← Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Producer’s Commentary: Revisiting the Incredible Life of Ibrahim Vaughn Holtzman
01:29:42
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- [00:00]
A
Today on the show, we are diving deep into our other memory to bring you an episode from the distant nigh forgotten past. Be careful, dear listener. Abomination lurks in every shadow and.
- [00:15]
B
And in every episode.
- [00:17]
A
And in every episode, every time you listen to Gom Jabbar is a threat of abomination.
- [00:22]
B
You're risking it. That's on you. You hit that play button, it's all on you. That's not taking responsibility for what happens
- [00:28]
A
next, but also we appreciate it that much more because we know. Yeah, so much. Every time is a risk. That's crazy.
- [00:53]
B
Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name's Abu.
- [01:05]
A
My name's Leo.
- [01:07]
B
And folks, welcome back to another producer's commentary episode.
- [01:11]
A
Yeah.
- [01:11]
B
This is a series we've been doing at the end of every month these past couple of months where we dive into the vault, into our 300 episode vault, and listen back to an old episode, perhaps an episode that neither you nor I, Leo, have heard in literal years, considering we've been making Gom Jabbar for six years now.
- [01:33]
A
Yeah.
- [01:33]
B
And as today's title indicates, we're going to be going back to one of our most popular and still to this day talked about episodes, Holtzman.
- [01:45]
A
Yeah. Now today's episode, just to get some housekeeping out of the way very quickly, the spoiler warning for the episode is accurate. There are no spoilers outside of the Dune Encyclopedia because this is all way prior to Dune.
- [01:59]
B
That's right.
- [01:59]
A
And of course, always a huge shout out to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons. Daniel Dion, Seth Redding, Greer, Kevin Mohanram, and Roger Young, gentlefolk. We would read the story about you being lost in space for thousands of years. Years, no doubt. Thank you. And of course, thank you to all of our patrons who make this possible. So what are we doing today, Abu?
- [02:20]
B
Okay, so here's the game plan, folks. There's. This is how these producers commentary episodes work. We chose Holtzman again, as we stated, because it was requested. It's a longtime favorite episode of listeners who have been with us for many years. And because frankly, you and I haven't heard it in a long time. So we're curious what this episode even sounds like now, as we did with previous producer commentary episodes, we're going to listen to it live together with you, dear listener, along the way, we're going to hit pause and provide extra commentary and insight and thoughts. We have now six years after we release this episode. And of course, along the way we'll see if we have to correct any mistakes that we might have made that Baby Abu and Baby Leo might have made all those years ago. And then at the end of the episode, we'll just wrap up with some final thoughts after we've experienced this ancient episode of Gom Jabbar together. And that's the game plan for today.
- [03:18]
A
Indeed. And as always, also as a quick note, all of this is we're buying production time for Project Reanalogue. So if you're curious about that, check out our State of the Imperium episode at the top of the year or become a patron at the Fremen Nabe level or higher and you'll see our production updates around that exciting project. So we're going to hear the episode right after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. When we're back, we're listening to Ibrahim von Holtzman as told by Baby Leo and Baby Abu.
- [03:55]
B
Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play? You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play Red Bull gives you wings. Visit red bull.com brightsummerahead to learn more. See you this summer. Welcome back folks. Let's do it. Let's hit play and listen to this episode. Here we go.
- [05:00]
A
Today on the show, he's one part man, one part machine, and all parts legendary. Okay.
- [05:14]
B
Oh, no more riffing.
- [05:15]
A
Just that we didn't riff a lot back then.
- [05:26]
B
Welcome to GOM Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe. From Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv.
- [05:40]
A
My name's Abu and my name's Leo.
- [05:43]
B
Leo. We're talking about an absolute legend today.
- [05:49]
A
Finally. I am so excited. We're talking about Holtzman. And very quickly, no spoilers. So if you're, if you're hovering your finger over the stop button because you're worried that we're gonna venture into dangerous territory, no spoilers today. And yet, and, and yet this might be one of the most interesting of our episodes because Holtzman's story is just wild. It's a, it's a trip.
- [06:18]
B
Right. Every, I promise you, as you listen to this episode, as we, you know, sort of give you the biography of the whole of Holtzman's life.
- [06:26]
A
Yeah.
- [06:27]
B
You are not going to expect what happens next. Holtzman's life is just so absolutely bonkers and wild, not to mention the effect that he has on the galaxy is so absolutely monumental that we felt like we had to dedicate an episode to him. But you're also correct that there's no spoilers because everything we're going to talk about today, Holdsman's entire lifetime, takes place over 10,000 years before the first pages of the Dune novel.
- [06:54]
A
Right.
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B
So if you're worried about being spoiled today, don't worry.
- [06:58]
A
And you know our other spoiler free episodes, right, like the history of Dune, the timeline of Dune, the technology of Dune. We kept bringing up Holtzman because he really does have his fingerprints on the most significant pieces of Dune technology. And technology in Dune is kind of few and far between. I mean, a lot of people have kind of abandoned in this Dune timeline, people have sort of abandoned technology as much as they can. And yet all of the pieces that they embrace and utilize on a day to day basis is almost all tied to Holtzman anyway. We have probably sold how significant he is.
- [07:40]
B
Yeah, that. Definitely, definitely. I'm glad you mentioned our previous episodes because if you want to learn more about that technology, definitely go listen to those. Today we're going to focus on Holtzman's life because his life itself is insane.
- [07:54]
A
Right.
- [07:54]
B
So we're not going to touch too much. Well, of course, we'll mention when he kind of has a breakthrough in technology and changes the face of the galaxy forever, as he does multiple times. But today's episode is going to be focused on the man himself, his motivations and his lifespan, which spans many thousands of years. And you'll understand why in just a minute here. I do want to say, just to be transparent about our sources, a lot of today's episode, almost all of it, is sourced from the Encyclopedia of Dune because as Frank likes to Do. Holtzman is mentioned many times throughout the Dune novels and basically never explained. Yeah, and it's up to the expanded lore, it's up to other writers and fans to sort of fill in that gap. And the encyclopedia does that for us. So most of today is pulled from the Encyclopedia of Dune and is barely mentioned in the Dune novel. So something else to reinforce the fact that we're not gonna spoil anything. None of this information is in the actual books.
- [08:54]
A
And I gotta say, Abu, I know you're pushing HBO right now to take you up on this Holtzman miniseries.
- [09:00]
B
Oh, yes.
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A
And I think at the end of this episode, all of our listeners will be able to sign that petition. But I think the Encyclopedia does almost as good a job as pitching it as. As you can. Oh, maybe we should just send them the PDF.
- [09:14]
B
Yeah, we should just pull the excerpt and send it to hbo. And they. They got themselves a hit. They got the next Game of Thrones on their hands. It's sitting in a 700 page encyclopedia on my desktop.
- [09:24]
A
But it's a long email. It is a long email, to be clear.
- [09:29]
B
Yeah, you're totally right. It. His life is absolutely wild, and I really can't wait to get into it. And like you said, he touches on basically every part of Dune's technology. But before he does that, Leo, before he becomes the legendary Holtzman, he's just a man. A man born in 7593 on the planet Leesco II.
- [09:51]
A
Born human, born fully human and the son of a planetary governor. Oh, look at that. Kind of. I'm gonna pause. You know what just occurred to me? We didn't have ad breaks in these first episodes.
- [10:04]
B
That's right.
- [10:06]
A
This was pre any kind of advertising, which was in some ways, like, you know, lovely because people didn't have to deal with it. But you remember the fucking backlash we got when we added ad breaks to our free feed Nuts. I mean, just. And also because since then I've been listening to other podcasts. You'll have like two and a half minutes of ads.
- [10:29]
B
Yeah, we are far from the most criminal when it comes to how much advertising and ad ad breaks we put into our show. Yeah, yeah, no, these early episodes, I don't remember the timeline exactly. Perhaps as we work through our archive, we'll come across it. But I think, like, roughly the first six months of the show, like, we weren't on a platform that had advertising capabilities. We were just like, hosting it for free somewhere. And so, yeah, it was just like a show we were putting out there. With, like, no advertising, no revenue, nothing. We were just, like, putting this thing out there for free and hoping that people found it and listened to it.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah.
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B
And then eventually, as the network grew, as the show grew, we moved over to a platform that does, you know, provide proper advertising and stuff. So we made that transition. But, yeah, I mean, like, come on, we. We put so much. Our listeners know this, but, like, we put so much work into these episodes. And two ad breaks that you can easily skip past on your iPhone.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Is like, not gonna break you. You know, like, we used to get emails that were like, oh, my God, I can't believe that you put a 90 second ad in the middle of this episode, in the middle of an
- [11:49]
A
hour and a half.
- [11:50]
B
The episode is 90. Fuck. Yeah, yeah, sorry that we took 90 seconds out of your 90 minute free content that we researched and produced. Right. To make sure that we made a little money off of it. So, yeah, I.
- [12:06]
A
You know, I also, I bring it up because it's interesting how the ad breaks have become kind of structural as well. And this is just behind the scenes from a production standpoint. We have our, like, housekeeping is up until the first ad break, and then we have this discussion about, do we have another ad break if it's more than an hour's worth of content from the intro? So it's interesting, too, the way that it's just become part of the fabric of our production pipeline, but still interesting to look back on a time, a simpler time, when we were.
