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Benjamin Niespodziany: Intro to Surrealism
Episode 122

Benjamin Niespodziany: Intro to Surrealism

Finding Favorites with Leah Jones

October 23, 20221h 22m

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Show Notes

Chicago-based poet Benjamin Niespodziany, aka Neon Pajamas, joined Leah to talk about Surreal art including TV, movies, books and paintings. On the fly he designed a four-week community class on surreal appreciation that I think we would all enjoy taking. (Please run it on Zoom, Benjamin!)

His debut collection NO FARTHER THAN THE END OF THE STREET is available through Okay Donkey and already showing up in mailboxes around the country.

Follow Benjamin online everywhere as Neon Pajamas.

Show Notes

 

Surreal Art Benjamin_mixdown

1:22:49

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Leah Jones, Benjamin Niespodziany

 

00:00

Hello, my name is Benjamin Niespodziany, and my favorite thing is to surrealism.

 

Announcer  00:05

Welcome to the Finding Favorites Podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

 

Leah Jones  00:18

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 without using an algorithm. It is fall, which means it's my favorite season, the season of new books and authors. So I am very happy this week to be talking with Benjamin Niespodziany. I'm so happy tonight to be talking with Benjamin Niespodziany ahead of his debut of his full-length collection No Farther Than The End Of The Street, which is releasing with Okay Donkey Press in November. Benjamin, how are you doing tonight?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 00:58

Doing all right. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited, very nervous and terrified for my book to be out in the world. But I'm also equally as euphoric and  giddy to see it out there. So yeah, thank you for having me and chatting with me tonight.

 

Leah Jones  01:10

Yeah. How long has this book been in the works?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 01:15

Well, I think at this point, close to four years. I think the oldest piece in the book is probably 2018. And then a lot of them were written in 2019, and 2020. And then during lockdown, I was really able to sit with all of them, and fine tune them and  tinker with them and make them all into one cohesive narrative. So, quarantined didn't allow for too much free writing, because I felt like my brain was mush. But I was really able to  look at what I'd already written and work on some edits, and really fine tune and stuff. So it allowed for a lot of great editing practice. So, yeah!

 

Leah Jones  01:49

And this is a book of poetry and micro flash. Micro flash. That is, overall is a story together or are they of a theme?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 02:01

Yeah, it's all  one. I guess cinematic universe as the Marvel fans tend to say, but the idea of the book is taking a little bit off of inspiration from the movies The Truman Show and from Pleasantville, where it's this artificial container where you're boxed into this little area. So the whole entirety of the book takes place on one long street. Every poem is either in the front of the person's yard, or in the backyard, or in their basement or down the street, seeing a neighbor. But it never strays further than the one neighborhood city block. But each piece doesn't nest, it's not necessarily like chapter one and then chapter two, the next day, it's  just a scatterbrain fragments and vignettes and little postcards and snapshots of this  neighborhood happening. And by the end, you get a 360 idea of what's really going on. So there's a little bit of a of a narrative arc and a little bit of  a thread through line. But it's also sparse and little short told and story short snippets. So, I don't know if it's a poem, or micro fiction, or flash fiction or prose poetry. It's all just everything rolled into one.

 

Leah Jones  03:09

That's really exciting. So did you realize during lockdown when you started to edit that these were all happening near each other? Or was there a point earlier in the writing process? When it came clear to you that these all these pieces were related geographically?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 03:31

I think it did happen during lockdown. I think I had so many different drafts and so many different ideas and sketches. So I started clumping everything together, either by theme or by surroundings, or by tone of voice. So I started realizing, oh, there's a lot of pieces that take place in the house, there's a lot of pieces that take place in a front yard. I have a lot of faith-based pieces and faith-based poems and weird nuns and priests. So that's  on a separate project. I have other ones that feel more like folkloric and woodland and fairytale style. So that was in a different folio. So these ones all started talking to each other, and I realized how they might work. And then once the idea blossomed after having them all together in 2020 - 2021, then I started  really creating that restraint for myself and that constraint where, okay, let's have this be in a front yard. Oh, this one contains an airplane or an airstrip. So let's have that be in the backyard. I really wanted to make sure that I wasn't compromising and getting rid of certain pieces if they didn't fit. But I also wanted to make sure that I could move around the language and move around some of the pieces even if they've been published online, just changing the story a little bit to make sure that they all have that same voice throughout.

 

Leah Jones  04:43

Here's one of the big conversations I've had over COVID Just I had a lot of fire pits and a lot of weird conversations with my friends. Do you have an internal monologue. Do you hear your own voice in your head?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 05:06

I think so. I think I do.

