Episode 282: Fearful Symmetry (Borges' "Death and the Compass")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist, Dave Pizarro,

[00:00:05] having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion

[00:00:10] contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] I don't like hypothetical brain tickets before bedtime, you know this!

[00:00:30] I know my attention to that man behind the curtain.

[00:00:38] Who are you?

[00:00:41] Who are you?

[00:00:42] I'm very bad man!

[00:00:43] I'm a very good man!

[00:00:45] Good man!

[00:00:50] They think they've lost and with no more brains than you have.

[00:00:54] I know my attention to that man!

[00:01:00] Anybody can have a brain!

[00:01:04] You're a very bad man!

[00:01:06] I'm a very good man!

[00:01:08] Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:11] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:14] Dave, we both just witnessed a total solar eclipse.

[00:01:19] Still think there aren't any aliens or ghosts in the world?

[00:01:23] They're right, that doesn't make sense.

[00:01:25] That's a question.

[00:01:27] I did warn you.

[00:01:28] I did.

[00:01:28] They're warned me before the question.

[00:01:31] Weirdly, I do think that there are no aliens though.

[00:01:33] But after...

[00:01:34] I guess you only saw like the whatever 99% of the eclipse and you didn't see the total eclipse so

[00:01:40] that's probably why.

[00:01:41] It was like 99.15% coverage and that's like almost being pregnant, you know?

[00:01:46] It's like not...

[00:01:47] That's edging.

[00:01:48] Yeah, edging the eclipse.

[00:01:50] It was so edging.

[00:01:52] So it just felt like it was, you know, turning tonight.

[00:01:55] But as I was telling you, it was just cloudy.

[00:01:58] I didn't see shit.

[00:01:59] All I did is feel it get dark.

[00:02:00] But you got the hole.

[00:02:02] You like...

[00:02:02] I got a hole, shebang.

[00:02:03] And you had like a mystical experience.

[00:02:05] You got the gizz.

[00:02:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:08] It was the full on with the diamond ring too at the end.

[00:02:12] So yeah, no, I went out.

[00:02:14] I had a friend that her sister knew a guy on a ranch in Lano, Texas.

[00:02:19] And so I went to Austin, picked up my daughter and we went out

[00:02:22] and camped out there because we couldn't sleep in the house.

[00:02:25] But we could camp on their bland and then we all hung out

[00:02:28] and watch the eclipse the next day.

[00:02:31] And it was amazing.

[00:02:32] You know, this was very cool because you know,

[00:02:34] there's a lot of people around you and you're all just watching it.

[00:02:37] It's also just the communal aspect of it.

[00:02:41] And then something that's been built up but you don't exactly know what it's going to look like.

[00:02:46] And then when it happens and the light outside, it's all very cool.

[00:02:50] But you can totally see why people got mystical from witnessing it

[00:02:57] because it's unlike anything else that I've seen.

[00:03:00] Yeah, that's cool being around people.

[00:03:02] People start yelling together like,

[00:03:04] imagine what it must have been to not know what the fuck was going on

[00:03:07] and then all of a sudden one.

[00:03:09] Yeah, right. Exactly.

[00:03:10] All of a sudden the sun just starts to just like kind of disappear very gradually.

[00:03:14] I would totally think the world is ending.

[00:03:16] I'd be like, oh, this is because it does kind of look like that.

[00:03:19] Is it an amazing coincidence that the moon

[00:03:22] covers the same amount as the sun in our sky?

[00:03:25] Like what where are the chances?

[00:03:27] That makes me believe in supernatural.

[00:03:28] Like that Jesus totally, totally created that.

[00:03:31] Jesus did.

[00:03:33] He hung the moon right, right in the perfect spot.

[00:03:36] Because right, it is exactly far enough from the sun

[00:03:41] to have the same circumference from our perspective as the sun does.

[00:03:46] And not only that, it hasn't always been that way

[00:03:48] because the moon hasn't always been the same distance on Earth

[00:03:52] and it won't always be this way.

[00:03:53] Right, it's drifting away, right?

[00:03:54] Yeah.

[00:03:55] On an evolutionary scale obviously.

[00:03:57] Which brings us.

[00:03:58] Oh wait, but there was some other exciting thing that happened.

[00:04:00] You went to South Korea.

[00:04:02] Oh yeah.

[00:04:02] You went to Seoul and you think the report from that?

[00:04:04] Yeah, it was.

[00:04:06] I got in a really long fight in a corridor with a lot of henchmen.

[00:04:10] Oh wait, that was a me.

[00:04:11] I jerked off while watching the Korean tower.

[00:04:15] No, no, yeah.

[00:04:16] I went to Seoul.

[00:04:16] It was a really short trip.

[00:04:17] It was for a Cornell thing in Asian Pacific conference of Cornell alumni.

[00:04:23] So I was in and out but it was really cool to go

[00:04:26] and be in the land.

[00:04:28] Like seriously, like it's kind of weird.

[00:04:30] It really meant a lot more to me having watched South Korean cinema.

[00:04:35] So I credit you and the podcast for having made that enjoyable.

[00:04:38] Did you smoke weed or like

[00:04:41] dude possibly burn down a greenhouse or possibly a hila one?

[00:04:45] No, but I fucking get there.

[00:04:48] I'm at the airport.

[00:04:50] I clear that whatever the passport thing and you know,

[00:04:55] you're walking out with your bags and they have like one more check.

[00:04:58] But most people just walk right by.

[00:05:01] They randomly pull some people and go through their bags.

[00:05:04] Oh god.

[00:05:04] So they randomly pull me randomly.

[00:05:07] Sure.

[00:05:08] I don't know what it's because I'm Hispanic.

[00:05:11] And they start looking, this woman starts looking through my bag

[00:05:16] and finds like my prescription medication

[00:05:19] which contains some control substances as it should.

[00:05:22] As it should.

[00:05:23] And she's like, I'm sorry you're not allowed to bring these in the country.

[00:05:26] There's a list of forbidden substances.

[00:05:28] She pulls out a paper and she's like showing me that it's forbidden

[00:05:31] and that I would have had to clear it in advance.

[00:05:34] And I was like, no, please.

[00:05:36] Like especially like sleeping medication.

[00:05:37] I was like, I need this.

[00:05:39] It's 13 hour difference.

[00:05:41] That was not going to make it.

[00:05:42] I had to give a box.

[00:05:42] What did you do?

[00:05:43] Man, I apologized profusely.

[00:05:48] I said it wasn't my intention.

[00:05:49] I would have done that on purpose.

[00:05:51] I said I didn't know it all because I've traveled.

[00:05:53] You know, a lot of people travel every normal country.

[00:05:59] And then I just begged.

[00:06:00] Like I just begged.

[00:06:01] Because I had my just my prescription bottle

[00:06:04] and that first she was like, how many nights are going to be in Seoul?

[00:06:06] And I was like three nights.

[00:06:08] And she was like, okay, I can leave you with three.

[00:06:10] I'm actually just going to confiscate all the rest of them.

[00:06:12] I was like, I was like, no, please.

[00:06:15] Then I don't get it when I come back.

[00:06:17] Like that's what you're going to understand.

[00:06:18] I don't want to deal with like a pissed off insurance.

[00:06:21] She tells me that I'm like a druggy because I'm asking for more.

[00:06:24] Speaking of Park Chan-Wook,

[00:06:26] what I picture is from Lady Vengeance.

[00:06:30] This woman just taking your head and like guiding it to her vagina.

[00:06:37] Making you go to town to keep your Tommasapan and Adiroll or whatever it is that you have.

[00:06:44] I would have done it.

[00:06:45] I would have done it.

[00:06:47] Wouldn't have said no.

[00:06:50] I was like, like I almost got on my knees.

[00:06:53] Like I almost got on my knees.

[00:06:54] You told me this when like Sunday, I think,

[00:06:57] is that when we talked on Monday?

[00:06:59] Monday, I've already had a nightmare about that happening to me.

[00:07:04] So yeah, lesson learned if you're traveling to South Korea and you have anything that might

[00:07:09] be on the list of substances, clear that shit first.

[00:07:11] Like apparently you can fill out some form and only bring what you need or just put it in a

[00:07:17] condom and stick it up your ass like a normal person.

[00:07:21] Get a mule.

[00:07:22] Oh, and I had melatonin gummies and she was like, is this marijuana?

[00:07:25] And I was like, oh god, no.

[00:07:27] What's wrong with you?

[00:07:28] You have the best filmmakers.

[00:07:30] You have like three of the top 10 filmmakers in the world.

[00:07:34] What are you doing acting like this about some sleeping pills and Adiroll and fucking weed?

[00:07:39] I should have known from that Dave episode, a little dicky show.

[00:07:44] Yeah.

[00:07:44] Do you remember when they go to South Korea and like one of them gets arrested for weed?

[00:07:48] But yeah, an undue influence on the popular culture of the world with K-pop and K-Drama

[00:07:54] and cinema, all these like fun things and they get mad if you have some sleeping pills.

[00:08:00] That's crazy.

[00:08:01] All right, should we talk about this?

[00:08:02] So our main segment is a bore hiss story.

[00:08:06] A favorite of mine anyway.

[00:08:08] It's called Death and the Compass and I strongly urge everybody to read that story before.

