Episode 367: Hanukkah & Round and Round (with Eric Silver)
/A time loop Hallmark Hanukkah movie? Do we really need to say more? We do, we say more for like an hour, joined by senior Jewish correspondent Eric Silver to discuss the new movie, Round & Round!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of anti-semitism, house fires, war, animal sacrifice, religious persecution, sex, ableism, and racism.
Guest
Eric Silver is the Head of Creative at Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio in Brooklyn. He’s produced 11 podcasts that have racked up tens of millions of downloads, and developed many more, characterized by strong, original structures and thriving communities. He is also a writer, game designer, and teacher. Catch him every week on the actual play TTRPG show Join the Party, the games advice podcast Games and Feelings, and the madcap game show about your favorite things, Tell Me About It.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends JFREJ!
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at https://spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out Multitude’s newest member show, Big Game Hunger!
Sponsors
- BetterHelp is an online therapy service. Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/spirits
- Shaker & Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make hand-crafted cocktails right at home. Get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool
- Volante Design, makers of some of the most badass clothing there is. Get 10% off your order with code spirits at https://volantedesign.us
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: https://spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: https://spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: https://spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
- Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/group/show/205387
Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story or movie from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And hey, we watched a Hallmark movie this week.
AMANDA: Yay! Who— who is responsible for us watching Hallmark movies and celebrating Jewish holidays and folklore?
JULIA: Not me.
ERIC: It's me! I've been here the whole time.
JULIA: Was that a smoke bomb?
AMANDA: It's Eric Silver, our Hanukkah correspondent, our Jewish mythology correspondent since 2016, and my husband since— what year is it? 2022.
ERIC: 2023, it was last year.
AMANDA: Well, you're— since 2022, which was last year.
ERIC: Oh, it was 2022. I'm stuck at a time loop.
AMANDA: Woo!
ERIC: Time doesn't mean anything. Which is why I think a time loop movie is so resonant now, isn't it?
JULIA: I suppose so.
AMANDA: Today, we have for you not only a Hanukkah Hallmark movie that Eric found, promptly sent to me and Julia, and said, "Can we do this on Spirit, please?" But also a surprisingly really good movie that I could totally see myself watching again.
JULIA: I want to say Hallmark has put out two years in a row, very good Hanukkah Hallmark movies.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: We had Hanukkah on Rye last year with Jeremy Jordan, wonderful. And now we have Round and Round.
AMANDA: I found lots of things to enjoy in Hanukkah on Rye, but Round and Round is genuinely a really good holiday movie, Hallmark movie, sort of like self-discovery via rom-com. It feels like the books I love to read. Like, I was— I was ready to cover this as a kitschy, you know, like Hanukkah answer to the Christmas movie, but it was dope as hell.
JULIA: No. I was talking to Jake too, and we watch a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies, holiday movies, et cetera. And I was saying to him, I'm like, " Vic Michaelis does a better job than any other lead in a Hallmark movie."
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: I want more of what Vic is providing. Now Vic uses, they/them pronouns, but the character that they are playing is a woman. So we're just going to, you know— in general, when talking about the characters—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —she/her.
ERIC: Honestly, I like this because I think it was kind of a— it pulled the two things together, that we've covered. Hanukkah on Rye was a Jewish Hallmark movie.
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: It was a Hallmark movie, and they threw so much Yiddish at it, and it just was a romance, right?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: It was loosely based on Fiddler but, you know—
AMANDA: What is it?
ERIC: Aren't we all? Well, on the other one, the— the— the Jewish Golem movie was not—
JULIA: Oh, yes.
ERIC: — a Krimsmas movie, but it was another gesture at it. Which, again, was it— we discussed this. How Jewish is it? We— is this more Pygmalion than it is anything else? Which we—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —decided it was, which is fine. So I think they really learned and did the Hanukkah Hallmark movie in a very, very good way, which was really, really impressive. And it wasn't reskin to [3:20] which I thought was really great, and I had to give my— tip my hat to it. They're like— this felt very Jewish, even though the Jews control Hollywood, I thought that it was still impressive.
AMANDA: So we have a lot to talk about today. We are going to go over, of course, the plot of the movie. We're gonna go over the plot of Hanukkah, which we have not so far covered on the show. We can't do better than the Rugrats did in the 90s—
ERIC: True, true.
AMANDA: —but you know, we'll— we'll give it a go. And then we're also going to talk a bunch about time loops and time travel and Jewish cosmology, which is a really big part of this movie and something I was pretty astonished actually to see explored in such depth in a tight '90 Hallmark movie. So, Julia, would you lead us off with a plot recap of what happens in Round and Round?
JULIA: Oh, boy. Yes, I will. Hold on, let me just— I gotta pull up the IMDB so I can remember all of the characters names.
AMANDA: There has to be a Rachel and Shoshana, but apart from that, who knows?
ERIC: Was Vic's characters named Rachel? I— I just assumed it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Okay.
AMANDA: I did the same thing. I— I double-checked.
ERIC: Can I say the name of the lead in the Pygmalion Golem one? Also named Rachel.
AMANDA: There has to be a [4:25] Rachel.
JULIA: So the movie starts with Rachel telling the story of how her parents met and how they met at a Hanukkah party mixer, where the mom was the DJ—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —and the dad was a big nerd. And they ended up talking all night and then getting pastries at Goldberg's bakery. Rachel is then tasked for having to pick up— now, I— I say doughnuts, what is the correct term for it?
ERIC: It is doughnuts, and godspeed to the people who had to say sufganiyot so many times.
JULIA: No one said it correctly the whole movie, right?
ERIC: It's Hebrew, so it's phonetic like that. And it kind of just goes forward, sufganiyot.
JULIA: Okay. So Rachel wakes up on the seventh night of Hanukkah— or seventh day, I guess, but celebrating seventh night of Hanukkah, and has been tasked by her parents to pick those up. And then has to go to New Jersey where her parents are selling her childhood home, and she's not happy about that.
ERIC: Stuck in a time loop in New Jersey, what is this, my nightmares?
JULIA: Sounds about right, right? And so she's kind of dealing with all this stuff about, like, her own childhood trauma and her parents selling the house and stuff like that, and reminiscing. And finds out after receiving a dreidel from her Grandma Rosie, I want to say.
ERIC: Correct, yeah.
JULIA: That she is now stuck in a time loop after also meeting this guy who bumped into her and destroys all of the doughnuts. And Jake lit— literally gasped out loud the first time it happened on screen.
AMANDA: Yeah. What a sweetheart.
JULIA: He said, "No."
ERIC: This is why the movie is good. What you do— you— Julia just laid out the stakes, actual stakes, not fake, "Oh, no. I'm a businesswoman, and then I need Santa to romance me. And now, I'm good." But like actual rom-com-level stakes.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: I was comparing this to the beginning of Devil Wears Prada a little bit in my head, or like a modern— one of those modern rom-coms that came out more— more recently, where it's like, "My life is bad, but I can't tell anyone because I'm a millennial, and I need to pretend that my life is good."