- [12:37]
B
Scripts now are almost broken up into, like, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, and in between each act is a break, because those are sort of natural stopping points. We never want an ad break to, like, come in the middle of a sentence or something and, like, totally disrupt the flow of the show. That's a horrible listening experience. So we've built our scripts to make sure ad breaks are incorporated at natural stopping points and transition points, but not in this episode. No ad breaks here. Just pure script, baby.
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A
We just rolled right away.
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B
Just a wall of text, you know, no formatting, just endless words. Times New Roman 12 point font.
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A
Yeah, you want to take a breath. You want to break. Episode's over in about an hour, so buckle up. All right, let's get back to it. Not exactly quaint beginnings, but certainly nothing
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B
like, he's definitely going to an Ivy League school. He's fine.
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A
Yeah, yeah. He's got tutors, but might not even need them because it's known that in his younger years, Holtzman is already sort of a mathematical Genius. And of course, like any bright eyed, ambitious young man, he decides that pod racing is the way to go. No, he actually takes up ornithopter racing and it goes great for him. And nothing wrong ever happens.
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B
I feel like every time you do that, you're setting me up for a horrible tragedy which is exactly what happens.
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A
And the entire planet blows up. No, no, no.
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B
So the young mathematical genius, son of a governor into ornithopter racing actually gets into a nearly fatal accident.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And is nearly killed at the age of 28. Around the age of 28 while ornithopter racing. And to save him, to save his life, he has to undergo this completely new experimental brain transplant treatment.
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A
Yeah.
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B
His brain is extracted and transplanted into an axolotl tank.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And he's sort of basically like his consciousness, his brain is hooked up to a giant host computer and he becomes a brain in a metal shell. He becomes the cyborg Holtzman of legend.
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A
Now, because this is the first time, or one of the very first times that this is done, no one really knows what the byproducts of this surgery is going to be.
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B
Right.
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A
They save his life, but they kind of assume that it's going to just work out that this human brain with the massive computational powers of a computer will kind of just be okay. So no one really knows what his mental powers are. But it's sort of estimated that although he's still thinking in very much the way that a man thinks and the way that the young Holtzman thought, he is thinking much faster by an estimated factor of 10.
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B
Wow.
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A
This, this boy fast. He is a fast thinking lad.
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B
He's fast. And remember, already a mathematical genius before he became part cyborg, before his brain got implanted into a giant computer and now he's, now he's 10 times the mathematical genius potentially that he was before his accident. Yeah, that's absolutely bonkers.
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A
Not to mention in all of this post op, he no longer needs rest, sleep or food.
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B
Honestly, kind of the dream. I could get so much done if I didn't need to do those three things.
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A
Well, listen, Abu, I think then it's time that you take up ornithopter racing.
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B
You know what, let's skip the whole fatal accident. I'll just volunteer for the brain transplant. Hook me up, baby.
- [16:32]
A
Let's get some axolotl tanks. Yeah. So post op, Holtzman is laying in the hospital. His laying.
- [16:42]
B
He's plugged into the hospital.
- [16:45]
A
He is present in the hospital. We'll say that. Yeah, he's not really laying that verb. Doesn't really belong with Holtzman anymore, right? So he's there thinking very quickly. No longer sleeping, no longer eating, no longer resting. Pretty much immediately, he starts planning. Now, one of the unintended, of course, consequences of the transplant is paranoia.
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B
Yeah.
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A
He becomes tremendously paranoid. Like, people are out to get me. Who. Who's to say quickly, I need to get away because people are out to get me. You know? So quietly, without anybody noticing, right. He starts hacking into systems around Liesco ii. He actually orders a construction of a host spaceship anonymously and does so. It, like, forges all the. Whatever. So the people building the spaceship are like, yeah, this seems legit. Let's just make this really specific, weird spaceship.
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B
His account name is like, placeholder 5679124 18.
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A
Right, right, right.
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B
The spaceship yard is like, guys, come on. We gotta get the placeholder construction done.
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A
Mr. Placeholder is being so patient with us.
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B
He is a VIP client. Mr. Placeholder 1814-17-1932.
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A
So he orders this ship and they start building it. As soon as it's done and ready, he signs his own release from the hospital. Yep.
- [18:15]
B
Just break into the hospital records. This is so good. Hbo, if you will. Imagine this episode, a computer planning his own Ocean's Eleven prison break heist where he has to construct a spaceship, sign his own release records from the hospital, get to the spaceship, like, ship himself into the spaceship, and then trick the launch sequence to let him go first and bounce out of there.
- [18:41]
A
He doesn't have a body and he's escaping a hospital.
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B
What an episode of television. I can see it now.
- [18:50]
A
It would be so satisfying to see all the little pieces come into place. So not only does he successfully get installed in this ship somehow, which is just crazy to think about, he then skips the takeoff line, right? So, you know, signs again, signs some papers, and they're like, please, Placeholder has places to go.
- [19:11]
B
Right. Clearly, Mr. Placeholder has an important meeting. Get him to the front of the
- [19:16]
A
line at destination 4297. Come on. So he. He leaves. He. He successfully launches this ship, which for all intents and purposes, let's be clear, his brain, his axolotl tank, mind and computer, host computer is now installed in the ship. The ship is basically Holtzman. This is his new body is a spaceship. So this is perhaps twist number one, young man. Ornithopter crash. His entire body is a spaceship now. Maybe, I don't know. Did you expect that?
- [19:55]
B
Right? What a plot twist.
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A
What a plot twist.
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B
Who would have predicted, you know, all of his teachers were like, oh, what a young, bright mind. A mathematical genius. You'll go on to do great things, probably be the next governor of Leesco 2. And it's like, I'm a spaceship now.
- [20:08]
A
That young man is going to grow up to be the finest spaceship we've ever seen.
- [20:12]
B
Absolutely bonkers. And I think I'm going to pause here. I'm sure we make this comment later in the episode, but I'm just going to make it now. This is so anime.
- [20:21]
A
Yeah, absolutely. We made a joke on a pretty recent. I think it was a book club where we were talking about, like, dumb isekais. But like, I was reborn in a new world as a spaceship destined for greatness or something would be like the long ass isekai title.
- [20:36]
B
Right? The mathematical genius was reborn into a spaceship. Oh, my gosh. I will say I am loving this episode. I love how quickly we just got right into it. Right. Like we're meeting at the ornithopter crash. We jump right into his life. Not too much setup. And his life is just so interesting. Like, I'm having a blast listening to this.
- [20:57]
A
Yeah, agreed. And ultimately, I still think this would be a fucking phenomenal miniseries. Just like a little. Yeah, fully.
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B
Okay, back to it. I think this quote deserves to be just said directly from the encyclopedia because the reason for Holtzman to do this entire, like, hospital, prison break, Ocean's Eleven shenanigans and blast off into space and become part spaceship and then just hang out in orbit for nine years is for a particular reason. And this is the reason I'm going to quote the encyclopedia directly. Before anyone could stop him, Holtzman triggered a suspensor nullification device and disappeared into the void. He wanted time to think. End quote. You know, he just wanted some alone time. Leo, he's an introvert.
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A
You ever felt that?
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B
Nine years of it, you're just like
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A
at a party and you're like, it's just, there's so many people here and I'm feeling a little anxious.
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B
So many.
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A
I should. I should walk around the block for nine years.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, sometimes you feel that you're like, man, I'm on planet Earth. There's 7 billion people here. It's kind of crowded.
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A
It's a lot.
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B
I'd love to just blast off into orbit for nine years and get some alone time, you know, like really, really work some things through with myself. That is what Holtzman is doing. And two, you know, all joking aside, to be fair, the dude just nearly died, got experimentally transplanted, and is now like a box, you know, I imagine, right? Yeah, I literally, when I think Holtzman in the hospital, I literally just imagine a server room. Like, he's just a server room box. And now he's like, part ship.
- [22:34]
A
It's a lot of change.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah, I mean, he's got some shit to think through and figure out about himself and his future, you know. So, yeah, we joke about him just blasting off for nine years just to take some time to think. But at the same time, like, realistically, he's going through a lot of, like, psychological trauma at this point.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It makes sense for him to need to, like, process it. In the empty void of space away from, like, everything.
- [22:59]
A
Andy has this extra new paranoia which was not part of his personality. And if you. If you spend, you know, 28 years of your life as a rational, reasonable young man who's a mathematical genius and all these things suddenly being paranoid, why would you assume that that paranoia is unfounded if you've been able to rely on your own mental processes until this point? So it makes a lot of sense in so many ways, and it's still epic and incredible. And he has this very practical problem to solve, which I think is kind of charming almost. He's going to be floating through the void for nine years before he returns to Leesco ii. What do you do? How do you fill the time? And he decides, you know what? I've always really liked that suspenser nullification effect. You know that Barely understood. Because at this point in the timeline, the suspenser nullification effect is how ships travel at great distances very, very quickly. But it's not yet very well understood. So he is like, you know what? I've always liked that. I've always thought that was interesting. Let me take my mind off of my pursuers and the trauma of losing my physical body and the horror of that crash and nearly dying. Let me just do some light reading. So like any responsible citizen, he pirates a bunch of books from the library of Lesco 2.
- [24:34]
B
His late fees are fucking astronomical.
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A
Nine years. They're like, when is the Librarians. Yep. Oh, that's such a fun bit. This is a fun one for folks
- [24:48]
B
who remember this episode. This is a setup for, I think, one of our most killer punchlines at the end of this episode.
