0:02

This is a HeadGum podcast. While

0:06

Andrew and Craig believe the joy

0:08

of discovery is crucial to enjoying

0:10

any well-told tale, they will not

0:12

shy away from spoiling specific story

0:14

beats when necessary. Plus these

0:16

are books you should have read by now. Hey

0:20

everybody, welcome to

0:22

Overdue, it's a

0:24

podcast about the books

0:27

you've been meaning to

0:46

read. My name is Craig. My name is Andrew.

0:48

I'm a fan of the best known trumpet. It's

0:59

like, I mean, you could, you could do taps. I guess. Or

1:02

is that a bugle? Well, okay. Well,

1:04

we'll talk about, we will talk about

1:06

taps today. Okay. It does get played

1:09

by a trumpet in this book. The

1:12

other one I was thinking of is Trump.

1:14

But wait, that was not about Star Wars.

1:19

The trumpet. The

1:24

trumpet. Yeah. What

1:26

about that? That's how, what I think about when I think

1:28

about the trumpet. That's,

1:31

we can't do that. Welcome

1:34

to our book podcast, Andrew. Yes. Every

1:37

week, one of us reads a book that we've never read before

1:39

and we tell the other one of us about it and we

1:41

just kind of goof about and have a good time. And you

1:43

get to listen to that. Yeah.

1:45

This week, Craig, what did you read? I read the

1:47

trumpet. Leave it in. I read that

1:49

there's so many was coming up. I

1:55

read the trumpet of this, this, of

1:58

the swan by EBS. white

2:00

I was literally looking at

2:02

a W when I said twump

2:04

it by Elwin Brooks white can

2:07

you imagine if Elmer Fudd covered

2:09

that song and he had to

2:11

go the twump it so

2:17

this book was our patreon

2:19

patrons choice for the month

2:22

of March Andrew

2:24

said what if we do marching band instruments

2:26

and I said there's only so many what

2:29

if we just do instruments and still a

2:31

marching band instrument one so that's

2:33

good yeah now people people were on

2:35

board in my idea yeah yeah they knew what you

2:37

were picking up and put down the month March is

2:39

the same as the word March can we do anything

2:41

with that do anything is that a thing is that

2:43

usually what Andrew asks me

2:47

now Andrew we have covered EB white

2:49

before on the show we have in

2:51

episode 15 where we did the Elements

2:53

of Style yep which he also wrote

2:55

with Strunk yes and episode 290 where

2:57

we did Charlotte's Web he wrote it

3:00

with Strunx now you're for strong

3:03

sorry and the other one Charlotte's

3:06

Web episode 290 290 which

3:08

you had read and I was pretty

3:10

I was like less familiar with than

3:12

I should have been have you ever

3:15

read the number of the song ever

3:17

read trumpet of the swan because we

3:19

had like I think we had a

3:21

copy of it and I just never

3:23

got around to it okay sure it's

3:25

too busy reading too busy reading hatchet

3:28

and dog song yeah Charlotte's Web yeah

3:30

yeah I also think something about the

3:32

title made

3:34

me forget that it was EB white

3:38

a little bit in style like

3:40

it's not it's not as kid

3:42

like Stuart Little I don't know it's like I'm used

3:45

this he's called Stuart Little it's like a little happy

3:47

mouth on the cover yeah Charlotte's

3:49

Web you got a spider you got a

3:51

pig like I don't know it's it's it's

3:53

interesting let's read about that red web trumpet

3:56

of the swan sounds like so poetic and

3:58

it does and I grown up and stayed

4:01

somehow. I don't know. Yes, that is exactly

4:03

what I anticipated. And as I started

4:05

reading it, I was like, oh no, this

4:08

is the guy that wrote Charlotte's Web. I

4:10

forgot. And

4:12

so that was kind of a fun

4:14

journey I went on with this book,

4:16

which is a very silly animal

4:20

book. It sounded silly. I wasn't expecting

4:22

it to be so silly. Yeah, it's

4:25

kind of silly and also

4:27

all over the place in

4:29

terms of what it's

4:32

about. And like, sure, you

4:34

know, we like to think deeply about

4:36

books here sometimes. And we like to

4:38

find some fun in like

4:41

digging into how a children's

4:44

book works. And

4:47

there's a lot here in the silly

4:49

and in the non-silly zone. Sure.

4:51

Zones rather. But

4:55

what do we need to know about Elwin

4:57

Brooks White and or anything else?

4:59

We talked about Elwin already. So just

5:02

briefly, he was born in 1899, died

5:04

in 1985. This

5:06

is the third of three children's books that

5:08

he wrote. The last one, right? Yeah, the

5:10

last one. And I think like probably the

5:12

last like proper novel, like he had other

5:14

stuff that came out during and after his

5:16

life, but it was mostly like letters and

5:18

different like collection things. So

5:20

yeah, Stuart Little came out in 1945, this in 1952, and

5:24

then Trumpet of this or Stuart Little 1945, Charlotte's Web 1952, this

5:26

being the Trumpet of the

5:30

Swan in 1970. Yeah.

5:33

And yeah, I don't know. Like it's just, I

5:35

think Trumpet of the Swan is maybe the one

5:37

of them with the least cultural footprints. Like I

5:39

don't know that there have been a bunch,

5:42

like there have been some adaptations

5:44

of Trumpet

5:47

of the Swan, but like, no, I don't

5:49

know that there's been like a major motion

5:51

picture. There has. Oh, there has? Whoa, really?

5:53

Well, there has been a motion

5:55

picture. Yeah, that's not what I.

6:00

Because Stuart Little had a movie with

6:02

Gina Davis in it. Did Trump and

6:04

the Swan have a movie with Gina

6:06

Davis in it? No, but Reese Witherspoon,

6:08

Jason Alexander, Dee Bradley Baker, and Seth

6:10

Green and Carol Burnett were in it.

6:14

And Joe Montaña was in it. Which

6:16

film was this? Was this not

6:18

the animated film based on the

6:20

book by Rich Animation Studios, is it?

6:23

It is. Well, I thought it

6:25

would be voice-bad. Distributed by KviseStar. Yeah. Now,

6:28

of course, I don't think it was very well

6:30

received. I did go on— I did get a

6:32

14% and write a tomato, so— I

6:36

did go on Common Sense Media and K.M.

6:38

Fan97, who is a kid, said, This is

6:40

for all ages, but it's without a doubt

6:42

the worst animated film I've ever seen. Okay,

6:45

all right. So

6:49

maybe it's the movie's fault that it doesn't

6:51

have a bigger cultural footprint than it does.

6:53

I just—I also think the—I

6:56

did—we'll talk about this later when

6:58

we're talking about the book in

7:01

context. But through a

7:04

master's thesis that I was

7:06

skimming in reference

7:08

for this episode, there's

7:11

a lot of other stuff in it that was not Trumpet of the

7:13

Swan that I was skimming. But

7:16

I pulled a quote from an

7:18

E.B. White biography by Scott Ellidge,

7:21

and purportedly by Ellidge,

7:23

quote, He was dissatisfied with the book, and

7:25

after he had turned it in, he wished

7:27

he had held it a year and then

7:30

rewritten it as he had done with his

7:32

other children's books. I

7:35

don't have any other source than this

7:38

quote from Ellidge's biography on that. I

7:41

could—I can

7:43

imagine a world in which another

7:46

run at this book helps

7:48

the character of Louis

7:50

or Lewis. I don't

7:53

know how to pronounce his name because

7:55

it's spelled Louis, but they reference Louis Armstrong.

7:57

I think it's got to be Louis. It's

7:59

Louis. for sure. It's gotta be Louie okay. Yeah

8:01

it's gotta be Louie Armstrong. He might be

8:05

more of a cultural character

8:07

in the in you know

8:09

like Wilbur and Stuart Little.

8:12

Well and and and

8:14

Charlotte's Web had a lot of strong secondary

8:17

care as well. That's true. And the rat

8:19

and others. Yes. I don't know if

8:21

this I don't know if this book has as many of

8:23

those. So yeah this is what I'm talking about is so

8:25

okay there's the Gina Davis Stuart Little and then in in

8:28

2006 there's

8:30

the Charlotte's Web film with

8:32

Dakota Fanning as Fern and

8:36

Julia Roberts as the voice of

8:38

Charlotte. Sure. And Steve Buscemi's

8:41

Temple to the Rat. Yeah. And Oprah

8:43

as a goose like yeah so this

8:45

is you know this is what I'm

8:47

talking about. Is that what I'm talking

8:49

about? Is that about animals or animals

8:51

with mouths that move? That I don't

8:53

know. Okay. Well

8:55

Dakota Fanning's gonna she's like a

8:57

real human girl. Yeah no there's

8:59

there's like live action. Yeah. Okay.

