Christine Lai on How Art Endures Even After Apocalypse
Episode Description
Christine Lai grew up in Canada and lived in England for six years during graduate studies.
She holds a PhD in English Literature from University College London. Landscapes was shortlisted for the inaugural Novel Prize. Christine currently lives in Vancouver.
We talk to Christine about Landscapes and our enduring relationship to art - even at the end of the world.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
You can learn more about Christine Lai here.
Visit our website: Originstory.show
Follow us on Twitter @originstory_
Do you have feedback or questions for us? Email us theoriginstorypod@gmail.com
Cover art and website design by Melody Hirsch
Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper
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Phil 0:20
What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast that interviews creators about where they came from, to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell and I'm with my co host, Ben Thorpe, Ben Thorpe. It has been a minute but we are back again with another conversation this time with author Christine Lai. And we talked to her about her debut novel landscapes from our friends to dollar radio.
Ben 0:50
That's right, folks, we've gotten back from playing video games that are basically novels to just reading novels, we're back to our roots.
Phil 0:58
Back to our roots, once again, this conversation covers the novel writ large, we get into art and the purpose of art and apocalypses. amongst many other things, I think that we'll just let this conversation speak for itself. And as always, we will talk a little bit more about what we thought of the conversation and the outro. So tune in.
Christine Lai grew up in Canada and lived in England for six years during graduate studies. She holds a PhD in English literature from University College London, and her debut novel landscapes was shortlisted for the inaugural novel prize. Christine currently lives in Vancouver, BC. Christine, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Christine Lai 2:01
Thanks so much for having me.
Phil 2:03
Yeah. So landscapes, it's your debut novel, from what I understand it was published earlier this year in Canada, and it's coming out this month, in September, in the US next week. I'm curious, like how you're feeling about the book kind of being out? I guess it's been out for a little bit of time, but like, how's that? How's that feeling? Been? How's that process been?
Christine Lai 2:28
Um, it's been? It's been quite kind of anxiety inducing. I mean, I'm very excited. So it's just, yeah, it's a mix of different kinds of feelings. You know, it's obviously very, it's a very exciting and wonderful opportunity to have a debut novel out. But at the same time, I'm quite anxious about, I guess, just reception. Because it, you know, it used to be this very private thing. And then I started sharing with industry professionals, I think that's a bit different sharing with editors and agents. But sharing, I think, with general readers, I think that's a different level of, I don't know, it feels like kind of exposure. And, yeah, you know, I'm excited to hear what people think. But at the same time, I was very wary of what they might say. So I'm trying to just stay off social media as much as Yeah, I think it's just best not to kind of dwell too much on these things. And yeah, the Canadian launch did give me a bit of experience with with that entire process. But because it's like, my first time doing this, you know, it was it was a bit scary. So hopefully, with the US launch, I would have had this experience and it'll just be, you know, a bit smoother. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully won't be too terrible.
Ben 4:00
You know, we've we've talked to like, I think, folks who are who are at all different places in their publishing, you know, people who are like, Oh, here's my day debut novel, a couple of people who are like, I have published many novels and I, this is how I got over that hump. And I'm wondering how, yeah, how you were kind of thinking about leading into this moment where you're launching a debut, it's finally going to be seen by people. And yeah, was there was there some kind of practice where like, here's what I'm gonna do, here's how I'm going to kind of protect myself as I like, put this out into the world.
Speaker 3 4:32
Yeah, um, I guess just, I think just focusing on the work itself, like I tried to I, a friend of mine gave me really great advice. Start the next book before the first book is out. So you have something that you're focused on that you're passionate about. So that whatever happens with this book, good or bad, you will already have something that you are kind of devoted to. So I did do that and I think that that that has helped. So you know, most of the time I'm actually think Thinking about the next book. And even though you know, I can't, I guess I haven't like really shared that with anyone. So it's it just seems like it's completely mine is very private. So I like that feeling. And I think just like reading, just focusing on books that I love writers that I love, and just being in that kind of space of literature. So I think that that's helped a lot. And having supportive writer friends, that makes a big difference. Just because I think like you said, a lot of people have gone through it. And you know, a lot of people feel very anxious about this whole process. So it's good to know that I'm not alone in this boat. Yeah, and guess state staying off and not not reading, I don't read, like Amazon, Goodreads or things like that. Sometimes people do tag me on Instagram. I see that. But aside from that, like, I don't go seeking for those types of reviews. I think professional critics, and those reviews are a bit different. So I think that I do read those. And if you know, they do have critiques, it might be useful to know what the needs are. Yeah, but I think just Yeah, it's best to kind of minimize the, the, the amount of exposure I have to, to, like readers opinions.
Phil 6:25
Yeah, I mean, I was like, immediately drawn into landscapes. Like you know, we've we've had a number of authors who've been published on today radio in the past. So like, I'm constantly looking on that website, and like seeing whatever new things are coming along. So when I saw landscapes, when right from the cover alone, I was like, Well, what is this and then learning that it kind of had a climate change, post apocalyptic kind of setting is another dislike, that's just popcorn for Ben and I, because we're super interested in climate change related topics, and especially like, post apocalyptic, kind of backdrops for novels that are necessarily focused on like, surviving in the zombie apocalypse and stuff like that. And, you know, the first thing that stood out to me about landscapes is that for such a kind of small novel, it's like a little over 200 pages. It there's so much happening in it, you know, there's, it's kind of like a pistol, airy journal entry kind of stuff happening. There's archival descriptions, there's art criticism, there's even like, kind of more traditional, like, third person point of view sections. And I'm curious, like, maybe just to set us up? How do you describe the novel? Like, if you had to give somebody an elevator pitch about what landscapes is? How might you describe it, and I'll just take the heat off me for a second.
Speaker 3 7:56
It was definitely challenging to, to, to to pitch it when I when I first finished the manuscript, and I had to send it to two agents and later to two editors. Yeah, it was definitely a challenge to try to kind of encapsulate in a single sentence, you know, in like, the elevator pitch. What Yeah, I guess I would say it's a hybrid text that blends diary apart essays and a more traditional, linear third person narrative. Yeah, that's that I think it's easy, breezy, easiest ways to describe it, but that it approaches the themes of like memory, and, and healing from different angles. So hence, all the different types of writing that that are in the book. So I guess I was kind of overly ambitious, I wasn't sure if I would get a chance to write another book, or, you know, if I want to write another book, so I just I wanted to, like pack a lot in in the first book, I thought this might be my only chance to write it all. So yeah, so I packed a lot in there. Yeah, and I wanted to just, you know, create something that was kind of multi layered, because I tend to be drawn to two texts that are hybrid that are playing with form, and that kind of combine different things. Yeah. And so, yeah, so I just wanted to kind of follow in that tradition.
