Habeas Cropus

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, habeas cropus.

Alan brings the case against his wife, Tawney.

Tawnee has accumulated a lot of plants in their apartment.

She says that some of the plants need to have grow lights in order to thrive.

Alan doesn't like the lights.

He'd rather have plants that don't need them.

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.

Enough of Famintson and of Darwin.

I hope you will not be offended if I say that what we think is not only not important,

but that old men like us preparing to appear before capital H him

should even be ashamed, that it is disgraceful and sinful to talk and think

about growing plants indoors with artificial lighting.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Alan and Tawney, 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.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has no green thumb?

Well, he has two green thumbs because his entire hands are green.

Yep.

Yep.

Judge Hodgman.

I dip them in a bucket of paint.

Alan and Tawney.

First of all, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment, one of your favorites, can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the courtroom.

Alan, any guesses?

Let me just read it again.

I'm going to read the correct quote this time.

See if that makes a difference.

Okay, I did make some adjustments there.

Enough of Famintsin and of Darwin.

I hope you will not be offended if I say that what we think about how species originated is not only not important, but that old men like us preparing to appear before him, that's capital H I M as in God or whatever, should even be ashamed, that it is disgraceful and sinful to talk and think about that.

He was not, and all right, there's some more information.

It is a he, he, him pronouns on this diarist.

I'll give you one more hint.

Oh, but he was not talking about growing plants indoors with artificial lighting, he was actually talking about Darwin's theories.

We shouldn't even speculate on the origin of species.

Very famous Russian author, Alan.

Let's go with Dostoevsky.

All right, Tawny?

Well, I guess I'll go with one of the other ones, Tolstoy.

Tolstoy is correct, Tani.

Tolstoy did not like Darwin.

I was going to guess Shmirnov.

Sure, of course.

Yakov, of course.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Tolstoy did not like Darwin.

You probably cannot guess what academic study I found this quote in, however.

That would be the great Tolstoyist Hugh MacLean's book, In Quest of Tolstoy.

And the reason that I brought it up is that he says, we know who he's talking about, Darwin, but one of Darwin's defenders in Russia as

the principles of evolution were first being published

was Andrei Famintsin,

a Russian botanist who in 1868 was the first person to grow plants indoors with artificial light.

That was Famintsin's innovation.

And Tolstoy didn't like him because he was palled up with Darwin.

That was a very contentious time.

And by I mean, palled up with Darwin, they would go drinking together all the time.

Faminsin and Darwin

nuts on the Smirnoff vodka in this case.

At the Smirnoff Show.

Yeah.

At the Yakov Smirnoff Show in Branson, Missouri, of course.

Well, you know what?

They were eventually both banned from Branson in 1868.

In any case, Tawny Allen, we have to hear this case.

So who comes to seek justice before this court?

Be it Alan or Tawny?

It be I, Judge.

All right.

English is a living language.

Okay, it be I.

That's a sentence now.

What is your complaint, Alan?

So, my lovely wife Tawny, who is a whole human being in her own right, has these finicky tropical plants that require lots of sunlight.

She keeps our plants by the large south-facing window of our apartment in Vancouver, B.C.

Above the finicky plants, she has these several plant lights that she leaves on for at least 12 hours a day, which I inevitably am the one who turns them off at night.

And this is sort of part of a bigger problem, which is that Tani is both beautiful and brilliant in equal measure, and I love her immensely, but she can be something of a light switch goblin.

She often leaves lights on wherever she goes in the apartment.

I find that leaving lights on around the apartment is a wasteful carbon expense.

It's also a sensory issue for me.

I'm quite sensitive to bright lights, especially at night.

And we plan to move from Vancouver, BC to Halifax, Nova Scotia this fall and buy a house.

I'm worried that with three times as much space, we'll have three times as many plant lights and three times as many lights that I'll have to turn off as I wander the house, like the 35-year-old curmungy spirit that I am.

So I'd really love it if Tani could avoid buying these high-maintenance plants that require their own lights and be more mindful of leaving lights on when she leaves a room for the sake of our carbon footprint and my wee peepers.

Wow.

Well, that was very cogently put and very well expressed.

I am able to see you that there by the magic of teleconferencing in Vancouver, British Columbia.

May I do I guess correctly that you are glancing down at some notes from time to time?

It's actually like an SNL setup where I have cue cards that are being flashed to me across the room.

Wow.

Well, no, Toddy's a lawyer, so I had to come with my A-game, and

I don't want to try to beat her in an oral argument.

It was extremely well prepared, counselor, and delivered with all the briot of a best man toast at a wedding.

Thank you, Judge.

Thank you.

Everything Alan says sounds eminently reasonable.

Tanya, how do you respond?

So

I love caring for plants.

It gives me a lot of joy.

I'm not very good at it by any means.

I picked it up maybe five years ago or so.

I started with one or two here and there that would die, and then I would do some research and get some advice from friends.

and I started figuring out what plants needed to thrive when they needed to be watered.

I have little instruments that help me you know know when they need to be watered

and one of the things that I got advice on is that some plants well most plants in fact

that regular people buy for their houses at the plant store down the road are tropical plants for whatever reason.

I don't really know why.

I haven't looked into it.

The kind that thrive in the Pacific Northwest.

The kind that thrive in Pacific Northwest living rooms, anyway.

Right.

Well, tend to be.

But Vancouver, which is what we call stop podcasting yourself country, is very lush, to be fair, very wet and lush.

It's verdant.

It's a more verdant and peaceful world.

Absolutely.

Vancouver, British Columbia.

I hope that we can return to it soon on tour.

Please do.

Right.

But

you're talking about tropical plants like

southern tropics.

Tropical is what you mean, tropical.

Yeah, yeah.

Like,

I haven't looked into where they're from, but banana plants and coconut trees is what you're saying.

Similar, yeah.