[00:08:14] It's short.

[00:08:14] It's short.

[00:08:15] Yeah, it's like just like four pages and it's really fun and really interesting.

[00:08:21] So that's what we're going to talk about in the second segment but first.

[00:08:24] But first, okay.

[00:08:25] This is a paper published in recent paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior, Ingo Landburg,

[00:08:30] Catrin, Munsluck and Alexander Schmitt there in Germany.

[00:08:34] So here's the idea of this page which is one study very sort of simple setup.

[00:08:39] The question that they're asking is how men interpret flirting signals from women?

[00:08:45] Already a little weird but okay.

[00:08:47] Standard evo psych.

[00:08:49] You know, honestly, they don't even rely that much on evolutionary psychology.

[00:08:52] It's just about like weighing of social cues and so what they say, and I guess what some people

[00:08:58] have argued is a heterosexual man.

[00:09:00] When you're looking for a sexual partner, they have different kinds of cues that they might use.

[00:09:06] So one is like what they call a global cue.

[00:09:10] Global cues are well specifically in this or like things that aren't specifically

[00:09:16] about you or your interaction with her.

[00:09:18] Right?

[00:09:18] What makeup she has on what she's wearing.

[00:09:21] And then you have specific cues which they're calling affective, emotional like facial expression

[00:09:26] cues.

[00:09:26] The first ones are just for everybody.

[00:09:28] The second one is for you.

[00:09:30] Exactly.

[00:09:31] Yeah.

[00:09:32] And so they were interested in figuring out if men overreli on global cues,

[00:09:39] which they think would be an error because they're not specific to use.

[00:09:42] So they created a task where they show pictures to men.

[00:09:47] They have some examples in the paper.

[00:09:49] They show a screen with two pictures, one on each side of the screen.

[00:09:53] And these are pictures of women, 192 sets of images.

[00:09:58] And the women are either wearing like plain casual clothing or like sexy clothing.

[00:10:04] Like red skirts.

[00:10:05] It's like ripped jeans and a kind of a sexy blouse or like a more revealing blouse and a red skirt.

[00:10:15] Right.

[00:10:16] And they got women volunteers.

[00:10:18] So they were either wearing casual or sexy clothes and they were either smiling

[00:10:23] or like showing like a clear like rejection face or kind of sexy, uh, you know,

[00:10:31] SNM face.

[00:10:31] I don't know.

[00:10:35] Cagle faces.

[00:10:37] So okay, so you can have casual or sexy clothing and you can have flirting or rejecting face.

[00:10:43] So smile or like scout.

[00:10:45] So what they argue is that you have now two cues available to use.

[00:10:49] Some of these are images of women with conflicting cues, a sexy clothing and a scowling face.

[00:10:55] Some of them are consistent like casual and a rejecting face.

[00:10:58] So they're just to get the setup.

[00:11:00] Like they're showing pictures to random German universities.

[00:11:04] 79 guys aged 18 to 50 years old, not recruited from a variety of not just university students but

[00:11:10] in a university town and university town.

[00:11:13] Right.

[00:11:14] So they see two images one left in the right and they're asked to click on the woman who is

[00:11:20] more likely to flirt with you right now.

[00:11:22] Now, the idea is that the right answer is the one who's giving the specific cues,

[00:11:26] the smile.

[00:11:28] And the incorrect answer would be to rely on the global cue just the sexy clothing.

[00:11:34] That's the error if you rely.

[00:11:36] Yeah, which is a part of photograph of somebody that's flirting with you but that's not actually

[00:11:41] clearly. But the other photograph was flirting with you.

[00:11:44] Was obviously flirting with you.

[00:11:45] Yeah, even as I look at these, I'm totally, totally like them.

[00:11:49] So they have one second to do that and they have to click with a mouse.

[00:11:53] The other thing that they did was everybody got a sexual arousal manipulation.

[00:12:00] So the guys did a series of these tasks first

[00:12:06] and then they listened to like erotic fiction, an audio, like a woman doing erotic fiction.

[00:12:12] Oh, I had this pulled up.

[00:12:13] Maybe still up on my computer.

[00:12:15] Oh, you got this from somebody else.

[00:12:17] I don't think I could read it because it's so cringe to read a little bit.

[00:12:24] Yeah, I don't have.

[00:12:24] Oh no, not heavy here.

[00:12:25] I have a hair.

[00:12:26] It's from another paper.

[00:12:27] So I looked up the other paper because they didn't have it here.

[00:12:29] Nice.

[00:12:30] So they didn't specify which of these for erotic stories they used.

[00:12:35] But here's story one, the party ended early.

[00:12:39] My boyfriend sits alone listening to music.

[00:12:42] I wear a low cut dress that exposes the tops of my son Pan breasts.

[00:12:47] I feel his warm skin when I playfully nibble his ear,

[00:12:50] sliding onto his lap by begin exploring his mouth with my tongue.

[00:12:54] As he guides his hand onto my breast, I'm on.

[00:12:57] Oh, babe, I need you so bad.

[00:12:59] Fuck me.

[00:13:01] I reach back, unzip my dress and pull the front down.

[00:13:04] I can't wait.

[00:13:04] Like I can finish this.

[00:13:05] Wait, wait, what was the line as I nibble when I playfully nibble his ear?

[00:13:10] No, but like after that about the mouth,

[00:13:13] like I explore it.

[00:13:14] I get exploring his mouth.

[00:13:18] They did it all over.

[00:13:20] He's like clearly the arousal condition has been met.

[00:13:25] I'm embarrassed.

[00:13:26] This is very, very, I explain that.

[00:13:29] Like to be fair it's Germans, but like is that the arousal condition?

[00:13:33] I explore his mouth with my tongue.

[00:13:36] Well, it gets even better.

[00:13:39] I reach back on my dress and pull the front down.

[00:13:40] Excitedly I press his face into my huge tits.

[00:13:47] Okay.

[00:13:49] My later on this is a few sentences later.

[00:13:51] My tongue laps the flesh of his excited cock.

[00:13:57] It gets even dirtier.

[00:13:58] So that's the arousal condition?

[00:14:00] Yeah, what's the other kind?

[00:14:02] Like what's the control?

[00:14:03] It's a pre-imposed.

[00:14:04] So they have people do the task before,

[00:14:07] then they get the sexual arousal stuff.

[00:14:09] By the way, it's a woman reading it.

[00:14:11] It's not me with my tampon and my throat voice.

[00:14:15] So it's pre-posed.

[00:14:17] And they were predicting that people would be more likely to make errors

[00:14:22] that is rely on global cues if they were sexually aroused.

[00:14:26] So what they collected was reaction time.

[00:14:28] How fast they did it?

[00:14:30] How many errors?

[00:14:32] Just so like I understand.

[00:14:34] Because you talk in the jargon right now.

[00:14:36] Sorry.

[00:14:37] They thought that those who had listened

[00:14:40] to the sexy erotic fiction

[00:14:43] would be more likely to just ignore the

[00:14:47] pounding, rejecting face of the sexy one

[00:14:50] and actually just go for what they're wearing

[00:14:53] rather than what their face is clearly telling you.

[00:14:56] That's right.

[00:14:56] And they predicted that they would also be slower to make these decisions

[00:15:00] after they were aroused, which they didn't find actually.

[00:15:03] Why did they predict that?

[00:15:04] That they would be slower to make the decision?

[00:15:06] Like that the conflict would be higher I guess because they were aroused.

[00:15:10] Because they're like, oh, sexy girl.

[00:15:13] Whatever, powdery face or grumpy face.

[00:15:16] But like I don't know what to do.

[00:15:18] And then yeah, right.

[00:15:20] So they also collected a bunch of self-report measures

[00:15:24] that they sort of label problematic sexuality.

[00:15:27] And this is stuff like these questionnaires

[00:15:31] that ask them a bunch of questions about what they would do.

[00:15:33] There were seven different of these measures.

[00:15:36] Basically, how rapy men are?

[00:15:38] Acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression.

[00:15:41] So rapes miss hypersexual behavior inventory

[00:15:44] that studies hypersexual urges thoughts and fantasies.

[00:15:47] Sexual desire inventory that measures how easily people are sexually aroused.

[00:15:51] Sexual inhibition and excitation.

[00:15:53] These are like scales to determine some made up property that a person is.

[00:15:58] Well, it's like creepy I'd say creepiness is not creepy.

[00:16:02] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:16:03] That's definitely not.

[00:16:04] Yeah, so these are trying they're trying to triangulate that sort of guy.

[00:16:09] Yeah, fair enough.

[00:16:10] Yeah.

[00:16:11] Okay, so what they did find that people were slower

[00:16:14] and they made more errors in general when they had the incongruent trials

[00:16:18] when it was like powdery face and sexy dress or sexy face and casual dress.

[00:16:23] Like people did make more errors

[00:16:24] and they did make more errors when they were more sexually aroused.

[00:16:28] But weirdly, after they were sexually aroused

[00:16:30] they were actually faster doing this.

[00:16:33] Well, because they're like, they make more error.

[00:16:34] They have like certainty.

[00:16:36] Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:40] I want to just be very clear what errors mean.

[00:16:43] It means that the girl with the like expression that the experimenters have deemed to be rejecting.