AMANDA: Yeah. And what I love about—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —romance as a genre where it is— it is always about something besides the romance. It is always about self-discovery, about priorities, about family, about your ambitions. Like, none of that can be experienced separate to, you know, who you spend your life with, if you'd make that choice. So it— it was really, really good to have like— you know, she works in a publishing house. She wakes up like with the bed covered in manuscripts from her, like, editor who, like, dumped it on her last minute. Like, there's a lot going on in Rachel's life, that isn't just— she has a shitty boyfriend named Adam, who sucks.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, I was about to point out that despite this being, like, not a traditional Hallmark movie, they do have the classic Hallmark trope of wrong boyfriend—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: —which is always my favorite Hallmark holiday movie trope.
ERIC: He's a real drip though, which we find out later, it's so funny.
AMANDA: It is so funny.
ERIC: It's so funny.
AMANDA: And I love that it goes from Adam—
JULIA: It's so terrible.
AMANDA: —to Zach because the man who knocked into the train station is Zach.
JULIA: It was the—
ERIC: Oh.
JULIA: So she kind of recruits Zach, who's a big nerd. We discovered he plays Dungeons and Dragons.
AMANDA: Never heard of it.
JULIA: He LARPs. He has a friend who owns a comic bookstore. He's a big nerd, but she kind of recruits him into helping her figure out what's going on with the time loop and how to escape it.
ERIC: Another thing that I really liked about this in terms of the time loop, dramatic irony and all, we know that the dreidel is obviously the thing creating the time loop, but I kind of like that the—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: So the big— a big part of this is that a fire goes off in the house, so then everyone's distracted and no one actually knows that the dreidel is— is doing the thing. So there really is even— the— the trigger of the time loop is a really big deal throughout the movie. Also, goddamn, the time loop starts at 19 minutes in, good job, everyone. Good job expositioning, everybody.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah, they really were like, "Listen, we're gonna figure out this time loop thing." And they only really go through, like, the full-time loop twice, and then we get kind of montage-y about it.
ERIC: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Which, again, I realized this is a tight 90 minutes, but I was like, "Damn, we like only did two. Okay. Let's just do it."
ERIC: I said the same thing, but then I'm— then I'm like, "Oh, y'all did that on purpose, you—you fuckers."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: So smart. They're littering so mu— in those 90 minutes, they're littering so much stuff that all gets paid off in the rest of the movie, which I think is so, so impressive.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like, I just want to— go watch this movie. Please go watch this movie.
JULIA: This is genuinely a good movie.
ERIC: I want to talk about this so bad, and I want to spoil it, but, like, stop the podcast, go to Peacock, watch the movie. But I— I really do want to talk about it and I want to start spoiling it because it's so— it's actually well put together and might have better cosmology and better magic rules than, like, a lot of fantasy novels out there at the moment.
JULIA: Yeah. So spoilers ahead, if you want to enjoy the movie, sit down and watch it, and then continue on with this episode.
ERIC: Uh, Bran, can you put in the cousins chanting shin, shin, shin here as— as the spoiler alert warning?
AMANDA: Oh, incredible. So we are absolutely going to get from here into details of the movie, the time loop, how they set up all the stakes. But first, Eric, would you please take a stab at recapping the holiday of Hanukkah? What is it? Why do we celebrate it and how big of a deal is it for Jews?
JULIA: And who are the Maccabees, Eric?
AMANDA: Maccababies, Julia, excuse you.
ERIC: Or if we're talking about Full-Court Miracle, the Disney Channel original movie, it is the Yeshiva boys basketball team that played with a— with a washed-out NBA player.
AMANDA: Yup.
JULIA: Wow.
ERIC: Okay. So the thing you need to know about Hanukkah is that it's a minor holiday. It's gotten a lot of play because America decided that Christmas is the end-all and be all of the entire calendar. So Hanukkah by being a similar holiday that puts up lights in the darkness and has some sort of present exchange, either— it wasn't always, but you know, they align it with Christmas, blah, blah, blah.
JULIA: Well, how else would that little kid get that slime, Eric?
ERIC: That's a very good—
AMANDA: I love slime.
ERIC: That's a very good point. They— the Jews in the tenements, in the Lower East Side of the turn of the century is like, "I want slime, but Christians get slime." So— so the thing you have to— the reason why it's minor, I think is also its, quote-unquote "more modern history" as it turns with the Jews. The thing you have to know about Jews is that we've been around for a very long time, and therefore, there's been a lot of like kings and empires and— and stuff happening in the middle. So what we understand of modern Jewry is after the big temple, which is in modern-day Jerusalem. There was one big temple, and then that got destroyed. And then there's another big temple, and that got destroyed. And then the diaspora happened, and that's why Jews are everywhere. Judaism kind of reformed after the second temple was destroyed. And then it's called, like, the Rabbinical Period, where, like, there was a lot of animal sacrifice and stuff in Judaism before because there was a big temple and we did stuff at the big temple. But now it's like a lot of the prayers and the— you know, to fill in— in the morning prayers and the Shabbat prayers, a lot of that stuff is— is from the religion coming together in like— we— I don't say BC and AD, but kind of around that, you know?
AMANDA: Several 100 years before 0 CE.
ERIC: Yeah. Right. I mean, because, like, Jesus was Jewish, and he was a— he was a guy who was thinking about this stuff, and then he started his own religion by dying, and then coming back, which is pretty cool of him.
JULIA: And also, like, leading a extremely strong, like, apocalyptic Judaism sect and cults that then developed into what we understand to be modern [12:01] yeah.
ERIC: What a cool dude. What— what a cool dude. So the story of— of Hanukkah is about something that happened in that weird period when— during the diaspora when Jews were living under the rule— oh, God, I can't remember exactly. It doesn't really matter who the Empire was, but there was—
AMANDA: One of many times that an empire was like crushed, crushed, and Jews were like, "Damn." And then later had a small victory and were like, "Yeah."
ERIC: Yeah. Like Purim is like this, too, if you've heard of that story, where it's like the whole thing with Queen Esther and the King Ahasuerus and stuff. Like they— it's all that kind of— that time period. But this was another one where the Maccabees were a group of Jewish rebels, led by Judah Maccabee who basically fought off against— you know, if you could imagine one of those empires that used elephants as a weapon. If you're playing—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —Civilization VI and you get to use the guys riding on elephants as a— as a special character, one of those empires. Ja— they were in, like, the caves and they did guerrilla warfare, and they basically didn't get eradicated by the empire that was on top of them. And they had some sort of temple that they were using at the time, but it got all— it got all fucked up. And there was a Menorah— what we understand to be a Menorah. There's something called a Hanukkiah, which was lit, which is like kind of the eternal flame that is in most temples now. But it had a certain number of arms on it, which is why Menorahs have a certain number of arms. They're a little bit different. It doesn't matter, it's complicated. The point is, they used to light it using oil, and you would have to switch it out every day before the— before the flame went—went away, right? But there was only one cup of oil, one— that could last for one day. And they were like, "Oh, beans. I guess we gotta light it because we got to keep the flame going." And then they came back the next day, and the flame was still there. And they're like, "Oh, that's pretty cool."
JULIA: Whoa.
ERIC: "I really gotta go get some oil, though. I hope this continues." And they came back the next day and the flame was still going.
JULIA: Whoa.
ERIC: And the flame was lit for eight whole days. And that's why we—
JULIA: Whoa.
ERIC: —celebrate Hanukkah, because a great miracle happened here, which was the Jew— which is what is on the dreidel. The miracle was we survived and the flame was going.
AMANDA: Thank you.
