Episode One of "Get Lit With Matt and Brad"

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]All right, welcome to Get Lit. Uh, and I'm Matt Taibbe and he is >> I am Brad Pierce and this is our new show um about books and literature and um stories from the past. Uh for those who were longtime followers of America this week, uh you might know that we had a section that was devoted to novels and short stories. We ended up having a lot of fun with that with Walter Kern and I wanted to bring that uh concept back a little bit and interviewed a number of people. But um uh Brad uh is a very unique character in this respect. He's got an really interesting backstory and you wanted to read something or or you had a quote you prepared a little bit I guess for uh your conception of what this show is going to be about. Brad, can you do you want to get into that?

[00:00:57]Anyway, so yeah, just for my basic background, I'm I'm from Eastern Washington and I have a degree in American literature from Washington State University. I uh I graduated in 2010, though, and really gave up on using my degree for a number of years, but uh I started writing as a midlife career change like four years ago, and now here I am. Anyway, >> okay. Well, you're you're skipping you're skipping a little bit of a a key story point there, which is what did you do during COVID, Brad?

[00:01:26]Uh well, I went crazy for quite a long amount of time because everyone was driving me crazy. And then, and this really relates to what's in Libby that I'm about to read, right? Um >> and then I just um started reading through all of the ancient histories in order like all of the major ones. Uh I made it from, you know, like Heroditus to uh like the second century. Yeah.

[00:01:51]Herodotus, Didities, um, Palibius, you know, really, uh, Dioderus, really, all of them in order. And, um, of course, really the conclusion that you draw from that is mostly that it's always the same [ __ ] you know, like it's just a whole series of wars that most of which didn't have to happen for any good reason. Um, anyway, I found it really helpful and then it was interesting to see what the opening of Libby is, is um, he's explaining here, this is the first page, why he's writing this. And he says, "I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world and to write without any of that over anxious consideration which may well plague a writer on contemporary life, even if it does not lead him to conceal the truth."

[00:02:36]And he says a little bit later um uh the the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind. For in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see. And in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings. Find things to take as models base things rotten through and through to avoid. And I think that applies to literature just as well as history.

[00:03:04]>> Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And and we're we're we're at a time where uh a lot of us in media are struggling because the news is just so uh relentlessly uh stupid andor uh horrifying uh or ephemeral and fastm moving and difficult to get a grip on. And uh it's not the kind of thing that that I don't know me personally it make doesn't make me happy to read about the news anymore. like I I I come away almost always depressed, feeling overwhelmed, and I feel like uh increasingly going back and reading something that's sub substantive that does exactly what Livby describes there.

[00:03:46]It it's sort of a a curative for um for the craziness of the moment. Uh so and and I think that applies to the story we're going to the thing we're going to read today which is this the play that you picked out uh the assembly women by Aristophanes which was going on at a very crazy time. Do you do you want to tell people a little about uh about the background of of this play?

[00:04:11]>> Yeah. So this play is from it's one of Aristophanes two surviving post-war plays. Um and it's about 12 10 to 15 years after his nearest prior play. It's not known exactly when it was released.

[00:04:25]Sometime in the late 390s. Um, and so at this time >> Oh, I thought it was 391. Really? Okay.

[00:04:32]>> Well, my book says we don't know exactly when it was released. So, I we we did end up with different editions even though we meant to have the same one.

[00:04:38]Um, anyway, it's some it's sometime in the late 390s. So, at this time, uh, you know, Athens lost a war that went on for 25 years with a five-year break in the middle of it. Um, the Spartans put in this oligarchic government called the 400 that had like it's like history's earliest reign of terror like uh France under apier or whatever. And the whole city was full of informers. They were finally driven out by democratic forces.

[00:05:04]And now Athens is still now greatly reduced. They're in an uneven peace with Sparta. And uh there's about 15 years of if it's 3 391 there's 15 years of Spartan supremacy remaining before the thieans defeat them at the battle of Lucra and start an era of thieven supremacy. Um and so the people that are living in Athens at this time really the only thing you can compare it to is is a European in 1950 like what they've lived through in their lives. Um, I don't think there's any specific country that is the perfect comparison, but just in general, they've seen this war go on forever and ever with a break. It comes to a conclusion that really just weakened everyone in Greece. Um, other than the Spartans overextended as well.

[00:05:49]Um, and they just don't know what the future is. The economy in Athens is really bad and they just they really can't figure out what to do. Um it's it's really was a very hard time when they were in terminal decline and they did they did know it like they're partially in a recovery period but uh the just the amount of misery that this public had lived through caused by their idiotic political leaders more than anything was just immense.

[00:06:15]>> Yeah. And and so for people who who don't know the general background here, >> the Pelpeneisian wars basically have two two big influential citystates in uh in the Greek territories, right? So that you have a Athens and and Sparta could two societies that could not possibly have been more different. Uh Sparta had no written tradition at all. Is is that right? basically for uh >> I mean I mean they had writing but yeah they didn't really have any legacy of art they didn't make great buildings even at the time facities commented that in the future no one would ever know there was a great city there unless it was written about Spartan is still a pretty small city uh in today you know um and so yeah they were they were just very different people there's a a quote about this that I don't think we're really ready for yet comparing the character of the two of them but it you know it's interesting like something that people don't necessarily realize is that they always talk about the Spartans being really religious and they were always having all these sacrifices and not going to war because they uh you know the omens were bad and all this other stuff like that. What's funny about this though is that the Spartans only ate like black bread and this this bone broth or this blood broth you know called like black pudding and when you sacrificed an animal in ancient Greece you ate the animal. So it's like the only chance they actually got to eat a steak is if they sacrifice a cow or whatever. So they're having all of these religious festivals all the time and you know claiming they're doing it for religious purposes when they probably honestly just want to eat.

