Episode 270: Take Me to the River (Blood Meridian, Pt. 3)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave 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] How can you help me? Perhaps someday I could tell you the nature of evil. Would you like to know how to solve the problem of evil? The Greatest Boss has spoken! I'm a very good man, and with no more brains than you have. Anybody can have a brain.

[00:01:08] You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man, just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, today we are doing part three of our journey into Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. This is the last part, right?

[00:01:29] This is the concluding part? I guess we'll find out in like three hours. We did think, even the first one we thought. But like I get that the first one we might have miscalibrated the second one. So you never know.

[00:01:44] Especially since not only are we going to talk about a couple of scenes that we didn't get to in the epilogue, but we're also going to cast it and assign a director. Yeah, I'm excited about that. Me too. That's what took me the longest amount of research.

[00:02:00] That's what I was doing today. I was like looking up actors. Like actors under 20? Exactly. Turns out there's a lot of lists of hot young actors under 25. I want as the kid, the young Sheldon kid. I saw him on the list.

[00:02:17] The plague of every NFL football fan, young Sheldon, because it would always come on after. So you would see these commercials and you would just think what kind of like a mentality. But before that, we're going to discuss a paper, a study, that's really good I think.

[00:02:40] Really good. Like I really like what they're doing. I mean there are a couple issues maybe with the methodology and stuff like that. But overall, I think it's great. I definitely think there's some flaws, but like totally. I've read worse. Yeah. Not that often, but you know.

[00:02:59] Their heart is in the right place I think. You know, I think. So this is a recent study published in Behavioral Sciences. The development and validation of a measure of passive aggressive traits. The passive aggression scale.

[00:03:17] Yeah, which for people who didn't pick up on the evidence, you were inspired by this wonderful paper. It's good when you explain it. Well, I'm a little worried. Just a little worried. So okay. So this is actually a couple of Korean researchers.

[00:03:36] Now look, I don't know what you're going to talk about Tamler. I think we'd be wasting our breath to criticize this study. I think we should just talk about the passive aggressive scale and maybe go through it.

[00:03:49] But if you want to get any of it off your chest. It's fine if I do. You think it'll be great. I mean, you know, we do have a long show ahead of us and stuff. I mean, it's not like you make these points often.

[00:03:59] And people don't know, might not know where you stand. Fine. I won't talk about. Like, I really I get that this is not a top tier journal. But it's not even a tier journal. The thing that they're trying to do is measure because we don't have this yet.

[00:04:17] It was rejected, I guess, from DSM something. Well, yeah, it was actually I didn't really know this until seeing this. But there was in the DSM one and then in the DSM three are revised version of DSM three.

[00:04:32] There was a personality disorder that was called passive aggressive personality disorder. So but it got it got axed. It got dinged for lack of construct validity. Right. That's what they said. Is that what they said? I actually don't know.

[00:04:47] But like now it's like if you think that somebody might have this, you have to label them as other specific personality disorder. So this is trying to actually validate a passive aggression scale, which I just don't get what that means. But let's set that aside.

[00:05:06] We really should get Jessica Flake on here. She would have a lot to say about this validation. There is a particular kind of validity that they're going for. Right. Which is not the kind that Tamler probably wants or anybody.

[00:05:23] But that kind of validity is saying if we come up with a new construct, what we want to do is show that it's not just another measure of the same thing.

[00:05:34] Right. It's not like just redoing something, but it's also related kind of to things that you think it should be related to. So then people so people will develop a scale.

[00:05:44] And what like the valid quote unquote validation they'll do is just give people a bunch of scales and then say, oh, look, it's kind of correlated with this one.

[00:05:52] How do you determine the other scale that would give you confidence that you're really picking out passive aggression, like being from Minnesota? That was just aggressive. That was just aggressive. Rate on a seven point scale. Like, are you from Minnesota? Do you live in Minnesota?

[00:06:10] Do you live in Minnesota? How long have you lived in Minnesota? I mean, the answer is there. Right. So they have like. So these are Korean researchers. So I think some of these were are just Korean measures. The population was all Korean. Nothing but respect for Koreans.

[00:06:25] Yeah. I mean, they probably should look at broader samples is all I'm saying. Yeah. Where's the Korean Joe Hendrick? Where are the white sophomore college students? We can't generalize. There's no right. There's no real answer to what they should be looking at.

[00:06:41] You just want to say, like, if you have like some measure of novelty seeking, you want it to be kind of related to openness to experience. But you don't want it to be exactly the same as. Yeah, I just don't know what the one for passive aggression.

[00:06:54] All of these. Right. Like defense mechanism test, defense style questionnaire, the subscale of the Minnesota person, multi-phasic personality. Minnesotan personality. Right. Apparently there's a subscale of the MMPI for personality disorders. So you would want it to just kind of overlap with it, but not be exactly that.

[00:07:15] Yeah, I guess. Right. It depends on some things you would want it to not correlate at all, I guess. But you're right. It's like there's you know, I'm not a scale construction kind of person.

[00:07:25] I don't know if there are any like conventions about what how much they should relate and how much they shouldn't. I find that most of the time people are like, oh, look, point seven. That's right around where we would want it to be.

[00:07:38] Right. And what's always amazes me when I go through a paper is the complexity of the math. The math here is something like I feel like it would take me years. There are like figures, there are symbols, there are signs that I don't know what they are.

[00:07:53] It's like it takes years because you probably need a PhD. But you combine that with this kind of like, well, how much should it overlap with, you know, defense mechanism or whatever?

[00:08:07] Like, I don't know. Like it's just it's such a weird like juxtaposition of the really precise, complex math with a target that is that it can't be like that. There would be no way for us to know if it was like that.

[00:08:22] It's like it's not even clear what it means for you to think it's like that. So it's very it's the whole thing is very strange. Right now we're doing exactly what you said we wouldn't do. But yes, point taken. Fine, fine. You're right.

[00:08:41] The only reason we picked it was to talk about passive aggression, I think. And this is what I actually think is good about these things is they're just fun to like go through. So you want to go through it? Yeah, yeah. Let's do it.

[00:08:51] So there are three subscales of this scale inducing criticism component. They call them components, though, the avoiding and ignoring component and then the sabotaging component. So, you know, I didn't catch whether these are supposed to like when you rate yourself, is it a seven point?

[00:09:08] I think it's six. Is it six? But I wish they gave you like you're from like Minnesota, you're from Wisconsin. Not as bad. It should give you who you are. You're like you're like British English, Scandinavian, you know, like.

[00:09:25] And then you have like Dutch, which is like the lowest passive aggressive score because they'll just tell you exactly what they think. Pure aggression. Pure aggression. OK, passive aggression scale inducing criticism component.

[00:09:37] When I talk about someone I dislike or find uncomfortable, I pretend to praise their strengths, but also drop hints about their weakness. This is, yeah, totally what I associate with passive aggressiveness.

[00:09:50] Yeah. Like when you're on a hiring committee and you know that you don't want to hire, you know, like somebody who applied to the job, you're like, no, I mean, they've really they're really productive. You know, I've just heard some things.

[00:10:02] But, you know, like who knows? Like you just hear things all the time. So, you know, they're really productive. They write a lot of articles. It's not exactly my cup of tea. You know, like I'm not familiar with that debate. But yeah, a lot of good papers.

[00:10:24] I tattle on mistakes made by someone I don't like or find uncomfortable to a higher authority to ruin their reputation. This doesn't seem to me to be like that's not what I associate with the term.

[00:10:37] Yeah, I actually there's a lot here that I don't associate with being passive aggressive. I think and like I just wonder if it's cultural differences. This is just being a snitch. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like passive aggressive has to be not.

[00:10:54] Well, I guess it could be behind your back. But but this seems like this is just actually trying to get someone in trouble. I intentionally reveal embarrassing events or the dark pasts of someone I dislike or find uncomfortable in public. Again, that seems aggressive.

[00:11:11] At least I when somebody does that. So should we say what we're like? I feel like the first one I do sometimes I do do that. These two I hope I don't do this. But I know people who do and that's like a huge red flag to me.

[00:11:24] If somebody is just saying all of a sudden they're telling you some secret shit about somebody. Yeah. I mean, like for all the shit I give my former state for three years, Minnesota, I don't feel like they were especially high in this niche scale.

[00:11:42] I think they were they do that as much as anybody else does. I don't I guess the part that might be passive aggressive is you don't do it just for the fun of gossip and being a dick, but you do it because you find them uncomfortable.

[00:11:57] The revealing embarrassing events like again or dark pasts. I just don't like that's just that's a bad thing to do. But I don't feel like it's passive aggressive. Yeah. Yeah, I don't either.

[00:12:09] And like I guess their working definition of passive aggressive is something like you're damaging somebody without ever directly telling them. Like it's like a completely indirect way. I wonder if that's because that's I guess. Yeah, maybe we should talk about what we think of passive aggressiveness.

