Allusionist 84. Trammels - transcript

September 7, 2018 The Allusionist

ROSS SUTHERLAND: We're taught from a young age to be good sports at losing games. Sportsmanship as a concept is all about being a good loser. And yet we're terrified of the concept of losing art. It's a horrible thing to try and to put yourself out there and for it to fail. So if you can reframe it as a game then all the better.

HZ: Because if you fail again you've just failed at the game and not at art entirely.

ROSS SUTHERLAND: Yeah, exactly. You fail at the game, but then you can play again. it's less of a referendum on your own self-worth if you just lose a game, because we play games all the time and so we're very comfortable with our odds. Whereas I feel when it when it comes to art the odds feel a little bit more important, and they shouldn't.

Allusionist 83. Yes, As In - transcript

August 24, 2018 The Allusionist

TIGER WEBB: The broad thing about having unusual name is that it's a pretty effective substitute for an actual personality. I never had to develop one, because you could just do anything and people assume you’re interesting, or that there is some sort of grandiosity behind it.
HZ: Very colourful character.
TIGER WEBB: I'm really very boring and quiet. And the fact that I'm called Tiger I think does a lot to mask that. "Oh wow. Tiger, yeah, interesting fellow." I'm not though. But feel free to think that

Allusionist 82 A Novel Remedy transcript

August 13, 2018 The Allusionist

When you’re not feeling well, which books do you turn to to make yourself feel better?

I asked this question on the Allusionist Facebook and Twitter, and hundreds of you responded, but a few answers came up again and again:
Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkien.
Makes sense. Science fiction, fantasy: what’s more escapist?
Jane Austen. PG Wodehouse.
Also escapist, thanks to period setting - and, rich people problems not health problems.
Things you read when you were a child: Moomins, What Katy Did, Anne of Green Gables…
Taking you back to a time in your life that perhaps felt safer, or simpler...
...Harry Potter.
Boarding school shenanigans! Wizard problems not real life problems!
And, Agatha Christie.
Poison! Gunshots! Stabbing! Hang on, why would stories about murder make us feel better?

Well, they’re kind of supposed to make you feel better.

Allusionist 80. Warm Front - transcript

June 15, 2018 The Allusionist

NATE BYRNE: One of the things I find really strange when it comes to the weather is that we're all experts and all idiots at the same time.
HZ: You’re supposed to be the expert though.
NATE BYRNE: Right. Yeah! But I mean, we all live in it every day and we all feel like we understand the weather really well and we hear weather reports every single day. Now, if you are practicing a skill every day, on average you're generally excellent at it; that’s a real strength of yours. But it turns out that meteorologists typically haven't been very good at telling people what it is they're trying to tell them. So showers, just for example, means the rain's going to start and stop and start and stop; it doesn't tell you anything about the volume. Rain means it's just going to be continuous, and again doesn't tell you anything about the volume; but we have built, somehow, cultural expectations and understandings that go with those words that the scientists don't actually mean when they're using those words and it makes a really tricky job.

Allusionist 79. Queer - transcript

June 1, 2018 The Allusionist

AMY SUEYOSHI: I see 'queer' as an umbrella term, as a political call for revolution as well as unity across different groups of people.

JONATHAN VAN NESS: I think of it definitely with positive and loving energy around it, I don’t think of it as an insult at all; growing up, I would have thought of it more as an insult. I think it was in 2015 when we got marriage equality, and the media, especially the LGBTQ+ media, began to use it as an umbrella term, something we could all be part of. So I think I got the cue from media to know that it was a gorgeous amazing word, one where we’re taking the love back and it wasn’t one to be offended by any more.

KATIE MINGLE: I haven’t always loved the term for myself, because it feels like an umbrella term that you can use if you’re gay and in a relationship with someone of the same sex, or you can use if you’re a basically straight couple who occasionally has a threesome with someone. That’s what ‘queer’ has come to mean: anyone who’s not inside the norm.

AMY SUEYOSHI: I think it's rejecting things like patriarchy and heteronormativity, mandates of morality. So not just to be able to keep things gray or to be postmodern, post category, but instead rather to call for a true revolution of the way we see the world, the way we categorize the world. So it's not just about LGBT rights per se but it's about creating a world that's more respectful of equity and thinks about diversity as a plus and values different ideas as a side of radical change rather than fear.

KATIE HERZOG: I sort of hate it. It’s too broad.