9:01

There is a live action cast.

9:03

Babe. That also includes Bowbridges. Sure.

9:07

And then a voice cast for the animals.

9:09

Okay okay. But just but it's not a

9:11

rinky-dink independent animated thing like

9:14

the Trump of the Swan movie is. That

9:17

poster image for that thing is real

9:19

wack. This is some fun Wikipedia. So

9:23

this Trump of the Swan movie came out 2001

9:25

and Wikipedia says it was the last film based

9:27

on a book by E.B. White until 2006 is

9:30

Charlotte's Web. Like five years

9:33

isn't that long. Like why

9:35

are we talking about? Oh

9:38

boy. Yeah

9:41

the only other things I think I had

9:43

were that the original illustrator was a guy

9:45

named Edward Fresino. I

9:48

read an edition that

9:50

had the 2000 editions

9:52

illustrations by Fred Marcellino

9:55

who among

9:57

other things had done a cover for

10:00

The Handmaid's Tale, Bonfire the Vanities,

10:02

he had done an edition

10:04

of Puss in Boots in the 90s. Generally,

10:09

out there being

10:12

a visual artist and an illustrator. I

10:14

liked the illustrations in this a lot.

10:16

There's a couple really good ones of

10:18

a trumpet holding, a swan holding a

10:20

trumpet that are very silly. A

10:23

lot of personality to them. And

10:26

yeah, that's all I got. Yeah, I had a

10:28

little bit in the New York Times, this

10:31

is the Contemporary New York Times review by John

10:33

Updike who writes, just

10:37

thinking about this being sort of the

10:40

lesser of E.B. White's three children's

10:42

books, but because the other

10:44

two are Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, that

10:47

doesn't mean this is a bad book. But

10:49

he says E.B. White's third novel for children

10:51

joins the two others on the shelf of

10:53

classics while not quite so sprightly as Stuart

10:55

Little and less rich in personalities and incident

10:57

than Charlotte's Web. The trumpet of the swan

10:59

has superior qualities of its own. It's the

11:02

most spacious and serene of the three, the

11:04

one most imbued with the author's sense of

11:06

the precious instinctual heritage represented by wild nature.

11:09

The story most persuasively offers itself to

11:11

children as a parable of growing that

11:13

does not lack the inimitable tone. That's

11:17

a word that I have a lot of

11:19

trouble with. Inimitable. Yeah, it's tough. I

11:22

don't like thing. I have trouble with inimiting it. Yeah. Inimitable

11:26

tone of the two earlier works, The Simplicity

11:29

That Never Come To Sense, The Straight and

11:31

Earnest Telling That Happens Upon Rather Than Beers

11:33

Into Comedy, The Grace

11:35

and Humor and Praise of Life, and The

11:37

Good Backbone of Sustinxedness that Eudora Welty noted

11:39

nearly 20 years ago reviewing Charlotte's Web in

11:41

these pages. Yep. Yep. Yep.

11:45

So just, it's a good book. It's not, it doesn't

11:47

reach the heights, I don't think, quite. I would say

11:49

there's not. There's not. But that doesn't

11:51

mean there's not a lot of good stuff in it. And

11:54

there's a lot of stuff to talk

11:56

about. If

11:59

you like to. to talk about books

12:01

and that's what we're

12:04

here to do. Yeah, I have some

12:06

other stuff that's probably better discussed in

12:08

the context of the story. I

12:10

did wanna talk about this website that I never

12:12

stumbled upon in research before that I did find

12:14

this time. It's a site

12:17

called novelengineering.org. Oh yeah, I saw that, please.

12:19

But I didn't, I was like, I don't

12:21

think this is relevant and closed it, tell

12:23

me more. No, it's not relevant but it

12:25

is fun. It's

12:28

like an educational curriculum built

12:30

around children's books

12:32

that is for middle grade

12:34

engineering. Yeah, students,

12:36

steam, baby, steam powered.

12:40

So there's a page for the Trump of the Swan and

12:43

what this curriculum does is they don't

12:45

talk about sort of the themes of

12:47

the book or a conventional book report

12:50

sort of way. They identify

12:52

what the potential engineering problems are

12:55

in the book and how they could be

12:57

solved with contraptions. I love teachers. A building.

13:00

Problems identified by students. The eggs in the

13:02

mother and father swans nests are in danger

13:04

from predators. Louie is unable to communicate. It

13:07

is difficult for the father swan to steal

13:09

a trebuchet. And

13:12

the students design solutions like an alarm system

13:14

of string and plastic cups that will alert

13:16

the swans if a predator is getting near

13:19

the nest and also protective fence to protect

13:21

the nest. Yes. Device

13:23

that goes on the swan's wings so they don't

13:25

get as tired flying. Yes.

13:28

I just like that they don't want

13:30

to solve what the conflict of the book

13:32

is. They just want to make these swans

13:34

lives better with technology. I also, they also

13:36

have pages for the mouse and

13:43

the motorcycle where they're, all

13:45

of the solutions designed by students are

13:48

exclusively focused around how to get Ralph

13:50

and the motorcycle out of the waste

13:52

bag. And

13:55

then there's James and the Giant Peach where

13:58

the students... design an

14:00

ice ball deflection system and

14:04

a peach lifting mechanism to hoist

14:06

the peach out of the sea

14:08

and away from sharks. What a

14:10

cool website! So

14:13

it seems fun. novelengineering.org. I don't know,

14:15

like it looks like it may have

14:17

been a while since it was updated

14:19

last, maybe? Sure, sure, sure. Let me

14:21

see what they got. Upcoming workshops and

14:24

events. Oh crap. Bit of

14:26

bit. None of these have dates

14:28

on them. Okay. But I just

14:30

thought it was funny. This is

14:32

cool. Alright, let's take a

14:34

quick break and then I can tell you

14:36

about the book. Okay. This

14:46

show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

14:49

Andrew, if you had an extra hour in your

14:51

day, what would you do?

14:55

I'd probably spend it thinking I should

14:57

go to bed. Oh yeah. That's

15:00

what I do with a lot of the

15:02

hours that I have already. I was gonna

15:04

say sleep, but just knowing myself and

15:07

being realistic about it, I would probably not

15:09

be sleeping, but thinking that I should be.

15:11

Thinking that you should be. Well, you know,

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the best way to squeeze that thing, whether

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it's sleep or thinking about sleep, into your

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betterhelp, help.com/overdue.

16:18

All right, so I think I know where we should

16:20

start given what we both

16:23

thought this book might be based

16:25

on the title. So

16:28

the book opens with a little boy

16:30

named Sam Beaver. He's like 10

16:32

or 11 years old, I think. And

16:34

he goes on camping trips with his

16:37

dad. They live in Montana, I think,

16:39

but they go to Nowheresville, Canada. Like

16:41

literally... Is that the name of the...

16:43

No, no, like it's in like Western

16:46

Canada. They hire a man... There's

16:48

a boring Oregon, so like I just never

16:50

assumed that there can't be a town name

16:53

like that. Fair enough. They try

16:55

to hire a man with a plane to like

16:57

drop them in the woods. Like it's

16:59

that type of camping. And

17:02

they just do that. Like in hatchet. They

17:04

have a hatchet except that everything goes okay.

17:07

Everything goes okay. And he

17:09

loves it. He loves being in nature, Sam does. He's a

17:11

young boy who doesn't quite know what he wants to do

17:13

with his life. And

17:15

it's kind of exciting to get out of the,

17:17

you know, the busy Montana rat

17:19

race, I guess, for 10-year-olds. Yeah, the

17:21

1970s Montana rat race. And

17:25

it is described that for him, like sitting

17:27

among the animals in nature is like what

17:30

other people experience when they go to church.

17:32

Like it is just a profound,

17:35

you know, Henry Thoreau experience for

17:37

him sort of thing. And

17:40

we get these like... Occasionally

17:42

we get these little journal entries. And these

17:44

continue throughout the book. And this gives you

17:46

a good like window into his charming little

17:48

brain in this close of the first chapter.

