Let’s Get to the Word
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So,

Kamala Harris has made her pick for VP, and it's Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He's a strong progressive with a solid track record, pushing through stricter gun laws, legalizing recreational marijuana, securing abortion rights, and setting bold climate goals for his state, really setting a new benchmark for all Democrats across the country. Plus, he's the one who clearly labeled Trump as weird, and it's catching on still, as we talked about on last week's episode.

This pic shows Harris' strategy to connect with middle America while keeping progressives fired up, and we think it's working. So during our break, we'll be dropping special bonus episodes with interviews with key figures within the 2024 election as it continues to unfold around us. So let this be your warning to stay ready so you don't have to get ready for more bonus episodes of Vibe Check coming soon this month. We'll see you there.

Hello, my reading rainbows, my literary ladies. Hello, LeVar. Hello. Hello, LeVar Burton. I'm Sam Sanders. I'm Saeed Jones. And I'm Zach Safford. And you're listening to Vibe Check. Modern Scriptures Edition. Vibe Check.

This week, we are back, and we love, during the summer months, to take a moment and to do a Modern Scriptures episode. This idea was inspired by Sam, who was like, you know, every once in a while, it's great to share with friends. You know, it can be a book or a...

article a movie a song who knows something from culture that you just organically return to you know to not just get your vibe right but to like clarify the vibe did i say that right sam did i break it oh yeah yeah yeah this was all inspired by a celebrity profile of melissa mccarthy in the new york times years ago written by one of my favorite writers taffy broadcaster ackner

I revisit this profile every few months just to boost the mood. And that's what modern scriptures mean to me. Stuff that comes into your life that you can go back to and be inspired by.

Going to the well. There you go. I like that. And what's funny is ever since we started this, I've loved this practice because it's really become a real exercise for me. Because every time I sit down to prep for this episode, I'm like, okay, what do I care about? What do I love? And I revisit all the books that I have. I go to old emails. I go through my Spotify playlist. So it's really a nice moment of like real reflection. Because for us to do this, we have to really like dig deep into our own wells. And it reminds me sometimes that I also need to refill my well.

So I'm reading a lot. There you go. Well, and it like gives you a moment to like stop and

and look back through the endless scroll of our phones, it feels like so many days you don't remember what you read on your phone. And like, this is like, I don't know. Think about that thing. Think about that thing. Mark it. I like it. I mean, it feels that it's on the continuum of the intentionality of our vibe check-ins, right? Like we know that once a week we are going to come together and on the mic, ask each other how we're doing and mean it and

and mean it. And, you know, what we've been doing for two, three years now has been like, actually just really great. It's been very healthy to be like, Saeed, how are you doing? What are you going to share when, you know, Zach and Sam look at you? And sometimes we surprise ourselves. And I think, yeah, it's like when we're constantly consuming media and so much of it is like in one algorithm out the other algorithm. It is.

With modern scriptures, you know, I find that I like both of the books that I'm going to share today, you know, I encountered either in college or in high school. So we're talking 10, 20 year relationships with these texts. And so I think, yeah, it's really special to kind of ask yourself what has resonated with you longer than you may casually realize. Yeah, yeah.

All right, listeners, you can share your modern scriptures with us. You can email us. You can find us on the patroness. And we also want to thank you, regardless of how you communicate with us, for all the fan mail, because we love it all. If you want to join that group chat, as I said, patreon.com slash vibecheck, patreon.com slash vibecheck.

With that, let's get to the word. Let's get to the word. Come on. All right, let's get to it. We're each going to share two modern scriptures for a total of six. What goodness for y'all this episode. Abundance. Abundance. We love abundance. Let's start with... Let's start with Zach.

All right. So for me, I bring to the show today two things that I do return to a lot. And I forgot I did until I did a scroll through my phone yesterday. And one of them that I'll start off with is a song by Frank Ocean, our fellow Black queer brother. And it's Godspeed. Are you guys familiar with Godspeed? Oh, yes. Oh.

Oh, what a beautiful song. For me, I'll read a few lines from it and then I'll talk about why and when this became so important to me. So the song, if you don't know it, is a really beautiful song. And it begins with, "'I will always love you how I do. "'Let go of a prayer for you. "'Just a sweet word, the table is prepared for you. "'Wishing you Godspeed, glory. "'There will be mountains you won't move. "'Still, I will always be there for you.'

