In this episode, I talk to my Twitter mutual Thinkwert about Twitter, the nature of whimsy, why he thinks Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and some general life stuff.
Transcript:
Divia (00:02)
I'm here today with ThinkWert from Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you almost certainly also follow ThinkWert. checked and I think you were followed by 384 of the people that follow me, is a very high number. We're definitely in the same general vicinity. think, yeah. I think, so I got back on Twitter in, I think the end of the -
Thinkwert (00:21)
Same ecosystem, sure.
Divia (00:29)
At some point in 2019, I feel like that was around then when you started posting a bunch of tutors. Does that seem right?
Thinkwert (00:34)
It was like literally January 1st, 2020 that I kind of really hard launched ThinkWord. It was an old account I had for years and years and years, but I didn't really start honestly posting until literally like I decided that year I'm going to start really using Twitter a lot. And so, yeah, it's exactly four and a half years now.
Divia (00:55)
Yeah, no, I remember. think the first time you came up on my timeline, there was some reply and I'll pick a flower fairy for you. And I was like, I love flower fairies. I'll do that. So yeah.
Thinkwert (01:02)
Yeah. Yeah. That was also during the height of COVID too. So we had already had a lot of time. Everybody was on Twitter all the time.
Divia (01:09)
Right.
Absolutely. Yeah, no, mean, in January, you probably, I mean, maybe you knew, but you probably didn't didn't quite know how it was going to play out. A couple of people knew in January.
Thinkwert (01:16)
I did.
I knew before everybody else in my real life circles did because of Twitter. What everyone knew was that tidal wave was coming. I remember telling one of my classes, we're going for spring break, we're probably not coming back, take what you need with you. And nobody believed me. Every student was skeptical. said, OK, when we get back, you can laugh at me. You can laugh at me. I give you permission. But I'm telling you, we're not coming back. That's when Harvard had closed, Yale had closed, all the big schools closed.
Divia (01:22)
Because of Twitter. Yeah.
You
Yeah.
Thinkwert (01:47)
Yeah, we're gonna follow suit, we're gonna follow suit. So sure enough, I was right. For once, what am I predicting?
Divia (01:52)
It was a very bizarre time, I think, for a lot of people to be very online and then talking to people who weren't. And I think some people really like, I don't know, having the scoop or being contrarian or telling people. I was more like, no, no, I felt relieved by a lot when it became mainstream. I'm like, OK, I don't want to be the one trying to tell everyone that this is going to be a big thing. Heather, we're just... Yeah.
Thinkwert (02:18)
Yeah, the prophet in the square going, beware, beware, beware, it's not as fun. Like, yes, I told you so, is more fun. Yeah.
Divia (02:24)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, OK, so it wasn't because of COVID. What was it in January? And sorry, let me finish my answer. So for people who don't know, think we're mostly posts a lot of great. I want to say memes, but not like with meme formats, not like the latest format that's going around. It's like you put a picture and some text and it's usually really funny. It's usually really whimsical. I think it's always really wholesome. Occasionally you'll post
Thinkwert (02:49)
Yeah.
Divia (02:53)
You were just telling me before we started recording, you will sometimes post pictures of you holding your daughters. You've done that periodically also, but your bread and butter is like the funny, the picture and the text, funny stuff like that.
Thinkwert (02:59)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I would say the er, think word, post is a picture of an animal with a funny caption. That's probably a little bit whimsical, a little off kilter. But yeah, that tends to be the main way I post it. Yeah.
Divia (03:23)
Yeah, and as with the flower fairy thing, I don't know how often you're actually getting there, but the vibe is very much, at least from my perspective, like the illustrations in the books I read growing up.
Thinkwert (03:33)
Yeah, yeah, especially early on I used a lot of the child book illustrations. I went through the Wikipedia list of child book illustrators, like hundreds, looked up every single one of them and tried to find material to use for tweets. And I've kind of phased out of that a little more or less. yeah, definitely the first couple of years. That was my bread and
Divia (03:41)
Okay.
So what was it that made you think you were going to get back into posting in January 2020?
Thinkwert (04:06)
trying to think of what my mindset was there. I've always liked to kind of be part of something social. I didn't really have any, I didn't even know what I wanted to do. I started posting just a lot of different things. lot of, you try to see what's stuck to the wall. I actually tried a lot of emoticon art early on, believe it or not. When nobody was following me, I tried to post these interesting things using emoticon art.
Divia (04:29)
Okay.
Thinkwert (04:35)
And that didn't take off. But no, it's still there. Yeah, do a search from January through March of 2020 of ThinkWord, and you'll find it. But nothing took off. Nothing took off. The one thing I had going for me was EigenRobot followed me. And every once in while, he'd retweet me, and I'd get followers. And so.
Divia (04:37)
Can I go back and see it or is it deleted? Okay.
Thinkwert (05:02)
A good tweet man also followed me and sometimes he retweeted me. And I would get new followers from that. And that kind of built. But then I found this, I guess, the voice, the whimsical images, particularly of animals or children's books, and adding a little comment. Whimsical, wholesome, sometimes a little bit dark, but nothing too R -rated on there. And that seemed to be what worked.
Divia (05:29)
And a lot of it is pretty self -referential, like about the Twitter experience, which I think people like.
Thinkwert (05:34)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I found that tweets about Twitter did well. I found that tweets about being a parent did not do well. So I kind of just follow the algorithm, OK? This is what people like. This what people don't like. So I kind of switched to match it. I think maybe I'm too old for the average Twitter user experience. They didn't have their own kids. So diaper joke didn't go off that well.
Divia (05:40)
Yeah.
Right.
Thinkwert (06:01)
Tweets about Twitter, yeah, that always does gangbusters because that's a universal experience. And so I kind of made it a little game for myself, as in I'm going to write tweets, post tweets, keep track. I have records going back years of every tweet, how well it did. So my notes, my notes, say.
Divia (06:23)
What sort of records? Like in a spreadsheet or something? Okay.
Thinkwert (06:31)
September 23rd, 2024, here's a tweet. How well it did in the first five minutes, how well it did in the first 10 minutes, how many likes, how many retweets. You can kind of tell the trajectory and if it doesn't do well, delete it, post something else.
Divia (06:43)
Yeah, I you have a deleted word account also, right?
