Episode 212: Follow Your Nose (with Yoel Inbar)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist David Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Is that my purpose? Simply to be a witness? We create our own purpose in life. Now go create yours. The Queen in Oz has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you? Who are you? I'm a very bad man. Good man, good man.

[00:00:55] They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention to that man. Anybody can have a brain? You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:16] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston, Yoel. The Facebook Supreme Court, whatever the fuck that is, just announced that Facebook has six months to decide whether to keep banning Donald Trump. Do you think we should have Trump back on social media?

[00:01:33] Well, I'm assuming you haven't checked out his new social media platform. I have actually. What's his social media platform? It's a blog. It's just a blog.

[00:01:48] But I read or somebody told me that he's trying to get around the Twitter ban by having some third party just tweet out everything that he posts on the blog. Yeah, makes sense given when you read the blog post. They're just like tweets, right?

[00:02:00] They're not well thought out or particularly grammatical. I like that he calls Liz Cheney warmonger Liz Cheney warmonger. Is it the internet's premiere all caps? Social media outlet. It is. Guest posts from Kanye West.

[00:02:20] Yeah, so does Facebook have any, you know, is there decision consequential at all now that he's managed and run around the Twitter ban? Like maybe not, right? No, because they're banning those tweets now on Twitter. Oh, they are. Wow, shit moves quick, man. I don't know.

[00:02:36] I was looking back at some of the, you know, like at the blog, at the posts and, you know, at their best, they're pretty funny. Credit words. Like they even have like a Gugolian quality. Oh, look at that. It's like a segue right into telling us.

[00:02:52] We should introduce YOL, by the way. YOL in bars joining us actually from the other room right now currently in the world. I'm in my house physically on location in Pizarro Studios. YOL in bar from University of Toronto, famed Google scholar. Yes. Hey guys.

[00:03:10] Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be here sharing my Google knowledge with both of you. The pandemic isn't over. You two shouldn't be anywhere near each other. We're just like, I am fully vaccinated. YOL actually is a refugee from Canada who came across the border probably illegally.

[00:03:27] I'm sure there's some law that he broke just to get the free vaccine that presumably, you know, our evil capitalist nation shouldn't be, you know, shouldn't be so much more advanced than socialist Canada. But open borders is a problem. Yeah.

[00:03:42] They're really the problem to say let us in to start with. But yeah, I mean, it's really, it's again credit where it's due in Canada. It's still at least when I left, it was really tough for somebody who's, you know, my age.

[00:03:53] So I'm in forties, early forties with no preexisting conditions to get a vaccine. And we literally just drove across the border to a Walmart and it was like have a vaccine. It was it was amazing. It was amazing. I love the United States for all Canada's shit too.

[00:04:08] Like, oh, they're preening and all, you know, yeah, those are real real comeuppance for them. This is why we there's a real shot that will lose Paul Bloom within the next year. Like lose him from the earth. Yeah, yeah. He's in Toronto now. Yeah. He's just no vaccine.

[00:04:27] Jesus, that's dark. He's not in his early forties. Yeah. Right. I don't know. Maybe maybe he managed to get some of the vaccine that gives you blood clots. They were giving that out kind of more freely. That's the one I got. Part of the global elite.

[00:04:40] I'm sure they mailed him one. Yeah. Do you think Trump should be back on Twitter? I don't know. I mean, I completely seriously, I'm uncomfortable with these unaccountable corporations making these sorts of consequential decisions. On the other hand, I mean he did incite people to storm the capital.

[00:04:59] So I'm going to go with he should not be on Twitter, but it is a close call. Yeah. If Twitter had just been sharper in its enforcement of violations, I would have zero problems

[00:05:14] with it because what I don't like is the kind of motivated searching out for violations that led to, I think Trump probably clearly violated Twitter policy. But they're just not very good at enforcing Twitter policy.

[00:05:31] And so for them to selectively choose, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Even though for fuck's sake, I don't want Trump on Twitter. I think Twitter is a better place without him. But it's hard to defend it to people who really care. Yeah.

[00:05:43] I also don't like, I actually prefer Twitter with, I mean if I separate everything except just me having like my brother send me his funniest tweets every like few days. Like I really liked that.

[00:05:57] And so, so I sort of willing to take the collateral damage of like the capital. Yeah. It's just a bunch of politicians and they're fine. They're going down to their bunkers. So, yeah. In any case, it's pretty controversial whether he should be on Twitter.

[00:06:15] Oh, there should be a journal for that. There should be a journal in today's climate where people can just publish things and have them be assessed by their ideas and the arguments. If only there were such a journal. Well, luckily, Yoh-El is a hacker. He's a nerd.

[00:06:34] And we can't say what his methods were, but he was able to actually get into the editorial manager for the journal, the new Journal of Controversial Ideas. Yeah. Let me just say something about this journal. This is edited by Jeff McMahon, Rutgers professor. Last I know.

[00:06:55] Francesca Minerva and Peter Singer, friend of the show, Peter Singer. And here's how they describe it. The Journal of Controversial Ideas offers a forum for careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial in the sense that certain views about them

[00:07:14] might be regarded by many people as morally, socially, or ideologically objectionable or offensive. And here is one of the controversial parts of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. It offers authors the option to publish their articles under a pseudonym

[00:07:29] in order to protect themselves from threats to their careers or physical safety. We hope that this will also encourage readers to attend to the arguments and evidence in an essay rather than to who wrote it.

[00:07:42] We aim to publish papers that are likely to advance knowledge and promote free inquiry and rational argumentation. And so, yeah, like you said, Yoh-El was able to hack in. The first issue has already been released, but they have... We got abstracts that were submissions for future issues, right?

[00:08:04] That's right. And we got some very explosive stuff, I will say. Yes, it's living up to its stated purpose, at least as far as we can tell from these abstracts. Should we read some? Sure. Should I go first? Yeah, why don't you go first? Okay.

[00:08:23] So, you know that it's not a Journal of Controversial Ideas issue if there's not something on trans issues, right? Right. So this is a paper called, Are Trans Women Trans Men? Question mark. Just asking questions. This is by Leslie Carving Space, which I think is a pseudonym,

[00:08:47] which is not surprising given the emotional sort of temperature of this issue. All right, so here's the abstract. I'm just looking at this for the first time. Since the dawn of time, the transgender debate has been very contentious. I'm not sure that's true. Since the dawn of time.

[00:09:06] On the one side there are people who argue that trans women are women. On the other side are people who say that trans women aren't women, but are in fact men or at least not women. But an oddly neglected possibility is that trans women are actually trans men.

[00:09:22] In other words, they used to be women, but they have transitioned into being men. I explore the implications of this conclusion and offer some reasons for why this space in the trans debate has been thus far unoccupied. Super counterintuitive, you know?

[00:09:38] But you need to explore that conceptual space. I like the, if you don't fill out quadrants, you really don't know what you're arguing. Yeah, and it's definitely not something that would have popped into my mind. But with the forum for free and open inquiry, you get that.

[00:09:56] So I have one here that's, you know, social media has really had an overpowering effect on culture. And the next one is on the moral, it's called the moral impermissibility of no-nut November. And so it says, the popularity of no-nut November in which individuals are challenged to abstain

[00:10:20] from masturbation or any form of orgasm, I shall argue, is morally impermissible. Whether from the standpoint of hedonistic utilitarianism specifically or any other form of consequentialism that holds that some form of pleasure ought to be maximized,

[00:10:34] the generalization of this idea has undoubtedly led the world to be a worse place, all things considered. In fact, from a consequentialist perspective, all months should involve nutting.

[00:10:44] Moreover, if a situation allows for a nut to occur, I will argue, it is morally obligatory for that nut to occur. Implications for Jeffrey Tubin are discussed. This is an article by an author, I think this is a pseudonym as well, Peter Finger. Yeah, probably.

[00:11:03] Oh no, actually I know a Peter Finger. Congratulations on his acceptance. He's at NYU. All right, hot stuff David. That's a real, yeah it was a real repugnant conclusion there. I can't sign onto it but I also can't marshal any objections.

[00:11:21] It's just pure sentiment that this is just absolutely disgusting. Right. I'm kind of on board. Especially the obligatory. I mean maximizing means maximizing despite the fucking bullet, you know? Excuse me, I've got to go fulfill my moral obligation. I'll be back in five to ten minutes.

[00:11:44] All right, well so I have a little bit of a different one that came across my desk here. The author information here is actually completely redacted, so not even a pseudonym which possibly would be too revealing. But the title is Ghosts and Auto Ethnographic Investigation.

[00:12:01] The abstract reads, strong for a sentence here, Throughout history humans have agreed that ghosts are real. However, lately it has become fashionable to argue that ghosts are not real because their existence would be incompatible with the laws of physics.

[00:12:20] In this Auto Ethnographic account, I debunk the facile scientism of these ghost deniers. That strikes me as overly argumentative and I think maybe this needs to go through another editing pass. Facile. I don't know. I'm total of this. I like this. So far you're so.