[00:16:52] They say that that photograph is flirting with them instead of

[00:16:56] the same person but if they have a in their eyes welcoming flirty face,

[00:17:03] which I have to say I don't think the flirty faces are flirty.

[00:17:08] Yeah, they're just smiles.

[00:17:10] They're like waitress smiles.

[00:17:12] Yeah, right.

[00:17:13] What they sometimes call like the Pan-American smile.

[00:17:15] They're not always genuine.

[00:17:16] Yeah, definitely the casual rejecting face looks rejecting.

[00:17:21] The sexy rejecting face versus the sexy flirting face.

[00:17:24] I think it is like a toss up which of those two

[00:17:27] like the sexy and rejecting face will post this so people can judge for themselves

[00:17:33] but she almost looks like she's more into it.

[00:17:35] You know, she's like she's getting involved and maybe she's pretending to be offended by what you said

[00:17:42] or she's like the quote unquote sexy flirting person just looks like.

[00:17:47] Yes, thank you.

[00:17:48] Would you like any dessert?

[00:17:49] You know, like it has zero flirtatious energy in my judgment.

[00:17:56] To be fair, we only are seeing one of the pictures.

[00:17:58] We don't know what the rest of them were like but I agree that the one that they did show us,

[00:18:03] it doesn't seem flirty.

[00:18:04] But even if it were a good smile,

[00:18:07] I think it's still a little weird to rely on that.

[00:18:10] Like to call it errors.

[00:18:12] Yeah, to call it errors and implying that when a woman smiles at you,

[00:18:17] this somehow means that they're flirting with you is like I think like a little problematic.

[00:18:22] And it all does hinge on that.

[00:18:23] That's why I said like that's the question.

[00:18:25] It all hinges on whether or not you really think that this is a measure of men making errors.

[00:18:32] Now what they would say is and you may have told on yourself here,

[00:18:36] the people who score higher on the creepiness scale are more likely to save the

[00:18:40] powdery face was flirting with them.

[00:18:42] Yeah, okay.

[00:18:43] I haven't taken the scale.

[00:18:44] Yeah, they took a combination of all of those scales.

[00:18:47] I mean, they looked at them individually and they looked at them together

[00:18:49] and they showed that it was correlated with errors in that sense.

[00:18:53] I will stand by this and I will show it to a jury

[00:18:56] and I will ask which of these two do you think is more flirtatious?

[00:19:00] And I think because that's not what they were asking them, right?

[00:19:03] The literal words are click on the woman who is more likely to flirt with you right now.

[00:19:08] And who would they show them?

[00:19:10] Because they wouldn't show the two same women, right?

[00:19:13] Yes, they did show the same women.

[00:19:15] My understanding is like it was the same woman on each side.

[00:19:18] So they wouldn't be driven by other things.

[00:19:22] I think I'm pretty sure that they did.

[00:19:25] Well, that's weird.

[00:19:26] It's like here are two twins.

[00:19:28] One of them is flirting with you and the other is...

[00:19:31] Well, I think they could understand that in the context but

[00:19:34] so the other thing that they want to say that they do is

[00:19:38] they use this mouse tracking set of measures

[00:19:42] that I knew you were going to love this one.

[00:19:44] They can tell how unsure you are about your choices

[00:19:48] by looking at the way that your mouse goes to one or the other.

[00:19:52] So like if you're really sure it's like a straighter line

[00:19:55] and if you're not that sure, it's more curved

[00:19:58] and those worked sometimes but that is kind of funny to think

[00:20:03] that like the curve of your mouse movement

[00:20:06] is what's the term of all the things that you're like

[00:20:09] that are packed into this result.

[00:20:12] It's like this person actually is flirting,

[00:20:15] this photograph and this photograph actually isn't flirting with you.

[00:20:19] So that's number one.

[00:20:21] Number two is like how fast you use your mouse

[00:20:25] is a sign of how like sure you are about your decision

[00:20:31] and then number three is that erotic fiction

[00:20:35] from like the 18s, 80s is like going to actually arouse you.

[00:20:41] And number four is that like if you're a creepy German dude

[00:20:45] if you test high on this game.

[00:20:48] Well I disagree strongly with the 1880s porn.

[00:20:51] Let me finish reading this then.

[00:20:53] My tongue laps the flesh of his excited cock.

[00:20:55] Oh yes, that tastes so good I grown.

[00:20:57] I want it now placing his hard cock into my conti again pumping.

[00:21:02] My breasts are bobbing as I hump him frantically with a guy.

[00:21:06] Okay fine, 1950s.

[00:21:10] 70s maybe 70s.

[00:21:12] Correct.

[00:21:13] Um man did a report being more sexually aroused.

[00:21:15] I'll tell you also why I'm a little more inclined to like this paper than you.

[00:21:18] They actually cite me.

[00:21:22] Because back in the day I did a study with Piet Ditto,

[00:21:26] my postdoc advisor.

[00:21:27] One of the studies in that paper was we had we had guys watch a video

[00:21:33] that was kind of sexy and then did some tasks afterwards.

[00:21:36] Uh so we sexually aroused undergrads in that study.

[00:21:39] Did they cite why honor matters more work for hard in combatabilism?

[00:21:44] Hard in combatabilism?

[00:21:45] Hard to.

[00:21:48] Maybe in the follow up study.

[00:21:50] All right.

[00:21:52] I mean like and so what's the point of this?

[00:21:54] It's like so that like the title which I think you said although I'm not sure on air.

[00:21:58] It's a good title.

[00:22:00] Addresses not a yes towards an indirect mass trapping measure of men's overreliance

[00:22:06] on global cues in the context of sexual authority.

[00:22:10] So the idea is that when you're all high test osteroned up,

[00:22:15] you're just going to go for the girl with the yeah so yeah and this will lead to

[00:22:21] bad things right yeah maybe but at the very least evolutionarily it won't be a good strategy

[00:22:27] for you to keep going for women who are clearly not wanting you to approach them.

[00:22:31] The lesson is just don't read DH Lawrence like lady shatterle's lover before you go out

[00:22:38] to the bar and you should be fine.

[00:22:40] My my real dream is that people will just keep rewinding my reading of the

[00:22:50] erotic.

[00:22:50] I think that way yeah don't make any errors because of that.

[00:22:55] I beg of you, I don't want to be held responsible with my sexy readings.

[00:22:59] Don't start fucking a photograph but like the wrong photograph.

[00:23:04] The scouring face.

[00:23:06] All right we'll be right back to again have a respectable conversation about this time

[00:23:14] a great boarhead story.

[00:24:06] Welcome back to very bad wizards.

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[00:27:18] All right welcome back to very bad wizards now we get to talk about a Jorge Luis Borges

[00:27:25] story. It hasn't been that long but it's been like six months or something like that so I think

[00:27:31] we held off long enough. Yeah I have no self control when it comes to whether or not to do a

[00:27:37] Borges store yeah it's true and I've been teaching a seminar where we read Borges stories this was

[00:27:42] when we read early in the semester so let me give like a quick rundown of the plot and then we'll

[00:27:49] go through it in the careful way that we always do but I want to say about this story in a way

[00:27:56] that I don't about other stories and other Borges stories even read the story before listening

[00:28:04] because there's a twist and it's yeah I think the twist is really important to experience

[00:28:12] before knowing that it's going to happen when you read this story yeah. Yeah

[00:28:15] yeah and it's like four pages like just read the story it's available you can find it online.

[00:28:21] All right now assuming that you have let me give a brief rundown of the plot it's very much

[00:28:27] like a genre piece I like when Borges does like full on genre because he always subverts it in

[00:28:35] an interesting way and definitely very interesting here so the genre here is the

[00:28:41] detective story with all the tropes and characters of a detective story you have this brilliant

[00:28:47] private investigator named Lon Roe he's very much along the lines of Sherlock Holmes or

[00:28:53] Erkule Poirot. He deploys reason and logic and a kind of an ability to recognize patterns

[00:29:03] that enable him to solve cases that flumex the common person you also have the kind of gruff

[00:29:10] common sense oriented police commissioner Traverius he's well-meaning but kind of also frustrated

[00:29:18] and grumbling about the eccentric methods and the complex theorizing of Lon Roe but he keeps him

[00:29:26] in the loop because he has a huge record of success even if you know they look at the world

[00:29:32] in different ways I guess he's a private investigator that's how they always are they never work with

[00:29:37] the police like they're not employed by the police but the police consult them so the antagonist

[00:29:43] as it turns out is named Sharlock I didn't get that until I taught it in the in the class did you

[00:29:52] no wait what got what Sherlock yeah Sharlock Sherlock which is not until you said it

[00:29:59] yeah and he's like a Jewish crime lord of some kind

[00:30:04] fuck mo green yeah yeah exactly or what's his name bugsy seagull so the story starts with a murder

[00:30:13] just one murderer and only Lon Roe can see that this isn't just like a botched robbery like the

[00:30:21] kind of dim-witted commissioner thinks Traveranus it's like part of this larger conspiracy

[00:30:28] in this case like a rabbinical conspiracy right because the murdered man I don't know if you said it

[00:30:32] but the murdered man is a rabbi yeah the murdered man is a rabbi and he had a lot of texts with him