Jungle, Costa Rica, you know, Malaysia, these types of places

where they originate from.

Now, I also, through the magic of teleconferencing, can spy on you, and you seem to be, there's a background, which is either a fake background or a real background.

Oh, boy, that came as a surprise.

Hang on, hang on.

Let me screenshot that so I can.

Could you lean away again?

Thank you.

Wow.

All right.

That

did not see that giant cat tapestry coming that is directly behind your head.

Is that a virtual background?

No, it is a real background.

Alan found this tapestry, which is about maybe, it's probably five feet tall

at a garage sale in Toronto in 2016 or something.

I think he paid $5 for it.

He brought it home thinking that I was going to hate it and demand that he put it out onto the curb.

But I love it.

I think it's fantastic.

And obviously we will put this photographic evidence, with your permission, if you grant it, up on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram account and the show page at maximumfund.org.

But what we're looking at is a tapestry of

a rather giant cat in front of a very, a very lush forest.

With fake trees like that.

Wait a minute.

I just remembered a really corny joke.

With fake trees like that in your house, why do you even need these plants?

I mean, that's a good question.

I could just stare at cotton trees all day.

Cotton tapestry tree.

Tell me

why you love the plants so much, and what kind of plants do you have?

What kind of tropical plants do you have?

Yeah, so my favorite plant is the one that I got first, which I've sort of had the longest and I've had the most time to figure out exactly what it needs, which is a pothos plant.

They're super beginner-friendly.

They're really easy to take care of.

And they're kind of, they're vining.

So what I like about them is that they grow long vines and I can kind of drape them here and there and I can make them look kind of bigger and more beautiful.

The pothos, I'm looking at a photograph of it on the internet and I would characterize this as the like the classic

fern bar.

indoor plant that's not a fern.

So it's the kind that grows in a hanging pot and drapes down below.

Hang on.

Now, Alan,

stay exactly where you are, Alan.

I'm going to screenshot you there.

Now, Alan is showing us that plant in his own, using his own teleconferencing camera.

And there it is, a vining green plant that is slowly reaching for Alan's shoulder and soon will devour him.

Because that's what plants need, right?

They need light.

They need water.

They need earth.

They need air.

And they need human blood, right?

Yes.

Feed me, they say.

Feed me.

That's what they say, feed me.

The toothed plants say, feed me.

Oh, that's a very lovely plant.

Is that one of the ones that

needs a special grow light, Tawny?

Well, right.

So the Pothos plants don't necessarily need grow lights.

They do okay in low light situations.

Okay.

So those ones, I generally don't have a grow light turned on them unless I'm sort of wanting them to grow thicker and more lush because they do grow faster and with thicker leaves if I put a grow light on them.

But they don't need them in order to sprout new leaves.

Right.

The ones that that sounds like the perfect plant for your apartment, no matter whether it be Toronto, BC, or Halifax, Nova Scotia.

It's the perfect plant for any province.

They're wonderful.

I do really love them.

And we have a thumbs up to these plants.

Why are we talking about a non-controversial plant?

Which are the plants that need the grow lights?

Right.

So last year I got a Monstera plant, which is also right next to Alan at the moment.

And these ones are bigger and they have bigger leaves.

And they get...

Is it called Monstera, like Monster with an A?

Yeah.

Okay.

Also known as a Swiss cheese plant.

Monstera is better.

Monster A is better, I think.

It's probably the best name.

I agree.

So these ones have quite large leaves and large stems.

So if I have found that if I don't put a grow light on them, the stems get very, very long and the leaves get small.

So the plant ends up looking just like a lot of skinny stalks rather than sort of a lush, big leafed plant.

Okay, so your monster A plants need a grow light.

And what kind of grow light are you using on them?

Do you have photos of these monster A's?

It's in the evidence.

Well, let's take a look at that evidence, though.

Yeah.

First of all, here's a wonderful dog named Hazel standing in a bunch of fallen cherry blossoms.

It's a really nice looking dog.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, I'm going to explain for the listeners, and they can check it out for themselves at the Instagram page at Judge John Hodgman or at our show page at maximumfund.org.

But

this looks like a fairly handsome grow light to me.

Because when I grew up, my mom grew some stuff in the basement with grow lights.

And she had some hanging

fluorescent lights hanging on

long chains hooked to metal shades.

and the hanging fluorescent lights would sometimes like clang against each other like a haunted wind chime.

And I don't know what my mom was growing down there.

It was probably nothing, probably getting some tomatoes started.

You know what I mean?

But these fluorescent lights in the basement looked very creepy and they looked really illegal.

That is not what we're seeing in this photo.

So, Alan, what do you find so offensive about this?

So, in Tani's defense, she is the crochet queen.

So, she took a very everyday-looking plant light and she added these beautiful tassels to the bottom of it.

So she made it look as good as it does.

And I don't find anything necessarily offensive about the light.

Wait, Tawny, you crocheted this grow light cover?

I didn't crochet it.

I have access to wool and I tied little knots and I made tassels and I tied them around the plant, around the lampshade.

Yeah.

First of all, I appreciate your commitment to the truth.

And second of all, I appreciate your access to wool.

One of the great things.

Yes, most of the lamp came intact, but she added the tassels.

I'm just a proud crochet observer.

And this piece of personal handiwork by your beloved partner, Tawny, along with the lamp that it is covering, is what you want to throw in the garage.

I love all of her crochet.

In fact, this isn't crochet, Alan.

She has access to wool.

I would like her to crochet

all of the walls of our apartment.

I've even sort of tried to

inspire designs for my birthday.

I think I know my verdict offer in a moment with my decision.

She just has access to so much wool.

I think we have about 10 pounds of wool right now, to be honest.

Yeah.

So I love the look of the lamp.

I just wish it wasn't on for 12 hours a day.

And so that's really the big issue with it.

