0:04

Gaze reading, where the greats drop by. Trendy authors tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen, cause we're spoiler free. Gaze reading. From poets and stars, to book club picks. Where the curious minds can get their fix. So you say you're not gay, well that's okay. There's something for everyone. Gaze reading. You Hello, and welcome to gays reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman. Welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here. If you don't know, you could watch some of these videos on YouTube, but the link to the gays reading YouTube channel can be found on our link tree and in the show notes. Speaking of our link tree, you could find that over on our Instagram, which is at gays reading, make sure to give us a follow. We have giveaways happening all of the time. And on today's episode, we have the fantastic Eliot Schrefer. Talking to us about his book B brightness between us, which is the followup book to his lovely, delightful space romance, the darkness outside us. And on today's episode, I have the fantastic guest gay reader. Ariel a Gosey talking to me about her book being bad. Uh, if you like what you're hearing, please share us with your friends. Follow us. Like us subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you can leave us a five star review, it helps make other book levers find gays reading as well. And if you don't know, I'm so excited that we're partnering with art rec book club to provide an exclusive introductory discount. New members in the United States can join it today. Enter the code gays, reading a check-out to get their first book for$4 with free shipping. Those books are usually$17. You can get them for four and they are terrific books that you're dying to read. I am sure of it. Our rec book, club.com. Use the code gays reading, and now welcome Elliot Schreffer

Jason Blitman: 2:09

Elliot Schreffer. Welcome to Case

Eliot Schrefer: 2:11

Thank you, thanks having me.

Jason Blitman: 2:12

Does anyone call you Schreff?

Eliot Schrefer: 2:14

Yeah, absolutely. I have an ex who calls me Shref.

Jason Blitman: 2:16

Oh that doesn't really set me up for success.

Eliot Schrefer: 2:19

It wasn't his problem. The problem wasn't the pronunciation of my name. It was other things got in the way. Shref is just fine. My heart was broken by the last person to call me Shref. Yeah. Nice to talk to you.

Jason Blitman: 2:28

Great. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. It just like Elliot Schreffer, Schreff just seemed like it jumped out at me as what one might call you.

Eliot Schrefer: 2:35

Yeah, it's like the old high school get in the car, Shref, we're going to Denny's.

Jason Blitman: 2:39

Oh, I love that. I don't, don't, certainly don't want to bring back any trauma. Okay. For folks that might not have read the darkness outside us, it has perhaps been on their shelf. Just like it was on mine, and they're just, they've been waiting to read it. The brightness between us is its sequel, and I want to hear its elevator pitch, but if we are unfamiliar with the first one, can we, can you like, tie it up in a little bow, wrap it, give us a little segue for both books.

Eliot Schrefer: 3:05

It's a challenging ask, but I will try it. I can just see you doing some montage music and then it's 20 minutes later. try this. Um, So, Darkness Outsiders is takes place 400 years in the future. There are two young astronauts who are put on a space mission, a last ditch rescue effort for the older sister of one of those two boys who's gone missing on the colony of Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. And they have to work together, even though they're from the two warring countries that remain in the world. It's locked into kind of a cold war. And they work together to make the mission succeed. And, but as they get closer to the rescue, they start to realize that the mission is not at all what they thought it was going to be. And so there's I won't, I know part of your theme music is that you don't reveal the plot. I will say that there's a twist

Jason Blitman: 3:51

This conversation is about the second book. And the first book has been out for a few years now. So you can, listen, the second book is about the same characters. So we know there's more to say.

Eliot Schrefer: 4:03

They're not dead, Right? So we find out about halfway through the first book, the mission is absolutely not what they think. And they have a really shocking conclusion to that part of the book. And then we discover that they are actually on a mission that's going to take 10, 000 years and that they are traveling across the universe to settle a new colony in a distant exoplanet. By the time they arrive they, we find out that civilization on earth has been destroyed. And so it's basically this new colony is literally like Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve and actually when the book gets banned and challenged people are really angry about it. And I'm like, if you actually read the book, you'd be even angrier because I'm actually like trying to place like radical queer agenda. Like I've got your agenda,

Jason Blitman: 4:42

100%.

Eliot Schrefer: 4:43

but the second book. Go 16 years into the future, and we look at the young family of these two boys who are now 36 year old dads on their kids that they're trying to raise through this hardscrabble little house in the prairie, but, like light years away, and we also flashback to the original Ambrose and Kodiak on the original planet. The first time they met and they get to know each other. So we jump, 30, 000 years of time and then across the galaxy as well. So there was a big, a lot of spreadsheeting as I was trying to find out this book, a lot of moving pieces.

Jason Blitman: 5:15

And I was just in conversation last night with Laura Dave, who writes, thrillers and mysteries. And she is a self proclaimed pantser. And I was like, how can you be a pantser when you're writing a thriller? Like, Can't, don't you have to know what's coming? Yeah, I couldn't imagine writing a book that spanned thousands of years without having a sense of how the universe was functioning. I think those were very good brief elevator pitches.

Eliot Schrefer: 5:42

hopefully we're on the elevator ride. That's 10 stories and not four stories. Cause

Jason Blitman: 5:45

an elevator ride into space, it can last generations. I have some hard hitting questions to ask about the book itself, but before we get into those there is a TV show that the siblings in The Brightness Between Us are able to watch. It's like the only show, it's called Pink Lagoon. It's the only thing that they're able to watch over and over again. What is your Pink Lagoon? What would, if you were in space and could only pick one thing, what would it be?

Eliot Schrefer: 6:15

Wow. So first of all I gave them Pink Lagoon because the world building that would be required to actually have 16 year olds that had no earth references whatsoever, like how civilization worked and how societies and groups worked was too hard. And so I needed to have them be able to watch the show so they would understand like what a school used to be and what government was and all that. But for me. So I have, I actually, this morning, in my hard hitting, really, hard working writer life, I was watching season 44 of Survivor after having watched seasons 1 through 43. I always wait until they finish and then I'd binge it all. So as far as quantity of TV watched, Survivor, that's, I've spent 10, 000 hours, I'm like a Malcolm Gladwell.

Jason Blitman: 6:52

Wow. Have you ever thought about going on?

Eliot Schrefer: 6:54

I've applied, I talked to a producer, I got to the second round, but she told me that my personality is too small for TV. It was crushing. It was crushing.

Jason Blitman: 7:03

That's like the worst thing someone could say.

Eliot Schrefer: 7:05

my god, it was brutal. It gave me so much sympathy for my writing students when I give them hard feedback because she like looked at this video I'd spent hours trying to really get right. And she saw it and she was like, your personality is just a little small baby. It's fine. Like you can do other things. So the story I tell myself is that I have more of a PBS personality than a CBS personality. That's how I'm surviving this. But if anyone,

Jason Blitman: 7:25

You are a survivor.

Eliot Schrefer: 7:26

if Jeff Probst is listening to today's reading right now, I'm willing to try again.

Jason Blitman: 7:30

Yeah. I wonder, do they have like international survivor franchises? Like they do some other

Eliot Schrefer: 7:37

They do an Australian one. I know that. And it was pretty popular. I'm not sure otherwise. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 7:41

I was going to say, maybe your personality would fit better in like a different,

Eliot Schrefer: 7:45

The Danish survivor, like some more mild mannered.

Jason Blitman: 7:48

you're like way too vibrant

Eliot Schrefer: 7:50

every day.

Jason Blitman: 7:50

Yes. Who do I need to write to?

Eliot Schrefer: 7:52

I want to be on it and then I would show up and like day two, I'd start crying and I would never stop. Like I would just be, I would be that messy one.

Jason Blitman: 7:59

I had been a Big Brother fan a long time ago and then fell off the wagon and then came back to it a couple of years ago, probably during Covid. But that is probably a good show for you

Eliot Schrefer: 8:09

okay.

Jason Blitman: 8:09

Brother. It's survivor. in a house.

Eliot Schrefer: 8:11

you just cursed my workload now because I know that one also has many seasons to, to watch.

Jason Blitman: 8:16

I know, it really does. There's one currently on right now, so you can, that can be where you're starting. Or honestly, the last couple seasons have also been pretty good.

