The Council Episode 06 | Nathan Disappears in a Polyphonic Wormhole

In this episode of The Council, Andy, Eric and Josh puzzle over Nathan’s absence and attempt to hold things together. Along the way they introduce a new sponsor and discuss the foundational commitments of the Academy. 

We want to hear from you! Email us at podcast@theacademyok.org.

SHOW NOTES:

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

In this episode of The Council, we aim to talk imagination and foundational commitments. But Nathan couldn't be bothered to show up. We spent some time discussing Nathan and where he might be and who he must be glad-handing. We also discussed my fear of our executive producers, April Fools during Holy Week. And finally, we look to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Andrew's hit single, Keeping Time. It's all coming up on the Council.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Welcome back to the Academy Podcast. Glad to have you. As always, we have Eric and Andrew. Hello. And me and Nathan Carr. Uh no, Nathan Carr.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

A rather unpleasant green chair.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

A rather unpleasant green chair, empty, of one headmaster. I was actually thinking about it on the way into this podcast that we haven't gotten an update on how many hands he's gladdened over this year. His glad handing. I don't know. I assume that's where he's at. He's out gladhanding somewhere, right? Making sure that the lights stay on. That's among the strong possibilities. Yes. Schmoozing is his spiritual gift.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

What I do know for sure. Schmoozing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

But what I do know for sure is that he did not tell me.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Did he tell the EPs? Uh no. Uh talk to Libra. They don't even they don't even know. They don't even know. They're not going to be happy. This this will not be an approved EP podcast, is my guess. Right. This will be this will have to be gorilla a little bit because we don't have everybody. Yeah, we don't have everybody. What are we going to do with the time that Nathan would there's probably 45 minutes of our podcast now that we're going to have to try to figure out how to fill. Right. Given how Nathan.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yeah. It's a little bit like a prize fighter who enters the ring with one hand tied behind their back. So it's a bad hand is 45 minutes worth of that's exactly what's happening.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Right. And if we and if we had if we had a prior warning, we could have invited a wonderful guest on. Indeed. Like Dr. Meership.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

It's an insult to whoever that guest might have been.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Exactly. We could. I could go grab one of them. If you want to grab a dialectic student as a as a very special surprise guest. Yeah. We could do that. I'd be glad to do that.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

See, but this is I mean, look, we're I mean we shouldn't even be talking about this. Like we're supposed to be doing a serious podcast here. Meat and potatoes, guys. Already? This is neither meat nor potatoes. No, I'm just saying, you know, we're working stuff out that's supposed to be worked out behind the scenes. You know, and Nathan just uh I'm I'm I'm a little angry.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah. I mean I would put myself at maybe a six of seven, angry. Yeah. I think yeah. Yeah. At least when Andrew was gone, we had Andrew on the on the box over there. Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

We had Andrew. Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

It was still it was a thoughtful absence. Indeed, it was exactly if I can date myself by my own petard.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yes, by all means. It's the only way to hoist oneself. Thank you. Yeah. Upon one's petard. Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Well, so yeah. So we have no Nathan. Um, we have no plan for a no Nathan, so you're stuck with uh three of us.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

You're stuck so this could be the shortest podcast we've ever done.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah. I think I we can do my part in five minutes. What do you think about yours, Eric? Do you think we couldn't?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Our ad, our new sponsor.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

We've got an ad, yeah, we got a live read uh coming up. Um I don't know. But will you want to talk about anything uh like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

What would we talk about if Nate wasn't here since he isn't him? Oh, sure. Obviously.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Him, yeah. And I feel like we've done that. But what would Nate? It was something Nate would say. He'd be like bring up music or a reference, and then we would go off on a tangent of some nineties. Yeah, something. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah. But in the moment, I'm struggling. I I'm still so I'm shook. And so I'm struggling to channel my inner Nathan in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Is there anything is there any uh unfinished business from OEBS?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

I've got two. Oh. In my if you I mean it's the right time. I think that if somebody is we've got old business on the agenda. That in the last episode, Eric gave us an update about one of the plans of one of his daughters, and we need the follow- that we need to do the results if it actually happens. So I'll remind them it so you can go back and listen to the previous episode in the opening. You'll hear that uh Eric says that on that exact day his oldest plans to ask the leader of his church um a question about whether you can give up Lint for Lint.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