Ben 9:33
One of the things that I think like especially, you know, early on, I was really sucked into this book. And it's is that I think it's like dealing with this question of what is the what is the permanence of art? And how does it stick around, and how does it continue to resonate or not? And I think that that fits so well, with this backdrop of there's a lot of these climate disasters, and I think there's this kind of open question of, what is it what does it mean to like, make Art and engage with art in a world that is maybe collapsing and maybe going away, and maybe you could just talk about, like, you know, those questions and how you were drawn to them?
Speaker 3 10:11
Yeah, I think it's it's a question that I asked myself a lot, you know, and I think a lot of people who've chosen to go into the arts might have similar concerns, you know, what is the the, the use of what we do essentially, like how, how effective could art be when it comes to contributed to some sort of positive change in the world? And I don't really have like an easy answer to that, I think. But I think it's important to keep asking these questions. I think in many ways, the process of making art is a way of bearing witness to everything that's happening. And certainly, I mean, I didn't set out to write so directly about the ecological crisis. It was something that just kind of happened somewhere during the process, because I was watching the news or reading the news and watching all these things happening in the world. And it just seemed quite sudden, like, I would say, like, in the past couple of years, there's just like, these events have increased exponentially. And it just became impossible to ignore. And, and there were also more articles, I think, just in magazines and journals about the climate crisis. So I just feel like it just really came to the forefront of cultural discourse. And I also read Amitav Ghosh is the great derangement grey Book, book itself into it, he's he's absolutely right. Like, you know, fiction hasn't really addressed the climate crisis. Enough. And so I felt like I wanted to, to include that as a way of, I guess, challenging myself to see if I could address it. While also looking at all of these other aspects,
Ben 12:06
yeah. Okay. Now, I'm just now I'm forced to ask you, I think one of the like, the Theses of great arrangement is this idea of like, you know, particularly, I think the the idea of like, the American novel, was really obsessed with the interior. And that makes it impossible in some ways to deal with like, calamity that is, you know, far beyond how did you think about that when you were like, I'm writing this book, and I want in some ways to, like, address and engage with, you know, climate change?
Speaker 3 12:33
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm not sure I fully agreed with his his argument, because, all right. Yeah, I feel like the, I can't remember the term he's like the bourgeois novel, I think it could definitely incorporate a lot more than just kind of the interior life of the individual. And I think it's important technology like the I guess, the, the connectedness between the individual and kind of the wider world, and the porousness and the way that we are influenced by our environment, and vice versa. So it's not something that's very close, that's completely closed off. But But again, remember, he made his argument about time about how it's very difficult for, you know, the novel, which is set in a particular time very limited timeframe, that's defined by human life. And it's very difficult for the novel to address planetary time or geological time. And I think that that is true. And that's like that, that is something that's very challenging, just because it's, it's hard for us as individuals to to really see that. So, so yeah. So I mean, I think it's, it's, it's a fascinating topic, and I'm also always looking at novels that address not not necessarily just that the climate crisis, but any kind of catastrophe, you know, like how novels represent something that really seems to push representation to its limits? Yeah.
Phil 14:06
Yeah, I mean, something that I really appreciated in the novel, you know, was the forum because, you know, I come from a more creative nonfiction background, and I really like, like collage based works and kind of Stranger, kind of formal choices made in narrative and something that kind of strikes me that I didn't really think about too heavily while reading the book, but just as we're talking is like Penelope, the main character, she's like a librarian archivist kind of background and her story largely as told and like these journal entries, that in turn are going to be can be can imagine are going to become parts of like a potential archive I've one day and I'm curious, like how you landed on the forum for this novel? Was it always like in these kind of journal entries? Specifically that that section of it or did it? Did you land on that maybe after experimenting with other parts of the novel?
Speaker 3 15:20
Yeah. So I started with Penelope sections first, and, and the very, very early drafts, it was actually just a third person narrative. And then I felt like something was amiss. So, so so so I experimented with different different voices, diverse perspectives. And I felt like this is what makes the most sense. It was like it was like a good fit for the character. And also I love epistolary novels or novels written diary form, and I love like the fragmentary Enos and the way that they allow a character to speak. And I recently read the forbidden notebook by the Italian writer Alba dis c'est pities. I think I might be mispronouncing that. And Jhumpa Lahiri wrote a great introduction for the novel. And she talks about how, like diary novels are kind of like documents of a character self fashioning. So we get to see the characters struggle in a very direct way. And, and we get to hear their voice and the way that they they kind of see the world. And it's unfiltered, as it were. And and, and I like how a lot of diary novels, they retain a kind of, like imperfection, I guess. So because it's meant to be or mimic someone's notebook. It has to kind of be a bit on the polished. And so so I like that aspect as well. Yeah, kind of resist the the perfection that's often demanded of novels.
Phil 16:58
Thinking about after I finished the novel. I loved this kind of tension that you had between showcasing decay, next to beauty, you know, death, next to life, possibility. And destruction, I feel like these are all kinds of things that we're seeing, from the setting and Mornington to how Penelope is kind of, you know, archiving different works and cataloging postcards and paintings and everything else. It kind of reminded me a bit of, I like to take photos in my spare time. And I really like, like street photography, and, or like life photography, as some people say it. And photographer I enjoy always says that whenever they take a picture, that's them saying yes. And in some ways, I kind of felt that with an LPS character throughout the novel, like you get these moments of her saying, Yes, this is an important moment for me this an important moment of art. And then obviously, there's, there's kind of like a big underlying, you know, moment in her life that she's kind of working through, throughout throughout the entirety of the novel. But, I mean, I don't really have a question here, I just thought I just felt that you did a really good job of kind of showing, like the fluidity in terms of how we engage with art and how art engages with our lives. And I think that the form really does a really good job of kind of showcasing all that all that friction and tension that's happening.
Speaker 3 18:35
I like that a, quote, taking a photograph as a way of saying, yes, yeah. And, and, yeah, I do think that, you know, art continues to play. Well, to go back to to your earlier question about art and kind of dying world, and and what art means, I mean, I think that it does and will continue to to play a role in people's daily lives as perhaps a source of consolation. And but yeah, I'm wary of becoming being too nostalgic, maybe because it's easy to like, look back on the days when, you know, are played a more central role in culture. But yeah, and I think that despite all these kind of, I guess fears about like AI and new developments, I do think that right writing will continue to play a role in society. So So yeah, so So Penelope writing in the diary and writing as a way of like finding a path out of despair, that that was a very important part of, of the book for me. So I didn't want it to be too depressing at the end. I think that that bit of hope that at the end of this is important.
