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Spencer Fleury
547 Plays3 months ago
Spencer Fleury is the author of I Blame Myself But Also You and other stories (Malarkey Books, 2024) and How I’m Spending My Afterlife (Woodhall Press, 2021).
He lives in San Francisco.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Volante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is something rather than nothing podcast and very happy to have Spencer Fleury on the show. Hey, just wanted to welcome him on to the show before we drop into some cool art and philosophy stuff. Hey, thank you very much. It's ah great to be here finally. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Spencer. um ah Listeners prior to getting on the show, ah we were just talking about how some basic things can be simple. I had some technical issues and the the world seems more difficult ah ah than then than it was, or at least we're expressing that. But within that we got art and philosophy and we got you we got you writing. i'm I'm really excited to um
00:01:05
Speaker
to have you blast into ah fun a fun event, a fun happening in the author's life. a New book coming out. I blame myself, but also you, which love the title. Thank you for the thank you. But drop into that. Tell us tell us what's shaking with that when the book's out. The book is out pretty soon, actually, July 2nd. It comes out from Malarkey Books. If you're interested in picking up a copy after listening to this ah this podcast, which I'm sure is going to be amazing and scintillating and very persuasive.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yes, um I would recommend visiting malarkeybooks dot.com, ordering from the publisher directly. You can also get it at pretty much any independent bookstore. If they don't carry it, you can have them special order it. And I mean, if you must, there is that online giant that sells everything and undercuts um mom and pop stores all over the place. It's not my preference, but if you want to, that's where you can find it as well. So, yeah, it's an exciting exit. It's an exciting time. It's one of those. um It's one of those times in my life where I feel like I should be feeling a little different than I am, to be totally honest. Yeah. Yeah. Tell told tell tell us about that. Well, it's it's.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's obviously a very exciting moment for any author to have a book coming out, especially you know with a with with a really a hot publishing house like Malarkey. They've they've been putting out banger after banger for the last couple of years, and yeah i'm I'm really honored to be a part of that. But man, there's just that nagging self-doubt. There's that there's that that part of your brain that is just constantly trying to undercut you and make you worry about things that are beyond your control. What if it doesn't sell? What if I never get a chance to publish a book again? What if everybody hates it and everyone's just been lying to me about how how good they think it is?
00:03:07
Speaker
i ah you know it's it's I can't shut that up. and so it's um it's It's kind of acting as a check on the ah you know the more exuberant feelings that that I'm experiencing which will but ah you know around finally ah pushing this piece of art out into the world after all these years. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Spencer. I've i've been talking to a lot of authors lately and ah um just just about the show and ah and the podcast. I i get to um you know, as as you know, explore a lot of different areas. And and there's these ah kind of sequences that I think are wonderful as a creator, where there's a particular style ah or artist or or or writers, but I've been deep into kind of, ah you know, writer's mind in in in in in publishing. And um it amazes me what an accomplishment and dedication
00:04:06
Speaker
to the craft it is to to get to the point that you are and I just want to pull that out because thank yeah it's it's it's it's quite the thing but one really cool thing is um I talk on a show philosophy you know I for me everything is writing everything's novels and I Don't know I say it with authors and I mean it but like when I was a kid, you know that that that was it That was the what were the big things in art? What were the things that attracted me? What worlds did I go to was all through books and science fiction and in all that and Haven't studied literature. So for me
00:04:43
Speaker
even though I concentrate nowadays on labor issues and philosophy and in in art in and of itself, books hold this like just incredible attraction to me. And being able to talk to authors more regularly, recently, taking a look at, I'm reading more poetry, I'm reading more short stories, I'm getting into these presses and like you were talking about with Malarkey, like, The idea, you know, sometimes we get tired of the world that there's nothing new. And then whether in music or in books or in small publishers, you're like, holy shit, what's the problem? There's real things going on here. And I i love that within ah within writing. Talk to talk to me about um ah that this volume and working with this press and ah also what this book, this particular book means to you.
