I Was Dreaming When I Wrote This, So Sue Me if I Judge Too Fast LIVE in Portland, ME!

Speaker 1 It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
With me is the great Judge John Hodgman.

Speaker 2 Hello.

Speaker 1 We've got a brand new episode recorded live on stage in your neck of the woods, John, Portland, Maine.

Speaker 3 We talked about being naked at home, glasses, both drinking and wearing, doing needlecraft in bed, and writing dream sequences in your short stories.

Speaker 3 And we were joined by our friends Joel Mann and the night and day jazz trio, right, Joel? You were there. I was there.
And it was a good time, right?

Speaker 3 Wonderful time. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Let's go to the stage at the State Theater in Portland, Maine.

Speaker 1 People of Portland, Maine, you asked us for live justice, and we are here to deliver it. The court of Judge John Hodgman is now in session.

Speaker 1 Let's start our first case. Please welcome to the stage Emily and Nikki.

Speaker 1 Emily brings the case against her husband, Nikki. Emily likes to embroider in bed, but Nikki wants to keep needles as far away from their bed as possible.

Speaker 6 Who's right, who's wrong?

Speaker 1 Only one can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom.

Speaker 7 Emily and Nikki may be seated.

Speaker 8 Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 10 Who seeks justice in my fake court?

Speaker 11 I do, Your Honor.

Speaker 12 You would be Emily.

Speaker 13 That is I. Well, tell me about your hobby.

Speaker 5 It's embroidery, right?

Speaker 14 Yes, I embroider, I knit, I quilt, I mend. I also sell some of the work I make, so it's more than a hobby.

Speaker 18 Okay, do you have a website you want to buzz market?

Speaker 14 My business is Bellear. Bellearth.

Speaker 20 I don't know what that was, an audio problem.

Speaker 21 Try it again.

Speaker 14 Bell Earth Studio.

Speaker 21 Say it again.

Speaker 2 Bell Earth.

Speaker 22 No, honestly, I do want to know what.

Speaker 14 Bell Earth Studio.

Speaker 23 Bell Earth.

Speaker 14 My last name is Belle Hearth. It's German.
It's hard to pronounce, and that's always how it takes.

Speaker 24 It's great for a URL.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 14 So Belle Earth is how I teach people to pronounce my last name.

Speaker 11 I have a question.

Speaker 5 Nikki, you can probably take a walk.

Speaker 28 Embroidery versus cross-stitching.

Speaker 29 What's the difference?

Speaker 30 Super different.

Speaker 31 Yeah, go on.

Speaker 14 Cross-stitching comes with a sort of interface with a grid on it.

Speaker 11 You can sort of work within that grid embroidery.

Speaker 24 Oh, right.

Speaker 32 It's got a picture on the thing, and so you're filling it in with little, okay, what's the little paint by numbers.

Speaker 11 A little paint by numbers.

Speaker 22 I should tell that to my wife as a whole human in her own right.

Speaker 14 Yeah, embroidery more free form.

Speaker 36 What kind of things do you embroider?

Speaker 14 I do sashiko embroidering, so it's a Japanese style of embroidering. I use it to create.

Speaker 30 Is that when you smash the pottery and put it together with gold?

Speaker 34 Exactly, with the needle.

Speaker 23 No,

Speaker 14 it's like quilting together different things. I naturally dye fabric and then I do these patterns on it that I make into pillows or I will use to like mend a quilt in this case.

Speaker 27 That's very impressive.

Speaker 37 Nikki, I can see why you don't want to share a bed with this person.

Speaker 38 Nikki, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to malign you.

Speaker 37 You haven't even had a chance to speak for yourself.

Speaker 30 What is your side of the story?

Speaker 39 I mean,

Speaker 40 I just fundamentally don't think that there should be super sharp things in the bed

Speaker 40 in case that they escape from her

Speaker 17 and end up in me.

Speaker 44 I see.

Speaker 11 And embroidery, you use a sharp needle.

Speaker 14 Well, specifically, the case, the actual incident that led me to bring this case is that I've been mending a quilt that we have.

Speaker 15 We have a puppy who would sometimes make holes in our quilt.

Speaker 14 And I do the sashiko embroidering patches over these holes.

Speaker 24 And I was using pins to hold the patches down before I would embroider.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 10 The pins are sharp is what you're saying.

Speaker 14 The pins and the needle were sharp.

Speaker 46 Yes.

Speaker 47 And what style of pin are you using?

Speaker 8 Safety pin or danger pin?

Speaker 12 Danger pin.

Speaker 48 Yeah.

Speaker 14 But with the big colorful circle on top.

Speaker 25 So

Speaker 40 I came up to bed one evening and I was about to get into bed and Emily was like, oh wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Speaker 49 I lost a needle.

Speaker 40 Like, let's find it together. Sure.

Speaker 6 And we can't see it.

Speaker 23 And do you sleep in a haystack?

Speaker 45 Yes or no? What did you say?

Speaker 46 Do you sleep in a haystack?

Speaker 42 Yes or no?

Speaker 50 Indeed, no. All right.

Speaker 18 Regular, regular bed. Yeah.

Speaker 38 Probably a mattress you got from a podcast ad.

Speaker 51 Probably did, yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's a mattress, so you probably did.

Speaker 52 Has it happened that you've been stuck then?

Speaker 40 Not in bed, but yes, on the couch.

Speaker 5 Yes, in life.

Speaker 40 I sat on a pin.

Speaker 8 You sat on a pin,

Speaker 53 one of your pins?

Speaker 14 This was many years ago, and I don't have a distinct memory of it.

Speaker 49 That's convenient, isn't it?

Speaker 14 But for a larger context, I

Speaker 14 have suffered a traumatic brain injury in the last five years. It's caused me to be most to have a lot of bed rest.
So a lot of my craft.

Speaker 26 How can I get some of that?

Speaker 27 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Hit your head super hard.

Speaker 25 No, I do not recommend. I'm sorry that

Speaker 25 you do not recognize it. And I couldn't read.

Speaker 14 I'm still rehabbing. I'm much better, but I was multiple years stuck at home, not allowed to read, not allowed to watch TV.
And so handling.

Speaker 5 Nikki wouldn't allow you to read or watch TV.

Speaker 14 Nikki, also my doctor.

Speaker 14 And so I was stuck in bed, and doing handcrafts was like super important to me. And I still have times where that's important to me.
So I really want to be able to do my crafts in bed. And

Speaker 14 I knew I'd lost the pin. We communicated and no one got hurt.

Speaker 13 Did Nikki, did you ban needles in bed formally?

Speaker 17 I did.

Speaker 40 Unfortunately, she has, without my knowledge, been using them in bed since this incident.

Speaker 14 And no one's one's been hurt.

Speaker 1 This is why we need to eliminate the civil service.

Speaker 11 When you banned the needles in bed,

Speaker 36 what did you go to the town office or something?

Speaker 13 Did you let Emily know that you had banned needles in bed?

Speaker 6 I think I asked her. Yeah.
Well, okay, that's different than banning.

Speaker 55 Yeah. You said, please don't use needles in bed.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 And Emily, did you agree at that time?

Speaker 14 I did, but I also used some needles to make this sweater, which I would argue is not only

Speaker 14 benefiting him, but all of us, because it's so beautiful.

Speaker 5 Nikki, do I have...

Speaker 46 May I touch your sweater? Yes, you may.

Speaker 48 Ow!

Speaker 48 Shit!

Speaker 26 It's full of needles.