And yeah, she did. Um and she went through with it. Oh, yeah. This is amazing. Yeah. She stood she stood there while he was talking to a couple of other people and uh waited patiently. And uh she asked him. And he just kind of laughed and said, Oh, no. And she said, um she went, uh which is what we all feel about Lynn, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Especially this time of time. We're almost there. Yeah, we're almost there, but that's often the worst part of it. Yeah. Uh that last 0.1 kilometer of a 5K. Yeah. And is the worst part of the 5K. So that's why I don't even try.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yeah, here we are. I I I'd be fine for that 4.9. But it's the thought of that 0.1 that I just it's too much. We'll bother.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

There's some development thing next week. Is it the trivia night or is there something? Is that Harvey? I don't know. I got cooked something. I just work here. And they're like I bet Nathan Carr will be there. They're like, yeah, I'm sure he will be because during Lint, holy week. Lint. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Do you get a dispensation?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

That's thoroughly Protestant of us.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Right. So uh Jen Stall, development department. They're great. Awesome. But but the but, comma, but great, but I like this. Bless her heart. Bless their hearts. I just I got an email from from Jennifer. She said, uh, yeah, we um we need your help. We need a projector, we need a screen, and we need speakers and a microphone. Okay, this isn't like a simple request. This is like you've got to haul all this garbage over to the Harvey Bakery, set it up, do all of the things, and then and then when it's done, yeah, everyone scatters like rats. Except for you. Except for me. And I've got and I what am I gonna, you know, I'm gonna have to walk this stuff one at a time back from Harvey Bakery to Midtown campus.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

One mic walked over. Yeah, one screen. Yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Because I don't want to injure my back. No, and cause workmen's comp on the school. So thanks, Eric. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. You know what? You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

You know who also would bail immediately and not help? Nathan. Nathan Carp. He wouldn't tell you about it at all. He wouldn't tell me about it. He would just disappear. You would Irish goodbye you when there was work left, and that would be it.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Yeah. You are so right. Um anyway, so at the end of it, and she knows, you know, she knows at the end of it, she's like, hey, and by the way, that's all you can eat, and open bar. And I'm thinking, why can't you do this in Eastertide? That you know, can't we can we do can we put it off a week? Yeah.

unknown 8:09

Nope.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

I don't know. Sorry. Sorry, I didn't want to go off there. But my Yes, but my daughter did ask, and yeah, yeah, she was denied. Oh man. In a in a jovial sounds like very kind way, and he said, Hey, how how would we really appreciate Easter without you know, uh going through Lent to then um capture that uh resurrection spirit that you know the joy of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

So I I I just wonder, you know, yesterday was the feast of the annunciation. Yep. It's a feast day. You get it you get a day off from that. Maybe academy events could be raised to the level of a feast day. And then you get a dispensation.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

We'd have probably we'd have to bring that up to with the relevant authorities. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah. Let's get a let's get some guy uh Nathan would know them all. We yeah, maybe we could get ask him, but he's we know alas. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. But um But has your daughter done well through Linth? Once you found out, I mean there's two ways to go from there. You could be like, you know what, forget it. I'm not doing that. I don't like that, no. I don't want to do it. Right. Or you could buckle down, get to it. She's still doing it? She's she's still.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

She's doing okay. Uh but she's you know, just a little bit of just uh she not being happy with not being able to eat. Well she's like, I've got uh so many squares of chocolate just in the cabinet. I'm like, well, you're gonna get it on you you can get some on Sunday. You get some um, you know, it's coming up soon anyway. She just gets yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah, I I have some distilled brown liquid liquids that are staring and taunting me at my house all day long. Yes. I get it. Those little brown squares. Those little brown squares. The little brown chocolate squares. Little liquidy brown squares.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah. Uh you said there was something. Yeah, well, the second one, I I think it's very clear in the early opening moments of the previous episode that that you are tasked firmly with asking the EPs for an official statement about our name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Well the council of How'd that go? What uh okay, I am gonna just gonna put it out there. I did not do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

But but what you mean is you didn't hear back from them when you asked them.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

No, what I'm saying is is that I uh you you you guys just don't understand what I do for this podcast. All right. I stand in the gap. All right? I stand in the gap and I take all of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Of outrageous fortune, you know, and and you you do you guys just don't understand. Sometimes it's it's it's a terrifying ordeal. Sure. And uh yeah, and so I have not found a great time yet to bring it up, but I will. Oh I will work it in.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I I feel like this is a little bit like our four-year ask of you to get a live call in. I feel like this this is going in that category at some point. Well, we've we've just pretty much done the live call-in thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

