Undisciplinary
Undisciplinary
Good Take Bad Take Xmas Special: Keep your fingers out of other peoples' food!
**Below is AI generated**
Ever found yourself secretly despising a beloved Christmas classic or questioning the charm of a holiday favorite as you share it with the next generation? Join us as we navigate the highs and lows of 2024, starting with a comedic dissection of Christmas music and films. We take a cheeky swipe at Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time," while debating the timelessness of "Christmas in New York" and "Carol of the Bells." Our scrutiny doesn't stop there; "Love Actually" gets a modern reevaluation, showing the inevitable cracks that appear when viewed through today's lens. Meanwhile, "Home Alone" brings a nostalgic warmth, offering a chance to bond over slapstick humor with our kids.
As we wrap up, we shine a spotlight on some of the year's most compelling reads and cultural gems. "The Sunbird" by Sarah Haddad emerges as a must-read, a novel so exquisitely written that every word resonates deeply. It's a self-published triumph that's capturing hearts and getting the recognition it deserves. This episode balances the light-hearted and the thoughtful, providing both a trip down memory lane and a glimpse into the year's standout stories. Join us for a conversation that is as varied as 2024 itself, filled with humor, heart, and a little bit of holiday sarcasm.
Undisciplinary - a podcast that talks across the boundaries of history, ethics, and the politics of health.
Follow us on Twitter @undisciplinary_ or email questions for "mailbag episodes" undisciplinarypod@gmail.com
Undisciplinary is recorded on the unceded lands of the Wadawurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation in Geelong and the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation in Sydney. We pay our respects to Elders, past and present.
Speaker 2:The concerns about it encouraging sexual promiscuity are unfounded. Just how much free help can people receive from the government after not pairing office cake to passive smoking?
Speaker 1:Now on to, I guess, the more absurd section, best and worst of 2024. And just before we started you said you wanted to talk about we might as well watch Fresh on the Dome talk about best and worst. What was it? Christmas songs.
Speaker 2:Christmas songs, Christmas movies.
Speaker 1:Christmas songs, Christmas movies. Well, do you have?
Speaker 2:I got two Christmas songs I songs, Christmas movies.
Speaker 1:Well, do you have I?
Speaker 2:got two Christmas songs.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this.
Speaker 2:I mean, are they good? I don't know, I love them.
Speaker 1:Well, the best and worst. So, yeah, what's the best for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I really like Christmas in New York.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a banger.
Speaker 2:It's a banger, and I also like Carol of the Bells.
Speaker 1:I don't think I know that oh you will.
Speaker 2:It's like a, it's a choir thing uh-huh um, yeah, christmas movie I'm a little bit. I you know Christmas movie's gotten quite difficult because I was firmly in love, actually camp, but the more I watch it, the more I think about it. I'm like this is just so gross. It is one of those things that unfortunately does not stand up yeah, so so I think I'm gonna have to abandon it uh-huh, yeah, it does I.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the last time I watched it, but the last time I did watch it I was thinking this is a bit rough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me it was when I watched it with my kids and I was like, oh gross. All right, so for me the song that well, you didn't do a bad song oh god, there are so many bad songs and, with apologies to our american audience, I don't know if we've got a very big american audience. Um, all of the american christmas carols, yeah, no what about that?
Speaker 1:mariah Carey one.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I don't like any of them anyway. But the one true Christmas song that I really can't stand, it's from an Englishman by the name of Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2:Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Christmas Time.
Speaker 2:Fair fair.
Speaker 1:I do think that is probably the worst yeah. And I remember when I used to work in a supermarket, for some reason that song would just cut through, like you could sort of block out all the others.
Speaker 2:But when that chorus comes on, I don't even want to sing it because it'll get stuck in my head. It's so stuck in my head even thinking about it right now, Chris yeah.
Speaker 1:So that is definitely the worst, and I would say a best for me, I think, would be Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. The Sufjan Stevens version from the Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas Singalong album is quite a nice one.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'd forgotten about that album. Love a bit of Sufjan Christmas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a bit of Sufjan Christmas. In terms of movies, is there a good one? I re-watched Home Alone with my daughter and she quite liked it and I thought that's not a bad one.