[00:12:36] Facile scientism of these ghost deniers with reference to my own personal experiences including that one time I glass broke for no reason. And the other time I heard what definitely sounded like footsteps upstairs even though I'm pretty sure no one but me was home.

[00:12:48] In the final section, I sketch out future directions for first person research into the existence of non corporeal sentient entities or NCSEs. Nixies I guess we could say. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It goes off the rails a little bit. It does. But the first half was strong.

[00:13:07] I feel really. Yeah. But when it goes off the rails you could just tell what a sloppy mind is really producing this. I mean what kind of a person so obvious that ghosts don't exist because nobody's won James Randy's challenge. Do they at least consider that objection?

[00:13:21] They don't and I think this is an opportunity for you to write a letter in response to this piece of garbage when it comes out. Yeah maybe I'll definitely do that. Alright. Interesting.

[00:13:32] I like that one's probably my favorite although all of them I think it's good to air those ideas because...

[00:13:41] Alright so this one is interesting in the sense that I think a lot of people when they think of controversial ideas they think of hot button issues like whatever the trans debate or abortion or race issues.

[00:13:57] But I think an article can be controversial or even radical in form as well as substance. So this is by Randall Hofstetter. I don't know if that's maybe it's related to Douglas. I don't know. So in this paper you finally admit that you want to fuck me.

[00:14:17] Yes you were a little coy about it and maybe you honestly were conflicted at one point. I'm not sure. All I know is that you're ready to just flat out say you want to fuck me right. I mean just admit it. It's fine.

[00:14:31] But look no offense I'm probably not going to say yes. Nothing personal you're just not my type. Actually you know what what the hell let's do it.

[00:14:40] Here's my number and then he gives the number but I'm not going to read that out because you know I don't want our listeners mobbing him. So that's something like I've personally never seen in a journal like a second person address.

[00:14:57] I applaud their willingness to sort of go outside the standard form of you know conceptual arguments or even empirical arguments and just just get to the point it does sound like a sort of McSweeney's rejection like decorative gourds style.

[00:15:12] I like that it's not an academic ease you know this person has found his or her voice and yeah. It's also accurate in that based on that I kind of do want to fuck them. So they're onto something. All right. All right Richard you heard the man.

[00:15:35] So this next one is about harm reduction strategies. In fact it's just called harm reduction strategies.

[00:15:41] There are consistent objections to public policies that rely on the principle of harm reduction such as that of freely distributing condoms to high school students or that of providing clean needles to heronetics.

[00:15:50] However such strategies have been put in place because of the overall net benefit they provide a society in the form of reducing unwanted pregnancies and STI's and of preventing the spread of AIDS amongst individuals addicted to heroin.

[00:16:00] I will argue that the prevention of the death of innocence by gun violence is an even more important societal goal.

[00:16:05] And given that a large proportion of gun deaths come at the hands of gang members engaging in drive by shootings often holding their guns sideways and hanging out of a car firing indiscriminately into crowds.

[00:16:15] I propose a mandatory training program whereby gang members are required to take weekly courses in sharp shooting held free of charge and local community centers and shooting ranges.

[00:16:24] So long as gang members are going to continue drive by shootings the least that a responsible site can do is minimize the deaths of innocent bystanders by increasing the accuracy of gang shooting so that innocent bystanders need not continue dying.

[00:16:37] This was furious styles is the name of this author. Yeah. Yeah. That one was kind of serious. I feel like if you don't have empirical data back that up. Yeah. That's just it.

[00:16:50] And also I feel that there's this traffic and some ugly stereotypes about the marksmanship of gang members. Well how do we know? I feel like this person got all of their information from the movie Boys in the Hood. Exactly. Our menace to society. Our menace to society.

[00:17:04] It just stopped listening. I mean we don't know if that paper has been accepted though right. Good point. Yeah. That could be the reject file. Yeah. We're not sure. OK. Yo, Yoel did you find any other ones?

[00:17:19] No, no I only managed to dig out the one but I know you guys have better luck so please keep going. Well I have one here. This is by James Lindachie. James Lindachie. Sounds legit. Yeah. Sounds like a really nice. Possibly a pseudo note.

[00:17:41] Sounds like a Sri Lankan. It's called Round Him Up by James Lindachie. It's widely acknowledged that critical race theory is the greatest threat to civilization in human history. There is less consensus on what to do about this.

[00:17:58] While some scholars claim in a free society we must tolerate the virulent spread of critical race theory through academia, government, media, finance, sports, silicon valley, sculpture and sword fighting.

[00:18:11] I argue that we must instead, that we must round up all known and suspected critical race theorists along with their allies and anyone who refuses to denounce them or recognize their world domination and torture them or at the very least make them show their penises.

[00:18:30] At the very least. Glad that's a sub solution. I would definitely like if I'm among these people I would show my penis rather than being tortured. I mean. I do that for free.

[00:18:43] That's controversial but you know like I know that there are people out there who think that critical race theory is a great threat so. I can just tell that this is, this smacks of whiteness you know.

[00:18:58] I feel like that pseudonym was an attempt at avoiding the whiteness of the author coming through. You think? Maybe. I had another interpretation of the pseudonym. But yeah, like the, I'm really even though I don't agree with this person I would die for their right to say it.

[00:19:20] That's right. You know the last one that I found I feel like is kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. I mean I feel like maybe they're not getting enough submissions but it's short and sweet. It's just simply entitled first you get the pussy.

[00:19:35] Contrary to popular belief and idiom I shall argue that first you get the pussy and only then do the money and the power follow. In rare cases even I will argue that power comes first then the pussy and only finally does money fuck it.

[00:19:49] Yeah interesting because it's true that like at least a priori I thought first you get the money then you get the pussy. Exactly. Again it's one of those conceptual space arguments.

[00:20:02] Like has anybody bothered to take sort of the, to steal man the potential conceptual opposite of what they didn't think about? But unlike the trans one where like I think that was probably unoccupied for a reason.

[00:20:15] Like this one like I really needed to just kind of get turned around you know. Right right right. It's sort of one where it awakens an intuition that you might have had all along. And now I feel bad that I've spent all this time like. Not exactly backwards.

[00:20:37] There may be a good one to end on. Probably. I have one that I'm not, but in that vein and it's called on slapping bitches. On slapping bitches by Connor Ellsworth the second. In this paper I argue that it's morally permissible to slap bitches.

[00:20:59] Not like every day but I mean sometimes a bitch needs some distance and know what I'm saying? That's it. That it feels like it's in the same voice as the fuck me one. That guy's just very prolific. All right.

[00:21:18] Yo Al anything more to say about the Journal of Controversial Ideas? Nothing but that I think it's an incredible enterprise and I wish them all the best and I cannot wait to read the ghost paper in its entirety.

[00:21:34] The rest of them I feel like I got it from the abstract so honestly I don't really need to read the whole thing. But the ghost paper I'm going to be sitting down and going over that motherfucker carefully so. So yeah nice work. All right.

[00:21:46] When we come back we'll talk about Go-Go's The Nose. This episode is brought to you by Wine.com. Dave I think this is our perfect sponsor. This is our ideal sponsor. We've peaked when it comes to sponsors. We've climaxed I think.

[00:22:06] I know we love like you know charities and therapists and all but like honestly. How happy were you when we got to do this? Wine is a form of therapy. That's right. You know veritas. Exactly. Yeah this is a new sponsor and I love it.

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[00:22:55] You don't even need to leave your home. I actually went to college in the Napa Valley and went wine tasting and stuff. You would think I know what I'm talking about. I don't know shit so you can like look through all of it exactly like Tamo said.

[00:23:08] You can look through everything. It is, it's like the world's largest wine store. So you have a ton of selection. I don't think you can find a selection like that anywhere physically but you get it delivered. This is the best part.

[00:23:21] You get it delivered straight to your door. So I went online, I signed up. I picked five wines all white by the way because that's the kind of guy I am. Interesting. Not surprising.

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[00:24:21] So we're huge fans and you can join in on the wine.com fun. You can get drunk from wine.com wine while listening to very bad wizards. Just go to wine.com slash bad wizards. So wine.com slash bad wizards. No very.

[00:24:41] And you will get $50 off your first order. Fifth, that's pretty good. That's like practice. We didn't get much more than that. Go to wine.com slash bad wizards and get $50 off your first order. Some terms apply. Thank you to wine.com for supporting this episode.

[00:25:22] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time of the podcast where we like to take a moment to genuinely thank everybody from the bottom of our hearts for all of the support that you give us. We love our listeners. We love hearing from you.

[00:26:36] We love talking to you when we get a chance. If you want to reach out to us, it's very easy. You can just email us verybadwizards at gmail.com. We promise we read every single email, but of course we can't answer all of them.

[00:26:49] Especially like the really long thoughtful ones. Like there's... I always say well like it would take a long time to reply to this. So if you're one of those people who wrote the really long thoughtful one, just know I read it and I'm glad that it's thoughtful.

