What Fictional World Would You Call Home?

What if the fictional worlds that raised us were more than escapes—what if they were blueprints? We trade closets for cosmos and follow the thread from Narnia’s lamp-lit snow to Starfleet’s hopeful future, from campus rooms that spark courage to city streets where magic hides in plain sight. Along the way we test our cravings: a society without want, a classroom that opens a life, a love story that knows its limits.

We start with wonder. Childhood awe lives in The Chronicles of Narnia and in a real-life classroom modeled after Dead Poets Society, where literature isn’t just homework, it’s a rehearsal for bravery. Then we move to science fiction, where Star Trek models a peaceful Earth and Star Wars adds a mythic scale that makes us itch to belong to a bigger story. We interrogate power, consent, and seductive bad-boy archetypes from Twilight to Fifty Shades of Grey.

From there the conversation tilts darker and sharper. A Discovery of Witches reframes magic as scholarship and intimacy. And, Anne Rice threads immortality through history and faith, showing how adaptations can miss the point when filmmakers ignore a story’s moral spine. We unpack the film Passengers and why a romantic setup turns ethically thorny under pressure, then hold dystopias to the light: Brave New World’s pleasant control versus The Stand’s reset, where community and books rebuild meaning after the noise of a crowded humanity has settled.

Through it all we keep returning to one simple act: reading. Not as escape, but as calibration. Stories teach us what to want—and what to refuse. They sketch better classrooms, saner technologies, and kinder politics. Press play for a lively, candid tour of the universes we’d actually live in, why they matter now, and how to carry their best parts back home. If this sparks your own shortlist of dream worlds, share it with us, subscribe, and leave a review so more curious listeners can find the show.

Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

Chapters

• 0:00 Dead Poets Spark Teaching Dreams
• 0:55 Welcome And 1984 Trivia
• 2:12 Unlikely Publishing Paths For Classics
• 3:15 Top Five Worlds People Wish Were Real
• 4:58 Jane's First Choice of Fictional Worlds She Wishes Were Real
• 6:20 Etty Loves Star Trek’s Peaceful Earth
• 9:50 Heidi Longs for Star Wars
• 11:17 Heidi Wishes Witches Were Real
• 14:20 Twilight, Power Dynamics, and Desire
• 15:52 The Age of Adeline - The Flipside of Twilight
• 19:24 Etty's Teenage Fascination With Anne Rice's Vampires
• 22:55 Outlander!
• 29:28 Passengers Ethics And New-World Yearning
• 33:48 The Stand - One of Etty's Go To Fictional Worlds of All Time
• 37:10 Lighthearted Magic: Bewitched To Good Witch
• 41:15 Etty's Teenage Yearning for Brave New World
• 46:26 Jane as a Teacher, Returned To Dead Poets Society
• 51:18 Outro And Ways To Reach Us

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jane: A very real and practical world that I just totally immersed myself in was the film Dead Poet Society, even though there's some tragedy in that. I watched that film at a time where I had just decided to be an English teacher, and so it was very visceral to me and I did kind of think, I'm like, oh, I would love to live, I like plots that occur in like those small, like kinda cozy spaces, you know? Like it was kind of reminded me like the campus novel of something like A Separate Peace, right? Um, that Jonathan Knowles novel, but Dead Poet Society is in this all boys boarding school and I thought.

[00:00:36] Jane: I was like, maybe I need to have that kind of impact. Do I need to work at a boarding school? I never did that, but I thought about it, because there are some all girls equivalents, but I just became enamored of that kind of classroom environment where you could just really move kids to think deeply about what do you want from your life. 

[00:00:55] Etienne: Welcome listeners. This is The Women Are Plotting. I'm Etienne Rose Olivier and I'm here with my friends and co-hosts, Heidi Willis and Jane Gari.

[00:01:10] Etienne: On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about fictional worlds we wish were real. 

[00:01:14] Etienne: And my fun and or interesting fact for today is about the book 1984, which probably none of us is hoping is real, although we might feel like it might be real. Just a little bit. It's, uh, regarding 1984. I did not know this before today, that Winston Churchill was a fan and he told his physician when he was close to the end of his life that he had just read it and he was thinking about reading it again. So not only did it read it one time, he wanted to read it for a second time, but I know he was a voracious reader. I believe he read a ridiculous amount of books. Was he one of the ones that said that he read a book a day? Like it was just crazy how much he read. So maybe not the greatest compliment that he wanted to read it again. Maybe he needs to read it like five times before he can count it as one of his favorites, but at least he was a fan of 1984. So Heidi, what is your fun or interesting fact for today?

[00:02:12] Heidi: So I got a couple that really with each other. 

[00:02:15] Heidi: So, Frank Herbert's Dune,

[00:02:17] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:02:18] Heidi: Was finally published after many rejections. It was finally published by Chilton's, which they usually publish auto repair manuals. And then in the same, yes. And then so that, it finally got published by this little publisher. 

[00:02:39] Heidi: And then Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October was published by the Naval Institute Press

[00:02:42] Etienne: Oh, I actually have a copy of that.

[00:02:43] Heidi: who

[00:02:44] Etienne: On the Naval Institute Press.

[00:02:45] Heidi: Yeah, they usually do textbooks and policy papers for the Naval Academy. So here's two really famous books and authors, they had to go very, very non-traditional route to get their books published and, yeah. Crazy.

[00:03:02] Jane: I needed to hear that.

[00:03:03] Heidi: Yeah, I thought maybe that would be a really good one for all of us.

[00:03:08] Etienne: Oh.

[00:03:09] Jane: Yeah, because sometimes you just gotta think out of the box if you wanna like birth this book baby into the world. But, wow, that's really cool. I looked actually at, given the topic to see 

[00:03:19] Jane: what are like the top five books that the general public has been polled to wish that they wish that they were real. 'Cause I wanted to be

[00:03:27] Etienne: Oh

[00:03:27] Jane: and one of the ones I, I had already had my short list of the fictional stories that I wish that were like my top three. But one of my top three is in also in this top five list. And so I wanna see if you guys can guess which one of these is one of my personal books that I wish were real. So the top five books that the general public in America wish was real. Alright. wish were real. I can grammatically do this. All right. So Top Five, Harry Potter. The whole series

[00:03:55] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:03:55] Jane: just, people just want magic to be real.

[00:03:58] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:58] Etienne: that's a good one. Mm-hmm.

[00:03:59] Jane: And, uh, the Chronicles of Narnia, all of them

[00:04:03] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:04:03] Jane: Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory

[00:04:05] Etienne: Oh

[00:04:05] Jane: from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.

[00:04:09] Heidi: Everybody just breaks out in song all the time.

[00:04:12] Jane: Lord of the Rings. Not so much like the evil powers in it, but just like the Shire generally in that peaceful life of like Hobbit in the idyllic setting and never land from, from Peter Pan of just people thinking like, I don't have to grow up. And just the freedom that that represents. There's a dark side to that too, but, you know, but these were the, those were the top five. So out of those

[00:04:34] Etienne: Oh my God.

[00:04:35] Jane: which one do you think is on my list of fictional stories I wish were real.

[00:04:40] Etienne: I wanna say Harry Potter.

[00:04:43] Heidi: I wanna say Harry Potter too, but I'm thinking maybe it's Narnia.

[00:04:46] Etienne: I always thought that was my second choice.

[00:04:48] Jane: It's Narnia.