[00:12:28] Like it's a subspecies of that, but it's not to me the kind of the hallmark of it is this on the one hand, you're kind of pretending to praise somebody or apologize for something that you did. Or I also feel like it's very like second interpersonal.

[00:12:47] Just it's not third party that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I was about to say exactly that. Like to me, being passive aggressive is something that you do to a person to avoid being more direct with them. Yeah.

[00:12:58] Like to have family members who like the servers in a restaurant, they'll be like, how was your meal? And they'll be like, oh, it was great. You know, I mean, the coffee was a little cold, but you know. Yeah.

[00:13:09] It's just like, all right, just say the coffee was cold. Yeah. You're not trying to get them fired or even trying to get your you're taking out some resentment in a way that's indirect. That's the way I kind of feel about it.

[00:13:25] Yeah, my intuition is the same and that it's really about interacting with somebody. And by the way, there's a third component, which is sabotaging. But these seem like kind of sabotaging too.

[00:13:37] I ask someone I don't like or find uncomfortable or find uncomfortable questions they can't answer in front of others to make them uncomfortable. That's definitely not passive aggressive. That's like active aggressive, like you're trying to humiliate the person publicly. Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:54] I mock someone I don't like or find uncomfortable by being sarcastic and pretending it's just a joke. Yeah, that one I'll give. You know, like especially the part of pretending it's just a joke. You know, I'm just kidding. Why are you getting all upset? Yeah, yeah. That's also.

[00:14:13] I heard you have gonorrhea. Just kidding. But seriously, I did hear that. But I'm sure it's. Modern antibiotics. That's also a thing that I think married couples do to each other. My marriage is. Accuse each other of having gonorrhea. No, I walked into that.

[00:14:32] No, that kind of like you say something and then when the person gets mad, you're like, what? It was a joke. Obviously. What do you mean? Like, why are you getting so upset? Like, that's like I feel like I'm not saying Jen does it or I do.

[00:14:46] I feel like we both do it sometimes. Yeah. You know, there's like a real I think the authors probably argue in this paper. There's a real function for for some of this stuff.

[00:14:55] You don't want to walk yourself into a fight, but sometimes you do want to communicate something. And if you're cowardly like I am sometimes, then, you know, I'd rather have a way out.

[00:15:09] I like to think that I'm more on the like, if I'm unhappy, I'll just say it. But I do think like we all have some of this in us and I probably have way more than I would like to admit. Yeah. Well, the thing here's the thing.

[00:15:23] I think that over the years, I've learned to be a lot more direct about things that bother me. But there are some times where I just don't want like I don't want to have the battle of a direct confrontation. And so it's really just sort of like willpower.

[00:15:39] It's like a crazy that's making me say something. When I have something I want to say about someone I dislike or find uncomfortable, I talk about it with others in plain sight of them.

[00:15:52] This is clearly like a translation, I guess, because finding somebody uncomfortable is kind of a weird way of putting it. I agree. So this is like talking shit while they're right there. But not in ear shot. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:07] Like, again, I think that's an unpleasant characteristic, but not one that I associate especially with passive aggression. I pretend I am the victim to get I mean, I haven't looked at their math, so I might be wrong about that. What do you know about sums of squares?

[00:16:25] I pretend I am the victim to give someone I dislike or find uncomfortable a hard time. Yeah, I do that a little bit. Yeah, you do it to me. I feel like you do that. Well, you know, after all that I put up with. But I'm Hispanic.

[00:16:46] Did you? I know that you only asked me to be your co-host because I was Hispanic. I purposefully avoid eye contact with someone I don't like or find uncomfortable. I don't purposely do it.

[00:16:58] Like sometimes if I find somebody like uncomfortable, like it's hard to look them in the eye. I don't I'm just bad at eye contact in general. But yeah, when I meet someone I dislike or find uncomfortable, I try to get away from them intentionally.

[00:17:15] Now, how is that passive aggressive? That's just smart. Yeah, that's like the best thing you can most productive and healthy thing. Maybe this is something like that they subtract from the score or something. Yeah, that's yeah, I was thinking exact same thing.

[00:17:30] We should have paid more attention to it. Although I don't know that in this paper they actually lay out how they score it. I give someone I dislike or find uncomfortable the silent treatment. Now, if they're like right there, that's just that's not passive aggressive.

[00:17:51] I mean, it's passive in the sense that being silent is the absence of an action, but it's pretty damn like weird. It's like, what are you doing? Like they're talking to you like and then you just don't say anything like I would be like, are you OK?

[00:18:07] Like what? Like, OK, when someone on social media I dislike or find uncomfortable asks me a question, I pretend I never saw the question in the first place. That's not passive aggressiveness. That's just having a healthy like a relationship with social media. There's no obligation.

[00:18:27] I have a cold and dismissive attitude towards someone I dislike or find uncomfortable. Again, I don't know how they're measuring this, but I feel like no, that's the whole point is it's pretending to be your friend. And so like if you're being dismissive, at least that's not.

[00:18:45] That's where you stand. OK, passive aggression scale sabotaging component. I deliberately delay someone I dislike or find uncomfortable to give them a hard time. What the fuck does that mean? Like what does that mean? I deliberately delay someone. Give you a hard time?

[00:19:02] Do you do like a bomb scare to the train station you know it's going to take? This is lost in translation. For the record, we didn't just find this paper. There's an actual blog post like on Psychology Today that is what the people that publish these deliberately delay.

[00:19:18] I pretend to help someone I dislike or find uncomfortable but sabotage their work behind their back. I just feel like that goes past passive aggression. But like I get what they're saying.

[00:19:31] Yeah, this is like hitting like on some sort of borderline personality disorder like the people who are just like terrible like that.

[00:19:38] Yeah, this isn't like I want to make it clear that the Minnesotans that I sometimes bring up in this context don't do a lot of these things. They don't like pull you like by your shirt as you're walking down the hall to delay you.

[00:19:53] When I work with someone I dislike or find uncomfortable, I intentionally don't do my share of the work and end up penalizing them. Now it just seems like you're obsessed. Like you're just like you're the problem here. Right. Yeah, passive aggressive should be way more dismissive than this.

[00:20:13] And also like less intentional kind of. It's like something like you're not you're not going to get away with it. It's not some massive strategy you're thinking up when you're being passive aggressive.

[00:20:22] Yeah, maybe in my head when you're passive aggressive to somebody else it's to their face and it's under the guise. It's a thinly veiled sort of like positivity. It's like a positivity veiling like the negativity but only thinly. Veiling some sort of grudge, resentment, bitterness.

[00:20:42] Like why are you not citing yourself? Oh, yeah, that's a good one actually. Yeah. As as I wrote in 2004, I'm sure you've seen it. Although you didn't cite it. I was wondering why you didn't cite it in 2009. But anyway, so anyway, like, yeah, as I wrote.

[00:21:01] Or, you know, I loved your paper. I remember we had a talk about this two years ago and, you know, I remember mentioning to you that somebody should be more I didn't know that you were going to take me up on that to that extent.

[00:21:15] Maybe I should be a little more careful next time, I guess. But that's great. Congratulations. There's a certain level of pettiness to academics. I come up with excuses and say things like I forgot to someone I dislike or find uncomfortable. I'm not saying that I'm not comfortable.

[00:21:34] I come up with excuses and say things like I forgot to someone I dislike or find uncomfortable. Well, I say that to a lot of people. Plenty of people that I like and find uncomfortable. I find you comfortable, too. I find you like you're like a couch.

[00:21:55] I deliberately procrastinate when someone I dislike or find uncomfortable asks me to do something it's kind of passive aggressive. passive aggressive. Yeah, I guess. But I also procrastinate. That's the thing that there is a level of responsibility that

[00:22:09] they think that we have in general. So that like these things might be exceptions to that, like are very intentional. Right? When someone I dislike or find uncomfortable asked me for a favor, I don't give it my all and do a sloppy job. Again, not

[00:22:25] something that I associate at all with passive aggression. Like, again, there might be a real cultural difference here in the use of the term and what but like a lot of these I just don't think of as passive aggressiveness. You can't argue with math.

[00:22:41] Yeah, well, you know, they they validated it with like a bunch of Korean scales. Maybe maybe this is just maybe this is actually such an open and shut case of a valid scale. In Korea. Probably in Korea. Yeah, you know, our Korean listeners can can chime in.

[00:23:03] If we mainly let us know what it means to find somebody uncomfortable. Yes, exactly. And also there was another one that I had no delay the delay. I would like to know what that what that was translated. Yeah, like do you let the air out of their tires?

