1. Hello. My
name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great
Books podcast, episode number 118
with our book today. Well, it's not really a book. It's our play
today that continues, our
journey through the works of Shakespeare
in August. Now, you know,
Shakespeare being Shakespeare, most folks reading
Shakespeare in high school struggle
with Shakespeare's plays, and we've mentioned this previously on other podcasts,
struggle because of the language, struggle because of the themes. But
Shakespeare's ideas are eternal and are almost
universal, and they sit, along with the
Bible, along with, Greek and Roman myths,
at the basis of Western civilization. They are indeed,
I would say, one of the building blocks of western
civilization. And there is no greater
a play, or maybe no more famous a
play, than the one we are going to read today.
This play, mixes,
fairies. It mixes dream imagery. It mixes
symbolism, but it also mixes good
jokes, and it mixes, sort of slapsticky
humor with higher
ideals. And it sets as a template or it stands as a
template for the furtherance of
entertainment, in a well,
and and not only entertainment, but also cultural transmission of
knowledge, for individuals from generation to generation.
Just like all of Shakespeare's plays, they'll still be performing this
one long after we are all gone.
Today we are going to look at,
well, what do you do with a newly captured
Amazon? How do you get people to fall in love
and get married? And what happens when
you, well, when you fall asleep or chance, to
dream? Today, we are going to read
A Midsummer Night's Dream by, of course,
William Shakespeare. And we are joined today on
the podcast by our, I guess,
I could say semi regular guest cohost now. Well,
there we go. Semi regular. Libby Unger. How are you doing,
Libby? I'm terrific. Great to see you, Hassan.
Awesome. Coming off of our last episode that we did
together where, you know, we looked at,
we looked at some really, really hard stuff, right, with, with
totalitarianism and with language. Then we're gonna move to the
movie something lighter with with this
way, something not as not as heavy. And so,
we're hoping to, pull some critical analysis out of this. And
of course, you know, we're going to read it in the hopefully in the original,
not hopefully in the original language. And and the version that I have, and you
can get this online, is the Folger,
the Folger sorry not Folger Folger Shakespeare Library
version. Oh it is the same version that Libby has right there there you
go of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Now one of the interesting things about this
particular play, and I would of course recommend this to
anyone reading or trying to consume Shakespeare,
is you can get an audio version of this as well
on Audible. And so, I would recommend both
reading and listening to A Midsummer Night's Dream,
in concert with each other. This will help you as a reader
understand what's actually going on in the play and understand characters and it'll feel more
cinematic. And this play does indeed feel cinematic when you
read it. But I want to open up with act 1, scene
1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream by
William Shakespeare. Enter Theseus, Hippolyta,
and Phylo straight with others. Theseus. Now fair
Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on a pace. 4 happy days bring in
another moon. But, oh me thinks, how slow this moon wanes.
She lingers my desires like a step dame or a dowager, long withering
out a young man's revenue. Hippolyta. 4 days will
quickly steep themselves in night. 4 nights will quickly dream away the time. And then
the moon, like to a silver bow, new bent in heaven, shall
behold the night of our solemnities. Theseus. Go,
Phylo, straight. Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Awake the pert and
nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The
pale companion is not for our palm. Philostrain, of
course, exits. Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, and I
won thy love during doing the injuries. But I will
wed thee in another key with palm, with triumph, and with
reveling. Enter Aegias and his daughter Hermaia
and Lysander and Demetrius. Aegias, happy B
Theseus, our renowned duke. Theseus, thanks, good Aegias.
What's the news with thee? Aegias, full of vexation come I with
complaint against my child, my daughter Hamia. Stand forth,
Demetrius, my noble lord. This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand
forth Lysander and be my and my gracious duke. This man
hath bewitched the bosom of my child. Thou, thou,
Alexander, thou hast given her runs and interchange love tokens with my
child. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung with
feigning voice versus of feigning love and stolen the impression of
her fantasy with bracelets of thy hair, rings, gods,
conceits, knacks, trifles, nose gaze, sweet meets,
messengers of strong, prevailment, and unheartened youth. With cunning hast thou
filched my daughter's heart, turned her obedience, which is due to
me to stubborn harshness. And my gracious
duke be it so she will not hear before your grace consent to Mary was
Demetrius. I beg the ancient privilege of Athens as she
is mine. I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this
gentleman or to her death according to our law immediately provided in
that case. Theseus, what say you,
Hermaiah? Be advised fair may to you your father should be as a
god, one that composed your beauties, yea, and one
to whom you are, but as form and wax by him
and printed and within his power to leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
I'm gonna pause right there because that sort
of sets up the ideas that begin
to really drive A Midsummer Night's Dream
where Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is planning the festivities of his
upcoming wedding to the newly captured Amazon Hippolyta.
And Aegis arrives with his daughter Hermaia and her 2 suitors,
Lysander, the man she wants to marry, and Demetrius, the man her father wants her
to marry. Aegis demands that Theseus enforce Athenian
law upon Hermaia and execute her if she refuses to marry
Demetrius. Now this
is an interesting dynamic that is being set up right at the beginning
of Shakespeare's play here because it
is a it is a well, it is a
16th century dynamic. That's number 1. Number 2, it's a
dynamic that reads that may ring a little bit false to us, considering
that we live in the 21st century and we live in
a world where women can choose who they marry.
We can even have women run for president, in our country.
And so the challenges that are immediately
beset that immediately beset us or set before us
in wrapping our arms around this play are
challenges partially of culture, but also partially of the
passage of about 500 years in between the
writing of this play and, of course, the
times in which we live now.
All of this is very interesting because we are in August in an election year
in the United States of America and a woman is running for president on a
major, presidential platform ticket.
And, and so issues or maybe not
issues, but the concerns
and the, challenges that women face
are ones that we have consumed ourselves within our culture,
I would say over the last 50 or 60 years,
with increasing urgency and increasing pitch.
Now I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, and that's not what
we're going to discuss here today. But my question for Libby, just to open up
the door here is, first off, what did you think
of A Midsummer Night's Dream when you read it? What's your initial
impression of the story of the play? And
then, this first act that sort of sets up this dichotomy between the
father and the daughter and this challenge of power,
what do you think about that between as it's framed up between men and
women?
Well, first of all, I loved I loved the play.
I actually remember it fondly from grade school.
We did we did 3 Shakespeare plays, and I don't remember if it was
1 a year, from or to 5th grade,
but Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, and finally, A Midsummer
Night's Dream. And I was I think I was
Puck, or maybe I wanted to be Puck. You know, it was way too
long ago, but I love the Puck character and how, like,
mischievous he was. But just the, you know, the
silliness of bottom name you know, the
ass, you know, named bottom. Mhmm.
But but it was a it was fun, and
you kick this podcast off with reference to some
of our prior conversations with which, you know,
The Road to Serfdom and King King Lear, and
we we've had some heavy,
conversations that seem very relevant.
You know, they rhyme with our time. Mhmm.
But, I it was just delightful to read something light.
Mhmm. But, also, your final question was about the father and
daughter dynamics. I mean, you know, the the
culture, let's not be let's be unburdened by
what has been. You know?
I can think of right now. It's like, dad, I
don't wanna do what you want me to do. Let's be unburdened by what
has been. And so there's
always gonna be, you know, that fight or the
tension between, like, parent and child and
father and daughter, especially, you know,
500 plus years ago. Now I obviously say something that
it's probably blasphemous by many, but
I've all I've I've seen marriage
predominantly being an economic occurring for economic
reasons. And for many, for many generations
and cycles, it was. Mhmm. I
do, as I get older, see that it's about much more than that.
But, you know, there was a necessity
around preserving and carrying forward, you know, familial,
safety that comes with, you know, economics and prosperity.
Mhmm. But the crime
for not doing what one's father says and death?
Holy cow. That's a little extreme.
You've, but, you know, it just goes to show how
we evolve over time from a societal perspective.
Mhmm. I'm of a big believer that we're always moving up and to the
right Mhmm. Meaning that we're always progressing towards
thriving, a civilization that's, you know, thriving
across all classes and genders and type.
But, you know, that tension between, you
know, the current generation and the previous generation is
timeless. It just manifests differently, and the consequences
were a bit more extreme back then. But if you think about it
being an economic relationship, you know, and
you choose to marry someone other than who
I'm supportive of Mhmm. You
you don't trust them with your prosperity. That could be the end
of a family and a line. Mhmm. So
can I maybe rationalize it, you know, for a
different time? Perhaps. Do I support it? Oh, but
yeah. Well, it seems as though and and this is one of the
challenges with Shakespeare. Right? So
he's pulling from previous
references to myths and previous myths even that people
of his time would have known. So,
pulling from the, the
western medieval slash
getting into the renaissance understanding of,
Greek and Roman myth. Right? What is an Amazon? What does that word
even mean? Right? What is who is Demetrius,
who was Hermia, who is Lysander?
What do these mean? Because everything has a double meaning in Shakespeare or sometimes even
a triple meaning. We talked about this even with even with,
when we talked about, not Macbeth, but, Angler.
Right? These double and triple meanings,
you know, and and the character of Theseus from Greek mythology and sort of what
everybody would have known what those meant. And this is this is the hot house
of Shakespeare. This is by Shakespeare. This is why people in modern times struggle with
reading Shakespeare sometimes because those references to those things
everybody would have known in the 15th century. Or sorry. No. It's
16th century. Would have just known. We don't know those references
anymore. They've dropped out of our culture. Right? And it's not that
we don't know who the Greek and Roman gods were. It's the depth of
that knowledge just isn't and isn't there, and the depth of that connection isn't
there. So Shakespeare's writing or writing A
Midsummer Night's Dream is a light poetic
comedy. I believe, an early critic
of of, of Shakespeare's play in
the, in the 17th century.