- [24:54]
A
Oh, I don't remember the killer punchline.
- [24:56]
B
Oh, you don't remember the punchline? Oh, it's coming. The end of the episode, it's coming. We make a callback to this checking out books from the library bit. And it's so funny. It's one of my favorite jokes we've ever made.
- [25:07]
A
Oh, my gosh. Okay, back to it. Let's get to that punchline. Placeholder coming back. Mr. Placeholder has so many books out.
- [25:16]
B
But he's a VIP client. We can't pressure him.
- [25:20]
A
But he's a VIP. There's just a guy in the room. But he's a VIP client. So he checks out all these books and materials and he basically commits himself to studying and thinking about and theorizing and working through his own. You know, this is his dissertation that he's working on for nine years.
- [25:41]
B
Nine years of study and research. And remember, Holtzman thinks 10 times faster than you or me. In fact, probably more than you or me because he was already a mathematical genius, which I for one, am not. I can't speak for you, Leo.
- [25:53]
A
I'm not. I opt out of that classification.
- [25:57]
B
Exactly. So not only was he already a genius, he's thinking 10 times as fast as any other human at the moment because of his computer body. And he has nine years to kill while he's in orbit before he circles back around to Leesco 2. And in just eight years, yeah, he has learned this is a monumental stat. Yeah, I was blown away by this. In just eight years of his orbit, he had learned more about the suspense or nullification effect than the best minds of the past 5,000 years.
- [26:30]
A
Incredible.
- [26:30]
B
Yeah, easily an expert on the suspenser nullification effect at this point by a mile.
- [26:37]
A
So this is. He's 36 years old, technically. Imagine being someone who's like the long line like this is probably the suspense or nullification effect is probably a doctorate degree that people are studying in like the leading institutions around the. Around the star Systems. And this 36 year old cyborg kid comes back from his nine year like walkabout having discovered more about it than anybody for 5,000 years. Yeah, it's incredible.
- [27:09]
B
Absolutely bonkers. And it naturally leads him to some new discoveries. Right, and like, this is where Holtzman changes the galaxy for just the first time in his life. There will be more. Right, but this is the first time he discovers something that will be known as the Holtzman Wave, which is monumental because at this point, we forgot to mention earlier, Holtzman was born and on Lyesco2 during the time, a time known as the Dark Ages for the Empire. And dark in quite literally the sense that they had no way of faster than light communication back and forth from Planet to planet. So quite literally, like if your cousin went to Seleucus Secundus, you were never going to hear from them again. Probably because it was too far away. Like communication within the Empire was quite literally dark from planet to planet. And Holtzman, here in eight years, discovers the Holtzman wave, which is a way to instantaneously send messages back and forth across. Across planets.
- [28:16]
A
Incredible.
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B
He invents the galactic telephone.
- [28:20]
A
I mean essentially he single handedly reunifies humanity in this one move.
- [28:27]
B
Yeah.
- [28:27]
A
Now he doesn't. It could be cleaner than what happens. He's on this like eight year trip. He's learned about the Holtzman wave. He's discovered it hasn't yet. I don't think he's coined the term yet. But he's on his ship. He's or he is the ship. He still thinks he's being pursued by like assassins I guess. So he's sending, and this is bold, he's sending like taunting messages back to Leesco throughout his journey. Like, hahaha, you can't get me. I'm out in space. And people in LIESCO are like, what is happening? First of all, where are these messages coming from?
- [29:07]
B
Hahaha, I'm not going to pay these late fees. Fuck you.
- [29:11]
A
They're like, is that the guy?
- [29:12]
B
Is that Mr. Placeholder?
- [29:13]
A
Is that placeholder? And he's VIP. Meanwhile. Also, quick side note, the messages are being broadcast from the planet. The planet is emitting the signals. So they're like, what is happening? This is crazy. And the messages are sort of teasing this discovery.
- [29:34]
B
Right.
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A
You can't find me, I won't pay my late fees. Also, I can now communicate faster than light. Idiots. You know, and everyone is baffled.
- [29:45]
B
Yep.
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A
The planet's emitting this signal and no one knows why.
- [29:49]
B
Right.
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A
And he can remain more or less undiscovered.
- [29:53]
B
Yeah. Well, until his dad realizes what's going on.
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A
Right, right.
- [29:57]
B
Eventually. His dad again, the planetary governor of Lesco ii.
- [30:01]
A
Is this my fucking son?
- [30:03]
B
Yeah. His dad is like, wait a second, that's exactly how he used to talk to me.
- [30:08]
A
Mr. Placeholder. That sounds like a made up name.
- [30:14]
B
Right. So his dad realizes. Wait a second.
- [30:15]
A
Pretty good.
- [30:16]
B
This is Holtzman talking.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah.
- [30:18]
B
And you know, being the planetary governor, his mind goes to the possibilities here.
- [30:24]
A
Right.
- [30:24]
B
His son has just changed a technology that has fundamentally changed the way the galaxy will operate forever.
- [30:31]
A
Totally. Yeah.
- [30:32]
B
Planetary communication is now possible. The Empire can finally stop being these like disparate colonies that are millions of light years apart and be a unified empire. And Holtzman's dad is like, my son is brilliant.
- [30:46]
A
Yeah.
- [30:46]
B
We got to either control him or destroy him because he's going to give this technology to our enemies. He either needs to work for us, or we got to stop him from. From horsing around. Because I don't. I don't know if you got this sense, Leo, but as I was researching this script and looking into Holtzman, I got the sense that he's kind of like a punk. Like, he just loves fucking with people.
- [31:10]
A
Yeah.
- [31:11]
B
But he's also just extremely brilliant. Right. So, like, he's fucking with you at a level that you probably don't even comprehend. The ultimate troll, you know, Papa Holtzman is like, oh, yeah, yeah, my kid's an asshole. He's gonna start giving technology to our enemies, you know? And ultimately his dad concludes, okay, we need to either rein in my son and, you know, take, you know, use his technological brilliance for ourselves, or we need to destroy him.
- [31:39]
A
Yeah.
- [31:40]
B
And he ends up in. In the year 7556, sending out three ships to go capture Holtzman.
- [31:47]
A
At this point, Holtzman is referred to as the Mad Holtzman.
- [31:51]
B
Right.
- [31:52]
A
Which is to say people see the ship floating through space and this is, you know, it's silent, but it's this kind of weird ship. No one's ever seen a ship like this because it was this custom built thing.
- [32:02]
B
Yeah. I imagine at this point he has dropped the placeholder moniker.
- [32:06]
A
Yeah, I guess. So.
- [32:07]
B
He's come out.
- [32:09]
A
I also see this as like the Headless Horseman. You know, everyone's kind of seen it, People kind of talk about it, but it's this legendary thing. So these three ships hone in on the Mad Holtzman. Now, when Holtzman the ship discovers and detects the three ships coming after him, he sends an SOS to the six nearest star systems, basically saying, hey, y', all, yo boy. Ibrahim Von Holtzman here discovered faster than light communications. Hot shit, right? Super cool. My dad, super bummer. Trying to shut me down, trying to silence me. Even though I have this great technology, if you come help me, save me from these three ships, I will tell you how to build it. And five of the six systems that he contacts immediately come to help. They come to aid him in evading his father.
- [33:04]
B
Yeah.
- [33:05]
A
Before they have a chance to get to him. Right. They send ships to save him before they have a chance to. The Liasco ships actually manage to hit the Mad Holtzman with some long range shots. Yep. And that's crazy. Again, this is gonna be the most action packed episode of television anyone's ever seen.
- [33:27]
B
Yes. Oh my gosh. This gets wild. So he gets hit broadside. Boom, boom, boom, boom. The shots hit him before those five other planets. Their ships could get to him and help him. He doesn't die.
- [33:38]
A
No.
- [33:39]
B
The shots blow apart his stern and they tear up his suspensor nullification manipulators.
- [33:44]
A
Right.
- [33:45]
B
All of that is to say basically his ship is now like sort of crippled and floating in space. He has no way to control it.
- [33:50]
A
Right.
- [33:51]
B
And the shots sort of spiral him out of control into another orbit away from Leesco. The Last orbit was 8, 9 years. Right. Pretty reasonable time.
- [34:03]
A
Yeah. This is a little longer. Just a little bit longer.
- [34:06]
B
This is just a little bit longer. This new orbit that he's now sort of been shot into without any control over the ship, aka his body.
- [34:15]
A
Yeah.
- [34:16]
B
Is an 1800 year orbit.
- [34:19]
A
1800. Almost 2000 years.
- [34:22]
B
Oh my God.
- [34:25]
A
And this is into the dark void of space.
- [34:29]
B
Right.
- [34:30]
A
Far enough from any nearby stars that he realizes as he's spinning out of control into this 1800 year orbit, he realizes he's going to have. Have to kind of power down and he's going to have to like deactivate his systems in order to not burn out his batteries and die.
- [34:50]
B
Yeah. He's got to flip that iPhone to low power mode so fast.
- [34:53]
A
Yeah, it's a fast. It's a fast switch. But before he does. Right. He calculates his return. Mathematical genius. Right. Calculates his return. And he sets up an auto wake up procedure. Right?
- [35:05]
B
Exactly. Yep.
- [35:07]
A
Wake me up when September ends, but also 1800 years from now. And get this. Okay. As he. I need to pause this. What a tight, good episode. Just from like a production standpoint.
- [35:20]
B
Yeah.