[00:30:38] that were part of this kind of chastity kabbalistic kabbalistic what seems like a quest to find the

[00:30:45] hidden name of God but also to keep the name hidden so then you have two more strange murders

[00:30:52] in the first one you get the first name what is it the first name of God has been written

[00:30:57] yeah the first letter of the name has been written the first letter of the name has been written and

[00:31:05] then the third murder the last letter of the name has been written but Lon Roe doesn't think the

[00:31:13] third murder is the last one and he decipheres from all these arcane clues that come from all these

[00:31:20] chocytic tomlutic texts that there are actually going to be form murders and because of the location

[00:31:27] of the first three he knows in the symmetry of that he knows where the next one will take place

[00:31:32] so he goes there to solve the crime and I guess prevent the murder but now everything gets turned

[00:31:38] upside down in the story it turns out that Traveranus the commissioner was right and that the first

[00:31:44] murder was just a botched robbery and that the third murder was a similar act it didn't even happen

[00:31:51] which actually Traveranus had said and what we learn is that Charlock had set up this intricate trap

[00:31:59] for Lon Roe to fall into because Charlock wanted to avenge his brother who Lon Roe had caught

[00:32:06] and he blamed him for his death and he knew Lon Roe would jump at the idea of this complex conspiracy

[00:32:12] that only he could solve set that up to lead him to this insanely designed villa where he is

[00:32:21] staying and then Lon Roe is the fourth victim and he's killed and what we find out ultimately is

[00:32:28] that Lon Roe for this case anyway has been less aircule poireau and moron's vector clues so

[00:32:35] and it's actually Traveranus that was the person who guessed right every time he had an opinion he

[00:32:43] was always right and one of the things that I love is that Lon Roe dies even after you know being

[00:32:49] kind of exposed or and humiliated in this way he dies with the kind of dignity and then offers a

[00:32:55] cryptic remark about labyrinths as his final words which we definitely have to talk about so

[00:33:03] Dave there's so much to dig into here thematically philosophically but I just want to start by asking

[00:33:09] a really basic question which is where does this story rank for you in the Borges canon or at

[00:33:17] least the very bad wizards you know if you're just looking at those stories that we've done

[00:33:23] where does it rank for you man okay so like my gut reaction is to refuse to answer until we're done

[00:33:33] because I've noticed it really like our discussions make me come out of these episodes like so much more

[00:33:40] excited about the stories then I went into them with and like I suspect that this is going to be

[00:33:45] it's gonna move up in my rankings after we talk about it yeah fair enough yeah and that's what I've

[00:33:50] felt like in our episodes and also teaching this class is that you just by talking about it like

[00:33:57] the richness of the story just sprouts like just things that you didn't even know or flowers just

[00:34:02] become flowers you know yeah right yeah right I mean so like that central twist and you know I hadn't

[00:34:10] I've read this before but I hadn't read it in years so it was like reading it for the first time

[00:34:13] I think you know I just didn't I didn't remember the twist at all so I went on that journey

[00:34:19] and it really went from being like oh this guy's pretty fucking cool like you know he's like

[00:34:25] Sherlock or house MD and just being taken down completely um undressed undressed

[00:34:35] and manipulated because of this tendency to oversee patterns and his confidence and his

[00:34:44] desire to see the world as a this organized mystery that's there for him that being taken down

[00:34:51] because of his overseeing patterns I don't know why like I almost took it personally yeah it is

[00:34:57] a more of a tamilar like ending than a David ending in that way the hubris of thinking you can

[00:35:05] like figure everything out well see I knew you were gonna have that but on the other hand I think

[00:35:10] here is where I went to stray in thinking that conspiracies and patterns were there when they

[00:35:14] actually aren't like in that way I think it's a David ending where like the world is banal like

[00:35:19] it's not as interesting as you want it to be you know yeah no that's right in a way that

[00:35:25] that that complicates whether this is a David or Tamler ending right right exactly and I

[00:35:31] but and I think I wanted it to be in that way that you you know me yeah you know that like I love

[00:35:35] this shit like I love this Kabbalah shit I love that mystical stuff yes my soul does like I'm

[00:35:41] reading the stuff and I'm like oh yeah the tetragramaton oh yeah of course the secret name of God

[00:35:45] right this is all I don't know anything about and I'm like what the fuck is that like even though

[00:35:50] I want to be that I want to know you there it's very tragic we should switch so if we could swap

[00:35:58] qualities yeah like singular qualites yeah there is a kind of boar has protagonist that is very

[00:36:06] uncomfortable with either chaos or just asymmetries things that don't fit together right yeah

[00:36:13] and when they try to then project or impose order or meaning on something that is inherently chaotic

[00:36:20] or mysterious they get into trouble and this is a great example of that yeah as I keep thinking

[00:36:28] about it there is this tension where it's like I can see the reading that that boar has

[00:36:33] is saying like you're overreliance on reason and logic are gonna lead you astray because reality

[00:36:38] is not like that but on the other hand it's like trevuranus I'm gonna say trevuranus because it's

[00:36:42] not anus because I chuckle every time trevuranus is actually better at reasoning it seems you know yeah

[00:36:50] no which is interesting ignore irrelevant stuff which is an important part of being good at this

[00:36:55] and I think that is clearly something that boar has is interested in why not only lawn row but also

[00:37:03] the reader like you and like me is more attached to like we don't want to read about a botched

[00:37:10] robbery and like a petty you know like we want rabbinical explanations you know can I read the

[00:37:16] part at the beginning where trevuranus is saying like obviously this is just a botched robbery so

[00:37:21] the idea here was that the first murder the rabbi that was found dead was actually staying in a

[00:37:26] hotel room that was directly across from a guy the tetrake of galleo the guy who had a bunch of

[00:37:33] sapphires that were very valuable yeah so the idea was well this guy went into steal the jewels

[00:37:38] went into the wrong room and decided that he had to kill this guy so to trevuranus says trevuranus

[00:37:45] trevuranus maybe I should just stick with that um says what do you think to law and he says

[00:37:50] possible but uninteresting you will reply that reality has not the slightest obligation to be

[00:37:55] interesting I will reply in turn that reality may get along without that obligation but hypotheses

[00:38:01] may not in the hypotheses that you suggest here on the spur of the moment chance plays a disc

[00:38:06] proportionate role what we have here is a dead rabbi I would prefer a purely rabbinical explanation

[00:38:12] not the imaginary bunglings of an imaginary burglar and this to me shows that he wants the world

[00:38:19] to be this way like it's like he's going in just like willfully saying both like I don't believe

[00:38:25] you but also like I don't want that to be the explanation yeah so if you read over it it sounds

[00:38:30] like something maybe Sherlock Holmes or Poirot or whatever could say but actually it is quite

[00:38:37] like unusual to say like so he anticipates your objection and says you will reply that reality

[00:38:44] has not the slightest obligation to be interesting I will reply in turn that reality may get along

[00:38:49] with that obligation but hypotheses may not like what the fuck does that mean I don't know and I

[00:38:56] was puzzled by this why would a hypothesis not be obligated to match reality if he's saying

[00:39:03] that reality might not have an obligation why and you know Borges describes him like in the

[00:39:08] beginning as what does he say like an adventure oh uh he thought of himself as a reasoning machine

[00:39:15] and yeah in August Dupin but there was something of the adventure in him even something of the gambler

[00:39:22] but again like when you're first reading that it's like well that's true for all of them you know

[00:39:26] sure like oh yeah it's about us to talk to yeah like I think like you kind of pass over that because

[00:39:31] of the genre but then these little things come up and it's like wait what the what does that mean yeah

[00:39:37] how is that a reasoning machine that says hypothesis have to be interesting and don't have to

[00:39:43] match reality you know yeah I think I think that he liked it he was like this was a mystery just

[00:39:50] not the mystery that I had anticipated yeah like I think that he was pleased even at the end

[00:39:56] that there had been a mystery created for him so like I think he wants to go about his life

[00:40:03] seeing the world in this way he would rather die and have the like this be some intricate pattern

[00:40:12] then live and the world just be chaotic exactly yeah catech and boring yeah yeah so well let's

[00:40:20] save that because I have said okay I love the opening so it says of the many problems on which

[00:40:26] Launrose reckless perspicacity was exercised none was so strange so rigorously strange one might say

[00:40:35] as the periodic series of bloody deeds that culminated at the villa trist d'huah amid the

[00:40:41] perpetual fragrance of the eucalyptus it is true that Eric Launrose did not succeed in preventing

[00:40:48] the last crime but he did indisputably foresee it nor did he divine the identity of Yarr Mellonsky's

[00:40:57] unlucky murderer but he did perceive the evil series secret shape and the part played in it by red

[00:41:04] charlock whose second soberkay is charlock the dandy that criminal like so many others had sworn

[00:41:11] upon his honor to kill Launrose but Launrose never allowed himself to be intimidated so like kind of

[00:41:17] tells you the ending right at the beginning you know and and this is where you get that and you're

[00:41:22] so right that because you're immediately aware that this is genre you know you don't even think about

[00:41:27] you're like okay cool oh yeah of course he has some like more yard that like wants to bring him down

[00:41:32] but and I love the way that Bohr has plays with that and subverts it in every way like so you have

