Episode 19: Steak Tartare & Blood Sausage
In episode 19 we attend one of those dinner theater thingy-s where we catch a show, and get served a heaping portion of steak tartare with a side of blood sausage
Part 1 [05:23] - In which we find out that there are a helluva lot of cannibals among us — and not ALL of them are zombies
Part 2 [15:37] - In which we board the Time Machine and get ourselves invited to the world’s first toga party
Part 3 [39:03] - In which we discover a family that’s even more dysfunctional than the Holzhackers, find a terrific alternative to facebook and the metaverse, and then hear about a bonus episode we can’t refuse
[WELCOME to this Podcast]
[I trust you have kept your coming here a secret]
[the following presentation is intended only for immature audiences]
[it shouldn’t really be allowed]
😇 🎶 heavenly choir 🎶 😇
["And God said 'Let there be F-Bombs' — And they were good — And they multiplied — Right here, in this podcast…"]
🧨 🧨 🧨 [nuclear blast] 💥︎ 💥︎ 💥︎
🎶 dramatic organ music 🎶
🎶 deep church bell 🎶
Bless me Fader, for I have sinned... it’s been more than one month since my last episode...
[that's not good]
[Well, I think it’s good, but there could be more, ya know, it could run more often]
🎶 Anachronist 🎶
alrighty there fairytale lovers... welcome back to the Hansel and Gretel Code...
[oh, you back again?]
uh, yup... this here is Episode 19...
[you’re going to be here for awhile, so you’d better get comfortable]
In our last episode we made a good argument for seeing Frau Holzhacker as a literary metaphor for the strict, dogmatic voice of Conscience... Conscience is supposed to be the voice of God, and sure, sometimes it even coincides with the still small voice of the heart, but you know as well as I do that conscience often overrules or drowns out the still small voice... and just like Michael Corleone, it not only demands our absolute allegiance, we all know about the guilt trip conscience is only too happy to take us on...
[hey, pullover will ya. I gotta take a leak]
and all too often that means sacrificing the very things we should be holding most dear...
[leave the gun. take the cannoli]
okay, well most of the time...
[dad joke groans]
speaking of sacrifice, we’ve also seen how the Holzhacker kids are scapegoats for the lack of food on the Holzhacker table... not to mention the otherwise inexplicable scarcity of Grace in the Holzhacker household — if not all of Germany... all of this led us to the conclusion that Frau Holzhacker was in the throes of an Animus possession...
[what are you talking about?]
oh, sorry, I explained that in Episode 18 when some of us snuck into a carnival to see the bearded lady... I guess you didn’t all come along...
[no!]
well, it just means that the witch (as a bearded lady) had taken possession of Frau Holzhacker, and was forcing her to feed her two children to the dark, unconscious complex otherwise known in jungian circles as an Animus possession...
[what a load of crap]
hey, if all of that sounds like the kind of jungian psycho-babble you have no interest in swallowing, today we’ve got something more entertaining on the menu... the Grimms themselves are taking us out for a nice meal at an ancient dinner theater... their treat...
[hooray!]
so let’s listen to that invitation... as it comes in the form of their personal revision to this part of the story...
"No, wife," said the man, "I will not do that; how can I bear to leave my children alone in the forest? the wild animals would soon come and tear them to pieces." "O, thou fool!" said she, "Then we must all four die of hunger, thou mayest as well plane the planks for our coffins," and she left him no peace until he consented. "But I feel very sorry for the poor children, all the same," said the man.
[not good]
*🎶*🎶*
PART 1 [05:23]
Teil Eins: In which we find out that there are a helluva lot of cannibals among us — and not ALL of them are zombies
[new word from the nation’s top scientists on the zombie virus that appeared 2 weeks ago...]
[eh, it’s okay]
reading between the lines of their revision, it seems obvious that the Grimms understood how this business of scapegoating was already lurking in between the lines of the story...
[I’m sorry, what?]
see, they deliberately added the one little detail that not only confirms our own intuition about scapegoating, but provides a cheeky little clue as to how SOME OF US can identify the still, small voice. Surprisingly, this was not a late addition... they actually put it in their own first version of the story — i.e. their 1812 first edition. And that makes it an odd little detail of genuine philologic significance because it’s just possible that they didn’t make up this crucial alteration themselves.
[really?]
of course, the bare-bones version of the story we’re using comes from their 1810 manuscript, but between 1810 and 1812 — when they published their first edition — it’s actually possible they heard some other more elaborate version of the tale that included this extra detail...
[maybe]
now I have a good reason for saying this because of a very particular fact I uncovered in my research... but it’s just too soon to spill the beans on this...
[we need to talk about this right now!]