[00:23:18] Nevertheless, if one feels like they or someone they know is struggling with passive aggressive tendencies, it's important to seek help. This is in the psychology today article. It's important to seek help as passive aggression may be a cause or symptom of other problems such as depression,

[00:23:36] self harm, stress related disorders or eating disorder. So depending on how you score on this, like you may need to seek help like maybe there's like what's the passive aggressive hotline? Maybe there's a huge clinical personality disorder component that I'm just not

[00:23:53] aware of. That's like makes this like actual troubling behavior. But I passive aggressiveness to me is like, really on the low end of problematic. As far as personalities go, I have pathological by the way, I scored low on this, I think so

[00:24:10] I'm not passive aggressive at all. So you can never ever accuse me. That just shows the infallibility of the scale. Right. All right. We'll be right back to talk about Blood Meridian, our concluding we think part. It would be amazing if we couldn't conclude.

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[00:31:02] Okay, let's get to part three, Tandler. Part three of our discussion of the amazing book Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. We last left off with like our plan was to talk about our favorite scenes and I think we got through two of them last

[00:31:16] time, right? Yeah. What we want to talk about this time was a scene. Let's start with a judge's coin trick by the fire. Yeah, the Glanton gang at this point has left Tucson and they're on the road. They're on the road. They come at night and

[00:31:36] just camp. I don't know. Can I read the opening for this? They rode out at dusk, the corporal in the gatehouse above the portal came out and called them to halt but they did not. They rode 21 men and a dog and a little flatbed cart aboard which the

[00:31:53] idiot and his cage had been lashed as if for a sea journey. It's just like, just that vision of like, you have these 21 guys on horseback and a dog and then this cart where you know, this

[00:32:07] man is just in a cage clutching at the bars as if for a sea journey. They're camped out for the night. Glanton is staring into the embers of the fire. There's some kind of like a cool little part where the narrator describes Glanton sitting by

[00:32:26] the fire. He's saying basically like their company has changed quite a bit since they started. They're down a bunch of men, so many gone, defected or dead, the Delaware's all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to

[00:32:41] him. He would live to look upon the Western Sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing

[00:32:53] of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given. Yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the Ur stone itself. He claimed

[00:33:06] agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless son onto its final endarkment as if he'd ordered it all ages since before there were paths anywhere before there were men or sons to go up upon them. Yeah, it's a long sentence.

[00:33:19] And I like the next sentence across from him sat the vast abhorrence of the judge. So good. Very short sentence. The vast abhorrence. Is that passive aggressive? This is an interesting description of Gallant and I had

[00:33:34] it highlighted too like what do you think of it like it almost is praising him as at least having a kind of integrity. He knows who he is and he is like not trying to claim it's any different.

[00:33:51] Yeah, I think I was more dismissive of Glanton than this passage makes me think I should have been by sort of describing him as mindlessly violent. There is there is like an interesting psychology that we get from Glanton here that's that is

[00:34:09] central to his character but it's not really dwelled on that much and it's this yeah like he's singular of focus. It's very consistent with him not wanting his fortune to be read like he doesn't he doesn't want to know he's willing to let it all play

[00:34:22] out and that means that I think that sometimes he's willing to be reckless like it says he's foresworn all weighing of consequence but he's doing it not just out of some you know personality trait where he's just like not good at weighing

[00:34:36] consequences which I think is kind of what I was making him out to be but rather by like this either I will envelop destiny or it will envelop me or something like that. Yeah. This part where he says allowing that he did that men's

[00:34:51] destinies are given which means like it's kind of it's just going to happen kind of fatalism. Yeah. Yeah. Yet he usurped to contain with him all that he would ever be in the world and all the world would be to him. He claimed agency and said so.

[00:35:08] He's like a compatibilist. Yeah. Glanton 1843. Take that Dirk Paraboom. But like I do think there is something about Glanton that as brutal and like you know gruesome as he can be he is set as in distinction to the judge vast appearance of the judge

[00:35:36] which is why I do think the kid is more loyal to Glanton. He finds Glanton more suited to his way of like approach in the world and the judge is just like he talks too much. He tries to

[00:35:50] be too philosophical. He tries to justify things. It's just not for the kid. Yeah. And I think the perspective of somebody who is is not as verbal like somebody who's who keeps their cards close to that. Like the judge is a vast appearance like you talk

[00:36:13] too much just like you said just fucking shut up and do it or don't do it or whatever. I and there's also like this this theme of fatalism and destiny and like again with the flipping of the coins. And a randomness but like a book. Yeah both.

[00:36:33] Yeah right. By the way the kid is barely in this chapter. There's one just a few sentences after what you read you get when Glanton raised his head he saw the kid across the fire from him squatting in

[00:36:47] his blanket watching the judge. That's almost all you get from the otherwise very long chapter. This is like one where he just kind of recedes a little bit. Yeah. Yeah you're right. You're right. Totally. Yeah it's funny.

[00:36:59] Yeah. Like I in my head like the kid is is almost a narrator even though obviously he's not. Yeah. Can we talk about the narrator for a second actually. Yeah. The way he writes and describes things. How do you understand the narrator's connection to the action in the

[00:37:17] novel. It's funny because I think like on first reading I was like well this is a narrator who is purposefully omniscient and distant and not not making judgments. But then you get things like the vast abhorrence of the judge and you get that

[00:37:34] there is an infusion there is an infusion of the narrator's worldview. And but I can't tell what it is because sometimes when he's describing like in a few paragraphs down he's talking about the flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and

[00:37:50] deepened and paled and deepened like the blood beat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them. And they watch the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves in as much as they are less without it and are

[00:37:59] divided from their origins and are exiles for each fire is all fire. The first fire and the last ever to be. So he's like espousing a philosophy like this is not just like and then this happened and that happened.

[00:38:12] Right. And the narrator will do that quite a bit but trying to pin down what exactly the philosophy of the narrator is. Anyway it's kind of interesting and it might affect how we understand the actual coin trick.

[00:38:26] Right. Yeah. So the judge at this point is not by the fire. The judge has gone out on one of his weird errands like his weird little missions. Obscure mission. Obscure missions. The men start having a conversation. Somebody

[00:38:42] asks if it's true that at some time there had been two moons in the sky and the ex-priest eyed the false moon above them. By the way it took some time trying to figure out what a false moon

[00:38:53] was. And as far as I can tell he's talking about the ring around the moon maybe that's what they were seeing. Yeah. So asked if it were true that at one time there had been two moons in the sky and the ex-priest eyed the false moon

[00:39:06] above and said that it may well have been so but certainly the wise high god in his dismay at the proliferation of lunacy on this earth must have whetted a thumb and leaned down out of the abyss and pinched it hissing into extinction. So yeah God must

[00:39:20] have put out one of the moons because the moon was what people thought drove people crazy. So he didn't want so much crazy on the earth but he needed to leave something for the birds to navigate at night.

[00:39:32] This is my favorite thing. So then it says that the question was then put whether on Mars or other planets there were other creatures like them. And like all of a sudden the judge is back.

[00:39:44] You know like this is if like my wife and my daughter will start talking about boys or something like that I will have gone and then all of a sudden I'm like mysteriously back you know. And

[00:39:54] so he he comes back and he says he's naked and half naked sweating and said they were not and there were no men anywhere in the universe save those upon the earth. Like the fact that he

[00:40:08] just like kind of rushes back you know like who the fuck knows what he was doing. But he had to come back to say this makes it feels like he needed to say that this we are the only people in the universe you know and then yeah.

[00:40:23] I'm not sure why he says that. Like that's one of the things I want to ask you. Like why do you think there's nothing that I know of in like the philosophy that the judges espousing that makes this particularly necessary view. Like there could

[00:40:35] be like tons of beings in the universe. Yeah. I don't get this either but it seems important to him. You know. And then he says what I think is a key quote for the book. The truth about the world. He said is that anything is

[00:40:49] possible had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness. It would appear to you for what it is a hat trick in a medicine show a fever dream a trance be populate with chimeras having neither analog nor precedent an

[00:41:04] itinerant carnival a migratory tent show whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a muddied field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning. The universe is no narrow thing in the order within is in it is not constrained by any latitude and its conception to repeat what

[00:41:23] exists in one part and any other part kind of human there you know like argument against induction even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and in the order in creation which you see is that which you have put

[00:41:36] there like a string in the maze so you shall not lose your way for existence has its own order that no man's mind can compass that mind itself being but a fact among others. So good. So much here like you so much do an episode just

[00:41:56] there is something that like he's describing what the world would look like if your eyes hadn't lived here for the whole time and it really reminded me of the blooming buzzing confusion of James and and then like the mystical James who

[00:42:14] basically is like don't let your conceptions and categories influence the way that you see the world and if you can see the world from the eyes of like a somebody who is erased their mind of all of their preconceptions and their concept and their

[00:42:31] gathered on the yeah then you will see you may see it as it is and it's a fucking weird thing. This this is a very very weird world and that dream a fever dream and there is something about the judge that I hadn't

[00:42:46] thought about which is just like he's a big he looks like a big baby he's hairless and he you know he's bald and he's naked half of the time and it's like even how he walks in now is like

[00:42:59] how a baby walks in when they're in their diaper with their onesie like sort of around their waist you know their big belly hanging out you know like that's what I call my baby a vast abhorrence that's her nickname and he keeps himself youthful so he's like an

[00:43:18] eternal he's eternally seeing the world with the eyes of a child in this particular way. I mean in other ways he's violent. He has beginner's mind seeing the world in this way that isn't corrupted by your concepts and the structures and categories

[00:43:36] that we impose on the world which is what he say like the order in creation which we see is that which we which you have put there. It also remind me of Berson Henri Berson.