Ben 19:59
We get a lot of different relationships to art throughout landscapes. And there's, I think, this idea of the archive, where our memories of art are preserved in some ways and not really interacted with. But there are also items throughout the novel that feel like they capture memory and experience in a way that is really similar to the paintings that you described throughout the novel, I'm thinking about how Penelope kind of hangs on to some of the mementos from her father after he dies. And for me, there's this suggestion that art is ultimately like, hyper personal, and in some ways has to be interacted with, but that that interaction also is going to, like lead to the decay of some of those physical items, and renders this stuff impermanent. can maybe talk to me a bit about that, you know, in some ways, juxtaposition there.
Speaker 3 20:45
That's a really interesting point. Yeah, I do. I do think that the, for Penelope, art is deeply personal. And, uh, you know, she uses art, his way of mapping her life experiences. But yeah, I actually hadn't thought about what Yes, so the, the, the impermanence of the objects, so a lot of these, I call them the archive items, like the books and you know, the objects and some sometimes like just photographs, that she is archiving a lot of they're, they're in kind of fragile conditions, and, and a lot of them have been damaged by past by flood. So I think that, that, yeah, I wanted to highlight the getting permanence of the fragility and the precarity of these material objects. And so none of them are really meant to last. But nevertheless, there is this, this drive to preserve them for as long as possible. And the meaning that we derive from them, in some ways, you know, does not depend on the physical object, so the object can cease to exist, like the painting could be lost could be stolen. But what it imparts, remains with with the person who's truly engaged with the object or work of art, if that makes sense.
Ben 22:07
Yeah. And I mean, I think there's a great passage that the thing that was kind of teeing me off to think about this is there's this bit where a character Alex is reading Penelope his books, and she's getting really agitated, because he's like, the way that he's reading them is like fraying them and I assume he's dog wearing them. And so it's like, it's, it's, he's engaging with it, but it's like, in a way that is like, you can tell that it's fraying and decaying. And, and so I was just thinking about, like, the way that sometimes the archive is set up to be like, a thing that you it exists, we're preserving the art, but maybe you can't like really engage with it, or like, touch it, because if you do, it's like, degrading it in some ways, and then it won't be accessible to like the future.
Speaker 3 22:48
Very good point. Yeah. I guess like a lot of these will, maybe not in the world of novel, but in the real world. And a lot of these artworks, you know, they are just sitting in vaults and archives and storage space, they're not actually being viewed or studied. So because because they're very precious, and I was interested in this idea of like, you know, the value of an artwork. And because one of the inspiration for for the book was when I came across one of Turner's paintings that was sold by Sotheby's in like 2017 for like, 18 million pounds. And, and there was, so it's now in a private collection, and will never be viewed publicly, again, at their, I went to their website, and they had like, the provenance of the painting all the grand estates in which the painting was once housed. So I became interested in this idea of like, the artwork as possession as as a form of capital, not just a thing of beauty. So it's something that has monetary value, and for a lot of collectors, or for someone like Julian, that is the only value that they might see. And, and so I think it's, it's, you know, it's entangled with, yeah, with capitalism and with with idea of private property, and this, that kind of preserving, you know, putting it in a vault, making sure it's protected, and not engaging with it. It leads to, I think, another kind of decay and another kind of forgetting maybe, way that is juxtaposed to the to how Penelope engages with art in a very kind of hands on very direct fashion.
Phil 24:38
Yeah, I mean, the art kind of criticism, essays, or like kind of interludes that happen throughout the novel. I think really speak to that because something I was ruminating on. You know, before hopping on is this that the novel does a really good job of like showing The power of choosing what we decide to be valuable. And in this case, you know, art is kind of the big thing that the novel is grappling with, and how that kind of sheds light on what we as a society choose to champion. And I think something that the art criticism essays, you know, really are exploring is kind of this juxtaposition between beauty and sexual violence against women largely, and how a lot of these, you know, kind of old, great artists, like sculptures and paintings are depicting, you know, really intense moments of rape and violence against women, but they're often, you know, not talked to, by about or acknowledged in that fashion. And in instead, it's like, talking about how beautiful they are. And I'm just curious, like, I mean, it's kind of a big question, but I mean, what do you think that says about, you know, us as a society that we're kind of stuck in, you know, I think there's a lot of change happening now that we've kind of been stuck in this, this mode of, of, you know, championing championing sexual violence in art against women. You know, without acknowledging the actual context through which what's happening on the page is happening.
Speaker 3 26:23
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's such an important subject. And you know, when I started doing the research, it was really eye opening to me. I mean, I've seen a lot of these artworks in person, in museums and galleries. And I don't recall, being I guess, educated about that context in within the space of the museum. So, you know, these, these art historians have really done a tremendous job. Doing this research woman, she's kind of raising awareness. And, yeah, yeah, I was really interested in how, like you said, we collectively, kind of define something as beautiful without looking at these kinds of historical and cultural context, and the subject of violence that underpins all of these artworks. And, and I do think that there needs to be, like, recontextualizing, like, we need to look at these artworks and knew that doesn't mean that, you know, they cease to be beautiful. I think I think that that's, that's the issue that a lot of people might have. And I remember reading Catherine McCormick's women in the picture, and it's such a fantastic book about the subject. And she talks about how, you know, when, when she's making presentations, or talks, giving talks about the subject go on people kind of resistant. It's they almost see as a form of like sacrilege, because it's high art, and we shouldn't shouldn't question, you know, Titian, because I remember talking to an acquaintance about the Titian and there's just like, Well, why would you want to point out something like that in a painting because it's beautiful. And I say, if it doesn't cease to be aesthetically pleasing, just because we're pointing out this aspect of the painting, I actually think it makes it more interesting. It kind of enriches our, our experience of the artwork. But yeah, but I do think that there is this, this kind of resistance, maybe people just want something that's an uncomplicated, that's more about the pleasure of viewing a work of art. Yeah, and I think the same extends to like the country houses. So I think it was 2020, maybe, um, the National Trust in England, they published report about the, the links to slavery, and a lot of the houses that's under their care. And a lot of people didn't like that. And, you know, a lot of conservative people didn't like that, because they felt like, well, you're ruining the experience of going to these beautiful places for afternoon tea or storming the garden. And, and I don't know, to what extent that their campaign to kind of raise awareness was successful. Because I spoken to friends about it, and people are just like, Well, why why would I want to know about that? If I just want to, you know, go go for a nice afternoon. I just want to have, you know, a relaxing time. So, yeah, I do think that it's these. Yeah, these separate situations, say something. Quite dark, maybe. And, yeah, or a lack of willingness to, to to face what happened in the past and to make changes. And we see them in different contexts as well. And yeah, but I do think it is changing. I know that there are more museums and galleries that are, you know, educating the public about the nature of art. and artworks just through, you know, the labels on the wall, something simple like that were 3d. They're, like audio guides and tours and things like that. So I think yeah, if there were more of that type of information, that, yeah, I think more people would just be aware. And you know, we would kind of question our own our own preferences as spectators or as visitors to various places.