00:05:40
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, this is um having having a short story collection I think has always been the main goal for me or at least um I view it as a milestone. and I think I always have set it up as a milestone ever since I first developed an interest in writing fiction, which was long before I actually developed an interest in putting in the work to write fiction. But eventually that came around and followed as well. um But I've always wanted to have, I've always wanted to have my own short story collection. That is, again, that's where I also um started to really develop an interest in literatures through the form of the short story. um So I, you know, I've been writing short stories. I put all of these, you know, after I had a sufficient volume of work published or um otherwise, um you know, I looked at that and i I just thought, I wonder if I've got enough here
00:06:35
Speaker
that I can pull the best ones and and pull some really good ones and and have them all talk, be talking to each other in conversation with each other to make sort of, ah you know, a coherent collection of stories. And so I worked with a few people to help me sort through that and figure it out. um i Sent this manuscript out. I recently counted. I forgotten the exact number, but I think it was 116 times um I've got 116 rejections for this for this manuscript and when I sent it to malarkey I was basically
00:07:10
Speaker
at the point where I didn't really know if enduring that further for this particular book was going to be worth it to my mental health. So I sent it to Malarkey. At the time, they were brand new. They had maybe two titles out. So I didn't know anything about them or whether they were even going to end up being a viable home for for my work or anybody's work. It took it took um a while, it took over a year really for for Alan to get back to me. But I mean, that's not a criticism because it's, Malarkey's a one man show. He built an entire press while my while my manuscript was in the queue.
00:07:49
Speaker
And, you know, it's fine. um That's how this works with indie presses is because, you know, they don't they can't afford a staff. They can't afford anything other than making the books and paying the authors most of the time. And that's that's really where it should be at. so So, yeah, once it got to the point where, you know, he said, yeah, I'd like to know if this is still available. i've been I had been reading malarkey books, you know, what they've been putting out all that time. And my thoughts through that period were, oh, man, I don't know if I'm going to be able to hang with these guys. This is good stuff. This is high level material.
00:08:27
Speaker
so So to actually be be selected, be apt to be asked to publish with with Malarkey, was um you know it was a huge moment of validation. It was the united it was it was a big honor for me. because these you know Everybody everybody who I have been reading from the Warki I've met several of them in person and they're wonderful people But they are they're you know, they're they're pushing they're pushing the envelope themselves. They are all on top of their game They've all got a very or at least they appear to have a very focused idea of what they're what they're what they're out to do and um they're doing it so
00:09:06
Speaker
it's Yeah, it's it's one of those rare um publishing stories with a happy ending for the author, I think, in this case. Heck yeah, heck yeah. No, this is this is good this a good time. Everybody, ah listeners, of course, I blame myself, but but also you. There was something about that title. I had a recent author, ah poet, essayist Morgan Parker, and she had a title, for some reason, remind me of ah this, was other people's discomfort keeps me up at night. There's just something with this title. This title like lives with you after after you see it. ah good Good work on that. All right, we gotta to we gotta to kick out some um ah conceptual questions. I wanted to know ah from you, Spencer, um ah you're you're you're younger or you're older, you're living, you're going along. Is there a moment where
00:10:03
Speaker
You do something, you say, I'm an artist, I'm a writer. Like, you hit you like that. Or is that, what's your relationship with with that identity? That's, yeah, that is a tricky question. Or it's it's a tricky, it's a tricky ah answer to articulate, I think is really the issue. It's hard. I think that I have always thought of myself as a writer in one way or another, that, you know, my day job has often um involved writing, so just about my entire professional, quote unquote, life. um Yeah, I've been a writer of some sort. But
00:10:46
Speaker
There's a difference between ah technical writing or copywriting and you know trying to try to write as part of an artistic process. so i think it was um
00:11:02
Speaker
it was a little bit It was definitely after my first um publications, you know my first stories were published. Even at first there, I was still of that mindset that, yeah, I might yeah i might be faking my way through this. I'm not really sure if if if if this is all going to you know just blow up in my face at some point in the relatively near future and expose me for the fraud that I am. um So it did, it took a ah while ah me of me doing that. And I think it wasn't until I started, you know, I was i've started to to take some random classes ah with ah places like the Writers Grotto here in San Francisco.
00:11:44
Speaker
um I joined the Castro Writers Co-op here. um And it was, you know, once I started, I started meeting and talking to and interacting with and sharing work with these people who were much more experienced and established and, you know, many of them had already had several books published. And their reactions ah to what I was doing convinced me that maybe I was on the right track. And I realized this kind of external validation isn't always the best thing to to rely on, but I do think it's part of that process, at least for me.