[00:04:49] Etienne: Definitely not Willy Wonka

[00:04:52] Jane: No, I'm just like that chick turned into like a big grape or something. Did she?

[00:04:57] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:04:58] Jane: You know, I def a hundred percent, growing up wanted the Chronicles of Narnia to be

[00:05:04] Heidi: I wanted to find that wardrobe that has a secret

[00:05:08] Jane: You, I checked so many closets in my life. I was just like, what about this one? Is this gonna take me there? And because it was, I think that reading those books, it was the first time I remember being so utterly transported for an extended period of time. Like there were definitely books when I was little that I remember feeling like I'm in it. Especially since my mom did all the voices and then when I would read it by myself, I would feel like I'm there, but they were short, they were like picture books and that type of thing. But the first just text only, like I'm in it by myself as a solitary reader. And then just transported for days at a time. 'Cause I'd read the entire series and I did not want to leave that world. And then when I would snap out of it and then would just be in my bedroom again, I'd be like, well, this kind of sucks. This is like, no, where's Mr. Tumnus? Like, where is the magic? Like, none of these animals are talking to me. And, it was just,

[00:05:59] Etienne: None of these animals are.

[00:06:00] Jane: I just felt disappointed And, in the real world after reading that book the first time I definitely remember feeling like a come down from it.

[00:06:09] Etienne: Mm, man.

[00:06:11] Heidi: Yep. I,

[00:06:11] Etienne: I thought of Narnia as one of the good fictional worlds

[00:06:14] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:15] Etienne: was real or were real. I'm gonna have to go sci-fi for mine though.

[00:06:19] Heidi: Go for it. Yeah.

[00:06:20] Etienne: Uh, instead of fantasy. 

[00:06:21] Etienne: One of you guys might say this too, but Star Trek and the one with the whales, which is The Voyage Home. So Star Trek four, the Voyage Home. That's the one where I feel like that was the one that really made me feel when I saw it as a teenager, when it came out that I want a world where everybody on the earth is in peace with each other, is in line with everybody, you know, everybody is working together to create a peaceful earth.

[00:06:48] Etienne: So there might be interplanetary issues that we've got going on, but amongst our planet itself, all of the countries that, like, there weren't any countries anymore. Everybody's just together and working together. And that was the one with the whales, so they had to get the whales.

[00:07:04] Etienne: That was cool to, I haven't seen it since, I saw it in theater, I believe, or maybe once or twice on HBO over the years, but it's been a very long time. But I do remember specifically them transporting the whales and like the whales had to be the catalyst for saving Earth in that particular film.

[00:07:22] Heidi: Hmm,

[00:07:23] Etienne: Yeah

[00:07:23] Heidi: I don't remember that

[00:07:24] Jane: Maybe they are, they're so smart.

[00:07:26] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:28] Jane: We sing songs and have community. I please don't hate me, Etienne, but I've never seen the Star Trek films.

[00:07:35] Etienne: any of them

[00:07:35] Jane: No.

[00:07:36] Heidi: not even Wrath of Khan with the thing.

[00:07:39] Etienne: Uh, Ricardo Montalban.

[00:07:43] Jane: Oh my God, you

[00:07:47] Etienne: He was wearing. He was, have you seen his, what he was wearing in that film, he was showing his naked chest

[00:07:55] Heidi: Yes.

[00:07:56] Etienne: about that film and his hair was longer. And even though it was gray or gray, it was, I was so enthralled.

[00:08:03] Heidi: Me too. I think all of us were,

[00:08:06] Etienne: But not Jane because Jane.

[00:08:08] Jane: No, I'm shaking my, but you guys have to go back, listeners to, there's an episode where Etienne talks about, her Ricardo Montalban thing when we were talking about Fantasy Island and just our favorite Gen X TV shows and our crushes from those shows. That was when we, we learned a lot about each other, but, uh.

[00:08:24] Etienne: Yeah. 'cause I was only like eight years old or something. I, we figured out how old I was when it came out and I was so little and I was in just

[00:08:31] Jane: And he was older.

[00:08:32] Etienne: He was older than my parents.

[00:08:33] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:34] Etienne: As old as my grandparents and I was like so hot. Oh. But the other thing about Star Trek that I love, which I, you probably, I don't know if you know this or not, Jane, since you've never seen any of the Star Trek, have you never seen the TV series? Any of the TV series?

[00:08:50] Jane: Nope. I was a Star Wars girl. Yeah.

[00:08:53] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:08:54] Etienne: You know like the medical officer whose name Doc, wait, what was his name? No, it's not Doc. Is it, what is his name? Is it Doc? And they just call him Doc. But, he's got this little scanner so whenever anybody has an issue, any symptom of any kind or they're injured, he just runs his little scanner over their body and immediately tells him what's wrong and then he fixes it with it. I'm pretty sure it's like a diagnostic and a healing stick all in one. Not like a wand, but something to that effect

[00:09:23] Jane: like a one.

[00:09:24] Etienne: but kind of awesome. So a world where there are no more medical issues and there is no more political infighting on the planet, that's

[00:09:33] Heidi: Yeah. And they're just exploring and, and finding new worlds. Yeah.

[00:09:37] Etienne: And I, when I worked at Paramount, I was in the Gene Roddenberry building for four years, so there's that like whole tie in too. I thought that was cool. Yeah

[00:09:47] Jane: Very meta.

[00:09:48] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:09:50] Heidi: Speaking of Star Wars, I think that's, I mean that's, I've got a few on my list here, but Star Wars is definitely one of those

[00:09:59] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:10:00] Jane: You wish Star War were real.

[00:10:01] Heidi: Yeah, I do. But,

[00:10:04] Jane: dark side is so

[00:10:05] Heidi: well, it, yeah. But you know, if you get rid of the dark side and get rid of the empire, it's pretty kick ass. Like they're going around on spaceships, going from world to world and seeing Ewoks and

[00:10:21] Etienne: Yeah. There was the Ewok planet. That's pretty

[00:10:23] Heidi: like

[00:10:24] Etienne: And chill.

[00:10:24] Heidi: like the whole Yeah.

[00:10:27] Jane: Endor. 

[00:10:27] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:28] Jane: Endor's cool.

[00:10:29] Heidi: Like being able to go from planet to planet. I don't know. Right.

[00:10:33] Etienne: Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[00:10:34] Heidi: I wanted that world to exist for real, when I was a kid.

[00:10:39] Jane: I mean, I wanted to be a Jedi a hundred

[00:10:40] Heidi: Yes. Yeah.

[00:10:42] Jane: and I kind of married someone who is totally a Jedi and has like, I'm looking at his shelf of our shared bookshelf space and he has, I think about 13 Star Wars novels.

[00:10:52] Etienne: Oh my gosh.

[00:10:53] Jane: Yeah. They're the only fiction books that he really enjoys. He, it's

[00:10:58] Etienne: Oh wow, that's good. Interesting. I did not know that.

[00:11:05] Jane: Next time you come to my house, you guys are gonna both be like, where are these Star? They're in our office. There's quite a few of them

[00:11:09] Heidi: So is there any.

[00:11:10] Etienne: 13 are really 13.

[00:11:11] Jane: I think. So I'm like looking at the stack right now, and I don't, my glasses on. I can't count it from a distance, but 13 feels right.

