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Ellen Adair
312 Plays2 years ago
Ellen Adair is best known as Bess McTeer in "The Sinner" and Janet Bayne in "Homeland," but they have additional recurring roles on "Bull," "Billions," the NBC miniseries "The Slap," "Veep," "The Family," and "As The World Turns." Other television credits include guest-star appearances on "The Good Fight," "NCIS: New Orleans," "Chicago Fire," and "Brotherhood."
Ellen also starred opposite Omar Epps in Trick, directed by Patrick Lussier. Upcoming, they will appear in Netflix's series "Archive 81," and the films Cryptid and Love and Communication. As an author, Ellen's book Curtain Speech is available from Pen & Anvil Press. They have appeared numerous times as a guest analyst on MLB Network, and on dozens of well-known baseball podcasts, including their own, "Take Me In to the Ballgame."
https://www.ellenadair.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with Something Rather Than Nothing, and I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming Ellen Adir to the podcast. Ellen, right off the bat, thanks for coming on the show.
Introducing Ellen Adir
00:00:32
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It's my pleasure. I'm so excited to talk about all of the things that are the most juiciest in life. Yeah. That's what, well, I haven't had that as a tagline for my podcast. We'll talk about using that. You can have it.
00:00:47
Speaker
Oh, Juiciest. All right. So, and Ellen is, she's a few things, very good things. She is an actress. She's appeared on the show, Homeland. She's been a theater and stage actress. She's a writer and written about the theater in curtain speech.
00:01:09
Speaker
She does a podcast. She's a baseball junkie of sorts. Is all that true, Ellen? Well, that's all you, right? That's all true. Yep. Wow. That's an accurate picture.
00:01:23
Speaker
All right. I want to start at the beginning because some of the questions will be conceptual and some of them will be trying to unlock baseball secrets and what you have.
Ellen's Artistic Beginnings
00:01:36
Speaker
But the first question is, Alan, when you were born, were you an artist? Well, you know.
00:01:49
Speaker
I think we were all artists when we were born. I don't know if anybody else that you've talked to has had that same opinion. But yeah, I think we come into the world as artists, and it might be that the world forces some people to not get to be artists. And I feel very lucky to get to be an artist.
00:02:12
Speaker
And I mean, I guess in a more like exact biographical sense, I do think that yes, like some of my earliest memories involve some sort of imaginative element to them.
00:02:31
Speaker
I remember, I was just talking about this with a friend that one of my earliest memories is my mom doing the very classic, here comes the airplane in for a landing with a spoon. And I was like, I can believe that that spoon is an airplane. I can believe that I am the tarmac. And I opened my mouth. I just remember being filled with joy, being like, yeah, it's an airplane.
00:02:56
Speaker
Um, and I also, I mean, I think perhaps my first sort of definitely it was art in some way memory. I was a, I was a toddler at this point and Charles Barkley was injured and I drew for him a picture
00:03:17
Speaker
of him in bed recovering with a teddy bear and all of his teammates standing around in their jerseys, because that's what they wore all the time as far as I was concerned. And my mom sent it off to him. And I mean, part of the reason I remember this is because he sent me back a signed picture that says, to Ellen, best wishes, Charles.
00:03:39
Speaker
So I mean, you know, I was definitely not yet in school at that point and I I have a distinct memory of Like being on the kitchen floor and drawing this picture and being like yeah, this is gonna be great so Yes, I guess is the answer to well in Charles Barkley sending healing healing images to Charles Barkley and
00:04:05
Speaker
And, you know, making sure he recovers. I that is that is that is so that is that is so sweet. Now, I utterly ridiculous. Yeah. Well, what about what about the acting bit, Ellen?
The Love for Acting and Family Influence
00:04:19
Speaker
Like, I mean, I think, you know, all kids kind of like kind of pop around and, you know, obviously some are far more introverted. But were you doing those type of things when you're younger and being like, OK, we just need to give her a role?
00:04:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think I've wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember, which I think, as I often say, belies some lack of personal development. But here I am. And I think before I knew that it was a thing that other people did, it was just the thing that I like to do the most, which was to pretend to be another person.
00:04:56
Speaker
or to pretend that my circumstances were different. And I think, and I guess this goes back to my, I think that everybody is born an artist. I think that's a thing that a lot of kids do. They're like, what if I were the servant girl or what if I were the princess? And maybe I'll try to be both.
00:05:14
Speaker
I was an only child, so I think I had a lot of being like, I guess I'll just be everybody in this scenario, which is very much born out in my dreams, where I'm always bouncing around from different perspectives in my dreams. Anyway, so I remember distinctly the first time, also I was like, not yet in kindergarten, that I saw a family friend
00:05:43
Speaker
in a production of The Mercado. And I was like, he's doing it with a lot of other people. He's pretending to be another person. And he's completely different from the person that I know. And that's really cool. And the fact is that actually I have, I guess I've got acting in my genes, which is the most annoying thing to say. But my grandmother was an actor, and my aunt is also an actor.
00:06:13
Speaker
in the Portland, Oregon area. Actually, Adair Chapel is her name. And so I didn't, I grew up sort of on the other coast in Philadelphia and also partly in Bloomington, Indiana. So I didn't, it's not that I spent a lot of time hanging out during tech rehearsals in the theater or something, but I had this notion.
00:06:36
Speaker
of like, this is a thing that people do with their lives. And so, yeah, I think early on, I was like, that's what I want to do. Yeah, I I've had one of the things about the podcast that I've enjoyed is to be able to talk about different with different creators and
00:06:58
Speaker
within film and acting. And I've been deeply intrigued by a couple of the pieces that you had mentioned of the idea of transformation, the idea of change, which is powerful and magical.
What is Art?
