Episode 57: Language
/What’s that? AMANDA is leading an episode? It’s the gift that keeps on giving—and naturally, we go full nerd. We talk linguistics, Julia gets some stuff right (and wrong), Amanda has breakfast in bed with the Oxford Dictionary, you discover what a plowie is, and we all realize that language isn’t always an exact science.
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Transcript
AM: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, Episode 57: Language. I'll let you guys see what exactly is going on, but this is a little bit of a special episode.
JS: It is indeed. Amanda, Amanda gave me a good gift this year everyone.
AM: And Julia, I kind of want to cut to the feeling here as our queen, Carly Rae would say, and ummm... and tell the listeners what our gift to them is this year.
JS: Amanda, we're getting them a new podcast that we're producing!
AM: A new podcast!
JS: It's called... Waystation!
AM: Waystation is a Fan Cast for the incredible Canadian television show, Lost Girl which ran for six glorious years and we, we miss it dearly.
JS: We do, we do indeed. It is bisexual and very related and has a lot of weird mythology in it. And we, we love it and question it with all of our hearts.
AM: Yeah. Editor Eric described it to me as a better, gayer Supernatural and that's pretty much what it is, and we're, we're so stoked. We're going to be watching one episode of the show every two weeks. So whether you've watched it before and you want to rewatch along with us or you've never watched or Tumblr has told you to watch it and you kind of haven't or kind of tried, we are here for you and we're going to discuss the mythology of each episode, we're going to discuss the gay stuff, we're gonna discuss wigs and outfits and crime and OT [inaudible 1:15] trees and all of the great stuff that this show has to offer.
JS: There are a lot of good wigs and good OT [inaudible 1:21] trees. So you know it's a quality TV show fun.
AM: Yeah, and you can find us... we're just, Waystation: A Lost Girl Fancast on all of your podcast apps and WaystationPod on all the social medias and especially our Facebook Group. Join us, tell us who you are, say hello. We're going to be posting threads for every episode so you can talk along with, with other fans.
JS: I mean, can you think of a better place to hang out for the new year? I can't.
AM: Me neither. And our first episode will be coming out on Friday, January 5, and then every two Fridays thereafter. But you know who I would love to be spending my New Year with, Jules?
JS: I think it would be our patrons, Amanda.
AM: It would be! We would love to welcome our newest patrons: Lawra, Willard, Lauren, Colleen, Elian, Shelby, James, and Rory, and Ashley. As well as as always our supporting producer level patrons: Neal, Chandra, Philip, Julie, Sarah, Josh, Eeyore, Mercedes, Sandra Robert Lindsey, Phil, Catherine, Ryan, and Debra.
JS: You guys are the linguistics scholars who don't throw so much shade of our hearts.
AM: You're... I was gonna say the LED of my heart. But uhhh...
JS: That's a good one.
AM: You will see why I say that later and as always to our legend level patrons whose packages for December should be arriving any, any day now. LeAnne, Erin, Ashley, Shannon, Cammie and Cassie.
JS: I think a couple of them already got it, so that's good.
AM: Yeah, the you know, Christmas is every month if you are a Spirits Podcast, legend level patron.
JS: That is 100% true.
AM: And this week finally, we'd love to thank Story Blocks for sponsoring us. They are the best place to get stock footage, video animations, whatever you need. They have professional level stuff for you and you can enjoy a free seven day trial at storyblocks.com/spirits.
JS: Thanks, Story Blocks!
AM: And without further ado, we will let you get to this special edition of spirits our last in 2017. Episode 57: Language.
Intro Music
AM: So Julia, it is Christmas time.
JS: Yes, it is.
AM: It's several days after Christmas but we are recording this before Christmas.
JS: We are.
AM: And I--
JS: It's a week before Christmas [inaudible 3:20].
AM: I got you a present.
JS: Aww!
AM: It is over there in my hallway for you to take home with you.
JS: Okay.
AM: I also got you a second present.
JS: I think I know what it is.
AM: I did an episode. That's right, y'all! tables have turned!
JS: Tables have turned!
AM: Amanda's in the recording chair, I have my same chair but the mics are different. And I AM: Here to give you an episode!
JS: If you can't tell from my voice, I’m very nervous.
AM: Nervous about me? Or nervous about you?
JS: I'm just nervous in general, anxiety is forming. I'm not in my comfort zone. Let's do this sh--
AM: Well, I know that I can get into your comfort zone because what I'm gonna be talking about today, you genuinely don't know...
JS: I know! I'm very concerned.
AM: It's so exciting! I just wanna prolong, prolong the suspense.
JS: I think that also, the like tables are very much turned because I have a document that lists like what I'm going to be researching for the next couple of weeks and months. And then, this list just said, Amanda Episode! and then question marks next to it for the topic ideas, I’m like, alright!
AM: I want to obscure the truth.
JS: Okay, you did.
AM: But now, now you can know that my episode this week is about Mythological Linguistics.
JS: Oh, god! Okay.
AM: It's about words with mythological origin.
JS: I can think of three of our listeners who are already really stoked about this episode.
AM: I know one of whom or two of them I guess one of whom is Andrea, our friend, and future guest on the show. We did a live show at FlameCon with her in August and it was so much fun. And she contributed some research to this episode, and Eric Silver friend of the pod and my co-host on Join The Party who gave me this idea and I was like yes, yoink! Thank you. There's the idea, and I ran with it. So, thank you.
JS: Also, uhhh... shout out to Eldrich [inaudible 4:55]--
AM: Yup!
JS: --who's also a linguistics student, I believe.
AM: Awesome!
JS: And is going to really appreciate this, I'm sure.
AM: Well, I am excited to get into it because I know that we both love reading and language and with a native language as old and weird as English is, right?
JS: It's super weird.
AM: It's like a mash-up of weird of Latinic, and Germanic languages lots of borrowing from others lots of like back, you know? Through into French and then back through a mirror darkly like into weird borrowing.
JS: It's a lot of making shit up.
AM: It is a lot of making shit up, yeah.
JS: For a language, it is a lot of making shit up.
AM: And I'm very grateful, this is my native tongue instead of one I had to acquire because that would have been uhhh... very hard!
JS: That's fucking true.
AM: And there are lots of surprises in this little minefield of language.
JS: Surprises? Tell me more!
AM: [inaudible 5:42] Oh my gosh! It's so weird!
JS: I know, right?
AM: I have the answers! Well, I'm going to start off easy. I'm going to start with some things that you may be familiar with.
