Finding Favorites with Leah Jones

Taylore Nicholl is an Armchair Expert Expert

Taylore Nicholl, host of the podcast Extra... Ordinary, loves the podcast Armchair Expert and is here with an introduction to the popular interview show hosted by Dax Shepard. Taylore talks about how she started with an interview with Mae Whitman (one of Dax's co-stars on Parenthood) and eventually found herself in a green room at the Ellen Show with Dax!
We talk about childhood trauma, finding father figures through podcasting, the important research around ACES, and Taylore's love of all things theater, drama and Ben Platt. (Happy birthday, Taylore!)
Show Links
Extra... Ordinary Podcast
@TayloreNicholl on Instagram and Twitter
Armchair Expert: Nadine Burke Harris
The ArmCherry Companion
Arm Cherry Direct and Arm Cherry Direct linktree
Newcomers
Transcript follows

Patty Morrissey love thrift stores AND decluttering

Patty Morrissey, a New York-based coach and master Kon Mari consultant, loves to go thrifting on Long Island. She grew up thrifting and garage sale-ing with her grandparents and still goes to the same shops today. She's also a Kon Mari consulant and coach who knows a thing or two about how to help people find what sparks joy. (In fact, she's in my house helping me organize during the pandemic thaw).
Keep up with Patty on Instagram as @pattymorrissey and @clearcultivate, then head over to her website to learn about Cultivate Club for 2022
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Links
Wild Chicago
Mac N Cheese Productions 
Holiday House
Rosie's Vintage Store
Disney Bound
Fringe Co Caftan
Transcript Follows

Intro to Zombies with Mahyar Amouzegar

Mahyar Amouzegar, a New Orleans-based author and academic, joins us this week to talk about reading, writing and Zombie movies. Mahyar shares the story of immigrating to the United States shortly before the revolution in Iran, how he gets to know the characters in his books and what he would do in a Zombie apocalypse.
His newest book The Hubris of an Empty Hand is available on November 18th.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
Dawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Shawn of the Dead
The Cured
The Walking Dead
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Daniel Suarez - Daemon and Freedom
Jasper Fforde
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
 