00:07:17
Speaker
I think one of the most common ways for folks to come in contact with is the transformations of actors, of seeing folks switch into different persons. That type of magic. Ellen, I want to hit you with a big conceptual question so we can talk some shit about the Phillies and the Red Sox as well. What is art?
00:07:48
Speaker
Well, I think that, I think that there's a lot that we maybe don't call art that I'm, or that maybe not everybody calls art that I feel nevertheless like tempted to include under the umbrella of art. I sort of feel like art is anything that is made by humans that is beautiful or
00:08:15
Speaker
entertaining or satisfying or thought-provoking. So I feel like, you know, a building is art if it is beautiful to behold, and it is not art if it's not. And I think, you know, food can definitely be art.
00:08:35
Speaker
And my father is a folklorist. And so that's basically like the anthropology of art. He studies folk art a lot. And I feel and my mother is an art historian. So basically I have I have parents who both are academics of art. And so I think certainly they both very much have the perspective that there is a lot of material culture that is art furniture.
00:09:04
Speaker
can be art. There's also furniture that's definitely not art. But if it is made by a person and it is made with love and it is made with sort of like interest in what the form is and hope to please the viewer, then I think it's art. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, thank you. That's one of those big ones. And what I do like is just thinking about all the modes of creation. Because I think when we properly include some of those modes of creation, it kind of opens up for folks to see themselves as creators or artists. And I think that's useful because that's kind of what people do, what humans can do.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think perhaps I should have included, you know, like raising another human being is completely art. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a guest or two or two say that, I think.
00:10:14
Speaker
I think one of the things in that dynamic is like people like there's a knee-jerk reaction to think about towards perfection. And when we think about our parenting, sometimes it's very artful what we're trying to do. Do you have kids? I do, I do. I have three wonderful children, 20 going on 21. Oh my goodness. 18 and 12 going on 13.
00:10:43
Speaker
Oh, wow. Oh, they're all at such like fantastic times to be people.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yes, Ellen, I will call. I will agree with you and call the question call the times. Fantastic. It's wild and fantastic right now. So one of one of the things I want to jump over, jump over into into baseball for a bit. And one of the things.
00:11:14
Speaker
You know, I saw, I saw, I've listened to your podcast and I've seen you on Major League Baseball. Oh my goodness. Thank you. You are too kind. Yeah. And I love, you know, I'm a, I'm a baseball junkie since I was a little kid, grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, triple A, uh, for the red socks, uh, affordable for the working class to go to games. You know, everything's kind of cheap family owner.
00:11:40
Speaker
Um, so baseball was, was, was pretty darn, uh, accessible for, uh, for me. And I, I grew up, uh, a big time, uh, Red Sox fan. And I know.
00:11:52
Speaker
That you a couple points is that you're a big Philadelphia Phillies fan, but you're also 10 I believe from what I've seen tend to enjoy or to Interact with with with other teams in the culture around those around those teams What is it for you just fundamentally?
Baseball as an Art Form
00:12:18
Speaker
that interested you about the game of baseball.
00:12:25
Speaker
I mean, I think I often say as a sort of like a joke that that baseball is my favorite thing that is not explicitly an art. But of course, like I think that baseball is an art. That's why I love it so much. I think it's just beautiful. I think that like there's a very basic level and there's many, many things that I love about the game of baseball in my basically lifelong passion.
00:12:49
Speaker
for the game of baseball because my parents were taking me to Phillies games since as long as I can remember. So I don't remember a time when I did not love baseball and I do not remember a time when I did not love the Philadelphia Phillies. So I think that there's still for me this pull of, and particularly as a person who's frequently lived in a city,
00:13:13
Speaker
Going and seeing this expansive green, and granted when I was a child, it was veteran stadium and it was not even real grass, but I feel like that was my Philadelphia childhood. I didn't have a yard. I didn't know better. Everything was concrete. I was like, at least it's green.
00:13:30
Speaker
So, I also just think that it's not just the field, obviously. I think it's the actual game. I feel like baseball is a Renaissance painting combined with
00:13:46
Speaker
the beauty of Newtonian physics. Like there's something so just like ceremonial and apollonian and orderly about the beauty of a baseball game when you're sitting in the upper deck. It sort of feels like everything is fated to happen in a strange way and you're just watching the universe unfold.
00:14:13
Speaker
But I also really love, I mean, it's why one of my favorite things about baseball is the defense and the defensive plays. And I just think it's just ballet. It's just so beautiful. So I think that that was probably part of
00:14:29
Speaker
why i loved it as a child and i also think that one of the reasons that i liked it so much as a young person is that the game was slow enough for me to understand everything so people obviously today that the cool thing to do is to complain about pace of
00:14:49
Speaker
But to me, the pace of baseball, maybe not the pace of 2021 baseball, but the pace of baseball in general, it is a feature and not a bug. Because you've got time. You've got time to sit and look on the jumbotron at the stats of the person who's coming to bat. And you've got time to think, huh?
00:15:10
Speaker
Their OPS is better than I thought it was, or worse, or whatever, or like, oh my goodness, this person already hit 20 home runs at this point in the season. There's so much time to consider the kind of baseball personality that you think this person has, how their stats are actually doing, and then the roles, like the drama of baseball. It's so clear, everybody's got their role to play.
00:15:37
Speaker
So like I also love basketball, obviously, I told my Charles Barkley story and I enjoy hockey, but it needs so much. You need to know so much about like that or like soccer to know who are, what are actually all the positions. Whereas like baseball, you can just look at a baseball field and somebody can explain to you very quickly
00:16:02
Speaker
like even without going into like that's the shortstop and that's the left fielder you can be like that guy's throwing a ball at that guy and he's trying to hit it and the rest of the guys are trying to let him not get on that base and you're like great
00:16:16
Speaker
I got it. I know what the drama is. And for me now, the minutia of that drama is what I really enjoy. I love sitting at home and being able to identify the pitch types and being like, oh my gosh, he's thrown four curveballs in a row. That's crazy.