Eliot Schrefer: 8:24

You need to just email my editor and apologize for me and say it's your fault because this is really terrible news you're

Jason Blitman: 8:29

Sorry, but we're promoting the book. This is important. Although I will say, this current season, there's a lot of conversation about AI, and like deep fakes and stuff. And it certainly fits in the universe of Brightness Between Us.

Eliot Schrefer: 8:45

And it's interesting, actually, Survivor, I feel like the gays do really well on that show, and I think there's often, there's individual episodes where the alliances shift from like the male alliance and the female alliance, and there's a way in which this like empathetic ear and having a facility with crossing gender groups, which you see the men They'll knock down the physical challenges early on, but the straight men, especially start to find it really hard to collaborate with women. And you realize like all the roadblocks that are in there, not to overgeneralize, but there's something about this, like having figured out how to operate in a world that as children or as teenagers was hostile to us, that becomes useful when you're in a inherently hostile environment, like survivor

Jason Blitman: 9:21

Yeah, we're professionals.

Eliot Schrefer: 9:23

professional, I will make you love me.

Jason Blitman: 9:25

Exactly. I'm just trying to be my truest self. My authentic self. Okay. So Survivor would be your show. Similarly, who is your Devin Mujaba?

Eliot Schrefer: 9:37

So for those who haven't read the book, Devan Majaba is the heartthrob pop star in the first book, who actually becomes a fairly significant character in the second book, and he's from this like ridiculous group called the Heartspeak Boys. I almost did B O I S, but I was like, 400 years from now, are they still going to have B O I S for boys? I

Jason Blitman: 9:56

Probably not.

Eliot Schrefer: 9:56

Yeah, I don't think so. But

Jason Blitman: 9:58

B O Y Z is evergreen.

Eliot Schrefer: 10:00

it's eternal, yeah. I should have done Heartspeak Boys, Two Men, just really gone for it. Who is my Devin Mujaba? I tend to idolize female pop stars over male pop stars. I think I am pretty basic. I'm like, I'll always go to a Sara Bareilles concert. Or chapel Rone, if I wouldn't feel weird being middle aged. The Chapel Rone concert.

Jason Blitman: 10:19

It's so funny that your first thing that you said is Sara Bareilles because not to put salt in a wound, but probably what the Survivor producer would have wanted to hear is Madonna or Pink or

Eliot Schrefer: 10:33

I missed my demo. My demo.

Jason Blitman: 10:35

Sara Bareilles is like a little, it's very low key.

Eliot Schrefer: 10:38

I thought you were gonna say, but because surprise, the special guest for the second half of the episode is Sarah. S I'd like Sarah, I was waiting for you.

Jason Blitman: 10:48

I wish. No, she's so chill compared to the, she doesn't have fireworks at her

Eliot Schrefer: 10:53

right? One, like in, in girls five ever. Was she, the. No, she was, the one who was working at a pizzeria and, raising a kid.

Jason Blitman: 11:02

It's right. I love her so much. I had a question. Okay. Wait, no I'm not allowing this answer because part of Devin Mujaba, part of the lore, the appeal is that he's like, Someone these characters would want to sleep with. So give me anyone. They don't have to be a pop star. Who would your one celebrity be?

Eliot Schrefer: 11:22

Oh,

Jason Blitman: 11:23

If you could find yourself awake in a hotel room next to a celebrity. Who would that be?

Eliot Schrefer: 11:27

I'm going to be so mad later because no one immediately comes to mind. And it seems like a real missed opportunity to put, not to put this out in the universe.

Jason Blitman: 11:34

I know we have to secret it out, come

Eliot Schrefer: 11:35

Because I could get a DM, in a few weeks. Gosh. Over the course of my lifetime Brendan Fraser has been near, near New York for a long time. So just for longevity's sake. I can see you're not satisfied with that answer either. I feel like

Jason Blitman: 11:48

No, I just wasn't expecting it,

Eliot Schrefer: 11:50

I know, he's

Jason Blitman: 11:50

George of the Jungle? Bring it on.

Eliot Schrefer: 11:52

There was some tone there. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 11:55

I don't know that I have an answer either, so you're not alone. If someone were to ask me the question, I'm not 100 percent sure who I would say.

Eliot Schrefer: 12:01

Yeah. Is there a a pop star that you would write into your sequel?

Jason Blitman: 12:05

I don't know, I don't think so.

Eliot Schrefer: 12:07

Oh, so you're not going to get on Survivor either. You're You need your brand to be a little sharper.

Jason Blitman: 12:12

I will say, you talking about your experience getting on, not getting on

Eliot Schrefer: 12:16

That is salt in the wound, Jason. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 12:18

Okay. I'm like just talking about very specific things that are in your book before we go on to some more general things. Can you share with our listeners what wake sleep is?

Eliot Schrefer: 12:27

Oh, yes. So Wakesleep is, does not exist in the first book, but is in Brightness Between Us. There is a mission Ambrose and Kodiak are to handsome young men have to go on journeying across Scotland during wartime to get to a place they need to go to. Ambrose brings this high tech, substance called wake sleep, which cycles you through your sleep cycles, but doesn't ever shut down consciousness while you're doing it. So you can be fully rested at the end of eight hours, but you've taken this drug that keeps you alert and awake while you're doing it. But because it always struck me as really wild. We do this thing. We do it every night, so we don't even notice it, but we close our eyes and become unconscious for eight hours if we're lucky or five hours if we're not lucky and like just and wake up and then we just. We were there and totally vulnerable and laying there. It just seems crazy, especially during a condition of war. And I was imagining 400 years in the future, I'm sure they would have figured out some way to avoid this wasted, very helpless time that we have in sleep. So I invented it.

Jason Blitman: 13:27

Any technology that I've read about in a book that is fictional, that is the one. I was like, this is what I want. I want wake sleep. Who do we need to write to? Who do we know in the pharmaceutical business? I,

Eliot Schrefer: 13:41

should run an ad right now during your podcast. Are you feeling symptoms of sleepiness? Call your doctor and ask him about wake sleep.

Jason Blitman: 13:48

I, I'm one of those people who like, really doesn't get much more than five or six hours of sleep. I don't know why. I just can't do it. Maybe I have FOMO and I just want to be in the world.

Eliot Schrefer: 13:57

It's so frustrating. It happened to be the moment I turned 40, I stopped being able to sleep more. And I miss those days in my 20s when I would fall asleep and wake up 10 hours later and smile into the dawn. Those days are gone.

Jason Blitman: 14:07

I was never a 10 hour sleeper, but I, it's very upsetting to me that I cannot sleep more than five or six ish hours. It's, so I need wake sleep. That's really, I, I don't know where that came from in your imagination, but I, it's important to me that we figure out who we can reach out to.

Eliot Schrefer: 14:24

Someone's working on it. I, it's one of the things with science fiction. I think Since it's 400 years in the future, most of the stuff that, like even you ask people in the sixties what they thought 2020 would be like, and they would all say it's like flying cars, right? That was what all their visions of the future were. And that is not what we're doing. We're doing other stuff like internet. I think when I'm imagining 400 years in the future, I like just didn't even try to imagine the straightforward general tech movement, but instead I tried to think of. Some unusual, surprising things that I could drop in that, that no one would expect. And wake sleep was one of those things just for the world building part. Cause it's, like I have people, like they use a bracelet to communicate, but that's all kind of vanilla sci fi. Like you can just pull that one out of a sci fi hat and that's everyone's doing that. I just figured what else can we drop in there? And this, there's also the idea of like pleasure satellites that you would be able to like, just go up to something in orbit And it's just like a giant nightclub like over the earth with these zero gravity dance clubs where you would be dancing over open air just like staring down five miles to the ground below if you're dancing and it's up in the sky. Not that I would ever do it, I'd be like gripping the walls like in the roller rink when I was in sixth grade. But it just seemed okay, like that's the scene I can get my, I can feel an emotional content to it, I can get my teeth into it. It feels yeah. Belongs in a scene with humans in it and a lot of sci fi can feel cold and like it's tech building just for its own sake and I'm less interested in that as a writer.

