BSFC #33: Claudia and the Great Search

The pop culture of April 1990 blew our young minds: Sinead O'Connor! Fire Marshal Bill, Homey the Clown, AND the Log Lady! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and its soundtrack (the perfect gift)! A ripped-from-the-tabloids Very Special BSC starring Claudia Kishi that isn't as problematic as you fear! Dreams really CAN come true, y'all...

Brooke and Kaykay discuss Claudia and the Great Search's exploration of alienation and attunement, with loving digressions on the respective joys of recording songs off the radio and browsing through microfiche.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Brooke: Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years. 

[00:00:23] Kaykay: And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist and I'm new to the books. 

[00:00:27] Brooke: This week, we are taking you back to April 1990. The music charts, we had three number ones that month. We were talking a lot about Taylor Dayne in our last episode with Pajama Party, how it was serving Taylor Dayne vibes. 

[00:00:42] Kaykay: Hard Taylor Dayne vibes. 

[00:00:44] Brooke: Hardcore Taylor Dayne vibes. So she was at the top of the charts to start April 1990 with "Love Will Lead You Back." 

[00:00:51] Kaykay: I was hoping for "Tell It To My Heart." 

[00:00:53] Brooke: That- we had to go back a few dozen episodes to get when "Tell It To My Heart" was on the charts. 

[00:00:58] Kaykay: Well, you know, I'm just not ready to let it go, I guess. 

[00:01:01] Brooke: You don't have to. "Tell It To My Heart" lives in your heart forever. Especially once you see the music video,

[00:01:07] Kaykay: Once your heart is told. 

[00:01:08] Brooke: Your heart has been told, and your heart will not forget. It was knocked off by Tommy Page, "I'll Be Your Everything." Tommy Page was on a lot of the Teen Mag Tuesdays that you'll see. It's not a memorable one. You can tell "I'll Be Your Everything" to your heart and you will forget it, in my experience.

But what came after that is something that you will appreciate, because it's "Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinead O'Connor was number one. 

[00:01:39] Kaykay: Yes! That was a Prince jam, right? 

[00:01:41] Brooke: Prince jam covered by Sinead O'Connor. One of those songs where, like I remember at the time when it came out, you know, I was young. I was not the target audience for "Nothing Compares 2 U."

And I was like, oh, you know, boring. And the video, the video was just like a closeup on her face and she's crying and this is boring, but now? Now I get it. 

[00:02:03] Kaykay: Yeah. I always remember, uh, I think I was very intrigued by her shaved head. 

[00:02:07] Brooke: Right? 

[00:02:08] Kaykay: Where I was like, dang, she got a shaved head! How fucking cool. 

[00:02:12] Brooke: Okay. So this is awesome. This is something that I was wondering, what the reaction to the shaved head was. So you were immediately like, that's cool. 

[00:02:20] Kaykay: Yes. 

[00:02:20] Brooke: As opposed to like, that's weird, what a freak. 

[00:02:23] Kaykay: Oh yeah. Baby Lezbo was like, Hmm, interessant. 

[00:02:28] Brooke: Were you publicly embracing the Sinead O'Connor, like if your friends were, were, would you be like, oh, I think that's cool.

[00:02:35] Kaykay: Probably not, I think it was just inside my heart. 

[00:02:38] Brooke: Yeah. Cause for me at the time I was like, that's weird, she's bald. Because I was very indoctrinated into heterosexual norms, right, and trying to figure that out. Whereas ever since the pandemic started, I've been basically having to hold myself back every day from just shaving my head.

[00:02:57] Kaykay: I mean, you know what I'm going to say. Go for it. I got clippers, I'll do it myself. 

[00:03:03] Brooke: Oh my god. 

[00:03:05] Kaykay: Anytime my friend. 

[00:03:06] Brooke: I had this conversation with my husband multiple times and there's a solid, like, no go on that one from him. But yeah, looking at it now, I think that video, like she is so fucking stunning in that video. And her voice is gorgeous, the video itself is gorgeous in its simplicity. That has held up. 

[00:03:26] Kaykay: I just feel like shaved heads are like lost on middle-aged men. Give me a shaved head on like a beautiful female face. Hmm, yes. That's who should have shaved heads, dude! Like, middle-aged men should be like in crazy drag wigs and like makeup.

[00:03:42] Brooke: Yeah. It's where it flips. Once you hit middle age, then it's like the gender norms flip. Wouldn't that be great? 

[00:03:49] Kaykay: Oh, I would be down for that society, absolutely. Yeah, now you get to wear the heels, bro. Not that I ever wore heels, but... 

[00:03:57] Brooke: Oh, I love this. I love this! Queering middle age, let's make it a thing. Hell yeah. We'll continue this thread in later episodes, I'm sure. Um, at the movies, top of the charts at the movies, I'm so excited for your reaction to this. The bulk of April 1990, four solid weeks number one, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

[00:04:20] Kaykay: Heroes in a half shell. 

[00:04:22] Brooke: Turtle power. Were you a fan of the movie? 

[00:04:24] Kaykay: You know, we're getting to this point where I'm a little too old and I'm in the woods. 

[00:04:30] Brooke: Oh, there was no... 

[00:04:31] Kaykay: There was no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at my fucking private school.

[00:04:35] Brooke: Here's the thing. This is what's fucked up. So our society, like our politics, our economy, are being run by people who didn't grow up seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the theater. How can they relate to the rest of us? They can't. They have missed out on so much foundational growth as children.

They're just not equipped. If you didn't see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the theater, if you weren't rocking along to "Turtle Power," you don't know what I want and need in this life. You shouldn't be making decisions for me. That's bullshit! 

I fucking loved it. I saw it in the theater. I thought it was so cool. I saw it in the new theater, the Lindale six that opened up. It had six screens, it was the biggest theater in town. I was like, this movie theater has six movies playing at a time? Holy shit. Do you know "Turtle Power," the song T U R T L E power? 

[00:05:39] Kaykay: I think I've heard it. 

[00:05:40] Brooke: So you think of 1990, we haven't gotten to like the MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice part of 1990 yet. So that will be coming up. And that was when it was like, rap is like this huge deal now. 

[00:05:52] Kaykay: Yeah, like center in culture. 

[00:05:54] Brooke: There was like a lot of like think pieces about look at what's topping the top 40, you know, and you can tell some of the cultural panic going on behind the scenes with that. But "Turtle Power" was actually before that. When "Turtle Power" was like, you know, just being played in the middle of the day on my Iowa top 40 radio station, I was so fucking delighted by that. 