Speaker 36 No, it's a beautiful sweater.

Speaker 40 If you were to judge in my favor, I would not ask you to ban knitting needles. They are not very sharp.

Speaker 44 Sure, that's true.

Speaker 57 But they gouge pretty good.

Speaker 22 Don't ask how I know.

Speaker 8 But they're probably less dangerous, right?

Speaker 58 Indeed.

Speaker 13 So how did you feel when you learned that Emily had gone against your ban?

Speaker 45 Or shall we put it more nicely, your request?

Speaker 40 I was surprised, but also happy to know that she hadn't lost another one.

Speaker 46 Emily, is there anywhere else you can work on these projects other than bed?

Speaker 14 Sometimes I work on the couch.

Speaker 35 That's a danger zone too.

Speaker 15 That's also a danger zone.

Speaker 14 And sometimes I have a small little studio space that I work in, but specifically this quilt project, it's the only space in the house I can get the quilt flat on

Speaker 34 and work on it.

Speaker 30 So you're not using the bed for bedrest in this case, you're using it as a workstation.

Speaker 14 It is my mending station.

Speaker 11 All right.

Speaker 27 I'll tell you what.

Speaker 30 I've got to keep this justice swift because we're in bulk justice mode.

Speaker 53 I will not deny you

Speaker 38 your right to work on projects in bed so long as you patrol the needles. I will say that your bed is for your marital companionship, not for your arts and crafts.

Speaker 11 And I will also say that if your husband asks you not to use needles and you agree, you actually have to agree and not do it.

Speaker 36 So I'm going to fine you $1,000.

Speaker 36 Oh dear.

Speaker 11 Sentence suspended, of course.

Speaker 35 You're on probation.

Speaker 62 You can work on your crafts in bed, but you absolutely have to patrol those needles.

Speaker 37 And what I ask you to do, and no longer put the quilt on the bed, you got to find another work area for that.

Speaker 19 Maybe go to someone else's house or something like that.

Speaker 14 Someone else's bed. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 10 Go to someone else's bed.

Speaker 46 You've driven her into another person's bed, Nikki.

Speaker 6 I hope you're happy.

Speaker 55 And I order that your next craft be a little doll of Nikki so you have a place to put your needles when you're done for the night.

Speaker 35 This is the sound of a gavel. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Emily and Nikki.

Speaker 1 Please welcome to the stage Sam and Charlotte.

Speaker 1 Sam thinks his wife Charlotte needs glasses, but Charlotte says she has perfect vision.

Speaker 35 The eye doctor told her so eight years ago.

Speaker 1 Sam wants a second opinion.

Speaker 65 Judge Hodgman.

Speaker 10 Welcome to the court of Judge Sean Hodgman.

Speaker 60 You may be seated, Sam and Charlotte.

Speaker 35 Sam,

Speaker 36 you bring this case.

Speaker 7 I do. You think that Charlotte needs glasses.

Speaker 45 I definitely do.

Speaker 10 What is your career, sir?

Speaker 11 So when we started learning.

Speaker 6 What is your career, sir?

Speaker 48 Sorry?

Speaker 29 What is your...

Speaker 12 Maybe you need a hearing aid. Maybe.

Speaker 35 Is this getting through to you?

Speaker 1 Much better.

Speaker 16 Do you have an occupation or a vocation?

Speaker 41 I do. I work in politics.

Speaker 42 I see.

Speaker 35 Yes. What fun for you?

Speaker 63 Yes.

Speaker 32 Are you perhaps a part-time ophthalmologist?

Speaker 22 I am not.

Speaker 38 Can you spell that word?

Speaker 22 Probably. If you can, I will rule in your favor right now.

Speaker 18 O-P-T-H-A.

Speaker 42 Wrong.

Speaker 57 O-P-H-T-H-A-L.

Speaker 48 Wow. M-O-L.

Speaker 19 O-G-I-S-T.

Speaker 6 It's a tricky one. That is.
It's a tricky one.

Speaker 26 It's a stumper.

Speaker 23 Surprising. All right.

Speaker 61 So

Speaker 10 you are not medically licensed to diagnose your wife's vision, and yet you have made observations that her vision might be declining, correct?

Speaker 5 That is correct.

Speaker 41 And I wear glasses for the podcast listeners, so I have a lot of personal experience with how big a difference they make.

Speaker 22 Not when listening to podcasts, I'm sure.

Speaker 41 For the people who can't see me, I'm saying.

Speaker 31 No, no, I understand. When he says

Speaker 1 he wears glasses for the podcast listener, what he means is that he wears glasses so that the four-eyed nerd who listens to podcasts can relate to him.

Speaker 31 That's exactly.

Speaker 36 What have you observed in Charlotte's vision or lack thereof?

Speaker 55 What is it giving you concern, suggesting that she needs vision correction?

Speaker 41 Yeah, so what originated all of this was that when we moved in together around eight years ago, it became quickly apparent that Charlotte could not read things on the TV.

Speaker 41 Not just the subtitles, those were okay. But when we were looking at what to watch and there are the different menus and descriptions of things, she couldn't read them at all.

Speaker 19 Is that true?

Speaker 46 Do you have difficulty reading, not subtitles, but other

Speaker 66 captions and stuff?

Speaker 14 Netflix blurbs, I couldn't read those on TV.

Speaker 1 Right, you're really missing out. They're really beautiful writing.

Speaker 30 It says here that you also have difficulty reading the oven clock.

Speaker 19 Is that true?

Speaker 41 Yeah, digital clock. Sometimes she'll ask me what it says when we're both in the kitchen standing next to each other.

Speaker 14 That's just laziness.

Speaker 25 Okay.

Speaker 46 I'll allow that.

Speaker 35 We'll dismiss that evidence right away.

Speaker 19 You should be lazy.

Speaker 6 Have you ever worn glasses?

Speaker 14 I had a pair of glasses when I was a teenager.

Speaker 10 And then you stopped wearing them.

Speaker 60 You saw this eye doctor eight years ago.

Speaker 30 What did they say?

Speaker 14 The eye doctor, when I told him that I couldn't read the descriptions on Netflix, told him that I had, quote, unreasonable expectations for what the human eye can accomplish.

Speaker 39 And

Speaker 17 wow.

Speaker 1 Imagine if your cardiologist told you that.

Speaker 46 Totally.

Speaker 7 I would love to hear that from my personal trainer.

Speaker 69 If I were paying an eye doctor for that, I might want a bit of a refund.

Speaker 1 But you bought this, right?

Speaker 14 Well, he also told me to get a bigger TV. So

Speaker 14 we got a bigger TV and the problem is solved, in my opinion.

Speaker 13 There's something here about bagging your glasses?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I had a very old pair of glasses and I showed them to him and he said, bag them.

Speaker 8 Bag them.

Speaker 45 Bag them. That is, throw them away.

Speaker 5 Throw them away.

Speaker 66 And you've never worn glasses since.

Speaker 26 Never, never.

Speaker 1 Did you go to an eye doctor or did you go to a character on a police procedural?

Speaker 46 When you first heard this story about this eye doctor,

Speaker 45 Sam, what did you think?

Speaker 64 I definitely think he was a quack.

Speaker 18 I don't know how to do it.

Speaker 26 Should we do a bus market for him, too?

Speaker 14 I don't remember his name. It was a long time ago.
That's true.

Speaker 5 Eight years, that's true.

Speaker 26 It's a lifetime. I mean, it really is.

Speaker 9 Charlotte, have you noticed a difference in your vision since you stopped wearing your glasses?