How do I let go of my claim on you? It's a free world. You look down on where you came from sometimes, but you will always have this place to call home. Always. And that song, it continues and continues. And it's amazing. And Frank Ocean is a genius. It's from his album Blonde. But for me, the song really concretized as something I returned to in 2017 when I left Chicago after living there for nine years. And it is the song I played when I booked

a one-way ticket and got on the plane from Chicago to LA. Movie moment. Did you do that song while moving? Oh my God. I did. Oh, have a soundtrack for emotional moments of your life, everybody. Pick a song and tether your emotions to it. And this was literally as we took off, I played the song as I could see Chicago beneath me. And it just, I just remember crying and I put my hat low and I don't really cry that much, which is a surprise to many people, but I don't cry that much.

And it just was something during those first few years of living in Los Angeles for the first time. A city I hated before I moved. The funny fact of it all is that Saeed is right that LA is hell, but it's a hell that I've grown to love. When I first moved here, I thought it was the worst place in the world. It took...

I would say three years for me to be okay with it. Now I do love it and I have found comfort and joy in it all, but Chicago to me is my home and it's a place that I learned so much. The song reminded me that

you know, leaving Chicago was good, one. And two, there's going to be things I'm going to struggle with. They're going to want me to come home and that that place will always be there for me. But I will continue to grow and thrive, hopefully, and find a way forward. So that's what that song means to me. I mean, you know, Frank Ocean, he was perhaps going to move anyway, but Frank Ocean's move to...

to Los Angeles was precipitated by Hurricane Katrina. So, you know, the themes that are resonating and the sense of you will always have a place to call home. I mean, I don't think that's coincidental that his voice and the way his voice, and maybe Sam has the language, but it just feels like his voice is hitting these peaks and valleys over the course of that verse. It just, yeah, it's deep for him. What I love about this song is

is that it is flirting so much with the church and with the black church. You hear the organ in this song, the lyrics allude

Christian music, let go of a prayer for you. The table is prepared for you, wishing you Godspeed, glory. And then you'll remember at the end of this song, Kim Burrell's vocals are featured. Kim Burrell is a legendary, iconic gospel performing artist who even Beyonce says was one of her biggest influences. But Kim Burrell was famously homophobic for a long time. And

Frank getting Kim on this track singing with him on album like blonde was a big deal for the black Christian community. So it's even more poignant and powerful for that reason as well. I love this song. It's a perfect modern scripture. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, speaking of black people, homophobia, religion, that is a bridge to my

To my next modern scripture, which I didn't plan it that way. So thank you, Sam, for that setup. So the next thing that I do return to a lot, and I even fact check this with Craig, because he said to me, I sent this to him when we first met after a conversation. This was years ago. I was like, you have to read this interview. So I do send this around to white people often if they say the right thing at the right time.

And this is an interview from 1984 in The Village Voice with James Baldwin. One of the editors was celebrating the 15th anniversary of Stonewall riots in New York. So they did all these conversations and one of them was with James Baldwin. And it to me is so contemporary to the current moment, like many of James Baldwin's works and things he has said over his lifetime. But this one is definitely, you know, rings very true to right now and maybe for a while.

And he said in response to a question around the difference between race and sexuality, how gay people are treated when they're white versus when they're black. This was his response to that kind of conundrum. He says,

And he said that in 1984.

And I checked, and this is three years before he died. And the timing's significant, too. Because I think Baldwin, like, in his collected works, this interview, and I think he wrote a brief essay about Michael Jackson, about freakishness. And, like, maybe one other piece towards the end of his life were the only three times he...

In writing, you see Baldwin talking about queerness, about gayness. And what's amazing is that, you know, one, Baldwin did talk a lot about his sexuality in this way. You know, he wouldn't avoid it if it came up, but it wasn't an essential part of his thesis in the world.

