532: Magic Words

Ira Glass

Here's one of the strangest outcomes in a courtroom I have heard about in a while. And it contains a lesson that very well might come in handy for you, and I do mean you, some day in your own life. Jake Halpern was the reporter who witnessed this. It was in a courtroom in Georgia. He was down there researching a book about credit card debt.

Jake Halpern

This is called-- in Georgia, they call it magistrate court. And it's basically small claims court. And you go in and it's all debtors. People refer to it even as debtors court.

Ira Glass

So Jake meets a couple sitting there, Frederick and Keanne. They're in their 40s, nicely dressed. She's a shoe salesman. He's an ex-marine who had a business buying houses, rehabbing them, and then selling them, which was going great till the housing market fell apart in 2008, and then that kind of went to hell for a while. They ended up taking on some debt. And then they got a notice in the mail saying that they owed money to a company called LVNV Funding, which is what brought them to court.

Jake Halpern

And Keanne, at this point, says, like, I don't even know who LVNV Funding is. And one of the reasons that she says I'm here today in court is just to figure out what this is all about, because she doesn't even recognize them as being her creditor.

Ira Glass

How much are they on the hook for?

Jake Halpern

They're on the hook for $3,762.20. So we're sitting there talking, and this young guy in a suit all of a sudden calls out their name. And, for a moment, it's not clear who exactly he is. And he calls it out in a way that almost like an official would call out your name. And they're-- they start walking over to talk to this guy.

So this young guy quickly says I'm the lawyer representing the people that own your debt. Are you Keanne? Are you Frederick? And then he looks at me and is like and who are you.

Ira Glass

Jake explains that he's a reporter, he's researching a book. The guy replies--

Jake Halpern

Well, I'm not comfortable with you being here. And Frederick was like, well, we are comfortable with him being here. And there's this like moment, and then this lawyer just rolls his eyes and just continues with his pitch to them.

Ira Glass

Frederick and Keanne tell the lawyer that they're confused. They don't know who this NVLV Funding is or what the debt is. And the lawyer says that his client owns their American Express debt. Basically, when Frederick and Keanne failed to pay of their American Express bill, American Express sold the IOU to this company. And they're trying to collect it.

Obviously, that's a big business. There are lots of companies that do this. The lawyer asks them--

Jake Halpern

You did have an American Express card, correct? And they say, yeah, we had American Express card. And you do live at-- and he gives their address. Yes. Well, this is what you owe.

And then he reaches into his briefcase and he pulls out this piece of paper, which I'm actually holding in front of me. I brought it along. At first glance, it resembles a credit card statement, like the ones that we get every month that says what you owe.

But then, at the top, and you look and-- it says at the very top of it, this is an account summary. It is not a credit card statement from the original creditor and has not previously been provided to the consumer. So it-- it's really bizarre right off the start because they're handing this thing that's clearly been set up to resemble a credit card statement, and yet there it says right at the top, but this is not actually a credit card statement.

Ira Glass

And so the things you would find on a normal credit card statement, like a list of charges, it doesn't have that, doesn't say how much of this is the original debt and how much is interest. There's nothing that would help you figure out how they got to the number $3,762.20. So Frederick asked the guy if he has anything else to help them make sense of this number. Does he have the original contract from when they took out the credit card to prove that, in fact, his client does actually own the debt now and it's all legit?

The lawyer says he doesn't need to provide any of that. The debt is real, they have to pay. And then Jake pipes up. For his reporting, he's wondering does the lawyer actually have any of that stuff, the original signed contract, or account statements.

Jake Halpern

So the lawyer turns back to me and he says, are you representing them? And I said, no, no, I'm just curious. And he's like, well, you can't represent them, you're not a lawyer. And Frederick's like, he's not representing us. He just asked the same question that I did.

Ira Glass

The lawyer repeats, you can't represent them. And Jake says they go around and around on this for a while. And, finally, it's time to go into a courtroom. And as they walk in, the lawyer taps Jake on the shoulder and tells him, I'm going to put you on the witness stand.