Jason Blitman: 15:51

The first book to now, it's not like you waited 10 years between books. So there, there haven't been tremendous changes in technology, but there's, you can't really say nothing has changed, right? There has been a lot of, even AI. a year ago was not, is not talked about in the way that it is today. Did you find that watching trends and transitions, I know you just said you really thought about different things for 400 years from now but did how things were going in the last three or four years change your perspective on how you were writing technology for this book?

Eliot Schrefer: 16:24

Yeah it's funny I just blithely wandered into AI for the darkness outside us which came out in 2021 so I was writing it in 2019 and then it was you know are there periods between the A and the I and after like it was felt like this new thing I was dropping in there that I was like, are people going to remember that we're talking about this? And now it's yeah, we're talking about it. Like we're definitely there. So that's been, it was serendipitous that it, like I dropped it in. One thing, especially around AI that I was really interested in is. The spaceship, it's a, it's like a metaphor, I hate it when writers preen over their own work, and I'm going to get a little bit preening here, but the

Jason Blitman: 16:57

Preen away!

Eliot Schrefer: 16:57

like a metaphor for being alive, right? We don't get to know what's on the other side of being alive without being dead and that's part of, like, why it's difficult to be a human being and with the mind and that in a spaceship, you also, if you're not sure that the reality is true, You can't open the door and check, right? Because then you've opened the door to outer space and you're vented out and you die. And the AI I wanted in the ship is, the book Darkness Outside is technically has two characters but it really is three. It's got the two boys plus the ship, which has this whole personality and different voices, including Devin Mujava's and Ambrose's mom's voice and it's but it also is Incredibly perceptive. So it can use like the sound of their boy's pulse to check their emotional states. So even if they're, no matter where they are in the ship, it's recording what their pulse level is. It's measuring their pupil dilation. It's trying to figure out. So there's, it's like something you can't keep a secret from. It's like this all seeing parent figure. And that I just love, I feel like all books should be thrillers in some way. And I love the idea of. Being stuck with something that might be an enemy that has all the power. And what do you do? How do you rest some of the power back for yourself? And the AI was one way to do it. And I think I'm not sure where AI is going to lead us, but in this, for this, the sake of a ship and a monitoring structure, it was a good way to bring up some tension for the characters

Jason Blitman: 18:15

Yeah. No, I would agree. I was just talking to an author recently about my frustrations with the Pixar movie Up.

Eliot Schrefer: 18:22

tell me,

Jason Blitman: 18:23

Are you familiar?

Eliot Schrefer: 18:24

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 18:25

The guy who like ends up being the bad guy in the movie is an explorer, not an inventor, There are inventions in the context of the story that don't really make, they were there out of convenience not out of making any dramaturgical sense for the story. And so that really bothered me. If the guy was an inventor who lost his way while exploring, I could get on board. Anyway, all of that to say. Every, all of the technology that lives within the world of both of these books felt warranted and felt a part of the world that it was a part of. So I can only compare it to one that I didn't feel that way about.

Eliot Schrefer: 19:07

Yeah my goal is I want to be people's first sci fi book. People that are like, sci fi is not for me. It's going to be, 10 pages about the history of some country. And then we're going to, just move on really quickly. And sci fi has a history of having like really brittle emotions. And it reads like a Wikipedia article, right? Where the characters are a little bit shallow. There's some, certainly plenty of sci fi that doesn't work that way. And I wanted like, you Get the emotional juice as high as possible to compensate for the inherent chilliness that can come with the science fiction universes.

Jason Blitman: 19:34

Yeah, I, science fiction is like really not typically my genre and I think that might be why I loved Brightness Between Us. so much because it's really this family story in a package of sci fi. And it was like a, it was almost like the YA version of Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel,

Eliot Schrefer: 19:56

that book.

Jason Blitman: 19:57

which is also such a terrific book. And I don't think of it as sci fi first, even though like you look at the cover and like it is

Eliot Schrefer: 20:04

a moon colony.

Jason Blitman: 20:06

And

Eliot Schrefer: 20:06

Some hallmarks.

Jason Blitman: 20:07

typically be my sort of story and this, I just, I really loved it. I had something profound to talk to you about.

Eliot Schrefer: 20:14

It's going to be the meaning of life. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 20:16

to work in NFTs in the NFT space and talk about things that like, we're not talking about anymore, right? That's just not on anyone's radar. But AI, for better or for worse, probably isn't going away.

Eliot Schrefer: 20:27

some listener just now pulled out their certificate. Some NFT they bought

Jason Blitman: 20:32

I

Eliot Schrefer: 20:32

in 2021 and now it's a coaster or they're going to use it as wallpaper. That's true. I guess some of it must be valuable. I never understood what it was, really,

Jason Blitman: 20:39

no, I think people who even bought it are not still 100 percent sure what they are. You have a master's degree in animal studies? Obsessed. Their yaks play a big role. And you have a degree in animal studies, so you probably have a really good answer to why yaks. But

Eliot Schrefer: 20:58

Why yaks? This is anyone who was listening 30 seconds ago and went to go blow their nose and came back, I'm like, wait, what? Are we still doing this?

Jason Blitman: 21:04

also, why are we blowing your nose?

Eliot Schrefer: 21:05

Why yaks? I'm like, yeah, exactly. Pause it next time you're going to blow your nose or you Intro to the at question.

Jason Blitman: 21:10

Pay close attention.

Eliot Schrefer: 21:12

so I had, I've been really fascinated by following one of the papers I wrote in this master's program for animal studies was on the de extinction movement, which is they're trying to, and they've already brought back A species of rat that went extinct and they've, they brought it back just using the DNA and then they use them, a living rat's egg and put that DNA in it and then now we have that

Jason Blitman: 21:33

Didn't we all see Jurassic Park? Don't we know this is a bad idea?

Eliot Schrefer: 21:36

But wasn't it exciting at the same time? Yeah. My favorite Jurassic Park is like they get strapped into the ride. That is going to be the future theme background. That explains like DNA transfer for everyone. It's like clippy, the paper clip from Microsoft basically is explaining that movie is excellent. That movie is so excellent. So the day the extinction movement is looking at what would it be like to bring back a mammoth? And we have the DNA for mammoths cause they all got snowed in and Siberia. But you can put that in a closest relative as an elephant. You can put it in an elephant's ovum, put that DNA in and potentially They could have a baby mammoth, but the thing that no one thought about, and this is where the Jurassic Park part comes in, is that you, that baby mammoth wouldn't have a parent. There is no adult mammoth to tell it how to be a mammoth. And we have thought about animals as these sort of evolutionary cogs that don't have internal lives, but anyone, look at your dog or your cat, you know exactly They develop a personality based on what they're around when they're young, just like humans do. And you could have a really psychotic mammoth, because that has no one to tell it how to be a social creature, how to exist in this group. I imagined on this planet that they had sent the ship with embryos for animals. that they could raise and have a sort of a farm there. But the scientists, which seemed probable to me, the scientists wouldn't have thought about the emotional lives of those animals. And so they raised these baby yaks, but they never had parents. And so the yaks become territorial and aggressive and their big adversary on this planet. And so it's this scary enemy. And I think I chose a yak because they have these giant horns. And for those, since most of my readers are here in America Who knows how a yak should act, so no one's going to call me and say I have three yaks and they would never bathe that way. I figured I would skip the angry readers, yeah, flashing out.

Jason Blitman: 23:15

that's so funny.

Eliot Schrefer: 23:17

sure, I did my yak research, but I'm not too sure how a yak acts.

Jason Blitman: 23:21

And what's frustrating as well, to the point of exactly what you're describing, is that neither, we don't know how mammoths are supposed to act either. And so we can't even artificially parent the mammoth,

Eliot Schrefer: 23:34

There was this great, this American Life segment about a guy who lost, he had a bull, one of his cattle, this bull that he just loved, it was his favorite. Bull that he had ever raised and it died and he cloned it and the new one just kept attacking him like it was not this bull that he had lost. It was a different animal, even though it had the same DNA. And that kind of haunted me. And I think something I'm interested in examining through this sci fi context is human relationship to non human animals and the way that we, the way that we treat them and treat the broader world and what the implications are even way off in the future.

Jason Blitman: 24:08

Speaking of way off in the future, because that's, what your books are about, how do you sleep at night? Does this get overwhelming?

