, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

She she told me uh the the only instruction that she gave me once once she kind of like started sniffing around that an engagement might be in the air, uh was don't do it on a hike. And I decided let's let's get her where she least expects it.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

That's great. Why did she say not on a hike?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I think mainly because like on a hike, you're sweaty, you like a lot of a hike, you know, you love to hike, so we tell ourselves. But when we're when we're doing it, it's like you're sweaty, you just want it to be over, like you want to see the thing. Like, no matter how how much you claim to enjoy like the experience, there's like a certain percentage of type two fun. Type two fun, yeah. And we talked about this when we were going camping. It's like we don't like to call it hiking, we like to call it going for a little junk.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Oh, yeah, makes it more accessible.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, but but this was a hike because there was a destination that we had to get to, or else it wouldn't have happened. Yeah, or else you wouldn't be a family. We had to get there. Um so yeah, we drove to a hot or we drove three hours to hike five miles to a hot spring, which I got a permit to reserve the whole place for.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Wow. No way. What hot springs?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Should I say it?

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Should I say it? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Should I gatekeep or should I say it? You should gatekeep. I should gatekeep. I'm so pro-gatekeeping, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

As long as you tell us when we're not recording.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Yeah, you can tell us off air.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I'll tell you off air.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Um but we got to this hot spring. It's a cave hot spring. Wow. With a waterfall. Wow. It was it was a long journey to get there. It was a little drizzly as expected for Washington. Washington in March. Uh it could have been snowing. Could have been snowing. Honestly, we were talking, we were like, snow might have been a little bit. I was expecting snow. I was prepared. Yeah. I was prepared for snow. I wasn't prepared for no snow and rain. Uh but no snow and rain is what we got, and we made it work, and she was a really great sport about it. She was just like, yeah, let's do it. And yeah, we get to the end of this hike to a hot spring. She didn't know that I had reserved the entire hot spring, or that there was a hot spring.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Wow, you found one that she did not know about.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

That's I found a hot spring she did not know about.

SPEAKER_04 7:22

That's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

She she knows all the hot springs.

SPEAKER_04 7:26

That's really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

But this is, and I think like the hike played to my advantage because she knows high like hot springs that are reasonable to get to for her clients. Oh, sure, sure, sure. But once it's at like a five mile mark, it's like I think I think her search engines just tune that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, all right, this is probably one she doesn't know about. It's absolutely stunning. Oh, and I can guarantee that no one else will be there. Oh, yeah. I won this permit like months, months ahead of time. Wow. I like submitted the permit, won it, and I was like, this is the plan. Damn, I'm impressed. This is where it's gonna be. Oh my god. Um, and yeah, we got to the hot spring. There was a beautiful little waterfall. There was a cave with that was like almost like a steam cave because the hot spring was making it so hot. Oh she went out to look at the waterfall. I grabbed the ring uh from the backpack, and the ring box was uh uh something that her grandfather had given me over Christmas. Yeah, it's what he proposed to her grandmother with. Oh my god, who had passed uh only months before.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Um so I wanted to make sure she was a part of it, and then I also made sure that we brought her aunt's ashes that she has in a little a little sunflower necklace to make sure that her aunt could be a part of it as well. So we had the necklace and what her grandmother was proposed to with and got down on one knee, asked the question.

unknown 9:14

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_02 9:15

And she said yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

She agreed. Wow. Yeah. She she said yes. She decided yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Um it's weird because like, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

You're when I always pictured that like I wanted to be absolutely sure that someone was going to say yes. Um and like while I was planning, I was like, I'm pretty sure, like, I I feel confident that she'll say yes, but then once you're there, like in that moment, vulnerable, right? Just being super vulnerable on one knee, like pleading, like basically like making your your case in an endearing way. Yeah, you're like this is a potentiality, like yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a yes is not guaranteed, you know? Totally. Like a yes is is earned through through years of of like showing love, and it's just starting to be like did I did I show that love enough? Is it apparent enough? Like you you start to question, and these were the questions like as we were hiking, and like I was like becoming more sure that this was gonna be the time and the place. I was just like that's the first time that like the potential of a no popped into my head, and I was just like, like it's it's not impossible, yeah. Yeah, you know, yeah. Like I didn't have reason to think that, but this is more of like a you get in your own head before doing it. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Um, and also it's like acknowledging that to reality, right? Like that it is a choice, right? It's not care, it's not guaranteed. Like, it's not guaranteed.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Were you nervous when you were asking her?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

100%.