Speaker 2:I don't think that I've seen it actually, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Any other? What about just generally best and worst of 2024? You got anything on books, music, articles, episodes related to palestine.
Speaker 2:Good book called the sunbird by sarah haddad uh-huh um, I recommend that. It's a beautiful short book, that is, it's like there's not really a word out of place. You know, I read it in a couple of hours. I felt better and sadder and more hopeful for having read it. It was a self-published book and is really doing numbers as they say, and I feel very happy for the author that that's happening.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I recommend it highly.
Speaker 1:That was on a list of books that were given to 227 Australian federal MPs and senators were given five books to help them better understand Palestine-Israel conflict or Israel's ongoing conflict with the region. Um so, balcony over jerusalem with john lyons sun the sunbird by sarah haddad. Where are the other ones? One of them was that a to z um palestine, which I mentioned already, and a very short history of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Eliane Pepe. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. Spoiler to my family who don't listen to this. You're each getting one of those for Christmas.
Speaker 2:Excellent. We've actually bought this un sunbird to give to people um as well for christmas, so yeah, um, yeah, it's good to hear about the sunbird.
Speaker 1:I haven't read it but we'll be keen to, and maybe we can have a on-air chat about that. All right, uh, so you read that book. That sounds, um, uh for me, I think. Uh, all about love. I guess obviously talked a lot about that, uh in the previous segment, which is its own episode. Um, bell hooks all about love, uh, I mean, I'd read part of it previous to teaching it, uh, this year, but each year it takes on a new dimension.
Speaker 1:And a novel I read by Graham Greene. I hadn't read Graham Greene for a while, since the Quiet American, which I remember reading as a teenager, but one of his last novels called Dr Fisher of Geneva or the Bomb Party. In some ways it was a bit of a morality tale. It's quite a short book about a father who is very wealthy and is surrounded by friends who are only like him for his wealth. He's a pretty nasty man. He has an estranged daughter, um, and another man marries, uh, marries the daughter, and then the? Um, the wealthy father is trying to, I guess, uh, play games, test and tempt his new son-in-law into, I guess, becoming equally greedy and depraved like these friends who surround him. So yeah, it was an interesting little book.
Speaker 2:Have you got any music of 2024? What do your Spotify reps say? Well, I don't do Spotifyify friends.
Speaker 1:I do title um and I don't know if they do a rap. They've been pushed out of the market. But I am just perusing that to see you know what. Maybe I'm surprised they don't have stats of you know, my most listened to song in 2024 was most likely something by Taylor Swift, just because of who uses my subscription?
Speaker 2:Any good gigs?
Speaker 1:Yes, good question. Yep Went to a really good gig, that's, um went to cash savage and the last drinks put on um, this uh two-day sort of uh festival, I guess you could call it at the Estonian House in Brunswick and basically they were sort of doing a do-it-yourself. They were the ones who were doing it doing-it-yourself festival, I guess, as a way to get around sort of booking venues and all of that sort of stuff. And we went on the second day, which was a lovely matinee session and that is what people need to do more of, just have a family. So it's a family friendly afternoon show. Um, and it was great. It sort of started at, I think, two and finished at seven. There were playing, although in different bands. There was Uncle Cutcher, edwards was incredible. Yeah, it was really fun, awesome.
Speaker 1:So that was a good gig Yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just thinking as well. I went to a brilliant early starting gig that was at the Portugal Madeira Club, so, and I think actually, and my son went to a music festival, a Polish club, so it was kind of interesting that sort of venue change. I love it, to be honest. Yeah, I want to say that my gig of 2024 was underworld, at the opera house, which I did not expect to be as good as it was. It was brilliant. So that was a nice.
Speaker 2:That was a nice thing yeah, I was deaf for a week afterwards, but it was brilliant um why it was just so loud. So loud.
Speaker 1:Was there dancing?
Speaker 2:So much dancing. Everyone was dancing.
Speaker 1:But it was in the main thing, it was in yeah. Chairs didn't get in the way.
Speaker 2:No, somehow they didn't. I guess they fold up.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, maybe we should wrap this up yes, um, okay.