Mahyar  0:00  Hello, my name is Mahyar Amouzagar, my favorite thing is to read, write, and watch zombie movies.
Announcer  0:07  Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.
Leah Jones  0:19  Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And it is Sunday, November 14th. It is booster day in the Jones household. I got up early this morning, went to Jewel for my scheduled Pfizer booster and got my booster. And then mid-edit, made a mistake of sitting down in my recliner, and took a Pfizer booster nap. But I'm so happy to have the booster. Now, I'll admit, it could have also been a post-chemo nap. Friday afternoon was my first treatment of chemo. I got Taxol for my breast cancer, or it's my breast cancer treatment. And they pump you full of steroids every time you get an infusion. So, I definitely know that steroids are kind of winding down at the same time that the COVID booster is hitting my immune system. So, maybe I didn't plan that great. But the best time to get the booster is the time you got the booster. 
Leah Jones  1:30  I wrote all about my experience of getting chemo on my Caringbridge account. So, I will just link to that in the show notes. Instead of going into it in audio form, as well. Already tired of telling the story of the first infusion, because it was a long, boring day until it was not boring. And then, it was a very exciting four minutes. And then, the day wrapped up pretty soon thereafter. But I'm here -- I'm feeling pretty good. It is pitch-dark out already. The time change last weekend really threw me for a loop, but I'm doing well. I'm really grateful for the incredible gifts of my community taking care of me since I got this diagnosis in June, and had surgeries in September and October, and now 12 weeks of chemo one down, 11 weeks to go in this part of the treatment. 
Leah Jones  2:33  A question I've had is why chemo, if it was just stage one and they got all of it in the lumpectomy?  And because of the combination of being estrogen reactive and HER-2 positive, though progesterone negative, the combination of markers in my cancer said the research currently says that chemo really helps stop it from reoccurring in the next five years. Northwestern has done the research; they've tried to do this one with surgery and radiation only. And that is not effective enough for my medical oncologist, and I would rather just have one bummer a year of cancer treatment now, than just do a lumpectomy and radiation and cross my fingers. That's why I chose to go ahead with chemotherapy. I know it's not the choice that everyone would make, but that is kind of where my risk tolerance is. 
Leah Jones  3:45  So today, I have Mahyar Amouzegar on He is an author, professor, Provost, truly a man of the world. He grew up in Tehran and Iran, immigrated to the United States as a teenager in the 70s, right before the the revolution, and spent a few years in New Zealand. His daughters live there now, and now he lives in New Orleans. We are talking about his new book coming out in December and zombie movies, and it's a delightful conversation. I'm envious of the folks on campus in New Orleans who get to either have taken classes with him, or get to be on faculty with him. 
Leah Jones  4:32  His book comes out December 4th. Yyou can pre-order it now from Bookshop, that is what I've done. I was reading the PDF and I am excited to get my hands on the paperback and start reading in a couple of weeks. So, enjoy this interview with Mahyar and please wear your mask, wash your hands, get your COVID booster, and get those kids vaccinated. What an exciting time to have access to vaccines. And with that, enjoy this conversation.
Leah Jones  5:21  Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things, and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. Today I am joined by Mahyar. Amouzegar. He is the Provost of the University of North New Orleans. He is an Iranian-American writer, who lives both in the United States and New Zealand, which I'm very curious about. He's the author of three previous novels, "Dinner at 10:32, "A Dark Sunny Afternoon," and "Pisgah Road." His newest book is a selection of short stories, and called "The Hubris of an Empty Hand." It is available on November 18th. Mahyar How are you doing this evening?
Mahyar  6:06  Doing well, thank you.
Leah Jones  6:09  So you are the provost of University of New Orleans?
Mahyar  6:14  That is correct.
Leah Jones  6:17  How is what a weird time to be a university official? Is that an understatement?
Mahyar  6:29  Yes, I know it's been an interesting journey. We learned a lot about the campus. We learned  a lot about our students. And I'm proud of the fact that our faculty, staff and students have done amazingly well in the past 18 months. Obviously, last spring of 2020, we were very worried at how we're going to function. But genuinely, they've been all been very good. Very surprised, and yet *pleasantly* surprised, at how well they've done in the system of nine universities. We've done the best in terms of COVID numbers. We've done really well in terms of making sure -- despite living online, pretty much -- we still keep a community together. 
Leah Jones  7:25  So, the very beginning of my career, I was a hall director, and I thought my life path was going to be the housing to Dean of Students/Student Affairs path. And I found out after a couple of years, it wasn't where my life was going. But how did you -- because you are a mathematician, and engineer and a fiction writer -- how did your path come to becoming a provost?
Mahyar  8:04  That's a good question. I think if I was born in the States, or if maybe my parents would have come to the States when they were much younger, I probably wouldn't have gotten to be a historian or be a creative writer. But when you're growing up in Iran -- and my parents never forced me -- but it was always implied that we either going to be doctors or engineers. So, I grew up thinking, "I'm going to be a doctor, engineer." I end up being neither -- more of a mathematician. But I always loved writing; I've been writing since childhood. But it seems as an immigrant, that that's their path to go to, to make money, be successful. So, initially, I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna be just a normal, mathematician, win a field medal, have my doctoral students, and just do normal academic thing, while writing for myself." But, just sort of zigzagging through life when I was a junior faculty, I thought, all the "suits" on campus never listened to me or anybody else. So, I thought when I wore those suits, and we come at leadership differently. So, it was more of a vengeance against the "man" to want to take this job, to show them how it's done.
Leah Jones  9:37  When did you come over from Tehran?
Mahyar  9:42  So, my brother and I came in 1978, about nine months before the revolution. I was almost 14; I'm now 57. So, it's been a while. It was -- initially my sisters were living here -- and the idea was just to come and visit. And something happened, and things went this way, and that family decided to stay. The idea was my parents will come as well, it didn't happen to come a long time.
Leah Jones  10:18  So, they didn't --
Mahyar  10:21  -- they didn't come, no --
Leah Jones  10:23  -- they weren't here on the vacation.
Mahyar  10:25  No, no, just me and my sisters, and my brother; my sister was living here already. The idea was my parents would come quickly, it just took 10 years or so for it to happen.
Leah Jones  10:39  I've done some support of a friend of mine, as a psychologist, who does -- he's an expert witness and immigration cases on the psychological pain of the immigration system. From that, I've learned some stories of people who maybe came for the first time 20 or 30 years ago, and what a struggle it is to immigrate to this to here, I mean, to most countries, but that's opened the door a little bit for me to have some imagination of what that decade would have been like and waiting to get your parents over.
Mahyar  11:25  I think my brother and I have had an easier time, I think it was easier to come to the country than people in modern day , more recent immigrants. But, you're right. But also in the '70s, I remember, when I got here, freshman year, ninth grade, nobody knew where Iran was. I remember standing up in front of a map showing to my class. Now, I think more and more people know who Iranians are, especially if you live in California, or New York, a lot of Iranians have made it so maybe *somewhat* easier in terms of people coming here. And when I moved to California, I remember, there were so few of us that when you hear Farsi in the street, you will stop and talk to each other. But now it's like, okay to come. 
Leah Jones  12:18  Now, there's too many people. 
Mahyar  12:19  Yeah, there's too many of us now. [laughter] Become a dime a dozen, for sure.
Leah Jones  12:25  And then how did New Zealand get folded into your world?
Mahyar  12:32  When I was getting my PhD, when I finished my PhD, we already married and had two children, two daughters, and were looking for jobs. And the only jobs -- that was in the mid '90s -- the only jobs that could find were either in Texas or Florida, which wasn't going to happen, I wasn't gonna go to Texas *or( Florida. And during the Los Angeles earthquake, all of us in family housing, we got out of our apartments. Then there were a couple of Kiwis, who are passing out orange juice, and just chatting. And they said, "Hey, one of my friends in New Zealand is leaving the country and the job is open." And she happened to be exact same field as I was. So, I applied. That was before Zoom before. Yeah. I got the job. never visited New Zealand. We packed up the whole family and moved to New Zealand.
Leah Jones  13:28  Wow. So how long were you in New Zealand?
Mahyar  13:32  We lived there for years, and then I got a job with the RAND Corporation. So, I really want to come back. But since then, we kept our house, every year, we go there for vacation. My daughter's started college. They went to UC Santa Cruz for one year, but I cajoled them to go to New Zealand. At first, a bit resistance, but they're there now, and they've been there for 10 years. They love it and aren't coming back. Hence, having two worlds.
Leah Jones  14:07  That's nice. It also must feel good, as a father, to have them in a country that's really handled COVID well.
Mahyar  14:20  Up until recently, they were pretty much left in the island -- literally and figuratively -- in a world that most people have an experience for the last 18 months that when I go there, when I went there in the past year is amazing. After the quarantine, you get out and you're free. You're back to normal countries living a normal life. And then you come back to The States and the whole masking issues. 
Leah Jones  14:51  I have a friend who's a Kiwi and so he's just did the quarantine, and posting pictures of when they got to go to the yard to do their walks and the meals he was getting and the arguments he was getting with people during exercise time about masking and not masking and the benefits of quarantine, but it's working. 
Mahyar  15:17  No, definitely. Yeah, they live really different lives than we do live. 
Leah Jones  15:35  Tell me a little bit about this book where -- you're coming up, you're about a month away from publication day. I almost missed the Zoom, because I started -- this isn't a book review podcast. But I was like, "Oh, it's short stories, I'll dive in." And I was like, "You have to stop reading." I'm just reading the first one right now, with Imani and Dahlia, and Jackie, and I had to wrestle myself away from it.Why this time short stories, you've done novels in the past? Have you always written short stories?
Mahyar  16:21  No, no, no. In fact, every time I started a short story it ends up being full -- turns into a novel, because I can't stop writing. And this one wasn't meant to be a short story, and  ends up being one set of short stories. I was never trained as a writer, so I try to emulate good writers that I try to read. So every time I start a new one, I try to write it as organically as possible. I generally spend a year with my characters before even I write a single word. Every night I go bed, start a conversation, sort of continue with that conversation. And then I challenged myself with something that I've never done before. 
Mahyar  17:18  For this one, I thought, for the longest time -- I spent a lot of time with Jackie, in particular --  just a lot of conversations about what does she  want. And then a challenge myself, if I could write a set of short stories that a reader can read as independent short stories, if you put them together, you can read as a novel. So, I'm hoping there is an arc that covers the whole book. But it's a novel, and then you also read each of the stories independently and not sequentially. So, I don't know if that was successful, but that was the goal.
Leah Jones  17:59  How much of this was written during COVID?
Mahyar  18:08  Little bit of it? Not too much of it.
Leah Jones  18:10  Okay. I'll be interested to see what art comes out of this time. If the time ever ends.
Mahyar  18:23  I think it's too early to start writing already. But yes, by the time I finished, the book was already finished. And it was with the publishers for edits and other things. 
Leah Jones  18:37  Are you able to have an in-person launch in New Orleans? Are you going to do -- what sort of launch events are you able to plan this year?
Mahyar  18:48  We are hoping to have an in-person launch early December in Octavia bookstore. A supporter and local bookstore. So, we're hoping to be in person. We're gonna require vaccination proof, of course.  We tried to do the last book two years ago. And of course, as soon -- that was in April of 2020 -- of course, everything was canceled. 
Leah Jones  19:20  Yeah. It seems like things seem to be trending that way.
Mahyar  19:25  Yeah, New Orleans is doing well. Speaking, the mayor has done a good job, I think.
Leah Jones  19:33  I feel really great, I'm in Illinois, our governor is J.B. Pritzker, who -- we had a billionaire Republican governor who destroyed the state. And then I really half-heartedly voted for J.B., because I don't think what we need is more billionaires in public office. But truly every step of the way, he's impressed me. And there is something to be said for a billionaire who *can't* be bought, just following the science and actually doing the right thing. So Illinois, kind of despite ourselves, got through pretty --  we've had good leadership, I feel pretty safe. Chicago has got a pretty high vaccine rate. I'm lucky to work somewhere --  I've been working from home since March of 2020. 
Mahyar  20:36  COVID, like everything else, for people like ourselves, it wasn't horrible. Because we can work at home, you get a paycheck. Obviously, for a lot of people, it's not the case. As usual, and that's what we see with our students.
Leah Jones  20:57  So, as a provost, how have you stuck it to the man? You said, "When I'm in wearing that suit on campus, I'm going to do things differently?" Do you think you have a different type of relationships with your students or faculty than you saw when you were a student or faculty?
Mahyar  21:19  I'm hoping so. I do say, "I'm trying just to stick it to the man," and my staff say, "You're the man." So, I'm trying to stick it to myself, I guess in some ways. As I said,  ]when I was younger, and I was just starting my career, the idea is that I wanted to be part of a team. You may know my ideas, but at least hear my ideas. So, I try as much as possible to listen to faculty, staff, students. Before COVID, I used to have weekly lunch with faculty and staff, they will self-select themselves. 12-13 of them every week, couple of lunches, three lunches, and no agenda, just chat. That was my way of saying, "I want to hear what you have to say. Tell me. I might not be able to do it, but I want to hear you." So, I've tried. I don't know what -- if you ask my faculty and staff what they would say, at this time.
Leah Jones  22:18  Yeah, it's so hard; I'm so far from it now. I'm about 20 years out from working in student affairs, but it's just so different. And I can't imagine -- the campuses have changed so much since I was a student in the '90s. And since I was on staff in 2000, 2001. You know, I had students in Colorado, who were Columbine survivors, who came straight from Columbine to their freshman year at Fort Lewis. But it was still such a outlier event. It wasn't something that had traumatized a whole generation of students and now this -- COVID. I'm a huge believer of the on-campus experience, and the value of that. But the ability of faculty and administration to make that pivot to online to help people keep moving forward was tremendous.
Mahyar  23:35  People have done a great job. Again, part of it in New Orleans is because they experienced Katrina. So, they had to sort of go online at that time. In some ways, we were ready for it, because we're always ready for hurricanes and moving everything online. In some ways, it was somewhat easier for us. As I mentioned earlier, I realize there are so many so much seems and so between what we thought our students have, and what they don't have. I think everybody will tell you this, the gap between the haves and have-nots became even more clear during COVID But it was opportunity-- a silver lining is -- an opportunity for us to do things that we wouldn't have done before and to help students, to help staff, etc.
Leah Jones  24:41  Great, well, Mayhar, we're here to talk about -- for me to grill you about life as administrator and your new book. But we're also here to talk about your favorite thing. So, what is something that you love or a favorite thing that you would like to talk about a little bit tonight?
Mahyar  25:00  I think my favorite things would be -- and if you don't mind saying more than one -- my favorite things to do is reading, writing, and watching zombie movies.
Leah Jones  25:18  Reading, writing and watching zombie movies.
Mahyar  25:23  I get a great delight in watching Zombies, because at heart, I would have wanted to be a historian. Sociologists love the sociological aspect of the world, understanding Zombies, obviously, that's not possible, but the world that they've created. Just fascinates me, human behavior. And in a dystopian world, will it work? 
Leah Jones  25:52  What's the first zombie movie you remember seeing?
Mahyar  25:56  Oh, that's a good question. Probably "Dawn of the Dead" or maybe "Night of the Living Dead," Romero's original. I think I remember watching it, maybe as a child, but I don't think it impressed me as much as--  the zombie thing is more of a recent phenomenon for me. So, I remember watching it, but it wasn't as impressive. Who gets to use zombie movies. Then re-watching it again. So Romero's, I know that his movies not the first zombie movie, there are a thousand before him, but he's set the tone. And the fact that it's black and white. It's not really about the goriness, but more about the interaction of human beings, sort [garbled]. Yes, that was my first, I'd say.
Leah Jones  26:54  And what are the pieces of world building in zombie movies? Do you think there are some things that if it doesn't have this, it's not a good zombie movie? What are the things that you think the really good stories in zombie stories and those dystopian futures take into account?
Mahyar  27:19  For me, in general, and I can't give you specifics -- to me, any science fiction movie has to -- by the same fact that it's science fiction, so it would be something fictional. As long as there's consistency in the laws, and policies and regulations, and everything else they do. If you want to get rid of gravity, fine, but Israel gravity tool, you cannot have both here and there. So, with zombie movies, the consistency in terms of how they create it, and how are we behaving? Rather than just sort of making it up to help the plot to move forward? Sometimes bad ones do, sometimes they're funny, so it's fine. But one of the reasons, for example, "The Walking Dead" TV show, is because they're very amazingly good and consistent about the rules they follow. In some ways, you can put aside the zombie part of the movie. That they're there, the danger and but the consistent are hard are dangerous to us. How we human beings are behaving in respect to what has happened? This is what's fascinating -- to me that makes it great Zombie movie. The ones who are not funny, like "Shaun of the Dead," which is a comedy, right? 
Leah Jones  27:31  So, you want consistent rules.
Mahyar  28:34  Nothing worse than science fictions that don't follow the rules.
Leah Jones  28:58  Yeah, cause it's very unsatisfying. When at the end of a book or a movie, there's a deux machina. Something happens, and it's like that doesn't follow any of the rules of the world you just ignored to finish writing.
Mahyar  29:17  I think in movie business, there's a term for it. But I don't remember the term but all of a sudden, somebody by accident sees this message that they wouldn't normally see, but they see it because otherwise the plot won't move forward. Versus spending some time to make it more clever. With zombie movies, as well. Sometimes I think writers or directors or whoever, they get lazy about the process, and they just want to stick it in there. So if the zombies can run fast, great, even though I'm not a fan of that, it goes against a traditional zombie. 
Mahyar  29:53  But the one Brad Pitt movie, they were moving really fast. That's great. "World War Z." That's fine, but they were consistent about that. And the rationale why they can run fast that never was sort of clear. Why they're running fast -- what are they thinking, why are they doing this?  It's like explain why did you decide you give them this kind of characteristic?
Leah Jones  30:20  With The Walking Dead, did you read the comic books along with it or you're TV?
Mahyar  30:26  Not at all, I'm TV. What I like about Walking Dead is they kill off favorite characters all the time. They're very good about that. They're ruthless about killing people that you have grown to love and I hated it at the beginning, but I got used to it. So, I didn't want to read about it. 
Leah Jones  30:51  No spoilers. 
Mahyar  30:53  Yeah, exactly. Binge watch themselves
Leah Jones  31:00  With Walking Dead, did you not start watching it from the beginning?
Mahyar  31:03  I did. So, the first -- you know how they do half and half season -- so, the first year yes, I watched it weekly and I got tired of it because I was too anxious for the next one. Okay, control myself, and not watch it for half a season, wait for it to be ready, and then I can binge watch it in one day.
Leah Jones  31:26  And then you keep your nightmare to just a couple of nights, instead of week to week.
Mahyar  31:31  Yeah, it gives me weeks to think about it.
Leah Jones  31:37  What is your plan for surviving a zombie apocalypse?
Mahyar  31:46  That's a good one. Get a gun, for sure. Another program for some but I already have a grand plan -- grab the first SUV you can, drive as fast as you can to the gun shop, raid the gun shop as much as you can, then go to a grocery store and raid the grocery store, and then start thinking about where you're going to be, if you get surrounded by zombies for months at a time.
Leah Jones  32:16  Yeah, food, location.
Mahyar  32:21  Location, yes