Ben 30:31
I had maybe like a broader question, which is like, what is what is your own relationship to, to art? And, like, how you I think you're kind of already talking about it, like how you engage with a piece of work, and how you're kind of thinking about it. But like, yeah, what role does art play in your life? And in what ways? Are you kind of finding finding it and seeking it out and engaging with it?
Speaker 3 30:54
Well, I don't have any background in art history. I think if I had to choose again, I might choose art. I, yeah, so I don't do any art. Personally, I take photographs. So I'm really into photography at the moment. And I, when it comes to writing, I feel like I always need to start with visual arts. Pretty much all projects I've worked on, including, like short stories and essays always start with either an artist or just a single image. Yeah, I just I find it. It's like a springboard for all kinds of ideas. And there's this great line from Warhammer. Luke's, the naive and sentimental novelist, where he talks about how novelists are, like secretly envious of painters. Because writing always begins with visualization. So we visualize the setting of the space in which the character lives, and then we translate that into words. But it doesn't, but language will never have that directness, that that the visual arts have. So I think I do feel a sense of not exactly envy, but I wish that I had the the skills and the way of capturing the world that a visual artist has, and, and I find a lot of your reading about artists and their process, very inspiring, even though it's writing is very different. But I find this Yeah, a lot of like the, I guess, like their dedication and the repetitiveness. And there's this kind of like ritualistic approach that some artists have when it comes to kind of going into the studio and setting everything up. So I find that just
Ben 32:49
you know, Phil, and I kind of were talking throughout about, you know, I think there'll be sections where you're describing a painting to us. And I would frequently, like pull up Google and just like, look it up. But yeah, talk to me about I think there was a conscious decision not to put some of those pieces of art in the novel. You know, why?
Speaker 3 33:10
Mostly because of copyright reasons. Okay. Yeah. I think that that's quite complicated, like, yeah, using images in a book. And also this the central painting, a view on the sun doesn't actually exist. It's based on a real painting. Because I remember when I first submitted manuscript, one of my editors was like, Googling for ages of what is his painting look like? I was like, it doesn't really says, so I didn't I wanted to create something that that was a kind of fictional Turner. But all the other Turner's are real. And yeah, so it's, yeah, I mean, I went to look at lobbies and in person, or, you know, just always on the internet, looking at art and paintings.
Phil 33:56
Yeah, I mean, I assume that Turner's work is specifically of interest to you, given that it's such a central part of the novel, I'm curious, like, what is it maybe about Turner's work that has drawn you in so much or why would why was that? Why Why was there work such an important aspect for this particular novel?
Speaker 3 34:21
That's interesting question. I, I've studied Turner during graduate school. So he was part of my, my thesis. And so I think it just, you know, it's just kind of, it's something that kind of just developed as I was reading about the era in which he lived and because he was such an such an important artist in English history, but I've always been drawn to, to the paintings and it's kind of hard to articulate, and Penelope is kind of struggles with describing ours very much something that I've experienced, which is it's something that really just is so appealing and so mesmerizing, but it's hard to kind of pinpoint the exact quality I suppose it's his his use of light that the you know, he's got a printer in front of me right now that the sunlight, it really just makes you feel like you're bathe in real light. And, and he was a pioneer in that kind of painting technique and the Impressionists were so indebted to him. But he's not I don't think he's like, as widely known as someone like Monet. Yeah. And I, I'd like to reading about his his biography, the fact that, you know, he, he grew up in behind the cabbage stalls of Covent Garden, as John Berger wrote his essay about Turner, and, you know, became one of the most successful artists. And so he had a very interesting life, and was quite a strange person. I don't know if you watch that movie, Mr. Turner, that Mike Lee film from couple years ago,
Ben 36:00
I have not but that's I was Googling the paintings in the background here and the actor's face was like one of the the third or fourth things that came up and I was like, what?
Speaker 3 36:10
Yeah, yeah, it's good. He did a really good job. I think Timothy's fault. Yes. Yep. Yeah, I think he did a good job of portraying Turner as someone who's just bad tempered. And so yeah, so it's his his paintings and like, who he was, there's don't seem to match. But yeah, I just I just found him fascinating as a person.
Phil 36:36
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't too familiar with his work before reading the book. So yeah, like Ben said, I was like, looking up a lot of the paintings as I was going through, and I agree like it, his paintings are kind of immediately enticing. I feel like I'm kind of entering into a memory or something like that. And, you know, I think, like, a unique tension that we see in the book is like Phnom Penh, LPs relationship to Turner, and this kind of immense fluidity between time and space that thinking about these paintings has on her. You know, there's, there's times where it kind of allows her to place herself back into a moment. But then there's also times where we almost get like this superimposed feeling of like, it's in the present, but we're kind of seeing somewhere in the future, or maybe somewhere in the past, and we're kind of seeing this layering happening. I was wondering if maybe you could just talk a little bit about that with art and how, you know, art kind of gives us the, the capacity to maybe linger in stasis, but also to imagine otherwise, or like, imagine something different, which I think is where the novel ultimately kind of ends. If you could talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 3 37:56
absolutely. Yeah, I mean, she has these, there, these kind of like, kind of ekphrastic moments where she imagines a given scene in a painting. And I think that that, like you said that the process of imagining of placing ourselves in a different context was very important, especially for the fidelity as a character. Because I think one of the main sort of, I guess, struggles that the, that this character had, was what you know, what to do in the face of all this catastrophe? Like how do we place ourselves in someone else's shoes? How do we see from their perspective, so the act of of looking at an artwork is, in some ways, linked to the act of seeing through someone else's eyes, it's that that a similar process of removing ourselves from our own context and placing ourselves somewhere else, so hence, her her, her empathy, and her her drive to help others it is linked to a particular way of, of looking at anything outside yourself. And so I Yeah, and that was something that I added, like that layer was something that added kind of later in the, in the writing process, when I felt like there was something that was missing in terms of her relationship to the world. I didn't want her to be kind of like solipsistic locked in, you know, in a room just looking at art. So I wanted there to be a link to the world. Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.