 

Leah Jones  05:09

And can you see images in your mind's eye?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 05:13

Yes, definitely.

 

Leah Jones  05:14

So can you when you read this, you imagine a street that you walk down as you go through the poems?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 05:21

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, by the time the book was finished, I really had an idea of  what the area looks like. The backyard, it goes into some abstract depths where there's a well, and there's a whale inside of the well. And there's a really big backyard where there's a tarmac for planes to land. So the backyard is almost an infinity space. And then I have a very clear picture of the front yard and  how long the street extends. But the inside of the house is very much a question mark. And I feel like each piece would be a weird morphing of that house where I think like halfway through the book, I mentioned something about the basement and the you character, the book is saying – “Oh, we had a basement?” Like didn't even know, until that point. So it's always  morphing and changing. But I think with each piece, I really gravitate toward the visual and focus on that image driven piece. So I think my photographic memory are seeing that image, or like one of them is based around a hollow tooth. So I really wanted to focus in on the idea of there being something inside of a tooth, and it ends up being a little written down little message wrapped up in some scroll, like parchment inside of the tooth. But almost all my pieces  start with a weird, strange, off kilter image. And then from there, maybe I developed a little bit more of the description, a little bit more than narrative, but very rarely do I have, dialogue or conversation that starts. It's almost always an image.

 

Leah Jones  06:41

If you want to ruin or make a dinner party more exciting, ask people that question. It just takes one person who either if everyone at the table has an inner monologue but one person, or everyone, nobody has like a mind's eye, but you're the only one with it, trying to understand how other people experience their inner world when it is silent or blank. Which doesn't mean they don't have feelings and thoughts and visions. It's like how they access them as different. We would talk about it for hours around the fire all of the pandemic.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 07:29

That sounds very terrifying. The idea of there just being that endless silence when you think about the ongoing thoughts of your head. I mean, going for a walk and not taking your headphones and listen to anything, I automatically imagine that I'm going to start talking to myself or having some type of reflection and some type of conversation in my head. But the idea of it being completely silent is that's like a horror film, which I guess is perfect for mid-October. But it's like, oh my gosh, if it was just a vacant space of just nothingness. I feel like my brain is constantly talking to myself, I'm constantly, I can't get myself to shut up. So the other opposite would be really interesting.

 

Leah Jones  08:04

Yeah. But they don't feel. I also have like a very, you know, I have like, inner monologue. I'm working on my responses to you. I have a soundtrack. Sometimes it's a looping. Like sometimes it's four measures on loop and sometimes like it's a whole, like it's the whole Hamilton cast recording. Sometimes it's just one line. So I always have it's a cacophony and talking to people and trying to understand how they experience understanding their own emotions or how they think about even just like how do you know when it's time to go to the bathroom? I  need to go the bathroom. I should. I should go to the bathroom soon. I'm feeling an urge, right? And they're just in my one of my best friends who lives upstairs. It's like, No, you just suddenly know that's what you need to do. And you do it and I'm like, I don't understand.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 09:07

You read you read your own mind without any communication or conversation.

 

Leah Jones  09:11

Yeah. Cowboy has really [Not audible].

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 09:16

Maybe they have more of a self-awareness, I guess, than we do. Where we're constantly talking to ourselves and thinking. Can’t get ourselves to be quiet.

 

Leah Jones  09:25

Yeah, it's wild. So your publicist also told me that you run the site Neon Pajamas?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 09:34

I do. Yes.

 

Leah Jones  09:35

Is that a collaborative site? Or is it this Is it where you share your work with people?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 09:42

Yeah, it's where I share my work. It's completely me, 100% me. My last name, as you've noticed, is very difficult to pronounce. So I had a friend in middle school who his dad couldn't pronounce Niespodziany, so, Neon Pajamas was the alternative for some reason that was created. I don't know why. So my friend's dad is the one for that name. But I started, from a very early age, I was really into music and really into message boards. So I was constantly doing little movie review write ups and music, write ups, even like, 14, 15, 16 years old. And then as it  progressed, my handle or my username that just continued throughout my years was Neon Pajamas. And I gave it a shot with SoundCloud, doing curated little mixes, trying to make instrumental projects, I had some projects where I would do long mixes under Neon Pajamas, or the occasional DJ set on Neon Pajamas. And all the while I was always  blogging for other websites or doing interviews for another website or doing contract work for another platform. And there'll be so many pieces that would  fall by the wayside, Oh, I really liked that book, or I really liked that movie. And it's not getting picked up, or I have too much to do on my own thing, I can't be pitching more and more stuff. So I just wanted to create a hub where I could share some of my own work, of course, but then also create this ongoing blog where I can talk to artists, and if there was a visual artist that I really liked, or if there was an author or musician, then I could had them on my platform to interview them as well. So the blog aspect of Neon Pajamas, it's fallen by the wayside a little bit, I still try to update it pretty frequently. But when I first started in maybe 2016, or 2017, it was about 90% music and then as the years have gone on, I got more into literature and more into poetry, more into collage art, more individual art. So there's a lot of coverage of multimedia as opposed to just music. Whereas I still cover music every once a while, but it's a lot more, I guess, diverse than it was five years ago when I started it.