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Were you shaking?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

I was.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Were you crying?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

I did. Oh, that's so beautiful. All of the above. Yeah. I was uh yeah, I was shaking.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Oh my god, it's so beautiful. You know, I'm surprised I'm not crying right now. I'm not sure what's wrong with my classes.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

It's like I re I I rehearsed it a million times. Um I thought that I was like very prepared. Like as we were hiking up, my heart was pounding. I was sweating, it was 40 degrees and raining. And like I had I had already given her my jacket, so it was like I should have been freezing. Yeah, but I was like sweating, and then I just remember like getting down and I was just shaking. And I I can't tell you what I said, I kind of blacked out.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

You know what? I even if you could remember, I wouldn't want you to say it.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, and it was like, and that was the thing, like being way out there, like I wanted the experience to be just for us. Um then we like Jasper was going crazy as I was asking her. He was just like barking.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

Um Do you think he understood what was happening?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

I like to think so. I like to think so. Yeah. Um but yeah, we we just enjoyed the hot spring for a bit, and then I think the most beautiful part was that we kept it to ourselves for the night and the following morning. Like it was it was news for us.

SPEAKER_04 12:39

So beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Um because we went to another cabin in Skycomish and it was like kind of like the dream cabin that we talk about having one day together. Um and I found something close to to this vision that we created and rented it out, and we went there, even though it was like another little little bit of a drive away after this crazy hike and crazy drive, another crazy drive.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

And sounds like a fucking great day.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, we got to this place and kind of just got to have our have our news together. Yeah, oh that's so beautiful. At this beautiful little cabin.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

Wow. I love this story. Sorry I'm interrupting you.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

No, you can uh but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Wow. Well, I'm so happy for you guys. I've been like that. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. It was uh it was a lot of plan. I'm not much of a planner. Like Emily is 100% the planner in our relationship, and I have never been a very competent planner. I've been like uh I'm just gonna do this thing and just figure it out as it goes. Yeah. Jump from one star to the next as they drop and just go wherever. So like coming up with like a concrete week of events and then like a concrete plan. I was there was like a lot of mistrust in the plan. I was like, is this good enough?

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Like, yeah, because it's also not like you're planning for someone who's like, Yeah, everything's great, I'm happy with whatever.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

You know, it's like the bar is hot, the bar, yeah, you know, I mean, like, and she's heard a lot of like really incredible engagement stories from like her her clients and stuff, yeah. So it's like uh yeah, the bar is high, and this is a person who like first of all, I love more than anything, and knows her value and deserves something like proper and real. Hell yeah, and thought out, and it's like can I can I meet that bar? Can I be careful and thought out and precise in this manner? And you know, obviously as with any trip, things things went wrong here and there, things went awry. Uh, but yeah, at the end of the day, it was I think I think it was a really, really, really beautiful not to toot my own horn, but I think it was toot it up. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm ecstatic at the outcome.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

And she wasn't upset that you that it was on a hike.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

No, she we we laughed about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah. She yeah. Even though she preloaded me with don't do it on a hike. I think like once we got to the place, she she said that like had I not done it, oh, that was the place.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Yeah, you knocked out of the park, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

That's a very beautiful story. Thank you for sharing this.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Absolutely. So gorgeous.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