Okay.

This just looks like a lamp.

It's being on all the time offends you from a conservation of energy.

Yeah, it's a conservation issue.

Point of view, as well as your own sensitivity to light?

It's a conservation issue.

It's also one of the many lights that I have to turn off in the evenings or just at some point throughout the day.

Tawny, do you not remember to turn off these lamps?

I would remember to turn them off at my preferred time to turn them off.

But Alan always turns them off before I would rather them be turned off.

So that's why he always turns them off.

You know, I just realized that I have the perfect solution to this dispute, Jesse Thorne.

What's that?

Well, Alan has light sensitivity issues and doesn't want to see these lights on all the time, right?

Yeah.

Why doesn't Tawny just pull the wool over his eyes?

She has access to it.

Holy cow.

Holy sheep, more like it.

If she made me a crochet body bag, I would gladly live in it.

John, do you need me to go get Monty Belmonte to fill in?

I'm trying to make a podcast.

She has access to the wool.

Why doesn't she just pull it over his eyes?

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.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Let them know.

Jesse and John sent you.

Tawny,

tell us a little bit about grow lamps, what they do, why they're necessary.

I understand that a Monster A plant, which usually has a lot more light pouring on it

in the American tropics than in the Pacific Northwestern cloudics of Vancouver.

Just getting more light on it.

But what else would our listeners need to know about the necessity of Grow Lamp?

What does it do?

So

it just provides light energy to the plants to do their photosynthesis thing.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm not a scientist.

Do you have a special bulb in this lamp?

Yeah, well, sort of.

What I did learn is that most

light bulbs, regular light bulbs, will actually sort of do the trick.

You can get other kinds of special light bulbs that have like a broader range of the UV spectrum that more simulates sunlight that will do a better job.

But basically light is all that matters.

And

Judge, you pointed out something which I'm glad you brought up because I actually have already made small concessions that Alan might not have noticed, which is the fact that grow lights can be very hideous and extremely bright.

And in fact, if I had gotten one of the hideous bright ones, it probably would be more effective.

There's plenty that are like big bars that emit purple light.

I was going to ask if you have, because purple and red tend to be the hues of grow lights you see advertised because

supposedly, I mean, and there are light recipes that are provided and have been researched by the Phillips Corporation, which provides a lot of commercial-grade grow lighting.

Different kinds of crops that you might grow indoors, be they cucumbers or tomatoes or whatever, they prefer different spectra of light and for different periods of time.

So, I mean, there really is some fine-tuning that's going on here.

And I'm glad to see, though, that those red and purple lights are really, I mean, unless you want to live in a Spencer's gifts in a mall, the red and purple light is not very appealing.

Absolutely.

Tawny, are you concerned that without those classic grow light bars, your plants will be insufficiently dank?

He's suggesting that you grow cannabis.

We don't have to grow cannabis in our homes here in Canada.

Yeah, you have access to wool and cannabis legally?

Readily.

Yes.

How about that?

So you don't use the pink and red and blue kinds.

No.

And how many grow lights do you have overall?

Well, so

really only one, one official one.

That one that I just saw?

Yeah.

That's the official grow light?

Yes, that's the official grow light of the Toronto Blue Jays.

I do have two more that I use as grow lights, and they're just lamps that I have sort of turned onto a plant that

I try to leave on before Alan switches them off.

No fancy fancy bulb, is what you're saying.

And would that be what's pictured in exhibit C, this torchier lamp, Alan?

Correct, Judge.

The Torsiere lamp.

Okay.

And what's interesting about this Torsier lamp is,

first of all, the plants are very beautiful and they seem to be quite healthy.

They're also getting

a metric system, right, in Canada?

Just like the rest of the world, Judge, yes.

Right.

So they're getting a metric feces ton of sunlight at this moment,

as well as getting light from the torchier what's what's this setup all about this was a very opportune photo that alan took which is sort of the uh 30 minutes 45 minutes per day that our front window shines direct sunlight onto my plants um which is not enough not enough time not enough time

are these monster a's here uh the monstera is the one beside the table on the floor and then the pothos is the one up on the shelf but this is a different i'll call them what you want me me to call them, Monstera.

This is a different monster from the one that has the non-crocheted lamp on it, right?

No, so this was an earlier photo that Alan took before I hung the official grow light over the Monstera.

So what are you trying?

This is this is outdated evidence, Alan?

This is outdated evidence, yeah.

What are you trying to pull out?

I'm not lurking gun of that light basking upon the plants from our window.

Okay, but I, oh, I see.

So you were trying, you got me because I was like, this looks like it's very sunny there.

Why do you need a light at all?

And Tawny, with your legal expertise, you just wiped that argument up like a spilled container of yogurt, which I want to talk to you about in a second, too, by saying it gets light for 25 minutes a day.

Yeah, maybe 45 max.

And those are metric minutes, of course, but that's not enough for a monster A, is it, Tawny?

No, it's not.

How much light does that Monster A want to have?

Or maybe put it this way, how much light would you, how long would you like the grow light to be on that monster A?

I I would like the grow light to be on during the regular sunlight hours, so 8 a.m.

to 7 p.m., 8 p.m., something like that.

Okay.

And that's not tolerable to you, Alan?

No.

Okay.

Especially in the evenings.

I just, I find the light especially glaring.

It's, it's just quite bright and it sort of hangs up behind our couch and it glares onto the TV.

If the dog wants to watch something, you know, it's, I just find it quite distracting.

I would, I would honestly, you were talking sorry did you sorry alan did you say if the dog wants to watch something just some paw patrol or or what have you

do you do you have a toddler that you call your dog uh no hey hazel's hazel's a pit bull um but her her preference is that we watch tv every night so is paw patrol hazel's favorite show or does she have some other faves uh she likes great british bake off Canadian bake-off.

Sure.

All the bake-offs.