00:12:20
Speaker
um because I often don't trust my own assessments of ah of what I'm doing. This is why one of the you know one of the things one of the things about publishing that is most frustrating for me is when you are trying to sell a book, you have to tell the prospective agent that you're querying. ah My book is like these other books and you know they have to be, yeah they they you they're they're called comps. and your cost has to be recent and and there's's there's a sweet spot to these. But I don't feel like I'm the best person to tell you what what my book is like. I think that somebody else who has read it and who is filtering it through a completely separate a set of um of of prior experiences,
00:13:08
Speaker
They're probably in a better place to be able to tell you if my book is more like um this one over here or that one over there. It's a really tough, not to jump in, but it's a really tough question for and for an author because it's like of a singular mind. I know my mind and I know this product of my mind. I don't know what it's like. Exactly. you know Yeah. and this is Honestly, this is something lately I've been thinking about a lot as um as you know this this technology that they falsely call artificial intelligence has been um you know basically threatening to to put writers out of a job. I feel like I can see a potential use for for this large language model technology.
00:13:54
Speaker
where yet, as an author, here's my book, you tell me what it's like. Give me some comps, man. but What's this like? Hopefully they're good. ah you know If someone could come up with that for me, i would I would pay a reasonable amount of money for that, for the novel that I've got that I've been trying to sell, because that's that's i think where I'm stumbling, is the comps. I think there's something about, ah you know on this point though, you know a unique mind, or original mind, creative mind. it's It's not, at least my understanding and my conversations, it's not you know tied so quickly to what exists in the world, what something is there out in the world already that this is like. And as a matter of fact, it could be a tough process for a creator to immediately be thrown into that, right? Because immediately, in order to understand me,
00:14:48
Speaker
you need to understand these things. and I think that's part of the difficulty of the um of of of the tension. let's ah let's talk a little bit i mean because Let's just talk about art. I think in doing the show, seeing all the examples of creativity out there, um ah people think creativity, people think art. But what we're talking about is is is art and you know some of the your experience of seeing yourself as an artist,
00:15:25
Speaker
um What is art? what what what is what is For me, I say this, you endeavor yourself deeply towards this and it's a difficult discovery process, but what is art? What is you, the creator, the artist trying to do? What is art? Yeah, that's um another another brutal question that you know, luckily, I'm not the first one who's going to try to fail to answer. adequately um I mean, for me, yes, it's, it's a creative act. It's an intentional creative act that
00:16:04
Speaker
um I guess that has that leaves an emotional impact on its audience that that will stay in the mind of of of the audience after viewing or consuming or however you want to phrase that. and Ideally, it's one that um is open to multiple interpretations, however you would want to define ah meaning for a particular a particular medium. like trying to Trying to offer an interpretation of a novel is much different from trying to offer an interpretation of a symphony or a a photographic series or anything like that. So you know its the the definition of that that, that's not necessarily going to be consistent.
00:16:51
Speaker
ah from from one medium to the next. But when when you know when I try to create something, thats ultimately that's ultimately what I am trying to do. I'm trying to make something that that resonates, that that has an emotional impact, that sticks around and that but people can argue about. Yeah, i yeah i really I really enjoy that and I love the expansive ah conversation about art. As a writer, do you struggle with, some you know, and same with your art or what you create? Do you struggle? one i I write and I write enough where I can recognize my hangups and I was very interested in what you had said about
00:17:34
Speaker
ah how you write consistently. i'm I had this weird ah experience where I work for a labor union and I'm a smart guy and I write smart things and I write aggressive or or solid arguments and ah technical with creative flourishes and I do this all the time and sometimes you forget when you're paid and you're doing it this way and that way, that you're you know you're flexing some of those muscles. And and I just, you know I love the process ah of of of writing. Do you think, it for you,
00:18:08
Speaker
One of the difficulties I have within it is oh dropping something out there in the universe that is tight, that's personal, um that that that is like, oh, can I say that about my you know my relative? or you know When it's kind of like those those type of dynamics, can I write this sequence that I think everybody's going to know is me? and it's it's is How is that, um how do how do you work with the process of like putting, and then putting your thing out there and say, hey world, there it is, because you have another book as well. what What's that like for you? Well, yeah, the other the other book, the first, the novel that I put out is actually, it's very different. that is um That's a lot less personal than the story collection to me. The novel was, ah
00:19:01
Speaker
basically, that was basically me challenging myself to just to see if I could write something that, you know, as long as a novel, you know. And so it's, you know, there's, yeah, there's there's personal stuff or there's stuff that I've drawn from my personal life that's in that book, but not ah not in the same way that I have in but in this story collection. um yeah A lot of these stories are Based uh at least in some way on something that has either happened to me or to somebody That I know or somebody that they know, you know So it's things that have come to me that have come across across my transom uh during the course of my life and I used to really
00:19:44
Speaker
I did used to really worry about, you know, you said, oh, can I write this about my family, etc., etc. There's a story in this book, and this is why I don't really worry about this so much anymore. There's a story in the book, Singapore Song. It is it is based on the time that my father, when I was a teenager, my father um took on this personal project of building a sailboat in the garage. And it's you know it was had to be big enough for four people. He had never done anything like this before. Wowzers. Yeah, exactly. um So i you know that that was a you know that's a major thing so major um ah signpost in my early life is that time when my dad was doing this, because it did take over our lives to the the rest for the rest of us.
