Criminal Elm-ement

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Criminal Elmamint.

Maria brings the case against her husband, Clark.

Their family found and cared for a spiny elm caterpillar in their yard.

When they collected neighborhood leaves to feed the caterpillar, Maria was shocked to find that Clark clipped them right off the tree.

She thinks they should have only collected leaves that had fallen on the ground.

Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

For some time after my marriage, I had not seen my friend Solar Pons, the consulting detective.

My practice in South Norwood kept me busy, and Pons himself had been on the move in the south of France.

I was not even aware he had returned to London when, one night in the May of the year 1930,

I received a tantalizing message from my old friend inviting me to take the night and perhaps the following day to accompany him on one of those adventures of which I never tired during those happy years I had shared quarters with him at 7B Praad Street.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Maria and Clark, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God, or whatever.

Yes.

Yeah.

Do you swear to abide by Judge Sean Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's more of a maple guy?

Absolutely.

Uh-huh.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Marianne Clark, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favors.

Can either of you name the piece of...

Hang on a sec.

I'm not a maple fella.

I don't know.

I'm Elm City, man.

Elm City, New Haven, Connecticut.

That's who I am.

Look, I'll mess with a maple.

Did we ever try to make actual maple syrup in Western Massachusetts?

Of course.

Did it succeed?

No.

Elm.

That's me.

I'm all about the Elms.

The Elmament of surprise.

I got you there with the Element of Surprise, Jesse.

You didn't know.

You didn't know, and now you know.

All right, Bailiff Jesse Thorne gives me the big thumbs down on the video conference.

That's fine.

That's his right.

Now, Maria and Clark, I turn back to you for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

Maple.

Well, can you name the piece of culture that I did not even reference?

I quoted it directly.

All of those words are the actual thing.

Mario, let's start with you.

Well, so I'm sure that my

in my pocket guess of the very hungry caterpillar is not correct.

Oh, that's a good one.

Eric Pearl, the very hungry caterpillar.

Absolutely.

Pearl Museum of Children's Book Illustration is right there in Massachusetts, in

Western Massachusetts as well.

All those maple trees and so forth.

Yeah, we know and love it.

That's a good good pocket guess.

I like it.

Do you have another guess?

I do.

I'm going to say something.

It's like a mystery on Elm Street.

Oh, I could have done a nightmare on Elm Street or one of the nightmares on Elm Streets, too.

A mystery on Elm Street isn't a thing, but let's enter it into the book anyway.

Thank you.

You're not, I mean, you're closer than Clark so far.

Good.

Clark, what is your guess?

I have nothing topical, but based on the detective and the silly name and the time period, I'll say Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pension.

The Detective and Silly Names and the Time Period.

You're going to guess Gravity's Rain.

Did you read that book?

I did a long time ago.

Of course, I'm joining you all from the solar-powered studios of WERU here in Orland, Maine.

89.9 in your FM dial, also WERU.org.

Program Director Joel Mann, WERU, you ever read Gravity's Rainbow?

Never.

Glad to check in with you.

Thank you, Joel.

I read The Crying of Lot 49.

I I liked it a lot, and I read it in a basement bedroom

on

Edgewood Avenue in Elm City itself, New Haven.

Awesome.

All guesses are wrong.

I was quoting from the opening paragraph

of a story in one of the many stories of the adventures of Solar Ponds.

Solar Pons is the Sherlock Holmes pastiche that was written by August Derleth.

And if you don't know who August Derleth is, you're not alone.

Horror and genre people recognize the name of August Derleth as the person who posthumously published the works of H.P.

Lovecraft and, for good or ill, popularized him and continued on H.P.

Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

which,

by the way, I just learned today Lovecraft never used the term Cthulhu mythos.

He used the term

Yogsothary.

Sure.

August Derlith was such a big H.P.

Lovecraft stan that he created Arkham House,

the publishing house.

He had to create a publishing house to publish H.P.

Lovecraft because after Lovecraft's death, no one wanted anything to do with him.

And I'm just going to put this out there.

Lovecraft is a racist dude.

And I don't love his stories particularly.

But I don't mind his Yogsothary.

And August Derleth, by all accounts, seems to be an okay person.

And if you go to his Wikipedia page, I mean,

we're going to put this up on the Judge John Hodgman show page and as well our Instagram account.

August Derleth is hot.

Dude, is hot.

Wow.

Look at this guy.

This guy looks like a handsome bruiser in a 50s movie.

Like someone would beat up James Dean, and August Derleth would come and help James Dean out.

To me,

he looks like

a new series regular in the Bear season three.

He looks like a hipster chef to me.

Mario, you're nodding along.

Can you see this picture of this guy?

I'm looking at a picture.

I'm not sure it's the same one, but his hair is incredible.

His hair isn't.

He's got that.

He's got that eraser head, Lyle Lovett, stand-up hair.

Absolutely.

He's wearing like

a velvet turtleneck.

Looks like he's about to open a bar in Brooklyn.

He also is a huge, huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.

And when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said he wasn't going to be writing any more Sherlock Holmes's,

I think he was like a teenager, very young, August Derlis, wrote to him saying, can I take over the character?

And Conan Doyle said, no, thanks.

And Derlis said, no problem.

I'm just going to create a perfect replica of Sherlock Holmes named Solar Ponds.

And instead of Dr.

Watson, it's going to be Dr.

Parker.

And instead of living at 221P Baker Baker Street, they live at 17 Parade Street.

And he wrote more Solar Ponds stories than there are Sherlock Holmes stories.

And I only know about this because my friend Dave Guillaume just gave me a book of Solar Ponds Adventures.

And also, it came to my attention that this particular story that I quoted had a particular title.

And that particular title is The Camberwell Beauty, The Adventure of the Camberwell Beauty.

And what is a Camberwell Beauty?

Well, that's what it's known in the UK.

In America, it is known as the morning cloak butterfly.

Wow.

And what is a morning cloak butterfly if not the adult stage of a spiny elm caterpillar, which is at the center of this very case?