- [35:20]
A
It's like we're at a good clip. We're keeping it interesting. There's some like offhanded jokes here and there. Yeah, man. I'm having a hard time commenting as a director because I'm in it. I'm like, what a good episode. Right?
- [35:34]
B
I'm just listening.
- [35:35]
A
Yeah.
- [35:35]
B
At this point I'm just kind of like, damn, I wish I had some dishes to do so I could finish listening to this episode. Get some chores done.
- [35:42]
A
Take the dog on a second walk, I guess.
- [35:44]
B
Right? Exactly. Yeah. I'm, I'm really proud of this episode. Wow. There's. We've like trimmed it down to like the core so far at least. And it's good. Makes sense why folks really enjoyed this one.
- [35:59]
A
Yeah. I mean, again, credit where credit's due. A lot of the Writing of the Dune encyclopedia entry and the plot and everything. But that's something to keep an eye out for are those sorts of stories. And then like this energy. It's good.
- [36:15]
B
Yeah.
- [36:15]
A
I think this is like gold standard, what we're capable of. And it's really fun. That's cool. All right. Right back to it. Spinning out of control into the sunless, dark, cold, lonely void. About to. Every person he's known is going to be dead when he comes back. Every bit of the universe is going to be different 2000 years in the future. Crazy.
- [36:36]
B
Yep.
- [36:37]
A
He still uses the last moments, some of his power to broadcast his instructions for how to construct the Holtzman wave transmitters to any system he can basically accurately target.
- [36:52]
B
Here's the blueprints for this groundbreaking technology. See you in 1800 years. You'll all be dead.
- [36:58]
A
You'll all be dead. But I will have. Because he recognizes this is the key. Right. We are in the midst of this dark ages. Humanity has a chance, but only if they discover this thing that I know he could have because again, he's being pursued by assassins. His own father sends these three ships to kill him. So many reasons to be selfish in that moment. And instead he looks at the broader picture. He looks at humanity's path and says, I need to do this to help them. And so he just rapid fire shoots off these blueprints and single handedly changes the course of humanity.
- [37:39]
B
Yep. Forever changes the entire face of the Empire forever. And this is where the reunification of the Empire begins. Now that planets can communicate with each other instantaneously, politics changes, government changes, war changes, Everything changes. And humanity sort of comes out of this dark age where everyone is sort of isolated on their own planets or at least within their own systems that they're able to reach in a reasonable amount of time. And instead the Empire balloons out. The wars of reunification effectively begin after this technology is implemented. It's wild. Totally changes the face of the galaxy.
- [38:18]
A
Right.
- [38:18]
B
I'm actually interested though. Leo. You sort of touched on this next point already that I wanted to ask you. But you seem to be projecting this idea that Holtzman did it out of some sort of feeling of Good.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah.
- [38:30]
B
Or he. Like he did it for some altruistic reason. Do you think that was his motivation? Because I. I would love for us to like spend just a minute or two here speculating, like, what was going through his head. You're spinning out of control. Like you said, you're spinning out of control. Icy void, 1800 years. Everyone's going to be dead. Yeah, you have this technology that changes everything. What's going through his mind at that moment? Like, what was his motivation for just like, here's free technology, everybody.
- [38:57]
A
Well, whatever would be going through my head 10 times more than that. Plus, you know, plus being a mathematical genius, it's really hard to say because, you know, a 28 year old ornithopter racer, I could paint that as a brash young man now, paranoid, kind of breaking the rules, doesn't really trust people anymore. There's a lot to that recipe. But I also think that Holtzman's decision to investigate the suspensor nullification effect, I think addresses a deep desire to understand things that humanity had thus far failed to understand. Humanity was utilizing this suspensor nullification effect to travel to distant stars, but didn't really get it. Yeah, what an obvious thing to figure out. What an obvious thing to be like, guys, we should understand how cars go considering we keep making them and are relying on them to drive our civilization. So I do see sort of a human perspective on him. But I think personally the more we talk about Holtzman and as we get towards the later parts of his life, because we're only 2,000 years through it so far, I start seeing this theme of Holtzman is one of the most human focused individuals in the galaxy.
- [40:29]
B
Interesting.
- [40:30]
A
And though he is paranoid and though he is kind of weirdly taunting and teasing and maybe kind of a jerk to people, again, his late fees are astronomical.
- [40:40]
B
He's never going to pay those.
- [40:41]
A
He's never going to pay those. Spoiler alert. Library's probably gone by the time he gets back. Very demonstrably he does these things that have no benefit to him individually and have this massive benefit to the humanity. And I trust that a genius thinking at a factor of 10 faster than me would have considered the impact on humanity and made that decision for it. But I don't know. That's me. I'm kind of an optimist and a romantic certainly.
- [41:10]
B
Yeah, no, I agree, I agree to some extent, but I actually, I agree that he's a genius and like would have recognized the effect that he was about to have. Like the absolute bombshell he was about to drop on the galaxy. But I think that's maybe his perspective on it. Like I'm gonna drop, I'm gonna drop the mic here and disappear for 1800 years. What a flex.
- [41:31]
A
Isn't this gonna be fucking awesome?
- [41:33]
B
Yeah, look, yeah, like, not to, not to paint him immature punk rock kid, but again, mathematical genius at a very Young age, got into ornithopter racing because, like, he's addicted to adrenaline or something. I don't know.
- [41:47]
A
Glory, maybe. Yeah.
- [41:48]
B
And like, then becomes quite literally the first brain transplant cyborg computer ever, which gives him effectively some level of superpowers. I think he would recognize that he could change the galaxy and go down in history. So I agree with you on that. Like, he recognizes what he's doing is going to change humanity, probably for the better. I'm sure there's a certain level of curiosity there about, hey, given this very unique hand of cards in life. Let me see if I can figure out the suspense or nullification effect where the greatest minds for the past 5,000 years haven't been able to. I can do it. You know, there's maybe a level of arrogance there. I think what I will say to just sort of wrap up my speculation, I think at this point in his life, Holtzman is sort of young and angsty enough. Like, again I said. I mentioned it earlier, I think he's a punk. I think he's fucking with people. Like, I'm positive that the paperwork he signed to get out of that hospital was like, please let Mr. Holtzman, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah, signed Mr. Fucks with you or something.
- [42:54]
A
You know, like, I see Weiner.
- [42:56]
B
Exactly. I see Wiener. Like, to me, he's like a prankster. He's a jokester. And he knows he's so much smarter than other people that he can get away with that. This final moment of him just shooting out his faster than light telephone technology to everyone when his dad is trying to capture him, to me, Reeves as like, hey, I'm about to. I'm about to rock your fucking world, everybody. And B, fuck you, dad, middle fingers. I'll see you never in 1800 years.
- [43:26]
A
You know, like, that's a good point.
- [43:28]
B
That was my read on this one. He's gonna come back. We're gonna transition into his second pass. And when he finally makes it around in 1800 years, I think perhaps those 1800 years have matured him a little, maybe. So that's not my read for later in life, but at this early stage in his life, this reads to me as a giant fuck you to his dad and a giant fuck you to the universe. Like, you people are going to remember me. I'm going to disappear for 1800 years, but I am cementing my legacy also. See you later, dad. That's how I read it.
- [43:59]
A
You actually draw some really good points. The idea of, like, dad sent some assassins to kill me. Well, he's clearly trying to silence me,
- [44:07]
B
so I'm gonna pause here. This is the first point in the episode where I'm feeling a bit of a dip in the pacing. I think we, we were really going strong for the first half and I think we're getting a little bogged down in his motivation there. We've both presented our ideas and at this point I think we just need to like move on instead of keep talking about it. But I'm glad we did pause though. I do like to pause and speculate and ask some what if questions. I just think we're letting it drag on a bit and like, maybe that's just in the edit. Like in the edit. At some point we should have realized, okay, this part's starting to sag. Let's just cut it and continue with his life story.
- [44:46]
A
Yeah, I agree. I think sometimes taking a step out of the just the script and to say, hey, what do we think about this can always be a good place to get some extra depth to our conversations. But for sure, you're right. It is feeling a little like, all right guys, let's get back to what happens to him. And maybe we do in literally a second. Yeah, right, right. We'll see. What's the opposite of being silenced? Telling everyone. So that's. That's a really good point.
- [45:16]
B
Yeah.
- [45:16]
A
I also agree that he has a sense of theatrics about him. You mentioned kind of dropping the mic.
- [45:21]
B
Yes.
- [45:22]
A
Later on he does some things that are pretty obviously theatrical.
- [45:27]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [45:29]
A
Yeah. I do like that idea of him just middle fingers to the sky as he spins off into the icy void. So single handedly he sparks basically the wars of reunification which are still raging 1800 years later when he passes through the LIESCO system again. Now, this is in the year 5694 BG before guild. And at this point he is at the spry young age of 18. I don't even know how to say this number as an age. He is at the spry young age of 1899 years old. Now, I will say he's been kind of dormant for a long time. So I don't know how much my understanding is every one of these passes because his orbit continues. Spoiler. He kind of continues this massive 1800 year orbit. I get the impression that he does most of his thinking and his theorizing and his philosophizing and everything in the midst of this passing through liesco because he spends multiple years in the system each time he passes. It's kind Of a slow orbit, I guess.
- [46:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. I imagine he just sort of shuts himself off and goes into low power mode when he's out in the void, you know, Unless he, He's like doing calculations and research out there. I imagine for his own sanity, he needs to shut off for, you know, a couple hundred years.