Jake Halpern

And I was like OK, like I couldn't tell-- it was just a crazy thing to say. I didn't know if he was just messing with me. Five minutes later, they call Keanne's name out, and then the judge also says, and Jake Halpern, you need to come up here too. So I'm like-- and then it's me and Keanne raising our hands together and being sworn in together, almost like co-defendants. That's the only-- that's the only way I can describe. It's like we're both on trial here.

Ira Glass

And you've known Keanne how long at this point?

Jake Halpern

I've known her like 10 minutes. And the young lawyer immediately starts with what's his opening argument. And he tells the judge this man right here is representing this couple and he is practicing-- therefore practicing law without a license. And, Your Honor, I need you to inform him that he could face criminal sanctions for doing this.

Ira Glass

Jake tells the judge that he only asked a few questions. And the judge rules, it turns out this is not the same thing as pretending to be a lawyer, so that gets settled. And then they turn to the business at hand. Remember, this entire story I'm telling you is about credit card debt, and what happens in court when a consumer is sued.

And so far, as you see, so far, right, the lawyer is playing hardball. He is not messing around, which makes what happens next even more interesting. The judge turns to the lawyer, and the judge says to the lawyer, so what do you want to do about this debt.

Jake Halpern

And the lawyer then says to the judge, you know what, give me a minute. I need to consult with my client. So he walks out of the courtroom. Me and Keanne and the judge are kind of left in the courtroom. And the lawyer goes out into the hallway, and then comes back like two minutes later, and says, Your Honor, we're going to be dropping this, dismissing the case.

Ira Glass

What?

Jake Halpern

Yeah. And I'm like-- I'm looking at her. And Keanne's looking at me. And we're both like this just makes-- this makes no sense After all this fuss and this full court press you put on us?

Ira Glass

So Jake, and Keanne, and Frederick go into the hallway and they are trying to figure out what in the world just happened. And this lawyer from Georgia Legal Services, who saw this whole thing go down, joins their conversation.

Jake Halpern

And he is not in the least bit surprised by this. He's like-- he's like, oh, yeah, of course he dropped the case. And I'm like what do you mean of course he dropped the case. He said, oh, well, when a consumer actually shows up in court and says the magic words, then these cases basically evaporate. And I say, the magic words? He says, yeah, show me the evidence.

Ira Glass

Show me the evidence. In other words, show me where you got this number $3,762.20. The Georgia Legal Services lawyer told Jake that if you're standing before a judge, and you say, OK, I don't recognize this amount that you say I owe and I want to see some documentation, I want to see account statements or whatever, because I have no way to know with certainty that this debt is really mine, the judge will usually turn to the other side and ask for the evidence. And, in all likelihood, they'll have no documentation and they'll drop the case.

And this is true not just in Georgia, but elsewhere. Because the way this business works, Jake says, when credit card companies sell these IOUs to debt collection companies, they usually don't give them any documentation. Usually, they just give them a spreadsheet with a long list of people who owe money on their credit cards, and their addresses, and their last payment, and how much they owe, and not a lot more than that. So when these companies take you and me to court, where they're betting on is we won't show up, which is a really good bet, Jake says, because--

Jake Halpern

The vast majority of people don't actually-- who are debtors who are being sued don't actually show up in court. The no show rate, there's different estimates, but it's between 80% and 90% of people don't show up.

Ira Glass

If they don't show up, they lose. If they showed up, if they said the magic words, they would probably win. And now you know the magic words, you can use them yourself. Though, Jake said, he is not sure that he thinks it's always such a good thing. He talked another guy who had a lot of debt, this is an Indian immigrant who owned a steakhouse and owed like $300,000.