[00:41:37] this first murder where the commissioner Trevor Ennis was saying that like somebody broke into

[00:41:46] the wrong room and this rabbi woke up and the burglar had to kill him and so as we've talked about

[00:41:52] Launrose rejects that and then sees all these kabala books including a monograph in German on

[00:41:58] the tetra gramaton so you know about this tetra gramaton so explain tetra gramaton is the term

[00:42:06] used to refer to the name of the Jewish god Yahweh that has four letters usually white wh and those

[00:42:15] four letters are mystical significance and have some power that's why a lot of I guess the

[00:42:22] seeds but also probably like the what do you call it the other like like the conservative Jews

[00:42:27] oh LeBavitches yeah and get into the mystical stuff yeah or any like even just the strict ones

[00:42:34] like the people who write G underlined D oh yeah instead of like my orthodox Jewish relative yeah

[00:42:40] orthodox is that the word you were looking at Jesus Christ yeah yeah so like even orthodox Jews

[00:42:47] won't say that out loud they'll say they'll say other words which just means the name and there's

[00:42:54] a ton of writing about what these letters mean like there's a ton of analysis in

[00:42:59] kabbalistic writing and just just in general judistic traditions where you take the letters

[00:43:05] and the numbers associated with those letters and you know you see that like the word Adam

[00:43:10] and the word Eve like combine well I don't know shit like that good numerals yeah that kind of

[00:43:15] numerals exactly that delicious stuff yeah and then when he says the binomial picture of the

[00:43:20] Pentatech he's talking about just the various words for God that are there in the first five

[00:43:26] books of the Bible one of the books is a vindication of the Kabbalah another one is a study of the philosophy

[00:43:31] of Robert flood who was a mystic think British the Sephir Yessirah history of the Hasidim so you

[00:43:38] could just you read that and I'm having the same sort of wet dreams that I know Lonro is having as

[00:43:44] he sees these books right and Lonro is like I need to I need to take these books with me right it's

[00:43:50] so funny that you know way more about this stuff than I have like cousins and uncles who like we love

[00:43:56] this shit yeah well they're a Orthodox Jews you know I don't know if they love this shit but yeah

[00:44:00] right yeah so Trevor Anna says look I'm a poor Christian fellow you could take those books if

[00:44:05] you want them I can't be wasting my time on Jewish superstitions La Roza says this crime may

[00:44:10] however belong to the history of Jewish superstition as Christianity does this writer and that writer was

[00:44:20] an atheist yes and quite shy so somebody finds in the typewriter that's in this guy's room a paper

[00:44:27] that only has this written the first letter of the name has been written and name is capitalized

[00:44:33] and and Lonro says La Roza resisted a smile yeah this is why I say he's clueless so like it's because

[00:44:42] he has the kind of arrogance uh and complacency of somebody who has everything figured out while

[00:44:50] completely being out of the loop but he's Sherlock still you know as I'm reading he's still Sherlock

[00:44:55] totally as you're reading it for the first time 100 percent but like yeah he resisted a smile

[00:45:01] is something you might say about a clue so kind of character yeah he's like aha so he turned

[00:45:07] bibliophile or he brist and took uh he took all the books and said set himself to studying him so like

[00:45:13] he says about the tetragramaton and about the notion that god has a secret name which contains his

[00:45:19] ninth attribute the eternity immediate knowledge of all things that shall be are and have been in

[00:45:23] the universe tradition reckons the names of god at 99 while he brists attribute that imperfect

[00:45:28] sum to the magical fear of even numbers that has seen him argue that the lacuna points toward

[00:45:33] a hundredth name the absolute name so that's what gets him going he's like there is something going

[00:45:38] on where they're trying to find the secret name and maybe this guy was like close to it or something

[00:45:43] right and and and to be fair like that's a strange thing to find on the typewriter you know

[00:45:49] you know and then you find all this other stuff that this rabbi was working on and the idea that

[00:45:54] it's like the eternal name like the absolute and so then he gives this interview I guess to

[00:46:00] that same writer who said same guy yeah there's this reporter from uh Yiddish newspaper this is his

[00:46:07] huge mistake right here as you only learn when you're at the end of the story but the way it's

[00:46:14] described is the young man wanted to talk about the murder lawn row preferred to talk about the many

[00:46:20] names of god and this is kind of an echo of an earlier interaction with Trevor ainess where he says

[00:46:26] I'm not interested in rabbinical explanations as you call them when I'm interested in is catching

[00:46:31] the black guard that stabbed the unknown man some people are focused on the murder but not lawn row here

[00:46:37] he's he wants to talk about the many names of god and so the journalist just reports that lawn

[00:46:44] rows on this and this is the thing that's going to get charlock to set his plan in motion yeah

[00:46:51] and lawn row so they says like the guy ends up writing like a three paragraphs about about lawn

[00:46:56] rows like talking about the names of god and lawn row is okay with that so then there's another crime

[00:47:02] that happens this is just a guy in the like the western outskirts on the Capitol

[00:47:09] is he in an alley or something you really don't know exactly the details of this except where

[00:47:15] but it's a I guess some kind of like underling in the organized crime of what city where is this city

[00:47:24] it's very weird yeah he never mentions it and it was bothering me as I was reading I was like is

[00:47:28] it Paris because lawn rows like sounds like a French name but also maybe German or Belgian or

[00:47:35] something like flymish or something and then charlock sounds German yiddish Jewish and trevainus

[00:47:44] is like Roman Latin so it's like they really just don't tell you and so yeah we really have no idea

[00:47:52] because he often has a good sense of place in his stories so he's really going out of his way to leave

[00:47:58] this ambiguous so then like I guess some graffiti on the wall it says the second letter of the name

[00:48:04] is Berent and now he thinks okay this is seven yeah it turns out to be more seven then yeah yeah

[00:48:09] and I don't know if we mentioned but both of them were stabbed in the chest that's how they were killed

[00:48:14] deep knife wounds split his chest his hard face looked as though we're wearing a mask of blood

[00:48:18] and yeah somebody chalked that second letter of the name and it was exactly a month after the first

[00:48:24] one that's right right so January 3rd so then we go right to the third crime yeah so this is what

[00:48:29] I was talking about is very eyes wide shut where you have this guy he's staying at this like Irish

[00:48:36] kind of mid-level gangsters pub and in because trevainus received a phone call from a guy calling

[00:48:42] himself Ginsburg right right so he tracks that phone call to this tavern that's right this very

[00:48:50] strange thing where these like the sky is staying there for eight days and a car pulls up with

[00:48:56] the driver and two people dressed as harlequin's they confront griffies who had paid all that money

[00:49:04] not Ginsburg but griffies he seems to be a little uncomfortable with by the fact that they're there

[00:49:10] but he goes up to their room they come down they're all drunk and it seems like maybe griffius has

[00:49:16] been drugged and then he's kind of laughingly taken out of the the pub and into the car on like a

[00:49:24] chalkboard it says the final letter of the name has been written the last letter of the name has been

[00:49:30] written the driver was according to witnesses wearing a bear mask yeah here and the other figures he

[00:49:36] was with were harlequins which is what like a joker is like they're just like jokers like what does

[00:49:40] that mean harlequin you know like I think it's like comedia del arte you know that very theatrical

[00:49:46] like a court just seven yeah exactly 18th century kind of like costume ball

[00:49:51] yeah kind of so very weird very surreal scene yeah right a guy in a very eyes wide shut is your

[00:49:58] thing and the last harlequin's crawled an obscene figure and the sentence on one of the black

[00:50:05] boards in the entryway what do you think the obscene figure is like a dick I can't help but

[00:50:10] think that he just drew a dick you know because he's like a street criminal it turns out like

[00:50:15] but like why is that part of the plan to do that maybe it was my father's that he like told this

[00:50:22] guy to write this mysterious thing and he's like I'm gonna draw dick while I'm at so they go into his

[00:50:26] room and they've on the floor there was a brusque star in blood in the corners the remains of

[00:50:32] a cigarette Hungarian on a bureau a book in Latin Luzden's filogas hebreo gacus with several handwritten

[00:50:43] notes travert travert traverinas looked at it indignantly and sent for a long road it's like oh

[00:50:49] fuck me yeah so then l'unro just plunges into the book and the commissioner is already smelling

[00:50:58] a rat you could see because he says he interrogated contradictory witnesses to the possible kidnapping

[00:51:04] traverinas says what if tonight's story were a sham a simulacrum and here lawn row smiles

[00:51:13] and in the grave voice read the commissioner a passage which had been underlined from the

[00:51:18] filogas 33rd dissertation and it's just this piece of Latin which means the Jewish day begins at

[00:51:26] sundown and lasts until sundown of the following day it's so good because you know like the commissioner

[00:51:32] is just completely on it right now like it was a sham and he's just quoting a Latin to him right

[00:51:38] to be clear there's nobody there's nobody there's nothing there's just a guy who left seemingly in

[00:51:43] a good mood under somewhat suspicious circumstances and weird surrealist circumstances with friends

[00:51:49] okay so can i just tell you my journey here as i'm reading this yeah i'm i read it and the first

[00:51:54] crime is committed and it says the first letter of the name has been written and again i don't

[00:51:58] remember any of the story so this is all pretty much brand new to me i am like oh well the tetragramatons

[00:52:04] so the four letters that are god's name and i'm i'm thinking yarmulinsky that's a why so that's the

[00:52:10] first letter of the name of god yeah so like the next murder is going to be a w which it wasn't

[00:52:15] so i don't know maybe but there's definitely going to be four murders right and then there's just

[00:52:20] the third one says the last letter of the name has been written and now i'm like wait did he just

[00:52:25] miss the third letter because obviously this is about the name of god and obviously it's like

[00:52:32] four letters i wish i could have been you reading the story because i'm just like what's going on

[00:52:39] i don't told like i get that this is part of some kavala mysticism thing but i'm not getting

[00:52:45] the references so i'm thinking now lawn row is like something's up this is four this has to be

[00:52:52] which turns out yeah that's where he's going to follow those two charlocks yeah

[00:52:56] uh...