Yeah.

Got it.

Yeah.

To answer Jesse's question, I would much prefer those purple or blue lights that you were referring to before.

Those sounds sound relaxing.

Well, have you seen one in April?

I don't know.

I had black lights in my room when I was in high school for different reasons.

For different reasons.

Danker reasons.

Danker.

Yeah, they were flourishing

glow in the dark stars that I had all over my ceiling.

But yeah, no, that's a, I would love black lights.

I've actually posed to Tani that we get, you know, random colored lights for different parts of our apartment, which she has nixed

on several occasions throughout our life.

So how large is this apartment?

This apartment is 600 square feet.

Okay, so that's fairly small for a family of three, two humans plus a dog, right?

And I mean, obviously with a situation like that, it's like you have, this is obviously in the main room of the house.

This grow light is in the main room of the house where you're watching your dog's favorite TV TV shows and so on.

Exactly.

And storage is an issue as well because, you know, you don't have a lot of pantries or whatever.

So that's why you would store this knocked over yogurt container

in the base of your Monster A plant.

All of our pantry is full of wool.

So I don't know where you expect us to put those containers.

Why did you take this picture of this plant with the knocked over yogurt container?

I can explain.

Thank you.

So Monsteras also need, they have what what are called aerial roots, and the roots kind of like go through the air and search for water.

Sure.

So I have little containers of water.

You can kind of see them in the picture.

But our dog,

you know,

is our dog Hazel, being a scavenger,

just slurps up water wherever she finds it.

So this was originally

a non-tipped over yogurt container.

Yes.

And it was full of water that the Monster A was reaching out its creepy tendrils for.

It was not.

No.

So the container of water is underneath the yogurt container.

Okay.

And Hazel kept going for the container of water to slurp at it.

So I took the yogurt container and put it on top of the water container to block the water so that Hazel couldn't.

But Hazel couldn't.

So

this is your plant hack.

Yes.

And so is this the way it's supposed to look?

No.

It looks really bad and awful.

And actually,

it doesn't look like that anymore.

I took that away.

And in fact, it wasn't working anyway.

She was just knocking it off and getting to the water anyway.

Tawny, I have a broader question about

these photographs.

Obviously, there is an exciting Instagram and TikTok trend toward indoor plants and interior decorating.

Let the records show that Alan is nodding vigorously.

And now he's beginning to do a little dance of pre-victory, it seems like.

I object to this dance.

I'll allow this line of questioning and the dance.

It's one that has been reinforced over the last few years as many people have spent more time in their homes and more time tending and nurturing in their homes.

It can be fantastic.

I'll stipulate that.

Nothing wrong with an interior plant.

Let's stipulate to fantastics.

Fantasticness.

Let's stipulate to Jerry Orbach in the fantastics.

Tawny, when are the plants decorating your house and when are they running your house?

Because I'm going to be frank, as lovely as this hanging lamp with the macrame that you've put on it is,

the plants are starting to look a little junky.

And not just because there's a discarded, an empty yogurt container tipped over in the base of it.

They're in what can only be described as a miscellany of pots.

They appear to be in good health,

but they seem to be kind of

piled around near miscellaneously in like a mishmash of vessels that suggests someone who loves growing plants more than they love managing the aesthetics of their 600 square foot apartment.

I don't think that's a question so much as an accusation, but I'll allow Tawny to respond.

Yeah,

that's fair.

I don't know if you can tell, but our general aesthetic is

a bit chaotic, a little bit eclectic, not too concerned about

aesthetic principles.

We generally have kind of a lot of just

things here and there.

Let the records show that when Tawny referred to their chaotic aesthetic, she gestured at the giant tapestry of the cat.

Yeah.

Yes, and I would agree that my priority is

caring for the plants.

I get my joy out of seeing them grow and grow new leaves and

flourish rather than the aesthetic value they give to our apartment.

You seem to have a semi-outdoor patio.

That's true.

Alan submitted some more evidence of a semi-outdoor patio.

Alan,

what do you want to say about this evidence?

You can stop uh dancing and gloating for a moment and talk on the podcast no gloating judge absolutely not um we have a patio which we don't really use mainly mainly because hazel gets out there and starts barking at all the dogs that that walk by so the patio goes most mainly unused and that thing could be filled with plants as far as i as far as i care um but it's it's mostly just got more junk on it why not fill the patio with plants tawny i mean it looks like there are plants on the patio as far as I can tell.

There are plants on the patio.

So, yeah, I have used it.

It's not completely unused.

Just because that I don't have the plants for the primary reason of their aesthetic value doesn't mean that they don't have aesthetic value to me.

I do like them to be in my living space.

I like to enjoy them as I walk around in my life in my apartment.

As Alan has said, we don't really hang out out there that often.

So

I just wouldn't get to see them very often if they were out there.

The majority of our plants are in sort of my office space in the apartment, the place where I do all of my work when I'm working from home.

So I get to surround myself with, you know, my own little mini jungle.

I like it.

You say 600 feet.

How many rooms are we talking about?

It's a one-bedroom apartment with like a sort of a long living room that we've divided into two.

The living room's on one end and then the dining room and then my office is on the other end.

Right.

And then the other room would be the bedroom.

The bedroom.

Yeah.

And the kitchen is its own room or is it an open concept living situation?

No, the kitchen is sort of its own room without a door or anything, but it's separated.

So two rooms that you use for living in, and not just living, but also working.

Yeah.

I mean,

this whole scenario is going to be in the rearview mirror very soon.

You're moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the provincial capital of Nova Scotia,

and you're going to buy a whole home.

Yes.

Alan is concerned that you are going to fill this home with monster Hayes.

What size of a home do you hope to get?

And what are your plant plans for this new home?

We are looking at somewhere between a 1,500 and 2,000 square footage.

That would be a dramatic increase of square footage.