JS: Okay.
AM: So some myth-based phrases that we use here in English.
JS: Okay.
AM: One is to fly too close to the sun.
JS: Icarus!
AM: Icarus, that is right. Icarus is the son of the guy that created the labyrinth, which I didn't know.
JS: Daedalus.
AM: Yes, that is him. I said, Dedalus in my head, I think that was like, was that like, it wasn't a book of the Bible, but it was some kind of thing from like a... I don't know, it was some kind of media that I had heard before. And I was like, "Dedalus". But anyway.
JS: I mean, one of the Harry Potter characters is named after Dedalus.
AM: Ugh! That's the one!
JS: Dedalus Diggle.
AM: You know? Harry Potter and the Bible were two formative texts in my childhood.
JS: That... makes sense. Makes so much sense.
AM: Well, Icarus and his dad tried to escape Crete where they live using wings made from wax and feathers needing to fly neither too close to the sea nor too close to the sun. What would have happened, Jules?
JS: If he flies to close to the sun, the sun melts the wings.
AM: It does.
JS: If it flies too close to the water. It'll just swallow him up.
AM: It'll get the feathers wet, and drag him down.
JS: Okay, fair enough.
AM: A thing you didn't know! Boom! Boom! Boom! [inaudible 6:48]
JS: You're so excited!
AM: Spoiler alert, he did fly too close to the sun.
JS: He fucked up real hard.
AM: And that is where we get that phrase from which is also used in our fave, Hamilton. The wings melted, he died by crashing into the sea ironically. So like both of them swallowed him up, and it was sad. And the story is often used to illustrate the concept of hubris, but it has also got to do with complacency. So you can't you know, fly too high because you think that you're immortal, whatever. You also can't fly too low and not put in enough effort.
JS: That's true.
AM: How about the phrase, Jules, "The weight of the world on your shoulders?"
JS: Ah, that would be Atlas, Amanda.
AM: That would be Atlas. Now, what was he?
JS: Atlas was a Titan.
AM: Yep, and he--
JS: And he was punished for--
AM: He was.
JS: --something.
AM: Ohhh! This is fun.
JS: In order to end was forced to hold the world up. I think he probably it was he was one of the Titans that revolted against Zeus, probably?
AM: Exactly.
JS: Alright, cool, cool, cool.
AM: He lost that battle of the Titans.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Which is called like the--
JS: Titano, Titanomachy.
AM: Yes.
JS: Titanomachy.
AM: I also during this episode I was like, is the word Hippodrome derived from some kind of God? No Hippo just means horse.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And, and drome just being dome.
JS: [inaudible 7:48]
AM: Anyway, Hippodrome. But Atlas is often depicted with a globe sitting on his shoulders, in sculpture, stuff like that, because he is holding up the world.
JS: Right. There's a great one at the 30 Rock.
AM: Yes, there is.
JS: There is a statue of Atlas holding up the world. It's cool and [inaudible 8:04]
AM: What I didn't know though is like when we didn't know that the world was round, like what was he doing? He was actually damned to hold up the sky for eternity.
JS: Okay.
AM: So that was the kind of original conception is that he was like standing on the ground, his arms up above his head holding up the sky.
JS: Sure.
AM: But in modernity, when we realize that the, the globe is a sphere, he is holding the globe like kind of crooked between his neck and his shoulder.
JS: Right, and also like, fun fact, we kind of knew that the world was a sphere not too far after this story was being told.
AM: Yes.
JS: So interestingly, when you talk about holding up the sky, too, that falls under the Christian idea of the firmament.
AM: Yes.
JS: Which the earth is flat, but there is a dome-like firmament or that is separating the waters of creation.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So there's water as above, waters below the earth.
AM: There absolutely is. Thanks for adding to my thing.
JS: Very welcome. That's what I'm here for.
AM: Atlas is also where we get the noun, an Atlas, which is a book of maps, and geography.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Traveling the world.
JS: Globes.
AM: The names for Atlantis and the Atlantic Ocean also come from Atlas.
JS: Okay, huh... I actually didn't know that one.
AM: And there are lots of other places that are named for gods. But the most interesting one island that was from Andrea, which is that Europe is named after Europa.
JS: Yes!
AM: Who is a goddess with origins that are either Phoenician or African people kind of disagree, and therefore she sometimes depicted on art with dark skin, which I think is pretty badass.
JS: That is pretty dope.
AM: Yeah.
JS: She's also has a feature in Greek Mythology, too.
AM: Yes.
JS: There are... do you know that story already? Do you want me to tell it or you got it?
AM: I was just happy to figure out that the Greeks kind of retconned her.
JS: They did.
AM: From Phoenician lore to be descended from, Aio [inaudible 9:37], who you taught me about.
JS: Yeah!
AM: Let's see, a nymph transformed into a heifer because the, the fuck father spectacular got involved.
JS: 'Cause Zeus horny for cows.
AM: Zeus horny for cows. It's true, is true. Zeus maybe horny for horses, I'm not sure.
JS: Probably.
AM: Probably.
JS: Isn't everyone?
AM: Well, the English language is horny for horses, Julia.
JS: Everyone's horny for horses all the time.
AM: Because the phrase Trojan Horse is used very often in English.
JS: Yes, it is.
AM: So, it means accomplishing one thing under the guise of another or kind of sneaking in under some kind of disguise.
JS: Sure.
AM: As people may know, the Greeks sacked the city of Troy hidden in a wooden horse that was supposed to be a gift. In actuality, the troops probably used a like a battering ram type situation--
JS: Probably.
AM: -- to break down the walls of Troy., and historians, when he’s writing, was like, it kind of probably looks a little bit like a horse. And like that maybe...
JS: You know what? Maybe, I don't know.
AM: Where the, like IRL origins of this myth came from.
JS: It's like just trying so hard for like, maybe it looks kinda like a horse.
AM: I know. I know.
JS: I just want it to be true so bad!
AM: That's, I know that linguistics is, is like actually a very disciplined field. But I feel that way sometimes when I was reading about all these word origins, and people are like, "I don't know, it kind of sounds like Arabic If you're drunk." You know? It, it just like saved the... I know, I know!
JS: Everything sounds like Arabic when you're drunk.
AM: Trying to pry especially in that like proto like Indo-European, you know, pre English, pre Latin roots of stuff.
JS: Yeah.
AM: It is so hard to distinguish what comes from what.
JS: Yeah.