[00:52:56] right so now yes a clue the underlying stuff that says jewish days sundown the sunset which

[00:53:05] and other than makes that much of a difference to the story but but he's like this is a clue

[00:53:10] oh i know why the murder has happened on the third but after sundown so it's actually like

[00:53:16] that's four yeah which four right so now for for that's right so so now he's like four four four

[00:53:22] something's going on there's gonna be four murders and this is correct and yeah charlis is like

[00:53:27] that's the most valuable piece of information you picked up and then he says no the most valuable

[00:53:30] piece of information is the word ginsburg used so that's where i want to ask you what does that mean

[00:53:35] so the phone call from somebody named ginsburg says that he said that for a reasonable fee he was

[00:53:41] willing to reveal certain details of the two sacrifices as evadeos which was the second murder and

[00:53:45] your melanskies was the word sacrifices is this what he's pointing to because so here's my thinking

[00:53:54] he thinks that there is a ritual going on like a ritual killing of jews that will like help reveal

[00:54:00] the name of god or something like that yeah and so to call them not murders but sacrifices

[00:54:05] is pointing in that direction yeah and it has to also lead to the idea that it's a fourth

[00:54:14] that there's a fourth murder coming so maybe that's the idea that kind of confirms his suspicion

[00:54:21] that this is part of this kabab yeah part of this ritual conspiracy and not just a random series

[00:54:28] of events yeah that's my best friend skarlac by the way i was reading i don't know if you saw

[00:54:34] that red scarlock is like scarlock means red too oh yeah it's like red scarlet yeah like scarlet

[00:54:41] but black finnegan like finnegan is related to the irish word for white so black white is like a

[00:54:47] they're like opposites i have a theory about scarlock i want to test out on you because it's actually

[00:54:53] something i thought of since the class and i kind of like it so then they get trevorinas gets a

[00:55:01] letter it's it's a letter signed baruch spinoza and it gives a detailed map of the city

[00:55:07] and it predicts that on the third of march there would not be a fourth crime because the

[00:55:13] paint factory in the west the tavern on the road to too long the hotel do north were perfect points

[00:55:19] of a mystical equilateral triangle and then so trevorinas reads this argument by geometry and sends

[00:55:27] it in the map to lawn rose house lawn row indisputably being a man who deserved this kind of clap trap

[00:55:34] and then i here's where i love this reading this when you know the ending so when lawn row gets

[00:55:41] the map in the letter he just smiles and he telephones the commissioner and says thanks for that

[00:55:48] equilateral triangle you sent me last night it was what i needed to solve the puzzle tomorrow friday

[00:55:55] the perpetrators will be in prison we can relax then they're not planning a fourth crime

[00:56:01] it's precisely because they are planning a fourth crime that we can relax lawn row said as he hung up

[00:56:07] it's so funny because it's exactly what like a Sherlock Holmes kind of character would say

[00:56:13] but then it's also what a clue you know like it's just a question of whether like there's a match

[00:56:19] between you and the world or there's a mismatch and in this case there's a complete mismatch

[00:56:25] between like how you think your understanding this and how the world actually is right and he

[00:56:32] to solve this he used the compass which it's funny as i was reading this he says a drawing compass

[00:56:36] an navigational compass completed that sudden intuition and i only then realized like the compass

[00:56:42] means those two things what the drug that there's a compass that's a drawing compass and there's

[00:56:46] a compass that used to navigate there are two completely different objects which in spanish

[00:56:51] is two completely different words so the title in spanish la muerte la ruchula is referring specifically

[00:56:56] to the navigational compass so he's very proud of himself he like pulled out his geometry and he

[00:57:02] triangulated or whatever you call it that point on the map that he's now certain the fourth crime

[00:57:08] is going to be but and you know he's not wrong he's not wrong he did yeah he did

[00:57:14] yeah yeah lawn row smiled to think that the most famous of the criminals red charlock would have

[00:57:21] given anything to know about his clandestine visit asavado had been one of charlock's gang

[00:57:26] lawn row considered the remote possibility the charlock was to be the fourth victim but then rejected

[00:57:31] it he had virtually solved the problem the mere circumstances the reality names arrest faces

[00:57:38] the paperwork of trial and imprisonment held very little interest for him now he wanted to go for a

[00:57:44] walk he wanted a respite from the three months of sedentary investigation he reflected that the

[00:57:49] explanation for the crimes lay in an anonymous triangle and a dusty Greek word the mystery seemed

[00:57:56] so crystal clear to him now he was embarrassed to have spent a hundred days on it i love that yeah

[00:58:05] embarrassed yeah it was too easy yeah so then he goes to this villa I don't know what you thought

[00:58:13] about this he goes on a train like that seems very you know like a boy has Miyazaki train it's like

[00:58:20] there's no way else on it it's a liminal it's a liminal train he ends up at this place called villa

[00:58:28] priest le roi which he says abounded in pointless asymmetries and obsessive repetitions a glacial

[00:58:36] Diana and gloomy niche was echoed by a second Diana in a second niche one balcony was reflected

[00:58:44] in another double stairways open to a double barastrade a two-faced hermys through a monstrous shadow

[00:58:51] and he goes into this villa and seems very discombobulated by its lack of meaning and purpose

[00:59:00] and like coherence right he is feeling that feeling that this is not the orderly yeah kind that like

[00:59:09] it's it doesn't contain the order that he's looking for and it discombobulated is a good word for

[00:59:14] it like he is thrown off by this and you can tell that he is as he's laying out all of these

[00:59:20] details he's trying really hard to come up with the pattern yeah right and he can't like and he can't

[00:59:26] the house itself is making it so that he can't yet dizzying him and he's so he says to himself

[00:59:33] on the second floor on the upper most floor the house seemed infinite yet still growing he's like

[00:59:38] going through all these labyrinthine kind of like hallways and rooms and windows the house is not

[00:59:44] so large he thought it seems larger because of its dimness it's symmetry it's mirrors it's age my

[00:59:49] unfamiliarity with it and this solitude yeah so he's saying like this can't be as complicated as

[00:59:54] it seems to me there's something that I'm missing yeah that the fact that he's trying to reduce

[00:59:58] the house he's trying to make it smaller and make excuses for the fact that he can't understand it

[01:00:04] something along those lines you know yeah right right and so here's where finally he goes up a

[01:00:12] stairway and through like a through a trap door of some sort yeah I mean he is a bit of a gambler

[01:00:18] yeah right right at some point he had said before this he says he pushed at it two or three marble

[01:00:24] steps descended into his other long row who by now had a sense of the architects pretel elections

[01:00:29] guessed that there would be another set of steps so he's like really trying right he's like

[01:00:33] but what we read comes after so he's still he's always a step behind yeah he's always one move

[01:00:38] behind so boom the two short henchmen pop out grab him and charlock is there right taller charlock

[01:00:48] and he's like you you're the one who's been seeking the secret which is again it's so so humiliating

[01:00:55] like it's show he doesn't even get it once he's being apprehended and I think charlocks reply

[01:01:02] there is interesting he says no I am looking for something more fleeting and more perishable than that

[01:01:09] I'm looking for Eric Launro what do you make of that no I'm looking for something more specific it

[01:01:15] kind of echoes the I'm looking for the murder or I'm looking for the black guard who stabbed this guy

[01:01:20] in the chest not like the name of God you know right then I'm looking for the concrete yeah and

[01:01:26] that he is familiar enough as a good Jew unlike you he's familiar enough for what Launro thinks

[01:01:32] he's on to like this you know the ineffable name of God the eternal truth or whatever and he's

[01:01:37] like no I'm not after anything nearly that eternal and interesting I'm looking for something

[01:01:44] fleeting terrestrial perishable perishable exactly you know I'm looking for something that is

[01:01:50] particular and of this earth your mistake was that you're not capable of doing that he was an

[01:01:56] interested remember on the previous description like the names of the people and the perpetrators

[01:02:02] whatever you know yeah it's like that that held very little interest for him but that in some

[01:02:07] ways as part of his downfall well not even in some ways I think that is clearly part of his downfall

[01:02:12] that he's not interested in the specifics he's interested in the grand patterns the equilateral

[01:02:19] triangles and the mythical tetra gram and man's gram it's tetra gram so he says so he

[01:02:29] tells the story right he's giving the sort of villains explanation of this which is funny because

[01:02:35] it's like this is the drawing room speech that Launro should be giving like where he's like I