Thinkwert (06:45)
I deleted work. Yes, I will say I am less intense this in 2024. whereas I used to probably work three or four hours a day on tweets, I write 150 tweets a week. It's probably down to about 20. I think I'm down to more moderate levels. But that really was my growth period. I'm kind of a little bit plateau now.
Divia (06:52)
Mm -hmm, I bet deleting.
Okay, so hearing you talk about it, seems like a bunch of your motivation was like the sort of the puzzle of what people are responding to and how you can make more of that.
Thinkwert (07:17)
Yeah. Yeah. So it's a game. It's a game. When I was a little boy, 10 years old, we lived in an apartment and had a high wall in a courtyard. I'd take a soccer ball and kick against the wall and count how many times I could do it. Five. OK, then I'd try again. Six. And try to come to little competitions and different things and just playing with myself for hours at a time.
Divia (07:44)
Mm
Thinkwert (07:45)
And that's what Twitter was. I mean, I also had a social component, but I'm just like, does this work? No, it doesn't work. Okay, try something else. Does this work? Doesn't work. No, don't do this. Something else. And then, okay, this works, this works. And that was kind of the feedback loop that I went into. But I wasn't really doing it for anybody except me. was just a game. Twitter was a game.
Divia (08:04)
Right, and it wasn't like, I mean, I guess now you can monetize a little bit, but it wasn't about that either, because at the time there was nothing like that.
Thinkwert (08:08)
Yeah, right. was pre -monetization. So yeah, I have monetization now, but I didn't have it at the time there. So yeah, it was for the love of the game, so to speak.
Divia (08:20)
Yeah, it's interesting hearing you talk about it because I just use Twitter in such a different way and I'm always more like afraid of responding too much to what people like because it seems like, you know, I rarely have tweets that blow up. But what I do, sometimes it's because I managed to say something funny or I posted some meme just before somebody else did that I didn't even make. But sometimes also it's because I...
can I say something offensive or like more than I meant to or something like that? So I'm usually like, all right, let me steer clear of that. Let me not try to get audience captured. But then it's fun to hear the other side of it. Like you're posting this cool stuff and you are making a game of seeing what people respond to and that that also can be great. I think it's helpful for me to think about that.
Thinkwert (08:50)
I'm gonna...
Yeah.
Well, I think too, because I'm an anonymous account, because I don't really talk about my Twitter account, I don't have to worry about my real life persona and the think word persona kind of complicating each other. Right. So the think word persona is its own thing. And so it's not me and me. Right.
Divia (09:26)
Yeah, you're a professor. Do your students ever know that you have this account?
Thinkwert (09:31)
Yeah, in fact there was an article in the school newspaper about it last year about it. I mentioned it to somebody and the word gets around. got around. I don't, I feel like too many students follow me. I don't know if Thinkware is too popular, sorry, Twitter is too popular on this campus. And I've heard recently there's more restrictions on new accounts. if you start a new account on Twitter due to bot stuff.
Divia (09:35)
Okay.
Yeah.
Thinkwert (09:58)
that it's harder to apply to people unless you pay the money to get in the account. yeah, don't quote me on that. I'm a little murky on how the new changes are happening. But I have a few on there and I follow and I interact with some students every once in a while. But mostly it's just stuff. I don't post anything too controversial, so I'm not too worried about anything in trouble with administration or anything.
Divia (09:59)
Interesting.
Sure.
Thinkwert (10:26)
Maybe about the amount of time I spend on Twitter, that might be a concern. Not so much what I'm posting.
Divia (10:27)
No, that makes sense.
I mean, I imagine, my guess would be if that's how you treat your Twitter hobby, you're probably pretty dedicated with your work as well.
Thinkwert (10:45)
I would think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're definitely separate spheres, I would say, and they don't interact much.
Divia (10:47)
Yeah, sounds like that's your personality.
Yeah, so I posted on Twitter asking if there was anything I should ask you. We got a few questions, not too many, but one of them was, what is the essence of whimsy? So as a top whimsy account on Twitter and also English professor, you probably have a pretty good answer.
Thinkwert (11:03)
Yeah.
I probably should have a ready answer for this. I think it's something slightly off -kilter, something unexpected, but it's also very playful. A little bit like lobbing that tennis ball to somebody and expecting them to lob it back, right? In other words, I'm being silly, I'm being goofy.
but I'm expecting you, the audience, to kind of pick it up. Pick it up and see the joke, see the gag in there, and play with what that is, what is going on there. I often, back in the old days, I'd have a composition of a, this is a whimsy Twitter, this is political Twitter, or politics Twitter, and politics Twitter is also always horrible, horrible, horrible. Dante, Hades,
Divia (12:10)
Right.
Thinkwert (12:12)
War, blood, and whimsy Twitter was fun, sweet, calm, wholesome. So I try pretty hard to stay apolitical in what I post. You probably can tell from reading my Twitter account that I'm not posting a lot of politics. I guess I can't honestly say I never, but I basically never post about politics. I kind of want to kind of make a little oasis away from that.
Divia (12:38)
I think a lot of people want that, right?
Thinkwert (12:40)
Yeah, and I think that's part of the Peel of Thinkward account is that it's not culture war. It's not about if my opponent gets selected, the sky's going to fall in sort of thing.
Divia (12:52)
Yeah, I actually, do you know the word, I've learned this word on Twitter, I've never heard it used in real life, prelapsarian.
Thinkwert (12:59)
Yeah, yeah, like before the fall.
Divia (13:01)
Yeah, and that's the style of those children's book illustrations of like the animals frolicking and stuff like that. That's at least one way people use that word.
Thinkwert (13:06)
Okay, yes. A lot of the Jehovah's Witness art has that prelapsarian feel to it too. You ever seen a Jehovah's Witness art? Jehovah's Witness track art? Yeah, that's very prelapsarian. It often will show kind of very paradise, people smiling. I don't mean to denigrate it at all because there's a real charm. Sincerely, there is a real charm to it. But it has a very utopian...
Divia (13:14)
Yeah. Sorry? no, I haven't seen it.
Thinkwert (13:35)
glossy pictures, everything will be great. Sense of kind of vibrating with joy about it. you Google Jehovah's Witness tracked art, you'll see what I want.
Divia (13:44)
Yeah.
Okay, I'll look it up. Yeah, so what's your current, you'd mentioned that originally you'd gone through and found all the children's books, authors and compiled pictures that way, but yeah, what's your current way of sourcing your pictures?
