Deviate

“Common sense is a very poor guide to understanding the universe. Science is kind of the opposite of common sense. It seems fanciful to think that a bird is a dinosaur, but that is literally true.”  –Kenneth Lacovara In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kenneth discuss why dinosaurs matter, especially for little kids (5:00); how we have come to learn what we know about dinosaurs (23:00); the “butterfly effect,” and how we use the ancient past to predict the future (35:00); the distinctions between the dinosaurs, and what field-work looks like (42:00); and myths about dinosaurs (53:00). Kenneth Lacovara (@kenlacovara) is a paleontologist and geologist. He is a professor at Rowan University and fellow at the Explorers Club where he received the Explorers Club Medal, the highest honor bestowed by The Explorers Club. He is the author of the book Why Dinosaurs Matter, which is based on his TED Talk, “Hunting for dinosaurs showed me our place in the universe.” Notable Links: Dinosaurs, by Rolf Justin Potts (PDF of Rolf’s hand-illustrated 1978 “book”) Paleontology (scientific study of life predating the Holocene Epoch) Jurassic Park (movie) Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event Hallucigenia (genus of Cambrian xenusiids) Triassic (geologic period) Jurassic (geologic period) Origin of birds (started as theropod dinosaurs) Clades (organism group consisting of a common ancestor and its descendants) Sauropsids (clade consisting of reptiles and birds) Synapsids (animal group that includes mammals) Hominids (taxonomic family of primates) Butterfly effect (chaos theory postulation) Dinosaurs mentioned: Tyrannosaurus Rex (carnivorous theropod) Stegosaurus (armored herbivore) Triceratops (herbivorous ceratopsid) Ankylosaurus (armored herbivorous) Brontosaurus (herbivorous sauropod) Velociraptor (carnivorous theropod) Allosaurus (carnivorous theropod) Dreadnoughtus (herbivorous sauropod) Brachiosaurus (herbivorous sauropod) Diplodocus (herbivorous sauropod) Titanosauria (herbivorous sauropod) Argentinosaurus (herbivorous sauropod) Camptosaurus (beaked ornithischian) Spinosaurus (carnivorous theropod) Teratosaurus (Triassic archosaur) Pterodactyl (flying pterosaur) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Traveling, for me, is all about destroying stereotypes and narratives about people and places.” – Matt Green In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt discuss Matt’s mission to walk every street in New York City (3:00); walking across the entire United States and breaking stereotypes (12:00); bucket lists as a catalyst for action (28:00); and Matt’s experiences walking in unfamiliar places and finding comfort in being a stranger (50:00). Matt Green is the wanderer who was profiled within the documentary The World Before your Feet, directed by filmmaker Jeremy Workman and produced by Jesse Eisenberg. Matt has walked across the entire United States and is currently in the process of walking every street in New York City. For more about Matt and his current project, check out https://imjustwalkin.com/. Notable Links: East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (book) East of Eden excerpt The Journey Home, by Edward Abbey (book) Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck (book) Cannery Row excerpt Gary House (traveler) The World Before Your Feet at Kanopy This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Because I was entering football fandom at the same age that Star Wars was blowing up, the Roger Staubach Dallas Cowboys were my Luke Skywalker, and the Steelers and the Raiders were, in my child mind, the Evil Empire.” —Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf shares his 2002 NPR “Savvy Traveler” dispatch about trying to watch the Super Bowl in Thailand (2:00); then he and Tod Goldberg discuss how they became NFL football fans as kids in the 1970s, and how this affected their fandom later in life (9:00); how it could be difficult in the days before the Internet for kids to find information about NFL teams and players, and which books they read about the early days of pro football (26:00); the origins of the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs in upstart pro leagues, their more recent fortunes in the NFL, and how the last Chiefs Super Bowl appearance was nine months before Rolf was born (42:30); on watching Super Bowls from overseas and following the Chiefs (or 49ers) as adults, the strengths of the 2020 Chiefs and 49ers teams, and the emotional stakes of Super Bowl LIV (53:00). Novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg) is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the novel Gangsterland, which is currently being developed into a television series for Amazon. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast. NFL games and players: Super Bowl LIV (2020 KC Chiefs versus SF 49ers NFL title game) Rolf Benirschke (San Diego Chargers placekicker in the 1980s) Roger Staubach (Dallas Cowboys quarterback in the 1970s) Jack Lambert (Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker in the 1970s) Christian “Nigerian Nightmare” Okoye (Chiefs fullback in the 1980s) Ray Guy (Oakland Raiders punter in the 1970s) Mike Mercer (NFL punter in the 1960s) Lou “The Toe” Groza (NFL punter and offensive tackle in the 1950s) Marshall Goldberg (Jewish Chicago Cardinals running back in the 1940s) Red “Galloping Ghost” Grange (Chicago Bears player-coach in the 1930s) 1934 NFL Championship Game, aka the “Sneakers Game” (title game) 1940 NFL Championship Game, (73-0 Bears-Giants title game) Steve Grogan (New England Patriots quarterback in the 1980s) Ed “Too Tall” Jones (Cowboys defensive end in the 1980s) Super Bowl IV (1970 Chiefs versus Vikings NFL title game) NFL Films: Super Bowl IV Highlights (sports documentary) Hank Stram (Chiefs coach from 1960-1974) Len Dawson (Chiefs quarterback in the 1960s and 1970s) Lloyd C. A. Wells (pioneering scout for the Chiefs in the 1960s) Todd Blackledge (Chiefs 1983 draft-pick quarterback) Super Bowl XLVII (2013 Ravens versus 49ers NFL title game) Patrick Mahomes (current Chiefs quarterback) Andy Reid (current Chiefs head coach) Jimmy Garoppolo (current 49ers quarterback) Super Bowl XVI (1981 49ers versus Bengals NFL title game) Other links: Kumbh Mela (Indian Hindu pilgrimage celebrated every 12 years) Watching the Super Bowl in Namibia, by Rolf Potts (essay) Super Bowl Exile (Rolf’s 2002 NPR dispatch) Tod Goldberg on why sports is so emotionally affecting (Deviate episode) The Catch (touchdown reception in the 1981 NFC Championship Game) West Coast offense (passing-oriented football strategy) Matthew Zapruder (American poet and editor) Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas (NFL franchise location change) Candlestick Park (former stadium that hosted San Francisco 49ers games) Tom Landry, Existentialist, Dead at 75, by Sarah Vowell (essay) Nerf (toy brand that made foam footballs) Tecmo Bowl (1980s football video game) Sears Christmas Wish Book was great American literature (Deviate episode) Championship: The NFL Title Games Plus Super Bowl, Jerry Izenberg (book) The Super Bowl Shuffle (rap song performed by the 1985 Chicago Bears) Bill Haley & His Comets (early rock and roll band) All-America Football Conference (professional football league from 1946-49) Los Angeles Dons (football team in the AAFC) American Football League (professional football league from 1960-69) Battle of New Orleans (1815 battle between British and US armies) Former Minnesota quarterback Joe Kapp gets in a fight (video) Historically black colleges (pre-Civil Rights universities for African-Americans) Edgar Allen Poe (Baltimore poet whose poem inspired the Ravens mascot) 2014 American League Wild Card Game (Royals v. A’s baseball game) Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (American food reality television series) Marshall Goldberg in 1940 (left), and Tod Goldberg in 2020 (right) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“You have to make moves that will not just impact your today but the lives of folks down the road.” —Kaye Monk-Morgan In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kaye discuss the life of her grandfather John Monk, growing up in Louisiana during Jim Crow, and the extended impacts of sharecropping (13:00); the challenges of assimilating to military life and overcoming racial adversity during World War II (25:00); and how small choices and sacrifices can have an outsized impact on our lives and the lives of others (43:00). John Monk (1916-2018) was born into a family of sharecroppers in Haynesville, Louisiana. He served in the United States Army through World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. After retiring from the military he moved to Wichita, where he raised his family and worked as a doorman at Park Lane Towers. Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University, where she facilitates leadership and professional development opportunities for low-income and first-generation students, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Notable Links: Targeting Black Veterans: Lynching in America (Equal Justice Initiative report) Long-ago choice leads to life of dreams fulfilled (newspaper story on John Monk) Hometown Heroes: 101-year-old Army veteran’s secret to life (TV story on John Monk) Jim Crow laws (local laws enforcing racial segregation) Sharecropping (agricultural landowner/tenant arrangement) Harlem Hellfighters (World War I infantry regiment) Greatest Generation (American demographic cohort) Fort Knox (United States Army post in Kentucky) Barrage balloon (anti-aircraft kite balloon used in WWI and WWII) Quartermaster (senior soldier who supervises barracks) Drill Sergeant (non-commissioned officer assigned to train new recruits) Dockum Drug Store sit-in (1958 Wichita Civil Rights protest) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967 Sidney Poitier movie) Exodusters (African Americans who migrated to Kansas in 1879) Barry Sanders (Wichita-born NFL Hall of Fame running back) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