Speaker 67 Not particularly.

Speaker 46 Really?

Speaker 21 I mean, I don't know what your prescription was.

Speaker 46 Are you near-sighted, far-sighted? What?

Speaker 14 Well, I have one eye that can see really good distance and one that can see pretty good close-up. So I solve most problems by closing one of them.

Speaker 22 May I recommend an incredible eye patch that you move from eye to eye?

Speaker 31 I would love that, yes.

Speaker 47 Sam, Charlotte's the one who has to tolerate the discomfort of not reading these things.

Speaker 33 How does this affect you?

Speaker 18 Why don't you just let her enjoy her vanity eye patch or whatever she's trying to do?

Speaker 41 Well, for the record, I would be happy with an order for an eye patch as well.

Speaker 25 So ordered.

Speaker 41 But I do think it impacts her quality of life.

Speaker 41 It is partly that she asks me to read things, and I'd like her to be able to read them for myself.

Speaker 41 But recently, we went to see Book of Mormon, and she was unable to see a lot of the people on stage, and I could see them very clearly.

Speaker 41 And so, I was thinking that she would enjoy things like plays and also a lot of other things in life better if she could see better.

Speaker 1 Could I suggest have you thought about getting a bigger Book of Mormon?

Speaker 10 Does it seem like it would be a solution?

Speaker 14 Just to be clear, I just couldn't see their faces very well, so I think we should have gotten better seats.

Speaker 44 Wow.

Speaker 38 Did you see Book of Mormon in New York, or were you watching it from Portsmouth, New Hampshire?

Speaker 14 It was here in Portland, Maine.

Speaker 23 Oh, in Portland.

Speaker 66 Oh, in Portland, Maine. I see.

Speaker 22 Look, I am not an ophthalmologist of any kind, never mind a quack.

Speaker 53 And yet I am going to, I do want to evaluate your vision.

Speaker 17 So, Charlotte, could you turn to the screen and take a look at this chart?

Speaker 48 Oh, no.

Speaker 20 Could you read the lines, the letters above the green bar?

Speaker 31 Do you see the green bar?

Speaker 14 I can see the green bar, yes.

Speaker 42 You're not colorblind?

Speaker 14 No, I'm not, but he is, actually.

Speaker 19 Okay, well, luckily he's not on trial.

Speaker 54 Yes, I can see those letters.

Speaker 38 Would you read them out for me, please?

Speaker 39 P-S-W-O.

Speaker 44 From the top, please.

Speaker 39 A-G-A-L-L-O-N-O-F-S-C-A-L-L-O-P-S-W-E-R-U.

Speaker 14 I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 And what does that spell?

Speaker 48 All right.

Speaker 54 I don't know.

Speaker 57 Do you not.

Speaker 58 Okay, that's fine.

Speaker 42 Can you read the letters?

Speaker 14 Oh,

Speaker 14 a gallon of

Speaker 14 calops?

Speaker 66 Scallops.

Speaker 45 Scallops.

Speaker 6 W-E-R-U, our co-sponsors for the evening.

Speaker 24 There we go.

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 14 Took me a minute there.

Speaker 17 Can you read the letters below the green bar, the two lines there?

Speaker 14 Bring back scrapple.

Speaker 17 At the Hannafords.

Speaker 14 At the Hanafords.

Speaker 27 Yes, that's...

Speaker 25 Sure.

Speaker 46 Joel, they used to have Scrapple at the Hannafords near my house.

Speaker 30 Then they just took it away for some reason.

Speaker 67 Used to have it in the freezer case.

Speaker 38 Bring back scrapple.

Speaker 46 Does anyone in the audience have a brick of scrapple or an eye patch?

Speaker 60 I'll take either one.

Speaker 10 Just bring it to the foot of the steak.

Speaker 32 Well, Sam, I'm sorry to say that Charlotte nailed that exam pretty well.

Speaker 19 Not only did she see all the letters, but she was able to put them together and read my secret messages.

Speaker 46 I would say, however, though, Charlotte, you should go and see an eye doctor for real.

Speaker 19 It's up to you whether you want to wear glasses, but I would ask you to consult a doctor who actually wants to do their job and make sure that your eye health is good because there have been people in my life who have had detached retinas all of a sudden and you just want to keep on top of that because it's a part of your body that you rely upon.

Speaker 8 In that case, I find in Sam's favor.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Sam and Charlotte.

Speaker 70 You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Speaker 70 Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Speaker 1 Please welcome to the stage Sophia and Shira.

Speaker 1 Shira loves to be naked in the privacy of her own home. Her Her girlfriend Sophia has no problem with this except for one thing.
Sophia can't stand it when Shira sits naked on the couch.

Speaker 1 Shira just wants to be free.

Speaker 47 Sophia and Shira, welcome.

Speaker 61 You may be seated.

Speaker 17 May I ask, who here is Shira and who's Sophia?

Speaker 46 I'm Sophia. You are Sophia.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 59 you are...

Speaker 16 You are the non-naked one.

Speaker 5 I mean, you're both clothed for the listeners right now.

Speaker 20 We are. We are clothed.

Speaker 32 Shira, you like to lounge in the nude.

Speaker 14 Who doesn't?

Speaker 35 I think I've heard everything I need to.

Speaker 6 Oh, that's true.

Speaker 11 Jesse, you do enjoy wearing clothes and knowing about clothes.

Speaker 26 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 35 Clothes can be wonderful.

Speaker 52 So, Sophaya, you have an issue with Shira's nakedness.

Speaker 73 Tell me how this started.

Speaker 14 Well, it really starts when Shira comes home from a long, sweaty bike ride.

Speaker 14 And she comes in the house and she strips off her bike shorts and she sits right down on the couch

Speaker 14 and I just think about all the absorption happening

Speaker 14 and I don't love it

Speaker 47 what

Speaker 22 what kind of couch are we talking about here what is the surface is it plush it's like spongy upholstery like a not leather for example it's not easily wiped it's no from sweat on right okay it's it's also a second-hand couch which

Speaker 23 so it's full of secretions already so who cares true

Speaker 1 much more intimate secretions than mere bike sweat

Speaker 46 possible shira tell us about the pleasure that you get sitting naked on the couch

Speaker 14 it's a summertime pleasure yeah go on

Speaker 63 i don't know

Speaker 14 you go on a bike ride and it's like the bike shorts you got to get them off.

Speaker 14 And then, what do you mean? You sit on like the uncomfortable wooden kitchen chair when you get home? He's like, no, you.

Speaker 42 Yeah.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I'll say this.

Speaker 46 I don't exercise very much,

Speaker 46 but I do sweat a lot.

Speaker 14 I'm not the party who sweats a lot.

Speaker 42 Oh.

Speaker 67 This is true.

Speaker 37 You sweat more than Shira does.

Speaker 24 Way more.

Speaker 68 Well, what I was going to say is that when I am very sweaty,

Speaker 19 me personally, I don't find it refreshing to get as close to upholstery as possible

Speaker 37 is there something about maybe you don't see it this way but is there something about the transgression of being naked in furniture in your own home that just feels fun and empowering to you or is there something else at work Definitely wouldn't have been acceptable in my childhood home too.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so maybe there's a freedom there.

Speaker 56 Now that you're an adult, you just want to do whatever you want.

Speaker 22 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 60 And you don't need mommy, Sophia, telling you what to do.

Speaker 14 Okay, well, it should be said that when this first came up months ago, and we had this discussion, and then I haven't sat on the couch without any clothes on ever since.