Thinkwert (13:59)
the, well, like I said, I've had the gas off the pet a little bit really since last year. but really I have a couple of Tumblr accounts that I follow that are really interesting, strange, and then some TikTok accounts that I follow. So I've been posting a lot more videos this last year and, often I'll also just go back and recycle some old tweets as well. but
really it's I think Tumblr is kind of where I get the best images now.
Divia (14:30)
And then how do you find accounts to follow on Tumblr?
Thinkwert (14:33)
Mostly do a search for term like whimsy or berries or something like that. And then find people that kind of have that really interesting images and sensibilities. used to use Pinterest. I used to use Reddit. But I don't use those so much. But yeah, there's a lot of kind of trawling, looking at images, looking at images. Sometimes back in the day, I would say I literally look over 1 ,000 images trying to find some.
try to find something that seemed interesting.
Divia (15:06)
And then can you put into words when you see something, what makes you respond to it, you think?
Thinkwert (15:12)
That's a good question. Most of it is if is it fresh to me like it's something I haven't seen before and is is there something happening in the image. So that sounds strange but a picture of a ferry or a spaceship are often very boring because you're just looking at a ferry or a spaceship. There's nothing happening. There's nothing happening.
Divia (15:17)
Mm
Yeah, okay.
Thinkwert (15:39)
This is what I found early on is that you could collect 20 fairy pictures and they're not interesting. It's just a picture of a fairy. So there had to be some kind of action or gag or some context in the back. I realize I'm sounding very vague here. But it's all kind of same.
Divia (15:56)
No, I'm looking, I'm scrolling through looking at some of your pictures and I'm like, yeah, I think I can see what you're saying. So like your Pinch tweet, which says, a code, I will be kind, I will not thirst, I will not sneer, I will not be bitter, that stuff. And you have a guy holding, I don't know, he's a knight or something, but he has a, like maybe not. He has a sword though, and he has these, I'm like, yeah, he's doing something. Like this, I'm sorry, he does have a helmet, but it's, but he's taken it off and he's kneeling before this altar.
Thinkwert (16:14)
Yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah. Yeah. And that pin tweet is a pretty good representation of kind of what I'm after. As I say that applies there, it's more aspirational than followed in practice. In other words, this is my goal, not so much of I've arrived. This is what I do, is what I want to do.
Divia (16:42)
Sure. Yeah, no, think you convey that it's not meant to be the most serious.
Thinkwert (16:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's kind of a little bit of what I'm after.
Divia (16:54)
Yeah, or if I scroll a little more and I see the picture of like the cat reading the warrior cats books, I'm like yeah there's something happening.
Thinkwert (17:00)
Something happening there. Yeah, yeah, there's some context there.
Divia (17:04)
Okay, so you're scanning and you're looking for things that like maybe aesthetically you like, but also like sort of affords kind of like it has a of a plot already in there.
Thinkwert (17:13)
Yeah, right, right. There's something at work there. And then save a bunch of images, then pull something up and try to find a caption, gag, something a little off -kilter. If you insert whatever the end joke of the week for Twitter is, you can, but it also
Divia (17:35)
Right. That helps a lot, right, for engagement.
Thinkwert (17:41)
You don't gain new followers with that. You get a lot of likes, you won't gain new followers because it's the same joke they've heard all before. They're liking it because they've heard the joke, but they're not going to follow you because they already know the joke. So it's hard to tell, but it's usually something that is sharp and pithy and a little bit original and new, a little bit of skew.
Divia (17:43)
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, what does tend to get new followers?
Thinkwert (18:11)
I find that if I tried to get too long and complicated, you know, I'm an English professor, I like the semicolons and the commas and the clauses connecting to one another. Those, if it can't be quick, they don't work. They don't work. You need something that kind of punches, punches, punches hard and is a little bit something like they haven't seen before.
Divia (18:18)
Yeah.
Do you have, like, you, can you remember, there particular tweets of yours that got you a lot of new followers?
Thinkwert (18:44)
If you typed in thinkwart and wispies, W -H -I -S, yes. Thinkwart and wispies, I think I almost spelled it right. W -H -I -S -P -I -E -S. We're going to find it.
Divia (18:50)
Okay, I'll also open it in.
Thinkwert (19:04)
And it's.
Divia (19:05)
Wispies are giant creatures that live in the Scottish Highlands. This one, they are generally harmless, but their intense curiosity can be alarming to the bystander. They're 99 .8 % water vapor. these are... Yeah, and then it looks like these clouds with eyes and like tenderly fingers. Like these creatures.
Thinkwert (19:08)
Yes.
Yeah, that one got me a ton of new followers. I think it's. No, no, no, no. In fact, in reply, I list the source of the images. Yeah, that is something I found on Tomler. But.
Divia (19:33)
And you, did you create this image or did you find it?
Yeah, because it has 32k likes, which is a lot, but you often get a lot. That's not so many more likes than you sometimes get, right?
Thinkwert (19:49)
Right, right. Yeah, so it's interesting. Sometimes I find something on TikTok and I'll post it that's amusing. It'll get 30 ,000 likes. I don't get a lot of followers because...
Divia (19:58)
Right. But okay, but this one people were like, I'm this is new or something like that's the theory.
Thinkwert (20:02)
This is the one people... Yeah, think it's the whimsy. And also it requires people to catch on that it's not real, right? But it's real -ish in this...
Divia (20:12)
Yes.
Yeah, because when I click on the first one, like, okay, but that's, that would be a very strange cloud. But then, you know, I look at the other ones, I'm like, this is definitely not, this is not something that actually looks like this.
Thinkwert (20:25)
Yeah. But it kind of requires that the audience realizes it's a gag, they play along, and they're like, OK, yeah. So this is something that we see here. I used to use a lot of AI images, and they got a lot of traction out of followers. But there seemed to a turn around in a 2023, where people come.
Divia (20:50)
the ones that you generated or that other people had.
Thinkwert (20:52)
Some of them I generated, some of them I found. I did have a mid -journey account that I used for several months, and I had some good success with it. But I also found that people got kind of annoyed. A lot of people talked with the AI images.
Divia (21:04)
Yeah, I could see that because, yeah, they definitely, I'm sure there are ones that I wouldn't be able to clock as AI, but there is a thing where I can tell that it's AI and I used to be like, that's cool, know, technology. And now I guess maybe I'm the same as everyone else. I'm like, all right, well, I know that AI can do that now and it has that sort of distinctive look and.
