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Episode 506: Alexandra Marvar and the Trough of Despair, the Wall of Regret
0 Playsin 10 hours
"I feel like many of us can relate to that, like, that's the trough of despair, right? Like, that moment where you're energetic optimism, diving in, and then, like, that's the wall of regret, where you're like, 'What was I thinking? This is not a story,'" says Alexandra Marvar, whose piece on Lummie Jenkins was revived by The Atavist.
Today we Alex Marvar, this month’s featured Atavist writer, but this is something of a twist. Seyward Darby, who we will hear from in a sec, has launched an initiative called “Revived.” The idea being to resurrect long lost stories that are no longer available online. These stories that for one reason or another … disappeared. Seyward calls it a crisis of impermanence. You can learn and read more at magazine.atavist.com.
Alex is a freelance writer and photographer. Her work has been appeared in the Believer, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vanity Fair and many others. She’s kind of a boss. She even won the prestigious East Knox Middle School’s 1995 DARE Student Essay Contest. She interviewed Iggy Pop for a documentary and got her picture taken with the punk legend, so, yeah, Alex is kinda sorta wicked cool.
In our part of the conversation we talk about:
- Money
- Revisiting her younger self
- The trough of despair and the wall of regret
- Borrowing trust
- Saggy middles
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Sponsorship and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, hey, this podcast is sponsored with this house ad for Pitch Club, the monthly sub stack where you read cold pitches and hear the authors audio annotate their thinking behind how they sold and crafted their pitches that landed a publication.
00:00:14
Speaker
There are, well, speaking of this being an Atavist issue of the podcast, there are three Atavist writers and and a few others over over there at welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. Issue 8 just dropped, featuring one of my cold pitches that landed a thing. This for Geezer Magazine. It's titled Pitching from the Hip, because I basically wrote it in 20 minutes and shot it off.
00:00:39
Speaker
Don't necessarily recommend that, but it happened, and it happened to work. What a world.
True Storytelling with Brendan O'Meara
00:00:45
Speaker
What did I know, right? But this was like uncorking this bottle that had been corked for 50 years and people just had a lot to say about this guy.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I should mention, i typically suck at pitches. Hey, CNFers, it's that atavistian time of the month. Leading off 2026, happy new year. Hope you had fun doing the things with the family and all the stuff and you're not too hungover from celebrating the end.
00:01:17
Speaker
of the, as Sayward calls it, the dumpster fire that was 2025. Haven't they all been an increasingly dumpster fiery since about 2020 or 2016?
00:01:30
Speaker
Isn't that nice? Isn't this all nice? This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where i talk to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell, how they go about the work, how they're handling the at times crippling anxiety of reporting, research, and writing. I'm Brendan O'Meara. Where the fuck were the Demogorgons? Seriously, did they go on strike? Love the finale, by the way.
00:01:50
Speaker
But where were they? Just picture them smoking cigs, just hanging out, be like unplugging from the hive mind. i Anyway, I hope you had a nice holiday. Now back to work, okay? No more cheeses for your mises. Brief note. So I went on that rant from that Asinine review on the last episode of the podcast, and this person must have heard my rant because that review is no longer on Apple Podcasts. It was deleted, presumably, by this person. I have screenshots, so I will never forget. But I appreciate Barry the Lead for taking it down, so thank you for that.
Reviving Long-Lost Stories with Revived Project
00:02:30
Speaker
Today we have Alex Marvar, or Marver, Alexandra Marver, we'll call it Marver, Marvar. This month's featured atavist writer, but this is something of a twist.
00:02:43
Speaker
Sarah Darby, who we will hear from momentarily, has launched an initiative with the magazine, with the Atavist magazine, called Revived.
00:02:53
Speaker
The idea being to resurrect long-lost stories that are no longer available online. These stories that, for one reason or another, disappeared.
00:03:05
Speaker
Sayward calls it the crisis of impermanence. You can learn and read more at magazine.atavist.com. Shout out to two new patrons, by the way, to start 2026. Isn't this nice? And Mary Birnbaum and Caroline Rothney. These names seem awfully familiar to me. Maybe past patrons coming back or maybe we just emailed at one point.
00:03:27
Speaker
um Doesn't matter. All that matters is that I greatly appreciate you coming on board. And just in time for the start of the Flash podcast. 52 sessions that are starting Sunday, 7 a.m. m Pacific Standard Time. The idea being all paid members can hang out in the in a Zoom room for 30 minutes, and we attempt to write a flash essay a week for 52 weeks. If you miss a week, no big deal. You don't have to write 52. You can onboard whenever you want. You can exit whenever you want. You can write while inspired. You can write only when inspired.
00:04:00
Speaker
I love flash essays, so let's have some fun. Show notes of this episode and more at brendanamero.com. Hey, hey, bookmark it, man, so you can browse for hot blogs and sign up for my two very important newsletters, the flagship Rage Against the Algorithm and Pitch Club, teased at the top of the show. Welcome to substack.pitchclub. Did I just say?
00:04:21
Speaker
Oh, Lachlan. Welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. That's how you read. Also, if you care to support the podcast with a few dollar bills, visit patreon.com slash cnfpod. If you think the podcast is worth 50 cents to a dollar a week, give it a try.
Challenges and Processes in Story Revival
00:04:38
Speaker
Okay, so we hear from Sayward Darby on why she started this revival series and why this piece, The Two Faces of Lummi Jenkins, ah it feels all the more relevant and why it's batting lead off in their revived series so here's the deck from it and these guys at the atavis man they can write a deck man a deck The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember the longtime sheriff as a god or a monster. It just depends on who you ask.
00:05:08
Speaker
It's a story of the moment that originally ran in Topic Magazine in 2018, a pub that shuttered a few years ago, and along with it, stories like Alex's.
00:05:20
Speaker
Sayward also shares how much they pay for a revived story, the rules behind it, submission guidelines, and How it felt to edit fully formed stories and not fuck with it too much like these are more it's a good way to think of it is like they're ah they're more remastered versus reformed with annotations that might reflect a few changes or more context. No major structural upheavals.
00:05:43
Speaker
Sayward had a bit of a cold, and so she begs you to bear with her. I'll give you more of the skinny on Alex before her section, but for now, let's kick it with the Atavis editor-in-chief Sayward Darby riff.
00:06:07
Speaker
It's just calm music and you're just running around trying to find a horse. Cocaine is so expensive, I don't do it anymore. I ran out of money. You know, you get rejected and it's like, well, fuck you. Who cares? This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, it wasn't something that I'd been pondering for a long time or, um you know, had been, i don't know, it just kind of came to mind one day. And honestly, it was Alexandra emailing and saying, hey, i have this piece, you know, it doesn't exist on the internet anymore. I'm really proud of it. i think it's a story that people should read. I'm still moved and intrigued by it. And, you know, would you ever consider...