But later in his life, it did become a big part of it. And also what became a big part of it was the very, to us now, obvious fissure between the races within a queer community. That just because you were coming out as queer within a movement, and you look at the 80s, the AIDS epidemic is beginning as he's saying this. And we're seeing how resources were very different depending on your race and who we saw as a true victim and who we just...

shunned to the side and black queer men were dying just as high rates, but people weren't really thinking about them in community. So for him to point out that just because you're queer doesn't mean that all the other issues in the world will disappear when you enter the community. And for me, that was really needed when I read this in college because I moved to Chicago and I thought, oh, I'm gay now. I can be open about it. I'm with my people. And I felt so much racism that it was

unbearable at times and really radicalized me in many ways. And this interview was a place I returned to often to find some guidance. It's powerful because, you know, this statement from him that, you know, it rolls off like water because of Baldwin's elegance, but it was a journey for him to get here. I mean, he publishes Giovanni's Room in 1954, 1955, but, you know, he said at the time, the reason Giovanni's Room is about white gay people

Is that he felt he couldn't take on, as he said, like anti-Blackness and queerness at the same time. So it's actually like really, I think, beautiful that, you know, 30 years later, he gets to this point where he's like, no, I'm willing on the record to kind of talk about this very complicated idea that earlier in my life I maybe didn't feel I was equipped to take on. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm so glad you bring that up because people, I think, assume that he was this really radical queer activist in his work because of Giovanni's Room. I mean, Giovanni's Room is one of my favorite novels written. It's about gay white men in France. And you would think, oh, this man wrote this, so he's going to be kind of like, I don't know, Truman Capote in some way. It's really open. But he didn't, you know, his battle was the civil rights movement around being a Black man and what that meant. And it was really hard for him to put the two identities together. But at

the end of his life, he began to have a more intersectional approach, which he probably picked up from his friends like Audre Lorde and other Black women activists who are really pushing that forward. So I just find it amazing. And it's something that when we deal with white male privilege within queer spaces, I send this to people who aren't aware of the power structures. And I think what really gets to them is that there is a sense of anger that as a white man,

There's this one thing that makes you different than everyone else. And you see that in all the travel photos of our gay white friends and their jobs they get in corporate America and the way in which they want to hide parts of their lives to gain power where, you know, we as black gay men don't have the same, we're not in the same part of the ladder as them in

And this essay really eliminates them. Yeah. Y'all talking about this reminds me just how hard it was for someone like Baldwin to do what he was doing when he did it, to be gay, to be associated with the civil rights movement. There were folks that called him Martin Luther Queen. This guy went through it.

It was hard. And the folks were the Kennedys, like to be clear. Like really powerful people. Yeah. Really treated him as a joke. Richard Wright was just, could be really nasty, really nasty when it came to actually a whole bunch of queer people. But yeah, him and James Baldwin were always going at it. So yeah, beautiful to see that he got to that point in his life where he could speak this truth. It's so beautiful. Well, with that, let's take a quick break. Don't go anywhere because up next we have more Modern Scriptures.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.

All right, listeners, we are back and we are going to go to the amazing Sam Sanders who created this whole idea for us and see what he has in store for us. So Sam, what you got this time?

So full disclosure, I was having a Saeed at the bookshelf moment this morning because I was like, what am I going to pick? What am I going to pick? The fact that that's actually become like my brand. I love it. Running through the book stacks, honey. Literally. And then I thought I had something and then Chantel was like, you use that already. So I was just spiraling, spiraling, spiraling.

And then I came back to a book that means a lot to me because I was able to interview the author during my time hosting It's Been a Minute for NPR. I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Sarah Schulman about her comprehensive history of AIDS activism called Let the Record Show. And I was honored that my conversation with her actually won an NLGJ award for radio queer journalism. But

I'm recommending this book today because I feel like it's specifically timely given this few years of protests that we've been living through. You know, we talked about the college campus protests this year extensively on this show. We've talked about the long tail and legacy of the Black Lives Matter movement. And going back to Sarah's book,

about ACT UP and how that activism worked, it is a perfect guidebook for how to get it right today. First of all, I love how in this book, Sarah makes it really clear that the queer men and the queer people involved in this work, they weren't just one note. They weren't just sad stories. They weren't just pain and suffering. She talks about how early on, those ACT UP meetings on Monday nights, they were cruisy.

They were clubbish. They were parties. You know? It's like they were meetings, but also they were meetings. They were meetings.