Dramatic increase of square footage.

That's right.

And if those property brothers haven't gotten to it, it might actually have rooms in it instead of being in a completely open concept living plan.

Sorry, Jonathan and Drew.

Sometimes partners need walls, but you you might have some extra rooms in it, correct?

Yes.

So yeah, we're looking at hopefully a three bedroom.

So yeah, some extra rooms, a guest bedroom, an office.

Yeah, but we are also prioritizing a house

with a lot of windows and a lot of sunlight, which is different from what we have here.

We only have one, one end of our apartment has windows and sunlight on it.

And in this new house, we are hoping to have windows and sunlight everywhere so that I can put plants in any room that I want, but I can put them near the windows.

And

they're, you know, I would like to make the judgment call and have the discretion to place the grow lights as needed, but I think that we're not going to need as many grow lights as maybe Alan's nightmares tell him we will have.

What kinds of plants do you feel like, shall I say, branching out to

new kinds of tropical plants?

Yes, I would love to have more and different kinds of plants.

There's many kinds of plants that,

yeah, that I would love to

branch out for sure.

Yeah, those are

pretty good fun, I have to say.

Not as good as pull the wool over his eyes.

Any particular

kind?

There's different kinds of Monstera plants that I would like.

There's also

all the Monstera.

Yeah.

There's, yeah,

there's plenty.

Like I said, I'm still a beginner, so I don't know a lot about them, but I've seen a lot of different pictures, and there's tons that I haven't had before, so I would love to learn more about it.

Alan, do you like any plants?

I love plants.

I'm pro-plant.

Do you hate the look of these plants?

How do you feel when you see these plants?

I would just, I would, I get so angry when I see these plants.

No, I don't know.

I would just, I would like plants that are, that grow well in, in, wherever we live, whether it be Vancouver or Nova Scotia, that are indigenous to the area.

Because my theory is if we already have plants by a south-facing window and those require plant lights, I assume in our new house, which may or may not even have south-facing windows, that there's going to be a plant light

sprouting up.

Do you have a moral objection to having non-Indigenous plant life in your home?

You want all Canadian plants?

I just don't want things that are meant to grow on the, you know, around the equator brought up above the 49th parallel.

You just get some pine trees?

You didn't put some pine trees in your house?

Precisely, yeah.

Alan, I know you're not a botanist, but can you give me an example of a plant that's native to a living room?

Oh, boy.

Wow.

I'll allow that, Your Honor.

Wow.

I mean,

very cutting bit of legal.

You're a lawyer, right?

Right, Tawny?

Yes, I am.

Yeah, that was pretty cutting, wasn't it?

So to speak.

It's pretty cutting.

The first plants we got were so hardy, we traveled with them.

You really pruned you down, Alan.

Pruned you down.

I know, but let's turn over a new leaf here for a second.

All right, I think I've heard everything I need to.

The original,

the first plants that Tawny ever had were so hardy that we traveled with them.

We stuffed a bunch of plants into a cat carrier and drove from Toronto to Halifax several years ago.

And those plants were thriving, living their best life on that road trip.

They weren't watered or anything.

She just pulled them out of the cat carrier when we got to Halifax.

She put them up on the wall near or far from a window, and they thrived.

They were just, they were hanging.

They were hanging out.

And so I want more of those plants that can thrive on a road trip.

What kind of plants were those?

Those were pothos.

Yeah.

Those were the pothos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

You got them already, Alan.

You got the pothos.

Exactly.

You got one right next to you.

I saw it earlier.

Alan, are there times when you would find these lights being on to be acceptable or are there

different styles of lights that you would find appropriate?

I would just say, you know, if they were just sort of not in the middle of our living space

and not on, especially at night,

is when I find them particularly bothersome.

And yeah, if they could be like a warmer color or yeah, even purple,

I would be down for that for sure.

Have you investigated any other grow row light options i mean i know that we brought up pink and purple uh i have not no okay didn't do any of that homework all right gotcha tawny can you explain to alan why caring for non-canadian plants gives you joy variety is wonderful and exciting and different kinds of plants need different kinds of care and i really enjoy learning about the different kinds of care that different plants require.

And if I only had pothos in my life, it would would not be nearly as fulfilling of a hobby.

Tawny,

what kind of light bulb is in your grow light currently?

Is it a LED?

Is it incandescent?

Is it a high-intensity light?

Is it a special light bulb?

What would you say it is?

So it is a special light bulb for growing plants.

It's an 11-watt LED light bulb.

Really energy efficient, does not use a lot of energy at all.

Alan, you mentioned in your opening statement, which by the way, again, was beautifully worded and very compelling,

that you have a sensitivity to light.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Yeah, at night, I tend to require lights to be turned down to a pretty low level.

Otherwise, I just find it really distracting and jarring, and I find it harder to get to sleep.

So

pretty much the less light on, the better.

A lot of people sleep with the lights off.

I'm not sure if you've tried that.

Yeah, so Tani, Tani goes to bed later than I do.

And the light beside her bed,

the light beside her side of the bed is, I find it quite bright and quite hard to fall asleep if it's on.

And but this is nothing to do.

Is she shining a grow light in her face so that her fronds will grow?

She's just a human being reading a book or something, right?

And what do I do, Alan, at nighttime when I'm reading my book?

If she's being very generous, she puts on this cool miner's lamp on her head and she reads books like she's 100 feet underground.

because I love him when you are trying to go to sleep and let's say Tawny is not reading and she is asleep let's let's say let's say a miracle occurs and no one is shining light on you in your bedroom do you sense let's say if the grow lights are on in the other room do you sense them

I mean, either do you see them or like you see the light under the door?