[00:11:17] Heidi: Is there any fictional worlds like current? Because mine, I've got The Magicians and A Discovery of Witches. Like I want it to be, I wanna have like a magical world

[00:11:28] Etienne: mm.

[00:11:28] Heidi: still based in kind of our world too. But you know, like we discover, oh, there's witches and vampires

[00:11:35] Etienne: Yeah. Discovery Witches. I just recently saw that, like this year, that entire series, or you know, all of the episodes I

[00:11:41] Heidi: Yes. I love Diana Bishop. Like yeah. Trying to channel her. I wanna find my own Matthew Clairmont.

[00:11:52] Etienne: Oh my God, yes.

[00:11:56] Heidi: Yeah. That's probably my number one fictional world that I wish was real is the discovery of witches.

[00:12:03] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:12:03] Heidi: based on the old All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness.

[00:12:08] Etienne: Okay. Did you read her books

[00:12:09] Heidi: Mm-hmm. No, I want to now that, yeah, I'm the same way. I discovered the show just this past year and binged it, and now I'm like, oh, I must read these books now because I can really get into the romance and everything.

[00:12:24] Etienne: Hmm? Have you seen that? Do you guys have Netflix? Jane?

[00:12:28] Jane: I have Netflix. Yeah, but I haven't seen a discovery of witches. I have to be, as you both know, and Heidi especially, I have to be very careful of the supernatural fiction that I consume alone 'cause I get freaked out

[00:12:43] Heidi: not scary.

[00:12:44] Etienne: not scary. I don't

[00:12:45] Heidi: at all.

[00:12:46] Etienne: No,

[00:12:47] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:48] Jane: Okay. Well then I, maybe I'll check it out. because I

[00:12:51] Etienne: always watch the first episode. You know,

[00:12:53] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:54] Etienne: when Brendon's home, so you can just

[00:12:56] Jane: he is not gonna wanna see that. I can tell you right now, he'd

[00:13:00] Etienne: could do it while he is, oh, you could watch it with, can you watch it with like headphones while he is sleeping or when he's sleeping between shifts

[00:13:06] Jane: Yeah, I could actually, when he goes to bed early, he just has to be in the house. Um, and then I can watch it when he is sleeping because he has to wake up at like four in the morning. So, I could watch it while he was sleeping. I've done that before and that's how

[00:13:19] Heidi: I don't think you'll be scared 'cause it's, it's even though, okay, so there's three groups. There's the witches, then there's the vampires, and then there are demons. 

[00:13:27] Jane: Uh, 

[00:13:28] Etienne: but they're not,

[00:13:29] Heidi: but, but they're not, they're not the demon demons that you're thinking of. Like they're human demon. The way they describe 'em, it's totally different. They're more like.

[00:13:37] Etienne: of all of the ones, I think.

[00:13:40] Heidi: They're the least scary. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:43] Jane: Okay.

[00:13:44] Etienne: They were kind, I feel like kind of an add-on. I don't know, I, maybe they're not in the

[00:13:48] Heidi: I feel like they were more like elves or gnomes or something. Like they're not,

[00:13:54] Etienne: Like they're human, but they're trying to hide their demon-ness so that they can be accepted into society. 'cause they're not accepted by the witches and the vampires. So, yeah.

[00:14:04] Jane: All right, so maybe I'll check it out because I did see it and I was like, Ooh, that looks like something I'd totally be into, but that might scare me too much.

[00:14:11] Heidi: No, it's more on the twilight spectrum

[00:14:15] Etienne: Yeah. Scared of Twilight. Yeah, I

[00:14:17] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:18] Jane: all. 

[00:14:22] Jane: The only thing that scares me about Twilight, I was just like this dude. So I recently re-watched that film. I read all the books. Heidi actually lent them to me in one fell swoop and just handed me the stack, and she was like, there you go. I'll see you next week. And I was, that's exactly what happened. I was like,

[00:14:33] Etienne: you read them all week.

[00:14:34] Jane: really did.

[00:14:35] Etienne: Oh my God.

[00:14:35] Jane: Because I was like, next, next, because I just was so

[00:14:39] Heidi: Like the Hunger Games too

[00:14:40] Jane: Same thing. And, glad I read Twilight first. 'Cause Katniss is such a better role model than, um, than Bella, who was just like, I, please don't ever leave me. It's very much, anyway, but the, but when I, I re-watched it recently and I just thought, wow, this is, um, Edward fucking stalks her. Like he's watching

[00:14:59] Etienne: Yes

[00:14:59] Jane: sleep and he's,

[00:15:01] Etienne: he

[00:15:01] Heidi: of

[00:15:02] Jane: of you. And, it's very, it's not a healthy thing. And I'm like, I don't know

[00:15:07] Etienne: And considering the age difference that he's like a hundred and something and she's like, literally, yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:13] Heidi: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:14] Jane: So it's a little bit, granted, he died when he was physically 17, however. He's been 17 for quite some time, and he is very mature, but it's not like he has like some other counterpart that we can't be dating like a 90-year-old. I guess, you know, there,

[00:15:29] Etienne: I would,

[00:15:29] Jane: I mean he could, but

[00:15:31] Etienne: Even if a 90-year-old, in today's world, could have the body of a 17-year-old, I don't know, man. I don't, I don't, I don't know. They'd have to be progressive. They'd have to be changing with the times as they go.

[00:15:43] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:15:43] Etienne: Because I'm just imagining they're gonna be very, like yes. Thinking men need to be running everything. Women just need to be barefoot and pregnant and all that.

[00:15:52] Jane: Well there's the flip side of that. If you guys ever saw that movie The Age of Adeline, where she's like almost a hundred years old and then she's dating occasionally younger men. Because she does it, the dating very sparingly. This is actually interesting examination of like, how a woman would take on that role and do it very differently.

[00:16:09] Jane: She's like, all right, I gotta keep to myself. I cannot let love in my life 'cause it's not fair. I'm ageless and the person that I would be seeing would continue to age and it would be very hard for us to just exist romantically together. And so it is, it's a different thing.

[00:16:24] Jane: Although in Edward's defense from Twilight, he does the same thing. He tries to stay away from Bella, but she's just so irresistible. Her blood not, he's like, you're like my own private brand of heroin. It's very

[00:16:36] Heidi: when he makes her. I know, but when he makes her a vampire, then okay, then they can live forever together.

[00:16:44] Jane: And she begs for it. She said, made me like you. And he's like, no, I can't. He tries to restrain himself. I don't know. Brendon, my husband and I have had major arguments 'cause he's so hardcore team Jacob and I was so Team Edward and then I rewatched it recently and I'm like, yeah, now I think I am team Jacob now.

[00:17:00] Jane: And there's something wrong with me that I wasn't out of the gate. He was like, he's cold, he's distant, he's manipulative, he's creepy. He's a stalker. He was, Brendon was telling me all this from the jump, he was just like, team Jacob all the way. They're friends, they hang, he's warm. He's also a dog who doesn't

[00:17:17] Etienne: It is extra warm, isn't it? So one's extra cold and one's extra warm. There's no like just right.

[00:17:22] Heidi: Yes.

[00:17:22] Etienne: that's why we had to make them like two extremes.

[00:17:24] Jane: Yeah, there's no Goldilocks there. So she goes for like the, I think because when I was younger, and I don't know if you guys have had this and then we can veer back into the imaginary world, but I definitely was, I had a soft spot for bad boys with dark, poetic brooding personalities.