And she makes all of the communities in this book 360 and fully formed, which I really appreciate. And I also love the way in which she points to the urgency of that movement because they had to be urgent because they were dying. And I think that's specifically important to remember right now in this era of new activism. Where is the urgency? Lives are at stake. I want to read one or two graphs that really points that out.

And she's writing about how all of the methods of ACT UP were really decentralized and they didn't wait for consensus because they could not. Here's a graph from early on in the book.

During its height of influence, ACT UP never demanded full agreement for an action or campaign to be taken up. For example, if I wanted to participate in an illegal needle exchange on the Lower East Side in order to get arrested in way to test case trial, and you didn't want to, you wouldn't stop me from doing it. You just wouldn't do it. If instead you wanted to organize a demonstration against the Catholic Church and I didn't want to, I simply wouldn't do it.

So in this way, many different expressions of direct action were carried on simultaneously, none of them requiring full consensus, total participation, or universal agreement. Although it was never overtly stated or theorized at the time, this method allowed each act-dubber to respond in a way that made sense to them and reflected where they were at individually.

It's simple, but it's profound. We see so many people on the left getting stuck right now. And this book is a guide that says you don't have to be stuck. You got to do something. Act. I love this book so much. It's like, oh, you want to go sit in a tent in the middle of the college campus to protest a genocide? Interesting. That's not quite my vibe, but I'm not going to stop you. I'm just not going to do it. There you go. Just not going to do it. Yeah, yeah. And just this book is full of depth.

gyms like that. It's also just really amazing to look at what these activists did. They shut down the FDA. They shut down the Catholic Church. They were busy and they were very strongly opinionated about saying social services is not activism.

Feeding us when we're sick, giving us shots because we're sick. That's not enough. We want these systems and structures changed. So I'm very happy to recommend as my first modern scripture today, Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman. It is a political history of ACT UP New York from 1987 through 1993.

i'm glad you picked that because i almost picked it wait stop i know your friends yelling all the close friends right yeah yeah she's a mentor and a friend wonderful she was one of the first readers when i was writing um the early versions of how we fight for our lives i was sitting in her apartment in the east village and she would tell me the truth yes tell me that she's the truth she's still doing the work it is incredible you know like

She's not stopped. That energy and fervor and just understanding that the work is the work and it is ever evolving and will always be asked of us. Like, that's just how she lives. I love it. And something I love about just the movement around ACT UP and what they fight for is, you know, people focus a lot on these...

whether it's the shutdowns of a church or a highway or of a building, but what I always cling to and what she writes a lot about is just the pleasure principle of activism. The radicalness of loving each other and fighting to be able to love each other is what moves you through this work. And it's also what makes the work feel good. And the work should feel good. Winning should feel good. Having more rights, having access to healthcare that supports you should feel good. And I think people don't think about that part of the,

the work that the work is an act of pleasure at many times and i feel like that book shows the ways in which they found pleasure for sure for my second modern scripture i kind of have two because as i was saying i had too many to pick from this morning and one is a song when we get to that second first though i want to recommend a specific chapter from emily nussbaum's new comprehensive history of reality tv the book is called cue the sun the invention of reality tv and

And if you love Emily Nussbaum, you'll love this book. She was a TV critic at The New Yorker for a long time, and now she's a reporter there. But I've loved her for years, and this is the most comprehensive history of reality TV that you'll ever read. She traces its roots back to radio in the 40s.

There was a version of reality TV happening on the radio back in the 40s that we just don't talk about. But my favorite chapter of the book and what is my modern scripture is a meditation on a public television documentary slash reality show that no one talks about anymore because it's been scrubbed from the internet.

It's called An American Family. This show happened in the 70s. It was a major hit, tens of millions of viewers. And basically, it was a rich Santa Barbara area, white family, three or four kids. And they wanted to be on a documentary chronicling their family.

The wife and the family reached out to the folks looking for a family and said, we'll do the show. The whole time, she knows that her husband is cheating on her. But she thinks by doing this documentary, the mistresses will see how happy they are and leave them alone. But in actuality, by the end of this show, you see them get divorced on national television.

It is incredible. What a gambit. She's like, I know. Wow. I know what will get my man to act right. Yes. And this show is so wild. It was such a big hit. All of the family became stars. The eldest son was living out and gay in New York. I'm like Warhol's New York. He was a whole thing. But after the show got big, it was scrubbed.

you can't find this show anymore. You cannot find it. Emily had to request DVDs of the show from the family themselves.