Phil 39:51
No, that's that's great. I mean, I like I love it when you know, writers we talk to you they talk a little bit about when the kinds of moments happen in the process of writing a novel, like we talked to Justin C, who wrote my volcano from Killer radio, and they talked a lot about, like, there's one aspect in that book that is so pivotal to the whole thing. And they're like, oh, yeah, I wrote that like a month before, you know. So it's always interesting to kind of hear that that kind of process. And I think in that, in that token, I was curious about the sections with Julian and kind of the choice to, yeah, kind of embody his story. And I'm trying to not talk too spoilery. Like, I'm just curious about that, that element of the of the novel, like, how long? And did you consider that and kind of, what were you hoping to explore in those sections?
Speaker 3 40:54
Yeah, so I, I decided, fairly early on, I was going to write from his perspective, but the original kind of structure was, you know, the book was going to be cut in half, the first half, with, you know, a few chapters from total from his perspective. So later on, they decided to kind of intersperse them. So there's this kind of back and forth. And, and it's mainly because I wanted to juxtapose their, their approaches, and their personalities, the way that you know, the way that they approach art, the way that they they relate to others in the world. And because, please, fairly stationary throughout most of the book, that she's she stays in the house with, you know, some excursions to the city, whereas he is constantly in movement. But there is this kind of psychological stasis in him as in Julian as a character, so I wanted to juxtapose them in that sense as well. And, and I was I was really inspired by teachables, Open City, which is one of my favorite novels ever. And, and that features, you know, a male narrator wandering through the city, or cities, various cities, and in the process, trying to, like, evade his own past. So I was very influenced by that. And I kind of wanted to pay homage to that book, by writing from from the perspective of someone who might be considered monstrous. But not to kind of make excuses for him, but to really just kind of, I was curious about, like, the psychology of someone like that. And it's interesting hearing from some readers holding that they just felt like it was it was too much, you know, they didn't want to, to learn about someone who was like that, but I don't know, maybe I'm just, I just, I find it fascinating what, when I was an undergrad, I wanted to become a forensic psychologist. Like to me, because I just, you know, I think it's, yeah, it's, again, it's someone who was very, very different. And it was a challenge for me to, to imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who's very different from from myself, or anyone that I met. And, and it was hard, and that is a character who's kind of opaque to himself. Or it was challenging for me to portray that opacity. While at the same time, obviously, you know, being able to see from it kind of authorial point of view. But, yeah, I mean, that, yeah, that it works, that that kind of contrast,
Ben 43:36
you know, you were kind of talking before about, you know, putting yourself inside of the art, or finding a way to like engage with an art where it's like, you end up inside of it. And I underlined one of the passages and I I'm wondering if there's a suggestion here that like art is also a way to kind of process what has happened and that like, through like viewing, and then embodying these, these artworks, it's a way to like move through these experiences in your own life. And if that's something that kind of Penelope is using as a way to kind of help process some of her kind of trauma?
Speaker 3 44:10
Yes, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's for Penelope. That's kind of what I was suggesting is that the artworks become kind of prisms for her own feelings. And to go back to our points. Art is deeply personal. And these meanings that that she invest in them are meanings that come out of her, her her trauma, her experiences. And, yeah, I mean, I don't know to what extent this is a very common way of relating to art. I, I personally don't necessarily do that. With that. I think that my relationship to art, it remains very kind of an aesthetic plane and it's more about You know how I could learn from the artwork and use those ideas in my own creative process? So it was more about that, rather than, you know, what art what a particular artwork my say to me about something on gold, or have gone through. But my sense is just like looking at, you know, especially on social media, when people comment on their business to various museums, I do think that for a lot of people, it is very personal. And it's it's particular artworks might be linked to a particular phase in life, much like how music is, were any other cultural products that we consume, you know, we associate something with a particular phase of life or a particular place that we lived in. And that always becomes attached to that time.
Phil 45:54
You know, this is kind of a selfish question. But you know, thinking about process again, as somebody who's never been to completion, a novel, let alone a one that has a huge epistolary component. I'm always curious, when I read those kinds of works, like what is the actual process like for you in terms of, you know, developing that that narrative for Penelope? Through the journal entries? Was it something that maybe just like ritualistically, every day you sat down and wrote one? Or did you kind of have an idea of, like, start to finish what you were hoping to do, and you kind of filled it in?
Speaker 3 46:31
No, definitely not every day. So during the process of writing this book, I was working full time at the time, and it was just very difficult to write. So I would maybe have one weekend free per month. The writing was very sporadic. And then sometime during the summer, and you know, during Christmas during holidays, when I could work on it for a bit longer. But again, it was you know, there will be like stretches of like weeks when I didn't work on it. So actually, the the fragmentary form, made it a bit easier, because it just meant that if I had time, I could write you know, however many hundreds of words that I needed for that section. And something that's that's a lot longer, and that required just a longer period of time. Yeah, and there was a lot of going back and forth a lot of cutting. So I cut quite a lot before the book was even submitted to agents. So I just, I always like over, write beyond the limits, and then I cut back. And I actually think that for me, that's been the most effective in terms of just polishing the text and getting rid of anything that's extraneous. So there were a lot more like archive items that I originally included, or more like artworks that were referenced. So I just cut anything that felt was repetitive, or that was maybe too tangential, because I didn't want a very big book. So I wanted to aim for something that's a bit compact, because I personally like my books.
Ben 48:08
Same. Same same maybe
Speaker 3 48:12
it's nice to just be able to finish something in a few sittings. Yeah, so yeah. So and I think that you know, it. I don't know, for for the next project, I would like to maybe try working on it for a longer period of time, at once. Curious to see how different that would be and what the end product will look like. Yeah.
Ben 48:36
Are you able to talk at all about like, what is the editing process, like when you have a novel, and you're like, I'm ready, like how much back and forth is there as you're like, you know, cutting and making decisions about what to keep,
Speaker 3 48:49
is there was a lot of back and forth. So with my agent who signed these contracts, were got these contracts for me. But she she did one or two rounds of edits before it was out of submission. So yeah, even before any editor saw it, it was already being edited. And then the substantive edits. That was the most intense periods of I think, six months, maybe something like that. A lot of back and forth. And because I had two editors, so with my Canadian editors, so that contract was a bit earlier. So we did the substantive edits first, and then we signed the $2 radio. So then I did, Eric. So that was a bit challenging, because there were two separate different timelines as well, just so overlapping a bit. So yeah, so that was quite intense.