Is that not true, Maria?

Absolutely.

I want to give you, by the way, credit.

Let's put this in the books.

Since we started doing the teleconference, most expressive nonverbal litigants so far.

Giving me a ton of feedback, and I really appreciate it.

In any case, Mario, you bring the case against Clark, who I believe is your husband, correct?

He is, and I do bring this case against him.

And what is your dispute with Clark?

Well,

my wonderful husband, who is a whole human being in his own right.

That's why I'm here.

He's obsessed with our garden, and One day he was out in the garden pulling up random pieces of grass that he says are not good enough pieces of grass for reasons that are baffling.

But that's not actually the dispute.

The dispute is he found this spiny elm caterpillar.

He showed this spiny elm caterpillar to our children, and

we all decided to adopt it.

Clark then did a lot of research into the spiny elm.

caterpillar who we named Spikey because he was more spiky than spiny in our opinion.

And Spiky apparently was a very picky eater and would only eat the leaves of elm trees and willow trees.

But despite the fact we live in the Elm City.

Yeah, Spikey didn't mess around with maple either.

No, no, he wasn't going to eat any Norwegian maple.

No, you know.

No, no, no.

So we, again, we live in the Elm City, New Haven, Connecticut, no elm trees on our property.

So Clark found an app, or no, it's a website.

It's a website on his phone that mapped every single tree, street tree, in New Haven, Connecticut.

He then said,

yes, yes.

And then he, then we set out on a family walk to collect elm leaves.

And I assumed, incorrectly, it turns out that the elm leaves would be taken up from the ground, any fallen elm leaves, that we wouldn't be stealing the elm leaves.

Clark, however, had come armed with his garden clippers

and clipped elm leaves from the ground.

You say stealing the elm leaves.

Absolutely.

That is a value judgment and part of your complaint.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But what Clark was doing was, and I will be the judge of whether there is value here.

Clark is clipping elm branches

of public trees.

Small branches.

Beliefed branches.

Correct.

How thick around, Clark?

I'd say a pinky thickness.

Maybe a child's pinky.

The last thing I needed to do was picture my pinky in your garden shears.

Exactly.

What about a child's pinky?

No,

that's not better.

Okay, okay.

A grandma's pinky?

Now we're getting somewhere.

But like a kindly grandma.

Okay, and so you think that he should not be doing this?

Yes.

We were out with our children and he was snipping leaves from trees just

in public.

Would you say willy-nilly?

I would say willy-nilly.

And in fact, he snipped from a tree that is in front of the mayor of New Haven's house, which seems

very egregious to me.

And so I'm bringing this.

His honor Justin Elliker himself?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And he, Justin didn't see us as far as we know, but I still think that clerks shouldn't be allowed to, you know, go around clipping

trees all over the Elton City.

Yeah, exactly.

Willie-Nilly.

It is Willie-Nilly.

We've established it.

I want you to know that

I don't just have the name of the mayor of New Haven

on the tip of my tongue.

I had done some research into Justin Elliker because I knew that Clark was clipping in front of the mayor's house in New Haven.

And I wanted to find some really funny quote by Justin Elliker to read into the record to have you guess that.

And it turns out, I don't know how he is as a mayor, but as a public speaker, pretty boring.

He's pretty much on topic.

Very nice.

I don't know, like tremendously.

uh

not a real tail spinner it's not like he has comments on the best on the best pizza in new haven oh by the way since you live in new haven which is the best pizza yorkside or yorkside i mean it's modern modern

wow that was not an option that i was offering you but that's fine

all right clark tell me about Spikey, the spiny elm caterpillar.

Spikey was a lovely caterpillar, very active.

This caterpillar has moved on as well.

I mean the caterpillar, how do we feel about this?

Into a Camberwell beauty?

Correct, correct.

The

care was successful.

Spikey made his transition into

a morning cloak butterfly.

Right, morning cloak.

Also known, this butterfly is also known, or used to be known as the Grand Surprise.

True story.

It is the state insect of Montana as of 2001.

I had no idea.

Those of you who might remember that Janet Varney and I promised you a podcast about all the state mottos, you'll be hearing about more about this grand surprise.

It won't be a surprise, but you'll hear about it.

It's a beautiful butterfly.

It's morning cloak butterfly because it's got black wings with white tips.

But I don't want to hear about its present-day life.

It can live.

How long ago was this?

It was June.

So

it was about a month ago, a month and a half.

Oh, very recently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Spiny, the morning cloak butterfly,

might still live because they have a lifespan of 11 to 12 months.

They're very long-lived for butterflies.

Just so you know.

Well, that makes sense.

But let's not talk about the present.

Let's talk about the past.

Spiny, spiny,

spikey, the spiny elm.

Spiky, the spiny.

Yeah, confusingly named.

Yeah, I got it.

Sorry.

Spiky, the spiny elm caterpillar.

You took in Spiny.

Spikey.

Yes.

Spiffy.

Yes, whatever.

Yes.

We took in Spikey.

And he

was very active, sort of doing laps in the initial container we had him in, and was not really going for any of the random yard

foliage I'd found.

So he did the necessary research, as Marius said.

and set off to find him something more appetizing.

You created an enclosure for Spikey?

I created the enclosure.

I myself did some internet research about what sort of enclosure Spikey might enjoy.

So I made an enclosure out of a ball jar and some mesh and a hair thingy.

Yeah, it's a very tidy-looking little biodome you made here for Spikey.

You sent in a picture as evidence.

It's obviously going to be available on the Instagram and the showpage at maximumfund.org.

Is spiky in this photo?

Is he this brown thing down at the bottom?

Absolutely.

Spiky is that brown thing at the bottom.

And you can tell because he's spikier than the pilfered elm leaf.

It is

in the shot.

So you can see, you know, the violence.

This is one of the boughs in question.

Exactly.

Not from the mayor's house, but yes.

Not from the mayor's house.

Got it.

How many elm trees did you prune over the the course of Spikey's residence in this bell jar?