 

Leah Jones  11:34

I mean, that's it. The wonderful thing about when you own this space, where you're publishing is that it can grow with you. Versus “No, this is your beat”, “We hired you for this beat. We don't care about your other opinions. We don't care how you’re growing.” As a critic, we only want your music opinions.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 11:55

I've done websites where it's yeah, just Hip-Hop blog, just hip-hop music. And that's great. For other we've done a little literary journals where it's just prose poems, and that's awesome. But my website is almost, I have no rules. I have no bosses, I have no one to report to if I want. If there's something that I'm reading on a Sunday, and I like to write about it, then three, four sentences, I post it, it's good to go. There's a lot less, not pressure, but it just seems a little bit more natural. Where there's nobody  I'm not taking submissions. I'm not getting stuff where people are saying, hey, we'd really love to for you to cover us on your blog. It's more so like, oh, that book was good. I'd like to not only put it on Goodreads, but also put it on my blog, or oh, I can't stop listening to this album. I'd love to write a paragraph about it.

 

Leah Jones  12:37

Yeah. What have you had on repeat lately, for music?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 12:43

Oh, my gosh. Everything.

 

Leah Jones  12:50

Stick iTunes and put it all on shuffle.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 12:54

I really like the hip-hop space, as well as  the instrumental Hip-Hop space. So I'm constantly listening to beats in the background. But I'm always looking for somebody new to listen to and some new projects. But another one that is actually not hasn't come out yet. So I can't say that I'm listening to it heavily. But there's a rapper from St. Louis, who came to Chicago and made it his own name -Smino. And his first project in four years comes out on the 28th. So I'm very, very excited for that project. It's been a long time coming. I feel like I'm still listening to his project from 2018. So I'm just really looking forward to him finally having some new music out. I think he was in a little bit of like label trouble and maybe there was some managerial stuff. But yeah, it's okay.  We need something new. And finally, it's coming. So.

 

Leah Jones  13:37

Nice. Now are you a St. Louis or Chicago person?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 13:41

I am in Chicago. Yes. I've been here for about nine years now.

 

Leah Jones  13:46

Oh, great. I'm here. I'm in Chicago too.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 13:48

Oh, okay. Where are you in Chicago?

 

Leah Jones  13:51

Ravenswood.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 13:52

Nice. Just a little bit north, I'm in Logan Square. So not too far further north from I guess too far farther north, the title of my book is “No Farther Than The End Of The Street”. And it was originally No Further Than The End Of The Street. And then we had to look up further versus farther to see which word was properly used. And I had no idea and it was always further but we learned that farther was actually more about distance. And further is more about after further investigation where it's a little bit more abstract. Whereas farther is down the street, down the way and further is, let's explore further whatever. Just made me think of that. I'm constantly correcting myself in my head now that I know the differentiation. I've gone this far in my life having no idea further versus farther. And I've talked to people about it, and no one really knew that unless you Google it.

 

Leah Jones  14:41

Yeah, and once you see it, you're like, right, there will be no further investigation. But yeah, you learn it by using it. But I couldn't have defined it. I would have looked at this and instead have been like ”No, I think this one should be farther” and I wouldn’t know why. The one I struggle with is fewer and less than. I think less than, less is if you can actually count the items and fewer is if you cannot count the items.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 15:22

Oh, okay, so fewer would be more of a guess.

 

Leah Jones  15:26

I think so. Okay, or it's exactly the opposite. And sometimes I just avoid, I just find a third word altogether. It's like an affect and effect. I generally know. But if push comes to shove, I will just find it out to use a different word.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 15:44

Right, exactly. It’s tricky. But yeah, the whole reason that I  had no further than the end of the street. That was the initial title is that I was using a quote from The Truman Show. And in The Truman Show, let me have here, they said, “You can't go any further away before you start coming back.” So I like that  that quote and that idea that you're stuck in this little loop, you can't really leave the street. But I even downloaded the screenplay to make sure and they just incorrectly had used further where it should have been farther. But I had it as an epigraph and I'm like, okay, well, they had it wrong. Do I let them like, do I acknowledge that there was a typo? Or do I just change my title? It was a very, very weird little surprise. I didn't expect when I first started writing this book.