Ben 49:44
What happens? Was there ever a case where like, you know, $2 would be like, we want this cut, and then like, you know, you're Canadian. Are we like, no, that part's great. We're leaving that.
Speaker 3 49:54
There were some not necessarily disagreements, people notice different things, or they have to suggest pins for maybe the same section of the same problem. And I just had to choose which one I thought made more sense for the book. Yeah, but there weren't like, you know, like, debates or anything like that. And it was eight, I think it was really good to get different sets of eyes on the manuscript. And people do notice different things and or have different preferences. So that was a very insightful process. Like that was my favorite part really? Editing, and then the copy editing as well. Eliza as the best copy editor. Yeah, so she was so meticulous and the text is so much stronger now because of her work. So I enjoyed that, as well as all of that was was very tiring, and there was a lot of back and forth. But I think it was worth it. Yeah, so personally, I like working with an editor versus like, workshopping. So I did do like a continuing education program in 2016. So that was when I first started doing creative writing. And there was the workshop thing. And that model just didn't really work that well, for me, because through listening to the opinions of 10 people, and so, and they're usually there are a lot of like differences in opinions. So it was very difficult to reconcile the opinions of 10 people. So working with an editor one on one, it's much easier because you're listening to one person, and you're corresponding and having this dialogue about the work. versus in a workshop where I couldn't really say anything, I just had to receive the feedback. Yeah. So so it was, yeah, it was it was really rewarding to me.
Ben 51:48
Do you mind talking just a little bit about like the the practice of writing and how it occupies like how it fits into your life? I think Phil and I are always talking about like, working day jobs, and then finding time and space afterwards. I think you're talking about like, the weekend situation, like what does it look like for you now.
Speaker 3 52:07
So I'm not actually working at the moment. So it is like, what my dream job is to be able to work to write full time. And I've, I've spoken to other writers about and some people actually don't like writing full time, because they feel like it's, you have this the entire day. And it feels very unstructured. So I tried to treat it like a day job. So you know, it's like a kind of nine to five sort of thing for me, where are you usually I would start really like it's like, like eight to four. So you know, I would make sure that I clock in a certain number of hours out the desk. And it's not just like writing I count reading, or doing research is part of that process as well. So So it's basically pretty much every day, with the exception of like, weekends or holidays and so on. And so I think I try to not get I guess it is kind of ritualistic. Like, I will have like certain steps. I've always make my tea first, you know, ever being set up. And then I start and it just makes it feel easier to get into it. And I avoid going on the internet's Yeah. So there are things I have to do to kind of force myself to, to focus. And I find that this is the most productive. I felt that working sprak sporadically on the weekends, that that was quite hard, just because it takes some time to get back to get back into the like the atmosphere of the book. But yeah, I mean, I you know, I think when I do work full time again, I probably would still do the same, like weekends because I find that after work with some people do it before work, which I really admire. Yeah, maybe if I woke up at five, it'll be good.
Phil 54:03
I was curious, during cuz I know you you have a PhD? I was curious, like, you know, just from my personal experience reading the novel, I felt a lot of just how should I put it? Like, I did two masters programs. Ben has done a master's in creative writing. And I think like we both have had a lot of conversations about like you get out. And in some ways it kind of feels like a climate apocalypse. Like you're like what do I do with this thing I spent years with and like nobody really wants to, you know, engage with it in the same fashion that the really curated experience that I had in school did I felt like in some ways, maybe inadvertently like landscapes also has like a little bit of an interest in exploring that and I think you at the top of the show you talked a little bit a little bit about people who should Used to, like devote their lives to the arts or like studying the art and how, how after the fact? You know, you're kind of you kind of have to answer these questions for yourself, like, what do I do with this stuff? Yeah, I don't really know if there's a question there, but it just felt like there was there was a vibe, you know? Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 3 55:19
I do think it's I'm sure, you know, maybe our experiences have been similar in that sense of being on board, you know, the institution was this kind of like Harbor, right. And then once you graduate, now you're like, out the sea on your own, and you just figure it out. We're seeing where the current takes you. It's really it's a, it was a really bewildering experience. Yeah. Yeah, everyone's nodding. And, I mean, it was it was it was certainly very, very difficult. And I'm sure you've heard of like, the adjunct situation with the academic job market. And it's it was, you know, I think it's a horrible situation. And I think that, you know, academia needs to be, I don't know that it needs to be revolutionized, like, something needs to change, because the current state is not sustainable. And I still have a lot of friends who are, you know, enacting the higher education. So I hear these stories all the time. But I made the decision early on that I was going to that was not for me, and I wanted to leave, wanting to do something that was was different. And yeah, and I think Penelope skepticism about academia is very much my own, that there is this, you know, it's kind of self imposed in many ways. And yeah, and I think the experience of being on the job market looking for, for adjunct positions are different from you being in graduate school. And yeah, I felt disillusioned. Yeah,
Ben 57:06
totally. And I think like, so I have, you know, I have some friends who are currently doing the adjunct thing now. But I think like, what happened to me is like, after I made the decision, well, I'm not gonna go into academia, it then leads you to a place of like, well, then what do I do with all this stuff? That's like, banging around in my brain now, like, now that I have all this, like, time and effort that I've spent on analysis and you know, reading critical text or whatever, it then becomes like, Well, where does that all go? And I think maybe what Phil is saying is like, in some ways, I'm reading landscapes, and I'm like, this is someone who went through those classes. Davies, this is someone who's seen the dark side, and is like, trying to like make sense of it.
Speaker 3 57:46
Yeah, I mean, you know, I guess I tried to recycle some, like research materials, so they wouldn't go to waste. But I didn't want things to just like, disappear. But yeah, it is, it is really hard. And I really respect friends who are, you know, still going through the system and trying to fight it? In every way that they can? Yeah. That's hope it changes.
Ben 58:11
Is there something we haven't asked you about? You know, your, your novel or your practice? Or what's going on with you right now that you want to say? I don't know.