AM: So it is really interesting. There's a couple of things later on about kind of word roots and how they have grown into like very weird things in English.
JS: Cool.
AM: But just to remain on Trojan Horse for a second. The Oxford English Dictionary is a just beautiful land--
JS: Yes.
AM: --of love.
JS: Yes, it is.
AM: And, and knowledge.
JS: You just flushed a little bit.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Thank you for the Oxford Dictionary.
AM: I have a hand over my breast.
JS: Yeah, you do.
AM: Because I'm just like thinking about the OED and so grateful that the New York Public Library gives me access to it even though I'm no longer in college. And so the OED and I spent some quality time together. Several hours in fact, one morning researching this episode, and what they do is they quote the first recorded usage of words.
JS: Okay.
AM: First recorded usage in print.
JS: Interesting.
AM: So that we can you know, some most of them don't start until like the 1500s or so. But they list like the first time we saw this word printed.
JS: When you guys spent the morning together, did it make you breakfast in bed? Did the dictionary make you waffles?
AM: No, but I made toast and brought it back to the dictionary. And we--
JS: It was probably--
AM: --we researched together.
JS: --and then you cuddled up and did some research together.
AM: We did under my cute blanket? Yes, anyway.
JS: And your small pillow. It's called a what again?
AM: No.
JS: Yeah.
AM: No.
JS: No, we're doing the small pillow thing.
AM: No, we're not!
JS: Tell me about the small pillow.
AM: My tiny pillow! It's just…
JS: Yeah, what's it called?
AM: I mean, it's called a Plowy [inaudible 12:11].
JS: Amanda has a small pillow that her grandma made her. And one day was like, "Well, well, doesn't everyone have a small pillow?"
AM: I know!
JS: I’m like no, not, not everyone has a small pillow.
AM: It's, it's my small pillow, and I have some big pillowcases for it because I can't buy small pillowcases.
JS: Anyway, you cuddle up on your Plowy and you found out about the origin of words, tell me more.
AM: And the OED will also sample like representative examples of how a word is used. So like, words have lots of different meanings.
JS: Sure.
AM: Kind of list a few for each. So one that was listed for Trojan Horse is from SS Prentiss, who's a congressional representative from Mississippi in 1838 to 1839.
JS: Already excited to hear this one. Do it up.
AM: Yep. So he was talking about some of his colleagues in the Mississippi House of Representatives and called them Trojan Horses because they were like inside men trying to undermine the Congress from within. Sick Congressional, yo!
JS: Sick burn, yo. Mississippi, the sickest of burns.
AM: And after that example, in 1974 was the first recorded usage of Trojan Horse to mean a computer attack.
JS: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
AM: Which is a genre of kind of cyber attack where viruses are disguised as something else. And I think it's pretty baller that a story from nearly 3000 years ago is being used now to describe a form of digital warfare.
JS: Yeah, for sure. It's like a really interesting idea. It's, it's like the fucking you know, Harry Potter can pull names like Dedalus and it's still...
AM: Yeah.
JS: You know, important to the storyline. The storyline being our history.
AM: Exactly, and in my research, as well, I think it was in a Wikipedia article that someone some like Wikipedia editor, said, like Homer was very fond of like creatively translating names to like pull and associate kind of JK Rowling style like, you know, Remus Lupin, Moon Moon.
JS: Moon Moon.
AM: Like who would, would uhhh... would find words to describe the gods that like describe the characteristics. So in some cases, the names were sort of like who knows what they originally was but this is the one now that we have via Homer, and just the, the like snark of the sentence was like, "Was very fond of." and I was like, oh god, editor.
JS: Oh, snap!
AM: I hear that you disagree.
JS: Also Remus. Remus Lupin was Wolf Wolf, not Moon Moon.
AM: Oh fuck yeah, exactly.
JS: Yeah, I got you though, I knew what you meant.
AM: Moon Moon is a Tumblr post, I think.
JS: Uhh... probably.
AM: Oh, it's so funny. And so, just like these phrases, there are a ton of words in English that are just adjectival forms of Greek and Roman gods.
JS: Aight.
AM: You may have heard of the myth or the word separately, but there is some history on how and why these started being used and some more like very cool first recorded usages.
JS: Do it up!
AM: So, “herculean”.
JS: Yes.
AM: What's that about, Jules?
JS: Like an impossible task.
AM: Yes, and it borrows from the Roman god, Hercules, who was a rip-off, basically of the Greek god, Heracles.
JS: Sure.
AM: So Hercules was the son of Zeus and Alcmene? Alcmene?
JS: Yeah, sure, sounds right.
AM: And so, therefore Zeus was both the great-grandson and the half-brother of Perseus, gotta love the Greeks.
JS: Yep, checks out.
AM: So Heracles, aka Hercules was a badass manly man who fought monsters from the underworld and lots of Greek like, muckety mucks and Roman emperors being like, yeah, I'm totally related to Hercules. I know I too am so hot and strong.
JS: Same, same, same. Checked out in their Tinder bios.
AM: I know, right? Well, people, if I saw someone with Herculean in his Tinder bio, I probably would message him. And Herculean means very simply of a relating to Hercules. So we use it to mean something as simple as just like Hercules did like in the 1500s and 1600s. And we still use it to mean like strong, powerful, courageous, big in size, and sometimes to mean violent, but there is another meaning when it describes a task instead of a person, meaning difficult to accomplish excessive or immense.
JS: Yeah.
AM: The kinds of challenges that only Hercules could solve.
JS: And do you know why we use that specifically for tasks?
AM: No.
JS: So Hercules, basically, he was a good hero. Then he done fucked up. And so he was required to do these 12 labors.
AM: Ahhh!
JS: The Twelve Labors of Hercules that were...
AM: They were Herculian tasks.
JS: Yes. They were supposed to be these impossible tasks that no human could accomplish. But because he was a demigod, he managed to do it just fine. But like one of them was like, you have to clear up the stables of these 300 horses in a day and he just fucking did it.
AM: That's awesome.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Well, in a completely different turn of events. How about the words Dionysian or Bacchanalia?
JS: That means like crazy party time.
AM: It super does.
JS: There's like these are not gonna be straight definitions--
AM: Yes.
JS: --I'm just gonna wing it.
AM: No, you get, you get up in your dionysian biz when you have a bacchanalia?
JS: Yeah.
AM: Which is a super party time.
JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AM: So these describe the god, Dionysus, sometimes called Bachus. So like, kind of same god but just different words.