Jake Halpern

And he had used these magic words almost to the point where it was like a scam, like he owed all this money for this steakhouse that had gone bust. And he was just showing up in court and saying like show me the original signed contracts, show me the statements, and he was like beating these debts left and right. Like Keanne--

Ira Glass

Oh, wow.

Jake Halpern

He was working it. Like, oh, my god, there's this magic button, and I can totally get off the hook for all this money that I owe. I'm just going to keep on hitting it, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Ira Glass

Oh, you see, now you're confusing me. Because, up until now, I thought the magic button was a really good thing, and now I think maybe it's a bad thing too.

Jake Halpern

Well, what it is-- it could be a good thing or a bad thing. I felt conflicted about it. It seems strange that you wouldn't now have to pay off anything of what you borrowed.

Ira Glass

Well, today, on our program, magic words. They can be used for good or for evil. We have stories of magic words that supposedly do all kinds of incredible things, like erase your debts, as you just heard, or make you rich, levitate you, help you get along better with your older relatives whose minds are going. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass, with the same magic words that I intone every week at this time, full of hope that they're going to work, even though the actual magic they contain is next to nothing. Those words, stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act One, I believe I can fly. So there's this book full of magic words that one of our contributors, Jonathan Goldstein, found in his apartment when he was moving. He hadn't looked at it in over 30 years. It's called Ultra-Psychonics-- How to Work Miracles with the Limitless Power of Psychoatomic Energy. It was written by a man named Walter Delaney, published in 1975. And the book's premise, its basic premise, is that just as objects are composed of atoms, thoughts are composed of psychic atoms, or Delaney calls psychons, ultrons, and egons. And I'm just going to let Jonathan explain what all that means.

Jonathan Goldstein

I was 11 years old when my father walked into my bedroom and handed me a copy of Ultra-Psychonics. He wasn't much of a gift-giver, more of a check-giver, but I was into magic tricks and fantasy novels. So when he saw it in a used book store, he must have thought it would be right up my alley.

The frayed yellow dust jacket promised a grab bag of every occult slash psychology slash self-help topic under the sun, all in 237 pages. Among other things, the book promised to teach you how to shoot mental laser beams, move solid objects with your mind, make others obey your command, multiply your brain power by a factor of 1,000, and defend yourself against demonic attack.

Ultra-Psychonics revealed what I always suspected-- that the adult world operated on magic. Finding a job, a wife, acquiring a bag of Egg McMuffins with a mere flash of a plastic card, how else were these things accomplished? To an 11-year-old, the book's theory seemed as plausible as anything else. An excerpt from page 217 explains the secret of ultra levitation.

"One, remove all your clothes and stand on a bathroom scale. Two, generate the ultronic power globe on a string, as you did for the ultronic poltergeist technique. Three, concentrate on making it rise like a balloon, lifting you with it. Four, keep your eyes on the scale. It will start to drop bit by bit, showing that you are getting lighter."

This wasn't your granddaddy's old levitation. This was ultra levitation. And most importantly for me, Ultra-Psychonics required neither time nor effort. The inside flap stated it was as simple, easy, and natural as breathing. And for a child adept at breathing, but little else, this was exciting news.

In those dark ignorant days before the universal remote, one had to rise, not unlike an animal, from one's perch to change TV stations. By using ultra kinetics, as outlined in chapter 13, I'd never have to debase myself that way again. Never again would I have to suffer through the depressing stage lighting of Barney Miller when the Beverly Hillbillies was a mere psychic click away. No longer would I be pathetic. I would be ultra telepathetic.

This was during the Eden of my pre-adolescence, a time when I had yet to discover the K-Mart lingerie insert, and so had plenty of time on my hands. I wasted hours in bed, lying flat on my stomach, with the book open at my side, squinting so hard that my vision began to blur as I tried to close the bedroom door with my mind. Even though I had, as the book instructed, dutifully turned on the ultronic generator in my head to stimulate my flow of ultrons, I was getting nowhere.