Speaker 3 58:21
Yeah, I'm, I'm working on something new, which is very exciting. I've already mentioned that. And it's also something that engages with images with photography, specifically. So yeah, so I'm very excited about that. And yeah, and I am hoping to write some essays as well. It's really do with art, but just kind of different. Just exploring something different. I find it quite hard to write personal essays, just because I don't know how I just did that. That process of saying something personal, is quite daunting to me. But you know, that's, that's a challenge. I like to set myself sometime in the future. Well,
Phil 59:09
thanks so much for coming on. I mean, I really loved reading through landscapes, and I think it was a perfect text for me right now. Because this novel that I'm working on, it kind of does some weird formal things. And it gave me a lot of inspiration to think about solving some of the issues that I'm having. So you know, I really loved hearing like your perspective on the book, and it's, you know, it's a really beautiful book. So I really appreciate you taking the time to come talk with us.
And that was our conversation with Christine Lai about her debut novel landscapes from $2 radio No. Yeah, this, this book was really interesting to me, you know, I think I came in thinking it'd be one thing. And then you know, reading the book, you realize that it's just so many different things kind of collaging into this work that's a little bit hard to parse a little bit challenging, but has so many kind of interesting facets throughout. I'm curious for you, Ben, like, what were some things that really stuck out to you with the book and the conversation?
Ben 1:00:33
Yeah, I feel like, you know, I guess just like, first off the thing that you and I immediately were, like, we're gonna love this novel, is, you know, initially, it seemed like, this was a book that was about like, art at the end of the world, which is the thing that we I think, looking back, I'm like, Oh, we talked about that a lot. Like, that's sure, that should do be a theme that we love coming back to, which is like, what does it means make art, if all of the trappings of society are going away? And how does that aren't going to continue to resonate? Or how does it resonate, when so many things that it's like, built around it, are gone. And I think the first couple of chapters of this book are kind of interested in that we've got an archivist who is like, looking at some of these pieces of art and trying to preserve them as the world is like changing and dealing with all these different climate disasters. But as the novel goes on, I think it becomes more of a novel about, you know, our relationship to art, writ large. And like what it means to connect with a piece of art and how art in some ways can be a way of like processing trauma, or processing these other ways of feeling. But I still think that like, again, like in a lot of ways that like first conversation around art, and maybe even the second one that show up in this novel are things that really stuck with me, one of the parts that you and I kind of talked about, I think, before we got into this conversation was, you know, there's an idea in here about is art for for everyone, or is the you know, the best kind of art, something that's like hyper personal and kind of impermanence, there's this whole idea of like, art can't really stick around. There's a whole conversation in here about like books, and the idea that like, when you start reading books and handling the physical copy of a book, it deteriorates. And so there's only X number of times that you can read that book before it becomes unreadable. And that like, engaging with art, in some ways is very similar, that there's like, only so many times that you can, like, look at a painting and the act of like having the painting out, it's going to degrade over time. And that at some point, like art is lost and like it stops being available to people. And what does that mean? And so I think that stuff is stuff that you and I talked about all the time outside of this podcast, but I think he's just like something that really resonates.
Phil 1:02:48
Yeah, I 100% fuck with all that, you know, similar to you, I think when I started the novel, you know, I could be missing misremembering, but my feeling of the first couple pages of the novel was very kind of like, you know, obviously, post apocalyptic, but kind of, like almost medieval, which was interesting, given that it takes place in the future. And like, you know, the main character was like in a kind of decaying, Abbi, and like writing by candlelight, I want to say, or at least I had that vibe, as like, well, this isn't what I was expecting. It kind of reminded me like a video game or like Dark Souls, or, you know, that kind of brooding quality. You know, ultimately, the novel kind of goes in a different direction. But I ended up finding other things that I really appreciated with what lie does. And in the novel, and I don't know if I kind of conveyed this appreciation well in the conversation because like, I think we I don't know if we recorded this part. But Christina and I joked, right before we started, like, oh, we both are getting kind of sick. So like during the conversation, I don't know if I was fully, you know, my best self asking questions, but something that I really appreciated with what landscapes does and what Lai does, is with the main character, I just like, there's like a really layered feeling to the interiority of the main character. I really like how something that I've grown to appreciate a lot in novels and writing is kind of bringing in the, you know, the cerebral or the dream state into the narrator's life and how that kind of can be disruptive to how you navigate the world. That's something that I kind of want to try to incorporate more and like, reader or listeners, I've seen some of Ben's writing, writing and I think Ben does this pretty well. All, like kind of incorporating dreams into, you know, interacting with, you know, his characters and really interesting ways. I think Christine Lai also does that in a really interesting and layered way that kind of, is very easy to add admire throughout the novel.
Ben 1:05:20
Yeah. And I the dreams, I think work really well the other thing that I think like the dreams are doing something similar to, you know, lie will describe a painting and sometimes they think like, especially the protagonists, you know, emotional states are not always like, right at the surface, you don't have like, always the clearest idea of like, well, what is the thing that's, that is kind of driving, you know, some of the actions that she's taking, but you'll, you'll, you'll literally interspersed, you know, sometimes directly in the text, or sometimes there'll be like, a second, like, italicized, you know, section of the book will just be a description of a handful of paintings, that will usually have a common theme. And I think that that stuff just like works really, really well, where sometimes like stuff is not at the surface, but then you get a description of a painting, and you're like, Oh, this is this is what this is, like, actually about right now. And I found that stuff like really cool, really smart. It's like a great way to incorporate this. And Phil and I were kind of talking about how much we how much time we spent, like kind of like googling some of these paintings. And there's something that just like, really effective about like, you're like reading this, you're imagining it, and then you pull it up, and you're like, oh, yeah, like that, that hits, it hits different. There's something about that, like, Multi Medium work that I just really love.
Phil 1:06:41
Yeah, and I think also just in general, the, you know, the novel does a lot of kind of experimentation in terms of form, you know, you get these kinds of journal epistolary kind of things, you get a traditional third person narrative, you get art criticism, essays, you get archival descriptions, you know, it's it's kind of, it's just, you know, experimenting with so many different types of writing, which I'm always like, when I read these kinds of things, I'm like, Damn, how do you even like, curate this, you know, like, I don't, I don't know how you like, you know, write all these separate parts, like something that Christy and I think talked about, on the show was like, Oh, I don't have a lot of time to write. So, you know, I would write on the weekends or when I had time, and that's why the main character's name is escaping me right now. But the main character, her sections are in these journal entries, because it's kind of like I only had a couple of minutes to write. But I think something that, you know, all those, she kind of is revealing the magician's trick in terms of how she wrote those sections, I think something that I'm still like, trying to fathom is like, Okay, you write all those sections, but how do you like come up with the narrative around those? How do you how do you sequence those out in a way that kind of makes the reader feel like they're progressing forward, and I think that she does a really good job of doing that throughout the novel. So that's something that I I'm really kind of fascinated by, and something that, you know, I want to try in my own writing. And like Jim Mattis, I feel like I don't know about you, Ben. But I kind of found like, those moments in the art criticism essays, the descriptions of the paintings, like you said, like, those were, what I felt like the novel was like, at its best, I think there was some aspects that maybe, like, didn't work as well for me in terms of like, the more archival stuff, but that's all to say, I really, really liked just how experimental ly was with the work and that's something that it's like very, there's so much you can glean from kind of unpacking what she's doing in all those ways.