TOBIN LOW: It's so useful. I mean especially as there is this proliferation of identities that people can call themselves and identify with and really claim, it's a great way of just sort of acknowledging that it's all in the umbrella and that it's all valid; it's just like a way of acknowledging the validity of all the things, which I think is great.

ERIC MARCUS: This word has tortured me.

Allusionist 78. Survival part 2: Oot in the Open - transcript

May 18, 2018 The Allusionist

ISHBEL McFARLANE: I remember speaking to a friend of mine and saying, "I used to have another language, I used to be able to speak another language." And she was like, “Speak it then.” And I remember not having anything, I couldn't say anything.

HZ: This is Ishbel McFarlane, a theatre maker and campaigner for the Scots language. Although for many years of her life, she did not want anything to do with the Scots language at all.

ISHBEL McFARLANE: So my mum and dad deliberately brought me up speaking Scots when I was wee, partly because they both grew up in moderately complicated but Scots language environments, and they were themselves Scots language campaigners, and so they really wanted me to have access to it. So that would be my sort of home language. But then because of a whole load of reasons, centrally that it's not seen as a language by many people, I wasn't allowed to use it at primary school or at nursery or playgroup or even when I was with my friends and their parents.

MICHAEL DEMPSTER: There's no name for our language, apart from "Shut up" or "don't talk like that".

Allusionist 42+43. Survival: The Key rerun - transcript

May 4, 2018 The Allusionist

I’ve been working on this mini series of episodes about minority languages and the threats they face and how they survive. Last episode, Welsh speakers took the drastic step of migrating to Argentina. But in researching it all, I keep referring back to a pair of Allusionists from a while ago: The Key. Part one, Rosetta, was about how a language survives in a physical form when its humans die, featuring the smash hit archaeological object the Rosetta Stone, and its namesake the Rosetta Disk, the linguistic key to the future. Part two is about how to decipher a dead language and why it might have died.

Allusionist 77. Survival part 1: Second Home - transcript

April 20, 2018 The Allusionist

It’s Friday night. I’m in a church hall in the small town of Gaiman in Argentina, about 1200km south of Buenos Aires, watching a concert in which locals are singing songs in Welsh. Three thoughts are rotating in my mind:

1. These people are REALLY good singers;
2. If I die here, people are going to think, “What on earth was she was doing in a church hall in a tiny town in rural Argentina?”
3. We are 12,000 km from Wales. The Welsh language is not widespread. Why are there people speaking Welsh in Argentina?

Allusionist 76. Across the Pond - transcript

April 6, 2018 The Allusionist

HZ: We’ve all noted by now that Americans don’t spell colour or neighbour with a ‘u’ because who needs it, and Brits snigger uncontrollably at ‘fanny pack’. We know American and British Englishes are different, but the question is “Why?”

LYNNE MURPHY: People will say to me, "Why do British people say this and American people say that?" and I'm like, "Well, because they learned English in different places."

Allusionist 75. Ear Hustling - transcript

March 23, 2018 The Allusionist

EARLONNE WOODS: My name is Earlonne Woods and I am a co-host of the podcast out of San Quentin called Ear Hustle.
HZ: And what does ‘ear hustle’ mean?
EARLONNE WOODS: 'Ear hustle' means a lot of things now. But it mainly means eavesdropping on other people's conversations, listening in. Somebody might tell you, if you're standing and you're listening, somebody might be like, "Hey man, roll your window up". What that means is, "Hey man, get out of my conversation".
HZ: So presumably there's a lot of vocabulary specific to being here in San Quentin, right?
EARLONNE WOODS: Correct.
HZ: But presumably when you arrive here you're not given a dictionary with it.
EARLONNE WOODS: No.

HZ: So, we started to compile one.

Allusionist 74. Take A Swear Pill - transcript

March 9, 2018 The Allusionist

HZ: So why is swearing good for you?
EMMA BYRNE: It's good for us socially, in that it is this really useful telegraph of our emotions; it's a good way of avoiding physical conflict. It's also a really good way of bonding, of saying "I hear you. I feel the strength of your emotions," like saying "Fuck that shit" when someone comes to you with something that's obviously upset them. Sometimes it needs to be something stronger than just putting your arm around their shoulder going, "Oh there, there". It's also really useful individually, both for a cathartic side of things when you do something painful or frustrating, letting it out there.

HZ: Another reason swearing is good for you: it relieves pain.