So beautiful. Um, all right. Well, uh, we're gonna shift gears a little bit then. Anyway, I wonder if you could just kind of tell us a little bit about your relationship with writing um and how it's kind of woven uh itself throughout various parts of your life in different forms.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Happy to. Uh I've had, I think, as many people, a pretty complicated relationship with writing. Whereas initially, like, I don't think I ever really wrote anything until I was forced to in high school. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like you have to write this paper on this book, like book reports. Okay. And I was like, okay, this like I I guess I'll do this because I have to. Like it's for an assignment. And that mindset followed me into the beginning of college, where I took whatever course you need to take to pass college. Yeah. Like whatever preliminary prerequisite, whatever. Not even creative writing. It was just like English or whatever. Something like I mean, I took like I took a my literature class in high school.

SPEAKER_05 17:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

So I like got that out of the way, but then I can't even remember the name of the class, but it was something very generic. It was just like writing.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

Words.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah. Like words. Words.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Words class.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Put words on a page and you get you get a P instead of an F. Like you pass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it was like one of those.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Words class.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

And um, but then I decided to take an elective in that was like writing just to fulfill something else. I ended up really enjoying the prompts the professor gave. He gave very like creative, thought-provoking prompts. Nice. And that was maybe my first experience where I wasn't told, like, write exactly this. Like, it needs to be this in this format, like an MPA APA format.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, here's the five-paragraph essay.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

It's a way to suck all the fucking fun out of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

It sucks all the fun out of it. And I finally got a professor that was just like, here's a concept. Like take it and run with it. Take it and run with it. Like, write anything about this, and I'll give you an A. Like, just write what you perceive this concept to be about.

SPEAKER_05 18:50

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

And that's all I want. I just want an honest thing. And then that was my first exercise, and like, oh, writing stuff can just be my thought. Like, it doesn't need to be formal. Some yeah, some formula to get it right. It can just be my thoughts. Yeah. And like that's okay, and that's enough. And I feel like that class shaped a lot of the way that I write, that I wrote then and continue to write. Where it's not a limiting experience, it's just a pretty raw off the top of mind experience, uh, which further evolved like once I started getting more involved in uh music. And I actually had a pretty lousy experience uh trying to write lyrics for like a little project I did with a buddy of mine where we were like, let's just do like the two of us and we'll record all the parts together. And I guess one of us is gonna have to like sing and do lyrics, so like I'll try to work on some lyrics. And they ended up being pretty lousy, like full disclosure. Was it your first I mean your first time doing it? First time, and but good job doing it.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

That's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah, and it was but it ended up being a similar context to the writing that I kind of loathed of earlier, where I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

Trying to fit it into a box.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, when you write lyrics for a song, you need to have the uh you know the first one, then the second verse, and then the pre-chorus, then a chorus, third verse, and a bridge, and a chorus again. And I just got re-stuck into that box, and it really, really limited how creative I I was getting with it. Yeah. And I also started being pretty like generic and bland with what I was writing. Yeah. Like I think being back in that box forced this bland flavor to exist in the writing. Yeah. Um, which I wasn't really about. And I think I maybe like outside of for educational reasons, like abandoned any kind of creative writing for a little bit. Like I would still write papers for school, but they ended up becoming like a less structured. I think I just decided that I hated the structure of a college essay.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

Yeah, they're fucking ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

They're ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

And they're fucking boring. They're boring.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

They're boring. No one wants to read them. Are you it's funny? I had a total opposite experience.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

They're a hundred per because did you ever do like the peer review stuff? Like you read your peers' essays, occasionally.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Well, most of my peers were not very good writers.