I assumed the fault was mine, that I was not following the instructions properly. But reading it now, it's hard to figure out how anyone could follow along. I now wonder whether my father knew it was insane, and had only gifted me with the book as a means of getting me out of his hair. He could read in peace, while his son stared at a doorjamb for hours on end. I wonder if my father still even remembered the book.

Jonathan Goldstein

This is patently false. My father has pooh-poohed everything, from sushi to liquid soap. He's pooh-poohed abstract expressionism, the Rolling Stones, and the entire state of Florida. He once even pooh-poohed my Pu Pu platter, telling me egg rolls were best enjoyed cold. In fact, whenever my great uncle Saul bragged about how his other nephew, Barney, was a successful doctor, my father pooh-poohed the hell out of that. Getting himself worked up, he'd insist that a chiropodist was no doctor.

Jonathan Goldstein

Did Walter Delaney really believe what he was writing? Believe, for instance, that while the old-fashioned zodiac was outdated, his psychonic zodiac, with its cryanox, vernox, estavox, and invernox signs was more scientific as it was seasonally based? And that even if you were born under the estavox summer sign, you might exhibit a more cryanox winter type personality if you were born in an air conditioned hospital?

The back of the book refers to him as, quote, "one of the world's leading authorities on the psychic and occult sciences." But I could find no mention of him anywhere on the internet. It was only when I searched on Walter Delaney and pseudonym that I finally got a lead. It turns out that, like so many other mystical men from Leonard Susskind to Regis Philbin to my father, Buzz Goldstein, Walter Delaney was originally a Jew from the Bronx by the name of Joseph Schaumberger.

Schaumberger passed away in 2011, but I managed to track down his daughter, Barbara. She was in her early 20s when her dad was writing the book, and she remembers it clearly. At the time, Schaumberger was living in New Jersey and making a decent wage as an editor at a publishing house that specialized in occult self-help books with titles like Secrets from Beyond the Pyramids and The Magic of Chantomatics. And he was astonished by the amount of money he saw writers making. Here's Barbara.

Jonathan Goldstein

Looking at it now, it seems obvious it was a lark. It almost reads like a parody of another famous science fictiony slash self-helpy book with a lot of pseudo science jargon, that, for legal reasons, I will only say rhymes with diuretics. Take, for instance, the astral spur.

You were supposed to use it at the racetrack to give your horse extra energy. And it involved standing on one foot and projecting a psychic laser at your horse's hindquarters. And then there's the section on ultra vision influence. The road to domination is explained this way.

"One, sit in front of a mirror and practice staring fixedly into your own eyes. Two, practice the look on animals. Cats are the best. See if you can stare down a cat. Don't be surprised if the cat seems to win the first few rounds. Three, practice the look on strangers on various forms of public transport. Stare steadily at someone sitting opposite you until you force them to turn their head away or look down. You have just mastered your first human subject."

Jonathan Goldstein

Barbara told me that not only did her father make enough money from the book to buy a large, beautiful house and take his wife on European vacations where they went to operas, she also said that Schaumberger received boxes and boxes of letters from readers thanking him and requesting further guidance.

In rereading the book all these years later, I still remembered the stuff about how to travel to the furthest reaches of the galaxy through mind power. But what I didn't remember at all was the last chapter, chapter 14. In the book's introduction, Schaumberger promises that in the final chapter he would reveal nothing short of the meaning of life. What could be of less interest to an 11-year-old?

And what does the chapter contain? It outlines the 10 actions for leading a good life-- the joy of giving, humility, working, caring, fidelity, sufficiency, calmness, learning, meditation, and reverence. Nothing flashy, no ultras, just the golden rule kind of stuff.

I asked Barbara why she thought her father included all this straightforward do unto others kind of thing with nigh a single ultra in sight.

Jonathan Goldstein

"Chapter 14 is the last stage in Ultra-Psychonics," wrote Schaumberger. "It is the culmination of many long and arduous years of research. Please do not try to read it now. You will not be able to understand it until you have mastered the rest of the book. But once you are ready for it, I think you will find it to be one of the most profound and rewarding experiences in your life."

