j: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement studio for another exciting episode. We are all crewed up. You have me Joe, we’ve got Nick.
You we’ve got Georgia.
And for this episode, which will be on H two, oh my god. Water life and everything in between. We have a special guest joining us, and as always, we have the guests introduce themselves.
That’s tradition now. So please.
Maud: Okay.
Hi,
I am Maud Lavin.
I’m a writer. I’ve written mainly
nonfiction
for decades. Books and
articles and so forth. This is my first novel,
mermaids and
lazy Activists
j: Great.
Maud: from Beyond Press.
nick: Very
nice.
j: That good.
Maud: Yeah.
And
I
got into this novel because I really love, Lake Michigan. I love Lake [00:01:00] Swimming. I
I’m concerned about
If
keeping the water clean ish. and
at
the same time I was tired of a lot of environmental.
Writing as being apocalyptic.
and
Do. And
I started thinking like you know what, if I write
something kind of goofy and funny and laugh out loud funny, and then Fit in some of the environmental information into it, and it could be actually a pleasure, a romp to read. And also I got the idea that of giving a certain amount of the proceeds to flow, which is a really great non-profit headquartered in Traverse City.
That’s a Great Lakes protectorate. They call themselves water advocates. They Just
su Do a lot of environmental
lawsuits. So that kind of freed me up to be even more goofy.
Yeah. because It’s
okay. That’s the serious part [00:02:00] will be the donation to flow.
And I can just really have fun with the humor.
j: Yeah. Awesome. Very cool.
So yeah, so usually I give some sort of definition and then I have lists. So
nick: Is it gonna be a liquid list?
j: It’s gonna be a very fluid list, so we’ll have that. No, yeah. So I just wanted to, just for grounding,
we all
know it and love it, but water, is a transparent, tasteless, odorless liquid that forms the basis of life on earth.
It’s composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, H2O, and is essential for all known forms of life. Water can exist in three states, solid state, ice, liquid, and gas water vapor. It is the main component of earth’s hydrosphere and the fluids of living organisms. And with that water pollution is a contamination of bodies of water, lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers by substances that degrade water quality.[00:03:00]
And harm ecosystems or human health. And so in this episode wanted to plunge into the symbolic, speculative literary and scientific meaning of water with Maud here and brushy around her book that she just talked about getting into mermaids and lazy activists. And it’s a tale that doesn’t just tell a story as Maud alluding to it swims through climate anxiety, feminist resistance, and local ecology by way of an unlikely heroin a mermaid.
In short, we’re gonna be discussing what happens when literary imagination enters environmental discourse. And
nick: So
question Very good.
I haven’t read this book yet. I’m sorry.
j: I’m about halfway through. So that’s where I’m at with it. So I’ve read quite a bit.
nick: Does a mermaid come about because of.
pollution?
Maud: no. I was like,
there are,
She is one
of many freshwater mermaids
who live in the great Lakes, [00:04:00] Okay, cool. and
j: hundreds of years old.
They can live to two, 200 years, I think. Or so. And
Maud: Yeah. 100 in the book, so she’s like mid midlife.
j: No spoilers.
Maud: she Yeah,
georgia: no
Maud: brash, she is sexual.
she is a
wise ass. She’s not the like twinkly, little
Disney kind of mermaid, she’s competitive.
And the other main character whose human main character, whose name is Maud, also A Professor emerita at the school of the. Art Institute as I am.
And part of Chicago Lit scene. They meet at or near 57th Street, beach.
And even though Evelyn doesn’t, , truck much with humans except when she wants boy toys
She,
they start talking and they become friends and competitors too. And Evelyn through her [00:05:00] mermaid group is required to do some eco work because they have to work, they have to try to keep like Michigan fairly clean.
’cause they live there,
georgia: And
Maud: The human wants to too. ’cause she just loves it. She loves swimming in it
and yet they’re also both really lazy. They are the lazy activists
and they screw up a lot. Or they try something that’s too hard and,
That’s a lot of it.
And,
j: Yeah. And I think you, you hit it. ’cause when I was doing research and thinking about this topic, especially eco activism, the thing that kept going in my mind was the seventies, eighties be horror movies where nature , humans have done something poor. And I have a few examples.
Frogs food of the Gods, Ana, alligator, they all had these kingdom of the spiders. They had these
varying, usually humans
were going in somewhere, destroying the environment. And then nature would. Rise up and then take their [00:06:00] revenge and this kind of very fantastical and horrific way.
So having fun here, that’s a really interesting take. And how’d you get to that point? Like in, in the storytelling? Did you just in, in the use of mermaid, I think instead of maybe other mystical or mythical creatures.
Maud: Oh, I dunno, there’s
something about women and mermaids. I just have always liked mermaids and I’ve met some other people who write about,
Freshwater mermaids They’re also women.
And really don’t know. have had a
long
time interest in pleasure and activism. that The feeling like what motivates people to actually
make
change. And I feel like it’s, a desire.
Maud: Much more often than only anger and self-defense. Although these days, all of the above.
I,
georgia: Exactly.
Maud: Okay.
But it’s
a personal interest of
mine. [00:07:00] And
I’ll just confide and it’s in the book too, if you keep reading. I started out in art history and Weimar studies, 1920s Germany, and my first book
was on the Berlin Data artist
ish New York Times
notable book.
See, I
snuck that
in
j: Nice. Nice.
georgia: Very nice. So
thank
Maud: Thank you. Thank you.
Okay.
I love the Marxist philosopher
Aaron Block
and
He wrote a lot about these traces that people would,
Encounter in daily life that would. Either remind them of some pleasure or inspire a future vision of shared pleasure. And so I thought for me, water is like
that
I
remember swimming in
lakes in Ohio growing up.