Thinkwert (21:26)
It's flabbergasting how quickly that happened, right? In touring, we'd deal with a dolly, two images. I was like, this is, you can't tell, this is amazing. This is miraculous, really. And then two years later, it's like, ugh, right. Yeah, it's so amazing.
Divia (21:29)
Yeah, totally.
And it's still, yeah, it's still part of me is like, of course, it's a miracle. Like imagine going back, you know, I used to, studied computer science in college. Not that I was ever very deep in any of stuff, but my friends used to be like, wouldn't it be, you know, you should get the computers to make these pictures. I'm like, guys, you have no idea that's so hard. That you can't do anything like that. you know, so I do remember when very, the state of the art was very far from that.
Thinkwert (22:07)
Yeah, it did seem to the naive person like, I thought computers could always do that. Why is that new?
Divia (22:11)
Right. Yeah, no, in some ways I think I'm able to be more impressed with it because I was studying computer science when people were sort of trying and completely failing to do things like that.
Thinkwert (22:25)
But yeah, anyway, I was using AI images quite a bit. I've really, I wouldn't say I've stopped using them, but I don't use them so much, partly because it felt like people were unfollowing or blocking or really negative towards AI images. But like I said, I respond to what people tell me, at least how would I get in the likes and retweets, and kind of follow from that.
Divia (22:38)
That's too bad.
Right.
Yeah, you know, I was just thinking actually, because I don't really have viral tweets myself. I think one of my top tweets was just some early reply to one of your jokes with some other joke. was something about a, like, some old internet joke about the husband pranking his wife that he'd taken a coyote into the house or something. Okay, so one of the other questions that we got.
Thinkwert (23:10)
Yeah.
Divia (23:17)
This was from Science Banana. What is your ideal application for the allegedly upcoming AR glasses? I don't know if you've spoken about this before, but Banana thought you might have a take.
Thinkwert (23:27)
but yeah, I have not looked into it. I really don't have an answer to it. I always thought it'd be kind of neat to be able to enter like a classic movie mode. I think I'd go into a noir film and solve it, kind of like a game, except it'd be kind of more cinematic quality.
I know you've got kind of things that do that already. So yeah, I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for you, Yeah,
Divia (24:01)
Fair enough.
Okay, and so also when we were planning this podcast, you mentioned to me some stuff that you have a lot of thoughts on that aren't as Twitter -centric. And so I would also love to hear your thoughts on, you think Shakespeare is actually Shakespeare.
Thinkwert (24:13)
Yes. Right.
I think Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Yeah, yeah.
Divia (24:22)
Yeah, and this is one of those things, have a very sort of casual level of engagement with this. I've talked to a couple friends over the years that have opinions. I've read some blog posts, but I don't really have my own opinion. So can you lay it out for me? What's the...
Thinkwert (24:34)
Well, I'm glad I get a chance to rant about this, because I've been meaning to rant about it. part of it is that.
don't know if I want to actually get into fights with people online about this. So I'll preface this by saying I'm not so much interested in refuting arguments as laying out a case of why I think William Shakespeare, the actor, was the same William Shakespeare who wrote the plays. All right, so let me lay out, first let me lay out why there's a controversy at all. Okay, why do some people think that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare?
Divia (24:46)
You
Thinkwert (25:12)
Well, nobody thought this until like the late 1800s. So Shakespeare, yeah. So Shakespeare is like 1568 is when he's born. He dies, I want to say 1630 somewhere. But in his lifetime, nobody ever, no, there was no gossip. There was no doubt about it. Yeah, we have people talk about him and nobody says anything.
Divia (25:17)
At the time, everyone took for granted that of course he was.
And we have contemporary accounts of various types.
Thinkwert (25:41)
There's a few strange things that are said about him, but nobody says, by the way, he didn't write the plays. So in the late 1800s, you have this American lady who actually is caught in the tomb of Shakespeare trying to open it up like she has a pickaxe and she's hacking away because she's convinced that there was no way that he was actually Shakespeare. yeah, where Shakespeare's buried, like she wants to prove the tomb is empty. There was no, there was no.
Divia (26:04)
With the guy in the tomb, you mean?
Okay, so this is separate issue from whether he wrote the plays. She wants to prove that he's not in the tomb. Okay.
Thinkwert (26:12)
Well, yeah, so this is like hundreds of years later, she's convinced Shakespeare is not Shakespeare. So why do people think Shakespeare was not Shakespeare? And so then after that, you have these different candidates.
Divia (26:23)
Sorry, but even if he wasn't, even if someone else wrote the plays, what would that have to do with the tomb? Am I missing something obvious?
Thinkwert (26:28)
Well, I think she was not properly emotionally balanced, it's probably fair to say. But she believed there was a conspiracy, she believed there was a lie, and she was exposed to the conspiracy for the lie. But it kind of becomes this popular parlor game for the next 150 years of Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare, there was somebody else. And who that somebody else? There's a lot of different candidates that
Divia (26:35)
Sure, okay.
So she could just find out something, she could go to the tomb. Okay.
Thinkwert (26:57)
There's like a new one every couple years who the actual Shakespeare was But I say that that it's Most likely Shakespeare was Shakespeare. Okay, so why do I believe that well Shakespeare starts a Playing company. He's already got a little bit reputation as a writer in around 1594 he's one of the key people that starts his playing company so so they would
put on productions, these about 12 guys would, they'll just be a corporation, cut the prices among them, each had so many shares and they'd make money from
And starting from about 1594 till about 1606, there's about two plays a year that Shakespeare writes for the playing company. And they become really rich and they become really famous. In fact, when Queen Elizabeth dies and King James takes over, he makes their playing company, his playing company, King James's personal playing company. Like you're the Kingsman now.
You're not the Lord Campbell's men, you're the Kingsman. You're now part of, you're like my key guys, the ones that I claim for my own. So A, if there's a fake writer out there, which we have no reason to believe, but if there is, he's willing to give William all the money and all the fame, and he's writing them two plays a year. All right, what's the motivation?
Why are you doing so much work if you're never going to get any of the laurels? There's also strange things. why do people not want to believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare? Well, we have six copies of his signatures, and he spelled his name differently every time. So like in official court documents, Shakespeare spells his name. He's never consisted about it. In fact,
Divia (28:34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is that kind like, don't, knew the spelling didn't use to be so standardized. So is that typical of that era or.