Of all the chapters in Schaumberger's book, it's this last one that might be the hardest of all to master. It's the chapter with the fewest instructions. And, on some days, I still don't feel quite ready for it.

Ira Glass

Jonathan Goldstein is the author of a number of books, including Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible. Coming up, how to properly use monkeys-- yes, monkeys, I said monkeys-- for the betterment of your family. That's in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

This American Life, I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme and bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, magic words. They're used for good, they're used for evil. We wish that they're going to work. We cross our fingers and we wait to see if they will work. We've arrived at act two of our program.

Ira Glass

Act Two, Rainy days and Mondays. According to the Alzheimer's Association, every 67 seconds, somebody in the United States develops the disease. We're at this point with Alzheimer's where almost everybody has had some sort of personal experience with the disease, through a spouse or a parent or a friend. And because we've had that direct experience, we all know how scary Alzheimer's can be.

The thing you hear a lot is the emotional toll of taking care of parents and spouses. And you hear about the cost. But there is this other, more basic challenge. People don't talk about this as much, but it must be a problem that everyone close to the disease struggles with. And that is what are we supposed to talk about with our relatives who have Alzheimer's. What do we talk about? The same stuff we always have?

Ira Glass

Sharon Stobbe is sitting on the back porch of her sister's home with her mom, Virginia.

Ira Glass

Sharon says to her mom, you were in Florida.

Ira Glass

This is a little off mic. She says, do you remember who you were with.

Ira Glass

Dad. Dad is the answer Sharon's searching for. My father, your husband. Sharon didn't go into this conversation trying to play some memory game with her mom. She just kind of fell into that. And it's easy to see how, right?

You love your mom, you want to spend time with your mom. What are you going to talk about? Shared memories are out, mutual loved ones are not remembered. Even current news, like joyful news, does not necessarily create a connection. Right before they sat down on the porch, Sharon's sister showed Virginia a picture of her two-week-old granddaughter, said, Mom, look how beautiful your great-granddaughter-- and Virginia looked at the picture and said, oh, no, for no clear reason at all.

Sharon has a sister named Karen. And Sharon's the oldest, Karen's the youngest. Virginia, the mom, was with Karen. And one of our producers, Chana Joffe-Walt, got interested in this experiment that Karen has been trying in their family. Karen's been on a search for a new way to talk to her mom, looking for some magic words to say to her mom as her mom is losing her memory, words that will keep them connected.

And, recently, she developed a plan, a fully formed theory of social interaction for the dementia landscape. She's got rules, she's got best practices. It's a whole thing. And she thinks it can work. Here's Chana Joffe-Walt to explain.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Karen didn't have the plan in place when her mom first moved in with her, but she has wanted a plan from day one. Day one, there was just this constant stream of questions that never had definitive answers, like can I leave my mom at home alone, or what am I supposed to do when she wakes up at 2:00 in the morning and starts getting dressed? What about when she wants another bowl of ice cream? And I remind her that she has diabetes, but she forgets that she has diabetes.

See, Karen is a person who likes structure. The lawless do-it-yourself nature of home dementia care never sat well with her. Karen would do what she thought was right, take the ice cream away, and her mom would lose it, scream at her. This is a woman who never had a cruel word to say about anyone, who considered shoot a swear word. She would look right into Karen's eyes and say you're a supreme [BLEEP], you know that?

Chana Joffe-Walt

Step into their world was a familiar phrase to Karen from the many nights she had spent doing improv comedy. She and her husband are actors. Step into their world is a mantra in improv. You walk on stage, another actor says something, and you step into their world, whatever world they have just created.