ERIC: There's a— there's a joke where it's like the Jewish holidays can be categorized into like people tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat. And maybe there's some like God magic sprinkled in there as well. And this is like that— explicitly that. And sometimes the trees are involved. This time, the trees aren't involved. Like 30%
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —of Jewish holidays are about the trees.
AMANDA: The trees are sleeping right now.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this one is like, "Hey, we did it." And then God sprinkled some magic on it, and here we go.
AMANDA: Extraordinary.
JULIA: The irony of this being a non-tree holiday when we've adopted, you know, Christmas trees as a Christian holiday for December is very funny to me.
AMANDA: We'll get to the tree holidays in 2024. Don't worry.
ERIC: Are you— you're gonna do Tree Holiday?
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: Oh, hell yeah.
JULIA: Get ready.
ERIC: There's an entire Jewish holiday where you just go for a picnic. It's pretty tight.
AMANDA: Yeah, nuts.
ERIC: It's very cool.
AMANDA: It's awesome. So with those themes of Hanukkah laid out, thank you so much, Eric. We talked about, you know, The Light in the Darkness. We've talked anthropology on Spirits before about, you know, "Hey, this is a time in the Northern Hemisphere where it's very useful to have something to look forward to." To have a— have literal lights and think about the light and what's coming next. But there's also a lot to talk about here about the broader themes, like I was describing. So why don't we go through some of the bits of the movie, the things that we really enjoyed, and then we'll transition into some of the broader themes and stuff that made us think about, and how this sits in the genre of the time loop movie as a sci-fi genre.
ERIC: Themes, themes, themes.
ERIC and JULIA: Theme, theme, theme, theme, theme.
ERIC: Theme, theme, themes,
JULIA: That's a hard thing to chant.
ERIC: So is shin, I'll tell you that much.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Hey, I have a lot to say about the— the actors in this movie. Everything's incredible. Vic is so funny. They aren't improviser, they are Canadian. Shout-out to Canadians out there, and just did an incredible job like representing the humor and Rachel's self-seriousness. Like, it just— it was so funny. I laughed out loud so much and their chemistry with Zach, really strong. The actor who played Zach, I counted him as a discount Eric. But, hey, it did not make me.
ERIC: Stop, stop.
AMANDA: I was into it. I liked it.
JULIA: Brian Greenberg, shout-out.
AMANDA: And an old fave for all the Suits heads out there, Rick Hoffman has become the discount Stanley Tucci as Eric and I shouted out.
ERIC: He was discount. He was on sale Stanley Tucci.
Amanda: Yeah.
ERIC: And I want those deals, baby.
AMANDA: Shaved head, apron—
JULIA: Looked exactly like him from behind. I was like, "Did they get Stanley Tucci for this?" And then you turned around.
AMANDA: Yes. This is the exact same thing.
ERIC: You know, he's dressed exactly like Stanley Tucci in Easy A.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: The energy is the same too.
AMANDA: Yeah, the same kind of like, you know, fancy suburban kitchen. But this is a really interesting subplot that is relatable to me as a millennial of your parents downsizing or like Zach's, you know, divorce, there's nowhere to go home to for the holidays. Because like Julia mentioned in her recap, you know, Rachel's dealing with some feelings around this holiday that she cares a lot about. She's the baby of the family, her sister, who's a sick lesbian, and her great partner Bex, and their— their child is like the first grandchild taking over the things that Rachel used to do at the holidays. So I thought that was really like empathetic, and problems that, I don't know, might otherwise be dismissed as minor or not a huge deal. But things I've related to, like forging a new relationship with your cousins who may or may not adopt a Madonna accent after moving to London.
ERIC: Oh, God.
AMANDA: Figuring out new traditions, your place in a new version of your family, things like that.
JULIA: I found Rachel's journey, in particular, too close to home almost. Like, I'm in this—
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —picture, and I do not like it, in terms of, like, where she was like, "Yeah, you know, like, I wanted to be a writer, but I got into publishing instead. And like, don't look at my YA novel that I wrote in college because I can't take criticism." I'm like, "Girl, same." It's a hard same.
ERIC: I really liked that also, because it went from like, "Oh, just this stupid YA novel I was doing." To like, "Oh, I— I've been working on it for multiple years." And then her mom is like, "Oh, my God, you're writing. Good. I'm glad. You're a shell of yourself."
AMANDA: It really escalated.
JULIA: Or like the cousin saying like, "Oh, well, you telling stories to us as children is what inspired me to get into publishing—"
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "—in the first place."
AMANDA: And then actual tears.
JULIA: She's like, "Wait, what? What?"
AMANDA: Yeah, so good.
JULIA: There was a lot of payoff for something that could have just been a very like, "Oh, yeah. I'm a writer." In a very, like, Hallmark-y way, where like, their job ends up being kind of fake and they end up like in their small town— you know, et cetera, et cetera. In the classic Hallmark Christmas movie style, but this was so much better and more realistic. And the minute they, like, gave her a job, I'm like, "Ah, yeah, the Hallmark like, "Oh, she's the [18:31] kind of thing."
AMANDA: We get it, publishing, yeah.
JULIA: But, no, it was like legitimately from a good place, and it went into a good direction, which is saying something for a Hallmark movie.
ERIC: I mean, eve— a lot of the main characters had the same conflict, which is people—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —put their life on hold because they are trying to do the thing that they're supposed to do. I mean, Rachel was doing that, Zach certainly did that. The not British cousin certainly did that. And then we had, like, Zach's weird nerd friends—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —who had a comic bookstore. They explicitly said they never make any money, but how happy are these guys?
AMANDA: So happy.
ERIC: They are the ones— when Rachel has to, like, convince Zach that she's in a time loop, he's suspicious, but his friends are down immediately. And they are the ones who are the most helpful, especially, spoiler alert, Zach's friend hooks up with the hot cousin. Good for him.
JULIA: Good for Seth. He deserved that.
AMANDA: Always got to be named Seth if you own a comic book store, apparently.
JULIA: Of course, naturally.
ERIC: The funniest part about that was when he was like, "Oh, man, she's watched all the Marvel movies, even the TV shows." I'm like, "Yeah, she— is she a ringer podcast? Like that's wild."
JULIA: Yeah. The fact that they started debating like Wanda Vision, I was like, "Oh."
ERIC: I was like, "You [19:41] a bad opinion." That like you are be— that you say just because she's a woman, it's a meditation on grief. I'm like, "It is a meditation on grief. You just jump— you jump to conclusion."
AMANDA: Some women meditate on grief, okay?
ERIC: Let women meditate on grief. Women be meditating.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I also brag on Eric's behalf, that moments before it was revealed that Rachel was working on a YA fantasy novel. He said, "Oh, that's a YA fantasy novel." And it was.
JULIA: Absolutely nailed it.
AMANDA: We also have the incredible character of Grandma Rosie, and I'll admit, I was a little bit worried. There were, like, two moments in this movie, I was a little bit worried. The— the first is the recreation of how Rachel's parents got together. They are very sweet and very in love.
ERIC: I don't know if you two know this from— being from the other side of Long Island. You're the Catholic side of Long Island and me being from the Jewish side of Long Island. Apparently, in the '80s and '90s, I think that this is also tied to the larger themes when, like, our parents were finally allowed to, like, follow their dreams because they were late baby boomers, early Gen X, and could, like, make choices about who they wanted to marry.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: For example, my grandma married the guy in— who lived in her building in the Bronx when she moved here, which again, beautiful love story, but it was also like, "Oh, you're here. Good."