JS: Yeah, Bachus usually is specifically the wine god, where Dionysus falls under like ritual badness and stuff like that.
AM: Oh, and we're going to talk about that.
JS: Of course.
AM: And the words can also describe the festivals honoring him or them.
JS: Yes.
AM: I'm just gonna use the singular pronoun for now.
JS: That's fine.
AM: So now, it's time for historical orgies, yeah!
JS: Yeah!
AM: So, Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, and ritual madness as you said, fertility theater and religious ecstasy. I love that theater is in there.
JS: Do you remember Dionysus' origin story, Amanda?
AM: I know he's a satyr. I don't think I remember that.
JS: He's not necessarily a satyr. That's some later depictions of him.
AM: Oh.
JS: They kind of mix him in with Pan--
AM: Oh, okay.
JS: --who was a satyr. Dionysus, if you remember the story about Zeus seducing the mortal, and then Hera becoming her best friend and being like...
AM: Oh, yeah...
JS: Yo, he's probably not Zeus and she bursts into flames and Zeus cuts out the baby and then sews him to his thigh.
AM: Yes.
JS: That's Dionysus.
AM: That's the one. Well, forged in fire, reared on the thigh. Here is Dionysus and he wants you to have sex.
JS: Oh, thought you were gonna rhyme that but I liked the ending anyway.
AM: Oh, no, I got too distracted by the, by the, by the payoff.
JS: By the sex.
AM: As Zeus does. Anyway, boom!
JS: Damn! Aight!
AM: Dionysus is the only of the 12 Olympian gods born of a mortal mother, as you just said.
JS: Yep.
AM: And it's sometimes described as androgynous. So there's some cool kind of sculptural and artistic representations of Dionysus as a androgenous, or kind of gender fluid individual.
JS: Hell, yeah.
AM: Worshipping Dionysus sounds like a lot of fun. So there are depictions on like glasses and stuff of processions honoring him having all-female followers with bearded satyrs with erections.
JS: Yep.
AM: All dancing and playing music. There'll be much drinking, people got very happy, almost frenzied, which is the state that we now call a Bacchanalia.
JS: Yes, there are some great plays that focused around Dionysus. There's one great story where this dude is watching his mother and his mother's friends go out to worship, Dionysus, and Dionysus catches him watching the Bacchanalia. And so what Dionysus does is he sends them into a religious fervor so much so that he knocks the guy out of the tree and they think it's a lion and they kill and devour him.
AM: Wait, was that in that play that we did in high school?
JS: Yeah, it was.
AM: Yeah, that was super inappropriate probably for high schoolers though.
JS: Yeah, it was excellent though.
AM: It was Iphigenia in Aulis was, I think one of them.
JS: I think they mentioned it.
AM: So it was...
JS: And [inaudible 19:10] was the second one that we did.
AM: Yes, if I remember correctly, it was just a... the play's called like the Greeks by Euripides, right?
JS: Right.
AM: Yeah. Ah, super. I mean, I-I appreciate it being able to just wear a toga as my or a robe as my costume. But it was still like, no.
JS: Just super not appropriate. Also, if you want to talk about like ritual frenzy, and Bacchanalia, I would recommend reading the super sad book, The Secret History.
AM: Nice.
JS: It's very sad, and there it's about a bunch of kids at a liberal arts college who basically accidentally murder someone while trying to do a Bacchanalian Dionysus ritual.
AM: They, they do.
JS: They super do.
AM: And I recommend reading that book on a plane or a train where if you're traveling it's just nice and very escapist, and it also...
JS: It is also really sad.
AM: It is also very sad. Yeah, no, it's no one is happy in that book. But historically, there is a name for those kinds of things besides just kind of calling it a Bacchanalia. There were also the more specific Dionysian mysteries, which were rituals involving intoxicants, dancing, and music to get people to kind of act pretty wild and get sort of transcendent.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Which reminded me of ways that people now use like, iwoca [20:18] and LSD and mushrooms and kind of different substances to try to sort of have a transcendent, or like epiphany type of experience.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And interestingly, there were like a kind of rare opportunity for marginalized people, like non-citizens or enslaved people or women to like actually have a good time.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And Dionysus is also kind of represented as the protector of those who don't belong to conventional society. So he symbolizes the chaotic, the dangerous, the unexpected, everything that kind of like escapes the normal bounds of human society. And it's sort of like the unforeseeable, the chaotic and I don't know, I super like that sort of queers can be like, thrown in there. You know, and we can be represented by Dionysus as well.
JS: We should do a Dionysus episode at some point.
AM: We should, I was very tempted just include this, this non-god factoid in here because right after Dionysus in the OED was the adjective, Diophantine.
JS: Okay.
AM: With a capital D. So I was like, Oh, cool. Is this a god.
JS: Is that a sort of drug?
AM: No.
JS: Okay.
AM: Julia, it's math, mathematics.
JS: Aww!
AM: So, I clicked on it and it means [inaudible 21:14] pertaining to Diophatus of Alexandria, who is a celebrated mathematician that flourished in the fourth century. Okay. OED, take a breather. I get that you flourished, but like math, okay, whatever. And so this guy applied. And so this guy is famous for this like mathematical solution involving indeterminate equations, and like invented a method of solving them. And so that is now called the Diophantine Analysis method. So nerds little math, little math interlude here and thank you.
JS: Tres fancy, my friend, tres fancy.
AM: Tres Fancy, Julia. So next we have the adjective, “Sisyphean”.
JS: Okay, it is a, again, it's an impossible, never-ending task.
AM: Kind of. So...
JS: Like a pointless task.
AM: Yes, that's the one.
JS: Yeah.
AM: So Sisyphus was the founder and the first king of Corinth, which was then called [inaudible 22:06]. He was a prosperous ruler. He's like, very good at what he's doing good for commerce, etc. but also a big, big liar.
JS: Yeah, what a dick!
AM: And he often kill people for fun?
JS: Yeah, what a dick.
AM: So surprisingly, Zeus instead of becoming his best friend sent him down to Hades, where Sisyphus' punishment was to roll a heavy stone uphill. But as soon as he reached the top of the stone rolled back down again.
JS: Zeus, Zeus was basically like, Hey, hey, that's my MO. Only I can do that.
AM: Oh, yeah. No, Zeus is totally...
JS: No [inaudible 22:33] moment for Zeus.
AM: Exactly, and there are actually a bunch of different versions of the specific fucktitude that got Sisyphus sent to this eternal punishment.