I appreciate the use of prune,

and I would say four.

How many tree fingers did you cut off?

None.

Public tree fingers did you cut off?

Four?

Four total?

No, no tree fingers.

No tree fingers.

But yes,

four parts of branches are removed from four trees.

Over the course of how many days?

How long was that?

It was all one walk, actually.

It was all in a single day.

So, Mari didn't restrain me.

In fact, the mayor was the fourth house we reached on this trip.

It took all of 10 minutes.

I was vocal in my dismay about the clipping of the trees, especially because our two young and very impressionable children were with us and were very excited about this outing wherein their dad was, you know, defacing the elm trees of the Elm City.

Well, now, wait a minute.

Clark, were you harming these trees?

I would say I was pruning the trees.

I think I took a small amount of end branches, which is generally helpful for them.

Look,

I'm not an expert on

any trees other than to say, love the elm, hate the maple.

But to me, it seems like this is not.

The arborists Credo.

To me, it does not seem like this is going to particularly harm the life of the trees.

Do either of you have any evidence to support or go against that claim?

Mario, you seem to want to speak.

I don't have a major problem with the harm to the trees.

My bigger complaint has to do with,

I guess

it's two things.

The first thing is that like

the Chinese elm tree, which Clark was clipping from, we are transplants to the Elm City.

And I feel like it's important that we're good neighbors and not don't, you know,

clip random people's trees who are then looking out the window at us and making all sorts of elm tree judgments.

And second, I have to stop you there, Maria.

Are you saying that Clark was clipping trees that were on people's lawns or trees that were publicly planted?

So they're trees that are on the strip of

land between the sidewalk and the street.

So I think they're in a, in my

estimation, they are in a liminal zone.

They are on people's property, but I believe that they're public trees.

No, they're definitely public trees.

I dare anyone to write me a a letter saying otherwise.

Because not only, I think this is pretty well established, if you're on the sidewalk, right?

And

the street is to your left.

I just want to make sure I understand this.

If you're on the sidewalk and the street is to your left, to your right is someone's yard or fence, right?

Yes.

Okay, so going back over to your left and mine.

Because we share a reality.

Absolutely.

You're talking about the strip of land between the sidewalk and and the street.

That is what I'm talking about.

Yeah, those are public trees.

And the other thing I know about those trees is that New Haven is called the Elm City.

It was the first city in the United States to have a public tree planting policy.

So I'm not surprised there is an app or a website that charts all the trees.

Also, because, as you probably know, most of the elms in New Haven died during the Dutch Elm Disease plague of the Northeast.

Absolutely.

And so I actually think that the trees that Clark was stealing from are

more,

they're actually younger trees because they were planted to

replace those trees.

And they're also a different variety.

So I think these are mostly Chinese elm rather than American elm.

I love how on top of your elm news you are, Maria.

Thank you.

You're taking the elm news right out of my mouth.

Sorry.

So they're not Dutch elms, basically, because most of the Dutch elms, maybe all, were all killed off in a beetle blight,

a different pest.

These are transplanted Chinese elms.

But still, but still,

if you're taking,

I can see why you would be sensitive about the idea of taking limbs from

elms in the Elm City.

It's a touchy subject, Clark.

Touchy.

Sure.

Was this one outing or more than one outing?

It was a single outing.

Single outing.

Okay.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at maximumfund.org, and they are all your favorites.

If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic.

Just go to maximumfund.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

The Brazed Short Ribs, Made In, Made In.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But made in isn't just for professional chefs, it's for home cooks too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable

than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little

carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be coming back to my beloved Made-In Entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common.

They're made in,

made in.

For full details, visit madeincookwear.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N Cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Now, Clark, while you were clipping the fingies off these trees

and your children were observing you, how old are they?

25 and 30?

Close.

It's a two-year-old and a seven-year-old.

While they're observing you, are you giving them some parental guidance?

Like, don't go taking clippings from plants in the Hoten Depot that are for sale or in a nursery where they're selling plants, because Judge John Hodgman ruled against that back in episode 330, planted evidence.

But Judge John Hodgman

did rule that you can take clippings, modest clippings from public plants and plants that are in malls, because plants that are in malls are sad and they want to go live somewhere else.

Did you tell them all of that?

I did not.

I have to admit, I was not totally aware of of all the prior work that had been done on related questions.

You should have probably had your attorney look into that for you.

Probably.

And, you know, my parenting style,

you know, is not full of verbal citations usually.

Usually it's

a little,

you know, natural consequences based,

a little bit

showing how I hope they act.

Like

flipping things from other people's plants.

Though, I have repeatedly read that.

From the city's plants, from the shared city's plants.

True.

But in a very specific context, in a careful way.

I would also, I don't know if it's my turn to talk, but I have some thoughts.

I'll allow them.

It's your turn to talk.

Which is that our small children, while

are

very

impressionable and somewhat feral, and they

love

gathering greenery from our garden, which Clark tries to keep them from doing.

But I would argue that this

tree thievery is sending them very mixed signals because they

are always trying to, we actually have a normal way maple that isn't on our property, but sort of extends into our property.

And our children stand on top of this play structure, endangering their lives, to pull down

greenery from the Normaway maple to make salads for their pet brick.

So, and Clark tries to stop them from doing this.

And I just, it feels very, yes.

I feel like we're getting far afield here.

But to clarify,

I'd like to ask some questions about this pet brick.

Okay.

I think we remain relatively close to home.

I brought the pet brick with me.

Of course you did.

This is Bricky.

Of course you did.

Bricky did have a face until the children decided that Bricky might get sunburnt, and so covered Bricky with mineral sunscreen, which it turns out Bricky's very porous.

That looks more like cobblestoney to me than yeah.

So it's a sea brick.

They found it in the sound, in the Long Island Sound, Sound, and they brought it back to our house.

And so it's worn.

Wait a minute.

Your seven and two-year-old are going off to sea and bringing back bricks from Long Island Sound?

Absolutely.