AMANDA: You speak Yiddish? Great.
ERIC: Yeah. But it was very much like a time when Jews could like do— start to do their own thing, and that's why there were so many Jewish mixers happening in the '80s and '90s. The matzah ball is a thing. Things like this happened all of the time. So— and it was very much a thing your parents did.
JULIA: Rachel makes a point of saying that's how she met her bad boyfriend, Adam, was at a— a Jewish mixer and was like, "Oh, this must be kismet because that's how my parents met."
ERIC: Right. Exactly. It's like a thing that worked for you, I think it's supposed to work for me, but it doesn't. It's like— instead of this being the only social event of the season— or the important social event of the season, now it's like who are the types of people who are going to this type of event instead of like, I don't know, the various other things that you can do to find dates and find your soulmate now.
JULIA: When you live in Brooklyn.
ERIC: Yeah. And again, I also love that Adam was 34. I was—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: —like, "Oh, man, we're really finally"— we're— this is a millennial problem. We're aging everyone up a little bit.
AMANDA: Yeah. No, I'm— I'm strictly there. You know, to that point, I was a little worried during the campiness of the reenactment, but that's not the tone of the whole movie. And secondly, I was a touch concern when we met Rachel's mom who immediately is like, "Oh, don't forget. Are you coming? Are you bringing a date? Send me the group text, the email." There's this trope of like the meddling Jewish mother that, you know, to the extent that it's relatable and real, you think it's fun, but I think it can tip over into, like, being reductive. Especially, you know, for moms, like conflating a grown woman's identity with just being like a meddling Jewish mom. But that's— that's not what happened here. Grandma Rosie absolutely slaps.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: She keeps her keys in her bra. She says, "What's wrong with comparison shopping? Is that against the law?"
ERIC: So funny.
AMANDA: She is— she is amazing, and obviously, we're hurtling toward the end of the movie, where, you know, we get into the fact that people knew a lot more than we thought they did at the beginning. So I was really pleased to see the, like, interiority, and complexity of truly every character represented here, but especially the, like, matriarch figures.
ERIC: And Vic did a very good job of using the absolute insanity that they bring to their dropout stuff, which is why a lot of people know. Know them, we've seen them—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —do a lot of really great work out, and make some noise, so we know that they can get very unhinged. Brought a level to this that was papering over the fact, I think Rachel's a fuckup. I think that Rachel has to pick up the doughnuts because that's the only thing Rachel can be— given responsibility for, and like it's a small task but an important task. But like if you also fuck it up, it's fine. That's why there is a group chat—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —being like, "We're in planning without Rachel." That's why Rachel didn't know about the Hanukkah party being at the lesbian sister's house next year.
AMANDA: Shoshana, Eric. The other Jewish name.
ERIC: Shoshana and Bex's—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: —house next year, like that's— I was like, "Oh, I can tell this isn't like girl trying to have it all. This is like this—"
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: "—30-something ca— has not gotten her life together and her family knows it." Which I thought was really great.
JULIA: She's like the eternal baby almost, you know? Like she's clearly the youngest of the family and therefore they're like treating her with kid gloves, it seems like, for the whole movie.
ERIC: And that's why Vic is like, "No, I'm— everything's going great. Everything is so great. I don't know what you're talking about."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: Which I thought was really, really good writing and acting.
AMANDA: Vic was really bringing like this is my fourth espresso of the day. And if I stop talking, I'll fall asleep energy in the best possible way.
ERIC: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: We're— we're complementing the writing a lot and the story structure of the entire film. Do you want to hear what the person who wrote this previously worked on?
AMANDA: I would, Julia. I did this research as well. Let's— let's surprise Eric with it. Let's—let's tag team on facts about Tamar Laddy.
ERIC: Like, I feel like The— The Price Is Right music is playing while you're saying this.
AMANDA: Yes. Julia is gonna say this and you're gonna be like, "That is the Venn diagram of Tamar Laddy."
ERIC: Okay, okay.
JULIA: Now, Tamar Laddy has written another Hallmark holiday movie—
ERIC: Hmm.
JULIA: —called Crashing Through the Snow. About crashing various family members' Christmas parties.
ERIC: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: And it is quote, "A love letter to my in-laws and their Christmas traditions." So she is Jewish woman married to a Christian guy.
ERIC: Okay.
JULIA: The other thing that Tamar Laddy has written is several episodes of Pretty Little Liars.
AMANDA: And don't worry, guys, a great deal of General Hospital.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Specifically the night shift of General Hospital too—
AMANDA: Yup.
JULIA: —which is very funny.
ERIC: You gotta pay off these things earlier in the episode, or how are we going to know who the Pretty Little Liars are?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I know. It's— it's incredibly good. She went to Princeton, graduated in 1994, and they gave her a glowing write-up in their alumni newsletter.
JULIA: Also two episodes of her to Dixie.
AMANDA: There you go.
JULIA: Pretty good.
AMANDA: This feels to me a genre of entertainment— or not even a genre, maybe a trope, or category of like the thing the person's thought about writing and wanted to get made for a long time. This— this really felt like this. I'm fully projecting onto Tamar's life, but that's— that's what I'm thinking.
JULIA: She's been in the industry for a while, so this is like finally— it's— it's all coming together.
AMANDA: Exactly. The first Hallmark one had to be about Christmas, but now they— they— she gets a slide and one about Hanukkah, and not even titled after latkes. It's titled after the other Hanukkah food.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: So no, I was— I was very excited, and there's lots to get into around the twist and the themes, real feelings, I got out of this. But first of all, let's go grab a quick refill.