[00:17:39] Heidi: Oh yeah.

[00:17:39] Jane: I'm just like, oh my God. I also love Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus, and I think I'm in love, and you're skinny and pale and frail and it was just, and if you were in a band also, oh fuck, I was just over the moon for you, and like, maybe I can make you happy. I think that that's what the appeal was

[00:17:56] Heidi: Well, crush was Dracula. 

[00:17:58] Jane: Like Nosferatu level or like

[00:18:00] Heidi: no. Well, Bella Lugosi. You know, seeing that

[00:18:05] Etienne: Okay. There's

[00:18:06] Heidi: way too young

[00:18:07] Etienne: Yeah. Bella.

[00:18:10] Heidi: being shown that movie in daycare, like

[00:18:12] Etienne: What? You saw that movie in daycare?

[00:18:15] Heidi: showed old black,

[00:18:17] Etienne: What? I thought it was black and white, so it was okay.

[00:18:21] Heidi: I guess during nap time and yeah, that's when I first fell in

[00:18:25] Etienne: time.

[00:18:26] Jane: some nightmare fuel for all you children.

[00:18:29] Heidi: yeah. I went to some questionable daycares.

[00:18:33] Etienne: Wow.

[00:18:34] Jane: were having a conversation before this podcast about the state of daycare and we won't go into it, but this is just another plug on the fire of why institutionalized childcare is probably not. Oh my God. Dracula before nap.

[00:18:50] Heidi: no, during nap time. So like, you know, the, the workers are watching this, right?

[00:18:55] Etienne: And you're supposed asleep in the background? 

[00:18:57] Heidi: I'm not asleep. I'm fully watching it and just engrossed. I can hear other kids crying 'cause they're

[00:19:05] Etienne: They're watching it too, and

[00:19:06] Heidi: They're watching it, but terrified. But where I'm like, oh my God. I'm in love. Come, come, come, come. You can bite my neck too.

[00:19:18] Etienne: Well

[00:19:19] Jane: that, is that a world you want discovery of witches? You want real vampires, real witches

[00:19:24] Etienne: Well, I actually did want, I wanted real vampires when I was a teenager, when my parents split up and I discovered Interview with the Vampire and the Vampire Lestat, I was like, I left my window unlocked and a little bit open

[00:19:37] Jane: Hoping that there'd be a vampire.

[00:19:39] Etienne: hoping that I would be taken away by the vampire and

[00:19:42] Heidi: you are like inviting them in. Oh, wow.

[00:19:45] Etienne: I did do that when it wasn't too cold or too hot. Yeah.

[00:19:48] Heidi: don't look like that in real life, I'm sure.

[00:19:51] Etienne: Oh God, I wish they did. Did you guys see the movie though? Like, uh oh, what was his name? Who's

[00:19:57] Jane: talking about with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise?

[00:19:59] Etienne: No, no, not that one, but the one where, the other one where they actually had a Vampire Lestat movie. Was that the name of it though? Shoot.

[00:20:06] Heidi: I don't

[00:20:07] Jane: Are you talking about the queen of the damned they

[00:20:08] Etienne: That's it. Queen of the Damned, that guy. Oh my God, I can't think of his name. And I love him. I'm looking up his name right now so he can oh my

[00:20:17] Heidi: used to date, um, Charlize Theron

[00:20:19] Etienne: Yeah, they were together for a very long time. Stuart Townsend.

[00:20:22] Jane: Oh my God, he was hot.

[00:20:24] Etienne: He's so good looking.

[00:20:28] Jane: That movie though, having read, they crammed the Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned

[00:20:33] Etienne: Into one movie. Yes, I

[00:20:35] Jane: Which each of those books is over 800 pages long. And then unfortunately, what was the name of the singer actress, she died in a plane act. Aliyah? Yeah. She passed away while they were making the movie.

[00:20:49] Jane: So they were trying to like cobble together what they had and still make the full story. And I just feel like, as beautiful as Stuart Townsend was in that movie. It was very hard as a huge Ann Rice fan to watch because there was just so much that was just missing from the plot and you know, 'cause the, one of the huge things in Queen of the Damned that is so cool.

[00:21:09] Jane: And this was something that Ann Rice as a writer is brilliant at doing. And like all of her books, like the Lives of the Mayfair Witches and Interview with the Vampire that, and then the Vampire Chronicles and then some other one-offs that she's done is she'll take actual historical threads layered into her novels and lots of people do this, but then she has this other fantastical world laid on top of that. And then she draws this through line of the evolution of religion across millennia, like into her books because she has these immortal characters. And one of the things in Queen of the Damned that's really cool about that is it goes through the origins of like, you start in pagan Egypt and then you take it all the way through to today. And she talks about actual old religious rights and then she just borrows them and then layers vampirism on top of that in such a cool way.

[00:21:57] Jane: But the whole point in Queen of the Damned is that this old female vampire is like the oldest living creature or living thing that used to be human on Earth, has decided that the world would be much better if we could just get rid of all the men because they are the source of violence in the world. Because that is the conclusion she's come to after being alive for 6,000 years. And that part of the movie was just, it just wasn't even in there

[00:22:20] Etienne: No, I definitely was not in

[00:22:21] Heidi: Hmm.

[00:22:22] Jane: And that was the whole point of that book. And then trying to stop

[00:22:25] Heidi: that would've ruined the whole romance.

[00:22:30] Jane: I guess.

[00:22:31] Heidi: I can see why the producers took it out, but yeah, like you said, they kinda missed the whole point.

[00:22:36] Jane: The whole point, I was so, like, I left the movie theater. I was so angry. I was just like, what did I just watch that was not the right story? Like when you see. The incongruity and just missing the mark that much, which is one of the other worlds that I wish was real is actually a way that I've seen that done right and that's 

[00:23:04] Jane: the Outlander books. Like the, the Outlander series has done incredible justice to the books, but that's because the author is a consultant on the show. So when there are slight deviations from the plot and there have been a couple, like some big ones like, Murtagh like, well, he's just gonna stay alive for a lot longer 'cause he's just so great. Um, like things like

[00:23:13] Heidi: Hmm.

[00:23:14] Jane: Like she approved that, as she was on the editorial board. But Outlander, I just love the idea of time travel

[00:23:21] Heidi: me too. Yep.

[00:23:23] Jane: And returning back to a time that's like, it could be volatile in some ways, but then also like simpler. And then having to make those really rough choices. Spoiler alert folks, but you're back in time and she's a surgeon. Like when she goes back, the second time, and be like she wants to figure out how she can like, reverse engineer certain things so she can then bring the best of my yes. Like the best of modern medicine to like the revolutionary war. Like, how can we do this?

[00:23:51] Heidi: And not seem like a witch.

[00:23:53] Jane: Well. 

[00:23:54] Etienne: Not get killed.

[00:23:55] Jane: The thing.

[00:23:55] Heidi: Not get killed like a witch. Yeah. It's really cool how they show her trying to navigate that

[00:24:00] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:24:01] Jane: I love it. 