17:51

So he also... He doesn't tell dad about

17:53

this. He keeps it to himself. I

17:55

saw a pair of trumpeter swans today on

17:57

a small pond east of camp. The

18:00

female has a nest with eggs in it. I

18:02

saw three, but I'm gonna put four in the

18:04

picture. I think she was laying another

18:06

one. This is the greatest discovery I ever made

18:08

in my entire life. I did not

18:11

tell Pop. My bird book says baby

18:13

swans are called Signets. I'm going back tomorrow

18:15

to visit the great swans again. I heard

18:17

a fox bark today. Why does a fox

18:19

bark? Is it because he is mad or

18:21

worried or hungry or because he is sending

18:23

a message to another fox? Italics,

18:25

why does a fox bark? They

18:30

made a song about that, didn't they? They did

18:32

a song about fox bark. Thought about it

18:34

a while. Yeah, because it's not good. It's

18:36

bad, it's stupid and bad. So

18:39

that's Sam. A

18:42

nature lover. A nature lover and

18:44

a little nature boy. And

18:47

I thought, okay, this is still kind

18:49

of fitting the pastoral

18:53

book I thought before I remembered

18:55

what was gonna happen. Yeah, you

18:57

haven't had any goofy animal pratfalls

18:59

yet. Well, then we get

19:02

a perspective shift to some swans. Who

19:05

talk to each other using human English

19:08

in their swan language. Well,

19:11

what else would they speak? Well, I just

19:13

wanna clarify that they are not speaking out

19:15

loud human English. They

19:17

speak swan to each other, but we are

19:19

privy to their word. We experience it as

19:22

English, yes. And Pop,

19:24

okay, so they don't have names. The

19:27

mother and the father, often, a

19:30

male swan is called a cob. So sometimes

19:33

it'll just be the cob said or whatever.

19:35

So some of my notes just call him Papa Cobb.

19:40

And they have seen Sam

19:42

see them. And

19:45

they're kind of confused because boys

19:48

shouldn't be in the

19:50

middle of the woods like this. Are

19:53

they worried for themselves or are they worried

19:55

for the boy? Well, themselves a little bit.

20:00

Popocop says, quote, we are deep in the

20:02

wilds of Canada. Uh-huh.

20:05

What do you think I love about this? Deep

20:08

in the wild, like that geese

20:10

would recognize nation states. Yes. That's

20:12

the okay. I love

20:14

it when animals know about manmade borders.

20:19

I mean, not as, which, which

20:21

is one of our politicians to

20:23

learn about borders. And

20:27

I, I also think it's kind of cool that in, I

20:29

do do, I think it's

20:31

cool. Okay. The, the

20:33

swans don't have their own parallel

20:36

nation states. Like they don't have

20:39

their own, no other animal in

20:41

this book has like a sense

20:43

of territory. This is not a

20:46

book about like animals

20:49

having their, like a Pixar, like shadow

20:51

society that we just don't know about

20:53

cause we're not animals, right? They do

20:55

animal things. They just happen to

20:57

be able to talk to each other, basically.

21:00

Okay. They don't have like

21:04

kind of their own

21:06

names for human things. Like, you know,

21:08

when we get to the part where

21:10

the swans somehow know what a trumpet

21:12

is, they're not like, Oh,

21:14

the horny magic or whatever, you

21:17

know, you

21:19

know, what type of book I'm talking about that do something

21:21

like that. Yeah.

21:24

The type of book with a horny magic.

21:26

Horny magic in his Chuck tingle book. He

21:28

does say, uh, at one

21:31

point I've never felt more seen in a

21:33

book. He says, I do not wish to

21:35

be observed. The cop says when he thinks

21:38

about the boys seeing him. Um,

21:40

Sam does score some points with the swans

21:42

by scaring off a fox. This was probably

21:44

covered in that novel engineering lesson. A

21:47

box does like creep up to try and eat some

21:49

eggs and Sam throws a stick at it. Sure. And

21:51

the swans are like, Oh, I guess that kid is

21:53

cool. Okay. They

21:55

have five babies from their eggs. And,

21:58

uh, I just you

22:01

need to know that Papa Cobb is

22:03

very Highfalutin

22:07

in his language. He's very verbose.

22:09

I had read about that. This

22:11

is very very perspicacious A

22:14

signet at last I am a father

22:16

with all the pleasant duties and awesome

22:18

Responsibilities of fatherhood Oh blessed little son

22:20

of mine how good it is to

22:22

see your face Peering through the protecting

22:24

feathers of your mother's breast under these

22:26

fair skies with the pond so quiet

22:28

and peaceful in the long Light of

22:30

afternoon and then mama

22:32

swan says how do you know it's a boy? She's

22:35

always undercutting him like that is the

22:37

repeating joke is he will go on

22:39

for a paragraph and a half and

22:42

She will interrupt him and go would stop it. We

22:44

said this before Shut up And

22:49

so they have five signets and

22:51

the fifth one Louie doesn't

22:53

make any noise He doesn't

22:55

know doesn't make any noise. Mm-hmm and when

23:00

Papa Cobb shows off his signature He's like

23:02

I the book is like he felt the

23:04

need to show them off to someone So

23:06

he'd swam them over to Sam to show the

23:08

program And

23:10

all of the little baby swans beep

23:12

at Sam except for

23:14

the fifth one who can't beep So he pulls

23:17

on his shoelace With his

23:19

little beak and then they swim away. Okay,

23:23

and that's like the setup of the book Is that Sam

23:25

and Louie are gonna be friends? And

23:28

Louie can't talk In

23:31

swan sure This

23:34

I'm all over the place with this

23:36

book a little he can't like he

23:38

not only can you not trumpet like

23:40

just like not Make noise trumpets. He

23:42

just can't speak swan English to the

23:44

other swans He cannot vocalize at all

23:47

in the country of Canada, correct?

23:49

Okay, which they do know about

23:54

So like I love and we're gonna keep talking

23:56

about all the kind of wacky human

23:59

animal stuff this book I think it's

24:01

very fun and very silly to talk about. Some

24:05

of it's very strange when you

24:07

think about it. This

24:10

book is a story

24:12

about disability and

24:15

I also think its depiction is kind

24:17

of all over the map. Some

24:20

of that I think is that it's from 1970

24:23

and so I think the

24:25

book's heart is in the right place

24:28

but also probably I mean

24:30

I'm not gonna actually

24:32

be guessing because I've read enough about what the

24:35

book is about. But like if you're writing a

24:37

book about disability in

24:40

1970 and you're well-intentioned about it you're

24:42

probably treating it as like a problem

24:46

to be fixed so the person

24:49

can be quote-unquote normal. Correct. Or

24:51

whatever. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

24:54

And so there is this like he

24:57

has to overcome the problem of

24:59

his muteness and

25:03

specifically about halfway through the book it is

25:05

a problem of his muteness because if he

25:07

cannot talk or sing he will not be

25:10

able to fall in love

25:12

and have swan sex, they don't say

25:14

sex but you know what it means, make

25:17

swan babies. And

25:20

the swan that he falls in

25:22

love with literally has no character

25:26

or personality. It's the real

25:28

flaw in White's writing

25:30

I think in this book. Like if there's

25:32

one thing I wish he would have punched

25:35

up it was like the character of Serena

25:37

the Swan at all. Yeah. And he also

25:42

he also like... I think if you

25:45

as a counterpoint to that, sure, I think if

25:47

you are going to punch your character up at

25:49

all you would inevitably end up asking if

25:53

she's such a deep

25:55

rich fully realized character why doesn't she

25:57

just like Louis the way he is.

26:00

something like that. Good point, yes.

26:02

That's true, yes. I

26:05

read one article on, we're

26:08

gonna talk about a couple of the different adaptive

26:11

devices that Louis uses over the course of

26:13

the book. Yeah, I have something about that

26:15

when we get to it. So

26:18

I read

26:20

a positive take on that in that he's got

26:22

a couple of different adaptive devices. It

26:24

doesn't need to be a fully positive

26:27

depiction for it to feel like good rep,

26:29

where it's like, you know, this is, these

26:32

are some of the challenges you might face using devices and

26:34

not everything is like a magic fix. And

26:38

that's kind of worth knowing. But it does

26:40

have a lot of language where like, okay.