[00:07:47]>> Right. Right. Um and what becomes important also to the to to this story is that Athens was a capitalistic society with a lot of trade. Um every the citizens were encouraged to engage in commercial activity.

[00:08:06]uh Sparta very much the opposite. Uh your citizenship depended on your regular contribution basically to a military messaul like you you you had to to deliver a certain amount of food to basically the the army supplies uh and it was all uh I guess is communistic a good term to use? I don't know. I mean it it it's >> it's generally considered to be like barracks communism.

[00:08:37]>> Yeah. Barracks communism, right? Yes.

[00:08:39]>> Kind of like modern day Aratraa, >> right? Right. Um is modern day Eratria the like that I guess. Uh >> yeah, they have like 20 year long mandatory military service for all males.

[00:08:52]>> Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So, we have these two these two powers that have been waring forever. There is no hope in sight. It's kind of like modern day America. like you can't imagine that there's ever going to be a reconciliation between these two halves of Greece uh and Aristophanes uh who is the the the comic playright um who we're featuring here today. The play is called the assembly women if we didn't mention that before. Um uh one of the things he did in an earlier play called Lysrada is he kept openly talking about uh sort of Greece and the polies. He kept like using the terms interchangeably sort of implying that there would be like one Greece if they could you know the concept of that play is a sexual strike by all women uh that would unite uh the country in peace and but they go in a little bit of a different direction uh in the assembly women and I don't know Brad do you want to give a little little outline on on the the plot of this story is so weird and so funny uh Uh, and it lends itself to some amazingly disgusting and funny jokes, but but uh why don't you just give us a little little um summary of it if you could?

[00:10:16]>> Okay. Well, the the basic premise is that the women they all dress up as their husbands and they go to the assembly and they vote to put women fully in charge of the government. Um, it's worth noting that clothes were very expensive in antiquity. Once you know this, it makes a lot things make more sense. So like the men didn't have another set of clothes to go. So the women dress their husband's clothes.

[00:10:37]They basically come home and tell them that they've overthrown the government.

[00:10:40]Um and then they they implement like sexual communism. They put all they put all property in common. And it is really when this came out, Aristophanes was, you know, past his prime. It's it's kind of a mess of a play. Like it doesn't really conclude well, but it's it's such a funny premise. Um, and I I do think another thing you need to know about Aristophanes is that this guy with amazing specificity had the exact worldview of the average modern podcast host and that he believed that uh he believed that Athens was ran by like a gay pedo cult and that they um you know and that they were putting all of the money into the military-industrial complex instead of taking care of the people. But you know that that all of these elites were completely incompetent. But then at the same time he didn't actually have any solutions and it's yeah that's one of the most incredible things about reading him is that like oh this guy would have done great on the internet today. Yeah. So that that's kind of a feature of the way he he structures uh his plays like they will be developing in in a certain direction but rather than wind it up in a climax that's satisfying or makes a point he just sort of everybody has a party and that's it. That's the every and that's it. the people get to walk off the stage. But uh it's really funny.

[00:11:59]The set the setup basically is all the women are kind of tiptoeing around in the beginning uh of the play and they've got this grand plan that they're going to dress up in fake beards and their husband's clothes. Do they have fake beards? Do I have that right?

[00:12:15]>> No, they they have fake beards for sure.

[00:12:16]And they they stop shaving their armpits, too.

[00:12:18]>> They stop shaving their armpits. And there's some really gross armpit lines in this uh in this thing. Um and they basically show up and and go to the Athens assembly in place of their husbands and vote themselves into power and impose uh basically complete collectivism like all private property, all privately owned things, money, everything is all collectively owned. and they impose sexual communism. What does sexual communism mean? Uh this is really uh it's really funny. Um so the concept is everybody can have sex with everybody else, but if you want to have sex, especially the men, they talk more about the men with this. If a if a man wants to have sex with an attractive woman, he has to have sex with an ugly one first. So, uh, like here are the a couple of lines. Unattractive females will stand behind the cute ones. If a male wants to enjoy the ladder, he must first screw an ugly one. Um, and this ends up being like later in the play. uh kind of a uh there's there's a there's a grotesque scene involving a young man named uh uh Epigenis or Epig Epigenies, I don't know how to pronounce that exactly. Um but he he's he's trying to to get with a young girl and ends up uh basic basically taken by force by three old crrons. Um, but uh that ends up being the uh kind of the punchline of the story. And it sounds silly, but there's actually a serious point behind it. The this play more than the earlier one by Aristophanes is is spoofing the communism idea as um unrealistic.

[00:14:20]You know, the women sort of believe that as soon as they impose this, everything's going to be great. crime is going to end. Um, and well, I'll I'll find some of those quotes in a minute.

[00:14:31]Um, >> well, so another thing to think about is that uh this has a lot of similarities to Plato's Republic and it's not generally considered that Plato's Republic was released in the written form that we know it yet. But by by tradition, it's said that Aristophanes and Plato were friends and Aristophanes is a character in the symposium. So it is assuming it's assumed that this is partially a parody on the ideas that Plato was going around telling everyone at the time about you know his guardians and yeah holding things in common and all these other things.