I
Lake Michigan. How how unbelievable is it that Chicago runs right up to the shores and you could just walk over and jump in, or at least go waiting whenever you
want to.
nick: Do it [00:08:00] constantly.
Maud: That’s
fighting for,
You do it constantly?
nick: Oh
yeah. My daughter loves going.
georgia: so
Maud: We’re so lucky.
If I have to
Just sit through. I don’t want people lecturing
me. I wanna think
yeah, we gotta to
Preserve the
lake and even enhance
georgia: I think that’s so interesting about motivation and like what motivates people.
And I think humor is something you can really get a message across so much more with humor than anything.
Oh,
nick: a hundred percent.
If you can coat things in humor, people see
what is
the message, and then you’re like, oh, I’m laughing.
Oh, I’m learning,
oh,
georgia: I’m laughing at this, but oh boy, it’s pretty
serious. You start
nick: angry over this situation.
georgia: Yeah,
j: Yeah. Yeah.
georgia: I think of and actually, it’s not totally a comedy, but I think of Charlie Chaplin and the Great Dictator.
And obviously there’s some great scenes that are very humorous when the two dictators are trying [00:09:00] to.
Get their chairs higher than the other one.
The other one.
But, and I also think there’s this scene where I wanna say his name was Hinkle in the movie. And when he was playing with this big giant globe and he’s just doing these weird things, he’s bouncing it off and all of a sudden then it pops.
But what a what a message that was, yeah. Without saying anything, so I do think, I think that makes a lot of sense about getting some really important
messages out.
j: And it’s having,
Maud: go ahead.
Joe.
j: No. Go for it. Yep. No. You’re a guess. So you
can,
Maud: I’ll also say that the laziness part is important
too because they just really wanna have fun and
they
like to.
Have
coffee, go to the beach.
They’re in the poetry circuit,
right? They like to give, go to readings, give readings
j: Recipe poetry, right?
Maud: recipe, poetry. There’s some of that. And
there. Okay. And the thing is,
I thought about this [00:10:00] a lot actually, that they a lot of us, I think want to
desperately see change, contribute to making
change.
We Really
need that in this country, My God, but
It’s also
Can I also have fun with
my friends? Can I can do this part-time? Can I and for me, I am a lazy activist and I have
to
decide okay, I’m not
gonna do X, but I will, I think I
could do phone
banking starting this fall.
So I have to make these deals with myself because I
do still wanna have fun.
nick: Do you consider
that laziness, or is it just for your mental wellbeing?
Maud: Yeah. No,
It I think it’s healthy, but
say,
nick: I a hundred percent agree. It’s the amount of times I’m like, I should go do that,
j: right?
nick: But for my own sanity I’m not.
And
it’s Yeah. Yeah. It’s the the book is jaunty, so by embracing
Maud: The word [00:11:00] lazy
Is they’re bratty, the friendship
is a kind of bratty one, especially Evelyn.
And
the
mermaid of one. And
At one point
they’re thinking
of doing this project on the subway, and Evelyn’s no, if I’m gonna go below the surface, it’s gotta be underwater, where it’s beautiful.
I’m not hanging out on the subway. Like, they’re just They’re very self-indulgent.
And then they do
hit on some things
Putting clover borders around a farm so that to
hold back
some agricultural runoff,
which is one of the big problems. Salt runoff,
agricultural run runoff
septic tank runoff,
And so on.
They do
j: lawn care runoff. People don’t think about that.
Maud: Yes,
j: Yeah.
Maud: So they’re
not being like
superheroes.
j: They’re
Doing what they
do. Yep.
Maud: Regular
human
regular
mermaid
hanging out and
Doing something while also eating [00:12:00] blueberry muffins.
j: So other thing that I thought was interesting and as I mentioned, and I’m about halfway through, is this idea of environmental memory.
And what I mean by that is you can look at the lake and its sediment and tell its history even its history of pollution and things like that. You can go back and I have some fun facts in a list that I’ll talk about, but it is really, it’s neat because using the Evelyn Mermaid character who holds this historical knowledge, not only of the lake and the pollutants, but the cultures, I found out really the native cultures who were there that had the treaties. When the French and the British came in, and I thought that connection there that you made that jump. So I don’t know if you intentionally did that or was it just, you were thinking, oh this yeah.
Maud: Sure. That was intentional. And
I put, I put a bunch of my
friends in, the book as cameos, and Tim Mo Motor is this fantastic,
Poet, really one of my favorite poets [00:13:00] anywhere. And so he is in there. And then there’s
some fake illusion that like Evelyn might have messed around with his grandfather and,
j: yeah. That’s right.
Yes. And Tim is actually part of the bad river band of
Maud: lake
Superior Chippewa. And I played a little fast and free with Chippewa history review, Tim carefully reviewed it.
I
guess he’s the sensitivity reader, but,
It’s also that.
But then there, there are certain parts that are very carefully researched
And talk about the Bad River band and other tribes and First Nation people who are involved in trying to protect the Great Lakes. And That part is so is accurate. And then it’s, it, there’s some fantastical stuff too,
and how they didn’t like the French ’cause they
were
snobs and you know, they,
j: So
Yes.
Maud: I think
you could tell, I hope you can reading it
j: The part how they got their [00:14:00] names right because that was a play on this assimilation and they, we wanted to fit in or be accepted and you had this whole even the Maud character also that was, their part of their story and how they
got their name and why they were named, yeah,
Maud: Yeah, absolutely. And
she, ev Evelyn does take a break from wildly fooling around, and she gets a boyfriend, Malcolm a Merman, and like
Who’s
ever heard of mermaids named Evelyn and Malcolm?