Thinkwert (29:01)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's very typical of the era and it kind of doesn't matter that you spell it consistently. He's just kind of he's just writing it down any way he wishes. But people interpret that as, this guy was illiterate. The guy who wrote this William Shakespeare is not the William Shakespeare. He's just an actor, right? He's just just dapper.
Divia (29:29)
Yeah, that seems to be a lot of what people are saying that he wasn't educated enough, he wasn't enough of an elite, things along those lines,
Thinkwert (29:33)
Yeah. So he never went to the Oxford or Cambridge. He was kind of country educated out there, Stratford upon Avon. And then he strolls into the big city and somehow he writes the most beautiful prose in poetry of the English language. So how does that guy, how does the country bumpkin guy become really mute? That's right. so the always a suspect tends to be someone who is nobility.
Divia (29:54)
Yeah, that seems to be why people don't believe it.
Thinkwert (30:03)
Right? Rich and kind of disconnected. We have curious little things in Shakespeare's plays. I'm trying to find the exact wording. His vocabulary changes. For example, Shakespeare wrote in the older verb form of did go, which is more of the country form. Later on, he starts writing more of the went, the went verb form in later plays. So that suggests.
Divia (30:26)
Hmm.
Thinkwert (30:29)
that he had more of a rustic accent when he's writing at first, and then he starts changing it. Shakespeare did not like to write about the city of London. In other words, he wasn't interested in the politics and the goings on of the London of his time. So if you're noble person, isn't that what you're thinking about? Isn't that what you're interested in? Is that what you want to talk about?
Divia (30:31)
at first.
Okay.
which you would think some nobility who had grown up spending a lot of time in London might be more natural.
Thinkwert (30:57)
Almost all of Shakespeare's plays are heavily interested in families. The fact there's only one play we know that does not involve a family, and that was a late play that Shakespeare finished for somebody. Someone else started the play and he just finished the play for somebody else. We also know that Shakespeare...
Divia (31:02)
Yeah.
Wait, so sorry, but what do you think the significance of the family thing is?
Thinkwert (31:18)
Because if there is somebody who is single noble lord out there who is secretly writing the text, he would also have to be as interested in the theme of family, which is possible. But it seems that that's not who the usual suspects tend to be. They tend to be that lone genius who's writing.
Divia (31:23)
like nobility would have been less focused on family.
And I don't, okay. And I don't even know, does Shakespeare have a family? I'm pretty ignorant about this. He did. Okay.
Thinkwert (31:46)
yeah, yeah, he had a wife, had several kids. They were out of town in Stratford. In fact, he ended up buying a big amount of property out of Stratford and that's where he retires, outside of London. I mean, and nowadays it's like an hour and a half from London, but in those old days, was like a day or two away. And they would have seasons, there were seasons and he'd go back and his wife pregnant, they have another kid and he'd go back to London and work for a while. But it seemed like...
Divia (31:57)
Okay.
Okay, no, just so you're saying it's more natural that he would write about family because he did have a family and most of the other people that are, they're like, that could have been Shakespeare. They didn't even have families. Got it.
Thinkwert (32:16)
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Most of these were with subject matter. So subject matter one, yeah. But really what it comes down to, and another little curious thing is one of Shakespeare's big plays was Henry IV. So if you're familiar with Falstaff, he was kind of the big, fat comic character of Shakespeare's. He was a huge hit. We know this. He was the Mickey Mouse to the Walt Disney for Hamlet.
Divia (32:51)
Okay.
Thinkwert (32:53)
seriously, because there's a list of pop culture references in London of the time, and Falstaff explodes. People talk about Falstaff all the time. He is kind of like I said, he's his Mickey Mouse, his big character. His actor is called William Kemp. He's a comic actor and Shakespeare is always writing a role for comic characters.
Divia (33:10)
Okay.
Thinkwert (33:20)
Why even in tragedies he has to have a funny. OK. Why. Right. If you are the guy pseudo Shakespeare out there and you don't care you're just writing your beautiful poetry for these these playwrights to do is this playing company to do why do you always make sure to have a role for the funny guy. Right. Yeah. So so the.
Divia (33:23)
I do know this much. I've read some Shakespeare in school. I used to go see some plays.
Okay, you think that just, fits better with him actually being an actor and caring about his fellow, his company.
Thinkwert (33:49)
who's writing the plays knows the cast really, really well. He knows the cast really, really well. So, I mean, I guess it's possible that someone who doesn't know the cast could also be writing, but it makes more sense to think it's somebody who lives and breathes and eats with these guys every single day, right? He knows these, so he writes characters for him. So this is Kemp actually, because Falstaffs is so big, he ends up leaving the playing company.
The speculation is that he wanted more money. They were coming out with a sequel and he wanted another role and they didn't give it to him. Yeah, so Henry IV, part one. Paul Staff is kind of a minor character in there, but he's like the breakout star, right? He's the breakout character. He's Urkel of Family Matters, even though the reference there, right? He's the Urkel. So they make a sequel.
Divia (34:26)
sequel sorry for for one of the plays you mean
right, okay.
Yes, I do. I'm the right age.
Thinkwert (34:47)
And that does Henry IV, part two. I'm beginning this mixed up. Actually, think next is Mary Wives of Windsor because according to legend, Queen Elizabeth asked Shakespeare for a sequel and it's pretty terrible. According to legend, he had to it in two weeks. yeah, yeah, Henry IV, part one. It's a masterpiece. It looks great. Mary Wives of Windsor spins off.
Divia (35:06)
This was, the first edition of Henry IV, part two?
Thinkwert (35:16)
with Falstaff as a kind of a comic character in love is terrible. I it has its defendants, but generally speaking, Shakespeare wrote it too fast. Again, know, writing something for the money or because the queen asked you is another sign that maybe it's the actual Shakespeare who's writing these things. And then the fourth part two where Falstaff comes back, it's a kind of weird play. It basically is a remake of the first play.
Divia (35:22)
Okay.
Thinkwert (35:45)
Apparently not as big, but Falstaff is still very funny and it's still very good. At the end of Henry IV, part two, so again, we're three plays in, Falstaff has more lines than any other Shakespeare character in any of the plays. It promises at the end of Henry IV, we're get sequel. We're gonna get another, you're gonna see Falstaff one more time. One more time. Will Kemp, who plays Falstaff, quits. Like I said, apparently he wants more money. He wants more money, more shares.
they part ways, he goes away. So when Henry V comes around, Shakespeare writes, he dies off screen. It's a very touching scene, but basically he dies off stage somewhere, Falstaff dies, and we never see him again. He never brings him back, because that was the Wilk Kemp character. Again, if it was an outside playwright who was writing this, why would he care? Why would he care? So then we have another actor whose name I'm trying to remember.