[00:14:58]>> Right. Right. And and the it's really funny the way it's presented. So as soon as the women take over uh they switch to this character named uh Blip Hyus and I I couldn't find what that word means. Like so the the main character is a woman named Praxagoria which is it's it's sort of a joke. It's almost like agency user or something like that. Like you know acting in the public square is what Praxagoria means. I have no idea what Blyrus means except it sounds funny. It sounds like a like a dumbass dude which is what he is. Um and he he basically needs to take a dump. Uh can't do it. his wife's not in the house, so he dresses up in her gown and goes looking for a place uh to do it.

[00:15:49]Um, and then they inform him, he slowly is informed that women have taken over uh the country and it dawns on him that this might not be the worst thing in the world. Like there's a really funny uh section where um where he he asks one of the first things he asked is is uh so from here on in my wife, not me, will have to deal with all the lawsuits uh and I won't need to wake up with a groan every morning, you know, and this this basically sounds like a good good thing.

[00:16:23]And this other person says, "No, that uh pleasure now belongs to women. You can quit your groaning and fart the day away." and the dude is kind of psyched initially uh about about the whole arrangement. So, and this is this is one of the things that's frustrating. If you read about this play in any academic papers, they'll they'll write it up as a you know, this intersectional uh prediction about women sort of using their collective power to uh destroy the patriarchy.

[00:16:56]But the the play really I don't know you you tell me Brad what you think. I I think it makes fun it's kind of brutally makes fun of both sexes.

[00:17:06]>> Yeah. Well, you know, of course the idea is that nothing Athens does works and that they keep coming up with these new innovations that then go badly and they're saying, you know, women have done things the same way that always works. Um, another funny thing about this is that they they make the argument that people still feminists still make today commonly that's like, "Oh, well, if women were in charge, there wouldn't be any war." And then, you know, whenever a woman reach reaches high political office, she's like twice as wararmongering to prove a point. Like, you know, like the only Nixon could go to China principle, which destroys all electoral politics. Um, and you know, it's actually strange. There's a line in this where she says, "Well, we wouldn't send our sons to war and we'd make sure they were wellfed." which is very strange because food wasn't provided for soldiers in ancient Greece. They were expected to buy their own meals daily.

[00:17:52]Um so that that's not even part of you'll see in like the cities like you'd set a market up outside of the town and sell them. They were going by partially so you didn't have to let an army into your city walls but they wouldn't attack you looking for food etc. So yeah that that's not even part of what the job of the government was in this society. Uh but overall it's you know the same things that they say now of like oh women yeah women wouldn't be as aggressive. They'd take care of everything. They're good at household management. They know how to economize and you know all of this other stuff.

[00:18:21]And then of course they just do the ziest thing possible as soon as they have access to power at all.

[00:18:27]>> Right. Right. Um and it's just full of incredibly dirty jokes. Uh I I got from you that that Aristophanes was is was a bit of a homophobe a little bit, but there there's a section in the beginning where um Praigoria, who's the the ring leader, she's the female ring leader of this whole scheme. And she's somebody's saying, "How can a woman's group with women's thoughts address the people?" And one of the other women says, "Well, men who get [ __ ] in their holes are the best public speakers, so we should we should be all right."

[00:19:07]Basically, is the joke. Um, >> yeah. I mean, and in the clouds, he also has a whole thing about how everyone with power are buggers, and it's like the only way to get ahead in Athens.

[00:19:16]Anyway, another thing I was going to say here, though, is that when he's constipated, you know, he has this line where it says something along the lines of like, "Oh, does anyone have uh any have any experience with bottoms?" It's not like he looks out into the audience and says like dozens of you. Uh so you know he doesn't resist the urge to call the audience gay. It's also another thing that I think is very funny is that he makes a scene he makes a reference to how this is like a scene in some low comedy which is you know of course is exactly what it is. There's another one in the clouds where he says something like no you can't watch a play anymore without it just being some old man being beaten with a stick or whatever which then happens in the very play where he says that. And also, I did not realize that's why they call it slapstick comedy. It's just actually the joke is slapping someone with a stick.

[00:19:58]>> Is that Is that true?

[00:20:00]>> Yeah, absolutely. It was already called slapstick back then, and it was because it was funny to have an, you know, an old man get beaten with someone's cane.

[00:20:08]>> That's really funny. Yeah, the the uh there are there are so many things in this play that you'll recognize from modern comedies if you if you're paying attention. So >> that that thing about how it all sounds like some line in a low comedy that that's >> that's straight out of top secret.

[00:20:26]Remember remember remember the the guy the Zucker brothers movie that was made after Airplane. Um >> no I' I've not seen that but they do make a lot of jokes like that in modern comedies. Certainly.

[00:20:36]>> Yeah. There there there's a scene where they're like it all sounds like a line in some bad movie and then both characters look look at the screen. Um but there there's a a bunch of things like that in here. Um, for instance, there's a line that's straight out of Candid, uh, the character of Blyrus, the the sort of douchy dude who is has been unseated from power. Uh, he says, "However idiotic our laws, everything will turn out for the best." Yeah.

[00:21:08]>> Um, which is again that's straight out of Pang, you know, the the philosopher Pang Gloss and Candid. There's another scene that feels exactly like Catch 22 um where she's trying to justify the scheme that she's in um by by talking about how well if we confiscate everything that everybody's going to have a share and so how can you steal from something yourself when you yourself are an owner? Um, and she says, "Here's what I say. That every person will have a share in everything. I will make all land, all money, all that any person owns collective property." And then later on there's a line, "How can a rich man steal what he has a share in?"