 

Leah Jones  16:26

Well, you brought up the Truman Show, which to me is a great segue. Well, put a pin in that dear, when is the book available? And how can people buy it?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 16:39

So, the book, thank you. So the book comes out November 1st . And if you've already done pre orders, or pre, if you pre purchase it, then it's already getting shipped out. So I guess they're arriving this week, people have already started posting, I've been seeing like photos of people with the book in their hand. It just feels very, we're talking about surrealism later. But it feels very surreal, just to something that you've spent so much time on in a Word document or you get the occasional feedback from a friend, but to have this  complete book and you're like, wait a minute, that's in Connecticut right now and some guy’s reading it? It's just very strange. In a good way. But yeah, available November 1st  through Okay Donkey Press and then it's directly through their website. They have like a big cartel website that you can just buy it directly through them.

 

Leah Jones  17:18

Amazing. Are you going to have any launch events in Chicago or anything? Curating?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 17:25

You know, I've thought about it. Yeah, I've thought about maybe doing like a Zoom event and curating and having some friends read. I did a reading on Sunday that wasn't  related to the book, but just reading with some friends. And then this upcoming Wednesday, which I guess is tomorrow, I'm doing an in person reading at Easy Does It, which is a wine bar in Logan Square. I've never been there before. I had a friend that just was like “Hey, we're doing open mic, we can write your name or your name down.” “If you want to just read for five minutes.” So, I'm trying to do like little things like this, but I haven't had an official like quote unquote book launch or reading event. But I had another friend that read his book front to back on YouTube Live. So I thought that could  be an interesting thing. Maybe just set a nice ambiance, my backyard, have a nice drink. Just go through the book, and then maybe post it a few weeks after the release. Thinking about maybe doing that. But nothing's solidified yet.

 

Leah Jones  18:25

I asked people, as they're coming on to think about a favorite hobby, a favorite movie. Just an area topic that we can talk about and yours was surrealism, and  almost more specifically surreal films, TV. Let's start. Can you start with a brief definition. I like surrealism, it's Dolly and Rene Magritte. But I think there's more than that, because you've included The Truman Show, which I didn't think about as being surreal and I'm very excited to talk about. So let's start with how do you define that something is surreal? When do you know it's surreal?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 19:08

Anytime that reality is no longer the reality that we see when we walk down the street. So whether or not that means super in the future and post-apocalyptic or whatever it might be or somebody wakes up and instead of an arm, they have a tree branch. Or they wake up in their head falls off and rolls down the street. Or for Truman show’s example, everything's normal, everything's fine reality is as it seems, and then he realizes he's in a giant dome, and they're filming him. So it's not surrealism in the sense that it's artificial and fake. But it's surreal in the sense that what you think is reality is no longer your reality. So, anything that has people turning into different animals or people’s body parts turning into different objects, that’s always really fascinated me where you’re just the normal day to day is no longer there. If it's a book or a movie or a TV show, and it's, “Oh, this is exactly like how Chicago life feels”, then I have no interest in it because I can go walk down the street in Chicago. So those kinds of shows where it's hyper realistic have never really done much for my entertainment. But once I start to see like, oh, this person in a dream, or this person is really in this crazy rabbit hole of this weird investigation or whatever it might be, you know, a David Lynch film, for example, or Dolly, who you mentioned where these clocks are melting. That whole idea where something can always be a little bit off and a little bit strange, and your comfort level is not there and you're turning the corner expecting something weirder to happen. That's like, I'm hooked. I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm really interested. If it's like a, just a romance rom-com or something like that. That’s great. But it’s not going to like bring me to the page and get started writing or it’s not really going to inspire me or I don't know. But yeah, surrealism is always something that's just like the weird and the strange. I was thinking about having the word weird be my answer instead of surreal, but I think they both  go back and forth where things are just a little bit not what they seem.

 

Leah Jones  21:15

I will admit, surreal is easier to wrap my head around than talking about weird. So let's time travel. Do you remember the first whether it was you’re in an art class and you're being introduced to surreal art? Is it The Truman Show? Do you remember your first brush with surreal media that you were like, that really got you?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 21:49

Instantly, I'm thinking James in the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I remember reading that book. And I remember that I think that was the first time that I can remember where I read a book and then I went and saw the movie. And it was the first time in my life where I'm watching the movie and I'm thinking, “Oh, that's not what the book did. Oh, this is different.” And for the first time, I'm like, finally, analyzing adaptation and maybe being really interested in that. But the overall idea just the idea of a Giant Peach and there being a bunch of people living inside of it, that, I mean, that's surrealism at its finest. All those movies Matilda, BFG when I was a child, those rolls on witches’ books were just huge Willy Wonka. All that stuff. Yeah.