I wonder how my mom is going to feel about this story if she remembers this, but I loved that song so much and I wanted the soundtrack so badly, but my mom wouldn't get it for me. So we were at Target, you know, so this is April 1990, Mother's Day is coming up. And so I say to my mom, "Mom, there's something that I want to get you for Mother's Day, but you can't see it." Because it's a present for her. "So can you give me like 10 bucks so I can get you this present that I really want to get you for Mother's Day? I go and I buy the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle soundtrack on tape. 

[00:06:57] Kaykay: Damn! Oh my God, your mother did not stand a chance, did not stand a chance with you. 

[00:07:06] Brooke: I remember I was so excited I actually, I never got up early. I never woke up before my mom, but I was like, "Mother's Day is coming. Mother's Day is coming." And I had it all wrapped, and I had it in my room and everything. 

[00:07:17] Kaykay: Oh, you actually were going to give it to her.

[00:07:20] Brooke: Oh, no wait, well, here, here was my plan. That I executed, and it didn't go according to plan. But, so I wrapped it. I get up super early and I was like, "Mom, happy Mother's Day, happy Mother's Day." And I handed her this present. And she opened it and she sees it's the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack on tape. 

[00:07:40] Kaykay: Holy shit. 

[00:07:41] Brooke: And she just looks at me with like, kind of this like, "are you fucking kidding me?" look on her face. And I was like, "If you don't want it, I'll take it." And she's like, "This is going back to Target today." 

[00:07:55] Kaykay: Slow clap.

[00:07:57] Brooke: It got returned. I never had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack unwrapped in my house. 

[00:08:04] Kaykay: This is, you know, the brilliant level of subterfuge that the Playgirl magazine story reaches. 

[00:08:12] Brooke: Your story is much better. I'm sorry, a handwritten note from your mom saying, "Please give my 11 year old daughter..." 

[00:08:22] Kaykay: "A Playgirl."

[00:08:23] Brooke: You know, I thought I'd be slick. I was insufficiently slick, but it was a good lesson for me. 

[00:08:29] Kaykay: It was a good try. It's also such a 90s story. 

[00:08:32] Brooke: Well, and it wasn't an option for me to just be like, I love this song. I will just listen to it on YouTube. 

[00:08:38] Kaykay: Right. 

[00:08:39] Brooke: Like that wasn't a thing. If you wanted to hear a song you had to call in and request.

And so ultimately I ended up getting "T U R T L E Power" one of those days where you like, did you ever have those days where you have a boombox with a blank tape, you prop it up next to the speaker of the radio as it plays, and then you quickly hit record as soon as you hear your favorite song coming on?

And so a lot of times when you'll play it back, you'll hear it being introduced by your local DJ or whatever, and sometimes there's a little commercial that cuts in and out. Did you have those? 

[00:09:13] Kaykay: Yeah. Um, my sister and I had a radio show where we would do that and then just talk in between, and we thought it was so cool. We were making it for nobody, just ourselves, but we really liked making that radio show.

[00:09:26] Brooke: And here we are. 

[00:09:27] Kaykay: And here we are, podcasting all these years later. 

[00:09:31] Brooke: Right, we just need to splice in- if only not for copyright, we could just splice in "T U R T L E Power" and introduce it. Suffice it to say that song will be on the playlist, even though it wasn't at its highest peak. This song gets to like number 13 on the charts. The song is like a bonafide hit. 

So this was a big month for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the theater, and for me running little young scams to try and get "T U R T L E Power" pride of place in my drawer, alongside two copies of the Cocktail soundtrack. Eighties and nineties, great period for soundtracks.

[00:10:13] Kaykay: Cause it was a perfect way to have like a mix tape. 

[00:10:15] Brooke: Exactly. That was it. 

[00:10:17] Kaykay: There was no playlists and Spotify or anything like that. Nope. 

[00:10:20] Brooke: Yep. Prototypical mixtape. And then Pretty Woman came back at number one at the very end of the month. Was knocked off for four solid weeks by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So put those two cultural touchstones together.

[00:10:35] Kaykay: What an interesting time. 

[00:10:38] Brooke: And then on TV, we had a couple of legendary nineties shows debuting in April. In April, of all months. Twin Peaks came out in April 1990. 

[00:10:49] Kaykay: Great show. 

[00:10:50] Brooke: I never saw it. 

[00:10:52] Kaykay: So I only saw this later because I had a friend in college that was obsessed with it and had all of the VHS tapes. And so it's a perfect, like dive into it in college show. Cause it's so freaky and weird, you know, you get nice and stoned and watch the log lady. And you would love the log lady. The log lady has Brooke all over her. 

[00:11:12] Brooke: The look on your face when you said, "I love the log lady." I'm sad that particular moment is not a video podcast. I'm glad you loved the log lady. I'll have to rectify my cultural blindness to Twin Peaks sometimes. 

[00:11:23] Kaykay: Yeah, I think you'd like it. I think you'd like it. It's, it's unique and weird and there was nothing like it on TV at the time. Like, everything is sort of dark and weird now, but that was definitely one of the first shows to do something that.

[00:11:36] Brooke: I definitely need to dig into that, for sure. A show that was also unique at the time, but that I was super into came out this month as well, which was In Living Color. 

[00:11:47] Kaykay: Yes! I loved In Living Color. 

[00:11:50] Brooke: Did you watch it every Sunday night like I did? 

[00:11:53] Kaykay: Yeah, I did. 

[00:11:54] Brooke: Cause it was on after The Simpsons. 

[00:11:56] Kaykay: Yeah, exactly. That was the block of TV you could have.

[00:11:59] Brooke: So good. Yeah. It was like, you're watching and you're like, oh, this feels different. It's like weird and funny. And like, so cool to see a sketch comedy show that is not like 99% white. It's not like, oh yeah, this is the Harvard National Lampoon... 

[00:12:19] Kaykay: Graduates. 

[00:12:20] Brooke: Yeah, exactly. Doing their thing. So you had totally different kind of humor. I don't know, it just spoke to me in a different way. 

[00:12:28] Kaykay: Definitely. 

[00:12:29] Brooke: Homey the Clown was my favorite. 

[00:12:31] Kaykay: Fire Marshal Bill. 

[00:12:32] Brooke: See, I didn't find Jim Carrey funny. 

[00:12:34] Kaykay: I liked Fire Marshal Bill, mostly cause I could do it perfectly. So, you know, I was definitely the class clown and I learned early that my Fire Marshal Bill would just like light the room up. So I did a lot of Fire Marshal Bill. 

[00:12:48] Brooke: So Fire Marshal Bill was useful for you for social purposes. 

[00:12:52] Kaykay: Exactly. That is a perfect way to put it useful. 

[00:12:55] Brooke: Yeah, for me, there's plenty of white dudes, you know? Oh, hammy white dude? I can watch SNL. 

[00:13:02] Kaykay: I'm not here for that. Yeah, and I also find, um, there's something almost like frightening to me about Jim Carrey. His utter intensity. 