It’s
Me?
georgia: So I guess I’m, I wasn’t super familiar with the lore of Freshwater mermaids.
Yeah.
So, you played on a lot of that kind of existing lore for
Maud: There’s not that much. Mo, most me mermaid stories are about the oceans,
georgia: okay.
Maud: Saltwater mermaids,
but just They’re just such
appealing
cryptids, there are some others. And There’s just a lot of, [00:15:00] there’s different.
Bigfoot
kind
of stories about the Great Lakes and they’re so huge.
and there’s
so
much of the shoreline is so wild that, why wouldn’t there
georgia: be? Exactly. exactly.
Maud: no, So I, I
didn’t, in fact, it wasn’t until I was really into the book that I thought oh, I better look what
else is out
there.
j: back and
Maud: There’s some wonderful stuff, but
It’s
actually
pretty
j: Yeah. Okay.
georgia: Yeah.
j: Yeah. Yeah. As I was gonna say, the in story, more recent memory, two kind of mermaid stories, and they’re both ocean mermaids. One was by Mira Grant or Seanan McGuire who writes as her horror fiction under Mira grant. Roiling in the Deep and drowning in a deep series.
And in that one, mermaids are a Apex. Creature of the ocean. And so they’re, they’ve now evolved to be the top, like humans on land. They are. And so [00:16:00] when folks go out to the ocean, they’re using whale sonar and all these kind of disruptive kind of tools. And then these me people attack and fight for their, their ocean or their body of their land I guess, or their water, I don’t know what you call it.
Yeah. their territory. There yes.
Maud: Yeah.
j: Namor does.
Yeah. So that’s,
that was one. And then the other one was the deep by rivers Solomon and this was a story that actually was started by William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes, and Daveed Diggs.
As Like a hip hop rap mythology.
The story is that during a transatlantic slave. Africans were two were tossed overboard. Some of them were pregnant and they actually gave birth in the ocean and they became a mer kind of culture in society. And the Deep by River Solomon was a novel adding to the lore and the myth of this story, the first of maybe many more novels people might write [00:17:00] of this kind of mermaid culture, mer culture.
Those are a
couple mermaid examples that I thought where they had this kind of either. Eco activist, bent to it or this kind of cultural assimilation, cultural reclaiming. And I thought that was interesting that you also, you had this tether in there.
That was really cool as I was reading it and you started getting that and I was like, I just thought about these other, the way that used the mermaid, besides a SA siren or, this pure horror or kind of just luring men to their death. That’s how they’re always used.
But this is using the lore and the myth,
Maud: friendlier and
it’s a cross
species
friendship. It’s also when
Evelyn prefers to be in the Water, but when
she comes on land
and changes into she’s not in any pain or anything.
They even
go,
Evelyn and Malcolm come with go with Mod to
an AWP Writers Conference. And there the thing [00:18:00] about the cross species friendship though, is that it’s also not that sweet.
There’s competition in it, and there’s a tendency on
both sides
to
Regard each
other as
pets.
especially, I
Maud: Especially the mermaids keep saying, things like stupid humans.
And,
Finding humans alternately
intermittent,
like either,
Annoying
or fun to play with.
Yeah. so There’s,
it’s a little, actually it’s a little sibling like, but the environmental,
Importance
of that
is,
A species coexistence and mutual thriving, but without a preaching this to it.
That it’s not, they’re, they have fights. They
give
each other hard times sometimes.
Yeah.
j: Yeah, No,
I think
it’s yeah, it’s good.
nick: Hell
Maud: They all like blueberry muffins.
j: who doesn’t like a
blueberry muffin?
nick: Is it the blueberries that they like? [00:19:00] Or is it like the whole
Maud: The whole thing.
Yeah,
nick: It’s always
a, it’s always one of those things. It’s oh, I just really love some blueberries.
j: I’m just gonna have those blueberries.
georgia: But that’s a little different than blueberry muffin,
j: and blueberry muffins. They’re cooked
and they’re All right. We’re,
georgia: anyway, I
j: going. So I was gonna, I was gonna ask too the kind of inner species relationships, because Evelyn has. Relations with humans on the shore of Lake Michigan at her occasion.
And then, and the question that went my head asked, especially as a biologist is are there any hybrid Chimeras that can come out of that? Are, did you think that through or is that in a book? I just haven’t gotten there yet. Don’t, if it is, don’t spoil it. But yeah, I
thought
about that.
Yeah.
Maud: it’s not, in the Book And I haven’t
really thought about it. I am writing
a sequel.
j: Okay.
Maud: let’s see.
I
don’t know if that,
will,
we’re gonna meet Evelyn’s aunt and we [00:20:00] also, meet, I dunno if you’ve gotten to this point in the book
we
do meet a little mermaids troop, which is four Hs, but they’re little
mermaids and they’re more
violent.
They’re violent, they’re very feral.
nick: Huh? What are four Hs?
georgia: You’ve
heard of? You’ve heard of the four H?
haven’t No.
Like
a group that that kids do lots of different outdoor activities and learn different skills. Camping, horseback riding, they very
Maud: farming,
j: environmental, right? Yeah.
Maud: I was in 4-H for years growing up.
They’re Rural all across the US or mainly rural and
tend to show
in county fairs and they’re great is totally great.
georgia: and I just love
Maud: in the Midwest. for A long time. You gotta learn
about four.
H. Four H is
Amazing.
georgia: I love the visual of four H mermaids. I just love that. Yeah, yeah. That’s such,
a great,
Maud: yeah. Okay. But
the hybrid kids. The hybrid
j: Yes.
Maud: [00:21:00] That’s a
good idea.