EMMA BYRNE: That is really potent and surprisingly well documented. When you stick your hands, for example, in freezing cold water, you can stand it for about half as long again if you’re using a single swear word than if you're using a single neutral word. Not only that: when afterwards you're asked about how painful that experience felt, you report that cold water as feeling much milder than the water that you had your hand in while you were using some neutral word. So we know that it's really handy for dealing with pain that's being inflicted on you. We also know that it's quite useful, for example, among people who are suffering from long term conditions - so not pain that's been inflicted in a lab, the pain that is ongoing. So managing particularly the emotional aspects of long term pain, a good swear can be cathartic.

Allusionist 73. Supername! - transcript

February 23, 2018 The Allusionist

GLEN WELDON: I still do believe in this notion that superheroes are a very flattering mirror. They are ourselves, but better, They make the choice to help others at risk to themselves. They don't give up, and they look out for the needs of others over those of themselves. And it is not complicated and it's not nuanced, and it's not even particularly insightful what it is is a good model to live by. It's the golden rule in spandex.
HZ: But with a lot of the names, it's easy to tell which side those are on. So Superman, Wonder Woman: they sound like goodies. The Flash: that sounds spectacular. Spider-Man... a lot of people really hate spiders. So that's a little more ambiguous.
GLEN WELDON: Yeah, of course. And Batman, you think the guy's going to get in your hair, or give you rabies.

Allusionist 72. Hey - transcript

February 9, 2018 The Allusionist

ANDREA SILENZI: I don’t respond to anyone.
HZ: You don’t?
ANDREA SILENZI: I look at their faces and I feel nothing. So I just keep my mouth shut.
HZ: “I look at your face, and I feel nothing.” That is a chilling indictment of the whole system.

HZ: A few months ago, I was a guest on one of my favourite podcasts, Why Oh Why, hosted by Andrea Silenzi. Why Oh Why is about dating, which Andrea was doing reluctantly, as she was still in pain from a break-up with her long-term boyfriend. Approaching people is tricky online, as in real life, and because Andrea knows one of my favourite things to do is to analyse the ways humans communicate with words, she got me to take a look at the kinds of opening lines people send each other on dating apps to initiate contact, to try to figure out why most of them are not piquing her interest.

Allusionist 71. Triumph/Trumpet/Top/Fart - transcript

January 26, 2018 The Allusionist

HZ: There are many examples of political eponyms, where a politician’s name has entered the lexicon.

PAUL ANTHONY JONES: Probably the most famous one is ‘silhouette’, which is Etienne de Silhouette, this you get in my fantastic French accent was it was a French finance minister who introduced really new terrible austerity measures out of the Seven Years War in France, mid 1700s. And so because these things were so austere, his name became attached to anything that was done inexpensively or cheaply. And because silhouette portraits are just colorless outlines rather than full color portraits, they became known as silhouettes, just because they were so popular at the same time that he was implementing these measures his name very negatively ended up being attached to them.
HZ: It's interesting because you'd never think to look at a silhouette that it was something negative. But something like a guillotine, that's a bit more obviously a diss.
PAUL ANTHONY JONES: Yes. Yeah. That was Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. He has this reputation, I think just because of his attachment to the word, of being a kind of Robespierre sort of character, really bloodthirsty, heads will roll type of character. And he was nothing of the sort: he was a physician; he opposed the death penalty; he was a member of the French National Assembly; an early proponent of vaccination. He's got all of these positives going for him; but because, as a member of the National Assembly he said that if capital punishment was going to be used, then it should be done in the most humane way possible, and that meant the quickest way possible. So he saw this idea for a mechanism of a falling angled blade, and decided that that would be the best way to do it, put the idea in front of the National Assembly, and it ended up having his name. The other thing is that at the time, the guillotine was also known as the 'louisette', because it was invented by someone called Antoine Louis; so at the time it was it was known by its maker's name, but it's Guillotin's name that's ended up being attached to it, and it's completely changed his reputation in history; I think a lot of people expect it to be a completely different character to who he was just because of his advocacy for this thing.
HZ: So it's unfortunate that for someone who was relatively kind and progressive, his relatively kind in progressive form of ending someone's life has tainted his overall remembrance.
PAUL ANTHONY JONES: Yeah, yeah; it's completely changed his reputation.

Allusionist 70. Bonus 2017 - transcript

December 22, 2017 The Allusionist

Today’s show is the annual bonus episode. The people who appear on this show often tell me things that aren’t necessarily related to that episode’s topic but I think, ooh, that was interesting, stash it away for the annual bonus episode, which is NOW!