INTRO: Hi. I’m Mimi Chan. Welcome to Culture Chat. Thanks for joining the conversation.
SIFU MIMI CHAN: Coach Dahn John and I are back discussing the philosophies of The Sword in the Stone and how they apply to modern day life. Dahn John is a world-renowned strength coach and mentor to many in the fitness industry. I am grateful for these philosophical discussions and learn so much from Dan. In this episode Dahn discusses the importance of doing the work, whether it applies to strength training, Kung Fu or education, there are no shortcuts in life. He also shares his thoughts on the Insurrection at the Capitol and his theory on the promise of America. Dahn also gives me an education on the history of revolutions. I urge everyone to listen with an open mind and let me know your thoughts, especially if you have read The Sword in the Stone. It is an honor to talk with guests like Dahn and I hope to continue to bring these conversations to you. In order to help me do that, please share this podcast with others and rate it on your platform of choice. I am also excited to announce that this show now has transcriptions. So if you are interested in reading the transcript, you can see that on my website. A special shout out and thank you to Christina who has so graciously volunteered to help transcribe the show. You can also take one extra step to show your love by donating to the podcast to help keep it going. You can do so on my website sifumimichan.com or on patreon.com. Thank you so much for the support. I appreciate you. For comments or suggestions email me at mimi@culturechatpodcast.com or reach out on social media @sifumimichan. Now on with the show.
MIMI CHAN: Hello hello Dahn John!
DAHN JOHN: Hey, how are ya?
MIMI CHAN: I’m great. Sort of Happy New Year. I mean, we’re a little few weeks in but it’s still new.
JOHN: Well, you know, it’s been—you know that they’re calling it an Insurrection, but that was sadly—it was on my father’s birthday.
MIMI CHAN: Oh no.
JOHN: The 6th of January, well, I mean, he’s been dead for [inaudible]
MIMI CHAN: Yes, I mean, but—
JOHN: It’s not a good day. It’s like, I was with someone not long ago whose birthday was 9/11, 2001 and I’m like “wow.” And a glorious thing, I used to work with a woman who was born on December 7th, 1941. So, you know, but yeah, we have some good news. I’ll be expecting another grandchild. A grandson. His name is Leo. He’ll be here probably the end of April, early May, I’m guessing.
MIMI CHAN: Congratulations. That’s great news.
JOHN: [inaudible]
MIMI CHAN: Which we definitely always need a lot of, especially given that it seems lately in the last several years, especially like every time we’re past things that are just—the conflict and all of these major issues and last year was so tumultuous and we think we’ve turned a corner, to kind of run into another wall. And yeah, for sure January 6 was really crazy and I did want to ask you because we always talk about history and on the show you and I kind of delve in and of course we always talk about The Sword in the Stone and what that teaches us and I was just curious how you think—I don’t know—if historians is the thought on that, but how we’re going to be looked at in this moment of time and it just seems like we’ve lost track of our morals and there’s just so much hate.
JOHN: I took a number of courses in college on revolutions and stuff like that. At Utah State, I took two at the same time. One with Professor Glatfelter is probably the best class I’ve ever taken; one of the best classes I’ve taken in my life. And then another class with this other professor was one of the worst. He was a terrible instructor. It was terrible. I mean, great material. But one of the things we learned, one thing you can be sure of after a revolution, that will never happen again. So, you know, the Russian Revolution—revolutions have a certain pattern. In fact, we had to memorize a couple points. One of them. This is one or two. Was that the revolution eats its young and the second one is that, you know, the same thing will never happen again. We’ll never have another American Revolution in the United States. We had a Civil War. A terribly horrible Civil War. Just profoundly terrible. Gettysburg, every second three men died. I mean, that’s just—
MIMI CHAN: Wow.
JOHN: Those are numbers you can’t—those are unfathomable numbers. You know, you look at the Irish Revolution and Ireland gains its independence from England and of course the English screwed them over with the way they did that and it’s the Irish go into a Civil War. French Revolution, Robespierre promised how hanging—pardon me, the guillotine—
MIMI CHAN: The guillotine, yeah.
JOHN: —was a humane way to die and as we’re getting ready to chop his head off, the audience was shouting, “It’s a humane way to die, Robespierre.” So one thing I can almost say will never happen again is—I doubt we’ll ever see that kind of thing happen. I think the Capitol Police—I’m shocked how underwhelmed they were and I do have to agree with a lot of people of color that I listen to. Why don’t they treat us like they treat them because I guarantee if it would have been 1968 the Black Panthers, there would have been firepower used.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely. I agree.
JOHN: And I think we have to take a moment and remind ourselves that why are there still so many kinds of Law and Order. These same people who are claiming to be for Law and Order. Well, people for Law and Order don’t kick down doors, steal the speaker’s podium, take illegal pictures of documents, and then go through—the woman stole a computer and sold it to the Soviets. Yeah. It just— it stuns me. Oh and by the way folks, I know there’s a judgment on the Russians and the Soviets but not in the real world.
MIMI CHAN: There would have been a time that would be very treasonous and there would be actual consequences for such behavior.
JOHN: Well, ideally this would get taken care of. The nice thing is— I mean most of us—whenever you take a picture there’s so much information now on those digital. Back in the day, if you took a Polaroid of yourself naked there was one copy and you couldn’t figure—I guess you could figure out where it was by the background, you know, I guess you could. But now you take a picture and they know everywhere you’ve been for the last two years, every one you sent it to and when. As I understand it, the FBI is doing a great job. The FBI. I’ve worked with the FBI. They’re some of the finest people I know and it’s an honor to have worked with them. The way they’ve been treated the past four years is an abomination. I work with the military all the time and their treatment has bothered me more than what you believe. What I find interesting, because of one police officer being beaten with the blue lives matter flag. I just thought that was just—what can you say—disappointing.
MIMI CHAN: Irony?