JS: Do it up!
AM: So mainly cheating death, that's just not going to go over well.
JS: Hades ain't about that.
AM: No, he is not. Neither is Zeus. And so in one version, Zeus ordered Sisyphus to be chained up in Hades. So Sisyphus smooth talks Thanatos, Death into showing him how the chains work where he's like, "That's fascinating, you have to show me how that works!"
JS: That's so low! You're a literal death, don't do that.
AM: Yep. So I guess that uhhh… Thanatos was like intrigued to be asked about his job or something.
JS: He's like, "I don't get to talk to a lot of people much."
AM: I know. Like, it's really interesting actually had mentioned this knot. So actually boom, he ended up chained himself, Thanatos. So, and in actually some versions of Hades that has to chain up Sisyphus and so then Hades ends up chained. But either way, Death is trapped, and so no one can die. Meaning that no one can sacrifice stuff to the gods.
JS: That's so good!
AM: So, everyone else gets really unhappy and sick people, old people, the infirm suffer. So Sisyphus earned his eternal punishment by doing that, which is to make him wish he were dead.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Which is pretty dark.
JS: Fuck him.
AM: Another version is that before Sisyphus died, he told his wife to throw his body naked into the public square after his death. Now Julia, why on earth would he request that?
JS: If he doesn't have a proper burial, they, he can be transported to Hades.
AM: Good, yes.
JS: That is my imagining of it.
AM: So, I think it was slightly more negging and misogynistic than that.
JS: Oh, wonderful!
AM: He did it to test her devotion because why would a wife do something horrible to her husband unless she like, loved him enough to want to do that only because he asked her to do it. You're rolling your eyes. I know.
JS: That's so dumb!
AM: I know it's very dumb. But she did, being devoted and probably terrified. But then Sisyphus bitches to Persephone down in Hades about how rude his wife was.
JS: Percy, no! Don't fall for that shit.
AM: However, Persephone is like, "Wow, that sucks. Not everyone's as good a wife as me."
JS: You are, you're so good, Percy. You're so good.
AM: And so she, she allows him to go back up there to, I don't know? confront his wife.
JS: You're too kind.
AM: Maury style. I don't know what that showdown could have looked like, that would have been a good outcome. But in any case, Sisyphus goes back to his wife and yells at her and says, "Why did you do that, you didn't give me a proper burial. You know you're damning me." So he just invented this whole solution to like fucking gaslight heard it was horrible.
JS: Fucking dick.
AM: It was epic. It was epic, epicly dickish. And so he refuses to go back down to the underworld like, he promised. So Hermes has to go back up and fetch him, bring him down, and then he is damned to his Sisyphean task.
JS: Damn right. Hermes doesn't get up for everyone. Hermes is mad if he has to get up and do shit.
AM: Yeah, no, he's super did. And so returning to my favorite thing, the first recorded usage. So back in 1635, a writer wrote, "I barter size for tears and tears for groans, still vainly rolling Sisyphean stones." which I just thought was a dope rhyme. It was always...
JS: Same, same same.
AM: It was always actually Sisyphean stones was like, the phrase that was used until more recently. So in 1871, was the first recorded usage of Sisyphean on its own without the word, "stone" there. I think you might want to make sure just don't drink your drink right now. Okay?
JS: Okay.
AM: Are you ready? So, J.R. Lowell in, My Study Windows in 1871 had the hilarious phrase, "...the Sisyphean toil of rolling the clammy balls..." Wow.
JS: Oh, buddy! No!
AM: That, having that phrase associated with your name is I think the worst, the worst punishment of all.
JS: Nooooooo...
AM: In more serious news...
JS: Wait, sorry, I want to go back to that poem real quick.
AM: Oh, yeah.
JS: And I just want to make it into a punk rock album so bad.
AM: [inaudible 26:34].
JS: Exactly!
AM: Oh, yeah, no, it's great.
JS: Holy shit! It would be so good.
AM: It's like when, when plays of Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest or something like put Shakespeare's dumb little jingles to like actual music.
JS: His dumb little jingles.
AM: Okay, songs.
JS: Like, he's writing fucking, fucking like, toothpaste ads.
AM: Oh, yeah, I actually just thought of toothpaste which is really funny. But were like serial jingles. Oh 100%. Sisyphus though has also been using symbol for senseless violence or anti-war purposes, which I think makes a lot of sense.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Like, violence for violence's sake it's never going to end it's just going to repeat itself. I thought that was pretty cool. And finally in Plato's Apology, so Plato is, is writing, which I think she's a hilarious name. But Plato was writing about Socrates.
JS: 'Cause Plato's never apologize for shit.
AM: I know!
JS: Plato’s like, "Fuck y’all! I’m out!"
AM: And, and he, yeah, he's definitely like, I don't know, just doing like fanfic about Socrates. RPF about Socrates.
JS: My dad, my dad took some hemlock and now out.
AM: Yeah.
JS: His dad being Socrates.
AM: So anyway, Plato says that Socrates said that he was excited for the afterlife so that he could talk to people like Sisyphus and find out is the quote, "Who is actually wise and who thinks he is when he is not."
JS: Damn!
AM: Sick burn courtesy of Socrates.
JS: Calling him out!
AM: I know. This is a phrase that most people probably know how, how about Oedipal or the Oedipus Complex or the Electra Complex.
JS: You want to fuck your mom/dad.
AM: You want to fuck your parent of the opposite sex? Yes. So, Freud, everyone's favorite, rolls my eyes--
JS: Dum dum dum.
AM: --used Oedipus and this, these phrases to describe and justify his Psychoanalytical Theory that young men may have subconscious sexual desire for their mothers which leads to repression and guilt and emotional and kind of inner personal disturbances if you don't like interrogated in Psychoanalysis. Yeah, same. We grew up in a post-Freud world, and like, Freudian Analysis of literature is mad, boring, you know.
JS: It's dumb. It's just all about penis and vagina, and no one cares.
AM: I know, I know. You like, like, showed that to a middle schooler, they'd be like, "Whoa!" and then they would move on to better things.
JS: Yes.
AM: Yeah. But who was out of it? So this was from Thebes, he managed to solve the riddle from the Sphinx.
JS: Wait, I know the riddle.
AM: Please.
JS: What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?
AM: Man.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Because it's a baby (baby), and then a (man) person, and then they have a cane (old person).