SPEAKER_04 21:56

Long college essays are dry as fuck.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

They're dry as. I loved the like five paragraph persuasive essay. I hate it. I was so good at it. Which is probably why I liked it.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

This is I think fun. But I didn't like reading other people.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

I wasn't into fun writing. Like writing wasn't a fun thing. It was like a practical tool for me, I think is by how I perceived it. And so like in like middle school and high school when we had to do that, I I loved it. You loved to write it. I loved it.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Me too, but then you get to college and it gets really dry.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Oh yeah. It turns out in art school they don't make you do that.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

Oh, way to flex on them hose.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

I did have to take one semester of English when I got there, and it was it was it was a total waste of my time. Um but uh we had to write some stuff, and I remember just like writing it like in the middle of the night, like the day before it was due, because I'm like, who fucking cares about this shit? And it was like the other yeah, it was it was goofy because like the high school, like the school system that I grew up in was like pretty um good, or like the like rankings are really high, like the so it was like pretty um intensive relatively. And so then I got to college and like it's mostly art stuff, right? And so like the bar is extremely low for anything else, right? Like they don't really care.

SPEAKER_05 23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

And so anyway, yeah, the English class I had to take was kind of like, I was like, what am I fucking doing here?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

He didn't have to write about why Monet's painting was important for social, political, and economic reasons.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

That's a deep cut. Um that was the format. It was it was introduction, social reasons, political reasons, economic reasons, conclusion.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

That's the color by number. That is the color by number. That's the Lego set.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

That was the relationship to writing forever.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Dude, I love those essays. I was like, yeah, great. Uh because right, this is going back to my like punditry roots, right? I was like, I've got a fucking opinion on this. Let me tell you. Let me tell you all about it. Yeah. Um, and it was so structured that it was like, oh yeah, this is easy, right? We just follow the structure, we just check the follow the rules. It's it's really easy to succeed.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

It's so not the point. It's so not the point of like any kind of writing.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

That's just not how it works outside of that specific context. Well, unless that's I mean, yeah, it's it's a totally different form of writing.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

If you're writing for a medical journal, like fine.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Like if you're doing scientific Or if you're writing about politics or some sort of persuasive activity, right? Where you're trying to change other people's perspective.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

But even not necessarily. Like if you're trying to be persuasive, like there's don't do the rubric.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

I think the rubric is pretty effective for persuasion.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Wow. I I disagree.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

No, you've never been persuaded by a five-paragraph essay?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

I've never once in my entire life been persuaded by a five-paragraph essay. Ever. Like, I've actually like hated everyone that I've ever read or wrote. And I think that's like that's that's kind of where I was coming from. Once I started peer reviewing other people's essays, I was like, this is performance.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

This is at that point.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

This is so bad. This is so boring. And I I think the big thing for me was I started like feeling really bad for the professors.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

That's what I feel.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Oh, interesting. That had to read all of these.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

They're boring.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Wow. And I was like, they have to read all of these essays in the same format over and over and over again and just like try to like and to know that the students, probably the majority of them, are just trying to get a good grade.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

They don't really fucking have any fucking uh conviction about what they're writing.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Yeah. Oh my god, none of these thoughts ever occurred to me in high school.

SPEAKER_04 25:54

And I started putting I'm talking college, Bru.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Middle school and high school, I had a blast writing essays. With essays and everything. But when it got to college, it was just like it's true.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

I didn't have to read the papers for art history. You know? Yeah. And that was really hard. But that was mostly because I didn't care about art history that much. Like I wasn't like it was one of those things where I'm like, I know I should know this, and it's probably valuable to like look at the pictures. But like to sit down and write about like you know, the impressionists and the evolution of their thing, and like when I could be like in the shop making stuff, like get fucked. No. Like I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna hit the minimum word count, and like, but that's gonna be it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

And so poor professor.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Poor professor.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Yeah, yeah. I did not have that empathy for them, but that's a good point. You should have. I should have.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

You shoulda. Yeah, you don't have to, but anyway, so then writing lyrics at first was a little like writing an essay for college, but then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It felt a little yeah, I felt a little trapped. Yeah, you know, yeah. But I think it had to do, I think like it all plays together that I put myself in my poor professor's shoes needing to read all of these, and then I just started kind of writing whatever, like just no format, no anything. Like I was kind of just like writing off the top of my head kind of opinions, like you're something that may be cathartic for you, Wolfgang. Like just like writing my opinions and finding things unrelated to course content to back them. And they were like, you know, some paragraphs were two sentences, other ones were like two whole pages, just no rubric, no rhyme or reason.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Two pages of paragraph.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