[00:13:10] Brooke: The franticness of it. 

[00:13:11] Kaykay: Yeah! Yeah, I think like something unsettles me about just like the fucking driving intensity of it. 

[00:13:17] Brooke: It's like he really wants you to laugh at him. Like he really wants... 

[00:13:22] Kaykay: It's almost like aggressive. 

[00:13:23] Brooke: Yeah. And to me, I was just like, Eh, no. So, I mean, I'm married to somebody who finds Ace Ventura, still to this day, fucking hilarious. And Fire Marshal Bill. Again, I think his target audience is not me. It's boys, basically. You know? 

[00:13:39] Kaykay: I mean, they had to cover that base. 

[00:13:42] Brooke: Yeah. Don't they always. 

[00:13:43] Kaykay: Tick that box. 

[00:13:44] Brooke: Gotta make sure you throw in a little something for the white men in order to get on TV. So Jim Carrey played that role. 

[00:13:51] Kaykay: That's making me think about this Turning Red movie, which is fucking amazing. I don't know if you've seen it.

[00:13:55] Brooke: I need to see it. I need to see it. 

[00:13:57] Kaykay: It's so good. There was some review, some old Irish dude was basically, "Uh, for its target audience, I'm sure it's great. But for me, it was just completely exhausting." 

[00:14:08] Brooke: Oh, good.

[00:14:08] Kaykay: And I was like, what? Like, it was so amazing. But it was just about like a female Asian character, and it was like about periods and about like female friendship and like Asian culture. And I'm like, dude, welcome to our world. Growing up were all we saw was your fucking culture. And somehow we survived it and weren't like shooting people. 

[00:14:31] Brooke: If you're exhausted spending 90 minutes in the world of something that- 

[00:14:38] Kaykay: Thank you! I need a Brooke rant on this. 

[00:14:39] Brooke: Yeah, that isn't aimed directly at you? Think about what it's like going through your entire fucking life in a world that isn't created for you, bro. Like, cry me a motherfucking river. Go back to bed, you baby. Anyways. I have no, I have no patience for that bullshit. 

[00:15:00] Kaykay: Oh man, I could talk about this for like 10 hours. I also was watching a Beastie Boys documentary, and I love the Beastie Boys. I was so fucking obsessed with Licensed to Ill, I can't even explain. And I was watching this documentary and I was like, you know, I'm so happy for the Beastie Boys that they've had this like wonderful charmed, beautiful life.

And I was also just so sad thinking, you know, part of it is just like the comfort they get moving through the world as like white men in like thin straight white male bodies. They just don't have the constant weight of looking different, being different, being less than. Getting messages constantly being less than. So all you have is fucking energy to create, dude! 

[00:15:39] Brooke: Seriously. 

[00:15:39] Kaykay: I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, what would it be like? Like, what would it have been like to be able to grow up in that world where like you were free from so many of those forms of oppression. 

[00:15:51] Brooke: You had all of that energy and time that you spend just making space for yourself, trying to find a seat at the table, trying to figure out where the table even is- 

[00:16:05] Kaykay: Or like, trying to even swim in the sea that's trying to pull you down and that's like drowning you. Like, you can't even breathe. 

[00:16:15] Brooke: I think that leads us perfectly into our conversation about this book, actually. What a lovely transition. Who would have thought that Fire Marshal Bill and the Beastie Boys would lead us into talking about the 33rd Baby-Sitters Club book, Claudia and the Great Search, which was released in April 1990.

So it's time for some back cover copy. And I quote, "It's no secret that Claudia and her sister are different. For one, they don't look alike at all. Claudia loves her wild clothes and funky jewelry, and Janine dresses... well, kind of nerdy. Janine is a genius, and Claudia brings home Cs -- when she's lucky. Claudia opens the family photo album to see what she and her sister looked like when they were little, but there are hardly any baby pictures of Claudia!

And when she goes searching for her birth certificate and birth announcement in the newspaper, Claudia can't find it. Is Claudia who she thinks she is, or has she been -- dot, dot, dot -- adopted?" 

[00:17:19] Kaykay: Dun dun dun! 

[00:17:21] Brooke: End quote. So we were talking about what it's like to have to try to find your place in society, or in this case, Claudia is really struggling to find her place in her family and feels very excluded. Feels like she doesn't fit. And this is what this entire book is all about. 

[00:17:46] Kaykay: With Mimi being gone, she doesn't feel seen. 

[00:17:49] Brooke: I think that's exactly it. I was going to ask what your read was, because let's be honest, the way that this is set up in the book, it's a bit of a stretch for Claudia to jump to "I must be adopted." 

[00:18:03] Kaykay: Then to spend the entire book being a private investigator, basically. You know, rather than just like talking to her parents or talking to anybody, putting herself in knots trying to figure out. And it did have like, almost again that Nancy Drew flavor. I think the book sometimes just goes on like little Nancy Drew adventures. It's a little bit of that. 

[00:18:21] Brooke: And you know, and we know that Claudia loves Nancy Drew. 

[00:18:24] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:18:24] Brooke: That's like the books that she reads. So the framing for this is that Claudia starts off by going to see an award ceremony at Janine's high school, where she gets this award for being like best all around student or something like that, which seems like, God, I hope high schools don't actually do that.

[00:18:44] Kaykay: Well, they said they had only given the award once before. 

[00:18:47] Brooke: Right. But even beyond that, they're like, and it's best at English. It's best at math. It's best at science. I'm like, what kind of fucking high school is this? Jesus. Like, this is a competition? But anyway. 

[00:18:59] Kaykay: Oh wait, your school didn't have like topical prizes? 

[00:19:03] Brooke: Did yours?

[00:19:04] Kaykay: Yes. 

[00:19:06] Brooke: Well... 

[00:19:06] Kaykay: Here we go. 

[00:19:07] Brooke: Fucking private school. 

[00:19:09] Kaykay: Here we go! Blue bloods. And they were always cause somebody gave like a million dollars and then decided, you know, they really believed in this thing. So it was like, you know, the James Smithfield Prize in Mathematics. And in fact they had like, it was called the School Cup, the best all around... 

[00:19:26] Brooke: So Hogwarts?

[00:19:27] Kaykay: Yes. The best, like all around student would get like the School Cup, and it was like a huge fucking deal. 

[00:19:33] Brooke: Oh, that's so gross. The only awards that anybody ever got at my school, like was perfect attendance. 

[00:19:40] Kaykay: Oh, very nice! I love it. It's like, just show up, y'all. You are enough. 

[00:19:46] Brooke: Just don't ever get sick. Just don't get sick, or like, if you get sick, get your ass to school and infect everyone else so that you can, that you can win perfect attendance. Make sure no one in your family dies, never go through any sort of traumatic experience in your life. You get an award! Good job. 