 

 

Leah Jones  22:28

It never even occurred. I read all of those. I grew up on Roald Dahl. So and it never occurred to me that those are surreal. But they are absolutely!

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 22:38

yeah, if you looked at your window right now and saw a Giant Peach rolling down the street and a bunch of talking bugs living inside you think to yourself hey, that's not my normal reality.

 

Leah Jones  22:47

It's not normal, right. It's either a Roald Dahl invasion or a Richard Scarry invasion either which I want to investigate.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 22:57

But yeah, those Roald Dahl books are great examples of surrealism. And then I think when it was turned into a movie, I think it was the production company that had done like a brain saying, Yeah, my brain was saying Nightmare on Elm Street, but it's.. What's the Christmas?

 

Leah Jones  23:11

Oh, Nightmare Before Christmas.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 23:12

Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton.  Yeah, Edward Scissorhands. Exactly.

 

Leah Jones  23:19

I guess like Edward Scissorhands would be surreal also. Absolutely. Yeah. So highly stylized. And he has scissors for hands, right? Yeah. And it's set in this like, very, it's such a beautifully styled movie

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 23:35

It's like perfect pastels and  soft colors. And then just a strange Gothic man cutting edge clippers with his hands. I do think that a large part of surrealism, at least in the narratives and the books that I  gravitate toward is that rarely is the main character, or rarely are the central figures recognizing this as being strange. So it's not like “Oh, my gosh, there's a giant thing rolling down the hill, there's a Giant Peach.” It's not, there's no way that could happen. They're thinking, oh, there's a weird peach, this'll probably be on the news. Or someone wakes up and their arm is a tree stump. They're not saying there's no way this isn't possible, I'm dreaming. They're saying “Oh, my gosh, how can I fix this?” So the acknowledgement of the strange is often not there, you're often just accepting what's happening as reality and trying to either solve it or fix it, or embrace it. But a lot of these shows and movies where surrealism is really well done. It's almost like the surrealist element is seen as normal through the person's perspective. And then it's the audience that's saying, “Oh my gosh, this is so weird.” But the main character on a show like Atlanta, for example, is saying, this is perfectly normal. This is maybe weird, and I might be dreaming, but this is very much reality. And how do I get out of the situation? Or how do I monetize off this or whatever the episode might be about.

 

 

Leah Jones  24:52

So with that lens, is Metamorphosis by Kafka surreal or not? Because he knows right away something's wrong and he's trying, he doesn't want to be turning into a cockroach.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 25:05

Right. But yeah, it's definitely surrealism because there's no way that that could ever actually happen or maybe, right years and years in the future that get some weird science labs. But yeah, I think that Colin often they, you know, at least in like some of the prose poetry workshops I've done and some of the stuff where I’ve worked with other writers, they often encourage you to not draw too much attention to the surreal element because you’re over emphasizing and then it loses its magic. But I think with his example it’s such a shocking morning after reveal that you have to  pay freak out so it’s a great attention getter, but from the rest for the rest of the time that’s the reality and he has to accept it. But it's  a fine middle ground between calling too much attention to and freaking out or acting like it's perfectly normal and seeing other reader response.

 

Leah Jones  25:55

I want to talk about Truman Show, which maybe I've only seen once in the theater. I don't know, it was  before reality TV really existed. Truman Show for people who aren't haven't seen it yet. Spoilers. We’re entering spoiler country.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 26:22

24 years after the release date.

 

Leah Jones  26:25

So is The Truman Show. Did you get to see it in the theaters? Or is it something you got on you rented or you saw on TV for the first time?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 26:35