Samuel Pepis found the play to be quote unquote the
most insipid ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life,
quote, even though he did admit that it had,
quote, some good dancing, some handsome women, which was all to my pleasure.
Okay. This is
this is because it was a piece of popular entertainment. It wasn't meant
to be sort of like Hamlet where it's a really a
sort of a cultural commentary on power or even Macbeth.
Right? Or even Richard the third where he's doing historical, you know,
his historical genre. Here he's doing comedy. And so comedy is supposed to
be light. It's supposed to have references. It's supposed to have double entendres.
It's supposed to have all these different kinds of meanings. We lose all of
that. I forget it later because he just lost the references. They just dropped out
of our culture. And so we do, we hear
we we take the raw thing, right, that raw relationship
between a father and a daughter or that raw fact of a
decision, and we pull that forward because that resonates across
time. But the other context around that, we sort of struggle
with.
Which? You talked about marriage being a
contractual act. I believe it was CS Lewis
who, infamously said or might have been GK Chesterton. This
is one of those theologians, writing in the,
writing in the 20th century said that, you know,
everything was fine. I might be paraphrasing this poorly. Everything was fine with
marriage until love entered into entered into the fray. Like,
the 9th century. Completely. Right? Yeah.
You know, everything was working out working out really well.
But marriage as a economic arrangement, we still don't even really
like to talk about that in our culture. Even in even
in modern times. I mean, yeah, we live in an era
where and the
myth of the 50% divorce rate is truly a myth. Like, if people
or not, I shouldn't say myth. You can question that number. Right?
Is there a 50% divorce rate among people who are of a certain economic
strata and who don't have ideals that bind them together,
for sure. Absolutely. They go beyond love, absolutely. Divorce rate's above
50%. But when people have ideals that bind them together, in
particular religion, or are or have
some other external commitment that binds them together that's not
material. Divorce rates are not 50%.
Divorce rates are way the hell lower than that. It's more like 10%,
15%. It's way down. But we don't talk
about the stuff that binds people together in marriage.
And this play is a little bit about that. Talk a little bit about that
if you if you wanna grab grasp onto some of that. Because they they are
trying to bind each other together. They're trying to get married.
And it's not just and and there's 5 interlocking sort of sort of
ideas going on here. We're gonna be talking to you. Yeah.
There's so many different themes, or
plots and subplots that all, you know, come into
play with with that.
Well and even and even when EGS is talking about,
how Lysander has sort of,
interchanged love tokens with his child. Right?
You know, he says, thou hast by moonlight at her window
sung, right, with feigning voice versus feigning of
love that stolen the impression of her fantasy with, and then this is
objects that he brought to his to his daughter. Right? Bracelets of your hair,
rings, gods, conceits, all of that. Knacks, trifles,
nosegates. Nosegates were flowers. Sweetmeats, by
the way. If you don't know what sweetmeats are, go look them up. I'm not
gonna tell you on the podcast. Just go. I don't wanna ruin the surprise.
Message is a strong prevailment.
And that's how he he sums it up. The father, messengers of strong
prevailment and unhardened youth. Look. I have 2
daughters. If some dude sniffing around
doing all that, I'm going to have an opinion.
Mhmm. I just I just I I am.
And my daughter one of my daughters is 19. The other one is 14.
I'm gonna have an opinion if the 19 year old has a boyfriend's living around.
I'm going to have an opinion about that kid.
Now back in the day, my opinion would have probably held
more weight than it does currently. Right. But my opinion
still does hold weight. And so
there's there's these kinds of dynamics that are happening here
where Shakespeare is setting the setting the the table for
what will happen later on. But I kinda derailed you on that whole, like,
marriage is a multiple layered thing sort of a little Yeah. No.
No. It's okay. And we can talk about courtship too. I think we're I think
we're I think we're I go with more of this is the,
the whole play is about kind of balancing the
rational and the irrational Yeah.
Or, you know, the dream state with the, you know, grounded
present state. Mhmm. And, you
know, the at an extreme, you can be
told to love something, and you'll you'll love the next
thing that you'll see. You know? So I I
bring that forth to modern day.
You know, and I can't help but bring it forth to modern day when we're
told you know, you you're told over and over again
what right should be Mhmm.
By all different institutions. And so then you
see what right is and bad is without
questioning what is right and
bad. Yeah. So when I think of, you know,
you're in the forest and, you know, and, you know, the sleeping
yeah. The sleeping woman is, has the flowers
dappled all over her, and the first person she looks at, she falls in love
with. And, you know, regardless of the fact that he's a pompous
literally a pompous ASS, you know, it's a
actor with a donkey head. You know, it like, it it
it's this deeper meaning around, you know, we're told to
love what we see next Mhmm. Without questioning
it. Mhmm. You know? And I'm probably putting more depth
into this play and meaning, but it is really interesting. You know? What you know,
do we really love what we think You know, what you know, do we really
love what we think we're seeing? You you know, to the yeah. At the beginning
with your her Maya loving Lysander. You know, I
I is that love or lust?
Is it real? You know, we saw Romeo and Juliet, kind
of kind of these same themes around, you know, love
and willing to die for your love. But, you know, what
is just lust of of youth? I
mean, being told what you should love
versus, like, something that's gonna be grounding
and, you you know, your way that makes
sense on a rational basis through the rest of your
life. And since on a rational basis doesn't need mean money.
It could mean that you have similar values. It could mean that you have similar
values around children, around how to have a Yeah.
I would agree.
And subjective being
with dreams. Right. Right.
Which Yeah. I would agree with that. Objective being with dreams. Thank you.
Right. Which we're gonna talk about here in a little bit. I wanna talk about
the faith. Yeah. The the well, I'm gonna talk about the fairies. I wanna go
to Oberon and Titania and
the fairies and and and the the the the pygmies and the and
the ass and puck and all of yeah. I wanna I wanna get into all
of this.
So courtship. Okay. Last question. So courtship here. That's
also a key theme in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
So you can court somebody either
by, you know, knocking them out and
making them love you, which apparently
is I mean Extreme. Well, you know, these days, we
would call it slipping or making, and we would say that's not, appropriate,
and we're going to send you to jail.
Back in the day, apparently, however,
you know, the use of the use of flour juice, like, that was that was
kind of that was kind of fine. Like, nobody nobody really really objected to that
apparently. And it is there there is an
idea in here that is floating through
A Midsummer Night's Dream. And we again, one of those things we don't talk
about, that courtship the act of courtship itself at
a psychological level is a
drug that that that converts, like you
said, lust to to to love. Right? But there's
also a sub idea in here that
if you can't do the courtship
thing well, well, you know, we've kind of got these
other it's kind of got these other things we can kind of give
you. And that just goes to prove an assertion that
I've made even to my kids, as they have grown up that,
you know, drugs have existed. And my my 7 year old was asking me about
this the other day. Drugs have existed for I me. This is
what human beings do. We find things that make us feel good, and we put
them in our bodies. And some of them have terrible actually, most all of
them have terrible damage. And if we
and particularly if you misuse them, or don't use them in the in the correct
way. And I think that's an a sub idea, a second
order idea that's sort of running through this play that I
think people of that time watching it would have would
have connected into immediately. And it's kind of interesting to me.
I know Midsummer Night's Dream has been adapted in many different sorts of sorts of
ways, but I don't know how heavily,
in adaptation, that
has been referenced or even,
sort of leaned on. I know that
there's a, oh, gosh.
There's a UK production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's like set in
an alternative future. That was, that was shot a
few years ago. And I know that variations of this
story, most recently in 2016 on BBC 1,
have done, like, TV and film adaptations of this. I've never
I got to admit, I've never seen a TV adaptation of the
midsummer night's dream, nor have I ever seen any of the film once, which is
sort of a blind spot in my, like, like, reality.
And so I don't know how much, you know, reference I've seen
cartoon versions, and we'll talk about cartoons here in a minute. I've seen cartoon versions
of this, but I've never seen a live action version of of it. So,
I don't know. I think Shakespeare would lean in on something here that's also another
human universal. It's that idea of courtship as a drug.
You know? Because you know how good you feel when, like, somebody who you really
like and someone who really likes you is, like, chasing you around
the block. Everybody knows how good that feels.
Yeah. I mean, love is I I just wrote down. Love is a
dangerous drug when sought
in its extreme. Mhmm. So when you think yeah.
When love at is the end state or
what you're what you're articulating as love, which is just
oxytocin, you know, when sought in the extreme,
can be dangerous. And that's when we see infidelity and, you know, and all
those kind of, things come through or unhealthy
relationships when when the when you're the
one you're you're you're seeking is no longer interested in
you. Right? Mhmm. So that's that's an inch
that's an interesting concept around it being a a
drug, and kind of why you need to
balance, you know, balance it with other
balance the oxytocin lust thing,
you know, with the other values that really matter Right. In,
you know, in life, you know, that have long sustained
positive impact on your life versus just momentarily
momentarily pops. Momentarily pops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alright. Okay. Let's talk about sleep and
trickery because the we we we've referenced this a couple of times. Let's talk about
the we we talked about the drugs piece, but I wanna talk about
these, let's talk about these fairies. So I
wanna skip here, a little bit. I'm gonna go to act 2,
scene 1, and I'm gonna move
through this, a little bit quickly. And,
there's so, you know, there's there's there's
there's interlocking ideas in A Midsummer Night's Dream because
it's not just enough to sort of do a play. It
wasn't enough for Shakespeare. Write a play
that was merely about,
courtship and romance and marriage. He'd already kinda done that with,
with Romeo and Juliet, which was a tragedy.