You don't ever say no, you don't question their premise. You just say yes. And--

Chana Joffe-Walt

If all you've got is "yes, and," you can't say things like, but you don't even like pickles, or you don't have a sister, Mom. You don't tell someone they're wrong, which Karen says is exactly what you always want to do. Like when her mom says she wants to go home, the most natural response is--

Chana Joffe-Walt

Now, she's not a liar anymore. Karen felt like she had discovered an instruction manual. Here was a way into a relationship with her mom if she just followed some basic rules of engagement, rules she conveniently already knew. And so did her husband, Mondy, who was glad to have some guidelines for how to relate to this new roommate. It's like improv, Karen explained. You love improv.

Chana Joffe-Walt

For Karen, using the tools of improv meant when her mom, Virginia, sees monkeys out the window, don't correct her. But Mondy-- Mondy took the whole thing to the next level. When Virginia sees monkeys, Mondy sees them too. He told me, oh, yeah, just the last time that happened, I said--

Chana Joffe-Walt

For years, the staff in nursing homes and dementia care experts advised families to keep your loved ones with you, mentally speaking. Remind them who they are, where they're from, show them pictures of your family. Hang orientation boards everywhere that say today is August 15, the weather is overcast, the president is Barack Obama.

But recently, the experts have changed course. And in the last decade or so, things like validation therapy are what's in. Caregivers are encouraged to listen, respond, try to live in their reality instead of trying to pull them over into yours. Basically, exactly what Karen and Mondy stumbled into on their own.

Most people find it pretty challenging to interact in this way. But for Mondy and Karen, it's not hard. Mondy does it all the time without thinking.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Virginia points to the family terrier, Gus, tearing around the backyard, digging holes.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Mondy says, but I need you to now. I need your help finishing up the mine. Gotta get out there and find some coal, so we can pay out these bills. Virginia gleefully refuses, so Mondy says, oh, well, we'll have to shut down the whole operation then.

Chana Joffe-Walt

This is a family all doing something together, sharing the same reality, the reality of closing down the coal mine in the backyard. When you're with your family, your parents or uncles, say, Thanksgiving, think about how much time you spend collectively recalling things. Remember when mom laughed so hard the juice came out of her nose? Remember when dad got in that crash? Or did I ever tell you how you potty trained yourself because you saw your brother doing it?

It's nice to share memories, makes you feel connected. But, also, usually, what you're actually doing in that moment with your family is boring. You're watching the game, eating chicken for dinner again. It's fun to recall the more dramatic moments you've shared because they are not boring, they're not boring experiences you've had together.

Virginia no longer has those memories to call on. She spends a lot of her day sitting on a porch, which can't be all that interesting. But when Mondy is with her, there's literally drama. They're dismantling a mine. It's the most animated and happy I see Virginia all day.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Mondy and Karen moved to North Carolina from Milwaukee to live with Karen's mom. It was closer to the rest of the family. And to Mondy, it seemed like a good time to move, but he was wrong about that in one crucial way. It was 2006, right before the economy collapsed.

They've found other ways to make ends meet, but Mondy left behind regular acting gigs, theater contacts, teaching jobs, just assuming that he'd find that stuff in North Carolina, which didn't happen right away.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Towards Virginia, his mother in law. Mondy says Virginia is an excellent audience. I never have to rein myself in, I can do anything, any kind of joke. The only thing that doesn't really work is a callback. And when Virginia was with Mondy, this sweet woman everyone remembered started coming back.

Chana Joffe-Walt

You know who doesn't find that so funny? Mondy's wife, Karen. Karen told Mondy he had to find a way to perform more, outside of the house. He was driving her crazy.

Chana Joffe-Walt

One obvious answer is Mondy's not her kid. But, remember, Karen's mom has dementia. She doesn't always know Karen is her kid. So if they're both strangers with the same approach, same words, it may just be that Mondy does it better. And that has created a bizarre reordering of the family dynamic. Karen's always been close to her mom. And, now, her mom likes Mondy more.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Virginia is sitting with Mondy on the back porch. It's the end of the day. Karen's finishing up the dishes inside. And when she's done, she wanders out back. And this is what she walks into.