- [46:53]
A
It's a long time. It's a long time. So this is his second time in lesco. This is 1800 years later. He quietly, by the way, he's like looking out, probing with his faster than light communications. Everyone's fighting and he's like, there's a lot going on. I'm gonna. Right, I'm just going to quietly fix myself, fix up my. Some of my broken systems. This isn't said in the encyclopedia, but I get the impression he, maybe he like, orders some, like, automated repairs from, you know, under Mr. Placeholder.
- [47:26]
B
Yeah, I thought you were going to say order some takeout. Like get. Get some. Gets like his favorite burger. He's been missing for 1800.
- [47:34]
A
Going to pause it. I was just thinking that too. I was like, are you going to say order, scrub hub? Like what's, what's, what's the play here? That's so funny. Yeah. After six years, we have. We're sharing a couple of brain cells,
- [47:46]
B
I think truly
- [47:50]
A
doesn't need food anymore, does it? He just looks at it.
- [47:52]
B
That's. Oh, you're right. You're right. I'm a fool. I'm thinking like a human and not a cyborg.
- [47:57]
A
Not thinking like Holtzman. He just calculates his favorite hamburger so he doesn't draw attention to himself. He quietly keeps floating.
- [48:07]
B
Right. He's like, this party is too much of a rager. I'll try again next week.
- [48:11]
A
See you guys in 2000 years. 1800 years later, we're on to Holtzman's third pass. And as he returns to the Liasco system, he sends. He kind of reawakens. He sends a brief message to Leesco. Hey, y', all, how's it going? What's going on?
- [48:29]
B
Yep.
- [48:29]
A
At this point, and it is so important to note this, we keep saying 1800 years.
- [48:34]
B
Yeah.
- [48:35]
A
Think about how much changes in 2000 years.
- [48:37]
B
Do you remember the year 200, Leo? Because I don't.
- [48:41]
A
I. I do not. And countries that now exist and are old. Countries did not exist then. Planets are going to change governors, entire systems are going to be wholly new, and this is what happens. Right. I kept thinking as I was reading this biography, people are going to remember Holtzman. They're going to remember the guy who created the faster than light communication.
- [49:05]
B
Yeah.
- [49:06]
A
And in a sense, they kind of do. But he's this legend, this myth that is told because the last time anyone saw him really was 3600 years ago.
- [49:19]
B
Imagine, like, Alexander the Great walking into your apartment and being like, hey, do you want to go invade India? You'd be like, what the fuck?
- [49:26]
A
Yeah. Alexander the Great saunters in, and you're like you. But even more so because I feel like we know he's a historically real person. At this point, Holtzman's almost like a myth.
- [49:36]
B
Yeah. True, true.
- [49:38]
A
So he sends a brief message to Leesco, and at this point, Leesco is no longer the planet that he knew and was raised on. At this point, it's a prison world that isn't really anticipated to be receiving and sending very many Holtzman wave communications. This is like a Mac Security prison getting a collect phone call. They're like. So the provincial warden's office on Mactaeun 3 is sort of notified. Hey, you guys got a phone call, Like a faster than light phone call.
- [50:13]
B
Yeah. He says he's a Mr. Placeholder. Very VIP.
- [50:18]
A
Very VIP. He's stressing, very VIP. And so this warden of this prison planet is like, well, we should probably check out why our prison planet is receiving communications. Right. Our prisoners trying to escape. What's going on? VIP person suspicious, you know?
- [50:38]
B
Right.
- [50:39]
A
So they. They send investigators to the planet.
- [50:43]
B
Yes. And what ultimately ends up happening is Holtzman decides to. He's, like, fully aware that these investigators are coming. Right, Right. He can intercept these messages. He knows that Maktoon has sent over investigators to Lesco to check up on the signal and find out who this Mr. Placeholder is. And he uses this opportunity to publish another groundbreaking discovery that he has made sometime during the past.
- [51:14]
A
Yeah.
- [51:15]
B
1800 to 3000 years over his two orbits. Now, he has made another absolutely groundbreaking discovery, and he uses this opportunity to publish it and let these investigators discover something that will become known as the planar effect. And everyone's just, like, fucking shook by this, you know?
- [51:37]
A
Yeah.
- [51:37]
B
Like, of course they're skeptical at first, but because he signed it, he signs it, right?
- [51:43]
A
Yo, yo, boy.
- [51:44]
B
Yo, boy.
- [51:45]
A
Holtzman here.
- [51:46]
B
They're like, is your boy his first name? And they're like, your boy Placeholder people. They're. They're naturally skeptical. They're like, what? We know this Holtzman of legend, right? You know, vaguely. But this cannot be the same guy. How's that possible 3,000 years later?
- [52:01]
A
3,000 years? Yeah.
- [52:03]
B
And they take this planar effect blueprint or data or whatever discovery that he gives them, and they take it to the greatest scientific minds of that era, and they're like, hey, is this legit? Is this actually Holtzman? Does this planar effect actually work? And they realize, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's him. And this works.
- [52:24]
A
It's him. It's full of fuck you, dads. Very consistent language, right?
- [52:28]
B
The language is consistent with what we know about Holtzman.
- [52:31]
A
He just drew dicks on everything. It's very, very Holtzman. Very important to note here. Although Holtzman is the brain behind this thing. There's this chief engineer of house of Varrick, Mr. Stiven. And Stiven is the one who is. He's the chief engineer. He's a smart guy in his own right. He succeeds at following the instructions and creates a node for the planar effect, which is the first foundation of. Of SHIELD technology.
- [53:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:03]
A
This is kind of a delightful side episode in the Holtzman miniseries. Stiven is working with this node and he creates this plane, this Holtzman planar effect. And as he's kind of trying to figure out what it does, he accidentally drops a screwdriver. And the screwdriver hits this planar effect and slows down dramatically. Could this be used as a shield? So let's try it out. Let's test it out. Let's go down the list. Let's shoot missiles at it. Okay. It worked. It worked. It successfully blocked missiles. Cool. What about a more powerful missile? Whoa. Okay. Still worked. Okay, great. More. Most powerful missile natural. And then poor Mr. Stiven tried a cutting laser because, you know, that's more powerful than a missile. And quote, the planar effect did not mix well with coherent light.
- [54:00]
B
That's a very academic way of saying, don't shoot lasers at this thing. It'll fucking blow up.
- [54:08]
A
Atomic explosion. Yeah. Poor Stiven died in an accidental nuclear explosion because he shot the wrong thing.
- [54:16]
B
But again, think about it. One of the most groundbreaking discoveries again in human history, thanks to, again, Holtzman.
- [54:24]
A
Yeah.
- [54:25]
B
Shielding technology changes the way warfare is conducted.
- [54:30]
A
Yeah.
- [54:30]
B
You cannot use laser guns anymore. Shielding is now a thing, a major thing. And laser guns can't be used anymore. So more knife fighting and hand to hand warfare has to be conducted. At this point, fundamentally just rocks the galaxy again before disappearing. Absolute flex.
- [54:52]
A
Invents telephones, reinvents knife fighting. Holzman, Holtzman.
- [54:57]
B
So in addition to discovering shielding technology and not to shoot lasers at it, because it'll fucking blow you up.
- [55:06]
A
Yeah.
- [55:06]
B
Stiven also confirmed one other thing. He looked at the research notes, right? Like, he obviously looked at the planar effect research notes that Holtzman beamed out to everyone and created shields from it. So he's thoroughly versed with it. And he confirmed to the leadership that, yeah, this is actually Holtzman. I can confirm it. The phrasing matches with the way that someone from 3,000 years ago would speak and talk and the dialect matches up with what Holtzman is claiming. This is the real deal. Yeah, he's Holtzman. And this is absolutely wild. Like, to get this confirmation that this legend from 3,000 years ago.
- [55:50]
A
Yeah.
- [55:51]
B
Is still floating by your planet and him dropping this monumentally earth shattering technology on you again.
- [56:01]
A
Yeah.
- [56:01]
B
Is like two incredible confirmations. So shouts to Stiven, he's a major player here.
- [56:07]
A
And it's his confirmation that basically leads the Warden to reach out to Holtzman. Warden pings Holtzman by sending messages to Leesco. Holtzman gets these messages, right? Yeah, kind of. What the hell? You are old. Where have you been? Also, how are you so smart? We want to know so many things about you because we thought you were literally a myth. And Holtzman and I see this as the beginning of Holtzman being a little bit dramatic and theatrical. He uses this opportunity to broadcast a brief biography in response and then says, hey, y', all, I'm gonna be back in like 1800 years. I'll talk to you more then. And by the way, just to make sure everyone gets it, here's SHIELD Technology to everyone.
- [57:00]
B
Yeah.
- [57:01]
A
Making sure that everyone has kind of equal access to this SHIELD tech. Instructions now. Abu. Clearly a flex. I mean, that's amazing.
- [57:11]
B
Amazing.
- [57:12]
A
This is just part of this kind of 3,000 year long bit that he's doing. But why, why, why do you think he does this? Right? Like he is single handedly changing the galaxy over and over and over again. Do you see this in line with his sort of prankster Persona, or do you think this is a new stage of his maturity? What do you think?