[00:24:02] Heidi: And what she knows. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:03] Jane: Also like, obviously Jamie Frasier big bonus, big

[00:24:07] Heidi: Yes

[00:24:09] Etienne: yeah, especially when he is got his shirt off. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:13] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:14] Jane: kilt. Oh my gosh. I made Brendon he's buying a kilt because of my like,

[00:24:20] Etienne: buying a fancy one? Like one of those

[00:24:22] Jane: He's buying what that his actual clan. Like his clan is McIntyre. And so I was like, yeah, you don't have to look just like I, you, you are, you like, just do it your clan. And the tartan, his tartan is actually really cool 'cause a lot of it's like this deep hunter green, with obviously other colors running through it. But this deep forest green, which is like my favorite color, like the main color of the tartan, I'm getting all hot and bothered just thinking about this kilt that's gonna come into my life. And then I'll have my

[00:24:47] Etienne: when's coming?

[00:24:50] Jane: He hasn't yet. He has it picked out, but he has to order it. I'd love for him to have it in time for the Renaissance Festival that we're going to in October.

[00:24:59] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:24:59] Jane: I was just like, please wear a kilt. 'Cause I, in a previous episode, I was talking about how I dress up for him all the time. It's just like

[00:25:06] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:25:06] Jane: keep things fresh when you Yes. And he and he straight up asked me, he was like, you dress up for me all the time. And I love it. And it's so beautiful. And, and is there anything you want me And me too. Before he could even finish the sentence, I was like, kilt. Like, I was just like, get a kilt.

[00:25:22] Heidi: Get it. Yeah. Oh yeah. That would be hot. Yep.

[00:25:26] Jane: I was like, I'm just gonna be like imagining. I was just like, just get a kilt and call me Claire. Don't ask any more questions. Just do it.

[00:25:34] Heidi: I'll be Claire. You have a costume for

[00:25:37] Etienne: You gonna wear 

[00:25:37] Heidi: the Renaissance?

[00:25:38] Etienne: something like, whatcha

[00:25:39] Jane: I have so many corsets and things like that. I could put something together. It's not a problem. He won't know what it'd be. He likes corsets so he

[00:25:48] Heidi: Well, when you guys go, you guys want to send some pictures?

[00:25:52] Jane: We oh, oh when we go to the Ren Fair

[00:25:55] Heidi: yeah

[00:25:55] Jane: wanna you pictures

[00:25:57] Heidi: No. Not your playtime like Renaissance.

[00:26:01] Jane: It's like homemade Outlander porn.

[00:26:04] Heidi: No.

[00:26:09] Jane: Someone has done that. It's gonna be Googled later

[00:26:14] Heidi: Outlander porn. I wonder if there is, that should just be its own.

[00:26:19] Etienne: There's definitely literotica with that. I've read it.

[00:26:24] Jane: like fanfic, but literary, erotic fiction, fan

[00:26:27] Etienne: Uhhuh. Yeah.

[00:26:28] Heidi: Hmm.

[00:26:29] Jane: Yeah. Those are like fan fiction. That's like erotic is, is very, real in so many different genres. I mean like, isn't that the whole, like we were talking about Twilight before that is the whole 50 Shades of Grey thing out. How did that start off as Twilight fan fiction and then became that. There's no.

[00:26:44] Etienne: I mean, it's the same thing, right? He's got money, right? So Edward, he's a vampire. He is been alive for whatever, their family's super rich, so you get the billionaire, right? He looks, the billionaire, looks really young. Edward looks young. They're both very smart, right? And they're both kind of controlling over their female counterparts there.

[00:27:04] Etienne: And, I could see 50 Shades of Grey. It's just girl porn. Just like twilight is girl porn, I think. Like how do we make these irresistible men? Are just slightly dark and a little bit aloof that make you want to want them super hard. You know? It's kind of, yeah. Yeah. And they both are going after women that they're much younger than them. Like she just graduated college in 50 Shades of Grey and, uh, yeah, she's still in high school in Twilight so yeah, there's a bit there, but not a vampire.

[00:27:35] Jane: No, I think it's like as I mature, I want like a stronger woman who can still then be like submissive sometimes sexually, but then also just like in command of herself and her personality and not submissive in the relationship. I think that's why I love Outlander so

[00:27:50] Etienne: Did you? I mean, I did read, yeah, I did read the Whole 50 Shades, the whole series, before the movies came out, obviously, and she was her own self. I thought. Like she did hold her ground with him, like she behaved in a way that he wasn't used to. Like, he was ordering her things that he said that she had to do, and she's like, yeah, uh, no, not doing that. Like, I thought she was somewhat her own person and independent in a way, while also submitting to him mostly in the red room of pain. 

[00:28:19] Jane: I did not make it through all three books.

[00:28:26] Etienne: This was when I don't know how I came upon it. I honestly have no idea. Because I don't, I know I didn't have a friend who recommended it reading the book. But I definitely read it not long before my marriage ended and my libido was still under wraps for me and, you know, keeping it completely dead. So when I read that first book, I was like, oh my lord, my, I,

[00:28:51] Jane: You were awakened

[00:28:52] Etienne: thing to be reading. And then I just bought all of them. Read them all. Yeah. I enjoyed them fully as they're probably meant to be enjoyed. Yeah.

[00:29:07] Jane: I think that that makes a lot of sense 'cause I remember when I read Twilight and was so enthralled by it. It was at a point in my marriage where my husband would be away for two weeks at a time. And I just would read stuff like that when he was gone, you know, just to be like, can't wait till he gets home. Try not to call him Edward, like what's gotten into you? Just like, I don't know Stephanie Meyer.

[00:29:28] Etienne: Did you guys ever see the movie Passengers?

[00:29:31] Heidi: Yes.

[00:29:32] Etienne: Yeah. Okay, so half of you.

[00:29:34] Heidi: problematic, uh,

[00:29:35] Etienne: Problematic when somebody actually like, breaks it down for you. Um, my ex-boyfriend knows that that's one of my favorite movies and he sent me to, I believe it was either one of those online YouTube guys who breaks down movies and just points out all of the things that don't make sense in the movie,

[00:29:54] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:54] Etienne: basically was showing how Chris Pratt's character in that movie is just so evil.

[00:30:02] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:30:03] Etienne: And I mean, when you watch movie, you don't think that, at least I think you don't. I didn't think that for the

[00:30:08] Heidi: I felt so bad for her because like he forced her to be like, well, I'm it. You're gonna have to do a relationship with me or be alone by yourself

[00:30:18] Etienne: have been friends, they didn't have to like have sex. But let me just give you background for it. So in the movie it's the future and Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt are on a spaceship that they've both paid to be on or he's mostly paid by the fact that he is a contractor or something. He can like build anything and do anything. Some kind of an engineer, but with his hands on that sense of things. And they're,

[00:30:42] Heidi: a transport

[00:30:43] Etienne: they're on the transport

[00:30:44] Heidi: there's thousands of people and they're all asleep.

[00:30:46] Etienne: There's so many people on here. Everybody's asleep and they're being transport's gonna take like a hundred years or something to go to this new planet that they're building and they're gonna be the new inhabitants of this new planet.

[00:30:57] Etienne: And supposedly, many of these ships have gone, this is not the first time one of these ships have gone. And, something goes wrong. And Chris Pratt is woken up from his pod, and it's only been like 20 years or something. It hasn't been that long. And he's meant to be asleep for a hundred and he's awake for I believe a year.

[00:31:14] Etienne: And during that time he comes upon accidentally Jennifer Lawrence's pod and starts looking her up. Like on yeah, he finds where you can look up other guests or passengers info in their bios. And he starts listening to her and watching her videos and he's just fallen in love with her. And, he wakes her up.