[00:21:55]And this is uh straight out of the Eminem enterprises and in Catch 22 where, you know, everybody's part of the syndicate and everybody gets a share. Of course, nobody does, right? uh in in the end the everybody who has a theoretical share of everything in Eminem Enterprises ends up with nothing except getting shot at. Uh but it sounds good at the moment. Um there's a whole bunch of stuff like this. Somebody in the comments uh when I put this up on Friday uh pointed out pointed to the to the scene in the life of Brian where all the women were wearing beards so that they can stone somebody in the um you know whoever cast the first stone scene in the Bible their version of that. Uh so there's there's a lot of this that is like archetypal uh slapstick comedy. I mean would you say >> yeah I mean that's part of how the old comedies were. Another line that is really funny is that uh they're talking about how since there's sex communism, you won't know who your father is and everyone's going to be your father. And he says like, "Oh, well then they'll just all beating us because that's the way kids treat their fathers these days." And it's like, "Oh, it's it's always the same shit." Like they're already saying, you know, the kids these days have no respect. There's also a famous line by Aristotle about like the long-haired youth not listening to their parents or something like that, you know?

[00:23:16]>> Did he do that? Yeah, it's I believe it's Aristotle has uh yeah that a line that's so perfect like that. Um and there's many other examples of you know people always saying the same things. I mean and that's one of the really valuable things about reading these works from ancient Greece. It's like our society is in many like our particular society is in so many ways similar to Athens but it really just shows you you know these are like modern humans just like us and people don't necessarily realize that if they haven't read these ancient works and you know they're dealing with the same problems that we have sometimes better sometimes worse and discussing the same kinds of ideas and that's that's why Aristophanes is so classic like uh it it just works at any time there will be things going on that you can relate it to.

[00:24:03]>> Here, here we have a Mark Blair 5380 saying, "Aristophany's plays seem like South Park episodes." They do a little bit. Um and and and then that's one of the frustrating things about this whole subject is you know especially during that uh very heated period the the whole moral reckoning period of 2020 um and the years before then when when when suddenly there was this war on classics.

[00:24:34]this idea that uh these are these are works that have no uh relevance to modern society.

[00:24:44]There was there was a particular garden story that drove me nuts. Um because it talked about Yale students uh trying to decolonize the cannon. Um and here was the quote from the the Guardian. They want the university to abolish the major English poets requirement and to refocus the courses pre-1800 1900 requirements quote to deliberately include literatures relating to gender, race, sexuality, abbleism, and ethnicity. Um, and that's exact that's all this play is about. Uh, it's, you know, it's it really gets pretty deeply into all these issues. I mean, it doesn't get into the to I guess the queer issue that much beyond one gross line, but um it's certainly, you know, explores all this stuff in great detail. And uh Aristophanes had, you know, a couple of plays that went uh into significant detail about the question of whether or not it would be better uh or worse for women to be in charge of things or what would happen if that were to be the case. Um and and I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to get at is I'm I'm frustrated at the way that these these things are represented uh you know in in in modern media in academia as if as if they're all advertisements for some old uh bygone version of patriarchal kingly rule. It's exactly the opposite of that.

[00:26:27]They they were thinking in a lot of pretty weird directions even back then, weren't they?

[00:26:32]>> Yeah. Well, I mean, and and Aristophanes in particular is interesting because a lot of the ancient writers it it is true that um you get the feeling that they didn't really talk to women very much or, you know, they didn't know them very well. Facidities famously has almost no women in the entire text, you know, and when they they are they're mentioned as like bread bakers and stuff like that.

[00:26:52]Um, so like Aerosphony was really deeply interested in in women and and seems to have genuinely liked them and uh his women characters are written very well.

[00:27:03]Um, and you know they have fully like functioning sex drives. That's kind of the big joke in in both the assembly women and Liza Strada is you know like they I mean really the the main humor of Liza Strada is that the women go on this sex strike and then everyone in the society is really horny the whole time while they fail to come to any sort of conclusion you know and you know these are things that like even in like the 19th century people didn't talk about female sexual desire very much or had weird you know ideological views of it and all these other things and um I really think that's part of uh it's it's really strange how I think in our society, Aristophanes went from being kind of too runchy to be something that you could perform um to straight to the other side where people see it as like too homophobic and too sexist and you know like wouldn't want it played for basically the exact opposite reasons. It would would have been controversial to do one of these productions in 1950.

[00:27:55]>> Yeah. So the the um the thing that's frustrating when you read about uh the analyses of of Aristophanes is they it's exactly what you said they they leave out they always describe it as um both Lysrada and the assembly women as stories about women uh getting together to exercise their agency and use political power to stop uh deadly blood bloody wars. Um but the plays themselves are actually very full. Um and and and part of what makes them fun is that they uh they spend so much time talking about how much they love sex like both both of the sexes. Yeah. Um, and it, you know, you come out of these plays. You don't come into these plays thinking about uh women and men being uh basically um divided hopelessly and at war with one another. you you get the sense that they're temporarily dislodged, but you know, they they can't live without one another, but they're they're resorting to something extreme to try to get this horrible political situation under control. Like for instance, even Liza Strrada in the beginning of of the the the play when she's telling the other women what her plan is, she says, "Well, you're going to have to, you know, give up something serious in order for this to work." And another woman says, "Well, what what is it? Tell us."