26:43

So they learn that he can't talk. And

26:47

some of it kind of shows up like,

26:49

there's just a conversation between the mother and

26:51

the father where they're like, hey, do you

26:53

ever notice he doesn't ever talk, he doesn't ever make noise? And

26:57

the dad sort of has a crisis. He

26:59

literally says, fatherhood is quite a burden at

27:01

best. I do not want the added strain

27:04

of having a defective child, a child that

27:06

has something the matter with him. And

27:09

you're like, I don't like this. I

27:11

don't like reading this, this is a bummer. I

27:15

think you can put that in the book because

27:17

you're trying to show that that sucks. I don't

27:19

know that that is exactly what he'd be, what

27:21

he's doing. I think ultimately what father

27:23

does is he's like, well, I gotta

27:25

get him something that can help him

27:28

communicate, which is what he does. And

27:30

that's like, it actually is very endearing

27:32

because of what

27:34

the father goes through to do it. He's

27:36

a swan, he has limited ability to craft

27:38

tools. Yeah,

27:41

I mean, but like as a

27:43

parent, that would be your impulse. And

27:46

maybe you wouldn't think

27:48

of your child as defective, but nevertheless,

27:50

you would set about figuring

27:53

out a way to help them

27:55

communicate and express themselves and

27:58

relate to others. that

28:00

really stings to a modern reader is

28:02

how often all of the language around

28:04

like defective or you know

28:08

just really negative language is

28:10

used and never like there's

28:13

no like corrective to them in any

28:15

way or you know I think

28:17

you would expect a modern book

28:19

treat with the same like setup to

28:21

kind of unpack that a little bit

28:23

more and so if you're reading

28:26

this book with a kid or something like that maybe you would do

28:28

that but he is

28:30

like he

28:32

does the mom and dad talk about how

28:34

she fell in love with the dad's voice

28:36

and so like the dad is like well

28:39

I gotta make sure my son

28:41

has like some way to communicate so that somebody

28:43

can fall in love with him someday because he

28:45

did say that he heard something from his wife's

28:47

lips which is a weird thing to say about

28:50

a swan I just need to point that out

28:52

swans don't have lips even though

28:54

the swan plays a trumpet you definitely need

28:56

lips to play trumpet but anyway yes well

28:59

the there's another scene where the

29:02

dad pulls Louie aside and it's like hey Louie

29:05

you can't talk can you and you're getting Louie's

29:07

thoughts where he's like dad get to the point

29:09

like kind of Garfield style

29:11

or he's like sure I really

29:13

Garfield it's never a lot of

29:15

the time it's not clear whether John can hear Garfield

29:17

that's true yeah that's true I did

29:20

google that in part of my research well

29:22

I can't John understand Garfield I wanted to

29:24

make sure that Garfield can understand John and

29:26

I do think he can Garfield can understand

29:28

John for sure he's always razzing him and

29:30

responding to him but I don't know whether

29:33

John can understand Garfield

29:35

I've got to imagine usually

29:37

it's ambiguous and

29:39

sometimes John seems

29:42

to understand Garfield so that

29:44

some dumb joke about you

29:47

can work yeah we are

29:49

Garfield experts here on overdue we I mean we've

29:51

read the fat cat three pack number one but

29:53

you know there's still several dozen

29:56

other fat cat three packs that we

29:58

haven't cracked yet patreon.com such a Louis

30:01

has this conversation where his dad

30:03

is like you have a speech

30:05

defect and it's a really kind

30:08

of hard conversation to read. Louis

30:10

is sad about it and kind of

30:12

scared to be told that he's different. His

30:15

dad is like I will find you

30:17

a trumpet don't worry. I've heard you

30:19

know I've seen trumpets

30:22

out in the world and

30:24

that is clearly what you need. You are

30:26

a trumpeter swan after all. That's

30:30

kind of what is going to happen in

30:33

this book. Yeah I think when

30:36

people respond to it positively as

30:38

a depiction of disability I think

30:40

they're responding to some of the

30:42

emotional realities of not

30:45

being able to make yourself understood

30:48

or maybe sometimes wishing

30:50

that you were quote-unquote normal so that you wouldn't

30:52

have to put up with some of the things

30:55

that you have to put up with. I think

30:57

that's pretty pretty typical feelings

30:59

to feel. This is from

31:01

a nerdy book club review. That's

31:03

not my qualitative judgment of what the club

31:06

is like. That's what the site is called.

31:09

A little essay called disability and the extraordinary and

31:11

trumpet of the swan by Tina L. Peterson and

31:14

she says any reader who's ever felt out of

31:16

place or without a voice will identify with Louis's

31:18

frustration when he cannot make himself understood by

31:20

his friends and family. My heart breaks when

31:22

he sadly erases from his slate the words

31:24

hi there after they elicit blank stares from

31:26

his parents and siblings. Yeah

31:29

are you gonna tell me about how the

31:31

swan can write English letters? That's

31:34

the very next thing yes all right I need

31:36

to tell you this. So

31:39

they migrate south from Canada

31:41

to Montana. Are they aware

31:43

of? Yep

31:46

they know what Montana. Did they talk

31:48

about the United States at all or

31:50

is it just Montana? I

31:53

think they know about United States it's kind

31:55

of unclear. It's interesting that

31:57

they go from Canada. which

32:00

is really like

32:02

a lot of different provinces. To

32:06

Montana. To Montana, which is a specific

32:09

United States state. The specific place

32:11

they are going is, it's

32:14

like Red Rock Lakes, I think. It

32:16

is a preserve that in the

32:18

mid 20th century had started actually

32:22

doing trumpeter swan conservation.

32:24

There were like

32:26

only a few hundred of them in the 1930s. And

32:30

then 70 years later there were like 3000 of them, like

32:33

enough that they could start having them migrate again. The

32:36

human characters in the book,

32:38

Sam and his dad, do

32:41

note that it was odd

32:43

that there were trumpeter swans even leaving

32:45

Montana at all because they thought that

32:47

almost all of them were

32:49

at this conservatory. Sure, okay. So

32:52

they go back there. And Lewis

32:54

at this point is like, man.

32:58

Oh, sorry, Louis, the S gets me. But

33:00

that's Louis Armstrong, okay, Louis. He's

33:03

like, okay, if I'm defective

33:05

in one respect, he says, I should try

33:07

and deliver myself along other lines, develop myself

33:09

along other lines. I will learn to read

33:12

and write. Then I will hang a small

33:14

slate around my neck and carry a chalk

33:16

pencil. In that way I will be able

33:18

to communicate with anybody who can read. This

33:21

is the first time that anyone has said the

33:23

word chalk or pencil or slate.

33:25

I don't know how this bird. How

33:27

did Louis learn about this? This

33:30

is the big thing in this book. It's

33:32

a fun time if you wanna read this

33:34

book and just think about all the times

33:36

that a bird knows something that no one

33:38

has ever taught it before. It's

33:41

fun. I mean, birds are born, a

33:43

lot of animals are born kind of knowing how to

33:45

walk, a lot of stuff that we have to work

33:47

hard to teach our own children. You're right, you're right.

33:50

Animals just come out knowing. So he- So

33:52

he probably know about chalk and stuff. Right

33:54

out of the egg. Knows what reading

33:57

and writing is and decides I will go

33:59

read and learn. to read and write, and

34:03

where can I do that? Out of school,

34:05

clearly, I must go find the human, say

34:07

I'm Beaver, and I will fly

34:09

to his town and he will help me

34:11

go to school, which is what Louis does.

34:13

That makes sense. He doesn't tell his family

34:15

this. And he's gone for 18

34:17

months. Wow,

34:20

that is a long time. How long does a trumpeter's swan even

34:22

live? That's a good

34:24

question. Trumpeter's swan lifespan. I

34:26

mean birds last for awhile.

34:30

25 years, all right, that's fine. Okay, all right. I

34:32

mean that's a full fifth of his life. He just

34:34

went away to school, I guess. Cygnus

34:37

buccinator. Yeah, they say that at

34:40

one point in the book. Oh really, the... Yeah.

34:44

So he goes to school, like Sam's family's

34:46

like, I guess we can take this bird

34:48

in. Sam recognizes

34:53

Louis because Louis pulls on his shoestring

34:55

again. And

34:58

Sam is like, hey, is there a

35:00

problem where you can't make swan noises?

35:02

And Louis nods. And so

35:04

at this point, you know that

35:07

swans understand human English. Swans understand

35:09

human English as spoken by humans

35:11

and not just the stand-in for

35:13

human English that they speak to

35:15

each other. Correct, yes. See,

35:18

that's another thing that somebody brought up.

35:22

Mary Ness or Mari Ness in

35:24

a reactor mag. Yeah, the

35:26

reactor mag article. Yeah, I read that. Yeah,

35:28

and I think you, when you were talking

35:30

earlier about the different assistive devices for different

35:33

situations, that comes from this. But

35:35

she also notes sort of

35:37

the bottom that

35:39

it's a little strange that

35:41

some of the plot later revolves

35:43

around swans staying in a zoo,

35:45

which if swans are sentient

35:47

and can communicate with humans is just a

35:49

jail for animals. It's pretty

35:52

rough. It's pretty rough.

35:54

There's one line from Sam Beaver during

35:57

the whole zoo stuff that like... attempts

36:01

to make it okay.

36:04

Okay. Which we'll talk about. Lamp shading,

36:06

the animal prison? A little bit, yeah. Okay.

36:10

So Sam brings Louie to school,

36:13

and he goes to kindergarten, and Mrs.

36:15

Hammerbotham just guesses his name on the

36:17

fourth try. Okay. Talk, she does

36:19

not miss a beat. She's like, there's a goose in my

36:21

kindergarten class, because Sam's like, well, he doesn't know how to

36:24

read right, he should go to kindergarten first. And

36:27

he goes in there, and she's like, is your

36:29

name Joe? Jonathan, Donald, Louie, and the swan nods.