[00:31:36] Jane: Sleeping beauty.

[00:31:38] Etienne: Yeah, he wakes her up and she's devastated at first. And she's like, how do we go back to sleep? He's like, I've tried everything we can't go back to sleep. And, there's an Android that's not alive. He's awake on the ship. He's a bartender and it's played by Michael Sheen and he's talking to Chris Pratt's character throughout the movie and he knows Michael Sheen. The bartender knows that Chris Pratt woke her up because he fell in love with her and he was trying desperately not to wake her up. He was trying to keep himself from doing it.

[00:32:04] Jane: Oh, so she doesn't know

[00:32:06] Etienne: She doesn't know that he woke her up. She thinks it was an accident, just like he was woken up accidentally. So yeah, she has no idea he did it. So it's not until she falls in love with him that there's a conversation where it's divulged via the bartender that Chris Pratt woke her up.

[00:32:23] Heidi: On

[00:32:23] Etienne: And she's like, what the fuck? And then like, that just blows her mind. And she goes insane. Basically. Not, not clinically insane, but she's just so pissed and she's like, can't even believe it. And then I think there may be, I would say a week into like her being pissed at him when then the captain of the ship gets woken up. And it turns out that the reason why Chris Pratt was woken up is that there was a collision, their spaceship was a little bit damaged and because of that, his pod got woken up just accidentally through. I don't know, like why it would do that. But then the ship eventually, if nobody did anything, was going to explode and just kill everybody. So, yeah, they start to try to do what they can, the three of them, to save the ship then and save all the people who are still asleep on board and themselves.

[00:33:10] Etienne: So, but yeah, that's the premise. So like if you, if you just watch the movie Yeah. You're like, but you feel for him, you're like, he's alone. He's been alone for a year and he falls in love with her from all these postings of these videos that she did. And I mean, you can understand why you would wake her up, but you can also look at it from a whole other perspective and go, you're fucking like, like you are evil. So this is actually one of the worlds that I wish were real. Not just, I mean, of course I'd like to be Jennifer Lawrence in this situation, but if this was a real thing where you could pay to go on a ship and go to a brand new world and start a colony somewhere, I would be for that.

[00:33:48] Etienne: Just like I would be for, Stephen King's the Stand. I'm always gonna have that as one of my favorite worlds because I wanted that to be real so bad when I was growing up and if I was one of the people that died, so be it, you know? But at least like, you know, there's a chance for a brand new world to be created in a way, something. Kind of, I would think a smaller, hopefully better. Like going back to what humanity could be like the best if humanity possibly could be, maybe. Or it could be bad. I mean, who knows, but just get rid of a whole lot of people and see what happens. Get rid of technology. No more social media, social media's just saying hi in person on the street to your friends. There's no more posting anything. There's no more smartphone. Like yeah, I guess you're just making fires in the backyard. Oh, they did get electricity, didn't they? In the Stand? They had people who could figure out how to get electricity back, but they're not gonna be like smartphones again. Like there's no way they're gonna be powering that. And I hope there's a lot of DVDs around 'cause I don't know what they're watching anymore. It's all books. I have to go back to reading, hard copy books. No ebook,

[00:34:52] Jane: be so bad.

[00:34:54] Etienne: right?

[00:34:55] Heidi: It wouldn't.

[00:34:56] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:34:56] Jane: what Brendon always tells me when I look to get rid of books. I don't have anymore bookshelf space. So when I buy a book, a book comes into my house, a book has to leave and he's always panicked for me. 'Cause he is just like, what if, what if there's like a big EMP explosion that you can't ever use your Kindle again? And the only books you have are the ones that are the hard books and in the house that would be, and I was like, I know. That's why I'm very selective about what I am getting rid of. And just think about, this bookshelf is like your desert Island books, you know?

[00:35:24] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:25] Jane: And, so I'm very, very selective. There are some books of his I would like to get rid of, but I don't get to make those decisions.

[00:35:32] Etienne: I think he has 13 Star Wars books. You can't get rid of those.

[00:35:36] Jane: No, but he has some other stuff that's

[00:35:38] Etienne: I guess that's his only fiction. He probably has

[00:35:40] Jane: Right. He has some nonfiction books. I'm like, why do we still have this? Like, are these rules and regulations for aviation still current? And he's just like, yes. I'm like, all right. I don't think they're, but yeah. And then I have like some binders that I'm gonna get rid of so that I can make room for more books. And that also makes Brendon panic because there are binders from when I used to teach high school, he is like, what if you teach that again?

[00:36:04] Jane: And I'm like, the methods and the lesson plans I have from 25 years ago need to be revamped. Like I was holding onto them because I was tutoring a lot and then I wanted to make sure that I ushered my daughter through high school. I did go back and look at some things, like if she was reading a book, I was like, oh yeah, I taught that book. Let's go back and look at my notes from Fahrenheit 451 and I can help her with her paper. I'm not gonna do that indefinitely. I'm not holding on to lesson plans from 1995 indefinitely. That seems insane to me right now.

[00:36:32] Etienne: Yeah

[00:36:33] Jane: I've been weeding them out

[00:36:35] Etienne: Well, we kind of know that Brendon has a little problem with throwing some stuff away, just in general, so I can, you know, so

[00:36:42] Jane: But these are like my lesson plans. I'm like, why do you care, dude? He's like, what you need them?

[00:36:46] Etienne: Just don't tell him when you do it. That's all. He will

[00:36:48] Jane: Well, that's what I've been doing. I've been waiting for him to not be home like he's going to Denver for annual training this weekend, and I'm gonna get rid of some binders when he is gone and he will not know. That's how I have to do things. But I need to make more room for other books. Are there any other books that you guys were thinking that you wish were

[00:37:08] Etienne: I know. When I, oh, go ahead,

[00:37:10] Heidi: Oh, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or basically the Archie. The Archie

[00:37:16] Jane: A lot of witches for you.

[00:37:17] Etienne: my gosh.

[00:37:18] Heidi: Yes. I know. Well, just fantasy like, uh, yeah. Magic.

[00:37:22] Etienne: about The Good Witch? Is that the other TV show? Is that on Netflix? The Good Witch? She like, ah, come on. It's just like, it's, yeah. Oh, just Good Witch is a good witch. Yes, it is. Good Witch, just Good Witch. Seven Seasons.

[00:37:37] Jane: Oh my goodness.

[00:37:38] Heidi: I don't

[00:37:38] Etienne: Yeah, I think it's on Netflix actually. I think that's where I saw it. Um, very heartwarming. Heartwarming. All right. Let's see who's in this show.

[00:37:46] Jane: like Bewitched, like the old

[00:37:48] Etienne: Kind

[00:37:48] Heidi: Yeah, that's what I was, I was about to bring up the Bewitched. That's another.

[00:37:52] Etienne: Nobody that I can like,

[00:37:54] Heidi: that I wish was real or I Dream of Jeanie

[00:37:56] Etienne: yeah, so it's

[00:37:58] Heidi: in Jeanie's

[00:37:59] Etienne: Catherine Bell is the main witch in the show. And what is his name? James Denton. I mean these, you would recognize 'em if you saw them. Um, but yeah, they're,

[00:38:09] Heidi: Hmm

[00:38:10] Etienne: Seriously, it's a very heartwarming show, takes place in a small town. He's a surgeon, I believe, at the local hospital, and she is a witch. And she has a little store

[00:38:22] Heidi: hmm.