00:06:57
Speaker
And the way she framed it was, if I recall correctly, more like, I always thought this would be a good out of a story. um You know, I have the rights to it. Maybe we can turn this into an out of a story, basically.
00:07:08
Speaker
And honestly, like I was I remembered the story because if I'm not mistaken, I wrote for the same issue of topic that that piece originally ran in. It wasn't a it was a like an essay accompanying a photo, a photo story. My my first thought reading her email was just that sucks.
00:07:26
Speaker
You know, like that sucks that something you're proud of and work that you think is great just doesn't exist anymore through no fault of your own. You know, in this case, a year after, maybe not even a year after she published the story, the magazine just stopped publishing. And not only did they stop publishing, they pulled it all offline. i just started thinking about how, and I should say this was probably back like late September, early October. No, no, it was it was September because I remember saying I was going on a work retreat in October and was going to talk to my colleagues about it.
00:07:55
Speaker
But i remember reading her email and it just struck me how many journalists probably have some version of this because a publication has been taken offline or has ceased to exist or there's been some kind of, I don't know, just degradation of um of links because of CMS changes or any number of things. And just how, you know, as someone who...
00:08:23
Speaker
knows so intimately the work that goes into a long form story, just thinking, well, what could we do to help fix that problem for people? And I think that, ah you know look, we're a small operation. We're not going to able to rescue every story we love from the internet abyss.
00:08:41
Speaker
But I really thought, you know I don't want to take these stories that people worked so hard on and are so proud of and you know tear them apart and put them back together. um i would love to find a way to revive them and present them more or less as they were with maybe some updates. We absolutely are going fact check every story we publish no matter what. um And
Opportunities for Journalists in Revival Series
00:09:01
Speaker
look, sometimes errors got through the first round. So and so I just started brainstorming, you know, what would this look like? And Alexandra was game to be our guinea pig. And ah the folks at Automatic, our parent company ah on the publishing team, were game to to do this. And I think, too, there was just some piece of me that thought, look, 2025 is a dumpster fire. Media has been.
00:09:25
Speaker
in in a precarious position for as long as I've been in the industry. So, you know, going on two plus decades now. And so much of what has been precarious in that time is the risk of loss, right? The risk of losing outlets, the risk of losing your work, the risk of losing your job.
00:09:41
Speaker
And in this case, it's like, well what if we could do our small part to within the, you know, within our lane, keeping, you know, our mission on track? how How could we,
00:09:53
Speaker
I don't know, give give people space to to celebrate their work. Alexandra did a great job of you know finding ways to bring it up to date. We used annotations, which i which I think we're going to do going forward. I like the idea of kind of presenting a piece in more or less its original form and then providing annotations for updates or context or whatever. I think, too, you know, in this case, and I don't know that every story will be like this, but it's a nice reminder of like a great publication that existed for a short time. Topic was so wonderful. And I knew people who worked there. I knew so many people who wrote for it. And it was so ambitious and elegant. And um I love the idea not only of celebrating like Alexander's story, but reminding people of
00:10:33
Speaker
you know, the work more broadly that a publication did. So that was it. um It was maybe a weird reaction to 2025. And just feeling like, man, maybe we can do do some good. Yeah, the this idea of annotating it too to provide that extra context and ballast, I think is is a really cool idea to give it new like a new sense of context and and stuff. And I believe you annotated this one. I could see a future where you find you go into the reservoir of past Atavis writers who've reported on something that kind of rhymes with that story and have them annotate it. like i just I'm just thinking out loud, I think that would just be really cool to have someone else ah that is like, oh yeah, this is the kind of reporting they do and the kind of stuff and be like, get those insights too. i I don't know to what extent you've given thought to the annotations, but and just thinking out loud, I'm like, oh, that could be a cool element of this going forward.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i think that um we're very flexible, right? Like we have kind of the general idea in mind and now it's out in the world and we have up on our submissions page sort of the general parameters of what we're thinking about. um You know, word count, what the process is like, what the fee is going to be. It's $2,500, by the way, in case anybody's wondering. Mm-hmm. But point being, you know, i I don't think that every story has to be approached exactly the same way. And I think maybe this will be iterative where, you know, we kind of figure out what works either based on individual stories or just as we go, like improving the model. yeah um I think, too, you know, Alexandra wrote an author's note to accompany this that is kind of a framing and a little bit of a reflection. And I was thinking, too, journalists so infrequently have the opportunity to go back and revisit work, you know, unless it's
00:12:24
Speaker
doing, ah what maybe you're doing a book based on an article or you, know you um i don't know, are being interviewed by someone like you and you know talking about work of the past, whatever, but like really getting to kind of re-engage with your work. re-engage with your writing, re-engage with your reporting.
00:12:43
Speaker
i don't know, being able to say, look, I'm going to basically do this the exact same way i did it before because we don't want to, you know, pretend it's something it wasn't. But also like, I don't know, maybe there is an an insight that you want to find a way to get in there. And that's what, you know, ah an author's note or annotations are for, you know, maybe you catch a sentence that you're like, man, that is a mixed metaphor that I should have noticed before. Like, cool, we'll deal with that, you know. But um but I think it's also, you know, not only sort of giving new life to people's work insofar as you know it's making it accessible, again, literally, you know pulling it back kind of from this link rot abyss, um but also letting people like re-engage with it. um And if it's something that they loved and something they're proud of, like I don't know, ah to to me, that sounds like such a cool thing to do.