[00:43:48] This idea of just life as this river and we put the order of the you know like it sounds a little nihilist. Do you think he's this is ethical at all or is this pure metaphysics. Is this a kind of laying the groundwork for like everything is permitted.

[00:44:05] Yeah I don't I I think I'm of the opinion that he doesn't have an ethic that he's yeah it's all metaphysics. There is no normativity ethical normativity in the world. And whatever normativity there is we have put there so we will not lose our way.

[00:44:22] And now this has to do with the fact that there are no men anywhere in the universe like you said it's like not clear you know. Yeah that part I was like does he just need to feel as if you

[00:44:34] know I can see a sort of self-centeredness and narcissism involved with thinking that you're you're the only mind who has achieved this in the whole universe so that the universe is yours. Basically like he wants the world to be his but maybe he wants the

[00:44:48] universe to be his. He wants to be the suzerain of the universe. Yeah right. This is where I relate to Davy Brown who spits into the fire and tells the judge that's some more of your craziness.

[00:45:02] But like not with it doesn't get under the judge's skin like when the kid says it later. Right. You know yeah because because what is Davy Brown to the to the judge you know. The judge smiled.

[00:45:14] He placed the palms of his hands upon his chest and breathed the night air and he stepped closer and squatted and held up one hand. He turned that hand and there was a gold coin between his fingers. Where is the coin Davy? I love this.

[00:45:27] Davy says I'll notify you where to put the coin. The judge and that doesn't even bother the judge. He's basically like sticking up your ass like the judge doesn't care. The judge swung his hand and the coin winked overhead in the fire light.

[00:45:38] It must have been fastened to some subtle lead horsehair perhaps for it circled the fire and returned to the judge and he caught it in his hand and smiled. So here the narrator is suggesting that it's a trick.

[00:45:49] Like I don't think the narrator will do this for the second part of this but. No I think this is what this is a good thing by you know stepping out for a second. A good method of by McCarthy to give the narrator the necessary

[00:46:05] credibility for us to be amazed when when he does say like I don't know. Yeah. The judge says the arc of circling bodies is determined by the length of their tethers of the judge moons coins men his hands moved as if he were pulling something from one fist

[00:46:25] in a series of elongations. Watch the coin Davey he said he flung it and cut an arc through the firelight and was gone in the darkness beyond. They watched the night where it had vanished and they watched the

[00:46:35] judge and in their watching some the one and some the other. They were a common witness. The coin Davey the coin whispered the judge. He sat erect and raised his hand and smiled around. The coin returned back out of sight out of the night and crossed

[00:46:48] the fire with a faint high droning and the judge's raised hand was empty and then it held the coin. There was a light slap and it held the coin. Even so some claim that he had thrown the coin away and

[00:46:58] palmed another like it and made the sound with his tongue for he was himself a cunning old malabarista and he said himself as he put the coin away what all men knew that there are coins and false coins.

[00:47:09] And then in the morning some did walk over the ground where the coin had gone but if any man found it he kept it to himself and with the sunrise they were mounted and riding again. So now the narrator is just being a journalist like I don't know.

[00:47:20] Yeah exactly. But he's I love this. We touched on this last time in the first time I know that most of this book can be explained like he could just be a charlatan. He could just be like a sleight of hand artist and to these

[00:47:34] guys like that seems amazing. Certainly this doesn't sound like anything near the most like difficult kind of coin trick to do. But I don't know the one where you're where he throws it into the night and then you watch it come back returned back out of

[00:47:53] the night and then with that like slap like that's a tough trick. I think that the narrator is being pretty clear to give it like an out here like by saying like he could. OK. He could have made that noise with his with his mouth and and

[00:48:12] it could just be that like you think you saw it return because like the what the action that you know your eyes are expecting that fire of the fire reflections and what. Yeah. Shadows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he is a call. He is a cunning old malabarista. Yeah.

[00:48:30] So here's what I think about this issue. I think there is no answer to this. I saw on the Reddit page that there was people who they took you to be arguing that there's nothing supernatural about the judge except maybe until the end. Until the end.

[00:48:48] I don't think that there is an answer to this question and I don't think that that's like like I think they're both are true like it both is and isn't super. I guess this is what I'm trying to say.

[00:48:59] It's not that I think it's unknowable and McCarthy is leaving it open and we can come up with theories that both fit and stuff like that. I don't think it's like that. Like I sometimes think with David Lynch like you know like it's

[00:49:11] a puzzle that you should try to solve and there's no answer to the question but it's like I really think it is both at the same time. Like if both he both is a cunning old malabarista and a charlatan and a hoodwinker and he has supernatural powers both

[00:49:30] like that's kind of how I think about it you know but I like it's weird because I don't really have this feeling about most works of art but I feel like I do about this particular question. But what about you.

[00:49:41] Yeah I also don't think that McCarthy is saying I know but I'm not telling you but I do think that there is a local answer as to whether or not this was a sleight of hand trick or

[00:49:54] a supernatural trick and I think that McCarthy by by giving us perfectly plausible almost banal explanations for some of the things that we take to be these wondrous acts from the judge he is asking you a question.

[00:50:09] Do you think that this judge is supernatural and whether or not he has an answer in his head or whether he's just presenting the both I think this is the action that the reader is has to take.

[00:50:21] It's like a is like are you going to believe that this judge is supernatural and I think that really might mean something throughout the whole book. Like I think it really could be that this guy is just a fucking

[00:50:38] asshole who's picked up a few languages and some sleight of hand tricks. There's nothing that special about it until the very end which throws throws me for a loop where I'm like OK is McCarthy really expressing an opinion here.

[00:50:49] But you mean he doesn't age because we don't even know what he did to the kid. No we have no idea but he doesn't age. And but McCarthy if McCarthy just wanted to make us believe he was supernatural he wouldn't give us these little hints that

[00:51:04] maybe it's not you know. That's what I mean like I think it's both like I think it's like you know hyperposition or whatever like quantum like super like it's actual superposition. It's actually both at the same time like it's he's like a

[00:51:20] charlatan and it's not so and I don't mean he's both a charlatan but happens to have supernatural powers. I mean he's both a charlatan and this was just a trick and it's just and it's not just a trick.

[00:51:31] I think the whole point is this is this is all a fever dream right. It's like he was saying before this is a a hat trick in a medicine show an itinerant car carnival a migratory tent show.

[00:51:43] It's all a fucking trick and it's all supernatural like it's all a dream. It's all like a nightmare. Yeah yeah no I get I get what you're saying and like part of me is is with you like I don't know about them so I don't know

[00:51:57] whether you mean or whether it matters that this particular trick say both was slight of hand and it wasn't like I don't I can't get behind that thought. I could certainly get behind the thought that this book is both

[00:52:10] things and there is no there's it's more than just saying like you know he left it up to you at the end like fucking Christopher Nolan in the spinning top or something like right now. Right. Yeah.

[00:52:22] Well which I think there might be an answer but I do too actually. I mean yeah definitely. But to me this book achieves a different level of fucking amazing when one real possibility is that one of the things McCarthy is saying is that this violent man is a

[00:52:48] charlatan and and with his with his fucking dime store tricks convinced a bunch of ignorant people that his violence was like something magical. And I don't think I need to believe that but to know that it

[00:53:03] is an optional reading of this to me gives the world just as much wonder like this fucking heartless world could very well be that this asshole of a charlatan conned people into thinking that he was magical. That's almost more devastating to me like as a worldview like

[00:53:22] there's nothing actually there. This is just like a actually a heartless center of it. Yeah that seems in the spirit of the book too. Like the one thing I would say is they're not fully taken in either though.

[00:53:34] They just don't put up a big fight about it but they're not it's not like they are like in a cult and he's their cult leader. That's not the dynamic in that gang. No. I don't think the kid ever believes it until maybe that last

[00:53:49] moment in the Jakes. I think the kid also just doesn't like he's just like he just wants to go to sleep and hear the judge carry on about philosophy and what the universe actually is like that is not a kid kind of conversation. Right.