Eliot Schrefer: 24:14

I have wake sleep. I'm the first test case for wake sleep. So it's

Jason Blitman: 24:18

Send me, I'll send you my address.

Eliot Schrefer: 24:19

Yeah, Carl Sagan has this wonderful piece of writing. It's basically a poem. I don't know. I think he would have called it a poem, but it's called Pale Blue Dot. And it's about what it was like in the sixties to first see earth from the outside. And that you realize that we are this little speck in this big cosmos and all the things that seem to matter so much like kings and queens rising and fallings epidemics individual lives even just individual species seem to matter so much less in that scale and my husband and I have this theory about each other that he is the exuberant pessimist, so he thinks everything is going to shit, but he's always high energy and excited despite that, so he's just like complaining, but exuberant and really happy. You're going to say which one of these you are you?

Jason Blitman: 25:02

I literally have, I have, underneath my yak question is, are you a melancholy optimist or an exuberant pessimist and perhaps your husband is the other?

Eliot Schrefer: 25:13

Yes, we have a theory that all couples roles eventually, like you'll steer towards them. And I, yes, I'm the melancholy optimist where I basically think everything's going to be fine, but it's nothing matters as a result of that. It's we're just on a hunk of rock going around this gaseous ball in a solar system. So it doesn't really matter which is insufferable to be around. Cause it's should we go to this Chinese restaurant or that one? And I'm like, It doesn't really, the stakes are so low on this question. That's really fun on a Saturday night, hang out with the exuberant pessimists instead, we're melancholy optimists or basically EORs walking through,

Jason Blitman: 25:44

No, exuberant optimists are the ones who get on Survivor.

Eliot Schrefer: 25:50

they're faking it. No one's an exuberant optimist, maybe like Kristen Chenoweth, I think it might be an exuberant optimist, even she might just be playing the part for for the today show on two peers. But yeah, so i think i'm definitely a melancholy optimist i forgot that i put it in the book actually yeah we have all these different theories about different personas that couples take on within their relationship what is the one binary is the satisfizer and the maximizer that One person will increase options at all times, so say you have to buy a TV or a couch. That person is here are the ten ones that we should consider. I'm not sure if the screen quality is good here, but this one is so ugly looking, and where would the cable go if we bought this one? But they can't choose. It's every time they have to choose something, they feel like they're grieving all the choices they can't make anymore. Like, all those other options died because they had to choose one. And then the satisfizer is someone who Doesn't increase options, doesn't actually do the research or propose where we should go for Christmas break, but we can choose. It's okay, we'll just do that one. That you need both. Someone like lays out the field and the other one just makes a choice of whatever the thing is.

Jason Blitman: 26:53

Yeah. Which one are you?

Eliot Schrefer: 26:55

Do you have a guess?

Jason Blitman: 26:56

The first one.

Eliot Schrefer: 26:58

Non dissatisfier. Yeah. I just make the choice, but

Jason Blitman: 27:01

I get the vibe of you'd be disappointed not getting that other thing that you didn't get to choose. But, I guess not.

Eliot Schrefer: 27:07

No. Cause that's part of the melancholy optimism. Cause it doesn't, What TV you have doesn't matter because we're all

Jason Blitman: 27:12

You'll just make the choice.

Eliot Schrefer: 27:13

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 27:14

Oh. I wonder if you, if all of the melancholy optimists are, I've forgotten the words already, but the second one that you

Eliot Schrefer: 27:21

Yeah comment below. Let us know.

Jason Blitman: 27:23

I think I'm, my husband and I are almost like a mix of the two. We're like blended a little bit. Cause he is very good, yeah maybe. He's a very good optimal stopper. He taught me about optimal stopping, where, which is,

Eliot Schrefer: 27:38

It sounds like tantric.

Jason Blitman: 27:39

Basically, let's say you are trying to figure out what TV to buy and you have a certain number of parameters, right? And it's, it has to be 4D, it has to fit on a certain wall so it can only be a certain, max a certain size, and you don't want to spend more than X amount of dollars. And when you find the TV that checks the most of those boxes is when you stop. Or, there is some algorithm of You have to see at least X number, and then after you hit that number, the first one that checks the most boxes is the one that you're supposed to stop

Eliot Schrefer: 28:17

yes. It's the

Jason Blitman: 28:18

There's an

Eliot Schrefer: 28:19

bachelor dating problem, I think is what mathematicians call it. Imagine a game show where you went on and there were 40 bachelors And you were going to try to get the best date you could out of it that what how far do you go? But each one you can either say I want to try someone new or I'm going to stick with you But you can't go back to anyone that you've already seen before so Like where how far do you go because you don't want to take the first one because there could be someone even better out There right? So how far do you go and when do you stop?

Jason Blitman: 28:44

it's funny that you say this because this has come up on one other episode of Gays Reading before, and that's with Holly Gramazio and her book, The Husbands, which is literally that. There are endless husbands that keep coming down from her, from this woman's attic, and it's like, when does she? When does she know to pick the one? How do you find the one?

Eliot Schrefer: 29:04

That's great. It's a great premise. I think mathematicians say you go halfway And then you pick the one that's better than anyone you've seen before, or maybe it's two

Jason Blitman: 29:11

I'm sure there's, it's all a version of that. and then of course you have Dan Savage who says something like you're never going to find the one. So you find the one that's, 0. 86 or whatever and round up to the one.

Eliot Schrefer: 29:23

That's lovely.

Jason Blitman: 29:24

What does Dan Savage know?

Eliot Schrefer: 29:25

I'll submit that. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 29:26

he, I'm sure he knows a lot. He's been in the business for a very long time. Something that comes up in The Brightness Between Us is the world must be broken to be rebuilt. Do you feel like that's what's happening right now?

Eliot Schrefer: 29:37

Oh, that's also, it's not, I would say that's not really the book's theory, it's a character's theory within the book is that

Jason Blitman: 29:43

it comes up in the book. It's not what the book is about.

Eliot Schrefer: 29:46

It's a character we've already discussed, actually, says this and does extreme things in order to try to wreck the world so it can be reborn in a better way. I don't, I actually, I, this is my controversial take is I think right now things aren't as terrible as we talk and the way that we say it is. That when you think back to really looking at each region period in history, like you find, like a thousand years ago, we were living to 32, people would just come and raise your village and, rape and murder. There was no, going to a university, finding your found family somewhere else. There weren't options that you even had. And that, we find that I think it's better now, but I think it's always our tendency as humans to think whatever we're going through is unprecedented and awful. And it's, think about in the 1940s, people were looking at this catastrophic world war and the end of the world order, and we are seeing, conflict now and terrible things now. But I think that fact has always been there. And I don't think we're in a grand. Bonfire now. I think the bonfire has always been going. Did I just inadvertently quote a song? It's all been burning since Now we're gonna have to pay rights for the song.

Jason Blitman: 30:56

It was like slightly hummed and contextual.

Eliot Schrefer: 30:59

as long as you don't do more than seven notes, I think you don't have to pay rights, right? Is that how it

Jason Blitman: 31:03

I feel like that is a, an urban legend, but maybe not.

Eliot Schrefer: 31:07

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 31:07

In line with what you're saying, something that I did find the book to be about is learning from the past. Not, not to give anything away about the book, but that I think is maybe where the disconnect is. for what we're dealing with in the world right now. You're right, in that we are not, are we in this place of feeling like the world is a dumpster fire? Because we're not paying attention to the history. We're not saying oh no, we actually still have it much better off than a hundred years ago. Less than.

Eliot Schrefer: 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. And then do we live our lives as chippers trying to make things a little bit better and by that, putting that all together that it will finally improve over the long term or is it better to wreck things and redefine? I get furious with people who, say the two party system is broken and I'm not voting for either one because that's just, it's, I don't want to support this Democrat Republican system when that has such tangible consequences and it's so awful. So in that way. I think I'm a chipper philosophy wise. So do the best you can out of the options you have, but I'm not someone who's going to break the wheel and reform it. But that's something like, I channeling my inner Daenerys Targaryen when I was thinking about break the system, cause I think I was. I love that about Game of Thrones was that it was all these feudal lords vying for power and someone just walking in let's just not do this feudal lord thing, right? Just redo

Jason Blitman: 32:27

There's something interesting too, though, about reinventing the wheel. But let's use the wheel we have until the wheel has been reinvented, right? You want to break it down and come up with a new plan? Cool. But in the meantime, we still only have the one plan.