So they go to the beach, and the Long Island Sound has a lot of like seaglass and building materials.

And so they found this brick.

They brought it back to our house.

They named it Bricky.

They take care of it.

Briefy apparently mostly likes to eat salads,

which are made from maple leaf salads.

Exactly.

You use the term seabrick like that's a thing.

I actually have never heard of it, Maria.

What is a seabrick and how do you know that it is one?

Well, it's like seep glass, right?

It's been worn away at its edges.

And eroded.

Yeah, it has clearly, it's not a, it looks like it was maybe half a brick at some point, and then it, it got eroded on all sides.

And so it's, it's, I have to give it to the kids.

It's very pleasing.

It's very heavy and

smooth.

Do your kids know that you have bricknapped Bricky?

No, no.

We do not.

Yeah, no, and I don't think they'd be happy about it.

Yeah, they're going to find out the hard way.

Yeah.

Maria, as the parent of neurodivergent children, I'm familiar with things coming into my house and staying there because they are satisfying.

Yeah.

Satisfying the ultimate value of all physical objects.

As a purveyor of a store that sells hat pins and alph cards, you have to have some definite connection to satisfying, Jesse.

Got to measure all goods by their heft.

Heft.

Yeah, that's a satisfying brick.

Tell them they picked out a good brick.

Clark, the accusation is hypocritical parenting.

Sure.

Which also could just be shortened to parenting, but we'll leave that for a later discussion.

What kind of damage were your kids doing to this maple?

Not that I care, as far as I can turn, to tear the whole maple down.

But what kind of damage were they doing to the maple that you were not doing to these elms?

So I'd like to clarify in the maple.

So as we can all agree that no one has a problem doing whatever to a maple,

it's not a maple I'm particularly fond of.

I think Mario would agree to that.

And I have no real issue with what the kids do to it.

My main issue is for their safety.

So the children are standing on top of a play structure, as she said,

reaching far out over to reach the maple leaves and putting their weight on the maple leaves.

So

liable to crack their head open, as one would say.

You'd prefer them to maintain three points of contact.

Correct.

Correct.

Whatever they want to do, the maple, as long as they are safe.

But there are other plants in our garden that they also try to pilfer for bricky salads that you are not as okay with, correct?

That is correct.

But I will say that they are

ripping flowers and leaves off them and not using a clean pair of pruning shears.

Do you trust our small children with pruning shears?

No.

Just because I'm doing something doesn't mean that they can do it.

And so they're not allowed to rip leaves off things and they're also not allowed to use pruning shears.

I think that's consistent, which is more than most of my parenting.

Thank you for keeping your pruning shears clean to prevent tree infections.

You're welcome.

Yeah, you have to put them in hydrogen peroxide, soak them overnight.

Too many gardeners out there using soiled tools.

Clark's an anesthesiologist, so he's really good about, you know,

keeping things sterile.

So thanks for the plug.

No problem.

Maria,

this was a one-day affair, a one-day prune spree.

Did you feel that going in front going and clipping from the elm tree in front of the mayor of Elm City's house was an escalation?

It felt like an escalation to me.

It also felt like we had a tiny caterpillar and maybe we didn't need quite as many boughs.

And

I'll add that upon further...

Did you guys use the term tree fingers?

Okay, sorry.

Tree fingers.

I think we ⁇ I thought we didn't need quite so many tree fingers.

I thought that the tree fingers that had fallen to the ground were adequate.

Clark accused me of being a monster for feeding spiky ground leaves as well as ground leaves.

Ground fingers.

Exactly.

Ground tree fingers.

But absolutely.

I felt that it was an escalation for him to

cut

tree fingers from the mayor's elm, not only because it was the mayor's elm, but because it was um he had to actually jump to get to

i disagree with that okay you had to stand on your tippy tippy toes to clip the tree finger off i'll agree with that but you know that you know that that mayor eliker grows the tastiest elms in town

was four tree fingers

enough or too much elm food for spikey it turned out to be too much because what we learned through yet further internet research is that the reason I probably found Spikey is that he was in the wandering phase that these caterpillars go through right before they set up the chrysalis.

So it's not clear, like, had we known more, maybe he didn't even need any leaves whatsoever.

How long did you have him before he morphed?

Day and a half.

A day and a half.

Yeah.

But you didn't know how long Spikey would be hanging around in the caterpillar stage.

Yes, I know much more about these sorts of caterpillars now than I did when we started this journey.

So you were stocking up on tree fingers because

it could be months that you and Spikey were hanging out together.

Absolutely.

And I didn't know if he had a preference for the Chinese elms, for the older elms.

Why did you want the mayor's tree's leaves particularly?

Because of the age?

Yeah, it was a more mature tree.

As Mario points out, I had to stand on my tippy-tippy toes because it was about two or three times as high as the other trees

in the area that we were collecting leaves from.

You also wanted your caterpillar to consume his power.

I mean, who wouldn't?

Did the mayor come out and yell at you?

Did he shake his fist?

He didn't see his spindle fist.

As far as we know, Justin didn't see us, but I was already a little bit nervous about the situation because our family had already had a run-in with Justin, which is how we knew exactly where he lived.

Okay, tell me more about that.

You seem to be calling him Justin instead of his honor or the mayor.

Is he a friend of yours or an enemy or what?

We see him a lot around the neighborhood because he lives two blocks away from us.

And

we call him Justin, but he has no idea who we are because he

sends us a lot of emails.

Exactly.

And so we'll say to each other, oh, did you get Justin's email?

And then we'll be like, yeah.

We people call these parasocial relationships.

Exactly.

We have a parasocial relationship with the mayor of New Haven.

You mentioned that you had a run-in with the mayor.

In what way did you run in?

So our neighborhood in New Haven is great for trick-or-treating.

And we were out trick-or-treating with our small children.

And our daughter and her friend realized that because they were so cute, that if they were proactive and asked people to have two pieces of candy rather than one, the answer was almost always yes.