And so so he
was he was looking to do something different here with comedy. And and
the challenge, of course, of a writer, which is also something that we talk about
on this podcast, the critical challenge of writing is how do you
how do you introduce, a new element,
to a piece of writing without it being jarring for the audience?
And so he decided he was going to introduce,
fairies and specifically, Oberon and
Titania, king and queen of the fairies.
So we're gonna look at act 2 scene
1. We're gonna read through through, sort of some
dialogue here around
well, around how do you make somebody fall in love? All right,
Robin, I'm sorry, act 2 scene 1 of A
Midsummer Night's Dream. Enter a fairy at one
door and Robin Goodfellow at another. Robin, how
now, spirit, wither wander you? Fairy, over hill over
dale, through bush through briar, over park over pail, through flood through
fire. I do wander everywhere, swifter than the moon's sphere. And
I serve the fairy queen to do her orbs upon the green. The cowslips
tall her pensioners be in their gold coats spots you see.
These be those be rubies fairy favors in those
freckles live their savors. I must go seek
some dewdrops here and hang up her on every cowl slip's ear.
Farewell, thou love of spirits. I'll be gone. Our queen and all her
elves come here and on. Robin, the king doth keep his
rebels here tonight. Take heed the queen. Go not within his
sight. For Oberon, his passing fell in wrath because that
she, as her attendant, hath a lovely boy stolen
from an Indian king. She never had so sweet a changeling.
And jealous Oberon would have the child, knight of his train to
trace the forest's wild. But she, for force, withholds the loved
boy, crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy. And
now they never meet in grove or green by fountain clear or
spangled starlight sheen, but they do square that all their elves
for fear creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
Very. Either I mistake your shape and making quiet or else you are
that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow. Are
not you he that frights the maidens of the villagerie, skim milk and
sometimes labor in the queered, and bootless make the breathless huswife
churn, and sometime make the drink to bear no barm, mislead
night wanderers laughing at their harm. Those that hobgoblin
call you and sweet talk. You do their work and they shall have
good luck. Are you not he? Robin, thou speakest
to write. I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest you over
on and make him smile when I affect and being fed horse
beguiled, neighing in likeness of a filly foal. And sometimes I
lurk I in a gossip's bowl in very likeness of a roast
crab. And when she drinks against her lips, I bob and on her
withered doo lap or the ale. The wisest aunt telling the
saddest tale. Sometimes her 3 foot stool mistakeeth me,
then slip by from her bum, down topple she, and Taylor
cries and falls into a cough. And then the whole choir hold their hips
and laugh and waxen in their mirth and knees and swear and merry our
hour was never wasted there. My room fairy, here comes
Oberon. Fairy, and hear my mistress. Would that
he gone. Enter Oberon, king of the fairies, at one door
with his train, and Titania, the queen at another with
hers. Or Titania, not Titania. Titania,
the queen and another with hers. Oberon. Ill met
by moonlight, proud Titania. Titania. What? Jealous Oberon?
Fairy Skip Hintz. I have forsworn his bed and company.
Oberon. Tarry rash woman. Am not I, thy lord.
Titania. Then I must be thy lady, but I know when thou
hast stolen away from fairy land and in the shape of corn sat all day
playing on pipes of corn, inversing love to amorous Phylida.
Why art thou here? Come from the farthest steep of India, but
that forsooth the bouncing Amazon, your buskinned mistress, and
your warrior love, to Theseus must be wedded, and you come to give
her their bed joy and prosperity?
Oberon. How canst thou, thus for shame, Titania,
glance at my credit with Hippolyta, knowing that I,
knowing I know thy love to Theseus, didst thou not lead
him through the glimmering night from Paragonu, whom he
ravished, and make him with fair Augeleus break his faith with
Adriaan and Anteopa? Natania, these are forgeries
of jealousy. And never since the middle summer spring met we on hill and
dale or forest or me by paved fountain or by rushy brook or in the
beached margant of the sea to dance our ringlets to the whistling
wind. But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the
winds, piping to us in vain and is in revenge, have sucked up from the
sea contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, hath every pelting
river made so proud that they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain. The plowman lost his
sweat, and the green corn hath rotted. Ears youth attained a
beard. The fold stands empty in the drowned field and crowds are
fatted with murrain flock. The 9 men's morse is filled with mud, and the
quaint mazes in the wanton green for lack of tread are undistinguishable.
Human mortals want their winter here. No night is now with him
or Carol blessed. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
pale in her anger, washes all the air that romantic
diseases do abound. As thorough this distemperature we see the seasons
alter, hoary headed frost, swollen fresh lap of the crimson
rose, and old hymns, then an icy crown, an odorous chaplet
of sweet summer buds, is, as in mockery, set.
Spring this summer, the chilling autumn, angry winter, change their
wanted liveries, and the amazed world by their increase
now knows not which is which. And the same progeny of
evils comes from our debate, from our dissension.
We are their parents and original.
Titania has become unburdened by what has been.
It's so hard to resist. It's it's just it's just right
there. It's it's so right there.
So let's see. In act 2, scene 1,
what do we got here? What are we working with? So,
sort of a subplot, right, in A Bidsummer Night's Dream between,
between these two fairies, the king and queen of fairies,
orally over the possession of, as was stated at the beginning
of act, of scene 1, a young Indian boy.
Oberon of course orders Puck, in this scene
later on to obtain a special flower that makes people fall in
love with the next creature they see. Now
Oberon wants to use this, of course, to make Titania fall in love with
the beast and use her infatuation to get the Indian boy away from her.
Demetrius, of course, comes in to the play at this
point, pursued by Helena. And then when Robin
returns Oberon, who sympathizes with Helena's love, orders him to
find the Athenian man, Demetrius, and apply some of the flower's
magic nectar to his eyes.
Magic nectar, sleeping, dreams, memory,
trickery. Mostly trickery is what's on display
here. And of course we see this in the character of
Robin Goodfellow, a puckish fellow such as it were,
who is the one who obtains the
special flower, right, and delivers it. Because as he stated
when he was speaking to the fairy, right at the beginning of,
act 2 scene 1,
he is the one who is the merry wanderer
of the night. He jests over on and makes
him smile. He's the
one who lurks, in a gossip's bowl,
right, and causes her to to,
to, spill her ale. Right? And, of
course, to spill information from her lips.
You know, he's the one who, when the wisest aunt is telling
the saddest tale, is mistaken for a 3 foot stool and
then causes her to fall down, which, by the way, everybody was watching this play
live back in the, back in 16th
century would have laughed when they when they would have seen this because they would
have gotten the reference immediately. And then, so
so he's a he's a he's a court jester,
such as it were. He's a he's a comedian.
He's weaving humor into
his approach to the world, but he's also a
servant of the king, which is something else that we that we don't
talk about too much. And so let's kick off with that. So
comedy. Right? Like, we talked a little bit on this podcast, in particular,
Libby, a little bit about comedy. And I'm a
big fan of folks like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock and Jerry
Seinfeld, and I'm a big fan of stand up comedy in general,
Marc Maron, because I think stand up comedy is really hard.
But I also think it's a form of trickery. It's
it's it's taking something that we know is either
tragic or heroic or dramatic and and
finding the funny twist in it. I I remember infamously
that Steve the comedian Steve Harvey back in the day, was
being interviewed. And the interviewer asked him, you know, how does he come
up with his jokes? And Steve said, you have to understand, every
single time a tragedy happens, every comedian on the planet
already has the joke. We just can't say it.
Yeah. And humor
is a means of trickery. Humor is
a means of getting across an
idea, in a in a
package that people will laugh and immediately
accept. So, Olivia, I know you like you said you like the role of Puck
and you like Puck there. What do what do you like about Puck? How is
Puck a court jester? And,
here's a leadership question for you. Do leaders need a court jester?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Leaders need court gestures. They need the truth tellers.
It you know, and that's what comedians are.
Yeah. That's what, the gestures are. They're the truth
tellers, and
they aren't always the most popular, you
know, when you you turn they turn the light
on that which does not want the light turned on them.
But when I think about
what they're doing, you know, is they're essentially knocking you out of your
thought process and your thought patterns. And so they're forcing you to
think differently, about what you're
observing than you currently are. And by
breaking that thought pattern, you know, and especially, like, in
tragedies, You know, you can have people who are on that hamster
wheel of, pain and victimology and,
you know, and sadness. And just that moment of
light can break you out of that to laugh
and, you know, it is over
it's overset in its tripe, but, you know, but light is
what, you know
well, light is what makes the, you know, the roaches
scatter, but it does actually make the darkness go away.
Mhmm. And, but what I like about
Puck, you know, is he's he's not necessarily
light. Mhmm. But the mischievousness,
the playfulness, that's and bringing in the fun and
levity into moments. That's what, you know,
that's what helps keep us all lighter is
bringing, like, levity into moments, you know, and not taking life
so seriously. I I
often say that life is too short to take seriously, and the older I
get, the more I mean that. You know? Like, life
will go on. Have some fun. So a good little trickery.
But Well, there's also a little bit
of is it interesting you mentioned he's
he's thought of as being funny, but he's actually mischievous.
Right? The the Puck character, or the character of
Puck, Robin Goodfellow.