00:16:36
Speaker
You know and and to sort of play play out the mental chess of the of the pitcher versus the batter It's just it's so satisfying. I Didn't I didn't want to interrupt you. I was just letting what you had to say No, I mean I had to let what you say You know wash over me. I I do. I want to say one thing on the pace of baseball I really have a conversation with anybody who
00:17:08
Speaker
Wants, you know understands that baseball is not a fast sport with a 24 second clock, you know like basketball I mean it's it's really nice. It's really nice to hear because I think it's a fundamental aspect of it and The rules changes and all the the things that I see happening with baseball It kind of drives me a little bit mad, but it is, you know, it is the discourse right now now
00:17:37
Speaker
Ellen, I got to take it back a tiny bit. I mean, a beautiful description of what baseball is. I love the physics and I really attached to that. But come on, you're a Phillies fan. Really? What's it like at a Phillies game? Does Philadelphia have a bad rap for the fans in the veteran stand? What's going on in Philly?
00:18:06
Speaker
I think that Philadelphia Phillies fans have a bad rap, personally. I mean, obviously, there are bad fans in every fan base, except for maybe the Mariners. They all seem like wonderful people. You might be right for some strange reason on that one. Mariners fans are just all freaking great.
00:18:25
Speaker
So, and yes, perhaps there's a higher quotient. I feel like it's Eagles fans that are a little bit more hoodlums. And obviously there's a crossover between Eagles fans and Phillies fans. So I'm not trying to give Phillies fans a pass in any way. I will say that in all the times that I have been
00:18:49
Speaker
to a baseball game in Philadelphia, there is only one time that I remember specifically thinking like, guys, just be a little nicer. And it was just some Phillies fans were heckling some Mets fan. Well, it's the Mets. It's the Mets. That's okay.
00:19:10
Speaker
I mean, but it was not worse than I get. I live in Queens when I go to City Field, you know what I mean? It wasn't even, but I was just like, oh, just be nicer. And I mean, the other thing, certainly, obviously, Philadelphia fans boo their own players, and I don't get that. I just don't get it.
00:19:28
Speaker
Uh, I don't, I would never boo somebody on my own team. I don't even like booing somebody on the opposing team. I might give them a more creative heckle. You know what I mean? Like your K per nine is pathetic or something, but, uh, but yeah, so I, that is, that is something that I, I can't explain, but I also will say like, it does not, it does not detract from my enjoyment of the spectacle.
00:19:55
Speaker
Well, you know, if people are going to decide to boo somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I remember there was even, do you remember when like Sean Rodriguez came out? Well, maybe you don't because you're not a Phillies fan, but like this was maybe 2019. Sean Rodriguez came out and said something about like Phillies fans being entitled because he had been getting booed or something like that. I always liked Sean Rodriguez. I was really excited when the Phillies
00:20:21
Speaker
got him and so there was some time that we were at a game and everybody was booing Sean Rodriguez and I like stood up and clapped for him and they showed me on the television broadcast and of course many people identified it as me and like gave me crap for it and I was like look I was just trying to be like Sean some people like you and like it's okay you're allowed to have whatever opinion you want to have and fans should be nicer I mean
00:20:50
Speaker
Obviously it's better if the athlete is like, no, I understand why the fans are mad. Obviously that's like the better response, but I'm just, I'm not here to police anybody's opinions about, I mean, anything really, but like particularly not something as stupid as whether or not people boo. Yeah. Well, one of the, and I, I had to give you a, I just, I need to give you a little bit of heat off the, off the bat on the, on.
00:21:15
Speaker
I do enjoy Phillies baseball. I do believe you are correct that the Eagles fans have a bit more of that reputation. One of the things I wanted to say is that
00:21:31
Speaker
You know, I'm a Red Sox fan, but I actually think Red Sox fans are super annoying, particularly on the road, because I get to see Red Sox fans on the road. I've actually changed my seat twice because of other Red Sox fans next to me. And not that I can't be boisterous, if you knew me, that's saying something of how far they were out.
00:21:53
Speaker
I believe it. I mean, I love the Red Sox also. And, you know, I'm the first person at Yankee Stadium to like join in on any kind of let's go Red Sox, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, kind of a cheer. But yeah, Red Sox fans can be caustic. Yeah. As can Philly's fans, you know, it's the truth.
00:22:13
Speaker
Well, maybe we share that. Related to the game of baseball here now,
00:22:25
Speaker
One of the, some of the interesting conversations I've had, one was with Rachel Balkovic, who's a Yankee system hitting coach was about hitting, was what was about hitting and about, and about pitching. I've always been a huge fan of pitching in baseball and particularly not so much fastball type pitchers, but
00:22:55
Speaker
the disappearing act, the magic, the curve ball, the slider, the pitches that disappear. And I've always seen just a lot of art in that. Do you look at the performance bit of it in the sense of the performance of the pitcher or maybe the performance of the hitter in sense of kind of an artistic act?
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think I absolutely do. I mean, I think the fact that, you know, a curveball is beautiful. The fact that like a swing is beautiful is helpful in making me feel like it's art. But I also feel like one of the many things that I love about baseball, because despite the fact that I talked for like 45 minutes about the reasons I love baseball earlier, I didn't even, I was just scratching the surface.
00:23:51
Speaker
is that I think it feels to me the most like my own struggles of anything that I observe. And so I think the fact that there's a kind of, I mean, obviously I also love like the stats and I sort of love the analytics and I love the numbers that are inside the game. I love all of it.
00:24:22
Speaker
And many proponents of analytics would say there's no such thing as a hot streak. And it's just sort of like random number clumping. And I just, I don't know. Because I feel like there are times where it's obvious that a hitter or a pitcher is just like everything is working.