Hey, it’s not because I want to keep you in suspense, it’s because we still need plenty more context for the facts in question to make any kind of significant sense... so, don’t worry, we’ll get there... as long as I can get enough support to speed up this process... speaking of which:
if you’d like to show your support for the podcast, I’ve signed up for one of those donation pages... ko-fi.com
[I can’t believe you did that!]
so if you’d like to buy me a beer, or a cup of coffee, or even a cup of coffeve... if that’s your thing...
[don’t go there!]
I’ll leave a link in the notes and in the transcripts...
[whatever]
and just in case you don’t already know, you can find complete transcripts including all the voice and music credits as well as all sorts of interesting links regarding the history we’re uncovering in between the lines of the fairytale for each episode on the website...
[visit us on the web @wwwwwwwww...dot]
betweenthelines.xyz...
[I don’t think so]
alrighty...
so, the important detail I’m talking about in the Grimms’ addition to the story is:
...the wild animals would soon come and tear them to pieces.
[angry dog]
The connotations attached to this detail are so important to the zeitgeist of our author, they’re likely to have been original to the story...
[who cares?]
well, let’s take a closer look at those connotations, and then you can decide for yourself if they mean anything...
Being torn to pieces and eaten by wild animals is pretty obviously the fate of a literal scapegoat from Leviticus
but there’s more to this visceral little detail than just one scriptural reference.
[angry dogs]
In a prophetic and metaphoric way, Herr Holzhacker is actually speaking about the witch. His words imply that SHE is the same as a wild animal, and we who already know the story know that she certainly has the same intent as a wild animal.
[angry dogs]
This makes her a force of Nature.
🎶 mumbai music 🎶
As a dark, murderous character of the Unconscious, she shares some of the frightening aspects of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, and that makes her an archetypal force to be reckoned with.
[flee or die]
[uh oh]
we'll also see later on that, in terms of characterizing and identifying the witch, our author had some other, very specific historical characters in mind.
[who’s that?]
well, we’ll get there when we get there... for now, we all know that the children are meant to be the victims of cannibalism...
[oh no!]
and the cannibalism foreshadowed in this detail is super-important to the story...
[why, why, why, why?]
it’s not just because the woman and the witch are essentially working in cahoots, and it’s not just for sake of the macabre — if not gratuitously violent — image such a fate evokes... it’s because there’s another, similar scapegoat who undergoes that exact same fate on a daily basis in our own day and age.
[what?]
Let’s not forget that when Christians say "Christ died for our sins" they’re actually saying that he’s their official scapegoat. And as far as the sacrament of the Eucharist is concerned, the New Testament tells us that cannibalism is the very means by which the faithful obtain his grace.
[no!]
this is John 6:53-56
[church bell]
Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
[that’s uh not funny]
of course in that same chapter, he tried his best to include all the vegans in his audience (um, if not all the gluten-intolerant) when he said:
[church bell]
I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever...
John 6:48-51
[I’m not sayin’ nuthin’]
Now, if we were so inclined, we could end our search for the real meaning of grace right here... and what I mean, of courser, is the grace that our fairy tale bread was meant to symbolize... the bread that went missing from the Holzhacker table (as well as all of Germany) was obviously the sacramental soul food and divine grace we’ve already understood it to be...
[most assuredly]
as I’ve said though, Christians or not, there’s no way we’re gonna accept grace as some religious abstraction or scriptural platitude...
[why the fuck not?]
not here! no matter how sacred, solemn or saintly it sounds... and believe me, neither would (or did) our fairy tale author... you and I are gonna deconstruct the original recipe for soul food and figure out exactly what the damned thing... er, I mean, the blessed... thing is!
[okee doke]
and let’s not forget the obvious, that there has to be some metaphoric connection between our little brother and sister and divine, sacramental grace.
[how?]
well, just remember that they’re the ones who bring home the bacon at the end of the story... That’s a long way off, though... in the meantime remember that we’re also committed to finding out the truth about the little brother and little sister as psychological metaphor... specifically: which of the 4 functions of consciousness they represent:
thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition...
just like I said in episode 10... remember?
[no!]
well if you trust me, we’re going to see that the 2 specific functions of consciousness they represent, are not only serious sacraments in themselves, they’re necessary ingredients in our very own recipe for soul food.
[do we have any cheetos?]
*🎶*🎶*
PART 2 [15:37]
Teil Zwei: In which we board the Time Machine and get ourselves invited to the world’s first toga party
[toga! toga! toga! toga!]
This business of scapegoating the children — which amounts to a sacrifice to the Unconscious — is reminiscent of Abraham’s cavalier treatment of his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac: the brothers from another mother... and once again, it also references the medieval practice of oblation: or abandoning, er, I mean, donating unwanted children to the Church.
[uh, thank you... uhh, thanks]
Given all these connotations, agreeing to abandon the Holzhacker children is like a burnt offering in the name of obedience... and not obedience to the still, small voice, but obedience to the voice of authority and dogma: to the voice of Conscience. and yet, stripped of all metaphoric symbolism, the idea of the children being torn apart by wild animals sounds like a simple statement of logical fact, right?