[01:02:40] and then I figured this out and then I knew you would do this so I said this but it's actually like

[01:02:45] the villain that gets to give it you know he flipped it yeah he flipped it so so he says look like

[01:02:52] I'm looking for you because three years ago you arrested my brother and sent him to prison and

[01:02:57] there was a shootout and I got shot in the gut by a policeman and I came here to this place

[01:03:03] and for nine days and nine nights I lay between life and death he says in this desolate symmetrical villa

[01:03:10] consumed by fever and the hateful two-faced Janus that looks toward the sunset in the dawn

[01:03:14] lent horror to my delirium and my sleeplessness I came to abominate my own body I came to feel

[01:03:20] that two eyes two hands two lungs are as monstrous as two faces an Irishman tried to convert me to

[01:03:26] belief in Christ he would repeat over and over the goyems saying all roads lead to Rome at night

[01:03:30] my delirium would grow fat upon that metaphor I sensed that the world was a labyrinth impossible

[01:03:35] to escape for all roads even if they pretended to lead north or south returned finally to Rome which

[01:03:40] was also the rectangular prison where my brother lay dying and which was also the Villa Triste

[01:03:46] so there is something here about his hatred of symmetry that I find super interesting yeah what

[01:03:53] is it that is ugly about symmetry to him yeah especially since he's taking an active revenge on

[01:04:00] behalf of his brother which kind of seems like a symmetrical act what's weird is the villa as

[01:04:06] lawn row experience that I guess it had kind of a I don't know any eerie symmetry he called it a

[01:04:12] pointless symmetry yeah yeah right charlock is into the particular you know the things that don't

[01:04:19] have its perfect reflection or ideal right so remember when he when he's talking about the 99

[01:04:26] names of God and how some people have this rejection of there can't just be 99 like that's

[01:04:34] that would be ugly that would be not symmetrical it's not an even number yeah and there are people

[01:04:40] who desire symmetry as this sort of like a platonic ideal that the world should have these patterns

[01:04:47] and charlock is not that he comes to hate the symmetry yeah he is I think like very comfortable

[01:04:54] in the worldly in the ugly in the messy yeah like in the concrete in the relational like he's

[01:05:02] avenging his brother and avenging the fact that he was shot in the gut these very real things that

[01:05:09] happened and he completely manipulated lawn row because he knew of this desire for clean patterns

[01:05:17] like interesting symmetries like he knew that he couldn't handle it was a triangle it had to be

[01:05:22] foresight couldn't be three standing on the running board of the coupe one of them sprawled on

[01:05:27] the pillar the words that you recall the last letter of the name has been written that sentence

[01:05:34] revealed that this was a series of three crimes at least that's how the man in the street interpreted

[01:05:40] but I had repeatedly dropped clues so that you the reasoning in italicize the reasoning Eric

[01:05:48] lawn row would realize that there were actually four one sign in the north two more in the east and

[01:05:53] west demand a fourth sign in the south after all the tetragramaton the name of god Yahweh or why

[01:06:00] hvh consists of four letters the harlequins and the paint manufacturers emblem suggest four terms

[01:06:08] it was I who underlined the passage in lidsons book yeah that smart is a smart guy he sent the

[01:06:14] triangle knowing it would fuck with lawn row no it's really lawn row would have to find it would

[01:06:19] just he would be compelled to like give the right answer it's a perfect trap for you know the

[01:06:26] reasoning Eric lawn row he knows that he couldn't resist this it's like deterministic right I knew

[01:06:32] you would add the missing point the point that makes a perfect rhombus the point that fixes the place

[01:06:37] where precise depth awaits you I have done all this Eric lawn row planned all this in order to

[01:06:41] draw you to the solitude to the east and then so lawn row avoided charlock's eyes he doesn't look at his

[01:06:48] eyes he looks at the trees the skies subdivided into murky red and green and yellow rhombuses so he's

[01:06:56] still seeing like geometric shapes yeah as he's going to die he felt a chill in an impersonal almost

[01:07:03] anonymous sadness again his attraction to the abstract to the idealize to the intricate and complex

[01:07:13] he takes till the end okay but then we have this last bit that I want to ask you about for the last

[01:07:21] time lawn row considered the problem of the symmetrical periodic murders and he says to charlock

[01:07:28] there are three lines too many in your labyrinth he said it last I know of a Greek labyrinth that is

[01:07:34] but one straight line so many philosophers have been lost upon that line that a mere detective might

[01:07:40] be pardoned if he becomes lost as well when you hunt me down in another avatar of our lives charlock

[01:07:47] I suggest a you fake or commit one crime at a second crime at b 8 kilometers from a then a third

[01:07:54] crime at c 4 kilometers from a and b and halfway in between them then wait for me at d 2 kilometers

[01:08:00] for me and c once again halfway between them kill me at d as you are about to kill me at

[01:08:05] least lu hwa and then charlotte says the next time I kill you I promise you the labyrinth that

[01:08:12] consists of a single straight line that is inevitable and endless and then he's visible yeah so what

[01:08:18] do you make of the the labyrinth that's a single line you know the zinos paradox you know you can

[01:08:25] only you can never get to the I mean that's that's the kind of one obvious way of trying to understand

[01:08:32] what he's saying but it doesn't totally explain why either of them are talking about this yeah

[01:08:39] so I don't know that I have the answer big but but it's very clearly I think describing a zinos

[01:08:45] paradox so when when he's saying and b c he's creating a line and splitting it in halves right with

[01:08:53] zinos paradox being like imagine the distance between two points that you keep having and if you

[01:08:59] keep having it you'll never there's an infinitesimal distance between the last bit so zinos

[01:09:04] zinos saying that this refutes the idea of motion to begin with I guess yeah I think the better

[01:09:11] version of that is that Achilles can never pass the tortoise because every time Achilles will get

[01:09:17] to where the tortoise was the tortoise will have moved a little bit as long as the tortoise

[01:09:22] is moving continuously so it's this idea that we can't actually achieve the goal that we're trying

[01:09:29] to achieve because there's always an infinite number of steps to take in between yeah so I think

[01:09:37] what's going on here is in his sadness his mind is turning to the symmetry that's happened and he's

[01:09:45] bummed out and I think he's holding on in this last bit like maybe there's a world in which this

[01:09:52] happens all over again let's make it even more elegant like there's a certain elegance to the four

[01:09:58] to the rhombus shape but what would even be better is the mystery the labyrinth that comes from the

[01:10:04] infinity of a straight line let's do that one next time it's great kind of because he's accepted

[01:10:10] that scarlock was the scarlock was the one who created this labyrinth for him and trapped him he's

[01:10:17] accepted that that was the outcome that there was nothing deeper and he's like next time we go around

[01:10:22] this this world he's not saying like let it be the name of God he's saying like you're going to do

[01:10:27] it to me like let's do it even better like let's really get this one the thing about zeno's paradoxes

[01:10:32] you have this goal that you can never get to and in this labyrinth which is this enclosed rhombus

[01:10:39] he could arrive at the destination but like if you do it in this zeno's paradox way it will

[01:10:46] re-ecur and re-ecur indefinitely with him never arriving at the explanation which he now realizes

[01:10:54] is what he wants he just wants the chase he doesn't want the destination like he's bored when he

[01:11:00] thinks he's solved the case so give me a zeno's paradox labyrinth that I can keep doing this forever

[01:11:07] yeah I want to be lost in this labyrinth right and this is another echo of the infinite yeah he

[01:11:12] couldn't achieve the infinite through the mystical name of God and the tetragram is on but maybe he

[01:11:18] can achieve the infinite in this way like because zeno's paradox shows that even within the balance

[01:11:23] of a line there is an infinity that that is contained there so let me get lost in that trap forever

[01:11:28] and not just arrive at a destination where they the other reading is that he's like okay this pattern

[01:11:34] was a little too jui can we do a greek one next time yeah and I love that charlock is like

[01:11:42] yeah i'll do that for you man yeah like it's like he gives them it's like we said at the beginning

[01:11:46] it's an honorable death yeah like he played this game for long road that's why I was saying like

[01:11:51] even though long road is sad when he realizes that this was mundane and not you know mystical

[01:11:56] and eternal charlock is giving him this gift where if he has to die like he's scratching that

[01:12:03] itch for him he's created a mystery for him to lure him yeah you didn't have to he could have just

[01:12:08] stabbed him in the street right and this is like it does read a little bit like the respect

[01:12:14] and you know that's a trope between the criminal and the detective they're both smart yeah they're

[01:12:18] both two sides of the same coin absolutely I agree let me just uh float a different interpretation

[01:12:27] that just occurred to me on a walk today charlock as like day cards evil demon so here long road is

[01:12:35] trying to out of whole cloth create this conspiracy out of what really is just a messed up jewel robbery

[01:12:44] and he a priori turns this into some rabbinical conspiracy and if charlock is the evil demon

[01:12:52] he is the one that is giving him the illusion that all of this stuff is happening which is exactly

[01:12:59] what day card was worried about right day card it's this methodical doubt I will doubt anything

[01:13:04] unless I can be certain that it's true first he um he does the cogito he says well I think

[01:13:12] therefore I am I'm a thinking being but then he has to establish the existence of a loving God