I've heard you guys say this before. This uh live We've done it. I haven't done it. I mean, I've played recorded. I want live. Yeah, I recorded, yeah. Uh hearing the button.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Is it possible to just get out and just put a speakerphone on by the microphone?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

He's been here 13 minutes. Yeah. And he's got a solution. Well, who but who? Anyone, really? But we would have to be like, okay, uh let's just go grab sure. It could be like Hank Hanagraph call-in show. We can have somebody at a bank of phones. And they just let people through. What's your name? How old are you? What are your what's your question for the if I had a name, we could say what's your question for the answered name of Eric. Yeah. Eric is supposed to have figured out for us. But your standing in the gap is gap gapy.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, it's more like you know, you're just stopping up the gap.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, there's more gap than there is standing. It sounds like more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

There's more obstacle. Uh uh when uh uh Lindy and Carmen are just staring at you, waiting for an answer. Uh it's a lot harder than you think.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Is it? Yes. Okay. I would invite them to come down and do it. They're welcome at South Campus anytime to stare me down. I I think it'd be a good one. I just want to see if I could withstand it in the way that you're talking about. Yeah, I know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

I'm you know, I'm just saying hey, I uh I do a lot you know, I do a lot to absorb the uh shock waves. Okay. All right. So uh I guess we'd uh let's do our live read. Uh Nathan was supposed to be uh the participant in that this week. So it falls to Andrew.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

There's the real paper.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Paper. Actual paper. Actual paper.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Oh, it's there's it's color-coded.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Yeah. Okay. Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Here, I'll show you. There's there's at least three colors on here.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

There are three colors on there. Yeah. Just first we have our live read standard. Get it? This one, I'm really, really excited about this one. Did you change it? Did you get a new one? It's a new one, yeah. Outstanding.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Live read. Live read. Talking about sponsorship. Them sponsorship. Keep coming in. Stop reading them sponsorship.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Right. All right. I think that's my favorite submission. My goodness. If uh if you're interested in submitting a live reads stinger, um send it in to the podcast at the Academy Okay. That's where all these come from. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Kind of. From our dozens of listeners. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

We've we've yeah. I I know people. No, that was good. Um Okay. Uh uh Andrew, okay, here we go. Hold on, I'm trying to get the groove out of my head. It's a really good groove. It's catching it. It is. I've one of my favorites that we've done so far. Um so I read the purple. Yeah, you're Nate. Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah. You're Nate. In purple. I'm Nate. Uh let's hear a little. I am.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

You have a do you have a Nate? Nate. Yeah. And your inner Nate.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Unhurried wonder.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Ooh, that's a good one. Okay. Yeah, that was good.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Is that all right? Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. My mic is just it doesn't want to be near you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Is it we have the well for one, okay. We have this awful table. This table is fine. It's awful. Uh so Josh, can we get a real table? This table is it it's serving its purpose. Right. As a table. Right. It's a good table. Yeah, it's not a good podcasting table. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

It was never intended to be.

unknown 16:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Oh. Hey, uh, you better get that.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

I usually let it ring a couple of times. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Let the answering machine get it. Hello.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Good afternoon. Is this Harold McWalksalot? Yes. Speaking. I am the president of the Rhetoric Ball Dads for Midtown Campus Committee, but you probably know us as the uh RBDMCC. Anyway, I would like to ask you a few questions if you have the time. Sure, go ahead. Happy to. Great. First question: have you ever felt like you were gonna throw up so badly that you needed to call your mother in the last seven months? Yes. Let me write that down. Uh let's see here. Uh hang on.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

It says insert absurd coughing noise.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Andrew, stop that. Can't believe it. Okay, uh, great. Sorry about that. Uh, second question. Have you ever packed a three-course meal in your lunch pail that included chicken tortilla, soup, extra cilantro, clam chowder, and a bread bowl, and gluten-free strawberry ice cream, but then realized when you were at school four hours later that you forgot to pack a spoon.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Every day, son, for real for real.

unknown 17:34

Great.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Third question. Have you ever been in need of six ibuprofen?

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yes. Indeed I have. Are you just making up these questions as you go, or No, sir.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

I just read the questions off the list, okay? Can we move on? Fourth question. Have you ever needed to call your dad to see when he's leaving for Texas today?