Reflections on Past Work and Creative Growth
00:13:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, there's such a, I know I'm very reluctant to go back and read anything I've written in the past. It's because I'm fearful of what it looks like, be it like be it something like a mixed metaphor, just a bad sentence, or like, oh, wow, i just that should have been handled differently or worded differently. ah But then occasionally you might surprise yourself and be like, well, damn, there was just something of a the creativity and the naive moments. Like, wow, I could have never come up with that now. Like, that there was something that really was electrifying about that thing I wrote 15 years ago that i there's no way I would have come up with that now just because, for whatever reason, ah you put a certain governor on your own engine after so many years. And you're like, oh, wow, there was an unbridled energy to that youthful reporter and writer I'm struck by the anecdote of when, ah so this is like a late aughts, like Metallica is looking to come up with a new album and they were kind of in a period of transition and Rick Rubin, who they took on for one album as a producer, like asked them, go listen to like your best record from like your youth. And it was, know, this one particular one from 1986, like go listen to those guys because they were reluctant to ever look back. They want to look forward. And he's just like, pretend like no one knows who you are. Listen to that. Who was the band there? If you were to enter a battle of the bands and no one knew who you were, tap into that energy. And that led to like a pretty damn good record. And I think maybe that could happen to some reporters looking back who might feel a little just grimy and bitter and weathered from this whole mess we've gotten ourselves into and go back and be like, oh, that's why I got into this, this kind of story I was drawn into. Maybe you get re-energized by your taste from 10 or 15 years ago.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. i
The Impact of Digital Journalism on Archival Efforts
00:15:15
Speaker
think that's right. I mean, in this case, there's a great example, Alexandra, and we annotate and explain this. There was a, you know, she was going back through all of her source materials, which she had kept really great track of, and that included audio files of her interviews. And there was an audio a set of audio files from talking to this one woman that had been corrupted at some point. And so in the last go-round, she wasn't able to use that person's perspective. And this go-round, I don't know, technology improved, whatever. um And she was able to to access those files. And um this person provided, and we say, you know this was not this person was not in the original piece, but like the perspective she gives is so nuanced. Someone who clearly thinks that the figure at the heart of the story is not a good person but all of these years later is still very like reverential of what his status was because of the power that he held. And so it's this very sort of interesting contrast in in one quote. And I could tell like Alexander was excited to be able to include that, you know, and it was purely tech that wasn't that wasn't allowing it before. And again, you know, we want to be clear with readers when stuff like that is getting added because we think it's important to to say like this, you know,
00:16:21
Speaker
this is new, like this is, you know, a new voice, new information, whatever, in keeping with what the ethos of the project is. But it's so cool to, you know, see somebody, i don't know, be able to be able to access something they didn't think they could ever include in the story because it wasn't, she couldn't remember exactly what she said, then it couldn't be fact checked and you know all these different things. And this, this time it could, which was just really cool. How frequently do you think you'll do this?
00:16:45
Speaker
I have no answer to that. And that's by design, because I think it's really going to be when the right projects come along. yeah There are so many stories out there that have been lost to, you know, outlets shuttering and whatnot.
00:16:59
Speaker
And, you know, I'd love it if we got tons and tons of pitches about this, but I don't want us to, you know, become a place where this is, you know, basically a second job is making sure because we're going to put it we ah we we spent the month working on this story, right? Like, we edited it, we designed it, we fact checked it, like we treated it, you know, very much as we do other stories. um And so and so I really think it's going to be when we feel like something is in keeping with the out of a submission when we feel like, you know, the writer, we're also going to need folks to have their source materials and, you know, access to all of that stuff that's going to allow us to really produce it in the way that we need to, which is, you know, not always going to be easy, particularly think the farther back a story comes from.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I also don't know, you know, this is obviously our story for this month. And I think going forward, we absolutely will have months in which like a revived story is our story, but we might also occasionally release one as just like a bonus. um You know, if something comes along and we feel like it's in in keeping with what we're looking for, for the project. So, so yeah, I don't know. um I think it's really going to be more of an art than a science to, to figure out how often we're going to do it. um But I'm excited about it too, because, you know, as a curator at Longreads, you know, read so much all the time um and I love it. And I also love the idea of people bringing stories to me that I've never read before, because, know, you know, there's so many things. I mean, there's tons of stuff I didn't read that was you know published in the last month, but you know, stuff that maybe I've never read because it's been offline, right? For for forever. And I just didn't even know that it was available at any point. So I really love that idea. i have one other story in mind right now that a writer had reached out to me about ah sort of in a similar vein a few months ago, looking to try to figure out how to save it.
00:18:43
Speaker
ah from from the depths of the Internet Archive. And um yeah, and that's kind of the next one I'm thinking about. But yeah, I think it also just depends on who comes out of the woodwork and tells us what they got, you know? um And I'd love for people to do that. We explained on our submissions page, you know, we need to be able to...
00:19:01
Speaker
It needs to be available via the internet, um the Wayback Machine, if that. So um it can't be something that you know happens to be at a shuttered publication. like BuzzFeed News stopped publishing great great stories a couple years ago, right? But you can still access everything on BuzzFeed News.
00:19:16
Speaker
um And so like we're not looking to take stuff that is still readily accessible. It's got to be stuff that is otherwise not not online. And I will say that we are going to consider print only pieces if it's from a publication that no longer exists. So I can't off the top of my head, mostly because I'm sick. Think of a good example of what that would be. But, you know, if it's a great print publication from 20 years ago or something and was never online and somebody was like, oh, man, I have this great story, like, please photocopy it and send me a PDF and like we can chat.
00:19:48
Speaker
Nice. Well, what I loved about this piece, it it ah it feels of the moment, sadly of the moment. And that's a it's a great, great place for you to to kind of kick off this this project. And, you know, just you know briefly, you know, what was it like for you you know taking a piece that was in essence, you know, fully formed in editing, and you know, reviving a revival edit? You know, what was that like compared to edits that you routinely do?
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good question. And um it was definitely an exercise um in restraint insofar as as an editor. And I think this is, you know, it's sort of a for better or for worse thing. I tend to be a very heavy editor. And um and sometimes, you know, that's not.
00:20:35
Speaker
it's it's good to look at something and be like, okay, this was published before. I in fact know who edited it. She's one of my best friends. And, um and it's good, right? Like it, it was good. It was published.
00:20:47
Speaker
It was not an atavis story. So there are, you know, maybe things that from go, I would have done differently, you know, maybe would have considered, have you talked to this person? Have you done this? bubble Blah, blah, blah. But,
00:20:59
Speaker
that's okay that like that's, you know, that I was not there the whole way through, that I was not there from the kernel of the idea to the the
Freelancers' Balancing Act and Personal Growth
00:21:06
Speaker
final product. What I'm looking at is the final product and saying, okay, how do we make this the best version of itself? And so it was more of a copy edit than anything else. There were like a one or two spots where I had, you know, some suggestions structurally, but they were all things that it was, you know, why don't we swap these two sentences? Um, or I think maybe this section could use a kicker to help transition to the next one, but nothing that in any way changed the overall shape of the story or, you know, the nature of the story. And I think it was really an exercise in restraint. And I think just really positive for me too, to be like, right. You don't have to roll up your sleeves every time you get into an edit. And in this case, you know, you're kind of building on,
00:21:52
Speaker
polishing a little bit, um you know, something that was already great. And I think, you know, Alexandra, and maybe she talked about, talks about this in her portion of the podcast, but you know I think there were things she was excited to to be like, I always wanted to be able to say this or to add this. And one of the things we really had to balance was, okay, well, what feels like, again, a copy edit, it essentially, like something that is you know maybe smoothing something in the story versus what is actually new information, in which case do we put it in an annotation Or do we signal that it's new information via and an annotation? Because we really, really wanted to keep the the story largely as it was. So, so yeah, um it was, it was good, i think. um I mean, I'm, I'm always in favor of sort of trying new approaches to my craft. um because i think you know that's just opportunity for growth all the time. Yeah, it it reminds me of remastering an old record or something. You don't go back and re-track it with your modern voice. you know I'm sure some bands would be like, oh man, I really wish I could get back in there and like re-dub this, have my more mature voice over my 19-year-old voice. But it's like, no, like that album is of its time.