[01:13:19] because he's worried that his senses could be deceiving him and so he has to make sure that there's

[01:13:25] no evil demon like systematically deceiving him where he would think that he's on to it he would

[01:13:33] think that he has figured out this world and like it's underlying nature but actually he's being

[01:13:38] systematically misled then day card tries to prove the existence of a benevolent God that would make

[01:13:44] that impossible but those arguments aren't good like this is what happens if you allow yourself to

[01:13:51] accept your questionable a priori arguments you can be systematically misled in the way the

[01:13:58] Lonro was and I think the story can easily be read as a kind of a cautionary tale to the kind of

[01:14:06] Western philosopher that is trying to understand the fundamental nature of the world through reason

[01:14:17] and how that can result in them being systematically misled and then undressed and humiliated

[01:14:26] in the face of something that is beyond their actual capacities the evil demon is actually

[01:14:32] taking advantage of day cards desire to try to make sense of the world and misleading him because

[01:14:41] of that and that's what charlock does to Lonro he takes advantage of his hubris like his his belief

[01:14:49] that he can figure all this out put the puzzle together he's constructed the truth yeah yeah I mean

[01:14:55] I like that I think that's right he is creating he has created whole cloth of world that he knows

[01:15:02] Lonro wants to inhabit and he did it purely deceptively in a way that really did lure that desire

[01:15:10] that Lonro had really lured him and he couldn't have done it if Lonro hadn't had that desire to

[01:15:18] kind of figure everything out in a way that was satisfying to his vanity as a reasoning machine

[01:15:26] and it just tickles me in the borne hesian way that that charlock did create an underlying order yeah

[01:15:35] like he really did create a conspiracy that was and that's why he starts off by saying let's give

[01:15:42] Lonro some credit he didn't catch the murder but he did anticipate what was happening all right he

[01:15:49] says he didn't succeed in preventing the last crime but he did indisputably foresee it nor did he

[01:15:53] divine the identity of your melonsky's unlucky murder but he did perceive the evil series secret

[01:15:57] shape and the part played in it by red charlock so the irony here is like yeah he was deceived by

[01:16:05] the demon charlock the dandy but but do you think he the narrator there is being somewhat sarcastic

[01:16:11] because he didn't perceive the part played in it by red charlock he didn't even know the red

[01:16:17] charlock was part of the plot at all right yeah he didn't divine the identity what does he mean

[01:16:23] that because I doesn't read sarcastic to me did perceive the evil series as secret shape that's true

[01:16:30] and the part played in it by red charlock is just false but you're right yeah so I think maybe

[01:16:37] saying like not that he knew that charlock did it but he knew that somebody was creating

[01:16:42] four murders in this pattern but he never suspected charlock as no but I think you can read that

[01:16:48] as saying the part that charlock played that have masked like somebody mastermind a for right so

[01:16:55] he didn't it didn't get the identity that it was charlock who did it but he did perceive that the

[01:16:59] agent there was an agent that was doing this and yeah so on the one hand its deception on the

[01:17:04] other hand it's the actual creation of a new world it is the matrix in that way like it's

[01:17:09] he wants to go back into the matrix and that's what he's asking at the end next time we do this can

[01:17:14] you put me in a even better matrix like when I agree with you that look that even though charlock

[01:17:19] hates non-ro and you know has been conceived of this revenge and dedicated his life to it and his

[01:17:26] delirium he does respect non-ro enough to try to give him a way of going out that will it's like

[01:17:34] letting the the chickens be free range before you kill them let them like thrive and flourish

[01:17:42] in their natural environment before you cut off their heads then very carefully he fired yeah

[01:17:48] I love that too like he was being very patterned even though he was a man who lived in the messy

[01:17:54] world of crime and this whole thing started with a bungled robbery yeah that that he had to clean up

[01:18:01] he created order out of that chaos for non-ro and it was you know it's not all sad like it was a good

[01:18:08] way of trapping him it was a villainous way of trapping him but he didn't need to do you don't need

[01:18:13] that yeah I mean that's a very optimistic reading but I think it's nice to think of it that way

[01:18:19] one thing I was thinking board you know as reading all these stories boor has I think

[01:18:24] is very self-critical he has a lot of these protagonists like lawnaro who are like him

[01:18:29] kind of solitary obsessed with puzzles and labyrinths and infinity their obsession with all

[01:18:36] these systems and theories and puzzles and grand explanations like it not only affects their you

[01:18:43] know whatever is going on in the story but you get the sense that it's not good for their social

[01:18:48] life they don't seem like they interact with other people they're just focused on whatever puzzle or

[01:18:57] you know system they're trying to decipher and so there is this idea that if you live in this

[01:19:04] world of idealizations and abstractions and systems like what does that duty or just human

[01:19:12] characteristic what kind of a life does lawnaro have you know like this again it's true of a lot

[01:19:17] of boor has portagnes it's like they don't live in the world they live half in the world and half

[01:19:23] in their ideas and conspiracies and philosophies yeah totally it's it is this theme boor has always

[01:19:30] has this tension between loving the systematizing and loving the finding the chase the chase

[01:19:37] and this yeah he he loves all this stuff like the math of infinity the math of the world and yet he

[01:19:44] constantly is also making the point that reality is like unknowable and unknowably like messy or

[01:19:51] complex and his protagonists were obsessed with the order lose themselves in their obsessions

[01:19:57] right it's like in so many of the stories we read they're about people who have this singular obsession

[01:20:03] that actually like you said takes them out of the world yeah and I think you're right I think

[01:20:09] boor has is that kind of a person yeah this is it's like in a very meta way it's so like there's so

[01:20:15] much to even think about like earlier when you were talking about teaching this and your your students

[01:20:21] you know talking with 14 other people about this and students coming up with interpretations which

[01:20:26] is on my so think about that where what we're doing what your students are doing we are the

[01:20:32] lawn rows of the world but just by doing this you know like we are he's sucking us into being

[01:20:38] lawn rows and finding hundred percent finding these nuggets he is in some ways charlock for us

[01:20:44] right and I welcome the distraction I welcome the demon giving me like I'll take the bullet in

[01:20:52] the head and I want to keep doing it no absolutely right we're always trying to puzzle out a boor

[01:20:58] has story but I remember something that Phil Ford said in the weird study is segment where there is

[01:21:04] all weird fiction there's always a remainder there's always something that doesn't fully fit

[01:21:10] and we won't accept that in we try the 99 is unacceptable the 99 is unacceptable it has to be

[01:21:16] a hundred like even my evil demon my evil demon theory is trying to like match you know charlock

[01:21:23] to some philosophical concept and lawn row to date cart and you know like can do that and it's fun

[01:21:30] to do that and it's good I think like you said there's this constant tension the problem is when

[01:21:35] you think you can solve it when you think you're going to get to the end of the labyrinth don't confuse

[01:21:41] the map for the territory yeah right like we have these models and we build these models and we

[01:21:46] love doing it we're building models of what boor has is trying to say but never have the confidence

[01:21:52] that lawn row has because the world will always surprise you with an uneven number right or with a

[01:21:58] remainder like Phil says do you know the word parodolia no it means the tendency to impose meaningful

[01:22:05] yes interpretation on like nebulous stuff and so like people talk about this is the overseeing of

[01:22:10] patterns and it's associated with particular kinds of you know schizophrenics like do that a lot

[01:22:17] but the thing is like it's it's like a hyper presence of a normal human trait like we're all we

[01:22:22] all need to find order like we can't live without order of some sort but I that's why love borges

[01:22:27] protagonist there are they're just warnings they're they're showing like don't get too caught up in

[01:22:32] but at the same time they're making us get caught up in it yeah I know they're luring us into it

[01:22:37] you know we're also the charlots for listeners in some way luring them this is all part of the grand

[01:22:45] revenge conspiracy against our listeners this was fun I love this story I really oh yeah so

[01:22:54] back to the first question uh back to the ranking god man it's so painful to even think about moving

[01:23:01] I want to move it up but what do I take out yeah I also love the olive I also love pure manard

[01:23:08] I might put it above manard so it might make it into your mind rush once yeah exactly exactly

[01:23:16] the only one I can say that I absolutely think is a better story is to learn uqbar yeah that's such a

[01:23:23] master that's a stone cold masterpiece I know there's so much in there it's crazy and you really

[01:23:29] like borges has really influenced so many people and what I love is I was talking to you offline about

[01:23:35] umberto echo and his books the name of the rose and fukos pendulum that are clearly so indebted

[01:23:42] to I think this story in particular for borges in general like and I always think like these people

[01:23:47] like umberto echo is to me cool and interesting but what borges does in like five pages takes this guy

[01:23:54] like four hundred pages yeah there is an elegance to the way that borges presents ideas that stick with

[01:24:01] you I think about fucking funez the memorials all the time I think about pure manard all the time

[01:24:08] like they just stick with you and all he had to do was give us these level five page stories

[01:24:13] yeah that's amazing yeah well I'm sure we'll be back to this golden goose for more eggs at such point

[01:24:21] soon thanks for listening join us next time on very bad music

[01:24:51] and

[01:24:59] anybody can have a great

[01:25:03] you're a very bad man

[01:25:06] and a very good man just a very bad wizard