The
one of the the the things that's interesting. So the the comedian, Bill Burr,
was actually being interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld on a comedian that's in cars getting
coffee, right, one time. And and this this stuff sticks out to
me. Bill Burr goes he says to to Bill he says
to Jerry, You're actually
very angry. But, like, you hide it because
you have, like, this lilt that goes up in your voice at the end of
every joke. And so people forget how angry you actually are and
you're irritated about everything. But I hear it.
Ew. Right. I hear it. But you, like, you hide it
so well. And Jerry goes, oh, no. Yeah. You're exactly you're completely correct. I'm
angry about everything all the time. And then he of course, he
laughs, and then Bill laughs. And Bill's like, you made an entire career off of
people not understanding that you're actually irritable about all of this.
And this is this is the the cut underneath
Right? Because it's not just the joke on
top. It's the the negative things
underneath. So you got a little bit of this with, with with folks like,
what's his name? Oh, gosh.
Daniel Convenience back in the eighties. Bill Hicks.
Yes. So Bill Hicks. Right? Bill Hicks, Mark Marron, those kinds of guys
where like, I watched Mark Marron come out one time.
But you know he's angry. Oh, yeah. Oh, but oh, please. Oh,
please. Yes. He's give me a break. Break. And he comes out with this pile
of, like, notebook papers and just puts them down and he just
starts talking. And, you know, and,
so there's how does how does the jokester
and I don't want to pull it apart because it's it's comedy and it's gossamer
and all that. I don't want to pull it too much apart. But is it
okay to be angry? Not okay.
Is it if you're the court jester and you're
supposed to be pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, I'm mixing
a bunch of metaphors here. Yeah. Is it okay to be angry about
that? Is that fine? No. That is actually
kinda laughing at the truth. Right? Like, that's what
I think is is so important is, you know, is that sometimes we wake up
to our own truths. Right? And, yes, I'm I'm angry,
but I don't wanna be, or, like, I wanna bring levity to it. Like, I
wanna find the humor in that which I'm, like, getting
irritated about. And that's what Seinfeld is always doing
is, yeah, he gets irritated, but he's finding levity in it.
Right. I actually thought you were gonna bring up Bill Burr and Bill
Maher. Oh, well yeah. I knew. That
was the best. Like, Bill Burr was going after Bill Maher
for his haughty elite intellectualism. And it was
awesome. Right? Like, because, you know, Bill
was Mar was not apologizing, and he thought, you
know, he wasn't finding any levity at all in his intellectualism. He's
like, I actually am superior to you. It was the
most it was the most uncomfortable. So the what we're referencing It was. If you
go back and listen to, oh gosh. I don't know. It's been released in the
last 2 or 3 months. You can go find it on the Internet. Yeah. Bill
Maher's episode of Club Random where he interviewed Bill Burr.
And you're right. I was listening to this while I was mowing my front lawn,
and I was like, oh my god. He didn't give him
any room to breathe at all. And I don't think
None. None. And I don't think Bill Maher's ever been dealt with like
that before. It was and it was kind of and but where's Bill gonna
go? It's his own shell. Like, are you gonna walk off your own shell? Like,
what are you gonna do? So you're stuck there getting pushed
into a corner by a guy who
is not giving you any daylight. It kind of reminded me a little bit and,
again, every episode, I have to bring this up. It kind of reminded
me of rolling with a really good jujitsu practitioner where you're just
trying stuff and it's just not working, and you're like, what the hell? I can't
figure out this Rubik's cube. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What I loved about it, though, is a few weeks later, because
as you said, it was really uncomfortable. I was watching it going, oh, boy. Where
is this one go? Oh, boy. This is
rough because Burr is not letting up, but he's brought
on, and he's having fun with it. Yeah. But later,
Mars said, I was just playing with it, and I've called BS
on that. In the moment, I don't think he was playing with
it, but later, I think he actually saw, like, I was
wearing no clothes. Right? Like Right. He could step away
from it later and see, like, oh, actually, Burr he has
probably a few points. I'm not gonna admit to which ones,
but I was rolling with it. And that's why
like, you may not be what comedy will good comedy will do. Like,
you like, often will laugh. Mhmm. We don't always know why.
Right. But, you know, at like, the discomfort and, you know, and, you know,
and those, awful things that are said right after you know, those funny
things that are maybe very bleak when you say them, but
they're they make you think after a sad moment. Right.
It makes you think. And so bringing it
back to, like, Oberon and and
Titania, like, maybe he didn't want her to
love the beast so he could control, yeah, the Indian boy.
Maybe he just wanted to be loved again. Well You know? And that's what
happens. Well, in Titania. So let's
let's not let Titania off the hook a little bit. She's
like, listen. You're just jealous.
I'm a do what I want. I can't be told. I'm a do what I
want. And I I when I when
I read to Tanya's character. I'm
reminded of the line from,
the Billy Joel song. She's
always a woman. Right? Okay. She can't be convicted.
She's earned her degree.
So, like, that we we don't
we struggle in our western culture currently, and I
think probably we always have. But I think the
struggle was less in previous times than it is now.
Your optionality. Right. Exactly. Well, as you increase your optionality,
the struggle increases. Right? But we
don't we don't we are not comfortable talking about
women's egos. We're just not. We're not comfortable talking
about that. Because it's always the men. The women and Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not saying that, like men. Well,
I'm not saying that, like, that that that men are as clean and pure
as the wind driven snow. Give me a break. Let's be real here.
Neither neither is. We're both human. Right. We're both humans.
And how that ego is going to we talk a
lot I'll draw a parallel here. We will talk a lot about
the problem or the challenge that it is a problem of men and violence, Like,
how men manifest anger through violence. That is a problem for
sure. Partially, it has to do with how men are in culture,
but also partially, it has to do with testosterone and biological factors and
a whole bunch of other things. Right? I I've raised 2
sons. Trust me. And I've raised 2
daughters. Trust me. Men and women are biologically different, in case the Olympic Committee is
paying attention. Just just want to point that out.
Okay. So men will manifest anger through we
will talk about that all day. All day.
But we will not address
how women manifest their egos, particularly in
leadership positions, and sort of where that winds up
bad because we're caught in this current
moment of,
well, to paraphrase her again, go back to the Billy Joel. Right?
She can't be convicted. She can't. You're done. You
can't say anything. You just gotta let her go. Well,
maybe I'd be okay with that if she weren't in a position of
power. We're just letting her go could have
some back Very Right. Deleterious consequences for
me. Yeah. You know? Exactly. I don't wanna have her mouth
writing a check that I have to cash with my
actions. Exactly.
Yep. That's a great way to put it. That's where we are.
And so Titania has got an ego. You know? She wants to
and and, of course, she wants to manipulate over on a little bit, which which
we're we're we're we're seeing that sort of dynamic tension as well.
And, overall, wants to manipulate her, and that's that's the manipulation that's
happening between both of them. Again, just as
in a love relationship or in a marriage, I'm
not saying manipulation happens in marriage, although we would be fools.
We still believe that it does not make in any relationship.
You know? I mean, politics is everywhere.
You know? Right. Poli not politics
as in, like, governmental politics, but we're always positioning
and influencing. Mhmm. You know? And, you know, and whether it
be with your sibling, whether it be with your child, whether it be with your,
you know, your wife or your husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, like, you're
always positioning and posturing. Mhmm. It's just about what is
the intent Mhmm. And what is that what is the
outcome. You know, the stronger relationships are when we you know, is
when, you know, we understand our impulses,
but we don't act on them because some of our limbic
brain impulses are limbic brain driven
and about status and control and ego. Right. But
once we understand that, then we don't give into it, and we can, you
know, have a healthier discussion and relationship. Well, what happened what
happened to the idea of us overcoming our ego? Like, there seems to be
absolutely no talk of that. That's a it's a really good
question. I think there's a role for ego, but I think,
it me it's just tempered. You know? Narcissism is all
about ego. Right? Oh, yeah. Narcissism is all about
being seen and validated no mat or what.
Right. Because I'm, you know, because I'm worthy and I'm better you know,
all all of those things. But Yeah.
Yeah. Overcoming ego, I don't know
I could play I could play devil's advocate that we don't wanna overcome it
because then it's the reverse just passivity and
not having positions and not wanting to, you know, debate
or counter or come to the you know, have critical
conversations that help us come to a good solution. You know,
what this is probably gonna be heretical,
but I've seen in too many marriages and in too many relationships
where it's a lot easier for the man to just
not say anything than to deal with the
woman who's controlling the housing relation
yeah, the household relationship. Mhmm. And, you
know, you'd be like I hope you still let me
I've observed. I don't want I don't wanna debate that either. Right. It
is a lot easier not to, but the maybe aren't so great.
Right? Like, you know, as you said, the consequence of that is
I don't have I don't I don't there's no checks that she's making me
write, you know, figuratively as a result of some of that.
Right. Well, I think also it's so let me let me say this. I I
do think there is a lot of in marriages. I'll be I mean,
I'm married. I've I've hang around other married people. I spend a lot of my
time hanging around other married people. I see a lot of other people's marriages.
There's a time to advance, and there's a time to retreat. It's it's a
dance right now. If you're always retreating, that's
a problem. If you're always advancing, that's also a
problem. The the the challenge is
figuring out here's the biggest challenge, at least in in
in my marriage and in other people's marriages that I've seen. The biggest challenge
is because is it the biggest challenge is figuring out where the
advance and where the retreat is, where the boundaries are on that.