And so

they had really been working this in the neighborhood until they got to

Justin Ellager's porch, and he was sitting there with his wife and our daughter very proactively demanded two pieces of candy from him.

And he very politely declined and gave her a single piece of candy.

But I already feel like we're on thin ice with Mayor Justin.

So are you on thin ice or maybe you're owed some extra leaves?

Clark, yes or no?

Did you want those leaves to get back at the mayor for denying your child extra candy?

No.

I don't have the imagined relationship with our mayor that my wife does.

So it was strictly about the tree.

and not about the person whose house it was in front of.

And as stated, it was a street tree.

You know, while it's

cared for by the city of New Haven, and while he's a representative of it, he has, I think, no more claim to the specific tree in front of his house than any other tree.

What was wrong with the ground fingers?

I think that's exactly the right question, which is it was June,

not a time known for leaves falling off trees.

So if leaves have fallen off the tree in June, I don't know what's going on with them.

I don't want to feed them to the one pet caterpillar we managed to find for our children.

I want to make sure I'm giving the caterpillar leaves it would otherwise be eating on, which are

after years of searching, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Tell me, was Spikey a good pal to you for the day and a half that

he was around before he was,

yeah.

Yeah, so Spikey was an excellent pal, excellent pet, did all the caterpillar things,

wandered around, appeared to munch once or twice, and then turned into a chrysalis and ultimately a butterfly.

So no waiting, no must, no fuss.

Five stars.

So Spikey metamorphosed and became a morning cloak, aka Camberwell Beauty, aka Grand Surprise.

And then what did you do?

Did you have it for dinner or what?

We were actually on vacation.

We'd given it to our neighbors to look after, our neighbors who are our butterfly lovers.

And while on vacation, they sent us a photograph of Spikey having metamorphosed as they release Spikey into their garden.

So, why are we here?

Well,

it's done.

This is the past.

You can't put a butterfly back into the bottle.

Well,

for two reasons.

The first is, I would like

a judgment against my husband because he thinks he's so right about

his privilege

in clipping New Haven's beautiful elm trees.

And I think think he needs to get a censure for that.

The second thing is our children love collecting bugs of all sorts in our backyard.

So I do not think this is going to be the last time that Clark goes on a foraging mission for one of these creepy crawlies.

Were you embarrassed by Clark?

A little bit, yeah.

And one of the things I happen to know, because we do it a lot, is that in our neighborhood, people, we have these great,

we live in a neighborhood with Victorian houses that have these

like lookouts.

And people, we do a lot of street watching in New Haven, as do all of our neighbors.

And so I

have no idea who

saw us on this expedition while Clark, you know, took the clippers out of his back pocket, clipped off the the tree fingers, and said to themselves, I need to stay away from those people because they're tree finger stealers, or I don't know.

Do you have any evidence that you were observed and judged in such a way?

No.

Clark, are you aware of the Kant's categorical imperative?

I'm familiar with the term, but can't tell you what first means.

I first read about it in a basement in New Haven, as it happens.

And I'm probably going to get it a little bit wrong, but it's like, you know, a moral action action is one you take where you believe that it would be okay if everyone in the world did it.

How would you feel if New Haven was full of clarks snipping from elm trees?

I'd feel okay about that.

Willy-nilly, as we discussed.

I

take exception to the idea it was willy-nilly, given that I researched the elm trees by identifying them on the internet first.

I think there's a degree of premeditation that results in willy-nilliness.

It's clear that your prune spree was targeted to a

particular type of tree.

I'm not saying you were just taking off tree fingers of any kind.

You were specifically after these sweet elms.

True, true.

Okay.

Yeah, no.

But even so, I don't think I would, and I don't think Mario would claim that I did clip from any sick-looking elms or any particular, I didn't take like the central branch.

I didn't take the trunk down on any elms.

And I think if people took similar levels of care, even less levels of care, I think it would be a fine situation.

Aaron Powell, you're saying that if everyone in New Haven was taking clippings from the elm trees, the transplanted elm trees in Elm City, that that would be good for those trees.

I think with the degree of care that I was demonstrating, yes.

This is a city of 160,000 people.

Well, I think I probably wouldn't have taken four branches if everyone else was doing it.

But you took four.

I I did, but not everyone else is doing it.

Was that a moral act

in the eyes of the categorical imperative by Kant?

I'm going to say my Kantian analysis is not

sufficient to answer that question, but

I feel moral about it.

You know what Kant's most famous quote was?

Tell me.

I can't even with you.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, that's real.

I learned that in a basement in New Haven.

Thumbs up from Jesse.

And you're right, Clark.

It's Kant.

It's not Kant.

I'm just being

difficult.

Because I enjoy talking to you both.

You both are very nice, and it's a hard one for me to decide.

I'm going to need a minute in my elm-based treehouse to come up with my verdict.

Before I go, let me just understand.

Mario, you would like me to rule that Clark,

you want me to censure Clark for his past behavior and promise that

he not do anything like it again in the future.

That's correct.

Clark, you would like me to recognize that it was reasonable for you to clip.

It says here the leaves, but we're talking about tree fingers.

Why didn't you just pick a few leaves and throw them in that jar?

You know, I think it comes back to the distinction between ripping leaves off of things and pruning them.

I think,

and secondly, we needed something for Spikey to put the chrysalis on.

So you need some sort of twig there.

I don't know about caterpillars.

Maybe they need the branch to eat the leaves.

Okay.

So you want me to recognize it was reasonable for you to do it.

And then also it says here, to be left alone.

Yeah.

Actually, if you could just broadly rule that I should be left alone, I'd be okay with that.

That seems

dangerous.

Excuse me, Mario.

I'm now speaking to Clark.

In what ways are you not left alone?

You know, I'm left alone a great deal.

But

I think it would be convenient if I were just left alone, period.

Does Maria try to police your behavior in other ways besides

clipping the fingers off of trees?

You know, I think only in the normal, appropriate ways.

Okay.

Like, you know, making sure I'm not on my phone all the time with the children or, you know, the usual stuff.