Leah Jones  32:26  Can you kill a zombie with a gun or is that to kill other people before they take your food?
Mahyar  32:31  That's going too dark -- it's just to kill the zombie. Let's hope I'll be kind of human being that won't kill other human beings. Although I can see why movies like that, they do that. I'm one of those people who watch a movie and find try to find faults all the time. Missed continuity, I love to catch those. With The Walking Dead, it's like "Oh, my God, why haven't you fortified your building yet? Because a year has passed and you have done nothing to fortify?" You haven't dug a big ditch to drop them there?
Leah Jones  33:21  Do you think it would be better to be in a high rise? Or would you rather be in a country house? That you can see them coming from all around you and like dig a moat?
Mahyar  33:27  Yeah, I want to be on a hill. And not in a high-rise, because you're trapped. I want to be in a hill with enough time and enough people around me to dig a moat. But also think about how you can escape that area. Some drawbridge or something, so you have to have escape plan.
Leah Jones  33:56  Have you ever read the book "Station 11?"
Mahyar  34:00  No. 
Leah Jones  34:01  Okay. It's a book about an illness, a plague that kills most of the population in a matter of weeks. But one of the main characters, a friend calls him from an ER and is like, "Go to the store and buy everything." And it's a story of this guy in a snowstorm with like, 11 carts of groceries and water, and kind of in the middle of the night, taking it up to his apartment in a high rise building, and trapping himself in the building until it seems that like it's safe to leave and go see what happened to the world. So your plan, according to that author, works well.
Mahyar  34:50  Yeah, I've watched enough movies to know high rises don't work. I should read the book; I just took an oath to read it. 
Leah Jones  35:00  It's also an outstanding audiobook. If you're a book listener, the audiobook of that one is very well done. When you're trying to get someone into watching zombie shows, because at this point, the Walking Dead is intimidating; it's a lot of seasons. What's an entry point for someone who's like, "Maybe I do want to watch a zombie movie?" Or, what's an entry point to the genre?
Mahyar  35:32  I think I'll go with a comedy one like "Shaun of the Dead." Because it's light-hearted, it's funny. It has lots of the elements of what zombies would do. and can do. A good one is "28 Days Later." Yeah, it's not really about zombies that much -- it is, but it's not. But the one I really like, if somebody says "I hate zombie movies," it's called "The Cure," it's an Irish movie. It's about zombies who are actually cured. They got some medication, they are no longer zombies -- it's a love story. With sort of a not so happy ending, but it's a love story. So, the love story is a dominant part of the movie. The baseline is all zombie, and zombie issues. Without really zombies running around and biting you. So that's a fantastic way of looking at the world, post-zombie apocalypse.
Leah Jones  36:41  When zombie becomes a chronic illness that you manage.
Mahyar  36:46  Obviously, it has a power loss to everything you do, but I thought it was a lovely low-key movie. And it's a great love story. And everybody loves a love story. So it's like, "I hate zombies," watch this one.
Leah Jones  37:03  Does your does your family get in on zombie night with you?
Mahyar  37:07  Not *at all.* [laughter] It's a solo project; it's me and myself and Zombie movies. That's not their thing.
Leah Jones  37:24  I like that you've recommended a comedy and a love story. Because I do think, I mean, zombie stories get pretty violent.
Mahyar  37:32  Yeah, that's what other movies who sort of use zombies as a setup, versus -- I think that's what the Walking Dead has evolved into. I know in the beginning, you have to really go crazy with it, but I think they do less and less of it now. It's more about how behaving towards each other then dealing with zombies.
Leah Jones  37:58  How you reconstitute your society after a disaster.
Mahyar  38:02  Reconstitute society, people take advantage of each other. We become more of a tribe -- tribalism to the extreme.
Leah Jones  38:12  I had a friend who did some of her master's thesis about zombie movies and the zombie movies in different eras, and what they were like really commenting on? Is it racism? Is it -- to me, it sounds like if there's a cure for zombies, and then there's a love story, to me, right away that feels like it's an HIV commentary. But that also might be a product of when I was a teenager. Did those themes jump out to you when you watch them? Or does that sink to the background for you?
Mahyar  38:59  No, it does. I mean, "The Cure" was like, whenever she does, obviously, pre-COVID, but post-HIV, mega think. But I can see, whoever wrote this, that they were thinking about how we will behave toward other groups, the otherness of society. Because they had to carry a card, they were sort of a second class citizen, even though we're pretending that they were not. I do look at the social aspect of it in the zombie movies, and I know my wife, Maria, thinks, "It's all gory, it's disgusting." If you pass the goriness of it, there's good ones. There are lots of bad ones, and I've watched them all. So, I don't necessarily discriminate -- I watch everything. I go through Amazon or Netflix, and just search for zombies to watch.
Mahyar  40:05  Yeah, but the good ones, and they're rare, but the good ones can be really deep. Say something about our society in general, and the direction the society is taking. You can think of  climate change, and how climate change will change and impact us. And the population decline, which is coming up in the next 30, 40 years. It's growing now, but it's going to decline and the climate change and the population changes, and the aging of our humanities, yes, that's as close to a dystopian that we can be without really  being in a zombie. So, that's what interests me -- how we are going to behave towards each other, and how are we going to build a new society? Not necessarily for my daughters or my daughters' children, because they're gonna be hello world. It's gonna be a complex world by then.
Leah Jones  41:01  Another I'm trying to -- there was another series I read, there's a word in a computer program that is like the automatic go. I don't think it's psuedo.
Mahyar  41:19  You don't mean pseudocode? 
Leah Jones  41:20  No. By the time I do this, I will fix this in the show notes. But it was, I think, a trilogy. I spent a year where I just kind of read dystopian fiction. I started with Neil Stevenson, and I went from there. And I think this was a Daniel X, something. And this was a  world that posited -- there was a billionaire, and he had this program set to start when the Google alert with his obituary got published. And so his death set the domino chain of catastrophic world events. But the second book in the series was, what happens when you rebuild the society? And it had stuff about agrarian culture, or after a giant wave of violence, what can come from it? I've gotta look, I got to do a little Google, this is killing me.
Mahyar  42:40  I know nowadays, something goes your head, you have to look it up.
Leah Jones  42:52  Daniel Suarez, the first book is called "Daemon." And the second book is called "Freedom." So, it was about how do you rebuild society? And I feel like there was a good bit in there about  -- isn't there in Iceland, a special place where we keep heirloom seeds?
Mahyar  43:16  Yes, we do. 
Leah Jones  43:19  How do you get access to those heirloom seeds? And, how do you elevate indigenous agrarian culture, or  practices that we've ignored for so many generations in the Western world? As a way to try and stabilize society?
Mahyar  43:42  Imagine us re-learning how to  -- just imagine that there's no electricity and because without electricity, there's nothing. Actually, I think it was a TV series about that -- electricity just goes. Yeah, we need re-learn -- a lot of us will die -- but we have to  re-learn how to build things, plant things, grow things. 
Leah Jones  44:07  I won't do well.
Mahyar  44:11  Nor do I.
Leah Jones  44:12  I don't have a lot of practical skills for a zombie apocalypse.
Mahyar  44:16  No, no, no -- I think I'll be eaten first.
Leah Jones  44:22  As you look at your radar of characters you're getting to know, is there a zombie screenplay in your future?
Mahyar  44:32  No, I cannot write science fiction. I love reading science fiction. I cannot write science fiction, I'm too much of a scientist to be writing science fiction. Whenever I write, I think about people and how they interact with each othe, and the way I write is very organic; I don't set up the environment. And I think for a good science fiction,  you just spend a lot of time to set up the world first. So, my brother has asked me to write a book with him, because he has this idea about how the future might look like. Yeah. And as you probably know, the birth rate is falling, but also there have been some impact on the egg production women and the newborn boys have become a smaller penis, and forever materials is in all of our bodies, so it is impacting how we are. 
Mahyar  45:35  So, he was thinking, maybe in the future, everyone is asexual; there's no sex at all, no sex drive. So, we obviously we have to create babies, somehow, and that's probably possible. Anyway, I'm trying to write that for him. Just because you have to set up that world, maybe 2, 3, 400 years from now, maybe earlier -- I've been struggling with that. So I've been writing, but I'm writing it as, I'm writing it as more of a relationship story. And I'm leaving the technical part of it, to build the world around the characters I'm writing. So, I've realized it's not for me, it's not me. I don't have it in me to write it.
Leah Jones  46:22  I don't, either. When I've -- because I do enjoy science fiction and to some extent, dystopian futures, which I enjoy them less now than I did six years ago. But, I really appreciate good -- I think that good strong world-building  -- an author, I think, who does it well, is Jasper Fforde.
Mahyar  46:52  Oh, yes. I love Jasper Fforde.
Leah Jones  46:55  The "Thursday Next" series, which is such a reward if you grew up, or if you're a reader, he just writes gifts for you.
Mahyar  47:04  Yes, he does. He's a writer's writer.
Leah Jones  47:10  I think he does such strong world-building and I really hope that -- the because the sequel to "Shades of Grey", I don't think was ever released, or maybe I've missed it. But that's the one where the social hierarchy is based on color blindness. I just think he's such a powerful world builder.
Mahyar  47:35  He's -- so, I reached out to him to say how much I loved this book, and he wrote back. I wrote him, I said, "I know you're probably not going to answer, probably one of your staff's gonna respond, but I just want to say how much I love your book." And then recently, "The Rabbit," I forgot the title of it [The Constant Rabbit.] I'm like, "Oh, my God, I was so disappointed at that ending; ;I wanted the love story to be fulfilled." He writes back and says,"What staff? I have no staff," but I thought that was so him. So, Jasper Fforde, his "Thursday Next" books are just amazing. So good. 
Leah Jones  48:20  Yeah, they're so good. It is often -- when people are looking for a summer read, and I know that they're readers -- start with "The Eyre Affair." Everyone else in the world had -- I had not actually read Jane Eyre. So, there were some of the things in the manuscript that I didn't recognize what the problem in the story was? But "Jane Eyre" is enough in pop culture, that I wasn't too out of the loop.
Mahyar  48:50  Obviously, his literary references are amazing. I've read "Jane Eyre," but because of him, I had to go back and look up stuff.
Leah Jones  49:04  Yeah, I enjoy playing with the idea that whatever happens, the original manuscript trickles down. And the idea that the characters -- they have a whole life when they're not being read, I just love the idea that there's this whole other world of the characters hanging out and it's like, "Oh, no, wait, my page is coming up." and running on stage of the book. It's fantastic.
Mahyar  49:30  I think you will recognize -- in the last chapter of my new book, influence of Jasper Fforde. Because I said I live with my characters, but like his book, my characters when they start, are faceless and genderless in some ways, and I'm just talking to them and they're just doing stuff and little by little, grow, like his books. and Even sometimes when the book is over, they stay with me. Because they complain to me about "How come I didn't give them more lines?" It's either a sign of insanity, and that's fine, I'm insane, I'm sure. Also, they keep sometimes they're -- or when the editor takes out the whole section. Obviously, I'm angry, but it manifests itself in a character coming yelling at me for --
Leah Jones  50:30  -- letting them down. 
Mahyar  50:32  Yeah, letting them down. So, the last chapter is sort of a dedication to them. 
Leah Jones  50:38  I'm excited to read it.
Mahyar  50:40  So, I'm not Jasper Fforde, obviously.
Leah Jones  50:46  And you also said -- I mean, obviously, we've jumped into books, reading and writing -- what is on your bedside table or what's your current to read? Are you one book at a time, or do you read in parallel?
Mahyar  51:02  I do two books at a time. So, what am I reading right now? I'm reading "Sorrow and Bliss," by Meg Mason. She's a Kiwi that lives in Australia. And I'm also reading this short stories and novella. It's called "The Office of Historical Correction," by Danielle Evans. She's also a wonderful writer, which I just discovered, so I'm reading them both at the same time. I love reading both at the same time. For work, obviously, I'll read boring nonfiction books.
Leah Jones  51:48  Are you a paper, are you digital, audio?
Mahyar  51:53  Definitely paper. I get my newspaper in paper, and I get my books. I love books, I love I love that I can go back and forth in the books I can find the places. I get the idea of digital, obviously it's great. And my iPad is full of books, and it's great to carry it with you when you travel. But, it was rare for me to read something on the iPad.
Leah Jones  52:22  When you write -- so first, you have you talk to your characters for a year, you get to know them? Then, do you write on legal pads? Are you into paper, or you're at your keyboard?
Mahyar  52:39  Definitely keyboard. Because although I'm not a medical doctor, but I write like a medical doctor. So, no one can read my handwriting, including myself. If I write longhand, I would have no idea what I've written. Sometimes, I take notes,  I'm like, "What did I write here?' So, I stopped doing that because middle of the night you wake up and think of something, now I just wake up and take my phone and write a note on my phone. I have my little Macbook Air for writing only, and I have it with me. I try to write at least a sentence at night; I write every day. I have a day job and my day job sometimes, it's just annoying and tiring. Bbut the pleasure is when I go home, I can just write a sentence or two, just random thoughts that I may have had about some other book I'm writing, or a conversation I had the night before.
Leah Jones  53:35  A question that kind of consumed my social group, our Fireside Chats this summer -- because of COVID, we got a fire pit and spent a lot of time around a fire pit in the last year and a half -- is I've learned that some people don't have an inner monologue. When you are talking to your characters, do you hear your characters or do you just kind of feel them?
Mahyar  54:04  Most often, I hear them. Sometimes, it's just a feeling or location. But most often, as I've been talking to you, I'll just talk to them; visualize the world as much as I can. So think like a movie; I love movies. Just see this world they're in, and as I said, most of my characters began with just generic, and then take shape.
Leah Jones  54:38  So, in your mind's eye, you can see Imani and Dahlia's apartment, and walk in and walk up the steps and go to the kitchen. 
Mahyar  54:46  Right. Realistically,  there's obviously some real life -- I've seen it somewhere yesterday. I'm imagining But, initially I was thinking about what their house looks like, what kind of books they had in their bookshelf, waht kind of tables they have. What kind of rug they have like a Persian rug, because it's full floor of colors. That was just in the beginning. As I think about their home and how would live in this home. It keeps me sane, I so don't have to kill my faculty and stuff. No. [laughter]
Leah Jones  55:29  No, it's lovely. And you said that you'd been writing -- your biography said that you were writing as a kid before, when you were growing up in Tehran?
Mahyar  55:41  I've been writing forever.
Leah Jones  55:43  When you were going to Elementary in Tehran, did you study English? Or you studied Farsi, and then started learning English here?
Mahyar  55:55  Wwe studied English -- that was English as a second language in year one -- but not really well. I came to the country with almost nothing. Basic ordering food, type thing. And then, after I arrived on Thursday, I was in school on Monday. My sister was told about that. And you know, it was a struggle, obviously. First year, it was definitely. And my brother was a few years younger. So, he was 11. There's that age, that sweet spot, and he came right at that spot. So, it was very easy for him to learn the language. And some people have a better brain for it than others. I'm not pretty good at that; I'm very shy. So, all that combined ,made me very hesitant to speak. So it took me a while. 
Leah Jones  56:52  Do you ever do drafts in Farsi? Or, you're literate, you do your writing in English.
Mahyar  57:00  I do, because my Farsi schooling is eighth grade writing. And it's been a couple of decades since I've read a book or newsletter in Farsi. Mmy language skill in Farsi is, in a formal sense, is dead. Mostly I'm fluent, I can speak, so conversationally, I'm fine. Could I give a lecture? No. I was actually giving a talk to an Iranian scholarly society in Los Angeles -- I cannot do that in Farsi; I don't have the language.
Leah Jones  57:41  You have 1977 teenager Farsi.
Mahyar  57:46  Which is like, order food, chat with my parents.
Leah Jones  57:53  Has there ever been a window when you've been able to go back?
Mahyar  57:57  No, I could never go back. My brother has gone back; I couldn't go back. Initially, neither of us could go back, because of the war with Iraq which lasted 10 years. Then, I got into national security work in the U.S. I don't think it's smart for me to go back.
Leah Jones  58:14  No, no, a lot of people would have a lot of questions about that trip.
Mahyar  58:20  Exactly. Not necessarily the U.S. side, I think the U.S. wouldn't care. I think Iran would think I know more than I do. And they want to know what I know, which I don't know. I cannot tell, anyway. So, that could be an issue. My older brother who came much later, they work for the defense. He was like, "Nope, you're not going to Iran." But, my siblings go back and forth. 
Leah Jones  58:50  Are there any any dishes or foods that transport you home? Transport you to Tehran?
Mahyar  59:00  It's been such a long, long time. What I remember the most is cream puffs. Cream puffs -- that's only a good memory, because my mom used to buy 'em for me. But, I only moved to New Orleans five years ago. So, before that, California -- California is full of Iranians now, right? Every product you can think of that would be in Iran is in Los Angeles. There's nothing more -- you don't miss anything because everything's there. Los Angeles is called "Teherangeles," because there are so many Iranians there.
Leah Jones  59:42  I went to a Jewish conference, and it was called "Jewlicious." And there were a lot of Persian Jews there. I'm a Jew from Chicago, so it's not a part of our community that I have a lot of exposure to. And we got there and it was one of the most diverse Jewish conferences I went to, because it was mostly college age. And it was really super fun.
Mahyar  1:00:15  In Los Angeles, there's a large number of Jewish people. My publisher, Abraham, he grew up in Beverly Hills. I think their first language is Farsi.
Leah Jones  1:00:27  I believe it, I believe that. Great. Well, Mayhar, is there anything about your book or zombie movies that I haven't asked you about? That if we hang up, you'd be so disappointed?
Mahyar  1:00:40  No, but, thank you so much. Because as I mentioned, I was very nervous about this whole thing. So, I just looked up like "My God, it's an hour."  You're a fantastic interviewer. I'm glad you started the book, and I'm glad you liked it. And I was floored that you know Jasper Fforde. Because I love him, and it's great -- it's nice to meet somebody that also loves him as much. To me, writing a book has always been a personal thing. It was always for me and I hardly showed it to anybody except my wife. My wife was the only one who actually read any of my manuscript. And it wasn't until five, six years ago that I became brave enough to actually show it around, and shop it around. So, the whole thing is very new and scary to me. For a person with English as a second language, Master position, engineer, let's say, coming to the world that is so foreign. I could be doing okay, I'm happy. I'm happy with what I'm doing and the fact that others outside of my family are reading it. That's perfectly good.
Leah Jones  1:02:04  To be on your fourth work of fic --- published work of fiction is really exciting.
Mahyar  1:02:09  It is definitely exciting. I hope whoever reads it likes it, especially this one. Because I've tried to make short stories that connect with characters coming in and out of each book and story. I hope it works. I read it. I like this one the best. The previous book was more about me and my friends, and my family and I don't like to write about ourselves too much. No, no, this has been great, so thank you.
Leah Jones  1:02:51  Thank you. And do you want people to follow you online? Are you on Twitter? Instagram, Tik Tok? Any of the social?
Mahyar  1:03:00  I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on Facebook, but I'm on Instagram. Okay. And it's almost a got underscore author
Leah Jones  1:03:08  All right.
Mahyar  1:03:08  I started with "eggs and bacon," because it's a fun thing to have. Then recently I thought okay, it's silly, I should I give it up, I had a few thousand followers, believe it or not -- a few thousand followers for "eggs and bacon," which is crazy. It was the most crazy thing. I'm like okay, "That's silly. I'm gonna most people will actually want to read this quit a new one."
Leah Jones  1:03:36  So formerly "eggs and bacon."  MayharAmouzegar_author will link to it in the show notes so people can follow.
Mahyar  1:03:46  Thank you so much.
Leah Jones  1:03:48  You can follow me I'm @ChicagoLeah on Twitter and Tiktok, @chiLeah on Instagram. Finding Favorites is @findingfavespod on Twitter and Instagram. And please follow, like, and review.
Announcer  1:04:04  Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out, and enjoy your favorite things.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Author Joan Schweighardt loves serendipity