JULIA: Let's do it.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hello, hello, it's Amanda. Oh, isn't this episode so warm, so much fun, and so much light in the darkness? I am really enjoying it, and I hope that everybody who celebrates Hanukkah had a very happy one. And that anyone who celebrates Christmas is looking forward to that season coming up. And those who don't celebrate either, I hope you carve out some space for self-care for yourself in a world that really demands you celebrate Christmas at minimum. Welcome, of course, to our newest patrons, Marisa and Chloe. I love both of your names, actually, and I'm very grateful that you joined us. Thank you so much especially this time of year for carving out some space in your budget each month to support independent content creation that you presumably value. We really appreciate it. Thank you also to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. You can join these distinguished ranks and get all kinds of benefits like recipe cards, episode extras, and incredibly ad-free episodes at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Now this week, I would like to bring your attention to an organization that has really helped me in exploring my Judaism as a political practice, as well as a, you know, faith system. They are the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, jfrej.org. And they're New York-based, and they're really a home for New Yorkers to organize with our neighbors and allies to help transform New York into a place that is free from racist violence of all kinds. They do things like provide solidarity and safety training to people when, for example, there, you know, are other protests for allied groups. They do all kinds of demonstrations and bringing, I think, a really valuable sense of what Judaism expects us to do in the face of inequality and oppression, and I really like it. So if you want to learn more about what Jewish activism can look like, go to jfrej.org. All kinds of good stuff going on Multitude these days. We are not slowing down for the holidays, no, no. And you should enjoy a game show that I was recommending up and down, and all over the place to folks the other weekend at PAX Unplugged, it's Big Game Hunger. This is, of course, our weekly comedy show where Jenna Stoeber and friends craft the next big video game each episode. They use a randomly generated genre concept and vibe, and then Jenna and a variety of funny game-obsessed guests take those ideas to such an extreme that they're ready to pitch it to a shadowy like Shark Tank-style board of rich investors. Guys, it's so good. I love it. It makes me laugh. It— it brings me a break. I learned something about the games industry as well each time. Incredible. So look up Big Game Hunger in your podcast app, or go to biggamehunger.com. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now it is a wild time of year, and this year, in particular, I've had to do a lot of kind of rethinking and renegotiating with my loved ones. What my sort of holiday schedule looks like, you know, people going through different times and circumstances and what kind of gifts we expect from each other, we're prepared to give. And it's actually been really nice to talk to my parents, siblings, grandparents, friends about like, "Hey, this is what I would love to do or focus on. Let's focus on experiences. Let's do a gift swap, you know, where we buy for one other person instead of, like, five or six, et cetera. Let's focus on cards, which is quality time." Whether or not your family gives gifts during the holidays, this is a good moment to kind of slow down and focus on what you are giving to yourself and how you can give yourself a little more space, grace, sweetness, time. Can you tell I'm taking a lot of yoga right now? And one of the ways I do that is through therapy. My therapist is on vacation right now, and it's always a bit of a bummer when I don't have that kind of moment, that hour during the week to slow down, or focus on somebody who's not there to judge me or need things from me but just to kind of ask me and try to help me, kind of how I'm feeling. So if you are thinking about starting therapy, if you are looking for something that can be convenient, and flexible, and online, suited to your schedule, at this time of year, it is really helpful to know about BetterHelp. So in this season of giving, give yourself what you need with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits We are also sponsored this week by the absolutely incredible Volante Design. Now, they are so cool that looking at their Instagram and their website simply makes me happy. Now, Volante makes high-quality handmade jackets, and clothing, and gear that, in their words, bring main character energy to your everyday life. Now, they have official licenses from series like [31:15] Assassin's Creed, Star Trek, Devil May Cry, and so many very cool just like highly stylish original collections that you would imagine, you know, seeing someone in, like walking the floor of a convention or maybe just looking really cool at the mall. They are ethically sourced and manufactured. They are high quality, they'll last you for years to come. People in the Multitude Discord are like, "Uh, yeah. I saved up for a Volante jacket and, like, I'm still loving it years later." So go to volantedesign.us, and use code Spirits for 10% off your order. That's a huge deal, especially for a fellow small business to offer. That's code Spirits, all one word for 10% off your entire order. volantedesign.us. And finally, we are sponsored by Shaker & Spoon. Now, I have a couple friends who are so cool and who love home mixology. They also have two one-year-olds, and they are very busy and don't get out as often as they used to. But I thought that a really fun thing to get them for the holidays would be a three-month subscription to Shaker & Spoon. So I went ahead, and I ordered it, and I use code Spirits for 20 bucks off my first box. Because I love them and I want them to be able to make excellent cocktails made by world-class mixologists at home. It also means that they can use up an entire bottle of that month's spirit and make three different cocktails, four drinks of each. So two rounds of three cocktails, that's a lot of drinks. And then you can make an incredible 12 drinks at home, plus the cost of the bottle, 40-50 bucks for the box. It's cost-effective, it's exciting. They can do it at home while the kids are napping, not to pay for child care, all of that. So if you're looking to give a great gift, maybe to get a great gift for yourself, or maybe to bring a box to wherever you are spending the holidays, do it with Shaker & Spoon. They're the best. We love them. Go to shakerandspoon.com/spirits to get $20 off your first box. That's shakerandspoon.com/spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
[theme]
AMANDA: Eric, we are back from the refill. I live with you, so I'm gonna pretend not to know, but what you've been drinking lately? What do you want to enjoy? What do you want to crack open, having a cold one, alcoholic or not, as you are enjoying your holiday movies?
JULIA: Eric, would you like a non-alcoholic Roy Rogers and then act like you're drunk after drinking two of them?
ERIC: That was so funny.
JULIA: Or—
AMANDA: So good.
JULIA: —would you like to be that one guy in the background, that scene, that was— clearly, it was nighttime but was drinking a Bloody Mary?
ERIC: I was like, "Why does that guy have a celery in his cup?"
AMANDA: A nighttime Bloody Mary, I mean, that's—that's a move.
JULIA: It's a bold move.
ERIC: I am drinking a nighttime Bloody Mary right now. That's exactly what I'm drinking. No rules, just right. I have a latke inside of it.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
ERIC: I— it's perched on its rim—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: —like an orange slice on a blue moon.
AMANDA: Or a slider, at a brunch.
ERIC: And I also have a slider in it as well to get me— to make sure I have some protein.
AMANDA: Ooh, a slider latke bun.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Hmm.
ERIC: I don't know if this was like a Hallmark thing, but just like how much sugar affected people in this— in this movie? It was very funny.
JULIA: So it's rated G—
ERIC: Oh, sure.
JULIA: —so they can't talk about actually drinking alcohol. They make a lot of, like, cute, little references to stuff that they would not have normally been able to get away with.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Like they're like, "Oh, does anything happen between us? Like, do we light the candles?" Yes, of course. Like that kind of thing. Like—
ERIC: Tamar did such a good job of writing it, it was like, "I'm at my family's Hanukkah party, we're not gonna go bone, you weirdo."
JULIA: No one fucks in Hanukkah.
ERIC: Who fucks in my parents' house in New Jersey?
AMANDA: During the Hanukkah party, yeah. Oh, so good. I've been trying to make the most of the winter citrus we're getting. There were some adorable tiny Meyer lemons at Archestratus, our local, you know, gourmet, farm stand grocery store/bookstore. And it was incredibly good with some lovely gin I got from the Hudson Valley Whiskey Company. Very, very floral gin, which you know Julia is very into, and pairs very nicely with just some like seltzer water and Meyer lemon.
ERIC: They're the whiskey company that sponsors the Mets, that their logo is just the Arial font.
JULIA: True.
ERIC: It's very aesthetic.
JULIA: I will say now is the perfect time if you're also to take a beautiful floral gin like what Amanda is suggesting, put in a little bit of hibiscus tea, and then you have like a— a Gin Hot Toddy, which is my favorite go around for not wanting to drink brown liquor, but also wanting a hot alcoholic beverage.
AMANDA: Very good. Or pomegranate. We've been enjoying the hell out of some monster pomegranates recently. Good stuff. Alright, folks. Let's unmask it. Everyone knew about a time loop all along. Everyone knew about it. Everyone knew.
ERIC: I was surprised.
AMANDA: I was shocked.
JULIA: This was really cool. I loved this as a twist.
ERIC: I can't believe it.
AMANDA: Now, Eric, you've been known to love time loops, to bring them to life, to enjoy time loop movies, you brought it into Campaign Two of Join the Party, our other podcast, incredibly fun and rewarding. What do you think of like the— the rules and the— the sci-fi world-building of this time loop?