00:20:37
Speaker
to a lesser extent than his because we weren't actually doing the work and all that. But I thought, you know, I think about that from time to time. And one when I wrote this story, I said, all right, let's see if I start there and change things. and And how can I really, you know, how can I stay true to true to how I felt about that and true to some other things in, you know, going on in my life? um without rendering this is like a straight up, this is what happened, this is what happened, the names of it to protect the innocent. So, I thought that this one might be a little too obvious. So, I wrote the story anyway. I sent it out. It was published in Appalachian Review a few years ago. And when I sent the manuscript to my parents after, you know, it got accepted by Malarkey. So, I sent the whole book manuscript.
00:21:32
Speaker
you know i get a comment from my dad he says oh yeah i built a boat in the garage once but you couldn't recognize yourself in this character this yeah yeah do Do you think I just pulled this randomly out of the air? You think everybody does this? i Yeah, and it's's but um at another level, it was actually pretty gratifying because I didn't really want that guy to be a straight description of my father. and that In that story, um I'm in there twice. I'm both the narrator and the father in a lot of ways. So it's... ah it's
00:22:11
Speaker
So once that happened, this this this this very obvious reference to a very significant ah time in my family's life. And he was like, oh yeah, you might did something just like that. it's like people don't People don't see themselves a lot of times in what you're doing. And that' so that that gave me a lot more confidence to to keep doing that going forward. I love that. There's something there's something within that. It's almost like, you You think of it in the kind of the you know with the imposter syndrome or with creativity as far as you creating, but think about it. I had never even thought about the concept of the person who might be encountering and reading it. and like you're You're saying let's its it's you, but they can't see themselves either. What a fascinating ah dynamic. And everybody, um how I'm spending my afterlife ah title of um ah Spencer's, or the novel that,
00:23:08
Speaker
ah He referred to ah although again another provocative title is like now I'm wondering how I'm spending my that's what the show is about Spencer. Geez i the Maybe this is the entire show right here and i'm I've been fascinated with it How long how any of us are spending our life and after life? Um, uh yeah ah tell me um it Tell me what you think the role of art is ah right now. I know you made some comments about art, but like, ah you know, we're recording here June, 2024. My personal experience this time seems to be moving quickly. A lot of things seem to be changing. We're talking about technology, politics and everything. And, you know, we got we're we're we're always arting as as humans, but
00:23:54
Speaker
you know Nowadays or in general, um you know creating art, what what what's what's the role? what What do you think the role is, Spencer? I've always thought the role of art is to ground us in the human experience and to simultaneously do that and and also um deepen and enrich that experience. this is you know This is something that it's very difficult for capitalism to to commodify. and that's you know that's why I think that's why art takes such a backseat in modern culture. um But that just because just because it's difficult to commodify um yeah doesn't mean that it has no value. and In fact, it has more value than a thing that can be commodified, in my opinion.
00:24:39
Speaker
i i That's such a big point. I think like the way our minds are from, let's say, American culture, capitalism, and art appears in it, I've always wondered and it's like, I think it creates difficulty for everybody. It is what's the value, right? And our first inclination is like money value, right? That thing must be worth $400,000 or $50 or whatever. And like our mind's trying to value it. like you know um But I think
00:25:12
Speaker
It can be a challenged appearance of artwork in engaging with it outside of money terms, right? yeah If in artwork you don't see it having a market value yet, your gift to somebody saved their fucking life by giving it to them. Yeah, were you know what's it worth? That's exactly the point with art. And I think it is a constant tension ah that you pointed to within, What's its value, you know? Yeah, there was and it's it's interesting. I was just reading something yesterday, an old article. um It was about a Netflix documentary that had to do with art forgery. oh And it was the the the the um
00:25:54
Speaker
The bit I'm thinking of in particular had to do with a guy or but I don't know if it was a guy or or if it was a woman or somebody, anyway, who um was forging these abstract impressionists. ah You know, there's a Rothko forgery. yeah And apparently the the ah the documentary was focusing on the very, very, very rich people who bought this beautiful painting. because it And it was a beautiful painting sure in its own right. And then once they found out it was fake, that's when they were were were furious. It's like, well, you bought the artwork. The artwork is just as beautiful painting as it was before. If it affects you, it should affect you just as it did before, no matter who it was who actually picked up the brush and slapped that paint on.