Speaker 8 Yeah, but it's wintertime now.

Speaker 14 No, it started in the summer.

Speaker 40 Oh, okay.

Speaker 14 It started in the summer, and we had this conversation, and

Speaker 14 I've been at least underwear ever since.

Speaker 14 She's been abstaining.

Speaker 19 So it sounds like the whole thing has been resolved.

Speaker 59 Well, no, I was hoping you'd rule in my favor.

Speaker 48 All right.

Speaker 47 Sophia, the couch is secondhand.

Speaker 46 It's not pristine.

Speaker 29 I'm sure it's a lovely piece of furniture, but it's also a piece of junk at this point.

Speaker 6 Why not let your partner just enjoy themselves?

Speaker 14 Oh, it just icks me out.

Speaker 14 And think about anybody else who comes over. They don't know that Shira's been sitting taking part of the fun.

Speaker 14 And they have clothes on.

Speaker 1 Just like you didn't know about all the juices that had been placed in the couch before you obtained it.

Speaker 62 If She-Ra were freshly showered, would that make a difference,

Speaker 14 Savaya? It's a really good question. Thank you.
I think it's better.

Speaker 22 Someone wrote it down for me.

Speaker 8 Thanks, Jennifer Marmer. Great question.

Speaker 14 I think it's better and like less offensive, but I still would wish that Shira would have underwear on. That's my bare minimum for clothing on the couch.

Speaker 47 Is this compromise acceptable to you, Shira?

Speaker 14 I can live with it. Can I just share one other piece of evidence?

Speaker 62 Yes, of course, please.

Speaker 14 Sophia has shared her deep desire to sit on the couch after a bike ride naked with me before.

Speaker 47 But I have. Is this so?

Speaker 44 Yes, it's so.

Speaker 60 Sophia, how do you respond to that?

Speaker 44 Is that true?

Speaker 14 It's true. I admit I have felt the urge and I have held myself back.
I've sat on the rug instead.

Speaker 72 We're gonna

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgman,

Speaker 1 we're gonna need that

Speaker 1 ophthalmologist

Speaker 1 from the crime procedural to bring a black light over to their house.

Speaker 38 Absolutely.

Speaker 21 Was that exciting to sit on the rug, nude?

Speaker 42 Maybe a little. Not too much?

Speaker 55 Do you resent Shira, her freedom

Speaker 37 and imagination, and just going for it?

Speaker 45 I'll let that silence speak.

Speaker 68 One last question before I make my verdict.

Speaker 69 Do you have a dog or a cat? Cat.

Speaker 14 Desdemona.

Speaker 25 Fantastic.

Speaker 17 Does Desdemona wear diapers when hanging on the couch?

Speaker 14 She does not.

Speaker 37 I think it's pretty clear that anyone can be nude on this couch if they want.

Speaker 46 Out of consideration for your beloved Shira, I would suggest that you put a towel down on the couch

Speaker 9 just to

Speaker 55 because you don't want your partner being skeeved.

Speaker 46 And by the way, She-Ra, you should sit naked on that couch.

Speaker 27 But here's the thing.

Speaker 35 Even if you want to and you don't do it, don't let Shira call you a hypocrite.

Speaker 66 Because the truth is, we're all fucking hypocrites.

Speaker 26 Doesn't prove anything.

Speaker 9 I find in Shira's favor plus talent.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Sophia and Shira.

Speaker 27 Portland, Maine.

Speaker 1 Are you ready for

Speaker 1 mega justice?

Speaker 1 Let's bring out our litigants. Please welcome to the stage Emily and Judd.

Speaker 1 Tonight's case. I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I judge too fast.

Speaker 1 Emily was previously a litigant at our live show here in Portland in 2016. Now she's back for more justice.
She and her friend Judd are in a local writing group.

Speaker 1 Emily likes to write fiction that includes dream sequences. Judd thinks thinks dream sequences are cheating.

Speaker 1 He wants to ban dream sequences from all writing.

Speaker 6 Who's right, who's wrong?

Speaker 1 Only one can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and delivers an obscure cultural reference.

Speaker 12 Never talk

Speaker 11 about how you slept.

Speaker 29 Nobody cares.

Speaker 38 Don't talk about your health either.

Speaker 56 Nobody cares.

Speaker 31 Root talk.

Speaker 16 Root talk is when people tell you how they arrived or how they came, how they got on the road, which road, how long it took.

Speaker 22 That is the top of my list for what you don't talk about.

Speaker 10 And also, your dreams.

Speaker 29 Nobody cares about your dreams.

Speaker 46 Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Speaker 1 Emily and Judd, 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

Speaker 1 yes i do do you swear to abide by judge john hodgman's ruling despite the fact that he dreams of electric sheep

Speaker 52 i do what is it what does it even mean judge hodgman you may proceed emily and judd you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this courtroom.

Speaker 61 Emily, nice to see you again. Welcome back to the court.

Speaker 45 I'll let Judd guess first because he's new here.

Speaker 43 Judd, what's your guess? That's someone's mother on an episode of This American Life talking about the seven or eight things she doesn't want to hear about.

Speaker 9 That's an interesting guess, Judd.

Speaker 22 Do you have a guess, Emily?

Speaker 14 I think it was Andy Rooney.

Speaker 54 No.

Speaker 21 And, Judd, I have to say, you got it exactly right.

Speaker 4 Almost.

Speaker 62 It was specifically seven things, not seven or eight.

Speaker 55 And you did not name the year in which this episode came out, which was 2013, a year that I'm feeling very nostalgic for.

Speaker 10 You did not mention that it was Maria Matheson as told to her daughter, this American Life and serial producer, Sarah Koenig, in the episode entitled The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About.

Speaker 18 These are the topics, as you identified, in Sarah's mom's world, should be avoided at all costs because they are boring and nobody cares.

Speaker 8 You can talk about them among families, perhaps, such as when Sarah asked her mom, well, what if I get sick and I want to talk about my health?

Speaker 60 Do you not care? And she replied, the mom replied, no, I care.

Speaker 17 And I'd say, well, I'm terribly sorry, you poor thing.

Speaker 10 And then I'd forget about it and go on with my life, as most people would.

Speaker 69 That, by the way, spot on, great guess.

Speaker 30 I wish I could give it to you, but we got a show to do.

Speaker 11 so you will forgive me for not offering you a summary judgment, but I'm going to give you a

Speaker 30 bit of a head start to make your case.

Speaker 52 What's going on here?

Speaker 5 Well, dreams are boring, and no one wants to hear about them.

Speaker 43 They're tedious and non-narrative, but I think the my real objection is that all the goodwill you built up just died in my heart.

Speaker 8 Let me turn to Emily for a second here, and then I'll give you a chance to make your case.

Speaker 31 Yeah.

Speaker 73 Emily, last time you were here, you had your friend Danny.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Danny seemed really nice.

Speaker 46 What was that case that was involved?

Speaker 22 That involved not a writing group, but a

Speaker 27 reading series.

Speaker 45 A reading series called.

Speaker 58 Word Portland.

Speaker 46 And that was Ghost Set a Tip Jar, right?

Speaker 8 And it was about whether or not to charge for the reading series.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 37 And I said, your work is worth money and compensation.

Speaker 45 You should charge for it.

Speaker 12 Ultimately, yes. And you won, didn't you?

Speaker 22 I won live. You won live, but not in life?

Speaker 14 There was a recorded episode where Danny won and you overturned it

Speaker 14 in my favor, in the live.