Right.

Well, this is, I mean, it's just, this is what I have here as your ideal ruling.

I just want to get to the

I think that that would be ideal.

Yes.

And I would, I would add that Clark, I think his ideal day would involve just being left alone in the garden for him to get into whatever projects he would, you know,

wants to do without having to explain himself to anyone.

Has he done any unexplainable projects in the garden?

Yes.

He has, well, so I should say that his garden care has made our garden from a weed field to a very nice place.

So overall, the garden care is great.

But one of the things he really likes to do is aerate the lawn.

And that involves like taking a thing and taking out these plugs of lawn.

Plugs of lawn.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, I don't love that.

But especially because then he'll decide that the lawn is all wrong and he wants to start over and then he just starts pulling out pieces of

grass.

I think this is fairly normal husband behavior.

I think even classic, perhaps.

Maria, how long was the expedition in total to collect the tree flowers?

I think it was about...

probably about 45 minutes.

Our children,

they love taking walks around the neighborhood, but but they're quite slow because they like to stop on every tree stump and make me take pictures of them.

So that did make it longer.

And

did you express your displeasure at any point during this trip?

I did, in fact.

I was walking behind the troop of them.

I should also say that Clark had our small children.

holding the elm branches

as if to, you know, if somebody stopped and asked him he'd be like they're kids i i don't know that that's what he was gonna do but it felt um that's conjecture

it was it was but um

he had them holding them like trophies though yes yes and they were walking down the street they were they were

swinging them about how long how long were they would you say the the branches because i'm aware of this bell jar

a foot

um i would say about a foot in length yeah so you had to cut that down in order to get into the bell jar?

Absolutely, absolutely.

And I should add that

Clark also,

the walk became long enough that it became clear that we needed to eat dinner.

And so we went to a local establishment and Clark brought the elm tree boughs into

the restaurant.

And I believe our server actually asked him about it.

And he said, oh, yes, they're to feed our caterpillar.

It just felt, you know, I I don't know.

I wasn't going to leave them outside.

There's nothing wrong with getting a little weird dadding in early, even when your kids are small.

Oh, that?

Just something I stole from the mayor.

Let me ask you a question I'd like you to answer just yes or no plainly, Maria.

Okay.

This eating establishment you went to, was it Mecha Noodle Bar?

No.

Yeah, you're a mistake.

Clark, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer yes or no.

Two questions, actually.

Okay.

When Maria said, I wish you wouldn't do that, did you hear what she was saying?

I'm not sure that's how she put it.

Yes and no.

All right, then pause for a moment.

Maria, what did you say?

Well, I don't remember precisely, but I do know that I expressed that I didn't think it was a good idea.

I think I

said more like, I think I was surprised in that I had not seen that he had taken the tree, the clippers with us when we set out on our walk.

So when he clipped off of the tree the first time, I said something like,

are you really going to click off of the tree?

And he said, yes.

And then we kept on walking.

But would you, Clark, was it clear that she was uncomfortable with what you were doing?

Yes.

Did you do it anyway?

Yes.

Thank you.

I'm going to climb up in my treehouse of horror, and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Mario, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good.

I mean, I think I made a strong case to the judge, and I think

he understands

the

you know, the New Haven environment, what I'm talking about, the neighborly New Haven, Elm City environment.

So I'm hoping that works in my favor.

Clark, how do you feel?

I'm feeling okay as well.

I think I was acting as a reasonable person.

I think it was to the benefit of trees and my children and Spikey.

So I think it's all going to go well.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about this when we come back in just a second.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a a while maybe you never listened and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years i know where this has ended up but no no you would be wrong we're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing yeah you don't even really know how crypto works The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, we're headed out on the road.

The Van Freaks Road Show Tour.

That's right.

Last week we told you about our upcoming live shows in the UK and Europe.

We're going to be in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Dublin, the Republic of Ireland, Edinburgh, Scotland, London, England, and Copenhagen, which is in Denmark, which is going to be terrific, but that's Europe and the UK.

Wow.

And hold on.

Hold on to your hats, listeners.

That's right.

We are now pleased to announce our national tour in the nation of USA as well.

Now, Jesse Thorne and I share a love for Antiques Roadshow.

It's true.

Only one of us has ever been on the program.

It was true.

I went to the program, but they didn't even put me in the B-roll.

Only one of us has some Antiques Roadshow socks, but they can be repaired.

I don't have any.

I did go to the program.

I brought some really cool stuff with great stories, but they didn't put me on the air.

And Jesse Thorne has a particular fondness and obsession for a particular Japanese market adventure van called the Mitsubishi Delica.

And I have come to love that van as well.

Do you have one, Jesse?

I have a Subaru Sambar Dais Classic.

Well, that's pretty hot, but the point is, you like vans, right, Jesse?

Wouldn't you say?

I'm a real van freak.

Yeah, so let's take this show on the road.

In the sweatiest pun possible,

we're calling this tour the Van Freaks Road Show.

Van Freaks Road Show is coming to your town if you live in Lexington, Kentucky, Chicago, Illinois, Madison, Wisconsin, St.

Paul, Minnesota, Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Durham, North Carolina.

Let me take a breath.

Charlottesville, Virginia, Washington, D.C.

And that's it, right, Jesse?

We stop in Washington, D.C.

Then we had, I don't know if this,

there's these two shows in there, God knows what region of the United States these are in, but Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts.

Yeah, they're in New England.

And then

we're closing the show out in Brooklyn, New York City on November 7th with a live streaming extravaganza.

We are currently planning just a murderer's row of ringers on this show.

It is going to be a blast.

Every one of these shows different from every other one of these shows, but but no matter where you are in the world, you will want to get tickets to this Brooklyn show on November 7th so that you can watch online or in person because it is going to be a blowout.

I'm going to tell you, if you're a Van Freak, maybe you're out there living that van life, that hashtag van life.

I don't care whether it's a Toyota Delica or a Subaru Daius or whatever, you can get the van and just follow us on the road.