Yeah, I saw it in theaters. I remember seeing the commercial when I was, I was 10 years old and the movie came out in 1998. If anyone doesn't know what that when the movie came out. So, I was 10 years old and I remember thinking that Jim Carrey was just the funniest person on earth. I really liked Dumb and Dumber at the time. I loved The Mask. I loved Ace Ventura, I thought he was just hysterical. And then for anyone that seen The Truman Show, it's not that  comedy, it's a little bit darker, it's a little bit more surreal as we're talking. And he just plays a little bit more of a straight roll character, where he's not going off the rocker and doing crazy stuff. He's much more this domestic, almost like a Stepford wife, but for a guy, where he's just  going through the motions of this monotony and trying to escape. All the while, he thinks everything's perfectly normal. He's just  down and out on his luck and suburbia, but all the while he's inside of this giant, manmade dome, and every single waking moment that he or even when he's sleeping, every single moment is being filmed. And people at home are able to watch him sleep, or watch him go to a restaurant or watch him talk to his friends. It's 24/7 reality TV, of the life of Truman. And obviously the conflict becomes when he starts to try to escape this area, he tries to go on a vacation, and his plane keeps getting delayed, he's not able to leave. And he starts to slowly realize, okay, this might actually be a simulation, or this might be something is being put up, you start seeing the same car goes down my street every week at the same exact time. And he starts  losing his mind a little bit, because you're wondering, "am I dreaming? Is this real?” And that's where the surrealism seeps in. Because everything's perfectly fine. You're walking down the street, the neighborhood's normal, but under the surface, it's a complete, it's a complete production to complete Hollywood setup. And there's  the quote unquote, director is playing God, essentially. And it just gets more and more bizarre until the climax at the end. I don't want to give it away. I mean, I guess it's been 24 years, so maybe you shouldn't. But he does reach the limits of this quote, unquote set where he got it was his, you know, this is his whole world. He was born here. He knows nothing else besides a set. And it's maybe the size of maybe like a city, a city block or not a city block, but yeah, maybe the size of the city.

 

Leah Jones  28:42

But literally every other person is an actor knows they're an actor. That comes and goes right?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 28:52

Right. So they're encouraging him like, Oh, you don't need to take a trip to stay here. Or his wife is really getting him to change the flight so that he never actually realizes that they can't leave because you're in a dome. But ever get everyone's in. They know their roles. They know when they're supposed to be in the cafe. They know when his schedule is to be at work. So they have to be acting. Yeah, it's all everyone's in on it but Jim Carrey's character.

 

Leah Jones  29:14

There's an author, I reference a lot in this podcast, and that's Jasper Ford. You’ve ever read his books?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 30:23

I have not, no.

 

Leah Jones  29:25

So, he's got one series called The Thursday Next series. Thursday Next is a she's a book cop. She's the book police and she goes in and out of book world to solve crimes that happened to manuscripts. So the original book, the first book in the series is called the Air Affair. The manuscript of Jane Eyre has been stolen, and whatever edits are made to the manuscript impact all copies of Jane Eyre on the planet. But also, in book world, all characters live in the library, the Cheshire Cat is the librarian. And when your book is not being read, you can do whatever you want in book world. But as soon as someone gets to your page, you've got to be in the book.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 30:19

Oh, wow. And so if you have a really popular book, and you're really famous, then you're constantly working?

 

Leah Jones  30:25

Yes. But if your book is hasn't been read in 20 years, like you're a nosy neighbor,

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 30:32

Yeah, quote unquote, retired. Yeah. You're a nosy neighbor.

 

Leah Jones  30:37

Or you're at risk of being recycled into a new book.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 30:38

Oh, right. Like a reboot?

 

Leah Jones  30:42

Yeah. But I don't, I'm gonna have to rewatch the Truman Show. Because one, right, I saw it in 1998 and never revisited it. Reality TV, live streaming, what has gone from being very difficult. Like we watched reality TV and real world in those early seasons because that was the only way you could access that sort of information. But now everyone has a tiny computer that can live stream in their pocket. And access to people's created realities has shifted so much since 1990, since 98.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 31:32

Very true. And I think at the time, the only shows that were really  getting off the ground running were Survivor and Big Brother, I think those are the only reality shows that were really I don't even know what year those started. But they had to have been around the same time. And then I know that that when the Truman Show came out around the same time was a Matthew McConaughey movie called EDtv. That one I haven't seen since theater. So that one, my remembrance of it is very minimal. But I know it was very similar. I think with that one, he knew what he was getting into. So he's signed up to be filmed 24/7. And then obviously, things get out of hand, he decides he regrets it. He does want to be on TV all the time. But he sells his soul to these reality television stations. The Truman Show and EDtv. I think they were  ahead of their time. But they were trying to hop on the bandwagon of the Big Brothers slash Survivors. Reality TV  coming into the into the mainstream for the first time.