And then I I got uh I got validated in that writing because I started getting A's.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Really?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

I started getting like nineties and hundreds on all of those papers, and I think that it was like refreshing for these professors to like finally be like reading something that's not A, B, C, D, right, right, right. You know, they're like, oh, like this is like they enjoyed reading it. This guy, which was the point of writing, which is the point.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Well, one point of writing is to write something that someone enjoys reading.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah. And I think that was like my first relationship with I'm writing something with an audience in mind that I want them to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_05 28:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah. You know, I don't interesting. I don't want the audience to just be bored to death. Like maybe part of it was like a little like I want to stand out. Yeah, yeah, sure. It was also more so the empathetic bit where it's like, let's let's deviate from the normal for these for these like professors, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

And for yourself, dude. And for myself, you probably enjoyed it a lot better, a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

100%. Yeah like I really I really enjoyed a lot of that writing. Um and it, you know, the the results, when the results came in, the the teachers did too.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

So the teachers came in too?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

The teachers enjoyed the writing. The professors enjoyed the writing. Uh so it like just validated I can kind of just write however I want to, yeah, and it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Or or even better than okay, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

It's good, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

It's preferable.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

And it reads to other people and they can get something out of it. I mean, right? I think that's a nice aspect of the kind of very definitive feedback you get in school, right? I can do stuff and it matters, you know, matters to other people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

So then how does that work, writing lyrics, like needing to think about rhythm and rhyming, and there's some structure there.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Yeah, there is some structure there, but uh I had to break away completely from like a structure of writing lyrics, or like any kind of structure, and I started um practicing writing haikus. Whoa. And even the structure of a haiku, like you know, five, seven, five. Yeah, I think I started writing these like haikus, which I still write to this day, but the format of it, I broke away from it. I was like, at the end of the day, like this is just supposed to capture a moment in time, like that's the exercise of it. It's like, how can I capture one moment in time in very few words? Yeah, and that became like a very thought-provoking like choose words that pull their own weight, choose words that pull their own weight. Um, and I have I've yet to really like put that into practice in terms of lyrics. Like I had that one lousy experience with lyrics and haven't really dabbled since. Yeah. Like I've wrote I've wrote a few poems since then that kind of build off of this haiku-based writing style. Yeah. Where I just basically this is another thing that started in college. I would go out on a hike and I would just notice these small details of the day. Oh, I love it. And I would be like, let's pinpoint this, you know, and then like let's pinpoint that, and then if any of them like correlate in any way, like I can just put them on top of each other. Like I can just group them together, and then that's it. Or even like if none of them like group into subcategories, just this one hike, whatever amount of haikus I wrote. I keep calling them haikus, but they're not five seven five, they're just moments in time. Yeah, little train yet poems.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

They were hike ooze.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

A hike. A hike ooh. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 32:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

And I was like, I'll just couple these together, and then that will be that. Like they'll just be this experience in little fragments, and they don't need to be like super related. I know they're related because they were all in this.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

But I have I have a couple of them. Yes! Amazing. Hell yeah. They might not be the best ones.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Several folks who have been on the podcast have shared their writing, and every time I get so excited because I never really expect it.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Yeah, it's so lovely.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Yeah, that's then one very cool thing that keeps happening.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

I and and like I have been surprised at how many people are like, oh yeah, and here's this poem I wrote.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

And there's you know, and there's very good writers, too. Yes, excellent work.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Yes, that's when I get excited.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Here's the kind of stuff that I wrote. This was maybe eight years ago, but I just pulled these from like a little Google Doc that I made a long time ago. Just they're just the first two on the page, and I was like, yeah. That that kind of adheres to the spirit of what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Okay, bring it on.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

The sun sits swollen on the dusty horizon, red and purple like a bruise. That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

I love you know I've never thought about the sun that way. I'm just picturing it quietly.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Coarse gravel shifting, click tapping down together, avalanches that die softly. That moment I can imagine. Slam poetry.