The Van Freaks Road Show, it's coming to all these towns.

And here's some even more good news.

If you're a Max Fund member, you can get tickets right now, today, exclusively for for Max Fund members.

Check your emails for a special pre-sale code.

They should be in your email box today.

Check your junk folder if you have to.

Max Fund members get to buy tickets today, and today is August the 2nd.

If you're not a Max Fund member, we still love you.

General sale starts Friday, August the 4th.

For tickets and all the information you need, guess where you need to go?

Vanfreaksroadshow.com.

That's right.

You heard me.

VanFreaksroadshow.com for tickets and info.

And obviously we're going to need cases for all these shows.

So if we're coming to your town, city, state, country, or world capital, as always, send us your disputes at maximumfund.org slash jjho and let us know where you are vanfreaksroadshow.com

please rise as judge john hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict

so first of all i don't hate maples maples are fine trees they're great trees they i've i love a maple leaf.

I love a maple leaf rag.

I love the country of Canada.

I love maple syrup.

I love the shade of a maple tree.

They're fine.

I was just, that was just a bit.

In fact, it might even have been

a dead branch of a maple tree that I adopted 24 years ago as a grown man and named Sticky.

Much like your children named Brick Bricky.

I adopted Sticky on a visit to Maine in the middle of winter.

We all went up to Amy Radford's parents' little cabin just a little getaway, all of us friends.

And the morning was so cold out because it used to be cold in Maine.

Remember that, Joel?

Remember when I was cold in Maine?

Long time ago.

Yeah, a long time ago.

It used to be cold in Maine.

I went out into the very, very

cold, wintry morning of New Year's Day, and I had Sticky with me

and I was hitting Sticky against a tree because in that cold, cold air, it made such a satisfying sound.

Satisfying.

You know what I mean?

Satisfying.

Pock, pock, pock, pock.

And then I, but I, I, I went too hard.

And Sticky broke.

And I just said, I split sticky.

And no one has been able to let me forget that.

I felt so bad for sticky.

That's just a little story about a stick I had.

I hadn't thought about about it until I heard about Bricky.

Point is, I like maple, and I'm sorry, Sticky, if you were a maple.

I'm sorry I broke Sticky.

You got to be careful with trees.

You got to be gentle.

You know what I mean?

Trees, they got to put up with a lot, especially trees in public cities.

You know what I mean?

A lot of smog, a lot of beetles, a lot of vermin, a lot of dogs peeing on them.

It's not natural.

New Haven was the first city to plant trees publicly.

It's a wonderful thing.

And look what happened.

The beetles just came and killed them all.

Now New Haven's trying to get back up to speed, get those elms back.

Now I know that in episode 330, I established a settled law that it was okay to take a clipping

from a public plant.

Especially if you're going to do something good with it, like

grow it.

Or in this case, feed it to a caterpillar that you have captured and keeping in a jar.

And it worked.

Spiky

made it.

Turned into a beautiful morning cloak butterfly.

But even though this is settled law,

I do take pause and I wonder to what degree I might reconsider.

Because I might not have been thinking of the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant

back in episode 330.

Because what if Mercedes the mom who was taking those clippings was all of us back then?

What if the world was full of Mercedes just clipping away at mall plants?

Why there'd be none left.

I do think that this is something special about the Elm City Elms, that they deserve a little bit of a break.

Was there harm done?

No.

Did Spikey survive and thrive?

Yes.

Did the mayor notice?

Probably not.

I will say, Clark, that you did make two mistakes.

Not just the mistake

of cutting too many trees, which you did.

You should have cut, take one cutting discreetly, maybe go to the mayor's house first

and see how sticky liked it.

And left the other trees alone until you knew it was time to replenish.

If you were going to do it at all.

Oh, you did three mistakes.

Because the other mistake that you made was you did all this research into what Spikey wants to eat, but you didn't do enough research into what New Haven and the trees want.

I speak for the trees.

You should have gone to a website, gotten a telephone number, and found out if this was okay to do because of that Kantian imperative.

You easily could have plucked a few leaves and it would have been fine.

Did you do harm?

No, but you did make a mistake.

You took too many tree fingers, more than you needed, when you didn't have to.

You didn't consult with New Haven or the mayor himself.

You could have knocked on his door and said, Hey, what do you think about me taking a little cutting of this tree?

I want to feed it to a caterpillar.

Your third mistake was after you took the first cutting,

you knew that your wife was uncomfortable with it and that you kept doing it.

That's something you should probably not do.

If someone that you care about indicates that they do not feel comfortable with your behavior,

and it's not, oh, you're not saving a life.

I mean, you're feeding caterpillar and

you got the one tree finger already.

That's

that's a, you've already got, you've already got your pruning shears with you.

That's a good enough time to cut it out, if you know what I mean.

That's pruning shear humor.

Bring your pruning spree to an end at that point.

So, on these three points,

I censure you.

Thank you, Judge.

Oh, don't thank me yet.

Oh, no.

That said, I will not prohibit you from this behavior in the future.

I only order you to do more research.

You know

what those fun people online say.

Do your own research.

They're fun.

They're fun.

They're good for civilization.

But in this case, yeah,

you're already interested in gardening.

Don't just tend to your own garden, a la Voltaire's Candide.

I did not learn about that in a basement in New Haven.

I learned about that in a classroom in Brookline, Massachusetts.

But be more holistic in your gardening.

You live in the Elm City.

You should care for these trees.

Not target them and then willy-nilly take their fingers off without first figuring out if this is okay.

Go ask the mayor.

Go do your research.

Figure out if this is okay or not for sure.

And then probably you should do it on your own.

Because

clearly it makes Maria uncomfortable to wander around the town while you're doing your weird dad experiment.

She's afraid you're going to get caught.

She's afraid you're going to get yelled at by the mayor or someone else.

I don't think he's doing anything terrible, but it's not something that everyone should be doing all the time.