Ben 1:09:01
Yeah, and I think like, in some ways, it kind of has its own like it feels like it really answers some some of the questions of like, I think a lie seems to believe or seems to suggest in this book in some ways that like, at the end of the day, we will continue to connect with art for you know, long after the the situations in which it was created or gone, you know, that we will still be able to look back at old pieces of art and like find something that resonates with us and it's personal to us and speaks to us even if we don't even like really know the moment that it was created in anymore. Which is interesting because I you know, I think like especially when you start setting things in an apocalypse or like in a in a big moment where like the world is fundamentally different. I don't know I've like sometimes increasingly I'm like, is there a moment where we're going to stop being able to like even recognize the conditions in like in when which this was created or like, the frame of reference will be so Totally different. You know, one of the ones that I'm thinking about is like, you know, Moby Dick made in the time of whaling. This science is already outdated, right? I think like, all the whales are described as fish, but like, what happens if, you know, it's not far off? Whales go extinct? And then there's a point where it's like, you know, there's a generation that's like, I don't even understand, like, half of these references, like, is that a piece of art? That if it survives people have any kind of connection to? Or does it just become something that it's like, I can't even I can't even understand, you know, what is being described here. And I think, like, you know, like, in some ways, I'm like, seems to suggest to me that, like, even in that instance, you know, there's something that we might be able to pull from it, and like, glean from it and like resonate with, even if the world is completely alien, that it's showing us at that point.
Phil 1:10:56
Yeah, and, you know, and I think, you know, a scene that I really liked, I want to say it's later in the book is, there is a particular painting, the main character has in her room, that if I, if I remember correctly, it's like stolen. And it turns out that it's a recreation, it's not like the original, which, you know, they, they own a lot of original paintings, but this particular one, they just have this recreation of the painting. And that's kind of how the main characters partner takes it to like, oh, like, it's not the original anyway, like, it's not that big of a loss, but for the main character, because she had this deep connection, like personal connection to this literal recreation of this painting that she admired it, you know, there's a different kind of resonance that happens, when that's lost that, you know, her partner wouldn't have. And I think that kind of personal connection that we all have to different kinds of art is something that is kind of just inherent to being human and to, you know, reflecting your own life and experiences back at you, like, those are all things that are kind of are going to exist, no matter what happens in the world. And I think in some ways, I really appreciated how Lai showed that aspect. juxtaposed with like, these kinds of arguments around, you know, who gets to decide, which, you know, pieces of art are worth remembering, which, who gets to decide what goes into the Zeitgeist and becomes propped up as like, the greats began in the canon, you know, like, that's, that's so much of what these art criticism essays in the novel are kind of unpacking and how so much of visual art you know, the the ones that are considered the greats kind of hinges upon sexual violence and sexual assault against women. So like, you know, the obviously the novel's really, really interested and kind of unpacking and making sense of, you know, who gets to who gets to prop up our who gets what, what art gets to be remembered, right. So I think that for such a short novel, you know, it's like 200 pages, maybe Lai really is able to pack so many different conversations, different feelings and expressions, all into one very small package that I mean, you have to like, be like, Damn, that's, that's quite a feat.
Ben 1:13:37
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a really smart book that I think like, again, we're hopefully showing you just like how much is is in this that is just hard to pull apart. But it's also and I don't know if this is this made, I think this might be after we stopped recording, but we were both like, that's that academic disease, baby.
Phil 1:13:58
100%. I feel like we kind of had a similar conversation with Josh Sawyer, about something really, and the same kind of vein. But yeah, it's kind of you know, when you have that personal experience, it's hard not to see it in that way. The book is also kind of unpacking some of those woes. But yeah, I mean, this was a really fun conversation. It was really cool to kind of talk to Christine, just as her novel was about to come out, or at least in some sort of a little bit, after landscapes has released, but it was yeah, it was cool to kind of see her at this moment that, you know, a lot is going to be changing. She's already working on the next thing and kind of I just like talking to authors at that fee in science fun.
Ben 1:14:50
Yeah, I, it's, I think this is maybe the most fun. We've had a lot of authors who are like later in career and I'm like, no, no hidden people right before that'd be feeling good.
Phil 1:15:01
Yeah. So yeah, I don't know, Ben, is there. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on? And if not, I feel like, you know, y'all go read this book. It's good. You know, we'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it, not just stars.
Ben 1:15:15
Come talk to us about art crit, baby, I'm ready.
Phil 1:15:19
Yeah, you can find landscapes on $2 radio.com. And wherever else you buy books, if you want to get a local bookshop, and they don't have it, maybe they can order it for you do that instead of getting it on Amazon, you know. That's the way. So with that, we will see you all here on the next episode of origin story. Please. Thanks again for checking out the show. If you would like to follow me on Twitter, it is three D Cisco on Twitter as well as Instagram. And you can follow Ben on Twitter at sad underscore radio underscore lad. We wanted to thank melody Hirsch, who designed all the awesome cover art and design work for the website and the podcast itself. And we wanted to thank Ryan Hopper who does all the intro and outro music, as well as some of the interstitial stuff you hear, and dinner in different episodes. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it. If you left a review on iTunes, you know, subscribed on either iTunes or Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. You know, reviews help just get the show in front of more people, and only takes a couple of minutes. So yeah, if you could do that for us, it'd be greatly appreciated.
Ben 1:16:42
You should also visit our website at WWW dot origin story dot show. It's a great place to look at all of our episodes that are full transcripts and a link to our Discord channel where we talk with listeners about everything Oh s and beyond. There's a lot of posting that goes on in there. So I don't know if you're into that come join us. You can also email us at V origin story pod@gmail.com We're always looking for feedback, whether it's ideas for you know, games that we should play books or we should read guests that we should have on the show. Just hit us up with thoughts feelings, we're always looking for feedback even if it's that Ben has an annoying voice and you don't want to hear it anymore. I mean that's totally fine. So write us in. You can also follow us on Twitter at at origin story underscore or our Instagram at origin story dot show. As always, thanks for listening.