[naturally]
something any normal parent would be expected to think and say...
[certainly]
so if you're offended by all the cheeky references to Judeo Christian writings, beliefs, and practices
[affirmative!]
you might not mind so much that this is also a startlingly clear allusion to something much less offensive to our post-modern sensibilities:
[hmm, what’s that?]
ancient Greek religion...
[oh really?]
that’s right... and specifically an ancient Dionysian ritual memorialized in an award winning presentation of Greek tragedy...
[scream]
So let’s get on the time machine and travel back to 405 BCE...
***
[keep all limbs and extremities within the confines of the vehicle. enjoy your journey]
[Aufstieg links]
***
[sounds of theatre audience]
Before the show begins, we just need to know a few basic facts about Dionysus that everyone else in this ancient theater knew:
first of all his mother was an ordinary mortal woman, and her name was Semele... and once upon a time Semele caught the eye of Zeus, who made her one of his baby mamas...
[what seems to be the problem?]
when Zeus’s famously jealous wife, Hera, caught wind of this, she played it cool with Semele and tried to convince her that her new boyfriend had pulled a fast one and was only impersonating Zeus... Hera was so convincing, Semele began to doubt the divinity of both her boyfriend and their love child, Dionysus.
so how about Frau Holzhacker? — in making her husband doubt the still small voice of his heart, well, she acted in a way that’s kinda similar to Hera. Dontcha think?
[no sir!]
okay... And oh yeah, didn’t we already mention that Hansel and Gretel might actually have something in common with sacramental grace and divinity?
[no!]
oooh boy... Well, I guess it’s time for the dinner part of our dinner theater, and as I said, we’re having steak tartare because the celebration of Dionysian ritual called for
[pizza]
uh no... Omophagia, namely, eating raw meat...
[mmmm!]
we’re having blood sausage too,
[yummy!]
because the ritual also included the practice of Sparagmos. And Sparagmos must have been a pretty messy affair because it meant tearing apart a live, sacrificial animal
[oh boy]
it sometimes even called for a human sacrifice...
[oh no, that’s not good]
so you see, all of that mythology is what the Grimms addition is referring to...
Now if that were all there was to say about this connection between scapegoating and Dionysus, we might as well just move on to the next step of the fairy tale,
[I think that we should do that]
but that would leave us hanging because allusions like this are little more than a tease — even if, as I said, the mother of the children is behaving more like Hera than we might have otherwise realized.
well, in this case, it’s really meant to be a tease because fortunately, it’s just the trailer for this play — and the play itself is one humdinger of a messy Greek tragedy...
[a woman screams]
it’s called the Bacchae or Bacchantes... and it was written by Euripides around 2400 years ago...
***
The Bacchae premiered in 405 BC (AFTER the death of Euripides) & won 1st prize in the Dionysian festival competition of Athens
https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/euripides-bacchae-sb/
***
[pardon my lack of excitement, I’ve seen it before]
okay, so some of you are already familiar with the play... that means you’d have already recognized a few allusions that are much more substance than tease. And for the rest of you who aren’t familiar with the play, don't worry, neither was I.
[uh, excuse you]
[how long is this gonna take?]
well, here we go, things are about to get really interesting, really quick... in fact we’re gonna fast forward through the whole thing and see all the juicy bits in 4 short acts...
[this is gonna suck]
no it’s not... I'll make this short and sweet:
[applause]
Act 1
Scene 1. Dionysus is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Semele.
Scene 2. Semele goes around insisting that her boyfriend is a god... of course nobody believes her preposterous story about how and by whom she got knocked up... which is why NOBODY believes that her son, Dionysus is a god.
[crowd awkward laughter]
Scene 3. Dionysus has a first cousin (on his mother's side)... his name is Pentheus, and he’s the ruler of Thebes, the hometown of Dionysus... like everybody else in town, Pentheus figures that his Aunt Semele had a one night stand with some run of the mill pick up artist... and since that would make his cousin just another dumb bastard, he lays down the law and forbids anyone to party with Dionysus or treat him like a god...
[crowd boos]
Act 2
Scene 4. Dionysus is really miffed by this public insult, and so — just to piss off his cousin — he throws the original toga party: otherwise known as a Bacchanalia...
[crowd cheers]
the guests included pretty much all of the women of Thebes as well as all of his groupies, otherwise known as the Maenads or Bacchante... and one of those Bacchante just happens to be his Aunt Agave: the mother of Pentheus.
Scene 5. Pentheus hears about the toga party and blows a gasket... so he doesn’t put Dionysus on
[double secret probation]
he throws him right into a cage...
[crowd booing]
Scene 6. The cage magically opens.