[00:54:06] And so the fact that the narrator is telling me not in the voice of the judge that that fire contained all fires and basically like again something like a very Gnostic belief about like there being we all emanate from the same divine spark and

[00:54:24] that divine spark exists in every single human being and it will return to God and into the original like that that the narrator is bothering to express those thoughts. It makes it such a better book because if this were just like

[00:54:41] oh like you fool don't you realize if you had read this with a debunking mindset this would like all go away. No like it doesn't go away to me. Like if I read it that way the way that McCarthy's written it I

[00:54:52] still have this like enormous sense of like spirituality to it you know. Right. I also think the distinction between what's supernatural kind of a negative supernatural force and a natural negative force is completely blurred in this book.

[00:55:11] So when they then go and see the black and desiccated shapes of horse and mules that travelers had set afoot the beats be said died with their neck stretched in agony in the sand and now upright and blind and lurching askew with scraps of black and

[00:55:27] leather hanging from the fretwork of their ribs you know these starving poor horses and mules howling after the endless tandem sons that passed above them. That's like there's no suggestion that that's supernatural but it's just as fucked up and weird and strange

[00:55:45] as if it were like as if the judge had just manifested that coin out of thin air and had to come back to him. You're so right. And as you were even saying that I was like oh I don't think I

[00:55:57] even caught this but like I think McCarthy is saying like you're you're talking about the coin trick. All the shit that I've told you that has gone down in this world like you're caring whether there was horsehair attached to that coin or not. Yeah exactly.

[00:56:13] It's all like it's all a fucking fever dream. Like yeah exactly. Did you not see the Comanches? Do you care? Like yeah. Like a guy like pissing and shooting puppies in the river that the judge just right like all of that like it's just that's supernatural.

[00:56:31] Like not supernatural like that in some ways is above nature like in this distressing way. And I think you're right like by the end it doesn't those distinctions are so blurred. We you know. The old lady that's like that's like a brittle like shell of a

[00:56:50] husk of a woman you know like what that could happen. But by you know by the end I guess it's interesting we could talk about this later. By the end whether the kid ended up being so intimidated at the

[00:57:07] thought of the judge in the back of his mind that he drunk in a bar one night swore that he hadn't aged. Who knows? You know. Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk about the like where this goes? You know this is where he gets very explicitly Nietzschean both

[00:57:24] in his proclamation that war is inevitable and really kind of what we're here to do. What human beings are here to do and whether it's games or passive aggressive contest sports it's all war in the end. War is God.

[00:57:43] But then someone named Irving I'm not even sure a guy named Irving says might does not make right. The man that wins in some combat is not vindicated morally and the judge's reply to this is moral laws an invention of

[00:57:57] mankind for the disenfranchised of the powerful in favor of the weak. So the kind of slave morality idea historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test.

[00:58:10] A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. Has Sam Harris responded to this by the way? It's very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view.

[00:58:25] The willingness of the principles to forego further argument as the triviality which it is in fact is and to petition directly to the chambers of the law. Petition directly to the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment and are the

[00:58:40] opinions and of what great moment are the divergences thereof for the argument is indeed trivial but not so the separate wills thereby may manifest. I mean that really is like maybe it's a slight caricature of Nietzsche but but but whatever whether it's it is in that spirit.

[00:58:59] I do love this idea that that is actually super consistent with the this chance determines everything is kind of the ultimate thing to do is engage in a game of warfare where unlike any other game there's real literal skin in the game

[00:59:16] and you're letting that fate chance randomness decide who was right in the end without having you're not appealing to any principle you're not saying like there's any normativity you're just saying like let's fight to the death and whoever wins turns

[00:59:30] out that was the right one like or not even right. That was just that's the one who gets to keep living. Yeah in fact he says it's not just because he dies. It doesn't mean that he was in error because he at least tried

[00:59:45] to get in the duel like the key is to just be in the duel willing to stand up for it. He's kind of saying what I think the kid more lives by. You don't talk about it and make principles about it. You just do it. Yeah.

[01:00:00] Here there can be no special pleading here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant. And here are the views of the litigants despised decisions of life and death of what shall be and what shall not beggar all

[01:00:14] question of right in elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed moral spiritual natural. It's like the only the only answer to this is who dies and who lives and we all end up dying. And then he says but what says the priest and the Tobin looks

[01:00:33] up but doesn't go against it. And he takes this to be evidence that the priest even though he calls he says he has a blasphemous tongue and blah blah blah like you don't like the fact that you're with us right now.

[01:00:48] Do you think he's speaking to the kid here really. I haven't thought of it doesn't give a shit about what the priest actually thinks but I do love that he's telling I do love that he says to the priest the priest who tries to be on a

[01:01:03] moral high ground in that moment. He says a priest. What could I ask of you that you've not already given because you're here because you're here. You're playing the game. You're you're doing exactly what you probably would say that you shouldn't do. But so there is no argument.

[01:01:20] Knee heel deceit. That's the thing about the duel. Like the fact that you fought the duel says what you believe like it's your actions are what determine what you actually believe. By the way this he is asking the priest something that he knows

[01:01:40] the priest can't answer in public. That's going to get him a higher passive aggressive. Would you say like a five out of six. Yeah. I should be like that's a six out of six.

[01:01:54] I do that all the time but I can never get the kid I can never rope the kid. Yeah. I think like I hadn't thought of it but given what I think is going on between the judge and the kid yeah I actually think

[01:02:07] that the judge is talking to the kid what when he says what could I ask of you that you've not already given. It's sort of an attempt to convince the kid that he's already part. But in reality he's not or he wouldn't have to try to convince him.

[01:02:18] This is the thing about the judge there's a little almost defensiveness insecurity like rationalization that you almost feel like he's going on and on about this because he knows that there are some people that aren't fully buying it.

[01:02:34] There are certain people Toadvine the priest Davey Brown who will indulge this and then there are other people Glanton would never like get involved in this. You know the kid doesn't get involved in this like there's

[01:02:47] some parts of the group that you get the sense are like it's just the judge whatever. Hopefully I'll put on a shirt like a shirt at some point. Although I also think that there is maybe a view among some of

[01:03:01] them that the judge is so poison poisonous of tongue that you shouldn't you shouldn't talk to him. I don't think that's not what makes Glanton. No I'm not saying it's Glanton. I'm saying that some of the men some of the men who are not

[01:03:15] engaging with the judge might actually be intimidated. No Glanton doesn't give a fuck. I mean Glanton is living what the judge believes. Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's the exactly that puts the point like that I've been trying to make.

[01:03:28] I really do think that what the judge has been espousing is not exactly what he's practicing. He does a lot of fucking talking. He does some horrifying things too. He's not all talk but he's a lot of talk. He's a lot of talk.

[01:03:41] And it's unclear to me whether like the judge is out there shooting motherfuckers in the same way. Actually I don't know. You know his victims tend not that you know they're puppies and children. That's a good point. Yeah.

[01:03:57] What is he epiphenomenal like with this gang be doing everything they're doing anyway. If it weren't for the judge. Yeah. He might as well be like a little demon on you know who's just like writing with them. But I don't think they need persuading either way.

[01:04:15] But that's why so fucking cool. It's like I feel that way. The world wouldn't be any different if I weren't here but I get to like kind of narrate. But you don't consider yourself a suzerain. No no. And I also don't like to take my shirt off.

[01:04:32] Should we move to the baptism scene or did you. Speaking of taking. Yeah. Okay. Why don't you take this one. Oh. Before we wrap up this scene I wanted to give one last little great McCarthy just giving us just a perfect visual of this.

[01:04:51] The end of the scene. The keeper led the imbecile down from its cage and tethered it by the fire with a braided horsehair rope that it could not chew through. And it stood leaning in its collar with its hand out outheld as if it yearned for the flames.

[01:05:07] Glanton's dog rose and sat watching it and the idiot swayed and drooled with its dull eyes falsely brightened by the fire falsely brightened by the fire. The judge had been holding the femur upright in order to better illustrate

[01:05:22] its analogies to the prevalent bones of the country about and he let it fall in the sand and closed his book. There is no mystery to it. He said the recruits blinked Dully the new recruits they picked up from Tucson.

[01:05:33] Your heart's desire it is to be told some mystery. The mystery is there is no mystery. And this is where the ex-priest says I as if he were no mystery himself the bloody old hoodwinker. Yeah. It's great.

[01:05:47] Like the mystery is that there is no mystery is is like the darkest possible conclusion you can reach. So yeah then they're all of a sudden out of the blue this woman Sarah Borg-Guinness. She just appears by them by this by the Yuma and the river.

[01:06:07] And she just she's a huge woman. She existed. She was an innkeeper I guess a madam at some point. She was a real Texas kind of figure like one of these Texas characters married like five times sometimes legally sometimes not.