[00:29:41]And she says, "Well, first you'll do it then." Um, yes, but you know, we're ready to sacrifice our lives. And Lysata says, "All right then, but but what you must abstain from is dick." Uh, and that's that's the joke, right? And that's kind of like the the the tenor that the whole thing is written in. Um, and you just if if you're reading about this stuff, you you you will not get that um >> from there's another thing to think about here, which is that Aristophanes did the Shakespeare thing where, you know, when these women are dressed as men, the the actors are men. So, they're men pretending to be women pretending to be men, like in a Shakespeare play. And it's not there's not really a consensus on h how much they did this, but you know, often at least in some Greek theaters, the men would be wearing a fat list. So you have basically a big strap on to represent that you're a man a man.

[00:30:36]You have to imagine there's this stage blocking where like the dicks are hitting each other on stage to represent that they're men. And I'm sure it was all very funny to see this performed live back then.

[00:30:45]>> Yeah. Yeah. And and this was um I mean that that's where we get the idea of sat of satire from, right? you know, the the the the seder was was always represented as having these, you know, giant hardons. And in any picture in any public square, there were you people would scribble graffiti of, you know, basically dicks going into people's ears and stuff like that. Like that was the level of the comedy that they operated on. Do you remember the story of the the Hermes in in Athens that that got all their dicks broken off?

[00:31:25]>> Uh, no.

[00:31:26]>> Yeah. So, during during the Pelpeneisian war, this is when when Alabiades was really growing in power, who um Alabetes, if you don't know, he's like one of the most famous psychopaths in all of history. He's in he's in like psychology textbooks as an archetype of the psychopathic person. Um, but yeah, he was he was very popular. And so people had these little Hermes statues you would put in front of your house that then they they had a dick on them.

[00:31:52]And one night some group of pranksters in Athens broke broke all the dicks off all throughout the city. And Alabetes got blamed for it. It's part of how he ended up being brought to trial and um going into exile. That's a whole long story. Regardless, like this is just what what you had in front of your house in Athens. It's just this this hermet with a huge fallace on it. Crazy.

[00:32:14]>> Yeah. But you you will see writeups where people talk about how in ancient Greek society the display of phallic symbols was uh somehow inherently offensive uh and indicative of how badly organized that society was. Um whereas I think these people were basically just horny and thought about sex a lot. Um, and there there there's a lot of incredibly sort of juvenile humor like >> Oh, yeah.

[00:32:43]>> that the there there there's a scene where uh these a young woman and an old woman are basically having what what do you call that? It's like it's sort of like a >> birds doing mating calls against each other basically.

[00:33:00]>> Right. Right. they they're preparing for the fact that uh you know once this whole revolution goes down, the old ladies are are are ready to step in um and get some before the the young ladies can can uh attract their boyfriends and they just sit there ragging on each other over and over again. Um, and there's one who is um who's who's listening to one of the young uh young women talk and she points to her ass and she says complain to this and then get the hell out of here, which is which is the it's it's the old talk to the hand, don't talk to me joke, except, you know, they did it with a butt in this uh this whole thing. Um it some of the other lines uh with the younger woman says you horrid crone all trimmed and tweezed and plastered all over with foundation are the darling honey bun of death. Uh and the answer is I pray your [ __ ] falls off. Um and it just goes on and on like that.

[00:34:13]But it's funny. I mean, the the you have to say like all the one the oneliners in this in this uh play are are quite funny.

[00:34:23]>> Well, it's funny, too. He's talking about how like he's going to write an affidavit that he's sick and he'll he'll claim an exemp exemption saying he's engaged in essential trade and that's why he doesn't have to. And then the woman says to him, the girl says, "You're a fool then. He's not old enough to sleep with you. You'd be more like a mother than a mistress. If people start doing this kind of thing, we we shall have little edipuses everywhere."

[00:34:42]>> That's That's right. That's right. Yeah, we'll have little little uh edififices everywhere. Um let's see what what's the what's the other one? Um yeah, so the there and they and they pick on it's it's so funny. There are so many ideas that are like hot right now that uh kind of get a mention. Um like family abolition pops its uh head up a little bit in here. Uh there's a basically because everybody gets to sleep with everybody else. Somebody brings up the question, well how will a man be able to identify which kids are his? And the answer is he won't. The children will consider all the older males to be their father. So it's like the it takes a village uh version of um of families. The traditional family dies dies off uh unceremoniously in this play. Well, there are elements of that in Sparta, you know, like they were kind of into what we would now call eugenics and stuff like that. It wasn't that common to have like uh the strongest man knock up your wife for you and that not have unclear parentage and stuff like that. So, I'm sure as well as him responding to Plato's ideas, uh, much of this would have came from him him knowing the system. You know, in Sparta where they have the Jo and, uh, all of the younger men are supposed to treat the older men like fathers because they they grow up in a collective hall, >> right? Yeah. The the I was very confused by the class system in Sparta when I was trying to read about it. It's it seemed um uh difficult to me. Um but yeah and but humorless in a way that the this society clearly is not. Um you know this they had a lot of time for writing and making jokes and and drinking wine and getting laid and and all that stuff. Uh there are there are several jokes in both plays in um uh in Lysrada and and in the assembly women about dildos. Uh Aristophanes must have been obsessed with this issue. Uh uh there is a apparently the Athenians uh uh imported dildos from a place um called Malit Malicius or Mitus.