[00:20:03] Kaykay: It's very interesting messaging. 

[00:20:05] Brooke: Good for you for living a charmed existence. Yeah. So that is what sets Claudia off on this sort of like, she's always feeling left out. Like we know that about her. That's not a new thing for Claudia in this book, but then she finds out that Emily Michelle, and this was fucked, I thought, is not allowed to go to preschool yet because she's not ready for it, because she's still learning English.

Like, how many two year olds knew their colors? You can't come to school because you don't know your colors? And so they're basically saying that, well, Emily Michelle is quote unquote, "developmentally delayed," although I'm sorry, the way that this is described in the book, she seems to be completely developmentally appropriate to me.

I don't know if you saw anything that would make you feel otherwise, except for the like toilet training, but... 

[00:20:54] Kaykay: Yeah, and in fact, you know, an attachment trauma is always gonna, even if the language barrier weren't the case, it would affect you cognitively, probably for a long time. It's just the nature of trauma, especially at that age. So it seemed inordinately appropriate to me. 

And in fact, I was thinking a lot about, um, kids that get in like orphanage situations, war situations, situations where, you know, there's a very clear, like attachment rupture at that very, very young, crucial age. They can develop reactive attachment disorder, which basically looks like antisocial personality disorder, what lay people would call sociopathy. 

So in other words, it is such a fucking profound disruption, it can kill the child's ability to empathize with any other human, kill a child's ability to learn. Because we know that the brain develops through touch. The human brain will actually not develop without it.

So anyway, long story short, yes, she's doing great.

[00:21:55] Brooke: I know, she seemed to be doing spectacularly. She just doesn't know that red is red, because nobody seems to have taught her that yet. And you know where's a great place to learn that? Preschool! 

[00:22:07] Kaykay: Yeah. And also she's, um, she's scared when her attachment figures leave, which also a hundred percent appropriate. Even for a child that doesn't have an attachment disruption this age, it's really normal for them to have stranger danger and want to stay with their caregivers a lot.

[00:22:23] Brooke: Right. That's what was so confusing to me about the way that she's cast in this book is it's like, she seems like a normal two-year-old to me. Like she seems like she's really excelling, given her circumstances, but in any case, they present it as like, Emily Michelle is slow. You know, that's sort of the way that they frame it, like slow to pick up things.

They're doing Ring Around the Rosie and she doesn't know what to do right away, and it's like, well, cause she's encountering this for the first time. Like, she'll pick it up with repetition. Don't expect her to just have like all of these cultural norms immediately in her brain, just because she's gone through customs, basically. It takes some time.

[00:23:01] Kaykay: And we all get schooled on Ring Around the Rosie to be told that the actual name is Ring a Ring of Roses. Did you pick that out? 

[00:23:09] Brooke: I saw that. I mean, it is a song about the plague. And it is a song about dying. 

[00:23:14] Kaykay: Which makes total sense, right? Because that's what you would make, is like little flower crowns, cause they thought flowers bought the plague. But Ann M schools all of us by sharing that little tidbit.

[00:23:24] Brooke: Yeah, I think it would have been much better if she would have gone into, "And do you know where this song came from? It came from the Black Death in Europe." 

[00:23:29] Kaykay: Karen Brewer! Bring Karen Brewer in, dude! 

[00:23:33] Brooke: They were missing Karen! It wasn't Karen's weekend at home. So Karen would have schooled everybody on that one. Damn, missed opportunity. 

[00:23:41] Kaykay: "Do you know that's a song about the plague?" 

[00:23:46] Brooke: "Do you know how many people died in the 1400s? Their ghosts are around us at all times." So anyways, Claudia sees that, and it's also not lost on me that like, Emily Michelle is another Asian character in this. And so it seems like Claudia is sort of identifying with it. Like, oh, here's another young Asian child who is also like, seen as being slow to pick things up. They're attributing this to the fact that she's adopted, I must be adopted too. 

You know, she starts to think about that, like, how do I know that my parents are actually my parents? Janine seems to be exactly like my mom and my dad and looks just like my dad. And she's like, I don't look like anybody in my family. I'm not interested in the things that they are. Like, she really can't connect with them. 

And so she goes looking for evidence that she was born with them really goes over the top to look for evidence of this and feels stifled in her efforts. And so then it's just like, "That's it, I'm adopted. I need to find my family."

And I just want to note that at this time, just like with the last episode, how Rain Man really kicked off a lot of interest in the public sphere about autism. There was this huge story, sort of a tabloid story in 1989, I don't know if you remember this, about two girls in Florida who were switched at birth. Um, and this became a big story in 1989. They ended up making a TV movie about it in 1991. 

[00:25:25] Kaykay: Called Switched at Birth? 

[00:25:26] Brooke: It's called Switched at Birth, yes. 

[00:25:28] Kaykay: Well, you know, don't mess with perfection here. Say what you see, Gareth.

[00:25:34] Brooke: Yes. So that was something, again, I'm thinking about what must it be like to be trying to brainstorm new topic ideas for these books. They're probably looking at what are things that are being talked about in pop culture whenever they get a little bit stuck. 

And so I was just like, I wonder if that was something that was sort of inspiring this plot, which is not a Switched at Birth plot, but it's also about like, how do you know that your family is really your family? And honestly, I was like, I remember being a kid and thinking the same thing. I'm like, I wonder if I'm adopted. Do you remember this? Did you ever have those feelings? 

[00:26:19] Kaykay: No, I don't think I did. It's just never occurred to me. I was definitely different for my family. Like I think I could sense I was queer for sure, but I also like look a lot like my dad and my mom. So it's kind of hard to argue with that, but it sounds like this is something you experienced.

[00:26:36] Brooke: I mean, I was very much into watching Sally Jesse Raphael, right? And watching like Joan Rivers Show and like reading People magazine, and so all of that stuff I was always thinking about. And like Claudia, I felt like I never really fit in, too. You know, like I was interested in very different things than what my family was interested in. At the time, I didn't feel like I really looked like anybody in my family. So it was one of those things that was just like a passing question that I had in my mind. But there's plenty of pictures. 

[00:27:11] Kaykay: You didn't go, uh, searching through the town archives? 

[00:27:14] Brooke: I did not. 

[00:27:15] Kaykay: Calling random strangers to try to figure out if they were your parents?

[00:27:19] Brooke: No, because I knew that they were. There were so many damn pictures of me. There's a picture of my mom holding me in the hospital. 

[00:27:26] Kaykay: Well, you're the oldest. 

[00:27:27] Brooke: Yes, I'm the oldest. 