AM: Yep, good job, Sphinx. Sick burn, I get that we mortals are mortal. But Oedipus also killed his father and married his mother so, not great. I think solving that riddle was kind of the peak. So the equivalent for girls is the Electra Complex, which is named for the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra.
JS: Hey, let's talk about the most fucked up couple in Greek mythology.
AM: Hell, yeah.
JS: They're just the worst.
AM: They are. They're just bad.
JS: They just... Agamemnon's like, "I can't get the wind to go. I'm just gonna murder my daughter." Fuck, aight!
AM: That escalated quickly.
JS: Sure.
AM: Well, like Hamlet, Electra plotted revenge against her stepfather for the alleged murder of her actual father, Agamemnon.
JS: Who's her stepfather at the time?
AM: Her stepdad was Aegisthus and her brother, Orestes helped out with this terrible deed and met an unhappy end when Orestes murdered their mom, and then was hounded by the Furies for violating rules of family piety.
JS: I was gonna say, he, I remember he was driven mad by the Furies.
AM: He super was. Electra, I guess got off pretty well.
JS: No, she did okay.
AM: Yeah, and in literature, self-fulfilling prophecies are sometimes called, The Oedipus Effect for ominously, the Electra situation, which I just think is a very cool name for like an all-women metal band.
JS: Right, because in Oedipus there was a whole... there was a whole prophecy that he was going to murder his father and marry his mother.
AM: Exactly.
JS: And then, the father tried to have him murdered.
AM: Yep.
JS: The baby disappeared.
AM: Yep.
JS: He assumed that he was dead. And then...
AM: Super dead.
JS: And then Oedipus just shows up and be like, "Yo! what up? I'm here!"
AM: Yeah.
JS: "I hear you have a Sphinx problem, I'm a solve that for you. I'm a murder your king."
AM: Yup.
JS: "And I'm gonna marry his queen. By the way, that's my mom."
AM: The queen is your mom.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Queen is your mom.
JS: And then he stabbed his eyes out.
AM: Super did.
JS: Yep.
AM: Yep, nope, it's not a great story. And it's also kind of inspired our favorite Shakespeare play, Macbeth.
JS: Yes, it is.
AM: Where they're also like, gotta kill the baby because he's gonna become the king. There's a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is like a, a madwoman.
JS: What baby murder is there?
AM: Well, there's killing Banquo's kids so they can't become king.
JS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: That's true.
AM: And like...
JS: The Fleance flies.
AM: The f-- Fly, Fleance, fly! We have so many in-jokes just because we are the only two people who like, remember these like dumb things from rehearsal one day in 2007.
JS: Remember Joe had a broken foot?
AM: I do!
JS: And so, he would just hobbled on stage with [inaudible 31:22]
AM: In my head, oh, that's so good. Because in my head, I remember fly, Fleance, fly as being someone with like one arm outstretched, limping off-stage--
JS: I can't!
AM: -- and now I remember why.
JS: Yeah, 'cause he was on crutches.
AM: So good. Julia, I have some really good ones for you next.
JS: Okay.
AM: But first, why don't we grab a refill?
JS: Sounds good.
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JS: This week's episode is sponsored by Story Blocks. It is the best place to get high-quality stock images for the fraction of a cost.
AM: And they have this like Triple Play situation going on where they have images, they have video and then they have like vectors and textures and stuff for animators, and it's amazing. They have over 400,000 things in their member library which you get access to, for the super low price of just $149 a year, which is crazy. That's what you would pay for like, one really good stock image or a clip of a video. And you can have like unlimited downloads from that member library as well as discounts on additional marketplace images where artists take home 100% of the sale price.
JS: I mean, there is nothing worse, Amanda than trying to find something really specific and just not be able to find it. But the best part about Story Blocks is that they basically have everything. If you are looking for weird gargling noises if you are looking for an image of, I don't know, a creepy railyard or something. It is easy to find them at Story Blocks.
AM: And I bet they have lots of images relating to the words that we're talking about today since they're so like well known and iconic.
JS: Oh, for sure.
AM: So thank you so much to Story Blocks for sponsoring us this week for... you guys to help show that we appreciate their sponsorship and that you know, it's a, a good tool for independent artists like us, you can head on over to storyblocks.com/spirits to try it free for seven days that's storyblocks.comm/spirits.
JS: And tweet us the best one you can find. If you can find a good video or a weird noise or a weird cool font and texture, we want to know about that.
AM: We are super in. So thank you again to Story Blocks. That's storyblocks.com/spirits, and with that let's get back to the show.
AM: So now, Julia I bring you the good stuff which are words that I had no idea were based in mythology.
JS: Let's do it up!
AM: Cereal. Come at me, bro! Cereal has mythological origins!
JS: Are we talking about the thing you eat or something that is serialized?
AM: The thing you eat. I know!
JS: Oh no, I do know this. It's based off of Ceres who is the Roman form of Demeter?
AM: Yes!
JS: Yeah!
AM: Exactly!
JS: Fuck, yeah!
AM: Exactly. So, uhhh... cereal...
JS: I'm earning fucking credit here for the, for the scholar of the two of us.
AM: I never doubted it. I hope that at least one of these will be a surprise to you. But cereal is in fact derived from the Latin word, "cerealis" meaning of or related to the goddess, agriculture, Ceres.
JS: Yes.
AM: Who was the Roman counterpart to Demeter, also the goddess of harvest, motherhood, fertility in both people, and the world agriculture.
JS: And it makes sense that cereal, which is made out of like wheat and shit.
AM: Exactly.
JS: [inaudible 34:15]
AM: Her name became synonymous with grain and therefore with bread.
JS: There you go.
AM: And it is where we get the agricultural term cereal, which describes I had much fun in the cereal Wikipedia article, figuring out exactly because it's not like a, it's not a genus. It's not like an actual classification.
JS: Nah.
AM: But what it does is describe a class of grasses whose grains are edible. That's what defines a cereal.
JS: Okay.
AM: So wheat, rice, millet, maize, and other ones are cereals. And then there's this really fun classification called a pseudocereal, which are grains that belong to a different plant family but are also consumed like cereals are this is very deep.
JS: Like, [inaudible 34:50] and stuff?
AM: Like, buckwheat, quinoa, and chia
JS: Oh, okay.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Makes sense, makes sense.
AM: So they're not technically cereals, but they are consumed like them.
JS: Interesting!
AM: I know! I thought too. So, talking about those kinds of weird like proto Indo European root words. The name, Ceres or Ceres derives from this kind of root word meaning to satiate or to feed which is also where we get the Latin root for “crescere” which means to grow and therefore the English words create an increase oh these are related to cereal to Ceres.