- [57:33]
B
I think I love how you described it, that it's more theatrics at this point. I think his sort of young, immature prankster Persona from 3000 years ago has evolved into something that's a bit more theatrical. Like he's enjoying the fact that he gets to swoop in every 1800 years and then just rock humanity's world before disappearing again. I think he's really enjoying that part of it. And on top of just scientific discoveries. Right. Like, I imagine him being really into the science of It.
- [58:04]
A
Yeah.
- [58:05]
B
I imagine him getting excited when he discovers something like the planar effect and realizes, hey, this is another flex bomb I can drop on those losers, you know? And I think he's definitely matured. The thing that tips me off here to a different type of Holtzman is the fact that in response to the warden reaching out, he just responds by dropping his biography. I think at this point, Holtzman realizes he has dramatically reshaped the galaxy forever, not once, but now twice. And he's much more focused on his legacy, which is why he would drop something like a biography, like, this is who I am. Put me in the history books. I'm sure he's actually kind of a little annoyed that they had to confirm that it was him, you know?
- [58:49]
A
Right.
- [58:50]
B
Like, he was maybe expecting to swoop back around into the. Into Leesco's orbit and for everyone to throw him, like, a welcoming party and worship him for changing the galaxy, and they basically forgot him. And I think this shows a much more heavier focus on what's my legacy in the. In the galaxy, how will I be remembered? And less of a focus on, like, middle fingers. Fuck you. Here's like, an epic prank or an epic flex. Some of that DNA is still there, but I think it's much more about, like, cool. I need to permanently cement my legacy in human history. I've already done it once. Let me drop shielding technology. Let me give them a biography that I know will be printed in history books for thousands of years. Let me make sure that these people remember the name Holtzman.
- [59:38]
A
Yeah, I think you're 100% correct. I think Prankster Holtzman would have been like, here's a cool technology to shoot lasers at idiots.
- [59:48]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [59:49]
A
And he doesn't. This is also. Holtzman is becoming less paranoid. His paranoia, his fear of being pursued and discovered. He is still making sure that he is not being traced. Like, he is still making sure that his orbit is pretty much safe. But again, he confirms that he is Holtzman.
- [60:09]
B
Yeah.
- [60:09]
A
If you were Holtzman trying to avoid pursuers, what a bad move that is. What a terrible move it is to be like, oh, yeah, no, I'm James Bond again. The worst part of every Bond movie, when James Bond tells people his name, right? I'm the world's best spy.
- [60:25]
B
And not only that, but I'm.
- [60:26]
A
Okay, pausing for a second. I said that as if I've been making this point all along. I'm like, okay, I know you're tired of me saying this, but James Bond, let me tell you the worst Part. I don't know how you can stand by that. I think there's worse parts of the movies.
- [60:41]
B
Yeah.
- [60:43]
A
Anyway, back to the great episode.
- [60:46]
B
I'm James Bond and here's my biography.
- [60:49]
A
Right. Here's a short biography if you want to read it right now while I watch you read it. So he is maturing. Or at least he's changing. And perhaps 3,000 years later, maybe it's not even a matter of maturing. Maybe just the paranoia from the surgery that saved his life is fading because wounds heal and because scars fade and. Yeah, maybe that's his form of maturing.
- [61:16]
B
Yeah. And we certainly see that on some of these future passes that he makes. So Holtzman's not done, Right. He drops shielding technology, he disappears for 1800 years, and now we're at round four. Basically. He returns for a fourth time in the year 1970. BG before Guild. And at this point he. I'd say he's middle aged. He's 5,623 years old.
- [61:41]
A
Yeah, he's still got some gas in the tank, you know.
- [61:45]
B
Exactly. So he returns again for the fourth time. Leesco, once again at war. Like, I'm starting to sense a pattern here.
- [61:51]
A
Typical Lesco, typical.
- [61:53]
B
So Leesco's at war, but the incredible thing is that what Holtzman wanted happens. They throw him a party, they stop the war for two months.
- [62:05]
A
Yeah.
- [62:05]
B
In anticipation of Holtzman arriving. And when he gets there, they're like, yo, you're back. This is what he wanted. He got it.
- [62:12]
A
Guys, guys, guys. I know that we're fighting a war. We've got our reasons, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Holtzman's coming back.
- [62:19]
B
Yeah.
- [62:19]
A
And this is the time. This is the point at which Holtzman coins the term the Holtzman effect, which becomes the thing that you will see in the pages of Dune. The Holtzman effect is this umbrella term that encapsulates kind of all of his incredible discoveries, all of the things that he's figured out and sort of established.
- [62:43]
B
Right.
- [62:43]
A
And it's noted that as he's passing this fourth time, he is way more talkative, way less paranoid. Maybe he's a little lonely now. You know, it's. It's possible that loneliness is a part of this. But he also mentions, kind of offhandedly, oh yeah, like I set up this trap so that if anybody comes aboard my ship, my ship will blow up in an atomic explosion.
- [63:07]
B
Just in casual conversation, you know. I don't know how you exactly fit that in. I'm sure he brings it up like all the time too, in a weird way.
- [63:13]
A
Like, oh well, you know the bomb I set up. Anyway, so I was there, yeah. And everyone together sort of all at once goes, oh right. Holtzman's crazy, right? He's incredible. What a genius. He's changing humanity's path time and time again. He's sharing out this information. He's not demanding wealth. He is still a little bit cautious. Cautious. He's still, he is taking precautions in case something happens and what that something is. No one's really sure, but totally fine.
- [63:51]
B
And I think what's notable here about this fourth pass is that Holtzman doesn't necessarily drop a galaxy shattering technology that changes things forever. Like this time he's just sort of slapping a name on it. Holtzman effect again. Probably plays a little bit into his ego. Like, I know you guys remember me. You stopped this war for me. Let me make sure that you never fucking forget my name. So here's my name, here's the ultimate effect, right? Slap my name on it. So he names it, probably, you know, answers some questions about the theories, whatever. But mostly this is a, this is a press tour for him. He's not launching a new product at this point, just a press tour. And he does though, like, you know, like every press tour, he does hint that he's working on something big.
- [64:31]
A
Of course, you have to.
- [64:32]
B
And he says, I haven't finished it yet. The past 1800 years weren't enough. I think the next 1800 will. So I'll see you next time with another earth shattering discovery, I promise. Yeah, and he just hints at it. They're like, they're asking him questions like what is it? Tell us. And he refuses to say anything about it. Probably again being overly cautious as he is. And he's like, no, no, no, I'll finish it in my next 1800 year pass. I'll let you guys know later. So honestly, the people of Leesco at this point kind of left unread for 1800 years and that sucks.
- [65:06]
A
Yeah, that's what a feeling, you know?
- [65:08]
B
What a feeling.
- [65:09]
A
If you've ever been left on red for an hour. 1800 years.
- [65:13]
B
Blow that out to 1800 years. Awful. But he does sort of do this press tour and then as is tradition at this point, as we all know with Holtzman moves on and takes another 1800 year lap around the galaxy.
- [65:28]
A
Now this is where the story is wrapping up and is sad. His last pass through the Liasco system is in 108 BG. And this is at the tail end of something Called the Butlerian Jihad.
- [65:44]
B
Yep.
- [65:45]
A
Now, if you remember from our timeline episode, the Butlerian Jihad is one of the most significant moments in the history of Dune for the reason that this is the moment where all thinking machines are hunted down and killed and exterminated in this mass genocide. And unfortunately, Holtzman didn't anticipate this. And so when he told everyone, yo, mark the calendar, 108BG. I'm coming back.
- [66:17]
B
You know, I'm back, baby, and I
- [66:19]
A
got something big, and I'm a cyborg and I'm part machine. These not great things to lay on the line. Not great things, considering the Butlerians are not. They're hunting down these thinking machines. And there's the ethics of that. Right. There's the ethics of this genocide.
- [66:37]
B
Yeah.
- [66:38]
A
But also they're like, we're gonna kill Holtzman, which doesn't even really make sense. I mean, I acknowledge that Holtzman is no longer just a human.
- [66:48]
B
Right. He's a brain in a box.
- [66:50]
A
He's a brain. He's a brain in a box. He is a brain in a box in a ship. It is very easy to look at Holtzman and understand that he is not human anymore. But he was born human.
- [67:04]
B
Yes.
- [67:05]
A
And he is still thinking. His thought processes follow human thought patterns.
- [67:10]
B
Yes. And he even shares. He feels human.
- [67:12]
A
Right.
- [67:13]
B
Even though he's a ship and he's over 5,000 years old, he himself says, I feel human.
- [67:19]
A
But that's not enough. He is still enough machine that the Butlerians basically plot out where they think his orbit's going to be. And they do find him. They find his ship before he's reawakened.
- [67:35]
B
Yeah. And this. This fifth pass for Holtzman is significant in the sense that this is almost the final exclamation mark on the Butlerian Jihad.
- [67:46]
A
Yeah.
- [67:47]
B
Like you said, they knew to the date when Holtzman would be coming back. He told them.
- [67:52]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [67:53]
B
And so the Butlerian Jihad happens. The humankind turns against thinking machines. They turn against artificial intelligence. This brutal genocide takes place.
- [68:03]
A
Yeah.
- [68:03]
B
And then these people realize there's one more very famous thinking machine that's about to enter orbit. And in 108 BG. And so they prepare. This is actually kind of wild. The jihad forces come to Lyesco in preparation. They're ready. They're waiting for him. But in addition to that, because the jihad has so much religious fervor and it's so religiously motivated, pilgrims show up to the planet. They crowd the planet to the point where there's, like, logistical problems in Housing and feeding that many people.