 

Leah Jones  32:22

So as Truman Show is that a comfort watch for you is that when you revisit regularly?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 32:28

I revisited for the first time in college, and then I think I've seen it once or twice since. But I really liked the screenplay. I've downloaded the screenplay, I've read through the screenplay, I just really liked the idea of creating a constraint and boxing yourself in and then seeing what you can do in this area. So oftentimes, I'll open a blank page and try to do a writing session and I just get so overwhelmed by all the possibilities, or okay, I don't even know what I'm going to write about today, because there's so much that can cover. So I  started thinking to myself, Okay, what if this is only on one street, or what if this is just, I have another manuscript in progress, where everything is on stage, and I tried to only have two or three props, and two or three characters. So it's like, once my brain can acknowledge that I only have a few objects, I only have a few characters, then I can  run wild with those options, as opposed to being like, well, actually, I should have 5000 characters, and there's 10,000 objects, and let's write about all these different things. It's like, okay, let's just have a guy and a girl, a baseball bat, on the stage with a gallon of water and a pinata. And we're gonna scrap it's like, once I  boxed myself in like that I can really run wild. And I think The Truman Show is a great example of that, because it's doing the exact same thing where you're in this little suburbia, you can't leave and here's all the possibilities. Another that The Truman Show is one of the two epigraphs in the beginning of my book and Pleasantville is the other one, which also came out in 1998. And it's also the same idea where you're trapped in a television series. But you can't leave. And once you try to go back further beyond the main street, it just loops you right back to the beginning of the street, because you're trapped in this old-fashioned sitcom. They have no idea what the outside world is. So there's me, there's Main Street, there's the school, there's a police officer and the department and that's it. So that  boxed themselves in. And I really liked the idea of working with a constraint and not running wild and having this whole giant universe and just saying, “Okay, let's just focus on this little, hyper little area, and then nothing more, so I don't get too overwhelmed.”

 

Leah Jones  34:25

And then Pleasantville? Is it like, I'm trying to because again, saw it in the theater. Is it that everything's in black and white and one person gets in and they're in color? And that's like, they're from outside of TV and they're in color? Or is it reverse?

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 34:44

It is Reese Witherspoon and whoever the first SpiderMan was I forget his name.

 

Leah Jones  30:49

Tobey Maguire.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 30:50

Tobey Maguire. So they come from the outside world into this television into black and white sitcom TV, and they're in black and white, everything's in black and white, the entire show is in black and white. But as soon as these two outside characters start calling attention to how they're in a TV show and start calling attention to the beauty beyond this little box in space, then the color starts to form. So I think one of the more iconic scenes is that everything's black and white, and a girl is blowing bubblegum, and it's pink. Or someone finally has red lipstick, because they found love. And they're so used to just being this one sided character within the sitcom. And then as the show progresses, I think by the end, it's almost entirely in color, because everyone is, quote unquote, woke, because they've  been shown the way and they've been realizing that it's more than just this one black and white street with the same lines and the same character and the same repetition. But yeah, that's one that I haven't seen since theaters. I should probably watch that one again, because I remember thinking that it was so. so strange and so interesting, even back then. And then that was one where I redownloaded the screenplay, and I was reading it, but I haven't actually seen the movie since ‘98.

 

Leah Jones  36:02

So I opened up the IMDb page and then I was thinking, Oh, I wonder if that I guess WandaVision, at some level is has some things that are surreal.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 36:15

I've heard about this. I've heard it's like very meta and strange. Yeah, but I haven't seen it.

 

Leah Jones  36:21

And then right away the two clips on the IMDb page for Pleasantville. One is the trailer and the other one is “What to watch if you love WandaVision”.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 36:32

So you're on the right, you're on the right wavelength.

 

Leah Jones  36:34

So, in WandaVision, every episode is a different era of television. Perfectly recreated. So the first episode is like an I Love Lucy or Dick Van Dyke Show like that feel the jokes, the constructs, it is a perfect reimagination of the Dick Van Dyke Show. But with Marvel superheroes in it. And then there's like a 1970s show, there's even the one where they do that the 1990s sitcom, where I was like, oh, yeah, the word Trump and the 90s. Like, that's not just like normal TV. So I you don't have to know anything about Marvel to watch and enjoy WandaVision.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 37:27

Nice. Which I don't so that's good.

 

Leah Jones  37:29

Yeah. Just, if you if you've watched enough TV of different eras, you will appreciate the costume design, how they shot it. They changed the format of the screen to match like what TVs were in different years. So it does not become a full screen. It doesn't take up your whole screen until like the fourth or fifth episode.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 37: 54

Wow, that's really interesting.

 

Leah Jones  37: 55

Yeah. Because they're doing the aspect ratios of

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 38:02

Yeah, screen progression. Which I haven't really heard of. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I might, I might check that out. I knew about the old sitcom Dick Van Dyke style, but I thought that was what they stuck with for the entire season. I didn't realize that they're jumping around decades and jumping around eras. That's really fascinating.

 

Leah Jones  38:16

Yeah. And it's just so well done.