Divia (36:37)
Why would he care so much about that? Yeah.
Thinkwert (36:44)
who plays as Wilkamp, he's kind of the new clown, and his name is Robert Armand. And he's a much more witty guy. He's not fat, he's not big, he's thin as a rail. And so Shakespeare writes things for a witty actor. So he has all the rules of stage, you know that famous speech, all the rules of stage, he writes that for Robert Armand playing Jakes, because that is a kind of acerbic.
Divia (37:06)
Yeah.
Thinkwert (37:13)
little piece. It really doesn't even fit in the play that well, as you like it, frankly, but it's a brilliant piece. It's by itself, it's just an amazing little monologue. If you've seen King Lear or watched King Lear, there's that fool character who's so sharp and acerbic and says these kind of strange, slanted things against or mocking King Lear. He's the only one who can do it. That's another Robert Armand role that Shakespeare wrote for him. So my argument is
why would these roles be so perfectly tailored for those actors unless it was somebody who knew that cast so intimately and so well.
Divia (37:48)
Yeah
Okay, but say there was someone, and again, I didn't even know if Schaefer had a family, I know almost nothing, but say there was someone who was really writing these, wouldn't he be going to see them all the time also? Like, wouldn't he care about the actors in that way?
Thinkwert (38:09)
I guess, I mean, he would have to know them really well, so I think that's plausible, but it seems like the most plausible case would be for the person whose name is on the marquee, William Shakespeare. He would be the one who would know more.
Divia (38:25)
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I, it's very interesting what you're saying about the, that he's writing it for the actors. I think the thing, again, not knowing much context that I find more persuasive is, well, that there wasn't any question about this at the time and that Shakespeare was getting all the money and the recognition, which does, and so does, from your perspective, does it not even really seem surprising that he could do this even though he didn't have as much formal education?
Thinkwert (38:40)
Hell, glory. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think he was kind of a preternatural genius. I don't know a way to put it. But it is interesting having read so much Shakespeare is that you see the early work and you see stuff that doesn't work. Doesn't work. You see flashes and then you see a lot of dead stuff. Reading Richard III, you see the Richard III character is fantastic. The rest of the play is kind of bad. But later on, he gets so good at it.
Divia (38:57)
Yeah.
Thinkwert (39:23)
And then towards the end of his career, you kind of see he stops caring so much and he passes things off. He co -writes more. And so early on you see more of a tutelage stage and then you see this other stage of less caring. And then you see the master craft kind of peeking and it matches. King Lear is probably the one that moves me most. Hamlet is probably the best.
Divia (39:45)
to your favorite Shakespeare play.
Thinkwert (39:53)
The one that I come back to is what's called the first technology, which is Henry IV, part one, part two, Henry V, and it starts with, sorry, Richard II at the top. And it kind of is about this, almost this original sin of usurping Richard II and how it goes down the generations. They try to fix it finally with Henry V. And it's basically about that whole, the Bollingbrook family.
So I would say those are probably my favorites. King Lear is the one that gets me in the gut every time. It's the one that moves me.
Divia (40:33)
What is it about King Lear?
Thinkwert (40:36)
I think it is that spectacular bleakness. What's interesting to think about King Lear is he bases, Shakespeare bases it on early legend of King Lear. And in the original legend, the story that his audience would have been aware of, it has a happy ending. He's reunited with Cordelia, they defeat the rebellion, King Lear reigns, then he dies happily a few years later with the arms of his daughter.
That's not what Shakespeare does. Spoiler alert for anybody who's not seen King Lear. It's awful. His daughter dies. He's gone insane. She heals him. He basically restores him. And then she's hung. And he's on stage holding her and weeping. And then he kills over and dies too. And we basically have his body being carted off at the end. And it's so bleak.
Divia (41:10)
Yeah.
Thinkwert (41:34)
And I can only imagine the shock of the audience who, knowing the way the story was, were just flabbergasted. Yeah. And as far as I know, I don't know if Shakespeare ever so radically changing the way the story is supposed to go into something totally new. It's written towards the end of his career. And I think he's basically, he's got nothing left to prove, right? He doesn't have to worry so much about audience reaction. He's confident in what he's doing. And it's a...
Divia (41:39)
Yeah, they really would have been expecting something very different.
Thinkwert (42:04)
It's amazing, yeah. It also helps that I'm a father of three daughters myself, so I resonate with that too.
Divia (42:13)
Yeah, that makes sense. you want to tell the podcast a little about your family? We were chatting about this a bit before we started recording.
Thinkwert (42:18)
Yeah, so, yeah, I'll try to avoid real names. I've been married for 15 years, and we have an older daughter who's 13. And I have twin daughters, who if you follow my Twitter account, you probably know, who are nine years old. in April, did we talk about this on? I don't know if we talked about it on camera or not. We talked about it before. But if you do think we're twins, you'll find them.
Divia (42:38)
They're the ones in the picture where you're the back of you and the front of them.
Thinkwert (42:48)
There's a picture, backwards picture I take with them every year. You can see my bald head in the back. as the girls are grinning, we've done it every single year since they were about eight months old. Just classic funny picture. In fact, it got into People Magazine. They posted it on one of their May issues this year. So if you really want to know who I am, you can look through all the old issues of People Magazine this year and find me in there.
So yeah, it was it was a lot of fun, but the girls are as we talked about they're nonverbal autistic Which I think actually helped these photos because they are so unmannered and then there's we're not they're not posing at all for the cameras They don't care about at all So the the laughs the grins that they have on there are totally natural and unforced on there, but yeah, they're both fairly severely nonverbal autistic
Divia (43:27)
Thanks a mix.
Right.
Yeah, I'm curious about something like, I don't know, like what do you think it's like for them? like, how do you think their minds, I'm sure you've thought about this a lot and seen it over the years. Like, how do you think their minds work?