And what I love this chapter in this book is she sets up this show for you so vividly and beautifully. By the end of the chapter, you don't need to watch the show. You get it. She interviews all the principals. She spends so much time talking about how this actually set the stage for what we watch today in reality TV. But it is this wonderful time capsule of a thing we cannot see.

It's so good. It's so good. The first real housewife. Yes. It also reminds me of Oprah Winfrey once said that fame is just a magnifying glass and that you should be careful when you welcome it into your life because it will just make everything that you're going through even bigger. And it sounds like this was a big magnifying glass for these people. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Listeners, this book by Emily Nussbaum is called Cue the Sun. The chapter I'm talking about is called The Betrayal. It's all about

An American Family. It's chapter three in this book. Go read it. It's so, so good. And then my last mini modern scripture, I've alluded to this song before. It's one of my favorite songs of the summer. It is a song by Remy Wolf called Alone in Miami. And I love that it puts such a specific lens on what it means to be lonely, even when you're surrounded by other people.

So this whole song is about how she is in Art Basel going to parties, making new friends, but still lonely because the person she wants is not there with her. So the chorus is alone in Miami with you there. And the whole song she sings about daughters and thongs roaming freely, pop stars in my DMs, an art deco museum, eating sushi while the playboy pays. And like she's talking about all these parties and tents and German techno and

But then she gets back to alone in Miami because you're there. And then one of the last lines that's just like, it's such a perfect crystallization of loneliness. She sings, if you don't understand me, then who can?

Whoa, like just wild. - It makes me think of that incredible Jill Scott lyric, "Because I'm lonely whenever you're around." - Ooh, yes, yes. - She's like, "No, the fact that we're together and not connecting is actually worse than being separated from you." - Exactly, exactly. So this song I love 'cause it's totally '90s alt-rock throwback, but it's also a really specific and meditative poem

on what it feels like to be lonely even when you're around so many other people. It's just beautiful. Sad Girl Summer, really good stuff for that vibe if you want it. It's called Alone in Miami by Remy Wolf. All right, that's it. I'm done. Those are my scriptures. All right. I'm going to take one more break. And then when we come back, Saeed's scriptures.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

David taught himself how to make bread, good bread. He wanted to get even better. So he asked Chet GPT on Expedia if there's such a thing as a bread vacation. Chet GPT said, sure. Do you want to go to Normandy, Morocco, Ireland, or Tuscany?

And that's how David became a master pizzaiolo. You were made to learn new things. We were made to give you trip ideas with ChatGPT right in our app. Expedia, made to travel. All right, my loves, we are back. And I am going to share two of my modern scriptures, both of which that I would say I've really lived into. These are texts that I encountered when I was a student at different points in my life and now.

Something I like about these long-lived texts is that the real sign of a good quality text is an iridescence. It changes color depending on the positionality of your life at different point. And as you live in a crew, experiences good, bad, in between, as my mom would always say, there's his side, her side, and the truth. Yeah. I would start arguing, you start learning there's some more sides. That's what I would argue. Yeah.

So this first one I'm going to share is from one of my favorite books of poetry. I've talked about it on the podcast before, Tell Me by Kim Adonisio. It was published in 2000. I believe it was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. And this poem, Flood, is the last poem in the book. So it's kind of everything has been building toward it. And I'll just remind you that the title of this book is Tell Me. It kind of comes up at some point. Flood.

How images enter you, the shudder of the body clicking when you're not even looking, smooth chill of satin sheets, piano keys, a pastry's glazy crust floating up suddenly, so the hairs along your arm lift in that current of memory and your tongue tastes the sweet salt of a lover as he surges against you.

plunges toward the place you can't dive into but which is deepening each moment you are alive. The black pupil widening, the man going down and in, the food and champagne and music and light. There is no bottom to this. Silt and murk of losses that won't ever settle and the huge, unsleeping fish, voracious for pleasure.

The soundless fathoms where nothing yet exists. This minute, the next, the last breath let out and not returning. Hold on to me as the waters rise. Don't be afraid. We are going to join the others. We are going to remember and tell them everything.