 

Leah Jones  38:31

So all I know about Atlanta again, spoiler country. It's fine. I know he's the Childish Gambino and he's all and Donald Glover, Donald Cooper's actor name. That's his name name. Right. So he's an actor. He popped on Community. He's a rapper. And then I just know that Atlanta is his TV show. But now you're telling me it's surreal. So I think one obviously have to watch it. Tell me more.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 39:12

So the show begins with Donald Glover's character fun finding out that his cousin is becoming a big rapper, and he is struggling with money and struggling financially. So he tries to pitch it that he could be his manager. So normal narrative, normal setup, right? And it's just  Donald Glover coming out of his slump and trying to get his finances back while helping out his cousin. But from that part, from that initial setup, everything is just a little bit off. Every episode, there's always some element where you're like, wait a minute, is this a dream sequence? There's standalone episodes where side characters go on these little quests just to pick something up that they found on Craigslist, and it turns into like a horror episode and you're like, I thought this was like an Atlanta rap comedy show. You never know when you press play, you never know what genre you're about to get into. You never know what's going to happen or who's going to pop out. It could be completely straight-laced normal Atlanta story, or it could be completely off the rails where by the end of the episode, they're eating human hand, which is one of the spoilers, spoilers. But it's very much it's been compared to like David Lynch and Twin Peaks, while still having like, you know, obviously more of like a modern hip hop aesthetic, but it's very surreal and strange and maniacal and full of political commentary and full of hysterical moments. And then the next scene, you'll start crying and then the next scene, you'll stay up overnight, because it haunted you and then the next scene is back to laughing. So it's, I'm not, I've never seen anything like that on television where you watch an episode and you're like, I just get done watching a movie, like that was perfect. That wasn't even Atlanta by the time it's done. You know, they have certain episodes where the entire cast and the entire setup is none of the reoccurring characters. There's nobody in the show. It's just like a standalone side short film, basically. But they really think outside the box, while still keeping you in this really interesting atmospheric tone. And it can be very by what sort of thing and very polarizing for people. Because some people really love it. And they love that weirdness. And they love not really knowing what's going on. And other people like just can't handle it, because it's too much.

 

Leah Jones  41:26

They just wanted their empire but led by Donald Glover.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 41:29

Right? Exactly, yeah. Or they want to be like, Oh, I just want to go back to him being in the studio and making a big or I really want him to win a Grammy. And it's like, that's not what the show is about. It is what that's about. But it's much more about their  inner turmoil, inner psyche. And I guess also just playing off of how strange Atlanta can really be from the day to day. But the idea I think initially with them was to have three seasons, they had the idea of start to finish, it was like a perfect story arc, and they were going to be done. And FX, I guess FX was like, because of COVID. And because of financial, whatever, and because of all the new attention that Donald Glover was getting, they settled on doing four seasons. And the final two seasons, both happened this year. So Season Three was in the spring. And then season four is happening right now. And it's about finished. But it's so rare to see a show that has two seasons in one year. And this is after like a three-year break. But it's almost like they have like this perfect narrative arc. And then Donald Glover has obviously probably as 100 other things to do. So he's probably trying to get this out, but also doesn't want the fourth season to struggle, because often a third, fourth, fifth seasons can get a little stale. But every episode  reinvents the wheel and just really, really throws me for a loop every time which is what I'm always looking for.

 

Leah Jones  42:40

Did you start watching Atlanta because say you mentioned you're into hip hop. So did you watch it because you're like, oh, it's gonna be a show about hip hop? Or did other people watch it and come to you and say, there's this new surreal show on and you are gonna love it.

 

Benjamin Niespodziany 42:58

It was I think it was much more of the former, I think it was the angle that I think that I heard it pitched was there's a hilarious new show on TV called Atlanta, or there's a really cool new rap show called Atlanta, it was definitely pitched as more of a comedy and I thought it was going to be much more grounded and much more comedy focused. And it was almost, I think in the initial episodes, I was almost looking at it like entourage, but for a rapper, whereas you're  seeing him from the earliest stages and then become the superstar. That's what I thought going into it. And that's I couldn't have been more wrong. And I think but even if you rewatch the first season, I think the first couple episodes  give you that idea. You know, he's trying to read he's trying to reignite a flame with his cousin, they're trying to go back in the past or trying to make some money. They're trying to figure out their plan. And then things just get weirder and weirder and weirder, or there's like vision quests in the woods. And there's other ones that are complete dreams where the character wakes up at the end. It's really, really fascinating.

 

Leah Jones  43:52

Absolutely, 0% of people have said any of tha

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