[00:38:22] Etienne: runs. Yeah. And I think she runs a bed and breakfast, bed and breakfast and a shop in town. Yeah. It's a great, great little show. Kinda like on like I dream of Jeanie and Yeah. Bewitched and all Yeah.

[00:38:35] Jane: Okay.

[00:38:36] Etienne: So not, not

[00:38:36] Heidi: don't know. Did you guys ever do your nose,

[00:38:40] Etienne: Yeah, I

[00:38:41] Heidi: try as you might try and make stuff happen?

[00:38:44] Etienne: I definitely did. Yeah.

[00:38:46] Jane: in the right way.

[00:38:47] Etienne: Yeah, I

[00:38:48] Jane: I did like that show. I thought it was funny.

[00:38:50] Etienne: I, yeah, it was in syndication when I was little, when I would get home from school or it was either in the morning or when I came home from school. I definitely watched it. I dream of Jeannie Bewitched. Yeah. It was so good. Um,

[00:39:01] Jane: I dream of Jeanie's another problematic one. 'cause you know.

[00:39:04] Heidi: Oh yeah, for sure. But

[00:39:07] Jane: Master

[00:39:10] Heidi: yeah, also the sixties though.

[00:39:13] Etienne: Oh God.

[00:39:13] Jane: sixties.

[00:39:17] Etienne: She had her mid drift out that entire series.

[00:39:19] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:20] Jane: What was her out

[00:39:21] Etienne: could never get fat. She could never get, she couldn't put on a couple of pounds. Like, no, I feel sorry for her.

[00:39:29] Jane: Well, Samantha in Bewitched always had her mini dresses were serious. Like those were short. Like go back and look man, she had some serious

[00:39:39] Etienne: Oh my God 

[00:39:40] Jane: But, they were a family and she gave up, right? That was the whole thing that his condition of marrying her was that she doesn't practice magic. So it was problematic too. So she'd have to do it

[00:39:50] Etienne: Do it on the sly.

[00:39:51] Jane: Yeah

[00:39:51] Heidi: Yeah

[00:39:52] Jane: Her mother was always popping in and just being like, I don't understand why you bother cooking, just like whipping up a feast and then if she used her magic, she always felt guilty.

[00:40:03] Jane: And I'm like, you're suppressing this part of you that's so awesome. But it's like, I never honestly really thought about it that way until I'm sitting here talking to you guys out loud about it. But I loved the idea of it. You'd have like this little secret thing just wrinkle your nose and poof, they would just travel. I liked the teleporting magic that they would do to other dimensions, they would be somewhere crazy. And, uh, I,

[00:40:27] Etienne: And they can teleport in Star Trek too.

[00:40:29] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:30] Jane: Yes

[00:40:31] Etienne: They don't have that in Star Wars. They don't have teleportation in Star Wars.

[00:40:36] Jane: No, no, they don't. There's some parts where, in the more recent episodes that were made, there's like a projection of your consciousness right into another plane, like when you had the thing between Ray and Ben that they were kind of communicating telepathically and

[00:40:53] Heidi: Yeah. They were using the force to to,

[00:40:56] Etienne: Okay? Mm-hmm.

[00:40:57] Heidi: talk to each other. Yeah.

[00:40:59] Jane: There was that, and then there was Leia, Leia was kind of projecting herself, outside the spaceship and she's flying around. I don't know. There was some, I take some issues with some of the most recent episodes they went off the rails a bit, but there was some kind of transporting of consciousness and sometimes body.

[00:41:15] Etienne: There was another book that I loved when I read it when I was a kid and it was Brave New World and I kind of wished that that was real, but I know it's still not perfect, but it kind of feels like a flip side to 1984 in a way where people, I really love the idea of the kids being factory grown in a way. I thought that

[00:41:33] Jane: You liked that

[00:41:34] Etienne: I did and I was like, oh, I want the belt. I wanna wear the belt with the contraceptives on it so I don't ever have to worry about getting pregnant like ever. 'Cause nobody gets pregnant. And I'm like, that's awesome. And, I was like 14 when I read this and I was enthralled with it.

[00:41:48] Jane: on that soma drug so that they're not aware of how miserable they are. They're like relegated. You're born an alpha or a gamma or a delta. You're going to be based on how they would genetically engineer you. Like you're gonna pick up the garbage and you're gonna teach the kids and you're gonna, but there are a lot of orgies in that book though.

[00:42:05] Etienne: Yeah, but if you're on the drug and you don't care, is it all that bad? I mean, it is in a way, but at the same time, if you're gonna be in this kind of socialist society with caste systems, if you're at least gonna gimme a drug where I don't give a shit, and I'm happy in my part, in my role, then

[00:42:23] Jane: You are like

[00:42:24] Etienne: no, this doesn't sound so bad.

[00:42:27] Jane: I don't know. I was totally with John the Savage in that book. I'm like, I wanna live on a reservation outside of all of this bullshit. Just

[00:42:33] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:34] Jane: alone. But then they hound him down in the end. But, spoil, but no, I just love Aldous Huxley. He was so, God, he was so smart. I love listening to interviews of him, that he did in the early days of television where he's on a show. I think they interviewed him on 60 Minutes or something, and you could

[00:42:49] Etienne: they really?

[00:42:50] Jane: And, the way that people talked

[00:42:52] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:42:53] Jane: I was like, oh.

[00:42:55] Etienne: Just eloquent, right?

[00:42:56] Jane: Just absolute poetry, just spouting off their mouths, like just extemporaneous conversation that's so elevated. And, I would love for an author to be interviewed in that kind of capacity on a mainstream television program like that now. I think that that's the beauty of podcasting and that type of thing. 'cause those types of long form, thoughtful discussions like happen in other pockets of media now.

[00:43:17] Jane: So it is still happening, but it just floored me that that was something like people would just be watching at 7:00 PM at night, just all across America. Oh! Aldous Huxley's being interviewed on 60 Minutes and he was just talking about

[00:43:28] Etienne: It's like, what year was that? That

[00:43:29] Jane: crazy

[00:43:31] Etienne: that up while you're talking.

[00:43:32] Jane: I know. I'm just wondering was it 60 Minutes or was it something else? But, I just remember being floored. I saw it in the past three years.

[00:43:41] Etienne: There we go. Aldous Huxley was on six oh, his 1958 interview with Mike Wallace.

[00:43:45] Jane: Mike Wallace. There you go.

[00:43:47] Heidi: Wallace. Yeah.

[00:43:48] Etienne: His concerns about technology society in the future.

[00:43:51] Heidi: Hmm.

[00:43:52] Etienne: Oh, and it wasn't 60 minutes, it was actually called CBS Reports program because, 60 Minutes debuted in 1968 with Mike Wallace as one of its original correspondent.

[00:44:03] Jane: Okay. So that's why I got the 60 minutes in my head 'cause it was him. But I mean, like I've said, the level of discourse in that conversation. And then also the creepy, very prophecy way that Huxley is talking about technology.

[00:44:17] Etienne: That's literally what it says. He discusses his dystopian vision and anxieties about the potential for technology to be used to control populations, echoing things in Brave New World. I'm so gonna watch that.