Right? So Yeah. I act I actually think this is yeah. There's a bigger
cultural thing here is that we've had the you know, it it's not feminism
in a, in the marriage. It's more what you're
talking about in leadership in business and in leadership in politics in the
country Yeah. Is that we've gotten to a place where
everyone's retreated Right. To allow that
voice to be, you know, to allow the
feminine voice to be dominant. Mhmm. And it's
now causing a lot of problems
Problems. Yep. That could be lives and livelihood
because, you know, we haven't counterbalanced
it with more masculine yeah, necessary
masculine voices and tones. And that's the balance
between, like, ego and empathy, are those the right
things to care? But we do need the balance
for the ecosystem and for
society to survive. And so what yeah. The
so, anyway No. I think you're right. Here
was over indexing on ego, right, and not being challenged.
And over on, you know, challenges are in a mischievous
way. Right? Right. Exactly. Right. And he's not going to go at her Yeah. And
it brings back but it brings back order. Right.
Right. Exactly. That's it. Find their love again. Right? Yes.
That's it. Right. No. No. I think that's no. I think that's that's so in
a Midsummer Night's Dream, that there's there's
love brings chaos. Right? Because it's a strong emotion.
Right? Or we can even say, let's just let's frame it. Let's frame it in
monotone. Lust brings chaos because it's a strong feeling. It's a strong
emotion. Lust and love bring chaos. Okay. So how do you and this
is the problem maybe that Shakespeare is seeking to solve with A Midsummer Night's
Dream. How do you counterbalance that? What are
the forces that pull that back? And,
look,
civilization is the price we pay for having
a little bit of a reduction in our in our appetites.
And if we don't have I mean, this is what I I'll sometimes send this
to my kids. I'll say, listen. Particularly, if I'm having a conversation with another
adult that they're bored by, particularly when they were younger, angry, and they'd be
upset, and they'd be like, whatever. And they'd throw a fit or whatever, and then
I'd correct them, and then they'd be all mad or whatever. And I keep running
and having the conversation with the adult. And then when I'm done with the conversation
with the adult, then we can, you know, leave the venue. Right? And the
other adult, of course, looks at me. Usually, that
situation looks me and go and kind of is appreciative of the fact,
and you can see it behind their eyes, that I'm just gonna keep the adult
interaction going Yeah. And finish it when we get to our
natural conclusion. And then they right. Because there's an order for things.
Right? That's bringing order to chaos. Right? But then I'll tell turn around and tell
my kids. I always tell them with feedback. And my oldest daughter in particular
will tell you this. I'm building a civilization here. That's why I'm
having the conversation. This is called civilization building. That's what you
need to be participating in, and I'm role modeling this for you
right now in this particular interaction. Now
my kids don't buy that until they're in their twenties.
Right. But that's okay. Are probably, like, thirties.
Thirties. Yeah. It's it's fine. Yeah. But that's okay
because we
if you don't role model it like like, what we have what we're role modeling
right now, and I see this in a lot of families. What we're role
modeling is the adults, the Oberons, and the
Titanias subsuming or retreating themselves to
the kids. And that's a disorder too. And kids are great.
Kids are wonderful. But quite frankly, kids need to be civilized. They
just they they do. Right? So that they can be around others. Primarily, they can
be around other kids without being sociopaths and narcissistic little
knuckleheads. But also so that eventually they
can grow up to be, adults that can continue to
advance the society, which used to be
something again that we know and that Shakespeare is just dropping into the
play because he knows that this is the thing that we're doing. You don't have
to actually say it, but now we've reached a point in our culture where we
have to say it out loud and encourage people to do it. And I
find that to be I find that to be fascinating. I find that to be
very interesting. It's sort of that cultural evolution thing that's that's
going on in, in real time.
One other point about Titania's
speech here in act 2 scene 1 that I find very
interesting. She's she's comparing Oberon's
moods to season, and
to seasonality and to seasonal shifts. So basically she's saying, you
know, you're a stubborn moron,
basically, you know, whether it's spring, summer, winter, or fall.
And and this is this is
very clever of Shakespeare to kind of tie this in because it
grabs this idea that or it reinforces
the idea of seasonality in the play, but it also reinforces the
idea that goes back to, of course, the name of the play, a midsummer
night's dream. Not a fall, not a winter, not a spring.
And this, of course, would have been one other
area that would have resonated very strongly with his, with
his watchers, with his viewers of this play
because they were, I mean, they were what we would call now
organic farm to table, agricultural, you know,
generations farm to table agricultural lifestyle. No
industrialization, threshing with wooden tools,
eating what they grew and what they could kill. You know, they
they understood something that we've lost in our industrialized
modern world. And and now our our service industry
modern world where we don't even touch our food. It's just we go to the
grocery store and get it or it's delivered to us via via DoorDash. You
know? But he understood something that they also
understood as this is sometimes another reference that we or perhaps another reference that we
miss here in, in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Okay. Cool.
I wanna turn the corner a little bit. I wanna talk about
cultural transmission
via the most unlikely vehicle of all,
Looney Tunes. Yes. I did say that
correctly. I've only talked about Looney Tunes on this podcast for a little while. I
can't think of a better person to talk about it with then,
then, Libby here. I'm a huge fan of,
of Looney Tunes, and I'm going
to actually sort of put
the weight of that, on,
well, on the remainder of, of act 2
scene 1. So we're gonna go we're gonna go back to the
book. We're back to the play. Back 2, A Midsummer Night's
Dream, act 2, scene 1. We're gonna pick up where Oberon
responds to Titania.
So, Oberon, do you amend it then? It lies in you. Why should
Titania cross for Oberon? But I do but beg a little changeling
boy to be my henchman. Titania, set your heart at
rest. The fairyland buys not a child of me. His
mother was not a beveaucherous of my order and in the spiced Indian air by
night full often after she gossiped by my side and sat with me on
Neptune's yellow sands. Mark them, mark traders on the
flood when we have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow big
bellied with the wanton wind which she with pretty and swimming
gait following her womb was enriched with my young swire would
imitate and sail upon the land to fetch me trifles and return again
as from a voyage rich with merchandise But she being mortal of
that boy did die and for her sake do I rear up her boy and
for her sake I will not part with him.
Oberon, how long within this would intend you stay?
Titania, perchance slept at Theseus's wedding day. If you will
patiently dance in our round and see our moonlight revels, go with
us. If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
Oberon, give me that boy and I will go with thee,
Titania. Not for thy fairy kingdom.
Fairies away. We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Titania and her fairies exit. Oberon, well,
go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove like torment
thee for this injury. My gentle puck, come hither. Thou remember
since once I sat upon a promontory and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's
back, uttering such a dulcet and harmonious breath, that the rude sea grew
civil at her song and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to
hear the sea maid's music. Robin, I remember
Oberon, that very time I saw, but thou couldst not flying between the
cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took at a
fair vessel thrown by the vest and loosed his
love shaft smartly from his bow as it should pierce a 100000
hearts. But I might see a young cupid's fiery shaft quenched in the
chased beams of the watery moon and the imperial fortress passed on in
maiden meditation fancy free. Yet marked I where the vault of
Cupid fell. It fell upon a little western flower before milk white
now purple with love's wound and maidens call it a love and idleness.
Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once, the juice of it on
sleeping eyelids laid will make man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature
that it sees. Fetch me this herb and be thou here again
ere the Leviathan can swim a league.
Robin, I'll put on a girdle round about the earth in 40 minutes.
He exits. Oberon, having once this juice I'll
watch Titania when she is asleep and drop the liquor of it in her
eyes. Next thing then she, waking, looks upon, be it
on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on meddling monkey, or on busy
ape, she shall pursue it with the soul of love. And ere I
take this charm off from her by sight as I can take it with another
I'll make her render up her page to me. Who comes
here? I am invisible. I will overhear their conference.
The Demetrius Center is followed by Helena. I'm gonna leave that there for just a
moment. When
you read Shakespeare, you have to
read it like this.
Whether it's Macbeth or Hamlet or The Tempest or
A Midsummer Night's Dream, you have to meet it in sort
of a sort of a lilt with a with a low
and, and even when you hear it performed, it sounds
like well, it sounds like a John Barrymore performance from back in the
day or maybe a Gil Good performance or these days because no
one knows those references. Patrick Stewart, right, or Ian McKellen.
There you go. I mean imagine Patrick Stewart during Shakespeare, which by the way he
did, by the way he was a Shakespearean
actor. So was Kelsey Grammer, he
of Frasier Crane fame, began his career
performing Macbeth and Hamlet. And of course
when they read these lines, they read these words, they put
on this this vaulted voice.
And this is how we think about Shakespeare. We even read it in
the voice in our heads.
This is weird cultural transmission. I have no idea where it came
from, that that was the voice or that was the the willk you had to
put on the words. But it the cultural transmission of this is so
good that in 1949, there was a
Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short starring the goofy gophers along
with an unnamed dog that was based on the stage and
film actor John Barrymore, Patrick Stewart of his day.
The title of this cartoon, if you're looking for it on Warner Brothers Max,
is a ham in a roll.
And, the dog is tired of appearing in
cartoons. It opens up with him tired of appearing in cartoons,
and he goes home to study the words of Shakespeare.
And, of course, upon
arriving back at home, the dog finds that his home has been invaded by,
the 2 goofy gophers who talk a little bit like
this, and they talk very politely. And yes, dear, and yes, dear, and yes,
dear. And so while he's reading Shakespeare, he's trying to
improve himself. There's various gags that
occur in this Looney Tunes cartoon, this
Looney Tunes short, as he reads through A Midsummer Night's
Dream, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Richard the third, and, of course,
Romeo and Juliet. And the gags in the cartoon
rely on literal interpretations of lines from those
plays. By the way, the running time of this cartoon,
6 minutes and 47 seconds. In case some of you are of short attention
span theater and think that TikTok began all
of that, it really didn't. This cartoon
was directed by Robert McKimson and, of course,
the the the great voice actor Mel Blanc,
voice of the dog, the gophers, and, of course, red Hamlet,
read Julius Caesar, read Richard the Third, and read Romeo and Juliet, all
with the Shakespearean lilt like John Barrymore,
by the way. This is the
brilliance of the cartoon Looney Tunes.