[crowd cheering]
Act 3
Scene 7. Dionysus puts his arm around his cousin and says: "Hey, we’re gonna have an orgy. lighten up... come along and watch, why dontcha!"
[crowd laughs]
Scene 8. Dionysus gets Pentheus a nice fancy toga and brings him to the party. Then he gets Pentheus high up in a tree so he can hide and get a bird’s eye view of all the action...
[oooh]
Act 4
Scene 9. Dionysus pulls a fast one and points Pentheus out to his groupies, the Bacchante... they, of course have all been partaking of the refreshments, and are, shall we say, more than just a touch uninhibited... in fact, they’re so far out there, they imagine Pentheus to be a wild animal and so they promptly act out their favorite ritual: Sparagmos... you know, they tear him to pieces.
[crowd - ouch]
Scene 10. Aunt Agave gets the big prize... she rips the head off this wild animal...
[crowd shock]
...and she happily carries it home as a trophy... of course she thinks she’s carrying the head of a cougar... but, uh, she’s not...
Scene 11. When Agave gets home, her father, Cadmus, uh, sees the head and has a shit fit... Agave eventually sobers up and sees the problem.
Oops.
[applause]
So obviously there are a bunch of things in the play that show up in our fairy tale...
[what are they?]
In Act 2 (Scene 5), Pentheus puts Dionysus into a cage...
we haven’t arrived there yet in our story, but it sure corresponds to what you and I already know... the witch is gonna throw Hansel into a cage... Does this make Pentheus (as a jealous and ridiculously mistaken authority) a metaphoric model for the witch?
[I don’t know, mate]
You bet it does! It also connects Hansel with Dionysus.
[roger that]
in Act 3 (Scene 8), we’ve got Pentheus getting high up into a tree...
[yeah, so what?]
while this seems to have nothing to do with Hansel and Gretel it’s actually a small detail that makes its way into each of the 3 major tales that Hansel and Gretel is based on... tales that we spoke about in Episode 10... remember?
[no!]
I think our author chose to leave this detail out of Hansel and Gretel because, in fact, it wouldn’t be consistent with the underlying metaphors of the story. How it functions in the other stories would require an in-depth analysis of each of them...
[please, don’t do that]
well, actually, I’d love to do it but it’s something we just don’t have time for... that said, there’s no mistaking this allusion to Euripides in each them — no matter how coincidental it may seem...
And just so you know, in the Alsatian story by Martin Montanus, the relevant line reads like this:
Als nün der abent herzü kam und das arm verlassen meitlin an aller hilff verzweyflet hette, stig es auff ein sehr hohen baum zü besichtigen, ob es doch yergent ein statt, dorff oder hauss ersehen möcht, darein es gienge, damit es nicht also jämerlich den wilden thieren zür speyss gegeben würde.
As now evening came, and the poor lost girl despaired of having any and all help, she climbed up a very tall tree in order to look around and see if there might be some village or house she could go to in order not to be miserably eaten by wild animals.
Lo and behold, we not only find this tree business, we also find the very source of the Grimms extra piece of the story — the wild animal part — right there in the same line!
[interesting]
***
leaving out the tree climbing in Hansel and Gretel cleans up the metaphor so that there is no mistaking the difference between Pentheus and Hansel especially as it corresponds to the business of Hansel getting locked in a cage later on in the story...
In Act 4 (Scene 10), Aunt Agave is more literally connected to the mother / witch because she successfully carries out the mother's original intent of filicide: killing her own son... The fact that it’s done in a drunken frenzy correlates well with the fact that our witch is an aspect of the mother, living — as it were — in the mother’s own Unconscious. But this also confuses the metaphor because it would equate Pentheus and Hansel...
all of this makes it so much more likely that the decision to leave OUT the business of climbing a tree was the deliberate decision of our extremely well-read and astute author.
***
This leaves us with the most important connection between Euripides and our fairytale. and it showed up right away in Act 1
[how?]
Dionysus IS, in fact, a god, but not only do most people of Thebes NOT believe this, Pentheus has laid down the law and ordered that everyone who does believe it to NOT believe it... in other words, they’ve got to deny their own belief. And not just belief, something they know to be true.
This law actually amounts to a religious dogma, and that makes it part and parcel of a rigid conscience. The fact that it’s a mistaken conscience makes it the metaphoric equivalent of Frau Holzhacker nagging her husband.
We, as audience, are privy to the fact that Dionysus is a god; everyone else is left to discover this for themselves. In the case of Pentheus and his mother, Agave, this means finding out the hard way. And I don’t know about you, but the hard way sure seems to be how we’re usually left to figure out some of the most important things in our own life.
[(sound of a bad, painful mistake) "oh shit!!"]
as for the Maenads or Bacchante, whether or not they believe Dionysus is a god isn’t even the point... they worship him because IT FEELS GREAT! Their worship is rewarded with the special grace of ecstasy and enthusiasm.