And therefore, I think if Clark ever gets another caterpillar, or needs to take something from the public bounty, that he do so responsibly, take one finger, not four, and make sure that it's okay to do it if it's not on your property, particularly with regard to these elm trees, which are special to the city.

And spare your wife discomfort, either by doing it in the dark of night in secret,

not brandishing your twigs like a trophy at the Mecha Noodle Bar or wherever you choose to go that isn't Mecha Noodle Bar.

And

just be mindful.

Be a gardener for the whole town, not just your own backyard.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Clark, how do you feel?

I feel okay about that.

I can't really take exception to anything he said.

I think certainly respecting my wife's feelings is something I support.

was overzealous in the number of branches I took.

And, you know, I'm always for more internet research.

And I'm sure Mario's happy.

I'll be doing more of it and

forced to do more of it, really.

So I'm happy with that ruling.

Mario, you look concerned.

He may disappear into a hole of research from which he may never return.

Yes, that is exactly how I feel.

I'm very happy with the judge's ruling, except for on the research, because Clark loves nothing more than internet research about obscure topics that have nothing to do with his actual research that he's supposed to be doing.

Well, I have some research to do on the topic of funny things people say when they're coming out of anesthesia.

So thanks to the two of you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In a moment, we'll have Swift Justice.

First, our thanks to Redditor Acon419 for naming this week's episode

Criminal Elm Event.

That has to be Acorn419, doesn't it, Jesse?

I mean, I know it says Acone 419, but come on, for a tree-based show, can we call it Acorn?

Do you think someone typed in Acorn419 and was like, oh no, they'll know I'm a tree.

And they changed it to Acone 419.

Yeah, but it was still pretty tree-themed then now that I think of it because you got cone in there.

I mean,

pine cone is what I'm talking about.

Okay, anyway.

Maximumfund.reddit.com is where we ask for those.

Thanks to everybody who's been contributing them.

Evidence and photos from the show are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

I think our audience deserves a chance to get a look at this beautiful brick.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Kurt Carbone at CMC Studios in New Haven, Connecticut, and by Joel Mann at WERU in Orland, Maine.

Marie Bardy runs our social media.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice.

J of the Internet on the MaxFun Reddit says, roundabouts are cool.

I need the world to acknowledge this.

Roundabouts are cool.

In New England, we call them rotaries.

Joel,

do you remember when the rotary was put in on the top of Tenney Hill and Blue Hill?

I do.

Do you remember how the Weekly Packet had a front-page article explaining to people how to use it?

And people still send in letters to the newspaper here confused about the rotary and how to use it.

It's very, very, it was very controversial.

I love it.

It makes it a lot easier, doesn't it?

A lot easier, a lot less accidents.

Right there.

Right there.

Because there used to be a

stoplight at the top.

Four-way.

Four-way stoplight.

And it was a flashing light.

It wasn't even stoplight.

Oh, forget about it.

Yeah, no.

Right.

Rotaries are cool.

Wouldn't you agree, Joel?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Rotaries, roundabouts, whatever you call them, they're cool.

Just remember, yield to the person in the rotary.

That's all you have to do.

And then just be on your way.

Pretty soon you're at the Hannafords or you're heading up to the Kingdom Bikes or

shoreline auto-detailing, wherever you need to go.

You're getting off to go to Johnson's, the lady who sells the fish out of her garage.

The co-op.

You go to the co-op.

Thank you very much.

The best co-op in all of Maine or the world, would you say?

I've only been to a co-op in Maine.

The Blue Hill Co-op is terrific.

All these places you can get to just by

following the roundabout the correct way, and you're going to have a good time doing it.

So yeah, roundabouts are really cool.

Jesse, do you disagree?

Roundabouts are cool, right?

I love roundabouts.

Even more than roundabouts, I love scrambles.

Do you guys have pedestrian scrambles?

No, what's that?

Here in West Lake in Los Angeles, we've got a fair few of them.

They also have them in Old Town, Pasadena, I've noticed.

They're intersections where the pedestrians all cross at once.

So the pedestrians can cross diagonally across the intersection

or from, you know, adjacent corner to adjacent corner

and all cars must stop while the pedestrians cross.

Do they have a recorded voice going, scramble, scramble, scramble?

Hey, our show runs on disputes since we're speaking automotively.

That is the engine of our show, disputes.

And this week we're looking specifically for fantasy fights, disputes from the magical realm of fantasy in both book, audio, in both book, television, film, audio form.

Which Game of Throne sits on the iron chair that makes it the best Game of Throne book or series or character?

Which is the top Tolkien?

Are you the Silmarillion stand?

Or what?

Which is the wildest wheel of time?

Never read any of those.

Which would win in a fight?

This is a really good one, actually.

I want to know the answer to this.

A gold dragon or a platinum dragon?

Is Star Wars science science fiction or fantasy?

There is an answer, and I know it.

Why haven't I read Disc World yet?

Haven't gotten to those yet, and people are mad at me about it.

Why haven't you read N.K.

Jemison's the fifth season yet?

Probably a bunch of you haven't.

Get at it.

We will also accept disputes that you have had at the Renaissance Fair.

Please tell me about disputes you've had at the Renaissance Fair.

That will make me so, so happy.

Did you ever get a bum turkey leg at the Wren Fair?

Was there some jousting that went wrong?

Let me know.

Are you accepting Skyrim disputes?

Of course.

Like about gathering lavender, hanging moss.

Of course.

I should have thought.

And of course, Legend of Zelda Count.

Zelda is the boy.

Anything fantasy-related, we want a dispute.

I want so many disputes that we can do a trilogy of episodes.

Fantasy episodes.

You know what I mean?

Book one, book two, book three, and then an appendix and a map.

So tie your disputes to

the claw of a raven and send them to maximumfund.org slash jjho.

And while you're at it, send in any dispute.

Of course.

Maximumfund.org slash JJHO is where you can submit them.

Maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

Think about the people surrounding you right now and what your problem is with them.

Then go to maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Supported directly by you.