[00:27:29] Kaykay: And that truth comes out in this book, right? That it's often the case, and totally true in my case, too. There's like five baby books of my sister. And then me, it's just like me and my sister playing game pictures. You know, the oldest gets so many pictures.

[00:27:42] Brooke: You guys are fairly close in age, right? 

[00:27:44] Kaykay: Four years. 

[00:27:45] Brooke: Okay. I think that's the thing, and that's what Claudia's mom and dad ended up explaining to her at the end. Like, "Well, because we had another kid running around and we just didn't have time to be taking a lot of pictures." It's not like now, where you just grab your phone that's right there, and just snap a picture and you can get pictures of everything. 

It's like getting pictures at that time was an effort. You know, you had to have equipment for it on hand. Unless you had a Polaroid, you had to take the film in to get developed, which was a cost. You had to catalog these in big binders of photographs, which, you know, you then had to keep in a place that you could go back and reference them.

It was an effort. My brother had probably about as many pictures as I did, but we were also much further apart in age. 

[00:28:34] Kaykay: Yeah, there was a huge gap, so it was probably like new again. 

[00:28:38] Brooke: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I could go run and get the camera if needed, you know, I could be a photographer if needed. Yeah. So anyways, that is the plot that we see. That's why Claudia questions things. And it seemed to me that, as you mentioned, that the absence of Mimi is a driver of this. How did you see that play out in your reading of this book? 

[00:29:03] Kaykay: Well, there was one scene in particular where I think they're at the dinner table and they're all basically, you know, fanboying Janine for having just won this big prize. And she says something like, "Nobody noticed what was going on for me, cause Mimi wasn't there. And if Mimi had been there, Mimi would have like instinctually known that I was kind of having a hard time and she would understand, and she would probably say something to include me in the conversation or to make me feel better," you know?

And then through the book, what happens in the end is that when she sits down with her parents and they say, "No, you are our child biologically, and you look a lot like Mimi when she was younger." And they give her a picture of Mimi and she puts it in a frame, her picture, Mimi's picture, and they look like they could be twins.

So throughout the book, there's this sense of missing Mimi and not feeling seen, and how, you know, Mimi was really grounding and including energy for Claudia. And now that she doesn't have Mimi, she's really kind of spinning out on her own. 

[00:30:06] Brooke: Yeah, I had the same thing, and I thought it was really interesting that they mentioned how, this was just an aside, how Emily Michelle, when she is, you know, missing her caregivers, one of the things that she'll shout out is like, "Me me" is the way they have it in the book. They say that that's, you know, Vietnamese for "mother." I didn't cross check that to make sure that that was real, but I'll take Ann M's word for it. But I was like, wow, that's really close to "Mimi." 

[00:30:36] Kaykay: Yeah, good point. 

[00:30:38] Brooke: Right? How it's like Mimi was that maternal nurturing role for Claudia. Mimi was Claudia's connection to feeling a sense of belonging and her family, and Mimi's absence has left her feeling very adrift, and just detached from her family. 

[00:30:59] Kaykay: Yeah, and it's making me realize, we were talking about attachment and attachment styles, and the only secure attachment we were able to identify in this entire book series was Claudia and Mimi. And so it's very interesting that Ann M has now brought together Claudia missing her secure attachment, and Emily also having lost her secure attachment and striving for security. Striving for connection, striving for belonging. So it seems very apropos that these two stories have been brought together. 

[00:31:31] Brooke: Right. And you see Claudia take on a nurturing, supportive role for Emily Michelle, sort of mirroring the kind of support that she got from Mimi. 

[00:31:45] Kaykay: The other thing you're seeing mirrored, which is really important for kids, is a concept called attunement. And attunement is basically like being connected to the child enough that you can sort of attune to their feelings, their thoughts, and their needs, without having to be told. That's exactly what Claudia is describing at the kitchen table is that Mimi was attuned to her, whereas the rest of her family is not attuned to her.

And Claudia is attuning to Emily in the ways that she's able to say, Hmm, is Emily going to be able to understand this concept? No, it's going to be this concept. How is she going to feel? She's likely to feel this, she's likely to feel that. That's attunement, and it's incredibly important in attachment. 

[00:32:27] Brooke: Yeah. And we see that a couple of times in this book. Now as you're saying that, I'm thinking about it, the babysitters have to go through and like help out at Kristy's house because Kristy, again, these kids, the burden that these kids bear. 

[00:32:42] Kaykay: Yet again. 

[00:32:42] Brooke: Holy shit. Ah, so Kristy has a three job a week gig watching the neighbor Papadakis kids, because their grandfather is in a nursing home and their parents are going to spend all of this time in the nursing home with him.

So Kristy is caring for their children on a regular basis after school, so can't care for Emily Michelle. Cause again, it's the kid's responsibility to do this. So Claudia, when she's over there, she's noticing that like Emily Michelle doesn't know colors. So she kind of like goes through and at first is like, no, what's the red? 

And then she's like, okay, I can't just keep on repeating the same directive to her. I see she doesn't understand this. It isn't a matter of repetition, it's a matter of, I'm not connecting with her. Like, she's just not getting it in this way. How else can I help her get it? And so she experiments, she tries a bunch of different things, right? So she's attuned enough to Emily Michelle to be like, she can get it. We just have to try to approach her in a different way. 

[00:33:53] Kaykay: Exactly. 

[00:33:53] Brooke: You also get Kristy, again, Kristy shows up. Kristy is so great in this book again. We get another book of like the best of Kristy. 

[00:34:01] Kaykay: And another book of what I'll call the lesbian Kristy.

[00:34:04] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:34:05] Kaykay: I'm just gonna dub her that when she shows up strong. 

[00:34:08] Brooke: Is that not a synonym? 

[00:34:11] Kaykay: Well, sometimes I feel like you lose, I lose lesbian Kristy, and there's like another Kristy. 

[00:34:15] Brooke: Right, but I'm saying the best of Kristy and lesbian Kristy are one in the same, because, because she's being herself, right? Even though in this book, it's like, oh, Bart comes to like walk her home, you know, when like her heart beats fast. And like, I think it's just because her friend, her friend is there. She's just happy that her friend is there, that's all. 

But you get her talking with David Michael, when David Michael gets frustrated with the fact that he's doesn't have as much of attention now that he used to, but Kristy, instead of being like, "Hey, David Michael, stop being a butthead and be nice to your sister," she's like, "You know what? Sometimes I feel jealous of Emily, too." Immediately empathizing so that he doesn't feel like he's alone and being judged in this, and then she talks through how she deals with those feelings. 

Not as a "here's what you should do," but a "here's what I do." Right? And she's like, "Oh yeah, she takes up time with Claudia, who's my friend. Mom and Watson talk about her all the time. So here's what I do." She goes, "I tell myself two things. One, that Emily really is having problems and she does need help. And Mom and Watson would pay a lot of attention to me if I ever needed help. And two, there are a lot of things that I can do that Emily can't."