SPEAKER_04 34:12

Were those on the same hike?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

They were.

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Dusty, dusty. Same hike. Where was it?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

This was in the great state of New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Live free or die.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

Is that actually their motto?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Live free or die.

SPEAKER_04 34:33

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah. But yeah, I would hike there a lot as soon as I could drive. I would take the two-hour drive up from Lowell and just hike around. Very gravelly. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of exposed little places and pretty pretty phenomenal sunsets up there too. Where you have to which are beautiful, but then when you're in the middle of a hike and the sun's going down, you're like, oh. It's not optimal. Yeah, not the best. Well, it's great in the moment. It's great in the moment, but then you're after the moment's past, you're like, okay, guess I'm walking home in the dark. Yep. Gotta figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

I have a lot of delight in listening to people read things they've written.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Yeah. Me too. I went to a poetry night at Lone Pine a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_05 35:31

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Um with uh Vivi who's been on the show. And but it was really lovely to hear people read their work. Like I just don't really engage with poetry that much. Yeah. Like I don't read it, you know, I don't read poetry books, really, I don't write poetry. And it was really Yeah, hearing people read it, I felt like was a format that like made it so much more accessible feeling than trying to read it myself silently in my head. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Yeah. It brings it to like three to three D.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

All my clients that I work with, when they have something for me to read, I have them read it out loud to me.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Whoa, really?

SPEAKER_04 36:11

Because then they can hear it in their own voice. And I can hear it in their own voice. And there's so much more it's it's so much more alive than me just reading it to myself and giving them feedback.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_04 36:24

We both can like hold it together.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

You can hold it together, but like together at the same time. Yeah. Which you can't do if you're just reading it.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

And it's so different when I read it out loud to them.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Oh, interesting. Yeah. I bet. Because they're just reading it in their head most of the time.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

Yeah. And then they can see, they can hear things that they didn't notice before. Yeah. Because typically they haven't read it out loud yet.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah, yeah. Like the rhythm and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

That's the best. That's the best. Like there's a there's a few like different audiobooks of poets that are reading their own stuff. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

And it is like I almost have chills just hearing you say the sentence that you haven't even had.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

It's in a sentence. Yeah, I'm not plugging down. Yeah. Uh yeah, I'm not even done talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

But I sorry.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

I'm I'm so sorry that I'm interruptive. I'm just so excited.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah, I got this. I don't know how this was like ten years ago now, but I got a CD of Gary Snyder reading uh his poetry. And I think the book was called like Rip Rap and Cold Mountain Springs. Something Cold Mountain, something along those lines. But hearing a poet read their own poetry is like truly the best way to take in that that writing. Like audiobooks, like there's a little more leniency, I think. Other than like I recently listened to almost the entirety of Andy Circus reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Oh wow. Which is phenomenal because this is someone who cares deeply about that trilogy, and he really puts everything into it, and it's great experience, recommend to anyone. But yeah, a a poet reading their own things is really important. And then to go back on what you were saying, Wolfgang, it's like I can fully understand just never like wanting to read poetry. Like I think that's like almost a word that almost feels like just that definition.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Calling it like a poem, like it just becomes a little bit like I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Inaccessible or like there's an like oh you you have to be able to understand it to be able to make sense of it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Avant garde. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at you. Yeah. Poetry. I mean, I've I feel that way and I write poems, you know. Like Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

I just love how they can be like the some of them have rules, but the majority of it, you can just do whatever the fuck you want. You can have things capitalized or lowercase, you can have punctuation or not. You can like put you can use the whole page. You don't just have to have them all in one line.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

You can like have cool spacing between each line for emphasis. You can do a shape poem. You can just do anything you want.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Yeah, I feel like poem is just like a catch-all term for not a full something. Something. You know? Like they were just like, let's just call them poems. And then it became kind of like a snooty.