00:23:08
Speaker
And it may get shushed up based on technology and just to kind of modernize it. But there's no fundamental structural changes. It's still it' it's still itself, but ah maybe a little heightened or just more polished to your point.
00:23:22
Speaker
Right. I think, and actually that's a that's a great comparison, um re remastering. And I will say like we we went through a couple of several several different you know ideas for like how to title the series and sort of frame the series. And we definitely had some like music metaphors that we played around with, but then we went pretty pretty straightforward. but But I think remastering is probably...
00:23:43
Speaker
the best like sort of ah comparison when you say, well, what do you, you know, what is this like? It's like, well, it's like remastering an album basically. And I think that's something that people know, um you know, what that, what that means, what that entails, you know, you, you buy or listen to a remastered album, you're expecting the album, yeah right? Like you're, you're not going into it being like, Ooh, what is this going to sound like? I, it's going to be totally new. You're going in thinking like, I really love this album.
00:24:10
Speaker
um I want to you know, kind of hear it at its like peak form. um And that's, that's really what we're trying to go for here. That's awesome. Well, it's really exciting. And it's cool to, yeah, how you're addressing what, as you wrote, like ah this crisis of impermanence. So that's really ah a really cool way of framing it. And a cool thing just to maybe get subscribers, this little thing is just going to pop in your email one day and be like, cool, here, here's one to check out and everything. So it's a, it's a really exciting thing and a way to,
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, a way a way to just try something new and yeah and and get out of you know whatever whatever grooves that we kind of find ourselves in. It's kind of cool to see what you're experimenting with. So it's ah awesome. I'm really excited for it, Sayward.
00:24:50
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you so much. And those are really great questions about it. And to anybody listening, like please, if you've got work like this, feel free to reach out to us because we would love to love to read it and see if it would make sense for the project.
00:25:09
Speaker
Are you ready for some Alex Marver? Some Alexandra Marver. Alex is a freelance writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in The Believer, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many others.
00:25:24
Speaker
Many others. So many others. She's kind of a boss. She even won the prestigious East Knox Middle School's 1995 DARE student essay contest. And quite honestly, i need to see proof. I want to see the ribbon.
00:25:39
Speaker
yeah you can't do You can't trust anything online anymore. She interviewed Iggy Pop for a documentary and got her picture taken with the punk legend. So yeah, Alex is kinda sorta wicked cool. You can see that photo and check out more information about her and her work at alexmarvar.com or marver.com we're we're gonna spell that marver n-a-r-v-a-r alexandra marver alexmarver.com i'm just gonna keep maybe if i keep repeating every possible pronunciation of her name it will come to light it'll happen One way or another. In our part of the conversation, we talk about money.
00:26:21
Speaker
Revisiting her younger self. The trough of despair and the wall of regret. Don't I know those? Borrowing trust? Saggy middles. Mmm. Saggy middles. Coming out of the holidays, don't we all have something of a saggy middle?
00:26:35
Speaker
No parting shot this week since these Atavis pods tend to run long. But I've got one queued up next week to talk about the new year, goals, and six-pack abs. Just kidding. Just kidding. Here's alex
00:26:57
Speaker
As we are cresting into a new year, Alex, i I'd love to get a sense, and usually like the first three or four of these podcasts that I do at the start of the year, I always love getting a sense of maybe how the guest in you, in this case, is starting to think about the new year, be it a you know personally, professionally, just how you're looking to you know start with this fresh slate.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we always think of the new I don't know. I shouldn't say we. Me, the royal we. Like, I always think of the new year as a reset, right? And I have these grand ambitions, especially for this particular week. Like, we're speaking in this, like, strange middle space where... no one's necessarily really expecting anything of you or especially if you're a freelancer, like no one's really responding to your emails. Like, and you kind of just kind of float around in this like timeless weekday-less middle space between 2025 and 2026. And, you know, I used to always try to like get my inbox to zero or it's my last chance to respond to a lot of emails I've meant to respond to for the last six months. And now at least in this time I can say like,
00:28:08
Speaker
hey, you know what a crazy year we've had. but like Hope to be better at responding to your emails in 2026. So I have these like great ambitions for this week. And then I'm you know thinking of next year, like I don't know. I don't know what I want it to be like because I remember going into the beginning of 2025 with the same sort of like bright eyed hopes of kind of changing the way that I do things.
00:28:36
Speaker
um But I know myself, like things don't change so fast, right? So I guess maybe I need to like bite off some some smaller smaller pieces if I really want to see measurable change. But I feel like at the start of last year, like I wanted to like pitch more, you know, and in terms of writing, like in terms of work, I wanted to like diversify my relationships and write for more different outlets.
00:29:01
Speaker
You know, then come February, I had this kind of like bummer of a – situation with a pitch that sort of like made me feel a little disillusioned and the year became this like funny, um different thing. Right. So who knows? Who knows? I'm going to try not to have outsized expectations and then I'll just be delighted every time something good happens. Well, what is your relationship to ambition or how has your ambition changed over the years and you know how you see yourself in this in this journalistic landscape how you see your freelancing, you know, maybe how you saw it 10 years ago and how you see it today.
00:29:39
Speaker
Right. um Well, I'm a Capricorn, so I do have it. I do have ambition, but it's funny because it's hard to know like how to be ambitious and how to succeed in an industry that's changing so quickly, right? yeah There's all these different versions of success and like our general collective idea of what a successful life looks like is changing before our very eyes, right? Like, you know, I'm ah as a millennial elder, like I grew up with this idea of professional success as like people that work really hard and like, you know, ah you know, taking cues from working girl and like all of these sort of like ideas of like people who just like really,
00:30:30
Speaker
are getting into the grit and like making it happen. And now I feel like there's this whole other side of being successful and just like, you know, man, I just I just, for example, I just talked to my accountant about the estimated taxes that I will pay for my 2025 income. And it's sort of like, man, if I made less, if I made less money in 2026, like would it kind of net out? You know what i mean? Like how much?