“Have a bias toward action.” – Chris Guillebeau In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Chris discuss Chris’ quest to travel to every country in the world (4:30); discovering and fine-tuning your passions through travel (17:00); exploring creativity through various mediums, and discontentment as a catalyst for change (27:00); knowing when to write a book (44:00); and overcoming adversity as a creative person (56:00). Chris Guillebeau (@chrisguillebeau), who visited every country in the world before his 35th birthday is a New York Times bestselling author. His books include The Art of Non-Conformity, The $100 Startup, The Happiness of Pursuit, and Side Hustle. He is also the host of the Side Hustle School podcast. For more on Chris, check out https://chrisguillebeau.com/ or his 193 Countries Project at https://www.instagram.com/193countries/.  Notable Links: School of Travel (podcast) The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss (book) Rolf’s Big Idea Book Bootcamps Paris Writing Workshops World Domination Summit (event) Ryan Holiday (author) Scrivener (note management application) Evernote (note management application) This episode of Deviate is brought to you by TripScout. This app provides a portal for visual discovery by featuring the best articles and videos from top publishers and local experts for each destination. Every restaurant, café, shop, or site featured within the content is mapped to one of TripScout’s 100 million+, constantly updated points of interest. With one tap, travelers can save anything they discover, allowing them to stitch together their perfect trip into a full, personalized itinerary that is connected to a downloadable offline map. More information at Deviate‘s TripScout link. Also: Check out TripScout founder Konrad Waliszewski’s School of Travel podcast. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Do not hold on to any one vision of what your life should look like.” – Rachel Friedman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Rachel discuss perceptions of success (3:15); the upside of failure and non-linear paths to success (13:00); ordinariness and the influence of public validation (23:00); and the reconciling old and new goals and the art of quitting (36:00). Rachel Friedman (@RachelFriedman) is a traveler, writer, and author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost, which was chosen as a Target Breakout Book and selected by Goodreads’ readers as one of the best travel books of 2011. Her latest book, And Then We Grew Up is out now. For more about Rachel, check out https://www.rachel-friedman.com/. Notable Links: At Eternity’s Gate (film) Vincent Van Gogh (artist) José Ortega y Gasset (philosopher) Malcolm Gladwell (author) The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost (poem) Napoleon Dynamite (film) Black Mirror (television show) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Treat Indonesia as a continent, not a country.” – Tim Hannigan In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tim discuss why Indonesia is underrated (3:00); the role of Indonesia in the popular consciousness (15:00); the history or Bali and the geography of Indonesia (22:00); cultural differences and the influence of travel blogging (38:00); and strategies for first time travelers (55:00). Tim Hannigan (@Tim_Hannigan) is a travel and history writer, specializing in Southeast Asia and particularly Indonesia. He has written travel features for newspapers and magazines in Asia, the Middle East, North America and the UK, and has contributed to various radio and television documentaries on Asian history. He has also worked on guidebooks to destinations including Bali, Nepal, Myanmar, and India. Tim is the author of A Brief History of Indonesia and A Geek in Indonesia. For more about Tim, check out https://timhannigan.com/. Notable Links: Krakatoa, by Simon Winchester (book) Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, by Giles Milton (book) Marco Polo (explorer) Eddie Van Halen (musician) Insights from Henry Rollins’ 2018 Travel Slideshow (blog post) Avenged Sevenfold (band) Indohoy (website / blog) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Kicking and Screaming is a more arch and far more intelligent version of the TV show Friends. If you want to experience that feeling of being young and not really knowing yet what you’re doing in life, watch this movie instead.” –Michael Weinreb In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Michael discuss the plot of Noah Baumbach‘s debut movie Kicking & Screaming, and how it explores life-transition and the loss of status that accompanies college graduation (3:15); Generation X movie marketing, and how Michael and Rolf came to find the movie in video stores (9:00); other movies with a similar youth theme, such as Glory Daze, and how even slacker movies could be aspirational for people who watched them (18:00); the way Kicking & Screaming played with notions of nostalgia (27:00); plot aspects that do double comedic/dramatic-duty (33:00); ties to other Noah Baumbach characters, and the philosophical texture of indecision (43:00); the way the movie explores the small problems of being young and upper-middle class in a time of relative peace (48:00); how sense of place affects the characters the story, and how the movie has a writerly sensibility (51:00); and the case for why one should watch the movie (1:01:00). Michael Weinreb (@MichaelWeinreb) is the author of three sports books, including Game of Kings, about a Brooklyn high-school chess team; Bigger Than the Game, about the rise of celebrity sports culture in the 1980s; and a cultural and personal history of college football, Season of Saturdays. He has been a contributing writer for ESPN, The New York Times, Grantland, Rolling Stone, The Athletic, and The Ringer. For more about Michael, check out https://michaelweinreb.com/. 