Cultural transmission of high art via low
comedy is something that is being goofed on in this
in this episode, season 14 episode
number 5, with the dog. And the
dog himself even looks like John Barrymore,
which is great.
Shakespeare was trying to transmit culture as well, and so are we. We
are in a cultural transmit. We're always trying to transmit culture. We're always trying to
transmit civilization to each other.
And whether it's a dog in a looney tune short or a couple of
gophers, by the way, he winds up at the end
of the cartoon. The gophers defeat him, of course,
And the gophers use a horse to kick the dog out of his house,
after which the dog says, a horse, a horse, my kingdom
for a horse, and goes back to the studio where he decided he
was going to go back to being a comedic actor.
All in 6 minutes, all around the world,
all 5 Shakespeare plays. Oh, and by the way, a little bit of classical
music in there as well. And it
is a cartoon that works so well as a method of cultural
transmission that my 7 year old who knows
nothing about Shakespeare at all just got his
dose of Shakespeare in about 6 minutes.
I don't know what your familiarity is with Looney Tunes, Libby.
I can all have no idea. But I watched a lot of Looney
Tunes when I was a kid, and that's actually how I got into,
like, opera, like Pagliacci. Yes. Oh,
yeah. From Bugs Bunny. I I got into freaking pagliacci from Bugs Bunny,
because I was so curious as to what the music was and what the references
were that I went back and researched it and tried to find it and figured
this is how I got introduced to high art. One of the ways I got
introduced to high art was through was through Warner Brothers
efforts and amusing me for 5 to 6 minutes.
Interesting. Just bang bang bang bang bang bang. And the gags
go so fast. Yeah.
I I again, I have no idea what you're experiencing. What is your experience with
the ludi tunes? Do you have the experience with the ludi tunes at all? It's
on. That's all, folks. That's it.
That's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. I was actually just looking it up as
you were speaking about it to look at it. But yeah. No. I
don't, I don't have a lot of memory. My, my
memory of cartoons on Saturday or Saturday
entertainment was, like, Bill Cosby. Okay. Yeah. And
Scott Albert or Scott Albert. Yes.
Yeah.
I I'm interested in watching it. I was reading the,
yeah, the overview. But tell me more. This is fascinating.
Yeah. So I am Is this Saturday morning cartoons for
you? Yes. So Okay.
Yeah. So I was when I watched
so I watched Looney Tunes at 2 there are 2 different times you could watch
Looney Tunes. So one time, you could watch Looney Tunes on,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday afternoons,
between, like, 2 and, like,
4, on the old WB
network before it turned into, like, the UPN, and then it turned into something
else, or whatever. But the old WB network. So you
can watch it then. But then you could also watch it on Saturday. You're right.
And I watched it on Saturday on
like ABC or something when I was living in the states that I was living
in when I was a kid. I can't remember what the it doesn't matter. All
I know is I would get up like 8, 9 o'clock in the morning,
click it on, and you could watch Looney Tunes for like an hour. And so
I'd watch all these cartoons. Right? And I'd watch them in order. Right? Oh, I
didn't know it was ordered at the time, but I'd watch all these cartoons. And
then you watch them repeatedly over and over and over again and that's sort of
how it kind of gets into your gets into your system.
So, you know, when the
second generation of Looney Tunes cartoons, which came about
in the seventies. So Looney Tunes was on, gosh, from the thirties
until the sixties until the late sixties. And at first,
it was Looney Tunes and then it transitioned into merry melodies, which is a whole
other different kind of thing. And, of course, there
are, Looney Tunes cartoons that are racially
and ethnically insensitive because a lot of them were made during World War
2. But people were people were a lot more
direct. Like, there's even things I see in some of the cartoons now that
they show that were that are sort of not now, but that were
made between the thirties and the sixties that you
couldn't make the gags they make today. Like, you couldn't
have you I'll give you an example. You couldn't
have Bugs Bunny running around with thick lips
kissing, like, people and then, like, doing sort of the, like,
African American, like, exaggerated
sort of caricature, you couldn't you couldn't have that as as like a sight gag.
Right? And it's a quick sight gag. And the
way Looney Tunes is structured is there's an exciting event that occurs literally
within the first minute. So you get the inciting event, you get the
introduction. Usually, with Looney Tunes,
it'll it'll tell you what the inciting event is going to be
in the title. So for instance, for this one, a ham and a roll,
Like, that works on so many different levels because,
you know, a ham is an overactor. A roll, r o l e,
not r o l l. Right? So, you know, you've got, like, some you got,
like, some messing around there. And that's the the brilliant thing with the guys on
Looney Tunes, particularly, the ones that were directed
by, oh, what's his name? By,
Robert McKimson. So Robert McKimson directed a whole bunch of
Looney Tunes. He was born in 1910, and he died in
1977. And he
wrote and directed shorts with,
oh gosh, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck,
and a brilliant illustrator. And so the animators and the illustrators and the
directors have all worked together. And if they want to throw a gag in, they
just would. And so all these guys were highly literate. So, like, they knew everything
from, like, Shakespeare Yeah. All the way down to, like, vaudeville.
And so they would put all of this in Looney Tunes, but they're not gonna
obviously, because they're doing it for children, they're not going to just
cram everything in all at once. They're gonna pace it really well. So you're gonna
have your inciting incident in the first minute, usually led in by your title
sequence. Then you're gonna have your music and your music's going to run
through the entire, like, the remaining 5 minutes of the of the cartoon.
And it's going to be musical cues. So sometimes the sight gags will
go off of musical cues, like the Pagliacci one. The sight gags go off
of the musical cues, but the music also plays in the background while Bugs
Bunny is also playing the music game in the thing. And so it's working on,
like, multiple levels. But you're sitting there as a kid and all
you know is your brain is just exploding with, like, sugar cereal.
Yeah. And you're watching this. It's insane. And it's it's insane that you
get to watch this.
Then in the second minute or the 3rd the second the second minute through the
3rd minute into the into the 4th minute, you're going to have your gags. You're
going to have your plot. We're gonna have a bunch of money your daffy duck
is getting into, like the one of the episodes we watched, one of the
weekend's episodes my son and I watched the other day. Oh,
gosh. I can't remember what the song was, but it's, I can't I don't remember
the name of the song is, but, Daffy Duck is avoiding Porky Pig is the
hunter. And Porky Pig tries to shoot him. And so, of course, he
turns his butt around, and he's got a target on his butt with, like, his
dress that comes up. So, you know, cross dressing Daffy Duck,
and he's going,
and he, like, waves the dress around and, of course, wear a big missus.
And the bullet goes, like, a whole bunch of different places, and then Davy
Duck goes from having the bull's eye on his butt with
the dress to going back to another site gag. Like,
literally, it will happen like that. And so it goes so
fast. And you watch Looney Tunes, you watch the
setup and the structure of it, and you watch the structure of the
comedy, and you watch the kind of trickery he they're they're pulling
in particular, like I said, McKimson along with Mel Blanc, and Mel Blanc would suggest,
would suggest gags because he could do anything verbally,
and could do anything with sound. And then, of course, you you
only because you only have, like I said, you only have 6 to 7 minutes.
So they would do all these verbal layerings, and they come to a conclusion by
the end, and then it goes, and you're done. Yeah. And
you and it's almost when you're, like, a 9 year old kid and you've never
seen anything like that before, it's almost like you're getting hit by a freight train.
Yeah. It's kind of insane. I
I love loony tunes. It's That's so I like fascinating
history here, and then the
structure is really interesting too. Well and they did
I will say Warner Brothers really allowed those animators
like McKimson and others. Carl Stalling was another one.
He did all the music. He was he was a genius with the music, but
they would allow these guys
to be the anti Walt Disney.
They were literally, like, on the other side of Disney. So Disney was considered
to be corporate and cultured,
and they're gonna do full length movies. So this was during Looney Looney
Tunes was really popular during the time when
Disney was doing Peter Pan and Snow
White and Bambi and those Cinderella, you
know, the big sort of classical films that we think of as
the Disney classics. On the cinematic end,
Looney Tunes was owning television, and they were owning movie
shorts. And so you would see and that's how they started. You would see shorts
in front of films first. Yeah. But then after that, they
transitioned to TV because TV was a much better medium for this. Right.
Because you could just you could do, like, 4 cartoons in a
row Yeah. In, like, an hour or in 20 minutes. Actually, in 20
minutes. You can do 4 cartoons in a row, and everybody could get paid.
So they were the anti Disney. As a matter of fact, almost to the point
where they would have gags inside of the Looney
Tunes cartoons that were anti Disney gags,
and they eventually had to drop those because he was like, you don't stop this.
Gonna sue you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because Walt wasn't
Walt wasn't screwing around. But they knew sort of and
they knew, of course, they knew all the Disney admin animators and all the Disney
animators do them, and so they would exchange gags. It was a whole it was
a whole thing. This is fascinating. I had no idea. I thought Looney
Tunes was, like, part of Disney. No. It was part of the
it was part of the, what is considered to be the golden age of
American animation, which, is by by the
thirties to the seventies in this country, where
you could
you could literally build an entire media
franchise off of cartoons for kids. Because
there was nothing on TV. Like, this is we and and, of course, we live
in the backwash of all of this. But
in in the thirties through the seventies, no one had any clue
what to do with television. Yeah. Like, okay. You have this bandwidth.