Coincidence is neutral, serendipity has a good outcome.
Joan Schweighardt, a New Mexico-based author, joined Leah to talk about her love of serendipity and how allowing serendipity to play out led to her trilogy of novels. The River trilogy is set between the worlds of Hoboken, New Jersey and the jungles of South America during the rubber boom of the the early 1900s, the third book River Aria is now available.
Follow Joan online on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
Balloon Fiesta
Colorado Green Chili
Pachamama
Charles Goodyear and rubber vulcanization
The Three Princes of Serendip
Chance and chance alone...
Paterson
Human Library project
 
“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Transcript follows

How Alexis P. Morgan became a village witch

Alexis P. Morgan, my neighborhood village witch, joined me to talk about how she kept being called to learn magic and sorcery. We talk about the differences between hoodoo and voodoo, her Tarot card collection, and her primary community service - The Juno Jar. The winter Juno Jar is available starting on November 1, 2021, on a sliding scale.
Happy Birthday Alexis!
Thank you to Dave Coustan for editing this week's episode.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
The Sorcerer's Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick by Jason Miller
Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston
Hera's Compassion  painted by Christy Tortland
Alexis  0:00  Hello, my name is Alexis P. Morgan, and my favorite thing is magic.
Announcer  0:06  Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.
Leah Jones  0:18  Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And it is Sunday, October 31st. It's Halloween! And boy, does Chicago have perfect weather for Halloween. This weekend has been a super fun weekend; my twin sister came up, and we're helping my nephew move into his very first Chicago apartment. And then we did a fire pit and told spooky stories and drank hot cider and ate Halloween candy. And now, I'm just watching the sky get brighter, and looking forward to a really another nice fall day.
Leah Jones  1:01  This week, I got my chemo port, which is a device that sits right under my skin to help with IVs and chemo infusion for the next year. 12 weeks of chemo, but they keep it in for a while for other treatments and other possibilities. So, that is a weird, very weird sensation. But it's healing, and I'm getting more mobility back every day. 
Leah Jones  1:29  This week, on Finding Favorites, we have Alexis Morgan. Alexis is my neighborhood sorceress. She works in magic -- it also happens to be her birthday. Happy birthday, Alexis. I didn't necessarily plan that when we recorded this episode, but it's kind of fun. So, I hope you're having a *wonderful* birthday and that this year is outstanding.
Leah Jones  1:54  We talk a lot about how she got called into doing magic and the differences between Hoodoo and Voodoo initiation rites. We also talk about Juno Jar, which is a service that she offers, that starts -- sign-ups go up tomorrow, for this wealth-building service --listen to her describe it. There'll be a link in the show notes to her website with all the information. And I hope that you have a wonderful Halloween and I definitely want to see pictures of your cute -- all the costumes. I want to see all the costumes. You can follow me on social media @chicagoleah on Twitter and TikTok, @chileah on Instagram. Finding Favorites you can find @findingfavspod on Twitter and Instagram. Wear your mask, wash your hands, and keep enjoying your favorite things.
Leah Jones  3:11  Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. The podcast where we get recommendations from people without using an algorithm. Tonight, I am here with Alexis P. Morgan. Alexis is my neighborhood sorceress. She is a creative; they do collage, works in radical luxury, just one of the most fascinating people that I am connected with in the hellhole, blazing dumpster fire that is Facebook. And we were introduced indirectly by one of the most dumpster fire-y people on the internet that I've ever sat in a conference room with. Alexis, how are you doing this evening?
Alexis  4:05  I'm fantastic. I still think about that like incident a lot. Am I allowed to name names?
Leah Jones  4:12  You are allowed to name names, yes.
Alexis  4:17  As I was saying earlier, like Gary is -- meeting you was the only good thing that came out of ripping Gary Vaynerchuk a new asshole. [laughter]
Leah Jones  4:32  Alexis had had a -- online interaction --  ripping a new asshole of Gary Vaynerchuk, and then kind of put out a call saying, "Does anybody know," you kind of said to the people you are connected with, "Does anyone know anything about this guy?" And a mutual of ours, Sydney, tagged me in. And I was like, "What do you need to know? I've been in a conference room with him before, I have opinions, what would be helpful to know?" You all had planned a dinner to meet in-person/to talk in-person. And then he either no-showed or canceled last minute and you had bought a really great dress for it. 
Alexis  5:21  I did! That dress was spectacular and wildly inappropriate for --- [laughter] -- I was about to show up with cat pasties with a -- [laughter] -- it would have been, it just would have been not cute, not cute at all. What actually ended up happening was is, he sent his little minion to cancel on me, because the heat died down for a little bit. And I said to my assistant at the time, "Just wait, if it kicks back up, he'll be back." And lo and behold, it kicked back up again, because Jason Falls shared my article on Twitter. So, it started going all over the place. So, of course, the team had to hop back on that fire. 
Alexis  6:10  So I sat on it, and I watched Gary's socials for a few days, just to see what he was posting. And I ended up responding to the email about rescheduling with, "No, thank you, you have disrespected my time and treated me as if my time is not as valuable as yours, kick rocks, and be blessed." He read the email like 12 times because I had a tracker. So, that's what happened. 
Alexis  6:45  I was looking for information because we were gonna talk face-to-face, because I called his bluff, cause he pulled up on my Medium post, and was just like, "If we could break bread in person, you would see that I'm not a bad guy." And it's like, "That's literally not the point of this critique, but okay, sir. All right, I'll call your bluff." And then oh, look, he disappeared. But it's fine, because that wasn't supposed to be my path anyways, which is why we're here. Because I do magic for a living, which is not the original plan.
Leah Jones  7:24  Right, you have been trying -- I don't know, was that like, four or five years ago?
Alexis  7:31  Yeah, that was 2018. 
Leah Jones  7:36  And you have basically been trying *not* to do magic the whole time we've known each other. And your guides and your ancestors keep, they just keep putting detours, perhaps? You're like, "I've got a plan!" and they're like, "Uhhh, okay?"  How has -- because tonight, you're in this beautiful white top, and you were doing divinations before we came online. We were just running down what the planets have been up to, because it was Mercury Retrograde, and Saturn Retrograde and Jupiter and tonight's a full moon, and so we've just been getting **all** of it lately. So, maybe we're just getting right into it. So today, you were doing divinations. In my understanding, you're kind of always doing magic, but today was active versus maybe passive magic?
Alexis  8:44  It depends on how you define active and passive. So, active in the sense that I was dealing with clients. Every day, just about, I have a routine of things that I do and maintenance work that I have to do. I tell people all the time, that being a professional witch is not at all glamorous, because 90 percent of my workload is just cleaning up offerings, praying quietly like in my closet, which is not ... [laughter] what necessarily comes to mind when you say professional witch or Brouhaha or Priestess or whatever, and time for somebody. 
Alexis  9:25  But just about every day, I have some key practices that I do -- both for myself, but also on behalf of my community, cause I have a magical community that I run called Lucifer's Well, which is really a great name to turn away all the "love and light" -sy kind of folks who are going to be judgy and sketchy. Also, for the handful of retainer clients that I do have, which they're all super great, and unique cases unto themselves. I didn't want retainer clients, but of course, as we've established, my ancestors kind of make me do things. 
Alexis  10:08  It's interesting because I have been -- my first experience like with magical stuff, formal experience  -- was actually when I was a pre-teen, which is pretty common in like occult paces. If you were to send around a survey, all the first-time magic stories are somewhere between the age of 12 and 16. And involve either a crush, a bully, or a weird shop that a child shouldn't have been in by themselves?
Leah Jones  10:39  Or a dusty book in the back of the library and a librarian who lets you have free reign?
Alexis  10:46  It's usually some combination of those things. And in my particular case, I was crawling around the adult section of library and I got hit in the face with an unshelved, improperly shelved, copy of a Edain McCoy's "If You Want to be a Witch," which now I would recommend for various reasons. But 13-year-old me was just like, "Ooh, what is this? Witch?" Because we were coming off the Harry Potter craze, before J.K. Rowling went full-body, TERF-y, awful? It was a formative experience, but that quickly puttered out because my family was not very kind or supportive about it. 
Alexis  11:37  And then, I want to say, seven years later, I was 21, one of my adopted -- my first set of adoptive parents, that's a whole story -- passed away and I had this overwhelming urge to get a new tarot deck. And the ball went rolling down the hill and at the time, I didn't intend for this to be a vocation. A hobby, but then it just kind of kept going.
Leah Jones  12:14  One tarot deck led to many tarot decks.
Alexis  12:18  Yeah, one tarot deck led to reading cards and studying the cards, like 14 hours a week, like a part-time job; led to developing a collection; led to buying my first book on actual magic, which was "The Sorcerer's Secrets" by Jason Miller, which is a pretty solid book. That, I *do* recommend. 
Leah Jones  12:42  Okay, I will link to that one. 
Alexis  12:45  Although, I have side-eye for basically all of my cis, white, men colleagues, because -- oh, boy, just a lot of mess on that front in magical spaces. Then it just kind of took on a life of its own. I thought it was going to be an attorney. [laughter]
Leah Jones  13:07  Okay ... that is ... only knowing you in this grown-up chapter, I would say an attorney is not what I would have pinned on you. Shocking, I know.
Alexis  13:23  Would you have pinned on me?
Leah Jones  13:28  Well, honestly, any of the things that you've tried to do -- it wouldn't surprise me if you were someone who made all their money from writing or from voiceover or from collage and art. None of that would have surprised me. Also, I would say, advocate for artists. I think there's some things about law that also make sense for you, but the American lawyer system doesn't make sense, you know?
Alexis  14:07  In hindsight, now that I've known people who have gone through law school, and I have dated several lawyers, and had those conversations, I now look at that and go, "Child, what?" [laughter] Because I would have been absolutely fucking miserable if that plan had worked out. 
Leah Jones  14:30  It's often one of the only -- there's not a lot of careers presented. Unless you -- I don't know *how* people find careers that aren't doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse. That's what we see on TV. Those are  -- I don't know.
Alexis  14:57  Yeah. But speaking to finding careers like that, I think that's a very purposeful sort of architecture of how our school system works. As I keep telling people, had anybody told me when I was even 16 or 18, "You're going to be a full-time witch, you're going to run a digital community dedicated to political magic and talking about politics and magic, and a writer and an artist, and this, that, and the other thing ..." I just would have probably sat there and dumbfounded silence and been like, "What drugs are you on? Can I have some?"
Alexis  15:41  I say this to my community all the time -- I don't really understand how people pick up spiritual stuff as a hobby. Because from the various cultures that make up my background, some of which I am more familiar with, and others -- I am descended from Black folks who were enslaved. So, we don't have a lot of those records.  You don't get to *choose* to do this kind of work, it's chosen for you. So, my experience is kind of going around and around in a circle, developing this massive library and a foot locker full of tarot decks and me going, "No, this is just a thing that I do. This is a phase, I'll get through it, it'll be fine."
Leah Jones  16:35  So, Alexis just did what many of my guests do, which is look slightly off-camera at a large collection. It's happened, no matter what I interview people about, it's always just off-screen, and they're looking at this large collection. So, you're looking at your tarot cards and library.
Alexis  17:00  My library is actually out, I have all of my books that won't freak guests out, up front. And then, I have ones that are a little sketchy behind. I live in a studio, so I have it partitioned off. Behind both of my partitions, where you can't necessarily see the titles too much? I was actually looking at my bones set -- I was telling Leah earlier -- that I had pulled my bones set out, which I'm showing her now. 
Alexis  17:37  Because I was talking to a client about bone readings, and bone reading as a form of divination. That is, as the name implies, you throw bones down, and then you interpret them. But you also throw -- bone sets can have like little bits and bobs, they can have little pendants, or a piece of jewelry, or shell, or a stick, pebble, whatever. And each of these different pieces in Hoodoo, which is one of the traditions that I practice out of. Hoodoo is a form of Black USCM folk magic. 
Alexis  18:20  It's the folk magic of Black people in the United States. But it's also an ancestor veneration tradition, it's a religion in that sense. So, from that point of view, when you read with the bones, you're reading with your ancestors, you're consulting your ancestors for guidance and insight. And each of the pieces that are in a kit have their own sort of special gifts and medicine and messages, of course. But they're alive, so if one of them disappears, the thought is that, "Oh, well, it didn't want to talk to you anymore. It did its work, it's done." 
Alexis  18:59  And sometimes they'll come back, and sometimes you'll find something that you really want to add to your bone collection. But you have to ask the spirit of the object first, if it consents to be added to your collection. Oh, boy. Now I'm getting into the special interest, hyperfixation space. But, I find it really interesting, and part of what makes magic one of my favorite things to talk about. 
Alexis  19:31  Both, from a practitioner point of view, but also just a curious person and a historical point of view, is that magic, and different forms of magic, and people's relationships with either the supRAnatural or the supERnatural, can tell us a lot about what people value and what people find important, and what different kinds of experiences they were having. What sort of the the context of their lives was like, especially with divination.
Leah Jones  20:07  Can you do a quick -- cause you just very *carefully* said "Their relationship to the supRAnatural and the supERnatural." What's the flip there?
Alexis  20:21  The way that I was using it was, for me, the supRAnatural is about experiences that we can explain, that we feel are firmly within sort of natural experience, and that are the natural extension of the world that's going on right around us. However, it is an antiquated form of supERnatural. And the supernatural says that things are existing beyond like the laws of nature and physics. 
Alexis  20:52  So, the reason why I said it that way, was because obviously, different people have different points of view on what's going on. But, a lot of my colleagues and peers -- a surprising number unless you do magic, and then it's not surprising -- are actually mathematicians and scientists with graduate degrees. One of my favorite teachers -- and this is not to put Sarah on a pedestal, she's just really dope -- is Sarah Mastros of Mastros and Zealot, she lives in Pittsburgh. She's a Greek and Jewish witch, who is just incredible. I believe she has her PhD in mathematics. I know she's definitely taught high school kids calculus, which is a feat. 
Alexis  21:36  And she's deeply mathematical, and we've had conversations about how magic is fundamentally magical. There's a lot of historical, philosophical context, around that sort of notion, especially within both the Islamic and Jewish traditions, very specifically. About sort of magic existing as a function of math. Because God is a part of nature --well, nature is part of God -- or God is nature and one and the same depending on the philosopher you're reading.
Leah Jones  22:24  My undergrad was in chemistry. And we had a professor who gave a lecture that was -- he was like, "The carbon molecule is proof of God." The most deeply religious, and out about their religion department on our campus, was our chemistry department. Our chemistry department was our most religious department, and then it went from there. I don't even think I saw the lecture, because in college, I would have been like, "Ugh. You're so wrong." But now, I agree with them totally.
Alexis  23:00  You know, I went through a phase where I was very --  I just didn't give a shit about spiritual stuff, or the existence/the nature of God. But you know, I didn't really have an interest in that, and I went to a phase where I felt very disconnected from the world around me. Now, as an adult who is doing this work, I agree with my colleague, when she says, a lot of magic, it's just things that we have not yet learned to explain with math or science. 