[damn, that’s good shit! Fuck!]
In Greek theatre, to play the god was to BE the god.
To pretend to eat the god was to BECOME the god.
I don't know if the same was true for the Greek audiences, but I'll bet that it was... for them to witness these activities — even in a theater piece — was to participate in them.
[yowza! / woohoo!]
So what about Hansel and his sister? What do we become when we read their story?
[(giggle) I don’t know]
well, if the Greek model holds true — which I suspect it does — we become them... In anthropology this intense sense of identification is called participation mystique —
[oh la, la]
and while that’s considered something common to an uncivilized or more primal consciousness and culture, in jungian circles, it’s considered an everyday occurrence — something that routinely happens to all of us.
[nonsense!]
Think about it. If the idea of a modern, rational adult falling victim to such primitive, unconscious behavior offends anyone as being irrational, illogical and unsophisticated, never forget that the true power of commercial advertising is based on pulling us into, and then abruptly cutting us off from, this very phenomenon.
[oh no, you can’t be serious... that is some bullshit right there]
well, stretching your patience for all things jungian just one iota longer: What part of ourselves, do we project onto Hansel and Gretel when we read their story?
[so how should I know, who even cares?]
seriously, what part of ourselves has been banished to the wilderness of the Unconscious by the dictates of our culture ...
[I don’t think you know]
This entire podcast, (and the book that will eventually emerge from it) is an effort to find that out. But let’s forget all about Jung, and get back to real life.
[thank you]
remember from our poetry slam in the last episode that Thoreau, in speaking of life, wrote:
For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God...
now in western culture and consciousness, Dionysus the god is one of the chief models for the Christian Devil...
[that's correct]
yup, and in western european history, devil worship often took the form of a real toga party... a Bacchanalia...
[ooh, I like that!]
in fact, a Bacchanalia is precisely what witches were accused of having in all the historical descriptions of a Witches Sabbath
[(walkie-talkie) that’s correct]
And now, to make this entire matter completely and utterly heretical, remember, too, that Christ himself has also been metaphorically connected to Dionysus.
[what?]
Apparently, it was Hölderlin,
[your german pronunciation must be much better / try again... come on, come on]
Hölderlin... the Romantic poet and Hellenophile (20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843), was the first to recognize this strong conceptual connection between Dionysus and Christ: both of them being immortal gods who did the impossible by dying and being resurrected, and both allowing their worshipers to partake of their grace by virtue of cannibalistic ingestion.
[oh, and I suppose you think that’s funny, huh?]
***
This is also true of Attis and Adonis:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough/The_Myth_and_Ritual_of_Attis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumuzid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis
https://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/gb03300.htm
***
Notice, too, that Hölderlin
[ja, ja, it’s okay]
was 42 years old when Hansel and Gretel was first published. He was also, along with Goethe, intimately acquainted with our play, the Bacchae, because he was the first poet to translate it into German...!
[holy shit!]
so in our search for the original author of Hansel and Gretel, Hölderlin,
[be serious now, concentrate... men before you have finally gotten quite acceptable pronunciation]
Hölderlin, by virtue of his maturity, education and literary insight becomes one in a VERY long list of suspected authorial candidates.
that said, the Christ analogy is not necessarily what I'm getting at here. What I find much more significant in the Bacchae is that Dionysus becomes an excellent metaphor for the still, small voice within.
[no way]
why not? we’ve got the authority of a dogmatic, conservative conscience — as portrayed by both Pentheus and Frau Holzhacker — that strictly forbids us to worship anything as wild and untamed as Dionysus; which leads me to speculate: what if the true nature of the still, small voice is not meekness, but Dionysian exuberance?
And what if that exuberance in us all is not something evil, but instead, godlike — not to mention, Christ-like.
Could it be that worshiping, or simply paying attention to the still, small voice is what gives us both enthusiasm (which literally means to be filled with the god) and, dare I say, the euphoric ecstasy of some something else that only the still small voice can provide?
[knocking on the door]
[open the door]
once again, here we are knocking on the door of a "something else"... And by something else, I mean: grace... So I guess it’s about time we open that door.
[open the door]
*🎶*🎶*
PART 3 [39:03]
Teil Drei: In which we discover a family that’s even more dysfunctional than the Holzhackers, find a terrific alternative to facebook and the metaverse, and then hear about a bonus episode we can’t refuse
[open the door]
[it’s locked]
[I must get in... it’s closed for the night, everybody’s gone home]
well, before we open the door on grace... we’ve got a little encore to our dinner theater... it’s another easter egg of a literary reference to this wild animal business and it turns up in a very famous collection of Latin poems known as the Heroides... they were written by another friend and fan of the podcast and one helluva famous dead poet: Publius Ovidius Naso
[oh boy]
otherwise know as Ovid...