- [68:35]
A
Yeah.
- [68:35]
B
There are ships just waiting in orbit around Liesco to watch what to them is gonna be the grand finale of the jihad. Holtzman is like the final machine they need to kill before it's all over. It's like this giant fucking spectacle, which I found just so interesting.
- [68:54]
A
I am, like, almost physically sickened by how disgusting it is, you know, that this person Holtzman is greeted in this way. But also, I had the thought that made me laugh of. This is just the librarians who are fed up with 6,000 years of late fees. They're like, Mr. Placeholder, we don't buy your store anymore. The Butlerians are really just librarians. Really angry librarians committed to the Dewey Decibel organization. They're like, these computers are coming in.
- [69:30]
B
That's brilliant. Yeah, they're all just there. Like, Mr. Placeholder, it's time to reap what you've sowed. For 6,000 years, ebooks have ruined libraries.
- [69:42]
A
Get rid of them.
- [69:43]
B
Yeah.
- [69:44]
A
Wow, that is dumb.
- [69:46]
B
It's not. Librarians, even though we like to imagine it is, it is a bunch of very brutal people ready to murder this man and make a spectacle out of it. And that's exactly what they do. Like you said, he enters orbit, all of these ships are waiting for him. They're not about to throw him a party. And they send out, you know, ships where they think his orbit will be, and they do end up finding him. And then this is wild. They basically, like, flip a coin to find out who gets to go kill Holtzman.
- [70:14]
A
Like, who gets the honor of making the kill of ending the jihad. Right. Again, for someone who literally made human progress possible with faster than light communication, it's, ah, it's. It's terrible.
- [70:29]
B
Yeah. Absolutely wild. And the person who draws the, I guess not the short straw, the. The straw of getting to go down in history as the person who kills Oldsman is someone named Viana Kellis. Viana Kellis. And she gets the honor of killing Holtzman. So she boards Holtzman's ship, body, and what do you know? Holtzman wasn't bluffing. He had a fucking trap set. And boom.
- [70:59]
A
Yeah.
- [71:00]
B
Nuclear explosion, Vianna dies. Holtzman dies. That is the end of an absolute legend.
- [71:07]
A
Now, as a side note, the bomb that he planted, the dead man's trap that he, like, set up on his ship, was a combination of a Holtzman shield and a laser. So this dude, he knew about the shield and laser combination being an atomic blast in the making?
- [71:25]
B
Yeah.
- [71:25]
A
In retrospect, he didn't tell them he didn't tell.
- [71:29]
B
Why didn't he tell Steven?
- [71:30]
A
Why didn't he lived? So maybe he was still a prankster. He was like, ah, they'll figure it out.
- [71:38]
B
No, that's a good point. I hadn't connected those dots. That's brilliant. He knew.
- [71:42]
A
It's kind of funny. What a jokester.
- [71:44]
B
This piece of shit.
- [71:47]
A
But actually, in all seriousness, this is the end of Holtzman's journey. It is unclear whether in his previous pass, in his fourth pass, he mentioned, I have this one last thing to tell everyone. It's possible he did. It's literally possible he had some huge future shaping thing that now is lost forever. It's also entirely possible that he was being theatrical, right? Yeah.
- [72:14]
B
He could have just been bluffing. Like maybe he just. Maybe those first two discoveries was all he had in him. And he was like, oh man, what do I tell these people?
- [72:21]
A
Or, you know, he's like, guys, the next one is going to be huge. And they're like, whoa. And then he turns away from them and he's like, okay, now I need to come up with something really good, right?
- [72:31]
B
1800 years panicking, like, what do I tell?
- [72:35]
A
I didn't write the paper.
- [72:36]
B
So who knows? Who knows? I. I am actually of the belief, and again, I think we're both pretty biased as very transparent Holtzman stands on this podcast. I am actually of the belief that he did have a discovery.
- [72:49]
A
I think so. I think so too.
- [72:50]
B
And you know, I think this could have been, again, something totally earth shattering that would have changed human history forever again. And it would have been his hat trick. But unfortunately, the jihad, the forces of that genocide ended him before he could share. If there was a discovery and thus the entire galaxy was blueballed and left unread, we'll never know.
- [73:17]
A
And I blame the Butlerians for that, frankly. I mean, he was on his way to pick up the iPhone to like text back. Finally, after 1800 years, he was about to not leave the galaxy on red and the Butlerian slapped the phone out of his hand with a nuclear explosion.
- [73:35]
B
Shatter that screen, man.
- [73:38]
A
Shatter that. He didn't even have an Apple Care.
- [73:42]
B
The AppleCare doesn't last 1800 years.
- [73:44]
A
Oh, that's true. So yeah, that, that is absolutely. The galaxy is left blue balled and frustrated. The Butlerians got what they wanted, I guess.
- [73:55]
B
And again, we cannot understate the effect that Holtzman had on the galaxy. I hope it's been made clear during this episode that the dude just absolutely rocked the galaxy multiple times. And achieved in his notably long lifetime, more than people do in generations and generations of scientific discovery. So we, our hats go off to Holtzman.
- [74:17]
A
Absolutely. Also, years later, people still refer to the Holtzman effect in, you know, 30,000 years.
- [74:24]
B
Yeah.
- [74:24]
A
20,000 years after his birth and death, he's still being talked about. So on some level, maybe he succeeded. As we wrap up, there's this interesting note that I really appreciated in the encyclopedia, and I think this drives home one of the most interesting things to consider about Holtzman.
- [74:42]
B
Yeah, this was really good, which is
- [74:44]
A
that he was exactly what he needed to be in order to move humanity forward in the way that he did. He had to be precisely what he was. He was crazy enough, literally paranoid and insane and fixated enough in order to be utterly focused in his work, machine enough to be utterly painstaking in his research. Right. But human enough that he's able to make intuitive leaps that brought every answer that pushed humanity forward again. Machines are limited, and this is one of the lessons of in the Dune universe that the understandings humans are able to make non logical intuitive leaps from thought to thought that a machine might not be able to make. And Holtzman was human enough until his last moments to make those sorts of thought conclusions and leaps and connect dots that a computer might not have recognized the similarities between or the right. The connecting fibers between. So being the insane machine man that he was was exactly the combination that needed to happen for humanity to get to where it was.
- [75:59]
B
Yeah, definitely. And you know, our intro to this episode was only like half of a joke. We said part man, part machine, all parts legend. He was the perfect recipe. He had just the right ingredients to achieve what he did. Like a normal human being could not possibly do this. A normal human being in the Dune universe doesn't live for 5,000 years, doesn't think 10 times as fast as the average person. All of these things that he achieved are because of the path his life took because of that accident, because of his brain transplant. And I think you're right, he retained that humanity which gave him the abilities that a computer couldn't, but he got the abilities of a computer that a human couldn't. And it was just that perfect balance between those two things. And I think in addition to his sort of physical abilities, how smart he is and what his body can achieve with that much, with a lifespan that's that long. I think in addition to that, his personality really played into this as well. We talked about how paranoia was a big motivator for him. His ego seems at least the way I'm reading it seems like a big motivator for him. He wanted to be remembered. He wanted to change humanity forever because he knew he could. But the key thing here that's just prevalent throughout Holtzman's entire life is this perfect balance between genius and insanity. He was just crazy enough to do this thing, and he was just genius enough to pull it off.
- [77:35]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [77:36]
B
Not once, but twice. And I think we have to. We have to note that. That he's the perfect balance between those things. And, like, doing this research for Holtzman, I kept thinking back to this quote that, like, I'm going to paraphrase it because, again, quotes get. Yeah, misattributed and lost all the time. But I guess Aristotle said this. From what I Googled, no great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. And I think that's so true of Holtzman. Someone like Holtzman could not have become who he was without the perfect, perfect balance of genius and madness. And it's incredible. His story is just so good. And I would love to learn more about him, and I would love to. For HBO to reach out to us at GOM Jabbar podcast.
- [78:22]
A
Yeah, that's good. I. I'm going to pause it really quickly. I think it's so interesting that I think today I hear our conversation about him, and naturally I think about Mentats. Naturally, I think about. That is what Mentats do. They are able to have these sort of, like, internal computing ideas framed on machine thinking, but with human intuitive leaps. And we talked about that a lot over the 300 episodes we've done.
- [78:52]
B
Yeah.
- [78:53]
A
And not to draw that comparison, I think, again, is us being young in the Dune fandom at that time, because now it just feels natural. And, like, how could we not bring up Mentats in that conversation just now?
- [79:07]
B
Right. Yeah. Him being part machine, part human.
- [79:11]
A
Yeah.
- [79:11]
B
And I would say the balance is a little different for Mentat. Right. Like, Mentat is a human who has trained themselves to think like a machine, to think sort of logically to a degree where they can compete with a computer. Whereas I think Holtzman literally is part machine. Is.
- [79:32]
A
Yeah.
- [79:32]
B
A cyborg.
- [79:33]
A
It's for sure different.
- [79:35]
B
So. So I think his balance is different, and that maybe maximizes his potential. I don't think the best of Mentats holds a candle to Holtzman.
- [79:44]
A
No.
- [79:44]
B
Just because the best of Mentats doesn't have the superpowered.
- [79:49]
A
Right.
- [79:49]
B
Brain in a ship attached to a supercomputer.