JOHN: Maybe this isn’t the place to talk about— I have to say we can do better and we will and the thing about the United States, I’ve always believed, it’s always been the promise of America. We don’t always get it right but people are as we speak right now, there’s people putting their hand over their heart, becoming citizens of this country and they believe in the promise of America and it’s not just that we are Capitalist, it’s that we we’re the land of the free and the home of the brave and we step up when we’re asked to and it’s time to remind ourselves that volunteering is the most American thing I can think to do. I’ll be doing it next week. I’ll be donating blood. Helping your neighbor. That’s what America is. So let’s get back to those things.
MIMI CHAN: Absolutely and I thank you for sharing all of that. It’s why I wanted to ask you and it’s absolutely the place to talk about it, by the way. Because it’s just been such a jarring time. Especially, you know, we’ve talked on the show before, that you know a little bit about my family’s history and it’s just this country to me is somewhere that both of my parents came to start their family because it was the land of the free and the home of the brave and this American dream and in the last several weeks and last several years, really, it’s just been so much disruption to that imagery, to the meaning of it that it’s confusing that half the country, maybe, I don’t know, maybe less, maybe more, don’t feel—doesn’t make you feel like that’s the belief anymore. That they want inclusion and they want diversity and so it’s frustrating and so.
JOHN: I would just say this. I’m speaking as well as a child of immigrants but I often say that I am white and male and I am at a certain age. I am a Baby Boomer and I just think I am part of the worst generation in the history of America. The Baby Boomers, especially the ones a little bit older than me, went to brand new schools their entire life. I’ve said this many times. My brothers, they could pay for their tuition and room and board by working 40 hours a week for six weeks. So school’s very often would take a large Christmas break off so the students could go get a job at Sears Roebuck for minimum wage to pay for the rest of their second semester.
MIMI CHAN: Wow.
JOHN: When they got homes, they were very inexpensive. You know, my sister bought a house in South San Francisco, as I recall, for $30,000.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
JOHN: She’s only 7 years older. This generation has had a lot handed—and I’m putting myself in there. When you look like me, and if you come to the end of your working days and you don’t have your home paid [inaudible] that’s on you. You can’t blame people of other skin tones or eye shade or hair type or they might have a different accent. That’s all on you. I can’t tell you how many friends I had that just skid through life. And now they’re upset that they somehow got ripped off by the American dream. They didn’t get ripped off. A friend of mine, Veronica Brand, she’s a school teacher. I taught her daughter. She taught my daughter. It’s kind of funny. She offered to post this thing about. “Yes. We did teach you that in school. You were talking to somebody else. You were writing a note to somebody. You were whispering,” and now there’s another one that goes “you were texting, you were on the internet.” Yeah, so I am a big believer that when you find issues in life, one of the first things to do is look back in the mirror and I sound a little judgemental today and I am and I am concerned.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I would consider you judgemental. Your opinion is valued by many but also you’ve put in your time with not just studies but with real work experience and real life experiences. You’ve kind of dedicated your life to helping others and through that is why I asked you these questions because you have a specific lens through which you see things and I think that’s very valuable for people to hear, so.
JOHN: Someone on a podcast recently said that the reason I’m successful is because I’m a genetic freak and I wanted to reach through the screen and beat the crap out of the person. I can show you my journals. I can’t show them all the way back because I didn’t start taking them until 1971, but I can show you 1971-72, you know, coming home from practice and lifting weights. Going to the library to learn more about what I was going to do. Reading magazines to figure out how to be better. Yeah. I’m a genetic freak who hustled and networked like everybody else.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. I think it’s also because the thoughts of hard work and actual taking accountability for one’s actions is not as prevalent as maybe it once was. Like for me as a Kung Fu teacher, literally we teach our students Kung Fu means hard work and that doesn’t just mean kicking and punching. You apply that to everything but it’s not philosophically the first thought when people are learning, I’ve noticed as I go to teach my students. Like it’s almost foreign, which is crazy to me, but it is. It seems like it’s very foreign that “oh, well this should come easily and if it doesn’t I’ll quit” which actually is a perfect side to part of the Merlin stuff because the chapter that we’re at now is where they’re playing with the arrows and you know Kay is like “well, I can’t you know hit the target so I’m going to move on” but then they move on to kind of having fun and being creative and so there is that thought of—
JOHN: Before we start, Mimi, I want the world to know how disappointed I am in you. Have you not noticed the background?
MIMI CHAN: Background?
JOHN: I have completely redone my office—
MIMI CHAN: Your office!
JOHN: To inspire you while we come together.
MIMI CHAN: Well, I do see the Merlin above your head.
JOHN: Okay.
MIMI CHAN: And the book that I’m reading. The version that I read. Yes yes.
JOHN: And so what you see here, those are my books in translation. And those are all the strength and health magazines from about 1947 to 1985 and these are the books that are on my hot list over here. Those are the ones that I probably reference the most as I read [inaudible]. These are the two books right there that I’m reading and then those up there are just an assortment of Dragon Door books, you know, friends of mine, and, then, I got a ton more stuff here and I’ve got a lot of books.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, you got quite the library. Oh, yes. I love it. Yeah, I was—because I’m so focused on you. That’s why but now that I know that’s right.
JOHN: Yeah yeah, sure sure.
MIMI CHAN: I do love it and I love that it’s inspired for the conversation. It absolutely is but in essence, yes, the hard work ethic and that whole giving up very easily. Like I do find and I think every generation says this. “Oh, when I was your age, I walked uphill in the snow both ways” and it was “I worked harder and everything”. But I do feel like there is a disconnect between a certain generation like being able to— or not generation, but the work ethic kind of being lost, like giving up very easily and in the— I think it’s chapter 6 where they’re playing with the arrows and they’re trying to do an actual structural game. Kay quickly gets very frustrated and kind of gives up and I was curious as you as a major educator, as one who teaches so much, if you see kind of that, where there’s a lot of wanting to give up kind of easily and then—or people getting quote-unquote “bored”. I think that term they use is like “well, I’m bored of this then” or “tired of this.”