[oh yeah, very nice]
he wrote these poems a little over 2,000 years ago (the Heroides dates to around 25-16 BC) — which is to say about 400 years after the play by Euripides — and they were pretty revolutionary in their time because they came in the innovative form of impassioned letters written by famous Greek heroines to their boyfriends...
[take care of yourself]
the poem in question is #11, and in it, the Greek heroine Canace is writing to her brother Macareus, who just happens to be the father of her newborn baby...
[ugh, ew!]
in the poem, the shit has already hit the fan because Canace’s father, Aeolus — who was apparently clueless for 9 months — has finally smelled the coffee, and he’s so pissed off he grabs the baby and orders that it be taken out and abandoned in the woods...
[wow, asshole]
so we’ve got Canace writing one last, tear-stained letter to her brother because not only has her father gotten rid of his grandkid, he just sent Canace a sword and he wants her to commit seppuku with it...
[son of a bitch!]
and of course, in the letter Canace mentions this wild animal business more than once...
[angry dog]
So for our purposes, whether or not the line about wild animals was a reminder furnished by the Grimms themselves, or was an original thought of our author, I’m just grateful for it.
This business of intuitive / metaphoric interpretation is such that no one person can have all the answers, recognize all the relevant allusions, or see things from all sides. Not only is an open, and well-read mind required, but alternative suggestions are always worth considering and can, just like this one, provide valuable and unexpected insight into the full meaning and potential of the story.
[so that’s the story Jerry?]
there’s more to this than meets the eye... and I’ll have more to say about it in the future, for now, though, just realize that this extra line the Grimms added — well, it amounts to a very particular literary or rhetorical trope known as
[spaghetti]
uh, no... it’s known as a metalepsis...
[what the fuck does that mean?]
I don’t want to go too deep into this right now except to say that this entire fairy tale is filled with them... each instance of metalepsis in any art form is a bridge or a signpost in one work pointing to an earlier instance of the same or similar symbol appearing in another work or context...
one important thing about metalepsis is that the earlier symbol carries some of the weight of meaning meant to be expressed in the later work... in other words, some of the force of Herr Holzhacker’s worry about wild animals tearing his kids to pieces is brought forward from the despair expressed by Ovid’s Canace, and from the wild and crazy violence demonstrated in Euripides...
[ah... very good!]
so you see, metalepsis is deliberate...
now what’s also important about metalepsis is that it’s a kind of cheeky nod and compliment to the earlier works and their authors... which is something you see in Hollywood movies all the time... modern directors, screenwriters and even actors often copy some aspect of a famous scene as a way of paying homage to films, directors and actors they admire...
a literary metalepsis is actually brilliant as a kind of Easter egg hunt meant for well-read cognoscenti... or at least anyone willing to take the time to suss out it’s source... which in our zeitgeist most often means using the internet for something way more interesting than, well... use your imagination to finish that sentence...
Now, before we close, I’ve gotta mention one last thing about this extra bit that was added by the Grimms because it too contains another example of metalepsis... I have to confess that in all the — now 11 — years of research I’d already done on this fairy tale, I was completely at a loss concerning that business of planing the planks of their coffins...
"O, thou fool!" said she, "Then we must all four die of hunger, thou mayest as well plane the planks for our coffins,"
even knowing in my heart that this had to be a literary reference to something specific, it was such a mystery to me I was more than willing to ignore it for the sake of moving along and finishing this episode of the podcast...
part of my reasoning was that unlike the business of the wild animals, it doesn’t appear in any version of the story until 1843 — which is effectively the Grimms 5th Edition... so to my mind that meant it was pretty clearly NOT original to the story our author wrote... and I thought, well, that should be enough to let me off the hook... except just because I couldn’t recognize any specific literary or historical allusion in it, I realized that it was only my logical mind that was ready to throw in the towel...
my intuition knew better... and with a helluva lot more empathy than Frau Holzhacker, it kept bugging me to do something about it until I finally said:
[well alright... anything you want... anything.]
so while I was preparing to wrap up this episode of the podcast a funny thing happened...
[funny how? like I'm clownin' here — to amuse you, or what?]
my intuition solved the riddle of the clue this line of the fairytale represents...!
[no way!]
and while I was going to include that information in this episode, I’ve decided to give it an episode all to itself, except it’s not gonna be part of the series:
it’s going to be a bonus episode... it’ll be available as soon as I produce it... although I plan on making it available only as a bonus for supporters... which, of course, might mean that nobody’s ever gonna to hear it...
[you got that right]
yeah, well, we’ll see about that...
anyway, whether it interests you or not, you can expect to read more about it on the website and hear more about it in coming episodes... speaking of which, in our next episode:
🎶 Meanwhile in Bavaria 🎶
we finally take the wrapping off our Hansel and Gretel bread, and discover what soul food really is... which is to say we’re gonna make one helluva bold statement and declare exactly what grace is: not just in our day and age but for all time... and not just for our fairytale family but for you and me and all of humanity...