00:31:00
Speaker
Less would I have to make to pay significantly less in taxes? Not to not to be like unromantic and nitty gritty about money math, but like, well, maybe I shouldn't work so hard. You know, I don't know. And and I think there are other...
00:31:18
Speaker
things that I want to be ambitious about too. Like I really have been ambitious about just like having resources to do, to like live the life I want to live. Right. But like now I'm sort of like, man, you know, it's a real luxury is like writing less for more publications that like let you really choose your words, like write for your prosody and your word choices and your prose. Instead of just like cranking stuff out and like being edited and like to the, you know, nth degree because word count, blah, blah. Like maybe I want more opportunities to just sort of like unfurl. That would talk about a non-answer, man. That was like a real rambling non-answer. Well, it gets to have ah that the point of maybe doing a certain measure of mercenary work that affords you some creative liberties where like a short story writer or something like seeing some very ambitious long form writing as, as a a short story writer would, that's kind of how I view it these days. Like, yeah,
00:32:24
Speaker
We're of the generation now that it's very hard to actually make a living or impossible to make a living doing long form journalism the way a couple generations ago could, where they wrote like four or five long pieces a year and that was it. And that's like the dream. And nowadays it's like, well, to scratch that itch creatively, it's like maybe you just see it like a short story writer and then you you spackle in the holes with the the work you don't tweet about. And talking about money and freelance issues, like those are really, those are really good topics and great, great threads to pull upon that when they come up on the show, I love pulling on those. Like, how do you kind of balance the, maybe the creatively so satisfying stuff with the the mercenary stuff that, that does keep the lights on for you?
00:33:08
Speaker
I wouldn't say there's that much of a balance. Like, I mean, I'm, I don't know if I'm, but i think I'm thinking more juggling than balancing, but like, that is something I want to change in 2026. Like i have like ah a study, ah freelance editing gig. i do some like unbylined writing, like for different you know studios and agencies and things like that. Right. And I did this big book project last year with another journalist who was writing her freelance or writing her nonfiction book. And I helped with the research and kind of like
00:33:46
Speaker
I mean, I guess you could say I did some developmental editing. Like I had like all of these different ways that I was assisting with her brilliant work. And that was really cool because it was like no creative stakes for me. Like I could only, I could only add, you know, good helpful stuff. And it was just like really nice to be behind the scenes. But I don't know, like I still have this like tug to want to do these more meaningful kind of bylined things.
00:34:16
Speaker
pieces, right? Like, and I used to, I started out doing that stuff. Like this piece was published in 2018 and it was like right on the heels, um this piece in the atavist that, you know, that you ah called me up about, like it was published in 2018, right on the heels of this other kind of long form piece about these black artists who were fighting for their copyright. And so these like two you know, works were back to back. And then I wrote like a lot in that space. And I was writing from the South because I was living in Savannah then. And I just feel like, you know, it's, it's not the best feeling when you like look over the arc of the last like six or eight years of your career. And you're like, wow, the stuff I was doing before was like a lot more meaningful in some ways, you know, like it, and, and I, so it would be nice to
00:35:09
Speaker
I just, I feel like I'm so happy when, say word came to me and said, like, do you want to do this piece for the very beginning of 2026? And it's been a crazy December. And I probably shouldn't have said yes, because of like all the other things that I had committed to it was a bit of a, um, hustle to like, kind of get this going again, but like, it just felt like a really good way to start off a new year.
00:35:35
Speaker
What's it, been like to revisit the the writer and the reporter of this piece from 2018 now that you're you know seven, eight years removed?
00:35:46
Speaker
My God, so crazy. Such a crazy experience. like Have you read something lately that you've that you wrote like a decade ago? Not recently, but it is yeah it's it's i find it very hard to do. Yeah, it's it's interesting. And I mean, honestly, like the writing itself wasn't as bad as I feared. And I didn't make big material changes to the piece. So just everyone, please know that. and And this was pretty early in my experience of writing long form pieces. In fact, it was really like the second kind of really long thing I'd ever written. And the first I had like, you would just you just interviewed John McPhee. So I'm going to tell this story. But I was like, oh my God, how do I write something that's 3,000 words long? And I like cut my whole draft into pieces and I was like rearranging them on the counter after having read his like piece about structure in the New Yorker or something back, you know trying to figure this out. I think the thing that was most shocking in revisiting it
00:36:53
Speaker
was the way that reporting has changed. I was a little bit blindsided. you know Sayward was like, well, we're going to refact check the piece. I know it's been fact checked, but we're going to refact check it just for peace of mind. And I was like, oh, breezy, no big deal. like I had footnotes. like It'll be fine. um And this was like a a big fact check. you know and It's a long, it's you know not a small but thing. and And most of the You know, the vast majority of things that I cite in there are from either newspaper articles from the mid-century or firsthand reporting that I did. with people in their 70s and 80s in a place where on a good day, people are hard to reach, right? So it was like a lot to go back in. And I think the thing that was most shocking to me in revisiting it was like how analog reporting was even in 2018. And so it actually was a crazy blessing because I had all the physical books that have all their little like earmark tabs in them, you know, like,
00:37:55
Speaker
where I had gotten everything I'd used and I'd printed stuff out and it was highlighted and it was in a three ring binder, like crazy. You know, it was like a time capsule, like waiting to be revisited. I've, that would never, if you asked me to do this with a long form piece I'd written in 2023, we would be sunk. It would be so, it'd be such a pain in the neck, you know? Yeah. Oh, that's wild. And ah you bringing up structure and John McPhee, how do you think about structure as you're approaching a piece anew?
00:38:30
Speaker
I guess I think about like the first and last lines first, if that counts as an answer. i you know, I'm like, as I'm talking to people, part of my brain is just like peaked.
00:38:45
Speaker
tuned in listening for someone to say something where I'm like, ah, yes, that's, that's the last quote or, you know, to tell a story that's like so outrageous, it's the perfect lead.
00:38:57
Speaker
Um, I mean, it doesn't have to be outrageous, but has to be something right. Yeah. And when I have those things, then, you know, Then you have some explanation. Then you have, I feel like it's a little, maybe I'm a little formulaic about structure at first, right?
00:39:12
Speaker
Once it gets on the page, anything goes. But if I feel like I have the beginning and the end of a story, I'm like, I'm ready to go. Right, yeah, there are some people who grind over the lead and they can't go anywhere until that is good. John McPhee is like that, I think Susan Earlene's like that. Evan Ratliff is like that. They'll just grind over that until it feels like it's setting the table in a satisfactory way and then they can go.
00:39:42
Speaker
I'm sort of like you. like When you're talking to people, they they'll say something like, in the antenna, the spidey sense goes up, like, oh, that sounds like a good kicker. That's a zinger for for the end. like It just has the emotional resonance, like perfect little capstone.