JOHN: Yeah. Well, if you don’t mind. If you go all the way towards the end of the book after—in The Sword in the Stone, after— it’s one of the—Merlin only goes on two adventures with Wart. Now, I could be wrong on that, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. So he goes with him underwater when they face the pike. That’s where he teaches him how to swim and at the end they’re at a very boring evening soul or the solar and Merlin takes them and they go chase—they go save King Pellinore because he is under the— he’s in the dungeon of the Beast Gallupus. The story moves ahead six years, very rapidly. I think it’s chapter 20. Very rapidly. And then one of the things that’s interesting, is that Kay continues to use a bow that’s too long for him. So it was a sign of arrogance to have a bow that was too long and it continues. Now the reason I bring that up.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: Just for your record. Kay doesn’t get better with this situation. Kay is involved in… yeah, this story with the good edition, is gonna get us to meet Mad Madam Mim. Yes. Correct name is Madame Mim. But what gets us into this is once again Kay is always—he doesn’t put—if he’s not the best, we’re gonna go do something else. And he’s not very good; it continues on the whole story of just—of doing the grind. What we see. Get the grind in. And I’m sure in Kung Fu a kick is a kick and a punch is a punch sometimes and I’m sure that you could probably show me honestly, meaning if we ever get the chance. I would say in two or three minutes, you could probably show me how to hurt somebody with a punch. All I would be though is a bludgeon. I would not be a talented Kung Fu person. The grind is the next 28 years. And if I said it’s going to be 28 years, the correct answer for you, meaning would be “well maybe by 28.”
MIMI CHAN: Right. And we do get that question a lot. People come into the school and want to know “when am I finished. When am I a master? When am I done?” and I’m like, “well, when do you want to stop learning and growing and evolving?” And then you know, so that’s usually the Q&A and because we’re such a traditional school there’s only a certain type of mindset that usually wants to train with us because a lot of people just want to get to the quote unquote “fun” or “I want the sword right away. What do you mean have to wait three years”, you know.
JOHN: Yeah. “Just show me the circus tricks.”
JOHN: Yeah. It’s the whole course in the world of Fitness. We have the whole “what’s the easiest way to get six pack abs for a vacation”, you know. And that’s why performance-enhancing drugs are so popular.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
JOHN: P.E.Ds. And if you get enough ephedrine, enough anabolics and enough testosterone in you, you don’t need to do a lot to lean up. You’ve got some other issues going on like but yeah, that’s a much easier route than “okay for the next five years, I want you to, you know, strictly count calories and work out for five days a week and walk seven.” “Wait, what, is there a faster path?” Well, no. I mean, there’s always, you know, drinking rat poison will burn fat.
MIMI CHAN: And if used, I bet you Dahn John, if you went on this, like, campaign of that you’ll get people to do it. That’s the amazing thing because they would rather drink rat poison and take the shortcut then do the work.
JOHN: A very famous bodybuilding expert actually, basically recommended
MIMI CHAN: Oh gosh. Yeah. See, I don’t even know these things.
JOHN: Having said that, gentle listener. You don’t have the skill set to pull that off.
MIMI CHAN: But therein lies from the beginning or conversation to even now kind of that mentality that I want things now, that it should be immediate. It’s a bit of a spoiled mentality actually and it’s kind of ingrained a bit in our culture,
JOHN: Well, you know, the movie Dune is coming out. I didn’t like the original movie with Sting and the guy from—he’s in How I Met Your Mother and Sex and the— MacLachlan?
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, I can’t remember the name.
JOHN: You know who I’m talking about?
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: I didn’t like that one and then SyFy had about a 22 to 26 series of Dune that I liked a lot.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
JOHN: So Dune is coming out again and so people [inaudible] I put that on that short list. I think the Sword in the Stone, Dune, The Road by McCartney Cormac, and The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I think those books—you can put On The Road by Jack Kerouac there too, I guess. Those are books, I think that will be—that they have the smell of classics. Okay. And yet I’ve had people say “well, I started reading Dune. I couldn’t get through the first chapter” and like, “Okay. Well”. “Yeah, I started reading The Godfather but couldn’t get to—when do they start killing people?”. Well, yeah, it starts off at a wedding. “I can’t get through The Sword in the Stone because the first chapter has a lot of words I don’t know.” “I was gonna be a master, you know, 300 thread black belt in Kung Fu but God they’re only open on nights and really, my schedule.” You know, it’s always something. They were all—yeah. There’s always something. Always.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. Yeah, and I think for you especially right, when you do go to train these individuals and there’s always the excuses or the roadblocks or the why me’s. It is usually non accountability and the lack of being able to see that, no, these are the steps that need to be taken or on the flip side, I’m sure you have amazing athletes that just do as you say, Dahn John. Coach, they just do as you say, but how do you combat that when you do come across kind of that—that mentality because it has to be pretty prevalent or do you only attract the disciplined?
JOHN: I’ve had genetics and hard work combined. In my career…it’s weird because Mom and Dad sometimes “my son is the hardest working kid I know.” No, no he’s not. It’s very rare, very very rare. And when the two do come together, it is lights out. I mean, that is a—that is just a superior person. It’s very very rare. You know, that’s why sports state-sponsored athletics has so many advantages. Because they can say you’re a discus thrower, you’re a handball player, whatever and this is what your career is and then it’s going to work versus having to bring in, like with us, we have to bring in our own passion. You have to bring in your own self discipline, your own passion to the Kung Fu, what do you call it, Kung-Fu Dojo.
MIMI CHAN: Well, no, it would just—our school is a temple, but you could just say school because Dojo would be Japanese.
JOHN: Dojo, I’m just—
MIMI CHAN: Kwoon is the Chinese word. But yeah.