36:31

And she's like, all right, it's Louie, let's go.

36:34

He's 1970, there's still a pretty

36:37

narrow, acceptable band of white men's

36:39

names that the swan could be.

36:41

And she basically just starts having

36:43

him practice letters.

36:47

Like on the first day, he writes

36:49

the word catastrophe. That's

36:52

a pretty long word. Yes, and

36:54

all he's doing is he has

36:56

the manual dexterity to copy the

36:58

symbols that she is writing on

37:00

the chalkboard herself. And

37:02

from there- He's done with like a

37:04

prehensile neck kind of situation, or how-

37:07

Yeah, he's got his big swan neck that he can just scoop

37:09

around. He's picking up the chalk in his beak, you know. And

37:13

so then Sam goes back to

37:15

his own fifth grade class, and

37:17

like, they have a fun time in there,

37:19

and then that chapter's over. And 18

37:21

months later, the swan can write any dang

37:23

word he wants. Can

37:25

you start with catastrophe, and then take a

37:28

year and a half to be able to

37:30

write other stuff? Yep, it's pretty good. It

37:32

starts with cat, and then it goes to

37:34

like, it's like A, B, cat,

37:37

and then catastrophe. And

37:39

she's like, okay, well, I guess the swan can write whatever

37:41

it wants, I will teach it written

37:43

English. Henry, as he

37:45

is sort of learning more about reading

37:48

and writing and spelling, has sorted

37:51

words into three categories. There

37:53

are short words, which are

37:55

two to four letters long.

37:58

Okay. There are medias. Medium

38:00

words. Medium words. Which are five or six

38:02

letters long. And then there are long

38:04

words, which is every other length of words.

38:07

Henry. So

38:10

catastrophe, cat is a short word. Catastrophe

38:13

is a long word. It's a long word. It's

38:15

a very long word. So

38:18

Louis comes back from school like

38:21

Hamlet at the beginning of the Hamlets, back

38:24

from University and nobody

38:26

understands him. He's

38:29

surrounded by a ghost of his uncle or whatever. So

38:33

he has this chalkboard around his

38:35

neck now that he can

38:37

write with and it says hi

38:39

there on it and he's

38:41

walking around this lake and

38:44

none of the other swans can read. So

38:46

he... Yeah, because they didn't spend

38:48

18 months in high school in Montana. Well, but

38:50

yeah, but none of them even want to learn

38:52

to read. So he's back home and he still

38:55

can't communicate with anyone. He has

38:57

a conversation with the man who

38:59

drops off all the grain for the birds and

39:02

that guy is like, whoa, a talking swan. And

39:07

then he does fall in

39:09

love with Serena the swan at first sight,

39:12

but she does not notice him because

39:14

he cannot go coho, which is the

39:17

swan noise. And

39:20

so Papa Cobb goes into action.

39:22

He thinks that Louis is great. Here's

39:25

a list of adjectives that gets interrupted

39:27

that he thinks about his son. Louis is

39:29

a trumpeter swan, noblest of all the water

39:32

fowl. He is gay, cheerful,

39:34

strong, powerful, lusty, good, brave, handsome,

39:36

reliable, trustworthy, a great flier, a

39:38

tremendous swimmer, fearless, patient, loyal, true,

39:41

ambitious, desirous. I really liked lusty

39:43

in that. Lusty is good. It

39:46

does read like sort of a brainstorming list for things that

39:48

you could write on the web about the pig. Yeah,

39:51

it does. Can

39:53

you imagine waking up one morning and above

39:57

your pig's pen, it just says lusty?

40:00

This is my lusty, big Wilbert. So

40:03

he flies to Billings, Montana and

40:06

robs a music store. He crashes

40:08

through the front window

40:10

of a music store and

40:13

steals a trumpet. This

40:16

is, see, this is, this bothered

40:18

me more than Swans recognizing

40:20

like borders and states is

40:22

Swans recognizing like ownership and

40:24

sex. Yes, yes, concept. As

40:28

he is flying away, okay, so

40:30

the shopkeeper tries to shoot Papa Cobb with

40:32

a gun, misses. And

40:35

the Papa Cobb is flying away carrying

40:37

the stolen trumpet and he says, he's

40:40

like, what have I done? I am

40:42

by nature law abiding. I

40:47

did it to help my son. I did it for a lot

40:49

of my son, Lou. Like

40:51

what he does not know what a prison.

40:53

He shouldn't know what a prison is. He

40:56

shouldn't know about the Constitution

40:59

or Miranda rights. No, but

41:01

like, I don't know if you look

41:03

at Redwall, for example, there

41:05

are, there are humans there. No,

41:07

there, well, there are some references to humans

41:09

in the first Redwall. We

41:12

just never see any on screen. But

41:15

there are, I mean, there is a

41:17

lot of racial determination going on in

41:19

the wall where some animals are born

41:21

innately good and other animals are born

41:24

innately bad. And you can't ever,

41:26

ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have

41:28

any animal that crosses

41:31

over between those two categories. So maybe swans

41:33

are just born lawful good. Maybe

41:36

it is just a fun

41:38

thing about this book is the

41:41

messiness because there is

41:43

not, as I said, like

41:45

a parallel animal culture that

41:47

it dives into in like, We

41:50

don't like find out what the wild boars

41:52

are up to or whatever. No, and there's not

41:54

like a, you know, a swan Jesus, like

41:56

a Watership Down sort of thing. They

42:00

just kind of know more about

42:02

human culture that makes any literal

42:04

sense and it is that it

42:06

gets doled out in a way

42:08

that makes the plot and the

42:10

comedy of the book. Work you.

42:12

Know. I'm sensing Cygnus.

42:15

Christ. yeah. A.

42:20

Better than me. Feel

42:23

the trumpet any begin to Louis and now

42:25

Louise literal is walk in and fly around

42:27

with a trumpet and a chalk board slay

42:29

around his neck of has remarked of it's

42:31

a little difficult to fly do a scan

42:33

a cumbersome yeah. He

42:36

gets. Good. At it he can

42:38

make you can make sounds with a trumpet. Serene.

42:41

It is to problems arise. Arena has flown away

42:43

with other one so he can on impress her

42:46

with his trumpet and that. Also.

42:48

He does recognize that the Trump it

42:50

was stolen and that they need to

42:53

maybe pay this music store back. that

42:55

is. So

42:58

many layers deep into things to

43:00

Swansea. Just like not know about or

43:02

care about. Yeah cause then the

43:04

rest of the book is this was

43:07

trying to earn enough money to

43:09

pay back the store. Andrew Ah, He

43:11

flies to say a beaver and give Sam a quest.

43:13

He says help me pay for my trumpet. I

43:16

mean dad want to store of a

43:18

threat that will ran up to the

43:20

supreme court? like to determine whether Swan

43:22

can be held liable for crimes they

43:24

committed. Single. Best Canada.

43:27

It's like an international. The year

43:29

get the sense involves have to

43:31

extradite your aggravated lose their of

43:33

on Sam's response is you need

43:35

a job birds. Com.

43:37

Know what have become work at my summer camp?

43:40

that up going to. tomorrow

43:43

is the last day of june pop is going

43:45

to drive louis and me to camp cuckoo cuckoo

43:47

schools i bet it will be the only boys

43:49

camp in the world that have a trumpeter swan

43:51

for the camp bugler i like having a job

43:53

i wish i knew what i was going to

43:55

be what i am a man why does a

43:58

dog always stretch when he wakes up Sam's

44:00

journal man, he's got to log in and read

44:02

that thing every day. So

44:05

there's a whole, there's a few chapters set at

44:07

this summer camp where Louie

44:10

is, he's the daily bugler,

44:12

literally. Like he like

44:14

plays the trumpet in the morning to

44:16

wake everybody up. He

44:18

plays taps when everybody needs to go to

44:20

sleep. Now he's playing music on the trumpet

44:23

and he's not like speaking

44:25

swan through the trumpet. That is

44:27

a thing I'm very confused about.

44:30

And it's a thing I think when

44:32

you talk about the disability rep in

44:35

this book too is also relevant is

44:37

that he gets the trumpet. He

44:40

can make the coho noise,

44:43

which is that's how it's

44:46

written. K-O-H-O-H in the book.

44:48

He can make the trumpet, the

44:50

swan coho like hello noise.

44:53

But there's never a scene where using

44:56

the trumpet, he has a conversation

44:58

with another swan. So

45:01

it's addressing the problem that he can't,

45:04

where he can't make noise, but it's

45:06

not really addressing the communication issue entirely.