JS: This is really cute, I really like those.
AM: Yeah, I know! In a completely different tone, venereal disease.
JS: Is that coming from Venus or am I wrong?
AM: It is super coming from Venus--
JS: Yeah!
AM: --Roman version of Aphrodite. Like Aphrodite, Venus was born of seafoam, gross, and is the goddess of love, sex, desire, beauty, fertility, and prosperity.
JS: She's my girl!
AM: Romans also named the best role you could get in there like favorite dice game after her which is pretty cool.
JS: Amazing, very cute.
AM: And apparently, our pretty second planet from the sun.
JS: Yeah. Also, I mean, we've talked, we talked about it in our panel for FlameCon.
AM: Yes.
JS: But Venus, in particular, was portrayed in very different gender-fluid forms.
AM: Exactly.
JS: So, there's a bearded Venus. There is a different Venuses where she is shown with male genitalia. It's just it's she's a really interesting character and I want dive into her--
AM: Yeah.
JS: --more at some point.
AM: Yeah, she has like mixed secondary sex characteristics and in some depictions. So, like breasts and testes or you know, some other kind of mix of stuff.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Which I think it's just pretty dope.
JS: That's super interesting.
AM: Because like, she is, is beauty and desire in all of those bodies.
JS: Yeah, and there's a great, there's certain stories that talk about when you see Aphrodite or see Venus, you see her in the form that you most desire.
AM: Aw!
JS: And there's cute little Tumblr, Tumblr posts about like, like, someone some dude realizing that, that he's gay because he sees Venus as a man.
AM: Oh, adorable.
JS: That's adorable.
AM: I ship it. And so I mean, I said disease but the adjective venereal just means relating to sex.
JS: Checks out.
AM: So, venereal disease, you know, describes diseases, STIs, STDs that in fact the genitalia, and also actually the Latin word for poison, which is, "venenum", from which we get venom is also tied to Venus. Because scholars speculate that because she could manipulate and artificially change people's affections and desires that kind of Cupid style, like changing who a person wants, it was seen as kind of like poisoning their minds poisoning their wills and therefore got associated with poison.
JS: That's really interesting. I would have thought that it would been less about poison and more about like changing chemistry and stuff like that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna step it away from poison and venom and think more about like, yeah, she's just changing your, your brain chemistry so that you like people more.
AM: Absolutely. But you know, the way that language has changed over time, maybe venenum meant something more along those lines before.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But now, it is where we can venom, venomous stuff like that.
JS: Fight me, linguists.
AM: Well, I also had a very good first recorded usage for you. So in 1577, Jay Grange wrote a volume titled Golden Aphroditus and he bemoaned venereall dames and ruffling nymphs.
JS: Yo!
AM: Tag yourself on venereal dames.
JS: Title of my memoirs!
AM: I thought you'd enjoy that. Venereall also has two L's which I just love in like old timey spelling. It's so much fun.
JS: Checks out. Checks out.
AM: Julia, how about the word tantalize?
JS: Tantalize, as in Tantalus? Who was a dude who also much like, fuck, I forgot his name.
AM: Ooh, this is fun to watch.
JS: The ummm... shit! The one we just talked about Sisyphus.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So much like Sisyphus was punished in Hades. But Tantalus was forced under a fruit tree that was just out of his reach.
AM: Yep.
JS: And in a river that was like just up to his waist. So whenever he reached for the tree, the fruit would go out of his reach. And whenever he went to drink from the water, it would just like, lower down.
AM: Yep, that's exactly right, and it's very dark and I never want to use this word casually again. What up?
JS: It's tantalizing.
AM: Yeah, it... tantalize means like torturous, you know?
JS: Yeah.
AM: Like in its original meaning it was quite dark. And even now were like, ooh like the smell those brownies tantalizing, like...
JS: No, no, it's not really like, "Oh, I am going to literally starve because I cannot eat these brownies, it's so tantalizing.
AM: No, no, no, no, no, don't want that. And my final word for you, Julia is, is so interesting and rich and has so many things for us to talk about that I wanted to save it for last. The word is panic.
JS: I do know this one.
AM: And where does it come from?
JS: It comes from the god, Pan.
AM: Who was he?
JS: Pan was the satyr goat god, basically of the forest in the wilderness and whatnot. And the first word used or the supposed origin of the word comes from the Titanomachy, I believe. Where it said that he scared people, he scared the enemies so badly that they went into a pan-ic.
AM: Yep.
JS: He's one of my favorites.
AM: I did wanna see that precise fact--
JS: Okay.
AM: --that is absolutely the idea behind the word origin.
JS: Sure.
AM: I had no idea and it like blew my mind and this is and also another Andrea pick so thank you, Andrea, for this tip. But it exactly this word originally just meant of a relating to Pan. So, he was a kind of domain of the wild shepherds’ flocks of sheep, nature, mountains, wilds, rustic music. And he was a companion to the nymphs [inaudible 40:29] said.
JS: "Companion", quote-unquote.
AM: And also... companion. So, he was also apparently the god of theatrical criticism--
JS: That's amazing.
AM: --and improvisational music.
JS: I did not know that.
AM: So, okay, so let's just unpack this for a second.
JS: So Pan just loves him some jazz.
AM: Which okay, I get it.
JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AM: Like, it's random. The spirit overtakes you, you just jam, like a little jam session.
JS: Or you're just like a cool shepherd like playing music for your sheep--
AM: Yeah.
JS: --and you don't have anything like prepared you're not like me like, and this is wonderful. *music*
AM: Your sheeps are like, "Aahhh."
JS: Baa-ahhh No, so like, improvisational music just like kind of going with the flow and doing whatever.
AM: I dig that.
JS: I'm super into it.
AM: However, theatrical critics?
JS: I know! What is he? [41:10] those Muppets, the old man Muppets that are hanging out?
AM: Yeah.
JS: Making fun of the show.
AM: I know, I-I just I don't know what the tie-in is, except that some theater critics... I mean, I get that, like, we talked about earlier about, you know, Dionysus is tied to the theater, like the spirit. You know, other things taking you over making your body do different things like that I get from the kind of theatrical angle, so maybe some theater critics were like, okay, that but also, I'm mad.
JS: Fair enough.
AM: You know, I don't know.
JS: Someone picked Pan to be like, "Yo! fuck this play!"