00:24:45
Speaker
today or this week like It you know the the ball is just coming out of their hand really crisply and you know the changeup just has exactly the right amount of fade and and the Sliders got bite and then there's other days where it's like it doesn't quite today and why is that? Like it's because we're not machines, which is great. It's great that we're not machines but that I also feel that there are those times for me and my
00:25:15
Speaker
art as an actor or as a writer where I'm like, I'm in God's pocket today. And like nothing can go wrong. And then there are days where it's like, why isn't it working? Like, hello, Holy Spirit, like, would you mind coming over here? And like,
00:25:31
Speaker
bringing your jumper cables and giving me a boost because nothing's happening. And so I'm not in any way trying to equate my artistic struggles with the struggles of elite Major League Baseball athletes.
00:25:50
Speaker
except for to say that, like, I sympathize with it. I can't empathize with it. But when somebody's, I mean, I mean, maybe this is part of the reason, maybe it's just like constitutionally the way that I am, that I would never boo at somebody, because when somebody's having like a bad day on the mound, I'm never like, get that guy out of here. I'm always like, oh, buddy, I feel you. I just, I feel, or, you know, when, when, when Reese Hoskins cannot get a hit,
00:26:17
Speaker
for a week or something. I'm just like, I feel you Reese. I know, I know how it is. I know how it is to be like,
00:26:24
Speaker
I feel like my work is good, but I've had all these auditions and I haven't gotten any jobs. And why is that? I don't know. It's a mystery." So I don't know if I answered your question or not, but that's definitely, I think, an aspect to the emotional pull of baseball
Podcasting about Baseball Movies
00:26:42
Speaker
for me. Yeah. And now, I'm lucky with my podcast.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's no hard answers to everything. So when people flip it around, I'm still in a pretty good spot. And I just love a chat about baseball. Before we leave the baseball just for a moment here, could you tell the listeners about your podcast? I love that podcast. I love you talking about baseball. Can you tell folks about,
00:27:17
Speaker
Can you tell them about the podcast and you know talking baseball? It's yeah, it's our podcast is so ridiculous so it's called take me into the ballgame and We grade baseball movies on the 20 to 80 scouting scale used for baseball prospects and this all started because there was no baseball for a little while when there was supposed to be baseball in 2020 as we will all recall and
00:27:44
Speaker
I grew up without a television and so there's a lot of baseball movies that I had never seen and so and by grew up I mean like I did not have a television until 2010 like it was I mean that was a while now but still relatively recently the grand scheme of the history of the universe and
00:28:01
Speaker
And so we were watching a bunch of baseball movies, and it was my husband's idea to create a podcast about them. And I said, fine, but only if we pretend that we're scouts and they're prospects and we're scouting their different tools. So really, it's an excuse to talk about two of my favorite things, baseball, because whatever
00:28:25
Speaker
the movie is, Eric and I will find reasons to like look up something about baseball history or like, you know, create some absurd hypothetical deep dive onto like, well, but you know, how many games were they really going to have to win down the stretch in order to go from last place to first place? Like that kind of thing. And then also to talk about, you know, storytelling, which is my number one favorite thing in the whole world.
00:28:54
Speaker
and to talk about acting and to talk about filmmaking and stuff. So it's silly, but we really do like, you know, digging into the baseball in whatever way that we can in every podcast.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, I, uh, I, I enjoy, you know, I'm, I'm pretty, uh, I've been, I've been, uh, listening and I realized one of the things that, um, baseball movies is I'm a pretty, I'm a, I'm pretty cranky around them. Like I, in my, my heart of hearts, like I expect like there to be like, I don't know, 25 or 30 super baseball movies that I could rely upon all the time. And, um,
00:29:37
Speaker
I don't find that. Although some of the big ones, I really enjoy. I actually listened to your episode about Fever Pitch, which I think was spot on, but it was nice to relive.
00:29:58
Speaker
the fallow period before the Red Sox had won the championship and then in 2004. Before we leave baseball, because I want to jump into writing and a couple other things, is baseball a game about something or is it about nothing? I think it's a game about something.
00:30:23
Speaker
Maybe that's not even going very out very much on the limb because I've talked about how beautiful it is and how dynamic I think that the drama between the pitcher and the batter is, but I also feel like there's always something going on. I mean, going to a game, sometimes I just feel like I actually can't look at all the things that I want to look at at the same time.
00:30:52
Speaker
because there's so much going on. I love to be able to sort of like watch what the shortstop is doing now that there are two strikes and all kinds of things that you don't necessarily get to choose to watch when you're watching at home, which I also like watching at home because you can see the pitch movement more clearly. But yeah, it's definitely, it's a game of epic Homeric
00:31:23
Speaker
proportions in More ways than one. Yeah, you got me missing You got me missing baseball. We got a we got a we got a few we got a few months here. Um, yeah Hopefully only a few. Oh, I've hopefully only few bright. Yeah that is gonna We are and the month right right we're gonna we're speaking with
00:31:46
Speaker
Ellen Adir and talking baseball and philosophy and such. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Ellen, is your writing curtain speech.
Ellen's Journey as a Writer
00:32:02
Speaker
And I got to tell you, I was deeply, deeply intrigued by
00:32:12
Speaker
your craft as a writer and in use of words, so I think people have a particular
00:32:20
Speaker
either have a proclivity or a fascination with words, how they sound, how you combine them. And I saw that in a lot of what you did. I've also studied a lot of, you know, when I was in college, I was super fashionable and studied Old English and Middle English. Like all the cool kids did. Yeah, I went right in there. I was saying anything, you know, year 1000 to 1200, just to, you know.
00:32:48
Speaker
And so I really, and I saw the sketches that you've done there. And for me, it was a text that I could easily drop into. You're an artist and you do a variety of things. What was it like for you to say,
00:33:10
Speaker
I have something to say in writing, and here's how I'm going to put this out. What was that process like for you as far as an artistic activity compared to all the things that you've done? How did it feel different? Yeah. Well, oh gosh, there's so many wonderful things to unpack.