Alexis  23:48  And given that I also come from an Indigenous background, with my adoptive mothers as Indigenous, and we are *reasonably* certain that my birth father-- my biological father, rather -- is also an Indigenous man, but that's a whole complicated story we're not gonna get into. A lot of Indigenous wisdom, a lot of Indigenous knowing, has been proven to be scientifically sound, in the last 50 years. And there have been some really exceptional, ecological scientists, professionals, and researchers who have written about how, especially within an Indigenous context, ritual is research. 
Alexis  24:37  Ritual is the observation of the world around us for the purpose of beneficially interacting with it and existing with it to the best of our abilities, with minimal suffering to ourselves or to the other beings around us. And for me, that informs a lot of how I live my life now, and has given me a lens to look at the world that I feel is far more expansive and skeptical and curious than I may have had if I just stayed in the space where I felt comfortable, which was just being numb to everything. It's been hard, but it's been worth it. And it's been very challenging, because I *know* what people think when they hear professiona witch, or professional psychic. You know, they think of Miss Cleo. Who, I have a party story about ...
Leah Jones  25:43  You have a party story about?
Alexis  25:46  Yes, I do have a party story about Miss Cleo.
Leah Jones  25:49  You actually met Miss Cleo in-person?
Alexis  25:52  Yes. I met Miss Cleo, when I was 21, at a party where I was reading on the patio for tips. It was the "Heart and live music night" at a little place called Mother Earth Cafe in West Palm Beach, and I didn't recognize her. I swear to God, I didn't recognize her and she came, and she sat down, and she started talking to me and she asked me for a reading, and I did my thing. And she got to the end, she was just like, "You really don't know who I am, do you?" I was just like, "No, should, I?" [laughter]
Alexis  26:32  I just honestly gave her this look like, "No, ma'am." Then, she put on the accent, and, apparently all the color must have left my face, because Patty, the woman who owned the cafe -- who's outside smoking a clove cigarette, was behind her -- started laughing. I melted underneath the table.
Leah Jones  26:56  Oh, my gosh. 
Alexis  26:58  Because I realized who it was.
Leah Jones  27:00  Were you doing a tarot reading for her?
Alexis  27:03  Yes, I was. And she told me that I was very talented at what I did, and that I should be careful with my skills, and with my talents. We had an interesting conversation about the whole Psychic Friends Network situation. Also, her own spiritual life and practice outside of that; she was actually there reading poetry. She's also very talented poet, I should add. And it was a really surreal fucking night. Yeah, I have to think this is weird as hell.
Leah Jones  27:39  Yeah, that's so weird. I mean, no, of course you didn't recognize her outside of the context of a *commercial.*
Alexis  27:47  Right? And also, I was very little when the Psychic Friends Network situation went down. I think I was maybe, I don't know, that was the '90s, so I was sub-10 years old.
Leah Jones  28:00  I think you might have only even known her as an SNL sketch or as an internet meme and not even known her commercials.
Alexis  28:10  It was such a weird, cultural zeitgeist moment for me, personally. It was interesting, because I was actually there that night with a guy friend that I knew from school, who is very Christian. So the contrast -- those two things happening at once, was quite interesting. But, even at that stage of my life, I didn't really know what I was doing with the path that I was walking down. And a lot of my traditions, so in terms of specific traditions that I work out of -- I am a lay practitioner of Haitian Voodoo. Although, it's pretty likely I'm probably going to end up either Mirage Loa, which is a marriage to a Loa -- which I'm happy to elaborate on what that means -- or initiated some time, maybe in the next five to six years? It's going to be a minute, for various reasons. Not just me not being ready. 
Alexis  29:21  Because there's no such thing as divorce in Voodoo, and once you cross that threshold, it's life, baby! So, there's that. I'm also rootworker, so I practice Hoodoo, in terms of formal traditions. And, I have a hodgepodge of sorceress stuff that I draw on/work out of. And, I'm Jewish, which is also a weird situation. One of the things that we've connected over, and me trying to figure out how I'm going to explain myself to a rabbi.
Alexis  30:04  So, that's also been a really complicated part of my journey, too. Because I was raised in a secular Jewish household with secular Jewish values, around my Jewish extended family. But my parents -- which was kind of a bizarre choice, because they were two old, gay, white ladies in the deep south in the 90s -- why would you choose the Catholic Church over trucking us to a synagogue? But then I realized, probably because the only synagogue in town at that point was Orthodox, which explained their thinking there. [laughter]
Alexis  30:30  Because the Catholics will take anybody. [laughter] So we were quasi-ly, barely raised, doing CCD classes that I never gave a crap about, right? But, we casually celebrated Hanukkah, we did Shabbat dinners at my grandmother's condo periodically. You know, the cultural sort of experiences. And I had a lot of Jewish friends; went to plenty bar- and bat mitzvahs. But I didn't come back around Judaism until I was an adult when that parent passed away. 
Alexis  30:52  I felt this really intense need to sit Shiva for her. And she was not religious at all, so I have no clue why the hell that happened. Then fast-forward two years later, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting happened, and that did weird things to me. My web leading here is very complicated, but I love it all. I find it really fascinating, as I already said, because it tells us so much about how people exist and how we have things in common. For example, not anywhere within my reach right now, but I'm taking a class on a document called the pirate magic a griped pirate magic Greicy. Oh my god, I can speak. Also known as a PGM, which is a collection of the semiotic magical scrolls that were assembled during the Hellenistic period of ancient Egypt. It's basically all folk magic. It's kind of treated a little bit pinkies-up, a little bit snobby now, cause it's old and shit, but the actual contents of the scrolls and what we have left of these propietary are all folk magic. It's all "How can how could I make Suzy love me?" Well, obviously not Suzy, but pick a name. You know, "This bastard stole my cow."
Leah Jones  33:36  It's all the same issues that went into veteran the Talmud. This person steals your cow, nd they don't harm the cow, and you get it back. Or they do harm the cow, or they harm your pregnant spouse, or they do this. It's all about complicated solutions to minor grievances. Some major grievances -- I'm not gonna say -- so much of Jewish tradition is about applying Torah to modern situations. It's why I love being Jewish. So much in why I converted was I was like, "Oh, well, here's the scaffolding."
Alexis  34:24  Judaism provides a scaffolding for decision making. If had to describe why I also love Judaism and where Judaism sort of wraps itself into my life, it is that scaffolding. I've always said that from the outside looking in, I can understand why somebody just picking up a random tractate of the Talmud would be like, "What in the? Put a baby on a mountain?" But, it's the exercise of ethics and logic. It's having these interesting conversations about theoreticals in order to be able to distill really practical, consistent applications of wisdom that also evolved in response to human evolution. It's really interesting because a lot of what what we would culturally term Jewish magic, which is a whole academic fuss unto itself as to what qualifies under that banner, reflects a lot of this tendencies as well. So, I totally get it because I've said often is that one of the things that I deeply appreciate about Judaism is depths full inquiry.
Alexis  35:58  What makes us tick and how we sort of operate as a unit and as a society, really sophisticated bodies of wisdom are dotted across the planet. A really great parallel example, slightly different, would actually be the the body of wisdom around a divination system called the de lagoon, which is a form of West African divination with shells. So, if you've ever seen what the hell is it, Spike Lee's um, "She's Gotta Have It" on Netflix. There's a scene where one of the characters has his shelves read by his sister, that's divination system.This divination system has been around for thousands of years. 
Alexis  36:52  And here, I will physically show you the book of Acts, which are parables. I'm not allowed to read the, because I am not an initiated priestess. So, none of that for me, but, it's a whole textbook. And this is just what's in English, and coming out of one house of Santeria. So, they have these really sophisticated, very thoughtful reflections and prescriptions on how to deal with things, and how to deal with one another. I find that really interesting to kind of compare worldviews, not for the sake of determining which one is better, that's absurd. But better understanding of how the different conditions around different people's lives manifests and with magic, specifically, going back to an academic point of view, so I don't bore the hell out of your audience.
Alexis  37:56  If you look at the difference between what's considered folk magic, and the body of work that's considered "Western occultism," -- which I'm putting in quotes -- a lot of what makes that distinction is that the things that we consider Western occultism were things that were accessible to people of means, usually the clergy, because they either had the wealth to be able to afford to mount these ridiculous ceremonies, and they had the ability to read and write. 
Alexis  38:35  A lot of the times, the formation of grimoires was by learned members of clergy, usually the Catholic Church, which is a little bit of a scandal depending on where you say that. But there was definitely a difference, you can tell the difference in concerns and worldviews just based on where practice came from, and when and where and how it was recorded, or otherwise passed from person to person. So, I find all of that fascinating, because it gives me insight into how people operate now, and how to better sort of navigate those situations.
Leah Jones  39:20  I do think it's interesting, because when you pulled out that book about reading shells, you said, "This is what's available in English and is from one house," which I think people who are Jewish who listen know that everybody's -- you ask  "Hey, can I do XYZ?" Everybody's always, "Talk to your rabbi." Talk to *your* rabbi, my rabbi might say something different. There's no answer, go talk to your rabbi. That, to me, is a parallel where you follow a specific within a broader worldview, religion, set of rules. Do you have the traditions of of the rabbi that you get advice from or the lineage? I think that's really interesting. And I also think there's -- so much was preserved through oral tradition that, and I can only draw the parallels I can draw -- which is that in Judaism, the Oral Torah is written down, because eventually enough people got literate. And to really get it down, we wrote it down. 
Leah Jones  40:31  But there's, we've got a book we call the "Oral Torah", because it was -- people's jobs were to remember different parts of it. So, there is also the point of when does an oral tradition get written down to better share and pass it? And what does the translation -- what is the risk of translation do to it? I think all of that stuff is really interesting when you look at -- I'm just gonna say religion, because that's kind of how I understand it -- of how they get passed between generations, between clergy. What is oral, what is written, what is translated, and your access to the tools of the trade?
Alexis  41:21  It's interesting, because as I mentioned, my primary tradition, structured tradition, one of them is Haitian Voodoo, and Voodoo is decentralized. There's no central authority, per se, in Haitian Voodoo and any self-anointed official authority. It's just kind of "Cool, whatever, we don't care."  But we do have a lineage system. So, if you are meant to become clergy, you have a godparent or parents, and usually you're given an initiatory name that distinguishes who you are before the Loa, but also who you are in relationship to your godparent into your associate day, which is the society. Different societies have different regular Mon, which is ritual process. 
Alexis  42:26  However, the those regular mom differences vary slightly, depending on where the tradition is from in Haiti. A lot of times, the division is usually in northern Haiti versus southern Haiti, because there's differences politically and geographically in terms of land and all that kind of stuff. But within Voodoo, teaching is almost exclusively oral. A lot of the prayers and some of the indications that are used during various rituals, and various rites are called "Langaj," which is a Creole word, which just means "the language," because they don't actually remember what those words mean. Because they came out of the interactions, the various enslaved people who were brought to Haiti, and started collaborating with one another to match up their spiritual systems as much as they possibly could. 
Alexis  43:36  So, there's whole chunks of things that we don't actually quite know what they mean, or what they were. Scientists and researchers have either --because part of the controversy is that sometimes, specifically, ethnographers will present themselves as approaching these things in good faith, and get access to spaces that are sacred and private, and then take those things and put them out in public. Then we get into this really hard discussion about what happens -- specifically speaking to Voodoo -- so what's happening right now in Haiti is, the Catholic Church has generally always looked the other way at folk traditions. As long as you show up to church every Sunday, it's fine. 
Leah Jones  44:36  "You need a Virgin Mary? You got one -- this one jumped out the back of a wagon, say right wheels." That's the one in Tandiel in Argentina -- "You need one, we got you, we got you." I am speaking so disrespectfully of a church I'm not a member of, but they could not have become a global religion without looking the other way-slash-embracing local traditions. 
Alexis  45:07  Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of people gloss over that. But I made a joke -- and I'm allowed to make this joke because I was baptized at one point --  the Catholic Church recognizes 10,000+ canonized saints. And I was like, "If that ain't an ancestor cult and a papal friggin?" I don't know what it is, but in the case of Voodoo, the Catholic Church has always kind of looked the other way. They've done this with Santeria and Cuba. 
Alexis  45:46  If you ask most Voodoo sons in Haiti, what their religion is, they will usually tell you they are Catholic. Or they will very rarely say that they are some flavor of Protestant. However, what has been going on since the first big earthquake circa the early 2000s, early 2010s, is that evangelical organizations from the United States, very specifically, have been going into Haiti and radicalizing the Haitian public. And they're doing it through manipulating aid to Haitian people, by opening schools, by requiring families to convert in order to be able to have their children be eligible to go to these better, safer schools or to receive food, or whatever it is. 
Alexis  46:39  I just want to preface this here with a little asterisk -- I know it's not all Christians -- but these specific evangelical Christians have been doing this. And in the process of doing this, they've also very, very heavily demonized Voodoo as a tradition, and there's a reason for that. Because Voodoo in Haiti -- Haiti has always had an accepted but uneasy relationship with Voodoo, because it's very Black and very African, and there are lots of political layers there. But Voodoo is central to the Haitian liberation story. 
Alexis  47:25  The Blasket, man was a very major event, we know it happened. We know that a black man was a real person. We don't actually know what was said or done during that event, we have some idea. But the symbolism of that alone, was enough that it set off riots, even in the United States, amongst slaves who were brought from the islands to New Orleans, which is why they stopped importing enslaved people from the islands and bringing them to New Orleans. 
Alexis  48:01  But, these evangelicals have been declaring Voodoo spirits to be demons and doing really abusive things. They've been burning down associate days and tearing apart shrines. It's just absolutely brutal persecution of Voodoo practitioners on the island. What has happened, is the numbers are starting to dwindle, because Haiti has a lot on its poor plate . But it started to grow in the diaspora, specifically in the United States. It's brought up a lot of interesting dialogue around cultural appropriation. But also, how do you tend to a faith and to a belief system that is so -- not only intimately tied to land, the place, but also language, and also oral tradition in a way that doesn't dilute it out as this unfortunate kind of cultural disaster is taking place?  I consider what's happening in Haiti, and with Voodoo to be a form of cultural genocide, and if I say that in some rooms people would be like, "Oh, that's really strong language,  are you sure you want to do that?" 
Leah Jones  49:33  It's sounds exactly like what many of us have only recently become aware of with Indian boarding schools?
Alexis  49:40  Yeah, Native American children being brutally beaten, if they spoke their own languages. Which is part of one of my projects, as well -- I'm trying to learn Cherokee, which is very hard for a variety of reasons, because the worldview's entirely different when you speak Cherokee. But, it's been really interesting being a guest in this house, because I'm not Haitian; I was not born on Haitian soil. So, my position in the tradition is very different than somebody who isn't even Black and was born in Haiti.