[00:37:17]>> Molitus is how I was counted.

[00:37:18]>> Mitus in in I in Ionia uh which is across the sea. So there were there were Yeah. So you have to if you look at this map it's like all the way in in the sort of bluish green area Lydia. Yeah, right there. Um, so you gota you got to take a sea voyage to bring these uh dildos across. Um, and uh, let's see. There there's a line about it that's that's really funny.

[00:37:48]Wait, wait a second. See if I can find it. Um, he he he makes a a joke about it. Uh, that's right. Here it is. Uh, ever since Malayus broke away from us, I haven't been able to I haven't seen one of those 5-inch dildos. Not one, though. They'd have been small consolation to us, which is ridiculous. And then it came up in the other other play as well.

[00:38:14]>> Yeah. And of course, some narrators got to use euphemisms and some are much more direct and and not knowing Greek myself, it's not um, you know, that easy to say.

[00:38:22]Something that is really interesting about Aristophanes in general is there just because it's so old. There are all of these random references that are see maybe like the first reference to something existing like the clouds has the oldest extent reference to the existence of a magnifying glass when he's talking about like maybe you could burn your name off a contract with a one of those pieces of glass you get from an apothecary that makes things look bigger and um yeah so I mean commercial trade and dildos um you know we know from um a a fairly random line in Zenifon that at this time there was longdistance trade in in written texts as well. So, you know, maybe some of these plays also.

[00:39:00]Um, it's it's really the amount that we know about antiquity is remarkable, though, you know, there's other stuff that I would say either we don't know or doesn't hold up. Like in this, she's talking about at the beginning how her husband had her up all night. She's amazed the bed sheets weren't torn or whatever. And she says, "Well, he's from Salamus. What more do I need to say?"

[00:39:16]And I think I would like for you to say more. I don't know any stereotypes about people from Salamus in, you know, 400 AD. But, you know, Salamus is that little island right off the coast of Athens that is like part of Athens essentially. But it, you know, it must just mean they're, you know, rednecks basically. I I guess.

[00:39:34]>> Yeah. The there there must be some joke the we can probably make an analog, but we we get in trouble if you pick the wrong one. though. Um >> but what on a larger uh sense um I found this interesting because we're at a time when uh there is so much discussion about the roles of men and women like our current politics is so heavily uh gender influenced or sex influenced right um the Republican party owns a major advant advantage with men. The Democratic Party may a massive advantage with women, particularly uh older unmarried women. Um where there's just an unbelievable uh uh difference. Um, and part of that is is that there's like an underlying kind of nastiness about um about the differences between men and women that is absent from this play.

[00:40:49]Even though obviously, you know, they're taking very seriously the differences between men and women. And they are saying that cliche thing about how if women ran the world there'd be fewer wars and all that. Uh but there's the concession that we don't get anymore, which is that men and women love each other. Uh can't, you know, love having sex with each other.

[00:41:14]Uh couldn't go couldn't go without each other. They're both ridiculous. Like they they both pick on themselves constantly. Um, you know, like there's there's a scene early in Lass Estrada where uh somebody says, "Well, everyone's going to be relying on us women." And one of the women says, "On on us women, then it rests on very little." Um, and but the men make the same kind of jokes like, you know, there's there's something about how um somebody comments about how corrupt they all are and one of the men says, "Well, yeah, I guess it's true. When it comes down to it, we cheat even when we're being watched." Um, and uh, so it's this self-deprecating uh, kind of humor, gender humor that is completely different from what we get now where it's I don't know. It's Do you know what I'm saying? Am I making any sense?

[00:42:15]>> Yeah. Know, I see what you're saying.

[00:42:16]the um it it's it's much more authentic and it is not tinged with a sort of um oh just a a bitter like searching probing irony that you know everything has had to be dipped in in our society.

[00:42:30]Um and yeah I so it it does it feels very different from how this would be portrayed if someone tried to do do something like this today. Absolutely.

[00:42:41]>> Um okay so what do we know about Aristophanes as a historical character?

[00:42:45]What can you tell me about him? Because he he he's he does seem to stand out. Uh I mean there were there were obviously other satists. Um but I had never read I actually had had never read him before.

[00:43:01]And he is uh you know it's a different experience than reading Juvenile or something like that. I mean, it's it's a a different kind of humor, and you can tell where a lot of modern comedians got certain tropes from after reading uh the these plays.

[00:43:22]>> Yeah, I don't think that we know a huge amount about him besides uh you know, roughly his age. He he would have served in in the Pelipanian wars. There's no way he could have got out of it. I mean like I I told you this before like but I had this idea for a satirical novel when I was reading this of this you know this this bald bitter anti-war political humorist is uh you know is at the war.

[00:43:42]He must have been like the worst soldier in the history of soldiers. Um and I mean this another thing we know is that he was prematurely bald because uh the way these works that you kind of address the audience because there's a panel of judges and he'd go out there and her ranging them like Maximus yelling are you not entertained? If he didn't win he'd get really mad. in his defense, one time he lost to a play that was called, I kid you not, the pedest um which he was very mad about. But anyway, yeah, I guess we know he was prematurely bald and that people gave him a hard time about it. Um and then there's the belief that he was friends with Plato because there's a a eulogy or something for him that is traditionally attributed to Plato and you know he he appears in the symposium. But uh you know I think besides that mo mostly it's just what you know has been kind of reconstructed from from the various things that he's said in you know in his plays.