[01:06:24] She just goes there and she's like what are you doing with this like guy and this big drooling guy in a cage. And she just like dresses them down. She takes the she tells you she yells at the brother.

[01:06:38] The brother is like look I you take him then I can't do anything with them and my parents are dead. So she takes him they lead him down to the river again. The kid and Toad Vine were not here but you just get a little glimpse of them.

[01:06:54] This is another chapter where they barely figure into it but it says Toad Vine and the kid passed them as they were dragging the cart along. The idiot was clutching the bars and hooting at the water and some of the

[01:07:04] women had started up a hymn and like the Toad Vine like what the fuck. And the kids doesn't know and they open the cage let the idiot out and then she you know it's funny like this is referred to as a baptism but it's not

[01:07:23] like explicit that that's what she's doing. Like she could just be watching him. Yeah. No. Aside from like the singing hymns maybe that's going on but they could be doing that just as she's watching. So they you know they clean him up.

[01:07:40] He clearly it's so spare in terms of how this is described. Yeah. Like I had to read it multiple times to try to understand exactly what was going on. Yeah. Because like all of a sudden she's there and then she's taken him you know and

[01:07:58] nobody really like not even the judge puts up a fight maybe because he knows maybe he's not there we don't even know. So I didn't notice until recently this when I was reading today that when they

[01:08:10] say he sees himself in it that that it's that he was seeing his reflection in the in the water. Yeah. For the first time. Right. Also probably like he's probably not seen his reflection before.

[01:08:22] So then they like dress him up not in like well fitting clothes but the greases here they give him sweets and he sat drooling watching the fire greatly to their admiration. This is like you know like rich white women.

[01:08:41] And so then what's so weird is that like he's in underwear they kiss him good night. They tuck him in. They go to sleep and then he immediately just is gone like he just goes he takes

[01:08:55] off all the clothes and goes back to the river and then he enters the water and then just like he obviously can't swim. He drowns and the judge on his midnight. This is such a funny narrator thing by the way.

[01:09:10] Now the judge on his midnight rounds was passing along at just this place stark naked himself. Such encounters being commoner than most men men suppose or who would survive any crossing by night and he stepped into the river seized up the drowning idiot

[01:09:24] snatching it aloft by the heels like a great midwife and slapping it on the back to let the water out. So he saves him from drowning. Yeah. A birth scene or a baptism or some ritual not yet inaugurated into any canon.

[01:09:39] He twisted the water from its hair and he gathered the naked and sobbing fool into his arms and he carried it up into the camp and restored it among its fellows. It's almost like the judge actually does have some fondness for the idiot.

[01:09:54] Yeah maybe but as I was reading about this scene today it could be that the idiot well he has a name now. Tamler. James Robert. James Robert. He was trying to kill himself. Like it could be that this whole thing that happened where they like dressed him up

[01:10:14] normal and like that it was so so weird to him. And it seems like he didn't seem like he wanted to like almost jump in the fire that the judge isn't saving him but rather preventing him from being like ending the

[01:10:30] misery that he was that he was feeling for the first time. You know he's been caged up. He gets a taste of the water. Maybe he realizes I can end this all like he's been in a cage. He's he realizes he could drown.

[01:10:44] And the minute that like the ladies leave him he crosses that amphitheater and tries to drown himself. And here comes the judge and lifts them up. Yeah it could be. It's a darker way of thinking about it.

[01:10:58] And the judge kind of keeps him like a gimp from this point on. So well he was a gimp before. No I mean like the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Yeah but that's just because they burned the cage. The women burned at the cage.

[01:11:11] Otherwise he would at least get to be in the cage. Yeah. But like the judge is I'm saying walking around with him but like on a leash like his fucking little pet. If you don't want him to do that then don't burn his cage.

[01:11:23] But he doesn't need it. I'm saying is he doesn't need to bring him around like he doesn't need like him to be he could have just like left him. Then he'll just run off. You can't just let him run off. He could build another cage.

[01:11:34] There are leash laws for idiots in this time. Don't judge. What is the judge a judge of? What is he a judge of though? So this is so sparse like they tuck him in.

[01:11:49] They go to sleep and then it just immediately goes to him being naked walking through the amphitheater back to the river. Like like it could easily be that he's my god. Like I get to swim in the river. That was amazing. That was fun.

[01:12:02] Like I guess I feel like it. Like I get the sense that he's been treated so horribly so inhumanly that like he wouldn't make the decision to kill himself. I don't even think he would know that going to a river would actually result in his death.

[01:12:21] And so I guess I don't fully buy that. Yeah. I mean it does. The narrator describes it has as him losing his footing. So that's not quite what you're thinking. But you know who knows.

[01:12:36] I think I think maybe it's even darker that the idiot doesn't have the conception of doing that. That requires like having like a more normal like a more normal human relation to life. Like animals don't decide to just kill themselves you know and he is half animal the

[01:12:53] way he's been treated. That's why him seeing himself in the reflection for the first time to me is like all of a sudden he gets this sense of self like he gets that that whatever that level of

[01:13:08] consciousness that humans have all of a sudden that self reflective ability. And if the first thing he thinks when he gets that is let me end this like that's just creepy. What an image too of like the judge naked at night lifting this kid up by the ankle

[01:13:27] this like Achilles like he just dipped him you know. And the strength to do it the size to do it and happening to to to be walking by naked. The judge really has the ability to pull up. Don't judge those things happened all the time.

[01:13:47] Like what are you talking about? I didn't understand that either. What does he mean when he says. Or who would survive any causing by night? Yeah I don't know. Yeah. He seized up the drowning idiot birth scene or a baptism or some ritual like not

[01:14:05] inaugurated into any canon but really he's not reborn like he's just goes back to being the same but this time he's on a leash instead of in a cage you know. Maybe spiritually accepted Jesus into his heart at that moment you don't know. You don't know.

[01:14:20] I think it's both a superposition. He's also a Jew. Also what I wasn't sure about was why they were. Well I guess that makes sense. When they brought him sweets and he sat drooling and watched the fire greatly to their admiration. I guess that's just self-congratulation like. Yeah.

[01:14:40] Oh we're so virtuous. The original virtue signalers. So let's talk about the epilogue and let's cast this. We gotta wrap this up. Okay books over epilogue in italics. In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plain by means of holes which he is

[01:14:56] making in the ground. He uses an implement with two handles and he chucks it into the hole and he unkindles the stone in the hole with his steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock

[01:15:07] which God has put there on the plane behind him are the wanders in search of bones and those who do not search and they move haltingly in the light like mechanisms whose movements are monitored with escapement and palette so that they appear restrained by

[01:15:21] a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality and they cross in their progress one by one that track of holes that runs to the rim of the visible ground and which seems less the pursuit of some continuance than the verification of a principle a

[01:15:34] validation of sequence and causality as if each round and perfect hole owed its existence to the one before it there on that prairie upon which are the bones and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather.

[01:15:46] He strikes fire in the hole and draws out his steel then they all move on again. Yeah. What do you make of it. You first. Okay so this one clearly there can't be a real answer to this but.

[01:16:03] So a lot of people think that what he's describing here about the man making holes in the ground and progressing across the plane is like putting up telephone poles you know like those the the things that used to dig those holes are like these you know to.

[01:16:21] Yeah when Al's engine is off. Exactly. And so they're sort of progressing across the continent maybe that now it doesn't give. This doesn't say anything about what he means by this but but that it's talking about some

[01:16:39] form of progress technological progress like progressing here meaning crossing crossing the continent. It's like a new form of conquest. Yeah and I I like kind of the the. When he's talking about striking the fire out of the rock which God has put there it seems

[01:16:59] very much like man harnessing this new technology enabling mankind to harness the power that once only belonged to God. And that sort of view of technology as being being you know like stolen from the gods maybe is what he's alluding to or. Promethean. Yeah Promethean or or just.

[01:17:26] Or just that's that's the advancement of mankind is like to get more and more control over over nature. But when it says striking the fire out of the rock you don't necessarily like you get the sense that something is definitely lost in this I think.

[01:17:45] Yeah and I don't even know what it means because it's so he's he's saying that he enkindles the stone in the hole and initially I thought. What this meant was when we were when when they were building the railroads and they

[01:18:01] had to like blast through you basically you drill a hole and put gunpowder and tamp it down with a steel rod and then explode it and I thought that's what it was referring to

[01:18:14] sort of like enkindling the stone of the earth and in that way sort of like controlling nature. Yeah controlling it both like probably for better and for worse and maybe for worse because we're just going to find new ways of expressing the violence and urge to dominate and.

[01:18:39] It'll take a different form. Become suzerains. Yeah and what do you what what about the people who are around there searching for bones. Those gatherers of bones and those who do not gather.

[01:18:52] I don't know like I've really I almost like feel like I don't I've read a little bit about it like I feel like I've got nothing on this. I just don't fully get it. Well and I try I tried.