00:39:57
Speaker
I like to get to the ending as soon as possible. like yeah like The sooner I can come up with a satisfying ending in my head, then you know it's a lighthouse in the distance, and you're kind of, you oh, i I have a destination. Now everything feels in service of that. Is that kind of how you feel too?
00:40:12
Speaker
Yes, though, um i don't always have the ending. or Or maybe I think I do and it changes 100%, which I'm sure, again, not ah not a unique situation. I'm sure we can all relate to that. But you know with this story that we're you know that we're about to see in The Atavist, it was really like the middle that I had. like These people were very upset about this book that had been published. And I knew that there was like some other side of the story that they all knew that no one else knew, but I didn't know what that story was. Right. But even just knowing that it existed was like, okay, you know, we set up the man and then we get into the situation of why no one else knows their side of the story.
00:41:03
Speaker
And however it ends, it ends. And it ended up having a, you know, a pretty like, There were some real wonderful revelations that tied things together at the end, but I didn't know them until way deep into it. Yeah, and not knowing those key details, like going into a very sort of ambitious story that you know is going to be a meaty story.
00:41:29
Speaker
And that um that uncertainty of not knowing if you're going to have like just like the really good raw material from the reporting can be like super stressful. Be like, oh my God, am I going to be able to unearth enough stuff to sustain a narrative? and you know It's very stressful for me, and I don't know for you, like is that something you experience? or you're like Here you've been maybe commissioned to write this story, it's just like, oh my God, like can I find enough stuff that is going to be like good and juicy and meaty that's going to carry this thing?
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, can't we, like, I feel like, ah i feel like many of us can relate to that. Like that's the trough of despair, right? Like that's like that moment where you're like energetic optimism diving in. And then like, that's the wall of regret where you're like, what, what was I thinking? Like, this is not a story. And then you, you know, you push through it and it is, but sometimes it isn't right. Like once in a blue moon, I've realized like,
00:42:27
Speaker
oh my God, this really isn't a story. And there's then they're pivoting and um and something has to happen because there's a deadline and something has to happen. But like, for the most part, like, yes, I always feel a deep sense of fear and self-loathing when I get to that moment where I'm like, can I really find enough? In this particular like case with this, the sheriff in Alabama, like,
00:42:55
Speaker
he was pretty super famous for a sheriff. Like there's a shocking number of newspaper articles about him in all the more now than there were online in 2018. Like that was another thing about analog research, like where I could go to find these materials was like fairly limited. And I did have newspapers.com, but like still there's just worlds more about him online now than there was, which was a pretty interesting thing to find and revisiting the piece.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, what did the the trough of despair look like when you were doing the the research on Lummi Jenkins? um Okay, good question. I mean, this was a unique situation didn't,
00:43:37
Speaker
i didn't regret pitching the story. Like I was validated, right? By, you know, just the more like, so the, the idea of it was that I went, I had been in this small community in rural Alabama, in Wilcox County, Alabama, a couple months earlier for a piece for the nation about these artisans. When I started hearing about this guy and I was like, there's something here. i came home, I pitched a piece.
00:44:08
Speaker
It got assigned. Three weeks later, i was back in rural Alabama with these people. And every, you know, and I had this amazing, there's this amazing woman there, Mary McCarthy, who volunteered in you know, the 60s with the Black vote, the effort to register Black voters in in Alabama. And ah she's kind of stayed in in the area ever since. And she's one of the few, if not maybe the only white person who kind of lives in this, this neighborhood that I was visiting. And she, she was like, well, let's go to this person's house. Let's go to that person's house. And every time we walked into someone's home and asked about this person, that the stories were just like more strange and outrageous or not outrageous, but like, to me, it was like outrageous that I had really actually tapped into this thing. Like,
00:45:02
Speaker
What did I know, right? But this was like uncorking this bottle that had been corked for 50 years and people just had a lot to say about this guy. um So yeah, i think actually in that case, it was really validating. and I came home with a lot you know more material than I could ultimately use.
00:45:21
Speaker
And when you were trying to establish trust in the communities that you were reporting on here, you know what was the the challenge in in that? um I mean, the challenge in that is that like strange white people knocking on doors in a place like Gee's Bend is like never in the past been a very like good situation. yeah Like people aren't like, oh, great. Like there's a girl on my porch who wants to ask me some questions. Like it's, you know, so you kind of have to, um,
00:45:53
Speaker
borrow trust from someone else. Right. And I had just been there writing about this battle for copyright. Um, so I had already been there. i had worked on the story about something about these people's art and their, their mothers and their grandmothers artworks and like all the due respect that, you know, was owed to them. Um, not to mention the money that was owed to them for, ah you know,
00:46:21
Speaker
major brands using their work in in unlicensed ways. So i had already, like, I had built a little groundwork of like, okay, this person, her values are aligned, right? Like, you know, this this could be okay. um And then again, thanks to um Mary McCarthy, who works with Souls Grown Deep, the foundation that has played a major role in getting the G's Ben quilts kind of on the on the world stage in museums around the the globe. And Mary has like helped the foundation sort of make and and maintain connections in the community and make sure that the outcomes are like beneficial. And like also that the quit she she's a quilter herself and she repairs quilts and things like that. So I had met her through that first story and and she really...
00:47:15
Speaker
you know, was instrumental. I think I would have really been fumbling around without people like her ah and Mary Margaret Petway, another amazing quilter, like, who um is one of the G's Bend quilters and whose mother's work is hanging at the High Museum in Atlanta. Like, These were people who had, you know, welcomed me. Yeah. If if I hadn't had that, you know, I think there still would have been a story, but it it would be nothing like the version that exists.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah. and And I love that term, the borrowing trust to you know maybe have doors open to you. And then on the other side of it, there are probably people who really want this image of this sheriff who didn't carry a gun image you know that ah sustained. And you know you're dealing with you know people on that side of the of the story as well. So yeah What were maybe some speed bumps you had to that you encountered as as you're yeah trying to objectively and ah truthfully report on this other guy who's been somewhat lionized in Alabama?
00:48:22
Speaker
Right. um Well, I felt when I dove into this story, like the champions of Lummi Jenkins' legacy as like the noble gunless pacifist of a sheriff, like I felt that they had already had their say, right? There are hundreds of newspaper articles, like all of these testimonials, like that, that was the history that was on record.
00:48:53
Speaker
So I didn't bend over backwards in my reporting, going back to that same group of people and asking them again what they thought. So i spared myself some of the friction that one might experience in saying, well, I'm here to tear this dude down, right? Like that wasn't something ah that I spent time, energy, and and resource on, i I was talking to the people who were like, wow, thank you. No one has asked me about this, and I have a lot to say.