45:08

No. And there are times when he

45:10

is playing songs, he

45:12

writes a song about, let he

45:14

play. He writes a song? He

45:16

writes a song that does have

45:18

like lyrics in his head. It

45:21

is unclear if when he plays

45:23

the song for Serena later, if

45:25

she hears the lyrics or not. White

45:28

does not make that clear. And I

45:32

read it on first read that no

45:35

one was hearing these lyrics. It's just a cool song

45:37

he wrote. It's

45:39

kind of, yeah, that to me is

45:42

the weirdest part of the book is

45:44

that he gets an adaptive

45:46

aid that allows him to write

45:49

human English so he can talk to humans.

45:52

And he gets an adaptive aid that

45:54

allows him to make noise that

45:57

ultimately is mostly used to play.

45:59

music for humans. Okay.

46:02

Neither are like. Sometimes they're swans. Well,

46:05

and the swans appreciate the music, but

46:08

the way everything is written, they

46:10

hear it as music mostly rather

46:12

than swan language. Right. And

46:14

that's just weird. It's just weird. It

46:19

doesn't map cleanly.

46:22

It is like in service of a

46:24

like, again, kind of

46:26

what Updike said, kind of a like

46:28

appreciation for pastoral beauty.

46:32

Cause there's like scenes later in the book

46:35

where like everyone in Philadelphia is hearing the

46:37

swan play the trumpet and all

46:39

the animals and all the people in Philadelphia

46:41

all love it. And it's beautiful.

46:44

And it's what he plays to, you know, win

46:46

Serena's heart. He's still kind of communicating

46:49

insofar as he's just like expressing

46:51

himself and making himself seen and

46:53

heard. I don't know. It's

46:56

just weird. It's just weird. Well, yeah, it's a

46:58

little loose. It's a little Lucy. Lucy, you see,

47:01

which is funny cause he's a swan. Yeah. Oh,

47:04

every, every bird that isn't flying through

47:07

the air. Simon

47:11

thinks of the duck. Yeah. We

47:14

went through a phase where every animal was a puppy,

47:18

including like chicken stuff. I

47:20

just worry if Simon ever meets a goose and

47:22

he calls it a duck, like what's going to

47:25

happen? Cause he has a toy

47:27

goose and he calls it a duck and I'm. Yeah.

47:30

That goose is going to get mad. I mean,

47:32

geese get mad about everything anyway, but. Very temperamental

47:34

creatures. Yeah. So he's

47:36

at this camp. I'll gloss over

47:38

most of the camp. Two things of note. He

47:41

saves this boy named Applegate that

47:44

nobody likes and they bully him enough

47:46

to going out into the lake by himself, even though he

47:48

doesn't know how to like steer a boat and

47:51

he falls out of the boat. And

47:53

then Louis has to save him and

47:56

everyone thanks Louis, but they're kind of still

47:58

mad at Applegate about it. I think Applegate

48:00

got a raw deal. Because

48:02

his main thing was that he didn't like birds, and everyone was

48:04

like, we love this bird. What's your problem?

48:07

And he doesn't have a good argument. But

48:10

they do reach out to

48:12

the US government and have them

48:14

issue, Louie, the life-saving medal, which

48:17

is a real thing. That's, but now...

48:19

It's one of the oldest civilian medals

48:21

in the United States. Now the government knows

48:23

about Louie, and he gets like, inducted into

48:25

whatever program that is with

48:28

the dolphins who go to diffuse

48:30

bombs or whatever. He's a celebrity.

48:34

And at the end of this chapter, he asks Sam

48:37

to cut his webbed foot so that

48:39

he can play the valves on the

48:41

trumpet. Because the trumpet has three valves,

48:43

which is how it plays all the notes. And

48:46

so far, he can only play bugle tunes. And

48:50

if I could just work these valves with

48:52

my three toes, I could play all sorts

48:54

of music, not just bugle calls. I could

48:56

play jazz. I could play country and western.

48:58

I could play rock. I could play the

49:01

great music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Sibelius, Gershwin,

49:03

Irving Berlin, Brahms, everybody. I could really be

49:05

a trumpet player, not just a camp bugler.

49:07

I might even get a job with an

49:10

orchestra. Louie!

49:14

How do you know any of this? You

49:17

could play ska. Well ska

49:19

hasn't invented yet. You could start off with kick off

49:21

the ska. Crazy. Well, I mean, humans

49:24

appropriated it from swans. Oh

49:27

man, earlier in the book there's a

49:29

bit where some swans are literally, it

49:32

says, playing water polo? What?

49:36

Yeah, I mean, if they know how to

49:38

talk, they can learn human games, I guess. And

49:40

at the end of the book, when Louie has

49:42

his own kids, spoiler, he plays

49:44

taps for them at the end of the day. So

49:46

now I guess swans know what taps is? Do

49:50

they have like 21 gun

49:52

salute for swans? Oh, maybe.

49:55

We don't see it. This book is different from

49:57

Charlotte's Web. No one dies. Oh, that's

49:59

too bad. I mean, it's probably somebody dies

50:01

eventually eventually not but no this book isn't

50:04

for teaching you about death It's for teaching

50:06

you about how swans know about countries So

50:09

after the swans recognize international

50:11

treaties and stuff after the

50:13

camp Louise like hey,

50:15

I need more money and Sam goes you could

50:17

go to Boston and work with the swan boats

50:21

Uh-huh. So he does So

50:23

he flies up with he works with

50:25

some he flies to Boston He

50:28

finds the swan boat operator and he

50:31

has his little trumpet and he says I could play

50:34

music while you drive your swan boat Okay,

50:37

and he's a huge hit and everybody loves it and

50:39

he gets paid for this he gets paid $100 He

50:41

got paid $100 for the first summer at camp and now he gets

50:44

paid $100 a week to

50:46

be a swan boat trumpeter swan What

50:49

a tiredy of Boston loses their minds

50:54

He gets so popular that

50:56

the Swan boat operator pays

50:59

for him to spend the night in

51:01

the Ritz Hotel some home alone to

51:03

shenanigans ensue This

51:05

is a funny joke where the guys like $813

51:10

in 2024 money if you're if you're assuming that

51:12

the book takes place in 1970, which

51:14

it might be even earlier than that There's

51:18

some fun hijinks Where

51:20

they're checking the swan into the hotel and

51:22

the hotel guys like well, is he famous

51:24

and the guys like well Yeah, he's a

51:26

musician. He's like well, is he gonna wreck

51:28

the room cuz he's a musician very funny

51:30

to me and Why

51:34

is it one puts like the green M&Ms and his

51:36

rider to make sure that some people running the event

51:38

are paying attention He only works for

51:40

the swan boat for a week because he gets a

51:42

literal telegram where a boy Runs

51:45

up to him with a telegram and says I have a

51:48

telegram for the swan Uh-huh, and

51:50

it says can offer you $500

51:52

a week for nightclub spot 10-week

51:55

engagement, please reply Abe Lucky

51:58

Lucas Hotel Nemo, Philadelphia Philadelphia

52:01

And right then and there the swan

52:03

issues a response. I'll be there tomorrow

52:05

meet at Zoo How does he know

52:08

that there what are we talking about? How

52:11

does he know about geography? How do you know

52:13

about Philadelphia? How do you know about zoos? Yeah

52:16

Again, like you could imagine that

52:18

maybe there are off-screen conversations Where

52:22

all swans do is sit around and talk about human?