’cause
j: you have the, because they have, because they can still have legs. There’s all, there’s also, how many Big Macs would it take to,
I was gonna, the calories of transforming. Yeah.
georgia: I haven’t read it myself. I’m curious about the transformation. Is that written about very much in the book, or does that just,
j: I’m out, like I said, where I’m at, but it feels like there’s, as we say here, a lot of hand waving on the mermaid to human walking transition.
That’s yeah,
Maud: it, the most important thing to me was
that she does not.
she
and Malcolm too. They don’t suffer.
j: Right,
Maud: And They do
whatever they want and as long as they want. So there’s no kind of punishment or anything like that. So they’re just they’re stronger than humans too, so they try to pass as humans.
But like they’re taking the train down to AWP in Kansas City and that it’s too hot and they can’t open the window. So Malcolm just [00:22:00] pushes one of the windows out,
That this whole thing, like They find, human rules tiresome. Wait, I want to think of, oh, I wanted to say something about the
hybrid.
So
I know some of the activist things that I wanna deal with in this. The second book are one of them is citizen lobbying. So we’re gonna make a trip to Lansing and. Go through around the Capitol and try,
make sure that
part’s authentic. And another is Michigan is rare estate that does not have uniform septic requirements.
Okay. I have to deal with that. but I can tell you that Bob and Evelyn are gonna try to get involved with that, and then they’re just gonna be like, Ew, this is too gross. I hate this. they’re gonna go up and do something. else.
j: you totally can see it.
Maud: I have those two things that I really wanna get information about in the book, so that they’re both they’re a little boring important but boring. So then I [00:23:00] want the fantasy part to be even more fantastical. So maybe in the little mermaids group, maybe we’ll have some people who are hybrid and, you
georgia: I like that.
Maud: that, Thank you for
that
idea.
j: they have that.
Yeah, no,
It is there. I was just, in my head, I was just thinking about it and also to some of the science in there, how that work. And it feels like there’s some long history. And I think the nick had asked like how the origin of the mermaids, like how did they actually come about?
Was it, were they a aquatic species that then, had the capability to come on land
nick: also, do they have gills? How are they
Maud: They have, lungs.
j: they have lungs.
Maud: They have really big lungs that comes that’s towards the end of,
Towards the end of the book. There’s a whole I, in, in, real life, I have fairly severe asthma.
I’m trying to get the group and also my partner Bruce. Is in the [00:24:00] book involved in like fighting particulate pollution. and I’m bringing Some of the asthma measuring things to the beach and we’re all doing it, and evelyn is just exploding the instruments. have this incredible lung power and they also have built these rooms
like under,
underneath the
cribs.
j: right. Yep.
rooms or whatever.
Maud: We
suspect that there are other rooms and stuff too, but they don’t have, gills, they have lungs they need to have lungs. because I need to talk some about air pollution,
too.
georgia: I got,
you.
Maud: Which is not distinct from water pollution.
j: And are they’re
mammals then. That’s what we’re or are they? Are they mammals? And so like a whale or dolphin whale. Yeah.
Turtles are not mammals.
I was like, come
on man.
nick: you’re telling me a turtle isn’t a mammal? No, like they, they live on both land and
j: they’re amphibious.
Yeah,
nick: sure.
j: Yep.
nick: That’s what you want to label it as?
georgia: there are some amphibious mammals.
j: ooh, that’s a good [00:25:00] question. Like penguins, they go into the water, they dive, they don’t
nick: in the water.
j: they don’t, they live on land, but they can go either
way. Yeah.
georgia: a while underwater.
j: I think most of the,
georgia: I was gonna say is the biology of having lungs and being in water. How does that work? Is that not
j: No, I mean, whales, dolphins like
I think
they’re, yeah, no they have lungs and things. I think the thing you have to control is buoyancy. Because if you’re filled up with air, then you’ll rise up.
So you have to, control that and have mechanisms. And if you’re di diving deep, so we’re talking, those are ocean, depth fairing mammals. And so they dive, whales dive to great depths, so they have to have the, fat layer to keep warm insulate.
But yeah, they can submerge for hours. I mean it’s, for quite some time. Yeah. So you do have
Maud: That’s, that’s the,
j: The
Maud: world making with the mermaids. all came from either things that were funny
and or sexy or things that I [00:26:00] needed, like I had certain environmental things that I wanted to talk about.
So therefore, yeah, I needed them. with lungs.
j: yeah. Sea otters and seals and sea lions are
all. Also they’re amphibious. They go both. They live on land, but they actually function better
in terms of swimming and their motions are more fluid in water than on land.
And they’re at that point because their weight is still manageable. Because if you like a whale, when a whale beat is beached, essentially it’s hours before it’s just gonna die, like almost crush under its own weight. And so trying to get it back out into the water is an effort.
So that’s yeah. The other
Maud: the other thing I was playing with is they’re really strong, the mermaids and the mer people and they swim.
Like
at,
they take these group swims where they can go all the way up.
Lake Michigan and then through little bit of Lake Huron and into Lake [00:27:00] Superior. And that’s, that is just pure joy. As a swimmer, like I, I can’t do that. But I can imagine like a stronger version of all of us, doing that And just having a blast, and they have to go in groups though. ’cause that’s a big swim even for them.
j: Yeah. That part, yeah. Where they went up. And then also some of the pollution effects of eating where They
Maud: Yeah. They have to watch
what they didn’t use to.
they didn’t use
j: Yep. The modified liver. So you have a little bit of some of the science in there. So they have these modified livers to deal with the pollution. So probably
over time that evolved greater capacity for, cleaning.
nick: Now how are they dealing with the
microplastics?
Maud: Yeah.
they
don’t, they do have big,
they do
have big, livers. They
just, we’re,
We all have that.