AM: And Pan did cause a lot of trouble in many different kinds of stories. My favorite one is where Pan stole all the sinews out of Zeus. Have you heard about this one?
JS: No!
AM: So, he stole all of Zeus' like sinews. So, he's [inaudible 41:56]
JS: So, he just couldn't move?
AM: Yep, and so for a while, Zeus is just a little bucket of flesh, just a little pile of body.
JS: That's horrifying!
AM: It's super horrifying!
JS: I'm just picturing him as the lady who was just skin, The Last Human, Cassandra...
AM: Oh, from Doctor Who?
JS: Yeah.
AM: I was picturing the, the like slime, slimy Pokemon monster like, growl.
JS: Grimer?
AM: Grammar, grammar, grammar?
JS: Grimer.
AM: Grimer. That's, that's much closer.
JS: You, you were like weirdly on Growlithe there for a second, which I'm like, hmmm, not the same.
AM: No, he was a cute fiery little, little cat guy.
JS: He was a dog.
AM: Dog guy.
JS: He's like a dog tiger, that was his thing.
AM: Oh, yeah, cute. The tiger threw me off.
JS: [inaudible 42:34]
AM: But anyway, but Hermes stole back Zeus' sinew. So Hermes just pinch-hitting for all of these myths.
JS: I mean, Hermes was the god of thieves.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, it makes sense that he's just stealing shit back.
AM: Absolutely. Pan later became a significant figure in the like capital R, Romantic Movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And also in the 20th century, Neopagan movement. So what's up, pagans?
JS: What up, pagans? We know you like some Pan!
AM: Hey.
JS: Hey, yo!
AM: I always thought it was so funny that Pan in Spanish means bread. So just like, yep, like love me some bread also love me some, you know, sort of disastrous, I don't know like group activities. So to turn kind of to how we use the word panic. So panic means a sudden wild or unreasoning fear that is a dictionary definition.
JS: Sure.
AM: And in 1603 there was a translation of a, a French language document called, Plutarch Morals.
JS: Okay.
AM: Saying sudden foolish frights without any certain cause, or what they call, "panique terror" or pan terrorist panic. And in 1708, this dude Lord Shaftesbury, it's so weird, it's just like...
JS: That's a good name.
AM: Like, early on, like so few people could, could have access to like making texts, much less reading them.
JS: Yeah.
AM: So we have just like a weird correspondence from rich people who let her still survive.
JS: Lord Shaftesbury.
AM: So anyway... So, this guy, Lord Shaftesbury said, "...the uncertainty of what they feared made their fear yet greater, and this was what an after times man called a panic." which I think is really fascinating. Because like that is a really, I don't know, like truthful take on what anxiety and panic attacks feel like.
JS: Sure.
AM: When your fear is scary, you know, and you're not sure where it comes from, when it sudden when it's unreasonable when you know that your emotional reaction is out of proportion to the thing that it is causing or being caused by. It's actually worse that, that, you know, either that you shouldn't be feeling this bad or that you don't know what's making you feel this way. And for fellow financial history nerds, the great [inaudible 44:35]
JS: You're, you're the only one, my friend, you're the only one.
AM: Shhhhh... and for fellow financial history nerds, the great panics that we talked about when we discuss like recessions and depressions...
JS: Sure.
AM: So, that's when people kind of withdraw cash from banks.
JS: Yeah, they panic and they don't want their money--
AM: Exactly.
JS: --where they can be lost.
AM: They like cause shortages by selling stocks and causing widespread depreciation, but they're called panics because they're unfounded, they're just rumors.
JS: Right.
AM: They're just like emotional feeling and not actual fact about the situation. So those, those are panics and I did not know that they were tied to a, a god of, of shepherds and the wild.
JS: Yeah, all of these were so good. I was really excited that I knew almost all of them.
AM: You did.
JS: I was very, very pleased with myself and--
AM: I...
JS: --it was, it was the ego boost that was a perfect Christmas gift from you.
AM: Well I'm glad that you didn't have to do research I'm glad that you feel good about yourself truly those are the two things that I want is for you to relax and feel nice.
JS: Oh, I love that.
AM: So I hope enjoyed your Christmas present!
JS: I did! It was excellent 10 out of 10 would Christmas again.
AM: I am, however, out of words to discuss in this context. So conspirators and shout out to Todd for coming up with that name.
JS: So good!
AM: We love it so much.
JS: We're using it from now.
AM: Conspirators if you know of names that have mythological origins or adjectives, nouns like words of any stripe or if in your language that is different to English, there are similar examples please let us know you can email us at spiritspodcast.com, or tweet us or Facebook us or Tumblr us.
JS: Yes.
AM: We would love to hear it.
JS: Do all of those things.
AM: All the things.
JS: I feel like I should promo our Facebook group.
AM: Yeah!
JS: Because it is a private group. We have some really interesting discussions. There's a lot of cool, cool memes that are posted and I want to see it more active.
AM: I know!
JS: Because I want to hear all of your cool stories and stuff.
AM: Yeah, like you can share your hometown stories in real-time.
JS: Yeah.
AM: And have people comment on it. Shout out to Beth who's been posting some really cool articles.
JS: Beth, you're killing it!
AM: Beth is finding like the best creepiest, coolest stuff across the internet and sharing it with our group. So if you just search for Spirits Podcast on Facebook, you'll be able to find the group or it's at facebook.com/groups/SpiritsPodcast.
JS: You should totally check it out though.
AM: Yeah.
JS: It's super cool.
AM: We would love to hang out with you during our winter break, which is not actually a break from the podcast just like a few days where we wear pajamas and hang out around the house.
JS: I wish.
AM: I know, Julia is yawning, she's so excited for that time off. But hang out with us, play with us in the space.
JS: We want to play with you in the space.
AM: Play with me. And conspirators. We will be seen you in the New Year. But in the meantime...
JS: Stay creepy.
AM: Stay cool.
Outro Music
AM: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allison Wakeman.
JS: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram, @SpiritsPodcast. We also have all our episodes, collaborations, and guest appearances plus merch on our website, SpiritsPodcast.com.
AM: Come on over to our Patreon page, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind the scenes stuff, throw us as little as $1 and get access to audio extras, recipe cards, directors commentaries, and Patreon-only live streams.
JS: And hey, if you liked the show, please share us with your friends. That is the best way to help us keep on growing.
AM: Thank you so much for listening, 'til next time.
Transcriptionist: Krizia Marrie Casil