00:33:29
Speaker
Being an actor is so fun, but it's an interpretive art form. And that's part of the joy, actually, that I get somebody else's, another writer's words to play with. And so I get to sort of join
00:33:47
Speaker
the magic that they're bringing with whatever I have at my back to make the alchemy that is this other thing that is neither me nor the writer, but this third child that is the character. And that's great, but it's also so wonderful to just create something out of nothing.
00:34:11
Speaker
Which I guess I'm saying because that's like the title of your podcast sort of moved around. And I think that it's much, I find acting, acting is obviously hard. There are hard days. It is mostly joyful, especially when you just, as an actor, you're like, I just get to do my job. Like the hard part of being an actor is like just rejection as basically a part of your everyday life.
00:34:41
Speaker
and not being able to be in charge of when you get to make your art. Like you kind of, a person in a room by themselves, even if they're like working on a monologue, it's not acting in my opinion. You need another person to get to play with. So I think that those are the hard things about being an actor and like actually doing the art, it's just fun. And writing is also fun, but it's so much harder. It's really like
00:35:11
Speaker
it feels just far more arduous and far more murky to me. Just sort of like trying to
00:35:24
Speaker
push my way through a room full of really heavy cloth that's laying there for some reason. And I'm partly speaking out of my current experience of writing, which is that I'm working on a novel.
00:35:42
Speaker
and poetry is a component of the novel. But that's mostly what I, and I'm also, I have a couple of different like television scripts that I'm working on and also a movie. So mostly narrative stuff instead of poetry. And I think that poetry in a way is, it's a little bit more
00:36:09
Speaker
There's a little bit less murk because it feels a little bit more, at least in my experience, guided by just a pure moment of inspiration.
00:36:19
Speaker
rather than being like, okay, well, I know this is the story that I have to tell. And so I need to sit down every day and just like, you know, claw my way through. This is very much informed by this chapter that I've been working on, like claw my way through the mud of the story. But to me, a poem usually starts with having some sort of a thought or a feeling
00:36:53
Speaker
once I get that down, then it's just sort of about like tugging on the string of that thought, finding out like, well, what's the image that comes out of that? And what are the words that come out of that image until sort of like the thought is expressed. And so it's obviously, it's also a craft and it's also a difficult process, but in a way it's nice because you can just sort of
00:37:12
Speaker
to which interesting words attach themselves.
00:37:23
Speaker
figure out what the thing is and then you can just polish it for a little while and then you just decide eventually that like I guess this is probably done. But I do think that the sound for poetry, the sound of it is very key and I am appreciative that that's something that you sort of picked up on when you were reading my poems just because I sort of have always felt like
00:37:51
Speaker
The meaning of a word is its body, but its sound is its soul. And so just as I think, I mean, whether or not one believes in the soul, whether or not you would be like to judge for like your mere physical appearance or whether you would also like to be judged for like what it is that you bring as a person is how I feel like I like to revere words.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, the words I was thinking back, Ellen, is it's interesting. I had a very, very eccentric, old-style English professor as a freshman in college. And
00:38:32
Speaker
Uh, this was this was that hot and spicy class the old english class that I was talking. Oh, yeah Yeah, and um, so i'm sitting there in class and and learning i'm, you know a quirky kid and really interested in stuff and uh I found it deeply fascinating. I can remember to this day. We were talking about the poetry and he finally said like
00:38:53
Speaker
I don't care what the words mean. How do they sound? And so he was forcing us like to have to go through an old English, middle English course by intonation in sound. And he couldn't, he just didn't care about what the words meant. So it was, um,
00:39:19
Speaker
It kind of blew my mind. But he was really tied into, I think he figured, hey, anybody can read words and try to figure out what they say or read the footnotes on the words you can't understand. But listen to how this darn thing hangs together. And I remember it to this day and I'll always read
00:39:40
Speaker
poetry kind of twice on the sound and then being like, wow, what the heck's the poet trying to say? Very striking, very striking way. Because there is actually, there's so much information contained in sound that is, that is ancillary to the literal meaning. And I mean, I think that this is the case for any good writing, you know,
00:40:06
Speaker
prose, any good prose. And I know that I'm very much informed, by the way, from the fact that I started doing Shakespeare when I was 12 years old and always loved Shakespeare. And obviously, that's just an example of its poetry that is meant to be heard. I mean, they were living in the
00:40:29
Speaker
In a society where everything everybody was an auditory learner, you know, you went to go hear a play you didn't go to see a play and so it is so much a part of I think the way that I Value and process language to which is I mean, I don't I don't know maybe ridiculous, but I feel like I
00:40:52
Speaker
Actors have a particular relationship to Shakespeare's text that it is a living document, that it is a thing that is meant to be
00:41:05
Speaker
felt and resonate within the instrument of the human body. And, you know, it gives, it just gives a sort of a different sense of ownership of the thing. So, you know, sometimes who will be like, like, Oh, well, then like Shakespeare. And I'm like, I don't know. Shakespeare isn't that way to me. Like, I just feel about Shakespeare the way that other people probably feel about Star Wars or something. Yeah, I adore Shakespeare myself. Of course, we have the Oregon, the Shakespeare Company and down south in the state and
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Oregon by me, which is just a gorgeous, gorgeous setting, but also just top notch talent and performances. But no, I adore, I adore the Shakespeare. It's actually nice, nice to, nice to talk about, but it's been a little while.