JOHN: Okay. So when you go to the Kwoon, you have to bring, Mimi, your discipline, your passion. Whereas if I gave you “okay, you have to be the best Kung Fu place in the Trifecta area around, between the three turnpike’s in the highway and I’m gonna give you five million dollars a year do that.” Yeah. It’d be different. You know, it’d be different, and if everyone going to your place was being state-sponsored you would and if you don’t get the sponsorship, you have to go work in a coal mine. You have a pretty good set of hard-working people in the coal mine. So. Coal mine. Kung Fu. Coal mine. Kung Fu. So, let’s get back to the Sword in the Stone stuff.
MIMI CHAN: No, no, no. But like I said, it kind of goes hand-in-hand because where we left off, we had kind of wrapped up the Pike and we were moving into the next chapter which is the arrows where they go to do the playtime which is why I brought that up and then of course, it leads them to Madam Mim. But that was kind of why I was asking and I thought on one hand, of course Kay doesn’t obviously learn his lesson by the end. He’s still trying to do the same tricks and trying to take the shortcuts, but what one thing I thought was interesting was that they went instead of doing the structured arrow—I don’t want to say game but they were specifically doing targets. They said “oh, let’s go play rovers instead” and I thought that was kind of interesting because I feel like, again, bringing it back to education and kind of the real world of what we do. I thought it was actually positive they got to go do something kind of creative and that yet they were still outside playing versus inside texting or on TV. They didn’t have those options back then I guess maybe that was their distraction but I didn’t think—I thought it was interesting how they substituted their time and made up their own games. And I thought that interaction was kind of because the interaction between Kay and Wart is always so frustrating but that was kind of friendly, a little bit. Like there’s a little bit of back and forth where they were—it felt like they were doing something together versus Kay just dogging on Wart as always.
JOHN: As always. And you know, Kay, even after Wart has The Sword in the Stone. Kay claims it at the end. But let’s get back. Let’s get back to our story. I’ll pull my edition out. Oh, you might not notice it but I do. That piece of art right there.
MIMI CHAN: Oh, yeah, it’s hard to see—it’s just—yeah.
JOHN: That is by Dennis Nolan, the guy who—
MIMI CHAN: Ohhh, nice.
JOHN: So I contacted Nolan and it is—that is one of his drawings of everybody returning from the castle. But let us begin, as we do, let us turn to the book of Holiness that we— go ahead, any questions you have, I’ll listen, and I’ll try to not talk so much.
MIMI CHAN: No, this is why I’m here, to hear you talking. So, let’s see. So obviously they’re like I said, they’ve been playing and I was curious about the whole Rovers thing, but I thought that was just fun. Like they—it was a game that they came up with and then it, of course, it takes them to Madam Mim. So I thought we would delve in there and one of the things I thought that was interesting was, of course, I guess it was the sorcerer thing like she had to have them come in the house in order for her to have power over them and what got them in was Kay’s aristocratic upbringing because she was able to kind of say the right thing.
JOHN: It’s the whole don’t be rude thing, right?
MIMI CHAN: Right, right. She said, “oh, the fair is so lowly. No doubt. It is not what you would be accustomed to eating and so naturally such highly born ones would not care to partake” and that, like, struck a chord with him.
JOHN: Exactly and there’s—do you mind if I just—there’s an interesting little thing I want to talk about here.
MIMI CHAN: Sure.
JOHN: This has only come up to me in the last week or so. Is that, in the 1958 version they decided to drop Mim out. Now, Mim will show back up in the Disney version with this terrible purple hair, looks like Roseanne Barr. They dropped the Gulapus part. So in the 1958 version, they dropped Mim and the Beast, the giant, Gulapus. and as I was sifting through this, I had this interesting insight because when you talk about witches and you talk about giants and you put yourself back when T.H. White is writing this, he’s writing this—in fact, he was invited to be with JRR Tolkien and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—CS—
MIMI CHAN: CS Lewis.
MIMI CHAN: Those two invited White to hang out with them at their little writers club and White turned it down. White, obviously, you know, White. And what’s interesting, if you think about witches and giants; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I mean, there you go. There’s your, you know, your CS Lewis and your Narnia Adventures and when I think of witches and giants, I kind of sort of slide mentally into Tolkien’s realm too.
MIMI CHAN: Of course.
JOHN: So, I mean, but it was an interesting segue thought that I had that witches and giants would be such an important part of a 1930s book and yet we would toss them out in 1958. I have no other insight so far than the one I just said, except it was the— look, I mean, I’m no fan of CS Lewis.
MIMI CHAN: I know, you’ve told me.
Speaker 1: And I know, I’m sure there’s some listeners, “Oh, he’s the greatest.” Well, his Narnia books. I mean they end up being extremely racist. The books—he has—there’s a few I like like The Great Divorce and things like that, but even that. Tolkien, I like a lot, especially The Hobbit and White. Those would be like your Mount Rushmore of that century’s—and you can throw in Dune, I guess. But that is the fantasy literature. It’s interesting because everyone thinks these are all kids books and I think you can argue The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but the others [inaudible] but the Lord of the Rings being a kids book and who the hell are you—what kids are you talking about? Sword in the Stone; just because Disney made it into a movie doesn’t make a kids book.
MIMI CHAN: Right.
JOHN: Which is always a hard thing for people to grasp. So we just—so I just think that what we’re seeing as we get into the Madam Mim story is we’re setting up something that in the 1930s when White is right in it. I wouldn’t say it was expected to have a rich story, but instantly he changes. Now that’s why I don’t like the Disney version because in our version Madam Mim is very attractive.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, yes.
JOHN: And she’s very strong. And when you read what she’s about to do to those little boys, it’s very cruel. You know, they’re both naked.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
JOHN: And she’s poking them for the tenders of their meat. It’s kind of uncomfortable for 1938 America, 1939 America. You know, when we pretended like there was no, well, who knows what we thought back then? Go ahead. Any comments you have, insights you have.