What do we put on this thing? So shows like, like my mom
watched because my mom was a classic boomer. All of her generation watched
Howdy Doody, particularly the older members of her generation. Well, Howdy
Doody was entirely a creation of some serial
company. So the serial company came up with
the show so they could sell cereal.
Or the Tiffany Network. Right? The reason CBS is called the Tiffany
Network is because Tiffany Glass
created CBS to sell more Tiffany Glass.
It's sort of an inverse for how we do media today. We don't do media
like this today because of the Internet. So no one's no
one is confused as to what to do with TikTok. Like, no one no one's
confused. They may be putting ridiculous
stuff on there, but no one's confused as to what to do once that bandwidth
opens. Well, back in the day, it was
different. It was like, okay. What do we do with this bandwidth? So you could
put on howdy doody. You could put on a man with a puppet and then
run that next to a bunch of cartoons and then sell some sugary breakfast cereal,
and now you're done. And that was all thought of as being kids' stuff.
Well, you do have mainstream, like, media
that's not wait. 80, 90% funded by
pharmaceuticals? Right. You do have that. Yes. You do have that.
But that's, like, the modern equivalent. Right. Well, in This is
fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in news didn't really come
along as a function of TV until or not really. I would
say come along. Didn't really kick in as a function of television
until the fifties and the sixties. So you
had, what was his name? Oh,
Brinkley and Hunt. Right? Like, those 2 guys, you know, that
really sort of kicked off the idea that television could
be a medium for news as well as a medium for
kids entertainment, as well as a medium for westerns. Like the heyday of
westerns in the United States, particularly TV westerns, was the 19
fifties, and the 19 sixties. And so if you were a kid in the
fifties, you could watch like Rawhide. Like people
people forget this. Clint Eastwood, his entire career
started on Rawhide on television in the 19 fifties.
With the Spaghetti Western? I thought Spaghetti Westerns were in the
theaters. Right? Yes. Spaghetti Westerns were in the theaters. Yes. And that was And the
reason that news wasn't, that TV wasn't medium for news
until fifties sixties was because people didn't have TV. You
know, most people didn't have TVs in their homes, and most of it was through
radio? Correct. It was it was it was radio Yeah.
Then print or print and then radio, depending upon which which debit
which market you were in. But, I mean, you would you would live in
a media market where you would be able to get, let's
say, you had 5 news well, that's probably extensive. 3
newspapers, right, in a city, right, like Chicago. You'd have 3
newspapers printing up news 3 times a day. So you'd have
a morning edition, a midday edition, and an evening edition. Forgot
about that. I knew, now that you say that I knew they had morning
and evening. Yeah.
How how quickly times change and things change. Like,
I had some of that in from a high level awareness.
Mhmm. But it is interesting, like,
getting into the cultural trans you know, transmission,
discussion, how quickly the modalities change Oh,
yeah. Based on the advancements of technology.
Mhmm. And, yeah, Midsummer Night's Dream,
you know, was the ability to use comedy
to share that with chill yeah. It reached all levels. Right.
Like, children through, through adults, the
stories, and we all interpret it differently
and, you know, based on where we are in our own
evolution, but it's fun for everyone. Right? Right.
And I think of that, like Pixar movie is the same thing.
Like Mhmm. Like, it's as much fun to go to a
Pixar movie as an adult as it is as a kid. Right.
And do you think that the kids are gonna get, like, some of the innuendos,
but they don't. They have their whole a whole another level of understanding.
Right. Yeah. Well, I think
I was I was thinking the other day. Well, maybe not the other day, but
I was thinking, I was thinking a while ago that
it would be a real hoop. This is a
business idea that anybody can take us to see this podcast, but it would be
a real hoot to do 5 to
7 minute long animated shorts that are layered at
that level that like Looney Tunes was layered at. But I
don't know number 1 that you do it. And I don't
mean that the talent isn't there. And I don't mean that
the gags aren't there. And I don't even mean that the comedy isn't
there. I mean, and and
probably the only place you'd be able to do it would be maybe Netflix
or Hulu, maybe. But let's say let's say Hulu.
If you do the half hour no. No. No. Sorry. Not a half hour. If
you did 6 to 7 minute or 5 to 7 minute
long animated comedic shorts,
and you banged out, like, a 100 of those in a
week and distributed them on Hulu
that were layered at the level that you got the
layering back in the day of Looney Tunes with
verbal gags, visual gags,
wordplay in your window speed
of animation music. I'm not saying
the talent doesn't exist to do that. I believe the country is overflowing
with people talented enough to do that. I think
the thing that kills that idea is the
subject matter that you would have to cover and the way
you would have to do it. Because too many feelings would get
triggered. Oh, and and and by the way,
triggered triggered so fast that they wouldn't even know they were
triggered. Yeah. Because it goes up it goes so quickly.
But the case but case of No. That's something about it was upsetting. Right. I
don't know what upset me, but something and then you have people go you have
people cut it and put it on the Internet and slow it down and be
like, that's where it is. You know? And you know them trying to the
closest you will get to something that's this good,
As good as Looney Tunes, I think, personally, and it's not for kids,
which is really too bad, is robot chicken. The whole robot
chicken show on, on,
on, Cartoon Network back in the day. I think that's
as close as you get. And that was claymation. And the only reason Seth
Green was Seth Green and his crazy people were able to get away with that
was because it was claymation.
But it hit everything. It did. It hit everything with the verbal gags, the sight
gags, the visual Well, and so I feel. I'm
not a big I'm not a big animation, you know, person,
but I see a lot of clips on South Park. Mhmm. Isn't that
kind of in the same realm and, you know, as well as,
I also am not a you know, who's the other what's the other one? The
Simpsons that everyone loves? Oh, the Simpsons family guy. Yeah.
So I think this I so here's here's my honest that's a great
question. And my honest feedback on that or my
honest answer to that is Stimson's
the even the Flintstones Yeah. Of the Jetsons back in
the sixties, and seventies,
and then Family Guy in the nineties Yeah.
And then South Park in the late nineties all the way up to now.
Those 5 cartoons would not exist without
Looney Tunes. Right. So what they did was
all 5 of those cartoons, what they did was they took the the
the concept, the core concepts that were in Looney
Tunes, and they did exactly what I just did. Like, they pulled it apart and
they went, okay, I don't wanna do this in a short context
because it's too hard to sell advertising around this. Yeah. Matt
Groening. Right? This is why he did The Simpsons as a half hour show.
And I think it's re it was really to appeal to the advertiser
television format. But now you see South Park doing
movies that they're releasing on Paramount Plus Yeah. While they're
calling them movies. Right? But they're they're like 90 minute long cartoons
with gags and everything else. Well, it's the same concept as Looney
Tunes, it's just we've expanded the franchise out
because streaming requires different things than television based
advertising required. And so the the metrics of who gets paid
and how for what work have all shifted around. And I think that's that's
the other challenge other than just the other than just
the the people might get triggered part. The other challenge is how do you
pay all those people to produce, you know, basically 5 to 7 minutes or
short content. Yeah. That that's the piece. And with AI, you might be able
to do that. You have the different platforms between, like, YouTube,
YouTube Shorts and TikTok, neither of which I watch, but
I know a lot of people, do, and they're really popular.
So it's more kind of the economics because I don't know that it's as much
of the triggering now with the Overton window opening as much as it
has. And you do see, you know,
like South Park. Right. You know, being out there.
But interesting. I I love thank you for sharing all this.
This is really, really fun. I like learning.
Well, I'm a I'm a sucker for I am. I'm a sucker for a I'm
a sucker for a gag. I'm a sucker for a well
designed gag. And I'm even more of a sucker for a
gag that's well designed and operates at multiple levels and is gonna get me to
think a little bit deeper past just the gag itself. So, You
know? Like, I'll watch I'll watch,
3 stooges, like, all day. I'll watch that kind of stuff all day. You know?
Please. And most men watch You know what I mean? Yeah. I
was gonna say I think that's more of a I I don't like to generalize,
but I do think that's more of a male thing. Like, is it,
what's his I can't think of his name right now. The guy who was in
lethal weapon. Oh, Mel Gibson? Mel Gibson. He
loves, like, the, you know, the 3 the 3 stooges. Yeah. It's
it's it's dumb whatever, or, you
know, a fart gag. Right? Like like, the fart gun in,
Despicable Me. Like, I I I do think that's funny. Yeah.
I find that stuff funny. But clever,
visually clever. And it's really the visual visual clever thing that I'm
looking for. Yeah. Visual cleverness. But then you compile it
into music and gags and the words, the
writing itself, when it's working on all of those levels,
then you've got me. I mean, I'm suckered in. I'm I'm in. I'm
in there. And and if it's not Yeah. So tell me how that relates back
to Midsummer Night's Dream. So here's how this relates all back to A Midsummer
Night's Dream. The
Midsummer Night's In Midsummer Night's Dream, to
your point. And actually, you raised the point. Shakespeare was trying
to transmit culture here. And I think cartoons,
do transmit culture. They are cultural transmission
tools. Right? Like memes. And this is why also I
think you probably it's the third reason why you probably couldn't get this to
happen today, a Looney Tunes kind of thing to happen today, because we all live
in meme culture now. I can I can transmit
multiple ideas in a meme
of I don't know? Pick your fame
oh, oh, I'll pick a famous meme here. The the dog in
the, in the house that's on fire and he's drinking in one
panel, and then the next panel, it's like everything's fine. Right? He goes, oh, everything's
fine here. Like, you can you can send that meme to
somebody these days, and it operates at multiple levels Yeah.