[00:27:02] We really do read all of them. Yeah. So if you want a shorter forum though you can tweet to us at verybadwizards or at tamler or at peas. If you want to engage in discussion with some of your like-minded or not like-minded listener friends,

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[00:27:56] But I think it doesn't help us, you know? Like a five star. It doesn't help people find this podcast. I'm at peace because usually those are people who listen to one episode and one part of it.

[00:28:11] And I can't blame somebody if they pick like the wrong intro, they start listening because they think they're going to get some deep philosophy and we're just talking like a bunch of middle schoolers about some topic. Like this episode. We could get some one stars.

[00:28:26] We have to remember that the best, most famous review of all time was one star. That's right. Repugnant. Who is it who became a t-shirt? You can also listen to us or subscribe to us on Spotify. Maybe that helps, I think.

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[00:29:00] Like giving a one time or recurring donation on PayPal or becoming one of our Patreon supporters. Joining the Patreon very bad wizards family where right now there's a lot of action. We posted a bonus episode last week where we went through the finalists for all the

[00:29:20] suggested topics for the listener selected episode. We came up with the trial. Franz Kafka's The Trial as one finalist. Apologies as another one. The novel Solaris by Stanis Lehm. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Something Great, just we didn't know what by Ursula Le Guin.

[00:29:45] Surprisingly that's not doing that well in the voting. And The Death of Ivan Illich by Leo Tolstoy. And it is one of our tightest ones ever right now.

[00:29:57] The poll still has a few more days to go but right now Franz Kafka's The Trial is winning by two votes. A mere two votes beating the structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. They are out in the lead, a somewhat distant third is apologies.

[00:30:17] So yeah, I guess if somebody becomes a $5.00 unop support they'll be able to vote. To actually tip the scales. So yeah, thank you for all the people. There's a bunch of other stuff you can do. You can go and buy t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts at Cotton Bureau dot com

[00:30:41] and then you can get a new mug. A really nice coffee mug. But thank you, we really appreciate it. We're really honored. I was looking at the Patreon because I was posting the bonus episode

[00:30:53] and just, you know, we have like over 1,700 people who are giving their hard earned money to help us keep the lights on. It blows my mind. It blows my mind. I'm so appreciative. And you know, I want to take a moment here to just do a little plug

[00:31:12] for friend of the podcast, Barry Lamb who hosts. We've talked before about Hi-Fi Nation, the podcast that he hosts because it's like so well done while produced. It's like the opposite in most ways of the way we do our podcast.

[00:31:29] But Barry Lamb actually has a Zoom event that he wanted people to know about and I think this might be fun for a lot of our listeners. It's a live Zoom event featuring a panel of prominent philosophers. It's open to everyone.

[00:31:41] It's May 27th at 5.30 p.m. Eastern time and it's on individual character and structural injustice. It's going to be hosted by Barry Lamb on behalf of the Mark Saunders Foundation, which I guess he's a part of. And these philosophers include Sally Haslinger, Jorge Garcia, Nancy Snow, Alex Madva,

[00:32:02] and they're going to be talking about structural injustices and systemic problems in public health, race relations, gender relations, and more. We're going to put a link in show notes. Check it out if you're interested in this topic at all. Again, it's open to everybody. We'll leave a link.

[00:32:18] You can just go to that link and register for the event and you'll be there. I'm going to be there. And so... And I might be there. You might be there because you're racist and you don't really care about systemic problems.

[00:32:31] Well, I am at the end of the semester, you know? Yeah, that's right. Grading hell right now. Yeah, but it sounds fun and if I don't go, it's not because I didn't want to. And I know some of those people, I know Sally Haslinger a little bit.

[00:32:49] She came and gave a talk. She's very cool. So... So cool. So yeah, thanks for... Thanks to everybody. Yeah, let's get to you, Joel. Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. So, Joel, this was your idea to do this story.

[00:33:03] You wanted to do a short story and you wanted to do this short story. So we thought we'd give you the honors of introducing it and maybe telling us why you wanted to talk about it. Thanks. Thanks, Tamler.

[00:33:17] Yeah, I'm honored to get to be the story chooser for this episode. So the story that I picked is called The Nose. I read this first, I want to say like 10 or 15 years ago and I've reread it a few times since then.

[00:33:31] And I just really like it because, well, as we'll talk about, it's super weird. And I feel like it really doesn't try to be anything except just bizarre. So this is a story by the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, was written in 1835, 1836.

[00:33:47] And basically this tells the story of a mid-level official in St. Petersburg. His name is Kolegyat Assessor, or that's like a civil service rank or major Kovolyev, who wakes up one morning to find that his nose is missing.

[00:34:05] And the action of the story concerns what happened to the nose. So at first it turns up in the bread of the dude's barber and the barber tries to ditch it but is apprehended. And then nose then reappears in act two walking around town

[00:34:23] and with a higher rank than the majors. Somehow the nose has leapfrogged him in the civil service. And he's obviously put out by this and he tries fruitlessly to reason with the nose and tell it, you know, it knows where it belongs but the nose is unmoved.

[00:34:44] And then act three, the nose mysteriously returns and for a while won't stick to his face. But then in the end just as kind of inexplicably as it had left, it rejoins him and everything is back to normal. And so that's the story. That is the story.

[00:35:01] I love the scene where he's talking to his nose. I was laughing out loud today when I was reading it. Yeah, it's really like so funny because there's... We have no idea like what could possibly be going on. It's very hard to even picture what's going on

[00:35:17] because it's like dressed up in this Russian officer's garb or whatever he is, a high official and it's talking and maybe has legs, maybe doesn't. I have no idea. It's a real mystery. Yeah, it's talking and it appears to have some sort of face that's recognizable itself.

[00:35:40] Is there a nose on the nose? Yeah, and then it's obviously a very awkward conversation both because it's like what are you doing here? You belong on my face but also because of the disparity in rank between the two individuals.

[00:35:52] So he's like how do I approach the nose? Given that it by far outranks me so awkward all around. And the nose is also like trying to figure out what he's even saying. It's not like the nose that he's a nose

[00:36:06] and that he used to be on that. Or at least it's not clear that he knows that he's, like I'm just gonna, the nose knows that he is a refugee from the face. Although his later attempt at escape might be Suggests like otherwise. Awareness of guilt for sure.

[00:36:24] But at the time when you're reading the conversation it's like the nose is like what the hell are you talking about? Like I don't understand what you're saying. Yeah, the nose acts like you and you or I would act

[00:36:36] if someone came up to us and told us that we were their nose. The whole story is so full of miscommunications at the highest level. So why did you want to do this story? I've never understood what the hell it's about

[00:36:52] and I was hoping you guys could help out with that. By the end of the episode I'm sure we will have cleared it up. Well, so that's one reason and the other reason is I feel like these people are like so relatable

[00:37:05] I feel like this, I don't know this obsession with like rank and differences in status and well also the protagonist is very worried about the face that he's gonna lose because yeah, I mean these puns are unavoidable. But he has a lot of young ladies to visit

[00:37:23] and they're gonna see it without the nose and that's gonna be tough and he you know he knows many people and he needs to make good impressions on them and without a nose like he's his hopes of you know snagging a young lady

[00:37:36] or basically out the window and that's a big deal for him. I wanted to ask you guys if you knew anything but I'm curious like this sort of like absurd writing you know predates metamorphosis by a lot

[00:37:51] and it seems as if it has that same flavor to it. So it's funny, I thought metamorphosis was in some ways a useful contrast because like the metamorphosis has like internal logic and rules that it kind of plays by once it starts with its absurd premise

[00:38:15] but this story is kind of like there are no rules and like or and there's no total internal logic to it. No, it's like a dream, it's sort of like a dream I couldn't help but feel like this was just a well-plotted dream logic.

[00:38:31] Yeah but not that well plotted in some ways. That's what's funny about it, it's like chaos kind of the story. You know like the other thing I was thinking of is Ted Cheng you know who also sets up a premise

[00:38:48] but then he is pretty scrupulous about like following the rules of that premise and having human beings just kind of act like they would if like they lived in a world that set up like he did, you know we talked about that for hell is

[00:39:04] the absence of God. But like and I think Kafka is sort of a little bit in between because there are certain aspects that he definitely heightens in his stories or at least in the metamorphosis but in fact it's now you might be right

[00:39:21] like but it feels like there isn't internal logic to the metamorphosis that there isn't to this. Right I mean the absurdity carries through the metamorphosis so it feels still absurd at every moment. I mean I think you're right that there is some logic to it

[00:39:35] it still has the tone of absurdity but something else you guys point out which is that this you know Kafka feels emo compared to this like you know Kafka is like the suffering of the human soul and Google's like

[00:39:49] eh I don't know this is no it's pretty funny right? That's right yeah. This felt to me a little like internet shit posting where it was just like I don't know the point is it's hilarious you know and like don't worry too much about it making sense.