MIMI CHAN: Well, actually I’m glad you shared that because I did know that Tolkien and Lewis always had meetups and discussions on religion and all of that and I found it fascinating that White was invited and rejected the invitation. That’s interesting to me.
JOHN: You know, his biographers and some—especially now a lot of his—the critiques people—the criticisms of it. Criticism, by the way, in literature is not always negative. It is a study of it. The word is used wrong. But the literary criticism focus on the fact that he, I mean, there’s no evidence that he was gay. But they, it’s a strong enough thing to say, was and that he might have been sadomasochistic. Again. You know, I feel I’m never comfortable with looking at the sexuality of someone from another generation. I also don’t judge writers from another generation for what they say.
MIMI CHAN: Right, right. Yes, because we talked about the quote you always say “nothing is more unfair than to judge men of the past by the ideas of the present.”
JOHN: Exactly. I said men. And it is true. I mean, 1855, you could probably stand up in most places in America, including Utah and defend slavery and the bulk of the audience would agree with you. And if I got up now and said in 2021, and said, “you know, slavery was really a good thing. Let’s think about that.”
MIMI CHAN: You get stoned.
JOHN: I’m not sure that would—tell you one thing. People would not be listening in, I’ll tell you that.
MIMI CHAN: For sure. Yeah, and I think that like anything else someone will hear that and take it to the extreme, you know, and that’s the frustrating part. It’s like, just use your discretion. Use your brain and just kind of decipher what that really means. It is a different time. But at the same time, of course, we take morals and principles and try to apply them and just be a good person.
JOHN: So I think White’s—the love of White’s life is a dog named Brownie, if I recall correctly and he likes to be alone. He likes—he got involved in aviation. He got involved with hockey. He got involved in all kinds of things. But you know, we don’t know what the trauma was that caused them to do that. We certainly know that Token’s trauma was World War One. Louis’ trauma is a little bit harder to reach into but we all have them and it makes us—in overcoming traumas makes greatness, I think. So when you say that about White, I would understand why he would reject. He had sort of rejected that whole—I don’t understand this as well as I should—but this British aristocracy style of education. You go to a rich kid elementary, you go to a rich kid school. You become a rich kid. And I I think he’s pushing back on that. You can certainly pick it up in the later works in White’s five books.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah, so I found that just super interesting that you brought that up. So back to Madame Mim, who I have to admit, because as a child I saw the Disney movie before I read the books. It’s so hard to get that imagery out of your head. But when you read it for, I don’t know how many times I’ve read it now because of thanks to you. I do have a different image like when they describe her and how she speaks and it’s not that stomping up and down Madam Mim of the Disney show. Like, she is very cunning and she is very evil. And so she gets them to go in and one of the things I did have a question about, which I thought you could share some insight on was exactly what you had said earlier about “oh, I have to look up all these things in the book and I don’t know what it means” and it disrupts the story for me a bit. But on your third or fourth read it does make it easier, but pretty much it’s the section where she says “that’s how I faint a tooth them, I do declare and that’s how I will tooth them, here are the weak be out by list of names” and I’m like who are all these people?
JOHN: God, let me pull that up real quick and I’ll give you the names, okay?
MIMI CHAN: Okay. I’m like, ahhh.
JOHN: It is a difficult—oh come on now—sorry. Keep asking. Ask more questions as I find…
MIMI CHAN: Okay. So I mean, I find it interesting because I always have this—I love shows where I get it, right? So I’m watching a show or something and they reference Shakespeare and I happen to have read that one and it makes me feel so smart and that makes me so happy. But then now when I read a passage like this that makes me feel the opposite of that. But then I hope after this I’ve learned and I’ve moved into the ‘I’m in the know’ kind of thing, but I always find it interesting when authors or filmmakers or whoever are referencing things. And why do they reference them? Right? So that’s why I kind of am bringing this up one because I know you, being so astute in religion and things like that, you’ll be able to explain it because I did look some things up but I just thought that it was an interesting conversation to have where whoever the Creator is likes to reference whatever, you know, works of art or what not and why they decide to put it in because I always feel like you can either include or exclude people with those choices or educate them, which is the best thing but not everyone takes the time to look it up. Although e-read makes it really easy because then you just hold the button and it defines it for you. It’s revelatory.
JOHN: Okay, so there’s a couple things people skip over and I spent way too much time going through this stuff for you. Okay, so when you look at her door.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, yes. I was asking about the door too.
JOHN: Okay, let’s start with that. Yeah, words I didn’t know. A hawker is someone who knocks on your door and asks for a handout. So in the night—that’d be in the 1930s—
MIMI CHAN: Like a beggar.
JOHN: If you look at—if you watch Mad Men. A guy who came up and knocked on whatever the star of the show’s stepfather was and then it’s a very where—he puts ‘a dishonest man lives here’. Circulars we would call flyers here in the United States. But one word really is the one you should know. Pianoforte is the original name of a piano. It means soft and loud, which I think is hilarious. So let’s go. Let’s go to the next word you were looking for, I’m sorry.
MIMI CHAN: So it’s a few pages down from that cause’ it’s after they already go inside and she’s really excited because the kids are saying “Sir Ector is going to come for you” and she’s like, “oh you little varmint” and then she talks about scarmeglioni
JOHN: Let’s go through. Okay, let’s go through. Okay, so she has a little song that she kind of sings, that kind of thing.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
JOHN: One of the words she uses is Ging. G I N G. And that’s to move like liquid.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
JOHN: Ging is to move forward. Croup is a word we used as a child, but it’s [John grunt]. It’s the hacking, hacking up a lung that a person with asthma has and now Scar Me. Scar me, Lioni. He’s one of the Demons who torments politicians in Dante’s Inferno.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
JOHN: So, by the way, Dante’s Inferno is going to show up quite a bit. B E L, Belabia. It’s from the Bible. It’s a demon. Generally historically now we include him as one of Lucifer’s assistants. P E O R, Peor, is from the Book of Numbers and it’s the mountain peak where Balak was going to curse Israel. And that’s the famous story twice in the Old Testament animals speak. Obviously the most famous is a serpent. But Balam, Balam’s ass tells him “I’m not going to do this.” Balam’s donkey. And then this last word is the Doctor D character. Demon’s name. And that’s another demon from Dante’s Inferno. So if you’re not reading Dante’s Inferno here, you might be—you might be missing some of the most obvious. So she is a practicer of the dark arts and there would be a question if she was Satanic or not. Dom Daniel deal Em. Daniel is a place under the ocean where they train people in the dark arts. So he, Merlin, who we’re going to meet up again in a few minutes. He of course learned everything in the white arts. Friendly magicians. And of course Madam Mim is a dark. You could pull that out. You could pull that chapter out, stick it in the middle of any Harry Potter story. And your audience would be very comfortable.