Eliot Schrefer: 32:43

Yeah. You could, buy the starter be fixing it up and still stay in your rental while you're fixing it up. You don't have to live on plywood.

Jason Blitman: 32:49

Exactly. You would never move into a house that was not,

Eliot Schrefer: 32:53

Right.

Jason Blitman: 32:53

wouldn't. And that is where I feel, is what I feel like people are doing. And it's wait, the house isn't done. There's no roof.

Eliot Schrefer: 32:59

Yeah. I think that's very wise. I think that's a great metaphor for it.

Jason Blitman: 33:01

Speaking of metaphor, look at you transitioning for me. You, you were talking about the ship being a metaphor for life. There, I don't want to give anything away, so I'm not going to provide any context outside of what I'm about to say. Am I crazy, or did I see a metaphor for mental health? In the second book,

Eliot Schrefer: 33:25

Yes. Yeah. So there is a character who has unexpected finds spaces and drives in his mind that he didn't expect and that no one around him expected. And yeah, I was. Leary of how to present that as someone who has, I've had periods of depression, but nothing that was ever diagnosed and nothing that I felt I needed the diagnosis for. But beyond that, I don't really have an experience with mental health crises. And I was worried about this character has had something altered in his mind outside of his control. But it feels to him like mental illness, like this psychotic break. And so I was very Leary. And I thought about how a variety of readers would respond to that. As someone who is, doesn't have a history of mental illness, it seemed like an interesting plot moment to me, and I knew it would feel, might feel very different for someone else. So I had a couple of friends read the book who had one with a bipolar diagnosis and another one with depression, just to see like, how does this land for you? And took their notes and thought about it as I was presenting the character, but it definitely felt like, there are ways in which You do get these surprises that come up within you, like drives and instincts and impulses. You're like, what the, I thought I knew who I was. And I wasn't who I was, on Saturday night or whatever. So I think I was interested in exploring that.

Jason Blitman: 34:37

yeah. No, it definitely felt very honest. Something that comes up, again, generally speaking there's a quote in the book, the hard part. isn't not knowing things. It's not knowing what I don't know. And that is like among the keys to my own anxiety. I was like, I am most anxious about the things I do not know. I have a lot of health anxiety. And I always say to my therapist and my doctors, I'm just like, I am not worried about something bad happening to me. I'm worried something bad is happening to me and I do not actually know about it.

Eliot Schrefer: 35:12

Can I get it just a full body scan every Monday morning? And you can

Jason Blitman: 35:15

And it's interesting.

Eliot Schrefer: 35:16

growing in me over the weekend.

Jason Blitman: 35:18

Said to my husband I want to do one of those, but upon doing some research, studies are showing that that can be almost worse off for people who have health anxiety because a full body scan picks up. everything and things are not necessarily, important or, worth talking about.

Eliot Schrefer: 35:34

yeah. And maybe the anxiety is doing something for you. Like I have a friend who she believes she gets so anxious about flying. She still flies a lot, but she sits there and doesn't want to distract herself. And she's just like holding the arms of her chair because she feels like the fact that she's so worried about it means that this time the plane can't go down because she's so nervous that it will. And that she was, she outsmarted the plane. And that it's her anxiety keeping it aloft.

Jason Blitman: 35:55

God,

Eliot Schrefer: 35:56

And so in a way I think it actually gives her the feeling of power over it. Like her, the force, the sheer force of her worry is keeping everyone safe.

Jason Blitman: 36:03

It's interesting you'd say that because I do think I have called myself a hypochondriac to Doctors before and they're like no, you are not a hypochondriac. And they explained to me how someone who truly is a hypochondriac would behave. And the idea that I think rationally about my health and also go to the doctor and don't just sit and stew and worry and, hold on to the metaphorical armrests. That's how I'm different from someone who's actually a hypochondriac. So anyway seeing that in the book, I was like, Oh, that just. Really hit a deep part of me

Eliot Schrefer: 36:35

Yeah, when how do

Jason Blitman: 36:35

in a di

Eliot Schrefer: 36:36

yeah, when it's about it's why the kind of the matrix was so scary, this idea that their perceived reality might just be because aliens are keeping us in a stupor and milking us for our bodily fluids, like, how would you know that this isn't a simulation? Like, how do you break it? And the spaceship is a way to get literal about it they really don't know. If anything is true about where they are, they could be underground in a model spaceship and not actually out in space because they've both woken up without any memories. And so this, that feels very, I think I spent an inordinate amount of time worried about that kind of stuff, especially when I was like 13 or 14 like, why does anything matter? We don't even know that this is true.

Jason Blitman: 37:14

And then you saw the Truman show.

Eliot Schrefer: 37:16

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm waiting to run into the dome at the edge of, edge of my existence and find out that it's

Jason Blitman: 37:22

I There are some really weird things that happen in my life where every once in a while I'm like, am I sure this is not a simulation? The other thing that touches deeply in my anxiety is that the heart is not the wiser organ. My brain fully understands this thing that I'm anxious about, but my heart is. feeling a different way, and it's tremendously frustrating because they're not in conversation with each other.

Eliot Schrefer: 37:47

Yeah. It's a little pet peeve of mine that this feeling that if you can't figure something out, just stop worrying about it and follow your heart, follow your intuition instead. And that works for a lot of cases, especially like interpersonal things. But for like broader justice, the heart isn't really wise because it just cares about what's around you and what you've, who you've empathized with recently. So the idea of doing action to help people in another country that you have never met, like the heart isn't especially inclined to do that. That's something your brain has to realize Oh, it's actually very easy for me. To give up 5, 000 that will absolutely change the lives of someone who's in this war torn country. That is something the brain is really good at and that the heart is less good at. Have complete love and acceptance for being gay, but I still feel shame around it and that's always going to be there even though it's not reasonable. It's just something like you were brought up within that structure of how a life is supposed to look and I'm not living it,

Jason Blitman: 38:35

and some of it too is also about judgment, right? It's because you might feel a certain way, but then the person that you're next to on the subway when you're holding hands with your partner might not feel that way, and then you're being judged and you're, and then there's the animal instinct of fear and, protecting yourself. There's all of that. on top of it.

Eliot Schrefer: 38:54

Yeah, I was wondering about all the times that I feel like someone's been judging me or me and my husband and it might just be have like indigestion.

Jason Blitman: 39:01

Something my husband says all the time, like, whenever there's, someone cuts someone off on the road or whatever, it's maybe that person just has diarrhea. And it's a really interesting way to go about life.

Eliot Schrefer: 39:11

Or it's like when you're on stage presenting and there's that person in the audience it's just like like it looks like they're just hating it and they're the first question. They're like, this was so interesting. Thank you. It's oh, you just have a resting face that looks like you're confused and mad.

Jason Blitman: 39:22

yeah, so you make it very clear that you never intended on writing a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us until a I think how you put it is like a not the day two story came to you. Can you share a little bit about the evolution and how the brightness between us came to be?

Eliot Schrefer: 39:43

So darkness outside is its origin story involves. Going to the movies drunk when I was in college and seeing What Lies Beneath, the forgettable romantic thriller with

Jason Blitman: 39:53

Wait, that's so funny that you say that, because when someone asks if I've ever seen quote unquote horror movies in theaters, that's literally the only movie that and

Eliot Schrefer: 40:03

not count as a horror movie, Jason. It's like that and Dumbo, those are the only horror movies I've ever seen.

Jason Blitman: 40:08

How dare you? Dumbo is horrifying. It's

Eliot Schrefer: 40:12

it is, it's absolutely horrifying. There's a reason my subconscious said that.

Jason Blitman: 40:15

Anyway, that's one of the quote unquote scary movies that I've seen in theaters.

Eliot Schrefer: 40:18

It's not even,

Jason Blitman: 40:19

So you say it's forgettable, and it literally was formative for me.

Eliot Schrefer: 40:23

It was formative for me too, like this whole book came out of it because I was halfway through and the movie makes no sense. Like it really doesn't hold together and Michelle Pfeiffer is trying to figure out what's going on and I'm also trying to figure out what's going on and like just like it must have cut out some important scenes and like

Jason Blitman: 40:38

Michelle Pfeiffer, the performer, not the character.