Thinkwert (44:05)
I, you know, I don't know. I don't think they're unhappy. I think they know what they, they want, what they like, you know, you have to keep the pink starburst away from them. they, they, they like perfumes, sweet smelling things. And they'll, they'll hunt that. They're very picky eaters, but what they eat, they'll like to eat. But, like I was saying earlier, I don't think I've ever had a,
Divia (44:21)
That's their favorite.
Thinkwert (44:36)
question or inquisitive question from them. Like here's what I want, what I want, but questions about the world around them. So it's what is the world like from their mind? I don't know. I think they have a happy life and a good life, but it's hard to know what they're thinking, you know.
Divia (44:57)
Yeah. And do you have, I don't know, do you think, I always think in some ways the most interesting perspectives, like from real life people, obviously some people study this stuff, people who either have twins, especially identical twins, or they have some children that are genetically theirs and some that are adopted. So do you have any, what are your thoughts on children and genetics and from your own experience?
Thinkwert (45:17)
Yeah, mean, having identical twins, they both have pretty equally severe autism, which suggests really a genetic component, right? If they're identical twins and they have pretty much the same severity of autism, it does suggest something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they are both different personalities. One is much more bold and outgoing. The other one will copy her.
Divia (45:33)
And it's probably been there from the beginning too.
Thinkwert (45:46)
We have to get one of the girls dressed because the other one will want to match what the first one does. She refuses to get dressed until she sees what the one wears and she wants match. The first one doesn't care. She doesn't care at all what her sister wears. And so we always have to dress C first and then R will dress according to what C wears. And R is much more quiet and reticent. C is much more bold.
Divia (45:51)
yeah.
Interesting.
Thinkwert (46:16)
Unfortunately, C likes to hit, but R doesn't unless she's been hit by C. Then sometimes she'll back. But when R would throw a fit, when she gets overwhelmed, she'll throw a huge fit just smashing the ground. When C gets upset, she just weeps. She just breaks down, weeps, weeps, weeps, unconsolably. you see difference in the personalities between the two identical twins. But there's definitely a connection there.
Divia (46:22)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thinkwert (46:45)
with the autism.
Divia (46:47)
Yeah, I've known a few pairs of identical twins in my life. It's interesting how, and you know, I'm talking to their parents too sometimes, like how the differences can be very pronounced from the very beginning, but it's obviously not genetic. So I get maybe there's just some little path dependent thing or maybe they differentiate early or I don't know.
Thinkwert (47:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't either.
Divia (47:14)
Do they ever look at your Twitter pictures? Do ever show them to your kids?
Thinkwert (47:18)
My eldest does. Sometimes she'll give me ideas for her tweets. S**t, bless her heart. She was playing Roblox and there was some kind of competition for online personality. Like, you dress your little Roblox figure as an online personality. And so she dressed up as Thinqort. And she got last place. Because no one knew what Thinqort was.
Divia (47:36)
Okay.
Because no one knew who she meant. Is this like one of those fashion famous like those types of... Yeah, my kids play Roblox.
Thinkwert (47:51)
Yeah, yeah, something like that. So God bless her, that was so sweet. But I said, honey, hardly anybody would know what Thinkware was. Not especially 10 -year -old, 12 -year -old kids on Roblox. They're not going to know what Thinkware is. But I thought it was a sweet little homage. Yeah, So she thinks I'm famous, at least on Roblox.
Divia (48:04)
That's really sweet.
I mean, in my world you are, like I said.
Thinkwert (48:15)
Yeah, yeah, very very micro niche way, I suppose.
Divia (48:24)
Yeah, so a couple more Twitter type questions. Do you have, you have thoughts on, I don't know, like how Twitter, especially since Elon and there's this perennial, you said you don't really think of it in these terms, in teapot, you know, is it, is it what it used to be? Any, you have thoughts on any of that stuff?
Thinkwert (48:27)
Okay.
Yeah.
I kind of feel like I've been on the periphery of T -POD. There's some of those diagrams that come up every once in a while where they kind of make a little unit, like constellation. You know I'm talking about? Some of them. And usually think word is kind of somewhere on the outside, like looking in. Like I'm really friendly and amiable with a lot of the T -POD folks. Yes. Yes.
Divia (48:52)
Yeah, yeah, there's maps and things.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you said you got a lot of your early followers from Eigenrobot, so that part tracks.
Thinkwert (49:09)
Right, right. So I do have a lot of the same connection and I'm kind of sympathetic with Teapot overall and I positive feelings. But like many people, don't know how I I do. Yeah, please. I'm sorry for me too.
Divia (49:21)
So for anyone who's listening, who's not following this, Teapot stands for this part of Twitter, which could really mean anything, sort of by the very words, but there's a cluster of Twitter users.
Thinkwert (49:35)
Yeah, it's a cluster of Twitter users, pretty good way put it. I would say very intelligent, hyperarticulate, and kind of not to flatter them too much, but a little more immune to the meanplexes of the dominant cultural ideology than other places. Not perfectly immune, you know, and I can imagine some people right now yelling at me for even saying it.
Divia (49:56)
Yeah, I think that's the that's at least what we're going for.
Thinkwert (50:05)
But I think that they don't.
Divia (50:06)
think it tends maybe a little more like inward focused also too like maybe as evidenced by the name like you know arguably can be sort of navel gaze -y but also like also I think people are friends with each other a lot like it really is there not that it's one friend group but but a lot of Twitter I think it's more like people broadcasting and I think part of the conceit of teapot is no we're here to really to talk to each other and have conversations and I think mostly
That happens more than a lot of places.
Thinkwert (50:35)
And to their credit, the first place I ever heard about COVID was from Teapot. The first place I ever hear about AI and the whole AI explosion was Teapot. The first people I ever hear talking about the low total fertility replacement rate. But in a way, they're kind of on the cutting edge of a lot of these conversations, right? That first place I hear it is from this circle. And then,
Divia (50:52)
yeah.
Yeah.
Thinkwert (51:03)
it permeates outwards from it. So there are people who are kind of in the know. I'm a fan. I don't know that I can honestly say I'm part of it, but it's not that I reject them so much as I don't know that I qualify.
Divia (51:14)
I think
I think the people who make a map and they put you on the map, I think they're right to do that.
Thinkwert (51:24)
So somewhere on the periphery and I'm a fan of T -Pod. I like T -Pod, but I don't know if that'll be...
Divia (51:30)
Yeah, do you have any thoughts on Twitter pre and post Elon, since you're a power user?