MIMI CHAN: Definitely. I definitely felt that Harry Potter feel.
JOHN: You could pull that story out and have Luke and Yoda back in that little cave-ish huttish thing and shove that part in there and it would fit seamlessly. So this motif that we’re seeing is just part of who we are. It’s strange to think that White wrote this book before the work of Joseph Campbell because everything in this book reflects later with Joseph Campbell and talk about the journey of the hero. The dark forces the white and of course Lucas clearly used Campbell’s work to make the Star Wars trilogy. The first two especially, the two good ones. The original Star Wars which has another name I refuse to say and then—
MIMI CHAN: The Empire Strikes.
JOHN: The Empire Strikes Back. Jeez. I almost said Return of the Jedi.
MIMI CHAN: No!
JOHN: The Empire Strikes Back. Those two movies fit—you know, if you were reading The Sword in the Stone to a high school class and you show those two movies, you’ll—the themes will pop off. I mean, Luke Skywalker. He looks like my—well. Fact. He looks like he looks like Dennis Nolan’s Wart.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
JOHN: I mean, almost scary and if you think, the situations…
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. Yeah. I love that because it’s just such a recurring theme, that whole dark and light side of the force or the evil versus good and I mean that’s just universally always coming up, but I think it’s interesting too because there’s just, in the story, I think this is the first real evil. Like Kay’s bad and naughty but he’s not evil. Whereas we’re really seeing dark. Is that true? It’s in chapter 6.
JOHN: I’ll go even a step farther. I like this. Is the pike the loose? Is it evil? No, no, no. It’s the nature—
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: —of the largest predator to eat other fish. It’s not—
MIMI CHAN: Yes. He wasn’t doing it out of malice. He was hungry.
JOHN: Yeah. You’re in the Australian water, swimming in it and a Great White shark says “God, I had a shitty night’s sleep. I’m gonna go bite that guy.” Yeah never, you know.
MIMI CHAN: I always say, because—all my listeners know by the way, I’ve a huge shark phobia, and I’m obsessed with them and I love them so much, but I’m so scared but I always say they have a complete right. I’m in their territory.
JOHN: Like you know, “when I was in the Arctic that one time when I found this little group of baby cub polar bears and I wrestled with them.” Well, you know, that’s the momma polar bears. That’s her nature to pretend. Yeah. So yeah, and that’s that’s a good thing. So in our book, true evil, even when you—now here’s the interesting thing. Gualapis the Beast. So it’s interesting because okay. Let’s just say this. Let’s say and it’s kind of unfair in a way. Madam Mim is evil and I would even defend her a little bit. You know, what are these two boys crawling around in her lair of—okay okay, fine. The giant Gualapis later does some mean things but Merlin comes to his defense and Merlin says, “you know, if you had just given him his suspenders back, he wouldn’t have been so mean. If you’d paid the ransom like you said you would he wouldn’t be so mean.” So. In this book, it’s—I’m not sure we can find a purely—Let’s just say—let’s pick Mim. Mim is evil. Let’s do that. It’s real hard to find anybody else who’s just purely evil. Now, Wart, in the chapter right after the giant Gualapis, is going to be searching. He’ll be in a bad mood and he’s going to want to eat a—they called it a hedge-pig. I think we would call it a small porcupine here.
MIMI CHAN: Okay.
JOHN: And he just wants to eat because he’s in a bad mood. Wart does. So that would be kind of okay. So Wart’s in a bad mood here, okay, I get that but we don’t see evil evil again. We see misguided in the next books. What the Orkney fashion. Those are the Welsh. You really won’t see evil until you get Arthur’s son and nephew Mordred and Mordred you could easily argue is evil. There’s some bad people who show up. I don’t remember the name of the one bad knight who showed up early in the book, but you make a good point here. She is the first bad person.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. Yeah because her intent is with malice. She intends to cook them or you know, and she’s doing it very maniacally and intentionally and that’s different than like you said misguided or just the animal that’s just out to have his meal and that’s nature and…
JOHN: Just eating lunch. Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. He’s just eating lunch. So yeah, I find that kind of interesting and as if one was a child reader even though it’s not like you said really a kids book, This would kind of be scary. This would be the scary section in the book.
JOHN: Well, the edition that—
MIMI CHAN: And the birds. The birds always kind of freaked me out.
JOHN: I recommended this edition for a good reason cause’ it sticks to the original and in the American version they cleaned up the story with Wart and Kay. I don’t remember how they did it, but they made it much less violent, much less dangerous and of course in the movie, you know, Mim doesn’t die. She just gets sick. When clearly in the book she dies. And to me that’s an important…These are important little things to note. You know, when you look at evil and that’s one of the reasons I use The Sword in the Stone as a teacher so much, and you know, I also certainly use—If you watch the Heath Ledger version of Joker. What’s his problem? You’ll notice in the movie. I’m no expert on this movie, Dark Knight, but I think he gives three different versions of how he ended up with his face. You know, his father slicing his face open. So even in a movie where I would like to say The Dark Knight, Joker’s the bad guy, right? I mean that’s a fun thing to say, but even then there’s there’s you have a bit of like, “okay”. There’s a sniff of “okay, I can see why you would think that way.” Sorry, someone is trying to call me on the phone.