[00:44:34]>> Yeah. And he he there's a a lot of that sort of a apostrophic humor too where he he brings the audience in on the joke in the middle of the play like um there's one moment in here where he where he Oh yeah uh he he's picking on somebody.

[00:44:54]That's right. It's papyrus. But uh he's finding out that the assembly has called him everything like um a thief, a crook, corrupt, and he keeps saying just me. Uh and finally the answer is well you and all these people. And he points to the audience. Uh which I'm I'm assuming would have been a laugh line back then.

[00:45:15]But >> yeah. Well, since the mid fifth century, Athens had just been increasingly growing corrupt and had increasingly been doing the Dtoqueville thing about, you know, bribing the public with the public's own money. So, at this point, you know, they're getting three oles a day, uh, which is half a drama, if that's helpful. Um, they're getting three oles a day to just send to go to this assembly and they're all competing to get in, not because they care about the city, but because they're being paid. And you know it was only 50 years before that that they started paying juries and you know uh Pericles put on all these make work programs to keep the free artisans happy and etc. And uh yeah it it was just becoming ever more corrupt. It's really interesting in in peace by Aristophanes there. There's what must be the first really clear explanation of the military-industrial complex that exists because he's like talking about how the spear and the shield makers and whatnot are like lobbying the government to keep the war going so that they can keep selling, you know, spears and shields and that it's never going to be allowed to stop because of that. And you know, it's another one of these things that's remarkable. It's it's always the same [ __ ] >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh absolutely. Um well he he he there's a lot in here also um that in this particular play less so by the way I thought in Lisa Strada like Lisa Strata seemed to me you correct me if you think I'm wrong I thought uh the assembly women was much more of a rip on the whole concept of uh matriarchal communism and how and what a cure all that would be than L Estrada was like there there was an element I I thought in the in the in in that play that seemed like he was pretty serious about the idea of this being a way to end the war. Um but in the assembly women uh there there are are lines over and over and over again where it's basically just as soon as this happens every problem in history is going to just disappear. Um nobody will dare commit atrocities. Nobody will b bear false witness. Nobody will profit off informing on a neighbor. Nobody will break an N or nobody will and nobody will envy other people. Uh and it's it's the classic uh issue that people who design these utopian systems never account for individual tastes and differences. And I I think that's one of the reasons why the the operating other joke in this story is a is the sexual communism idea because you just can't force, you know, young women or young men to have sex with old people. Like it's just not going to work. Uh and that's that's the weakness as as strange and shallow as it seems. uh a a critique of, you know, basically Marxism. Um that that is the the criticism and and and it's funny, I think, in in the play.

[00:48:36]Um but it's it's an incredibly modern uh discussion of it. It it sounds so much like things people would say. Now, uh there there are a lot of discussions early on in the play about um marriage as un unpaid labor. You know, meanwhile, the women cook the meals like always and carry burdens on their heads like always and they bake sweet rolls and the h the husbands sit around and do nothing. Um, and you you sympathize with the women early in the story, but as as soon as they start talking about how we're going to make everything collective property and, you know, all the problems are going to go away in a second, then then everything falls apart, it seems to me.

[00:49:28]>> Yeah. I mean, I would say overall Liza Strada is like objectively a much better and more serious play than The Assembly Women is. But, you know, like I wanted to do the assembly women because it's just it's so much more ridiculous than Liza Strada is. Um, and it's uh, you know, and it and it really is one of the earliest discussions that we have of trying to really, you know, intentionally set up a city a certain way. And, you know, I mean, for most of the world, ideology as we know it is is a pretty new thing. Um, you know, everything was done kind of by variations of traditional custom and people didn't have that many thoughts about how a government should be set up.

[00:50:03]And ancient Athens is really one of the first places or ancient Greek generally because you know there's the cret and constitution and a few others was one of the first places where any any cities were like kind of like intentionally designed as opposed to just doing what they had done since antiquity with the you know small modifications as they needed them. And yeah and so since this is one of the first pieces of utopian literature that exists it it does a very good job of showing how ridiculous utopian ideas are.

[00:50:32]Right. Right. Uh but you don't you don't necessarily get that if you if you read the readups of it. Um uh again, just just to bring up just a couple of the other things that that have popped up recently that uh would strike a chord from the these plays, like you know, the the sex strike from Listrada. like we just had that um after Trump won the election. I mean that was a big thing um where everybody was talking about yes are US women protesting against Trump by swearing off sex with men. Uh and you know this is sort of presented as a new idea. It's clearly not a new idea. Um and yeah, you know, there there were there were lots of jokes about um not jokes, lots lots of stories about ooophobia, this phenomenon of no longer being devoted to your own country or to your own home. Oo meaning home, I guess, right? Uh and uh but Lysrado was also hit some a lot of those themes by talking about uh this sort of panh helenic sex strike uh where you know your your um allegiance to to the strike and to the revolution uh would come before your allegiance to Athens or Sparta or whatever it is. Uh, so there, as you say, there's nothing new under the sun. It's all the same [ __ ] It's just um, you know, we're led to believe all of these things are new.