ERIC: Yeah. I thought it was really, really good. Like I said, they fit in a lot of stuff in the first 90 minutes that all paid off.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: Things that reoccur— I mean, the best part about a time loop is going through the first loop and seeing if people are gonna say the same thing, or you change one thing, and what are they going to say there? They really leaned into that. And then what— Julia, what you were saying before is like, "Oh, we really got into it." We then learn that the time loop only goes seven times, which is something—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —I have not seen before. A time loop that has its own construction was really interesting, and also it was almost safe. And then knowing that everyone has done this already was also really, really great. And I think that it kind of gave a lot of heart to something as we learned in the comic bookstore. A time loop is usually scary as hell. You are there forever.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: You're going to die. It's either a meditation on, like, immortality to how human life is so finite, or it's about Groundhog Day, where like someone is literally in hell of their own creating. While this was, again, something very safe and loving and warm, as Vic— as Ra— Rache—Rachel— Vic feels so adrift., actually, she's in very safe hands and has been the entire time.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah, they really stressed throughout that kind of sequence with the nerds in the comic bookstore. Like, clearly, this is like either you're going to be in this for 35 years, like Bill Murray was in Groundhog Day.
ERIC: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Or, you know, something is wrong with your life, and you have to figure out what it is, and fix it. And then it's like the question of whether or not like you as a person need to change or it's the circumstances of your life that need to change, and, like, really focusing on that, which is how they kind of explore her whole, like, issue with not achieving/going for her dreams because she's afraid of rejection.
ERIC: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And, like, it's such a like red herring, but it's such an interesting red herring because it allows her to both self-discover and also discover love, which is a real win-win.
ERIC: The postmodern structure of how everything needs to be reflexively examining the genre actually worked.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: And even the— the thing that happens in all rom-com is— when there's a conflict with the love interest, it was because of the structure. He assumed since Adam came back, that was not the thing that needed to change. So he's like, "I'm out of the loop. I assume if— everything you're saying, if Adam is here, that means that changing him out is not the thing the loop needs to do." Now— and that makes me feel bad. So it was like even the— the structure of the time loop was integral to the conflict of the rom-com, which was wild.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And I would argue inherently Jewish because this is not a time loop where there is a predestination thing that you have to get right, a box you need to find and then check in order to break yourself out of the time loop. It is time-limited, it is a break in time. It is an opportunity for— for Rachel to figure shit out the way that Rick Hoffman, who plays her dad, says later is like, "You need a few practice rounds like this— this shit is complicated and you need seven tries and seven chances to, like, go through specifically on the seventh night of Hanukkah, specifically in the presence of your soulmate. And it—
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: —it is kismet, but it also requires work and there's the opportunity for kismet, and also the shit you need to do, and we're not assuming you're going to get it right. There is no getting it right, in fact. The time loop ends after the time loop ends, not when you sort of get something specifically right, which I think gets into a lot of big broad themes about your fate not being pre-written for you.
JULIA: I'm glad we talked about the fact that it only occurs in the presence of a soulmate, because I think that was like something that we hadn't discussed yet, but was also like a big part of the twist being like, "Aw. So it is"— like that's your soulmate, that's the person you're supposed to be with, but it's just a matter of figuring out like the best course of action to make sure that this person understands you and you understand that person.
ERIC: Yeah. And that you're supposed to, like, execute on it in the— on the eighth night, it was so good. I love that.
AMANDA: Yeah. It feels like— like why is the seventh—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —night of Hanukkah? That's not like particularly important. It's not like the day that, you know, families tend to have parties. It— it just happens to be that was— you know, that's the— that's the law. And we find out Grandma Rosie went through it. Rachel's parents went through it, and Soshana and Bex. So cute.
JULIA: Yeah. Earlier on in the movie, it stressed that it's the seventh night because that's when her parents met, but then we find out that it is also an additional like— the time loop always happens on the seventh night—
ERIC: So good.
JULIA: —which is why it works so well.
ERIC: I really liked how the time loop pushed back. We learned that Rick Hoffman, Rachel's dad is like a little nebbish-y guy. He was a big nerd.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: And Rachel's mom is a cool lady who can take— who can take care of stuff. There is a running theme that this— so this house is going to be sold, but also like Rachel's mom has electrician skills and fixes stuff in the house.
JULIA: Yeah, good for her.
AMANDA: We would love to see it.
ERIC: Which is why there's a big deal that there is an electrical fire, which is what distracted people from the dreidel working in the first place, right? They used some— some holiday lights, it was the thing before.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. It's the 30-year-old dreidel lights.
ERIC: The dreidel lights.
AMANDA: Like I— I bet that is an ungrounded plug. I bet those plugs are the same size, but they— there is no one that's bigger than the other.
ERIC: So— so the first thing that Rachel does is try to keep the fire from happening because it's— it's dangerous, right? So she moves the— the fire extinguisher. She then tries to fix the lights. But no matter what happens, the fire happens. So it's like there's a few things in the time loop that is like the cannon event to use some Spider-Verse parlance, right? The— the doughnuts—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —need to fall on the ground and the fire needs to happen. And all the people in her life kind of comes to the holiday party.
AMANDA: And she always holds coats.
ERIC: Yeah, she's always holding a coat.
JULIA: Always holds those coats.
AMANDA: I like it when she doesn't hold that. It's like can put that down by yourself.
ERIC: The— the thing that was wild was when they fixed the lights. The light fixture in the house then lit on fire, which was fixed by Rachel's mother, and frayed the relationship between Rachel's mother and Rachel's father. Which— which is like, even if you do this, you— and you try, it might go worse than the first time you did it. And I think that there's a—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: —really big thing of the time loop fighting the main character, which feels very hand in hand with the idea of Jews fighting God constantly. And there's a constant argumentation between the religion or at least like the deity and— or the religiosity of it and the people who do the religion. Something that is like inherently Jewish, there's constant argument, there's constant fighting against it. I mean, we— we go all the way back to like Jacob, one of the founding fathers of Judaism. Like, literally wrestling an angel, on behalf of God. We're like, "I don't want to do this, I have to do it. You— I— you have to do it." And that kind of like setting the scene for everything that happens in Judaism. And, like, God isn't right. And I think that that's also like, why— my understanding that Christians are so attracted to Jesus, because the New Testament really feels like the better sequel to the Old Testament when you set it like that. Like, "Hey, the Old God, he sucks. He's a jerk. He made Abraham do this. He made Moses do this. He's a butthole." And Jesus is this cool guy with long hair and a beard, who was like, "Nah, man, turn the other cheek. I'm gonna give you loaves and fishes. It's great." But I think that it did— he died in the wool of Judaism, is fighting against that God, and then God is just as impetuous as we are. Not in like a Greek sort of way where like they have foibles, and they are humans, or at least have the foibles of humans, but like, God is imperfect, even if he is God, in the clai— in the Abrahamic religions sort of way.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Yeah. The—the word Jews use for Jews is Israel, not the modern state. But like in Hebrew for like the— the Jewish people as a whole, and it means one who struggles with God. And I think struggling with and— and debating like your faith, what that means, how convenient it is, how inconvenient it is, what God wants you to do, and why is— is fundamental to Judaism. And when we say things like, "Oh, you know, two Jews, three opinions, et cetera." Like it— it goes real deep, and I think part of this too is the fact that there is no right answer. And that the thing Rachel needed, which is what you brought up, Eric, after we finished watching, is the luxury of time.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Hmm.
ERIC: The thing at the end really tied this all together when Rosie— when Grandma Rosie said that the— the dreidel was passed down from her family, which we can assume Rosie is a first or second-generation immigrant.
AMANDA: Yes, she is.
ERIC: Yeah, certainly, her parent— I think she's second generation of her parents.
AMANDA: She said she came over with her parents.