Eliot Schrefer: 40:41

Yeah, she

Jason Blitman: 40:41

She's in the movie being like, what is going on?

Eliot Schrefer: 40:43

Like looking to camera is this really the scene? And so the theory I hatched in my mind was that she had been cloned, that there were like 20 copies of Michelle Pfeiffer down in the basement, that we were seeing different Michelle Pfeiffer's in each of these scenes, that's the only way the movie would make sense and it finished and it was, that was not the reveal. And that was, to me, I was like, oh, I like that version better. I like the Michelle Pfeiffer, the cloned Michelle Pfeiffer's. And so that's the origin. For Darkness Outside Us. And that just lived in my mind for a while until I came up with the like, spaceship and the romance and all that, but it was two boys. The brightness between us actually owes a lot to my mother in law. She was in town and we went out for margaritas. I'm just like, coming off like a drunken writer, like Hemingway. This is all booze the whole time. But we went out for margaritas and I knew the, I wanted to jump 16 years into the future for the second book. I didn't want to like just do day two because I think when sequels go wrong in, in my book, it's when they just keep the story going and it's the same story, just going months ahead with it. And I think that's when they can get. Boring or predictable. And for me, the best model for a sequel was aliens versus alien, which gives you the same pleasures, but changes the genre from alien was like a slasher movie in space and aliens is like a war movie in space. It's like a different kind of movie. And that was my dream, get a sequel that felt that way. Like it continued the story, but it felt fundamentally different. And I said, I wanted to go back and look at OG Ambrose and Kodiak, the original boys back on earth. And, but how do I make these two storylines combined? And two margaritas in. we, We had an idea. And so that's why I dedicated the book to her. Not just to get mother in law points, but to she really was foundational.

Jason Blitman: 42:21

Other than you having drinks with her, what, did she like ask you questions about it? Did she, how did she like pull it out of you?

Eliot Schrefer: 42:28

I guess so. Or she was probably just a receptive audience and said, yes. And did an improv thing, I think, but she had, she had some really helpful thoughts. I think one thing, one thing I've always loved is the structure storytelling structure that was really popular in the 19th century, but you don't really see anymore, which is. You would run, you have two storylines going, and you'd run one forward. It would reach a total cliffhanger so you would not know should she choose stay engaged to the nice guy or go with the bad boy, and then like you want to turn the page and find out who she's going to choose, and then we go to a different storyline and then you won't find the answer to the first cliffhanger until you follow this storyline to its cliffhanger, and then you get to go back and get the pleasure of the resolution for the first one, but that's Now you're reading forward to find out the answer for the second cliffhanger, and I just love that as a structure, and so that, I took that as the kind of the skeleton for Brightness Between Us was to have this. I want two storylines that seem so disconnected. They're light years away, they're 30, 000 years apart, but that the cliffhangers inform each other. And you need one storyline to help you understand the other one. And if you're hungry for information, Then you'll have to keep going in order to get the answers that you need to understand the other storyline.

Jason Blitman: 43:38

Yeah. And it does a really nice job doing that. I think it was the end of one of the parts where I texted my friend Brad and I was like, you have to start reading this. It's so good. put it down.

Eliot Schrefer: 43:48

good. I was, the other text I was imagining is he's such an asshole. You can't leave us like this.

Jason Blitman: 43:52

And it's interesting that you say you, you didn't want it to feel like the same book. You wanted to change up the genre because it really doesn't feel like the same book. It feels like the same world, but it's not cookie cutter. You don't feel like you're experiencing the same story. There have been, this is the year of sequels. There are a lot of sequels to books coming out that the first one have been beloved. And so there is a little bit of a trend and I will say this is among the first that just turns it on its head a little bit in a way that the others are I don't want to say more predictable because that's not even that's a disservice to the books. There are sequels can be great, but big fan of Greece too. Um,

Eliot Schrefer: 44:32

I called it out at the first page. If you got an advance copy, I call out Grease 2 as an example of a bad sequel. So I'm sorry about that. If you've got a hardcover, you didn't see that. No, I actually

Jason Blitman: 44:42

Not in my

Eliot Schrefer: 44:42

They probably ripped it out because they did their research on you and knew that you'd throw the book across the room.

Jason Blitman: 44:46

no, I have the, I have my Dear Reader letter and

Eliot Schrefer: 44:49

Oh yeah, I mentioned Grease 2 in there. I don't. Maybe I cut it. Maybe I was worried about just this moment and I cut it and now I've still revealed myself as a hater.

Jason Blitman: 44:57

to be a Grease 2 hater.

Eliot Schrefer: 44:58

Yeah, Michelle Pfeiffer, actually. This is a true one now. She was, she did a bravura performance in Greece, too.

Jason Blitman: 45:05

And she stares in the camera and goes, what is this about?

Eliot Schrefer: 45:08

What is happening? I don't

Jason Blitman: 45:09

is happening?

Eliot Schrefer: 45:10

like yelling back at the screen drunkenly I don't know, Michelle.

Jason Blitman: 45:13

You are not a cool writer. Anyway, this definitely turns out, this is, what's hilarious is this is the third time Michelle Pfeiffer has come up in a week and a half. She really is having a moment. Anyway, congratulations on The Brightness Between Us. Big

Eliot Schrefer: 45:28

you so much.

Jason Blitman: 45:29

Everyone go get your copy. This has been so fun.

Eliot Schrefer: 45:32

Yeah, this has been really a blast. I was looking forward to this for a long time. And as I was doing the deep dive into all your podcast episodes you have a very soothing voice. So I was just, sitting there with my headphones. Like it's great. It's a good feeling. So I'll be, I'm a fan for life now.

Jason Blitman: 45:45

I appreciate that. I was selling merchandise at the Lion King on Broadway and I had a stranger from God knows where ask me if I ever thought of doing like voiceover work because I have a great voice and that was the first time anyone had ever said anything like that to me. I find my voice very annoying, but I'm grateful that it tends to work in this medium.

Eliot Schrefer: 46:06

I think I sound like Herman the Frog whenever I hear a recording of my voice.

Jason Blitman: 46:09

I don't think so.

Eliot Schrefer: 46:09

Yeah. It's just

Jason Blitman: 46:10

But if I close my eyes and listen, maybe I'll feel

Eliot Schrefer: 46:12

yeah, I'm I enunciate in my head. I guess if I were an actor, I would have been trained out of me by now. Little nasal.

Jason Blitman: 46:18

Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Eliot Schrefer: 46:19

Thank you. Thanks so much. This has really been a pleasure. Thank you, Jason. Bye. see you Blitz.

Jason Blitman: 46:24

I'm a little embarrassed to tell you this, but you'll never believe. I like, was doing this just before coming upstairs to get to my computer, and while I was in the middle of doing this thing, I was like, oh my god, I'm embarrassed slash I can't wait to tell Arielle that this is what I was doing.

Arielle Egozi: 46:40

What were you doing?

Jason Blitman: 46:41

Plucking my eyebrows. Wait,

Arielle Egozi: 46:46

Literally, I was just in Miami visiting my family and my cousin My Israeli cousin who like has the most gorgeous eyebrows and I was like, can you help me because I don't like I've never So I like lied down on my grandma's couch and I was like do what you want with me and she put she's the middle part I was like okay, we get it fine But then but she like refused to like shake because she was nervous, but I was like, please I've never had it done they look great from

Jason Blitman: 47:09

you've never had it done?

Arielle Egozi: 47:11

I've never had them professionally done No, which now I'm like inspired

Jason Blitman: 47:14

We could go together. It could be like a thing. We could create content out of it.

Arielle Egozi: 47:18

Please my dream is to get like properly threaded.

Jason Blitman: 47:21

I used to get them waxed when I was younger. And then got into it. I'm now in a, 10 plus year long relationship. And I don't really care anymore. So tweezers here and there, just do the trick.

Arielle Egozi: 47:33

so relate. I just got a breast reduction when two months ago Which like oh my god changed my life. Thank you love, but now

Jason Blitman: 47:40

what everyone who I know a lot of people who have done the same thing and also say it's changed their lives.