Is the door open?

is it disruptive in that way or do you just mentally know they're on and it and it and it makes you a little itchy uh probably to be honest i it wouldn't bother me in the in the bedroom but probably to be honest if i went to the bathroom in the middle of the night um which you know i do um it probably would would wake me up uh more than i would like it to just the idea of those lights just being on for no reason other than these monsters need to grow exactly alan have you have you ever investigated getting what they call smart lights that can be turned off from a phone or a tablet or a device that can be set to timers?

Anything like that?

I'd be super keen on like a clap-on, clap-off situation.

All right, that's fair.

An old school clapper is what you're talking about?

Exactly.

That would be great.

Maybe you can find that by the side of the road in Toronto.

I'm not sure where you would get a new one.

Alan, if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me rule?

Just to

work with plants that don't require plant lights and then, you know, be more mindful about keep turning lights off around the apartment when she leaves the room.

And Tawny, how would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor?

I would

like you to give me the discretion to have as many grow lights as is necessary for my hobby and to have them on for as many hours of the day as no limits.

You get whatever you want.

Yeah, I would like to have whatever I have.

No right to complain for Alan.

Right, yeah.

Okay.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I am going to go into

my 19th-century glass house to sit underneath the Cavendish banana tree on the grounds of Chatsworth House in England in order to contemplate my decision.

And then I will come right back here to North America to render my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Tawny, how are you feeling about your chances?

I feel okay.

I feel like maybe I might have asked for a little bit too much there by his

somewhat snide comments to me at the very end.

But

I think what I'm asking for is not unreasonable.

I think I'm in a good position.

How about you, Alan?

The judge is brilliant and all-knowing, and I'm sure he's going to make the right decision.

He can't hear you right now.

He's in his chambers.

I know.

He's in his chambers, but

he can probably feel it.

He can feel the vibrations.

When we listen to the podcast at home, I go, isn't I tell Tawny, isn't the judge just brilliant?

And she

shut your pie hole, Alan.

Shut your pie hole.

Shut your pie hole.

Tawny, you're about to buy a house in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Have you thought about just getting a conservatory?

Or are you

too concerned about candlestick murders?

That sounds wonderful and romantic and wonderful.

That's a new idea that I'm going to definitely entertain.

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment.

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

And

maybe you stopped listening for 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 Hubba.

I'm regular Tom Lawrence.

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 taking a break from the case.

What's going on with you?

Well, as you know, Jesse Thorne, Dick Town, D-I-C-K-T-O-W-N, is the cartoon I made with David Reese.

It is available both seasons on Hulu right now.

And I encourage you to check it out.

And I encourage you to check out Hulu, get into the Hulu world.

I'm just saying, this is just something I've observed.

I'm not being prompted by any company.

Other than self-interest, wanting you to watch Dicktown, I've also happened to observed that a lot of the shows I'm watching right now are on Hulu.

And so I'm going to go ahead and recommend one, which I am frankly embarrassed that I missed for so long.

Reservation Dogs on Hulu is one of the funniest and best shows that I've enjoyed in a long time.

And the actors on that show are so incredible, and it is so funny and great.

And there are two seasons of it, and I believe a third is on its way.

And

if you get that Hulu subscription, not only do you get to enjoy Reservation Dogs and also Dick Town and other shows that they've got on there, but also up here,

the TV show that I spent the summer filming, I had a small acting role in it, and it was so much fun.

And it's co-created by Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez and Tommy Kale and Stephen Levinson.

And if you know musical theater, you know who those people are.

Otherwise, use your Google.

It's going to be such a fun, romantic comedy, musical theater-y eight-episode comedy with Carlos Valdez and Mae Whitman.

And it'll come out sometime in 2023, I believe.

So get a little subscription to Hulu or

ask your people in your life

for a gift of

a subscription or a password or whatever.

And watch Reservation Dogs, won't you?

Can I shout out this fool?

I've been loving this fool on Hulu.

By the way, Hulu, we're not sponsored by you, but sponsor us because of this.

Because we're just shouting out shows that we love.

I love This Fool with Chris Estrada.

Chris Estrada was on Bullseye a few weeks ago.

He's a totally amazing dude.

Also on Jordan Jesse Goh recently.

Totally amazing dude.

And such a great LA comedy show about a dude that

lives with his parents and works at like Homeboy Industries type

rehab for criminals program.

And his cousin, his cousin comes home from jail, and they basically live together and

get in a lot of hijinks.

It's great.

It's so much, so much fun.

Yeah, forgotten.

Reservation dogs rule so hard.

You're absolutely right.

Jesse, what else do you have going on?

You mentioned Bullseye, your incredible interview show on public radio and, of course, on streaming via podcast on the Maximum Fun Network every week, where you talk to incredible artists and creators from across the artistic spectrum.

What else is happening in your world?

Well, a couple of great interviews on Bullseye.

I mentioned Chris Estrada.

We also recently had Loudon Wainwright III on, and he did, he performed some songs for us.

And this week on the show, we have Billy Eichner.

Billy has a really hilarious romantic comedy out called Bros

that our friend Guy Branham is also in

and was a co-producer of.

And yeah, the movie's a hoot and Billy is, as always, a fascinating dude.

So I would check that out.

And then

we also have next week coming up an interview with this guy called Hua Shu, who folks might know as a staff writer for The New Yorker,

but one of my favorite culture writers forever and a day.

And he has a memoir out called Stay True, which is just breathtakingly beautiful.

So look forward to that.

And then over in the Put This On shop, John, it's Hat Central right now.

Put up so many hats.

Put up those hats.

Put your hats on.

I don't tolerate low-quality hats, John.

When I'm at the flea market or the vintage markets or whatever, there's a lot of garbage hats out there.

And I'm not messing with those.

Only really, really good hats in the Put This On shop.

So if you're buying a hat from us, know that you're getting a hat that

frankly is probably better than any hat you could buy new in 2022.

PutThisOnShop.com.

Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Salon Creeper, Hunter's Robe, Ivy Aram, Money Plant, Silver Vine,

Solomon Islands ivy, marble queen, devil's vine, devil's ivy.

These are not different kinds of plants.

These are but one kind of plant.

And because this is my verdict, I will not ask you, Alan, if you can name the one kind of plant.

I will tell you pothos.

All of those plants are simply pothos.

AKA epipremnum aureum, a species in the Arum family of plants native to the Mororaya and the Society Islands of French Polynesia.

That's right.

These pothos that you love so much, Alan, they're not Canadian at all.

They're from the tropics.

They're just hardier, hardier than these monsters, eh?

So let's set aside this whole, frankly, I think, bogus argument that you want to turn

your new home in Halifax into some kind of museum to Nova Scotian botany.

Tawney has explained and expressed that most decorative house plants

are

from areas of the world that are not the maritime provinces of Canada.

And whether that's true or not, I don't know, I don't go shopping for plants.

The plants that she's interested in are the ones that do come from the tropics and require some extra care.

Some extra, you know, not just to just throw a thing on a dorm room windowsill and water it every 90 days and it'll never die, but some kind of indoor shrub, but something a little bit more of a hot housey, flowery type of plant.

I don't know if these things flower, but you know what I'm saying.

That's the hobby that she enjoys.

It's the hobby she enjoys.

And it is very unusual, as you might know, if you listen to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, Alan, and recognize my brilliance and talk about it to your partner, as you claim.

It would be very unusual for me to rule against someone's passion and hobby.

Unless they lived in a 600-square-foot apartment with two rooms in Vancouver.

Because I'm going to say, I have to agree with my bailiff, Jesse Thorne.

These plants are lovely,

but their tendrils are starting to overtake things.

Tawny, I'm not quite as critical of their arrangement.

I appreciate the eclecticism of their arrangement and decor.

It seems fine enough to me, aside from that grody, empty yogurt container.

Tawny is exploring something here, but

I think that now that I have seen enough of your apartment through these teleconference cameras and the evidence, I would agree that the space in which Tawny is expressing her passion and practicing her hobby is not merely shared, but very shared.

And I am someone who does not have any kind of medical light sensitivity, but I definitely know when a light is on

in the living room, when I'm in my bedroom.

And sometimes

if I wake up at 3 a.m.

and there's a light on in the living room, that would be extremely distracting to me and it will make me feel unrested and nervous that maybe there's a home invasion situation going on or something.

And I have to go through a very, very deep internal debate about whether or not it is worth it to get out of bed and turn that light off.

And Alan, like you, I have some frustration with the people who leave the light on.

and don't turn it off.

Because as cogently and as well written as your opening statement was, you did not,

and

I ventured to say that if you had used this phrase, you would be walking away with this judgment

long before we got to any discussion.

You did not, quote, the settled law of this court that one should be mindful of the work one leaves for others.

Tawny,

there are two possibilities here.

One is that you are forgetting to turn out the grow lights and leaving that work for Alan to do, knowing that it annoys him, or two, you're leaving them on on purpose because you value the monsters A more than you value Alan, because you want them to have more light and you don't care that it poisons his eyes.

Either one of those situations is not okay in this court.

Now, all of this, however,

both my appreciation of your hobby, Tawny, and my appreciation of your arguing, Alan, and my feeling that

accommodation must be made to Alan in this apartment.

All of this is meaningless because your whole situation, your whole world is about to change.

You're going to leave Vancouver and go to

the wonderful maritime province of Nova Scotia.

And I hope very much for you.

And in fact, I order you to find a room in the house that you are going to buy or rent or acquire.

that can be, first of all, Tawny's office,

which, Tawny, you deserve to have an office if you're working from home

that is not a zone of the living room.

Since you're making this change, I think you should prioritize that.

And I think you should also, if you cannot find a house with a conservatory or greenhouse attached, you should make sure that that office can be a place where you can throw as many grow lights as you want into that room.

So long as the heat is tolerable for your work, I think you absolutely should pursue your hobby insofar as it does not invade upon the well-being of Alan or your dog.

I encourage you to get more plants and even trickier plants to raise so long as you have the room to raise them in.

Because another piece of settled law in this court is that the difference between a hoard and a collection is proper display.

And while I don't think that the plants have exactly reached hoard status the way my good friend and Bailiff Jesse Thorne has determined in your current apartment, you're verging on a plant takeover.

This is your hobby, and therefore, curation and tidiness and

containment has to be part of your plan and your hobby as well.

The last thing that I will say is that, Alan, the solution in my life to

people leaving lights on is that I can turn them off with my phone.

There is no clapper anymore, Alan.

Let's clap off to that whole idea.

I don't know whether you're a time traveler or whether you've been unconscious for a while,

but there are things called smart light bulbs, and they are programmable.

You control them through a hub.

I learned this from our friends Paul F.

Tompkins and Jenny Haddad Tompkins, co-hosts of the Great Stay F.

Homkins podcast and life.

They introduced me to this concept that you can get these networked LED bulbs that last forever.

They're not cheap.

I'll tell you this, they're not cheap, but they last for a long, long time.

Obviously, much more.

All LED lights last a lot longer than, and are much more energy efficient than any, any of the old fluorescent bulbs that my mom used to have clanging around in the basement.

But these, you put them in

whatever place you want to put them in,

and they all communicate to a hub, and you can turn them off from your phone one by one or as a group.

You can set them on timers so that, for example,

if there is a Monster A plant, Tawny, that you would like to have in a shared space, that you don't want to, I don't want you to have to put all of your plants in one room.

Do you know what I mean?

But you could have a grow light aimed at that plant and set a routine such that it goes on automatically from, say, 10 p.m.

to 5 a.m.

and then turns off.

And Alan will never know.

Alan will never know that that plant got all that extra light during the nighttime hours.

And they change colors.