[is that so?]
it may or may not surprise you, but I know you won’t want to miss out on hearing what Hansel and Gretel have to say about it...
so, I still don’t know how many of you guys are out there listening to the podcast...
[what part of silence don’t you understand?]
and I know, you’re probably all tired of hearing me whining and asking you to please, please, puhleeze keep spreading the word...
[yes sir!]
yeah well...
[please, please, please!!!]
so there...
hey, just don’t forget you can find full transcripts including all the voice and music credits for each episode on the website:
[visit us on the web at wwwwwwwwwwwww dot]
betweenthelines.xyz
you’ll also find extra links within the transcripts giving you more information related to the European history mentioned in each episode as well as all the dead poets and playwrights in this episode...
[whatever]
alrighty then... ciao a tutti quanti...
[this recording will self destruct in 5 seconds]
[sound of ticking timer]
[ciao, ciao]
[toaster oven bell]
got a question, or just want to say hi...?
*Chapter Titles read by Anna Jacobsen*
*Librivox recording of Hansel and Gretel read by Bob Neufeld*
*🎶*🎶* Bleeping Demo by Kevin MacLeod of filmmusic.io
🎶 "Anachronist" by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under filmmusic.io/standard-license
🎶 "Meanwhile in Bavaria" by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under filmmusic.io/standard-license
kristo's awesome Peanut Gallery
(most, courtesy of freesound.org)
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@00:03 "...a secret" - Count Dracula
@00:13 "immature audiences..." courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@00:18 "it shouldn't be allowed" courtesy of Tim Kahn and Amy Gedgaudas and freesound.org
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@00:21 🎶 heavenly choir 🎶 courtesy of liezen3 and freesound.org
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@00:27 F-Bombs um, warning: (special) thanks to our good friend Ame Sanders of stateofinclusion.com
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@00:45 🎶 creepy organ 🎶 courtesy of Aeonemi and freesound.org
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@00:54 🎶 deep church bell 🎶 courtesy of Aeonemi and freesound.org
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@01:02 "that not good" courtesy of Legnalegna55 and freesound.org
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@01:02 "...more often" courtesy of clivew and freesound.org
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@01:29 "oh, you back again?" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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@01:36 "...better get comfortable" courtesy of ballOOnhead
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@02:37 "hey, pull over..." - Pete Clemenza
@02:54 "leave the gun..." - Pete Clemenza
@03:03 dad joke groans" courtesy of TeamMasaka and freesound.org
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@03:34 "what are you talking about?" courtesy of laelizondo and freesound.org
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@03:47 "No!" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@04:07 "what a load of crap" courtesy of Anzbot and freesound.org
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@04:32 "hooray!" courtesy of javapimp and freesound.org
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@05:15 "not good" courtesy of nooc and freesound.org
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PART 1 / Teil Eins
@05:36 "...zombie virus" courtesy of Tim Kahn and Amy Gedgaudas and freesound.org
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@05:42"eh, it's okay" courtesy of MatteusNova and freesound.org
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@05:58: "I’m sorry, what?" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@06:40 "really...?" courtesy of juror2 and freesound.org
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@07:03 "maybe" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@07:16 "we need to talk..." courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@07:53 "I can't believe..." courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@08:03 "don't go there!" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@08:08 "whatever" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@08:37 "I don't think so" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@08:52 "angry dog" courtesy of CmdRobot and freesound.org
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@09:05 "who cares" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@09:30 "angry dog" courtesy of CmdRobot and freesound.org
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*** wild animal mix @ 09:54***
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***
***
🎶 tabla music 🎶
Fragment of a concert by Hindustani tabla master, Talyogi Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, with the accompaniment of another Tabla, a Pakhwaj and a Harmonium. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at a concert in Mumbai (India) on May 14th 2011.