00:26:40
Speaker
that's it's the The value should be in the work and not in what we paid for it, what we can get for it, what other people think of us because we threw down so much money on ah a painting of a square. and But that's that's exactly right. they are our Our capitalist mindset, while American capitalism in particular, just kind of warps us into thinking ah this way about everything. And we have had, ah you know, we've had all these decades of, and you know, of of film and television, basically, either directly or indirectly, just propagandizing that whole, that whole mindset. um I mean, I remember growing up on Wall Street, the movie was big. And, you know, that the line from that movie, greed is good. And I saw that movie at 15. And I was like, Gordon Gekko is not somebody to be emulated, but everybody I knew was basically quoting that like, yeah, validation for for capitalism, for the mindset. and it's so it's we we And I feel like, I don't know, maybe this is this is a triumph of capitalism in and of itself in that it has marginalized that the the view of art as um you know as as having a value and you know in and of itself to where we can no longer ah generally
00:28:05
Speaker
look at something like that and understand that it's supposed to be satirical, that we're supposed to disagree with this statement. I mean, obviously a lot of of a lot of people can, but i'm just I'm talking about generally as a society when these things kind of take hold and and and replicate themselves, I guess. Yeah, and i think i think I think there's a powerful dynamic there that ah you know maybe part of the philosophy and part of the show is getting at like the question, like, how do you value things and what are what is their meaning outside of a market system, right? so like
00:28:39
Speaker
you know um And I think that's a very difficult thing to do because as we, you know, whether we interface with reality through social media and all this type of things, you know, by and large, we do get excited. We do participate in numbers. We do participate in like, holy shit, that's a really good song. And they have 50,000 followers or that's a great song. And they have five followers is just legitimate. How should I feel about it?
00:29:10
Speaker
right Like it's in our head or the we had this yesterday. I'm hanging out with with my kids and we're looking at something I'm watching this show up the complete underground show. I don't know where it was from young students um screamo metal like mind-blowing execution performance Everything it's like 150 views on this and for me I got focused on that because I'm like I think when this happens in our experience, it's always like, what does it mean? Is there a purveyor that says this is good, right? The comps that you talk about with your your books. Well, Jurassic Park was a good book, and this book is a good book, what like Jurassic Park is. like It's so difficult, I think sometimes, not to pontificate, but just to be dealing with ah the art ah display, the art object.
00:30:05
Speaker
yeah and issue unto itself. And it goes it really it goes back to that external validation that I was talking about. i you know i I require it sometimes just as an artist to make sure that I'm on the right track, but even as as um as a member of the audience for a piece of art, we all do that too. We all look for external validation. Are other people enjoying this? you know sure yeah am Am I wrong? Does this suck or or is it great and nobody knows about it yet? We have it's hard, you know, it's hard to tell and for whatever reason we care about this and I don't I you know, I I Wish that and I'm absolutely putting myself in this category too But I wish we could just learn to trust our own instincts and opinions on these things a lot more readily I you absolutely with me too. I I am guilty of this as well.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's i I really enjoy talking to you about this, Spencer. um it's it's ah you know Within the show, I liked a lot of space um that I can move into, but I'm really connecting with you know a lot of your points and kind of like the journey of the artist. Hey, ah quick quick aside, because I throw in some some randos here. I saw you writing a bunch a bunch about some great music. Are you a music fiend? Oh, yeah. What do you dig on when you're obsessed? You're obsessed with the writing and reading, I'm sure, but like what do what do you dig on?
00:31:31
Speaker
Oh man, music is music is such a ah ah buffet for me. I mean, there's just there's just so much you that i will that I'll latch onto for a while and then latch onto to something else. the like the I guess the constants the constants for me, I like a lot of jazz and i thought I've been a metal fan. I'm a little bit picky on the metal side, but I've been a metal fan since I was a teenager, but yeah. Yeah, it's some I'm really like like these days I'm really enjoying a lot of a lot more instrumental metal like the Pelican if you're familiar with them. I know Pelican. I saw them live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a billion years, not a billion years ago, a while ago. I know Pelican.
00:32:15
Speaker
I've never seen them live. One of my good friends tells me he's he found them very disappointing in in person. But um yeah i I listen to them a lot. There there's just there is just something about in the ah heaviness and and the yeah complete lack of ah of vocals. um just forcing me to to concentrate on this um the power of ah you know the sonic power of what they are generating. And yeah, I i love it. It's it's it's um is very invigorating to me.