Inside of their experience. And then they can send it to
somebody else. They can sit Yeah. So now we're contextualizing, and that's what Looney Tunes
did so brilliantly. And that, of course, when A Midsummer Night's Dream does,
it contextualizes it for individuals so they can transmit
it around. Now in the time of Shakespeare, they were
transmitting those ideas around via purely language because you couldn't take
the actors with you and do the visuals. But in our
time, we can take the visuals, we can take the words.
It's gonna be really interesting when memes can add music musical clips
to memes. That's going to be really interesting,
because there's gonna be musical gags going on people's phones, like,
all of the time. And you already started to see this with GIFs a little
bit, you know, animated GIFs. But when you can put music on top of that
thing, I'll forget it. Like, it's gonna be ridiculous.
And it's that multiple levels that we've layered
in to our culture how we transmit
ideas. And it's become global, which is also awesome.
And so a meme, or an idea that
works in a Western context can now work in a global context
as well. A Midsummer Night's Dream kicks all of that off. That's my point
with bringing up all of this. It kicks all of it off, and Looney Tunes
and memes all tie into that,
at a, at a amazing
layered level. I'm doing it all with, like I
said, low comedy and wordplay. So
which, again, I I I appreciate it. Sounds
good. Appreciate a good meme and a good comedy,
for sure. Yes. Alright. Back to the book. We're
we got around the corner here. We talked to I've talked to I've rambled coherently
about the movie twos. We might have to cut some of that.
No. No. No. Oh, don't. That's really it's really good stuff.
Back to the play, back to A Midsummer Night's Dream,
the Folger Shakespeare Library version
of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
So let me go to act 3.
And in act 3, scene 2,
we're going to pick up with
well, with the king of the fairies. We're going to pick up with Oberon
and Robin Goodfellow, where Hock or
Robin Goodfellow, reports to Oberon about Titania and
Bottom, the guy with the ass on his head.
And then Demetrius is going to enter, and
Oberon is going to find out that, well,
well, fuck screwed up. And so we're going to
figure out what happens when, well, when you don't do what
you are supposed to do. Alright. Back to the book, back to the
play, back to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act
3, scene 2. Enter Oberon, king of the
fairies. Oberon. I wonder if Titania be awake. Then what was it that next
came into her eye, which she must dote on in extremity? Enter
Robin Goodfellow. Here comes my messenger. How now, mad
spirit? What night rule about this haunted crow? Robin.
My mistress was a monster is in love, near to her close and concentrated bower
while she sleeps in her dull and sleeping hour. A crew of matches rude
mechanicals,
that work for bread upon Athenian stalls were met together to rehearse a
play intended for great Theseus' nuptial day, the
shallowest skin of that barren sore who Pyramus presented in their
sport pursuit had seen and entered in a break. When I did
him at his advantage take, had asked noll, I fixed on his head,
anon must be answered, and forth my mimic comes,
when they him spy as wild geese that creeping fowler eye or
russet patchychos manian sort, rising and clawing at
the gun's report, thither themselves and madly sweep the sky,
let his sight away his fellows fly. And at our stand up
here, Orinor, when falls, he murder cries, and help for Athens
calls, Their senses thus weak, lost with their fears thus
strong, made senseless things begin do them wrong.
For briars and thorns at their apparel snatch. Some leaves,
some hats, some yielders, all things catch. I led them on this distracted
fear and left sweet Paramus translated there. When in that
moment, so it came to pass, Titania wake and straightaway loved
an ass. Oberon, this falls
out better than I could devise. But has thou yet latched the Athena's
eyes with the love juice just as I bid thee do?
Robin, I took him sleeping. That is finished too. And the Athenian woman
by his side. That, when he waked, a force she
must be eyed. Enter Demetrius
and Hermaiah. Hermia, Oberon, stand
close. This is the same Athenian. Robin, this is the woman,
but not this the man. Then
they step aside and then shenanigan.
Shenanigans. As
Puck has to undo what he did.
When we think about A Midsummer Night's Dream, when we think about
Shakespeare's writing, and when we think about the power of
how we can learn from this play as a
leader, One of the big things that we have to take, I think, or several
of them, one of the big things we have to take from this play
is the idea that there are things that are floating around
that we cannot see, like love and lust. And they are
powerful motivators for us. We've talked about
motivators, with Libby before and how folks can be motivated
by anger or motivated by pride. But people can
also be motivated by love, Love of what
they are doing, love of a show, like I was just talking about Looney
Tunes, or even love of another
person. Love is a many splendored thing, to
paraphrase again from Shakespeare, and it is a thing that motivates
us. We also need to fall in love with our
culture. We need to fall in love with the ways in which our culture
is transmitted, whether that be through words
or through visual means. And
culture is one of the another one of those things that we cannot see.
Culture is the handmaid of civilization. It walks
hand in hand. If civilization were male culture would be female and they
walk hand in hand creating all of us
and turning us all into, well,
productive human beings. And then of course for
leaders the last thing that they could take from A Midsummer Night's Dream is how
to love a good gag, how how to actually loosen up and, laugh at
things because there's more things that are humorous than there are
things that are un humorous or that are tragic in
this world. And even tragedy, by the way, can be turned
sometimes into comedy. Not to dismiss the depth of the
tragedy, but actually to elevate people around it so that they can
overcome it. As I round the corner here with
Libby, what are your final thoughts on what leaders can grab
from A Midsummer Night's Dream? One of your favorite
Shakespeare plays.
Actually, it's all about having Levitti in a, like, Levitti
in in the workplace.
I I, you know, I remember working very,
very late nights. I was, you know, a consultant with the big four for many
years, and there was nothing funnier than Harvey
Balls at midnight.
You know, we all had, you know, boyfriends, girlfriends,
spouses to go home to, but, like, there was nothing
more funny at midnight than Harvey Balls.
Mhmm. And, you know, it's always about,
bringing in, you know, mischievousness or fun and not taking
you know, when you're in the grind,
when you have tight deadlines and, you know, and you believe
passionately about what you're doing for your client and you want your team
to be successful, never forget to have
fun. And you see that, like, with the special ops teams. Those
guys give each other a hard time every single
day. It's constant ribbing and riffing, but that's
that releases pressure and tension, and it's
fun. Don't forget the art of fun and stop taking
things. I think results matter.
Challenge matters. Like, don't it's not about passivity and not
caring, but it's about being able to have fun in the in the
moment. Yeah, in all
of life. And it's about what it really is always about love. Right? Always
about love. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your
life. I believe that that's that's probably one of the
more overused motivational phrases, in entrepreneurship and
in leadership, but it is true. The
challenge is, of course, is in a world of option multiple options,
high optionality, or not even high optionality,
a lot of options, a lot of choices. How do you find what you love?
But once you find that thing, then you stick with it. Right? And you gotta
have humor with it. You gotta have you gotta enjoy what you're
doing. Gotta be able to ramble for, like, 20 minutes about Looney Tunes. Not
enough not enough people like the the challenge.
Like, find the love of solving new
problems and the challenge that goes with that. Yeah. You know?
And that, to me, is really about love because it's about helping
wanting to elevate everyone. You know, rise the ocean. Yeah. If you ink
yeah. Raise the ocean, all boats will rise.
Mhmm. You know, falling in love with solving problems.
Right? Yes. Like, that is fun. It's hard. That's why a lot of
people just sit back and and judge how someone, you know,
solved a problem rather than do it. It's just like, yeah. Fuck with
the challenge. Right. It's hard as he
heck. But that's fun, and too many
people have, you know, I don't know what I
think they think love of work,
means art or, like, you know, soft
stuff that's been intellectualized as, things
that we should love. But Mhmm. Yeah. But what's the end
result and being you know, and and loving that whole process
and making sure that whole process works for everyone?
We do there's so many landmines that we always end up tripping on,
when you wanna say, you know, to let everyone be,
make sure something works for everyone. It's you know, there's gotta be tough love, and
there's gotta be we know what our constraints are, and we can't be everything to
everyone. But, you know, doing your darndest to
create an environment for everyone to thrive based on their
different, yeah, wants and needs and skills, but, you know,
providing, you know, being able to make tough decisions that
may be uncomfortable for folks because you know that long
term result is what matters and where
you know, and and we're heading for.
But too many too many people
want the, yeah, want the satisfaction today, and they're not
willing to do the hard work. Fall in love
with the outcomes of hard work.
Yeah. Yeah. No. I I agree with that. How
do we bring that back to you miss our ice cream?
I think we'll leave it there. I think I think it's a combination for
me. It's, not over index. This is where
balance always comes in and thinking about how ecosystems require,
you know, dark and light. Yeah. It requires good
and bad, seriousness and fun.
Mhmm. But also objective and
subjective. That's subjective. You know, so balancing an objective reality with
an ephemeral one. You know? Allowing the dreams
to be, but not over indexing too much on the dream world or over
indexing too much on reality. On reality. No. Yeah.
No. Yeah. I agree with that. No. Well,
well, once again, I would like to thank Libby Younger for coming on the podcast
today. This is always pleasure as usual.
And please go check out the older Shakespeare library
version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and, fall in
love with well, fall in love with Shakespeare.
It's a challenge. It is a challenge. And if but if you're gonna be as
challenging as you will, you will fall in love with. And with
that, well, oh, we're out.