SPEAKER_04 39:54

The wild, wild west.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

It became like a snooty term almost.

SPEAKER_04 39:58

I definitely felt and to me a poem sounds like it's supposed to rhyme.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

And it's legally speaking, that's not necessary.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Yeah, I wonder when you th when poetry as an idea like be transition into that kind of perception of it as an elitist activity, because like right you go back to like the Ilya and the Odyssey, and like those are epics, but like they're pretty po like they feel like poems. I mean they feel like very long poems. And like that was like the way of telling stories was like through poems.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

100%.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

Well, sa I I guess maybe it's closer to like oral story storytelling.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Yeah, yeah. It did, I mean, listening to people read their poems the other night, like that did was like a sort of a moment of clarity for me where I was like, oh, like this is the format, like this feels like the format it's supposed to be in. You know, it's like we're writing them down out of convenience, right? But like um the uh the way they're supposed to be is like read out loud. Like that mean that felt right, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Yeah. Um and that's it's on I mean, every song is a poem. Totally.

SPEAKER_04 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Every song with lyrics you ever heard, that's a poem with music. Yeah, yeah. Totally. You know, it's and the way that they're expressing that is a hundred thousand percent influenced by the way that they're saying it.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah, right. Like you hear a cover or something of a song and like it's a different a different singer singing it in a totally different way, and the song can feel so different. Like a completely different song.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Are you just reading the lyrics of something that like you've been like, I wonder what like they're saying because I can't quite make it out. And you just like read it.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

That's why when someone says reads something that they've written, they infuse their emotion into it.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

That they had to that helps them write in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Yeah. There's there's no magic in just like reading a song. Or there's not none, but there's a little, you know. Yeah, you lose a lot. You lose you lose effectively like 99%. You know. You lose so much.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

It's yeah, well, yes, I'm not very good at hearing lyrics.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Me neither. I can only hear the music.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

And so sometimes it is helpful for me to go read them and then listen to it again. Yeah, I never know what they're talking about. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

They don't enunciate.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

I think it's like I think there's like a bifurcation in human beings. Some people like listen to lyrics, some people can hear lyrics real easily, and some people I feel like just cannot.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

Yeah, I'm hearing the instruments.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

And the way the voice sounds.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

There's but there's like I mean, it's there's certain artists that are like you can listen to a Johnny Cash song and be like, I know what he's saying. That's clearly. That's clear. But then you listen to like cock two twins and you're like, what? Are they those are words? Or is this in English? And then you look at the lyrics and you're like, oh. Wow. Wow, that's that is what they're saying. Like now that I'm reading along, yes, those are the words.

SPEAKER_04 43:16

Strange.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah. Strange.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

Well, uh, do you have a closing quote for us?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

A closing quote? I do.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Wow, you are so prepared.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

I have my notebook. I wrote all the stuff down. Okay. This is a quote by Murakami. And it's from the book Kafka on the Shore, which is one of my favorite books. And I'm up for a reread. I'm gonna reread it this summer because it's been a little while. Uh but but it goes if you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.

SPEAKER_04 43:55

That's beautiful. Jack, you're cool. Thanks for being on here. This is such a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

It really was. Thanks so much for sharing and um yeah, being willing to sit down with us and and chat.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. This was this was so nice.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

Thanks. Couldn't have done it without you.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Technically. Technically speaking.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Technically, I couldn't have done it.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

Alright. Thanks for listening to the Wonder Pod. Uh if you participate in this episode's Wonder Quest Um and you locomote yourself in some new way, send us a voice note about it or send us an email about it. And we will uh share those on the next episode. Um you can email us at wow at wonder.media and uh just a reminder to subscribe to the show if you're not already subscribed, share it with your friends, uh rate it on your podcast uh platform of choice, and leave a comment if there was something that you liked or something that you hated. And uh tune back in next week for next time.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Chow, ciao, but it's a very good question.