ERIC: Yeah, she came which— my— like my grandma. My grandma came over with her parents from Poland to— well, she was born in Argentina, but her parents came from Poland to Argentina, because he had to do that, because shout-out to the US government. She was born in Argentina, and then she moved to the Bronx, which is very similar to a lot of Jews our age, especially Jews who live in— in major cities, whose family live in New Jersey. I can definitely say so. So it's like a ma— that— the dreidel came over from the old country and afforded the Jews living in the United States, trying to create this new life, the time and luxury to figure their shit out. Grandma Rosie said that she— her family just survived, and it took her a very long time to start living her life, not in survival mode. And I think about like people whose families came over on like the Mayflower, when did you get to start like living your life and trying to acquire wealth and power? Like that's how you became, like, a state senator in the 18th century, you know? If you gave—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like Thomas Jefferson was your great, great grandfather, or even your grandfather, for that matter.
AMANDA: Yeah, and not the case for, you know, many immigrant groups for black Americans, you know—
ERIC: Yes.
AMANDA: —not allowed to hold wealth, or the same with people right now. Like, there's like a literal starting of a timeline where you are allowed to have enough wealth to relax for a minute.
ERIC: Right. And that's very similar to—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: — the magic object here. It allowed you a safe space to find yourself and fuck around for seven days. And then, yes, this is a Hallmark movie, you're finding your soulmate. But, like, also think about all the other stuff Rachel did. Rachel remembered she had interests. She fixed her novel. She played through that whole video game with Zach.
AMANDA: So cute.
ERIC: She like learn about time loops in the comi— in the comic store, and she actually was tuned in to the stuff happening in her family instead of it going over her head in the—in the group chat. Like, you know, in a nonmagical sense, she's like, "Oh, yeah, I am dealing with the fact that my family is moving. I'm okay with it." She did all of that in seven days, and she also fell in love with Zach. Like, there was so much—
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: —stuff she took care of in her own life, which she needed, because did too when she was able to put her life on pause, which I thought was really—
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: —really sweet. And rea— the themes of the movie told me that. I didn't figure that out until Grandma Rosie said that and I'm like, "Oh, shit, that is so nice." And knowing your family is there to take care of you, this isn't— it's not a trick, right? Your family is supporting you and letting you do your job but, also is actually not as freaked out that you were freaked out, as you might have assumed. You were in a safe space, even if you didn't know it, or were only told that. It felt very similar to stuff that I learned on Spirits of like people going on— I wouldn't say spirit quests, but like the ones where people go and go do stuff, of the societies that like send people on— on journeys to find— find themselves.
AMANDA: Like, hey, you're at an important age, go out, do something difficult, think about yourself, yeah.
ERIC: The— this was like a rite of passage journey for the— for this family, which I thought was really sweet.
JULIA: Very much so.
AMANDA: And in looking up too, just, you know, the history of like— this is what I do now all the time, because I— I am a nerd, like look up, you know, Judaism, time travel, time loops, like, you know, what— where are we coming from? And there's obviously, you know, an H.G. Wells story that essentially invented it. Julia can get into kind of broader and deeper roots there. But also just the— the idea of like carving out time from your day using, you know, ritual, to bring yourself literally out of time is something that happens in a lot of faith systems, certainly in Judaism. You know, we're supposed to take off one day a week and rest, because even if we think we're above it and don't need it, people older and wiser than us decided that it's necessary. And we do that, we, you know, like welcome in the, you know, the— the gift of rest once a week with, like, specific ritual. And once a year, on Yom Kippur, as we've talked about on the show, you— you literally— like you get yourself into a meditative state by abstracting yourself from all the things that make you feel alive, pleasure, smelling nice, eating, drinking, you know, wearing colors that aren't reminding you of a burial shroud, and you sit there and say to yourself, "If I died right now, you know, would my name be written in the Book of Death or the Book of Life?" Metaphorically, literally, however, you take that.
ERIC: I did that at Mischa's house while playing Spider-Man a hundred places [49:31] before.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. I— I did it while very sick in bed at home, you know, this year and it's— it is a— it is a technology, like it's a spiritual technology to— to sit there and put yourself in, you know, again, a very small time loop where every hour, and getting from hour to hour feels tedious and the— you know, the ritual tells you how, so that you can say to yourself, "What is my future? What is my ending? How can I rewrite that ending? Because it's not written then. How can I use every single day to put myself on a different trajectory? If it's something that I think I should change." And you know what? We never get it right. We redo it every year. It begins with the— you know, the— the Rabbi themselves making an apology to us about all the things that they did wrong in the last year to— to really, like, lead from the top and I think it's very moving. Julia, time loops, any mythological origins?
JULIA: I don't really have mythological origins. I have philosophical origins.
AMANDA: Hmm.
ERIC: Fuck yeah, dude.
JULIA: But in— in terms of like what I could find in creating time loops as a literary device, it seems like a lot of the origins kind of date back to, hey, Pythagoras of the Pythagorean Theorem.
AMANDA: Whoa. That guy that loves triangles?
ERIC: Yo, the Triangle Man?
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: The Triangle Man also had a belief that, basically, time and the universe are constantly repeating itself in an infinite loop, and that like exactly the same events will keep happening in the same way over and over again for all eternity.
ERIC: Hmm. Julia, it's really interesting, the first novel that used the— the time loop is called The Triangle Man, so that's real— no it's not, but— but I thought you would enjoy that.
AMANDA: God, I wish.
JULIA: So— and then based off of kind of Pythagoras's ideas of this— he calls it eternal return or eternal recurrence. Stoicism really embraced that as an idea of eternal return, and basically, one-upped Pythagoras saying that, "Actually, the universe is constantly being created and destroyed and reborn again. And it's— each universe is exactly the same as the one before it." So kind of the complete opposite of the multiverse theory.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: Hmm.
JULIA: Which is like any event could create any possible outcome. This is like, "Doesn't matter, the universe keeps happening the same way over and over and over again, and we're just like, not aware of the— the, like, starts and beginnings."
AMANDA: So Pythagoras' What If is not a show, because it's just— it's the same epi— it's one episode.
JULIA: That would be hilarious to release a mini-series of Pythagoras' What If and then it's just the same episode six times.
AMANDA: It's the same— It's the same every time.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Everyone's like, "Where's the Easter eggs? There's none, bro. There's not at the same—"
ERIC: The— the watcher looks at the camera and says, "It's the one we already did, stop it.
AMANDA: And Julia, it reminds me a lot, too, of the concept of Judaism of Shuva, which is return. It's sometimes translated as like repentance. It's the thing you do during Yom Kippur, of saying, like, you know, looking at your life, taking a frank assessment of what's there, and returning to the person you want to be, the life you want to live, the— you know, the path of goodness, returning to God, your community, yourself, whatever that means to you. And that word return, I think comes up again and again, and I think there's a lot of parallels to be drawn. And perhaps, I don't know, undergrad thesis being written in the years to come about—
ERIC: Oh, sure.
AMANDA: —these broader themes in this real triumph of a Jewish holiday movie.
ERIC: I really want to touch on the fact that I— this movie felt particularly Jewish. It did not feel like it was Christmas re-skinned, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: And I think that we— we can draw a parallel to some other stuff when that— when I've been on the show, as we've talked on, like fiction and IP creation and how it's tied to mythologies or not. I think a really good example of this is Dungeons and Dragons, when Gary Gygax as a religious scholar, but really he was like a Seventh Day Adventist. Like, looked stuff up because he was interested in it and then, like, filed off all the serial numbers, and like, "This is Bahamut. It's mine now."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: While— and this is another parallel, did you see Fire Island, Julia, that had Joel Kim Booster—
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: —in it and Bowen Yang?