[01:19:04] The image of it do you know about like natural gas there is this thing where you go into the rocks and extract something just from the rocks. Like fracking. Yeah fracking exactly like fracking getting natural gas through fracking and like that's

[01:19:19] what it kind of reminded me of that it almost feels wrong what you're doing like it's one thing to like search for oil it's another you know which actually like it's another thing

[01:19:29] to do whatever this weird thing is doing it does feel like you're doing alchemy or something but that doesn't make sense in the context of the novel except in like to the extent that it's kind of reflects what you're talking about getting something out of nature maybe in

[01:19:44] the promethean way that belongs to the gods like we shouldn't be messing with this maybe it's just the next stage in what human beings have been doing for 300,000 years like the new scalping will be the result of what they're doing right now. Yeah.

[01:20:02] The bones part harkens back to me to finding evidence of scalped skulls in 300,000 year old skeletons and them moving on like the last sentence he strikes fire in the hole draws out of steel then they all move on again it's just like this is gonna just keep happening.

[01:20:22] Yeah yeah right. There's no stopping it. The distinction between the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather might be those who partake in violence and those who don't and that it's all the same in the end.

[01:20:38] Because you're both yeah walking yeah you're all still there you're like the priest if you don't gather but you're gathering just by being there. Um yeah the last thought I had was maybe the fire and taking the fire out of the earth

[01:20:56] in this case is some sort of metaphor for electricity and the progress of putting up like electrical poles. So like an optimistic note to end on but we're gonna fix all of this with new technology. Yeah yeah. Soon you'll have iPhones and televisions.

[01:21:14] I like to think that they're putting like they're setting up Trump's glorious wall. You know like the Trump I actually have read something that they that they might be marking the border between Mexico and America in the epilogue which sure like maybe they are.

[01:21:33] That is part of the plot of the of the book. Yeah so I did see Trump's wall though we drove along the like the border in New Mexico this one road that was just going all across the border and you see this black kind of fencing all through.

[01:21:51] It's like the Great Wall is as majestic as the Great Wall. It's like I haven't seen the Great Wall of China so but I can't imagine the Great Wall of China can compare what I saw in the Mexico slash Mexico desert.

[01:22:07] Yeah yeah no I so about that blog I agree like this is I think I was telling you before this is as Rorschach-y an epilogue as you could possibly have like I'm sure

[01:22:19] it gives a vibe like it does give this sort of vibe of like a both progress and sadness. I get reading this where it's like after this big expansion into the West like everything

[01:22:32] changed and we we ended up like you know creating whatever it was telephone poles electricity poles railroad tracks that joined this all and entered into this new modern age of which who knows what his opinion is but maybe there is no opinion there other than that's just

[01:22:49] what happened. Yeah and it's interesting that it's juxtaposed immediately with maybe one of the more surreal scenes of the judge and also the surreally described scenes he never sleeps he says he

[01:23:04] says he'll never die and it just keeps repeating he never sleeps he says he will never die he dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite he never sleeps the judge he is dancing

[01:23:14] dancing he says that he will never die you go from that and the end by the way like to the epilogue and it's so mundane the epilogue so just routine it's like you went from this dancing lunatic philosopher archon to just these guys just going.

[01:23:33] Actually on that note actually just now I'm just like seeing that this might consistent with what you're saying wherein it says on the plane behind him are the wanders and search bones and those who do not search and they move haltingly in the light like mechanisms whose

[01:23:47] movements are monitored with escapement and palette which are what clock making their watch parts so like they're mechanistically moving so that they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality it's like the technology has made us lose that

[01:24:05] like spark of creativity or imagination or whatever spirituality yeah so like we're just now whereas these guys. Subjectivity. Yeah. Like they just have rules and like an algorithm for putting this. Yeah. Down. Whereas these guys were crossing the planes just with nothing but will and blood

[01:24:27] and imagination and violence now our movement across the planes is this mechanistic soulless. Yep I think that that's the best interpretation that I like that I've heard like as horrifying and you know deeply immoral and evil as the judge was he had imagination yeah there's

[01:24:51] a spirit there he can make there's a spirit and you don't get that with these people yeah so be like the judge alienated labor more like the judge yeah be more like the judge uh and for the record I only know this because

[01:25:06] escapement is a word that I've come across in my design in my nerdery about watches yeah someone asked us what our hobbies were going to be you know as we get older and like you have

[01:25:21] too many like I don't know how you're gonna fit all that I don't I don't have enough money for that particular uh all right let's cast this movie all right should we start with director

[01:25:33] yeah let's start with it by the way there is a movie we should say yeah that's planned but there's this has happened before we'll see if this ever hits the screen but person who's directing

[01:25:42] it is John Hillcoat who directed the proposition which is Australian western which I saw and liked but don't remember anything about I think it was from 2005 he also did the road the Cormac McCarthy

[01:25:54] adaptation which I think people liked but I haven't seen so just ground rules here you and I briefly talked about whether or not we should constrain ourselves to movies that could be made

[01:26:06] now like present day people and I ended up doing that um so you may not have but all right I did too actually with a couple of slight deviations so yeah so who do you have I have all right I feel

[01:26:22] like I need to say something about my choice because it's so this is so difficult a call to make and as I was being torn in two directions one find a director who can shoot with a kind of

[01:26:39] the soulless violence that's so central to this and like the western yeah versus a director who who could capture to me like the the beauty of of what this might look like even if it's like an

[01:26:54] awful beauty and I went with the what I think of is the latter so my pick is Terrence Malick yeah for this good one he could definitely was someone I considered yeah yeah I don't know you

[01:27:07] know if they were up to me I would have like some sort of you know like I would toss in Guillermo del Toro or something or or the Coen brothers people who could who could do a sort of like

[01:27:19] in the case of the Coen brothers a gritty violence necessary or in the case of Guillermo del Toro like a add some some of that magical realism to it yeah I think like I think Terrence

[01:27:31] Malick in some ways my issue with him was the violence like capturing the violence like he did his first movie is about serial killers they scratched the mystical itch for me yeah and

[01:27:45] that's just the judgment call there that I made and the Texas landscape in the landscape yeah yes I think that's a good one uh but not as good as mine I think Woody Allen like you know

[01:27:58] he could really set in Manhattan instead of the judge no he'll go out there he'll get the pedophilia no that's never been established um no but that's that's a joke I like

[01:28:17] I don't think his sensibility is quite matched to this um okay so I thought of two um after I also considered Terrence Malick like I think Park Chan-wook yeah he actually crossed my mind too

[01:28:29] actually I think his sensibility matches the book his kind of the bleakness of and the kind of somewhat absurdist bleakness of his world view is very suited to the book but I just don't

[01:28:42] know if he can get the Texas uh Mexico westernness of it all you know Martin Scorsese obviously has like the chops to do something like you you kind of want like the person I think would have been

[01:28:57] perfect is Sam Peckinpah but he died the year before this was published um but there's just that kind of run and gun just like crazy 60s 70s wild uh western moving making you know like I feel

[01:29:11] like that's the kind of energy you need Martin Scorsese has a little of that but I think it's too Catholic so I do feel like I came across settled on a good one which is Werner Herzog yeah like

[01:29:25] the Fitzcarraldo energy you know like you get the sense that the set would be what you would want it to be on a Werner Herzog movie for Blood Meridian you know he has that kind of just dark bleak but

[01:29:38] not brooding sensibility that I think is that reflects the the novel I think he could be really good and he can direct American actors too like I was just watching Bad Lieutenant Puerto Cal New

[01:29:50] Orleans which is fucking awesome and it's just bonkers like it has a kind of craziness like it's not at all like Blood Meridian but it has this kind of just what the fuck am I watching in

[01:30:01] the same way it's like what am I reading yeah right yeah and he does seem to have like the requisite nature being like I don't know reddened tooth and claw but like awesome beautiful but in

[01:30:16] totally indifferent morally yeah and dangerous yes and dangerous and dangerous yeah yes Grizzly Man is a great Werner Herzog documentary I'd love to just listen to Werner Herzog narrating the behind the scenes yeah shooting Blood Meridian like I really think like if you're out there producer

[01:30:38] of I don't know maybe he's too old but I think I noticed Terrence Malick is 79 artists so he's probably too old too is he yeah I guess he is Badlands is like 71. Martin Sheen was a little boy

[01:30:52] yeah um you know when you were saying Scorsese yeah like that's some but that's a good he's he's great at violence and and that sort of um the sensibility for that kind of of action and and

[01:31:04] heartlessness to the violence I just don't like as much as I love his movies they're not like spiritual in any there's like I don't sense the spirit there like oh I disagree with that

[01:31:17] like really like Wolf of Wall Street he's too no no I'm not talking about religious Wall Street but like silence or the Irishman or no no not religious I'm not talking about like Jesus stuff I mean like