Arielle Egozi: 47:45

It's Oh my God, the best thing that ever happened. But now I'm like now I have a plastic surgeon who's also a dermatologist and I'm like, I've always been what has it been? There's always been, I think, a tension of choosing things for, the male gaze, patriarchy, whatever, versus what do I actually want to do? And everyone around me for the last 10 years has been Botoxing it up. And I've just been like, no, maybe. And then I realized, okay, now at this point, I'm like, I just want to see what it's like, but I feel if I give myself permission, then somehow I'm already like doing it forever or like bad or like whatever. But tomorrow I may be getting my first Botox injection just to see what it's

Jason Blitman: 48:23

I have to know. You're gonna have to, we need a follow up.

Arielle Egozi: 48:26

you

Jason Blitman: 48:26

I'm worried about doing things like that, I think. Some of it is am I giving in to What I think I'm supposed to be doing? Is it something I really want to be doing? Am I curious enough? Do you know what I mean?

Arielle Egozi: 48:40

Percent.

Jason Blitman: 48:41

yeah. It's one of those things where it's I feel like there are a lot of things that I would want to do in life, to my body, in general, just to see what it's like, but then go back.

Arielle Egozi: 48:52

Yes.

Jason Blitman: 48:53

But I don't think it's that simple.

Arielle Egozi: 48:54

luckily Botox. I don't even know how long it lasts, but not that long. Which I think I was like wrestling, Where I think my curiosity got to the point where now I'm like, okay, I do want to see what it's like, but then I'm like, oh my God, what kind of person does it make me if I do it? But then I'm like, if I'm like already self judging and self critiquing and like turning myself into something, I don't know. But I'm like, but me as I am, I'm like, I'm curious. So both sides like the, I don't know, judgmental, more. Radical feminist whatever but also the like I have to look a certain way for the patriarchy side I'm like both of those sides I'm trying to be like actually none of you are relevant here and like i'm curious and I want to see what it's like but

Jason Blitman: 49:32

Your very last thank you in the book would be mine too, and it's SSRIs. God bless.

Arielle Egozi: 49:38

like, Oh my God truly God bless. Oh my God. So you read the book? Wait, it's in your hand. I haven't even,

Jason Blitman: 49:43

It's right here. I, being bad breaking the rules and becoming everything you're not supposed to be. By Ariel Egozi. The logline is, Stop giving a fuck about what your parents, partners, or no, sorry, Stop giving a fuck about what your partners, parents, and society expect of you, and ask yourself, What do you really want? I want to get into cause you are my guest gay reader for the day. So we have to talk about what you're reading. But like my biggest question for you is do you have a practice to overcome the quote unquote I'm only human ness of it all? Cause if the art of being bad is, Screw what everybody thinks, and just do you. We are all so ingrained with what culture and society tells us we're supposed to do. So like, do you have a practice that like, helps you get out of that space?

Arielle Egozi: 50:34

What a beautiful question. I think it's the same practice even with being like the screw you, I'm going to be myself kind of thing. Because I think that at least for me has also in the past put me into another box where I'm just like responding. I'm responding to what society tells me I'm supposed to do by like doing the opposite, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily what I want to do. And yeah, Does that make sense? So it's I've had to go through this whole process, I think, of going from one extreme to the other and then being like, wait, how can I be as gentle and compassionate and soft with myself to see what this body and soul and spirit is actually desiring right now, regardless of what Like what voice it's coming from and so then i'm able to I mean i'm still practicing it every day, but then it's less oh my god. I'm I don't know Terrified to wear the outfit. I want to wear outside and then i'm like, okay Let me hold that for a second like instead of thinking It's bad of me to wear this outfit, which maybe society would tell me or it's bad of me for being Anxious about wearing this outfit, which is maybe what like the being bad perspective might tell me i'm like wait Can I hold this outfit? Both parts and be like, how do I feel? What do I actually need right now? Am I in a place where I can hold myself and walk outside and be? anxious and still confident and move through that? Or do I just need to like, I don't know, wrap myself in a blanket or feel cozy or be invisible and that's going to calm me. And I think it's really looking at that instead of, I think what anything outside of me might say. Yes.

Jason Blitman: 51:57

Okay, I love this. I love the concept of acknowledge it, hold it, give it space, ask why am I feeling this way? Follow up question, is there something that you do or something, a way to think to allow yourself to not judge yourself?

Arielle Egozi: 52:17

I'm

Jason Blitman: 52:18

This is just a therapy session, that's

Arielle Egozi: 52:19

No.

Jason Blitman: 52:20

About me, for me. How do I not judge myself?

Arielle Egozi: 52:22

I have a gay therapist from Florida and this is basically how therapy sessions go. I feel like, It's, I don't necessarily call her like my little me anymore as much, but I do feel like there's like a holding of not even just like the inner child of me, but just like the softest parts of me and be like, wait, like you deserve to feel good and safe. And my job as like the adult form is to protect. And show up for whatever those soft parts need. And so then there's like a,

Jason Blitman: 52:52

Yeah.

Arielle Egozi: 52:53

usually, I'm panicking all the time. So usually there's like a panic and then I have to breathe a little bit, slow down and be like, wait, like what do I actually need in this moment? And fuck whatever anybody, whether it's like past versions of myself or anybody else is like telling me to do. And what do I actually need in this moment? And I will say my partner has probably been the biggest, um, not just support, but I think they taught me how to do this because I'd be freaking out and they'd be like aria Hold on slow down. Like what do you actually need in this moment? Forget the future forget what you wish you wanted forget what you think you should be like Where are you now? And what do you need right now? And I think that practice has been like I do it every day a few times a day And every day more and more times and eventually I think I still sometimes don't listen to like myself But I'm trying really hard to be able to be like, wait, regardless of what anyone thinks or what anyone will think of me where am I now? And what do I need right now? Because that's the only thing that

Jason Blitman: 53:49

Yeah that's really interesting. And not only others around you, but not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future, thinking about this moment. What are these needs right now? Like, whenever my husband and I are like, having, we don't really get into arguments, but whenever we're having like, a tough conversation, we can have a tendency to like, Create scenarios that don't exist just for the sake of making sure we don't get to those places. And it's wait, that's not helpful, right? So I think the same is true for this too, okay, this was a gut instinct of, my gut instinct of plucking my eyebrows. Why was I plucking my eyebrows? Was it because I knew that I was recording this today? And I just in case the, video picked up. The three rogue hairs in between my eyes but I don't want to judge myself for that because I, it made me feel good, whether the camera picks it up or not, I'm, it made me feel okay.

Arielle Egozi: 54:41

And I think that so much, it's so much that it's like the accountability of action and of self and like of grace. And I think for me, there's something so different between, I don't know, someone who gets a bunch of work done and consistently deny it because That's only sort of bringing more. Obviously, they're like their own shame, but then it also adds, I think, to the shame of people who've chosen or don't have the means to do those things. And then they think that maybe that's just the way this person looks or whatever. So it's I feel like there's a difference between leading with shame and sometimes, we all do it. And again, like just holding space for that, but also leading with, I'm actually aware that this is what makes me feel good, whether it's right, wrong, somewhere in the middle. I have no idea in this moment, but I'm seeing that this is what's going to make me show up as my best self in this moment, then fuck yeah, like who's gonna, no one deserves to argue with that, I think as long as it's not harming other people. But I do feel like there's a, there's like the acceptance route or like the shame route and we all I think fluctuate between both of them sometimes for the same actions. But as long as it's not hurting anyone then I think do what you want, do what feels good. I don't know.

Jason Blitman: 55:44

And I've talked about this so much on the podcast, just the concept of capital T, capital B, the binary. And just like what the universe's expectations are of us as humans, as society, as people. And it's really remembering that we are all individuals. We are all humans. animals. We are all, and then when you think about the world at large, how like insignificant we are.

Arielle Egozi: 56:13

Yep,

Jason Blitman: 56:13

And I think that's like scary too, right? Like people feel the need to project greater than simply because otherwise it's like really scary to think how tiny and insignificant we are.