That’s,
I was careful about the science in it. And [00:28:00] Dr. Mika Toska, is a friend and she was my science reader.
j: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Maud: She went through everything and, it was fun. Double checked it and we talked about it. and she used to work, for nasa.
j: Oh, Yeah, no, it, like I said just reading it though, there’s some little science tidbits in there that you go but then my brain just keeps going. I want more. I’m a sci-fi spec, speculative author, writer, and I do science, so I’m like, oh, how would this work?
Maud: Yeah,
I might have a little bit more
mermaid world
building in the second one again, mainly so I can compensate for like discussions. of Septic. tank policy.
j: That’s gonna be fun.
georgia: You poop
j: jokes in there I see. Makes in up.
Maud: choice do I have.
nick: Oh no, your arm twisted on that one.
j: Yeah,
yeah. There
it is. Yes.[00:29:00]
georgia: And
the of the Great Lakes.
Do
you know how
j: Yeah. I actually have, I, I have Lake Michigan’s depth because that’s what I knew we were be talking about, so that’s the only one I prepared on. The deepest point is 923 feet, so about as deep as a 70 story building.
nick: Oh
j: Oh, damn. Oh
georgia: Wow.
Wow. It’s
j: to
nick: that deep.
j: yeah. To MOD’s point, the surface area is about 22,400 square miles. So it’s about, it’s larger than the entire country of Croatia. So it’s a large body of water. And that’s Lake Michigan.
Lake Superior is bigger. It’s a lar it’s the larger of the Great Lake. So Yeah.
Maud: I love the expression inland Ocean. I really love that because
georgia: Oh yeah. That’s good.
Maud: What they are.
j: Yeah.
Maud: Yeah. Superior is
so
gorgeous too. No.
j: It
Maud: Offense Michigan, Yeah, it is.
Oh my
God. my God.
nick: Lake Mission’s, lake Michigan’s gonna get really upset by that state. I know. Yeah. That’s right’s it’s be
like,
Hey, next
week [00:30:00] Lake
j: Michigan,
georgia: the Mermaid
j: is the only
georgia: is gonna come over,
j: only Great Lake that is entirely in the us.
Maud: Yeah.
j: It’s us’ Great Lake. All the other one shares a border with Canada. So yeah. Lake Erie, lake Hu. Lake Superior Lake, Ontario.
Michigan. You can’t take Michigan? No. No matter how pretty superior is Lake Michigan is ours.
georgia: Oh, that’s interesting.
Yeah.
j: I didn’t even Yeah. So we got nobody but ourselves to blame for the contamination also, I guess that’s something.
level.
Maud: They’re
They’re all connected.
j: they are all interconnected. Yeah. Yeah. And like Michigan probably at some point was as bad as Lake Erie. So Lake Erie, like spontaneously com busted. It just caught
It was, Good. Yeah.
No. Yeah. Go for it. Yep.
Maud: Lake area is the most shallow.
j: Yeah. Yeah.
Maud: So it’s the most
Susceptible to,
j: to, pollution.
Yep.
Maud: But it’s improved a lot.
So I grew up in [00:31:00] Canton, Ohio which is about an hour and a half
to two.
South of Lake And It used to be really gross and then it improved a lot. And now of course, since we have that incredible environmentalist,
Running
the country
we’re all little worried
about what, what’s gonna happen with Great Lakes.
j: and I went to my college at Penn State Barron, which is in Erie. So we used to go, I remember friends that were from Erie, go, let’s go to the lake and wade in and do this. I’m like, I’m not getting in that lake. I’ve seen the videos of this lake that was just totally polluted.
But yeah they had they put in a great deal of money, time and effort to remediate that lake and at least have it where you can enjoy it as a natural resource again, instead of just being a, a kind of a, a dumping ground for in industrial waste and pollution.
nick: And bodies,
Maud: and as
because you all know, the
Great Lakes.
provide,
one 10th of the
[00:32:00] US
Are drinking water,
one half of Canada’s drinking water.
Great Whole, so we are we humans are in north America, are highly dependent on the Great Lakes. So we have a lot at stake.
j: Yeah. And they, they have overall about 21% of the world’s fresh water
in a great lake.
So on this water so much and we’re just like, you know what? Yeah. Yeah.
nick: Nah, let’s not take care of it. The
j: The funny thing
nick: don’t drink water.
j: Water. Is
Maud: we are, we, are
j: Good. Yeah. I
was
Maud: we trying?
j: I
was gonna
Maud: Go ahead.
j: The funny thing about it is that where. Mostly water ourselves and we have this resource and you go to talk to people about taking care of our watersheds and things like that.
It’s oh no, I don’t have time for that. And not even at a lazy level, it’s just I can’t be bothered with this thing that is sustaining us and is our kind of is
Without it, put in the back. of the book, there’s actually a lot of Good Great Lakes [00:33:00] nonprofits, so
Maud: I List as many as I could and their websites. and I had some people who are Non lazy activists double check. that
j: Good.
Yeah.
Maud: for me.
And
actually
the politics of those who love the lakes and want to preserve
them or even improve them are really interesting to me because it’s of course a coalition, like a lot of, causes are. And, you gotta include fishermen.
It’s a big there, there’s a, lot of recreational stuff that happens on the lakes
and that people absolutely swear by. So it’s
not an extra, it’s, not oh yeah.
And then occasionally I’ll go fishing. It’s like some people, a lot of people, it’s just huge.
Really huge. When there have
been some
spills and, catastrophes on various rivers that, that feed into some of the Great Lakes, there’s been a huge outcry. and you have environmentalists, you have the [00:34:00] recreational people you have, invasive species in various
groups, Trying To restock different lakes. So it’s pretty interesting. I think that, and when I was able. To do a book gig in Traverse City which is so much about the lake. And I loved it because
people were laughing.