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Actually, I did that last Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Fifth question. Have you ever realized that you might have left your trunk open in the South Parking lot when you were getting your roller skates that morning, so you need to ask permission to look through Dr. Mears' office window to double check? Often, yes. Do you need your temperature checked? Stop saying that. Don't do you need your uh Andrew, I'm gonna Do you need your temperature checked? Do you need to order pizza? Do you need fobbed in? Do you need to take your medicine? Do you need to print something? Do you need to check the lost and found? Do you need to be reminded to tuck in your shirt? Wait, what? Do you need a laptop? Do you need to see who's supping for you tomorrow? Do you need a mint? Do you need to see what time your sister is picking you up? Do you need a cup of ice for your white monster? Are you afraid you left your backpack on the playground? Do you need to sign back in from off campus lunch? Do you need band-aid? Um well, I've got fantastic news for you, good sir. Mick walks a lot. The front office is here to help. The midtown front office, that is. They're here to fulfill your every need. Come on by anytime from 7 45 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Friday, and you'll be met with a cheerful smile and a servant's heart. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

I will go to this Midtown Campus front office and check out what all the fuss is about.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Stat. This ad has been sponsored by Midtown Campus Front Office Department. Fulfilling all your mostly mundane needs. No, seriously.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Thank you. Thank you. Midtown Front Office. Thank you, Midtown. So guys, um April Fools coming up. This year, April Fools is actually right in the middle of Holy Week. It's it's it's it feels weird to do uh April Fools on Holy Wednesday. I don't share that viewpoint at all. You're willing to do a prank on Holy Wednesday? What? Just not to your bosses.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Right. Okay. I mean, there's a it seems like Palm Sunday would be the ideal day for it if we're looking for a uh sort of theologically resonant April Fools.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

It's rife with irony.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Yeah. Yeah. In the story, for sure. I would never play April Fool's jokes on Carmen and Lindy. Yeah, I wouldn't glue their uh mugs to the desk. Oh, that's a good one. It is a good one. I I really don't have anything big planned, Andrew.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Oh. I'm I am connecting many dots in this moment. Yeah. And realizing the implications of this whole conversation.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

I don't know if we've ever discussed it on the podcast. But last year we we got Andrew with It wasn't in the I must have blocked this out. I hold on.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

I don't know. I I couldn't tell you what it is that they did.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Well, wait. Did it have to do with Chesterton? Was that April Fool's or was that before? No. There's so many of these, Josh. I just want you to understand. It was running through uh decks, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

I didn't have anything to do with a Chesterton.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Um April Fools. What was it then? Yeah, it was uh we must uh your hit single Keeping Time.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Yeah I am thrilled to remember this. It's a it's a techno jam. I can't believe I forgot about this. For those of you who have not yet come to know Andrew's without a cover talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

He's actually deep into the German techno underground scene. Yeah. And he's got a massive international hit. All the clubs in Europe.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

My artist name is Gunther. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Gunther. They the all the artists all the clubs in Europe, they all close at three in the morning, and this is the last song.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

It's equivalent to a born to run Friday radio. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a big deal. It's a big thing. That's what everyone said to me about it. It is Europe's Born to Run on a Friday. Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

We played this over as the last bell. Okay. And we didn't really.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Everyone was so thrilled.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Right. There was a a rave broke out at Midtown. Well, okay. The rhetoric students at Midtown clamored. How did this happen here? How that they clamored, they wanted it played at the upcoming dance. And uh Spring Formal. Yeah, Spring Formal. Thank you. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

There are dozens of listeners who need to know the real name of that event. And it is Spring Formal. Spring formal. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

It is formal and it is in the spring. It is formal. Yes. You are correct. I stand corrected. Good. Apologies. They wanted it played. So I had to come up with a club mix. And I did. Yeah. And it was and it killed. It did. It killed. I've seen it in the video. Yeah. It's amazing. Students went crazy.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

So you if this moment of the podcast was scripted and there were uh like a like an acting prompt for it, it would say something to the effect of stares resignedly at the ground. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

So if you haven't heard if you haven't heard uh this uh uh keeping uh uh keeping time, Andrew's uh Gunther's Gunther DJ Ask.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Stick around at the end of the podcast. Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

No, uh maybe at the last uh at our last episode.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

We can we can I bet we'll get dozens of emails asking. We can think about it. I bet. It'll be confusing. Who's your direct report? What I mean just don't I'll go back and listen. Don't yeah, don't. I'll cut that out.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Uh um, send us an email if you want to hear Andrew's uh Send us a little just a little just a little taste.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

I'll be really quite happy about it.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Okay, so I can tell you my my dream is to get this published like on Spotify, like as a as a legitimate track.

unknown 24:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

And can you imagine like this being played at a club in London? That would that would make me how would you know? How would you ever know that it's well if it became kind of a hit, but I mean just oh just the idea of that happening.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

We could send it to KJ103, and then the kids would rule. I think it's more a 98-9. You think it's 98.9?