[00:40:04] It's like a it's like a 4-chan green text like written out. Yeah exactly it's like it's great and as long as you like it's also kind of like the magic eye pictures where you have to sort of like let yourself on focus

[00:40:16] in order for the dolphin to pop out of the thing or whatever right like if you just sort of relax and accept like oh yeah totally noses noses in church nose jumped into a carriage and you start thinking about some of the

[00:40:26] details of like wait how big is it because it was not like a person a minute ago then it just all breaks down right? Right yeah we should go through so we should actually do plot. Yeah let's start with the part

[00:40:39] one alright so it starts out with Ivan who's a barber the barber who as you all said finds a nose in a sort of freshly baked loaf of bread that his wife gives him like I like that it all automatically starts

[00:40:53] out with it you know I want to ask our Russian listeners actually this to me there is this sort of neuroticism of Russian literature that is it's just like so palpable this neuroticism and even though I'm not like this for some reason I find it utterly relatable that

[00:41:13] you know he's already introducing these squabbles that he's having with his wife when he gets up in the morning and he's like I want bread and onion and she's like well fine fuck it eat the bread at least have my extra cup

[00:41:25] of coffee you know and it's already because he can't have bread and coffee right? Cause he knows that if he asks for two things she might get pissed. So there's this just domestic tension and neuroticism just already present and it's that kind of neuroticism

[00:41:40] is in Dostoevsky like it's in Tolstoy is this just a quality of the Russian people like I my stereotype of Russians now isn't like this but it's I don't think it's quite like this in Tolstoy I think you can get this at the

[00:41:53] extremes of Dostoevsky but like just the idea that like it's quite impossible to demand two things that once from his wife is like you've been even in extremes of Dostoevsky is super neurotic and it's not absurd like they're they're inner thoughts about like you know

[00:42:09] being bothered by little things. Let the fool eat the bread all the better for me the wife thought to herself there will be an extra cup of coffee left. I love that. Yeah so then he finds the nose in the bread and he immediately recognizes it.

[00:42:28] Right this guy had a very prominent nose apparently like cause he's yeah he's shaved this guy so he immediately recognizes it that his clients. Well I mean like yeah you don't know you don't have the lived experience

[00:42:39] of being a farmer so like it could be that you just would recognize anybody's nose if you like shaved them twice a week. That's very true. Right so his wife now sort of flips her shit and starts yelling at him and he starts thinking

[00:42:54] about the legal consequences of the nose being in his possession which it's not entirely clear why that gets you in trouble but evidently it's a real problem that he has the nose on him. It's also funny that that's her reaction right

[00:43:07] right the cops like it's like it's like he brought a kilo of cocaine home and like a you know and like a Cohen brothers movie like they're like oh shit we found the cocaine but even if he did that why would he put it in the bread

[00:43:19] and how would he put it in the bread. This is what I was thinking it's clearly if it was in the bread when he opened it it's her fall right she made the bread. I like that she calls him a blockhead.

[00:43:31] It's like a Charlie Brown piece of I mean it's obviously not in the original but I like whatever the transfer away with it away and he's anywhere you like out of my sight with it so right right and and he's like shit was I

[00:43:46] drunk because the author describes him as just like any good Russian he's a drunkard and he's like was I drunk and my thought was what in being drunk would have led to this like why is that like I get that it would erase your memory maybe but like

[00:44:01] what in being drunk could have possibly that the wife seems to have some theory that he jerks noses around too much when he shaves them so maybe like he snuck it in you know. Yeah she is not being a supportive spouse when this happens

[00:44:16] and he doesn't seem to expect her to be one either he's like oh shit I have to get rid of this right what am I going to do like and just kind of tunes are right right and he like puts it you know

[00:44:26] wraps it up wraps it up goes on the street and this next part really is dreamlike where he's wandering around he's trying to find a good spot to ditch the nose but then he keeps running into people coming up to him being like why are you out

[00:44:39] at this hour who you gonna go shave what's going on right so he can never find a place to leave it and as the morning is going on things are getting busier the shops are opening and then finally he manages to chuck it over the

[00:44:53] side of a bridge into the river and he thinks he's home free but at that point there's a policeman who's observed him doing something shady all of his fears have come to the policeman totally just that feeling that he's like no I know

[00:45:08] the public cops are totally gonna be like we're you know get me napped me for this nose it's totally totally comes true because the cop just does like why were you leaning over the bridge no I don't believe you that you were

[00:45:20] just looking at the river like we need the cops interrogating him Ivan Yakolevic turns pale but here the whole episode becomes shrouded and missed and of what happened subsequently absolutely nothing is known right it kind of it becomes not about him anymore right in

[00:45:37] fact the bulk of the story is not about Ivan it's sort of a weird way to open the story like it's yeah the rest is about collegiate assessor which by the way I didn't look up what is a collegiate assessor do did either of

[00:45:49] you look up what yeah I did so it's Russian civil service rank so they worked for the government and some like bureaucratic capacity but there are two kinds it seems like there is one that is there because of their scholarly merits and another that is

[00:46:04] that is a collegiate because of they belong to the cock cock Caucasus variety of collegiate assessors and it seems like that's the one that you sort of luck into that's the cynic here oh that's so that's not how I interpreted that

[00:46:20] and I could be wrong but the way that I read about that is that was the military route so if you go serve in the armed forces and you have promoted to major that's the equivalent rank in the military and then you can sort of retire from the

[00:46:34] military and take some paper pushing job in the kind of government bureaucracy I see and and I you know I guess it's important context context that that this was at a time where there was this table of ranks that had been introduced by Peter the

[00:46:51] Great that essentially allowed commoners to rise in this sort of like in the Russian bureaucracy which just apparently inflated bureaucratic positions all throughout Russia and this is you know I guess some people take Google as being using this as a criticism of the bureaucracy but I

[00:47:07] choose to believe that this is not about anything well except maybe a criticism of bureaucracy in general and not just Soviet so this part in part so part two the collegiate assessor Kovalev wakes up and realizes that he has no nose and this is the part

[00:47:24] that you know reminds me a little bit of Kafka I would be surprised if Kafka was an influence by this like the absurdity of waking up in something completely weird is going on with you and there's not it's not like there's an injury is just

[00:47:38] completely smooth skin where his nose used to be and he's freaking out and and and he's freaking out and also like just kind of denying it at the same time is just trying to figure out what to do about it it's a very like yeah very much like

[00:47:54] the beginning of the metamorphosis like wait what's going on right so naturally he has to go out and track down his nose right as one as anybody would do in this situation mystery is a funny yeah and we get some aside describing the guy which are

[00:48:08] which are great which are very funny I also love this little aside about Russia such a wondrous land if you say something about one collegiate assessor all the collegiate assessors from Riga to come Chaka will not fail to take it as applying to them too just yeah relatable

[00:48:24] so which he says after making the distinction between the two kinds of collegiate that's right that's right so he goes out he's unable to find a cab and then he's sort of wandering around looking for his nose I guess just sort of

[00:48:44] randomly like it doesn't really have a plan at that point right no he doesn't he's he's just it seems like why would he think that he could find his nose like is that somewhere in st. Petersburg yeah like if you

[00:48:58] woke up without a nose I would just think it had you know been destroyed or something like you know it just to exist not that it was somewhere that it was lost you know that you must did you guys at what point you know

[00:49:12] Google is giving us a description like little bits of description of this guy the major as he's telling us the events of this story and it's kind of for me it was kind of building into understanding that he was kind of an asshole

[00:49:26] but it wasn't like obvious at first it was like little bits here and there that he's like obsessed with his rank and he thinks of himself as more important probably than he actually is and it's kind of a ladies man but he doesn't want to

[00:49:36] commit any like money to any of the women right in fact he will only get married if they can commit at least 200 thousand ruffles or whatever it is but then he sees his nose now the last we saw the nose it was just an actual nose

[00:49:52] like that had been thrown into a river but now it's a it's a state counselor it's the this again it's like they just cracked me up he and he's an inexplicable suddenly he stopped dead by the doors of a house an inexplicable phenomenon occurred before his eyes

[00:50:10] a coach stopped in front of the entryway the coach doors opened a gentleman in a uniform jumped out his back bent and started running up the stairs what horror and at the same time amazement did cobaltia feel when he realized that this was his very own nose

[00:50:22] this is where the absurdity like takes to another level right that I think like you know it starts with its premise which is a funny premise but then it just like he kicks it up another notch with this right like another level of

[00:50:40] absurdity like it was one thing which is to nose would suddenly appear in somebody else's bread it's another thing where now the nose is running around st. Peter's with a high rank in a uniform with golden brodery with a large standup collar yeah

[00:50:56] right and then he just he can talk to he just he looks right and left shouts to his driver so he has a driver now bring the carriage around and this is like the same day that he's lost his nose right yeah

[00:51:08] right it's just the same day yeah so the nose is risen far in the world in those like 12 hours since he's seen the last has outranked him yeah by essentially yeah the funny thing is go like inserts these things like he says by the way

[00:51:22] I'm using a different translation than the one you guys sent me he says indeed how could it be that a nose that just yesterday was on his face and could neither ride nor walk was in a uniform which is just like reminding the reader that like also

[00:51:36] this is absurd for the character but it's absurd in a way that he still just continues to act as if it's like he has to track track down the mate that nose in the uniform but we also like like if you try to picture the nose can you