52:25

Just look at maps and stuff. Yeah

52:27

very strange. Yeah So

52:29

then there's a whole situation where he

52:31

is living at the

52:33

zoo in The Bird

52:35

Lake at the zoo this book loves the

52:37

Philadelphia Zoo and it's somebody who does like

52:39

the Philadelphia Zoo It was kind of

52:41

neat to read about it You

52:45

pointed out the the kind of

52:47

central tension around zoos that this

52:49

book definitely Gets

52:52

into they are definitely just like

52:54

cushy minimum security prisons for animals

52:56

Yes, and I also There's

52:59

like a big there's a poem

53:01

later cuz like due to some

53:03

situations Louie

53:07

summons Sam to the zoo for some help

53:10

and Sam has been like kind of aimless

53:12

as a 10 year old and he's like well now I want to

53:14

be a zookeeper And he writes

53:16

like a little poem about how great the zoo

53:18

is because it brings the animals to you I

53:20

think that's a selfish human centered point of view

53:22

I think the best thing about zoos is that

53:24

they do animal conservation work And

53:27

can you know help injured animals and

53:29

things like that? I I

53:32

do think we you know I

53:34

certainly benefit from going to a zoo and looking at

53:36

the animals and I like doing it Especially

53:39

since since having a kid it has become like

53:41

one of the things you could do to get

53:43

out of the house for a couple Hours, which

53:45

is pretty valid. Yeah animal, you know There's

53:49

a couple times in this book where Sam is awed

53:51

by just animals and it did remind me of the

53:53

one time I was in Denver

53:56

maybe at the zoo. I was

53:58

looking at some elephants and somebody working at the

54:00

zoo came up and asked me if I wanted to take

54:02

a survey about the elephants and one of the questions was

54:05

do you feel awe at the universe looking at

54:07

the animals? What did

54:09

you say? Yeah! It was a

54:12

cool elephant! It was like

54:14

a leading question. How do you answer no to

54:16

that? I don't know. I can't remember

54:19

if it was on a Likert scale or not or if it

54:21

was just a yes. But I definitely

54:23

gave a positive response. So

54:25

he's living at the zoo, his agent,

54:28

this guy Lucky Lucas, negotiated

54:31

a deal where he plays

54:33

at this nightclub six days a week and

54:36

if on his day of rest at

54:38

the zoo he plays a concert at

54:41

the zoo he

54:43

can stay there and they won't like

54:46

chop his like trim his wings and

54:48

make him a zoo animal. Sure. Because

54:51

he's a person because he can

54:53

write. Right? He can write and

54:55

read. He's literate. He knows how to play an

54:57

instrument. Like he's yeah you're working. He's arguably

54:59

more accomplished than I am in some in

55:02

some ways. A big old

55:04

storm cast

55:07

his lady love Serena out

55:10

of the sky and into the zoo and so

55:14

now she's there and it's it's fine because she she

55:16

has no agency as a character so the rest of

55:18

the book is about Louie

55:21

trying to prevent her from being owned by the

55:23

zoo and negotiating with

55:26

the zookeeper like

55:28

how he can like leave with her. So

55:30

I did read about

55:32

this and the deal is that he

55:34

works out is that he's going to

55:36

give some of his own children to

55:38

the zoo. Right? Yeah. So he

55:44

called he so he dooms some of

55:46

his children to imprisonment. He sends another

55:48

letter. Okay this is after he has

55:50

already wooed Serena with his beautiful music.

55:55

He does fight off zoo staff who

55:57

try to pinion her and trim her

55:59

wings. He sends

56:01

an emergency telegram to Sam Beaver that says,

56:04

Am in the Philadelphia Zoo, this is an

56:06

emergency, come at once, I will pay your

56:08

plane fare, am now wealthy, signed Louis. Does

56:11

he have? He has $5,000. Direct

56:15

deposit? He's carrying it in a

56:17

bag around his neck. He's

56:20

gonna get killed in one. He takes

56:22

a cab to the club

56:25

every day and he hates performing there

56:27

because it's so loud and noisy and

56:30

it's very late at night and he can't, you know,

56:32

can't choose his hours. Someone

56:34

get this swan an accountant.

56:36

Like surely there's some kind of

56:38

animal that could do numbers. I

56:40

don't know, like probably someone with a lot like a,

56:42

like a spider or something with a lot of legs. Yeah.

56:45

This book does not, this

56:47

book does not traffic in what other

56:49

animals are up to that much.

56:52

But do we even see them at the

56:54

zoo? Like, do they even talk to any

56:56

other animals? It's weird that. Not really. We,

56:58

we get a brief glimpse of some animals

57:01

enjoying the music, but that's it.

57:03

I did. I was going to say it is weird

57:05

that a swan would be a draw at the zoo,

57:07

but you do go to the Philly Zoo and there

57:09

definitely are just like some normal birds in there. There

57:15

are three trumpeter swans there, but

57:17

they're kind of old hat. And so maybe they need some new

57:19

ones. Anyone that can play the

57:21

trumpet, one that can juggle. Oh, he's so, oh, that's

57:24

right. He's so popular at the zoo that the Philadelphia

57:26

work is taxes. The

57:28

Philadelphia orchestra does invite him to perform with them because

57:30

he's so good at the trumpet. Oh my

57:33

God. And

57:35

Sam is the one, Sam is

57:37

the one who comes up with the idea

57:39

to, okay, if you leave

57:42

with your honey, you can have

57:44

some babies and every once in a while, you

57:47

know, maybe you will leave one

57:49

with the zoo. And

57:52

his reasoning is in every family of

57:54

babies, at

57:58

least one needs some extra. assistance.

58:01

So maybe you could leave... So let's put him

58:03

in animal prison. So maybe you could leave that

58:05

one at the zoo where they can protect him

58:08

and keep him healthy. That is

58:10

the only line in this book

58:12

that attempts to justify why this

58:14

swan would leave any of his

58:16

babies at the zoo. And

58:18

we're just taking for

58:20

facts that out of every clutch of

58:23

swan eggs there's one... Just like him?

58:25

...dud swan that comes out of it.

58:27

Just like him, even though he went

58:30

out into the world and became his own swan and he

58:32

doesn't need to live at a zoo and get help every

58:34

day. Yeah, but the other

58:36

swans. Pull the ladder up behind you, Louie. We

58:39

talked about how Papa Cobb... You're playing with the Philadelphia

58:42

Orchestra. You don't need to help other swans get it

58:44

like that. We

58:46

talked about how Papa Cobb uses a bunch of

58:49

really dated language about disability and

58:51

is kind of... He's

58:53

a very long-winded guy and it's a big

58:55

contrast to Louie, you can't talk. You'd

58:58

have to be long-winded to be able to play trumpet.

59:00

Well, that's true. That's true. Good breath

59:02

control from these swans. And

59:05

I do wonder, though, I think maybe

59:07

that Papa Cobb is a better dad

59:09

than Louie because Louie is willing to

59:12

give away a child to the zoo

59:14

every year. Yeah, Louie stole for his

59:17

son. Papa Cobb did. Or Papa Cobb

59:19

stole for his son. Yeah. And

59:21

Louie is consigning his children

59:24

to the animal prison. The

59:26

correctional system for animals or whatever. So

59:28

we do close the loop on Papa

59:30

Cobb, and this will kind of start

59:33

to bring us home. We

59:35

do get a scene where Louie

59:37

flies home. Once again, he does

59:40

not ever communicate directly with his

59:42

parents through language, even

59:45

though he has the trumpet, which ostensibly

59:48

allows him to communicate. It's very diffusing.

59:50

E.B. White, I have notes. And

59:54

he gives a bag of money to his dad,

59:56

five grand, and he says, you know, and it's

59:58

like clear that like, okay, Okay, take that to

1:00:00

go pay for the trumpet. How

1:00:03

much does Louis think a trumpet cost? Unclear. I

1:00:05

don't know that it's 5, 1970 dollars. It's

1:00:09

definitely not. Papacab

1:00:12

flies back there, is

1:00:14

shot on site by the shopkeeper.

1:00:17

Yeah. There's

1:00:19

a big kind of brouhaha in the

1:00:21

street where an ambulance

1:00:24

arrives, the game warden is

1:00:26

there, the game warden

1:00:28

is mad at the shopkeeper for shooting a

1:00:30

protected animal. The

1:00:32

shopkeeper's like, this animal robbed my store. Ha

1:00:35

ha ha. There is a

1:00:38

note like on, Louis put

1:00:40

his chalkboard slate on his dad's neck

1:00:42

that explains what's going on, or a

1:00:44

note in the bag or something. A

1:00:47

judge appears out of the

1:00:49

crowd Okay. to mediate

1:00:52

the conflict. And

1:00:55

they call on a star witness, a

1:00:58

young boy named Alfred Gore, who's

1:01:01

just in the crowd saying what he saw. And I

1:01:03

was just like, why is Al Gore here? Why is

1:01:05

Al Gore here? This is where he learned how to

1:01:07

be like a conservationist. Yeah, there's

1:01:09

a joke later where he doesn't even

1:01:11

know what the Audubon Society is, but you

1:01:14

know, I don't think that this

1:01:16

is actually, Al Gore was 20 when this book came

1:01:18

out. This is not a joke on Al Gore. His

1:01:20

name is also Albert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but it

1:01:22

is funny that Alfred Gore. It's

1:01:24

silly. Yeah. It's a

1:01:27

lot of. The judge awards the money

1:01:29

to the store, but they do take

1:01:31

the bird to the human hospital in

1:01:33

the ambulance. Okay, so the swan isn't

1:01:35

dead. Swan's not dead. He's

1:01:37

just a nick. He's fine. And

1:01:40

the shopkeeper gives the money to the Audubon Society

1:01:42

because it really only costs like $100 for a

1:01:44

trumpet and he gives the rest to Audubon Society.

1:01:46

And then are he and the swan cool after

1:01:48

that? Yeah, he's fine. The swan just

1:01:50

leaves the hospital and flies home. And it's like, oh

1:01:52

my God, I died. And the mom's like, no, you

1:01:54

didn't. You're here, aren't you? Mm-hmm. And.