All right. Also, the way you said everything. I want to hold on to that. I love it. I just, I mean, one, you know, because this book means so much to me and has meant so much to me. And then, you know, the crescendo, the flood. And there's something about the way Kim Adonisio writes this poem. She does something that I really love that evokes poetry, where it is both

So much of what she's describing is ineffable, like the depths we can't reach, the feelings we can't quite access. But there are images and senses, right? So it's both abstract and concrete. And if you were to ask someone like,

what is this poem about? So I'm just like, it's life. It's, it's life and death. It's about your soul. I can't hand it to you in an easy way to explain. You just have to live it, you know? And I just, I love that. I love that so much. It's so good. They could never make me hate you. I,

I just said plunges towards the place you can't dive into. That part. Yeah. What's your next one? My next one is from my favorite novel of all time. I'll say it. Sula by Toni Morrison. I,

I have read it. I don't know if I've quite reached 20 times yet, but we're getting there. And it's striking to me because my initial experience with this was lonely. In the 10th grade, this was on my summer reading list. Toni Morrison was always on our high school summer reading list, but never discussed in class. Oh.

And these are complicated, rich, difficult texts. And I remember just being this Black kid in Louisville, Texas, really frustrated that I was always embarking on these journeys.

And I wouldn't get to share it with my classmates. We would come back and we were just going to be talking about whatever white person they wanted to talk about. Literally, I made it through high school and not a single novel by a black writer had been assigned an AP. Wow. For four years. Wow. But now I've come to cherish that.

That solitude. Because my reading experience was mine and no one was able to intrude. So I just thought I'd read just a beautiful paragraph that comes later in the book. All you need to know is that this incredible novel that you should read is about two girls who become friends and it follows their lives. And this is from the perspective, it's set in 1965, this paragraph. It's one of the characters looking back.

And, you know, we often criticize nostalgia, but I think this is one of the most beautiful paragraphs about nostalgia. And so remember, this is an older woman. Jesus, there were some beautiful boys in 1921. Looked like the whole world was bursting at the seams with them. 13, 14, 15 years old. Jesus, they were fine. LP, Paul Freeman and his brother Jake, Mrs. Scott's twins, and Ajax had a whole flock of younger brothers.

They hung out attic windows, rode on car fenders, delivered the coal, moved into Medallion, which is the town where the book is set, and moved out, visited cousins, plowed, hoisted, lounged on the church steps, careened on the school playground. The sun heated them, and the moon slid down their backs. God, the world was full of beautiful boys in 1921.

The moon slid down their backs. The moon slid down their backs. How do you even imagine such language? How do you imagine such language? Beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's like an old black woman walking down the street. And it's funny. In the next paragraph, she's like, not these kids today. Everything she's changed. She's like, even the whores were better back then. You know what I mean?

Toni Morrison is so good at like lyric language, but it's grounded. You know, I mean, obviously the language is elevated, but doesn't it feel like you're talking to your grandma? Oh, yeah. And you got her a little comfortable. And she's finally kind of, you know, she's not even looking at you. She's just like looking into the distance. I love it. This is like grandma or auntie on a southern front porch after one or two spiked iced teas. Yeah.

She forgot you were sitting there for a second. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. And I just, I recommend Sula. It's just, again, I guess maybe the connection between the two, the poem and the book, the sense of life that you get from both of these characters and that sense of totality. And yeah, and this nostalgia, the things you can't reach, but are always reaching toward you. I just think that's beautiful. And to me, very summery. Like this part of summer starts to make me sad.

sad because it's at its fullest at this point in the season, but it's starting to end. And, you know, it just makes you appreciate it more. I think that's where I'm coming to. I love that. Yeah. Well, those are my two modern scriptures and those are ours. That's the episode. My loves, what are your modern scriptures? You can share them with us at vibecheckatstitcher.com and of course you can also share them on our Patreon. We love our Patreon members. Patreon.com slash vibecheckatstitcher.

And that's the summer show, my girls.

Listeners, thank you as always for checking out this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you like the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast listening platform. Matter of fact, all of them. Follow us in more than one place. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, leave us a review, and most importantly, tell a friend about the show. Yes, yes. Huge thank you to our producer, Chantal Holder, engineers Rich Garcia and Brendan Burns, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design.

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