A lot at my jokes, That’s always a good
feeling.
but it is, it’s really, the lake is a way of life,
georgia: Right.
Maud: We can, one, we have to feel lackadaisical sometimes. But I think there’s a lot of people who feel very passionately about the Great Lakes.
georgia: Right?
And
I think of the woman and her name was actually Alice and I, but Diane of the Dunes, we,
nick: I think we’ve touched on that
haven’t we?
georgia: I think we did a
j: in a Lighthouse
georgia: the Lighthouse but, that more about the Light Keeper, but I think we mentioned Okay.
Okay.
Diana, of the Dunes. But I just I, I have read books about her and [00:35:00] now it’s been a while, so I’m
going out on a limb here, but she was really, she was a student at, this was like turn of the century, but she was a student at University of Mm-hmm. And just being a woman, I think she studied math, I can’t remember. And, but she just decided I don’t want anything to do with that anymore. I don’t want anything to do with civilization anymore. And she just went and lived right next, in the dunes by the lake. But the thing that got her to come out of kind of her isolation was she came out to speak about different environmental issues about the lake.
And so I just, I think that, yeah, I really just the power of the lake and the passion.
j: When you, yeah I, I think as Maude was saying, when you go to the lake and you see it and you’re a little bit. Awestruck. It’s like going to see the Grand Canyon.
[00:36:00] Like when you look out, it’s just, you’re like, wow. That’s just, that is an impressive thing. And I remember when we first moved to Chicago, we were living in Hyde Park and I walked, I was like, I’m gonna go run, walked down, and then explore a little bit. And so I just went down and I’m walking and it was the first time I did it.
You get to feel like, wow, this is so cool. And you walk along the shore and you make that turn and then you see the city of Chicago downtown jetting out into the lake. And it was just, I felt that scene and planted the YAPS when Charleston Heston falls his knees. And, but I went, it was the opposite feeling.
It was like, oh, this is it’s this is so amazing right
now. It was like,
Maud: right? It’s. yeah, When people come visit, I was like, we gotta go do that. ’cause it’s so cool this you you build it up, like we turn this corner. It’s like you just, you have this surge of just all you’re like, oh, this is look at this, look at what they’ve done.
A deaf city and it’s so beautiful on the lake also, Do you go to 57th Street Beach?
j: Yeah, I think that’s where we Yeah. ’cause we lived
Maud: where it [00:37:00] was? Yeah. That’s my favorite beach.
love, the view we just see.
j: Yeah.
Called
Maud: Chicago the ary
georgia: The itself. The beach itself has this long sandy
Maud: shore,
so you can just even I think I started waiting this year in April.
Like the water’s really cold, but you can just weigh it out on the sandy, sho on
the sandy,
Stretch. And and then when the summer, when it warms up like now or soon,
There’s a lot of families that go there, a lot of little kids. In the san the sandy part ’cause it’s really shallow, far out.
And then you
can
go beyond that and have a good swim. It’s
amazing. It’s really
amazing.
j: It is really cool.
georgia: And also going in the winter time. And Like when it’s obviously not in the
Water, but just
seeing the ice in the, during the winter.
Oh, it’s it’s just like really
amazing.
nick: I don’t know. why
[00:38:00] sand and snow just don’t seem to mix
georgia: Just
j: They go together water
georgia: though. and
Maud: still go
gorgeous. And I
think that the lake is a place
of
hope
too. It’s
j: It’s
Maud: Very
sensual
and Yeah,
maybe mermaid still
live
j: Maybe
they do. And I was, some of the things just looking up during research this episode, but I learned that the Lake Michigan has underwater dunes and fossil beds, so it has these massive sand dunes and even ancient coral from a time when Mic, the Midwest was a tropical sea, and there’s actually petrified forest down there submerged underwater. Yeah. So there is this kind of almost, submerged other world. There’s
a mystery.
Maud: there’s a mystery to
j: I I don’t have pictures.
nick: No, like that we can
j: Oh, I’m sure you probably can find something. Yeah. People probably have
dove down.
nick: in the
the show
j: notes. Yes, you’re,
georgia: said that. for a while.
nick: I know, right? I felt like I had to.
j: the
[00:39:00] other thing
Is a shipwreck alley.
Like I also didn’t realize there’s over 1500 known shipwrecks are in Lake Michigan, and a lot of ’em are preserved because of the cold and water’s fresh. So you don’t have the kind of corrosive power of the salt as
you would in the ocean. So it’s there and there’s even a underwater preserve called the Manitou passage underwater preserve.
Wow. Yeah.
So it’s these cool facts I didn’t realize
about Lake Michigan, so Yeah. That’s
that’s so
georgia: awesome.
j: that’s some stuff, and even you probably can throw that into your novel, some of these
tidbits, these that’s right?
Maud: Each. Each gig I do, I get more people like
sharing their pet Things about, Or you’re a scientist. So
it’s your professional
Thing.
j: Yeah.
One of the, one of the interesting things, and this was way back, ’cause I, as I said when I was at Penn State Baron there was researchers there studying mussels. And mussels is an invasive species that, that is found in the Great Lakes and just taken over. And it was [00:40:00] interesting because they’re a nuisance in a number of ways, but one way is that they actually filtered a water in the lake, and they’re so efficient at it that the water is becoming unnaturally clear, which then disrupts nutrient cycles and food web.
So like lake trout and white fish, they’re becoming, they’re hard to compete,
because it’s like
Maud: they’re depriving Trisha food, but yeah. they are. It’s Beautifully.
clear.
j: yeah.