MIMI CHAN: That’s okay.
JOHN: It keeps ringing and I’m ignoring it.
MIMI CHAN: No problem. I can’t hear it. So yeah, and obviously that back and forth in my brain of seeing the wizard’s duel. It’s like that Disney one is so ingrained but I think they actually kind of tried to stay true to the different animals that kind of went back and forth.
JOHN: Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Which was kind of fun. So at least but again, it’s Disneyfied. So like, the tigers are not so vicious looking, it’s you know, it’s been Disneyfied but I love the wizard’s duel. Like it’s what you want from a fantasy book. A wizard’s duel.
JOHN: Yeah, and in fact, if you go by figurines of the Sword in the Stone, it’s just the wizard’s duel. Oh, and there will be a sword coming out of the stone, that one too. But which is why I don’t, well, it’s interesting and the poster I have on this wall here. You’ll notice that—I don’t know how well you can see.
MIMI CHAN: Yes, I see it.
JOHN: But you can see that’s Madam Mim, so they only have four characters. Merlin, Wart, Archimedes and Mim. So obviously with the Disneyfication of it, it was very important. OC Harbison’s famous article on the Disney version he called the Disney chocolate eclair machine because they take everything and fill it with sugar and chocolate. Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: I think it’s—I don’t know, in some ways, it’s good when something like Disney brings attention to a work like this, but then you wonder do people take the time to read it or not, or they just get the Disney version and think “I’ve got the story” but I mean, on the flip side it’s good that it brings awareness to the story and the book and the work for those that would never reach. So there’s always that kind of struggle.
JOHN: Well, and we can even…yeah, so here is a Disney version of it. And as you go through this, you know, as you go through the Disney version of it, they make it pretty simple. But you know—no don’t do that! I lost a whole bunch of stuff last time. All my books stolen.
MIMI CHAN: Oh no.
JOHN: It’s okay. But let’s continue on. I got sideways, I’m sorry.
MIMI CHAN: No, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. I mean and again, it’s just in this particular chapter. There’s just so much reference to those dark lords and like Heck Tate does the presiding over the duel, and you know, I have to go “Okay, who is that again” and some sort of God and like it’s just constantly like referencing again that choice to bring in all these other characters that someone like me would have to kind of look up.
JOHN: Well, it is a bit of work, isn’t it. One thing I think a lot of people would easily miss is—when you read The Book of Merlin, it’ll come back in a little bit thicker is the role of Goat. G O A T. The Goat. And how brave Young Arthur is, he, instead of letting himself out of the cage, he marks on Goats hoof K.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
JOHN: “You’re faster, you’re black. They won’t be able to see you.” And of course the goat then gives the emperor’s bow toward—which is, you know—it’s giving us—
MIMI CHAN: Foreshadowing. Yeah.
JOHN: Yeah, the animals know who he is. He just doesn’t. He’s the only character who doesn’t know what’s going on.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: And the fact he wrote K on the hoof because he knew he was more important.
MIMI CHAN: Yes.
JOHN: To rally people up, is—you know, and the weird thing is by doing that, he risks, you know, he risks his life instead of running free. And it’s such a simple, subtle act of bravery. It’s inspiring. Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: By Arthur. Yeah.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I actually had that written down, the whole K thing on the foot and the fact that he made the cognitive choice to say “no, you let me stay back” because the goat was letting him go at first and at the age and especially the way Kay treats him. He’s still so loyal, you know, he’s still so protective and it’s pretty endearing but then again, later on in the other books, I just kind of want to smack him for how he doesn’t sometimes—he becomes a doormat and in other words and in a lot of instances, and that’s frustrating and one way to, you know. I thought it was kind of cute though in the Wizard’s duel just from a fun perspective and it made me think of like kids where after a while instead of turning into the opposite animal, Merlin was just copycatting and basically being the same animal and I just think about how kids repeat what you say to drive you crazy.
JOHN: They do, don’t they. Yes, they do.
MIMI CHAN: So I just thought it was kind of funny and what animal would you start off as in the wizards duel?
JOHN: Well, it’s funny because White has those little comments where he talks about what an unusual opening this is and actually it reminds me of chess commentators.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: “It’s the English opening. It did not suspect that. You don’t see very often a national point, but it’s been—but I can remember. Well. 1954. Casablanca did that against Morphe.” It’s just kind of—the commentating was funny. Yeah. What are you supposed to open with? Being a dragon?
MIMI CHAN: She became a dragon, yeah.
JOHN: And he became a mouse or something.
MIMI CHAN: A mouse.
JOHN: Yeah. And the one thing though, don’t forget, our good friend Merlin’s gonna lose and he sorta kinda cheats by becoming [inaudible]
MIMI CHAN: Right, right. It hasn’t even been invented yet.
JOHN: Yeah, and that of course kills Madam Mim. It’s just a fun little odd story. I can see why they pulled it out frankly. I don’t agree with them pulling it out. But if you had to edit the story, they could pull that one out because it doesn’t drive the story forward. But then what you run into is The Sword in the Stone. I just flip through from Disney where it’s 15 pages and it goes from learning to points around the stone. I’ve always thought that those adventures—You know, the pinnacle part of the book is when Robin Wood and the gang and the merry men—they go deep into the forest and depending on what version you’re reading, they either fight the anthropology, the crazy Queen. Well, she’s either protected by and if there’s three different versions of that which the anthropology here still freak me out to this day. That’s the penultimate part of the story, that apartment book that is the centerpiece of the story. You know, that is—if it’s a chiasm structure, the story builds up to the middle there. When you know, that’s one, so of course Wart will break his collarbone, Kay will be a hero of the story and have his first wall hanging his first trophy. That’s all amazing and good but you pull those little side stories out—I mean, if you pull out learning how to swim with the Pike in the water, you pull out hanging out with the Raptors, you pull out Mim, pretty soon you don’t have have…
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: Why would you read the book, you know.