Speaker 1:So so one thing I did want to bring up yep just in terms of a uh. So two, one admonishment and one hot questioning, a hot take, yeah, and then we'll finish it up, uh, with some announcements, just so that I can know when we're gonna start this. Okay, so the astute listener may recall me talking about a ethical dilemma of um observing some young children sticking their fingers into, uh, watermelon.
Speaker 1:I think this might have been back in 2020 yeah, I remember this yeah, remembering this well, the other day I was doing some christmas shopping for, uh, a soiree in which I was getting some cheeses, and, would you believe, I took a picture of it and I'll share it somewhere on social media so everyone else can see. What do you see there, jane?
Speaker 2:A nice. Oh, someone opened that and put it back.
Speaker 1:A nice.
Speaker 2:Tasmanian heritage double brie.
Speaker 1:And someone has stuck their finger straight through is that what that? Is yeah, that's a finger that's a finger.
Speaker 2:I thought it was a gold sticker, you know, saying we're the best double brie of australia, but in fact it's a finger hole oh my goodness, you need to stop sticking your fingers into food that you're not buying it.
Speaker 1:It's wasteful and it's disrespectful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think there's really much wiggle room for hot take or bad take or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:No, that's the admonishment, that's just the hot take question, yep, and it's flying around a lot on social media. It's flying around a lot on social media Is assassinating CEOs of healthcare insurance providers. Good take, bad take.
Speaker 2:Look, I mean, I think that ideally you wouldn't be assassinating people to make a point, but I'm not sad. You wouldn't be assassinating people to make a point, but I'm not sad.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, I would say, I guess in seriousness not to suggest you weren't being serious that, yeah, I don't agree with the violence. I don't agree with the violence, I don't agree with violent approaches. I know that might seem Pollyanna-ish in this world, but I'm happy to die on that hill. But, yeah, I think nonviolence is an important principle to stand by. An important principle to stand by.
Speaker 1:Having said that, it is interesting how this has. Firstly, yeah, it is interesting the lack of sympathy towards the CEO and the CEOs in general, and it is interesting the effect that it has had. You know, I think we have spoken before that I think that this might have had a greater impact on those CEOs than all the bioethics articles put together, talking about equitable healthcare system. And then I saw another interesting thought experiment certainly not and, as they said, you know, not something to encourage on social media talking about the concerted response to this gun violence in the US compared to the normalising response to the ongoing gun violence directed towards schoolchildren and other areas as well. That, I think, is quite stark.
Speaker 2:Yes, the extraordinary efforts that they went to to find this guy, whereas other random shootings not. And also, as they announced yesterday, that they're treating it as a case of terrorism rather than normal murder, whatever that means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, murder that doesn't terrorise communities, yeah right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that is interesting, depressing, unsurprising all of those things. Yeah, surprising all of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so bad take assassinating, good take disrupting and making the healthcare profiteers maybe think about things, but it probably won't make them think about things too much.
Speaker 2:It'll probably just make them hire more security.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I do think I saw a press conference with Donald Trump and I do wonder whether this is one of the instances where his reaction won't align with a lot of his base. So he was condemning it, obviously, and saying how terrible this is and what a sick human being he must be and all that sort of stuff. But I suspect a lot of his base would be quite sympathetic towards what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:But US politics, it's not our problem. Yeah, God. In looking forward to 2025,. Over the summer, we're going to take a break from this highly polished outfit and I was thinking that, because we still have to pay the fee to get the minutes, I'm going to republish some earlier articles. I'm going to republish some earlier episodes, so over the summer, you can enjoy listening to those Yep.
Speaker 2:Terrific idea.
Speaker 1:So, in closing, any resolutions or goals for 2025, jane, that you want to share.
Speaker 2:Actually none.
Speaker 1:Not only do I not want to share them.
Speaker 2:I haven't made any.
Speaker 1:No, the only one that I have made is and it's one that I've successfully stuck to for about 13, 14 years is to not stick my fingers into food and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I can do that.
Speaker 1:Good, If everyone does that a small act of love of just not doing that would be great, all right. Well, it's been a pleasure doing this show with you, jane.
Speaker 2:Goodbye audience and um, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put some ice here for mine.