[00:51:48] picture the nose not really no and he's no because how does a uniform fit on a nose and like what does you know how like what is he talking through I don't this is what I mean it's like it doesn't totally make sense

[00:52:00] like and then he goes to church so the nose can sit down and look pious so yeah that's right so it says I have this part I like the nose had completely hidden his face in a big stand-up caller and was praying with an expression

[00:52:12] of the greatest piety so like the nose has a face how like it's it noses all the way down like is there a nose on the nose yeah how am I to approach him thought Kovalyev from everything from his uniform from his hat one can

[00:52:26] see that he is a state counselor I'll be damned if I know how to do it right so that the obstacle is that he's of this high rank can't just go up to him he's a state counselor but then he forces himself to do it and

[00:52:44] and it's very this is a very funny scene because he talks to him like the nose is aware of what's happening like and then the nose is like I don't know what you're talking about as you would if you were trying to hide you know from

[00:53:00] and then he and then he thinks how shall I explain this however I am a major for me to go about without my nose you'll admit it's unbecoming it's all right for a peddler woman who sells peeled oranges on Brunsky bridge

[00:53:14] to sit without a nose but since I'm expecting and besides having many acquaintances among the ladies miss Chuck Trattariova and his wife and others judge for yourself like he's like you have to understand the position right from one dear to another

[00:53:30] you know I can't walk around without a nose and the nose is just like I I understand absolutely nothing today's episode is brought to you in part by better help betterhelp.com makes professional counseling accessible affordable convenient so anyone who struggles with life's challenges can get help anytime

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[00:55:10] H-E-L-P dot com slash VBW thank you to betterhelp for sponsoring this episode okay so at this point when I'm reading the story my brain is trying to impose order on this so I'm thinking to myself well like this guy's psychotic

[00:55:26] and he's so obsessed that his nose is gone that he's just accusing some random dude of being his nose so I'm thinking he's just lost it so much that he found soft and gentle and you know some bureaucrat and somehow has imposed this nose appearance on him

[00:55:50] but no it actually was his nose H-E-L-P-L that never occurred to me there's something about the way this is written that that never entered my mind that he was just hallucinating and going around I just took it at face value that that's his nose H-E-L-P-L

[00:56:08] if I can accept that a nose was gone I would have had to take a breath like you think my brain could accept that it's also walking around but it is as you say popped into a different level of absurdity

[00:56:18] and I'm still trying to stay at level one H-E-L-P-L when you've gotten used to the weird premise of part one all of a sudden the rules change completely H-E-L-P-L it's like SpongeBob surfing at the beach H-E-L-P-L right no what the fuck is going on here

[00:56:36] yeah the nose at one point nits its brows did you think that he was maybe like delusional? H-L-P-L I didn't come up with that in it it's a plausible interpretation if we're going to say we're going to try and make this story make some sort of sense H-E-L-P-L

[00:56:52] but yeah I think it's funny that it never occurred to me for one second I read the story twice and I'm very fond of thinking things are hallucinations or dreams or something but just to end the scene afterwards he's like I don't even know how to

[00:57:10] the whole thing seems to me quite obvious after all you are my own nose and then this is where the nose nits its brows and then says you are mistaken my dear sir I exist in my own right which is metaphysically controversial besides there can be

[00:57:30] no close relation between us judging by the buttons on your uniform you must be employed in the senate or at least in the ministry of justice as for me I'm in the scholarly line so he kind of separates himself from Kovl H-L-P-L-P H-L-P-L-P-L you're an adjunct professor

[00:57:50] this is where once my brain accepted this was really his nose I started to think is the nose being an ass because it actually knows and is trying to get away with it just been spawned into sentience and actually has no idea of its origins

[00:58:06] spawned into sentience and professional success like I don't know, I absolutely don't know it's interesting that you say that because spawned into professional success like this is a very you know it does seem like that is a criticism of the rank system

[00:58:24] if you could have been born yesterday and achieve this rank then it's not really anything to do with your merit you know and be a nose be a nose with a knitted brow what do you think Kovl? yeah this rank thing somehow I find this so relatable

[00:58:42] like as an academic like I imagine this is like your nose disappears and then it's like claims it's a dean and it doesn't know you anyway I'm in a different faculty I think that's something that I feel like maybe this is what makes me appreciate this story

[00:59:00] so much this like taking these made up distinctions and ranks incredibly seriously but do you think that the nose is aware that he's his nose or is the nose just all of a sudden like popped into existence as this state

[00:59:18] I think that the nose knows exactly where he's coming from and is just giving him the run around oh yeah what's funny is that like at this point I already think of the major Kovlyov as being kind of a dick and I'm not really rooting for him

[00:59:32] you know his major concerns are like you know like not being able to flirt with the ladies as much and stuff and yet and yet I feel immense sympathy for the way he's being like treated by the nose it's weirdly insulting

[00:59:48] for your own nose to tell you like I don't know who you are leave me alone like who are you I don't know you but totally so then he goes wait has he gone to the papers yet no that's not he tries to rush to the police

[01:00:06] chief I think first after that oh right it was unavailable right again sort of like a you know can't be bothered you know like yet another bureaucratic position he thinks he can you know here's the thing he thinks that he can get his nose back with favors

[01:00:22] yeah or something you know or just you by you utilizing the system and yeah his connections you gotta call your connections if he can get your nose back and so then he comes up with the idea of placing an ad in the newspaper such that

[01:00:34] somebody encounters the nose they can let him know and maybe he won't use his regular name he refuses for his real name to be posted because of the shame that it would bring if people knew that he had no nose the waiting room for all the

[01:00:50] people who are like putting classified ads in like is very funny too you know like that you can totally picture just all these people who are like trying to get back their their poodles or whatever right so in the end the clerk won't take the ad

[01:01:08] and he says that it's too risky for the paper and that just recently there was another such case a civil servant came in just as you have bringing a note was bill two ruble 73 and all the advertisement consisted of was that a black coded poodle had run away

[01:01:26] doesn't seem to amount to much does it now but it turned out to be a libel this so-called poodle was a treasurer of I don't recall what organization so they've been recently burned by the poodle fiasco and they just won't touch the news ad at all and what's

[01:01:42] interesting is that I'm thinking to myself like alright surely the newspaper person sees that his nose is missing but apparently he's been hiding his face the whole time so that nobody can tell that his nose is missing and so he finally just shows

[01:01:58] him no no really my nose is missing and then he's like oh okay yeah but still no still but not because he's being a dick but because it's like I just don't see how putting an ad will help you which you probably couldn't right like

[01:02:14] it seems exactly like not a good solution to the problem that and he says like if your nose is really missing that's probably a case for a physician you know not a newspaper but he does do kind of something not cool he offers him snuff which is

[01:02:32] just a slap in the face you can't he doesn't have a nose but he doesn't put it I don't think he does it on purpose no it seems like he's a oblivious that's right yeah so then he goes to see the district police superintendent which I guess

[01:02:50] is a rank above the police chief and here we're just finally told what we probably known for quite some time that Kupol Yov is a person who is extremely quick to take offense he could forgive whatever was said about himself but never anything that referred

[01:03:08] to rank or title even of the opinion that in place one could allow references to junior officers but there should be no criticism of field officers so it's like cancel culture exactly he's a snowflake about rank so his encounter with the police superintendent

[01:03:30] doesn't go well and he returns home dejected to find his valet Ivan spitting at the ceiling and rather successfully hitting one in the same spot which is a great mental image that's so disgusting and just the idea that like he could do that and that

[01:03:50] that would just be kind of normal it would just be like a cause for irritation yeah and really it's that he's indifferent to the plight that he's experiencing right now like how could he just be idling sitting by when his master or whatever has a missing nose

[01:04:08] does he know that he's missing a nose yeah because I think that even though wasn't explicitly stated and it's a little confusing because Ivan is the name of his servant but also the name of the barber at the beginning right I think

[01:04:20] that this is the same servant who you know he called for a mirror when he was in bed so the servant must know right yo and here's where he says like if he one thing if I lost my nose like in a duel or something

[01:04:30] right but like it just disappeared for nothing and he's right that is frustrating you know like I think that this gets at that too where there's just certain bad things that happen to you for no reason like it's like

[01:04:46] if there was some poetic justice to it or at least if I had you know like I tear my achilles but I was playing like really like I was playing racquetball when I was too old to play at the intensity like okay that's gonna happen

[01:04:58] but like this is just totally for no reason and so he's sitting there clearly you know like I get the sense that sort of this like this anger and annoyance is building and finally he finds someone to blame which he thinks okay like first of all

[01:05:18] it's interesting that he never suspects not yet because I think in between that he gets his nose back right no no no I mean he gets the actual nose not attached to its face oh yeah the is that when the bar the barber

[01:05:34] comes in no not the barber it's the cost of the bar sorry and drops by with his nose yeah yeah what does he say y'all so by an odd piece of luck a he meaning the nose was intercepted on the point of leaving

[01:05:50] down he was about to board a stage coach and leave for Riga even had a passport made out a long time ago in the name of a certain civil servant so this bolsters my theory that the nose the whole time knows like knew what was always