Alexis  50:24   Which surprises some Black folks in the United States, when I tell them that there are a number of societies in Haiti that wouldn't accept them, but they would accept a white person who was born in Haiti on Haitian soil. I get a lot of looks. It's because of the place, it's because of the soil. I understand, I think I have a relationship that I do with Voodoo, because it's very much connected to being in a place. All of the LOA are expressions of places in nature, and places in the world around us.
Alexis  51:09  It's hard to kind of navigate this context, in the 21st century with globalization and have to fight with misinformation, with people who will watch "American Horror Story," and see representations of Papa legba -- that's a whole -- I could go off on a tangent about poor Papa legba being demonized. Which, of all the Loa, you're gonna pick the one who's represented by Saint Lazarus, the fucking came. Like, what? A lot of times people will take the imagery of go on somebody who is the Baron of the cemetery, who's the spirit of the dead. He's a member of the good day nation, which is all the dead folk. And they will put that on Legba. Legba's an old man? You still shouldn't fuck with him, because he's a trickster, but he's a little man with a straw hat and he doesn't bother anybody.
Leah Jones  52:19  Just sitting on a stump, aving a little smoke, relaxing. Trying not to overheat.
Alexis  52:21  His altar is right next to door, because that's where he customarily sits --by the door. But watching all these cultural phenomena happening, and then trying to reconcile and discern, what is a tradition growing and adapting and evolving? And what is the tradition being dismantled and destroyed? Because there are a lot of lines that get crossed in that process. And the other tradition that I practice, Hoodoo, has really, really badly experienced sort of cultural desecration in my opinion. Because for a really long time, if you went up to a granny somewhere in the deep south, and asked her if she did Hoodoo, she's look at you sideways and ask you if you walked with the devil. But then, if you tried to sweep her feet, tried to take broom over her feet? She'd probably take the broom and beat you. 
Alexis  53:45  And if you tried to do laundry on the first of the year, she'd be like, "No, baby, take that out of the laundry, you're gonna watch the luck away." So, lot of these Southern -- and because I know we're on a podcast that people can't see me, but I'm doing air quotes -- "folk practices," Southern superstition, are actually manifestations. And most of the South, not all of the South, but most of the South, of the practices that slaves adapted to -- enslaved people, rather -- adapted to their context, Hoodoo, in terms of its techniques, and its liturgical body, is very much of a response to the conditions of being enslaved. They thought they died, spiritually speaking, when they came here. Because in West Africa, obviously, there are different versions and different nuances, so we don't want to boil cultures down. 
Alexis  54:55  The most, specifically within a Congo context, we view the afterworld as Colombia, and Colombia is a vast body of water, where the ancestors rest at the bottom, and they have their own existence, in their own society, and their own flow at the bottom of this big body of water. So, imagine if you were enslaved and taken over a vast ocean, packed like sardines in a horrible ship. There's this sort of internal process of probably feeling like you died. And that's very much reflected --
Leah Jones  55:32  -- that the afterlife is much more vivid than you may be anticipated.
Alexis  55:39  Also, the spiritual loss of that. When you look at the ethnographies that were done of these practices that constitute the body of what we would call Hoodoo -- Dr. Katrina hazard Donald has a really big book called "Mojo Working," which I really love. It's so well-done on this subject. But when you look at the ethnography, we have the two big ones being the work of Dr. Zora Neale Hurston, who did "Go Tell My Horse," and I can't remember the titles of the other two right now, because it's 9:30 at night, I've had a long day. But "Go Tell My Horse," is the big one. She also did a couple others specifically on The States, but she also did them on the islands, as well as "Hi, it's Hoodoo," which you can't get a copy of the five volumes for less than $30,000 because it's out of print, and a lot of the completed copies are in university libraries. But, I got very lucky, and I got PDF scans, thousands of pages of it. 
Alexis  57:04  But when you look at those, there is a reflection of the sensibilities that came up in response to slavery. For example, it's called Root working, because a lot of,  they're cosmological reasons, but the practical one, too. It's using a lot of material and plants, because one of the things -- 
Leah Jones  57:32  --oh, like literal roots.
Alexis  57:34  Yeah, literal roots that we use to prepare medicine for enslaved people, because they weren't given access to health care, doctors didn't treat them. On an interesting sort of flip sides, that the white people who enslaved these folks, also forced them to treat the slave-owning family. So, we have lots of historical records of slaves preparing medicine for sick children, for sick slave masters, then on the flip side of that, also poisoning them. So, there's this overlapping history there, as well, that tells us a lot about the conditions that they were facing. 
Alexis  58:23  If you look at sort of the oral tradition, and also some of the written down ethnographic information that we have about the use of these plants, not only do we see in certain areas where Indigenous communities had contact with freed Black folk, how their sort of cultures and traditions interacted with that. But, we also see how a lot of the plants that we find in West Africa, either came with them because they were braided into their hair, or because they found very similar plants that they cross-bred into a new variety here in Turtle Island, seeing the Legacy of these things.
Alexis  59:16  But what ended up happening was, because Christianity became such a central part of the abolition movement, and also just slave life in general, because they were forced to. Also for a sizable chunk of the people who were brought to The States. A lot of people don't know this -- Christianity was already in Africa at that point. The Kingdom of Congo had already undergone a mass conversion, where Catholicism at one point was the was the state religion of the Congo Empire, which was a whole thing, and then it reverted and then it went back. A whole mess.
Leah Jones  1:00:04  There was a viral TikTok recently of some white kid, he was probably Mormon, but he was like, "Making this TikTok before I go to Ethiopia," on his missionary trip, and it's just duet after duet of people like, "Oh, you're gonna be surprised when you get there and find out it's a Christian country. You are not bringing Christianity to Ethiopia." He's just getting roasted; he's gonna be roasted the whole two years he's gone, and he's gonna come back to TikTok and find out what happened.
Alexis  1:00:42  Yeah, because the Ethiopian kingdom predates the Catholic Church by a significant amount. Then even in West Africa, missionaries were dispatched to Angola into well, modern Angola, but to this region. Also because of trade, there was encounters with Christianity. Islam was also already in the region, as well. So, some of the slaves who were brought to The States, some of the people who were enslaved -- I like to say people who are enslaved rather than slaves, because "slave" is dehumanizing -- we're also practicing his thumb, and brought that with him. We can see these crossovers into these traditions, because this was already part of the social cohesion and the language that was going on. 
Alexis  1:01:38  Then over time, as we sort of moved out of the post-antebellum period into Jim Crow, these practices got absorbed into the broader cultural landscape, as many Black things do, especially in this house, but also generally in the United States, and lost their cohesion as a unit of social bonding, and spiritual bonding, and became folk practices. What ended up happening was, some of the more prominent sort of lineages of this kind of work turned into charismatic Black church traditions. Look at like Kojic, which is a whole basket . I was not raised in the Black church, so I speak of this as an outsider who has looked in and then closed the curtain. The speaking in tongues, the anointing oils, gifts of the Spirit, it's just like, "Huh, you know what those things are? Interesting, interesting, interesting."
Alexis  1:02:53  Those then turned into these big institutions within the Black community, that weren't necessarily recognized as being Indigenous traditions. And there's a whole conversation there about white supremacy and assimilation, and how that impacted the spiritual landscape. But what you're seeing now is a lot of young, Black women, especially in the United States, going back to these traditions to try to find themselves outside of this very patriarchal, very white supremacist narrative. And it's really fascinating to watch, especially as somebody who unintentionally, got a little bit of a head start on that. I'm not bragging, to be clear. I'm just saying I got a three year  -- I was on the train, about five years before it really started hitting the zeitgeist.
Leah Jones  1:04:16  So, patriarchy and white supremacy have combined to turn Hoodoo traditions into Black charismatic churches. And now young Black women.
Alexis  1:04:30  Yes. So, I was talking about the struggle between tradition and what is traditional innovation and what is a traditional deconstruction. We're seeing that with Hoodoo, because a lot of the material and a lot of the publications that have been made available outside of very specific academic disclosures (which are also majority white people), have been written by white people. They've been presented as, "Hoodoo is for everyone." Or "It's a Black tradition, but anybody can practice, yadda yadda." People have turned it into whole businesses and brands. Because the magic works, which I try not to -- when I talk about magic to non-magical audiences, I try not to make statements like that. But, it works enough, that somebody's granny remembered the recipe for fast luck oil for 55 years.
Leah Jones  1:05:35  Right.
Alexis  1:05:40  And it's really hard to track what is a modern invention versus what is a traditional one. A really great example that I give with this when I lecture, when I'm allowed to lecture like this, on my special interest is honey jars, right? If you have any sort of passing familiarity with magic at all, at some point, you've probably seen a sweetening jar, or somebody mentioned recipe about "sweetening" somebody because it's usually somebody and it's usually in a love context. Cause some problems don't change at any time in human history.
Leah Jones  1:06:21  I've got a clairvoyant that I talked to regularly, a few times a year. And I'm like, they're only three questions. It's like love, work, money, family. Like there are no other questions. Don't tell me to come up with questions for you. Those are the questions.
Alexis  1:06:45  It's very true. Those are the only three things people give a crap about. Which is why I got super lucky with the luck of the draw in terms of my magical skill. Because, you know, I do my Juno Jar work?
Leah Jones  1:07:02  Yes, I was hoping we would get to the Juno Jar!!
Alexis  1:07:11  This is actually really great segue into my Juno Jar work. So, my Juno Jar work, I do it twice a year. And I make a vessel and make a magical vessel that is a honey jar. I take a very large, it's now very large, because the thing has developed a mine of its own, every twice a year.
Leah Jones  1:07:36  It's not unpopular.
Alexis  1:07:40  It's crazy. I have a waiting list. It's not at all what I anticipated. But in this jar, I combine  raw organic honey -- because it's got to be organic, because I'm bougie, how about these things -- with various specific materials that are chosen for the type of medicine. From a both magical perspective, but also looking at how it functions in homeopathic context, which is not a thing I'd ever thought I'd say, but here I am. And I add it to this jar with the petitions of my participants, which are their goals and intentions for the next year-long period. So I put this jar together, I seal it up.
Leah Jones  1:08:33  And you're pretty specific with those of us who participate -- and I have, I think, probably three times, I think --  that this is a wealth-building ... like don't slip a romance petition into the Juno Jar because that's not the purpose. 
Leah Jones  1:08:56  Yeah, that's not the focus I have.
Leah Jones  1:09:00  It won't work. It won't work.
Alexis  1:09:04  Well, it might work, but that's not the point of the magic. So, don't waste your money. Basically what I do, is once I add all these petitions and a ritual, then I do a form of magic, which is called fear g, where I work with Juno, who is a Roman goddess. She's specifically the Roman goddess of the State, but also of the Treasury, and of women and children and marriage. So, there's some debate around that, and I seeps her essence into the jar, therefore making the jar a living expression and manifestation of her energy. And I feed and I tend that jar daily for an entire year before I then dismantle it and release the energy from and I say, "Thank you," and I move along. 
Alexis  1:10:04  I do this work, and it's inspired, in part, by my background in Hoodoo. Because when people think of Hoodoo, one of the first -- if they know anything about Voodoo at all -- the first thought that they'll go to is a honey jar. Thing is, that honey is actually a very modern invention in the scale of time when it comes to Hoodoo, because traditionally speaking, enslaved persons and Black folks who were freed Black folks, did not have regular access to honey until commercial bee farming became more of a thing. 
Alexis  1:10:42  Nobody really had access to a consistent source of honey. Traditionally speaking, honey jars are actually sugar bowls. Molasses bowls, or cane syrup bowls, so they would use cane syrup, molasses, powdered sugar, things that you could get a hold of pretty easily, usually, molasses. Molasses is probably the most traditional of all of them, for various reasons. They would use that as the sweetener, and we think that honey sort of evolved out of this context, because honey became much more ubiquitous, after a certain point, more popular, in terms of an ingredient. 
Alexis  1:11:28  Honey also has some corollary functions in European traditions of folk magic, in terms of love, and sweetness and wealth, and all that kind of stuff. Bees have a really strong association with the dead in Greek tradition; there's also a little bit of that crossover, as well. But we don't think honey -- we're pretty sure honey didn't become a prominent part of this process until after commercial bee farm became a thing. Before that, it was molasses. So, a lot of times, if you work with a very traditional fruit worker -- who are hard to find on the internet for various reasons. Mostly because they're 80 million years old at this point, or they are in very, very rural communities that want nothing to do with outsiders, which is also very understandable. And they will work with these more traditional materials, like going back to my Juno Jar. And I started doing this because I was in a pickle.
Alexis  1:12:36  I was living with my sister, at the time who was going through a divorce from her now ex-husband, and I was living in her very large sort of back closet area, the room between sort of the main apartment and the back door. And I needed to skiddadle up out of there because the kids needed space because of law and custody shit. So, I panicked because I had basically melted into my bed for a year because my sister loves me enough to just let me come vegetate in her house for a year. And I had started working with Juno, because I don't like working with Jupiter. So Jupiter, the planet, is different than Jupiter, the day it'll, so Jupiter, the planet's, not my favorite, but I make do. Whereas Jupiter, the day at all, is basically the character of Imperial Rome. He's the big dog of capitalism. 
Alexis  1:13:44  There's a whole thing there that I could get into about the politics of Imperial Rome, leading into modern white supremacy. So, Jupiter and I don't play well together, because I am not about this ceaseless expansion kind of bullshit. I'm very much a Saturn girl. Saturn was the god of Carthage and Judea, which were the only two states the Roman Empire never fully conquered. So, I don't play well with Jupiter. But unfortunately, Jupiter is the one who gets called on and gets cited for a lot of the more structured wealth, wealth magic that you'll find outside of folk magic. Spells for fast money because an unexpected bill came. So I was like, "Well, fuck that bastard. I don't get good results with him. I don't like this." And Jason Miller happens to have a communal, cause he runs a course called "Strategic Sorcery."
Alexis  1:14:54  That's literally the name of the course, the "Strategic Sorcery correspondence course." And we have global rites that CO out periodically throughout the year, and one of them was Juno. And I did that one time on a whim, and I had such good results. I was like, "Well, shit. Let me keep working with you." And the very first time I ever actually worked with her, I went into -- it's so weird talking about magic stuff to normal people -- I had a visionary experience, where I saw this absolutely radiant, very dark-skinned African woman who came to me in a vision. She kind of booped me on my nose [laughter].
Alexis  1:15:59  She literally whooped me on the nose, and like, faded out. And I was just, "So that's it. " And, I went about my merry business. Fast forward three months later, my sister tells me that I need to be out of her apartment in 60 days, and I didn't want to live with anybody else. And I had no credit history, outside of my student loans. And I went to Juno, and I panicked. And I said, "Help. I'm about to be in some real deep shit." And I had some -- I should clarify that when I say spirits talk to me, I'm not hearing voices, per se, like I'm not having a psychotic -- I always feel like I need to explain myself. I'm not hearing voices in the way that I would be taking myself to a therapist, if I were hearing stuff like that. But I basically have the sense of "Let's do this." And I ended up having a dream, where she explained what she wanted me to do with her. And I was just like, Ah, no ... you sure we don't have anything else ...?"