[00:52:20]>> Yeah. I mean, and it's it's not just us being led to believe that. That is kind of just the thing about human nature is that you think whatever you're going through, like you're kind of the first person to deal with it. There's this line in in Plutarch's saying of the sayings of the Spartans where one of the Spartan kings is saying something about how uh every someone says everything's upside down now and he says well you know my father always said that everything was upside down and his father always said that everything was upside down and so I don't think you should be surprised if things get worse you should be surprised if they get better or stay very much the same and you know it's it's really everyone is always at like any point in history people like oh everyone was more respectful 50 years ago or you know things like that and it's it's just remarkable similarity.

[00:53:07]>> Um yeah, what was that? Uh sorry, hang on a second. Um yes, some somebody was asking about trans women. Yes, the the the the concept of of sexual communism. There's a little bit of that in some of these uh some of those stories, too. Like uh if you read about for instance, you know, there were stories a few years ago where uh lesbians were being criticized for not being attracted to to trans women.

[00:53:40]Um you know, hey, you got to make the sacrifice to make this work. Um, and there's there's a similar thing going on like there there are academic journals about uh fat studies talking about how we have to uh go away from medicalizing fatness uh and seeing it as a pathology uh and looking at it as something different. And it's this again, it's this desire to get people to go away from their individual inclinations about things and and hop on with a larger program about about something. I don't know. That's that's that reminded me of that. But um I don't know anything else about the about the story you think you think we need to get to.

[00:54:35]Um, I had some things written down, but I don't think any of them were actually that important. They're more random things of interest to me. Um, yeah, you know, just one one random thing that I thought was worth mentioning is that someone wouldn't necessarily have caught is that early on this woman when the women are discussing how you speak at the assembly, this woman says, "Oh, you know, when we were staying in the city, um, you know, I could always hear them speak from there, you know, so I know how they talk." So what she's referring to is during the early Pelpeneisian war there was uh Athens was under siege and everyone from the outlying areas had to crowd into Athens and you know sleep on the floor and in temples and stuff like that and uh then the plague broke out which they all they've been arguing about what the plague of Athens was for you know over 2,000 years but it appears some kind of Ebola or viral hemorrhagic fever fever or whatever. Jesus.

[00:55:27]>> And so, yeah. Yeah. While they're trapped in this city and Facidities got it and survived, but but Pericles died.

[00:55:33]The the leader of Athens. Um, and people were blaming him for the plague because it was his war. Everyone was crowded in.

[00:55:39]There were bad conditions. And the Spartans outside besieging them didn't get it. Um, it was just absolutely brutal stuff. Anyway, what's crazy is that this is like 35 years after that and she's still making a reference to it. like in the clouds. It's the storyline that he lives in the city because they're in there because of the siege or whatever. That's like when it takes place. But really, the only thing you can compare this to is the Blitz in England where it became like the defining moment. It's like the Blitz, Americans might not realize this, the Blitz is the defining thing that happened to the United Kingdom in the entire 20th century. Like not the war itself, the Blitz specifically. That's why, you know, the lion, the witch in the wardrobe, all this other stuff. Um, and it it's crazy. this really was like that for Athens cuz this that's a long time ago that she he still feels the need to get a shot in about how they all had to do this.

[00:56:25]>> Is is that the moment where she talks about how my husband and I were separated? Um >> she says we used to live by the Pinks or whatever uh when when we had to stay in the city and you know that Yeah. That's what when we had to stay in the city is a reference to because they were all like sleeping in public and stuff like that.

[00:56:42]>> Right. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, that that's another thing I think Americans uh have a hard time connecting with is what happens to a people when they're besieged or um >> you know under the kind of attack that they were under the blitz like you know I was a a student in St. Petersburg and knew people who were what they call blackotinetsy, right? People who lived through the blockade in uh in World War II. And it had a this immense impact on the psychology of the of that city for six or seven decades uh afterwards.

[00:57:31]And you know, I don't think we've g we haven't really gone through something like that in the United States yet.

[00:57:36]We're we're still kind of virgins and when it comes to uh some of the worst horrors of uh of the world, which worries me, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. Um which is not a not a good signifier because we we haven't reacted particularly well to some of the milder forms of discomfort that countries go through. So, uh, but anyway, I thought that this was a really, really interesting story and a really interesting, you know, commentary on men and women and, um, and in a way that was cutting to both while also being, uh, you know, salutary, salutary and affectionate at the same time. Um, I just really like that that that style and I was I was really impressed by how fastm moving the the the action was as well. I mean like you you there there's a joke every two seconds in uh in this play and most um all right. So, uh, the way this the this new format is going to work is, um, we're going to go, uh, the first hour is going to be live and we're going to have a continued discussion that, um, may may branch off into some other subjects. Uh, that will be taped and that will air on Thursday later this week. Uh, just the for your information, we started off with Aristophanes. Uh it's not going to be like that forever going forward. We have there's some much bigger, longer, hairier books uh that are already on the horizon. Um we mutually have a favorite dustki book that we're going to take on pretty soon. Um and it's probably not the one that mo most of you are thinking of. uh and maybe one thing in between and then you at some point uh Brad is going to uh we're going to go through Abselum Absilum uh because uh Brad is a Faulner and uh and you know that's his favorite book.

[01:00:01]So we're that that'll be in the future.

[01:00:04]So, uh we'll we will be back later this week um with the the with a tape discussion uh about uh this and some other things and uh we'll see you then.

[01:00:16]And in the future um you know you can send us questions and we can discuss other top you know answer those in in the tape portion. And uh thanks everybody for tuning in for for our maiden uh episode. Really appreciate Thank you.

[01:00:35]>> All right. Talk to you'all soon.