1980s and 1990s youth-culture links: TIME’s 1990 “Twentysomething” article (which first defined Generation X) Sophfronia Scott on defining a generation (Deviate podcast episode) Remembering Noah Baumbach’s fan-site Q&As (essay) Wayback Machine (digital archive) “Age of Consent” (New Order song) Friends (1990s TV show) Details (1990s youth-culture magazine) Roger Ebert (movie critic) Blockbuster (video rental store) Tetris (video game) Books and creators mentioned: All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy (novel) A Separate Peace, John Knowles (novel) The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger (novel) Lena Dunham (writer and actor) Bill Simmons (writer and podcaster) Chuck Klosterman (author and commentator) Noel Coward (playwright) Nick Drake (singer-songwriter) Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes singer) Jose Ortega y Gasset (Spanish philosopher) Noah Baumbach projects and collaborators: Mr. Jealousy (1997 movie) Highball (1997 movie) The Squid and The Whale (2005 movie) Greenberg (2010 movie) Frances Ha (2012 movie) Marriage Story (2019 movie) Chris Eigeman (actor) Carlos Jacott (actor) Ben Stiller (actor/director) Jason Blum (producer) Vassar College (Baumbach’s alma mater)  1980s and 1990s movies mentioned: The Big Lebowski Reality Bites Singles Empire Records Glory Daze Dazed and Confused Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dead Poets Society Slacker Swingers Reservoir Dogs Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The Sears Christmas Wish Book was, for me, a kind of foundational text — a secular counterpoint to the Bible stories I learned around that time in Sunday School. I paged through the holiday catalog’s 620 glossy pages as if they amounted to an intoxicating graphic novel of desire, rich with abundance and possibility.” – Rolf Potts, from “Literature of Desire” In this episode Rolf reads an audio version of his Christmas-themed essay “Literature of Desire,” and discusses the wonders of the Sears Christmas Wish Book with novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg). Tod is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the Gangsterland series, which is currently being developed into a television show. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast. Introduction (01:35 – 12:20) Vintage Sears Wish Book online archive What Exactly is Christmas Tree Flocking? from Mental Floss Klonopin (anxiety medication) Janis Ian (singer-songwriter) Enchroma glasses (to correct colorblindness) Literature of Desire essay (12:20 – 33:20) Richard Warren Sears (catalog founder) Mr. Sears’ Catalog (video) from PBS’s American Experience Sears Catalog Home (ready-to-assemble houses) That ’70s Show, Happy Days, Good Times, Welcome Back, Kotter (TV shows) Christie Brinkley and Renee Russo (fashion models) Pong (video game) Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. (toy line) Jay J. Armes (private investigator) JJ Armes action figure (TV commercial) “Is Jay J. Armes For Real?” from Texas Monthly WishBookcom Sears Wish Book memories (33:20 – 51:10) Action figures (dolls marketed to boys) Toughskins (jeans for children) Huffy (bicycle brand) BEST (showroom retail store) “Kerouac’s Fantasy Baseball Obsession” from Mental Floss Coleco’s Electronic Quarterback (game) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Going the longer route through literature, rather than just reading self-help, will ultimately be more satisfying.” – Jeffrey Tayler In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jeffrey discuss navigating life’s challenges through literature (3:00); Ecclesiastes and the great stories of history (12:00); and using literature to make sense of ones life (19:00). Jeffrey Tayler (@JeffreyTayler1) is an American writer and journalist living in Moscow. He is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and many of his essays have been selected for The Best American Travel Writing series. Two of his travel essays were also selected by Bill Bryson for the inaugural edition of The Best American Travel Writing 2000. He is the author of seven books, including Siberian Dawn and Facing the Congo. His recent book, In Putin’s Footsteps, which he co-authored with Nikita Khrushchev’s great grand-daughter, is out now. Notable Links: Ecclesiastes (biblical text) A Book of the Bible Even an Atheist Can Love, by Jeffrey Tayler (essay) Geneva Bible (Shakespeare era bible translation) King James Bible (iconic English bible translation completed in 1611) NIV Bible (modern bible translation first published in 1978) The Gospels (biblical books about Jesus’ life and teaching) Turn! Turn! Turn! (Pete Seeger song popularized by The Byrds) Paradise Lost, by John Milton (poem) Homer (author) Virgil (poet) Epicurus (Greek philosopher) The Divine Comedy, by Dante (narrative poem) Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (book) The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy (novella) Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (novel) This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.