[01:31:29] a like a heart like that mystical heart that this movie needs like he's not bad at all you know yeah yeah yeah right now I see what you're saying like in that way Lynch David Lynch would capture

[01:31:40] that aspect of it really well but also just I think his it's weird because like in some ways David Lynch would be really good for this but it's not the same I don't know attitude it's not the

[01:31:54] same perspective on life again I think David Lynch might be ultimately a little too optimistic for this book maybe like I mean I actually think the Coen brothers would probably do a good job

[01:32:06] given what we've done it before but but you you just don't want it to be as controlled as they would have it like I think this has to be a little wilder yeah really like the peck and paw

[01:32:17] energy now yeah exactly that kind of apocalypse now energy is kind of exactly how I think this should be all right what do you got for cast all right you know for the judge it's going to be no

[01:32:29] surprise to you because we talked about this but I cannot shake this person as and I believe he was even attached to it before but it's Vincent D'Onofrio like the more I read about the judge

[01:32:39] Vincent D'Onofrio I think for the judge you need someone who will act the shit out of a role like I think you really need uh somebody who's going to take this seriously this

[01:32:49] fucking fucked up character seriously you need a big person um yeah you need a pale person and the the image of Vincent D'Onofrio childlike childlike yeah at this you know Vincent D'Onofrio

[01:33:05] in full metal jacket with his like shaved head but now at this age with like a belly he also played the kingpin in in the marvel the daredevil like he was a main character

[01:33:19] the netflix adaptation and he that character is big and bald and strong and so I can't like yeah I have him more pegged to be the imbecile but I just don't know enough about him like like I don't see him waxing philosophical he looks

[01:33:40] definitely looks the part uh like his face that kind of like I imagine the judge looking like that that kind of baby fat cheeks kind of stuff the somewhat innocence but I just don't know like

[01:33:52] how he would talk about weirdly if you if you saw him in kingpin he yeah acted the shit out of that in a very philosophical but like heartless uh way um so I think he has the acting chops but um yeah

[01:34:09] again like that's a good one but I have a much better one Wallace Shawn uh I think you know bald what's the end from princess bride manhattan I always forget Wallace Shawn's name for some reason yeah yeah inconceivable this world is

[01:34:28] inconceivable uh Jeff Goldblum popped to mind as someone with the physical kind of characteristics of the judge I just don't know if he could pull it off acting wise he's a good actor but he's not

[01:34:39] you need like an overpowering presence yeah you know he's tall uh like Daniel Day-Lewis actually by the way popped to my mind that's that's the one I oh yeah I'm sorry yeah he has that like

[01:34:51] overpowering presence but he also isn't just Daniel Day-Lewis unlike a lot of these like presences on the screen like Nicolas Cage or like Jack Nicholson or someone like that they are in

[01:35:02] the end Nicolas Cage and Jack Nicholson but Daniel Day-Lewis isn't you know like he could do it like I don't know what his size is he's tall I looked this up too like he's actually yeah yeah um then

[01:35:14] I think it should definitely be yeah I think he like he's I feel like he's the only person who could really pull it off yeah D'Onofrio 6'4", Daniel Day-Lewis 6'2". Daniel Day-Lewis would

[01:35:24] shave his head and you just need to put some weight on I think um to like the mass um but you don't yeah he would have to like bulk up yeah yeah yeah yeah he would and he doesn't have quite

[01:35:36] the face that uh he's a little good looking for it like that's why Vincent D'Onofrio has the ability to look like a pudgy overgrown baby um probably he does he can do that yeah he would just like

[01:35:49] research it he would probably grow like five inches like he like he would do whatever it takes the muscular structure of his face by thinking about it yeah yeah exactly yeah just

[01:35:58] by living it Daniel Day-Lewis I think is a good judge I think that's a really good answer all right Toadvine do you have anybody for Toadvine? Toadvine stumped me so

[01:36:10] but let me do my kid answer first because okay this is the one that I spent too much time trying to like I don't know I know nobody of this acting generation the FBI is wondering

[01:36:22] why you're searching young actors like under 20 yeah um the person that I came up with just I don't even know based on what um I saw him recently in something that I really liked it's

[01:36:37] this kid named Will Poulter oh yeah that's a good one yeah yeah midsummer I think that he would whatever it is that I saw him in I was really impressed um he was yeah midsummer he was in

[01:36:48] the Revenant he was in A Black Mirror yeah he was in A Black Mirror that's right I think that he has enough of a baby face still um but also I think is a good enough actor where he could

[01:37:01] he could play a young man with kind of that weight on him so the one I came up with for the kid is Nicholas Holt from Mad Max Fury Road the one that's uh that joins up and he has that kind of

[01:37:15] violence and innocence that uh he combines both of those that I think would be good for for this role yeah and actually I'm looking at pictures of him and I was like oh he's too pretty but like

[01:37:28] obviously in Mad Max he's not so he has like the ability to would he be a good director uh the Mad Max oh yeah George Miller George Miller he also you know he did all the Mad Max

[01:37:41] movies he definitely has he could definitely stage a lot of the action really well I know and he has some of the apocalyptic sensibility but um yeah the visuals and the action would be good

[01:37:55] so Nicholas Holt is mine I also thought of Lucas Hedges but I don't really give a shit about him but he's good and whatever I've seen him in Manchester by the sea and he's like not too pretty for this yeah I think he could be okay

[01:38:10] um how old was Toadvine this is what like this is what I started looking up and that this is what stalled me from for finding a Toadvine I don't know so I kind of assumed he was a little

[01:38:21] older than the kid but not that much older and so I came up with Barry Keegan what's he very he was most recently in the Banshees of Inisharen he's the poor kid who ends up oh yeah

[01:38:38] he's good yeah that's really good and he looks weird exactly he looks really good actor like I feel like that might be my best casting job right yeah that's really good I like that a lot

[01:38:50] yeah did you get anybody for Toadvine Paul Dano is the only person who popped yeah like he crossed my mind yeah I but yeah whatever he's he's a little he would have to act uh you know

[01:39:04] I mean I think he's a good actor yeah yeah I could do it I I think just the physical the likely physicality of Toadvine is something that that um you know but didn't Paul Dano doesn't

[01:39:16] jump to mind as somebody capable of like uh that kind of violence but but he's an actor that's what actors Barry Keegan does look like an Irishman though so that would be yeah that's the one thing

[01:39:27] you would have to suspend the disability but he has I hate to say this but he has a particular kind of like inbred-y look that that no no insult to him I think he's a wonderful man that that I buy so good

[01:39:43] that I buy Toadvine having like yeah as long as he got the accent down I think you'd be fine did you have a glanton I did not have a glanton no am I I had the man yeah I didn't do the man

[01:39:58] because I don't really have a good sense of the name yeah so the man I just wanted this uh although yeah so I think Christian Bale would kill it as a man um yeah yeah like I just pictured Christian

[01:40:10] Bale and the scraggly beard in the bar in the last scene um being aloof and withdrawn or in that scene with the kids Josh Brolin also I think would be a good man but I like uh I like the idea of

[01:40:25] Christian Bale just don't pull any of your antics because it's like Werner is not gonna put up with that I for glanton had well it really should be William Holden I think William Holden like

[01:40:40] wild bunch William Holden is perfect but since that's cheating I went with Russell Crowe like I kind of feel like Russell Crowe could do a good glanton yeah yeah I think so too um I haven't seen

[01:40:54] Russell Crowe in anything lately have I you just get rid of that Australian accent and yeah he can do that like nice guys he's doing a good American I actually think LA confidential yeah Josh Brolin

[01:41:06] would actually potentially make a good glanton too yeah you could definitely do that you need a real tough guy like it can't be like uh Matt Damon or something like that who can play like a tough guy yeah no that's glanta yeah charming he's charming

[01:41:25] I really like William Holden all right so that's it it's cast um send us the royalties the checks I don't know what you guys worked out in your new deal but casting director's part of

[01:41:43] this strike yeah all right any last words on this I guess we are concluding I feel sad we made it yeah there's there's plenty of more McCarthy to cover I guess but I find it I am sad because I

[01:41:57] find it hard to believe that a book um that I read in the near future will have the effect that this one had on me yeah don't put that burden on the next book because it's probably not gonna

[01:42:08] match it no it's incredible it is an experience and thanks to our patrons for having us do it because I think we we might have read it this summer just because he died and it's always been

[01:42:20] up there for me and like the books that I haven't read but we wouldn't have read it with this much care and this much and just to be able to talk about it like this has been a ton of fun for us

[01:42:31] hopefully for some of you yeah absolutely thank you join us next time on very bad wizard

[01:43:13] anybody can have a brain you're a very bad man I'm a very good man just a very bad wizard