And so she's like, "Think about if you were in Emily Michelle's shoes. What would you not be able to do?" Then she says, "You know what? I love Emily. I really do. But I think you're terrific too. You're nice to your friends. You're funny. You like animals and you're a good big brother to Karen and Andrew, and even Emily." 

She acknowledges those feelings. She empathizes with it. She models, again, good example of modeling, she models the way that she handles those feelings. And then she validates David Michael as a person and is like, "Here are your strengths. Here's what I see in you. And I know that you love Emily Michelle too." You know, I just thought that that is just so beautiful.

It's such a good example of how to not only make a connection with somebody, but also help them overcome, or not even overcome, but process those feelings that they're having. And that is something that Claudia is so lacking. It's just all of the, okay, Janine is really great at academics, but I'm really good at art. I'm really good with kids. 

She has these strengths, and like her strengths aren't being acknowledged and validated. 

[00:36:49] Kaykay: Or seen. 

[00:36:50] Brooke: Yeah. And that's what Mimi did for her. The absence of Mimi, it's not just the absence of her presence in the home. It's an absence of a sense of validation and support and acknowledgement in her home.

That's what she was fighting. This feeling of displacement. Alienation. This feeling of rigidity and insistence on conformity, even to the point of why Emily Michelle isn't allowed to go to school. It's like, well, there are these certain things that you have to be able to do to come to school. 

And it's like, there isn't just one way to do things. There isn't just one way to be. Don't have these arbitrary standards that you require everybody to pass in order to be accepted, you know? Hey, Claudia's parents, maybe it's not just success in academics that you should be supporting. Maybe it's success in art. There's other strengths that everyone brings to the table.

And so I think they're fighting that insistence on a very specific set of strengths. The way that you see Claudia doing that, and others doing that, is by finding connection with others. Supporting others, building community outside of the family. It's almost like Claudia is kind of taking that Mimi role on for Emily Michelle.

So she's modeling the kind of support that she needed and that she got and that she wants again. And in giving that support, she can reinforce her own strengths and abilities, even if she's not getting it externally. 

[00:38:22] Kaykay: I love your summary. And for me, all the things you're describing are the true genius of this book series. The way that this book series goes so deep into human needs, human connections, human interactions. You know, I would be hard pressed to think of another book series, certainly aimed at kids, that was accomplishing this at the time. You know, so many books for kids are so like, action oriented, adventure, you know, very like patriarchal in their orientation in that way.

And so I just love these books where it gets to the core of what is lovely about this series, and this felt like one of those books for me. And you know, I totally agree that it was all highlighted in that interaction between Kristy and David Michael. She's using therapist skills. Everything you described are like therapist skills.

And you know, with grownups, you can be like, "How do you feel?" And maybe some grownups can do that. And in fact, many grownups can't. Some can. But with kids, they really can't. And so you often have to attune to them, like we've been talking about, and then a hunch builds inside you about how this kid might be feeling. 

And then you often have to like lead a little. "Well, like a lot of people in this situation would feel like that. Is this like true for you?" And that's exactly what Kristy does, right? She's able to bring herself forward and be like, "I was jealous." Kids often need that. You know, they need to know that it's safe to like have those feelings and talk about those feelings and express them,.

So, Kristy the therapist! Here she is. We'll just put that in her, uh, her list of roles. 

[00:40:03] Brooke: Yeah. And Claudia too, you know?

[00:40:08] Kaykay: Teacher, you know, she's like the most incredible teacher you can imagine. 

[00:40:12] Brooke: Yeah. Because she doesn't expect Emily Michelle to meet her where she is. 

[00:40:17] Kaykay: Yes. 

[00:40:18] Brooke: She meets Emily Michelle where she is. 

[00:40:20] Kaykay: Right, she's not like, "Why is this kid so dumb? Why can't this kid understand my great teaching?" You know, it's like, it's attuned to the kid. 

[00:40:29] Brooke: And she's probably the best, of all of the babysitters, the best poised to do that, because she struggles in school too. 

[00:40:36] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:40:36] Brooke: You know, and it's because it's like, there's one way to do things. And not seeing how, I mean, you know how much math and geometry is in art? There's so much science, you know, the chemistry of creating colors and stuff. Like there's a science to that. Like there are all of these academic skills, I mean, art is communication. All of these academic skills are present in a different form that she is incredibly adept in. That's not recognized. It's like, how are you on tests?

[00:41:11] Kaykay: Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like part of this is Claudia has slightly different values than her family. And that happens a lot, you know. That happens a lot. Where a family might value certain things, and a kid comes along who values different things. And that's always very challenging, trying to bridge that gap between what the child inherently values and the cultural values of the family.

[00:41:34] Brooke: And that's definitely an issue for Claudia. 

[00:41:37] Kaykay: Yes. 

[00:41:38] Brooke: You're talking about attunement, which I think is such a great word, and such a great concept to describe what we see in this book. Finally, Claudia's parents are attuned to her at the end. 

[00:41:49] Kaykay: Yeah, they do come around in their way. And they are very attuned to her in the dinner where she's like, she's decided she's going to finally talk to them about this. She's going to finally talk to them about, is she adopted, and so she's really acting weird. And both parents like immediately pick it up. So we can see they are somewhat attuned to her. 

[00:42:09] Brooke: Yeah. They don't make a huge deal of it at dinner. They're just like, "Hey Janine, we need you to clean up tonight. Claudia, let's go in the den. Let's talk." They're open to her in a way that, in this book series, we haven't really seen much of before. You know, that was always, that was always Mimi's role. And it makes you think, you know, let's imagine that this was truly happening. Did they feel like Mimi could play that role for them? 

[00:42:38] Kaykay: Yeah. Like, did Mimi kind of put the bandaid on that wound?

[00:42:41] Brooke: Right, and they were conscious of that and knowing that like, "Hey, if something really wrong is going on here, Mimi will let us know," you know? 

[00:42:48] Kaykay: Yeah. Like it allowed them to kind of drift into the less attuned role, because Mimi, Mimi's got that on lock. 

[00:42:55] Brooke: Right. 

[00:42:55] Kaykay: We don't have to worry about it so much. 

[00:42:58] Brooke: And I think one of the things that Mimi provided Claudia that she doesn't really get, I mean, I think she knows her parents love her, you know, but I don't think she feels encouraged by her parents. And she got that encouragement from Mimi. Mimi would encourage her in her art and in her various pursuits. So you see her do that with Emily Michelle.