Leah Jones  1:17:22  To do something a little less messy than honey, jars of honey and candles and beeswax. 
Alexis  1:17:34  I had experimented with doing a small honey jar service before that. And I had gotten some positive response for it. But we have to remember that at this point in the timeline, I was still in abject denial about what my destiny was. So I was just, "Can't you just find me a job? And a business or something other than this?" And I was like, "Well, shit, if I don't do this, my ass is gonna be on fire." So, I put it out there. I didn't expect that anybody would sign up. I think for that first jar, I had 50 or 60 signups. And in addition to that, my petition was for the money in order to be able to move. Shortly after the jar happened, there was a dust-up with a white woman, which we're not going to get into because another whole dramatic situation, but the end result was that I walked away with a tax-free gift of $30,000 as part of an informal fellowship thing that never actually materialized as a form of formal fellowship, so it wasn't considered taxable income; I checked with the a CPA because I didn't want to get in trouble with no fam. 
Alexis  1:18:58  But that money -- between the Juno Jar sales and that experience -- was enough that I was able to rent my very first apartment, my very first little studio all by myself. And I was able to purchase the original of a painting called "Hera's Compassion," which was painted by Christie Townsend. It's above my altar right now; it's one of my prized possessions, it's insured. And it shows a dark-skinned Black woman with braids holding a dove in her hands, and she's got a peacock feather off to the side. So, this was interesting because almost all depictions of Hera -- because they're basically none of Juno --are all white women. They're they're *never,* never, never, never Black women. 
Alexis  1:20:07  Usually, I won't swap Hera imagery in for Juno stuff because there's reasons for that on a decorum level. But as soon as I saw that painting, I nearly passed out. Because I've never seen that before in my entire life, and I sent Christie an email. And I was just like, "If you still have the original, can you hold it for me, and let me know how much it is?" And I went to Juno and I said, "If you can make this happen, I will buy this painting for you. And I will make it known that this is how you prefer to be seen." Which is not popular with certain racist segments of the pagan community, but eat my ass. [laughter] We're pretty positive she was an African goddess ,so kick rocks. So, that's how that whole thing happened. And every year people would ask me, "Are you gonna do it again? Can you do them quarterly?" I was just like --
Leah Jones  1:22:17  You keep *trying* not to do them. You keep trying, you're like, "This is the last time,  I'm moving on with my life. We're not doing this anymore."
Alexis  1:21:34  Then, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And the last jar I did -- it's funny that we're having this conversation because the cart opens up for the winter one, winter 2022, on the first day of November. I literally opened the cart in November and do the jar in January, because that's how much of a sales period I need. Because that's how many people want -- people have it on their calendars now, which is kind of wild to me. But then again, I also make that information available for people to do that, so I don't know why? It's just got  gotten bigger and bigger and bigger each year. And the testimonials are -- I cannot make any guarantees around magical stuff, because that's unethical,  it's cat shit. Yeah. And anybody who does is a liar, liar, pants on fire. Don't work with that person.
Leah Jones  1:22:34  You're also really clear in your writings and in your offerings. Like, "Don't do this if you can't afford to, or pick the level that you can afford. Do this only of your own free will. If you're compelled to do this by someone or being pressured into it, It's not for you." And you're like, "I *absolutely ...." It's not fine print, you are like, "Do not pass go ... this is only ..." You really do a good job of protecting people and making them understand that it may work, but there's no guarantee, and I think you were very clear in your boundaries on that.
Alexis  1:23:18  There's an adage in Hoodoo that goes "First comes the working, then comes the work."  And I very much try to let people know that the work that I do has an appeal, it has an allure, because this shit wouldn't have lasted for thousands of years if it wasn't doing something. But that you have to meet it halfway-- there's no half-assing the process.` While sometimes you can be delivered straight up miraculous shit, because I've been there, and yeah didn't depo like three times, so it's no longer a fluke over here in Alexisverse. The best plans and best way to use magic, is in harmony with what we know practically works. So, I take a lot of strides because unfortunately, a lot of my colleagues are how shall I say, charlatans?
Alexis  1:24:20  Snake oil salesmen?
Alexis  1:24:36  Yes, just various uncouth, and untenable and unethical people, will make wild assertions, make wild guarantees. They will use really manipulative language, really manipulative sales tactics. One of my favorite examples of this, is this jackass named EA kettling, don't go look up his stuff, he's a bum. But he's very much the embodiment of like 35-year-old edgelord who has grown out of his teenage brand. His brand is literally "Become a Living God." But the funny thing about this cat, is that he got arrested, I believe in 2012. And he was taken to Purgatory State Penitentiary, got caught running drugs and guns. I'm just like, "God has a sense of humor."
Leah Jones  1:25:37  Was that in Colorado?
Alexis  1:25:39  I think it was in Massachusetts. Actually, I can't remember where he is right now. But he's finally, he's --
Leah Jones  1:25:44  -- he's literally in Purgatory. 
Alexis  1:25:46  Yeah. He does from the from the jail now, and a sell-out here, being a mess. He's a really great example of the kind of shit that I just am not interested in participating in. Right on the other side of the fence are what I jokingly call "Crystal Mommies." These very life, hipster -- well, not hipster -- girl, gaslight, gatekeep girl, kind of flavored people, who are super into horribly minds, crystals, and vaginal stuff and things, which has a cultural context to it, but do they know any of that? They also have kind of the spiritual industrial complex, that's kind of slick and preys on people's insecurities and their desires for things, in a way that's really unethical and gross. 
Alexis  1:26:56  It's interesting for me, because my traditions do, in fact, have a cultural precedence for exchange. If you need to be initiated, you have to pay for the animals that are given as an offering. Those animals are eaten, by the way, so it's not wasteful. You have to pay for your own tools, you have to pay for the labor of the people who helped do the ceremony. So, there's a cultural acceptance of some type of exchange. There's even a cultural precedent of people being lifted out of poverty and Haiti, due to being a very talented Mambo or Hogan. But it's not the same as capitalist commodification. The principle of the exchange in these contexts is, you don't get something for nothing.  So, if you want the spirits to make a practical change on your part, you have to feed them, because they have to do that work, they have to have a material connection in order to be able to do that work.  
Alexis  1:28:07  So for me, when I think about exchange, within these contexts, I'm not trying to wring every last dollar out of my clients that I possibly can. I'm looking for, what sustains me, what sustains my community, what sustains me in this work, and what gives my spirits the tools that they need to do the work that they do to the best of their ability. And that's a really hard thing to kind of balance in this day and age of Gary Vaynerchuks all over the place. I'm not gonna have 5000 pieces of content, that's just not gonna happen.
Leah Jones  1:28:52  No.
Alexis  1:28:54  There's a whole bunch of stuff I can't even take photos of, or I'll still start playing with lights and telling the leg to fuck off. It's really hard trying to exist in what is essentially a very traditional -- I don't want to say ancient because that's cliche, but old as dirt --social role in this modern context, under capitalism.
Leah Jones  1:29:21  And a pandemic. 
Alexis  1:29:24  Also in times where -- there's a joke that magic is recession proof, because people are desperate no matter what the time or place, And that's very true. I have not actually experienced a dip in my business. If, anything, much to my mild horror, I've had an uptick in business. Which tells me that shit's real out there in these streets. So, I feel -- I've personally, a really strong, personal responsibility to make sure that I am not engaging in anything that could coerce my clients, that could represent spiritual abuse, that could represent an ethics violation in terms of the dynamics, the power dynamics of an exchange. That I'm not taking these really vulnerable, sensitive, beautiful private parts of people's lives, and weaponizing them, to take money out of their pocket that they shouldn't be taking, because I've had plenty of people who are like, "I'm just gonna sign up for Juno Jar again." I'm just like,"Wait, wait, wait, wait -- time out. Don't."
Leah Jones  1:30:36  Right.
Alexis  1:30:36  "You don't need to, keep your money." Unfortunately, that's not a common practice. And a lot of spiritual spaces, people will enable all sorts of things, including compulsive psychic visits. I really don't struggle to do it, but it's a lot of work, to constantly be checking those boundaries to make sure that I'm able to do this work that I love, and I think is vitally important, and just part of the landscape of being human. But doing it in a way that doesn't feed the the structural sort of terrorisms that we have going on. That's also part of the reason why all of my work has a magical oath attached, where I ask people, if you benefit materially from the work that I do, you have to give back to others. And not like the Red Cross, I mean, like, hit up someone who's  --
Leah Jones  1:31:40  When you see those, when I you see a thread of toss here, buy a coffee, toss your Paypal in here, I have, because I would say I have benefited from your work. I remember, the first one was finding out that I was going to go to Barcelona and I tacked on a trip to Paris to this work trip to Barcelona. That was shortly after the first Juno Jar, and, I was freelancing, and things were really tight. But to be able to add  a low-cost trip to a city I'd never been to and then trying to find the mutual aid or in the communities I benefit from, people whose work I've benefited from, who I have learned are unpaid. 
Leah Jones  1:32:40  Specifically, there was this woman who did a shit-ton of unpaid diversity and inclusion work at UCB [Upright Citizen's Brigade], to comedy theater in L.A., and New York. Then I found out, it was considered an "internship," and it was unpaid. This was UCB was blowing up and falling apart last year. And when that tweet came through of sending her something -- I because I do work in financial services, and when bonus season came around, 25% that bonus went to my synagogue. Have I done enough? Maybe not, like I'm trying, and I can we I think we can always do better. So, we are coming up on two hours.
Alexis  1:33:40  Oh, my goodness. What I will add to summarize that conversation because for me, -- and I talked about this on my website -- my core operating ethos is radical luxury. It's this idea that everybody is deserving of a life that is beautiful and comfortable, regardless of where or who they are in the world. For me, that means rejecting certain ideas around work and labor. That means removing, dismantling capitalism because I'm a communist -- woo hoo. I'm specifically an anarchic communis., so I'm not a state-ist, communist. It's doing acts of mutual aid. It's cultivating interdependence, it's putting a value on self-expression and comfort. So, part of why I ask people to engage in that work is to really think about where their money is coming from, for one, and what the absence of that money could have -- how that can have an impact on somebody. 
Alexis  1:34:53  But also about how abundance is inter-relational, it's inter-dependent. We are inter-dependent on one another, we are also inter-dependent with the planet. And if we blow the planet up, if we blow one another up, eventually, that'll come around to us. That's not an ethical or a conscious stewardship of the wealth and the abundance that we have. Because my ancestors, and their cultures, have very different views of abundance and wealth than sort of American, hyper-steroid capitalism, the dystopian universe that we're currently living in, So, I try to have my work adapt to that, and I think I've been pretty successful, given the feedback that I've gotten. My favorite stories to receive from clients are emails about mutual aid, donations, and contributions that people have done. My community raised $20,000 for a single mother. She's not a single mother, pardon, sorry, Tiffany. But Tiffany and her kids, were in a tight spot. And we did that in less than 24 hours. 
Alexis  1:36:13  And watching the magic of that unfold and seeing how people are kind of re-evaluating their relationships, not only with what's possible for their life, on an individual level, but what's possible for society on a big-picture level, and then also taking steps to connect the two, and to put those things into action, has been one of the greatest honors of my life. And the only reason why, when I realized that I was on a feedback loop, the only answer was, yes, sir. on the spiritual stuff, I finally decided to say yes. Even though it's a weird job to have in the 21st century.
Leah Jones  1:36:55  Yeah. Well, Alexis, thank you so much for joining me tonight. Would you like people to find you on the internet?
Alexis  1:37:04  Sure. As long as they are not trolls, but I don't think anybody your audience would do that to me. 
Leah Jones  1:37:10  They don't stick around.
Alexis  1:37:14  You can find me at alexispmorgan.com. I'm also on Facebook @AlexisPMorgan. Those are the two primary places you can find me -- my Instagram is dead right now. And I have not gotten on the tickety-tocks with the childrens.
Leah Jones  1:37:35  Or with the middle-aged Jewish ladies, whatevs. Some of us are middle-aged Jewish ladies, I love it. But you have more important things to do with your time than a TikTok.
Alexis  1:37:51  My sister keeps sending them to me and I'm just like, Dang it, I'm gonna ..." I have a profile, I just haven't made any myself.
Leah Jones  1:37:59  Oh, well, if you have someone curating TikTok for you, you don't need to join.
Alexis  1:38:06  That's kind of the conclusion that I've come to. But I'm mainly on Facebook, and my website, my mailing list -- especially in light of Facebook's little oopsies some change ago -- is a great place to find me. And I will be sending out more emails in the future, but, that's where I'm at. I'm always happy to answer questions people have, and all that good stuff. I do a lot of education. I am usually the first person a lot of people meet who come into contact with me who does magic like this. I'm always happy to be a learning resource and to be a positive first introduction.
Leah Jones  1:38:50  There's a ton people can learn just by sitting back and reading your Facebook musings and certainly, I've learned a lot and helping re-wire some of the -- I am trying to learn to say people who were enslaved -- I'm trying to learn to change that language around. Just a lot of -- you know, Gen X, right? -- that I grew up with. If people want to contact you, your preferred is email, not Facebook Messenger, right?
Alexis  1:39:27  Yes, please send me an email. It will disappear into the Facebook Messenger abyss otherwise, that is alexis@alexispmorgan.com. I'm pretty sure there is an email in my bio that's also for my assistant, either one is fine. But, I have a no DMs rule, because at one point in my journey, I had a lot of little white women with a lot of complex guilt around white supremacy, who would regularly crawl into my DMs and write me six paragraphs about existential nature of their white guilt. And I finally had to be like, "No, no, no."
Leah Jones  1:40:08  Buy a book, people.
Alexis  1:40:13  So, email is preferred and usually takes me about a week to two weeks to answer emails, because I am disabled and I have a lot of my plate, but I will answer you eventually.
Leah Jones  1:40:24  Great. Well, Alexis, thank you so much for joining me this evening. You can follow me  @ChicagoLeah. The podcast is @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter, where I post a little clip every week. Please subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, rate five stars, give me a nice little review. Everything helps and sign up for Juno Jar if you are not compelled to do it. Wait.
Alexis  1:40:59  I mean, I also am adding some services, too, so if you wander over to my site, there will be various things up and going. I would love to have anybody who wants to sign up for my Juno Jar, do so, but please do not feel pressured to.
Leah Jones  1:41:15  Do this thing that we're talking about, but not because we told you to do the thing, but because you want to do the thing, not because we pressured you to do the thing through marketing, which is not the thing we're doing right now. We're just talking about opportunities.
Alexis  1:41:33   Thank you for having me. This was really fun, and I rarely get to natter my brands out about magical stuff, so, I always enjoy sharing. 
Leah Jones  1:41:42  That's the point of the podcast.
Announcer  1:41:44  Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out and enjoy your favorite things.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Darrin Doyle loves going into the recording studio