Thinkwert (51:34)
Yeah, it seems like two steps forward, one steps back. There's so many, I mean, changing the names, frankly, was... Yeah, well, you noticed that lasted like two months, right? And then most people went back to calling you Twitter. At least that's what I noticed. I like calling you Twitter. But it seems so silly. And then, of course, there's always at least...
Divia (51:45)
Okay, so I keep calling it Twitter, of course, now officially it's X.
Yeah, I
Thinkwert (52:03)
once every couple of weeks a tweet from Elon that makes me roll my eyes. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Don't do that. He interacted with me briefly last year a few times. I liked for about two week period, I had about four or five times he responded to me. yeah. Yeah. But then never again. So I don't know if it was something I said. I somehow slipped off his radar again and never had it.
Divia (52:09)
Yep.
Did you get a follower boost from that? You did, yeah.
Interesting.
Thinkwert (52:34)
So yeah, I'm generally, think I like Twitter better post Elon overall.
Divia (52:44)
And are you a fan of the monetization thing? I mean, I imagine you get something.
Thinkwert (52:47)
Yes, yeah. I'm astonished that I paid anything. So that I could do this and do what I would normally do anyway and get paid out of it little bit. It's not a whole lot. I'd say I've maybe gotten $2 ,000 since about the last year, which isn't huge, but yeah, it helps, right? It helps with inflation.
Divia (53:11)
No, it's cool, but I have yet to hear of anyone. Like, there people that make a living really posting on other platforms. And I don't think anyone's doing that on, or if someone is, I have yet to hear of it.
Thinkwert (53:23)
Yeah, yeah. mean, I know of people who will get or at least heard people who get several thousand a month, which you could, you know, least supplement your income really well. But the really big influencers seem to be Instagram and TikTok. That's where you go if you really want to make the money or YouTube. So but yeah, I think that was a smart move from from Elon, actually. It kind of happened started right when
Divia (53:29)
Okay, I guess then that's...
Yeah.
Yeah, YouTube too.
Thinkwert (53:53)
Blue Sky and threads were kind of taken off. And I think that was kind of a thing to keep some of the power users on. I never did threads. I did Blue Sky. I still have a Blue Sky account. I don't think I've posted there in months. There's a certain bitterness about the culture there that I don't tend to like.
Divia (53:55)
Yeah.
Did you try posting those places too?
I have an account, I haven't, how would you describe it? I haven't been on there.
Thinkwert (54:19)
Well, I think they've got Elon in the brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything they do is to be anti -Twitter, anti -Elon, rather than their own thing. I wish Elon did not exist for them. I think they'd be a better place for it. But to be fair, I'm not on there often, so I don't know.
Divia (54:24)
like sort of anti -Twitter bitterness, you mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. No, I mean, something I always liked about Twitter compared to other social media platforms, at least like what I see in other social media, is it seems like while there is a lot of like, this is a hell site, this is whatever, there also seems to be a lot of love for Twitter on Twitter. Partly as, like I think maybe your account is partly an example of this, especially like, you know, you'll make these memes. I don't know I'm supposed to use the word meme. I don't know how
But like the picture, know, like one of the ones I always think of for you is like a giant holding some small creature. And it's like, you know, what a big account is, you know, replying to a small account or like somebody like exploring this forest and like, you know, when you finally, when you get added to a new locked account or like things like, and there, these people be like, I can't believe this website is free or this is the best website in the world. I think that, I think for me, that goes a long way, even though there's a lot of people.
Thinkwert (55:07)
No. Sure.
Cheers.
Yeah.
Divia (55:36)
Complaining about Twitter, complaining that it's worse than it used to be, complaining that it encourages such terrible discourse norms. I don't know. I really like it. Also, people seem to love it.
Thinkwert (55:46)
Yeah, there's nothing quite like it. Nothing quite like it. And I like being here. Obviously, I'm here every day. I'm on tour.
Divia (55:54)
Yeah, have you made a lot of personal connections too on Twitter?
Thinkwert (55:57)
I have met a couple people. I met Bowser in person, although he's no longer around. Yeah, he's got a real account I won't reveal that I follow, or a base account. But I met Comrade Snake. I can't remember what his actual Twitter handle is. But there's been a couple people that I've met. And they've always been great. They've always been great to meet.
Divia (56:05)
Yeah, he's long gone, right?
Thinkwert (56:25)
Elijah Middleborn, I met him a couple months ago. He makes the wooden swords and bookmarks. don't know how many are familiar with him, but.
Divia (56:35)
Yeah, I know, but I'll look it up. That sounds cool.
Thinkwert (56:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we met, and he actually gave me a person, a bookmark that he had made for me, bad word. But yeah, everyone I've met has been great. I like meeting people from online. Excuse me. There's that cold again.
Divia (56:56)
Yeah, no, and I think I do want to wrap up pretty soon, given everybody's time, but one question that I've been thinking of is, as someone who I think you do know about Teapot, and as a professor of English literature, are there any books that you think are a little underrated that people in our part of Twitter might want to check out?
Thinkwert (57:17)
Huh.
Well, the last book that really knocked my socks off was the Cormac McCarthy Passenger and Stella Maris. They're two twin novels. I know if you follow Jarvis, he rewrote about these books in detail. They're really terrific. But I think Cormac McCarthy was the great American author until he passed. In fact, he was, we were going to call a son, if he ever had a son, his name was Cormac.
Divia (57:48)
neat.
Thinkwert (57:50)
after him. I never had his name. So we never got to use that name. Cormac McCarthy, think, is fantastic. He was the best author that we had until he passed. I'm not quite sure. What was it about it? Just a masterful use of prose and I think just kind of a thematic depth to him. There's also a
Divia (58:02)
And can you say what you think makes him the best American author?
Thinkwert (58:19)
I think is a throwback to Faulkner and the old kind magisterial voice of the American author.
Divia (58:30)
I have read Azalea dying. What does ministerial mean in this context?
Thinkwert (58:33)
Kind of grave, serious, but also a certain quality of...
eloquence eloquence and masterful use of the words deeply serious deeply serious use of the words there yeah as far as the the plots are very strange they go all over the place but yeah they were they were great the last ones i remember reading them like okay wow that's some good stuff yeah
Divia (59:10)
Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on the podcast and I'll see you on Twitter and everyone who's on Twitter, highly recommend following the Think Word account if you like whimsical humor.
Thinkwert (59:22)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
Divia (59:25)
Thank you.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com