00:32:47
Speaker
Hey, ah on the music too, is a good a good friend of mine, his name's Todd, um he's actually he actually got me into Pelican, but very influential on me because I was very much, I need words, I need words. I'm used to words. And he was kind of like, fuck all that noise. Like, join me on my journey of not meeting them as much. And through that process, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about ah music and um in the i've even to this very day, particularly within the metal genre, um you know like listening. And ah jazz too, I've been listening a ton of ah McCoy Tyner, which I hadn't, um
00:33:28
Speaker
like I like to drop in and keep going. in And lately I've been really, um really digging on that. um All right, so I knew I knew you were really digging on the music there and uh, uh, hey, uh big question yeah Why is there something rather than nothing I can't let you go be Before you take a stab at what some people call the question Yeah, you know, I knew that was coming and I didn't prepare anything for it It's it's too big you could prepare a thousand hours or a minute, you know
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, um I mean, i' it's it's a question that, you know, I've thought about off and on for a long time, various different incarnations. I think everybody thinks about this at some point, everybody with a certain level of of awareness. And um yeah, man, I just can't get past, it's just all, it exists it exists randomly, but the fact that it exists, um that obligates us to do something with it. i like that i like that um
00:34:38
Speaker
i' ah I'd like to use the poles of, you know, nothing versus something, to you know, looking at religion and philosophy, I think, yeah ah Buddhism, you think about standard, ah you know, the science, Big Bang ah and all that. And I just love the creation of things. That's that's what it is for me. And yeah and and writing has um has a a really special spot. ah Spencer, before, Before we we allow you to depart, can you tell us, I mean, you're talking about the book, where to find the book. um Could you make sure you lead folks to um you know places where they can find find your work or ways suggest the ways to interact with you or the work or anything like that?
00:35:28
Speaker
There is my website, SpencerFlurry.com. I kept that simple just to for this exact reason. And on there, there are links to ah you know to other you know social media um and and and the like. I do have a newsletter that I have let kind of sit for a while, but I'm planning to have something out on that very soon. A link to that is also at my website spencerfluid.com. So just yeah, if you are interested in finding out more about me or I'm telling me how awful you think my work is, whatever it is that you might want to do, that's that's the best way to do it. ah No, it's been I've enjoyed ah reading your work, Spencer, and I'm excited. I'm excited for the for the new work coming out. i'm gonna
00:36:18
Speaker
a local bookstore here in Albany, Oregon, a browser's bookstore, stocks, the authors that I have on the show. So right yeah, it's it's a great thing was a bookstore, local used bookstore. They do um mail order stuff and they had been closed for a little bit of revamping and um I don't know. you I think you'll you might recognize this reality, Spencer, in the in the U.S. You know, you got your big cities and stuff like that. You got your bookstores. There's, you know, once you get to a smaller city or smaller towns and, you know, ah finding then the good book is not something to be taken for granted. Today's if you want to go into a bookstore and have your mind wander into, you know, that that bookstore experience. um
00:37:08
Speaker
It's a really nice blessing here in Albany, Oregon to have browsers and I'll make sure that they're they're stocked up on Spencer Fleury as well. Love to hear it. It's so great. um ah Spencer, great great chat with you. um ah Best of luck on on the new book. Keep digging in on on on what you're doing. um I really enjoyed talking about art, philosophy, and um and hopefully if you see Pelican,
00:37:41
Speaker
the the Hopefully you get a chance to see Pelican. To drop down to Pelican, I saw them um ah small club, I think it was South Milwaukee quite a long time ago, but it was very much part of where my friend Todd was like, Even on the metal stuff, it's like, listen, let just just just listen. listen You don't have to wait for your scream. Just settle into it. so um ah It's good to settle into art and and and enjoy it. um
00:38:14
Speaker
Spencer, thanks for coming on the show. A real great pleasure to chat with you. Thank you so much for having me. I was a little intimidated about the idea of talking about philosophy, but this has been a wonderful experience. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. Hey, philosophy for the people. That's what I say with this show. um I've been through the academic route, philosophy with people, people are walking, talking all the time about why the fuck are we doing this? Why are we here? What do we do? Should I create this? Should I sell this? Should I keep this? Exactly. Thanks Spencer, we'll talk soon. Alright, thank you. See ya.
00:38:55
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
00:39:05
Speaker
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Speaker
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