Can you actually hear something from far away or you want people to think you're magical?
Why I'm starting this to try to write about podcasts and games
There are two main themes I’m going for here, if you poke around the images a little bit.
The first is the golem. I love the golem, he’s my favorite guy. Just like the Bear Jew walk-up scene in Inglorious Bastards, I am hooting and hollering whenever this incredible piece of Jewish mythos pops up.
How it’s a metaphor for my own creativity feels like it’s sweating off of me, but I got to explain:
The Golem Is Words Coming to Life and Defending Your People
In medieval Prague, it was open season on the Jews who lived there. The people tried to live their lives but were weighed down by the constant fear of attack. That is, until the Golem came. Local Rabbi Loew found instructions in the mystical part of Jewish texts that you can pull clay together and inscribe it with the word EMET (meaning truth). Rabbi Loew went down to the Vltava river with some rabbinical students (which is always the funniest part to me, that some interns had to get all muddy in the middle of the night), made a big honkin’ guy to protect the Jews of his city, and performed the ritual, bringing this creature to life with only mud and words. And there we go, a defender.
Later in the story, after kicking a whole lot of kicking antisemitic ass, the Golem grows increasingly violent and started raging against everyone. Some say this was due to a broken heart, as the Golem may have fallen for the Rabbi’s daughter, but we will never really know. Rabbi Loew ended the Golem’s life by removing the letter ‘e’ from ‘emet’ changing the word EMET (truth) to MET (death).
It is said that the body of the Golem is sitting in a library somewhere, ready to be woken up again and defend the Jewish people.
Words, creation, defense, spiraling out of control. You get it, nu? Ok, so here’s the other thing.
Do you know where the phrase “Ear to the Ground” comes from?
I thought it would sound cool for the Golem → podcasting connection. But check this out, from a quick Google:
This expression originated in the late-1800s. The idiom stems from the literal practice of placing one’s ear to the ground in order to hear far-off hoof beats, footsteps, or other indicators of something or someone approaching.
It is possible for vibrations to carry through the ground at great distances. For this reason, it is oftentimes possible to hear something coming (with an ear against the ground) before one can see it.
This expression was common in the American West. It is likely because cowboys and other people living on the frontier could hear herds of bison, cattle, horses, or even trains approaching in this manner.
That Really Sounds Like Some Cowboy Mysticism
This isn’t to say that someone has the ability to observe, pay attention, or have great hearing. But doesn’t it SOUND like a trick? A guy in a big hat gets down on the ground, tells everyone to SHHHHHHHHH, I’M WORKING. And then, “there are bison nearby. You gotta trust me, I know this.” And then sure thing, there are some bison stampeding a little while off. WHEW thank Jesus we knew that, or we woulda been done for. Thank you, James Goodfellow, Good Cowboy! We should make you sherrif!
Throw in the mythology of American Indians living out there, where this tracking can feel natural and mystical, plus the John Wayne-ness of what we consider cowboys in our culture. The Ear to the Ground phrase is giving real “well they’re successful, so they must be smart/true/right/good.”
But you could train yourself to do that. You can look at the landscape and listen, and you could be doing that for real. Let’s undo the Great Man bullshit and figure something out for ourselves.
That Was a Lot for a Newsletter about Podcasting and Games and Stuff, But I Really, Really Believe It
I can’t stop thinking about the podcasting form, creating games, running games, the D&D content boom, where we take our creative cues from. And I wanted a place to write about it.
Subscribe if you’re interested. Maybe we can really hear what’s far away, and we make something in our image to defend what we care about.