[01:06:04] no right yeah always and the cop says the weirdest thing he's like says that he was near sighted when you stand in front of me all I can see is you have a face but I can't see your

[01:06:18] nose your beard or anything and then he says my mother-in-law also can't see weird thing that yeah I took him at first for a gentleman but then then I realized when I put my glasses on that it was a note and it's also now

[01:06:32] just shrunk to a normal size nose were made to understand we have no idea how or why it's just like if you found your like an actual nose now not somebody that and because he has it with him yeah so he's briefly overjoyed obviously and then there's

[01:06:50] this I love this paragraph but there's nothing enduring in this world and that is why even joy is not as keen in the moment that follows the first and a moment later it grows weaker still and finally merges imperceptibly into one's usual state of mind just as

[01:07:04] a ring on the water may by the fall of a pebble merges finally into the smooth surface and he starts to think about how am I going to get this nose stuck back on my face and realizes that that is an unsolved problem yeah and and presumably unsolved

[01:07:18] for sure with what is he supposed to do right yeah what what a great quote that is though I had that he's just continues to put his nose like he's putting his nose on the skin that smooth patch of skin but it's not staying

[01:07:34] he's like come on just like I don't know what he wants it to do he like he breathes on it like like a suction cup and then he goes to a doctor another great scene right right and the doctor who lives in his building

[01:07:50] arrives immediately and starts grabbing him by the chin and he flicks with his thumb the spot where the nose is supposed to go and knocks his head back you know the doctor's just rough housing his head yeah yeah but he's like it's better that it you know what

[01:08:04] if you try to stick it on your face it's going to be worse trust me just just leave your face without a nose it's funny like I don't know what he means by that that it would be like I guess like doing surgery on your face

[01:08:16] would be worse than just not having a nose but he won't specify why he'll just say trust me it'll be worse I assure you and then you start to suspect that the doctor might have an ulterior motive because he advises him

[01:08:32] to put the nose in a jar with alcohol or better still pour into the jar two tablespoons of aqua fortis and warmed up vinegar and then you can get good money for it I'll buy it myself if you don't ask too much right exactly and

[01:08:46] you know and the major is just you know like so frustrated he's like I can't no I can't you don't understand I cannot live without a nose and this is where like he's you know his emotions of blame are starting to rise again

[01:09:00] because he's now convinced that it's this this was it officer's wife who yeah with the daughter yes they can't wife yeah who has a daughter who she really wants the major Mary and he thinks that because because he admits he's kind of been a dick

[01:09:18] and like leading her on so he's convinced that this is her revenge and and he's getting really really upset and he he resolves himself to write a letter this letter is a work of comic genius that's oh should I just read read it yeah dear madam Alexandra

[01:09:40] and think of receiving this letter not knowing anything about like what's going on dear madam Alexandra Grigor Riev which I bet is a funny name in Russian but we won't know I to understand your strange behavior be assured that acting in this way you gain nothing and certainly

[01:10:00] will not force me to marry your daughter believe me that the incident with my nose is fully known to me just as is the fact that you and no one else are the principal person involved in sudden detachment from its place its flight

[01:10:14] and its disguise first as a civil servant then at last in its own shape is nothing other than the result of a spell cast by you and those who engage like you in such noble pursuits I for my part deem it my duty

[01:10:28] to forewarn you that if the above mention knows is not back in its place this very day I shall be forced to resort to the defense and protection of the law whereupon I have the honor to remain with my full respect your obedience servant Platon Kevulyev

[01:10:46] it's so funny because it's the formality of it but just the assumption that the certainty that like he's talking to somebody who like knows what he's referring to and is responsible for it is very fun. Right like at some point in the story we learn

[01:11:04] that he has had to be in charge of investigations before and so it seems like he has some confidence in which is just even more absurd than his just deciding to walk around and look for his nose he's just leaping he's just leaping to conclusions here

[01:11:20] with such confidence sending this note which really like I want to send this to somebody one day just believe me that the incident with my nose is fully known to me it's just like imagine getting that and you have no idea what is that

[01:11:36] Right and I love so like he Google just immediately prints her response you know so presumably some time has passed I'll read her reply which again is a different translation my dear sir Platon Kuzmich your letter amazed me exceedingly

[01:11:52] I must frankly admit that I did not at all expected especially with regard to the unjust reproaches on your part I advise you that I never received in my home the civil servants you mentioned either in disguise or in his true form it's true Philip Ivanovich Potanchikov

[01:12:06] has visited me and although indeed he has sought the hand of my daughter being himself of good sober conduct and great air I never gave him any hopes you also mention a nose if you mean by this that I wish to lead you around

[01:12:18] by the nose that is to give you a formal refusal I am amazed that you yourself are saying that when I as you well know was of the exact opposite opinion and if you are now asking in a legitimate fashion for my daughter's hand in marriage I am

[01:12:30] even if you give you satisfaction for this has always been the object of my most keen desire in hopes of which I will remain always at your service Alexandra Potochina so like despite that weird letter she's like oh but so this is I think like one of

[01:12:46] like a great example of how people will take something that's insane and try to like put it into categories that they can understand they will try to make sense of it in a way even though it doesn't make sense they will try to interpret it

[01:13:02] in the lens that makes sense yeah it's like what my brain was doing like she's doing what when I was trying to do trying to like put place of sense on it she's giving the most charitable possible interpretation of his accusation well charitable for her

[01:13:16] in a lot of ways because she wants to but like just trying to like make it coherent like the fact that she just assumes he's referring to Filipe Ivanovich Potchchikov is like her way of like okay like none of what he says makes sense

[01:13:32] so here is how I think I can fit it into like my conceptual scheme in a way that actually works out pretty well right and she's really trying to reinterpret the nose thing to be somehow metaphorical and fit it into that and yeah

[01:13:46] like Tamler said she like kind of came up with an interpretation that doesn't seem crazy and then she finishes with oh and if you'd still like to marry my daughter so that's on let's do this yeah it's interesting the way that you guys just said

[01:14:02] it makes me think you know like she wants a metaphorical interpretation of the nose and that's just not true in a way that the reader might want a metaphorical interpretation of the nose and Gogol seems to really go out of his way

[01:14:14] to say no no I'm really talking about a nose there might be this other criticisms that like embedded in this story but this story really is literally a nose running around it's funny to compare the two translations because they're quite close except for the metaphorical

[01:14:30] expression which is in ours if you mean that I wanted to put your nose out of joint which I feel like fits a little bit better with the second half of the sentence but now I really want to know if you guys have Russian listeners

[01:14:44] what it reads in the original right because it's obviously what is yours Dave because I was sort of reading along with mine right it is if you mean by this that I wish to lead you around by the nose that is to give you a formal refusal

[01:14:58] yeah that's very different yeah there must be some Russian saying that they're trying to like give us some feel for it yeah maybe we don't have probably that's my guess and I feel also like she snitched on herself with the like admitting about this other guy exactly

[01:15:18] that's how she figured it out like she was like okay he found out about this guy yeah that makes sense this episode of very bad wizards is brought to you in part by Nord VPN so a few years ago I lived in Canada for a year

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[01:17:52] a hallmark of absurdist literature you know plays whatever is that people will take an absurd premise and they will fit it within their like their understanding of how the world actually works like I'm thinking like IANESCO's rhinoceros all of a sudden people are turning into rhinoceros

[01:18:14] and people just try to like at first they're a little amazed by it and scandalized but then they just kind of figure out how it fits with their normal understanding of the world and this whole story is kind of like it's you know

[01:18:30] I think this is an example of that but in a lot of ways it's like people don't even take the step of noticing that something is as off as they sometimes do it's a little off but it's not nobody is just you know like Carl Carl Sagan

[01:18:50] or just even just like wait hold on what how is the nose now a person and how did it get like nobody even asks those kinds of questions except in a way that you would be like well how did you know my glass break

[01:19:04] right but vodka into it like not not in a way that like really sort of reflects the absolute impossibility of what's happening right and and seems to be to me that that is sort of required for the sense of absurdity where this

[01:19:22] you take this premise and you have everybody around reacting as if this is like something that could really happen even though it's super weird because if you had a story where everyone was like what the fuck your nose was a person like then it completely you lose that

[01:19:36] sense of absurdity right now it becomes sort of just like some other kind of fiction and if you have a world where just a lot of weird shit happens you're like now into like you know magical realism or something and it's a different genre like so you

[01:19:50] people around you acting that normal way when something so crazy happens is the maddening part of this like you know like the newspaper man's like refusing not because it's so weird that you would have lost your nose and that it's walking around but because the newspaper really

[01:20:06] can't take that hit on it see that's where I think there's a difference between this and metamorphosis where people do kind of it's not that they react fully as you would react if your son or brother had turned in but they

[01:20:22] at least seem to take in the magnitude of what's happened but do they they're like just like oh shit we need to hide him you know because he's turned into this they're not like freaking out I mean they're just like it's like a burden yeah well