- [79:53]
A
No need to eat, no need to rest. Long, long, long life. But again, when you talk about, like, what's capable if you have a long, long, long life, there are some examples that come to mind. And, man, it's interesting because also I'm thinking about Holtzman's story now in retrospect, as it connects to Gilbertus Albans creating the school of Mentats. Did he know about Holtzman and the way that Holtzman was able to move the marker forward as a hint toward why he should create the Mentat school? I don't know. But again, interesting that those ideas didn't even come up as we were scripting that episode and as we recorded it again, because I think. I don't know. I just didn't know as much about Dune when we were recording this.
- [80:37]
B
Right. Yeah. That accumulated knowledge took us years.
- [80:41]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, just a few minutes left. Amazing. Who would you cast as Holtzman?
- [80:50]
B
Shit, you have me stumped on that one. My mind immediately went to, have you seen Cloud Atlas? Yeah, you know, the guy that plays. I'm just going to Google it.
- [81:00]
A
Tom Hanks, best known for his role in Cloud Atlas. Tom Hanks.
- [81:05]
B
Dude, I love Cloud Alice.
- [81:07]
A
I hated it.
- [81:08]
B
Oh, really? Wow.
- [81:09]
A
I. I hear the book is superb, and I think having read the book, maybe the movie makes sense.
- [81:15]
B
Okay, so let. Let me back up. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. You just asked me, who would you cast as Holtzman?
- [81:20]
A
You left all that in. Wait, what?
- [81:22]
B
To pretend I had an answer. Ready and locked and loaded. I don't know if you've seen Cloud Atlas, Leo, but if I got to cast Holtzman, I would probably go with,
- [81:32]
A
wow, we left.
- [81:32]
B
Was that all supposed to be cut
- [81:36]
A
today? Yeah, we would have just. You would say, oh, I have. And we would have cut it so that it sounded.
- [81:44]
B
I cannot. I mean, that's a blatant. You know, that's me literally pausing and saying, hold up, let me back up and take that again, blah, blah, blah, and I'm reading myself.
- [81:54]
A
That's also a bit you can do where you're like, oh, I it up. Wait, ask me the question again. Ask me the question. Like, you can do that in real
- [82:00]
B
life, but we're not playing it off as a bit here. This seems to be like a real deal.
- [82:04]
A
Maybe. Or maybe on the edit, just whoever was editing. Because at this time, it was you and me editing, and we didn't have. We didn't have Jeff or Declan. So it's like, maybe just whoever was editing was like, that's kind of funny. It's kind of funny to leave that in Maybe that's. That seems like something I would have done. But that's pretty funny, because just in case anyone wasn't aware, we do that kind of all the time where it's like, if we make a mistake or we need to check something, we'll Google it, and then we'll, you know, we'll pick up recording four or five minutes later and cut out all of that. That other stuff.
- [82:39]
B
Yeah.
- [82:39]
A
And. Yeah, so you. That's what you're not hearing. That's what's on the cutting room floor for every one of the 300 episodes.
- [82:47]
B
A lot of typing, a lot of, like,
- [82:50]
A
how do we fucking say this name? How do I spell how to pronounce Tom Hanks?
- [82:57]
B
Okay. Well, anyway, gosh, I can't believe we've left that edit in there for six years. Okay, let's finish this episode. Ben Whishaw, he played Robert Forbisher Frobisher.
- [83:08]
A
Oh.
- [83:09]
B
In Cloud Atlas. And I think that's the character. That's literally who I imagine when I think Holtzman. When I read about Holtzman, Ben Whishaw is in my head. I think he's got the perfect look for it. He's like a. If you don't know who he is, imagine Benedict Cumberbatch. But not as intimidating and handsome and a little more weaselly. That's Ben Whishaw.
- [83:28]
A
A little quirkier, Right?
- [83:30]
B
And I mean, look, look, Benedict Cumberbatch could rock any role. So if we can get him, if we got the budget. Hbo, let's shoot for the moon.
- [83:38]
A
How about this? Ben Washaw, pre operation. And then Benedict Cumberbatch can be Holtzman, the ship.
- [83:45]
B
Yes. Give me the voice of Benedict. Just give me Smaug.
- [83:49]
A
Yeah. He'll mocap the ship.
- [83:50]
B
Mo cap the ship. So true. That's perfect. We did it. Hbo, please email us.
- [83:57]
A
And in the meantime, we're going back into orbit, so we will see y' all in 1800 years. Bye.
- [84:06]
B
Bye. Here's our biography. That's a cute way to end the episode.
- [84:12]
A
Yeah, that's fun. Meanwhile, we kept making all these jokes about HBO contacting us. Never contacted by hbo. But we did find out that the team writing prophecy listened to us quite a bit.
- [84:24]
B
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Wow, what a fun episode. Honestly, we. Gosh, we barely had any commentary there
- [84:32]
A
because that's the thing.
- [84:34]
B
That was a banger. My goodness.
- [84:37]
A
Yeah. What do people do? I guess I need to watch more director commentary. What do you do when it's just like, great, right?
- [84:44]
B
Not to like toot her own horn. I mean, this to me feels like a little bit of beginner's luck. Like, Holtzman himself is just so interesting. The encyclopedia entry on him is so interesting. It kind of just tells itself. It kind of just scripts itself.
- [84:57]
A
Yeah.
- [84:58]
B
But I think we genuinely here, we're like really on top of really good jokes and some of our best bits we've ever done. We delivered everything at a well paced cadence. We stopped and speculated at appropriate moments. I just think we really did a great job with this episode. I'm so proud of us.
- [85:17]
A
Yeah. And it was never any worse than that in all of 300 episodes. No, that was a rare, very, very good episode from those early years. Yeah, definitely. I'm wondering how much editing we did. I should go back and see if we have the logic project somewhere. Maybe there's like.
- [85:34]
B
I'm sure we have it backed up somewhere.
- [85:35]
A
There's like three hours of just additional bullshit out of it.
- [85:39]
B
Yeah, I wonder. I'm sure there's a lot of invisible edits in here that we don't remember. That probably cleaned up a lot of the pacing and stuff. Yeah, it would be interesting to go back.
- [85:49]
A
Well, it makes sense.
- [85:50]
B
Well, why that's such a popular episode.
- [85:52]
A
It's a good one again to continue to kind of share behind the scenes stuff. When I'm editing an episode, there is very seldom more than like 11 or 12 seconds between edits. And often I'm tightening up timing every like five or six seconds. So like they're like. That's the most common edit I think that I make, which is like, just like tightening up little gaps and making sure the timings of our interjections make sense. But. And then of course, cutting out mistakes and tangents and stuff like that. But when I look at my project, it's like there are edits every second or two, you know, or every few seconds. Sometimes very rarely.
- [86:34]
B
Right. A typical episode has like 100 plus invisible small edits that.
- [86:39]
A
Yeah.
- [86:40]
B
Like, aren't really even like editorial big things there. It's like, oh, the timing here would be funnier if like Leo's laugh was four seconds earlier or something. You know, like. Yeah, even stuff like that. Even like the timing of a joke will often. Will often tweak. Yeah, like, oh, it's actually funnier if he begins laughing as the joke is ending or if there's a. Yeah, that sort of thing.
- [87:05]
A
Well, sometimes it's hard because if I'm. If I'm. You're telling a joke that's somewhat in the script, I might start laughing too early because I kind of feel the punchline coming. Yeah. And so then in the edit, sometimes it's like you gotta push the laugh a little bit further back because there it takes time to internalize. That's so funny. Yeah.
- [87:23]
B
Yeah. Good episode. I'm glad we revisited this one. This. This one inspires me to really be better. Be better. Yeah.
- [87:31]
A
Honestly, man, I should get good. Damn. Damn.
- [87:36]
B
A fun one.
- [87:37]
A
All right, folks, great time.
- [87:38]
B
Well, hope you enjoyed re listening to clearly one of the best episodes we've ever put out there or wherever. I certainly did. And hopefully some of the behind the scenes commentary was enlightening for you all as well. Indeed, we'll be continuing this series and we'll be continuing looking back through our extensive catalog of episodes. So if there's a particular one that you're interested in re listening to and maybe getting some behind the scenes commentary from us along the way, let us know. Hit us up in discord. Email on patreon.com com jabbar wherever you want to get in touch and we'll go back and re listen.
- [88:19]
A
And as a reminder, these episodes exist because we're buying ourselves some extra production time because we're working on project reanalog. And if you want to know about that, check out our Patreon, the Fremen Nabe and above tiers. We'll get regular production updates about that. And of course, you can also check the first episode we did this year, the State of the Imperium. We talked briefly about it there.
- [88:43]
B
That's right. All right, y', all, thanks for listening. Thank you for hanging out. We'll see you in the next one.
- [88:48]
A
Watch out for librarians.
- [88:51]
B
Those late fees, they'll literally kill you.
- [88:54]
A
They will. They will trigger your dead man switch. And everyone.
- [89:09]
B
Stitch fix. Stop shopping. Get styled. Not today, sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit. Wow.
- [89:18]
A
No photos, please. I'm just a regular dad who happens
- [89:20]
B
to have a stylist. I really look my best when someone else makes the decisions. Hey, we can all see you two way mirrors. Just share your size, style and budget. And your stylist sends personalized looks right to your door. Stitch fix. Get started today@stitch fix.com. i want to hug you. I'm gonna hug you. I'm coming. I'm coming in for a hug.