Maud: Also, just for laughs I have Evelyn, she can, she says at one point that
she’s got such
beautiful
skin because.
She uses like a ground up muscle shells as
j: Yeah.
Maud: of laughs and
Readings.
Yeah.
j: That’s So yeah,
it’s one of those interesting things. And the other thing is, as you can smell, lake Michigan in the summer months, there’s these cyanobacterial blooms in the warmer shallows and they produce a toxin called micro cysteines and they have a strong [00:41:00] odor. And so as you get these blooms, then you get this kind of smell off of the lake, and that’s what you’re probably smelling these cyanobacterial blooms.
People will say algal blooms, but they’re not algae. Algae is different than cyanobacteria. So just
wanted to clean Yeah, so yeah, algae is a eukaryotes. So it’s more closely related to plants. Terrestrial plants. They’re aquatic
Maud: okay. This
is good to know.
I think I did have the term
algae blooms in
there.
j: People say that all the time, but they’re usually blue green. It’s a historical misnaming, so people go blue green algae, but really that’s blue green cyanobacteria, which are photosynthetic bacteria, and they’re not directly related to algae. So it’s one of these it’s, it probably people aren’t gonna mark you wrong but they’ll know, they’ll be like, oh, that’s wrong.
georgia: Only
sur ’cause it’s,
Maud: well
For book number two because I
know bacterial will be in that
j: Yeah, There. So yeah. so that’s just
One of those things where people always go blue green algae, and it’s oh, it’s not algae. I know it’s, [00:42:00] people call it that, but it’s not technically. Yeah. So it’s just naming thing.
But yeah.
I
think we talked about that in the plant episode. I think
nick: so.
j: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
nick: like, know this information. I
j: know there it is. why
the rabbit holes all connect. That’s what we always say, so
georgia: I know this? Yeah.
nick: I have no need for this information.
Maud: I
do though.
I have, need for it.
j: yes.
nick: There you
you go.
You
go back to our plant episode. I feel like that one we covered I feel like we covered aquatic life in
j: We did, we talked about some aquatic plants. Yeah. Yeah.
Maud: I just do wanna put in a plug for Michigan State. I wanna put in a plug for Michigan State because I did do some interviews, there’s a lot of great environmental stuff coming out of Michigan State and also the different, the agricultural people who work for the state of Michigan, some of which come from Ms MSU. and I was able to interview a couple people
and. That was really fascinating. So there’s a lot of a [00:43:00] farm service thrust to a lot of the work and also a public facing commitment, if you want, you can get your arm talked off about different invasive species that interfere with blueberry crops and so forth.
So that was, there, there really is like the most wonderful unofficial coalition.
People
people who say specifically love Lake Michigan and our, and work or work and play and Lake Michigan. Oh, one other thing about that too is that the Michigan coast of Lake Michigan is just full of
beaches. So we, all of us technically own. At least part of Lake Michigan. Everyone who lives on or in the watershed, like we, it’s part, it’s ours,
right?
Our country is plural or whatever. But the other feeling of a kind of healthy [00:44:00] feeling of ownership is that a lot of people just grew up, just going to the beach.
Like we talked about it in Chicago, but also all the way up. All
the
way.
up, It’s just incredible how embedded it is in so many people’s growing up, there, sense of self, it is really nice. So in a way it isn’t it isn’t something to be preached about. It is something to just be tapped
in. people
who already have pleasure relationship. to
j: Leverage that to, to get people thinking about it
and Yeah.
Caring a little bit. Yeah. That’s, I don’t, I think people don’t realize sometimes they need to care about something or have to put effort like that into it. Or just even like you said, just reading or thinking about that, that this is happening outta sight out of mind
a level of, awareness.
georgia: Yeah. yeah.
Maud: Yeah,
j: Yeah,
Maud: We are very lucky.
to
live on the lake.
j: Definitely.
That was really cool. And
Maud: And I have to
[00:45:00] say personally too, it’s a point in history. I’m trying to
keep names out of this, but I wouldn’t say
it’s an entirely lucky moment in US
history.
not
for me.
georgia: Yeah. That would definitely not be the word to use.
Maud: The
land.
itself and the lakes and the water and Great Lakes, they do our sort of reminder. of Like how lucky we are,
georgia: right? And then And the national parks.
nick: Absolutely.
The National
georgia: the National parks and the park Rangers.
and,
the I’m
just saying there’s so many,
Maud: that’s Right, Not selling off public lands. yep. Okay.
georgia: Yeah.
Maud: You cannot tell all of us in the Midwest that’s a good idea.
and there it did get political. But what are we gonna do?
That’s our
life.
georgia: Yeah. That’s yeah.
j: Yeah.
So yeah, we’ll have, I guess authors and Have
to do, and maybe we’ll see another generation of Bee horror movies come outta it.
nick: The one movie that keeps coming to mind for me is [00:46:00] Idiocracy by Mike Judd. Because what they were using a Gatorade like drink to
georgia: I don’t I
j: don’t think, I’ve seen that damn me either. What?
georgia: South Park person? No no.
nick: of the Hill.
georgia: Oh, king of the Hill. Yeah, yeah, I haven’t seen that.
Oh,
nick: you should? A hundred percent.
Okay.
Yeah.
They were using a Gatorade like drink to water, the plants and everything. They’re like electrolytes. It’s what plants need.
georgia: Oh, geez.
nick: Yeah. There it
georgia: Oh, wow.
nick: this is,
j: This is, we don’t need that water.
nick: that’s essentially what they were thinking. What are you stupid that goes in the toilet? And it’s what? Yeah. A hundred percent recommend that film, especially in these days.