Speaker 45 Well, I don't remember these things.

Speaker 14 That's why I'm telling you.

Speaker 15 Thank you.

Speaker 6 I appreciate it.

Speaker 38 So now you're back again with Judd, who's very much a smarty pants.

Speaker 56 A little intimidated, frankly.

Speaker 11 Emily, tell me about this writing group that you and Judd are in.

Speaker 14 So we

Speaker 14 have been meeting meeting roughly monthly with some gaps, but roughly monthly for about seven years.

Speaker 6 A group of about how many people?

Speaker 14 Four to five. It's been four consistently for the past couple years.

Speaker 68 And are you writing novels, short stories?

Speaker 14 It started out as novel writing, and we've drifted a little, so sometimes it's short stories, sometimes essays, but fiction, narrative.

Speaker 42 Remember, for the most part.

Speaker 54 Okay, right.

Speaker 38 And

Speaker 53 are you working on something now?

Speaker 54 I am.

Speaker 37 And does it involve a dream sequence?

Speaker 14 The current project does not involve dreams. I don't always write about dreams.

Speaker 35 No, no, of course.

Speaker 67 You have a wide repertoire.

Speaker 11 But in some of your work you have

Speaker 27 dreams, roots, all of the other things.

Speaker 46 Fruit talk, dreams,

Speaker 31 right, exactly.

Speaker 55 But in some of your work, you do have dream sequences.

Speaker 8 Yes. And Judd, why do you hate Emily's dreams?

Speaker 43 Fiction's job is to represent life, to take our reality and skew it somehow, to make it more more visible, more real, more to help us understand the human condition.

Speaker 1 And so you have all the tools available to you.

Speaker 37 You're saying humans don't dream.

Speaker 43 Humans in real life do dream, but on the page, you don't need dreams to do something dreamlike or otherworldly. Indeed, your whole project is to do something dreamlike or otherworldly.

Speaker 35 But wait a minute.

Speaker 8 If you have a character in a piece of fiction and that character has a dream and the character talks about the dream, maybe in this a first-person narration.

Speaker 35 Oh, that's a dream.

Speaker 17 Is that not real life?

Speaker 43 The existence of dreams is is different than the portrayal of a dream sequence on the page.

Speaker 55 What specifically?

Speaker 44 I'll give you an example.

Speaker 6 John,

Speaker 72 your wife, who of course is a whole human being in her own right, is an English teacher.

Speaker 6 That's true.

Speaker 1 Has she ever taught the famous short story, The Public Life of Walter Mitty?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, so no dream segments.

Speaker 6 No dreams, no dreams whatsoever.

Speaker 35 No inner life at all.

Speaker 48 That's right.

Speaker 67 What specifically, what piece of writing of Emily's did you have an issue with?

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, look, this is a writing group, right?

Speaker 6 You have to speak it. It is a writing group.

Speaker 25 It is a writing group.

Speaker 14 In judge defense, this is a long-standing argument. So it's been a few years since the initial dream sequence pieces.

Speaker 19 Oh, he didn't think that he had to do his homework before he came to class today?

Speaker 25 Did I think about it? Did you have a question?

Speaker 26 I have a blanket argument.

Speaker 43 Emily is a wonderful writer.

Speaker 43 I take no objection to her work other than the inclusion of dream sequences, which are unnecessary and pointless.

Speaker 22 But

Speaker 8 you're not answering the question,

Speaker 10 is there a specific dream sequence that Emily wrote, for example, that illustrates bad writing, I guess?

Speaker 43 No.

Speaker 6 There's not a specific dream sequence.

Speaker 26 All right, all right.

Speaker 6 It's just the existence of any dream sequence.

Speaker 38 Would you say that you are in the majority in the writing group of people who feel like that?

Speaker 23 There's a group of four.

Speaker 43 We're divided right down the middle. Right down the middle.

Speaker 30 So today we're going to decide

Speaker 11 whether to ban dreams from writing group forever.

Speaker 43 Well, from all fiction, I think, written by anybody, anywhere. That's my understanding.

Speaker 22 I'm not sure that that's my remit,

Speaker 56 but I'll do what I can.

Speaker 20 I do have George R.

Speaker 46 Martin's telephone number.

Speaker 37 I don't know if there are any dreams.

Speaker 43 And I mean, I'm sure not.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 55 Truly, your assurance is making me very nervous.

Speaker 54 But I do take your point in the sense that, you know, I do dream, and all of my dreams are boring and dumb.

Speaker 73 In fiction and in film, I presume you are against dream sequences in film as well for the same reason.

Speaker 55 Yes.

Speaker 44 Those dream sequences often have heavy portent and are highly symbolic of something that's going on in their life, whereas my dreams dreams are mostly like, yeah, I was walking down 7th Avenue and then I went home.

Speaker 56 That's the end of my dream.

Speaker 21 But, Jesse, you know what I'm talking about, right? Dreams are rarely representational in the way they are in fiction and so forth.

Speaker 6 Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1 I think often they're just sort of like transactional or just processing little things that you're worried about, whatever.

Speaker 38 Yeah, like I'm going to have a terrible nightmare about you tonight, Judd.

Speaker 31 Yeah. Do not write about it.

Speaker 22 Not even in my dream journal.

Speaker 1 Honestly. That is the appropriate place.
Honestly, what blessed relief it would be if all our nightmares tonight were about Judd.

Speaker 31 Yes, it's true.

Speaker 38 You're the villain Gotham needs.

Speaker 17 No, I'm sorry, Judd.

Speaker 32 I don't mean to pick on you.

Speaker 38 Emily,

Speaker 21 when this comes up in Writing Group,

Speaker 33 it's divided.

Speaker 17 Judd, when you read a dream sequence, do you offer critique on it or do you just skip over it?

Speaker 43 Oh, no, I offer critique. I think my point is that there's always some other way to do whatever you're trying to accomplish in the dream.

Speaker 66 You have all the tools of fiction available to you.

Speaker 64 Go on.

Speaker 43 Well, again, reality on the page does not have to mirror our reality. If you want to create something dreamlike or surreal or something.

Speaker 9 The work itself is a dream.

Speaker 50 Exactly.

Speaker 43 That's what we're doing. We're trying to create an illusion on the page.
So why needlessly bring in in this other illusory element?

Speaker 13 Emily, have you ever had a dream within a dream?

Speaker 38 Have you ever woken up or thought you woken up?

Speaker 46 You've woken up and it's still a dream?

Speaker 27 Yes. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 53 Pretty cool. Was Nathan Lamont in your dream?

Speaker 14 I don't know who that is, so maybe.

Speaker 37 He's someone I knew in high school.

Speaker 19 I think I was in high school and I woke up and Nathan Lamont was standing ominously in my bedroom.

Speaker 6 I said, what are you doing here?

Speaker 19 And then I woke up again and he wasn't there.

Speaker 6 Now, that's that's a dream within a dream or a cover memory for alien abduction.

Speaker 16 I don't know.

Speaker 48 And would you. I'm sorry.

Speaker 43 I was just going to say, not great story material. I wouldn't write it down.
I wouldn't write it down.

Speaker 31 This is good. This is good.

Speaker 46 When you're a writer, you need thick skin.

Speaker 53 You need to be able to take critiques, even on your own show.

Speaker 21 All right.

Speaker 22 Didn't like the Latham Lamont part.

Speaker 6 Didn't work for Judd.

Speaker 10 Nathan Lamont's going to be thrilled, but I guess I'm not just writing for him.

Speaker 33 I'm just writing to describe the human condition.