Chana Joffe-Walt

Here is how deep Virginia's love is for Mondy. She has inserted him into her own childhood memories, the most vivid memories she still has-- swimming, riding in a fishing boat. In Virginia's telling, Mondy was there for all of it. He was there with her on the boat, swimming in the water, traveling the country. Not her husband, not Karen, Mondy. He shows up in every significant event in her life she still remembers. Like Forrest Gump, Mondy says.

Meanwhile, Virginia has completely forgotten Karen's childhood. Again, a lot of the time, she's not quite sure who Karen is. And, sometimes, she's not even sure she likes her. Like the other night, Karen was trying to get Grace to bed, and Grace was stalling.

Chana Joffe-Walt

In a moment like that, the rules that Karen set up require that she deny who she is, that she is Karen, daughter of Virginia, mother of Grace, who grew up in Texas with a loving family. If Karen wants to do her plan right, she can't be that person in her own home.

Starting each moment with a blank slate is easy for Mondy. It's fun to create a world out of nothing with this person, as he gets to know her better. But, for Karen, every interaction asks her to erase who she is.

Chana Joffe-Walt

But Karen doesn't say the words she wants to say. She says different ones, the ones she's supposed to say.

Chana Joffe-Walt

While silently letting go of the memory that came before, letting go of the old scene, and trying to be ready for what comes next.

Ira Glass

Chana Joffe-Walt is one of the producers of our show. Karen and Mondy now offer workshops on how to use the tools of improv with people who have dementia, including a special course on how to do that if those people are your parents. Find them at in-themoment.com. That's in-themoment.com.

Ira Glass

Act Three, Pescatarian. So there's this podcast that a bunch of us here at the radio show listen to that's put out by Slate. It's hosted by Mike Pesca, who you may have heard of in the past reporting on sports for NPR. This podcast, though, is not about sports. It is about everything, about 30 minutes a day. Often about the news, though just as often not about the news.

I think what makes it special is just the sheer joy, the gleeful, articulate energy that Mike Pesca marshals in thinking about and dissecting the world around him. The theme today on our radio show is magic words. And I thought of Pesca today because when he is not explaining what poker can tell us about missile defense systems or filling us in on the country in Africa that is doing really, really well, Mike Pesca is somebody who seems to take great pleasure in noticing words, how people use words, and especially the misuse of words.

For example, there was this day when Pesca heard about some new menu items at Red Lobster and he heard a phrase he simply could not let pass.

Mike Pesca

So I just found out that Red Lobster has introduced lobster-topped entrees. However, I want you to listen to this commercial. About 18 seconds in, and I think you will see and hear the part where the space time crustacean continuum gets a little bent.

Man

How did Red Lobster makes four amazing entrees even better? With lobster. Like savory new fire-grilled shrimp topped with maritime lobster in a citrus hollandaise or the new ultimate lobster-topped lobster. Three split--

Mike Pesca

Did you hear what the dude said? Lobster-topped lobster. Isn't that just a bigger lobster? The one thing you can't top a lobster with is another lobster. You can't top a thing with more of the thing. It's not the top, it's just the thing. Cherry on top, that makes sense. Cherry on top of a sundae.

You know what cherry on top doesn't make sense? Cherry on top of a bunch of other cherries. Just more cherries. This is why--

Ira Glass

I have to say I usually hate it when people go on and on about using the right word. That is not something I usually enjoy. I don't care about that. But Pesca's delight I find totally contagious. I end up repeating what he says about this stuff to my friends and my loved ones.

One day, he got on to the phrase, "toot your own horn." He said he'd been listening to the previous day's podcast in the interest of quality control.

Mike Pesca

And, you know, I just got the sense that I was tooting my own horn. A horn was being tooted and I indeed was both the tooter and the tootee. But I really got to thinking about that phrase. I would like to take two ticks to tutor you in the term to toot one's own horn. It is a strange phrase. It is a logically inconsistent phrase.