MIMI CHAN: And I think that’s the argument again for reading, right? Because of course, it’s The Sword in the Stone and I think anybody who ever picked up the book knows that he pulls the sword in the end. There’s not this big secret, right? So it’s constantly about the journey and then we’re supposed to take that journey with him and he needs to take that journey. So this is a classic example of it’s not about what happens at the end. It’s about the journey to get to the end and the experience and then and this is the life or death. Life and death thing, right? Like it’s not about the end. It’s about like the journey to get there.
JOHN: If you don’t mind me is bouncing back to The Empire Strikes Back. “There is another” says Yoda to Obi Wan Kenobi. And then Luke. It’s not exactly like this, but you know, “Trust your feelings. I am your father.” Well, then we had to wait a couple years for the next movie to come out and if I was to tell you when you left the theater, “yeah, Darth Vader is Luke’s father. And Leia is the other. They’re brother and sister” you would have gone, “Oh” and you probably wouldn’t be as excited as I was to go figure out how the whole thing ends. Sadly we got ewoks. You’re right sometimes because when you know—when you go into a movie and you know that this guy is going to take the sword out of the stone. At least the TV series called Colombo’s by Peter Fall and the opening scene of every one of the Colombo’s we watch the murderer do the murder. So we knew the murderer, we knew what weapon was used, how it was done. We knew every bit of evidence and then we went an hour and a half watching Colombo undo the murder and get to the truth. You know who the murderer is—I mean, you know, Wart’s going to pull the sword out of the stone.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: Yeah, let’s go. Let’s go and if you just want to do that by itself, okay. Okay, Arthur was an orphan, grew up, had a friend help him out and one day pulled the sword out of the stone. The end. How did you like that story? Holy cow. The details [inaudible]
MIMI CHAN: And then this is why it’s also why you don’t get the full thing from things like cliff notes and why when students take the shortcut, kind of looping back to the beginning of our conversation and you don’t do the work, you don’t do the reading, you don’t actually have the experiences, that you don’t actually get to learn. Like you may know what happens, but the comprehension is just so minimal. And the enjoyment too, right?
JOHN: Yeah, and we are—I feel like I’m an ancient person right now. You know, everybody knew that when The Iliad and the Odyssey were spoken out loud when Beowulf, we only have a little bit of the story left, but when Beowulf or Gilgamesh—when those stories were made, you know, these stories took nights to go through. You know, evenings, and this person who gave us the stories, you would be having a banquet every night because this person showed up to talk. Five or six nights in a row and you would sit around and listen to the story. Babies would fall asleep. Life would go on. And very often you knew how it was going to end. You know and it didn’t matter because it was a story. I know how my story is going to end. I’m going to be dead, Mimi, and I have more yesterday’s than tomorrow’s but that doesn’t mean that this afternoon I’m not gonna do my swings. I’m in the middle of a ten thousand bench challenge.
MIMI CHAN: And I know that.
JOHN: Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna—I mean, here are the notes to the next chapter to the book I’m writing right now. I’m writing this thing with absolute excitement again. I mean we all know where this story is heading, but it doesn’t mean that the story isn’t by itself enough. That’s why it kind of—that’s why I think the genius White’s writing is when we get to the very very very—I’m at chapter 24—the last two words of the book are the beginning. You know, what a delightful thought. In the last line. “Yes Wart,” said Merlin. “Or rather, I should say or is it have said? Yes, King Arthur. The Beginning” and not too many books have the courage to start off with the end being the beginning. You know, that’s enough. That’s enough.
MIMI CHAN: Well, that is actually our time together today. So that’s actually a perfect, perfect wrap up. So as always, thank you so much for sharing and [inaudible] this journey with me.
JOHN: So the one thing, if you don’t mind. My journey on the project, I don’t have much to go.
MIMI CHAN: Yeah.
JOHN: I was just noticing that the other day, as I—one of the things I do, you know, I retyped every chapter and where I’m in the chapter right now that is—I’m in chapter 20 and I made an interesting point that chapter 20 and the chapter where Wart goes into the Raptors for the evening. Nothing happens in any other chapter, but those are the two I would recommend first. Literally nothing happens in chapter 20. It’s just a conversation about— Wart’s like “I want to do this” but, well, “you can’t”. “This is what I want to do.” “You can’t.” “Well, I could try” and Wart is frustrated because—pardon me—Merlin is frustrated because Wart has these dreams and goals and it’s just a delightful chapter to read as a coach or parent every so often to remind yourself that just “I’m not to stomp on your dreams, even though life is going to.”
MIMI CHAN: Well, we’ve only made it for us though through Chapter 6, so I guess we have a ways to go but yes, I have been reading your Wandering Weights and and it is, I could see you’re almost done with your journey of going through and dissecting and I hope people read them because it’s my favorite part.
JOHN: Sure. What I’ll do when I’m finished. One thing I do want to do is re-type the Robin Wood part with a better—I’ve used the 58 version and I want to kick myself. I’m gonna use the 38 version this time. I’ll re-type all that up, that center, that central section again and just see how that comes out and then I don’t know what to do after that.
MIMI CHAN: Take a break. No, you don’t know how to do that.
JOHN: Mimi, you’re as always, a delight and know that I’m only a phone call away, text or whatever and let’s do this again soon.
MIMI CHAN: We shall, we shall. Thank you so much. Dahn John, everybody.
JOHN: Thank you, Mimi. Okay, bye-bye.
OUTRO: That’s all for today’s episode. Thanks for listening to Culture Chat and hope you enjoyed the conversation. Please subscribe and rate my podcast. Feel free to leave me suggestions or send an email to mimi@culturechatpodcast.com or follow me on social media @sifumimichan on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