So she makes sure when Emily Michelle makes even like a step in the right direction. It's the best thing ever. So that positive reinforcement, as opposed to the negative reinforcement that is discipline, is how she approaches Emily Michelle, and it just pays off tremendously. So it seems like she is providing to others what she feels like she is lacking and what she needs, as opposed to she's lacking this and so she's going to hold back. You know, she gives what she needs and is lacking instead of resenting that she doesn't have it, and so she's going to withhold it from others. 

[00:44:02] Kaykay: Yeah. And I think you probably see Mimi's influence there where like, you can't give what you never got. And this is what happens with kids that have, I'm not saying she's neglected or abused, but that is what happens with kids that are neglected and abused. They need that model for them, because you can only give it if you got it. But she got it from Mimi for so long that it is available to her. 

And also I love what you're saying about, you know, Mimi being the one that's like attuned to Claudia and how that maybe allows the parents to not have to be so attuned. And it's also making me realize the cultural implications of the way that, you know, you could certainly look at it as the values that her parents are holding are very American values, right? And like this very striving culture of achievement. And then Mimi always brought much more of the culture of where they come from and much more of a culture of connection and slowing down and eating and sharing.

And you know what I mean? So I think there is also that playing out. You can see some cultural values that might be playing out, and some now some cultural values that was really important to that family system are now missing. You know, Mimi represented that and brought that, and so the parents could really focus on the American values and the achievement that, you know, they need if they're going to, they're going to succeed in this American culture.

[00:45:29] Brooke: Yeah. It's like Mimi brought the focus in of the day-to-day like, how do you exist in the world? How do you like make the moments that you're in meaningful, as opposed to the moments that you're in are a means to an end? 

[00:45:45] Kaykay: Yeah. And the striving. 

[00:45:46] Brooke: Yeah. That like, you should always be working towards some sort of goal, and that goal being an accomplishment, an award, something that you can point to and say, "I did that, and I was validated as being the best at that." What do you just bring through your pure existence that makes things better and meaningful? 

[00:46:09] Kaykay: Yeah. Which feels very like Buddhist in nature, which is like a huge part of Japanese culture and has really impacted Japanese culture, even though that was never explicitly like, talked about or brought to the forefront. I definitely think you can sort of see those values being held by that character.

[00:46:27] Brooke: Especially in the special tea. You know? 

[00:46:30] Kaykay: Special tea, right! It's like, there's a real, like mindfulness to that. And also the attunement can only come from noticing. Like if you're moving too fast, you cannot attune with other people. An example of this today is like phones a really effecting attunement with babies because parents are like on the phone, so they're not attuning to the babies. Attunement takes an exquisite amount of presence and noticing. And American culture does not value that so much. 

[00:47:00] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:47:01] Kaykay: And that's got some limitations.

[00:47:03] Brooke: Yeah, it makes me think about like, the attunement requires observation. You have to observe, you have to be perceptive. You have to like notice things and then you have to process it. You have to think about not just the thing, but what's behind the thing. Right?

Like, you have to be really looking at things on a deeper level, and then you have to be willing to put yourself out there to try to make a connection and to like take a risk, really. You don't have to say, "I noticed this is this what's going on," but you have to like, be willing to stop what you're doing, change direction, and put your focus on another person and what is going on with them. 

That power of observation and perception and action, all of those things together are so critical with art. You know? You have to observe, you have to perceive, you have to see the deeper meaning behind something in order to create art. And that's what Claudia does. So Claudia is inherently more perceptive than perhaps the other people in her family, because she spends so much time creating art. 

The act of creating art is this great cycle of empathy. You create something, you put something out there, you observe something that inspires you to create something which you then put out there, which can inspire others. You know, it's this beautiful cycle of communication. And oftentimes the communication is not as literal, which is what attunement is all about, right? Seeing beyond the thing that you are seeing, to understand that subtext that's going on and then taking action upon it. 

[00:48:42] Kaykay: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I actually had, what were they fighting? They were fighting for understanding. All the characters. Like Emily was fighting to understand, Claudia was fighting to understand Emily, Claudia is fighting to understand herself, Claudia is fighting to understand where she fits in this family. And that's a tool too. That's the tool they use too, is the seeking understanding. And being present, observing, acquiring information and experimenting. 

[00:49:10] Brooke: And we even get that experimentation, I thought this was a lovely little scene with the Perkins girls, where Stacey is babysitting for the Perkins. And they're like, "We want to cook with real ingredients." Stacey says to the mom, "What does that mean?" And the mom is like, "Just let them do whatever they want. Let them experiment, let them throw things together. Just let them play. The only thing is, is just let us know what they use so we can replace it. And if something is like really freaking disgusting, don't let them consume it. But otherwise let them do whatever the hell they want." 

And she does. The Perkins girls, I think perhaps of all of the kids that we see as their babysitting charges, that's the home I want to grow up in. They seem very happy and confident and they get to experiment and try things. And one of them is two and a half and is on Kristy's Krushers. Like their parents are just like, "All right. Go for it. Do whatever the hell you want. Like, you'll figure it out. We're going to be there to make sure that you're safe, but like, you don't have to follow a recipe. If you don't want to follow a recipe, go for it." I love that. 

[00:50:12] Kaykay: I know. 

[00:50:13] Brooke: I love that! And Stacey is like, "Is this okay?" Cause there's no way in hell Stacey would have been allowed to do that. 

[00:50:19] Kaykay: Oh, I get it. I grew up in an Irish household. You think you can mess up a bunch of pots and dishes? Hell no! That's going to make that kitchen messy. It's out. 

[00:50:29] Brooke: Right. That was great to see how that experimentation and the like, just let the kids be who they are and let them do what they want to do and figure out who they are that way, that's supported and encouraged. So you get to see a lot of good examples in this book of how kids can be nurtured to grow into themselves and accepted for who they are. And I thought that was beautiful. 

[00:50:51] Kaykay: Very beautiful. And I think that message is a little more dominant now, but I don't think back then, that was a really big message. 

[00:51:00] Brooke: No. There's rules to follow. 

[00:51:02] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:51:02] Brooke: There's a mold to fit. 

[00:51:05] Kaykay: Yup. 

[00:51:05] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:51:05] Kaykay: So in some ways I think this is probably Ann M's teacher and activist parts. 

[00:51:11] Brooke: Well, and I don't know if we would see this from a straight person from straight author, from somebody who fits a mold. 

Yeah. 

Even if, you know, even if that mold is just one part, right? You may not fit the mold in many other ways. 

[00:51:26] Kaykay: You make such an amazing point and you can see it through Claudia, like anytime you've been made an outsider, there's a profound gift to it, which is that you grow more sensitive to others being made to feel an outsider. And sometimes you're inspired to try to reach them. And like, when you're in the in crowd, that sensitivity is not as required of you. Why should you? You know? 