00:41:59
Speaker
that area down in Ashland is in a valley and because of some of the fires and such, um, uh, recently it's, it's impacted their ability. I don't know recently, but I know a couple of years, uh, Ashland was actually the worst ear quality in the entire world for a few days or something. Oh my God. I didn't know that that's terrible. Yeah. It was just in the valley and you know, hopefully things will, you know, the wind blows the right way and things like that. But, uh,
00:42:26
Speaker
quite the quite the wonderful resource in in I really connected what you said about you know the vitality around you know a Shakespeare text I think you have to have a bit of a predisposition I think you know towards it
00:42:42
Speaker
But I was type of type of kid I read like Julius Caesar like eight times in high school because I wanted like each like Political inflection like the story itself. I was deeply intrigued. So That was the first Shakespeare play that I ever did when I was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I I I do I just I do enjoy Shakespeare and some of the movie interpretations and I
00:43:10
Speaker
Yes. All right. I wanted to ask a question related to the what is art question, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it.
Purpose of Art and Connection
00:43:20
Speaker
And I think you've hidden out a bunch of components of this, but I want to ask it formally. What do you think, Ellen, is the role of art for us humans?
00:43:31
Speaker
Well, I think obviously, I mean, obviously I'm going to answer all of these questions from my own experience, but I feel like this is very much kind of...
00:43:42
Speaker
I feel like I kind of need to triangulate backwards from the way that I enjoy somebody else's art and also the reason that I feel like bodily requirement to make it. And I think it's, I think the role of art is that it is
00:44:02
Speaker
an artist's attempt to sort of join with the fullness of our nature. So art, whether it's creating it or enjoying it, it's about getting outside of the particulars, the kind of the mere facts of our own finite lives and experiencing all the rest of our infinity, because I believe that every human being is ultimately actually like infinite possibilities.
00:44:32
Speaker
but we feel, I feel cut off from it and I hypothesize that other people also feel cut off from that sort of infinite possibility. So I think the yearning to express a feeling that is beyond our quotidian lives, that is where poetry comes from, that's where music comes from and the yearning to create
00:44:57
Speaker
more beauty to behold or even to express something that can't be put into words, even if it's not beautiful, but it's cold or savage or striking. That's where visual art comes from. But I sort of feel like anybody
00:45:15
Speaker
who draws a flower on the side of their notebook paper, it's my view that they are trying to express the flower that is a part of their infinite self and has no other expression. And I think if we look at someone else's painting of a flower, it fulfills the same thing, even if we didn't create it. And stories, obviously.
00:45:39
Speaker
I mean, to me, I come to this last because it's the most crucial. And I think the thing that we're doing all the time, every human being, when they get up in the morning, they are creating a story, even if they do not know that they're creating a story. They're creating a story about
00:45:56
Speaker
who they think they are and who they think the world is. I think that narrative is the natural byproduct of human life and I think that is a fact to be celebrated. And I think that when we tell stories or when we want to read stories or when we want to watch a movie, whatever it is,
00:46:15
Speaker
It's that we're homesick for our infinite selves. And so when we get lost in someone else's story, like we're getting to experience that part of ourselves.
00:46:27
Speaker
And we're getting taken out of our little particularities and we're being merged into the truth that is actually oneness, I guess. I think we long to be everything because we are. Damn. All right, Ellen.
00:46:53
Speaker
I'm a talkative guy. All right. All right. I got to give you a little bit of space there. Is that what I'm supposed to do? Performance wise? No, no, no, no. It's a conversation. I know I just... I just, once I start tugging on a string, I just keep following that string until I get to the end. And then I'm like, oh, I guess this is what it is. Oh, I love it. Okay, Ellen, who's the greatest baseball hitter of all time?
00:47:26
Speaker
I mean, it's probably Barry Bonds. I feel sad about it, but I think that's probably true. I feel sad because he probably would have been the greatest hitter of all time.
00:47:49
Speaker
Without steroids and I'm just like I don't feel mad about it. I just feel disappointed You know, like it feels sad to me. I mean, you know, not that I have like Personal affection for Barry Bonds or not that he was the cuddliest person in the world But if I feel sad that he is not gonna be in the Hall of Fame maybe yeah, and I think you know as he as he was born was probably the best hitter of all time
00:48:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, well you're the greatest hitter as Barry Bonds Jr. when you're when you were born, right? And I thought you're gonna say Von Hays because I know I'm able to get a little bit more objectivity than that
00:48:39
Speaker
a little bit more emphasis on a little bit more. Yeah, I think a lot of these questions have become pretty fascinating because I found that if you look at baseball right now, even as far as some of the hitters in some of the pitchers, there's some special things going on right now, including one of your own Bryce Harper as a hitter. And it's just so fun to see kind of
00:49:07
Speaker
the game right now seems to be changing or there's different things happening with this kind of fundamental game or maybe just the way of looking at it has become super intense in baseball. What about a pitcher? What about when you see this pitcher pitch historically, this pitcher had the most magic was the greatest pitcher. Who is that? Oh my goodness.
00:49:34
Speaker
Why does this feel harder? Why does this feel harder to me? Too many, too much to choose from. I mean, yeah. And I think also it's just sort of like career stats just don't compile for us in the same way for a pitcher, even if they should. Oh yeah, of course. You know, I mean Pedro. Yes. Is like, that's just sort of like my knee jerk.
00:50:05
Speaker
response, but I mean, Nolan Ryan was pretty good. Randy Johnson was pretty good. Right. Ellen, this has been a great episode. You started with Pedro. I mean, you're in permanent good graces with me forever. Thank you. Thank you so much. No. It's legitimately the first person that I thought of. I mean, my heart was like Cliff Lee because I love Cliff Lee forever. But like, I know it's not actually Cliff Lee.
00:50:35
Speaker
Um, no, it's, it is, it is, it is, uh, deeply, deeply wonderful, um, uh, to talk about baseball. I got another kind of, uh, a couple more bigger questions, uh, for you. The first one's related to like an origins, uh, origin type of question, but I wanted to open, ask you very open-endedly in a different way. Um, what or who made you, Ellen, who you are?