Speaker 8 Emily, how would you defend the use of dream sequence, not only in your work, but in fiction overall?

Speaker 34 For one thing,

Speaker 14 humans dream, so why not have that as an option for something to write about? I don't think all dreams should be written about or that it's always interesting, but I think it should be on the table

Speaker 14 of options that we could write about.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And this is Judge Sean Hodgman crowd, first crowd ever to be horny for writing options.

Speaker 14 And second, I think if you're doing a good job at writing, you can use a dream as a tool to show something that's happening in the story. It's not just a

Speaker 14 way to show something weird happening, but it can add to the story in various ways.

Speaker 1 Is there an example of that that you're thinking of?

Speaker 14 Thanks for asking.

Speaker 14 I thought of a few examples of

Speaker 31 lively celebrities.

Speaker 10 You did your homework and brought some examples to the story.

Speaker 6 I did.

Speaker 34 Thank you.

Speaker 14 Appreciate that.

Speaker 14 There's a story that a lot of people have heard of called the Christmas Carol.

Speaker 14 Largely dreaming.

Speaker 19 Okay, easy does it.

Speaker 46 It is a Christmas Carol.

Speaker 44 You're right.

Speaker 1 We're about to have a librarian revolt in here.

Speaker 26 A couple examples.

Speaker 47 But we're the ones on stage, and we've all been shaken up by Judd.

Speaker 10 So just

Speaker 27 give us a little grace here.

Speaker 75 A couple examples.

Speaker 11 Judd's remarkable self-assurance.

Speaker 14 Examples of movies that a lot of people have liked. Inception.

Speaker 20 That's a movie about dreams and dreams within dreams.

Speaker 14 Nightmare on Elm Street?

Speaker 60 That's a movie about dreams, nightmares in particular, yeah.

Speaker 14 There's a comic book series called The Sandman.

Speaker 42 Moving on. Yeah.

Speaker 46 That's right.

Speaker 11 Inception

Speaker 10 and the other one you mentioned are the only two I can think of as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Judd.

Speaker 1 What about if you're what about if your character and then there's a fucking river of blood shoots into the air out of that that bed in that movie. That's nuts.

Speaker 16 Nightmare on Elm Street.

Speaker 44 Yeah. That's right.

Speaker 31 Holy cow. It's awesome.
Do you think...

Speaker 72 I don't even like that kind of thing.

Speaker 62 Judd, do you feel that...

Speaker 31 My daughter made me watch that. It was bananas.

Speaker 1 No wonder people like it. It's wild.

Speaker 44 It's a scary movie.

Speaker 1 It's like medium scary, but you're just like, how do you think of all this different shit to do?

Speaker 46 You're talking about Wes Craven or Freddy Krupp?

Speaker 27 Wes Craven.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, he did like a list of of like, if I get to make a movie, I'm going to put this wild shit in it.

Speaker 1 Then he was just like, well, if there's like a dream scissor guy, I could probably fit all this stuff into my movie.

Speaker 1 That's a little. Little something called storytelling.

Speaker 21 Would you think culture would be better if there was no nightmare on Elm Street, Jeff?

Speaker 43 Well, certainly not. I think in all those examples, actually, it's fairly important that we believe the dream is actually the reality of the fictional world.

Speaker 66 Okay.

Speaker 50 So in a Christmas carol, like we need to kind of believe this is real. He's actually being visited by these ghosts.

Speaker 43 We can't dismiss it as just a dream. That's part of the problem is dreams are so easy to dismiss.

Speaker 46 If any of the experts out there on a Christmas carol

Speaker 19 know, it never occurred to me that that was a dream that Scrooge was having.

Speaker 46 Is that true? Does he wake up?

Speaker 21 Oh, he wakes up at the end, but isn't it plausible that?

Speaker 14 He actually goes to bed and then sees a ghost and then wakes up.

Speaker 45 Yeah, because that's when the ghosts come out.

Speaker 1 Think how much less interesting the story would be if it was just a dream. They're a lot like freaks in that sequence.

Speaker 48 I was going to say:

Speaker 45 the ghosts and the freaks come out at night.

Speaker 1 We all know this.

Speaker 45 What I like about ghosts is that they're really good lovers.

Speaker 1 It's another thing from the freaks come out at night, John.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Chad, is there an example of a dream sequence in a movie or a book that you find particularly offensive?

Speaker 43 All of them. All right.

Speaker 45 So no.

Speaker 44 Okay, everybody relax.

Speaker 8 Remember, we're all having a good time.

Speaker 1 Judd is clearly used to just

Speaker 1 traipsing his way through life on his B-grade Hugh Grant charm.

Speaker 1 And he thinks he can do a Hugh Grant heel turn, like in that horror movie

Speaker 1 Hugh Grant's in right now.

Speaker 26 Oh, that one, yeah.

Speaker 45 Is there to know what was in that?

Speaker 1 You're getting real close to Oompa Loompa territory.

Speaker 55 How do you feel about dream sequences in movies, Judd?

Speaker 10 Do you find them to be a cheat?

Speaker 6 Sometimes they feel that way, right?

Speaker 50 I think it is always a kind of cheating.

Speaker 42 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Movies at least have the visual.

Speaker 43 I am struck by the Big Lebowski's dream sequence. I will admit that.

Speaker 29 You are struck by it?

Speaker 46 Yeah.

Speaker 45 Oh,

Speaker 19 turns out there's a guy who likes the Big Lebowski's.

Speaker 19 All right.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go a little easier.

Speaker 57 Emily,

Speaker 22 are you working on something right now that has a dream in it?

Speaker 14 I'm not currently working on something with the dream in it, but I do have an example of a dream from

Speaker 14 the first time this came up.

Speaker 16 Would you be willing to share it with us?

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 58 Wonderful.

Speaker 46 Before we do that, I'd like to ask: if I were to rule in your favor, Judd, what would you have me rule

Speaker 43 out to ban all dream sequences from all fiction

Speaker 43 for all time?

Speaker 43 Thank you.

Speaker 27 You're welcome.

Speaker 38 Emily, if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me rule?

Speaker 14 I think that any dream sequence and a piece of writing should be considered as something that should be read and taken in just as any other part of the writing and be it good or bad,

Speaker 14 critiqued appropriately.

Speaker 36 But I mean, writing groups are about critiques.

Speaker 10 Has anything that Judd has said or other members of the Anti-Dream Coalition within your writing group made you rethink the way you use dreams in fiction?

Speaker 8 Has it been helpful at all?

Speaker 14 There is another member of the writing group who just

Speaker 14 announces that she skims the dream sequences. And Judd does read them, but I think generally agrees with her that they are less important.

Speaker 38 And so just, and how does it feel when you learn that the writing group just skims over your dreams?

Speaker 14 Well, it feels like maybe my dreams will be less well written because no one has given me critique on them. Got it.

Speaker 7 Well, we're going to hear from you,

Speaker 8 and I will listen carefully.

Speaker 38 And Judd, you will as well. And Jesse, you will as well.

Speaker 14 So this is from a novel, so I have to explain what happened first. Great.

Speaker 14 So this is from the beginning of chapter four, and the main character, Patrick, has been taking a mind-altering drug and erasing his memories.

Speaker 26 And so

Speaker 14 his dreams come into play because

Speaker 14 of the memory erasing.

Speaker 61 He's recovering memories in his.

Speaker 14 He hasn't properly erased the memories, and some of them are reappearing in the dream.

Speaker 47 Is there a science fiction element to this?