[00:51:54] Brooke: Perhaps that wasn't the most 90s moment. Acceptance and understanding, not super 90s. What did you have for most 90s moments? 

[00:52:02] Kaykay: Well, I just came up with this live in this podcast, thinking the idea of having to do all this research to figure out who your parents are versus like DNA. This is very 90s, this idea that, you know, you would have to do all this like legwork versus just let me send this off to 23 and Me and see what happens. 

[00:52:23] Brooke: And for that legwork to take the shape of microfiche. Yes! 

[00:52:28] Kaykay: Should we tell people what microfiche is? 

[00:52:31] Brooke: Yeah, microfiche is what, if you wanted to preserve a document, it's not like you could just scan it and upload it to the web or to like the cloud, some sort of like digital storage.

It was literally a scan that went on a, like a slide. It was like a primitive form of like xeroxing in a way. But in order to keep it manageable, it was shrunk down to a very tiny size to where you would then have to look at it, it was basically like a microscope for reading documents. Especially documents that like, books were easy enough to preserve because they were bound, and so you had inherent storage capabilities to hold the pages together where they should be.

[00:53:16] Kaykay: Stack them, organize them. 

[00:53:17] Brooke: Right. But if you want a document like a newspaper or things like that, I mean, that is paper that is very, very fragile, very susceptible to tearing, things getting out of order very easily.

So microfiche as a way of like, taking a photograph of it, basically. Shrinking it down to a tiny size so that you, you have the ability to store a tremendous amount of it. And then you have to request what you're looking for and have like the library and bring it to you and then you have to look at it under this like microscope. And holy shit, I love microfiche. 

[00:53:55] Kaykay: You know, speaking of affirming, I have to affirm you for that description because that was fantastic. Totally to the point, and I could have never done it. Like, what a crazy concept to try to explain to somebody that is like a digital native.

[00:54:10] Brooke: Yeah. So this is how, like, if you wanted to do any sort of like primary research, really, you had to get your ass down to the library. You had to hope that you were at a library that had the resources you were looking for. 

[00:54:23] Kaykay: That was big enough, yep. You know, if you lived in a smaller town or something, you would have to like travel to a city to go to a bigger library. It would truly be like detective work research. 

[00:54:33] Brooke: Completely. 

[00:54:33] Kaykay: Physically. 

[00:54:34] Brooke: And that's what we see Claudia doing. Like Claudia is doing some intensive private investigator work. 

[00:54:39] Kaykay: She's a gumshoe. Dang! 

[00:54:41] Brooke: She is! She is a gumshoe. 

[00:54:44] Kaykay: She's hitting the pavement.

[00:54:45] Brooke: Aww, that makes me think about, uh, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego! "Gumshoes!" I can't wait until we have the episode where that comes out. I'm going to go off. Oh my god, I am gonna pop off!

[00:54:55] Kaykay: I'm expecting a red fedora on your head just to surprise you. I'm just telling you. I'm now requesting surprises.

[00:55:07] Brooke: Okay. 

[00:55:07] Kaykay: Yes! Yeah! 

[00:55:07] Brooke: All right. So I had that too. And then she had to like, even with like looking things up in the phone book, she was like, "Okay, gotta get the White Pages, gotta get the Yellow Pages. Now I've gotta go downstairs, we have a different set of Yellow Pages for Stamford." You know, she wanted to look up phone numbers for businesses versus phone numbers for people. 

It's like, do you have, the town that you want to reach somebody in, do you have their phone book? And if so, do you have the White Pages? Do you have the Yellow Pages, if they don't come together? Like it was very much a time capsule of research in this book. 

[00:55:39] Kaykay: Yeah, and at one point she has to call the operator and ask for listings for the last name. You could do that if you didn't have the Yellow Pages. 

[00:55:46] Brooke: And you're having an actual conversation with somebody. 

[00:55:48] Kaykay: Yes! 

[00:55:49] Brooke: An actual person. 

[00:55:51] Kaykay: An actual human being picks up the phone and says, "What city and listing?" And then you say, "Oh, Chicago, Illinois. Brown." You know, "I'm looking for Brown. The name Brown." 

[00:56:00] Brooke: And good luck with that one. 

[00:56:01] Kaykay: Oh shit, you'd be fucked.

[00:56:04] Brooke: Exactly. As we're talking about this, it's so funny because I remember when we could do that, but it kind of feels to me as I'm describing it as it would be if somebody were describing what it was like back in like the 40s and 50s, calling an operator who had like a central switchboard. 

[00:56:20] Kaykay: "Pennsylvania 6-5000!"

[00:56:22] Brooke: Right. And you would have to be like, "Okay, plug it in." And they would like physically plug in to align, to connect you. 

[00:56:29] Kaykay: This was like a career option, mostly for women. Switchboard operators, where you just sat in a big room and just plug, plug, plug, plug switches. 

[00:56:37] Brooke: It's gotta be the women who are making the connections, right? 

[00:56:40] Kaykay: Boom! 

[00:56:41] Brooke: It's like the communication connection, it's always a responsibility of women, even at a technological standpoint. 

[00:56:49] Kaykay: Shit. 

[00:56:50] Brooke: Something to that. 

[00:56:51] Kaykay: You're blowing my mind. Well, and it's also very archetypical. Like, if you need something, it feels natural to go to a woman, because for a lot of us, our primary caregiver was first a woman.

[00:57:06] Brooke: The gender norms that come up through this book series... whew. So much to unpack. I have a feeling we're going to continue to unpack those in the next episode. 

[00:57:17] Kaykay: Oh, what is it? 

[00:57:18] Brooke: We are going to Sea City again in the next book. So unlike the last time where Stacey was the narrator, Stacey and Mary Anne are both going back again. However, Mary Anne is the narrator of this jaunt to Sea City for Mary Anne and Too Many Boys. 

[00:57:40] Kaykay: Oh, now it's Boy-Crazy Mary Anne! It was Boy-Crazy Stacey. She gonna kick fucking Logan to the curb finally? Do we get that little victory in our lives? 

[00:57:51] Brooke: You know, I don't think I'm that lucky, but I'm gonna hold onto hope. 

[00:57:54] Kaykay: Life is not that sweet that she's gonna kick Logan to the curb. If that happened, we knew we were in some sort of like alternate universe. 

[00:58:02] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:58:02] Kaykay: Too good to be true. 

[00:58:03] Brooke: But I have a feeling that Mary Anne is going to be contemplating some things in Mary Anne and Too Many Boys. It'll be fun to see what she contemplates and how that comes about when we talk in our next episode. So I am looking forward to that.

[00:58:19] Kaykay: Yes! 

[00:58:20] Brooke: But until then... 

[00:58:22] Kaykay: Just keep sittin'.