@09:58 "Mumbai Music 2" courtesy of xserra and freesound.org
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***
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@10:22 "uh oh (guy)" courtesy of DWOBoyle and freesound.org
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@10:35 "who’s that?" courtesy of iccleste and freesound.org
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@10:47 "oh no!" courtesy of nooc and freesound.org
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@10:55 "why" courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@11:22 "what?!?" courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@11:48 noooooo...! courtesy of se2001 and freesound.org
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@12:37 "...not funny" courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@13:17 I'm not sayin' nuthin' courtesy of Anzbot and freesound.org
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@13:45 "most assuredly" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@13:59 "why the fuck not?" courtesy of cheesepuff and freesound.org
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@14:25 "okee dokey" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@14:39 "How?" courtesy of simons7er and freesound.org
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@15:14 "No!" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@15:32 "...any cheetos?" courtesy of hatchetgirl and freesound.org
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PART 2 / Teil Zwei
@15:50 "Toga, Toga…!" - Deltas
@16:26 "uh, thank you" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@17:04 "naturally" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@17:20 "affirmative" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@17:33 "hmmm, what’s that?" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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@17:38 "oh, really?" courtesy of xyahka and freesound.org
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@17:50 "witchy scream" courtesy of MadamVicious and freesound.org
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*** Time Machine ***
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aufstieg links courtesy of hoerspielgerrit and freesound.org
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***
@18:28 audience sounds courtesy of klankbeeld and freesound.org
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@18:58 "what seems to be the problem?" courtesy of AmeAngelofSin
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@20:10 "pizza!" courtesy of Nighteller and freesound.org
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@20:21 "mmmm!" courtesy of nuncaconci and freesound.org
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@20:27 "yummy!" courtesy of dorr1 and freesound.org
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@20:42 "oh boy" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@20:48 "oh no, that's not good" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@21:10 "I think we should do that" courtesy of nuncaconci and freesound.org
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@21:44 "witchy scream" courtesy of MadamVicious and freesound.org
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@21:57 "I've seen it before" courtesy of nuncaconci and freesound.org
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@22:23 "uhh, excuse you..." courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@22:25 "how long is this gonna take?" courtesy of shawshank73 and freesound.org
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@22:45 "This is gonna suck" courtesy of nooc
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@22:53 short applause" courtesy of Processaurus and freesound.org
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@24:30 "crowd cheering" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@25:02 "double secret probation" - Dean Wormer
@25:07 "crowd booing" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@25:16 "more applause" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@25:35 "crowd laughs" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@25:55 "crowd oooh" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@26:38 "crowd ouching" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@27:23 "applause" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@27:24 "crowd laughs" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@27:37 "what are they?" courtesy of AmeAngelofSin and freesound.org
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@28:06 "I don't know mate" courtesy of max_cristos and freesound.org
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@28:16 "roger that" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@28:24 "yeah, so what?" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@28:44 "No!" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@29:04 "please, don’t do that" courtesy of girlhurl and freesound.org
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@30:12 "interesting..." courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@30:23 "How?" courtesy of simons7er and freesound.org
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@31:39 "(big mistake) oh shit!" courtesy of xtrgamr and freesound.org
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@32:03 "good shit!" courtesy of canadianadam and freesound.org
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@32:31 "yowza / woohoo" courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@32:41 "(giggle) I don't know" courtesy of nfrae and freesound.org
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@33:03 "ooh la la" courtesy of Tim Kahn and Amy Gedgaudas and freesound.org
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@33:21 "nonsense!" courtesy of afterguard and freesound.org
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@33:51 "oh no, you can't be serious..." courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@34:09 "so how should I know..." courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@34:22 "I don't think you know" courtesy of HootOwl and freesound.org
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@34:38 "thank you" courtesy of Legnalegna55 and freesound.org
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@34:47 Librivox recording of Walden — read by Gordon Mackenzie.
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@35:05 "that's correct" courtesy of bogenseeberg and freesound.org
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@35:29 "that’s correct (walkie-talkie)" courtesy of cityrocker and freesound.org
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@35:43 "what?" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@35:47 "your German pronunciation..." courtesy of vumseplutten1709 and freesound.org
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@36:19 "you think that’s funny, huh?" courtesy of shawshank73 and freesound.org
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@36:24 "ja, ja, it's okay" courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@36:46 "holy shit!" courtesy of AlienXXX and freesound.org
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@36:55 "...acceptable pronunciation" courtesy of vumseplutten1709 and freesound.org
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@37:33 "no way (guy)" courtesy of kathid and freesound.org
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@38:41 / 39:23 knock on door courtesy of Legnalegna55 and freesound.org
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@38:48 / 38:58 "open the door" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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PART 3 / Teil Drei
@39:27 "it’s locked" courtesy of Thegamemakerqueen and freesound.org
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@39:30 "I must get in" - Helen Grosvenor
@40:10 "oh brother!" courtesy of max_cristos and freesound.org
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@40:14 "oh yeah, very nice" - Tom Hagen
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@41:46 "SOB!" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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*** wild animal mix @ 41:57***
"angry dog" courtesy of CmdRobot and freesound.org
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***
@42:48 "so that's the story, Jerry?" - JGE
@43:09 "spaghetti" courtesy of Nighteller and freesound.org
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@43:15 "what the fuck does that mean?" courtesy of The Baron and freesound.org
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@44:13 "ah, very good!" courtesy of The Baron and freesound.org
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@45:54 "what the hell...?!?" courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@47:02 "anything you want..." courtesy of nuncaconci and freesound.org
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@47:14 "funny how...?" - SNL
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@47:53 "you got THAT right" - Tony Soprano
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got a question, or just want to say hi...?
Episode 018 - I Gotta Lot on My Conscience / Episode 020 - DIY Coffin Carpentry