00:49:26
Speaker
I did speak to some people and I was just very open to whatever people wanted to tell me, right? There was a librarian who was helping me with research for the piece. And she was like, I remember, you know, Lemmy Jenkins, he gave my family a puppy, you know, what a great guy. And, you know, she did, she adored him. Like he was a great, by all accounts, he was a great friend to the people he was a great friend to, and he was beloved by the people who loved him. So there are a lot of like wonderful glowing things that people have to say. I think like the anxiety from that potential friction and those potential speed bumps that you're asking about, like came as the piece was about to be published. And I was like waiting for his surviving family to like call me up or come knocking on my door, you know, like, And they never did. I never heard. i heard scores of feedback from people who had volunteered in Wilcox County in the 60s and remembered him.
00:50:34
Speaker
um But I didn't, you know, ah remembered how he was like tamping down Martin Luther King Jr.'s push. and to register voters, but I did not hear from anyone who was upset with me, which was kind of a unique, unexpected outcome. Yeah. And when you're when you're getting all your reporting together, you know notes, recordings, and books and other documents, ah when you are getting ready to start crafting and generating the piece, yeah know what does that process look like for you as you're trying to wrangle all that material?
00:51:06
Speaker
Usually it looks like You know, finishing the the physical push of the reporting, coming home, doing everything I hadn't done while I was while i was doing that, and then suddenly frantically panicking.
00:51:24
Speaker
Oh my God, i have to write this article it's due in X amount of days or hours. where's all my shit. Right. So that's usually my process. It it works really beautifully for me. And i I have an array of, you know, but again, then it was like a lot more analog, right. So there were fewer, like now I might be transcribing things on one of two or three different platforms, right. Like I have multiple different like photo albums and, and spaces where things could be
00:51:59
Speaker
then I was just like taking notes in a notebook and then doing research, like printing things out or saving it in a folder on my desktop. And it was like, was a little weirdly easier. Like, obviously I'm grateful for the greater breadth of access that we have to information now.
00:52:19
Speaker
Um, not the, not that we're talking about like 2010 or 2000, but you know, even still, even just eight years ago, there was, you know, there was just kind of, you did more offline.
00:52:33
Speaker
It's weird. It is weird. It's weird to think of 2018 feeling like not dark ages, but like a kind of a different era altogether. And it truly wasn't that long ago. Right. And I mean, maybe it wasn't that different, but you know, i was reporting in a place that's so...
00:52:55
Speaker
offline and away. You know what i mean? Like you can't like, there's no Google map to these communities, like to these neighborhoods, right? There are no road signs and there's no, like you just being online wasn't as useful there. So maybe that's part of why my reporting was so analog. Like, You know, we talked about the, you know, the beginnings and the ends for you, like trying to establish those. um But especially for longer pieces and atavis pieces in particular, the the struggle is often to sustain pace through the middle so the middles don't sag too much. So how are you thinking about, you know, sustaining momentum and pacing over 5,000 words in the case of the story and, you know, and longer?
00:53:39
Speaker
Right. um You know, I do worry about that. um And it's so interesting because like, I think in the middle of the piece when it originally ran, you know, there was some exposition about kind of like the peace officers organizations and these like different kind of sheriff organizations that kind of sprung up and and went through their different machinations and in the early two thousand s And, you know, i got...
00:54:10
Speaker
letters from book agents and stuff saying, I found your piece riveting, right? No one was like, the middle really sagged. So like, I'm self-conscious about the fact that that would have been the case, but like, I think it was okay. But like, there's, you know, there's a lot of information to convey and it's, it's history, right? But now, like, this whole conversation about um constitutional sheriffs and peace officers, like,
00:54:39
Speaker
in 2018 to me was just sort of like historical context and like, you know, the long tail results of Lummi's reign. Like now this is like so immediately relevant to current politics and the Trump administration and these sheriffs who are trying to overthrow election results in their counties and like why they feel um They have license to do that. And it's all springing from this ideology that like Lummi Jenkins and his colleagues in particularly in a place in like Alabama in a time like the 1950s and 60s, you know, they clung to that idea of the of the constitutional sheriff and his ability to interpose himself between federal law and the people. So now I feel like
00:55:30
Speaker
This part that to me was just sort of obligatory in 2018, yes, I mean, this was already happening then, but now it's happened way more and it's really been playing out. And so it's kind of got this like new life in the middle of the piece that the first, in its first iteration didn't.
00:55:52
Speaker
Yeah, your commentary now kind dovetails to yeah my next question, which was you why does this piece feel timely? Yeah, it's funny. Like I had actually so I don't I guess Sayward had kind of independently been considering doing this series for the atavist where she was going to revive these previously published works that then for whatever reason were no longer accessible.
00:56:21
Speaker
But I had independently separately written to her this summer and been like, hey, like we've never worked together. obviously I know your work. I feel like there's synergy from this conversation to that. And I just, I was like, I have this piece, you know, there's a lot of things I've written over the years that are no longer online for whatever reason. But like, this just felt like every passing year that it, it was bothering me more that it wasn't out there any longer in part because the whole idea had been to
00:56:56
Speaker
platform these voices that had been omitted from the conversation for a long time, right? And then like taking the piece offline just felt like a regression. um And then separately, like, you know, there were articles that I had cited while I was writing it about like Jeff Sessions, who's from this county and went to high school with some of my sources and things like that. Like there are these articles that had been, they were being taken offline in real time at the time. And now that like,
00:57:25
Speaker
so much is being taken offline. I don't know. It was just bothering me more that it wasn't out there. So I asked her if there was any way she'd ever want to kind of like reimagine it for the atavist. And she eventually wrote back and was like, this sort of in line with something I've been thinking about. Hold, please.
00:57:41
Speaker
And um we decided to not really reimagine it, to kind of like run it very true to its original form, but with some annotations. And yeah, I mean, I guess I just, I'd originally thought of my work as like writing this whitewashed historical record and filling out context around this supposedly heroic legend is in his own time, legend in his own time sort of character. um and we weren't really a year into Donald Trump's first presidential term back then. And now a year into his second term, it's like,
00:58:16
Speaker
this conversation about constitutional sheriffs and how they're interceding with these, you know, immigration issues and voting rights and election procedures. It just, it felt like a lot more, i don't know. It felt like something I'd pitch right now. Yeah. You know? Yeah. as we're going to be cresting into a midterm election year, you know, what's the trepidation you're feeling?