00:51:05
Speaker
Well, I think it's my parents, and perhaps that's the most obvious answer, but I think it's just absolutely true that my parents being, they're both such kind, very compassionate, very curious,
00:51:26
Speaker
people who study art, who think art is the most important thing in the world. And I mean, I agree with them, but I also, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I did five cents of psychoanalysis on myself and I was like, oh, I grew up and became an artist because I was under the false impression that artists were the ones that everybody pays attention to, which is not necessarily the case, which also makes it sound like I create art because I want attention and I,
00:51:55
Speaker
I mean, I think that that is often the that's the accusation level that actors and it really doesn't feel to me anyway, like the engine of my art. I feel like I.
00:52:10
Speaker
like to create things because, I mean, to sort of get back to the role of art, like I am homesick for the rest of myself that I don't get to be. And it's just sort of like, I know that other people need to pay attention to that in order for me to be allowed to do that for my life and not to have to have another job, which is really the dream. The dream is just not to have to have another job.
00:52:36
Speaker
So, yeah, I think it's my parents, but I think certainly a factor is probably my grandmother as well, as I said, who is an actor, Isabella Chappell, and my aunt. Just when I was a little kid, knowing that there were people in my family who were
00:53:01
Speaker
who were doing the kind of art that I was most excited about. I think, yeah, it just made it feel more like a thing that I could decide to do with my life. Which is another thing I'm very grateful to my parents for, is for them being okay with the fact that I'm basically just
00:53:23
Speaker
a grown-up child, which I realize sounds like a contradiction in terms, but I think everything that's true is probably a contradiction in terms, so. Well, as far as going back to the, yeah, I found it so much in asking the question, were you an artist when you were born, because, you know, the podcast has done over 100 episodes towards 130, and what's happened is there's been a lot of, there's been a lot around that particular question in the sense of,
00:53:53
Speaker
Does something stymie your development as an artist? Is art viewed to be completely useless in a waste and isn't part of your world?
00:54:05
Speaker
is art celebrated and being like, look, being human is tough, be livid artfully, be an artist, do whatever you want, act. And then we think about the education system, Ellen, as well, because as we de-emphasize learning via art or whatever that is,
00:54:30
Speaker
Now, I think a lot of kids and a lot of people, let's just say the United States are scrambling. If art really is important, if art really is magic, if art really can help us think, can help you think, then why are we having to scurry around for it when we're younger? Not everybody, not everybody, but as a society.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah, particularly because I think it can be such a motivating factor for young people. I was a conscientious young child, as I don't know is probably a parent. And yet in high school, if it had not been for having art classes, by which I mean drawing classes, but also theater classes and also band and stuff, there's so many days where I just would have been like,
00:55:25
Speaker
No, I'm not going to go because everything else about the sort of just public school learning environment can be
00:55:36
Speaker
can just feel so rote and oppressive and just kind of like by the formula and you just need to do this in order to pass the state test, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think we make it even harder for our young people to learn other things
00:56:00
Speaker
when we rob them of having sort of like the palate cleanser of getting to make something. Yeah, I find it just a big part of
00:56:17
Speaker
big part of thinking or part of my development as a thinker particularly lately because I think we think about things rationally or like you say by rote or right or and then you know what is the meaning and use of an abstract art piece right what does it do like and I think it does a lot but I think
00:56:40
Speaker
You know, in creating social policy, it's, it's, it's kind of tough to explain, right? I've like, I've been doing a podcast and you're doing a fantastic job explaining, but I mean, it's, it's, it's open for discussion about what it is. This art thing. Uh, this art thing is, I got a big, super duper question for you.
Reflections on Existence and God
00:57:01
Speaker
Uh, Ellen, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:57:09
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think if we think about something as just like the things that we can see rather than empty space,
00:57:22
Speaker
I feel like there are scientific answers to this question that I am obviously not a scientist, but I do enjoy the narrative of science. I know that there's something rather than nothing because the amount of energy in the universe is perfectly balanced with the rate of its expansion or something like that.
00:57:52
Speaker
Like if it didn't have exactly the right rate of inflation, either everything would have spread out too far and none of the little quarks and neutrinos would have gotten together to become protons and neutrons and everything like that. And if it weren't inflating fast enough, then it would have just imploded back on itself.
00:58:16
Speaker
But I do feel like that's probably not the question that you're actually asking because in some ways, empty space is also something and not nothing. And it's hard because actually like the question, if the question is, why is there nothing? Well, like the question already actually implies the existence of nothing. It's hard to even
00:58:44
Speaker
really think about what nothing would be because we are so much imbued by existence. But I guess, I mean, for me, and I understand that this is a
00:59:05
Speaker
a term that alienates some people. But I think the reason that there's something rather than nothing is a force that I call God, and it doesn't even need to be a particular religion. But I think that there is a force in the universe that brings things together
00:59:30
Speaker
And I don't mean gravity, or I don't just mean gravity. I think that there's the force that made the little quirks and neutrinos get together and eventually form elements and everything like that. That there is a force that binds, and I think that there is a force
00:59:56
Speaker
that created a perfectly balanced universe so that matter could exist. This is just my opinion and that ultimately sort of like makes order out of chaos and that we
01:00:11
Speaker
part of this creation the way that we make order out of chaos is Kind of like what I was talking about before it's by like creating narratives about the things that we observe and about the things that happen to us like we are inbuilt with this same force that takes the jumble and Like makes things out of it
01:00:34
Speaker
And for me, all of those forces, whether it's sort of like the explicable scientific force that, you know, obviously I don't know a lot about or although I like I have read many, you know, Brian Greene books about quantum physics, and I find it totally fascinating, but I know that I just don't always
01:00:57
Speaker
remember the exact right terms to use. When the brains, B-R-A-N-A-S, intersected or whatever, it was crazy and it created a universe. It's like my retelling of having read that book five years ago.