Tooting your own horn has an opposite number, and that is to be hoisted by one's own petard. To be hoisted by one's own petard actually makes sense. I mean, it is antiquated language. It was coined by Shakespeare, but a petard is a small bomb. So to be hoisted by one's own petard means to be blown up by a bomb blown into the air. It's a good phrase. A bomb normally meant for someone else blows up in your own face, lifts you high off the ground, Ashton Kutcher peeks out from behind the curtain. You've been hoisted. Great expression, I love it.

But a horn is not meant for someone else to play. The expression "toot one's own horn" should instead center on a situation where you're forced to operate for yourself a device that was meant to be operated by another, right? So a more sensible alternative would be, hey, listen, I don't need to hold my own ladder, or, look, I'm not trying to cut my own hair over here, or, listen, I'm not trying to tuck myself in at night, or, far be it for me to hand start my own prop airplane, or I don't want to self-operate a two-handed cross cut saw, or I'm not one to spot myself while bench pressing. Or even you could stick with the musical, if you want. Hey, I'm not trying to play dueling banjos as a solo.

And another thing, speaking of the musical. Ever think of Louis Armstrong in this situation? How does Louis Armstrong humble brag about his own promise? Can't say anything about not tooting his own horn. And toot? Really, toot? Did Miles Davis toot? Did Dizzy Gillespie toot? To toot one's own horn is a low form of self-aggrandizement. In fact, it should be more accurately seen as a form of self-mid-sizement at best.

Ira Glass

Pesca does know where that phrase "tooting your own horn" comes from. It comes from a king. A king enters a room, there's trumpeters, there's fanfare. Others toot the horns for the king. Tooting your own horn in that situation would be very-- well, kind of pathetic.

But Pesca says, today, those are not the horns we think of when we think of horns. The phrase does not hold. And he called for a moratorium. Or if you will,

Mike Pesca

A moratootium.

Ira Glass

So one more, right? On a Monday just after an outbreak of the Ebola virus hit-- serious story, right-- Pesca was talking about how the news had been covered on television. Over the weekend, the Sunday talk shows had been full of talk of a killer virus, maybe out of control. Was the public at risk? People were asking this over and over. And Pesca was parsing out what was said and what was not said.

Mike Pesca

George Stephanopoulos was interviewing Dr. Tom Frieden. He runs the CDC. And I'm going to use the opportunity to play something that we sometimes play, talk show karaoke, wherein I assume the role of a guest on the talk show. We'll have the host ask the question and I'll answer the question how I wish the guest would have. Let's go to George Stephanopoulos' question.

Mike Pesca

So that last part, that's what Dr. Frieden did say. It was probably smarter than what I should have said. Anyway, that guy is too important to pick media fights with Donald Trump. He already has one seemingly unstoppable plague to wrestle with.

Ira Glass

If words really were magic, in all fairness, Donald Trump would vanish from the earth in a puff of smoke after that. The podcast is called The Gist, Mike Pesca. It's free, it's daily, five days a week. Find it at Slate.com, or anywhere you find your podcasts.

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Ira Glass

Our program was produced today by Jonathan Menjivar, with Alex Blumberg, Ben Calhoun, Sean Cole, Stephanie Foo, Chana Joffe-Walt, Sarah Koenig, Miki Meek, Brian Reed, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer for this episode was Julie Snyder. Production help from Louise Sullivan. Seth Lind is our director of operations. Emily Condon's our production manager. Elise Bergerson's our business operations manager. Kimberly Henderson as our office coordinator. Research help today from Michelle Harris. Music help from Rob Geddes.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

Jake Halpern's book about debt that I talked about at the beginning of the program is called Bad Paper-- Inside the Secret World of Debt Collectors. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr Torey Malatia, who says it is all right if people want to bring their dogs to the office.

Troy Malatia

You just have to train them right and give them pants.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

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