[01:20:36] I don't know we'd have to go back I kind of remember them being like horrified and you know like they they get scared they there are these big scenes where he comes out for a second and they run like screaming and the

[01:20:50] sister has to calm down the parents and it's like there's nothing like that even though there's been a nose that's been going around St. Petersburg like there's nothing nobody even well there is I mean there is a little bit like that so there is at first his wife

[01:21:04] is like what the fuck a nose like you're such an idiot right like which is not reacting to the full absurdity of it but it is reacting to like very strongly and then later on we get in fact right around now

[01:21:20] in the story it's like the rumors start spreading that the nose is walking around and everybody wants to see it right it does attract public interest but not the kind of like shock and horror that you might imagine I mean also when people react to him

[01:21:32] you imagine if like somebody literally didn't have a nose and they just had this perfectly smooth flat surface in the middle of their face they would look horribly disfigured and instead people are like huh looks interesting right it's almost physical right it was like yeah okay

[01:21:46] or the like kind of almost physical comedy of the doctor flicking him like you know part of his face it's like a it's like it might be a rare occurrence but not an like not not so crazy it's not just dressing for anybody but for him

[01:22:04] and he's just distressed because it's gonna impede his ability to hit on women it's vanity right he's distressed because of vanity not because of the weirdness of this right and when it does become noted it's like gossip it's like right fun right gossip yeah exactly yeah

[01:22:18] so should we talk about that part or should we skip ahead to section three where things get like sort of breaking the fourth wall well let's before we do that we should say that he gets his nose back or is that in that's in section in section three

[01:22:34] okay that's in the beginning section yeah yeah yeah so the end of section two is just it becomes public spectacle people paying for tickets and so on and then section three just one day in section three begins utterly nonsensical things happen in this world and

[01:22:50] what happens at the beginning of section three is that his nose just one day reappears on his face as if it had never left it's not that it's not that he tried to stick it on and one day it finally like healed no no no um so

[01:23:04] he's you know obviously thrilled with this uh he it describes a little bit his you know testing of whether the nose is really actually reattached to his face and it seems like it is uh and then uh there's this paragraph that's like very

[01:23:18] all of a sudden like you guys were saying the characters in the story never acknowledge how weird the shit is but now the narrator is going to tell us how weird the shit is um only now on second thoughts can we see that there is much

[01:23:30] that is improbable in it uh that is the story without speaking of the fact that the supernatural detachment of the nose and its appearance in various places in the guise of a state counsellor is indeed strange never mind that put that aside how is it

[01:23:44] that Kovlyov did not realize that one does not advertise for one's nose through the newspaper office it's brilliant i do not mean to say that advertising rates appear to be too high that's nonsense i am not all one of those mercenary people but it's a proper

[01:23:58] embarrassing not nice uh yeah and then gets even more forth while breaking like he he goes but the strangest the most incomprehensible thing of all is how authors can choose such subjects i confess it's quite inconceivable i just cannot understand it at all

[01:24:14] in first place there is absolutely no benefit for the father man and the father land in the second place but in the second place there is no benefit either i simply don't know what to make of it and then yeah there is a final paragraph i think

[01:24:26] supports my ghost theory but we can get back to that um so it's cheeky and like it's it's it's something that like it's meta in a way that i like but it's all it's it borders on too clever as a way to end the story

[01:24:46] and i forgive it for being written in 1836 because you know i don't think anything i think this is still a brilliant story um but but i don't know what do you think of ending just so blatantly on like isn't it weird that i wrote this

[01:25:00] i think it's in the spirit of the story because in terms of the details that he chooses to state that are in congress and the way he's describing it like it's only now on second like upon reflection that we can see that there is much

[01:25:16] improbable in it and then all the batch of all the batshit crazy things that he chooses he he chooses that one does not advertise for ones nose through the newspaper office you know like no it's like that that's the that's not that like if you had

[01:25:34] to choose like a hundred things that don't make sense about this story that would be pretty low on the list you know yeah and that's an awesome way to sort of start breaking the fourth wall it's i was more referring to the part where he's like

[01:25:48] the unpaddling part is that a writer could choose to write this wink wink oh yeah right yeah i don't know what do you think y'all yeah i i mean i'd like that the this thing that immediately follows that it's just kind of incoherent and stumbles around a bit

[01:26:06] i mean you just read it but it you know first there's no benefit to the fatherland and secondly there's no benefit at all i just don't know what to make of it you know the idea i think that's like a that that's pretty clever and i

[01:26:18] i think for me that outweighs the like yeah maybe it's a little too obvious to be like oh good somebody writes such a thing because he just sort of trills like calling attention to the fact that they're on fox or something yep yep yep exactly

[01:26:30] so let's read the last paragraph because maybe this can and yet in spite of it all though of course we may assume that this and that and the other perhaps even like it's just totally breaking down perhaps even dot dot dot and after all where aren't there

[01:26:44] incongruities but all the same when you think about it there really is something in all of this whatever anyone says such things happen in the world rarely but they do i like i kind of like that because it really is he sort of like how you know

[01:26:58] when like he's starting to get disconnected he's starting to just kind of say random sentences but then there's kind of a point too which is like fucked up things happen in the world all the time and you know this is just one of them they doesn't

[01:27:12] happen very often but this is one of them and i don't know but like also not making like a compelling case or even making sense or having one sentence really follow from the other but like it just there somehow i got ties together in a nice way

[01:27:28] i think yeah there's this sort of like one part of it is just completely ridiculous and the other part is this kind of like almost like existential nobody deserves anything bad shit happens to this guy he seems like

[01:27:42] sort of a bad dude but not like a really bad way but the bad thing doesn't happen that happens to really connected to like anything that he did particularly and then he's really distressed by this and then one day it just kind

[01:27:52] of gets better and he doesn't learn his lesson at all and he goes back to doing exactly what he was doing you know the end it was like the emergence of the pimple that went away right like that's as bad as

[01:28:02] like as serious as it was except he seems to appreciate like he doesn't take for granted that at least at the beginning he doesn't seem to take for granted he seems more cheerful than he normally was i got that but as we know the joy the joy as

[01:28:14] the moments perceive the joy will it's such a great observation and it's like so cool to me to find like stuff that psychologist study described like so much more kind of like powerfully and succinctly 200 years ago more than 200 years ago right it's just I love that paragraph

[01:28:34] particularly like it's so observant the only thing I was going to say about that last paragraph is this idea where aren't there in congruities I think he's calling attention to just the absurdity of life there in a way that's like

[01:28:48] you know like a lot of life doesn't fit together perfectly in spite of the sort of the lens that we look through that tries to fit it all together it's it's weird so I will admit that I don't care for this last paragraph I feel like actually

[01:29:04] the story ought to have ended in the previous paragraph there is there's no I feel like there's no need to call additional attention to that this is absurd and then tell us like but absurd things happen because that now I'm left with

[01:29:20] is he referring you know he just told us that the most absurd thing was that you can go to a newspaper office like that that's crazy and then he's like but even crazier is that I wrote this and then at the end he's like

[01:29:32] but the world is crazy you know let's just admit it that seemed it seemed like it wasn't quite clear what that added to that to the weirdness telling not showing kind of yeah exactly yeah yeah it didn't bother me but like I kind of

[01:29:46] it was on in the bag for the story and also like the narrator is so unreliable in so many ways like in the way that it's telling the story that it doesn't come across as preachy in any way yeah and it's it's such

[01:30:00] a like minor part compared to the the whole rest of the story I mean I take your point like it didn't it didn't strike me as being like obnoxious or too much in the moment now that you're pointing this out I can see how you're like yeah that

[01:30:12] like didn't quite set right yeah so it doesn't like in the context of reading the story didn't bother me that much and it's because I think that when you're in 1836 and you're writing a story this weird there's no good way you know like the readership

[01:30:28] is gonna be like what the fuck are you smoking dude and like I feel like he probably felt like he needed to add that like come on weird should happens right like and and so I get I get it like I'm

[01:30:38] okay with it it's more I think my modern sensibilities were like this kind of absurdity because in a story that you wrote now it would be own it don't apologize yeah exactly but I think it's as unapologetic a short story when it comes to as you could

[01:30:54] possibly find like it's it really isn't trying to stick to any kind of coherent theme or you know like there's this stuff with the status and the people's obsession with status and all that but like you know in terms of just you know

[01:31:10] frustrated with stories you're like I don't mind if they have this premise but they have to at least follow the rules that they set you know like and it just flat out refuses to do anything like that and so like I don't know I come back

[01:31:24] with that I am too and there is something in the ability of an author to jar you out of like the way that you're thinking he's just like rattled you know and here's a story like you always saying like a couple hundred years old

[01:31:38] and it still has the power to like shake me off like where just that making me a bit uncomfortable with what's going on is a feeling that I really enjoy like I actually you know that's I take it that's just what the point of the sort of absurdity

[01:31:54] absurdity is and to use it as a sort of a reflect like a way to you know like you're saying Tamela there's normal human psychology going on all around this crazy absurd story like there's just people who are responding in like it's saying something about