01:01:11
Speaker
But to me, that forces God and it is related to the way in which we as humans also connect, like it's related to love. So love and the kind of attractive scientific forces love and the
01:01:29
Speaker
twanging of the strings to vibrate to make up matter. Those are the same fundamental thing to me. Like how do we join things and how do we create things? And I understand that to all of this sort of being like, oh, well, it's God. It's like it's an easy answer in a way to the difficult conundrum of the existence of creation. But for me, I don't feel like it's just there to solve a logical puzzle.
01:01:58
Speaker
Like, I don't just kind of come back to the end of the universe and be like, oh, well, okay. Well, if everything came from a big bang that was originally a singularity of impossibly dense concentrated everything that exists.
01:02:13
Speaker
Where did that singularity come from? I guess it must be God. For me, God is something that I feel and hear and see every day of my life. Spirit is everything. It is the building block. And I sort of feel like it's our responsibility as vessels of this force to move towards connection.
01:02:39
Speaker
because that's what the spirit is. It's about binding things and we're custodians of that spirit and we're custodians of the thing that has been given to us and of the thing that itself sort of pushes us towards our better selves and our better lives and our better, I don't know, God help us, our better earth. But it's the thing that serves us and it's also the thing that we serve. And it's all the same thing.
01:03:08
Speaker
Wow, that's a beautiful answer.
01:03:12
Speaker
I don't know if it actually answers the question of why there's something rather than nothing. The piece is, I never asked the question in the sense of, yeah, I say it's a philosophy show and such, and I think sometimes we can't think about it, you can't have this infinite regress. There has to be a God to begin with. But I think in the way that you answer it, what you're saying is that
01:03:38
Speaker
You know, no matter what that spirit is or whatever it is for anybody, it just doesn't serve to solve the logical problem, right? It's an integration of the universe that we exist in. And it does include science or could include science and could include, you know, something bigger than our idea. And that's the whole wonder.
01:04:06
Speaker
It does include science for me, like science is so magical. I mean, I know it's science and so it's not magical and any scientist would be mad at me for saying that, but it's just like, it's the craziest stuff you've ever heard. I know, I know. It's so fun. I've been deeply fascinated and I got more deeply interested in science when
01:04:30
Speaker
I found out only by moving away from formal study of philosophy, where I was studying science on my own to be like, there's a few of these questions that have been answered already. We're in the department, philosophy department. I'm not saying they've all been answered. I'm saying a few of these ones that we're debating in philosophy 450 have already been answered by the department across the way. But not them all, but a couple of them.
01:05:01
Speaker
Um, uh, we've been speaking with, uh, Ellen Adira and, and one of the things, Ellen, I wanted to thank you so much for is I, I, I just love, um, kind of learning about you and, and, you know, I haven't seen your screen performance and seeing your vivacious personality and talking around about, uh, baseball.
01:05:22
Speaker
Talking about words and talking about Shakespeare in theater, I appreciate your curiosity. It's for me as a person in doing this show, it's what drives me. And so I really appreciate you talking about all of this. And one of the things I want to
01:05:43
Speaker
you know, up to you as far as for the listeners to be able to connect with, you know, the things that you do, whether it's the podcast or things to look, um, for you, you know, that, that you do, or to come in contact with Ellen Adair, what, what should they do?
01:06:00
Speaker
Uh, probably the best bet is Twitter. I'm at Ellen underscore Adair, and I'm also on Instagram at Ellen Adair G, but I think I gravitate towards Twitter. I mean, I know all social media is accessible, but I.
01:06:17
Speaker
I found a nice corner of people who like baseball on Twitter that is, you know, mostly pretty pleasant. And I like words a lot, so Twitter is good. And yeah, you can also, so I, as to the degree that I am a visual artist, which I think it is, it is my perhaps like least, least practiced and least paid attention to of my various arts that I do like to draw.
01:06:43
Speaker
I also, I do drawings by commission. So I have an email address that is ellandrawsbaseball at gmail.com. It is E-L-L-E-N. And then the other two words are just Draws Baseball. And so if you would like to commission a drawing, not just of baseball, if you're like, please draw a picture of my cat. I'm very happy to do that. And so, yeah, just email me there and I will talk it over with you.
01:07:12
Speaker
Wonderful. And thanks for that. I've had some, one of the, I want to say, I would say probably a subtopic of the podcast has been baseball from a variety of, you know, from a variety of ways. I had Brad Baluxian who wrote the wax pack. Yeah, Brad is a great human.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was a wonderful, gosh, I just deeply, deeply enjoyed that story in his work. And as I mentioned, Rachel Balkovic, and I had Joyce Miller on who did a book about her grandfather who played baseball during World War, I believe it was World War I, and wow, Nika Oric, who's,
01:08:03
Speaker
San Francisco Giants fan, baseball illustrator. So on the baseball tip, I really enjoyed chatting with you about that. But again, all your creativity, just to let you know, it's deeply appreciated. It's a great honor for me to be able to kick around these questions with you and to engage with your intelligence on
Conclusion and Future Discussions
01:08:28
Speaker
on this philosophy and art program called Something Rather than Nothing. So I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart, Ellen.
01:08:36
Speaker
Oh my goodness, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's a great honor, and it is a great pleasure to me to just get to talk about all the stuff that I love the most. Like, who doesn't want to do that? Yeah. Groovy. Groovy. Thanks for having such a great podcast, seriously, and creating all kinds of wonderful things with your life. Thank you. I really appreciate that.
01:09:03
Speaker
And Ellen, again, thanks for your time and gosh, I'd imagine there's a few more things we can talk about in the future. But thanks for your time and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. I'd love that. This is something rather than nothing.