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yeah, I think it's more of a KISS FM sort of thing. Little adult top 40. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Because it's got that timelessness, you know, 103 is so of the moment. Well, that's what I 98.9 has a mixture.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah. Because it is mom it is momentous.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah. It is. Um yeah, the executive producers are gonna are gonna kill me.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Well, okay, so I was just thinking, for your sake, Eric, we probably should get to some meat and potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah. Uh what do we how do we get to that? Um we have an Andrew. Do you have a do we have an Andrew training here? We could you don't have to No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want anyone show to strain your voice. Um I don't know. Really, I don't know. I've I've got to hang on.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Time for permanent thing. There it is.

unknown 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Time for permanent thing. Message delivered. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Time for permanent things. Thank you, Andrew. Okay. Yeah, so uh as I am uh want to do at this point, I I have a notebook open before me and there's a list of there's a list of questions. Most of the questions I had honestly were for were for Nate. I it's unfortunate that he's absent. I yeah his uh his uh I mean he set the gold standard with the uh requiem for a polyphonic wormhole.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

The title alone. Okay, well, in all fairness, so Nate never provides a title or description. What? I'd I worked for hours on those. This is and he he and so I was like, okay, uh Lindy, what do you think? Uh requiem for a polyphonic wormhole? You know, it's enticing. I okay, so what what okay, you've listened to it.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

I have a cup a couple of times. What would you title it?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Requiem for a polyphonic wormhole.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Um it would I mean that's I don't want to quit. I'm not this isn't about what I would call. Yeah. Um okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

So yeah, so requiem. Yeah, so most of my questions for him. Uh you know, but I don't see he's not here. Uh what would we just sort of just see what happens. Yeah, see what comes out of the silence. But uh but uh uh I'm looking through my my notes and and I think uh maybe an interesting thing for us to talk about uh is is Josh's uh litany of questions that conclude his episode. Yes. How many questions are there supposed to be? Well, there's three three is the generic norm.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah, the generic norm. And I'm not gonna be generically normal.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yeah, right. Um seven and be a basic. So I don't know what that means, but six, I think, is I'd have to check, but I think six is the most anyone's ever attempted. Right. And it there's really a there's a kind of backdoor seven there. Uh yeah, that's right. And uh so I mean one of the questions Josh John asks in his episode about, you know, is are you listening uh to or reading stories? I mean, what stories are you listening to and reading? Are you telling stories? What stories do you tell? Um, how do you incorporate story in your lives? Can you recap for us why all these questions are focused on that sort of one idea story? What story, what what's what's the relationship between stories and and the foundational commitments as you present it there?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah, I I was thinking about this because I mean I mentioned in uh my my five miniature that um I I presided over my grandmother's funeral. And one of the things that um I mean there there were stories that came out. I mentioned finding out her real name, which truly I had no idea, knowing my grandma for 46 years at any her. Um that she had a name that she hated and changed it as soon as she could. Her name was Kizzy Kizzy was her first name. Uh the midwife gave her the name Kizzy Joy was her given name. Yeah. She hated that, so she just went by Joy as soon as she could possibly go by Joy. Yeah. Legally. She changed it all. Yeah. Not just like informally. She's like legal. Get that out of here. Right. Yeah. Um, so but there were but there what that did was um it struck me as I I don't know many stories about my grandma, actually. I don't we we just we aren't um we're just not a storytelling family in that way. Um we enjoy being around each other. My grandma was amazing. We really she was a very, very, very amazing grandma. I don't have any um bad things in any show a short form. The one thing is we just there's just no stories. I don't know anything about her life until, like I said, I had the whole of her life, my mom and her obituary. And then all those patterns started to emerge about how her life went and what was going on. It it would have been good. Again, I'm not I'm not faulting my grandma for any of this, but yeah, um some of the things she went through are were really hard things. And so telling that story over and over again, when you hear of resilience in hard things, that shapes you in a way to be resilient in hard things. I mean when you could still be joyful, she really did live her name in some really beautiful ways. How I didn't know that's what you went through. How does that connect you? But these stories would would inculcate in us, my family or whatever, um, a sense of what it means to do what is essentially a Christian life, which is suffering towards joy. So uh just how if you don't hear stories about that, you either you you do this weird sort of figuring it out, or you don't figure it out at all. And so you end up um either joyless or I mean, I we all know old people that are just grumpy and mad and discontent and all the things. Can we do a better job of telling stories of resilience and joy in the face of all of those things from people we know and love who know and love us? Um we can do it, and you know, the fifth graders right now are reading um The Hiding Place, which is a story of unbelievable resilience and suffering and forgiveness for crying out. I don't want to spoil anything, but um but what if your grandma could say something like that to you? What if you're someone much closer than Corey Tinboom? Yay, Tor Corey Tinboom. Could those stories be part of your life on that deeply personal level that shape who you are?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