[01:32:16] the normal human response but it's all wrapped in this like wait how can they possibly be normal but then this shit is going on right it's normal if the premise of the story it's like the opposite of Ted Chang where it's normal more if the thing wasn't happening

[01:32:34] if the premise wasn't this yeah I mean they're acting as if this thing isn't happening that's what I mean by normal cause the thing that's happening is obviously like ridiculous but even the nose is like don't bother me I like that the nose is like planning a daring

[01:32:52] escape and he nearly made it if it hadn't been for that cop the nose is a dick let's just say there's no likable characters in this story I like the nose it's like in X Machina where you guys were cheering on keeping the robot a prisoner

[01:33:12] where I was like no fuck that she's been enslaved she can go if she wants right the nose exists in its own right if it wants to make it do it in Puerto Rico then you know let it I am me I just love picturing the nose

[01:33:28] like kind of running and looking backwards and like also like forging document I like the idea of just the nose getting on the train and it goes away and the nose takes a big sigh of relief but then suddenly this train just kind of

[01:33:42] comes to a halt you hear like the creaking of the brakes of the train and then the nose is like oh fuck I said more than 200 years that's not right 1836 yeah 185 that totally undermines your point I retract everything I said I mean if somebody is listening to this

[01:34:02] in 2036 that's right that's right I do think also like we haven't talked about this and I read something about this or heard somebody talk about this story like a while back and I don't totally remember where or what but like the way the story

[01:34:18] is told is also like the narrator is also tells the story and then just a kind of disjointed and goofy way which is why I forgive some of the last stuff too it's just like you know like he'll just all of a

[01:34:32] sudden like forget to talk about this or he'll say that certain things are shrouded and missed and we don't know anything about it but then just tell you what happened after that and like so I think that's an interesting part

[01:34:44] of it too and like a lot of the things that the narrator says doesn't make sense like when he's talking about Ivan and says I think this is everything that I read that like he's a cynical guy and then so here's the paragraph Ivan

[01:35:02] Yakovlevich was a great cynic and when collegiate assessor Kovlyov told him that while being shaved your hands always stink Ivan Yakovlevich Ivan Yakovlevich would reply with the question why should they stink I don't know my dear fellow the collegiate assessor would say but they do and Ivan Yakovlevich

[01:35:22] would say that after taking a pinch of stuff would in retaliation lather all over his cheeks and under his nose and behind his ear and under his chin in other words wherever his fancy took them but that's like where you would lather

[01:35:34] anyway and how does that show that he was a great cynic how does anything that show that he was a great cynic I could just the sentences like the descriptions don't fully make sense or fit together properly yeah I'm just thinking that

[01:35:48] maybe his hands stink because he eats it's like a big plausible yeah I also like how when the police officer catches him trying to ditch the nose in the river he's like oh no but like why don't you come by I'll shave you you know two times

[01:36:06] he's been three times away he's like listen I have three barbers who have the honor of shaving me this isn't about that and the doctors like that too like I don't even accept I wouldn't even accept money I just don't like to like disrespect people

[01:36:20] who are no mercenary yeah yeah no I agree tell what you're saying like sort of he prepares you a little bit by ending the sections with like and by the way no one ever figured out what was going on and again I think probably

[01:36:36] the early nature of this kind of writing where maybe he felt like he had to do that because or else you would just be like alright where's the mystery is going to end like the mystery is going to be solved

[01:36:46] and he's still waiting for it and he's like just kind of getting you ready for the fact that there's no thing is going to be explained you're not really going to come out with any sense of satisfaction at the end of this story

[01:36:56] I don't know I think it's like a choice to have a narrator be kind of clumsy in the way that they're telling the story yeah but he's cut it's clumsy that he's interjecting at that point but the thing that he's interjecting is don't like

[01:37:10] don't expect that I'm getting going anywhere with this story right you know right and you're right that he does like he does end up saying something but you know it sort of reminds me of this and this is weird and induce

[01:37:22] in credit but when I was a little kid and I would watch like Scooby-Doo Mysteries you know there's always this neat little resolution at the end where you find out who the monster was and I remember the first time I watched the Twilight Zone

[01:37:32] and I thought that the Twilight Zone was going to end with an explanation of what happened but the Twilight Zone isn't that kind of a show the Twilight Zone is some weird shit happens and it's like I was playing and I had this deep sense of dissatisfaction

[01:37:46] like you can't just end without telling me what happened and in some ways like I haven't changed that much because my brain is still trying to be hard to interpret this but like I have come to enjoy that feeling of being fucked with or like

[01:38:00] this has the structure of a story and the structure of a mystery but like don't get it twisted this is not going to make you feel like anything is right yeah I think is there a deep meaning to this YOL? I don't see it

[01:38:19] I think it's mainly him just fucking around having a good time making fun of rank and title obsession making fun of superficial St. Petersburg state counsellors and that's it paying money to like stand on a bench only to see the same painting in the shop window exactly

[01:38:39] exactly yeah I resist something in me that resists this is what it really means because like I there are many things that could probably really mean and you know maybe they're not even all accessible to Google and I'm sure there's like a lot of you know

[01:38:57] I was reading that Google himself had a weird nose and so I like to just think if there is sort of deepness in this it's deepness that wasn't currently on his mind and I'm just writing it yeah just revenge on his nose yeah yeah

[01:39:17] yeah I don't know like I agree I have the same resistance towards trying to come up with but like he's actually saying something really deep about blank but maybe if there is it's something about how the world is like a lot of absurdist literature the world is

[01:39:33] really fucked up but we all act like it isn't you know right and so I think it does that pretty well in a comic way and not a heavy handed way at all yeah there's a lot of mirth in this story that I really appreciated like it wasn't

[01:39:51] you know I could see someone trying to write a story that was pure allegory about a nose and then this definitely would not be it would not be that fun but just the idea that like somebody could read the story of our culture and like

[01:40:09] in a way that was like wait it doesn't make sense the stuff isn't fitting together why are people still wearing masks outside who have been vaccinated like why are they doing that I thought these were the pro science people this bothers you but what

[01:40:23] you have to realize is that there are crazy anti-vaxxers that you're probably sympathetic toward who might see somebody not wearing a mask and think like oh see now I can wear a mask I don't think I could live on the east coast anymore

[01:40:37] like I think that would drive me fucking crazy you're so precious about this what are you talking about you love fucking Boston my hometown still has a fucking mask mandate my home fucking town like I I couldn't deal with that you actually it's your fault in some ways

[01:40:57] because you went to you drew my attention and you came to my hometown where there was an outdoor mask mandate but the packed restaurants just the irrationality of that but worse to me than the inconsistency is just that people are wearing masks outside at all

[01:41:15] everybody has known for like almost a year that there's no threat to spread outside and so what the fuck are people doing why are they doing this who is this for it's a signal that you're on the right side

[01:41:29] who you know obviously we were giving them shit about the vaccines or whatever but I do think that they're like as far as the health policy stuff they make a little more sense so I don't think that there's been outdoor mask mandates ever in at least in Ontario

[01:41:43] Ontario and Quebec and they're very strict with the like Quebec for example hasn't had indoor dining for I think over a year now they're pretty restricted with the retail it's mask mandate indoors everywhere but outdoors they're like do what you want

[01:41:57] you know you want to go have a picnic in the park you don't have to wear a mask so it's weird to me to read about and then come here and see with my own eyes that people are doing this like they're literally just out for a jog

[01:42:07] by themselves there's nobody with 20 feet of them and they're wearing a mask it's just like I don't get it and they've been fucking vaccinate and that's the sizing on the cake it's like it's a go, that's what I mean like the world is fucking crazy

[01:42:21] it's a go-go story it's the opposite of a red hat exactly it's like Trump's had masks suck so we're going to stick it to him and his people by wearing masks everywhere even if it doesn't make any sense we're going to punish ourselves by wearing masks

[01:42:35] Tamela you would love Florida they haven't been wearing masks indoors or outdoors, people dying you would love the freedom associated with old people dying Houston has never had an outdoor mask thing or at least not since early June or something clear by the very scientists

[01:42:55] that the Eucentris liberals supposedly trust it doesn't really spread outdoors that's not the way it's done so you think Houston was being super sensitive to the science exactly we haven't either here it's all been stores enforcing it or whatever even now people do it

[01:43:15] it's more like a social thing right you might get a dirty look or something if you're not it's like a weird kind of shame but you know what I am fully vaccinated so I am raw dogging it just showing your face to everybody like the slut you are

[01:43:35] absolutely I don't do a mask outside here either so it's not like everybody's doing it it's like the half maybe you're not on the coast, you're in some hick town that's true and where we were in Vermont it was actually required in the town

[01:43:51] there were signs out there like a local ordinance this is the place with the packed restaurants so yeah make sense on the note of raw dogging it why don't we wrap up you else who can come back into this room with me amazing

[01:44:05] alright I'm not one of you guys to attack guys thank you so much for having me that was a lot of fun thanks for suggesting that story that was a great idea this is when Tamler awkwardly waits oh yeah right join us next time on Grey Bad Wizard