So you could enjoy some of the benefits of a Spencer's gift style purple or red light vibe on your plants.

You can change the color scheme completely from day to night.

All of a sudden, you could go from a nice, normal house in Nova Scotia to Alan's weird dorm room from when he was a child.

All with the touch of a...

I'm not being sponsored by this.

I'm saying I use this product myself.

And

you can trust that my wife was a whole human being in her own right.

And I

do not see eye to eye on these programmable lights.

She thinks they're the dumbest thing in the world.

She thinks it's a waste of

time and energy.

She doesn't understand why the lights dim at certain times.

She's like, why don't we just turn them off and on?

And she's absolutely right.

It may not, they're not for everybody.

I enjoy them because

when she falls asleep and leaves her light on next to her, her, I just press a button and it turns off.

Just like that.

That said, in a situation like this in particular,

I think your lighting needs definitely

merit investigation into this technology and seeing

if it is going to be useful and affordable to you.

And while it pains me to do it, I suppose that I am actually ruling in Alan's favor here.

I really respect your hobby and I think the plants look beautiful, Tawny.

And I don't buy Alan's arguments about native Canadian plants or maritime plants or

the whole argument about energy efficiency because I think that we have ways of lighting now that

do not have as much of a footprint as we might have had.

It's enough that Alan just says, it's too bright.

It's too bright.

Who matters more?

Me or the plants?

Anybody who shares space with someone else, especially a small constrained space, has to be considerate of their needs, of their happiness as well.

And I'm very happy to hear that, A, you're probably moving to a space where you can share your passions for plants, Tawny, and darkness, Alan, a little bit more equitably and happily.

And B, that there is this technology that I think you would probably find, I mean, I don't know how it fits into your chaotic interior design ethos.

I know you just like to find cat tapestries by the side of the road, but with a little determination and a little curation, I think you can both live happily with all these plants until they come and get you.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Tawny, how are you?

Good.

Yeah, I think that's pretty fair.

I'm happy with it.

Alan, how are you feeling?

I'm super excited for Tawny to get her chance at curation and maybe even a greenhouse or something in the backyard.

That is not what he said.

But we could do that.

And, you know, a conservatory inside the house as well, maybe.

Alan's plan right now is to buy a bunch of seaweed and crabs or whatever they have and

whatever's native to Halifax.

We're just going to have lobsters running around the yard.

It's going to be cute.

I think that Alan would find it very

satisfying and exciting and perhaps a little bit intoxicating to have the power to just flip on and off lights with his phone at his own will.

So I'm excited about that too.

Well, Alan Tawney, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In a moment, we'll have swift justice, but our thanks now to at Irony Maiden for naming this week's episode habeas croppus.

That's somebody with a with a pun lifestyle.

If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter for the opportunity to do so at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

While you're there, you can also hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman-related tweets, hashtag JJ Ho,

and join the conversation over at the Maximum Fun subreddit at maximumfun.reddit.com.

Evidence and photos from the show, including those screenshots John took, are on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

You can follow us there.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat, who's filling in his producer this week.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with quick judgment.

Jared says, I'm a huge fan of the Iron Maiden song Empire of the Clouds.

I think it's the best and most beautiful piece ever written about airships.

My friend Joe says the song is too long, boring, and has no historical significance.

I seek your ruling that Empire of the Clouds is in fact the the best song ever performed on the topic of dirigibles.

Or airships of all kinds.

I had never heard this song before.

Speaking of irony, Maiden, it's by Iron Maiden from their album The Book of Souls.

It is 18 minutes long.

I have listened to some of it.

It's pretty good.

But it is literally about an airship disaster, specifically the crash of the British airship R-101,

which crashed in northern France in October 1930 during its maiden voyage.

It's a tragedy that not a lot of people know about, but Iron Maiden wants to bring it to the world.

And I'm going to say, you know, one of the pieces of settled law of this courtroom is one likes what one likes.

So I can't deny Jared's enjoyment of Empire of the Clouds, but Jared is going further to posit it is the best song about airships, blimps, dirigibles, semi-rigid dirigibles, semi-rigid airships.

And I don't know any other ones, and I would like to know what they are.

So I'm going to withhold judgment until you, I hope, the listener, send me more songs about blimps.

If you know about a song about a blimp or an airship or a Zeppelin or whatever,

send it to me.

Send me a link so I can listen to them.

And

I'm going to do a, depending on how many there are, I'm going to do like a March Madness style bracket competition until we can settle this once and for all.

Is Empire of the Clouds the best song ever performed on the topic of dirigibles?

You'll find out in the coming months or years of Judge John Hodgman, but I guarantee you, Jared, we'll get to the answer.

We're eager to hear about your disputes on any subject, no case too small.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ

H O.

Hey, John, before we go this week,

something big happened to me that I just wanted to mention on our way out the door here.

A lot of Judge John Hodgman listeners have heard

my dog Coco.

And

this was her last week.

So sorry.

She was almost 17 years old.

She lived with us for 15 years.

You know, she's been my best pal since maximum fun was

me

working by myself,

making

$10,000 a year in an apartment in Koreatown.

You know, I was really lonely back then and

she was my buddy and she's lived with us through

something, I think it's five houses and three children.

And

she was very, very special.

And

a lot of, I shared, I shared her passing on social media.

A lot of Judge Sean Hodgman listeners told me about their pets and told me about

hearing me talk about Coco.

And

I'm grateful to all those people and to pals like you, John,

who have been so kind about her and to me.

So yeah, so

thanks to Coco for all that she's

she gave

me and you know

I honestly, I don't know if I could have done all this stuff that is max fun without that dog.

So, um,

you know, I got really lucky to

have her in my life.

So,

um,

yeah, just saying goodbye and, and thank you to her.

She was a very good dog, Jesse, and you're a very good friend to dogs and humans.

That's all.

Okay, we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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