This is probably overstating it and and definitely not the case across the board, but there there there even seems like a built-in I'm gonna say mechanism, but that's not the word I actually want for this to take place um in that the you know when you encounter somebody of a certain age. Yeah, the one of the signs that they are that age is they is the stories that they've already told you. They tell you again. Yeah. As if they're telling you for the first time. Um and there and there's this sort of impulse present to tell these stories. Um at the same time as now, there's a dynamic where you really can't pay attention to this story again. I had to tell my freshman when I was teaching the Iliad, oh, there's a character named Nestor. And when you encounter Nestor in the story, he's always showing up at a council and he tells these stories and they just go on and on. They don't have any connection immediately apparent to the plot of the poem. Um, and everybody, so you there's two options you have for this with class. You can say, here's Nestor, he's old, and so he's gonna tell a really long story, and everybody's just gonna listen. And yeah, and that I there's a way I think I embraced that early on as a sort of, let's get these young people in here with me. But actually, in the cultural dynamic of the Iliad, what he's saying is valuable. Like he is the person who knows what he's talking about, and it's a it is a totally antithetical cultural dynamic. Our dynamic is here's the old guy who has a long story and it doesn't make any sense, and we're just gonna kind of grin and bear it. Their dynamic is this is the guy who knows what he's talking about. And there's a deference to Nestor that I don't it is not normal, quote unquote, for for now.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah. I I think the other part that I was thinking about was um whose stories are you excluding? I didn't put it in the negative, um, but are there stories you're not willing to listen to? Are there um people or groups of people who um have a story to tell, but you don't want your story disrupted? You don't want your version of the story to um not be uh the the dominant story that you live by. Um are there are there places you could go? Are there things you could read that are outside of what you normally do or read? Are there people whose voices need to be heard who have long been unheard? Um Anitha Prath or when she was here for Lyceum said, and I she was right, that um to keep telling the story you're telling, but what if there are other people who are actually part of that story who have something to contribute to that story? Who's standing behind Abraham Lincoln? It's Frederick Douglass. Um is Frederick Douglass's story part of the story we tell? Or is it only who's standing behind George Washington? It's Phyllis Wheeling. This is the story that she tells in um she and Angel Rom tell in um the black intellectual tradition that these stories have been long excluded, but could we tell the whole story by having these marginalized voices? So I was actually thinking about that too. Is do do you do I have a blind spot where I only have one kind of story being told to me all the time? Yeah. Can we invite other stories into my story?