Speaker 14 Yeah, the memory erasing drug.

Speaker 33 The memory erasing drug is your own invention.

Speaker 31 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 61 It's something you dreamed up.

Speaker 14 If you will.

Speaker 31 I will.

Speaker 69 And by the way, thank you for practicing willingness and sharing.

Speaker 19 It's very vulnerable of you, and I appreciate it.

Speaker 46 So I look forward to hearing from you.

Speaker 14 So there are a few short dreams. I'm just going to share the one where he realized that he's erased the memory of his mother.

Speaker 42 Pretty much everyone's dream.

Speaker 14 About a paragraph before this, he acknowledges that he dreamed about being on the beach. So it was the beach again along the tideline.

Speaker 14 Patrick was young, a boy in yellow swim trunks that he pulled all the way tight around his lean frame.

Speaker 14 He stood just in the water back to the ocean, letting the waves pass over his feet, pushing at his calves, petering out a foot or two on, and then receding. It's a game someone taught him, a mother.

Speaker 14 The big waves almost knock him over.

Speaker 14 When they recede, they pull a little bit of the beach back with them, muddying the water and burying his feet in a wave-made hole that gets a little deeper with every swell.

Speaker 14 Or at least that's what's meant to happen. He watches as each wave passes and leaves his feet still on top of the sand as solid as hardwood.

Speaker 14 He looks up to see where the mother is and sees only a growing vastness that scratches at his brain and makes his skin crawl. A blankness.

Speaker 14 A painting painted over smooth before it's dried, no brushstrokes. But he's only young.
He hasn't erased a memory yet. How can these ones be gone? He's never erased his mother.
That's her there.

Speaker 14 And he walks up with a small shout.

Speaker 54 And then it continues.

Speaker 1 Do you mind if I reveal how it continues?

Speaker 8 Basically, the bed like turns into like a puckered,

Speaker 1 like the stuff goes, and then a freaking geyser of blood comes up out of the bed. It's amazing.
It's wild.

Speaker 65 True.

Speaker 25 Family?

Speaker 19 Sorry, that was terrible.

Speaker 19 No, it was great.

Speaker 47 I enjoyed that quite a bit.

Speaker 46 Any critiques, Judd?

Speaker 43 I love the device of this book, the memory-erasing drug. I like recovering the memories, trying to hold on to that memory of the mother.

Speaker 25 I'm for all of that.

Speaker 43 I don't think it needs to be buried in a dream necessarily.

Speaker 13 How would he recover the memory if not

Speaker 37 going into his subconscious via dreaming?

Speaker 43 Well, now I guess we're getting into sort of semantics about what a dream is, but a memory is not necessarily.

Speaker 43 A recovered memory is not necessarily a member.

Speaker 1 You're saying that if he was like gazing out the window of a bus and in an idol of some kind, that would be an okay way for him to sort of recover the idols.

Speaker 31 Judge, you're not against idols, are you?

Speaker 62 What about reveries?

Speaker 46 Flights of fancy.

Speaker 13 Never rolled my tongue that way in my life.

Speaker 8 Let's say, for example, your dream came true and I had the power to ban dreaming and dream sequences from all narrative fiction.

Speaker 30 What way would you suggest that your

Speaker 65 writing group partner, Emily,

Speaker 53 portray the recovery of these memories, if not a trip into the nightly unconscious.

Speaker 60 What mechanism would you use, plot-wise or otherwise?

Speaker 50 I actually don't think it has to be that different.

Speaker 43 That's kind of my point.

Speaker 43 I think some sort of fragmented mosaic-like structure where these memories are intruding on this guy as he's trying to live his life, and he doesn't know what they are or where they're coming from, these flashes of this other reality, could be quite effective.

Speaker 8 Okay, I see what you mean. Like, okay, gotcha.

Speaker 64 Like, you see someone in the corner, oh, it's my mom, but I don't remember my mom, that kind of thing.

Speaker 74 All right.

Speaker 10 Fragmented mosaic. Do you write experimental fiction?

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 56 I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Speaker 1 Emily, how are you feeling about your chances?

Speaker 14 I'm feeling great.

Speaker 59 Why is that?

Speaker 14 I came in knowing that I was correct, and I continue to feel that way.

Speaker 1 What's giving you that feeling? The fact that this entire time the crowd's just been chanting, Emily!

Speaker 25 Emily!

Speaker 25 That's Alta.

Speaker 48 Stop!

Speaker 1 She's really getting into a Lord of the Flies thing here.

Speaker 75 Anyway,

Speaker 1 Judd,

Speaker 1 or should I say the pig, why should we not kill you and spill your blood?

Speaker 1 That's what they say in Lord of the Flies.

Speaker 1 How are you feeling about your chances, Chud?

Speaker 5 Great.

Speaker 43 Now seems like a good time to stake out really absolute positions and just dig in.

Speaker 1 Everyone's feeling really receptive to that.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when he returns.

Speaker 70 You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years. And

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 70 So how close are we to learning everything?

Speaker 70 Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.

Speaker 48 Oh, we're ruined.

Speaker 70 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 Long.

Speaker 70 I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

Speaker 70 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.

Speaker 1 Judge John Hodgman, we're taking a quick break from the stage of the state theater. What's going on with you?

Speaker 3 Well, Jesse, I'm headed back to New York City, where I live in September.

Speaker 3 And while it's bittersweet to leave Maine, I am looking forward to seeing perhaps you and all your wonderful faces when I host a special screening of the John Carpenter film They Live at the Nighthawk Prospect Park on September 18th.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 3 It's Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David having a fist fight in an alleyway for almost 40 minutes over whether one of them is going to put on magic glasses that allow them to see that our world is controlled by an oligarchical alien culture.

Speaker 3 That's the best description I have of They Live that I can offer you, and it's pretty accurate. If you want to learn more, and you should, come and see the movie.
I'm hosting hosting it.

Speaker 3 I'll be introducing the screening and hanging around at the bar afterward. Go get your tickets now at bit.ly slash obeyhodgman.
That's b-i-t.ly-y slash obeyhodgman.

Speaker 3 Obey hodgman is all one word, all capital letters, to grab your seats now for a fun night in the early fall at the Nighthawk. Jesse, what's going on with you?

Speaker 1 John, you know, when I first saw They Live?

Speaker 2 Yeah. When?

Speaker 1 I saw it in high school in Mr. Crawford's English class.
Sure. That's the same English class where Teresa Thorne, then Teresa Hosfeld, decided she had a crush on me.

Speaker 1 And that led to us making out and then becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, which we still are to this day.

Speaker 3 That's, and even in a legal sense, I believe you're married to one another.

Speaker 2 That's correct. And it's all thanks to Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Speaker 3 Unfortunately, I was unable to attend your wedding, but I know that Rowdy Roddy Piper was there, at least in spirit, wearing special glasses.

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Speaker 1 If you just want to knock around tweed sport coat, go to the put this on shop at putthisonshop.com.

Speaker 1 That's in addition to all of the many beautiful ladies' clothing and jewelry that we've added to the shop. And of course, all of the incredible vintage and antique decor items that we are famous for.

Speaker 1 You can find all that online in the Put This On Shop at putthisonshop.com.

Speaker 3 What could be more autumnal than a Cooperstown Oakland Oaks fitted baseball cap size seven? That beautiful red cap with an oak leaf on it. Oh, Jesse Thorne, I'm going to get it.

Speaker 9 Where do I go? Put thison shop.com.

Speaker 3 Where do you go? Same place. Put thison shop.com.