Darrin Doyle, a Michigan-based author and English professor, loves when he can head into the recording studio with friends or collaborate using Garage Band from home. We talk about his newest novel The Beast in Aisle 34, the bands his been in over the years and what it might be like to record with Pink Floyd.
Follow Darrin Doyle on Twitter and Facebook And bookmark his website.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
Central Michigan University
20x2 Chicago
GLACURH Region
King Tammy
King Tammy on BandCamp
Loop D Loop
Daryl and the Beans
Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict
Producing Billie Eilish at home
Kramer at Noise New Jersey
Darrin  0:00  Hello, my name is Darrin Doyle. And my favorite thing is recording music.
Announcer  0:06  Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones. 

Monica Reida loves Canada‘s own Murdoch Mysteries

Monica Reida, a Wisconsin-based journalist, loves the Murdoch Mysteries. She became a fan of Canadian TV at Michigan State (Go Green, Go White!) when it was included in the residence hall's basic cable package. We talk about copyright laws and intellectual property of podcasts, the Murdoch Mysteries, and Canadian news options.
Keep up with Monica on Twitter, Instagram, Alma and other online publications.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
Broadway Shows
Come From Away
Hamilton
Dear Evan Hansen
Fun Home
Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
Falsettos
Everything Else
Gideon the 9th
Monica's legal arguments about podcasts
Taking Ivy Seriously by Matthew David Brozik
Slings and Arrows
In the company of women (episode of Murdoch Mysteries)
The final curtain
Midwest Architecture Journeys
CBC's Rosemary Barton dances on the grave of the far right People's Party
CBC The National on YouTube
Instagram account for "Murdoch Mysteries" costume designer
"Murdoch Mysteries" Instagram account, which usually announces international air dates:
 

Trish McDonald is curious about gender norms and longevity

Trish McDonald, a Florida-based author, has done a lot of research about nutrition and longevity, which she shared with Leah this week. We also talk about her RV-lifestyle, tiny homes, and publishing her first book at the age of 77. Paper Bags is now available in digital and paperback through Woodhall Press
Follow Trish online @TrishMc_Writer on Twitter and @TrishMc305 on Instagram
Paper Bags: After thirty-four years of marriage, Kat McNeil flees to a campground in the Florida Keys where she falls for a ramblin' man who's elusive, unavailable, and secretive.Desperate to understand why he avoids her, she becomes a stalker. This deviant behavior unearths a stunning revelation shaking her to the core. Will she run away from something she doesn't understand, or will she embark on a journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening?
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)
Show Notes
Work Camping Jobs
Gut Balance Revolution
Kombucha at home and Keifer at home
17 Years for evidence to become accepted as standard care
Line dancing for beginners and seniors
Werewolf of London
Caringbridge for Leah's cancer stuff
 
 
 
 
 

Elizabeth Splaine loves opera, writing and getting inside your head

Elizabeth B. Splaine, a Rhode Island-based author, joins us ahead of her Tuesday, October 5th, release date for her novel Swan Song. We talk about her winding paths to performing opera, publishing four novels, and what it means to get inside someone's head. Her historical novel takes places in Germany during Hitler's reign and tells the story of an opera diva who learns that she is Jewish during the Holocaust as she's swept up in a romance with a man eventually known as William Stuart-Houston (Hitler's nephew).
CW: concentration camp, Holocaust, suicide
Follow Elizabeth B. Splaine on Instagram as @elizbsplaine and Facebook
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes
Rhode Island Philharmonic School of Music
Rhody Box featuring Swan Song
Brundibár opera
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
Ibram X Kendi
L'esprit de escalier
Online 5959 Event on November 16, 2021
 
 

Author Mike Keren loves cooking shows

Mike Keren, an author and clinical psychologist based in the Poconos, loves cooking shows that teach you something and haven't turned cooking into sport. We talk about Julia Child, the Galloping Gourmet and the Canadian show Wall of Chefs. Mike's first memoir will be published on October 5th and we also talk about caretaking, the AIDS epidemic, COVID and family recipes.
Keep up with Mike online on MikeKeren.com, @MikeKeren4 on Twitter
In “Four Funerals, No Marriage: A Memoir”, author Mike Keren is plunged into a caregiving journey when his loving but difficult parents come to visit and both end up hospitalized over the course of one weekend. Keren had only recently left a career as a psychologist to pursue the world of high finance driven by his perceptions of how difficult it was becoming to deliver quality service in the current profit-driven health care environment. He, along with his life-partner, Tom, had been caregiving Tom’s mom who was undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.
Follow @findingfavspod on Instagram and Twitter. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts(five stars please)
Show Notes
Graphic Medicine
Taking Turns
The Galloping Gourmet
The French Chef (Julia Child)
Jacques Pépin
Top Chef Masters
Wall of Chefs
The Big Family Cooking Showdown with Nadiya Hussain
Mock Chestnut Torte (passover flourless chocolate cake)
Banana Jam
Homecooking Podcast
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