JULIA: Yeah, it was Pride and Prejudice, but gay man on fire.
ERIC: Right. And it was awesome. That movie is so good. Those guys are so talented. I think Joel Kim Booster wrote it. I remember watching and being like, "This is so good. I'm annoyed that the people who greenlit this made you tie it to Pride and Prejudice." Or at least it felt that way. Like, in the— the larger idea of, like, you're not allowed to write your own original stories, it has to be tied to IP in some sort of way. It's like let these guys cook. Like, let them tell a gay Asian story if they want to, and it doesn't have to be like Jane Austen— Jane Austen-ified.
AMANDA: It felt like the kind of thing where someone's like, "Well, we don't want to take that much of a risk, but if it's Shakespeare, if it's Pride and Prejudice—"
ERIC: Right.
AMANDA: You know, maybe that happened or not, but there are certainly so many examples, including Round and Round where like your— your entree, your first big risk, your first big bet has to be like underlined or tied to so often in media, sure bet that often reflects the dominant group culture establishment, because that's who's been allowed to have chances.
ERIC: So I— I feel like allowing this to hinge on a time loop as a plot device— I looked this up on Wikipedia, it's funny. See, time loop as a philosophical and physical— physical concept is tied to the causal loop, which is a terrifying Wikipedia page, do not go there. But there's a lot just for—
JULIA: Don't look at it.
ERIC: —the plot device which is— which is much more—
AMANDA: Phew.
ERIC: —manageable, which is very funny. The time loop is something that feels like it's anyone can use it. It's for— it— out for play, and it's an expression of a philosophical idea. The first example of a time loop that they give here on Wikipedia is the 1915 Russian novel, Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, where the main character—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —gets to live his life over again, but struggles to change it the second time around. Shout-out to Russian literature, my main man.
AMANDA: Woo!
ERIC: And it's like, yeah, that's— Russian literature is expressing it through this untethered fictional loop, right? There were some other examples—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —like there was a radio drama called The Shadow, called— the episode called The Man Who Murdered Time, which is about a dying scientist who did this— a time machine was stuck on December 31st. Very sort of early sci-fi, which I think was a very much reflects the themes. Let's talk about the movies, right? Groundhog Day is about like— Harold Ramis was the director, was born Jewish, but like became a Buddhist for a long time.
JULIA: Got really into like the cycle of karma and stuff. Yeah .
ERIC: Right. And so— and Bill Murray also got really into it and saw it as like a meditation on, like, taking— because Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day is a absolute asshole.
JULIA: He's a terrible person and that's what the movie is about.
ERIC: Yeah. And needs like 40, 50, 70 years to, like, make himself an— into a nice person worthy of love from Andie MacDowell.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. If only all of us could be worthy of love of Andie MacDowell.
ERIC: And then like, you know, these horror movies that exist, like Happy Death Day, which is the most recent one—
AMANDA: Great.
ERIC: —is about like what if I need to relive my life of getting murdered every time? That sucks.
JULIA: On my birthday, it was.
ERIC: On my birthday. That— and two of the movies that were referenced in this movie, Live, Die, Repeat is more of like what if time loop was action movie?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: And Palm Springs was like, well, another one exploring like the millennial malaise of like, "My life sucks. I like being in this time loop because there's no stakes." And then when you want stakes—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —you got to break out of it, which are the—
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Or being able to like pull— then pulling someone into your no stakes life—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —is very much like exploring those themes. This movie—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —Round and Round, explored the things we were talking about while using an untethered kind of like a societal or like a religious or a Americana plot device to— to explore something on their own terms, which I thought was really, really, really cool.
JULIA: It was.
AMANDA: A thousand percent.
JULIA: It was a good movie.
ERIC: It was a good movie.
AMANDA: This is not Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, but she got run over by like a manure on a pickup truck. Like, you know, there— there's lots of examples of that. And it is very cool to see something that feels so fresh, original, and to your point, Eric, not just kind of like a pleasingly like Airbnb for dogs. Like, you know, just— the formula that an executive could look at and think like, "Check." Any final thoughts, impressions, recommendations about Round and Round?
JULIA: I thought it was great. I really liked it. It was very, very fun.
AMANDA: Watch the movie, it's so good.
ERIC: It's on Peacock right now. You watch it, it's a tight 90. Even if you're here and you got spoiled, go watch it. It was really fun. It certainly— like I do want to watch it again now.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: I think that the— a lot of this stuff paid off. There's very few things that I kind of like put in my Hanukkah stuff. Again, I don't care about it as much. And on most years, it sneaks up on me because it changes— it changes date because it— we're based on the lunar calendar. So it's like I didn't really do much for Hanukkah other than like remember to make latkes in, like, the middle of it, because it's like—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ERIC: —December 13th and it's almost done when we're recording this.
AMANDA: It's the seventh night of Hanukkah, baby, woo!
JULIA: As we're recording this, wow.
ERIC: I don't watch Hanukkah movies like people watch Christmas movies. But if I wanted to, I would add this to it. It would be like this—
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
ERIC: —and the Rugrats special, and that one song by the funk band who did the 8 Nights of Hanukkah.
AMANDA: Incredible. Shout-out to that busker, definitely not Jewish, but he put a lot of soul—
ERIC: No, he was so not Jewish.
AMANDA: —he put a lot of soul into that. And shout-out to— to Zack, illustrator is a job.
ERIC: Comic book illustrator is a job.
AMANDA: Like, it's his hidden artistic ambition and I like that he has one, too.
JULIA: His art was really bad, though.
AMANDA: It was very funny.
JULIA: Eric, speaking of good art, where can people find your stuff on the internet?
ERIC: You can find me on Twitter and Instagram, and Bluesky, I'm El_Silvero. E-L, _, S-I-L-V-E-R-O. My name if I was a lucha libre wrestler. Go listen to Join the Party. Go listen to it. It has the three of us on it. It's good show. Derbelins and Derberins. [59:12] I'm sure there are people who listen to Spirits who don't listen to Join the Party. Just do it.
AMANDA: Why? It's made for you. If you're like, "Meh. D&D, I'm not sure." It's made for you, okay?
ERIC: You— you should— you should do it.
JULIA: Try Monster of the Week. Try our Camp-Paign.
ERIC: Camp-Paign.
AMANDA: Season Three in your podcast player, so cute. Julia and I play impertinent teens, and there is a lot of interesting Jewish mythology in there, too.
JULIA: Indeed.
AMANDA: Eric, senior Jewish correspondent for Spirits, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for bringing Round and Round to all of our attention. I'm not seeing it covered anywhere and it's an absolute banger.
ERIC: It's actually good.
JULIA: It is.
ERIC: I— now that you're Jewish, I feel like my job is being phased out.
AMANDA: You're the senior correspondent.
ERIC: I'm the senior correspondent, that's right.
AMANDA: I'm the junior correspondent.
ERIC: Okay, that's fine.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Eric, you're the Jew at large of our podcast.
ERIC: A Jew at large.
JULIA: So if you find yourself stuck in a time loop, remember, everyone, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
ERIC: And your family probably knows about it. Ask them about it.
[theme]