Speaker 35 Go do it.

Speaker 1 I got this, we got this t-shirt

Speaker 66 that I really like.

Speaker 1 And it says, I can't be overdrawn.

Speaker 3 I still have checks left.

Speaker 66 That's it. Put this on shop.com.

Speaker 3 Find that there. That one got a chuckle from Joel, even, right, Joel?

Speaker 66 Let's get back to the stage at the state theater.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Speaker 10 Once upon a time,

Speaker 8 I left my work at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline.

Speaker 13 And I went to get my hair cut.

Speaker 10 I went to go see the stylist that my mom saw.

Speaker 37 His name was Renaud.

Speaker 53 He was cutting my hair.

Speaker 8 And I said, oh, damn, I think I left my wallet at the movie theater.

Speaker 71 I called up the movie theater.

Speaker 64 They said, we don't have it. And then I realized it was in my back pocket.

Speaker 10 And the hairdresser said, John,

Speaker 65 you are a dreamer.

Speaker 75 Keep dreaming.

Speaker 26 True story, not a dream sequence.

Speaker 62 Care to offer a critique, Judd?

Speaker 56 There is part of me that wants your approval.

Speaker 32 You come into my courtroom.

Speaker 35 Dressing like a sexy creative writing professor from a movie or something.

Speaker 1 Let's be honest, a B-level Hugh Grant is still like an A

Speaker 27 level us.

Speaker 25 It's true.

Speaker 17 True.

Speaker 35 I mean,

Speaker 10 the way you're jauntily sitting on that stool,

Speaker 55 I feel like you might be hosting a PBS woodworking program or something.

Speaker 12 I mean, I know you're sitting on a stool right now, but in my mind's eye, you definitely are sitting in a chair backwards.

Speaker 46 You got that obscure cultural reference correct.

Speaker 12 You really cut me off at the knees there.

Speaker 38 My own courtroom.

Speaker 10 You were very brave, actually, to come here, I must say.

Speaker 8 Because your position is unpopular

Speaker 38 and

Speaker 37 and it is basically indefensible.

Speaker 35 And nor did you really defend it.

Speaker 57 The supreme confidence of Judd comes in and says,

Speaker 55 I think dream sequences are dumb.

Speaker 11 And when I ask, you have any examples, you say, no.

Speaker 11 They're just dumb.

Speaker 29 And the thing that gets me, Judd, is you're not entirely wrong.

Speaker 65 Because,

Speaker 16 A Nightmare on Elm Street aside,

Speaker 36 dream sequences, particularly in film, in my experience, I don't actually read a lot of them in fiction, but then again, I don't read a lot of books.

Speaker 47 Surprise.

Speaker 11 But they are often cheats.

Speaker 33 They are often cheap feeling. They feel

Speaker 53 a little too on the nose.

Speaker 46 They often feel and are deployed as trickery when you think something's actually happening to a character and then they go, oh, oh, I'm glad that didn't happen.

Speaker 57 And then sometimes they do it again.

Speaker 56 Wake up from that dream within a dream, within a dream, or whatever it is.

Speaker 38 They can be a little mawkish.

Speaker 55 They can be a little clichéd.

Speaker 27 And as I, a point that I made, not you, I did,

Speaker 8 they often in film and fiction have big, portent, and obvious meaning that our actual dreams don't tend to have, because our actual dreams are a little bit of a mishmash of memory and anxiety and desire or whatever it is and weird combinations and anyone who's ever woken up and tried to explain their dream to even their own mother that person turns to them and says nobody cares and they sound dumb the moment you describe them they can feel really really magical in that moment and when you wake up they're often very mundane and kind of don't connect and everything like that.

Speaker 22 So when they have meaning within fiction in the way that they often do, and I'm talking about all narrative here, it often feels a little bit phony and fake.

Speaker 28 And I appreciate that you're trying to stand up for a kind of honest fiction writing that is true.

Speaker 36 And that's a good impulse to have.

Speaker 10 And I would also say that, well,

Speaker 35 you know, that any writer...

Speaker 10 should take that as a warning before deploying the tool of dream sequence and make sure that it is really serving the story in the most honest way, and also a way that is honest to your own voice.

Speaker 11 So, you were brave to take that position and to take the ridicule that went with it.

Speaker 13 And you did so very good-naturedly, and I thank you for that.

Speaker 35 But you are not as brave as Emily,

Speaker 6 who actually read her work,

Speaker 11 which takes enormous bravery.

Speaker 17 Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, you don't have the conch.

Speaker 35 Mob Justice is the next

Speaker 54 segment.

Speaker 46 Makes very, very

Speaker 10 three-part chants like that make me nervous.

Speaker 33 But first of all, I just want to thank you for your bravery and I really liked the work that you shared. And it did not feel cheap to me.

Speaker 55 It did not, I mean, I don't know the whole context of the story, but it didn't have the hallmarks of a bad dream sequence.

Speaker 36 It seemed like a perfectly reasonable dream sequence.

Speaker 33 I mean, I hate to offer you this counsel, but, you know, when you're in a writer's group and people say stuff that really bites at your core, and especially if it's coming from an overconfident dude, you want to reject it.

Speaker 10 Lord knows I do, God or whatever knows I do, but usually it's the criticism that bites the hardest that you kind of want to listen to a little bit before you reject it.

Speaker 30 Now, I've offered you both a lot of praise.

Speaker 10 And now, Judd, I'm going to destroy you.

Speaker 27 Because

Speaker 47 it's dialectic.

Speaker 11 It can be both things. It's not one or the other.

Speaker 45 You deserve praise.

Speaker 46 But I mean, I also caution you.

Speaker 62 I mean, for reasons that should be very obvious,

Speaker 6 one should not be out there in a writer's group or in society advocating the banning of a certain kind of expression.

Speaker 36 And even

Speaker 33 if we just keep it right within the realm of storytelling and creative writing, you know, the truth is that you've got to be able to use all of the tools, even tools that you have devised that no one else understands.

Speaker 38 Yes, you need to learn the rules of storytelling before you can break them and bend them and so forth, but the rule can never be, you must never do this.

Speaker 69 If, at best,

Speaker 46 You should do it with caution or with care, whatever it is, but you always have to have all of the tools at your disposal because otherwise, we never get anything new.

Speaker 7 We never get anything new.

Speaker 75 And

Speaker 55 we need new stuff in this world. We need a lot of new viewpoints, and we can't be shutting down just even if the dream sequence is dumb, you got to be able to use it in order to express yourself.

Speaker 11 And that's where I land on this.

Speaker 35 So perhaps it's obvious you're not dreaming.

Speaker 60 I find in Emily's favor.

Speaker 46 Judd,

Speaker 38 thank you for your good humor

Speaker 75 and your winning demeanor.

Speaker 20 Though perhaps you deserved a summary judgment in your favor, I find in Emily's favor all the same.

Speaker 11 This is the sound of a gavel.

Speaker 21 Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Speaker 1 Emily, Judd, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 1 That's it for this episode of the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. Thank you to Reddit user Turducken Everest for naming the case in this episode.
Make sure to follow us on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman.

Speaker 1 We're on YouTube and TikTok at JudgeJohnHodgman Pod. The Judge John Hodgman podcast was created by John Hodgman and Jesse Thorne.
This episode was recorded by Matthew Barnhart. A.J.

Speaker 1 McKeon is our podcast editor. Daniel Spear is our video editor.
Our producers, Jennifer Marmor. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 70 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows, supported directly by you.