1:02:00

He decides. Well

1:02:02

then we kind of cut through time. We

1:02:04

jump ahead and Louie

1:02:07

and his wife are having kids and

1:02:11

he's dropping one of them off at the zoo every once in

1:02:13

a while. And Sam

1:02:15

is now 20 years old still going on camping trips

1:02:17

with his dad and he sees some swans

1:02:20

flying through the air. And that's

1:02:22

that. You know? Man.

1:02:25

Man oh man. So it's a

1:02:29

wild book. I

1:02:33

found a Goodreads review

1:02:35

that had five stars from Lively.

1:02:37

That's more than we usually talk

1:02:39

about. This is

1:02:41

the funniest beep I swear. The humor in this

1:02:44

book is surreal. The cob has me in stitches

1:02:46

with over the top floored speeches but it's the

1:02:48

little details that kill me like how nobody goes

1:02:50

crazy when a bird learns how to read and

1:02:53

write catastrophe. That

1:02:55

is what people like about this book. It's

1:02:57

very silly. I

1:03:01

did find a three star Goodreads review. Oh

1:03:03

I don't have my guitar. Three star Goodreads

1:03:05

review. From Sarah that said. You get

1:03:07

a trumpet to play it. Yeah you do. Meh.

1:03:10

Strange. Not a fan of the stealing of

1:03:12

the trumpet. That's

1:03:15

it. That's why Sarah didn't like

1:03:17

the book. I

1:03:20

also am a consider myself a

1:03:22

lawful person. So

1:03:26

yeah we talked a little bit we talked about the

1:03:28

Mary Ness article at ReactorMag. The quote

1:03:31

I had about the adaptive AIDS

1:03:33

that I thought was neat. They

1:03:38

say from a disability standpoint as an

1:03:40

acknowledgement that not all medical AIDS will

1:03:42

help under all circumstances or help all

1:03:44

problems and that in some cases disabled

1:03:46

users will need to work with one

1:03:48

tool or aid in one situation and

1:03:50

another tool aid in a second situation

1:03:52

with no one size fits all situation.

1:03:54

And that is an interesting perspective

1:03:56

on the book. He's

1:03:59

got the one tool. He's got the other tool. I do

1:04:02

think it is kind of lack that

1:04:04

we don't get to see him Functionally

1:04:08

communicate with another thing is I don't

1:04:10

know that the trumpet does function as

1:04:12

a as a Yeah,

1:04:14

like an assistive tool in this situation

1:04:17

because he did He

1:04:19

did he does learn to read and

1:04:21

write human English Yeah, which which helps

1:04:23

him communicate but then also on

1:04:26

the side he learns how to play the trumpet

1:04:28

Separate entirely separate it allows it go

1:04:30

through a mating ritual with Serena where

1:04:32

they coho at each other and then

1:04:34

they bump necks a lot And they

1:04:36

each think about the other person a

1:04:39

lot But it doesn't

1:04:41

actually result in them having what

1:04:43

we would see as a conversation and

1:04:46

it's unclear to me if E.B. White

1:04:48

intends us to believe that

1:04:50

they have spoken with each other

1:04:53

or otherwise not doesn't have to be

1:04:55

speak but just otherwise communicated with each other or If

1:04:59

they just you know, they communicate through

1:05:01

physical touch and that's and singing and

1:05:03

that's enough, you know, it's unclear And

1:05:07

last I'll just share it so that the

1:05:10

master's these Overall, I expected

1:05:12

there to be more writing on this book

1:05:14

than either of us found. Yeah.

1:05:16

Yeah we'd like there's some there's some there's

1:05:19

a little bit of stuff, but mostly it's from

1:05:22

Like book blogs that kind of do the thing that

1:05:24

we do or we just kind of read old Old

1:05:27

stuff and throw our thoughts at the wall about

1:05:29

it. I I did not expect kind of the

1:05:31

best Source I

1:05:34

could easily find to be

1:05:36

a master's thesis from Cal

1:05:38

State Like was

1:05:40

a pretty good article by Amelia Brown that I

1:05:42

read, but I usually

1:05:44

would expect to find other sources

1:05:47

And she compares this with Stuart Little and just talking

1:05:49

about disability depiction in

1:05:51

these books like Stuart Little as somebody who's

1:05:54

just like Existing in a world

1:05:56

that is not built for him is Kind

1:05:58

of what she's writing about there. But

1:06:01

then for. Trouble

1:06:03

of the Swan She. Looked.

1:06:05

She acknowledges a lot of the

1:06:07

problematic. Language. And.

1:06:10

The. Kind of conflation with.

1:06:14

Overcoming an obstacle and leading

1:06:16

to be a sexual creature

1:06:18

and. But. Also,

1:06:20

it's this interesting ah you

1:06:22

know story about adaptation and

1:06:24

things like that. And

1:06:27

are closing point is Louis is now able

1:06:29

to live a full life just as he

1:06:31

wants. not as a quote deformed swan with

1:06:33

no future life, not as a quote spectacle

1:06:36

with humans, but as he chooses a free

1:06:38

and independent life he still voiceless, but as

1:06:40

made adaptations that work well for him. He

1:06:42

is the epitome of social disability chain and

1:06:45

that he asks for access, makes changes in

1:06:47

his environment, and chooses the life he wants

1:06:49

for himself. He finds a way to communicate

1:06:51

to find employment, nurture the talent he has

1:06:54

makes the decision to attract a mate. And.

1:06:56

Build a strong self image. Humans and

1:06:59

swans come to respect his differences in

1:07:01

choices and at and then he and

1:07:03

then he donates as kids. Civilized? Yeah,

1:07:05

that really undercuts our love of Louis.

1:07:08

I think of. Yeah.

1:07:10

But. Either that what? it's okay because I

1:07:12

think it would help them to be imprisoned.

1:07:17

Severely Big Sam Beaver. Ah yeah,

1:07:19

I know of fun reading this

1:07:22

book and I've had a lot

1:07:24

of fun thinking about this book.

1:07:26

and I I do also just

1:07:29

really love the. Animals.

1:07:31

Are cool high and we should respect

1:07:33

them and and love them. Angle as

1:07:35

well. Like that. Yes! Underpinning the

1:07:37

whole book. and probably we didn't talk about as

1:07:40

much because lot of other stuff to talk about,

1:07:42

the other stuff like a game will know that

1:07:44

knowing about countries and whatever. And

1:07:48

they all know you. meaningless. But.

1:07:50

Not how to read and write it about

1:07:52

because they went to school for it and

1:07:54

also the government knows that. Add that, add.

1:07:57

A swan saved a boy and

1:07:59

old. And

1:08:02

then there are newspaper articles about

1:08:04

swine. Playing. The trumpet from

1:08:06

money for whom. This

1:08:09

is where my brain always is Like why? Why?

1:08:13

Of the government not like talking to all the.

1:08:16

Iran you know like how is this the first

1:08:18

time this has happened yet as yep definitely for

1:08:20

sure that's that's part of the reason why aren't

1:08:22

they have more animals that you run into his

1:08:24

adjust the reason they may more questions than answers

1:08:26

that he be why does not wanna know but

1:08:28

we do not want to talk about that out

1:08:30

as a you have to talk about a worm

1:08:32

like learn how to play the drums like in

1:08:35

the they Might Be Giants sung. Or

1:08:38

or then he meets the referral to eat.

1:08:40

You know, Okay,

1:08:45

Less than a lot of trouble is what. And

1:08:47

they problems One. He.

1:08:50

View. The listener.

1:08:52

Wanna. Tell us your favorite swan

1:08:55

songs. Send.

1:08:58

Us an email Overdue pottage email.com hit

1:09:00

us up on social media. At overdue

1:09:02

pod were often on a blue sky

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and Instagram or theme song is composed

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by Nickel or N N or Fox

1:09:09

One know more about the show where

1:09:11

they go over do podcast coms are

1:09:14

internet website we have marches schedule up

1:09:16

there now. And. Next week I'm

1:09:18

going to be reading their their by

1:09:20

Tommy Orange. Yeah. They're. They're.

1:09:23

They're. They're. They're

1:09:25

They're They're they're. I.

1:09:30

We've also that leagues of their

1:09:32

to our patriotic his pager on

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that com/overdue pod Get bonus episodes

1:09:36

early get episodes of our long

1:09:38

read projects. Stopped homer time early.

1:09:40

were talking about Everly Wilson's translation

1:09:42

of the Iliad. Good

1:09:44

time I get access to our

1:09:46

discord server. And. Sold at

1:09:48

such a T V V C R repair and

1:09:50

so much more. Ah, Search

1:09:54

feature under cars as your replied. Thank.

1:09:58

everybody for listening to our podcast again Yeah

1:10:00

for another week. Let us know what you

1:10:02

think about what animals will play what instruments

1:10:07

Yes, until we talk to you

1:10:09

next week, please try to be happy That

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