00:58:40
Speaker
Oh, where to begin? mean,
00:58:44
Speaker
i mean it's ah truly where to begin, but I think in the context of this conversation about about this piece and and thinking about this community where I reported, there have been, you know, people fought so hard for the Voting Rights Act and and and these different kind of protections of their encoded 15th Amendment right to, you know, cast a ballot in an election. And, ah you know, People in this, like people I met and spoke to fought really hard and were, you know, physically injured, put in jail, saw their friends shot, knew people and their neighbors who were found dead in these mysterious circumstances, right? I mean, people were being lynched around them while they were pushing forward to get this thing. And those rights, like,
00:59:44
Speaker
were never really fully, you know, that it just has felt tenuous, right? Like, yes, they got they they won. they They emerged victorious, right? But like a lot of the same problems still exist in different forms in these communities. And so, of course, you know, like anyone else who's kind of tuned in to this conversation part of the world i feel like i i worry that people don't feel that their votes matter. Like, I worry that, that their, you know, these redistricting and other efforts will be, you know, will, will make votes matter less, like,
01:00:28
Speaker
I shouldn't even say that out loud because your vote does matter, right, no matter what. And it's important that you exercise your right to do it. But like, you know, I just I hope that these things that people fought so hard for, like that they can really still be proud of that victory and exercise that right. And that it's you know, it is that it functions in the way that the democratic system was built for it to function. Yeah, like what you find is yeah going, say, back to say, Emancipation Proclamation, and then in like in school you're felt like, oh, the you know the the enslaved are free and all this, and everything was great, but then it's just far from it. And there are always these the machinations and systems in play to try to claw back the power and try to get it back into this
01:01:21
Speaker
The way it was and like, OK, maybe you won this battle with the Civil Rights Act, but, you know, we're going to chip away at it in such a way where, you know, we're going to close this ferry to make sure that people can't get to the can't can't register and they can't and can't cast the cast about or they call into question whether that ballot is even going to be put into the kitty to be counted. And all these little things at play that are like, okay, you have this big victory, but there there are systems at play that really claw away at its legitimacy in the eyes of that of the voters. yeah
01:01:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. Like there is you know, right. There's all these waves of victory and then this sort of like, ebb you know, this is an extremely long game because the sheriff, for example, as an office, you know, that's something that came over from England in the 1600s to the United States. And they did have absolute power. You know, they were charged by the crown to collect taxes and pursue criminals and all these things.
01:02:25
Speaker
And there's something like deep in the, in the like memory, like in the muscle memory of our social body that like remembers like the sheriff as someone who wants to answer to a king or have absolute power. And and I think like, there's just this sort of like,
01:02:45
Speaker
super long game, 400 year long game of like, you know, yeah, there's little battles, but like there's a, this kind of bigger war going on of, of this like tug of war of power. It's, it's a fascinating history of that office. Yeah. Well, it's, yeah it's a great point that you underscore where like, yeah, there are these little battles won, but they're, they're content with playing this generational, even century long, yeah, long game of war, if you will. And yeah. And even like the end, yeah, the very end of your piece,
01:03:20
Speaker
you know You quoted um yeah this person, Powell. I don't have the first name here, but it's just like all the struggles and sacrifices we made, the more things change, the more things stay the same, which kind of encapsulates what we're just saying.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that's Robert Powell. He um volunteered in the 60s in Wilcox County. And you know he is black. He was fighting for these rights and and went through a lot to encode them.
01:03:48
Speaker
in law and you know he it's hard for him to see like things ebb back the way they were um Yeah, for sure. And yeah and your your piece kind of underscores how the the how ongoing and how rigorous people in the fight have to be ah to you know ensure that these things that you say that are encoded in the Constitution and by law actually stay on the books and are enforced in a way that is all aligned with these democratic ideals that you know we purport to support in our own Constitution. Yeah.
01:04:27
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, really fearless. People just have to be really fearless and self-sacrificing to fight these battles. I mean, and it's not just happening here. Obviously, like people are fighting these battles to protect the Amazon rainforest. they're fight you know There are these characters who are just like, this is my mission.
01:04:48
Speaker
i don't need to live a normal life. I'm going to give everything I have to this cause, at least in this moment or until I win. right but like, I think there's like some fatigue about placing those stories or reading those stories, right? But like this Lummi Jenkins idea, like he he's sort of a case study because he his reign as sheriff was from the nineteen thirty s to the 1970s. And so you get to tell all of those stories in the context of just looking at his time in office through this like incredibly pivotal transitional period in American history. And he was sort of like just like a great excuse to look at that evolution and that ebb and flow of power. Well, well Alex, I want to be mindful of your time as we bring these conversations down for a landing. I always love asking the guests, you in this case, for just a fun recommendation of some kind for the listeners out there. It's just like anything you're thinking about that's ah making you happy. So I would extend that to you.
01:05:48
Speaker
I guess I'm going to recommend Scandi Noir. I mean, why not? Right? Like it's winter, it's bleak. And if you want to watch some mindless television, like why not let it be about kind of the, the hidden menace of bureaucracy and the state and just kind of sprinkle that into your, plus there's, there's nothing more kind of like wonderfully distracting than,
01:06:15
Speaker
than subtitles on your TV shows. So but i let that's my homage to um to the magazine topic and its like current life as as a ah vessel for these Nordic detective mystery shows. That's my recommendation to you, dear listeners. Nice. And what's the, say again, the channel that you can find these on.
01:06:39
Speaker
Oh, gosh, now I'm really plugging it, but I think it's called mh z Choice. It's like a weird, obscure streaming platform. um okay It's out there. You'll you'll you'll find it if you're if you're dedicated. Start with the bridge, Brian. It's like a nice, good entry. point to the world of of scanning noir very nice and i just wrapped up watching finally like squid game season two and three and so like speaking of subtitles like i understand there's a different ah a different ah effect of watching um trying to catch the um the um emotion on the actors faces but also in order to know that you got to be like reading pretty quick at the same time yeah it really keeps your brain occupied no no room for wondering yeah there's no second screen action like it's one screen here
01:07:27
Speaker
Well, very nice. Alex, the piece is amazing. I'm so glad we got to talk about it and how you go about the work. So just thank you so much for carving out some time to talk shop. This was awesome. Yeah, thank you. It great to see you and have a happy new
01:07:46
Speaker
Yes. Awesome. Anyway, we we're kicking off New Year. We don't slow down. We don't slow down. we just We just keep on keeping on. Happy New Year. Thank you for making it this far in the podcast.
01:07:58
Speaker
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01:08:11
Speaker
And we're we'll we'll just kick it again next week. This is ah this is what we do. We're not slowing down. Hell no. We don't slow down. Stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do interviews, see ya.