[00:44:30] Jane: And he was so. Very handsome man. Aldous Huxley. I loved his hair. Yeah. I don't know. He does something. Well, he did something for me. It was the jawline. It was the hair, it was the accent. It was just his

[00:44:42] Etienne: Where's he from? What accent did

[00:44:44] Jane: I think he's originally from England, but then he lived in the United States. It was accent muted.

[00:44:49] Etienne: Oh, no way English.

[00:44:52] Jane: British.

[00:44:52] Etienne: Oh, come on.

[00:44:56] Heidi: We know what, we know what Etty

[00:44:58] Etienne: I got a problem with it. Yeah, not a problem. I have a

[00:45:00] Jane: It's not a problem.

[00:45:02] Etienne: Yes, he was English. Oh my God. Oh, he was born in Surrey in 1894.

[00:45:09] Jane: So smart. So, so

[00:45:11] Etienne: in 1963. He was 69.

[00:45:13] Jane: Sorry,

[00:45:15] Etienne: Why did you laugh?

[00:45:16] Jane: I'm so immature. I was

[00:45:20] Heidi: inner 12-year-old came out.

[00:45:23] Etienne: Los Angeles is what they call it. I like how they say that though. They can say whatever they want. It sounds good. Sorry.

[00:45:32] Jane: He's saying good stuff on top of the accent and the intelligence and the hair. Uh

[00:45:38] Etienne: Yeah. Not the most flattering picture for him in Wikipedia, I gotta say, but I'm sure there are other pictures of him that 

[00:45:44] Jane: You have to watch the video and listen to him talk at the same time, and then maybe you'll see what I see. He's my Carlos Montalban

[00:45:54] Etienne: Ricardo. Ricardo.

[00:45:55] Jane: Ricardo. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did, I just like totally

[00:46:01] Heidi: Oh my God

[00:46:02] Etienne: Oh, I'm Soo He's

[00:46:05] Jane: know the, the blasphemy, the sexual blasphemy coming outta my mouth. I 'm sorry. be like, you'd be like, you know Andrew Huxley, and I'd be like, what did you just say?

[00:46:22] Etienne: Oh.

[00:46:23] Heidi: any other worlds?

[00:46:24] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:46:24] Heidi: We wanna discuss.

[00:46:26] Jane: A very real and practical world that I just totally immersed myself in was the film Dead Poet Society, even though there's some tragedy in that. I watched that film at a time where I had just decided to be an English teacher, and so it was very visceral to me and I did kind of think, I'm like, oh, I would love to live, I like plots that occur in like those small, like kinda cozy spaces, you know? Like it was kind of reminded me like the campus novel of something like a separate Peace right? Um, that Jonathan Knowles novel, but Dead Poet Society is in this all boys boarding school and I thought.

[00:47:02] Jane: I was like, maybe I need to have that kind of impact. Do I need to work at a boarding school? I never did that, but I thought about it, because there are some all girls equivalents, but I just became enamored of that kind of classroom environment where you could just really move kids to think deeply about what do you want from your life.

[00:47:21] Jane: And when I did teach, high school kids, it was never just about like, oh, we're reading this book together, or we're writing this together. It was like, who do you wanna be and what do you think about this? And trying to teach kids how to arrive at their own thoughts about the world and how they were gonna navigate their way through it. So that movie encompasses the best of what I thought, I felt like a classroom environment could be. And I tried very hard to replicate aspects of that from the jump, you know? And I think that it came across to some students over the years who, I'm gonna get very emotional here though, unexpectedly, who, at the end of the year, there were a couple of years where I did have kids who I never told them like, oh, I love Dead Poets Society, but they must have seen the movie because they stood on their desks and said, oh, captain, my captain at the end of the

[00:48:06] Heidi: Aw. Aw,

[00:48:08] Jane: And I was just like, oh my God.

[00:48:10] Heidi: You created that world for yourself then. That's amazing.

[00:48:13] Jane: Like, I brought a little bit of it into the real world. I didn't have the tragedy that, uh, that that teacher, that Mr. 

[00:48:20] Heidi: God.

[00:48:20] Jane: like, yeah. Sometimes I did, but I, I didn't take direct part in, like having a relationship with the kid that was similar to that, but it was, yeah, it was just trying to bring that intensity to life, you know? It was good. And I, I do think those, that would be really hard for me to try to replicate today just because of all the technology that we're expected to bring into the classroom was making that really harder and harder for me. I was getting in trouble for doing things like taking my kids outside and I was getting written up for keeping my windows open during the day. It was getting really hard to be myself in the classroom

[00:48:57] Etienne: Uh,

[00:48:57] Heidi: Hmm. And that's such a shame because you know, think of all the kids that missed out on you.

[00:49:02] Jane: And I put it all into my own kid. I was like, all right, I got a classroom of one right now.

[00:49:07] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:08] Etienne: Super student. And super person.

[00:49:11] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:12] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:49:12] Jane: I might go back, see how much trouble I could get into when I seriously have like, so

[00:49:16] Etienne: You're retired, so you can just do it. You, yeah,

[00:49:19] Jane: I'll be like, what are you, so fire me.

[00:49:21] Etienne: yeah. Uh,

[00:49:22] Jane: That would actually be fun. That'd be a fun game. Just seriously go in and just with so few fucks given and just teach the way that I really want to and just see how long it takes for them to be like, you're out.

[00:49:33] Etienne: Like,

[00:49:33] Heidi: And then you can just go from school to school and blow these kids' minds from school to school.

[00:49:38] Jane: I might do it. No computers in the classroom.

[00:49:41] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:41] Jane: be like, what is this? I'm like, it's a book

[00:49:46] Etienne: Oh, my me, laugh so hard. I had to cough.

[00:49:50] Jane: It's like what you do is you have to turn this piece of paper over all the way till it's on the other side of this binding, and there's no buttons that you have to push. There's no fucking swiping. There's no scrolling. hold it. Don't lose it. Oh my God

[00:50:10] Etienne: Oh,

[00:50:10] Jane: I'm gonna do it. I think that

[00:50:12] Heidi: You should.

[00:50:13] Etienne: I really think you should. And if it turns out they don't fire you, I don't know. Stay as long as you want. You could just do one class. You could just be like one class a day, you

[00:50:21] Heidi: Yeah, yeah.

[00:50:23] Jane: Yeah. No lunch duty, no detention. Bull crap. Just like go in, teach one class and come home.

[00:50:27] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:50:28] Jane: And just do the best that I can for those kids and just be like, and ask them the same questions we're asking each other today. I'm like, so what about, because that was like my favorite part is like talking to a group of kids. We're all reading the same book and just being like, what do you like about this world? What does it tell you about the world we live in now? What does it tell you about yourself? It was just the best conversations and you're having it with kids who are just on the verge of being adults. There's nothing like that.

[00:50:51] Etienne: Their brains are still wide open and malleable and not set in stone yet. So how are, how do they think about things?

[00:50:58] Jane: Yeah. And just some of the thoughts that they would have would be things like, I never would've thought of myself, you know? And so they would just teaching me as much as I was

[00:51:06] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:07] Jane: Just awesome stuff. Read everybody, just read

[00:51:10] Etienne: Read. Please read.

[00:51:13] Jane: It. It like may quite literally save the world.

[00:51:17] Etienne: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:51:18] Heidi: That's our show you've been listening to, the Women are Plotting. If you have a story you'd like to share or have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com and of course you can find us on all the socials. Thanks, and until next time, be safe and be excellent to each other.