SPEAKER_02 35:23

There's a dynamic there too where there are good things happening in other stories even when there is seemingly not any good thing happening in your story. Yeah. The one that you're dominantly living in. Right. Right. Which I'm mentioning in this instance because it seems to intersect with my point in in um attention and eternity. Yeah. Right. If the the dwarf characters that I'm thinking about in um Lewis's last battle, who are in the midst of heaven but think that they're still in this dingy barn, are inhabiting their story without the capacity for other stories that that could expand and enliven and indeed redeem their vision.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah, I I think um, and we talked about this in our chair's meeting today, and maybe you could uh uh you you didn't answer the question you posed never to all of us, but now you get it back. Is um what what would it look like for the dwarfs to see finally what was actually going on? What would it take to get them there? Um what needed to happen prior to that moment to get them to the point where they could finally see it? Um what so you you asked this question of the chairs of the academy. Now you're live on the podcast. Um what were they missing that they couldn't see it?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Uh so when I was uh in ninth grade, I lived in Moscow, Russia. I was on a basketball team that went on a tournament trip to St. Petersburg. I'm eventually gonna get to the point. I'm imitating Nestor in the and we had some time to kill the day before the tournament, and somebody said there was this place called the Hermitage in St. Petersburg that we could go to something to do. So we go to this place, the Hermitage massive museum of art and cultural history. You know, there's a painting in there by somebody named Da Vinci, and there's some guy Rembrandt's in there, you know, there's a lot of sculptures from ancient geese and um uh yeah, and uh and I one of my friends had a video iPod and he had season four of Lost on it. And so I mean I looked at a sculpture. I saw the line to see the Da Vinci, and then I sat in on a bench in some lobby area with on looking at this tiny little screen of so when I asked the question in the episode, have you ever been like Lewis's dwarves? Um one of the one of the I mean my answer to that question is a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean it's not identical in any means to the situation, but uh and one of the things, you know, for me is um time as an answer to that question. Your original question, if you can remember it, is something like what might have been the case or what could happen, or how did these dwarves get out of that situation? And um it it seems to me to be the case that uh that not as a guarantee, but as a general rule, there is an inevitability to wisdom. Um Aeschylus and the Orastia, he says we must uh suffer. It's not the Orastia, it's um Sophocles in Oedipus Rex. My apologies. You can edit that out if you want to.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

No, leave it in. Um that was gonna be embarrassing.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Sophocles and Oedipus Rex, he has the chorus say, uh, we must suffer, suffering to truth. Um and I think that um that seems to me to be i the inevitable to a certain extent. Um that um that with the passing of time, yeah, there's an increase in age, and not by default, but generally speaking, an increase in perspective as a consequence. Uh tying it back to our earlier conversation, um there's a wisdom that comes with having these stories over the course of a long period of time. To where now I'm uh you know much older than I was at the time, and I wouldn't spend my time at the Hermitage in that way.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Well, I mean, maybe. Season five. You gotta get the seasonal. Where else would you catch season five? That's true. The no better place to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

Yeah, yeah. Like uh one of the most aptly named shows of all time, Lost, because you have lost all the time that you've put into it. There was some kind of concrete resolution. You've just been roped into the J.J. Abrams uh modus operandi to uh basically set something up over with no idea where it's going.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

And then disappoint in the end.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah, the never-opened memory box. Kind of like podcasts. I think you just described the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Yeah, well, you know, but but we're not, you know, I mean, we're just a couple of a few mediocre guys with a mediocre podcast. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 40:59

I mean, I've heard that said.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Five stars of mediocrity. If you're gonna rate us, rate us on that scale. We have we have achieved five-star mediocrity.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

I think long live.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Um we we are it is 315. I don't know if we need to go through Matt Even Song, but even song starts in five minutes here. We could have it in the background. I think we can end we can end it with five-star mediocrity. I think we're long. Yeah. Banter went banter went longer than without Nate. No, isn't that strange?

SPEAKER_02 41:33

We felt we had to overcompensate.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

That's okay. That's that's right. So we we did not have Nathan. We overcompensated. Yeah. We over Nathaned.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

We all embraced our inner Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

We all did, and lots of banter taking us in no direction whatsoever. But, but, but, but it was good banter. I would call it good banter. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like people would stick around through.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

If the bar is five-star mediocrity, I think the banter really hit that bar.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

We've reached it.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

We've had definitely definitely. Uh, if you find Nathan while you're out and about, let us know. We can shake him by the hand. Yeah, we actually don't know where he is. So if you can see him, um let us know. Tell him we're looking for him. Yeah, tell him we're a little worried. Tell him, hey, uh something wrong. Was he the dad that went to Texas? Is that maybe maybe. I don't yeah. No, I don't think it's the unnamed dad. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we I think we've tested the patience of our listeners quite enough. So thanks for sticking around. We will be back with one more count left. All right. Oh, two more. We got a couple more countries. We got a couple more, and then we had some more competition starters coming, so before that. Stick with us. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Thanks for listening to this episode of the count. We appreciate each and every listener. If you see anything out and about, tell him we've been looking for it. We want to hear from you. Send us your comments, critiques, questions, and grocery wishlist do podcast at theacademyopay.org. You can listen to us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.