Arielle Egozi: 56:26

which I'm like as a I was 10 with existential depression and that has never went away. So I'm

Jason Blitman: 56:31

Sorry if I just made that worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Arielle Egozi: 56:38

To the being human. I think we all are still living within the binary under a capitalist structure, with like heteronormative, there's just so much that we as individuals, we can have a response to, or choose to engage or not engage, but. As the animal part of us, right? Like we are physiologically, biologically, like genetically wired to be social creatures. And so as social creatures living in a society that is binary, that is all these things. I'm like, sure. Maybe, I don't know, like my partner is trans non binary and decided to get top surgery six months ago. And they were like, I think a part of them was wrestling with, Is this not me accepting myself? Can't I accept my body and my identity? And does that have to be in conflict? But I think the reality was maybe in another dimension, in another universe, it'd be no problem. But the reality is we live in this society where they get clocked a certain way or not, and are having to confront all of these daily things the moment they step out of the house. And so it's okay, what is at their disposal to ease that process for themselves? And if people you know, we're not living in this binary, then maybe it never would have been a problem in the first place. But we are still, I think, just human and living in this world and trying to do our best with decisions that we have access to. And yes, our extremely tiny little

Jason Blitman: 57:53

you're right. It's

Arielle Egozi: 57:54

Nope.

Jason Blitman: 57:55

it's interesting, what I'm hearing is that the top surgery was a response to less about physical discomfort and more about discomfort in how they're presenting in the world and in turn interacting with the world. That's sort of part of what I'm hearing. And I'm, I ask that because. Because of, again, society. And if expectations of other humans was different, maybe we don't, we would feel differently. My own person, and I don't mean to interrupt myself, interrupting you, but my own experience specifically is when I went on SSRIs, gained a bunch of weight. And I'm, I, my joke is that I'd rather be fat than anxious, which is still 100 percent true. Would it even be a thing that I'm thinking about if society was like, putting on weight is a bad thing? Or would I give maybe I wouldn't even give a shit. It like, wouldn't even be something that crossed my mind.

Arielle Egozi: 58:48

Yeah, it's and I mean for my partner, I definitely can't speak for them. And it's like night, it's like night and day how they move for the world and how they feel in their body than they did before, even privately. So I feel like there definitely was a sense of body stuff but I can speak for myself, with the Botox, I'm

Jason Blitman: 59:04

Yeah. No,

Arielle Egozi: 59:08

Every single person around me is doing all these things and then I'm like, oh my god Am I gonna be the only person left on earth with a forehead wrinkle?

Jason Blitman: 59:14

It'll be us. I'll be there with you. We'll be sitting wrinkly. It's because of

Arielle Egozi: 59:18

Wrinkly together.

Jason Blitman: 59:19

Gozzi, you are my guest gay reader today. What are you reading?

Arielle Egozi: 59:25

Okay. I just finished. What's it called? I have it here future feeling by joss lake Which is

Jason Blitman: 59:31

Wait,

Arielle Egozi: 59:31

I am not a

Jason Blitman: 59:32

said you have it here. Can I see it? Oh yeah. Okay.

Arielle Egozi: 59:35

Have you read it?

Jason Blitman: 59:36

but I recognize the cover.

Arielle Egozi: 59:38

The cover. That's why I picked it up. I am not a sci fi person zero percent. But this is sprinkle of sci fi basically about a trans guy in like the near future coming into a self actualization. I feel like that's the best way to put it. And it's so beautifully the main character is just so perfectly flawed and like you relate so much of these feelings of, whether it's jealousy, like in this case he's obsessed with this, trans guy, influencer who had like the perfect body and all these things. And the protagonist is just fuck you. I want to see your dark side and all this stuff. And there's all these pieces where like they call, going into depression, like the shadow lands where people go into and then come out. And ultimately I feel like it's not just about, because it's not really chosen family in this near future world. There's this whole operation of a queer community network around the world that sends if you pay an insurance to it, you have access to. And so the, I guess this network will if you're in the Shadowlands, they'll pair you up with someone else to coach you through it and be with you and heal you. And then you watch them become chosen family and support each other through different things. And watching a white Jewish. Trans guy experience versus a Chinese. What is it transnational adoptee trans person and like them having? Certain things they connect over but certain things that they're like bro, like this is different and I feel like it just created this world that I never would have imagined certainly but where queerness Like the world is being built in a way to support queerness when like the rest of the world does not, you know It's like the same world we live in now. But yeah, I brought lots of feelings and I loved it. So that's one and I've been reading the adult children of emotionally immature parents.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:17

I think, you know how, what we did with COVID tests, they just got sent out nationally? We should do that with that book.

Arielle Egozi: 1:01:24

I agree have you ever read it have you come

Jason Blitman: 1:01:27

No. I've, oh, it's been on my radar. Trust me. Hi, mom. I love you. I'm sure she's not listening to this. But yeah, I think we should all. Be able to check it out. Or like at least get the pamphlet version.

Arielle Egozi: 1:01:40

Yeah, some of the things, the way that I feel like I approach certain conversations. This is definitely not the way that some of the things I'm like, Oh, that's a little cringy or like whatever. But I feel like if you take a step back I'm just like, Oh, this is explaining my life to me in every possible way. So very helpful. And then finally look at this cover.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:58

Oh my god, Schmutz! That has been on my radar too! Fascinating.

Arielle Egozi: 1:02:05

days. Let me say this though, it is billed as like hilarious. So funny. And I'm like, it's not really that funny. Like the premise is funny. It's like a very face acidic orthodox woman in Brooklyn, becomes a porn addict. When like nobody in her family even has access to a computer, let alone a cell phone or anything like that. And it's actually like quite. It's fascinating and like sad, but like ridiculous enough that you're not like getting down about it but I would not say it's hilarious. I'm like, oh, this is yeah a person really wrestling with their identity, with their desires, with their addiction and you're watching a person with No tools really I think to not just exist in society except in the way that she's been trained to but no tools to access her own desires or what she wants or doesn't want or like she doesn't know any words for like body parts. So she's coming up with her own like Yiddish words for all these different things. So that part's a little funny, but yeah definitely worth reading.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:00

Okay.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:01

All the books I mentioned worth reading.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:02

You said the first book you'd picked up because of the cover. Did you know how queer it was when you dove into it?

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:09

I feel like I saw the front and then read the

Jason Blitman: 1:03:12

Oh, and then you're like, okay, buying it.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:14

But it wasn't even, I just saw Oh, this character, a fellow trans man. I was like, okay. So I bought it. But then it sat on, my bookshelf for I don't know, four or five years at this

Jason Blitman: 1:03:23

Totally normal, that's how it happens.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:25

I'm just like, I don't do sci fi. But then my partner read it and I was like, okay, this can be a good like bathroom book. We'll see. But then I loved it.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:30

I love that you say bathroom book, where most people will be like, it's a good poolside book, or a good vacation read, or on a plane.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:38

I have like my little stool. I think some people have what are they called? Like not pooper

Jason Blitman: 1:03:42

Oh, the Squatty Patties.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:44

Squatty potty! I have a little stool, and then I keep the book on top next to it, and then I like, arrange my situation.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:49

Listen, being, reading on the toilet, that's how you get hemorrhoids.

Arielle Egozi: 1:03:54

That's how I got hemorrhoids as a child. Literally, my mom would warn me, and I think by the age of 13, I got them, and I was like, oh, that's what she meant.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:02

And yet, you still do it.

Arielle Egozi: 1:04:04

I

Jason Blitman: 1:04:04

But listen, if that's how a book is getting read, then fine. This has been a delay. I didn't know. I didn't know I was going to make my new best friend on this morning's.

Arielle Egozi: 1:04:15

like, I can't wait to pluck our eyebrows

Jason Blitman: 1:04:16

Yes, we're gonna pluck our eyebrows. We could try them all. We could do plucking one day, we could do threading another day, we could do waxing another day, and we could do a whole series about it.

Arielle Egozi: 1:04:24

I honestly think people would eat that up. I don't know. Listeners,

Jason Blitman: 1:04:27

Oh my god, so

Arielle Egozi: 1:04:28

let us know.

1:04:29

Thank you Elliot. Thank you, Ariel. So happy to have you both here. Thank you everyone. Don't forget to like follow, share, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. And I will see you next week. Bye.