It, it’s a little too close to home.
j: Yeah.
georgia: I don’t,
j: All right. Let’s we can start the wrap up. Yeah. Do you got any, so you have a few more plugs you wanna throw in there? We’ll get these in the show notes also.
Maud: Yeah. I just wanna say this
was really fun.
really, yeah.
really enjoyed it So much. Thank you again. In
[00:47:00] terms of October events with the book.
Yeah.
We’ll be at Seminary co-op,
Talking about the book. And That’s the end of October.
The
date
is
j: I’ll put it in the show notes. You can just, we can get
Maud: Okay. Okay. The end of October, be at seminary co-op talking about mermaids and LA lazy, activists. And my discussant will be Zach Cahill.
Who’s wonderful artist and writer and friend. Zach is in there too.
Evelyn
is
trying to get him involved in money That’s right. Oh, yeah. Yes. I was like, I know that.
j: Yeah.
No, that’s right. Yes. Wedding
band that she’s stolen, I guess that was,
Hey
Maud: Yes. I wanna say
that all my friends who are
in there. in Little cameos. Yeah. I did get their permission for their
j: Yeah.
georgia: That’s
Maud: Zach is still
speaking to me. And yeah,
We’re gonna be
at seminary and have some fun with
it
And
And listen.
to [00:48:00] people
Also talk about what the lake means to them. and
j: Yeah,
Maud: uh, Environmentalism, not just with the, we’re all gonna die.
j: Yeah. Or the post-apocalyptic, like we, we did not heed the warning of, ah, Maud and the lazy activist.
And now you have to engage in, do
nick: you think Eve would survive in a post-apocalyptic world?
Eve. Evelyn. Jesus.
Maud: that’s
okay. The whole point is that
it’s a
A moment,
j: You’ve elevated
nick: her
to Eve.
now. it’s like
Maud: there they’re not.
That’s why she’s required to do eco work,
by her mermaid.
Maud: Yeah. So she can either do eco work or something like a lot or different versions of it. But this eco diplomacy is to make sure that it’s not an apocalypse. Yeah. So they’re not having any of that. They’re not helpless or helpless, but they are lazy, enjoy being [00:49:00] lazy.
j: Aren’t we All I was gonna say to
The point of water and how important it’s to us humans the novel Sea of Rust by Cargill and that’s it.
It’s a robot apocalypse
so
there, there’s a war between sentient machines and humans. And not to spoil it. ’cause like the first paragraph of the book. The robots find the last human and kill ’em.
And
the whole thing. You go,
Every movie,
Terminator humans put up a good fight, the Matrix, and it’s all us.
But in this book, what he said was, the robot says let’s poison all the water sources. And we don’t need you just go, all the humans if you can’t drink water,
they’re going to die.
So it was like this total strategy that, oh, the machine just said, this is what’s important to humans, so why fight ’em?
Why use nuclear weapons and all No, this, that they have to drink. So it was it
Maud: this is the opposite of
that.
j: right?
That’s
right. That’s what I’m saying. yes.
Maud: it’s
also not self righteous.
It’s Not self righteous. ’cause these [00:50:00] activists are like, they’re
fuckups, they’re funny,
they’re
just
j: yeah.
Maud: Playful.
and then they do what they have to do.
j: Yeah. That’s just how important water is that, when the machines become sentient, they. They go, you
know what? It’s but
It’s hard for humans to figure it out right now. Oh, let’s just dump all this crap in there. We don’t need that water. Who needs fresh water? We’ll just get Gatorade.
Gatorade
Maud: I’ll say specifically
for
what I’m imagining is your audience. So this is, this book is from Beyond Press in Hyde Park. Mike Phillips is the EIC, and they do mainly horror and
fantasy. Books, some books that are about Chicago.
And I wanna say for your listeners if they’re doing fantasy Mike is great to work with.
j: Yes.
Maud: press to work with, and I,
Like I said at the beginning of our talk, I have been around the block, right? I have this [00:51:00] is my eighth book. So I know I, when I say that, an editor and a publisher, it’s good to work with. I really mean it.
that’s a plug too.
j: Yeah, no, definitely. And I’m in, I have a story in the, that red line
Maud: Oh, the the I’m gonna get
that one.
j: yeah, so
Maud: Oh, wonderful.
j: working
with Mike and we, since I’m on campus, we met up and did some promo things, so No I’m excited about that. It was a fun, it was a fun kind of
aside from
getting stuff back to my agent but yeah. No, not about me. It’s about Maud so Yeah.
georgia: that’s
so cool.
j: myself.
Maud: we’re press
j: are, yeah I agree. Like working with Mike was really awesome and a lot of cool stuff, especially the fantasy and horror. So this was different. So when I started reading it, it’s a good, it’s a good read. I’m enjoying it. It, like you said, it’s very chaunty, very conversational, so it just flows and.
Yeah, The characters
are likable
in their perky
way, so
I’m looking forward to reading. Yeah. Yeah. So
yeah,
we’ll
have the links to the book on there and you can go see a [00:52:00] discussion at the seminary bookstore. We’ll have that link. Great bookstore, I dunno what time it is, but Plain Air right next to it. Great coffee shop so you can make a whole little evening out of it and
So yeah.
Cool.
Yeah, it was. so much for
Definitely. This was
a
great
Maud: Oh, thanks for inviting me. I just,
had a great time.
j: Yeah. Perfect. Nice. Alright, with that, you got me Joe here.
nick: you got
j: You got Nick. We got Nick
georgia: In
j: We’ve got Georgia and
nick: went down some watery
j: Watery
holes,
georgia: Fresh water
j: holes. Stay activated out there.
georgia: Ice
j: Stay safe. Love you.
